We lived for "Whipping Post".\u00c2\u00a0 The version that took up the entire fourth side of "Fillmore East".\u00c2\u00a0 It was a ritual.\u00c2\u00a0 At the end of a long day the band from Georgia and a little smoke would calm us down.<\/p>\n
The previous spring, only insiders, the cognoscenti, were aware of "Idlewild South".\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly, the double live album was wafting out of seemingly every dorm room.\u00c2\u00a0 The Brothers had taken over.<\/p>\n
And then came the Dead.\u00c2\u00a0 The following fall the Allmans had a companion.\u00c2\u00a0 Jack Straw from Wichita visited our college campus as part of a three disc Grateful Dead set entitled "Europe ’72".\u00c2\u00a0 This was enough to turn a dedicated early listener like me, who preferred "St. Stephen\/The Eleven" from the original (and still best!) "Live\/Dead" album, off.\u00c2\u00a0 But I marveled how suddenly everybody was talking about seeing the Grateful Dead.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, the biggest band on campus was now the Grateful Dead.<\/p>\n
Did you ever see the Dead?\u00c2\u00a0 They’d play for four hours.\u00c2\u00a0 One would be utterly horrible.\u00c2\u00a0 Two would be mediocre.\u00c2\u00a0 And one would be TRANSCENDENT!\u00c2\u00a0 You had to settle in for the ride, you had to commit, you had to DEDICATE YOURSELF!\u00c2\u00a0 The gig wasn’t broken down into bite-sized chunks you could consume in an hour and then go home.\u00c2\u00a0 It was about exploration, and setting your mind free.<\/p>\n
Creative work both drains you and fires you up.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re spent, but you’re on edge.\u00c2\u00a0 The only thing that can soothe you is music.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is how I found myself listening to Sirius two Sunday nights ago, after 11 P.M., after I finished my KLSX radio show.\u00c2\u00a0 I started at the Spectrum, channel 18, which most closely aligns with my tastes.\u00c2\u00a0 But whatever they were playing didn’t ring my bell so I pushed the button on the Alpine to take me one station down, to Jam On.<\/p>\n
How Sirius could get this so right and XM so wrong is illustrative of a giant hole in XM’s thinking.\u00c2\u00a0 Satellite radio is all about filling niches.\u00c2\u00a0 Making sure there’s a station for EVERYBODY!\u00c2\u00a0 But trying to placate an unidentifiable middle, which already had options, XM canceled MusicLab and replaced it with dreck like Big Tracks, eighties music that was already available ELSEWHERE!<\/p>\n
Not that MusicLab was really a jam band channel.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a curious hybrid, of progressive rock and jamsters.\u00c2\u00a0 Placating no one entirely, but at least some of the people some of the time.\u00c2\u00a0 But now it was gone.\u00c2\u00a0 And fans of this music had nowhere to go.\u00c2\u00a0 Except to Sirius.\u00c2\u00a0 Which at least knows there’s a jam band SCENE!<\/p>\n
Yes, there’s a scene.\u00c2\u00a0 The two prime exponents are Phish and the Dave Matthews Band.\u00c2\u00a0 Phish were the Grateful Dead without all the mistakes.\u00c2\u00a0 Phish was NEVER off.\u00c2\u00a0 Unfortunately, their material wasn’t even as good as that of the Dead’s, which was notoriously spotty.\u00c2\u00a0 But the playing was transcendent, and when they did covers!\u00c2\u00a0 Whew, even the STONES don’t play "Loving Cup" anymore!\u00c2\u00a0 As for Dave…\u00c2\u00a0 He’s purveying a quieter sound, one that sneaks up on you.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s less acid and more marijuana.\u00c2\u00a0 You start mellow, and then he LIFTS you.\u00c2\u00a0 And sure, Dave was helped by hit records, but even without them Dave could sell out everywhere, because he’s offering just that good an EXPERIENCE!\u00c2\u00a0 Not based on choreography, or backdrops, but sheer music.<\/p>\n
But Phish broke up.\u00c2\u00a0 And now Bonnaroo, which was BUILT on the concept of jam bands, is broadening its spectrum.\u00c2\u00a0 Giving the illusion that jam band music is passe, that its peak is behind us, but nothing could be further from the truth.\u00c2\u00a0 Jam band music is the new heavy metal, the music ignored by the major labels that is a GUARANTEED DRAW on the road.<\/p>\n
