Sunday, December 23, 2012

Splintered Sunlight, 12/21/12, Appilachian Brewing Company, Harrisburg, PA



 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

No comments:

Post a Comment