01 Poked and Stroked

Goddard starts it with an homage to Barney Miller, joyfully established by Juan William Chavez on percussion, then picked up by Bill, and Goddard fools around with structure. It undergoes a guitar imprint, and the bass improvises, when the weather suddenly changes, and Sleet pops it up into an upward beat. When the guitar comes back in it gets a current of frenzy frothing away, always surrounded by percussion variations.
Keyboards pop in the mix with little four note songs. The bass bounds back up, and settles on an uplifting riff. Sleet begins demanding a rough count, then shifts into a shuffle, and signs off while the rest of us finish up whatever we were thinking of doing, and floats into a low, slow beat, as the keys tinkle away.
9m it reaches an apex, then Sleet steps up, changes up, Goddard goes down to one simple slide, Chavez flies, and weird guitar synth gurgles along the bottom. A lingering tip tap echoes the last chord to fade.

02 International Intrigues

Guitar romance starts a troubling spin into a vortex of sin, silence, stubbornness and senselessness, to a high pitch of cinematic drama; bass and drums holding a high pitch, synth ululating, and bass chords at intervals; relaxed and portentous at once.
4m, The jets take off for Alpha Centauri, Bill erupts in fury, and Sleet leads it up to a slowdown, then we all snap into active groove duty, at which point Sleet breaks it down, and the synth winds it all back up again.
Guitar fractures the soundscape with scraped note fragments, Sleet pops that, then an overwhelming synth comes looping in. Bill chimes in and we break it on down, forever catching up to the drum variations coming fast from Sleet and Juan. Goddard slides the bass on in, and Bill plays over it, and the synth plays under.
The chords get thick and chewy, between Goddard’s direction, my close follow of Thom, and Bill’s never-ending jam over it all.
11m, Goddard throws a strong rock riff in, and Juan and Bill challenge his hegemony. With Sleet behind them, they calm Goddard all the way back down and things get quiet. Then the bass comes back up with a butt shaker and a party maker, and Juan dusts it up real good.
Some dissonance pops up at just the right moment, nudging it back into Czechoslovakian Spy Movie terrain. The bass moves it up, and the synth and guitar head straight for outer space.
When Bill bursts back in, high and hard, I take off with prog rock arpeggios and Goddard gets very blocky and structured. Juan and Bill flutter over him with brittle flickers of hits, Sleet takes off on his own, Goddard follows, and Bill chimes up with high chords.
An appeal is briefly made to chaos with a string scrape, and Sleet sets a new style drum stage, Bill hits it steady, and Juan sculpts it with timbale top notes, and ends the piece tapping softer and softer until out.

03 Eric & Mary

(performed for and witnessed by Eric & Mary Thoelke)
A drum puzzle unfurls and Bill rips right in over Goddard’s one note restraint, the synth hurls several off beat taunts, then retreats into space sounds.
A fractious groove starts, with rim licks, impudence from the synth stops everything, and Goddard offers a four-note line, Bill shudders high over that, and the beats harden.
A metal clank jerks it, the bass gets badder, Bill bubbles over, the beat gets real, the groove comes, and Bill goes into master mode. Grooves evolve, the synth gets loud, and things back up under a Bill Morris shake.
The synth comes up, the drums get frantic, then break into a racing, forward thrust, until the drums slack off, the bass hits the lone notes to end the piece, under cover of congas.

04 The Vast Gamut

A soft thud, Sleet horn, the percussion gallops up, the bass throws long, lingering notes up at long intervals, horn gets middle eastern, quiet and suggesting the sightlessness of night. 4m, The laughing has already started, and Thom climbs up into the milk crate throne to smack em up, guitar funks in, rides some hard rock chords, and begins some simple little ditties, one after the other. I flutter a note, the bass chimes behind, Bill picks and chooses where he inserts what.
8m, The bass gets sweet, the guitar turns down, the drums slow and slide, more guitar pickery. Desperation yields to frenzy then fades, as Bill lays shimmer over the strangulated picking.
10m Sleet rescues me from myself with a rousing stomp, and I fall back to a two chord drive, leaving Bill’s lingering gildings to shine over the rock hard surface. Bass left flying, then leads back down swinging, and the synth bring us back to the 21st century.
13m The synth arpeggiates under a bass of staccato attempts, and leaves us to wherever Goddard goes; synth and bass reinforce the dynamics, bass and drums, and they reset on a bass beat. If you like riding in Cadillac comfort, then the bass will take you to a rock concert hop, the guitar goes pro, the drums hit that one, everyone goes solo for one great bar, then comes back to be disassembled by the assembled, while drums and percussion fly.
18m The guitar starts chiming chords, settling on a half stepper. A pop single that would have been a hit in the 60s turns to something more funky and forlorn, over and over, ending on a one and a one again. The plateau offers the advantages of sputtering chords, a lockstep rythym, and a double-step percussion section.
22m Synth breaks out of jail and gets loud. Splashy guitar flapping comes in, the bass wanders, the drums just roll. It wises up a little, the guitar flutters back up and hits a riff a bar or two. Guitar synth makes us tremble in sustained outbursts while my guitar wails under it all.
26m. It goes noble and overwhelming, up and up, sustained notes, driving drums, throbbing bass, and distorted guitar forever. The guitar introduces a simple two chord base, and the drums ornament it, Bill crashes overall, and we both pull back. Sleet starts something new, Goddard invents a quick start, I hit two chords, and we quit it quick.