SMMD JamCruise 2012 & Nathan's "Spot"

[Rob Turner]

Deep into each night of JamCruise, Nathan could be found on the Starboard side of the 6th Floor Deck hosting informal Jam Sessions. It is a place which Nathan discovered last year and dubbed, "The Spot." The most frequent question my traveling buddy Jefferson and I would ask each other was, "dude, time to go check on The Spot?" Nathan could be seen there playing with a rotating cast of musicians. The musicians who were often with them when I was there were people like Anders Beck and Paul Hoffman of Greensky Bluegrass, Tim Carbone of Railroad Earth, Dave Weissman of....not sure....I do know that he works with DSO and plays a great mandolin. Andrew also showed up and strummed and sang a little bit. He had one little mando-sized wood instrument that looked interesting but I never got around to asking him about it.

"Before You Were Born" popped up a few times but it was the final version early this morning that was the most memorable as Nathan and Brad alternated feeding the words of the chorus to the crowd Pete Seeger-style (kinda like singing the chorus TWICE, as Arlo Guthrie would say) and it was great to hear the collective voice of this crowd wash over the Atlantic, singing the lyrics of.......what is I think the first song Brad and Nathan wrote together.....is this correct? Anyway, it was quite fine.

Ryan Montbleau joined early this morning as well. I don't think I will ever forget his rich baritone echoing through the deck as he sang "Sittin on the Dock of the Bay" with alacrity. There we were, sitting in the morning sun, on the DECK that Nathan had just once again made his home, watching the tide roll away, having just traveled two thousand(ish) miles. It was a powerful moment, enhanced by the spirited crowd singing along with each chorus. Later Montbleau led the band through "Friend of the Devil" and then Brad took over for "Brown-Eyed Women," after which Brad said some words about Jerry Garcia, taking special care to reminded everyone that he was the reason we were there. It was a notion that clearly resonated with many of us. Lotta eye-wiping.

I will have more on what was a legendary week in the future. I am very tired now though. Gotta chill and focus on football.

You can purchase the SMMD sets and Nathan Moore's formal Sonic Stage set at http://www.livedownloads.com. I also recommend the Everyone Orchestra set as I was told that Brad played very well on this (with STEVE KIMOCK too!!) and I caught the last 20 or so minutes and Andrew was a WORKHORSE on drums, and the energy was powerful.

[harrymcq]

Here's a couple vids from YouTube:

Before You Were Born:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWxIVYPCBTM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv1KZbvCBsI

Also a clip of When A Woman from one of their sets... (still waiting/hoping for them to pop up on livedownloads.com)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1JEKQriTsU

[harrymcq]

Great write up of the spot with video clips:

http://www.glidemagazine.com/hiddentrac ... -the-spot/

[harrymcq]

Davis Pool Deck set up on livedownloads.com - $15.00 mp3 & $17.50 FLAC.... listening now sounds pretty decent:

http://www.livedownloads.com/live-music ... 10-US.html

[gbrignoli]

but is it $17.50 decent? also, will there be another set to potentially download from the cruise? did they do more than one show?

g

[lumpy]

bt.etree.org has a version - just posted in the taping and trading section...

[harrymcq]

I thought $17.50 was a bit steep, it seems to be what they would charge for a 2 disc set whereas the Davis set is only an hour. Just sent customer service an email asking about that. Sound quality is good, sounds like a board feed with perhaps some mics on stage. The mix is fairly solid, admittedly it is hard to mix a bigger band like davis, especially with guests. It's certainly not up to Cleantone standards but it is better sounding than a lot of the live recordings you can buy at festivals. It is, I believe, the first officially released SBD sourced recording from the Marco era so that is very cool. My advice is listen to the etree AUD version and if you like it check out the samples on the live download site and see if the difference is worth it to you. I'm glad I purchased it but then again I'm a junkie for this kind of thing.

They just posted the Zebra Bar 1/10/12 Set as well... downloading now:

http://www.livedownloads.com/live-music ... 10-US.html

[harrymcq]

The Zebra set is the heat... download this first. The Sissyfuss... wow! Marc Friedman takes it out of the park and lots of tasty keyboard work from Marco and special guest Neal Evans of Soulive. I'd say this is the stronger of the 2 sets and the livedownloads recording sounds better than the pool deck set.

[harrymcq]

More good jamcruise stuff! Glad it is so well documented!

a short film by Nathan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_-H-PX0xmA

More "Before you were born" from the spot, pretty good quality:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6NMekn9hFg

A bit of "My Bonnie" from the spot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6GJuZ4BtaU

Some of Marco doing "My Friend, My Friend" solo piano (with Ruby and Ila):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZaYpTQBzZk

or not quite as good video quality but 30 continuous minutes of Marco's solo set: (Includes Atari, The Real Morning Party, Magilla > My Friend, My Friend > Contact > My Friend, My Friend > Golden, Baby Bitch, Heartbeats)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D335NeKxOBA