George W. Bush always used to call himself a uniter but it was Democratic nominee Barack Obama that served as the catalyst for The Allman Brothers Band and The Dead to join together for the Change Rocks fundraiser this past Monday at Penn State University. Although crossover potential was huge, the two jamband icons stayed on their respective sides of a reference-filled videotaped address from Obama (once elected, he reportedly "ain't wasting time no more") with the exception of Warren Haynes, who played full sets with both bands.

On a less political note, Bob Weir & Ratdog will team up with Phil Lesh & Friends at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, CA for a pair of shows on December 30 and December 31. Fellow San Franciscan and current Friend Jackie Greene will open both shows with his solo band. With a 2009 Phish reunion tour becoming more of a reality, hopes are also high for The Dead to truck around the country once more.

Labels: Allman Brothers Band, Bob Weir, Grateful Dead, Jackie Greene, Phil Lesh, Ratdog

Even Timothy Leary came to realize that his infamous catch phrase from the sixties might have been sending the wrong message. Leary later explained that "drop out" was not meant for people to "Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity." Today, some key love generation veterans are putting Leary's clarification into action.

HeadCount, a volunteer-run voter registration organization, is getting major help from the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir and this week had a presence at fellow Dead alum Phil Lesh's shows in NYC. The group registered nearly 50,000 voters in 2004 through alliances with Dave Matthews Band and other artists, and intends to register another 200,000 voters by staging voter registration drives at more than 500 concerts over the next year. Beyond the DMB, Weir and Lesh, the Allman Brothers Band, members of Phish and newer artists like O.A.R. are aligned with the movement.

“If we don’t protect democracy today, there won’t be a democracy to protect in a few years,” said former Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir, a member of HeadCount’s board of directors. “I think for the younger folks this is particularly important, because the decisions we make will largely affect the rest of their lives.”

Marc Brownstein, bass player for The Disco Biscuits, serves as HeadCount’s co-chair. “This was something we started as a dream, just a crazy idea that we believed we could pull off,” said Brownstein. “Now it’s almost four years later, and we are in it for the long-term. We hope HeadCount leaves a permanent imprint on the live music community, forever getting fans more engaged in the political system and democracy itself.” Timothy would be proud.

Labels: Allman Brothers Band, Bob Weir, Dave Matthews Band, Disco Biscuits, Phil Lesh

By: David Schultz

Over the past decade, Keller Williams has carved himself a nifty little niche as an incredibly creative and inventive live performer. On Dream, his ninth studio album, the man affectionately referred to as the one-man jamband doesn't try to go it alone, choosing to get by with a little help from his friends, including the String Cheese Incident, Bob Weir, Bela Fleck and Victor Wooten. Williams' penchant for looping machines and rotating between various instruments loses it appeal without the accompanying visual. Wisely, Williams doesn't even try to bring his stage show into the studio, working hard to create songs that can stand on their own without the use of any gimmickry.

On stage, Williams showcases his ingenuity, on Dream, Williams features his guitar proficiency, matching licks with banjo great Bela Fleck on "People Watchin,'" and guitar academician Fareed Haque on "Cookies." Williams works in a few of his customary guitar rolls that coast up and down the scale, but also stretches his guitar work to match prodigious masters like Haque, Charlie Hunter and Steve Kimock. His guitar makes up for his limited vocal range, which on past albums tends to manifest itself in a hushed monotone. Although he reverts to the style on "Celebrate Your Youth," and "Ninja Of Love," which features a similarly flat effort from Michael Franti, Williams works admirably to stretch his vocals as well as his guitar.

Intricate guitars plus serious guest stars could be a recipe for pretentiousness but the album's liner notes allieve any worries over Williams' ego: he seems just as amazed as anyone to have assembled Dream's all-star array. Plus, he deflates any astronomical illusions over his technological acumen in describing his amazement over recording with Bela Fleck, Victor Wooten and Jeff Sipe without ever being in the same room.

