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Grateful Guitars (Part 3): 8/13/23 Benefit Concert- Featuring Dark Star Orchestra members: Rob Barraco, Dino English, Skip Vangelas + Stu Allen and John Kadlecik

/ 01:25:47/E11
Dennis:

Welcome to Tales From the Green Room. Backstage conversations from popular music venues around the country curated by Mount Tam Media. Listen in as host Dennis Truzzillo and Mount Tam Media founder Tammy Larson dig up conversations with artists before and after shows in the exclusive confines of the green room. And now, Tammy, we have we are we have. Well, yeah.

Dennis:

We do. We have part 3 of the Grateful Guitars, 3 part series that we have presented for you folks from Tales from the Green Room and again from the, the bowels of the Great American Music Hall.

Tami:

Right.

Dennis:

And this one is pretty special. We have members of Dark Star Orchestra who made their way into the storeroom with us. And, we had such an enjoyable time, 1st with Rob Baraco.

Tami:

And for those who didn't catch the other 2 first episodes Okay. We are at the Great America Music Hall with the Grateful Guitar's benefit. Andy Logan was our first episode. Then we had Alex Jordan who is the director of swords. I guess he was a magician, really, for the whole event.

Tami:

And, so we covered Zach Nugent, Gary Lambert, Danny Eisenberg, and Johnny Mojo during the second episode. And then this was, just the the carryover of artists. We couldn't we couldn't get enough time, really.

Dennis:

Either that or we saved the best for last.

Tami:

We saved for last.

Dennis:

With all due respect to the other folks, as they were all equally amazing. Right. But, you know, Dark Star Orchestra, let's be honest, they are at another level sometimes Yeah. Some would say, and, just very dear friends also of Andy. So it was very appropriate we saved them for the last.

Dennis:

But so Rob Baraco, yes. First, the, incredible keyboard player there. Loved his, his insight into the breath. And and the funny thing about, Rob and also Dino English, who was, the drummer for Dark Star Orchestra. The funny thing about both those guys is they don't play guitars, and we were wondering what the heck they were doing there now.

Dennis:

I mean, we knew what they were doing there, but how all this impacted them

Tami:

Right.

Dennis:

Playing, these amongst these, iconic historic instruments. And they gave us their answers, and it was good. Mhmm. And then there was Skip. Skip Vangelis, the bass player for Dark Star, who was, you'll hear, presented and gifted a guitar, a bass guitar Right.

Dennis:

That was made for him Right. By Andy and the Grateful Guitars Foundation, and he was ecstatic.

Tami:

He really was.

Speaker 3:

And we got

Dennis:

to talk to him really moments after he received that honor. And then, of we thought it was appropriate to toss in, so to speak, Stu Allen. You don't toss Stu in. Stu is amazing. No.

Tami:

We don't toss Stu.

Dennis:

And Stu though has sat in with Darkstar, so he was certainly an appropriate interview. And we grabbed him. We grabbed Stu, who was, he's not, he was a little reluctant not to talk with us, but just to talk in general and said, Oh, I don't know if we can do it. And he was awesome. Yeah.

Tami:

He ended up being great.

Dennis:

He was great. And he actually had fun, as he said. And then John Kalechek, the founder of Dark Star Orchestra. about that? And we got him just before he went on stage, which was the case with a couple of these folks. So you'll notice they have to slip out. Right. Yeah.

Dennis:

So anyway, let's start it off with, Rob Baraco.

Tami:

Sounds good.

Dennis:

So, welcome, Rob.

Rob:

It was good to be here.

Tami:

Yeah. Yeah.

Dennis:

So I I I tell you the first thing that comes to mind for me is all these guitar these guitar players, you know. I got to play alligator. I got to play that Martin. What happens to the keyboard player? What does he get to do?

Rob:

I have a joke about that.

Tami:

Oh, good. Oh, I know.

Rob:

It's it's everybody's always telling me, you know, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Andy, Jeff was telling me, Andy had copies made of Alligator and he gave me one. So I'm like, where's my Steinway?

Tami:

Yeah. Right?

Rob:

I wanna know why nobody will give me a Steinway.

Speaker 3:

Why is it called? He has

Tami:

a lot he has some gear. He has a gear in that garage that we thought of.

Rob:

Of course, it's a joke because because who's gonna give you a Steinway? No.

Tami:

We get the joke.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. We

Tami:

get the joke Yeah. For sure.

Dennis:

What, so what do they have you doing tonight with, other than doing your great keyboard work? Is there any equipment gear or something?

Rob:

No. No. I'm just playing straight a curse wild, you know, digital keyboard that has a really great piano sound. And, and I think I'm only playing piano, not even organ. So

Dennis:

Oh, okay.

Tami:

Which do you prefer?

Rob:

Piano.

Tami:

Okay.

Rob:

I'm a pianist. I I dabble on the organ. Yeah. I started as a classical organ major in college.

Tami:

Really?

Rob:

I couldn't deal with it. It was, it's too dry For me. And, and then I got turned on to jazz piano players, and that was the end of that. Wow. So I switched.

Tami:

That's amazing.

Dennis:

I hear I what's that?

Tami:

That's in that with your music. There's music going on here.

Dennis:

I heard, one I think it might have been Danny Eisenberg said, about the organ with the tones that have, you know, sort of improved or the the variety over the years. He absolutely prefers just a straight up instrument still.

Rob:

Yeah. The the the Hammond B3 is an iconic instrument. And what's great about it is no 2 are this are alike. They're all different. They're, if you ever looked inside of 1, it's so interesting.

Rob:

It's it must be 10,000 wires. Yeah. And and the mechanics of it are is so ridiculously interesting. And, but they all sound different.

Tami:

Yeah.

Rob:

And it's, I I own 2 Hammonds. They're both 1958, Cherrywood. One is a b 3, one's a c 3. The c 3 is a more of a church cabinet. Same guts though.

Tami:

Wow.

Rob:

And, they but they sound so great. And you through the years, digitally, they've been able even Hammond came up with their own version, you know. But there's just something missing in the of the sound, you know. It's like, not really there, you know. I once saw Joey Defrancesca play with John McLaughlin, and he used it looked like a hammered b 30, but it was all digital.

Rob:

And you could hear it. You could hear it. Even him, who's he's so great. Yeah. But you can hear the difference.

Rob:

And then you go and see him play on a real Hammond. It's like night and

Tami:

day. Yeah. That's a little similar as with the guitar.

Speaker 3:

What does

Rob:

that mean? What is this? What is that? It just means it's

Speaker 6:

that certain, you

Tami:

know Our jingle ball.

Dennis:

You know what I mean? You know, it's funny because, Tammy has a bird that's been hanging out in the outside lands festival this week. And we were sort of

Tami:

commenting on is, you know, are

Dennis:

these real instruments being played or is it just music being played? Yeah. So that's a whole another story.

Rob:

That's a whole

Dennis:

another story. Another story. Yeah. So when did you, meet Andy Logan?

Rob:

You know, I can't I can't pinpoint the date. Probably somewhere around 20, 17. At the Great American Music Hall.

Dennis:

Mhmm. Which is where we are now. What do you know?

Rob:

No. I'm sorry. I take that back at the Warfield.

Dennis:

Oh, the Warfield. Okay. Yeah.

Rob:

That's why I'm very tired of that.

Tami:

Yeah. That's okay. I know.

Dennis:

I everybody many people here have been traveling back and

Tami:

forth. Yeah.

Dennis:

So, here here's what I wanna ask. So even though you're not touching the instrument that was played by the Grateful Dead, for example, I believe, Scott Guberman did play Brent's keyboard at one point at a Sweetwater show. And if you're aware of that.

Rob:

Yeah. I I own some of Brent's instruments. Okay. You do. DSO DSO actually owns, one is mine.

Rob:

It was given to me by Phil's road manager many years ago when I was playing with Phil. And they were getting rid of all the stuff in the warehouse. And he says, would you like one of the fender roads that's here? He goes, we have, like, 5 of them. So some of them probably were Keith Godchow's and the other ones were Brent.

Rob:

So I said, sure. He goes have he goes have a car here tomorrow morning at the loading dock. We were playing at Jones Beach Theater on Long Island. That's where I lived. So I called my son up.

Rob:

I said, 10 o'clock tomorrow morning, be at the loading dock at Jones Beach. And he shows up in his car. Robbie opens up a truck. It's the only thing in the truck is this Fender Rhodes.

Tami:

Wow. Really?

Rob:

I took it. I brought it home. And when the tour was over, I got home and I opened it up. And I realized right away what it was. So I called Robbie and I said, is is is this a practice one or is it he goes, no.

Rob:

It's the one he used. So I was really excited to to have that. And now, when DSO recreates those particular show 79, 80, 81

Dennis:

You use it.

Rob:

I use it. And it's it's the real deal. Wow. And then, Brent had this really iconic instrument from, 83 to 86. Yamaha made their first digital keyboard.

Rob:

It was called the GS 1. It was the precursor, to FM synthesis. They they came out with the DX 7, which was everybody and their grandmother had a DX 7. Right. But this one predated that.

Rob:

And it looked like a little baby grand piano, and it was made to only play in your house.

Speaker 6:

Uh-huh.

Rob:

But all of a sudden, there's Brent Midland with 1 on stage with the Grateful Dead. And when, when DSO started, one of their patrons, back in the early days, was collecting keyboard instruments. And he bought it off of Brent's widow. So we had it.

Dennis:

Damn.

Rob:

And I used it for a whole bunch of years and then it died. Oh. Oh, no. So now we're we're trying to we're we're trying to get it fixed, and nobody can fix it because the the parts are ancient.

Tami:

Right.

Rob:

So I call Yamaha up and, in Japan. Yeah. And I I get a woman on the phone who speaks English. And, I said I told her, you know, what the story is. She goes, what instrument are we talking about?

Rob:

I said, the GS 1. She goes, oh, GS 1 was made before I was born. Good luck.

Tami:

Oh my god. Click.

Speaker 3:

And that was the

Rob:

end of that.

