Last year or the year before (boy it all blends together,) maybe even the year before that I was involved in a version of Russell Jackson's Riff Fest/Ansurbana. Originally he wanted it to be a big involved thing with multiple drummers and many guitarists but it ended up being just a quartet. It was: Russell//guitar---Rick Moore//guitar---Lee Corum//drumset//hand percussion---me//bass//tenor sax//hand percussion. Russel had it posted somewhere but I can't find it anymore.
Anyway, it is one 16 minute recording divided into about four sections. The first section is total noise. The whole band overdubbed on top of itself playing chaotic craziness. The next section is slow sludge a la melvins/earth, but based on a random numeric form we came up with. That goes into a drone rock groove section over which I play saxophone and Lee and I also overdubbed bongo and conga drums. That's right, Lee played hand drums. That eventually gets into the closing math polyriff for about two minutes. Just like some of the avant jazz stuff I've posted, if you actually sit down and listen to it then it can be an enjoyable and rewarding experience. I'm not sure it's ipod treadmill material. Maybe it is though. I'm about to get a new YMCA card so I'll let you know.
I have to thank Russell for organizing the whole thing and bankrolling the recording. It was recorded at Zero Return studios. If it wasn't the last thing recorded there then it would have to be one of the last. The whole thing was 16 minutes and with overdubs we got it done in maybe two hours. Russ had paid for the day so with all that time left over Lay Down Mains came in and recorded (and mixed) their tune "Grey Sands" which I believe came out on the ISP 7" comp.
Okay now,
Riff-fest III is this way...
Hopefully we can do something like it again someday. I had a blast.
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