Despite our trip to Rhythm & Roots Reunion falling victim to a last minute family emergency, I must admit there was plenty to enjoy at home this weekend.
Friday night saw the close of the Albany Public Library’s “Garage Band” series with Swamp Baby and Sgt. Dunbar & the Hobo Banned taking over the library garage for a spell. Swamp Baby took their set time to get their Zaireeka on with each of the four band members setting up in each corner of the garage. The harsh acoustics of the opposing concrete surfaces were rendered useful, finally with their amplified guitars, violins and affected Casio keyboards filling the room equally and beautifully. Our “hike guide” for the evening, Nick Matulis, lead us through some careening forests and scary stories (see Bryan Thomas’ excellent pics of the event over at The Hidden City) with some gorgeous free improv percolating below and above throughout. I won’t spoil the magic ending, but let’s just say it was quite magical indeed. Sgt. Dunbar impressed quite a few people with a few new/rarer songs including a Tim Koch original to kick off the night, and the “bluegrass version” of their song “The Weight” (the original version is available for free download here).
Saturday began with a long-overdue trip to the Troy Farmers’ Market, picking up some local buckwheat honey and some breakfast treats from the Mrs. London’s booth. From there, we attempted to catch some of LarkFest which seemed to have the largest attendance I’ve ever seen due to the absurdly beautiful weather. Our music consumption was a bit stunted, missing all but two victorious final notes from Aficionado and taking forever to get back to the “Hometown Stage”, missing the end of MotherJudge & Mitchy, but catching much of (now 8 year old)Christo Lewis winning hearts left and right.
After a monumental late day nap, it was off to see Dinosaur Jr. and Wounded Knees at Revolution Hall. I’ll never forget hearing Dinosaur for the first time covering the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” as the background to Rudy Johnson’s part in Blind’sVideo Days skate video. Certainly in my “heavily impressionable” stage in 1991 at age 14, this music stayed with me for years. J’s moody drawl mixed so well with the unique chord changes and highly melodic guitar parts. It was heavy without being overbearing, it was memorable without being overly poppy, it was perfect to me. At the time, their album Green Mind was the only readily available cassette (!) to me (as a shopper at Tape World. While initially sounding different from the song in the skate video, the album grew on me and I was eventually able to fill in the gaps in their discography with their earlier albums. Apparently I was a magnet for rare vinyl in high school as some of my favorite gifts I’ve ever recevied were a copy of “The Wagon” 7″ from my pal Jennifer Sullivan and an etched one-sided 12″ of “Just Like Heaven” from my long lost buddy Darren.
These moments of youth came barreling back as the newly-reformed (as of 2005 – I’m late to the game getting to see them) original trio of J, Murph and Lou kicked into “Tarpit” from You’re Living All Over Me, a clear favorite that I’d never expected to hear live ever. It was hard to believe that a song written and recorded nearly 22 years ago could sound that fresh and elicit such a crowd reaction. Even though I’d caught J live solo a few times and with the Fog, it was nothing compared to witnessing Lou bang out those bass chords and Murph hitting those precise fills so flawlessly. The setlist leaned a bit heavily on songs from the reunion album, Beyond for my taste, but once those songs were out of the way, there was no stopping the onslaught of sounds from every era of the band. From Dinosaur to Without a Sound we were treated to the best of the best. Even a song like “Feel the Pain” from the latter sounded re-energized with Lou’s bass playing and Murph’s adept handling of the peculiar tempo changes throughout.
A most excellent weekend capped off today with some eggplant, beets and garlic from the farm.
