I Shit Music

So for the past 10 years or so, nearly every time I’ve seen the Beastie Boys, they have played the same dope outro track after every concert. They usually have just thrown down a massive “Sabotage,” the entire building will be on Cloud-11, and this smooth mother-fucking jam comes on and just makes you so pumped to figure out where you and your crew are gonna go get some post-show cocktails. If you’ve seen the MSG Awesome, I Fucking Shot That DVD, it’s the music playing over the credits. However, the listed credits on there have the correct band, The Jazz Crusaders -  a sly as all hell jazz-pop outfit from the early 70′s, but they had the wrong song listed. So I initially had given up on figuring out what it actually was til I woke up the other day with this song on loop in my head. Had to find it, did a little more sloothing, and here it is – “Way Back Home.” If you’re at home on a Saturday night – get up, make yourself a cocktail, twist up a fat one, sit your ass back down, and listen to this tune a good 7 or 8 times – it’s guaranteed to make you feel that everything is OK in the world.

A couple weekends ago, the glorious Brooklyn Bowl played host to the two-night rock party thrown by the NYC Freaks known as Freaks Ball 12. The highly OVERRATED Portugal, The Man headlined on Friday, but Saturday was an expanded jam-night of sweat-staggering proportions. Featuring The Duo, Warren Haynes, and members of Soulive to name a handful – much of the evening consisted of instrumental versions of Beatles tunes. The post-words I heard about the show highlighted the epic 14 man take on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” but I’ve been digging this sweet gem below from early on in the evening.

At this opening portion of the night, the band was a four-piece consisting of Joe Russo on drums, Hagar Ben-Ari of the Dap-Kings on bass, Eric Deutsch on drums, and the oft-forgotten guitar shredder of the indie-jam scene, Scott Metzger on guitar. Now if you switched out Deutsch for Marco Benevento, I’d call this band a true force to be reckoned with. Eric is insanely talented, but Marco has that twist for the obscure that gives the needed flair to vocal-less rockers. Regardless, this line-up dwells in a slanky-as-all-hell pocket that they’ll be reprising at the Bowl tomorrow night (2/9). If you’re in the BK, I’d highly recommend it. But take a minute and scope one of the sliest cuts of “Day Tripper” anybody’s ever laid down – it must be really early in the evening because that crowd looks lame as spoiled-Peking.

These two have become fucking monsters! It’s funny – I read a review of the San Francisco show from last week, which said the crowd was sleepy and not that into it, and the show was fairly tame. Then the same band comes up to the Doug Fir in Portland 3 days later, and fucking slays it. That’s the road, I suppose. I’ll tell you though, being in a comfortable spot with sick sound like the Doug Fir, having a few beers with your friends while Marco is crushing it 5 feet in front of you…that’s how you make a Northeast fella feel at home. Anyway, Reed Fuckin’ Mathis was positively evil on the bass the other night. There’s a snippet of my review and a link to the full one at StateOfMind below, and a majority of it is about him shaking the timbers of the place. I think if you get Marco on keys, Mathis on bass, Joe Russo on drums, and like….Jimmy Herring on guitar, you could create the most insane 4-piece imaginable on the planet right now. Make that shit happen. Here’s a clip of “Atari” too – from 3 years ago, with Andrew Barr on drums.

“…and the other stage’s wonder-child Reed Mathis on bass — who was sporting some old‚ little bass that he paid 150 bucks for earlier in the day‚ and was positively milking the groove from the prodigal womb with it all night long. The thing sounded amazing… The one sure thing is that the inebriating envelope of the Doug Fir drew more and more of the crowd toward Reed Mathis’ side of the stage as the night went on‚ called upon by the destructive ooze that was pulsing out of his cabinet. A magical take on Zeppelin’s “That’s The Way” would be the climatic showing of his JPJ-ness (Paul Jones) throughout the night. You could put him‚ Marco‚ and a bowl of soup on drums‚ and it would still sound fucking phenomenal.”

http://www.stateofmindmusic.com/entry/1389/Marco-Benevento/

photo – Michele Bushnik