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Setting
Levels
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Edited
by Paul "Pro" Pearson,
Ph.D.
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The Stuff That Gets You There Sometimes I have multiple topics and interviews to choose from when getting my monthly contribution to Jambands.com together. Often I am late with a CD review, or turning in my article at 3:00 AM from some remote location while on a business trip. Rarely do I completely forget about it until the day of reckoning. Trying to buy a house can do that to ya... In the interest of shameless promotion, I was going to call this month's article "A Year from Hell" and recount all the shit that happened to me and my band this year...why we went from 93 shows in 1999 to 43 in 2000...and set it all up for this year. But then, in my desperation to get something in before this issue came out, I let E (my roommate and Strange Pleasures guitarist) start writing my article. He's threatened to write one in the past, but I was never this bereft of material. Instead of being negative, let's be positive. We finished 2000 in the same venue we finished it in 1999, with a better band and a better attitude. Closed the vicious circle. Looking forward... Recently I read "Living with the Dead" by Rock Scully. Say what you will about the material, but the stories were crazy. You can see the circles weaving themselves through the band's history, people in and out, influences and counterparts, constants and change...the Dead were the story all along. They just happened to be there, and cause a lot of it. But the stories... So, as part of our 'story', E's going to give you insight into what he does and what he thinks when he does it. (None of us understand it, but maybe you will...) The Strange Pleasures story is already filling in for 2001. We hope to see many of you at the Big Wu Family Reunion in Black River Falls WI on Memorial Day weekend, or maybe at the Other Festival at Spanish Lady Ranch in Colorado (just wait for this one!!), or another place in the sun...
The Stuff That Gets You There
People love music, some people really love music, and then there are those of us who utterly live for it. We buy and trade music, we save our money for tickets and gas, we get jobs that allow us to be able to see these shows or come up with creative excuses for why we have to miss a week and a half of work because the midwest leg of the moe. tour is right around the corner. (By the way if you ever do need a creative excuse for anything contact Greg Beebe our lead singer-he's got a million of them, and if delivered correctly are proven to work at least once...) People who live for music are also the ones at shows who actually help the band by hooting and hollering and getting the crowd going, which in turn gets the band going. It's way easier to play for a crowd of 30 people who are rocking and having fun that for a crowd of 200 yuppies that are there to show off their expensive clothes trying to get laid. I'll take a hippy chick in a patchwork dress with a genuine smile over the sorority clique every time. Let me start off with big Phat props to the folks down in front of the stage, the ones that I actually see while I'm playing. There's nothing like seeing a bunch of crazies getting their freak on up close and personal. I also appreciate the cats that are over on the side of the stage with their eyes closed grooving in their own little world trying not to collide with the spinners too much. These people are usually fairly easy to please. They came with a good attitude and are ready to get away from reality for a little while so all you really have to do is play and they'll have a good time. But what I really like are the skeptics, the ones that are like 'I've seen it all, so show me something different' or 'what's this all about, why are all these people here to see you?' This is the same feeling I had at my very first Phish show. 11,000 people here to see a band I'd barely even heard of, totally partying and carrying on. My first thought was 'yeah right'-over 30 shows and six years later I understand. I actually understood it at my second show - ALPINE VALLEY 1996 - which is exactly the point I'm trying to make. When the music takes on a new meaning, songs and grooves being FELT rather than just heard. When we play we give it all, I go from being me to being 1/5th of Strange Pleasures because a SP show is not about me, it's about SP. I don't think in normal musical terms of notes, rests, sharps and flats. I think of musical color, mountains, swirls, the first time I took acid, the second time I took acid, the sweeps of color and light and every other feeling I've ever had. I try to abstractly paint my part over what the rest of the band is doing at that particular space and time. Not your normal classical training eh? If there ever was a way to pinpoint the euphoria that I feel when playing is best described like this. We start a song and the crowd gives a cheer because it's a song that they know or a funky beat that makes their feet move. Then we do the verse and chorus close to the way we normally play it every time BUT then we hit what we call the Launch Pad. This is the point where we can leave the confines of the verse and chorus and start exploring, musical spelunking if you will. It usually starts with me coloring outside of the musical lines of the song with the rest of the band still holding the beat. One by one the band then begins to skew from the boundaries of the song until everyone is playing something so far from the original that the song takes on a new life or meaning. This is called the Type II Jam, where we started with something we knew and morphed it into an instant continuous creation of sound. The Type II Jams are the reason I listen to MMW everyday and why Miles Davis is King. If Miles Davis wasn't the inventor of the Type II he certainly was the master. Type II jams are the reason people trade jamband shows. If Phish played Mike's Song the same way every time there would be no need to have a collection of bootlegs spanning 10+ years. There would be no 'can you believe what they did in the middle of Bathtub?' And there would be no real reason for so many people to gather around and listen to the sounds of art in motion. Type II's get the band going in the same and different directions at the same time. They get your mind moving and allow a very personal take on what is simultaneously being heard by the whole crowd making the music very individual even though there may be thousands of jammers in the room. Not everyone looks for a ten minute opus in the middle of their favorite song. Many people are completely content with a three minute verse, chorus, verse and out. This article is not for them. The format is fine for a record or for a Britney Spears show but the last thing I want a band to do live is play their cd. I have the cd, I want to hear if the band can hold the spirit of the songs and expand them out so I'm hearing something new inside of something I already know. If it seems I'm asking a lot, I probably am, but I know what gets me there... Comments? Have a topic for 'Setting Levels'? Want to put in your $.02 on taping, trading or mixing live music? Send me an email...
Pro Levels Links In the spirit of shameless self-promotion, here are some links to help you promote your band. I encourage all jambands to get on the net, get your tourdates and your name out there. I have talked to tons of people out on the road that read Jambands.com and hear about our shows from here and other sites. All it takes is a little work...
http://www.jambase.com
Everyone knows about this one,
but it bears repeating...
Pro has just signed his name enough times to qualify to be indebted for a further 30 years...check him out at www.strangepleasures.com or Sao Paolo in early February.
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