Review: Mike Gordon’s The Mossery
Mike Gordon’s The Mossery @ Kenny’s Castaways, October 18
Last night, the intimate Kenny’s Castaways club was transformed into “The Mossery” for an incredibly unique event to celebrate the release of bassist Mike Gordon’s new LP, Moss. Not only could attendees pose for Moss-y photos, obtain “moss-taches” and meet a live owl, but the event gave musicians of all talent levels a chance to jam with Gordon, drummer Joe Russo and a few members of Mike’s band over the course of two separate shows.
[All photos by Jeremy Gordon]
I must admit, I was worried The Mossery would turn into a shit show with incapable musicians rotating in and out with the house band – which consisted for the early show of Gordon, Russo and guitarist Scott Murawski. Luckily, the shit show never developed as a number of impressive guitarists, bassists, percussion players and keyboardists made the most of this rare opportunity to jam with some of the best cats in the biz. Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of cringe worthy moments and the near two-hour set had its ups and downs, but for the most part this “experiment” worked out and was entertaining for those who weren’t on stage.
Word spread far and wide about The Mossery over the past few days leading to a two-block line outside of the 175-person capacity club. There were a bunch of musicians who arrived well before the 7:30PM opening intent on jamming with Mike. Stage Manager Chris Friday kept a list of those who wanted to jam and did an exceptional job of rotating the jammers on and off of the stage and Mike did his best to play to the talents of those up there with him. READ ON for more on Mike Gordon’s The Mossery event…
The core group would vamp on the grooves from Moss with Mike and Scott calling out chord changes to the novices up there with them. After giving each guest a few minutes to jam with the house band, Friday would call out the name of a new instrumentalist to replace the old guest. Whenever a particularly capable player made it to the stage, Scott, Mike and Joe would challenge them by changing the tempo or groove mid-jam and most responded really well and followed along admirably. There was no hiding how excited the guests were to jam with the house band and one of my favorite parts of the evening was watching the glow emanating from those who had just left the stage.
There were no songs per say as the group would move from one Moss groove to another without any vocals being sung with the exception of a few musicians who sang improvised lyrics into one of the many mics setup on the stage. An MC took the mic at one point leading to a bit of heavy-metal rap that got Gordon bouncing up and down, while a harmonica wiz led the band through a blues-y section. All in all, the first session was quite a success and I can’t imagine Mike and his team expecting such a fine result from an event with so many unpredictable variables involved.
Mike Gordon Band drummer Todd Isler spelled Joe Russo for the late set, which also ran about two hours. You’ve got to hand it to Cactus. On a rare night off from Phish tour he made his way down to the city to promote his album in a way that gave over 100 musicians the opportunity to jam with him. Mike’s team did an amazing job of transforming the first venue Phish ever played in New York City into “The Mossery” and created an event worthy of the off-beat bassist. Moss hits stores today and is now available for purchase online.
Scott Bernstein
Scott Bernstein co-founded Hidden Track in October 2006 and was managing editor until taking over as EiC in January 2008. Scotty also writes for Relix Magazine and curates YEMblog.com.
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I would have killed to be one of those guys on stage with Gordon. This sounds amazing.
Such a great night. It was so much fun to be able to jam with gordo. I was the last guy to get up on stage. Do you happen to have any pictures of that?
Right on Will!
leave it to mike to come up with something crazy creative and successful – awesome!
who’s got my AUD?
Unreal experience….even though I didn’t play it was a ton of fun and very unique to experience. Mike even took the time to shake hands and talk to people as they left. Love cactus
I was lucky enough to play some percussion and get into a groove with Mike and his drummer during the 2nd session… I gotta say, this was probably one of the coolest things a musician of this caliber has ever done. KUDOS TO MIKE! We can only hope that something this special is done again!
(and good hangin’ scotty!)