Tami:

Oh, wow.

Rob:

Turns out the guy, unbeknownst to us, had another one. It wasn't France, but it was so now we have that one in it. And it's the coolest sounding instrument ever. If you listen to any dead shows from 83 to 86, you it's it's it's so distinct.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. Yeah. That's so cool. Yeah.

Rob:

It's cool.

Tami:

I know. I know. We're all about guitars, you know. So I was like, this

Dennis:

is So I what I was gonna ask is, you know, when you're on stage watching somebody play Alligator, you know, is that kind of transcend over to you? But I I forget that question. I mean, you're playing Branson

Speaker 3:

Keyes. Yeah.

Dennis:

Yeah. And Does it feel different? It it you know, it's it's

Rob:

it doesn't feel different, but knowing the history of it means something to me. You know? It's like you gotta you gotta figure that there's gotta be some kind of electricity that's gone through that thing that and it's still there somehow.

Tami:

Oh, yeah.

Dennis:

And it's going through your mind. Right?

Rob:

Yep. But it's in definitely in my mind.

Dennis:

It's definitely in your mind. That's what so that was when you were with the queue? Was that when they we you you found out they're getting rid of the

Rob:

The Fender Rhodes. Yeah. That's what I was playing with the queue.

Dennis:

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's cool. Wow.

Dennis:

Good story. I know. Right on. Okay. Well, listen.

Dennis:

What do you expect tonight with all these magical instruments up there?

Rob:

Oh, it's I mean, first of all, you have you have a room full of amazing musicians. And, most of the musicians have played together in one form or another.

Speaker 3:

Mhmm.

Rob:

Obviously, my guys from DSO are here, so we're gonna play. And, I've have literally played, you know, over 25 100 shows with those guys.

Tami:

Beautiful. So

Rob:

that's gonna be you know, that's what we do.

Dennis:

I mean, I just read you guys surpassed the amount of

Speaker 6:

Oh, that's a long time ago now.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. I don't

Tami:

know how people know that, but that's that's amazing.

Dennis:

I think, yeah, with so how many you've been We're

Rob:

well over 3,000. Well,

Dennis:

over 3,000. Yeah.

Rob:

The dead only played, what, 24100 or something?

Dennis:

Lightweights. Yeah. Yeah. Lightweights. Right?

Tami:

So what about you? So do you have any other things that you're doing on the side on

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Tami:

Projects that you'd like to?

Rob:

I'm always writing and and working stuff out. Mhmm. I'm a jazz fanatic and, you know, I years ago, I used to play in jazz bands. Uh-huh. And you you just can't make a living playing jazz, you know.

Tami:

It's too bad.

Rob:

I I would always get sucked into Grateful Dead bands because they knew I knew the repertoire. And and because it's I get to utilize all that.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. Totally. But I have

Rob:

a band out here called California Kind.

Tami:

Okay.

Rob:

And, we stopped playing in 2019, after our last small tour, COVID hit, and that was kind of the end. And when Andy called me to do this show, less than an hour later, do you know who Barry Sless is?

Tami:

Of course.

Rob:

So Barry Barry

Tami:

He's everywhere. Barry calls

Rob:

me up and he goes, listen, we have California Kindness a chance to do 2 shows. I go, when? You know, I live on Cape Cod. You

Speaker 6:

know, it's hard for me.

Rob:

He goes, oh, and he gives me the dates. I'm like, oh, wait a minute. I'm gonna be in San Francisco on 13th. It's the next weekend. I said, yeah.

Rob:

I'll just stay out. You know?

Dennis:

That's great.

Rob:

But then then he calls me back about an hour later. He goes, oh, by the way, Moon Alice, we don't have a keyboard player to play the Oakland A's baseball stadium. You're doing that too.

Tami:

Seriously?

Rob:

Okay. What

Speaker 7:

else am I gonna do?

Rob:

And then 20 minutes later, Dino, our drummer from DSO, calls me up. He goes, what are you doing on Monday after the Great American Show? I was like, well, nothing. He goes, I got a backyard party. You you play?

Dennis:

Yeah. We'll be there.

Tami:

Whitney's. We'll be there tomorrow night. Yeah. That's great.

Rob:

So so all of a sudden, you know but California Kind, was a really special project for me. I always wanted to be in a band with Barry. Yeah. And, he called me up. This was probably in 2015 or 16.

Rob:

And he said, I'm playing with this woman from Southern California, young woman named Katie Skeen. She's really amazing. She's a great songwriter. And it's me, John Molo, Pete Sears. You you're you're the perfect fit for it.

Rob:

And I was like, Barry, man. You guys live in California. It's too hard for me. I was living in New York then.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Rob:

And, I said, just get Mookie to do it. No. No. This is not a gig for Mookie. This is for you.

Rob:

This this is specifically for you. I was like, alright. You know, I don't know. You know, so I kinda turned it down. And then Pete Sears calls me up.

Rob:

You're dead.

Tami:

Yeah. You're dead now. I'm dead.

Rob:

You're dead. Rob, it's Pete Sears. Rob, you you have to do this gig, man. It's it's so cool and it's it's got your name written all over it.

Tami:

That's a terrific accent.

Speaker 3:

And I

Rob:

was in

Dennis:

That is the best.

Tami:

I know.

Rob:

And and I I so I so I flew out and, and we rehearsed. And and within about half an hour, I realized, like, he was right,

Speaker 3:

you know.

Rob:

And and the fact that I always wanted to be in a band with Barry. Yeah. Yeah. I've known him for years. I've played with him in different projects, but never in a band.

Tami:

Yeah.

Rob:

So it was really cool. And, you know, it it, the sky was the limit, you know. It was kinda like playing with the queue in a way, you know. Like Phil Phil's thing was just play. Play.

Rob:

Don't worry about sounding like anything. You don't wanna sound like the Grateful Dead. Just be yourself and do your thing. And that's kinda what California Kind is for me.

Tami:

So Very cool. Well, we're gonna

Dennis:

we're gonna get to see you know, there's a you're doing something at Sweetwater, California That's

Rob:

that's California Con. Next Sunday.

Tami:

That's it. Oh my god. It is

Dennis:

a birthday party for, a couple of Julia, Postel, and Russ.

Speaker 6:

Who are out

Dennis:

in the scene. That's right. Told Tammy about it

Tami:

last night.

Dennis:

We got invited this, 75th birthday party. They're such cool people.

Rob:

Great.

Tami:

Yeah.

Dennis:

Yeah. So, well, good question.

Tami:

Yeah. Yeah.

Dennis:

Really, but Fantastic. Rob, have fun tonight. Great to meet you. Yeah. And, we will, see you around, apparently.

Rob:

Yeah. Thanks.

Dennis:

For sure.

Rob:

Thanks for having that. Yeah.

Tami:

Absolutely. Thank you so much. Alright.

Dennis:

I mean, Rob Baraco is such a fun guy, such a fun guy to talk to. I don't know. I'm always gonna remember the comment the way the way that came out and, just really enjoying him. But, you know, not to be outdone, we found somebody else from Dark Star Orchestra, drummer Dino English. And what a cool dude, understated Wow.

Dennis:

Humble.

Tami:

And I was just blown away by all these guys, but yeah.

Dennis:

And he has, you know, some of his own little side projects going that we got into. And what was great about Dino too is we were going into this discussion on tone with all the guitars. And as he said, it took a drummer to really explain it to us. Yeah. So, let's hear from Dino.

Dennis:

Right on. Dino English. Hi, guys.

Tami:

Hi. Welcome.

Dennis:

Welcome. Are you tired?

Tami:

Yeah.

Speaker 8:

I guess you heard about it. Yeah. Did did you did you hear about the airport?

Dennis:

I know. I just heard we were

Tami:

just we were just

Dennis:

Rob, but tell us because Rob just said, I'm sorry I'm tired when he was stumbling in both.

Speaker 8:

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm relatively kinda with it. This is so if I stumble, that's just my regular. So, let's see here.

Speaker 8:

Yeah. We, had we played in Dayton last night, 11, showing it at 11, and and then, took a 6, o'clock. Well, 4:30 AM shuttle to the airport, you know, and

Speaker 4:

Oh, god.

Speaker 8:

I guess that's part of the

Tami:

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 8:

That's just what some

Dennis:

you know, we don't have to

Speaker 8:

deal with that too much, but it happens every now and then, of course. And it probably happens to everybody. You know, we have to all get up early one time and another and Yep. But, what was, difficult about this one was getting across, you know, Atlanta airport. Yeah.

Speaker 8:

The the first plane is late getting in. You land. Their other plane is already loading

Speaker 3:

No.

Speaker 8:

And it's on the other side of the airport and, you know, there's not and they're like, we we we booked you on you get in 11:30 PM. Oh,

Dennis:

no. Oh, like tonight?

Tami:

Yeah. Oh. Oh, you're like, that's not gonna work.

Speaker 8:

That doesn't work. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 8:

So, I feel very lucky to be here and Yeah. It's, you know

Tami:

They haven't figured out teleporting yet.

Speaker 8:

We we ran across we we we sprinted across that airport up and down the stairs. I mean, I haven't that was a morning jog for sure.

Tami:

We're gonna make sure Andy knows that.

Dennis:

Yeah. Yeah. It's kinda the old Loujay.

Speaker 8:

Bronco and I, we're, you know, we're we're like Wow.

Speaker 6:

Wow.

Dennis:

Well,

Tami:

it was I'm so happy you're here.

Dennis:

I think it's gonna be

Speaker 3:

worth it, don't you?

Speaker 7:

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 8:

I mean, I love Andy, and he's a wonderful person.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 8:

You know, we all know that.

Tami:

You know? And,

Speaker 8:

I'll do anything for him. Yeah.

Dennis:

You know?

Tami:

Yeah. Sounds good.

Dennis:

So some magic is gonna happen tonight. We know that, just because of the instruments. But here's the thing, and I asked Rob too. We you hear all about the guitars. Right?

