Playboy interview
PostPosted:Thu Feb 19, 2009 1:36 pm
saw this on another board and thought folks here might be interested.
In March legendary jam act Phish reunites for a series of shows in Hampton, Virginia. Trey Anastasio’s crew hasn’t toured for more than four years. The shows have ignited a nationwide buzz, with the concerts selling out in five minutes—the latest proof of the enduring love for improvisational music. We discussed the phenomenon with old-guard members of the scene Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead and Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers, along with members of newer bands—Chuck Garvey of moe. and Brendan Bayliss of Umphrey’s McGee—that kept the jam-band banner aloft during Phish’s long absence from the road.
PLAYBOY: What magic quality in jam-band music keeps audiences flocking to shows?
BAYLISS: We do something for everyone. We’ll cover “Africa” by Toto and then 10 minutes later play one of our originals influenced by hard rock or metal. You know there’s a chick in the front row who likes Toto but doesn’t like metal. Also I would say 15 of our original songs over the past five years have come from onstage improvisations. We offer the possibility that you’ll see something written in the moment.
WEIR: It’s quintessential American music taken from every era and idiom—not something created intellectually but from growing up listening to those idioms and loving them all.
ALLMAN: At the end of the day it’s a method of transferring one person’s point of view to another person, and it seems to work pretty well. It soothes the savage beast.
GARVEY: The magic comes from not discussing exactly what you’re going to do and not squeezing the life out of it. Most rock bands and pop artists try to cut all the accidents out of the equation. When they produce a live show, everything goes off without a hitch.
PLAYBOY: So the magic is in the mistakes?
GARVEY: The most inspiring moments for us and the audience occur when the whole band moves in a certain direction as if using ESP, as if directed. That kind of democratic invention makes it exciting. It’s based on reacting to what’s happening, listening to everything going on with five or more musicians onstage. And yes, sometimes it can be a train wreck.
PLAYBOY: How much is directed?
ALLMAN: We set up the order of solos. We’ll have as many as three people sitting in along with our guys—and our guys aren’t going to miss a guitar solo!
BAYLISS: We use a lot of hand signals for key changes. We try to create an A section and a B section and go back and forth between the two.
GARVEY: We have a game plan for seamless segues between songs in different keys. We know we have to get from point A to point X, but no other letters are delineated. It’s a matter of feeling it and finding the right moment. You take a chance and hope everyone else in the band comes along and the audience hears it all.
PLAYBOY: Does the audience have to learn to hear certain things?
GARVEY: Casual music listeners may not get it at first. It may sound like a mess to them because they’re used to structured music rather than musicians interacting with one another, which isn’t the same. There is a lot of push and pull, and it feels different. That’s not to say it won’t sound tight, but improvised music is different from a two-minute Beatles tune.
PLAYBOY: Any complaints from the godfathers of the scene about the younger generation of bands?
WEIR: Many of them have a lot of polishing to do, and they need to get to the point a little faster. It involves a little less noodling and a little more cleaving directly to the theme.
PLAYBOY: The music industry has come around to doing business the way jam bands have for years: less emphasis on recordings and more on creating grassroots support. How did you guys come up with your business model?
GARVEY: It was out of necessity. We actually looked more toward punk bands and their ethic of playing as many shows as possible. We would play cheap and try to make converts. It was like missionary work. Now that the major labels are crumbling, people realize you have to build a loyal fan base by doing legwork, by proving yourself on a night-to-night basis. We didn’t foresee this. It was just the way we had to go about it if we were going to succeed.
PLAYBOY: The taper community was a harbinger of the file-sharing boom. Have newer technologies affected the way you or your fans communicate?
GARVEY: The taper community was the first to use the Net to keep in touch. People could say, “I saw the show in Idaho and they kicked ass, so you should see them in California.” That kind of interaction allowed us to sell out a major concert hall in San Francisco the first time we played in California. Now people can send videos of a performance from their phone 10 minutes after it happens onstage. The quality may be crappy, but you get the immediate buzz of being a part of the experience even if you’re not there.
PLAYBOY: Does the approach to improvisation change over time?
WEIR: With the Grateful Dead, when we were younger we had youthful enthusiasm; when we got older we had wisdom and experience. It’s like comparing apples and oranges. But when you improvise, there is a moment when you need to make that leap, and it’s the same whether you’re 19 or 90.
PLAYBOY: Do you go about it differently than you did 40 years ago?
WEIR: I wish I had done this earlier with the Dead, but with RatDog I’ve worked up a bunch of hand signals that signify key changes and modulations.
ALLMAN: My grandpa always told me, “You might get too old to cut the mustard, but you’re never too old to lick the jar.”
PLAYBOY: Why has the fan base for improvisational bands been reliable for so long?
WEIR: Certain people require a little more adventure in their life and in their music. This type of music honors that.
Over thirty years after the Dead started the scene, Phish rings in the new millennium in Florida, causing the night’s “biggest traffic jam that we know of in the country,” according to Peter Jennings.
