Popcorn Jam-4/24/16 Twistin' With Ernest

Lineup:
Tim Duffy-Keyboards, guitar and vocals
Jason Christensen-Lead guitar and vocals
Dan Johnson-Bass guitar and arranger
The Townedger-Drums
Sippie Bynum-Vocals  (When You Love A Woman Blues, The Twist) 

Music Director: Dan Johnson

Last week turned out to be the final performance of The Wiley Kats, a month long band that featured Tim Wiley and myself and I wasn't too pleased with my effort.  But with my regular work becoming busier and busier, I told Ben on Wednesday that I was out and then told Tim the next day.  He was doing guitar lessons at that point and would call me back later.  And still hasn't.

I spent the afternoon in Iowa City at my place of employment for about a couple hours, then went record and CD hunting and then returned up to Rumors during the break.  Tiffany Z from 50 Shades Of Rock managed to surprise us by showing up for a rare time.  She's moving to LaCrosse and was part of MOTORBOAT too.  I met Tiffany during the Women Of Rock Popcorn Jam, which I had the honor of playing drums to Jess Toomsen on bass and Tommy Bruner on guitar and Bart Carfizzi on piano.  I still consider her in the top 5 drummers in the area, she can play just about anything she knows and is a total sweetheart.  I really haven't discuss drums at great length with her but I kinda caught a bit of her discussing some sort of cymbals she was talking about.  I think she has a love of old Zildjian cymbals; in her drumset she does have Sabians mixed into the fold.  She was asking about the age of some that she might have found or played.  My guess, since they don't have the labels is that they're probably late 60s, early 70s Zildjian A's.  As I left her to head out to finish up my shopping she was talking to Jon Wilson who damn near stole the show with his jazzy drums fills on his portion of the jam.  Tiffany proved to hold her own on her set and even throwing some double bass petal drum action on Cocaine.   I talked to Dan Johnson as I was saying goodbye and he was asking questions about her.  I think he was blown away by her playing too.

While last week was Shuffle Sunday, this time out it was more straight ahead rock and roll, there was one shuffle, Jason Christensen did Further Up The Road.  Mike Lint sang his Ain't No Sunshine song, Tim followed up with Heard It Through The Grapevine and then Further Up The Road. There might have been one more song we did but I don't recall it (yet).   After that, we brought up Ernest to do his two songs of fame.  One is Bring It On Home which became more of a blues.  It became When You Got A Good Woman Blues, a pleading song to love your woman.  And then his trademark song The Twist.

Now I been on Tim Duffy's butt about doing this song with Ernest. Last time Jon Wilson beat me to it, before that Seth Williams but this time it was my turn and I took off and running.  Instead of following the shouts of Ernest, I had to lean heavily on Dan Johnson's bass.  He was the one holding things together.  Perhaps the most fun part of the song was when my drum solo came up, I used the Cold Sweat beat of Clyde Stubblefield and managed to pull it off.  The icing on the cake and the perfect way to end my drumming for the day.   I even had a few of customers giving me compliments for doing a great job on drums.  That made me feel real good.

Afterwards, Tiffany sat in a few songs and then Jon Wilson concluded things.  As I mentioned before Jon is a professional drummer, he usually brings the bare minimum for drums but give him a complete drumset and he can do wonders.  Even professional drummers can lose focus or get a song they're not familiar with.  In Jon's case it was Stop Draggin My Heart Around.  Still he can run circles around me on the jazzy numbers or the triple time on the cymbals although him riding the Z power crash annoyed a few of the traditionalists out there.  But then again I rode that cymbal too.

But for the first time in about a month, I didn't have Tim Wiley around. Which felt like a relief this time out.  I been around him for a month and he's a good guitar player and getting better; his drawback remains that he's doesn't extend himself more often playing lead and extending the song out.   I've grown up being in bands that improvise on the spot, from Paraphernalia Tyrus to The Townedgers and I/O, and Tim and I discussed that a few times when we were together.  But if you're going to host a jam session, you have to play for an hour songs that you know without messing things up.  Tim tends to rub the  right people the wrong way, usually laying blame on somebody else.  I do not know the specifics of what happened the previous times he was there trying to get on stage, he certainly didn't make friends with the host jammers.  And heading down to rival jams after your done will put the host jammers off.   I seldom talked to Wiley after our performances, he's out the door and gone away.  He's very impulsive, very flying off the handle at each crisis that does come up.  I do hope that I have calmed him down in our time together and hope that when he starts up The Wiley Kats once again, he'll find the right group of musicians that will compliment his playing.

On the other side of first avenue at Cooters, Tim Wiley did play there and Mike Williams complimented him on his great guitar playing.  And at Rumors I did my best drumming in a while.

A win win for everybody.