Williams' finger-plucking guitar style, though entertaining, can wear thin over the course of a few songs. In that sense, the inclusion of the wide array of guest stars gives Williams numerous interesting foils to play off of and keeps Dream from retrenching the same old groove. There's some straight-forward rock on "Play This," an "appeal" for radio airplay as well as some country on "Sing For My Dinner." On the latter, Williams joins his musical cousins String Cheese Incident for a lengthy tune that rotates between up-tempo bluegrass and sweaty, bluesy jamming. While Williams hasn't created a transcendent masterpiece with Dream, he has concocted his most varied, accomplished work to date.

Labels: Bob Weir, Keller Williams, Michael Franti, Steve Kimock, String Cheese Incident, Victor Wooten

By: David Schultz
Photo Credit C. Taylor Crothers via Madison House Publicity

Last summer String Cheese Incident helped organize the Jammy award winning Big Summer Classic, headlining a series of festival-like shows that featured Michael Franti and Spearhead, Umphrey's McGee, New Monsoon, Keller Williams, Xavier Rudd and the Yonder Mountain String Band. While savvy purveyors of the jamband scene were already familiar with String Cheese's touring partners, more casual fans, drawn by the Cheese, received gifts as glorious as Williams' one-man-band stage show and Franti's obsessive-compulsion for asking the crowd how they're feeling. As SCI's fans are well versed in the Grateful Dead, the Colorado sextet finds their roles reversed on their current summer tour with Bob Weir and Ratdog: getting a chance to play for Deadheads who can finally match the Cheese's music to their indelible name.

The sensibility of pairing Ratdog with String Cheese goes beyond the two bands' affinity for extended improvisational jams: String Cheese's traces its origins to the same Americana based music mined with great success by the Grateful Dead. Where the Dead mixed their bluegrass influences with folk, blues and psychedelia, String Cheese keeps their bluegrass heart front and center, often bringing in elements of calypso, Latin music and funk in the same manner the Talking Heads worked those same rhythms into their later work.



Anyone expecting straightforward rock and roll will be initially puzzled by String Cheese Incident's distinct style; probably spending a good third of the show wondering from where the band's plaudits derive. However, once SCI finds their groove, usually within the last third of their shows, they dispel all doubts. Their fusion of seemingly incompatible genres has slowly but steadily attracted a loyal following who thankfully leave the Cheesehead appellation to the Green Bay Packers. Their idiosyncratic sound results from the union of an unlikely group of musicians. Acoustic and lap steel guitarist Bill Nershi makes an unlikely frontman, possessing the skills but not the overblown charisma of your typical band leader. In the absence of a traditional lead guitarist, the versatile Michael Kang fills the role of the virtuoso, primarily playing mandolin and violin. Michael Travis and Jason Hann conjure up a variety of tribal beats and intricate rhythms, teaming up with bassist Keith Moseley to take over a sizable portion of some String Cheese shows. When Moseley's not keeping the beat, he pairs up with keyboardist Kyle Hollingsworth to take the Incident into decidedly Cheese-y directions.

More than just receiving equal billing, String Cheese shared opening duties with Ratdog, even though seniority might dictate that the descendants of the Grateful Dead serve as the headliner. Weir, Nershi and company came to New York City's venerable Radio City Music Hall recently for a pair of performances. A delightfully wonderful venue for jambands, Radio City's cavernous arena has an enormous stage and a breathtaking array of colorful lights installed throughout the hall. For the Thursday evening show, String Cheese began the evening with a lengthy two hour opening set, making great use of Radio City's more spectacular attributes: inviting a pair of artists to paint on stage while skillfully incorporating Radio City's lights within their own to create a trippy, psychedelic atmosphere.

String Cheese opened the Radio City run with some appropriate selections: a cover of Bob Dylan's New York-centric "Just Like Tom Thumb Blues," and the timeless jazz standard "Birdland." The middle portion of the set belonged to Hollingsworth's crunchy, techno-style keyboards and Moseley's pulsing bass, hitting high notes on "Water" and a "Mouna Bowa" which seamlessly (of course) segued into "Eye Know Why." In finishing off the show with "It Is What It Is" and a rollicking, delightfully hillbillyish "Can't Stop Now," Nershi and Kang, who generally plays mandolin and violin, joyously traded guitar riffs; Kang demonstrating a deft proficiency for laying down a catchy guitar riff.