Dennis:

The Martin and the the alligator and the mission control. What do they have for you as the drummer? What anything for you?

Speaker 3:

What what

Tami:

what are they gonna give you?

Speaker 8:

I got a little instrument up there. There's a a really, really fine drummer named Alan Hertz, played with KVHW back in the in the day. He's he now resides down in Southern California and has a studio. But, I bought his drum set not too long ago.

Speaker 3:

So Oh, nice.

Dennis:

It's a I

Speaker 8:

had him I made sure he signed it, each the Tom inside. So that's that's my

Tami:

That's my

Dennis:

first one.

Speaker 8:

Little addition that you

Tami:

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 8:

He's a great drummer, so I respect him and everything.

Dennis:

So when you when you when you play a a instrument like that, an respected instrument, so to speak, does it feel different?

Speaker 8:

There's magic. Yeah. I mean,

Dennis:

Here we go.

Speaker 8:

I do play a little guitar. You know, I'm, I actually play guitar in a band, but I'm nothing like these guys, of course. I had just more used it for songwriting purposes. But, I've had the pleasure of picking up the guitar. You know, Andy was gracious enough to let me.

Tami:

Yeah. You know Yeah.

Speaker 8:

Sit there and strum it and play it, and it's like Yeah. Yeah. You can feel.

Tami:

Yeah. That's the that's the that's the key that you want.

Speaker 8:

Magic juice to juju. It was just amazing stuff.

Tami:

So cool.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Dennis:

And and how about when you're on stage with others playing it? Like, tonight, you will be. People will be playing those guitars. Is that kinda permeate through the rest of the band members?

Speaker 8:

It certainly can in the right hands for sure. Other people, you know, it's like guitar, tone comes from everybody has their own tone, and it's a touch, you know. Beyond the knobs, that you can turn and set the knobs at a certain thing.

Tami:

Mhmm.

Speaker 8:

If you pass that around around from a guitar player to part, guitar player, they're gonna sound different. Yeah. Just Yeah.

Tami:

We keep hearing about that.

Speaker 8:

Even if it's the same licks that they're doing, they're Wow. You know, you can you're they're they're gonna there's something inherent you that you cannot you know, it's your yourself. It's your your fingerprint almost. Yeah. That's amazing.

Speaker 8:

So, these guys, you know, all all great players, all all fabulous players that I I love their playing tremendously. But, you know, you get it in in somebody's hands who's not really versed in the way of the the the that these instruments have sounded before, and they're going for their regular tone.

Tami:

Right.

Speaker 8:

And they're trying to you know, they might be you know, I've heard, you know, know, some other players that are just kind of outside of the whole Garcia sound.

Dennis:

Right.

Speaker 8:

And, you know, they just end up sounding like themselves on the guitar. Yeah. Right. I mean, it's no

Dennis:

slight there, but just Yeah.

Speaker 8:

No. It's no slight, but it's just, you know, it's just they're going for their sound. It's different.

Dennis:

Yeah. It's a real thing. So the tone, sort of for the layperson, the tone really, it could be by era because of the guitar, but it could also be different just because of the player. Absolutely.

Speaker 8:

You know, there there's some everybody, you know, it's kind of a it it can be kind of a discussion topic on some of these, Mhmm. Forums and stuff where, the exact settings that Jerry used to use. You know? Right. And, I think that all that information is is really good to know.

Speaker 8:

Yeah. But then, what most of these guys do is they encapsulate that Yeah. Into their own Yeah. Thing. And so they have their own sound.

Speaker 8:

You know? And it's it's, it's a bit of an ode to Jerry, but it's a bit of themselves as well. Yeah.

Tami:

So that's exactly what Jerry would have wanted. Right?

Dennis:

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 8:

It's a Jump jumping off point. Right? From, Yeah. Yeah. They're, they they are you know?

Speaker 8:

And, yeah, none of these guys, I don't think, approach it exactly the same. Mhmm. You know, like, oh, no. I don't do that. I'll you know?

Speaker 8:

Or that you know?

Dennis:

That's the beauty of it, though, isn't it? Yeah. And that's the beauty of the improvisation. Thank you, Dennis. Easy for me to say, and I didn't even miss a flight this morning.

Dennis:

I'm still stumbling. So how long have you play been playing drums for DSO?

Speaker 8:

Since 1999. Wow.

Speaker 6:

Damn.

Speaker 8:

But I do, I I know we're we're, switching gears there and everything, but I I I, you know, I I do wanna let you guys know that I am fascinated with the whole, guitar tone

Tami:

Yeah.

Speaker 8:

Of of of Jerry. And and one of my, you know, very close friends is a guy named Brad Sarno, and he's been, immersed in this this thing for a long time. He's out at St. Louis, and he does the Sarno solutions, and he's built amps that are supposed to be, you know, modified like cherries and everything. And and, and so, you know, I've I've heard it many, many, you know, for a long time about exactly what what the elements are.

Tami:

Yeah.

Speaker 8:

Yeah. And, I mean, I can kind of explain it to you in

Tami:

a second. We would love it.

Dennis:

Because I've been trying all part

Tami:

of it.

Dennis:

No. I've been trying

Speaker 7:

to ask people.

Dennis:

I go, that's a late and then I then it kinda goes off into It takes

Speaker 8:

a drummer to explain

Tami:

it to you.

Dennis:

Yeah. It does. That that's

Tami:

it. Alright. Boom. Boom. Right?

Tami:

Yeah. So okay.

Speaker 8:

Let's do it. Well, okay. For of course, Jerry's tone changed a lot over the years.

Speaker 3:

Mhmm.

Speaker 8:

You know? In the early early times, he was playing, like, a a Les Paul or some kind of double like a humbucker pickup, which is what Les Pauls have. Mhmm. Or some guitar like a Gibson. But then, around, I guess, you know, late 71, 72 is, like, kinda when his the the basic tone that set set that him for the rest of his career, started to happen.

Speaker 8:

And it all, basically, the essence I if you had to narrow it down Yeah. Which is not necessarily a good thing to do, but, would be like a Stratocaster

Tami:

Uh-huh.

Speaker 8:

Single coil pickup, middle position. So there's 3 pickups on a Stratocaster.

Tami:

Uh-huh.

Speaker 8:

And it's a single coil pickup in the middle position. And that's kinda like the Europe 72 sound. Yes. And, of course, Jerry would, you know, use the other ones other positions here and there, but that is really where it's at. That and then it all all the other stuff has kind of been extension from that.

Speaker 8:

That's the at least the way I And

Dennis:

that was the alligator. Right? Right.

Speaker 8:

Yes. And that's the that's the alligator. That was, you know, there are there's all sorts of, modifications that happen with that. But and, you know, if you get and and also in in addition to that is the JBL speakers is a pretty key thing. So if you just had a Strat with, a JBL speaker with a, like, a a Fender twin, you know, you'd have the the beginnings of Yeah.

Speaker 8:

Of of that kind of approach.

Dennis:

Damn. And so and here we are all these years later, right, and still, experiencing those changes and, but but all based back in 72. Right?

Speaker 8:

Yeah. Yeah. So, later on, you know okay. The single coil is the one has there there's just it looks like one little thing, but then the the double coil has 2 of them next to each other.

Speaker 3:

Mhmm.

Speaker 8:

And so he, later, Jerry switched to these, pickups that would split. He could play them both 1 or 2, you know, and he had the option of doing a having a a Humbucker, which is 2, pickups Right. At at one time, or a or he could split it in in each one of those into a single. So, he could always get that single sound, which is kind of his signature sound, but he had all these other options to bring a shot from and, of course, different effects. And then he he came up with, effects loops and all this thing, which not many people use anymore, but these guys all do for the most part.

Dennis:

I bet they do. How do you know all this?

Tami:

Yeah. Well, like

Speaker 8:

I said, my my buddy, Brad Sarno taught me a lot. You know? And I I was interested. Yeah. Well, that's one runginess

Dennis:

of me interested. Yeah. But being around it too, did you grow up?

Speaker 8:

Yeah. I mean, you know, Dan Healy, he went on the road with us for, a year, 2008. Mhmm. And so I, you know, he was very gracious in sharing his knowledge and and he had a lot to do with piecing all that stuff together

Speaker 3:

and,

Speaker 8:

you know, and so I was picking picking his brain as much as I could.

Tami:

I love it.

Dennis:

And, yeah, no pun intended. Picking picking. Just picking. I mean, there's just

Speaker 8:

And even on a on a sound basis, you know, I I do, digital mixing, studio mixing, in the box by, you know, computer. Make my own music, but, mostly, I I make whatever wherever I'm at at the studio. You know? Got it. Yeah.

Speaker 8:

But the whole mixing process, is very interesting to me.

Tami:

I was gonna ask you what you're doing when you're not touring and you're not stuck in airports.

Speaker 8:

Yeah. I I I work on my own music, and I've released a few different things. Oh,

Speaker 3:

thank you.

Tami:

Like, what?

Speaker 8:

Kinda constantly always. There's a one album out there. The first thing I put out was this thing called Shimmy Shack, and it was, put out in 2005. It's now out there for free. It's on Bandcamp.

Speaker 8:

Just download it. But it's got all sorts of interesting little things on there. It was Vassar Clemens' last recording. Oh. The the violin, you know, the fiddle player.

Tami:

The Really?

Speaker 8:

Yeah. I have, tracks with all sorts of different artists. From basically what I do, I had a mobile recording thing that I would carry around with me, And I would be at, festivals and stuff, and I'd say, I need a guitar part for this song right now. So I'd look around and find a guitar player, whoever happened to be around that that I, you know, would love to have on the Yeah. Album and or, you know, a horn player.

Speaker 8:

Smart. Let's see here. I've had, there's one track that has, like, Mark Brownstein for on bass. It's got Rob Eaton on rhythm guitar. It's got John, JK on lead guitar, and it's got John Fishman on percussion.

Speaker 8:

Wow. And, you know, and just different weird kinda Yeah. Conglomerations. And it I never really promoted it that much because,

Dennis:

Well, do it now.

