Drew Gress + Drum Jam 8/3/08

Earlier when I was eating my breakfast in Tompkins Square Park, I thought I heard someone mention a parade. He didn't look like a typical parade person so I was intrigued, but then forgot about it. Later, around 6pm, I was walking by TSP, and heard a lot of drums coming from in there. I remembered the parade and wanted to see what was up. I was also drawn in by the drums, which were being played with sticks, but it was a very big sound.

In the middle of the park, there was about 20 punker types drumming, all with sticks or something to hit with, various drums and other things. There was an old wheelbarrel, a homemade percussion ensemble set around someone's neck, a lot of metal things including barrels and such. I guess there were about 3 or 4 kits. Only one was set up, the rest of the drums were all over the place. It was a lot of fun, and went on for another half hour. They announced that people need to help clean up because they will only be allowed to do it again if they leave it clean.

There was stages being dismantled, so maybe there was some bands up there. I don't know if there was a parade or not. I like them when they're completely different and all about the music. Like 2nd line parades, or the time I ran into one of those gypsy type music parades in TSP years ago. I don't need floats or beads pelted at me, just give me the music.

That cinched it, I wanted to go to Wollesonics at Nublu that night. But, that was contingent on start time, which is hard to deduce at that place. I stopped by at around 9:40 to gauge and there were no band members there yet, so it was probably going to be too late for me. Well, I'm on Ave C and it's close to 10, so that means The Stone.

Trevor Dunn is the first half of this month curator, so there's lots of contrabass solos. Tonight it was Drew Gress, but he also had electronics. I was curious what that would be like. I think the electronics were more for him to have some melodies to play around. It might have taken some of the pressure off as well. I had a feeling I wasn't alone in thinking we didn't need the background stuff, we would have enjoyed it if he simply played whatever he was playing and skipped the computer. Still, it was easy to focus on the bass and forget there was repetitive stuff coming out the computer. He was awesome.

He picked pretty complex things to play with the bass and it was just great. I don't know how much I'll get there this month, there's too many great things going on. It would be nice to see a bunch of different bass players to get a better idea of what it is capable of.


Drew Gress
Drew Gress (contrabass, electronics)