Homegrown Happenings
Marcie Vogel - taz@earth.nowhere.net
I want to thank Rudy, his wife, LA, MM and all the kind folx at Legends
Lounge in Las Vegas for making our trip out such a success! You treated
us well, helped us relax and made it easy for the Ominous Seapods and the
Home Grown Music Network to let loose and get the groove on! THANK YOU SO
MUCH and here's to doing it again soon! J Marcie
This month, I asked the great people on the Home Grown Music Network
discussion list (hgmn@indigo.vantagep.com) to send in reviews of their
Halloween experiences.
Here are a few of them:
From: Jeffrey G Hoover jhoov@grove.ufl.edu
Day By the River
10-31-98 @ The Covered Dish, Gainesville, FL
-------------------------------------------------
Set I: Imperial March> Jam> Drive Thru, See You, TV, My Song, Moanin'
Lisa, Japanese Motel, 411
Set II: Time> Fly, Naked> Mos Eisley Catina Jam> Naked, Taking Over,
Doctor, Bee Jam, Bus, Brain Damage> Eclipse
E1: Dark Star> Keep on Rolling
E2: Puddin' Tease (shut down by the Dish)
Episode VII
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...............
Halloween '98 with Day By the River was the best 'ween I've ever
experienced. I have never witnessed a cooler atmosphere or seen a
better show than last night at the Covered Dish. The first ever DBR
Halloween Bash was full of surprises, starting with the whole Star Wars
theme. Robert, you did an outstanding job on all the star wars artwork.
The place was full of star wars faces and creatures, x-wings, and all
types of ships hanging from the ceiling and walls. Two of the walls
were covered in black plastic and had all sorts of star wars scenes
painted on them, such as Degobah and the Hoth battle scene. The band
rented laser lights and a fog machine for even more wicked effects
(great job on the lighting Wendy) and 3-D glasses were provided along
with Star Wars Pez dispensers to the crowd.
As the place filled with fog, to the point where you could barely
see the stage from the soundboard, the theme from the opening credits
kicked in. The anxiously awaiting crowd quickly flocked to the dance
floor, ready for the experience to begin. Towards the end of the song
out marched the band. Walt was decked out as Luke Skywalker, Jason as
Yoda, Dave as Han Solo, Ted as a Storm Trooper and Pat as the all mighty
Darth Vader. Jason, Ted and Pat all had full masks on, which were
shortly removed after they started playing the Imperial March. The
Imperial March segued into a wicked jam, with hints of Spring, and
evolved into a massive Drive Thru. Lets just say the crowd was blown
away from the start after that 20 minute jam session.
I'm not gonna go through the entire setlist, because we'll be here
all day, but I will cover most of the highlights. One was TV, its
return long awaited by the local River Rats. It was very nice to hear
this tune again. Ted started off with different lyrics, imagine that,
which eluded to one of the surprises they had planned for later. There
was a very nice little solo in there by the one and only Walta-B. At
the close of the first set was 411. This tune remains as one of my
all-time favorites. I love the way Jason grabs the crowd and the
entire place explodes with energy during his solo, which I might add was
played with his Yoda mask on. It was very wicked to look up and see
Yoda ripping the guitar like that. A master of the force indeed!
As set 2 began with more cool sound effects a spell was cast over
the crowd as they began with Time. The spell seemed to last the rest of
the evening, as the crowd just grew louder and louder and irradiated
with energy. Time segued into Fly and was followed by Naked. When Ted
got to his narration point, a costume contest was held on stage. Good
thing they already had those folks in the contest behind the stage, as
some of us had already lost part of our costumes. Ted called the people
on stage one at a time and Naked quickly switched to the music from the
Mos Eisley Catina. The contestants danced around and were judged by the
audience's applause. The winner was Adam, dressed as a shower. After
Naked, I remember some cool Vader effects just before Pat busted out his
Fat nova intro. Nova, which I consider a corner stone for the band,
was tight as always and packed full of jams. Another highlight of the
evening was Bee Jam! Needless to say, Craig, Aaron and I were very
pleased to hear this one. I'm glad the rest of the place dug it as
well, meaning that it will continued to be played in the rotation. I
also remember Walta-B playing his keys with his lightsaber at one point,
but I don't remember which song it was. They topped it all off with
Brain Damage->Eclipse and left the stage. Sometime during the end of
the show, a huge Death Star piata was lowered over the crowd and
destroyed. Candy and confetti flew everywhere.
It didn't take too long for a Ba-Chomp chant to evolve out of all
the screaming. We got Reis and the guys on stage and they were thanked
for making the evening such an unforgettable one. After Reis walked off
they busted out Dark Star. Aaron, Troy and I looked at each other like
"no freaking way" and started gong nuts with everyone else. The dark
star was phenomenal! I believe it segued into Keep on Rolling, which
made it one hell of an encore! After that they left the stage again
for a few minutes, but the dish was so loud they came back on. They
started playing Puddin' to please the crowd and the lights turned on.