Tami:

Yeah. Do it now. This is gonna be like we're gonna hopefully get a lot of people listening

Dennis:

to this stuff. How do how do people find this?

Speaker 8:

Well, it's it's on Bandcamp. Just dial up Shymyshack, do you know English, Shimmy Shack, and then you can download it for free.

Tami:

Right on.

Speaker 8:

Sounds you know, I'm really happy with I still listen to it and, like, you know, enjoy the way it sounds. But I put together a, over COVID Yeah. I put together another thing. I had a lot of time sitting around, so I'd say, okay. I gotta, you know, get another studio thing down.

Speaker 8:

And so,

Speaker 7:

I,

Speaker 8:

put together these these, a project where I take the drum section from the Dark Star shows Mhmm. And then loop different rhythms and then throw, stuff music on top of it. Oh, cool. Keyboards. Mostly mostly keyboard stuff, which

Tami:

Wow.

Speaker 8:

And

Tami:

That's cool.

Speaker 8:

So it's kind of like, you know, I call it, what I forgot what I call it. But it's on it's on

Tami:

That's not a coffee.

Speaker 8:

I'm just good at making stuff. I can't really, promote it very well.

Dennis:

That's,

Speaker 8:

you know, so That's

Tami:

Well that's that's a real

Speaker 6:

That's that's

Dennis:

an I

Speaker 8:

don't even I don't ever really think about promoting it. I just make

Dennis:

it when it's done. Well, that's what you're there to do is to make it. Right? You know? Yeah.

Dennis:

I mean, you're busy enough to do anything else. I need some people like you to help.

Tami:

Yeah. Here we are. Like, here we are. Perfect. I mean, this is

Dennis:

What's next? Where where's DSO next? Tomorrow? Are you playing tomorrow?

Speaker 8:

No. We just got done doing a 3 week tour and, last night was the last tour or last tour of the tour.

Tami:

Are you sleeping in tomorrow?

Speaker 8:

Yes. But I actually am doing a backyard party We'll

Tami:

be there. Oh, alright. Yeah. Whitney. Whitney is there.

Tami:

Yeah. Yeah. That's it.

Speaker 8:

Yeah. Yeah. Whitney wanted me to put together a band for and it seemed like a Yeah. The perfect time to do it here. So, hopefully, I can get a good night sleep, and then hit it again tomorrow.

Dennis:

3:30 in the afternoon tomorrow. So don't

Tami:

It should be nice in Fairfax. Yeah.

Dennis:

Yeah. That day. Yeah. Well, right on, Dino, man. It's good to talk to you.

Tami:

Yeah. It's so nice to meet you.

Dennis:

To meet you. Yeah. Great with the projects you're working on. And, yeah,

Tami:

love to help promote that. Know.

Dennis:

Yeah. I know. Well, look.

Speaker 8:

I'm just, real happy to be here and, looking forward to playing with all these folks. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's gonna be a really cool

Tami:

great night.

Speaker 8:

Experience. Yeah.

Tami:

What do you what

Dennis:

do you expect tonight?

Speaker 8:

Just a lot of good times. Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm a real being, I I love both of my drummer buddies that are with me, Brad and Jeremy. And, you know, we're gonna be trading off, on the kits and Yeah. And we'll we'll make it you know, we'll have Oh,

Dennis:

it's gonna be awesome.

Speaker 8:

Supply of ice.

Dennis:

I was gonna do 2 drummers. Yeah.

Speaker 8:

It's gonna be 2 nights. Two drummers all night. Two drummers

Tami:

all night. Yeah. Wow.

Dennis:

Of course.

Tami:

Yeah. Duh. Yeah. Not necessarily.

Dennis:

Well Yeah. Give give the the background here. Yeah. Yeah. Right on.

Dennis:

Okay. Good. Well, yeah, go go relax for 5 seconds. Alright. Yeah.

Tami:

Thanks. We'll have it

Speaker 8:

for you soon. Thank you, guys.

Tami:

Yeah. Thanks

Speaker 3:

so much. Is it worth? What does it weigh? How can you tell me? Y'all shack on the other side.

Speaker 3:

Now this stone, a beach in town, and a

Dennis:

Great interview with Dino. Such a good guy as we said. And now we had to, track another Darkstar member down. We didn't have to, but we

Tami:

They were tripping over us at some point, I think.

Dennis:

And, when Skip, we ran into Skip, crashed into Skip, tripped over Skip, he was like on cloud 9 because he had just been, gifted this, get this guitar, from the Grateful Guitars Foundation. And he talks about it, here with us and along with a few other things that were very I found endearing. So, here is Skip Vangelis of Dark Star Orchestra.

Speaker 6:

Skip Vangelis. Yeah. Bass player for Dark Star Orchestra for the last 10 years. Dark Star has been around for

Dennis:

quite some time, but 25 plus. Right?

Speaker 6:

I'm the new guy.

Dennis:

Yeah. You're the

Speaker 6:

new guy. Years. In 2 years.

Dennis:

Yeah. And let me grab my, notes. But so, tell me, are you gonna pick up one of these, Andy Logan instruments? Yeah. I think somebody presented one with you tonight.

Dennis:

Tell me about that.

Speaker 6:

An incredible moment in my life, obviously. Yeah. The the fact that they went out and built this beautiful, beautiful, you know, it's a piece of art. It's not even you know, I can't call it a machine or an instrument. It's a piece of art.

Dennis:

It's It's all of that.

Speaker 6:

It's yeah. It's all of that. Right? Actually, you're right.

Dennis:

You're right.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. And I was in touch with Jason Schooner, when he got mission control and started putting that together. Right. So we kind of got together, and he was, pretty excited to have me play that once they got it all going. And I was like, you know, this is so great.

Speaker 6:

You know? And then, Andy had, built a few guitars, like, 2 for Jeffrey and, I think, one for Rob Eaton too. I don't know about other people outside of DSO, but, and all of a sudden, here comes this bass. And, I guess they kinda noticed that I really enjoyed playing Phil's bass when I did get the opportunity.

Dennis:

When you got the Mission Control? Yeah.

Speaker 6:

I mean, it's first show I ever saw for the Grateful Dead was, a Wall of Sound Show in 74 in Roosevelt Stadium, New Jersey. Wow. That's great. Phil was playing that bass.

Dennis:

And next thing you know, it was in your hands.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. I'm 16 years old. Still hadn't even started playing guitar yet. Wow. And, to to have this all come around to that point that I'm watching him for the first time.

Speaker 6:

You know? Sure. Completely you know? Had no idea.

Dennis:

That's one thing to say. Right?

Speaker 6:

Yeah. Just just you're a 16 year old. You know? I'm a 16 year old kid who, started listening to the dead in 72. You know?

Speaker 6:

And here I am at my first show, and there's Phil, and I've not even started playing bass yet. But when I saw him play, it was inspiring. It was so inspiring. Like, this isn't a guy just sitting in the pocket, you know, going along and keeping the drums gone. This guy is taking

Dennis:

You had that feeling that? Chances.

Speaker 8:

Oh, yeah.

Dennis:

You had that feeling then? So

Speaker 6:

you must

Dennis:

have been a pretty

Speaker 6:

I for some reason, I gravitated to the bass. Wow. And, one of my first one of the first bands aside from the Beatles and the Stones Right. That I started listening to Standard. Was Mountain.

Speaker 6:

Oh, okay. And I'm listening to Felix Papillardi play, and he's a protege or, peer of Jack Bruce. So I was, you know, Cream was already done, but here's Mountain, and they're playing, and I'm like, listen to this. You know? Yeah.

Speaker 6:

Everybody wants to be a lead guitar player. Listen to this and how it fits in and and kinda pulls everything together. And then once in a while, just takes it. You know? Yeah.

Speaker 6:

Takes it somewhere else. So, you know, at that point, it was like, well, I think I'm gonna learn how to play guitar.

Dennis:

Oh, shit.

Speaker 6:

But I don't wanna you know, like I said, everybody wanted to be Jerry Garcia. Yeah. You know, because I was

Dennis:

a deadhead when my friends were dead.

Speaker 6:

Right. Everybody wants to be Jerry Garcia. I said, no. I don't wanna be Jerry Garcia. I wanna play bass because Phil has his own way of playing melodic bass like Jerry Garcia Garcia plays melodic lead guitar and Bob Weir plays melodic rhythm guitar.

Speaker 6:

Said, I don't you don't have to just be a thumping bass player on the route all the time. You can take chances

Speaker 3:

and

Speaker 6:

be creative.

Speaker 3:

And I

Speaker 6:

said, yeah. Let me let me try that. You know? Damn. And, like I said, I keep having people pinch me.

Speaker 6:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because I really can't believe this, that they actually went out and built this guitar just for me.

Dennis:

Yeah. So tell tell our, listeners what what they did and who they are besides I mean, Andy, of course. Yeah. But tell tell us more.

Speaker 6:

Jason Schooner

Dennis:

Yeah.

Speaker 6:

He actually tracked down Phil's original base, the mission control base. Yep. And it was in pieces. And he had a quest to put this thing back together and literally went finding original pieces of equipment for that guitar. Wasn't taking, you know, anything less than the real stuff, and he found it all and had people put it all back together.

Speaker 6:

Rick Turner who built it in the first place.

Dennis:

God love him. God love him. Yeah.

Speaker 6:

You know, got in touch with Rick, and, you know, they started putting their minds together to put this thing back together, and they did. And, Jason is a big fan of Dark Star, and he brought it to a couple of shows, and he liked the

Dennis:

way I played it when

Speaker 6:

he gave it to me to play.

Dennis:

And

Speaker 6:

from there, I guess he just kinda put the bug in Andy's ear because Andy has the Grateful Guitars thing going where he makes these replica guitars. And while Andy is building wolves and tigers and, alligators and, you know, cowboys and all these guitars, he hadn't built a base. But Andy came to see us a couple of times, and he and I hit it off right away because he's such a sweet man.

