Welcome to the ninth edition of the The Barn’s These Are My Jams series. To see what this is all about, check out Volume One and for more jams, our landing page for the entire series.
I've been slowly been chipping away at getting caught up with posting these summaries. What's amazing about this run is the amount of music on it that made our year end lists. This was a great run featuring some unbelievable bands.
1. Date Palms is a duo, but they get a lot from just little. There's a deep, haunting psychedelic groove on "Night Riding The Skyline".
2. Real Estate is currently the process of releasing / previewing songs from their latest album. "It's Real" is a gem from their 2011 release Days and I've considered it something of a theme song for them. Expect great things.
3. From Date Palm's minimalists psychedelic Real Estate's psych-leaning pop, let's go full blow lysergic overload with Lumerians. "Dogon Genesis" is the track, the lead cut from their 2013 album The High Frontier.
4. William Tyler is kind of a Leo Kottke for a new generation. He does simply amazing things with just a guitar -- synthesizing a ton of influences and creating a very distinctive mood -- as he does here on "For Sarah".
5. Local band alert! Another fine addition to the Chicago post-rock crowd, Cave takes that jazz-influenced, but also has makes it a little danceable. That's what I took away from "Sweaty Fingers", which grooves hard and long, and features at various times in it's nearly 12 minute length guitar and percussion. I'll definitely be keeping my eye on these guys.
6. They grabbed armfuls of The Barn's year end awards, but the first time I had professed my love for Causa Sui was when they became "my jam". Please come to the USA. We love you. The track is "Eugenie".
7. An oldie but a goodie. I've enjoyed the Widespread Panic version of "Genesis" primarily, but when I was inspired to feature it as my jam, I wanted to go to the source and use a Jorma Kaukonen performance. Here, the delicate and thoughtful tune is performed solo and acoustic, but there are equally excellent versions available with acoustic and electric Hot Tuna.
8. Number eight on this list, but certainly closer to the top of my "must see live" list, Johnathon Wilson bridges gap between a lot of the folkier / song oriented stuff and heavier psychedelic or jam related material I share on This Is My Jam. "Dear Friend" has got it all -- and it bears repeating, JW's guitar tone evokes JG so much while not co-opting it. It just feels right to me.
