Lazy Summer Daze II

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In August, I regaled you with the behind-the-scenes story of a little festival in Colorado. This month is no exception, as Strange Pleasures www.strangepleasures.com and I made the trek westward once again to participate in the second incarnation of the Lazy Summer Daze Festival, sponsored by Quixote's True Blue Cafe in Aurora.

Fearlessly led by confirmed Dead-Head brothers Jay and Phil Bianchi, Quixote's has put a big star on its location in the jamband scene. Notorious for its intimate atmosphere and kind grooves, Quixote's has been the host for scores of touring jambands and local groovers alike over the past few years. Merl Saunders, Steve Kimock Band, Stir Fried, Tom Constanten, Jack Bruce (of Cream), Deep Banana Blackout, Dark Star Orchestra, Wise Monkey Orchestra, and David Gans are just a few of the names that have graced the 'steal your stage' and continued the unbroken chain from the Dead into the 21st century at Quixote's over the past few years. Johnny Markowski of New Jersey's Stir Fried www.stirfried.com refers to Quixote's as 'the defibrillator', and credits the Bianchi's and their loyal crowd for reviving Stir Fried's career. "I took a band out there that was five years old and literally dead-we were out of energy, man, and we couldn't buy a gig or get anybody out to see us at home" said Markowski. But a sold out three night run at Quixote's put Stir Fried back on the map and jump-started the band's resurgence. "Jay and Phil hooked up the 'paddles' and brought us back to life," added Markowski. Since then, Colorado and Quixote's has been a focal point of their tours, including their CD release run for "Last of the Blue Diamond Miners." "Colorado is where it's at, man. People out there are literally salivating for the music," said Markowski. Strange Pleasures' experience has been similar, as our first venture out of Nebraska was to Quixote's in January of 1999 and we have found nothing but enthusiastic crowds and a lot of love. Our first gig at Quixote's came on the 'strength' of a live tape dropped in the mailslot that happened to include a harmonica-infused version of "Scarlet Begonias > Fire On the Mountain > But Anyway > Fire On the Mountain" that caught Jay's ear and began a mutually beneficial friendship.

Last year the Bianchi's decided to give their loyal fans and bands a treat on the 4th of July and created the Lazy Summer Daze festival. Meant as a showcase for the bands that helped build Quixotes' crowd and a playground for the heads, the first fest brought about 100 fans and 10 bands into the mountains for a 24 hour celebration of the best that the Colorado jamband scene has to offer. This year's fest was held at a private location east of Denver on Labor Day weekend and drew around 200 fans to experience Stir Fried, One Kind Favor, Manatee Junction, Chief Broom and Strange Pleasures. If this year's event was any indication, the following years will only provide a bigger and better celebration of the music we hold so dear.

Technical Notes: Strange Pleasures once again provided the sound for the show, so it was literally up to me to make sure that things went smoothly. All things considered, it went pretty well. The weather was decidedly better than our last adventure, which made for more people, a drier stage and a lot more fun.

Due to the placement of the stage, I think we were getting some kind of phase cancellation or interference from the rebound off of the surrounding buildings. This didn't really occur to any of us at the time, however. At times during the show, the sound became muddy and a bit distorted, but this was probably more due to too many things plugged into the same circuit. When you are running power amps, stage power, lights and F.O.H., it's especially important to have enough drops to provide steady power. Our power conditioners easily pointed out the 'drain' and we ran extra lines when necessary. This happened again when the high-tech computer graphics/light show was also plugged in to the amp power without us knowing it. Another bit of advice-make sure you tie extension cords together at the junctions to ensure that none of those crazy dancers trip the power. All in all, the bands were extremely easy to work with, jammed hard and pleased everyone in the crowd-me included.

Around half the world in fourteen days...

My job takes me on travels to Asia/Pacific on occasion, and the past month took me to Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand. Usually the schedule is hectic enough to prevent a lot of recreation, but I did get a chance to check out a little live music. According to a local source, Singaporeans are not highly artistic people, and thus rely on outsiders, namely Filipinos, for much of their music. I happened to catch a couple of blues bands in Singapore, and the info was correct. The Voodoo Band at the Voodoo Lounge had a jamming Filipino guitarist ripping off Clapton-esque licks all night over a steady five-string bass. The talented, late 40ish female lead singer may have been American, but I wasn't entirely sure. This was, by far, the musical highlight of the trip-the band had talent and played very well, even if it was pretty stock 12-bar and rock covers all night. One band in Boat Quay sounded more like live Karaoke, as they badly cheesed out hit after hit, including some of the new Santana. At one point, I swore I heard a Phish tune, but it turned out to be "Mustang Sally." Oops. My late night trip to the Crazy Elephant, which boasts a previous appearance by Eric Burton (of the Animals) brought another round of blues to finish the night. If we could get some jambands over there, there's definitely a market. But there is that death penalty for possession of 500g of marijuana...and, yes, chewing gum is unobtainable.

New Zealand also seems to have a dearth of bands-the highlight in Christchurch for October was a scheduled concert by No Doubt-but I did manage to catch a few minutes of a tasty jazz combo at one of the local pubs. Auckland has a bit more on the ball, due to the population, but a decent cover band playing mostly 80's to a packed house was all I could manage to run across in my one night stay. You can still see frickin' Ricky Martin there, though, I guess. 60 million sheep, 4 million people, and no jambands that I could find in my week among the Kiwis.

All said, I guess it's a good thing to be in the States where we have free-flowing jams and plenty of good bands to choose from wherever you live. Two days after my return, we packed up the Possum again and headed to Sandstone Amphitheater outside of KC for my tenth(?) and what will probably be my last Phish show for quite awhile, due to the band's planned hiatus. Oddly enough, the boys pulled out a 97-98 show on us to bring me full circle to where I started. It seemed to me as though they were in between 'good' shows, and trying to figure out what to play when Mike took over -Down With Disease, Harry Hood, Mike's Groove, Funky Bitch. The "Driver" encore was a definite treat, but was the only 'new' stuff the boys played other than "Gotta Jiboo" which was decidedly weak, but had moments. The show, overall, was below average, but the band showed signs of the power they posess, playing with the crowd's emotions-at times FORCING the 'here we are now, entertain us' crowd to bend to their whims. I enjoyed it much more than the rough show they played there the previous year at the beginning of the summer tour. Maybe I shoulda waited for Santana that next weekend...

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