This week's #ThisDealInHistory is the first of a few clips that I've edited from our Feb 19, 2003 concert in Philadelphia, PA.
Philly is another one of those cities that took to tND very early on in the band's life. Somehow we managed to finagle a gig at the Khyber Pass back in early '99 and i think that was our first Philly show. Fifteen people probably showed up... Aron Magner from The Disco Biscuits being one of them, if i recall correctly. Love those guys...
This cut starts in the middle of an elongated "Moonscraper" intro. It sounds like we're just jamming in G-minor until 0:36 when i play the trigger for Moonscraper (in the key of D-minor, no less - sounds good, though). I start playing the MS chords at 1:08 (also in D-minor haha) and we keep the elongated intro going, slowly moving our tonal centre to F-major with dan playing a descending bass line that eventually lands on our target key of D-minor right on the drop at 2:30.
This intro perfectly demonstrates one of the key tND elements being developed in this time period: the use of shifting basslines over repeated chord progressions as a means to create meaningful harmonic structures and increased melodic tension. As the band developed its sound we slowly moved away from solely utilizing fixed chord progressions over static basslines and started to incorporate varying basslines over fixed chord progressions (as well as varying basslines over varying chord progressions) - all done, of course, without prior planning. Sometimes the random bassline changes clashed with the random keyboard chords, but more often than not the sum of the parts created a fresh musical statement that we never would have arrived at had we kept to some pre-planned agenda.
With that in mind, listen again to the Moonscraper intro and hear how the bass shifts underneath the familiar (and not-so-familiar) keys lines, thereby creating something that we had probably never played before (and have never played since). It's these types of things that, in my opinion, keep the New Deal musically interesting to both listener and performer.
The jam starts with Dan playing the MS keys rhythm on bass underneath some new blippy chords played on the Juno. Somewhere along the way i turn that Juno patch into a distorted guitar-type sound as we shift keys into a dirtier exploration in A-minor. The chords that start at 8:20 are part of a favoured progression that may or may not have been regularly incorporated into the Moonscraper jams in those years (i can't remember specifically - it's been a few shows since then...).
At 9:13 we double back to the original Moonscraper key with an eye towards returning to the second half of the song, but as is our wont we take our sweet time getting there, preferring to explore the outer limits of the Juno-106's pitch and mod wheels in combination with MSG's effects. A patient but intense build eventually gives way to the Moonscraper reprise at 12:17. Somebody clearly calls the "hard-stop" cue at 12:44, at which point we play out the ending melody. -Jamie
