Brain Emoji? Blame Joe Marcinek & Michael Lyn Bryant
Brain Emoji? What the heck is/are Brain Emoji, and why does it/they keep popping up at Dunedin Brewery?
Those are very fair questions. For answers, you need to time-travel back ten years, about the time itinerant musician Joe Marcinek started bringing his traveling show from Indiana to the sunny shores of Dunedin. Marcinek plays all over the country with incredible musicians of all stripes (“Six Degrees of Joe Marcinek”), but he returns with regularity to Dunedin Brewery, where he has established a huge fan base and a powerful connection with brewery proprietor Michael Lyn Bryant, himself a great musician.
In addition to Marcinek’s shows with great bands, he and Bryant began a series of shows titled Brain Emoji. There are few if any set rules. This is primarily an opportunity to create music on the spot, and it is a joy to behold. I’ve been fortunate to catch quite a few of these collabs.
Fast forward to January 4, the first night of Marcinek’s Dunedin Brewery Snowbird takeover, with Brain Emoji on tap: Marcinek on guitar, Bryant on keyboards, synths, and Ableton Push, Vinny Svoboda on bass, and Tucker Sody on drums. Svoboda and Sody are veteran area players who can do anything, the perfect rhythm section for this set.
They opened with a solid, brooding piece, sculpting the sound in the room. By turns it got very uptempo and trippy with some great playing by Svoboda and Marcinek bending his strings, eventually twisting Floyd-ish. It was then we noticed the mic stand in the back corner as Songbird Shella stepped on stage. She offered breathless vocalese and percussion with several instruments as well. She fit so seamlessly into the mix. She even sang about “Brain emoji” at some point.
All the while, house sound engineer Chris Fama had everyone dialed in perfectly, and lighting wizard Zach Stafford was projecting on the wall above Sody’s drum kit. In the top quadrant created by the two metal supports, to be more precise. It was dynamite!
The jam almost teetered on dub, then got very funky, with the same intensity Marcinek delivers when he covers The Dead, especially “Shakedown Street.” They were about to take a break, but Bryant suggested they do “one more short one,” to which Marcinek replied, “Do we HAVE any short songs?” That brought the house down. And, yes, they managed one more trippy short tune!
Set two began with several actual songs: Bryant’s “Big Bang Theory,” Bryant on vocals as well as his toys, and “Soffa,” a Marcinek tune from his album JMIII. Then Bryant invited multi-instrumentalist Joe Cosas to the stage. Best known for his keyboards, he also had his trombone AND a guitar in tow.
They began creating a new tune featuring Cosas on electric piano and organ AND trombone. Svoboda was superb here, and Bryant overlaid clips of Alan Watts, undoubtedly the most sampled speaker on the jam scene. Suddenly it turned funky, Sody soaring, Marcinek playing sweet jazz, and Cosas on electric piano.
Bryant next noted that nobody would be playing his current instrument, and after the dust settled we had: Svoboda, drums; Marcinek, keyboards; Cosas, guitar; Cabe Crisler, bass; and Songbird Shella, vocalese and percussion. Cosas on guitar was a revelation; I really need to hear him doing that again! It was bitchin’! (Says so right in my notebook.) They hit true space, then some spoken-word excerpts from Bryant. Svoboda killed on drums, and Cisler is a beast. Songbird Shella was using this echo effect that made her sound like a ghost chorus!
However, the most fascinating part was the trio of “stylophones” played by Bryant, Sody, and Brian Doss. I have no idea what they are, but the sounds they created were badass, not to mention the grins on the three players as they collaborated.
This might have been the best part of the set!
The band in its original configuration returned for a rocker to close out a fabulous night of music.
Brain Emoji indeed!