Dennis:

Isn't he? And he

Speaker 6:

I mean, does anyone have a heart bigger than Andy Logan? I'm not sure. Right.

Dennis:

No. That's my answer. And seeing him tonight on stage beforehand, I think we're on the side there when that when that happened maybe. Yeah. I mean, he had the audience in front of him.

Dennis:

He had his of directors behind him. Right. And, you know, you know, he said the right thing, which is the true thing, and that is this is not about him. But, man, I felt so good for him. Oh.

Dennis:

Just he did this. Yeah. He did this tonight. Yeah. He put this together.

Speaker 6:

Oh, yeah.

Dennis:

Yeah. And it's not just tonight.

Speaker 6:

Obviously, you know, his labor of love. Yeah. And thank goodness for it. For for all of us, for our entire community

Dennis:

All

Speaker 6:

of us. To have a fellow like him who just loves it so much as we do. Yeah. But really take it to

Dennis:

the take

Speaker 6:

it to heart. Like,

Dennis:

take it

Tami:

to heart.

Dennis:

Take it to heart.

Speaker 6:

And do something with it.

Dennis:

Oh, it's just I'm at I am just yes. First of all, I'm just impressed. I'm still thinking about you, at that show in 70. Would you say it was 70?

Speaker 6:

Dead

Dennis:

Dead show, and it was in San Francisco at, Speedway, Lindley Meadows, Gold Indian Park. Right? That one. I'm sure you know them all. And had no idea.

Dennis:

You know, I I had heard the dead one time. I had seen the dead at something called snack Sunday. You probably remember that snack Sunday where they played the b side of blues for all that. So it wasn't exactly

Speaker 6:

at Kizar?

Dennis:

Yeah. Kizar. Yeah.

Speaker 6:

That was at Kizar.

Dennis:

It was at Kizar. So it wasn't exactly an indoctrination that made me say, oh, I love the basses or guitars. I was just like a kid going, what the fuck is going on right now? But so that's just really I mean, you were called. I mean, Skip.

Dennis:

I mean, I'm just gonna say it. There was some calling.

Speaker 6:

Right?

Dennis:

I'm gonna say it.

Speaker 6:

That that's you know? Yeah. I guess. I I yeah.

Dennis:

I mean, you you know? But,

Speaker 6:

My mom didn't feel that way.

Tami:

No. I'm sure not. I'm sure not.

Dennis:

But then to see you up there tonight and playing the guitar and now it's presented to you, I mean, what the what? Right? Yeah. Exactly.

Speaker 6:

I mean, what can you say?

Dennis:

I don't know. I and I had all these questions.

Speaker 6:

Thank you doesn't do it. No. It doesn't. It just

Dennis:

Gratitude. There's it has to it has to start from there because yeah. I mean, I have all these outlines of questions we're gonna ask you. How does it make you feel? I mean, there's no this particular situation is crazy.

Dennis:

And well, how about the the fact that you joined the DSO? That was, probably a a big deal too. Well, tell us about that. I know you kind of you sat in and filled in

Speaker 6:

and yeah.

Dennis:

Never went away.

Speaker 6:

I was in a band with Robbie in in New Jersey for 20 years. I've known him since 1980. So 43 years Okay. Here we go. So that was that was kind of my entree into

Dennis:

a border legion? Yeah. Border legion. Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. So, series of events occurred, and Rob joined Darkstar 99, I think it was, somewhere around there. And in 2001, their bassist decided that they don't wanna be on the road anymore.

Rob:

So I

Speaker 6:

think it was Kevin and

Dennis:

Kevin Rosen.

Speaker 3:

Do you

Speaker 6:

have Kevin Rosen and, Mike Hasdra, who Kevin replaced.

Speaker 8:

But the

Speaker 6:

2 of them were like, yeah. You know, I wanna be on the road. Actually, it was Mike. He didn't wanna be on the road anymore. And, Kevin said he'd come back to be their base player, but he couldn't until a certain day.

Speaker 6:

So they had 5 shows in Colorado that they had to cover. So Rob called me, and he said, you wanna come out here and, you know, play 5 shows with Darkstar? And I had a corporate job for 30 years. That's what

Dennis:

I do before I did

Speaker 6:

this. So

Dennis:

Day jobs, we call them. Right? Yeah.

Speaker 6:

I had plenty of, vacation time to take, so I said, yeah. I'll do it. So I went out there March 13, 2001, and got off the plane and into the van and to the venue and got up and played my first show with those guys. Wow. And JK was in the band at the time, and Scott was the keyboard player at the time.

Speaker 6:

So, you know, it was that was my first, you know, get together with Darkstar. And at the end of the 5 shows, they were offering me the job. And I had 2 kids and a mortgage and, you know, pretty decent job at home. Yeah. I was like, I can't go on the road now, guys.

Speaker 6:

I, you know, I just can't. You know? I'd love to. I mean, I had a blast too. It was what I was because Border Legion was a bar band.

Dennis:

We didn't play in

Speaker 6:

theaters or anything like that. Dark Star at the time was, like, getting these little theater gigs

Speaker 8:

and stuff.

Tami:

I was like, yeah.

Speaker 8:

This is cool.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. Playing in the theater, not at

Speaker 3:

the bar.

Speaker 6:

You know? So it was really, pleasurable for me too. Sure. And, I just said to them, look. I can't.

Speaker 6:

You know? And so over the years, when they would come around where I I lived, I would always go to the show, and they'd have me come up and do, like, the encore, the fillers.

Dennis:

You know? Oh, that's cool. Yeah. And That was kind of enough at that point.

Speaker 6:

Well, that was all I could do. You know? And we and, yeah, we would talk about, you know, one of these days, you're gonna be in this band. One of these days, you're gonna be in this band. And, it really the planets had to align for me to actually get in the band.

Speaker 6:

So in 13 2013, Kevin decided he couldn't do it anymore. He was gonna leave, and they needed they had to replace Kevin. So to you. Rob calls me. He goes, alright.

Speaker 6:

Here's your chance. Again? And I said, yeah. But, you know, certain things have to happen. First of all, I have to not have a job.

Speaker 6:

Right? Second of second of all, Kevin has to resign. I'm not taking his I couldn't live with that. I couldn't live with over bringing him in Back

Tami:

and forth.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. No. I couldn't live with, you know, me getting his job without him

Dennis:

saying Right. I see.

Speaker 6:

I I would not have been able to deal with that. Yeah. And, the third thing was I had just put my daughter through college. So my my kids I have daughter and a son, and they're 4 years apart. Mhmm.

Speaker 6:

So my daughter went to college in Loyola and Maryland, and it's not a cheap school. So No. So I spent quite a bit of money putting my daughter through college. And now my son, he's getting ready to go to college.

Tami:

I have the feeling. And I'm like,

Speaker 6:

like, I don't know. What am I gonna do? How am I gonna, you know, be able to pay for him and be on the road with the band? He gets a full scholarship to play football at Lafayette College in

Speaker 7:

Pennsylvania. Yeah.

Speaker 6:

So all those

Speaker 3:

things,

Speaker 6:

literally within, like, a 3 week period, I got laid off from my job. 1, Kevin puts in his resignation, and my son gets a full ride to

Dennis:

Full ride to Lafayette.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. And I I was like, okay. Let's do it. And September 27th,

Dennis:

I think it was,

Speaker 6:

of 2013 was my first real show. And you haven't started. And so September There we are. 27, 2023 is gonna be 10 years. It's coming up, man.

Speaker 6:

And I wouldn't trade it

Speaker 8:

for anything.

Dennis:

You're probably thinking, why didn't they do it 10 years earlier? But you couldn't.

Speaker 6:

You just couldn't. Exactly. I always wanted to. You know? It was always something that I would love to have done.

Speaker 6:

But I you know? Yeah.

Dennis:

I mean, there's a story

Speaker 6:

for didn't let me.

Dennis:

Life didn't let you, but life lets you now. Yeah. That's good. You know? Yeah.

Speaker 6:

And my family loves it. My wife didn't like it at first. Yeah. Took her took her a while to get used to it, and I I understood that.

Dennis:

I mean, you guys tour pretty pretty heavily. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 6:

We're gone at least 6 months

Dennis:

at the Not not to mention over the years, DSO has played more shows than the dead played.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. Well What

Dennis:

can you say?

Speaker 8:

I only played a few of those. Yeah. I know, but still few.

Speaker 3:

But You're

Dennis:

part of Melissa. You're part of this whole legacy. What a what a moment for you tonight. Oh. So glad to be here Unbelievable.

Speaker 3:

Oh,

Speaker 6:

okay. You know? Building a a mission control. But I didn't know they were gonna give it to me. They hand it to you.

Speaker 6:

Yeah.

Dennis:

Yeah. And so Are you gonna play it to the last set here? I mean, the the encore or what's going on? No.

Speaker 6:

I'll probably just play mission control because it's

Rob:

it's it's actually not It's

Dennis:

not complete. Ready. Okay. I was gonna say

Speaker 6:

But they wanted to Yeah. Bring it out tonight and, you know, surprise me. And and show everybody, hey. Look. This is this is what we're doing.

Speaker 6:

You know? And, so yeah. I I talked to Leo who's the guy who's really building this thing, putting, electronics together and all, and he said, probably gonna be another 2 or 3 months. And I said, take all the time you want.

Tami:

Take all

Speaker 6:

the time you want. Make it right. Yeah. Just if you're comfortable, then I'll be comfortable. Wow.

Dennis:

So What is the, the magic that happens when you, play the mission control? I mean, is that what what comes over you? How do I how did you even describe that?

Speaker 6:

Again, it's it's it's, surreal. Yeah. You know, I'm I've got the guy the

Dennis:

now. Yeah.

Speaker 6:

Really? Did did would I ever have thought of do you have would happen?

Speaker 3:

Do you

Dennis:

have to block that out of your mind sometimes just so you're not, I mean, probably you do. You just you just go. Right?

