WEGO: May Enlighten Show (2012)

Set 1 (67 megs)
Set 2 (35 megs)

Here are the recordings from WEGO's May show at the Enlighten Cafe. The orchestra for the evening consisted of Woody Frank (barista, vocals, and occasional percussion), Dennis Jolin (guitars and percussion), Ian McKagan (guitar, vocals, and some percussion), Jesse Silvertrees (keys and vocals), Evan Strauss (bass, leg-bells and vocals), and Me Woods (guitar, percussion, glockenspiel, trumpet, and vocals).



 Woody also works at the Enlighten Cafe and happened to be scheduled to work on this particular Thursday. He did manage to join in for some of the most memorable singing, but with the lack of his driving acoustic-guitar rhythms, and with Jesse on Keys instead of djembe, the grooves were noticeably looser at many points throughout the night. Great movements did pick up from time to time, but you may have to dig around a little to find them. On my first listen, it seemed that we had a number of unusually stagnant sections. So, if you're a new or infrequent visitor to the blog, I'd recommend jumping up or down to a neighboring post. But if you're a true fan of our particular style of riding the edge, maybe just jump around a bit, leaning towards the later portions of the evening, and you'll be sure to discover some gems in there!

(Actually, since this one is somewhat hit-and-miss, I'll take this opportunity to encourage listeners to call out their favorite bits in the comments here.)

WEGO: Chai-Stock!

WEGO set (47 megs)

Here is the recording from WEGO's performance at the first (hopefully annual…?) Chai-House reunion festival: Chai-Stock! The orchestra for this mid-afternoon performance included Woody Frank (guitar and voice), Dennis Jolin (electro-uke), Ian McKagan (guitar and voice), Jesse Silvertrees (djembe and voice), Evan Strauss (bass and voice), and Me Woods (percussion, glockenspiel, trumpet, and voice). Gerry Amandes generously offered up his spacious studio -- the perfect venue for a day of music that kicked off shortly after noon and went until well after midnight.

(Coinciding with Cinco de Mayo, this came less than a day after our first (highly-successful!) studio session for some sort of album… Most of that will be cut down into song-structures, but it's possible there will also be a few extended rock-outs that I can post here in the coming months.)

WEGO: April 20th (2012) House-Party!

Ian Gets Down (3 megs)

Warmup Set (with no Evan) (17megs)

A Seeming Eternity of Insane Feedback (300k)

Set 1 (36 megs)

Set 2 (34 megs)

Cooldown Set (with no Jesse) (22 megs)

Here are the recordings from the house party WEGO played in the Mapleleaf area on 4/20/2012.  I think the audio pretty much speaks for itself here, so I'll just say that this turned out to be a fantastic way to spend the evening of my birthday!  

WEGO: March (2012) Enlighten Cafe Show!

MP3 (122 megs)

Here are the recordings from WEGO's March 8th show at the Enlighten Cafe! The orchestra for the evening was Woody Frank (guitar and voice), Dennis Jolin (percussion, glockenspiel, and uke), Jesse Silvertrees (djembe and voice), Evan Strauss (bass, banjo, and voice) and Me Woods (guitar, evan's bass, and voice).

This was another supremely fun evening of "orchestral" movements. A sizable in-the-know audience accumulated by the middle of the evening, and things seemed to build a little more organically and completely as a result. I *think* it's a good sign when you decide it's about time for a set-break and realize that it's only 10 minutes until closing time...? We probably debuted more new lyrical standards than we recycled, prompting us to consider trying a series of "theme" evenings, where we play mostly brand new standards selected to fit a given theme. For now, I'm just leaving the whole recording as one unbroken megalith, but I may try to pick a couple of natural pauses and break it up at some point.

(Ian had to work and sadly had to miss this one. I tried to cover a bit by bringing out my acoustic 6-string -- the first time in quite a while in this context. (This turned out to be a good idea, since Woody couldn't make it until about a 3rd of the way into the evening.) Also, I forgot to snap any photos! So if you took any pictures while you were there, send a couple along and I'll replace these stand-in shots of my guitar-setup.)

WEGO: Feb 9th (2012) Enlighten Show!!

