Up from the basement, music geeks of decade ago still know how to jam

By J. Patrick Coolican

Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2007 | 7:25 a.m.

My best friend from college and I and his roommate Joel Cummins were hanging out on a Saturday afternoon, up to no good.

Joel had a gig that night with his band. It was every musician's nightmare - a dorm dance that no doubt would involve sweaty drunkards clamoring for "Brown Eyed Girl." He was avoiding it, and we were helping him by answering the phone and creating preposterous alibis.

Eventually, the band came and got him and took him off to the gig . I later heard about him breaking into an unannounced improv jam on his keys that featured a strange rendition of Van Halen's "Jump." It was out of character for him, at the time.

Later, Joel left that group and formed a band with a guy known as "Pony" and another guy I had poetry class with, Brendan Bayliss. ( Brendan and Pony had been in their own band called Tashi Station and played in the basement of my rambling pre-war house.)

I didn't know Brendan that well, except I knew he and the other guys were a year or two younger than we were, trying to fight the good fight - dreamers, drifters, poets at Notre Dame, known more for football and Thomas Aquinas than psychedelia.

So anyway, Joel and Brendan and Pony and some other guys got together, and they formed Umphrey's McGee.

It's been about 10 years since the creation of Umphrey's, and the other day I got my Rolling Stone, and David Fricke gave a nice review to UM's new double-disc live album "Live at the Murat."

How bizarre.

In a way, though, it's not surprising. They were always talented music geeks with a sense of adventure about them and a knowing irony: pretty much everything you need to be a great jam band.

When I called Cummins this week to interview him, he sounded the same as he ever has: down-to-earth with a sharp wit.

Fact is, though, he's not the same, nor is Umphrey's. New Year's Eve a couple years back, after the big annual show in Chicago, Brian Schultz, a close friend of the band, was coming home in a cab going to Cummins' house, when a drunk driver hit and killed him. Plus one of the band members went through a divorce.

The music and lyrics for a few years since have been heavy and hard.

"You can't avoid that when you're trying to make music and be honest about what you're trying to create. It was important to document it," Cummins said.

When you're around Notre Dame, sometimes it feels Pollyanna-ish, like everyone there, most of whom go on to corporate America, think life is nothing more than a series of cocktail parties celebrating success.

Umphrey's willingness to stare into the void of pain and loss without blinking and make music has given the band a depth you just don't find in our culture.

But it's about the music, too.

Cummins told me that about five or six years ago, they began to improvise more fully and with more focus while on stage, which for me and other jam band fans is the reason to be there. (I think I remember the beginnings of this experiment, because I saw them in the Green Mountains of Vermont in winter 2002. Man is it cold there.)

"If you want to see the same thing every night, there are hundreds of shows you can see. But this is something you can only see here and now and it might never happen again," he said.

Cummins is sheepish about it all, freely acknowledging the nights when all goes wrong, when the improvisation turns ugly.

Even on those nights, those of us from the old days remain loyal. (To give some idea of how tight the Notre Dame community can be, here are some connections: One of my best friends lived with the band in a house in Chicago's Wrigleyville, and worked with their deceased friend Schultz; my best girlfriend used to live with the manager, and so on.)

Having seen them over the years, in New Orleans and Columbus, Ohio, Seattle and New York City, I can attest to the fact that they get better every year, the sound more distinctive. It's a sound your head can swim in, and every head needs an occasional swim.

Musical evolution and change, Cummins said, are Umphrey's guiding principles, along with avoiding all the "VH1 Behind the Music" cliches.

Something else has changed over the years: I wouldn't dream of keeping Joel from an Umphrey's gig.