Rumors Jam 7/30/17 That Is Rock And Roll

Rumors Jam

Terry McDowell is the humble host.

The featured jammers on my segment

Adam Dinschel-Guitar
Barth Walter-Bass
Special Thanks To Joe Hutchcroft

Use Me

Tim Wiley-Guitar and Lead Vocal
Kenny Webb-Bass
Ryan Matthew Paul-Harmonica
Julie Gordon-Backing Vocal

Blues Jam In A
Crossroads

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWAHCDSCzdk
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7a8JA0D9vY


And then I tried to kill myself on drums on the final number.

It was 40 years ago this month that I recall that during a fair in the square in downtown Marion that Janice Berns had a crush on me and somehow along with her friend got me to join them on a tilt a whirl ride. I suppose looking back that perhaps I should at least made some sort of effort to go out on a date with her. I think 40 years onward she did find a decent hubby and had some children of her own.  With me all she would have gotten was a ton of records and bunch of drums to deal with.

Ben Bernard is selling his Yamaha Drum set to which he let me use when the Wiley Kats were trying to get going and it really is a nice drum set although I didn't care much for the cymbals. For 1400 dollars it was a complete drum set with cases, mufflers for drums and cymbals and hardware.  It's tempting to get but I have two drum sets and don't see a need for another set.  Nor cymbals.

To what to make of this weeekend?  Friday was the Long Branch Acoustic Jam, Saturday was 319 Fest and Dreams Of Arcadia in Solon and back to Aces And Eights to catch the final set with The Fossiltones and chatted with Joe and the bass a bit.  I think I have seen about 20 bands in the four hours I was there, some good, some so so but I think they did the best they can.

So I was paying for last night when I bopped into Rumor's for today's jam to which just about everybody showed up (the few exceptions were playing at Cooters and Karl Hudson and Jeff Overly were finishing up their set at Beavercreek) including a wide variety of folks.  For the first song Joe Hutchcroft surrendered the drums over to me and with Barth and Adam we thought up Use Me, the Bill Withers song, but nobody sang it so it was basically a jam.

Later on Julie and Ryan popped in and so they did a few songs with Pat Geisland on drums for two songs.  I tended to think that his drum work on Wicked Game was a tad bit too heavy sounding, but Pat is a very hard hitting drummer, guaranteed to give you a headache if you're not too careful.  He's certainly one of the better grunge and modern Nu Metal drummers in town.  Trevor Worcel then took over for two songs including These Boots Were Made For Walking to which Trevor slowed the song down to a blues shuffle, not exactly Nancy Sinatra.  But jams are like that, an chance for drummers to do different songs for different people.  Trevor is a great drummer, he might not know how Boots was done but he did a better job on Rhiannon.

Since Kevin Simnacher was doing the video for the jam I decided to have some visual fun.  By then Tim Wiley was the main vocalist and Kenny Webb was playing bass.  It's odd how Tim will pop up at these jams especially when I was talking about Benton selling off the drum set. Coincidence? More like irony.   Tim was very busy talking to other musicians about being in his band, and of course I said I'm working evenings and not able to really give a 100 percent to the cause.  After all, I have The Townedgers, Acoustic Jams to go to and rather not try have him fumble yet through another version of Voodoo Chile.  This time out we kept it simple, a blues song using the Ray Sharpe Linda Lu riff.  And then off to do Crossroads but it was played so ultra fast that even Kenny Webb couldn't keep with my manic drumwork and yes I played it way too fast.  It might have been Cream influenced but with Keith Moon rather than Ginger Baker playing drums.  When Kenny Webb is playing single notes to a song, you know it is too fast (sorry about that).  But I think it was the spur of the moment, the recklessness, the feeling of like driving down a dead end street at a 100 miles an hour and no brakes.  It was a trainwreck but to me this is the spirit of rock and roll.   Up to the end to which Ryan Matthew Paul was trying to play harmonica through the chaos.  I think he did well.  But I don't know, there's something about Riley Kat that makes me throw things into overdrive.  Perhaps it was the failure of that band, I really don't mind him. But I will constantly throw him more challenges than he's used to.   In some ways I do feel bad,  perhaps it was a complete drum set with 8 cymbals to chose from, or 4 too many root beers.  I should had let Kenneth keep things in tow with  his bass playing.

For the great ending I decided on a double bubble bass petal excursion to which was concluded with a double cymbal crash and drum snare pound, only to lose my balanced and fall on the the floor.  I think I planned it all right but for a moment I did get dizzy and couldn't off the floor, but holding my hand up and saying I'm all right.  In the process, hurting my back and getting back spams later on.  I came close to go out of this world the way I wanted to, on stage and to a standing ovation.  But failing to realize that I'm 56 years old and doing such over the top hi jinx is not good on the body.  So I'll be paying for this for the next week.  But I think I gave Kevin some video footage he can use about the jam today.

As for Herm blaming me for messing up the drums, Nice try. The only thing I change was the Hi Hat.  You changed the snare stand , I didn't.  Terry can yell at you for that.

Thank you Terry McDowell.  I owe you.

Side Note: Tim managed to convince Trevor Worcel and his dad to join the new Wiley Kats.  I wish Trevor lots of luck.  He's going to need it.

From Kenneth John Webb on the hi jinx of the jam.

Hey. Hope you are ok. That was a highlight of the jam. Playing that song so fast was actually very cool.