Neon Brown Presents: "Juggler's Challenge Revival (Episode 14)"!

Set 1 46.8 megs

Set 2 45.3 megs

Here's another high-energy Juggler's Challenge Revival (episode #14) with Zane and Anders (formerly of the Consul)...this time with the added pleasure of their new -- and fantastic!! -- drummer, David Testa (in his first NBP appearance). I can't say enough about the bad-ass-itude of this lineup, especially along the axes of intricacy, syncopation, mood, and balls-to-the-wall energy! It's always a bit of a challenge at the Chai House keeping the vocals up to the energy of the instruments with these guys, but I think we did okay this time, with one PA-speaker near us as sort of a monitor and another over closer to the bar and aimed right out into the middle of the house (if you've been following my comments from previous postings, you'll know that I view 'ease-of-lyrical-comprehension' to be an essential element of a good Juggler's Challenge show...otherwise, it's all just distracting from the jams, right?).

Juggler's Challenge Process Notes: The new thing that I wanted to try this time was to have the audience call out the key-changes, using a simple three-column multiple-choice interface. I think this is a decent idea, but the interface seemed not to encourage further changes once a key had been selected and so -- after a few heavily-solicited changes -- it mostly languished on the coffee-table, unnoticed by Juggler and Challenger alike. Rather than using up an entire white-board, I think the next step for this sort of thing would be a three-dial system, with the hope that big dials will really lure people to touch and re-set them. As with episode 13, I simply gave out the other white-board with a vague request for pictures and/or words. Aaron Stepp (basist for the previous and upcoming Acoustic Orchestra shows), stepped right up and filled the board from top to bottom with no less than 6 brilliantly-quirky song-ideas, continuously re-filling at the top with the same high-quality challengement (that's right, I said "challengement"!) as we moved down the list. Also, it's been suggested several times now that an overhead projector would be a welcome addition to the Juggler's Challenge experience. That way, the conceptual input would hopefully be easily readable by both the Juggler's *and* the Challengers, increasing the general interest-in and understanding-of how the input was being interpreted in the music and lyrics. Hopefully more on that soon...  

Back to the show:  We had a great crowd throughout the evening, with most people sticking around from first-to-last notes. The recording of the first set is a mixed bag. The music (after a couple of minutes of mild technical difficulty) is lively and diverse, but volumes were more out of wack and both mics were pretty far from the PA speakers, so you might just want to ignore the vocals rather than trying to follow the buried conceptual threads. I made some adjustments to both the mics and the PA for the second set and the lyrics/concepts are definitely starting to creep through here on the recording. The band was really cooking by this point and the audience was large and responsive. The whole show is worth posting, but if you're at all pressed for time, the second set is where it's at!

So yeah, check these out.  And, whether you were there or not, if you really liked a particular section or have some context or clarification to add, please call it out in the comments section here!

thanks for listening,

-andrew

Neon Brown Presents: "Ninja Poodles On Beets"!

Set 1 51 megs

Set 2 23 megs

Here it is: the first NBP of 2009, and the first new Juggler's Challenge Revival episode since July! Two sets in two unedited clips. The lineup for this one was a quartet of John Beezer (Direct Guitar), TQ Berg (Electric Guitar), Dennis Jolin (Drums) and Me Woods ("Bass" -- really an octavized bass-amplified plank-tuned guitar). I'd been feeling pleasantly low-energy for most of the afternoon and was starting to waffle on doing the usual Juggler's Challenge elements, but with the house nearly-full at 8pm, it was clear that some sort of audience-interaction was called for. Trying to split the difference with my mellow energy, I just gave the whiteboards out to the Challengers with very little briefing (maybe mentioning something about lyrics and pictures). Before 10 minutes had passed (usually the first input has to be pried out of their hands at around 20, at which point things start picking up) there was already a full set of lyrics and most of another.

The band worked really well with each other right from the start, leaking out a seamless stream of endlessly morphing wide-panned uplifting melancholia. Space and emotional-texture was the order of the evening. So great to have TQ back again! Originally known to me as a bassist, he's a long-time collaborator -- since at least 1995...? -- and has always been a musician with a truly unique earpoint, but I've got to say his guitar playing, which he started seriously much more recently has gotten to be amazing, especially his ability to improvise effectively in his own unique voice. Beezer made another step in his gradual transition to a full-blown Electric Guitar appearance by standing up and somehow making completely clean guitar the lushest sound in the room. And Jolin was fantastic on his first NBP-turn on drums, rolling out waves of organic groove, even around my muddy bass loops! With the huge variety of instruments he plays, you can expect to see lots more of him too in the coming year.

