In the land of the jams, price the bands with the tightest of grooves is King—and last Friday, my honorable drooges, your faithful narrator followed three Kings from the East into Paradise and was treated to sights and sounds from atop the Mountain of High Minded Vibes. Your devoted chronicler thrust himself into the midst of a myriad of undulating bodies, imbibing the sweetness of sound and spirit, losing my mind in the textured layers of harmony and structure, awed by the balance of tight compositions and ethereal improvisation—and no, your faithful narrator was not flying with Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, I just friggin’ love jam bands, and all three groups blew my mind.
The night started with The Jauntee, who were as happy to be on that stage as the crowd was to see them up there. They’re a hometown band, and it seemed as though every person in attendance was a faithful devotee and longtime friend of the group. The night was something of a full circle for them, in that they had Luke Stratton join them for a high-spirited rendition of The Beatles’ “I’ve Got a Feeling.” Stratton played with The Jauntee at their first show in the fall of 2010, but has since left. Their set had moments of elusive rambling followed by ecstatic joy all tied together by a finesse that elicits the more melodic moments of Frank Zappa. The jams are reminiscent of Phish’s happier moments, and though they have Phish-like tendencies, they have clearly fought to be their own entity, and they have won the battle to define themselves. The build-ups can take entire songs, but when they get to the apex, you know you’ve stumbled upon something special. With each song it is as though the band is walking you through the spacious rooms of a mansion built for an eccentric hippie. They walk you into the parlor, and show you an homage to Jerry Garcia, then they take you to the library where they keep old jazz records and volumes on the ancient spiritual masters or transcendental meditation. You leave the library and head down into the basement where they keep a storeroom filled with bottles of red wine that promise to get you feeling good. Finally, they bring you into the kitchen where they’re cooking up something dark and heady; this is where they add all the ingredients to produce a steamy shepherd’s pie filled with creamy goodness. I could employ a hundred different metaphors to describe the way The Jauntee brings you into a musical wonderland; suffice it to say that they will leave you wanting more of that pie. Check out “Blowing up the B Line” for a taste of their jam potential. Listen to “Whiskey” for a slice of their lighter, sing-a-long side. See them live if you want the full course meal.
Ghosts of Jupiter are more refined than the Jauntee. They do not hang out on the precipice as long, or wander into strange places as frequently. Their jams are rooted more in rock and blues than jazz. They are inheritors of the legacies of Hendrix and Pink Floyd and they pick up where Leslie West and Mountain left off in the 70s. Their riffs are chunky slabs of rock and left over gravel, and their choruses are a refreshing blend of The Moody Blues, Wings and Jim James. Just when I started hearing echoes of Pink Floyd in their song “Shelter,” they busted out the riff to “Have a Cigar.” They faithfully captured Floyd’s masterpiece with synth blasts and David Gilmour’s signature guitar fills. Simply and honestly put, their band is just fantastic. Their capacity to work up the crowd was their most redeeming characteristic. This was true, homegrown rock and roll, baby. They were the night’s dark, straightforward Yang to The Jauntee’s exultant, supernatural Yin.
Yet, the reason the night was sold out was because Dopapod came to conquer, and conquer they did. If The Jauntee was the Yin and Ghosts of Jupiter was the Yang, Dopapod followed Lao-Tze’s Taoist teachings and transcended the ineffectual dichotomies of right and wrong or good and evil to exist on their own liminal plane of jamband supremacy. They’re categorically uncategorizable. I could use the term ethereal, or try to elicit the true meaning of the word awesome to synthesize their essence into mere words, I could even use mind-blowing—but the only true word that can be employed to describe them is intense. What they have can’t be contained in language; Wittgenstein would be blown away by his incapacity to bottle up what this really is. The crowd felt it, and they aligned their minds and bodies with the synchronicity that Dopapod set in motion. A Dopapod show is an experience, with each member of the crowd getting sucked into the groove. There are predetermined moments for crowd interaction, with carefully timed breakdowns and extended digressions. They blend raw musical talent with danceable electronic tones, and once they start they seem incapable of turning it off. They opened with a ten-minute far out jam with an atonal riff and gritty drum beat, and then careened through a set that was a tapestry of artistry and crowd pleasers. When singer/guitarist Rob Compa announced at midnight that the band had one more song in their arsenal before the band launched into “Vol. 3 #86,” he was forgetting that the crowd was yet to be satiated. In the lingua franca of the jam band elite, “One more song” roughly translates to “one hour of non-stop frenzy.” By the time 1 am rolled around, Dopapod was still going strong.
Your faithful narrator is happy to report that he went to bed that night unable to hear, but filled to the brim with the satisfaction that only comes from living through a musical triumph. The Jauntee, Ghosts of Jupiter and Dopapod brought the paradise and the rock to the Paradise Rock Club, but most of all, they brought the jams.
Photo Credit: K. Winslow Smith