Jam Report #94–9/6/09: Giant Reeses Cup Edition

In which I celebrate the hitting of a deadline by resuming Jam; in which we have a brand new Jammer and fellow GBS fan showing up to join us; in which we have a bit of an audience with my visiting friend from Norway; and in which we break in some stuff we’ve never played before, go us! Songs: “Ferryland Sealer”, “Mari-Mac”, “Cap in Hand”, “Skullcrusher Mountain”, “Goin’ Up”, “Dryad’s Promise”, “Captain Kidd”.

This was the first Jam we had in some time, although not quite as long as it’s been since my last Jam Report post–because I was a lame-o and never did post a proper report for the last one. This is me attempting to do better this time, especially since this was a particularly fine Jam!

First and foremost, we had a brand new person joining us. Her name is Kelsey, and she met solarbird when Dara was out busking–and immediately recognized “Captain Kidd”, and specifically the GBS arrangement thereof. She and Dara got to talking, and I told Dara to invite her to Jam, since as I have always maintained, “there’s always room for more”. Especially when it comes to fellow Great Big Sea fans. And we had a bit of an audience as well since ravyngyngvar had arrived the day before to visit this week; he doesn’t play, but he hung out and listened and took a few bits of pictures and video, which were all good.

Since Kelsey had specifically expressed interest in “Ferryland Sealer”, one of the very first GBS songs I ever fell in love with, we tackled that one first. I had chords for this left over from looking it up during the Three Good Measures days, and fortunately Kelsey had the same chords I did. We had quite a bit of confusion about how to handle the bridge, but worked it through well enough, and hopefully we’ll be able to get it tighter on further attempts.

Having mamishka back (hurray!) meant it was pretty much inevitable that we take a crack at “Mari-Mac”. Props must be given to Kelsey here for being able to follow along with a quick verbal walkthrough on how to play the song. Meems as always did a fine job on it, although man she plays it fast!

Kelsey then offered us a song we’d never done before by a group we’d never tried to tackle before: “Cap in Hand”, by the Proclaimers. Of whom I hadn’t ever actually heard, at least by name–but once they were identified as the group who’d done “500 Miles”, I totally remembered that song. “Cap in Hand” was unfamiliar to all of the rest of us, but we found a video for it on YouTube quickly enough, and that got us the general structure of the song. Kelsey gave us the general idea of how it sounded as well, singing as she played. We’ll want more work on this one, though.

After that it was around to “Skullcrusher Mountain”, since doragoon had gotten into talking about how Jonathan Coulton always has complicated guitar chords, and that was the song I had immediately handy. The bridge is still very, very difficult and barre-chord-y, though! We’ll definitely want more work on this one too.

It was a bit of a relief to head around to “Goin’ Up” after that, one must say! And fun to let solarbird drive the arrangement, since she’s tinkered heavily with it for when she goes out busking. I took a stab at doing a bit of piccolo with this since we were guitar/stringed-instrument heavy, but that’s another thing that’ll need some working.

Next came yet another song we’d never played with before, one by stealthcello: “Dryad’s Promise”, a lovely little thing that’s been recorded by Tricky Pixie. I had chords and lyrics from Betsy herself and we did come up with the recording to listen to off of Dara’s computer. Since this was another very new song, though, we didn’t get all that far with it. The fun here I think will be if we get multiple voices going on the words so we can get some harmony going. I tried a bit of it with Meems, but yeah, very new stuff.

We actually called Pie after this song, and it was a dual-Pie situation–because not only had Dara gotten a cherry pie, but Molly also showed up with a homemade pie-like object that basically tasted like a giant Reese’s cup and oh god so tasty. Very fudge-like in texture, very chocolatey, very tasty. Molly does do wonderfully with the baking and pretty much assured us that on any Jam when she expects to show up, it can be assumed she’ll be showing up with baked goods of some sort. Which is good to know!

But even after Pie, we went into overtime as Dara and I (and Kelsey, a bit) were stricken with the urge to whip through “Captain Kidd”. Which was a nice thing to go out on!