Speaker 6:

You just play. Yeah. I just, I just say, you know, I hope I can do it as much justice as, as the instrument needs to needs to to because it needs to be played. Yeah. I mean, all these that that's the thing about, Andy and the and the guys who who got who have all these, genuine Grateful Dead guitars.

Speaker 6:

Yes. They're expensive. They're, you know, one of a kind, all that, but they need to be played. You know? It's

Dennis:

Can't put them on a wall.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean

Dennis:

That's the talk about like, a

Speaker 6:

be just

Dennis:

no. No. And look at look how, you guys are all passing this on to the younger generation too. I mean, that's what's going right?

Speaker 6:

Look at tonight. That's what that's what's really cool about the way things are going with us at least. And and and you know what? I saw it. Like, Jay Rad and other bands that are out there that do what we do.

Speaker 6:

Young people young people are starting like, in our audience, you know, if you pick up the guys who came to see Dark Star when they started, you you know, they're

Speaker 8:

they're my age.

Dennis:

You know?

Tami:

They're they're

Speaker 6:

not standing around for

Speaker 8:

No. Hours anymore.

Dennis:

That's right.

Speaker 6:

But they, you know, they told their kids, and they brought their kids up on it, and the kids wanna follow it.

Dennis:

And And they're coming. Yeah. Obviously. It's

Speaker 6:

it's it's amazing. It's amazing. But it's it's all about the music. Yeah. It's all That's what does it.

Speaker 6:

It's not who's playing it, what it's the music itself. You know? I mean, that's what's doing it all these people. I mean, I hear it, and I'm Yeah.

Dennis:

You're just I happen to be the vehicle. That's probably what you're thinking. Right? But but put a lucky vehicle you are. Yeah.

Speaker 6:

Well, I am very, very lucky. Very, very lucky.

Dennis:

Well, that's cool. Well, man

Speaker 6:

Very, very appreciated.

Dennis:

Yeah. Well, that's good. You can say, well, listen. It's really cool talking

Speaker 8:

to you.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. We're inviting you. And,

Dennis:

we'll see you on there. Are you playing, there's, tomorrow, the the backyard?

Tami:

I'm going. I'm going. Going home.

Speaker 8:

There's a couple

Dennis:

of you guys are playing in a little, backyard concert.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. I think, Dino and Rob. Tony and Rob are Yes.

Speaker 3:

And,

Dennis:

so we'll be there. Yeah.

Tami:

Oh, nice.

Speaker 3:

It's good.

Dennis:

Why not? Good. Enjoy. Yeah. I'm sure you will.

Speaker 6:

So you enjoy It

Speaker 8:

won't be hard. Yeah.

Dennis:

You enjoy your trip home. Yeah. And you enjoy this this, what you could do with the 2nd set, the encore. I can't wait to go upstairs. I'm getting tired of talking to everybody about it.

Dennis:

I wanna run upstairs and and

Tami:

walk upstairs.

Speaker 8:

Listen to it. Right?

Dennis:

Yeah. So we'll skip.

Speaker 6:

Well, thank you for what you

Dennis:

do. Yeah.

Speaker 6:

And and You bet. And Absolutely. Keeping this vibe going, you know, and and making sure it's out there.

Dennis:

It is. We we have a mission to, archive all this, first of all, and then get it out there. And maybe to a degree we're hieroglyphics. Right? Somebody's gonna find these tapes.

Dennis:

Right. Yeah. You know, kinda like they did with the bedding boards with, with Rob. Right?

Speaker 6:

Mhmm.

Dennis:

So, we feel like we have an important part in it, but it's also fun for us. And it's all it's all together. We're all partners.

Speaker 6:

A family. Yeah. It really is.

Dennis:

Yeah. So I'm glad to be meet my, family member tonight.

Speaker 8:

You got it, man.

Speaker 6:

Thank you so much. Really.

Dennis:

I appreciate

Speaker 7:

it. Cheers.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. Right on.

Dennis:

Alright. Well, thank you to Skip. I mean, that was just that was just a blast. It was. I've seen the smile the smile on his face.

Tami:

What a cool thing to witness.

Dennis:

And, he was happy to go home. He was one guy that was really happy to go home after the these these guys were all kind of exhausted, but they did it for Andy.

Tami:

They came after tours. They came a long way.

Dennis:

Yeah. And so as we mentioned before, you know, Stu Allen was politely evading us at one point. No. That's not even true. Not that

Speaker 3:

I don't

Tami:

think he means it.

Dennis:

No. He he was so kind. Yeah. And, what I ended up doing with with, Stu is I said, Stu, when do you have to go on? He said, in about 10 minutes.

Dennis:

I said, good. Let's do it right now. And he said, okay. Yeah. And, it was in the midst of trying to find Advil and all kinds of other things as you'll hear from.

Dennis:

But here's Stu Allen.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tami:

I need some tequila. Yeah. Tequila. Did you get Advil?

Dennis:

I know. That's how this all happened.

Tami:

What happened? You asked her for it.

Dennis:

This all this all happened because I asked Amber for Advil after she asked me for papers. And papers and Advil, neither of them turned up.

Speaker 7:

Advil. Yeah.

Tami:

But you did.

Dennis:

So we got you instead. Yeah.

Tami:

So we

Rob:

came up

Dennis:

with the Kansas. Hi.

Tami:

Yes. Tammy. Tammy. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Good to

Speaker 6:

meet you.

Tami:

Yeah. So I we have downtown Media and this podcast and Stephanie.

Speaker 7:

Hi, Stephanie.

Dennis:

So if you want to get the cans on, you can. Just a A

Tami:

little bit better. Yeah. Background. And, Steph, would you mind just shutting that Yeah. For a couple of minutes?

Tami:

I know we've already covered

Speaker 7:

up a

Rob:

couple of times.

Speaker 7:

Yeah. I just put the cans on.

Dennis:

But they're tethered. You're tethered to it. Stu Allen, thanks for sitting down with us for a couple of seconds.

Speaker 7:

My pleasure.

Dennis:

Yes. Yeah.

Rob:

Thank you.

Dennis:

And we're gonna we've already, cut a deal. I don't know if, maybe one-sided deal, but we're gonna talk, further, no pun intended, someday Yes. Through the junction and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. But tonight is about Andy Logan.

Dennis:

Yes. And, tell us when you, or how you first heard about him or when you first met him. Did you know who the hell he was, and had he did he reach out to you? How did that all come down?

Speaker 7:

I met him. He, hired Melvin to play a party.

Dennis:

Oh.

Speaker 7:

Ah. And and, so I met him there. But, he's just been getting more and more into the instruments and

Tami:

He's a gear head.

Speaker 7:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Tami:

Are you are you like that too?

Speaker 7:

No. I mean, somewhat. Yeah. But not not like

Speaker 3:

not like

Tami:

He's technically we went and we went to interview him at his house recently.

Speaker 7:

So you saw the basement?

Tami:

We well, we saw the basement. It was 3 hours, and we couldn't do the interview. We had to wait and do it at Sweetwater at a gig later because we didn't have time to do it. And, you know, he was speaking Mandarin to us. Like like, I think I caught some of it.

Dennis:

Well, it was that is amazing. It's still amazing. 3 hour tour.

Tami:

You know?

Dennis:

Yeah. But it was awesome.

Tami:

It was awesome. Yeah.

Dennis:

And, I mean, I actually held alligator, and I held that Martin.

Tami:

But we don't know what we're doing.

Dennis:

But I don't play, but it's still something came over me holding it. Does that does that happen to you?

Speaker 7:

Absolutely. When you when you think back on everything that you, grew up with hearing

Speaker 3:

Mhmm.

Speaker 7:

And you realize, oh my god. This is that guitar that made those made those, those notes played those notes, made that music.

Tami:

Did you ever have a feeling, like, it maybe was some like, you weren't playing it at times?

Speaker 7:

Well, yeah, it plays itself to some degree. I I think it's it's not just that, you know, our our idols played it. It's actually an amazing instrument. It's it's a 54 Strat. It's a it's got something something special, and it just sings.

Speaker 7:

And when the instrument sings, you don't feel like you have to do Yeah. As much work. Yeah. You you're not Yeah. You're not trying to make something happen.

Speaker 7:

That's us. You're letting

Tami:

Is that us?

Dennis:

That's us. That's your daughter calling.

Tami:

Oh, no. And outside lands looking for a ride. That's exactly what's happening.

Dennis:

Yeah. What happened to, our outside lands concert anyway? I mean, it's all different now.

Tami:

Yeah. I know. Did you ever play outside lands?

Speaker 7:

No. Okay. I've been.

Dennis:

Yeah. Yeah. It's different now. It's big and it's different now. I saw a I got a funny thing, from, oh god.

Dennis:

I'm gonna forget his name now, that does the deadhead land thing.

Speaker 7:

Brian Markovits.

Dennis:

Yes. Brian. So, Brian, somebody posted a, an an aerial or a drone shot of outside lands, and it was pretty cool picture. And, they said, oh, there it is. You know?

Dennis:

And Brian said, wow, that looks really fun. I'm glad I'm not there. Right? Perfect hymn. Right?

Speaker 7:

It's classic.

Dennis:

It's classic, and it it's a That's a good one. But, so yeah. So these yeah. There's there's something about these instruments. Hey.

Dennis:

What's it like tonight, Yvonne?

Speaker 7:

Well, it's it what I was saying is that it it sings. You just let the

Tami:

guitar sing.

Speaker 7:

Yeah. You know? You just you just play and like, you don't have to play a lot of notes. You just because one note sounds beautiful by itself.

Dennis:

Yeah. I mean, I think it was Garrett that first told us that all of a sudden he looked around, he goes, what am I doing? You know, all of this is happening. You know? Yeah.

Dennis:

His fingers were going in a certain way, and he felt like, at which point, John Gold said, we know who's playing the guitar. Yeah. You know? You know, one thing that popped into my head when I was, kinda looking at I've been watching you for years, you know, Terrapin. I've been around the scene, and we've never met till tonight, by the way.

