> vs. ->

Back in the day, when we still traded tapes and getting your hands on a show didn't mean waiting until 2 hours after it finished and downloading it, i remember many heated discussions about what the proper way to signify a segue on a j-card was.

I know you clicked that link because you have no idea what a j-card is.

I am of the opinion, and this likely has something to do with my years spent following the Disco Biscuits, that a true segue has or does not have some very specific features.

In order for something to count as a segue, the band cannot stop playing. Period. Jams out of songs that end in an ambient fade away to SILENCE must be followed by a COMMA on setlists to signify that the song ended before the next song started.

Should another song grow out of the ambient fade or a band member start a new song before completely fading out then it is a segue.

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's move on to > vs. ->.

To say that a band "jammed into that song," there needs to be a clear moment when the improvisation morphed into the new song. For me, this is notated with ">" because there was nothing between the two songs. One literally melded into the other.

The best example of this on the recent tour would be the Drowned>C&P transition from Red Rocks. There is a clear moment when the band drops into C&P seamlessly from the Drowned Jam.

Most of the jams on tour however, are of the "->" variety, meaning that the jams petered out and another song was picked up without the sound stopping.

The reason i bring this up is because Drowned>C&P is not the best jam of anything. It is however the best TRANSITION and SEGUE we've heard this year.