The great thing about the jam bands is they don’t CARE about the mainstream.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s irrelevant to them.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than raining down from the sky, they seep up through the earth.\u00c2\u00a0 And someone stumbles on the beautiful flower they’ve sprouted and tells ALL his buddies.\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly, you’ve got a coterie of devotees.\u00c2\u00a0 Who will see every reasonably-priced gig.\u00c2\u00a0 And drag along his friends.\u00c2\u00a0 Who’ll spread the word on the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 Who’ll need live tapes of those shows he DIDN’T attend.\u00c2\u00a0 Who is committed.\u00c2\u00a0 Who is a FAN!\u00c2\u00a0 THIS is the audience Jam On appeals to.<\/p>\n
Everything’s casual in the music world today.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no internal fire, none of the passion that can move mountains.\u00c2\u00a0 "American Idol" is TV fodder.\u00c2\u00a0 The jukebox hits are evanescent wonders purveyed by lowest common denominator executives who have contempt for the audience.\u00c2\u00a0 But the jam band world is populated by BELIEVERS!\u00c2\u00a0 It’s all about RESPECT for the audience.\u00c2\u00a0 Ticket prices are low.\u00c2\u00a0 The acts give back.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, the musicians and fans are in it TOGETHER!<\/p>\n
And maybe if you’re a college student, or a tribal member, you can penetrate the scene, know who’s hip, but the rest of us rely on outlets like Jam On, to clue us in.<\/p>\n
So I’m accelerating onto the Santa Monica Freeway and this SOUND starts to come out of my speakers.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not verse chorus verse kind of stuff.\u00c2\u00a0 I can tell they’re BUILDING towards something.\u00c2\u00a0 Like a group of Native Americans sitting around the fire plotting.\u00c2\u00a0 The band is JUST getting down to business.<\/p>\n
I’m hooked.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s this strange staccato beat.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s got me tapping the accelerator.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m in the fast lane.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m going sixty five, seventy, seventy five, eighty.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like I’m riding a magnetic rail.\u00c2\u00a0 Straight towards Santa Monica.\u00c2\u00a0 And what’s keeping me attached to the road is the music.<\/p>\n
Which never ends.<\/p>\n
I park in front of my house, retrieve the Sunday papers, and when I’m back in my car, this song is STILL playing.\u00c2\u00a0 And now I’m hoping it will continue all the way to Sherman Oaks, to Felice’s house.<\/p>\n
Now I’m on the 405.\u00c2\u00a0 And the band is like a levitating spaceship, the one from "Close Encounters".\u00c2\u00a0 God, I may not even be attached to the road anymore, I feel like I’m hovering too.<\/p>\n
I pass Sunset and now I start to get worried.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe this song will NEVER end.\u00c2\u00a0 I want to hear where it goes.\u00c2\u00a0 Am I going to have to stay parked in front of Felice’s house, riding it out?<\/p>\n
But just after Mulholland, not long before I arrive at Felice’s abode, the Disco Biscuits’ "Basis For A Day" finally ends.<\/p>\n
I wrote the title down.\u00c2\u00a0 I tried to find it P2P.\u00c2\u00a0 Eventually I got a version.\u00c2\u00a0 But this wasn’t the one.<\/p>\n
Turns out the take I heard was from the NEW album.\u00c2\u00a0 The double live album "The Wind At Four To Fly".\u00c2\u00a0 And it was 29 minutes and 28 seconds long.\u00c2\u00a0 And it was distributed by my pals at SCI Fidelity, the String Cheese Incident’s record label.<\/p>\n
The String Cheese Incident never made a major label deal.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re the Ani DiFranco of the jam band world.\u00c2\u00a0 Doing everything themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 Thus, they’ve never lost their hipness, their cool.\u00c2\u00a0 In a world where everything’s overhyped and oversold, the String Cheese Incident is an oasis.\u00c2\u00a0 They don’t CARE what you think about their music, it’s just for THEM and their FANS!<\/p>\n
I mean I’d heard of the Disco Biscuits.\u00c2\u00a0 But with a name like that, how good can they be?<\/p>\n
I e-mailed everybody I knew at SCI.\u00c2\u00a0 Mike Luba said I’d have a package the next day.\u00c2\u00a0 Which wasn’t quite soon enough.<\/p>\n
When I put the disc in my computer, it wasn’t quite the same experience.\u00c2\u00a0 But when I took the second copy of the album into my car, it was just like driving Sunday night.\u00c2\u00a0 And listening on my iPod, over and over again while I was reading on my bed, I realized this was just like college.\u00c2\u00a0 The music wasn’t coming at me, wasn’t beating me up, it was WITH ME!<\/p>\n
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