The Disco Biscuits 12/29/01, Roseland Ballroom: Guest post by Jay Cowit

With a fresh and stunning Rich Steele remaster of 12/29/01 recently released (download here!), Crepuscular Rays collaborator, brilliant musical mind and dear friend Jay Cowit was inspired to take a deep dive into his first outing with what would become one of his most enduring musical relationships.

I'd like to invite you to take this cosmic foray with Jay: 

The first song I ever saw the Disco Biscuits play was "Eulogy," a rootsy prog-rock continuity piece from one of their two rock operas. I thought 3 things:

         1) man, these dudes cannot sing.

         2) ok, they sound a little like phish/Moe./god street wine, so I can get down.

         3) holy shit. they're gonna jam everything huh?

But in the midst of those thoughts, I saw a crowd immediately hypnotized. Fascinated and open to an experience, I let the music of the evening wash over me, entrap me, feed me into something dark and strange. What came after Eulogy would stay with me for the rest of my life, and would become an intrinsic part of it. Friendships and lifelong memories born off those notes, cascading off the Roseland Ballroom years before it became a pit in the NYC ground. It was a true experience that shaped me. I've seen and loved the Disco Biscuits for 17 years, since that first song.

.....And ironically, I've never seen a "Eulogy" since.

 But that's the very point of this band, right?

"Eulogy," as a composition, starts slow and bluntly, not taking any chances. The song is a midway point in the Hot Air Balloon opera, a reflection point for its protagonist. Interestingly, the band repeatedly utilizes it at the start of shows, and while it’s rare to appear at all, its purpose as an introduction to the Disco Biscuits makes a lot of sense. Following its demure and winding opening, the song quickly moves into tight rhythmic bursts, back-dropping the soaring melody of Jon Gutwillig’s guitar. The structure, suddenly fugue like and alien, supports a reprise of the verse with rugged purpose, raising the volume and energy. Then, a dip into minor keys and slight quiet. What follows is the song’s greatest asset…a Technicolor glide through rustic landscapes as Gutwillig begins to jet-set around the fretboard, building a beautiful and steely conversation on top of the rhythmic power of Marc Brownstein, Aron Magner, and Sam Altman. Such power and speed, in the opener? It defies concert sense to the uninitiated. Even to jamband veterans, the speed at which the Disco Biscuits can reach heights is breathtaking. Altman, on drums, and Barber crash through forests, growing larger each measure. A peak guitar melody reprises at the end, perfectly enunciated by drums on the 16^th notes, and a slight return to the soft beginnings of the song. Not a note of electronic music has been played.

7 minutes in felt a lot longer.

“7-11” couldn’t be more different than the thoughtful Eulogy. Its big dumb hair metal/funk approach to a breakup song is probably as fun a track as the Biscuits have, and while it seems like a hastily arranged jigsaw puzzle of hooks and riffs, all of those hooks and riffs are catchy as hell. Its singsong chorus makes it easy to ignore how rough the vocals are, as the crowd helps a ton. The chorus is a metal rave up with “I’m gonna go out and jam” as the main refrain. For a 19 year old kid in the big city, at a jamband show…what could be better? The song moves to a robotic cluster bomb of “you can’t stop it” beats before instantly flexing to the traditional faux-reggae middle jam. In later years, the band would take this part out for rides, but in this version, it’s a tight run through high-school nightmare lyrics, followed by a brief respite to give room for a polka Magner piano solo. 

Back to the metal, and then to the first true jam of the evening. Part of the glory of “7-11” is how fast the jam becomes fast and fluid techno, in every year of its existence. It’s worth the wait of its sections to get there, and this is no exception. I had heard the band on tape, and heard their reputation, but this style of jamming was something I’d never experienced. I was still watching 4 dudes on stages (one wearing a hockey jersey), but suddenly they had become a robot techno machine. All frill had died instantly, the bass picked up a liquid-ish feel, and all lines started to wrap around each other. This was no 12-bar blues, no solo on top of chords. Every musician was contributing equally and all at once, but tastefully and…this is important…leaving tons of space. It’s what makes the jamming so amazing right away….it is focused like a laser, fast and complex…but the key is the dark silence in and among the four parts.

