I got involved because I had the honor to be asked to play with a local Salem, Ar. band called The Smoking Section. This is a jam band inspired by different genres and decades. It consists of largely instrumental music played by two guitar players: Cade Bailey and Tristan Goodson. They write their own music and are quite good with some twists and turns and churning grooves and righteous melodies.
Cade holds down the rhthym and directs traffic through the changes and moods. Sometimes he plays a few lead lines. One of his strengths is comping out his grooves and chords. And pedals, he likes fuzzy pedals and wavy pedals.
Tristan plays the leads. He moves in angular lines with twists and bends. He is always lyrical and melodic. His lines capture attention and dowse the jams with sonic fuel.
I was asked to play with them because they are former students of mine who remember that I valued a relationship over rherotic. I know I am the kind of teacher whose students will not remember the third question about Beowulf on the semester final, but instead, they remember how I treated them.
I have played bass guitar for years. And I have sang for longer. I can both play bass and sing. It's like riding a bicycle and juggling at the same time. You can't think about it, you keep your balance and do it.
They sought me out because they know I was in rock and roll bands and gave me a chance because of my personality in the classroom.
I thank them profusely for giving me a chance at playing rock music. And good rock music at that. And interesting stuff to boot.
I am a natural fit because my favorite era of music is 1966-1974. Most of the rock lexicon that hadn't been developed in the 50's (Berry, Diddly, Dixon, Wolf, and Waters) blossomed during these years: acid rock, hard rock, the seeds of jam bands, art rock, PROGRESSIVE ROCK, and heavy metal. All of which was shattered by Punk in 1976 and the ensuing years of New Wave. (How's that for a brief history of music?)
I am also a good fit because I can hear the genesis or seeds of their inspiration in their tunes. I heard Velvet Underground, Canned Heat, and a little CCR in "Around the Bend." Other tunes have touches of 1974 groove rock like "Have a Cigar" or "Alan Parson Project. Other songs are blues forms and plantation blues run but cut up and fractured.
The songs run in sequences of chord changes based on twos and threes (which is what fractures their blues). But it has a refreshing vibe.
The Smoking Section was asked to open up both Friday and Saturday nights for a Dead/Zappa inspired orginal band called Neuro-Logic at an event called the Funky Fields. It was a two-day event where people could pay for camping, have food vendors, and listen to the music, man.
The Smoking Section did two sets each night. Six songs acoustic and six song electric (that's where I came in). We played a few straight forward rockers, then a spacey instrumental to link to a more melodic piece and then the final two songs had a set-up song with multiple chord and time changes that flowed into a fractured blues number.
We practiced for two months. And on the night on the shows, we had to ask our sound man to sit in on the drums (a story unto itself). The drummer was Matt Olsen who has a punk rock background, but knows to listen and how to hit the skins. He did a great job in a pinch and we all had fun. Lots of fun.
In the future, we plan to share and audio of both nights. And hopefully, we will do recording at Matt's studio. I will let you all know of future recordings and future shows.