Set 1 (61 megs)
Set 2 (48 megs)

Here are the recordings from WEGO's February (2012) show at the Enlighten Cafe. The orchestra for the evening was Woody Frank (guitar and voice), Dennis Jolin (uke, light-theremin, etc…), Ian McKagan (guitar and voice), Jesse Silvertrees (djembe and voice), Evan Strauss (bass and voice), and Me Woods (dumbek, glockenspiel, trumpet, charango, and voice).

This was a strong show, opening with a rare mostly-instrumental mood-jam that lasts fully 15 minutes, eventually giving way to a nice mix of both seasoned and first-time lyrical standards ... plentiful momentum and groove throughout the evening.  A consistently balanced mix too!  Things seem to be ever gelling and building for this group right now. Check it out.

WEGO: Feb 3rd (2012) at Molly Maguire's

Set 1 (58 megs)
Set 2 (75 megs)
Set 3 (31 megs)

Here are the recordings from WEGO's first ever full-night show at Molly Maguire's on Feb 3rd, 2012. The orchestra for the evening was Woody Frank (guitar and voice), Dennis Jolin (uke and theremin-thingy), Ian McKagan (guitar and voice), Jesse Silvertrees (djembe and voice), Emma Staake (voice), Evan Strauss (bass and voice), and Me Woods (glock, trumpet, charango, percussion and voice). Wow, that's a big orchestra for a stage that is perhaps optimal for two acoustic musicians! Did I forget anyone?

There are lots of high-points here (especially whatever the hell Evan was singing near the end of Set 1 … and my weirdly macho rendition of 'Single Ladies' in Set 2 ... and both of Emma's lyrical-standards from the end of Set2 -- 'Kiss the Girl' and 'A Man Needs a Maid'). But the entirety of Set 1 is perhaps a great template for the best of WEGO. It's just a little on the edge, but still chock full of groove, spontaneous truly-musical interplay, and vocal synergy that builds well beyond the basic lyrical content.

Molly's was packed pretty tight when we started, and I was continually surprised to look out from time to time and see that an overwhelming majority of the crowd was actually watching and listening intently. With our improvisational format, WEGO usually thrives in this type of a environment, looping positive feedback on the attention of the room. Frequently, laughter erupted. Later in the evening, the "power of the beer" may have become too strong to resist, and I fear we lost some of our dynamic range -- stabilizing into a loud, somewhat-messy din. It seemed that we lost some of our audience at this point too, though perhaps it was just getting late. Regardless, in light of the many high-points, I'm declaring this show a huge success. Hopefully the staff of Molly Maguire's concurs and we'll be back again very soon!

(I don't think I've ever seen so many people taking photos and videotaping us as during this show, but at the moment, I've got nothing to add to this post. Is anybody acquainted with any of the evening's paparazzi?)

WEGO: First 2012 Enlighten Show

Set 1 (32 megs)
Set 2 (30 megs)

Here are the recordings from our first Enlighten Cafe show of 2012! The orchestra for the evening was Woody Frank (guitar and voice), Ian McKagan (guitar and voice), Jesse Silvertrees (djembe and voice), Emma Staake (barista and voice), Evan Strauss (bass and voice), and Me Woods (uke, trumpet, glockenspiel, and voice).

Moments of more traditional grooviness materialize throughout, but overall this was one of our most free-wheeling improv-o-thons yet! After two full sets of sounds and words, I don't think we hit more than 3 or 4 lyrical standards. Instead, lyrical themes tended to build spontaneously from the circumstances of the moment. One of the only proper standards to make an appearance (Ween's "Mister, Would You Please Help My Pony?") wasn't even on anybody's sheet until it happened … though I think I'll probably transcribe it for the next one! Conspicuously absent was Dennis. So we sang about him instead. There was also a 20 minute trio-jam at the top of the evening (Jesse, Evan, and me, before Woody and Ian showed up). It was probably okay, but I really felt like I was floundering on the uke ... and possibly trumpet as well ... too embarrassed to go back and look. So, in the versions I've uploaded here, it's as though the guitars were there from the very beginning.  (I also delivered our first version of "Enter Sandman" during this excised set of movements ... a light jazzy rendition.)

Personally, in spite of continuing to struggle to find the right combinations of instruments to sprinkle into the mix, I had a really good time.  This might not be our most accessible pair of recordings to date, but for those of you who were fans of our early work in the late 60's and find yourself complaining that we've become too "safe" in the new millenium, maybe give this a listen.  Can't wait for Feb 3rd at Molly Maguire's!