The Breakfast

As Mike so articulately said, These guys shred.

The drummer is an absolute beast.  He could easily be mistaken for a hobbit, being less than five feet tall and having a thick beard and a bit of belly.  Despite of his small stature, he is large on the drums.  Some drummers are content with keeping the beat only, hitting the snare on the downbeat and keeping tempo with the hi-hat.  The Breakfasts hobbit on the drums is always moving, always hitting something.  He does the things a drummer needs to do, he hits the snare on the downbeat and keeps tempo with the cymbals.  He also does things he does not need to do, always filling the space between the beats with lively communication.

The bass player takes the opposite approach, but achieves the same results.  He keeps the pocket deeper than you would expect with the flurry of drumming behind him.  Somehow, the bass is able to exude warmth in its sound, across the scale, from high to low.  The bass player works magic through his willingness to keep quiet.  The bass is a minimalist instrument in The Breakfast.  When the playing is condensed as much as it is with the bass in The Breakfast, the silence makes the bass stand out that much more than it would if the bass was playing a plethora of notes, a la Les Claypool.  

The guitar is the guitar.  He is versatile, has fifteen thousand (give or take a grand) pedals, and can go from the funky wah of 70s blaxploitation to the hard edge of Steve Vai.  The guitar is so good that it does not need to be analyzed or analogized.  It is what it is, and The Breakfast would not be The Breakfast without Tims guitar.

The keyboard is the only part I have less than glowing things to say.  Perhaps it was the dynamics of the Jazzhaus, perhaps it was the mix, or maybe his playing was in such synchronous step as the guitar, but it was the only instrument that I consistently lost in the sound.  On Superfly Phaddy Fat and Hard Luck Harry, there were some moments of inspiration.  In those songs, I was able to hear distinctly a counter-melody moving against the guitar, rather than merely being an echo of it.

The Breakfast has improved SO MUCH since I last heard them.  They are so tight and so together that it becomes difficult at times, to distinguish whether they are playing an amazingly long yet completely composed song, and when it is improvisational jamming.  This last comment might not leap out as a compliment, but I mean it as such.  The band is really growing, really improving, and I look forward to hearing them again.

Richard - somewhere between wakeful dreaming and slumbering imagination

The crowd was small, and I would guess less than 30 people excluding those traveling with the band.  It was a bit disappointing, but as I told Tim, had you not told me about it, I would never have known.

Quote from: kindm\'s

great read considering the drama from yesterday.


Nice to see a positive write up.

:that:

Jordan has always been one of the tougher members of the band to hear sometimes. It is something we all have dealt with but when he does come through load and clear, watchout!

college kids on first day of spring break= kids going home