Long Branch Jam-The Return of Crabby

Song list: (Something To That Effect)

I Won't Back Down
Fever
Light My Fire
Spoonful*
Not Fade Away*
Everybody's Talking
Won't Get Fooled Again
Good Lovin/I Fought The Law/Switch Board Susan
The Last Time
The First Cut Is The Deepest
What's So Funny About Peace Love And Understanding*
No Expectations
Let's Work Together
Sundown
Cinnamon Girl

With:

Alex Tuna
Zac Nickels
Tony Nickels

*debut

The return back to the Long Branch and this is where I decided that we should jam out and extend the songs a bit more.  Zac Nickels played drums and I thought I would throw a few things his way to see how he responds.  Usually it's the other way around, I'm playing drums and doing oddball things to liven up the mood, it's been that way since The Paraphernalia Tyrus years but never done this by playing guitar and seeing how the other drummer would react.

Turns out Zac did a very good job of playing along and seeing where I was taking the song.   In jam situations when you extend a song, you're playing within your heart and soul.  I'm not a fan of electric drums but since that's Zac's drums I figured he'd play them.  The Fever song was Little Willie John's version with a boogie riff, unlike the Peggy Lee version to which Belinda James sings on.  With The Townedgers, we're building off the one note to go into the jams but since I only play guitar via rhythm it tends to be a bit restrictive.   Therefore Alex Tuna, was tapped to add some lead guitar. I have known Alex from the Artisan Sanctuary Jams of note, and he did play at Rumors one time for a couple of songs.  He does originals, that are fairly long (five to six minutes on average).  I'm still trying to fit in playing guitar and singing songs but I'm also using the musicians that do show up.  There's never a big crowd on a Friday Night, most musicians are out playing somewhere or going to bed early.   In my case I took the night off since Tony was looking for some folks to show up.

I'm impressed that the jammers like to jam with me on the songs that I do.  It's becoming well known that my songs start out as jam songs, somewhat done by the record and then we make it up along the way as we go.  Spoonful was one song that was debuted by using the same two notes over and over again.  Repetition of playing the same riffs over and over might become tedious, but if you throw in a off chord key just to spice it up, the song can still be rocking.  I'm still tinkering with the song itself and throwing a rave up 4/4 beat in the jam part but I was happy with the results.

For Light My Fire, it was extended into a crazy little guitar/drummers duel between me and Zac. The new arrangement was thought up earlier in the afternoon and while I debuted that new arrangement, Zac managed to respond to my odd ball guitar riffs.  I think he played in McPhisto years ago but he has a drummer's knack of adding fills and cymbal accents to the songs.  Just like he did with Won't Get Fooled Again.  He managed to get all the cymbal chokes at the end.  Even though he was a bit early but then again we never played the song before.  It sounded nice.

There was a rough go through of What's So Funny About Peace Love And Understanding, but that was the first time I played it and despite the wrong notes I got good response from the 3 people in attendance.  As for the bizarre medley of Good Lovin/I Fought The Law, that was thought up on the spot.  Nevertheless, this turned out to be a very long set about 90 minutes to the final ending of Cinnamon Girl.   Alex did fairly well of playing guitar on the songs but since Tony had his dad playing drums for last night, I decided to really use him on the songs and see where they would lead.

He really did make me sound that much better than usual.  Not saying it was like with The Townedgers but they're learning and so am I.