The supposed one-timer “Bring Your Ass to the Party,” AKA 7-11, opens the show. The composition is still pretty rough (it’s essentially the same three verses repeated over and over) but the jamming section is dynamic and locomotive. Barber’s licks are lively in the first part of the jam, where Magner holds what is essentially the same pattern and Sammy keeps things moving. Like the Wetlands version, this jam is basically a 7-11 jam until it very suddenly isn’t. Around the seven minute mark things settle into a groove-oriented jam that builds steadily into an inverted Boop. The Boop funk jam is nice and drawn out, but it gets old fast and doesn’t peak nearly hard enough to make up for all of the feet-dragging. However, the jam out goes type two immediately. It is atmospheric and interesting, with Barber noodling crazy over waves of synth from Magner and tribal drum beats from Sammy. The jam goes from this tense chaos to what sounds like an I-Man jam before building to a Floes ending. The debut of Soul is Shaking follows. A jazzy tune that alternates between loungey and energetic sections, Soul is Shaking feels a bit like a cover or a song the band may have written in 97. For this reason it isn't surprising that it did not last long in the catalog despite its obvious merits. The Unspoken Rhyme, another debut, follows. The jam is a warm and pleasant jungle exploration; it’s a single theme done well, and it works great here. Some amusing banter after Unspoken Rhyme: Barber and Magner sing a welcome song to Sammy and Mauricio, and then play a false start to Helicopters with more amusing banter. I was sure Helicopters with Mauricio would be a trainwreck, but it’s actually pretty cool. It’s atmospheric and mellow (obviously, like all the Mauricio jams), but the band finds some cool musical spaces, moving through a tense passage before returning to bliss. The “peak” is nonexistent, but the fact that I was expecting that made it a lot less frustrating this time.
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| Barber, Sammy, and Mauricio Zuniga (source: discobiscuits.net) |
The second set begins with a dyslexic completion of Floes. The long ambient intro is very evocative of a Crickets intro—perhaps foreshadowing its debut, or perhaps the song is on my mind for that reason and I’m imagining nonexistent connections. The Floes jammed into the Very Moon looked interesting on paper, but it’s just a standard Floes jam—with the Floes ending replaced with the similar sounding Star Wars tease—that essentially drop segues into a Very Moon intro. The Very Moon jam is pretty excellent—the section was becoming more fleshed out throughout 1999, and it still sounds great here. It’s not quite as fast as some of the better 99 versions, but it’s very thematic and has some great Barber licks. The funk jam kind of flounders for a few minutes until around the fourteen minute mark, when the band breaks down and restarts a new theme. The remainder of the track is an excellent mellow trance theme that breaks down as the track changes. I am not sure at what point Mauricio comes in. Sammy is definitely on the drums for the rest of The Very Moon track, but it definitely sounds like there’s some extra percussive effects towards the end. By 1:45 in the Crickets track Mauricio is definitely present, although there are some drum effects in the following minutes that sound a little too authentic to be him. For maybe this reason, this might be my favorite Mauricio jamming I’ve heard, eminently atmospheric and ambient. It’s slow, but it’s supposed to be, so his style really works here. Around the seven minute mark the jam breaks down into Crickets proper. The first jam in Crickets is so alien from what the song eventually became that it’s slightly jarring. However the jam is undeniably fantastic. Dark and twisted, hauntingly atmospheric—this is what you want a Mauricio jam to sound like. Of course, the usual handicaps of a Mauricio jam are present here, and the first Crickets peak is almost an anti-peak, more a mellow conclusion to Barber’s theme. A typical Crickets peak is like a tension release, and there certainly isn’t any release of tension as the band segues into the funk section. Like the Crickets intro, the Crickets funk is perfect for Mauricio, as the jam doesn’t require a massive peak. I found myself listening in awe to this jam with my mouth hanging open, desperately wishing it were longer as I sensed the band winding down. Excellent stuff. Mauricio departs, and the band brings up Clay Belknap for Shimmy. There are small tape skips (I think) in the Shimmy composition, but the jam is well-executed. It doesn’t offer anything new, but it’s probably the closest thing to a “classic Biscuits” sound in a pretty experimental set. The first Crystal Ball is played as the encore. The composition is a little hesitant sounding, but it’s played pretty clean. The beginning and end of the song are largely intact as they would be in modern versions (with some variation on the lyrics), but the middle is entirely absent. The jam section of the song has seeds of what would become the middle later.
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| Barber and Clay Belknap (source: discobiscuits.net) |
The second Triscuits show of the year is very experimental, and has moments of brilliance and moments of dullness, just like the first. Like the Wetlands show, there are another four original debuts; the band was working like mad to expand the catalog.
Highlights:
7-11 > Boop:
It’s essentially a 7-11 jam until it becomes a Boop jam (with no type two in between), but the early 7-11 jams are just so cool. Great Barber and Magner interplay.
Boop > Floes:
In contrast to the jam into Boop, this one is type two right out of the gate. Spacey and weird cacophony builds to a great Floes ending by way of an I-Man theme.
Unspoken Rhyme:
Vies with Crickets for the strongest debut of the night. It’s pretty straightforward, but a great theme—maybe the happiest jam of the night.
Very Moon > Crickets:
The funk starts off kind of slow, but the band hits a great trance theme before breaking down into an equally great Crickets intro.
Crickets funk:
Hauntingly atmospheric. Mauricio’s finest work yet.
Stray Observations:
After Crickets, Barber asks the crowd “what do you want to call that one?” You can almost hear the grin on his face. This is clearly a reference to the fact that the fans called Svenghali “Splattums” for so long.
During the encore break Barber promotes the next two shows, but gets the dates mixed up. “I can’t read the cue card, my eyes are a little screwed up.” Magner says that a lot has been going on, and they just “wrote our first soundtrack to a movie.”
—Andy
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