A staple of good rock 'n roll music, to me, has always been the raw realness of the music. A guitar played through a powerful amp, with a few effects sprinkled in here and there, pounding drums, solid bass, etc. etc. Every rock cliché you can imagine, I'll eat it right up. After all, clichés are clichés for a reason, right?

Along those same lines, stumbling upon jam bands was, for me, like finding the pot of gold at the end of a rock and roll rainbow. All those rock elements, plus free-spirited spontaneous composition was possibly the most real form of music I could imagine. The rawness was there, along with a deeper musical understanding between players - it was damn near perfect. Then things got technological on me.

Though I've heard of other, more recent examples, the first DJ I heard with a jamband was DJ Logic with Medeski, Martin, and Wood. He first appeared on the Bubblehouse EP, but most notably joined the trio on their most recent album, Combustication. Coming from this rock background I spoke of, I instantly hated the idea that one of the tightest groups I'd ever heard was adding another member who wasn't even a musician.

The addition of turntables, if nothing else, enhances the musical exploration that can be achieved during improvisation. And, contrary to my original impression, the DJ is indeed a musician, although his capacity in terms of "playing" may be more limited than other types of musicians. He is more of an added asset than an equal player in the group, merely because his music is of a different medium than a sole musical instrument. The DJ is able to be melodic and percussive at the same time, while simultaneously possessing the ability to use musical quotations from other artists. However, I could say the same thing for a guitarist, keyboardist, or bassist.

Regardless, while the powers of the DJ, in general, are multi-faceted, he is still limited in terms of composition- perhaps this is why turntables are becoming such an up and coming aspect of the jambands scene: a DJ can, for the most part, do nothing more than improvise. This allows bands more flexibility in jams, as well as the ability to obtain the mere aesthetic value of a different kind of sound. The downside to this, however, is that the DJ's presence seems to be extraneous on composed sections. (Maybe this is why MMW brings out DJ Logic on some of their tunes, as opposed to having him as a permanent fixture on every song.) I recently saw MMW this fall, and DJ Logic opened the show and then sat in with MMW on a few tunes. I enjoyed Logic's set more than I'd expected to, but it became rather tiresome after twenty minutes. He played with musicians (bass, drums, horns), but I wanted to hear more of them than I did. It seemed strangely backwards; it made me uncomfortable to think, "I came to a concert, and I'd really like to hear more musical instruments." The groove was fun and easy to get into (you'd have to be dead not to feel the beats this man produced), but the lack of variety in the music was an unpleasant surprise. Once the groove found its solid place, it would be time to switch records, a process which took, on average, longer than it should have. The result? Short-attention span jamming with too much variety in the groove and not enough in the music as a whole.

When Logic sat in on MMW's set, however, it was a different story. I cheered his arrival along with everyone else, but waited with eager curiosity to hear his embellishments to the vibe. Again, there was not much variety, but the additions to the groove matched then soared beyond my expectations. I boogied out with the best of 'em for the rest of the set, this time pleasantly surprised by the support the turntables were lending the music. With the firm backbone of a band who's not afraid to step into the forefront, but still is excited by the prospect of additional sounds, the DJ functioned better than I could have imagined.