And the drums…god, those drums. Altman instantly played like no one I had ever witnessed. Perfect, unyielding, un-tempted by fills and turnarounds. It was revolutionary. It was ego-less. The whole band was jamming to a gestalt, working with each other, and as a unit. No one leads this improvisational section for 7 straight minutes. The crowd follows the energy, waving and wobbling with the speedy pace as the band quickens from techno to punk rage. It’s a ska fused soundscape of fierce eruptions as the band changes key at breakneck speed…maybe even getting faster.  Gutwillig comes to the front, but still repeating line after line, beautiful melody after beautiful melody…swirling all the while with Magner on synth. 

Altman pounds the beat into a full-on punk 1-step, as Gutwillig switches to power chords along with Brownie…suddenly the arrangement is filled with the epcot-synths of Magner, bringing in the conclusion of “Munchkin Invasion,” a frenetic race through a brief hyper-prog-rock section, followed instantly by a happy go lucky jam-rock refrain that talks about random names and…well, Munchkins.  It’s a furious ending to the jam, and completes the song started on a previous night of the run. We are only 20 minutes in.

“Spacebirdmatingcall” is an absolute classic. I’m not saying that lightly. It’s one of the best compositions ever written by humans, and is probably 20-40 years ahead of its time. It combines all of the best parts of this band, in a song that could be played by nobody else. Its studio version was an early part of me loving the band, but the live versions from 2001 are blazing sound and fury. This night was no exception. Opting out of complex segues (and leaving that for set II), the band feels satisfied exploring the confines of the song itself, spinning out of conformity while repeatedly bringing the jam back to base in creative ways. The song itself is played like a torpedo, lush and spiritual while speeding along Altman’s rock-trance hybrid beat (one that his successor never truly figured out, even as Allen Aucoin played numerous killer “SBMC’s.”) The jam is centered around the same ideals as “7-11,” which is 4 rhythm parts playing in unison within the confines of a roughly electronic beat. The fact that the beat is focused on the kick drum played on all four beats lends a slight notion that this is house or trance, but really the music is jazzier and the lines around it springy. The forward playing of Gutwillig and Brownie propel the beat even as Altman keeps it simple and tough; the frontloading of grace notes at the tail end of a phrase give the beat a forward propulsion, even when Sammy isn’t playing four on the floor (~7:30 on the recording). Brownie and Gutwillig perfected this over the years, but none more than in 2001, where their work pays off even in the fastest of jams, which all still groove and pulse. Altman eventually becomes the lead player in the jam, spiking the playing with hard snare and open high hat work. Eventually Brownie comes back around to the bass line, and the band is in full rock epic mode…this is where the song is truly built for greatness…after a jam of techno-ish music that is danceable and smart, the song suddenly becomes a stadium rock closer….Gutwillig’s utterly insane but gorgeous composed lead line is distinctly him, his style and genius painted on the octave skipping taps of his playing. To the uninitiated, it seems like a random melody…until he repeats it note for note. A dip back into the verse/chorus before another glorious run through the lead melody ends the song, a journey within a single composition.

At this point, it’s clear the band will jam everything they play, and furiously rage most of the endings. To a rookie…this is starting to become a gift from heaven.

The second half of Set I is probably what truly made me a believer, at least from my memory of the moment. You learn a lot about a band you don’t know through their covers, and while it’s never the sticking point for me, sometimes it REALLY helps the process. We’ll get to that in a second. First, “The Very Moon” is a beautiful song, with a sweet intro that again takes as much from Genesis and Yes as Phish. The intro is a built in breathing point in any set, and certainly the 3 minutes it spends climbing the ladder to the song itself is certainly appreciated. The breakneck verse and chorus structure reveal smitten lyrics, part of the same rock opera as “Eulogy.” The jam begins over a blissfully quiet and quick set of major chords, but effectively wrapping the beat in 10, which is musically impressive and clever but even more amazing when you get lost in the jam and realizing it feels like the most familiar groove you’ve ever felt. This comes up later in the “House Dog Party Favor,” but it’s a true gift of the band: grooving odd time signatures like they’re nothing. It’s part of why they feel like techno in these sections even when they’re not playing anything close to it. “Moon” rides on in intensity, and then literally on Altman’s ride cymbals, speeding back up to the persistent 2001 style…Brownie and Barber hit on the return to theme seamlessly and easily, Magner picking up on piano with them. It’s a fortunate turn but one they hit so often in those years. 