The styles of the two bands meshed well, as did the musicians themselves. Over the course of their dates together, guest appearances were the norm, not the exception. While Thursday's show saw only one small bit of overlap - Michael Travis hurriedly running on stage to join Ratdog drummer Jay Lane on an instrumental segue between "Cassady" and a cover of "Dear Prudence" - Friday night's featured members of both bands popping up left and right during each other's sets. The inclusive spirit embodied on stage spread into the audience; possibly to the disconcertment of Radio City security who may not have been entirely prepared for the single-minded focus of overly-dedicated fans to get close to the stage. After being thwarted by ticket checkers at the aisle, many quickly figured out that they could simply climb over the seats and get as close as they liked. Some may bristle at the ingenious tactics employed by some of the jamband scene's more dedicated participants: muttering the dreaded epithet "hippie" under their breath; for most though, it's simply part of the fun of a show and the reason why a jamband show, even one in such venerated a hall at Radio City, will always remain an experience or as the String Cheese fans would say - an incident.

Labels: Bill Nershi, Bob Weir, Ratdog, String Cheese Incident

By: David Schultz

Trey Anastasio, Mike Gordon, Marco Benevento and Joe Russo Join Lesh For A Jamming Night On Long Island

While Deadheads worldwide prepare to honor the memory of Jerry Garcia on the 11th anniversary of his passing, Phil Lesh & Friends, the eponymously named band led by the Dead's bassist, and Ratdog, guitarist Bob Weir's longtime band, are doing more than simply keeping the Grateful Dead's legacy alive; they are adding a satisfying afterword to the band's storied career. Despite the lack of any significant new material since Garcia's death, both Lesh and Weir have proven to be consistently successful touring attractions by using the same simple, battle tested formula: play Grateful Dead songs for Grateful Dead fans. The old fans still turn out in droves but it's the new fans, most too young to have experienced the Dead in their prime, if at all, that are keeping this franchise afloat. This past week, both Lesh and Weir brought their respective "second acts" to New York: Phil & Friends playing an outdoor show on the Long Island Sound at the Nikon at Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh, New York; Weir bringing Ratdog to New York City's world-famous Radio City Music Hall.

Since gathering his friends around him, Lesh's Friends have included musicians of All-Star proportion, including such notable names as Steve Kimock, Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, Trey Anastasio, Mike Gordon, Al Schnier and current Lesh fave Ryan Adams. His current group of Friends is comprised of musician's musicians: singer Joan Osborne, guitarist Larry Campbell, keyboardist Rob Barraco, pedal steel guitarist Barry Sless, drummer John Molo and saxophonist Greg Osby. Osborne may be Phil's most recognizable Friend, having had a moderately successful solo career highlighted by the 1995 radio success of "One Of Us." The versatile and multi-talented Campbell handles lead guitar duties, coming to the Dead bassist's side after spending much of the past decade touring with Bob Dylan. Campbell, one of the newer members of the band, joins longtime Friends Barraco, Sless and Molo. Veteran saxophonist Greg Osby rounds out Phil's latest batch of acquaintances, braving the often troublesome brass-unfriendly winds of Jones Beach. As Phish's Trey Anastasio and Mike Gordon and the Benevento/Russo Duo (unofficially referred to as G.R.A.B.) have been opening a good number of Phil & Friends' summer shows, Anastasio, a former Friend himself, has been regularly joining in the fun, usually replacing Sless during the second set. For their Jones Beach show, Anastasio did not disappoint: without fanfare, he returned for the second set to the unabashed delight of the crowd.