Near the end of the first set, I thought perhaps we'd do something for just one more white-board of lyrics but during the beginning of that movement one of my FX pedals suddenly turned off and then on again. Mysteriously, I couldn't get any sound again... Eventually, amidst the faint smell of fireworks, I noticed that my power-amp wasn't lit up anymore. I'm assuming the smell was the mini-mushroom-cloud from its sudden demise (a great excuse to finally get a decent bass-head...?). I plugged into the PA for the second set.

The Chai House had switched bookers again and there was no posted title for the evening. When somebody came up to the bar while we were setting up and asked what was up for the evening, the barista and I whipped up "Ninja Poodles on Beets" -- which actually isn't too bad as NBP titles go! There were a few riffs on it right at the top of the show and a couple other times when things slowed down, but clearly -- as with the copious audience input -- there was lots more there left un-mined.

Set 2 includes a sharp and timely "tribute" to the Bush years by guest-vocalist Brian (don't know his last name...perhaps Beezer can add it in the comments here). I didn't even know what he was singing about at the time, but on the recording it's plenty clear and -- I though -- hilarious.

The Challengers gradually expanded their lyrical input, embedding some crazy drawings (including one -- which I wish I'd been able to photograph before it was erased -- of a bulging-eyed demon barfing out various words) and even a masterful board where the words and the art seemed to fuse into a single abstract musical score (photo here). Looking at it again, I realize my riffs on this last one really just began to taste the tip of the juice-berg.

In closing this gargantuan post (perhaps I need a self-imposed word-limit), I'd like to again encourage you all to add any of your own recollections or comments here in the 'comments' so that more than my own ramblings are part of the context for listeners who weren't there and even for those who were, should they come back to this post in the distant future.

Thanks for listening!

-andrew

(in addition to the other sets posted below, there are still a few of the older shows up at http://www.neonbrown.com/jotw.html )

Neon Brown Presents: "Abstract Imperialism"!

Set 1 47 megs 

Set 2 30 megs

 

Here's something that was rare even back in the days when Adrian was doing these with me regularly: an all-improv loop-driven set with just the two of us!  I'd been doing a similar thing with Denali Williams in our all-improv duo Bicuspid, and had even played a couple of great shows in a similar format this Fall with Paul Turner (which I still need to post here at some point).  However, for me the real genesis for this format clearly lies in 'neon brown' and especially an all-improvised show that Adrian and I did in Portland a couple of years ago.  In that particularly-magical show (tragically, not recorded), we played well over an hour of some of my favorite music of all time -- mostly just loop-jamming but often re-interpreting lyrics from across our catalogue over whatever was happening musically at the moment.  This still ranks as one of my favorite shows ever, and I've always looked forward to the opportunity to try the format with Adrian again.  

Well this past Wednesday (December 10th) we finally managed to arrange something similar for the last 'Neon Brown Presents' of the year, and while we're perhaps not quite as fluid as we were two years ago, there were stil plenty of magical moments.  Adrian brought out his beautiful rolled-steel kit along with his usual side-car of electronics/FX.  I played my favorite electric 6-string, split right off the bat by a new panning/volume pedal which allows me to arbitrarily control how much goes to each of my two looping/FX rigs -- all resulting in a wide stereo sound with lots of looping-options.  

The first set starts really nicely and has plenty of comfy grooves, some great aggressively-polymetric syncopation-jams, and even a couple of ugly spontaneous re-works of recent 'neon brown' tunes (near the end of the set, it just seemed like time for some lyrics).  But the second set is where things really began to gel and the weirdness really surfaced in a beautiful way with an extended Ween-like tune (Bunny, Kitty, and Horsey's Revenge) and the strangely-compelling grooves that surrounded it. 

(unedited clips right there at the top of this post...photos by Robert Kirkpatrick)

ps. Older postings still available for a limited time at the old JOTW page.

Neon Brown Presents: "Full of Life and Turkey"!

Alrighty, here's the first posting of music in this new location!

Set1A 13.6 megs

Set1B 38 megs

Set 2 49.1 megs

The November 26th show was a great example of what the Woodland Acoustic Orchestra has been like recently: A couple of scheduled musicians, supplemented by walk-in regulars, and even a couple of unknown first-timers sprinkled in for good measure.  ...all held together by some collective thread that seems to make itself alternately obscure and tangible to each participant.

