From: Charlie Dirksen
8/16/93 American Theater, St. Louis, MO I skipped reviewing this Mike's Groove when it came up, and I don't know why..
I think my old copy wasn't that good. Thanks for the substantial upgrade, Eric! MikeSGroove opens up the second set, fwiw.
Maybe a touch slower tempo than usual.. yeah, the tramps segment doesn't begin until 2:54 or something. Not an unusual
opening at all, otherwise. Trey comes in around 3:38 eerily sustaining as he usually does in old versions of this jam. He's very
reptitive on a rather b.s. theme, imo, for the first minute or thereabouts, before taking off and soloing more profoundly. Around
5 minutes he's firing up and down the 'doc powerfully, but the Mike's tramps segment closing chords shortly follow.. not that
impressive a tramps jam, in my opinion. At 5:25 the post-tramps jam begins (on the note of "Simple," btw; you know, that first
"Simple" note.. I imagine Simple wasn't even a gleam yet, but I don't know). The post-tramps jam is pretty typical.. very dark
and strange. Holy shit!! Around 6:15 or so, Trey seems to be playing a riff that is somewhat similar to "Simple." Not a 'tease' of
the main simple lick, but what Trey plays is definitely similar. Very interesting. Around 7:11 Trey starts soloing more
melodiously... his soloing in here sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't place it (sounds like I theme I've heard him dabble in
elsewhere, fwiw). This post-tramps jam is fairly chaotic, as they ususally were in this period. But the groove around 8 minutes is
interesting in that the interplay between the band members is quite playful.. and even somewhat melodious. Trey starts repeating
this pleasant lick over and over again, too (triplets). Very nice in here (8:40). Accompaniment is quite grand.. The JAM returns
at 9 minutes (Fish had been tooling around for the last minute, and not keeping a typical MikeSGroove beat)... and builds here
and there before exploding back around 9:35 into more of a Mike's Song jam. Still no Mike's Song theme.. just a fairly decent
jam (that, honestly, has overtones of "Simple," and I tease you not). It really sounds in here (10 minutes) like they could break
into Simple at any time!! But instead they do a wicked fast "Who Knows" (Hendrix) jam.. just teasing the hell out of the "Who
Knows" riff, until they explode back into Mike's Song at 10:50 or so.. the Mike's Song theme returns. Closing Mike's Song
chords occur, after some reasonably psychotic and intriguing jamming (and Trey soloing high up the frets.. I mean REALLY
high!!), at 12:02.. Mike's Song ends at about 12:45 or so, with a sustained strange buzzing and annoying noise from something
(a speaker? monitor? guitar? sounds like a sound problem), and no Hydrogen tease.. FAHT starts up within about 30 seconds,
and is hardly audible on my copy of this show (d>a; NAK 300s). The strange buzzing noise stops within about a minute (crowd
applauds; can hear Fish better now). There's a ton of audience chatter on this tape.. just incredible how much audience noise
there is. I really can't hear the FAHT well enough to comment. FAHT ends at 16:05 and Trey opens the weekapaug with very
very fast Weekapaug chords.. Fish comes in shortly. No opening Mike solo, fwiw! Trey opens up the jam segment repetitively
firing off this one very Weekapaugian riff.. Page complements it well fairly soon. Mike too. Very repetitive opening, though..
Trey doesn't break out until about 18:10 or so, and he's low on the 'doc, hastily repeating a lick again. This is an extremely fast
Weekapaug! Trey starts noodling away in the upper reaches of the 'doc within twenty seconds, though (and Mike's
accompaniment gets more pronounced). Around 19 minutes, Trey starts darkly chording (repetitively), in a most
anti-Weekapaugian fashion. Fish is still busting out the Weekapaug groove.. Trey is just repetitively chording (with Mike and
Page in accompaniment).. they stop and start with magnificent drum fills from Fish!!!! Fish shows off, for the most part, in here,
and lets out some nice stuff... (20 minutes) At 20:39 or so, the jam is GYPSY QUEEN (Santana; Black Magic Woman's jam
segment, basically)!!!! Wow!! Big-time teasing/jamming on Gypsy Queen (see also Runaway Jim, 8/7/96).. still going on around
21:30. Trey is just ripping it up.. nice Gypsy Queen! Dies out at about 22 minutes.. gets really quiet.. Fish is still keeping the
groove (damn, there's so much chatter from the audience!). At 22:15 or so, Mike (at first) with Trey start jamming Floyd's
"Another Brick in the Wall" really quickly.. but they drop this almost immediately... Mike lets out some nice licks.. and Page
some good fills, too. Trey, at 23:13, starts jamming in that "quiet segment" (Suzy Greenberg jam segment) fashion (mostly
chords), but instead of getting quiet, he appears to be bringing this jam back.. hmm.. not really. Gets kinda weird.. around
24:15.. in fact, the jam starts sounding like it might segue into I Wish.. INDEEEEED!!! =^] An "I Wish" jam of sorts around
24:50.. yes!!! =^] I love this song, but they are just screwing around with it.. not really playing it seriously.. Well, Page sounds
great. Mike and Trey seem to be abusing it.. still pretty funky.. gets really dark around 25:30.. verrrry FUNKY!!! =^] Still
more/less an "I Wish" jam at 25:40 or so, given what Mike, Page and Fish are playing.. very crazy, though. Outright 'I Wish'
theme soloing from Trey briefly around 26:10 or so. Then the jam quickly gets weird and anti-I WISH... ;) At 26:40 the "jam" is
repetitive, annoying, strange... can't say much else.. very queer. At 27:40 Possum segues in out of this kinda shitty jam... hey,
wait a second. Trey stops Possum rather quickly and then starts melodiously picking... what song is this?!? Mike and Page join
in!! It is beautiful whatever it is! I don't recognize this (28:20). Everyone is playing this gorgeous theme.. wow! =^] Very pretty.
Maybe this is from the Who.. damn!! I can't name this tune.. :( But it sounds so damn familiar!!!! AGH!!!!!! (pulls hair) then at
28:53 Weekapaug starts back up again!!!!! =^] In the wrong key, but Trey starts playing the Weekapaug chords. Full blown
closing Weekapaug jamming around 29:30.. Around 30:15 or so, Trey starts picking up the beat.. changes the key back into its
appropriate zone, too. The "Trying to make a woman.." lyrics come in at 30:42 or something. Total time 31:25. What a
HUUUUUUUGE version of Weekapaug groove. And the Mike's Song is pretty powerful and weird, too. There's no way I'm
going to "rate" this ultra-weird MikeSGroove. I think the Mike's Song of 8/13/93 is incredible (one of my personal favorites),
but this all-around MikeSGroove is easily the best of August 1993, in my opinion, and is unusually strong in parts. This may be
the first truly insane Weekapaug.. just off the deep end. Total screwing around. I'd highly recommend checking this out. It is too
bad that so few people requested this show from me when I was massively dubbing Aug 93 material.. oh well. I think this
MikeSGroove alone is more exciting than the entire 8/20/93 show, but that's just me. What a crazy version (sure, there weren't
too many inspiring jams, but there were some.. just a very strange version, hence the "N/R" rating). two cents
Anal-retentiveDumbassElitist&CriminalTapeSeller420