Even though his name is on the marquee, Lesh hardly conveys a sense of superiority or entitlement because the songs on the setlist are primarily Grateful Dead chestnuts. Instead, he disperses the leads of the various songs, smartly matching each Friend to the proper song: Barraco's voice perfectly suited the evening-opening "Playing In the Band" and the encore of "U.S. Blues;" Larry Campbell handled vocals and fronted the band on an extended run through "Big River" and Osby replaces the distinctive guitar runs of "China Cat Sunflower" with weighty saxophone licks. When not dancing sultrily along with the music, Osborne delivered bluesy vocals, standing out on a lengthy trip through "Stella Blue." Even Anastasio got into the act, his voice and guitar a perfect match for second set's opening couplet of "Scarlet Begonias" and "Fire On The Mountain."

In 2005, when Lesh co-hosted the Jammy Awards, he joined temperamental guitarist Ryan Adams for a sterling performance of "Wharf Rat" and "Bird Song." Since then, whether present or not, Lesh has incorporated an Adams song into most of his shows. On this temperate evening at Jones Beach, he included Adams' Cold Roses track "Let It Ride." In contrast to the crisp first set, Lesh & Friends' second set consisted of spacey, drawn-out instrumentals. The effect may not have been entirely intentional: too often, Lesh seemed to be singing without realizing that his voice wasn't making it to the audience. When Lesh's microphone did work, he struggled with the words to "Dark Star" and "The Other One," replacing the ones he forgot with a sheepish grin that brought laughter from the crowd.

Admirably, Lesh and Weir are doing more than just fostering interest in the continually thriving Deadhead scene: having inspired numerous other bands with their psychedelic improvisational live performances, the two are exposing their fans to bands and musicians that are carrying on the Grateful Dead tradition. While Lesh pairs up with Anastasio, Gordon and The Duo, String Cheese Incident, fronted by the bluegrass loving Bill Nershi, will receive equal billing with Weir's Ratdog. The cross-pollination of the Dead's older fans with Phish's and String Cheese's younger fans has resulted in exceptionally full and wide-ranging evenings of music. In contrast to String Cheese, G.R.A.B. comes with a more complex subplot. Similar to how Lesh and Weir have moved forward in the post-Dead universe, G.R.A.B. have been drawing interest as an intriguing chapter in the ever-developing post-Phish saga. This episode: how will the Phish duo interact with the Duo?

Their lengthy opening set at Jones Beach encompassed the balmy early evening, consisting of a nice mix of Anastasio's solo material, a couple Gordon compositions, a Benevento/Russo Duo tune (the gorgeous "Something For Rockets") and a pair of wonderfully eclectic covers. The sharing endemic to the jamband scene spread comprehensively throughout the foursome: Anastasio and Gordon's fame, experience and recognition providing the rub to the Duo; Benevento and Russo's freshness, youth and innovative energy spreading to the veteran musicians. At 5:00, while most of the audience obliviously tailgated or remained stuck in the Friday evening morass known as the Long Island Expressway, The Duo performed an all-too-brief opening set focusing primarily on material from their new album Play, Pause, Stop. Those who made it into the amphitheatre early quickly learned why Benevento, an inventive keyboard player, and Russo, a masterful drummer, have drawn the raves they have received, including the 2005 Jammy Award for New Groove Of The Year. Strutting their estimable stuff much earlier in the afternoon freed the Duo to fill less prominent but still significant supporting roles for Anastasio and Gordon.

Even though G.R.A.B. had a couple weeks together under their belt, they were still finding their comfort zone with each other. Benevento and Russo are adept at predicting what directions each will go in; obviously, so are Anastasio and Gordon. As a foursome, they seem to be in the final stages of finding a true comfort zone, resulting in some wandering instrumental interludes. On the opener, "Plasma," they engaged in some traditional jamming; offering more distinctly Phishy jamming later in the set on "Suskind Hotel" and "Dragonfly." The shrewdness of the group's decision to cover Wings' "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey," which segued nicely into Stealers Wheel's "Stuck In The Middle With You," wasn't matched by the actual performance; a trait shared by a number of Phish's covers (e.g. "Tubthumping," "Gettin' Jiggy Wit' It"). The reaction of the audience to the familiar tunes, especially Gerry Rafferty's Reservoir Dogs classic, indicated that they appreciated the effort. In closing with Anastasio's "Shine," G.R.A.B. finished on the highest of notes, even if the bespectacled singer's voice seemed to give out during the set closer.