Dennis:

But, one thing that occurred to me was this was pretty amazing. We we talk a lot on this show about, the passing of the torch. Right? And and a degree well, to a big degree, you're taking that torch from Jerry and the dead, etcetera, but it's really still happening now, in a in a big way to another younger generation.

Speaker 4:

It is.

Dennis:

Right? But what struck me is that tell me if this is right. I think I read somewhere that it was when Jerry died, you had gone into the dead a little bit. You'd you know, in 89 ish, somewhere around there. Yeah.

Dennis:

Is that about the right and but it was when he died that something came over you. It occurred to you, okay. Now is the time I gotta start playing this music.

Speaker 7:

That's correct.

Dennis:

Yeah. Is that right?

Speaker 7:

Yeah. I didn't really I had messed around with this with with the music a a little bit, but it was it was after he died that

Tami:

Did it happen, like, at that moment? Like, were you at his I mean, what what are you just like, I have to

Speaker 7:

That fall. He died in Yeah.

Tami:

In August, and it was Like, I I need to do this.

Speaker 7:

Around that fall that some some people were

Tami:

What were you doing at the time?

Speaker 7:

I was in an original band in Minneapolis.

Tami:

Wow. Is that where you're from?

Speaker 7:

No. I'm from Kentucky.

Tami:

You're from Kentucky? Yeah. Okay. I

Dennis:

love it. Live now?

Speaker 7:

In San Rafael.

Dennis:

San Rafael. So that I I that was a trick question because I thought it was a Marin, and we're we're Marin folk. Mhmm. And what about the Marin music scene? I mean, you, Stu, you're you are part of that Marin music scene legacy without question.

Dennis:

And, tell us about it. I mean, tell us about that Marin music scene which you it's a big

Tami:

Especially after Laurel Canyon came out. I'm like, you know what? Marin has a much better story.

Speaker 7:

For me, it was it it was kind of, part 1 and part 2, because when I came to town, it was it was the old Sweetwater. Mhmm.

Rob:

You know, main

Speaker 7:

mainly yeah.

Tami:

Yeah.

Speaker 7:

And, and and when Genie. And that kinda went away and Terrapin and New Sweetwater came about, and that was kinda part 2 that I was and I was involved. Like You were involved. 1, I was not involved.

Dennis:

Certainly happened.

Tami:

It's nice that they're carrying it on with these these outdoor concert series and, I don't know, how do you feel about that? Same Oh, Terrapin? Terrapin. Yeah.

Speaker 7:

Oh, I love that they're doing

Tami:

that. Yeah. Right? I mean, it's

Speaker 7:

That was that was just they just did done one. Yeah.

Dennis:

Yeah. That was

Speaker 7:

such a special feeling getting everybody back together.

Tami:

There were a lot of people Yeah. At that Yes. Event. I was shocked how many people are there.

Dennis:

Well, we're pleased to, to be participating in the next one. Yeah. It's excellent. So we're gonna get the thoughts of folks as they come in and, come in and out. Yeah.

Dennis:

You know? But, yeah, just, yeah, part 2 of Terrapin did happen. I mean, you you took a presidency there. That's probably not a word you wanna use, but

Speaker 7:

for something like that.

Dennis:

It was something like that, wasn't it?

Speaker 7:

It wasn't official, but yeah.

Dennis:

It wasn't official.

Speaker 7:

It was it was a lot.

Dennis:

Yeah. And, you know, and Sweetwater. Yeah. Have you played Sweetwater?

Speaker 7:

I did. Several yeah.

Dennis:

Yeah. You know? Couple couple of handful

Tami:

of times.

Speaker 7:

Handful of handfuls of times.

Dennis:

Couple of handfuls of times. Well, maybe, maybe now is

Tami:

the time. So so what do you have, what else are you doing? Do you have anything that you wanna promote or anything you're doing outside of

Speaker 7:

Oh, I got a

Tami:

stuff like this.

Speaker 7:

Junction show coming up.

Tami:

Nice.

Speaker 7:

Gonna do, a thing I call Reflections

Dennis:

Reflections. Which is Jerry Garcia's record.

Speaker 7:

Band music. And, something special with that, we got Jackie LaBranche

Speaker 3:

will be singing

Speaker 6:

with us. Wow.

Dennis:

Yes. JGBN. Yeah. Yeah.

Tami:

By the way, Steph has some amazing pictures of you from, Jerry Day, don't you?

Speaker 7:

Oh, cool.

Tami:

Oh, I do. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

Tami:

She's sitting in Band Aid. Oh, nice. When when when we were watching, like, he said, did you see that there's a b? I

Dennis:

was about to ask that.

Speaker 7:

Like, do you have any of the b attached?

Tami:

Yes. I do. And then he was sitting there and he and he was like, oh, he's putting the guitar down. I'm like, I don't think so. And then you picked it back up.

Tami:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And I was like, maybe he doesn't wanna play that one

Tami:

right now. I'm like, oh, I bet he does. And then he picked it back. I do have the bee.

Speaker 7:

Okay. So a bee

Dennis:

Tell us about the bee.

Tami:

Yeah. Stung

Speaker 7:

me at Jerry Day. I don't remember which year, but this happened and index finger, and started to swell up. And and a bunch of bunch of people came came. I I felt like a major league pitcher, you know, the training staff coming out.

Tami:

Oh my god.

Speaker 7:

And, so that was in my for some reason, I thought of that

Tami:

Trauma.

Speaker 7:

The morning of this the Jerry day this year. And then this yellow jacket shows up, and I'm like, you gotta be kidding me.

Tami:

Oh my god. You manifested that. You gotta be careful what you manifest That's correct. Especially if you're good at

Speaker 3:

it.

Dennis:

I didn't even I didn't speak it into

Tami:

the universe. It just came. You can't control

Dennis:

these things. Yeah. You know?

Speaker 7:

The guitar down. You can have it. So it was alligator. I put alligator down.

Tami:

Oh, no. It's alligator.

Speaker 7:

I put alligator down, and I was gonna switch guitars, and I just want just took one look back, and it was gone. I was like, oh, it's not I figured it would be sitting on the guitar, but

Tami:

Maybe it was weird.

Speaker 7:

So I picked it back up. Well, if it was, he was trying to tell me that, hey, if you're gonna use the this is more of this Yeah. I forget what language you said. You were

Tami:

Mandarin?

Speaker 7:

Mandarin. This is more Mandarin. But if it was Jerry, he was saying, hey, you've got a song where you're gonna use the Tiwa, and it's touch sensitive, so you need to switch guitars.

Dennis:

Oh. Hey. Oh, okay. Hey. If we're Did that just

Tami:

now did you just now realize that?

Speaker 7:

Or No. I realized that. After

Tami:

that time After

Speaker 7:

I picked up alligator again and played it some more and then I went, oh my god, I have to switch again anyway.

Tami:

So that's what

Speaker 7:

he was like.

Tami:

So the bee broke up your concentration. Oh my gosh. I have to do with Andy. He's like

Dennis:

Don't argue with nature. That's right.

Tami:

Right? Yeah. That's nature.

Dennis:

Think I'll do. See.

Tami:

Did you tell me about, a different guitar? Like, a different guitar he gave you. I mean

Speaker 3:

And that

Tami:

was probably it.

Dennis:

Another story.

Tami:

No. Another story about you having a guitar.

Speaker 7:

Oh. The Phoenix? Yeah. So, the guitar that I have let's see. I worked on building a guitar with a guitar maker in Ellicottville, New York named Matt Moriarty, great guitar builder.

Speaker 7:

And we worked together to build the Stu Allen model.

Tami:

And so

Speaker 7:

he sent me s a o o one, and I played that for many years. And then

Tami:

Which is surely gonna be auctioned off for $1,000,000 someday.

Rob:

For charity.

Tami:

For charity.

Speaker 7:

And and then I think this is 2019 or 2020 might have been

Speaker 3:

Might have been 19.

Dennis:

Pandemic or not pandemic?

Speaker 3:

That's what I'm trying

Tami:

to remember.

Speaker 7:

He shows up with, s a o o 4, which doesn't have the original bird. It has a phoenix on it, which is perfect. It's beautiful. And, you know, the guitar maker had a few more passes,

Dennis:

so it's

Speaker 7:

an even better guitar. So that's what I'm playing most of the time now.

Dennis:

Wow. And so tonight, what are we gonna expect tonight, for the second set when you're out there? What are you playing? Alligators coming back?

Speaker 7:

Playing at the end, and it's gonna be on

Dennis:

a scarlet fire tiger, I believe. Oh. Leo Elliott. Oh. Okay.

Dennis:

So we're canceling all interviews during that call. So we

Tami:

can just

Dennis:

you know, you talked about baseball and felt like a major league baseball player. Tonight, it's kinda like the all star game. Is that what you It

Speaker 7:

is. It's true. Yes.

Dennis:

Very much so. You had said that to Alex. I and, Alex Jordan because we interviewed him earlier. Because I thought it was kinda like fantasy football for

Speaker 6:

him. Right. Right?

Dennis:

Because he got to put the he got to put all the big players together, and then he said, oh, yes. Stu said it's like the all star game, and it is. I mean, it's pretty how does it feel up there with all these guys and these instruments and this is it's gotta be incredible.

Speaker 7:

There's a lot of energy in the room Yeah.

Dennis:

For sure. There is. So, you know,

Speaker 7:

it's easy to step up there and just get Just do it. Get swept right into it.

Dennis:

Everybody's having a great time.

Tami:

Yeah. And,

Dennis:

I just have one last thing that's

Tami:

Well, you don't, but for now. For now.

Dennis:

Yeah. Well, Berkeley School of Music. Yeah. Because Yeah. We've talked to so many folks

Speaker 3:

Mhmm.

Dennis:

That have gone through the Berkeley School. I did not know that about you until recently. Yeah. What was that? Did that elevate you in

Speaker 4:

Absolutely.

Dennis:

A must.

Speaker 7:

It's an amazing resource. I mean, it's it, like, just packs you full of information, and then

Speaker 8:

it's like

Speaker 7:

and you and then it and then that information expands.

