Greetings everyone.
Hope you are all ready for the holiday season. I’m ready to have a good old
fashion Festivus as I watch the Steelers try to squeeze into the playoffs. But
today is not about football, the fiscal cliff or any of the other heavy things
weighing us down. This installment of Kempededia is all about one thing, the
continuing majesty that is the music of the Grateful Dead. Today I delve deep
into my sordid history with one band in particular, Splintered Sunlight.
I first heard
about Splintered Sunlight in 1995. They handed out flyers at the 12/1/95 Phish
show in Hershey. They were playing the next night at a bar called the Blue
Terrapin. The Biscuits and Devolver are
among the bands that played at this tiny heady place in Elizabethtown, PA. I
found out about 4 years ago the permanent fixture of our scene Caveman Dan was
a partial owner of the venue. Now alas, the building is a gun shop.
It was a really
small place that might have held a hundred people comfortably. It had a rather
relaxed atmosphere. How relaxed? Since this was a time when one could still
smoke cigs in a bar, they really didn’t care what you were smoking. When the Biscuits
played there right before it closed down, our brother Chad C. made it a point
to have it go out in a blaze of glory. He smoked at the bar, on and under the
pool table, and probably onstage with Brownie.
I was very impressed
by Splintered Sunlight and they became a regular on my must see band list. We
used to see them a lot down in Baltimore at a place called The Vault. It was an
old bank converted into a bar. Again, another really chilled out venue that had
couches and didn’t really care what you were smoking within the confines of
their establishment. I saw them there in ’96 or ’97 with Living Earth on the
bill with them. It was a Jerry’s birthday show/celebration and at one point
they had something like 6 guitarists on stage playing my all-time favorite
version of Eyes of the World I have ever witnessed.
Of all the
Baltimore Splintered shows, one stands out in particular. It was the Wed before
Thanksgiving in 1996 and a bunch of us went down to see them. Nad came down by
himself later and joined us at the show. When we left, Nad had no idea where he
parked his car. So 6 of us crammed into Buck’s Jetta and tooled around the neighborhood
for what seemed like forever searching in vain for his vehicle. We eventually
gave up and Nad proceeded to find it in about 5 minutes.
The last time I
saw Splintered before a 12 year hiatus was in Dec 2000. Work was really slow
and we had a 4 day work schedule for the month of Dec. Without going into too
many details, having those 4 Fridays off that month made for some AMAZING
times. I got to visit a friend in Philly to see Splintered on their home turf,
including an amazing version of Alligator, which was a super rarity at the
time. It also allowed me to run into a certain chick that lead to the most incredible
NYE I ever had.
I then proceeded
to not see them for 12 years. No particular reason why. I do remember their
website being less than perfect with no updates at all. But lo and behold they
were making a stop at Appalachian Brewing Company this past June. I give all
the credit with the great people at Greenbelt productions with getting them
there. Would like to give some thoughts and prayers to the family of Jersey
Mike, founder of Greenbelt Productions, who recently left us much too soon.
I made it to this
show and it was like nothing had changed. They tore it up and it was a nice way
to kick off the summer concert season. Fast forward to this December. They
announced they were playing an End of the World Party on Dec. 21. If Quetzalcoatl doesn’t destroy us, this should
be a raging good time. And it was
They opened up
with Half Step, followed by Franklin’s Tower and The Music Never Stopped, thus
playing a good chunk of the Blues for Allah album Paul had been hoping for. A
killer Easy Wind was the highlight of the first set. A rather good Let It Grow
ended the first set.
At set break I got
to shoot the shit with one of the drummers Jerry Horan and Butchy Sochorow, aka the Asian Jerry
Garcia. Their 20th anniversary was Dec. 20 so this show was part of
that celebration. They came across as down to Earth guys who obviously loved
good music. Jerry had been in the band since its inception and Butchy had been
in for nearly 15 years. That is astounding.
The second set was all killer and no
filler. China Cat>Rider opened it up. Estimated followed by a killer
Terrapin flowed into our skulls. Stella Blue and Going Down the Road Felling
Bad sent us on our way into the rather windy and cold night. I hope everyone
has a kickass Festivus and a safe and happy Christmas. Oh and Splintered, thank
you, for a real good time.
Dave Kemp
BA American Studies
PhD in Rock and Roll