Our yearly Thanksgiving Eve's show always has its own special energy.  This year, with the Chai House closed on Thursday (the usual open-mic night), they'd made some effort to move the open-mic to immediately before us.  We were still the only thing listed on the web-calendar, but the open-mic was listed as the only thing on the printed schedule for Weds.  Low-grade confusion gently rippled the waters and set the stage for a great confluence of attention (and a very enjoyable intermission of open-mic performances). 

With most of the scheduled musicians still MIA, Willaim Precht (Tabla and Dumbek) and I (Plank-Tuned 6-String) mic'd up the tabla that somebody had left onstage there and began slightly after 8 with a short movement of just Guitar and Percussion.  This was the first time I'd heard William on percussion -- knowing him more for his guitar-work in & ampersand -- and I was immediately blown away by his playing.  At the time I was somewhat disappointed with my own, but listening back it seems that what I felt as lack of strong momentum on my part comes off more as tasteful reserve :).  I really like how this section plays in the recording.  

Things just kept growing from there as John Beezer showed up and plugged his Electric Guitar straight into the PA, along with Chris Powers (who I believe you can hear joining in un-mic'd at the end of the short first clip) in only his second NBP appearance (after his walk-in debut 2 weeks earlier on elecric).  Chris also provides great rootsy vocals for extended movements near the end of each set.  Slightly later, we were joined by Zach (don't know his last name or even if I'm spelling his first correctly) on harmonica.  Early in set 2 there was even a 4th guitarist that I've never met before (and have sadly already forgotten his name...apparently he's an open-mic regular...?...perhaps if you know who this was, or what Zach's last name is, you can add that in the comments here, along with any other observations/comments!) who drove an anthemic chord-change-based movement with some great urgent low-chording.  

(unedited clips)

Replacing The 'Jam of the Week' Page

Hey All!  Before I start using this space for its planned purpose -- to share the very newest recordings of whatever has happened with my many fantastic musical friends and I most recently-- I thought perhaps I should acknowledge the amazing scope of musical experience that its predecessor page has hosted.   

The 'Jam of the Week' Modular Album Page came into being sometime in the mid-late 90's (perhaps '96?), on the website of my first extensively-improvising group, the 3-piece Jazz/Buttrock Fusion unit, "hEEnD".  Like the various composed projects that followed and continued to fill the page (the short-lived-but-fruitful 5-piece "Falling Down Time" and the two-piece "Neon Brown"), this group did at least as much improvising as regurgitation of written material at both rehearsals and shows.  We recorded most of it (leading to a serious VHS-tape storage problem) and even got around to editing down some of the more memorable sections.  In the early days, due to our limited storage space, we would put up a single hyper-edited 3 to 5 minute clip.  In later years, as our growing improvisation and engineering skills increased  the listenability of the raw-recordings, our output became unmanageably large, and our patience for editing waned in direct proportion to our increasing appreciation for 'the unvarnished jam', we began posting longer and longer clips.  

Even in the early years special guests would appear on these recordings from time to time, but eventually, Adrian and I (neon brown), began hosting twice-monthly shows at Mr. Spot's Chai House in Ballard (Neon Brown Presents:).  At these shows, we would play at least one set entirely improvised, joined by 1-3 invited special guests.  The free-formity has gone even further in past two years -- as Adrian has resettled in Portland -- with me continuing to host these shows in various acoustic, electric, and audience-interactive formats.  Different lineups every show.  All improvised for both sets.  Most of the time now, I'll just post the full show unedited, but sometimes I've done some more extreme editing and multitracking of material from these shows, and I'll usually post these too.  And things *continue* to evolve.  So for fans of the 'Jam of the Week' page, there should be lots more of the (un)same great material to be presented here as our musical adventures continue together.

I'm moving the page to a blog format mostly to enable my fellow musical travelers to add their own entries to the diary of our journey in the comments here (I can't believe I didn't realize that this needed to be done earlier!).  That means you!: musicians, listeners, etc...  Please use the comments to say a little something about *your* experience of the particular show/recording.  

And I'm reluctantly changing the name of the page from 'Jam of the Week' to 'FREELAB (Floating-Roster Ever-Evolving Live-Album Blog), to avoid confusion with the now very popular hip-hop 'Jam of the Week' page.  

Okay, that's it for now...  Check out the older recordings while they're still there at http://www.neonbrown.com/jotw.html and look for the new stuff to start arriving here soon! 

thanks for listening, 

-andrew