Dennis:

And so Once you get out. Right? Yeah.

Speaker 7:

Absolutely. The the more you get out into the world and use it in real situations.

Dennis:

Because we've thought about doing some some,

Speaker 8:

work There's

Tami:

so many people there's so many musicians from that went went to Berkeley School in the Bay Area. And it's just So

Dennis:

many we've interviewed and we thought about, you know, maybe some of the programs and having some of the artists come in and give back and that's he might be wanna be interested in that. Sure. I think of Dave Ellis that comes

Speaker 3:

to mind.

Tami:

Oh, so many.

Dennis:

He's fantastic. And, are you familiar with Neighbor, the band Neighbor, East Coast?

Speaker 7:

Heard of them.

Dennis:

Yeah. Yeah. They're they're, they're inching their way, out here. We just did the Camp Navarro thing.

Speaker 6:

Oh, I

Speaker 4:

love Lebo. I heard of them. Yeah.

Dennis:

It's probably and Lebo, they played with, Lebo last year at Camp Navarro and and Elliott, etcetera. But they did their own thing this year. And there's a player, and I want you to look him up if you haven't heard of him. His name is Lyle Brewer. K.

Dennis:

And he is a man I'll remind you off air, not that we're on the air or anything.

Tami:

But Yeah.

Dennis:

But I will remind you because, Lyle Brewer needs to get that that alligator in his hands. I think you'll agree.

Speaker 7:

Oh, cool.

Dennis:

And I'm gonna

Speaker 3:

tell Andy.

Dennis:

Just to, if people have heard of him. And so, the answer

Tami:

is just Everybody better

Speaker 7:

just recently.

Dennis:

Yeah. Just recently. Well, Graham was there too. Mhmm. Midnight North came and played with them, and it was there were probably a 100 people at this, weekend event, and there should have been a lot more.

Dennis:

And there will be

Speaker 3:

next time.

Dennis:

Yeah. So, anyways, Stu, right on, man. Thank you for

Tami:

Thank you so much.

Dennis:

Hanging with us for a few minutes. And

Tami:

Well, sure.

Speaker 6:

We will

Tami:

see more

Speaker 3:

of you.

Dennis:

So now we loosened

Tami:

you up.

Dennis:

Maybe we'll get we'll get you with C Mac because we're talking about, and I did see Michael Nash out there tonight.

Tami:

Yeah. He is here.

Speaker 4:

Michael Nash is here.

Dennis:

But we'd like to talk about what's going on at at the junction, especially next year when it really picks up again at

Speaker 4:

the junction.

Tami:

Now the neighbors aren't complaining

Dennis:

as much. But we may wanna grab, grab, grab you and some of the band, next time you do your,

Speaker 7:

your

Tami:

gig there. Yeah.

Dennis:

Which is this is how harmless it is.

Speaker 7:

Yeah. Not bad. Not bad.

Tami:

Not bad. I'll take not bad. Right on. Right on. Thank you so much.

Tami:

Alright. Yeah. Thank

Dennis:

you. Have great set, and, now we're gonna do a photo op. That's him. Sorry.

Tami:

Okay. Okay.

Dennis:

Love the story about the bee with Stu. That's good stuff. Thank you, Steph.

Tami:

Thank you, Steph.

Dennis:

Thank you, Steph, for bringing that out. And finally, and certainly last but not least, the great John Kadlecek, John Kaye sat down with us, right before he had to run back on stage. So let's hear from, the great John Kaye. So, John, John Kaye, welcome. Welcome to Tales From the Green Room.

Dennis:

Tell us, I know we're gonna get to it because I know you gotta get back on stage. Andy Logan, When did you, first meet him? Did you know who the hell he was when somebody said, hey. This guy, Andy Logan, wants to meet you?

Speaker 4:

I mean, I think I heard about him before I you know, for a while before I, I get to meet him, but I'm not sure if I get I've been down on the exact date.

Tami:

It's so yeah. The most people can't. But they they remember meeting him, but not exactly.

Dennis:

Well, you probably remember the first time he handed you, alligator.

Tami:

Yeah.

Speaker 4:

I think that was, I think we we were doing, like, this legion of Melvin shows on the, in Vallejo.

Speaker 3:

And then

Tami:

and he that's that was the first time.

Speaker 4:

Brought it out to to, yeah.

Dennis:

So what was that like for you to play that for the first time?

Speaker 4:

I'm it was really cool. It's actually, remarkably similar in both feel and tone to, a couple of my guitars. So

Dennis:

Is that right? Wow.

Speaker 4:

And so, you know, felt pretty

Tami:

Natural.

Speaker 4:

Pretty comfortable. Yeah.

Dennis:

Yeah. Very comfortable. Right? Any, any something come over you when you're playing it on stage ever, that you don't experience with your own guitars?

Speaker 6:

I

Speaker 4:

no. They I think other guitars just always feel foreign, so the music kinda comes from, you know, I don't know, somewhere.

Tami:

Yeah. I don't think

Speaker 4:

it doesn't come from the instrument, though. Yeah.

Dennis:

That's right.

Speaker 4:

The instrument is just a transmission device, you know, that, you know, like, the sculpture's tools. You know? It's like it's it's not it's not the sculpture.

Tami:

Well, but well, Bob Weir, I was watching that interview, and he was he described the music as a it's a critter. And he's like, it's it's somewhere in between the audience and, you know, either let the critter in and then you just play, you know, or you fight it. So

Dennis:

Well, when, with with Dark Star Orchestra, which you founded, correct, cofounded at least, wasn't there was an effort there to kinda capture the tones of the era at at some point?

Speaker 4:

You know, yeah. It's a fun, you know, academic exercise because we all thought it it'd be it'd be, you know, a fun thing to do. You know, we're we'd all had had played in, you know, various sort of dead projects in the past and and wanted you know, we're we're itching to take it a little further.

Speaker 3:

Mhmm.

Dennis:

So And that you did.

Tami:

And that That you did.

Dennis:

Well, I have to ask you this because I've always wondered it. I don't even know how to ask. What was it like when they tapped your shoulder to, join further?

Speaker 4:

I mean, it was really cool.

Tami:

I I don't know what

Dennis:

else. Yeah. Obviously Were you

Tami:

expecting that at all?

Speaker 4:

I didn't I didn't there was nothing on my radar that they were starting a new project or anything.

Speaker 7:

Mhmm. Wow.

Speaker 4:

And when, when I got an email, I I kinda first thought that somebody was, playing a practical joke on me.

Dennis:

Yeah. I I I would that's why I you're right? It sounds like a joke, doesn't it? What does that do that, what does that do to your, career?

Speaker 3:

I mean, you

Speaker 4:

know, I don't know. I don't know. I think in terms of career, I

Speaker 3:

think

Speaker 4:

in terms of collaborations with people, and it was a really freaking amazing collaboration. We, we we put a whole bunch of new original songs out with, you know, with Robert Hunter lyrics and some, I think Brian's lyrics got mashed up with some of Hunter's lyrics.

Speaker 8:

Right.

Speaker 4:

Brian Lesh's lyrics.

Dennis:

Oh, that's cool. No.

Speaker 4:

With a mountain song and Yeah. Some other stuff some other lyric is Phil and and, Bobby we're working with. We brought some we had almost, albums worth of new original tunes in that project. Yeah.

Dennis:

That's it. Yeah. Rather

Speaker 4:

than I'm most, proud of, if you will.

Dennis:

Yes. No. As you know

Speaker 4:

My experience was further. Yeah. And getting to see that Bob and Phil were are just basically music

Speaker 3:

nerds. You

Tami:

know? And they're You're going to sing a song.

Speaker 4:

Whatever, but the but but working with them, they were just they were just still obsessed with, like, finding new ways to express their tone and Yeah. And finding new ways to get, you know, music out and making it all, you know, fit with their media community.

Dennis:

And it's still going on, isn't it, amongst you guys?

Tami:

Yeah. Do you feel like do you feel like this new generation that's, like, taking it and carrying it on? Do you feel like they're they're giving it the due respect?

Speaker 4:

I don't I don't have any of the

Tami:

No. No opinion with that. Okay.

Speaker 4:

I don't know.

Dennis:

It's Yeah.

Speaker 4:

Yep. That they'll that'll play itself out.

Dennis:

Yeah. Alright. We'll leave you with this.

Speaker 4:

Originality is, is really hard right now, but authenticity is still just a choice.

Tami:

Oh, that's beautiful. That's beautiful.

Dennis:

Speaking of that, the Latin dead. Tell us about that.

Speaker 4:

Oh, it's just this cool project. This this this, this young cat, percussionist

Dennis:

Brendan Dekel. Brendan Dekel.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. Like, you know, and he he contacted me about this idea he had, and I thought, well, it's a really cool idea. Like, get back to me, you know, when he gets some charts and and some other musicians interested.

Speaker 3:

And

Speaker 4:

Yeah. And he did. So it took off. It happened.

Tami:

It's Well, he yeah. He's had a lot.

Speaker 4:

Flow right now and seeing how it's it's it's growing and evolving and seeing how it works as a live

Dennis:

unit. Thanks for listening to Tales from the Green Room, a presentation of Mount Tam Media. You can hear more spontaneous stories from the secluded confines of green rooms on our next episode. To experience all Mount Tam Media productions, including the Woman Are Smarter podcast, log on to mount tam medadot com. We'll see you at the next show.

Creators and Guests

Dennis Strazulo
Host
Dennis Strazulo
Dennis Strazulo & Tami Larson host backstage conversations with artists in the exclusive confines of green rooms at popular music venues and festivals.🎧
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Tami Larson
Host
Tami Larson
Dennis Strazulo & Tami Larson host backstage conversations with artists in the exclusive confines of green rooms at popular music venues and festivals.🎧
X
Grateful Guitars (Part 3): 8/13/23 Benefit Concert- Featuring Dark Star Orchestra members: Rob Barraco, Dino English, Skip Vangelas + Stu Allen and John Kadlecik

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