Its About the Music AND the People

This month, I have a story about a roadtrip to New York City. I go to NYC often, making the 180 mile trip because of the great music and the great people I know there. This trip was truly about both the music and the people. I saw a wide variety of music between the two nights I was there, and I also spent time with many great friends.

The trip began on a Friday after getting out of work a bit early. I made a quick stop at home in Providence, and hit the road for New York. Leaving at about 4 PM, I knew I was in for some traffic. The rain that was falling increased the traffic hassles, but under the conditions I made decent time, getting into the City at a bit after 8. I checked into my hotel in the upper West side, and jumped in a cab to go meet some friends in the Village for sushi.

I arrived at the restaurant just as my friends Laura and Nate did, so I didn't feel too bad for being almost an hour late. Tom and Erica were already at a table, and we had an excellent meal. It was fun to spend a relaxing meal with this group of people who I know as much from online communication as from "real world" experiences.

After dinner, we moved on to Wetlands, for an evening with interlocking sets from the bands Fat Mama and Ulu. The show was billed as if it were a prize fight, Fat Mama VS. Ulu. All night long, a projection TV was playing replays of famous boxing matches against the back wall (although I don't think the vast majority of the people there were particularly interested, I thought it was in interesting theme for the evening).

We arrived at the club at around 10:30, and easily found more friends everywhere we looked. Several dozen people in attendance, including my dinner companions, were people I met in the last year and a half of seeing The Disco Biscuits. Sometime between 11 and 12, the place started to get very crowded (I later found out that there was an hour wait to get in around then, even though when we had walked in there was no one in line). If you've ever been to a sold out show at the Wetlands, you can imagine how crowded it was up front.

Instead of fighting the crowd, I checked out the music a bit, while hanging on the edge of the thick crowd by the stage so I could catch up with friends. I also ventured downstairs a few times, to catch some of the Addison Groove Project in the lounge. This group of young musicians really impressed me, and I look forward to seeing them again.

As the evening progressed, the crowd eventually began to thin out. Between one and two, my attention shifted more and more to what was happening on stage. The two bands upstairs are new bands on the scene, and I'd seen each of them four or five times in the past half a year. Both bands are instrumental and have a strong jazz influence, but with different twists.

Ulu has a smaller line up, with drums, bass, keyboard, guitar, and a sax player. Their sound has a lot of funk mixed in with the jazz, creating a smooth and fun sound. Fat Mama has a more eclectic sound, still with some funk and a lot of jazz, but also including electronic/hip-hop elements. They are a bigger band, that creates a fuller sound, and can really catch a strong groove. They have a horn section with sax and trumpet/trombone, guitar, bass and drums, a keyboard/synthesizer player, and a DJ. No one in the band is overpowering, they all seem to share the spotlight and work together to create their sound.

The musical highlight of this night came at the end. The concept of interlocking sets is that two bands play an entire evening without ever taking a break in the music. One band plays for an hour or so, then members of the other band come on stage, and the first band members leave one by one. There is a certain amount of overlap each switch, but at the end of the night both bands stayed on stage, along with an extra guest sax player, and a guest singer dressed in a tux - the "referee" for the Fat Mama VS.Ulu match up. This last set of the night, in what had become a quite comfortable area right in front of the stage, provided an hour or so of amazing music, which was more fun because I was surrounded by great people, all of us dancing and soaking in the wonderful sounds.

After leaving the club sometime close to 5, I walked a few blocks to my favorite pizza place in the world, Joe's. I couldn't tell for sure, but it looked like they were closing, which is something I never have seen them do in the years of late night visits I've made there. But, they were still serving stragglers when I left, taking a cab back to my hotel, where I slept for about 6 hours until check out time.

The next day, I had no plans for the afternoon, so I called a few old friends to see who I could surprise. I decided to go visit some old college friends and their daughter in New Jersey. This was a chance to remember how my love for jambands and the community of people that I have become a part of while following these bands around has developed. Mark was responsible for taking me to my first Grateful Dead show, and some of my first road trips to follow music around were with Mark and/or Melissa. While they still see their share of music, this day was about their new love, their daughter Rebecca who had just turned one. I was lucky enough to see Rebecca take her first unassisted steps, which rivals some of the peak musical moments of the weekend as one of the best experiences I had on this trip.

At around 6, I headed back into the city to meet my "other" new group of friends. About a year and a half ago, I was at a party where I heard someone talking about a recent trip to Vegas. Having just returned from seeing Phish there, my ears perked up; it turned out, some of these people had been to the same shows. I had randomly come to this party, only knowing the hosts and maybe one other person, and not expecting much. But, I ended up meeting a whole new group of Phish and jamband fans, who are now some of my close friends.

One person from this group, Gill, has a band called GUT (Grand Unified Theory) who I've seen a number of times at semi-private parties in their home town of Boston. On this night, GUT was playing at the Knitting Factory, and I went to the show with about a dozen people, a mix of NYC and Boston friends. All are people I'd met as a result of that one party, except for my friend Jake who I'd met through college friends several years earlier.

GUT played in the AlterKnit Theater, a room at the Knitting Factory I'd never been in. It is a small room, there is only room for 50 or 60 people, and the 35 or so in attendance filled the room comfortably. GUT is closer to a straight jazz sound than the bands I'd seen the night before, but they do their share of jamming. They had passed out a program with a setlist before the show, but the first time they took a break they mentioned that they had skipped a song.

As the night progressed, they varied more and more from the setlist, until half way through the second set they told us "don't pay attention to the setlist anymore, it now means nothing". But the important thing was that they sounded great, and impressed those of us who had seen them before, as well as people like my friend Jake who had never seen them. And, Jake wasn't only impressed because of the fact that Gill's dog, who was in attendance and is possibly the most well-behaved German Sheperd you'll ever meet, is also named Jake.