No let up, no drop…the band screams across the finish line of the first jam, before the composed entrance to the “slow” dirty funk of the song’s second section. Altman is in take-no-prisoner mode, so the funk speeds a long. Gutwillig picks and pokes with a teasing line, as Brownie gradually slaps his way to the pocket. Magner is slow to join, but the moment gives a true sense of the Marc/Jon combo…feeding off each other in shards and strikes, constructing the complex matrix over Altman’s simplistic 2-step. It’s a tribal style, like Security-era Peter Gabriel. It’s not techno at all, but it grooves so hard that it plays as such. At around 17 minutes into the song, the band again deftly changes key mid-jam, a seamless maneuver that most bands could never pull off with such grace and secrecy. No let up, no drop…Altman begins to use the toms to build a wall of low end as the other three weave their way around the changes occurring. The band has returned to the hybrid rock beat and leaps in bounds over a single D chord progression, driving upwards and out. The pace quickens, while Gutwillig reaps a repeated soulful line, ridiculous and perfect among the clashy chaos. The line strays and saunters, while Magner fills up the void with mid-tone synths, 

Brownie moves to a major key progression, and Altman opens the hats…the sound builds, and builds…the movement of all four members in lock step as a furious flood of emotion and notes comes to bear…higher and higher, while Gutwillig moves to a fierce descending line…the bass fills the entire world….Altman attacks his snare….one final dragon piercing note from Jon…..and there it is:

“RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN RUN”

“Run Like Hell” is a Disco Biscuits song. At least the way they play it. It has a strong resemblance to an old Pink Floyd song from The Wall, for sure. But a song can have many spiritual owners, and one of them for “Run Like Hell” is Bisco. The fire and intensity of first seeing the band slam into the power chords and verse that make up the front part of the song will never be forgotten. I’ve never seen so many raised fists…the crowd was like a dancing army. The band could’ve asked them to go to war for them. I’d have loved to see it. A screaming frenzy of noise and energy gives way to the first jam (The Disco Biscuits usually improvise sections between the verses, and after the keyboard solo, before ending the song or jamming into something else), a short silky foray into psychedelic trance, utilizing some odd Magner synths to punctuate the dark vap trail of the electronic beats. The pace builds quick again tho…not much time left to experiment, although the then rookie author of this piece couldn’t believe the band in front of him was going to play another set after this. After all, they must’ve blown a hole in the earth, right? Crashed the stock market?  All of this thinking is bypassed as they again slam into the power chords of the second verse, raising all the fists again. The second jam starts dirty, with Gutwillig laying into distorted delay spikes while Magner does double duty, spinning a sweep pad single note among a clav-like backbone. This jam is more funky than anything so far, and darker. Brownie keeps the bass line lean and weird…and then with the ease of a veteran magician, calmly welcomes the crowd back to NYC and says hi, nearly 75 minutes into the set.:)  Having rushed slightly in jam 1 to get here…the band relaxes and starts deploying singular bursts of melodic treats, using the evil sounding robot progression to wind up the energy and tension. Altman is simplistic as ever, but forceful on the kick…the giant ball of sound keeps moving, even as the other members stay slow and deliberate. Remarkably, it’s Magner who pivots the synched unit to a more major feel, grabbing the middle of the whole, and setting up Gutwillig to fly again on top of the bazooka fire that is the rush of the ending. The pace never dampens, the energy never fades again. There is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide…no let up, no drop. The snare punctures the air while the suddenly gigantic guitar lead locks in, deftly smashing what’s left of civilization as the world crumbles.  Magner switches to organ, filling up the room like a choir of ecstasy fueled angels…the punk drums return, the bass swells….higher and higher…..

…And the power chords of the “Run Like Hell” ending crush Roseland Ballroom into a singularity.