In March legendary jam act Phish reunites for a series of shows in Hampton, Virginia. Trey Anastasio’s crew hasn’t toured for more than four years. The shows have ignited a nationwide buzz, with the concerts selling out in five minutes—the latest proof of the enduring love for improvisational music. We discussed the phenomenon with old-guard members of the scene Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead and Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers, along with members of newer bands—Chuck Garvey of moe. and Brendan Bayliss of Umphrey’s McGee—that kept the jam-band banner aloft during Phish’s long absence from the road.
PLAYBOY: What magic quality in jam-band music keeps audiences flocking to shows?
BAYLISS: We do something for everyone. We’ll cover “Africa” by Toto and then 10 minutes later play one of our originals influenced by hard rock or metal. You know there’s a chick in the front row who likes Toto but doesn’t like metal. Also I would say 15 of our original songs over the past five years have come from onstage improvisations. We offer the possibility that you’ll see something written in the moment.
WEIR: It’s quintessential American music taken from every era and idiom—not something created intellectually but from growing up listening to those idioms and loving them all.
ALLMAN: At the end of the day it’s a method of transferring one person’s point of view to another person, and it seems to work pretty well. It soothes the savage beast.
GARVEY: The magic comes from not discussing exactly what you’re going to do and not squeezing the life out of it. Most rock bands and pop artists try to cut all the accidents out of the equation. When they produce a live show, everything goes off without a hitch.
PLAYBOY: So the magic is in the mistakes?
GARVEY: The most inspiring moments for us and the audience occur when the whole band moves in a certain direction as if using ESP, as if directed. That kind of democratic invention makes it exciting. It’s based on reacting to what’s happening, listening to everything going on with five or more musicians onstage. And yes, sometimes it can be a train wreck.
PLAYBOY: How much is directed?
ALLMAN: We set up the order of solos. We’ll have as many as three people sitting in along with our guys—and our guys aren’t going to miss a guitar solo!
BAYLISS: We use a lot of hand signals for key changes. We try to create an A section and a B section and go back and forth between the two.
GARVEY: We have a game plan for seamless segues between songs in different keys. We know we have to get from point A to point X, but no other letters are delineated. It’s a matter of feeling it and finding the right moment. You take a chance and hope everyone else in the band comes along and the audience hears it all.
PLAYBOY: Does the audience have to learn to hear certain things?
GARVEY: Casual music listeners may not get it at first. It may sound like a mess to them because they’re used to structured music rather than musicians interacting with one another, which isn’t the same. There is a lot of push and pull, and it feels different. That’s not to say it won’t sound tight, but improvised music is different from a two-minute Beatles tune.
PLAYBOY: Any complaints from the godfathers of the scene about the younger generation of bands?
WEIR: Many of them have a lot of polishing to do, and they need to get to the point a little faster. It involves a little less noodling and a little more cleaving directly to the theme.
PLAYBOY: The music industry has come around to doing business the way jam bands have for years: less emphasis on recordings and more on creating grassroots support. How did you guys come up with your business model?
GARVEY: It was out of necessity. We actually looked more toward punk bands and their ethic of playing as many shows as possible. We would play cheap and try to make converts. It was like missionary work. Now that the major labels are crumbling, people realize you have to build a loyal fan base by doing legwork, by proving yourself on a night-to-night basis. We didn’t foresee this. It was just the way we had to go about it if we were going to succeed.
PLAYBOY: The taper community was a harbinger of the file-sharing boom. Have newer technologies affected the way you or your fans communicate?
GARVEY: The taper community was the first to use the Net to keep in touch. People could say, “I saw the show in Idaho and they kicked ass, so you should see them in California.” That kind of interaction allowed us to sell out a major concert hall in San Francisco the first time we played in California. Now people can send videos of a performance from their phone 10 minutes after it happens onstage. The quality may be crappy, but you get the immediate buzz of being a part of the experience even if you’re not there.
PLAYBOY: Does the approach to improvisation change over time?
WEIR: With the Grateful Dead, when we were younger we had youthful enthusiasm; when we got older we had wisdom and experience. It’s like comparing apples and oranges. But when you improvise, there is a moment when you need to make that leap, and it’s the same whether you’re 19 or 90.
PLAYBOY: Do you go about it differently than you did 40 years ago?
WEIR: I wish I had done this earlier with the Dead, but with RatDog I’ve worked up a bunch of hand signals that signify key changes and modulations.
ALLMAN: My grandpa always told me, “You might get too old to cut the mustard, but you’re never too old to lick the jar.”
PLAYBOY: Why has the fan base for improvisational bands been reliable for so long?
WEIR: Certain people require a little more adventure in their life and in their music. This type of music honors that.
Over thirty years after the Dead started the scene, Phish rings in the new millennium in Florida, causing the night’s “biggest traffic jam that we know of in the country,” according to Peter Jennings.
, then you can noodle, but noodling too much when trying to find direction can make things stagnate and you don't want that. And maybe get back to the lyrics faster instead of wandering for another four measures.