{"id":26830,"date":"2024-02-05T05:30:08","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T10:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=26830"},"modified":"2024-01-18T11:03:30","modified_gmt":"2024-01-18T16:03:30","slug":"the-third-minds-uncertainty-principle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/05\/the-third-minds-uncertainty-principle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Third Mind\u2019s Uncertainty Principle"},"content":{"rendered":"

From one perspective, the sounds made by The Third Mind, a 21st<\/sup> century collective of artists each acclaimed in his and her own right \u2013 has little to do with the music each of its members has made before. The group features Dave Alvin, co-founder of powerhouse proto-roots rockers The Blasters, along with bassist Victor Krummenacher, bassist with indie rock heroes Camper Van Beethoven.<\/p>\n

Other members of the group include folk-rocking singer-songwriter Jesse Sykes, Michael Jerome (in-demand drummer for Richard Thompson, John Cale and many others) and multi-instrumentalist David Immergl\u00fcck of Counting Crows and Camper Van Beethoven. (For the tour, Ratdog guitarist Mark Karan will take the place of Immergl\u00fcck.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And while it\u2019s true that The Third Mind\u2019s improvisational approach places it well outside the scope of nearly all of those groups, Alvin and Krummenacher don\u2019t view their latest collaborative project as an outlier. \u201cIn my other bands,\u201d Alvin explains, \u201cthere are certain songs of mine where we don\u2019t know how they\u2019ll end. That keeps everybody on their toes, and they don\u2019t get like, \u2018\u201dOh, I\u2019m so tired of this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s why I come and see you play a lot,\u201d Krummenacher tells him. Because although Krummenacher\u2019s journeys have taken him to wildly different musical places, he says that The Third Mind represents the realization of a long-held desire. \u201cI think there’s something special,\u201d he suggests, \u201cabout having a song as a general guidebook, and then working with people who are crazy enough \u2013 and competent enough \u2013 to use that script and then go off.\u201d<\/p>\n

That kind of unpredictability and reliance upon spontaneity and communication \u2013 writ large \u2013 is at the core of The Third Mind aesthetic. Using classic folk-rock songs of the \u201860s as raw material, The Third Mind embarks upon musical excursions that soar well beyond the parameters of the songs in their original form.<\/p>\n

The group tackles songs both beloved and obscure. The Third Mind\u2019s 2020 self-titled debut featured Fred Neil\u2019s \u201cThe Dolphins,\u201d and the band\u2019s latest (The Third Mind\/2<\/i>, released last October) included reinterpretations The Electric Flag\u2019s \u2018\u2018Groovin\u2019 is Easy\u2019 and The Jaynetts\u2019 haunting \u201cSally Go Round the Roses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the reasons why I\u2019m leaning toward the \u201860s sort of underground songs,\u201d explains Alvin, \u201cis that all of those [artists] came out of the folk\/blues\/garage band kind of thing.\u201d He says that within tradition is where he has always worked. \u201cIt\u2019s a different way of playing it,\u201d he admits, \u201cBut it\u2019s the same stuff; it\u2019s the same starting point.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Only on an improvisational classic like The Butterfield Blues Band\u2019s \u201cEast West\u201d (featured on The Third Mind<\/i>) does the group present an arrangement with more than a passing resemblance to the original. And even in the case of \u201cEast West,\u201d Alvin and his band mates are never reined in by preconceived ideas as to where the song \u201cshould\u201d go.<\/p>\n

Yet neither Krumenacher nor Alvin is comfortable with the label \u201cjam band\u201d being applied to what The Third Mind does. Alvin admits that \u201call of us have been involved in enough jams\u201d to concede that there\u2019s a fine line between the two. But with a chuckle, he observes that in group improvisation, \u201cyou\u2019re listening to each other more than thinking, \u2018Boy, I got off a good lick!\u2019 And you\u2019re going toward<\/i> something. Where in jamming, it\u2019s like, \u2018Fuck it; I don\u2019t care!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Krummenacher agrees. \u201cRock and roll jamming does leave a bad taste in my mouth,\u201d he says. But the give-and-take of improvisation at its best is something that he has grown to love. \u201cWhen I came up, the Grateful Dead were poison<\/i>,\u201d he admits. \u201cNow I listen to them and love it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alvin says that with most of his other musical endeavors, \u201cthere are those one or two places where we don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d That keeps things interesting for the players and the audience alike. \u201cBut with The Third Mind,\u201d he emphasizes, \u201cthat\u2019s the whole show!\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked to what degree that spontaneity extends with The Third Mind \u2013 do they even use a set list? \u2013 Krummenacher and Alvin cast glances at each other before breaking into laughter. \u201cWe did<\/i>, the one time we played live!\u201d Alvin cackles. For these dates on the band\u2019s first-ever tour, audiences will simply have to show up and find out.<\/p>\n

Playing together during the completely improvised sessions that yielded their debut \u2013 and more recently its followup \u2013 has helped the five musician develop a kind of mind meld, unspoken communication between them. So while they\u2019re conforming to structure ever so briefly as each tune lifts off, from there it\u2019s anybody\u2019s guess. \u201cIt\u2019s in the interior of the songs where things are going to happen,\u201d says Alvin.<\/p>\n

At this point in their respective careers, the members of The Third Mind are willingly facing \u2013 inviting<\/i>, even \u2013 the unknown. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to embrace the good, forward-thinking elements in the music,\u201d Krummenacher explains. \u201cThe idea is really rooted in what great music [represents]: freedom, exploration, fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo much of contemporary pop music is choreographed completely,\u201d Alvin says. \u201cRoots music, too.\u201d He says that he gets bored with \u201cdance moves and AutoTune.\u201d And taking that into consideration, he chuckles and suggests, \u201cSo maybe the most punk rock thing to do is have a group like The Third Mind.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From one perspective, the sounds made by The Third Mind, a 21st century collective of artists each acclaimed in his and her own right \u2013 has little to do with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26831,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,57,62],"tags":[618,4121,2323],"class_list":["post-26830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-psych","category-rawk","tag-dave-alvin","tag-the-third-mind","tag-victor-krummenacher","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-57-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26833,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26830\/revisions\/26833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}