-This was followed by an intermission.-

Set II begins in earnest with the most rock song of rock songs that the Disco Biscuits possess…the ZZ Top infused “M.E.M.P.H.I.S.” An ode to a southern road trip and a canine companion, this “M.E.M.P.H.I.S.” starts innocently enough, cruising the verses and chorus into a hip hop style beat  where Gutwillig lays low, Brownie sits on a malevolent single note phrase, and Magner runs ghost-like cues across the spectrum. The jam goes to dissonance before Brownie begins a bluesy take, gently nudging Barber to do the same. Magner continues the apparitions, until Altman’s steady beat drops to a single high hat rhythm, before breathlessly hitting back into the groove. The licks give way to a star-trekian synth lead, squaring deep in the spinal cord until Barber tags in to deliver a boisterous and cascading solo….the fury of swirling notes from all three melody players is a foreshadow of the chaos to come, but it provides it own epic scene here at the tail end of the jam.  A snare roll up fakes an ending, Barber now unloading all over the space provided…a second snare count up now, 4 lengthy measures long and leading to the triumphant return of the verse. “M.E.M.P.H.I.S.” is one of the songs in the catalogue that generally contains a second jam, moving into another song entirely…as is the case here. Often the feel reprises the first jam to a certain degree…but this jam entrance dissolves quickly, leading to spring-loaded Magner hits quietly tip toeing around a diminutive beat. Altman doesn’t wait long, though…he returns to his battle with the snare drum, punching out coordination for the unit, before dipping again. Spacey keyboard fills the atmosphere, with the bass nearly ambient. 

The high hat remains, tapping ever so slightly...constant but alive. Hopping. Hopping. Hopping.

A snare fill from Altman attempts to start the next song, but the other three continue the hopping. Up and down major scales, arpeggios of skill and grace. Ambient funk quiet as a mouse, but still holding down a groove that could make a statue sway. Hopping. Hopping.

The jam unfastens itself. Layers of composition enter one by one. A single guitar quarter note repeated. Then a wave of synth chords. A rimshot beat that continues to hop. “Crickets” manifests as if from a smoke filled dream. The band takes its time before descending into the single refrain, lamenting the hard end of our insect friends in the dark of the evening. The jam of a “Crickets” is a singular event in a life…no other music on earth is quite like it. It’s form is so simplistic yet nuanced beyond belief. It’s a happy hardcore techno beat, but that doesn’t nearly describe the complexity of the music above it. The jazzy layering of the guitar spliced with elevating synth notes, all rides above a fast motioning bass line. Brownie holds this jam more than any other, keeping pace with the flurry of his drummer, while providing the bedrock that his guitarist and keyboard to waterdance on.  His envelope filter turns his notes into balloons of imagination, propelling a rolling mechanism of physics and commotion. Magner and Barber are playing a billion notes in every direction, exploding out the sides of the giant avalanche machine….Brownie holds the fort like a laser blasting tank. His playing is beyond genre and description, providing a giant crater of deep end while his band mates blister the higher registers. At 5:45 into the recording, Gutwillig falls into a beautiful mid-range complimentary line to Brownie….a calm soldier seeing about the fray. The pace is faster, the drums take on a speed metal feel that doesn’t surrender. The guitar is a beautiful frozen moment in time…it erases to shared dissonance with Magner but returns as Brownie comes back to the planet on the root note. 

The phrase is echoed in everything Barber plays….and at the moment of utter insanity and next to the point of falling apart…the band miraculously changes key…holds for a moment…and then breaks into the major key finale of “Shelby Rose.”  Altman never breaks the pace, thrashing through the ending as Gutwillig hits the lead perfectly, and the band sings through the final chorus, before inverting the song and starting from it’s beginning immediately after. The moment happens so quick, but it’s huge and powerful and undeniable. This particular merging of the two songs is a seminal moment in the band’s history…it shows many veterans and rookies alike another impossible musical event that is now possible. It’s beyond a thorough understanding of what kind of practice or rehearsal or experience leads to a 5 minute moment like that…but undoubtedly there’s some luck and magic involved. And a lot of sweat from the band.

