Electro-Heady

Davetofel Dome
South Denver, Colorado

This morning broke clear and warm, a nice breeze trickling through the open windows. Outside, the sky was an endless blue. And sleep. Oh, sleep. I slept last night. I've spent the past few hours lazing about on Davetofel's couch, listening to the Disco Biscuits, reading, hanging out... all that.

One of my favorite memories, a long since fallen tradition, was the morning after shows at Wetlands. I'd crash on the couch at my friend Scott's apartment, and gradually be woken up as people trickled into the living room, brewing coffee, organizing missions to get bagels and the Sunday paper. Maybe somebody would put on a tape of the night before. It was all very relaxed. Today wasn't exactly the same, but it was - and is - close enough for comfort. I'm still on the couch, music is still playing...

By contrast, I woke up before dawn yesterday. Somewhere in Utah, I drifted off, crammed into the berth of the Ambulance. I woke periodically to sharp turns or leg cramps. Eventually, I realized we were stopped. And then: voices.

"What time is it?"

 "I dunno."

"Well, what time did you stop?"

"Iowo. A little before midnight, maybe?"

"Turn on the car."

"Shit, it's almost six in the morning. We should get going."

It was my turn to drive, so I did. The sun rose gradually. Everything in front of the car was an inky, unwavering black. Soon, a line began to distinguish itself. It took on more form, and soon a horizon was perceptible, though the areas above and below were still featureless. Gradually, the sky began to separate itself and clouds became visible. Sun crept around them in a wash of orange and pink. The roadside became visible and we were in the hills. I pulled over at a scenic overlook, handed the keys off, and started to crawl back into the berth.

In the car next to us at the rest stop was a car full of dreaded heads. One of them peeled himself out of the backseat and came out to talk to us. They'd done the whole Phish fall tour and were now gradually making their way back east. So many tours swung through California in the weeks after Shoreline - the Biscuits, moe., the Big Wu, and others - and gradually things are fragmenting. Who knows if there was ever such a thing as a discernible whole around Phish, but something is being diffused.

If the people I've met this week are any indication, the next few years could be wild and interesting. There's been much speculation about which band will pick up the bulk of Phish's tour kids. I've heard people argue vehemently in favor of String Cheese Incident, moe., Widespread, and others. After consideration, I've determined that the answer is simply no one. The culture - if one is so bold to call it that - will be spread out. People will hop from show to show, tour to tour, town to town, with no reason other than impulse. Sure, there'll still be tourheads, but the bulk of the system will continue to shift internally.

After a stop at Denny's, we pulled into Denver in the early afternoon. We hung about for a few hours, cleaning out the Ambulance (in preparation for its return to the rental car agency), showering, and napping before heading off to Boulder. Outside the Fox, the scene was heady, to say the least. We arrived before doors to find "SOLD OUT" signs posted on the box office. Dreaded kids walked dreaded dogs, who scuffled on the ground before freaking out and scurrying off down the block.

In such a heady town as Boulder, there were surely many people seeing the Biscuits for the first time. The band responded with a one-two opener featuring moderately concise - though hugely effective - versions of Little Shimmy In A Conga Line and Story Of The World. My friend Ryn was seeing the band for the first time, after hearing my whine on about them for over a year. For some reason, I always feel a weird kind of pressure in that situation -- like I'm responsible for their enjoyment of the show. After the quick n' easy peaks of Shimmy she turned to me and asked what she'd been missing all this time. Grin.

The Spaga > Once The Fiddler Paid > Spaga sequence was pretty indicative of some of the problems the band has been having this tour in terms of flow and precision. Barber seemed to be having some problems hitting the cascading guitar runs in the composed section of Spaga. The jam began smoothly, moving through full-bodied dance grooves. At a certain point, there was a shift where the band lost a bunch of momentum, like they suddenly realized it was time to segue. After the change, the segue went smoothly, but it was almost like they had to make a gigantic leap in musical logic in order to pull it off, where - if the band is on, and they should be - there shouldn't have to be that stutter. The segue into the Spaga ending was pulled off with the abrupt grace of the 10/28/99 Spagopera at the Recher Theater.

The second set was made up entirely of songs introduced into the Biscuits' repertoire in the past six months -- Confrontation > Floodlights > Hope > The Munchkin Invasion, Grass Is Green > Confrontation. Confrontation, which began to flex its muscles in Santa Cruz, blasted full on into Floodlights. One of the beauties of the Biscuits' two rock operas is that they are performed by the Biscuits -- an improvisational outfit. The songs, therefore, don't need to rely on lyrics and vocal delivery to deliver their range of emotions. Through jamming, the band can fill in the colors that the lyrics sketch.

The segue into Hope, a Barber composition premiered at Camp Bisco, was minorly plagued by the same thing that clunked up the Spaga > Fiddler transition. Hope, though, was absolutely wild -- intricate runs of composed melodies swirling and mixing in a kaleidoscope of vivid flashes. In the composed section, Magner has been using an almost synth-vibraphone tone, which gives the whole thing the air of a Ruth Underwood-era Zappa tune. The jam segued brilliantly into the oddly metered intro to Munchkin Invasion, whose jungle rhythms kept the crowd tight in check. As obtuse and out there as much of the Biscuits' jamming was last night, it seemed like very few people left the show midway.

The encore of Svenghali > inverted Overture > Svenghali was long and drawn out, stretching through the deep regions of dub before landing in the neo-classicism of the Overture, which worked surprisingly well in its inverted form (playing the ending first before segueing into the song's intro). While the playing in this sequence was kinda boring in places, it also contained what might've been the most inspired jamming of the night. The ease back into Svenghali was a graceful landing on water.

Jesse Jarnow can be reached at jesse.jarnow@oberlin.edu or by his homepage. Previous tour journals are located here.