Lesh & Friends, along with Ratdog, are continuing a legacy that began in the sixties, extending their reach to a newer generation of fans. Towards the end of Lesh's show, he guided the band into an old Dead set-closing standard, a percussion-heavy, thumping version of "Not Fade Away." The classic Buddy Holly song seemed sharply poignant: anyone boating on the Sound that night surely heard the honest and heartfelt exhortation of Deadheads, both young and old, joyously proclaiming a truth that has become self-evident over these many years: "No, our love will not fade away."

Labels: Benevento/Russo Duo, Bill Nershi, Bob Weir, Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, Joe Russo, Marco Benevento, Mike Gordon, Phil Lesh, Ratdog, Trey Anastasio

by Jim McCoy

Photo courtesy and copyright of Susana Millman Photography.

Mark Karan has stood in the lead guitar role for Ratdog since 1998. Despite the hotel phone disconnecting us three times, Mark was a pleasant interview throughout and spoke to earvolution.com about a variety of musical topics ranging from seeing the Grateful Dead in Golden Gate Park, Two-Rock amplifiers and the theme song for Friends:

JM: If my research is correct, I note that Tuesday's show in Philadelphia was your 500th show with Ratdog.

MK: I had no idea about that until yesterday when I got an e-mail from somebody congratulating me. But, yeah, apparently it was. [laughs]

JM: How do you feel about reaching that milestone?

MK: [pauses] I don't know if I have a lot of feelings about it. It definitely puts a lot of things into perspective. There's a definite history with the band now, and that shows up with the way the band plays together, myself included. We've had the same combination of guys for a while now and I think, if anything, that's why the band is working so well.

JM: I noticed on Tuesday a lot of smiles back and forth between the guys. You actually look like you're having a good time up there while you're playing.

MK: God forbid, right? [laughs] Yeah, we are. And that's the whole idea. Ratdog is definitely - well, most of the bands in the jam band scene - are not the kind of bands that are trying to be rock stars and make the big ducats. Most of the people that are doing all of this stuff are here because we want to be - because we love to do it on some level.

JM: When did you first realize that you could make a living playing music?

MK: Umm...when I was about 44 and joined The Other Ones? [laughs]

JM: What was that like? Was that the first time that you had played in large arenas night after night?

MK: For an extended period of time, yeah. I did a tour with Paul Carrack back in the late 80's and that was, for lack of a better term, the first 'real' tour that I was ever involved with. I’d done some traveling in a van with younger bands in my younger days. Carrack was the first real tour I did and then I toured on and off with Dave Mason for about a year, but that was smaller venues and we did a little bit of overseas stuff. So, yeah, The Other Ones was really my first steady thing that was bigger.

JM: What was it like getting on stage for the first time and looking out to see 20,000 people in the audience?

MK: That's where being 44 made a big difference. It wasn't that weird for me. It was definitely a rush. No question about that. But I had already been playing music professionally for about 25 years. Bob [Weir] to this day, I think, still gets butterflies. I'm not one of those. I feel pretty comfortable in my own skin on stage.

JM: So, for you, it was part of a natural progression.

MK: Yeah, exactly. It was weird, there's no question about it. But this coming year I'll be 52, so my introduction to the Grateful Dead was as an 11 year-old kid running around Haight-Ashbury with my other 11 and 12 year-old friends listening to the Dead play in [Golden Gate] Park and going to the free shows at the Fillmore on Sunday afternoons...

JM: Was there any pressure stepping into the lead guitar role with Bob Weir after Garcia had occupied that same role for so long?

MK: That's a multi-faceted question. In one sense, no. Not because I was cocky and sure of myself or anything, but I had been playing for long enough and had enough love of the music and enough background in this music that it's a pretty natural fit for me. It took me a few years to get back into the whole improv approach to playing after playing more commercial-oriented music for a long time. The guys made me feel pretty comfortable. In that respect, it was great. But it was a big responsibility, and certainly I was always extremely uncomfortable for the first couple of years in that every interview that I did always had 'The Question:' How does it feel to fill those shoes? The pat answer became, "I'm not. No one can."