“Shelby Rose’s” speedy run-through is still a breather, saving us a raspy Brownie’s otherwise soulful crooning, and moving back to the modified jungle beat that is the staple of Shelby’s over the history of the band. Magner tries to calm things down by laying on Rhodes chords, while Brownie whittles a thoughtful line in the back. The beginning is liquid cool water, gradually lead by a slow Magner synth pad that slyly brings the jam from “Shelby” back into “Crickets,” although only the brilliant tracking of the recording might tell you that. It’s so smooth, even though you realize all at once that the jungle has perfectly morphed into fast ska-trance, and the major keys barely give away the ghost. This is the most gradual jam of the night, patience winning out until Altman begins the drum ascent back into a beat that is happy hardcore mixed with ska…but faster than either genre has ever produced. It transcends electronic music in every sense…no computer-made music could have this life and vitality, but more tangibly, the speed and morphing ability. The tempo is brilliantly absurd…and relies on inhuman snare work by Altman to drive the point home and keep it all from escaping down the side of the mountain. The cymbals balance the drive, the organ fills the gaps…and Gutwillig whips through a fierce matrix of notes over the top, each phrase hitting the energy higher. At the right moment, the lead line of the jam appears, adroitly nailed and putting an exclamation point on an exhibit of beauty, speed, and sadness the likes of which music hadn’t seen.

 “Crickets’” second jam, a funk extrapolation played at the thematic high speed of the evening, features some of the ghost noises Magner used at the start of the “M.E.M.P.H.I.S.” second jam, and a cocky Gutwillig riff takes hold of the groove and runs with it. Brownie would spend most of 2002 playing some incredible slap sections on his instrument…this jam was a good predecessor. It pumps the whole room, up through his dropout with Altman, which showcases the weird jazzy circus music of Magner and Gutwillig. The beat and purpose pick up from there, flirting in and out of the bass riff that cues the end of the jam. The band seems to be marching towards an end…but a second (absolutely brilliant) dropout sequence morphs the band into a psych rock moment, rotating the band further from home. The dissonance spreads into a slashing run towards home, using a rock beat to further the goalposts until again, Brownie hits the familiar notes….but wait….NOT DONE! A snare roll keeps a note sustained in the air, Gutwillig switching to a wah part while Magner uses the synth waves of the intro to construct one more jump from reality. At the end of this short burst, the bassline takes over, and the band moves, ever so gradually, into the final transition to the vocal refrain. To his credit, Brownie tries several times to jump back out…it is wonderfully clever. A slow, drippy take of the chorus ends the sequence, which hard stops to a moment of reflective silence, surrounded by a massive audience cheer.

The remainder of the set is indicative of the 2001 mindset: as a contrast to its 2.0 later years where full segue shows were the norm, early Disco Biscuits actually preferred playing a number of standalone songs per show. There’s an obvious confidence in being able to explore outside the realms of the composition even within a standalone format. “House Dog Party Favor,” thankfully, fits this mold perfectly. Effectively three huge sections in one song, the composition begins with the 6/8  hyper-space bar mitzvah crooning of a man institutionalized, dealing with the realities of his bondage. The song sways breezily through its composed classical mockups, interspersing the nonchalant “oh yeahs” with fugue like stops and stutters. The second section truly begins with a jaunt into 5/4, plugging a very quick proggy ELP like section before a drawn out jam in the rugged time signature. As with the first set’s “Moon” jam, the precision with which Altman and Brownie play in the odd time is mind-blowing. There is perceptible and skilled groove within the harder jamming circumstances, and the band shifts dynamically in a brilliant fashion. Altman’s consistency while playing small is a real commodity here, allowing Magner and Gutwillig to float on the surface of the water for extended periods of times to harness hooks and licks. Brownie  channels Phil Lesh in bouncing around the fretboard, keeping the 5/4 in place when Altman jazzes up his own take for a few moments. The band accrues bursts of energy as they start to move through the swinging jam…Gutwillig takes a moment to find a bearing, but eventually grabs on to the mountain and begins to not just climb, but jump. He leads into the main lick, as the band begins a pretentious but heartfelt counting sequence that’s usually a wonderful indicator of how trashed the band was/is, or how sharp they are that night....They nail it, for what it’s worth.

