The Wapsipinicon Dreamers Debut

The Jam On The Wapsipinicon River Hosted By The Eisners And Wooden Nickel Lottery


Featuring The New Wapsipinicon Dreamers

Rodney Smith-Acoustic Guitar And Vocals
Rich Toomsen-Lead Guitar
Mark Awad-Bass Guitar
Delayne Stallman-Drums

Songs:

Does It Matter
Everybody's Talking
Let's Work Together
For What Its Worth

(Mark Awad on bass. Sofia Chesney took the photo)

I started the day out celebrating my best friend Russ' birthday at the Cancun.  Then spent an half hour watching some local talent trying to do rap (and failed) and hearing some girl sing a nice ballad.  The highlight was finding 7 dollars in the street before making my way up to Troy Mills up to Donna Jo's Cabin on the Wapsi for the annual jam featuring Wooden Nickel Lottery.  The cabin is located in a remote part of the county, taking a few gravel roads into a access into a world that cellphones don't work since you can't get a signal out there and the toilet is an outhouse but if you really want to get away from it all, you couldn't find a better place.  The majority of the jammers that made the acoustic jams from Wednesday were there, and I think it was the debut of the Sirenz, which is Cathy Spina and Lorie Parker with Barb Myers joining as a trio. Mike Fredrichs was there as well as Jay Devore and for the first time and with a decent PA system I could actually hear what Jay was saying. He does have a pretty good voice.  Of course I did back up Steve Black Wolf on some of his songs.  Delayne was the primary drummer but he was nice enough to let me sit in on his drumset on a few songs including a very sloppy but rocking Can't You See with Darren Furrster (?) subbing for Rick Gallo for Wooden Nickel Lottery.  He also did Hey Jude, which I never played drums in the first place. And of course a couple of Rich Toomsen lead guitar instrumentals done in a country style.  In my opinion, there's plenty of great guitar players out there but to me, Rich is the best of playing lead.  He's never flashy, never over the top and have a nice clean sort of lead aka Stevie Ray Vaughn.   To which the our finale was Sweet Home Alabama to which Mr. Clumsy Feet managed to trip over some guitar wires and cut out Rich's guitar leads.

(Rich Toomsen (left) and Mark Awad behind me. Sofia Chesney: Photo)

Delayne's drums are DW. Cymbals are Zildjian and he favors the darker K crashes, somewhat the type that I like to play and his ride was a nice and clean ride.  Delayne is a much more disciplined drummer than me, I'm throwing oddball double time and Keith Moon inspired drum rolls to Can't You See to which Darren asked if I was playing double time, and I told him, not really just playing for feel I guess. Sloppy but fun.  Steve Black Wolf then proceeded to do his medley of Stand By Me/This Magic Moment/Las Kiss to which I did more of a backbeat.

For my setlist, I started the whole thing off with Does It Matter since I couldn't remember anything else but I could remember the words and I started out having Delayne and Mark Awad on bass.  Mark  is becoming a regular on the jam circuit, and he picks up things quite quickly.  He never heard Does It Matter before but in a simple A,D,G pattern I did pick it up, as with Delayne.  He can play like Jaco Pacious, the former bass wunderkind for Weather Report and Word Of Mouth, he's very good at funk and soul style songs but my songs are not that way. He's really really good.  I rate him in the top five bass players in town.

For the first time, I used a strap and played standing up rather than sitting down. I don't know if it made any difference but I seemed to sing a bit better after each song.  And while Everybody's Talking was a bit too loose I did managed to remember most of the words and managed to give a few bars to Mark to play a bass solo.  But we really got going on an extended version of Let's Work Together to which Rich Toomsen joined in on the fun and a few more bars were granted to Rich's excellent lead guitar work.  I could have gone with five songs but I decided that For What It's Worth, would be a work out between Mark and Rich and before the final verse the song became a exchange of solos between Rich and Mark.   I really didn't have to do much, I was sitting and smiling at what I was hearing and seeing.  To which after that, there was no need to do any more songs.  I couldn't top that anymore than I could.

So I did managed to stay around the whole jam till it ended and Wooden Nickel Lottery did do two of their songs, The Open Road and Down The Line to wind things up on a high note. While Delayne was packing his drums away, he had a cicada breaking out of its shell on one of his hand drums which the cicada wasn't there at the start.  So we had a good chuckle out of that.

The past three days I have rode the emotional roller coaster, from the highest highs of the Sunday Jam with Wes Side Jam, and into the low valley of the Checker's Jam when Mike Williams' girlfriend managed to make my snare sound like shredded wheat, to which I still trying to get a decent sound from that snare two days later. But the Friday jam and especially Saturday Night, with the debut of the Wapsi Dreamers. firmly gave my faith in playing music does make you feel better and anything you can overcome.  It sure beats staying home and being depressed all the time.

PS. Over 30 years ago I wrote the album called Wapsipinicon Dreaming, which came from the Wapsi River.  In my 50 years of living, this river has played a major part in my life in my walking the trails and fishing upon it.  This is the second time that I have jammed along side the river.  The first time was in 1990 at Matsell's Area. The Wapsipinicon River goes through Independence on down to Troy Mills, Central City, Stone City and Anamosa.  I do love this river.

(Below photo credit: Barb Myers. This is Mark)

Appendix: Rumors Jam Hosted By Terry McDowell

This week's guest musicians

Kim Trevallion-Lead Vocals
Bart Carfizzi-Keyboards
Matt on Guitar
Dave Walerius-Bass
John Hernandez-Bass
Kenny Webb-Bass on Sweet Home Chicago

Songs:

Sweet Home Chicago
Hotel California
Hit Me With Your Best Shot

This Sunday's jam was double bass players (to which Mark Awad was not part of, but plenty were on hand.  Kenny did play on Chicago then made way for Dave, a big guy who I know I jammed a long time ago when I first came back on the scene.  Kim played last night with Blue Scratch somewhere but she managed to sing a few when I played drums.  Like her and after playing two straight nights I was feeling a bit tired on the drums and did an okay Sweet Home Chicago and did Hotel California against my will.  But everybody loves that song and want to hear it.  And then I drop my drum stick on the final of Hit Me With Your Best Shot and improvised playing drums with one hand.  I hate that when that happens.