SNW played at Nolan’s birthday party:
The session was pretty good. We were solid, pretty together, and groovy. My biggest problem with it is that we sounded a lot more like a “jam band” than usual. I have a conjecture: pot + guitar = jam band.
That said, #14 is cool (there’s an 8 minute solo psychedelic keyboard intro, followed by a groove with a nice feel). #15 has great energy and #16 is soulful.
UPDATE And of course I forget to give credit to the many musicians involved:
- Eric, Luke, Evan — The usual
- Nolan McFadden — Guitar, vocals
- Devon — Guitar
- Willow — Vocals
- Chris Mandel — Clarinet
ah…three new hours of SNW… I’m ambivalent about the vocal tracks, but there’s a lot of good stuff. Too much like a jam band? Perhaps, but as an all-improv ensemble, we’re gonna take that risk. I think here it was that the guitar leads sounded a bit “Garcia”, which gives some of the places a “Dead-y” feel. I’d rather err on the jazz side than the Dead side, but what the heck, the Dead are ok, too. All in all, I’d say it was pretty damn good for a live show. Kudos to Luke on the ten minutes of organ solo opening up track 14, probably the best, coolest most cohesive improv-suite of the day. (P.S.–Greetings to Sue Palmer!)