The crowd got louder and the lights went off again. The Dish said they
had to stop and Reis then signaled to them to quit as the lights came
back on. Dave pushed it a bit longer before giving into the man. Oh
Well. We'll get our dessert next time...
From: Jason Weidman jweidman@quikpage.com
The Big Wu Mpls, MN @ The Cabooze 10.31.98
SETLIST
Werewolves of London
Dan Toe
Texas Fireball
U.S. Blues
Shantytown
TPC>I Know You Rider>TPC
Red Sneakers
Boxing Day
House of Wu
Mighty Quinn
That was the fattest Halloween show I have ever seen! As I was on the
dance floor shaky my booty I thought to myself, "Jason, It's really
unfortunate you'll never see Phish or Widespread or SCI or the RADS or
anyone else on Halloween because I will never ever miss a WU show on
Halloween as long as I'm alive".
The energy that filled the Cabooze on Sat night was fantastic. It was
almost eerie down on the floor, the anticipation that the crowd had for
the Wu when they came to the stage for their set was scary. The floor
was packed, I have never seen that many people at the Cabooze for a Wu
show before! We had Animal (muppet show), Po (teletubby), and a Bass
Phisherman, a Conehead, Gene Simmons and that was on stage. During the
night I saw (my fave) Fortune Teller, Maple Tree, Bong, Lula (wu
mascot), Boba Fett, Badger Fan, Uncle Sam, Jerry,
Casey Jones, Oompa, a really big ghost, Cowboy, Sunflowers, and a cute
old couple, etc..
As far as the music goes, holy shit! Crispy, Crispy, Crispy (can anyone
say New Years!?) The guys played like it was a sold out MSG show. They
fed off the crowd's energy like twenty-year touring pros. No kiddin! The
Two Person Chair>I Know Your Rider>Two Person Chair completely lit up the
crowd. Let's hear that on Friday at Second Story in Mad Town after
Phish, House of Wu kicked ass again, Chris Castino played lead guitar
like a madman. Anywoo, mark your calendar for Oct 31,1999
cause it's goin' to be rockin!
From: Caroline Davidson popawheelie@erols.com
The Slip
I enjoyed my Halloween at a roller skating rink in Southern Rhode
Island.
The Slip, a jazzy, jamband from Providence, RI, rented the place out for
the night, got a gothic backdrop along
the rink, a projector with a big yellow sunshine face and other designs
behind them, some fervent fan made trash art that spelled the slip...
BradAndrewMarc came out and did a skit to start the show, Brad and
Andrew (guitar and drums, also brothers) were dressed as cavemen and
jumped around attacking each other and beating on Andrew's drums, then
Marc (bass) came out in a shiny turquoise dress, a little make up and
jewelry.
While they were playing their usually amazing songs, everyone was either
dancing up front or skating around (the stage was at one end of the
long side). Andrew says "This was a weird night with everyone zooming
around on skates all night while we played."
I found it so liberating to have the feeling of skating along
while listening to the best band of my generation.
The first set opened with 'Evil Chase Music', and
had a sick Munf in it. In the second they hit on some sweet 80's tunes...
Yes-Owner of A Lonely Heart,
Michael Jackson-Pretty Young Thing,
Jackson 5- ABC,
Stayin' Alive,
Sting-King of Pain,
Men At Work-the only Men at Work song...
(he just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich)
Jason Booth, tape archivist, says:
"I haven't done it up officially, but as I recall the second set had a
Gecko between the PYT and ABC".
It was a great night, nobody was really drinking, just food and other
"stuff", there were lots of fun costumes because where else is a better
place to get stupid than a roller skating rink? There were many disco
mamas and papas, a huge yellow bird, a box of joints, the grateful keg,
purple man, a graduate, Jesus, futuristic robot man, some hookers, some
angels, ya know, the usual... :)
The music was great throughout, friends came up and jammed, they also
had Peter Stolzman from the Boston-based, J.Haze and the Funguy, play
keys with them all night which added a nice texture and gave Brad more
room to solo.
All in all I had a great Halloween and I hope some of you can join The
Slip family next year, it is always a positive experience with 'dem
boys...
From: DaveDregan6922@aol.com
The Daly Planet
I saw a band in Charleston, SC. It was quite a different
thing to witness because I was really enjoying the band The Lowcountry Boil
Bluegrass Band; they were full of energy and hot pickin'. They challenged us
to a stomping contest and had it going on. They were jamming traditional
bluegrass tunes and their own and after almost 2 hours they took a break. Then
they really blew me away because the same guys got back on stage and announced
that The Daly Planet was playing now. They thanked the "opening band" and
proceeded to jam on completely different electric instruments. They played some
really old vintage Dead and their originals were very very good. I couldn't
believe it, 2 bands in 1. Same people, different instruments, two top quality
jam bands (bluegrass and jam rock). These guys are good!
/