The verse and chorus that follow start to show signs of fatigue, but the end of the tale brings the third and most ferocious chapter of HDPF…the waltz. A marching cryptic techno bedrocks a 6/8 or ¾ jam that feels as electronic as anything that night…other than most electronic isn’t in 6/8. Magner lets loose here, summoning synth banshees that overload the synapses before falling back in line. Altman deftly switches from a techno beat to more of a rock…in some ways, it’s a harken to Rush. Gutwillig is barely noticeable until you realize he’s providing an entire middle landscape moving the opposite direction of Magner and Brownie…it’s a beautiful psychedelic ant-farm. Brownie controls the operation, always the threat of his returning to the gigantic and terrifying and familiar and perfect bass riff of “House Dog.” He threads this tension out, stamping on the buried remains singed by his melody players. Altman does not discard this energy, powering through the noise and fury of the night and holding steady. Magner jumps over the top, peaking his synth line early and often, pushing Gutwillig towards a final solo. The bass line returns, glorious and like home. Gutwillig doesn’t yield, pumping out his loudest notes of the nights to stand on top of the sound…until he slides his final note down back to the riff of the song, played hard and mean, while the band sings the final refrain.

The encore is more than quaint. This was a great lesson to learn, also…most bands don’t encore with two distinct 10 minute jams. In fact, pretty much no one does. Except the Disco Biscuits.

“Little Lai” is rickety but fun, with the nod to the streets of New York City right outside. This version is played at a slightly slower tick than most of the show, although you can almost tell Altman wants to move quicker. The jam is a fun return to the hip hop style that would go on to dominate 2002. Altman’s beat is the most interesting candidate here, with the rest of the band playing sly support crew. It does still speak to the ego-less playing that characterizes their more dance-able playing…nobody is stepping on each other, they’re working in tandem. This tribal fusion continues for a while, providing perhaps the show’s most sustained funk moment. The jam stammers for a bit, trying to catch some lightning…Gutwillig provides with a nifty riff, although the song generally stays within the fence. Altman grows his presence, but stays on tempo and on track. Brownie plays some truly interesting phrases before heading back to the ascending bass riff that ends “Lai.” 

Perhaps it’s the slightly anti-climatic take on the old reliable Brownie standard that leads the band to fire up the burner one more time for another Marc chestnut, the warhorse “Bernstein and Chasnof,” although the quick count off points towards it being the original plan. “B&C” runs through its  jamband mocking lawyer nonsense raveup to get to some interesting and weird techno spots spliced into its composition. The bridge especially gets weird and danceable from the get-go, featuring some moog-like synth lines that couldn’t be sexier. The jam features an extended tease by Magner (of something I don’t recognize) that he began toying with in the “Lai” jam, which is picked up on by Brownie and Gutwillig. Altman keeps it straight, double kicking every so often to push the groove. The band is at its most evil circus at this point, splaying a lazy major key haunting over an increasingly threatening bass line. Psy-trance swirling in the air, the rhythm section hammers the floor while Magner swirls around the peripheral. Again, Gutwillig appears from nowhere while all the while commanding the middle of the spectrum. As the beat picks up the snare and grows in a controlled chaos, Brownie corners the pocket, laying down a throaty black web of bass. Gutwillig picks up on his movements, and then Magner…at the 8:00 mark, all three are in complete lockstep, composing the healthiest of hooks on the fly, in the midst of utter madness and rage. The mode shifts to major and the power infuses to the whole band. The whole band, at the end of their journey, stays with the plan. Tired, spent…they push on! The speed actually picks up, and the bassline returns to well worn territory. Gutwillig explodes in one final burst of thunder, shredding the top of the frets in a waterfall like effect, against Magner’s organ and piano. The lead line pierces the night in a speed-rush landslide, followed by the 6/8 coda that sees the fist pumps of the crowd in full display one last time. 

There are no spoken words after the show. No announcements…just a slide whistle somewhere in the random night. The band leaves the stage, heading to Philly to play 2 more shows over 2 nights.

“nothing, no splash, no flash and no sound

all that is left is my feet on the ground

Now I remember that life was a ball

When I was the person in search of it all

There's one in a million I'd be here today

There's one in a million that I get to stay

And if I ask my maker to see me through

When it seems there's nothing more that I can do”

The echoes of the amplifiers rang in Roseland, years before it ceased to exist. 17 years later, I still remember a lot of it. And like I said…it’s a part of me now.