On Tuesday night, acclaimed drummer Joe Russo gathered a few of his talented friends—bassist Mike Gordon (Phish), organist Robert Walter (Roger Waters, The Greyboy Allstars, Mike Gordon), and guitarist Nick Bockrath (Cage The Elephant)—for the third edition of his This Is Gonna Be A Blast series at Brooklyn, NY’s The Sultan Room.

The stakes, as always, were simple: Come to this extravagantly lit, 200-capacity club tucked away in Bushwick, plug in, and let’s see what weird sounds we can make for 80 minutes. Then, let’s do it again.

Much like the title of this article, the all-improv This Is Gonna Be A Blast series is like a setup for an outrageous punchline. Nobody knows what a given show is going to sound like—least of all, we suspect, the musicians—but if these names are being mentioned in the same breath, you can’t help but be intrigued about where the story might lead. Over the course of two performances (one early, one late), the novel quartet reliably gave credence to those intuitions.

What did it sound like? Well, a lot of things. There were moments of meditative groove, swinging jazz rhythms, maximalist fuzz-rock tangents, tasteful blues breakdowns, Floyd-ian cosmic extrapolations. There were times when heads banged across the sold-out dance floor, and times when the lucky attendees stood flummoxed amid dreamy puddles of amorphous sound.

We’re not going to try to explain 160 minutes of improvisation. We’ll just direct you to the full audio recordings, video clips, and photos below and confirm that it was, indeed, a blast.

The next edition of Russo’s This Is Gonna Be A Blast series is set to take place back at The Sultan Room on February 20th. For Vol. 4, Russo has tapped organist John Medeski (Medeski, Martin & Wood) and guitarist Nels Cline (Wilco) to join him. Limited tickets remain here.

Below, you can listen to full audio recordings of both the early and late shows and view a selection of videos from Tuesday’s improvised evening at The Sultan Room featuring Joe Russo, Mike Gordon, Nick Bockrath, and Robert Walter.

This Is Gonna Be A Blast Vol. 3 – Joe Russo, Mike Gordon, Nick Bockrath, Robert Walter – Early Show – 1/23/24
[Audio: nkLottery]

This Is Gonna Be A Blast Vol. 3 – Joe Russo, Mike Gordon, Nick Bockrath, Robert Walter – Late Show – 1/23/24

[Audio: nkLottery]

 

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This Is Gonna Be A Blast Vol. 3 – Joe Russo, Mike Gordon, Nick Bockrath, Robert Walter – Early Show Clip – 1/23/24
[Video: Uptown Toodeloo]

This Is Gonna Be A Blast Vol. 3 – Joe Russo, Mike Gordon, Nick Bockrath, Robert Walter – Early Show Clip – 1/23/24
[Video: 2nd Rail Productions]