Rumors Jam-I'm So Glad You're All Here With Me Tonight

Rumors Jam Wess Side Halloween Bash

Hosts: Terry McDowell, Mike Clair,Dan Johnson, Tommy Bruner

Special guest stars: Greg Mein, Brenda Hoskins-Mein, Julie Gordon, Ryan Matthew Paul, Tim Canfield, Ian Jacoby, Mike Lint, Rob Haskell

Plus: Tami Soukup, Brenda Snow, Ann Mishmash,Richie the black guy, Mike, the bar regular, Sonya Adair, bartender extraordinaire and the Rumors crowd.

(Photo: Tami Soukup;  Jeff Overly, R.S., Dave Bonham)
The Band:

Mike Clair-Guitar
Dave Bonham-Guitar and vocals
Jeff Overly-Bass and vocals
Bob Gleason-Harmonica
R.Smith-Drums

Songs;

Keep Your Hands To Yourself
All Along The Watchtower
La Grange
Hey Joe
Roadhouse Blues

I really didn't think I was going to play all three nights.  Hanging with Dreams Of Arcadia on Friday and Saturday Night and actually playing a lot of songs on guitar in Anamosa and Solon really wiped me out for Sunday.  Even if I didn't do the whole 200 mile trek like Julie and Ryan did on Friday, I still really was feeling the effects, especially Saturday Night and the usually reliable Mexican place in Solon ended up giving me Montezuma's Revenge and a splitting headache afterwards.  Despite that the Solon D.O.A. duo became a improvised return of the Acousta Crabby.

Nevertheless the flu bug has taken over most of the jammers this month.  Both Julie and Ryan were still fighting the cold, Karie Skogman had to miss the Rumor's Friday night gig and while I still had sinus problems and still feeling sluggish from all the fun of the past two nights, I was feeling much better than the past couple weekends.  The debate about doing Stone City came up but once Jeff Overly was still in town, I'd would go help him out.

Usually in band playing, I back people up by playing drums.  In the case of Jeff, he was that rare performer that I actually played more on guitar than drums so this was a rare occasion. Second of all, this marked the first time that I jammed with Dave Bonham in months, we go back to days of Wrigleyville that we were regulars on that jam scene, which now seems so long ago.  Since the hosts of Tommy and Dan were playing and needed a break, Dave would spell Tommy and Jeff would give Dan some time off too.  Mike came back up to help out the our set.

All Along The Watchtower was the Hendrix version although I did incorporate some Dave Mason type of beats there, Ron LaFleur does a nice version of that song although he could never get the words right.  Jeff commented that he blew some lyrics in one of the songs we did but for a jam and not performing them I don't think anybody knew the differences.  Hey Joe was very sloppy on my part, more like a Keith Moon bit of cascading and rolling drums and bashing cymbals but if I had my own set of drums and cymbals it would have been more bombastic.   Jeff and Dave traded off vocals and while Dave wanted me to sing Rocky Mountain Way, I told him somebody would have take over on drums for me to do that. So we concluded with Road House Blues, like La Grange done in that Texas two step shuffle beat that drives me crazy.  But it wasn't that bad.  Despite dropping a drum stick at the end of Keep Yo Hands To Yourself and picking another stick up from the drum, I didn't miss a beat.

I wasn't the only one that dropped a stick.  Terry did on one song at the end and so did Rob Haskall, but Rob was one of the highlights playing a improvised set with Tommy and Dan on Sunshine Of Your Love which turned into Crossroads.   Greg and his wife popped up later to do some Tom Petty songs much to Ryan's dismay.  I really wasn't that surprised that Julie and Ryan did show up around 6:30 and came up to do a couple songs with the host band before the jam concluded with Comfortably Numb which turned out to be one of the best versions that they have done.  Ryan adding some keyboards and Terry mixing it up on drums.  It really did end things on a great note.

NOTES: There was actually a good sized crowd for the jam, although notable no shows was Trevor Worcel not playing on drums.  Which enabled me to play a couple more....I managed to share the table with Tami Soukup, who usually takes videos and pictures of musicians playing....Brenda Snow also showed up as well...Richie, the black dude that I became friends with during the Wrigleyville jams was there but somehow he got into a disagreement with somebody and I really don't know how that started, probably a misunderstanding...Upon going to Rumors, I did managed to do a bit of walking around New Bo area and managed to get back to the car before the rain started up around 4:30...The drummers that did show up and play was Rob, Me and Mike Lint, Jesse Carruthers was there but didn't hang around to play...Mike Clair did play bass on the songs that Greg and Brenda played with Mr. Lint on drums.