JM: I think a lot of people recognize that.

MK: Yeah, exactly.

JM: But it doesn't seem like Ratdog is trying to be a Grateful Dead cover band, in a sense. Ratdog is just trying to keep the music going and trying to do some of your own things at the same time.

MK: Basically, yeah. It's the ongoing process, for better or for worse, of any artist, musical or otherwise. Look at McCartney. After The Beatles, he didn't just fade away. He put Wings together, and when that didn't happen anymore he did world solo tours. People want to make music and reference their history in the process. There's no reason that McCartney shouldn't do "She Loves You," and there's no reason that Bobby shouldn't do Grateful Dead material.

JM: You had talked about doing some more commercial music. I'm sure that this is a tired question, but were you involved in writing and playing the theme to Friends?

MK: No, no, no.

JM: But that was the Rembrandts...

MK: I did play with that band. I believe that the Friends theme was on their fourth album. I had been a fan, actually. They had been a very cool, sort-of Beatles meets Everly Brothers slightly-edged pop band with great vocals and really cool, hooky melodies that I had enjoyed for quite a while. Around the fourth album, they got invited to do the Friends theme more or less anonymously for a large sum of money. They did that, and it came back to bite 'em in the ass. When the show started, all of these people liked the song and began calling up their local DJs and requesting it. And it didn't exist anywhere, so all of these DJs were taping it off the TV. So the record label made the Rembrandts go in the studio, cut a song that they hadn't even written and slap it on to their fourth album. For the first few months they made several million dollars. It was very kind to them financially. But the backlash - everybody hating that song after a while, hearing it everyday, 50,000 times a day - basically canned their career and one of the two of them split. Enter me.

JM: It's unfortunate that something like that happens after a band has some success.

MK: What is really unfortunate is the level of judgment. Frankly, if I have one real beef with the Grateful Dead community - or, the Deadhead community - it's the fact that when you step outside the immediate realm of the Grateful Dead, there's really small-minded people out there. They might say, "I don't like country." But what about 'Mama Tried,' you know? [laughs] What about 'Big Railroad Blues'? You're listening to country every time you put on a Grateful Dead record.

JM: That's sure to generate some discussion on DeadNetCentral.

MK: Yeah.

JM: How did you fall into the Grateful Dead scene in the first place?

MK: That was another odd one. I grew up in the Bay Area listening to these guys pretty early in their days, and I hadn't even listened to the Grateful Dead since probably the late 70's. I had been a huge fan initially and then moved onto other kinds of music that was more pertinent to what I was up to. When I was in L.A., I had met a drummer named John Molo. We did a couple of sessions together and the occasional blues gig. Whatever was happening, we kept bumping into each other and really enjoyed working together.

JM: And he was Bruce Hornsby's longtime drummer?

MK: That's right.

JM: And is that how you eventually fell into The Other Ones?

MK: When [The Other Ones's] first drummer - the more jazzier guy - didn't work out as well as they had hoped, they just kinda started asking around. They had been in the Grateful Dead for so long that they really didn't meet a lot of guys that played with a variety of bands, that type of musician.

JM: I guess when a band is that big, getting access to musicians like the Grateful Dead...

MK: Yeah, it's a pretty insular type of existence. I know that they got at least three of the names of people that they listened to from Molo. And one of them was mine.

JM: What would say that your 3 top songs are to play on the road right now?

MK: [pauses] That's a tough one, really, because there’s so many approaches to songs within the stuff that we do. Some of them are very, very song-oriented, more structure based, well written, singable songs with great stories to tell and I love playing those. I love playing "Wharf Rat" or "Loser" or the kind of stuff along those lines that's melodic. I also like getting pretty out there. You can take "Playing in the Band" or "Dark Star" or "Birdsong" or one of those kinds of songs through a lot of different areas musically. That handful and throw in "The Other One" - I might be able to narrow it to something like that but it's more like what's going on night to night rather than song to song.

JM: I guess with such a large catalog of great material...

MK: It's also getting reinvented night to night. It wholly depends on where everybody in the band's heads and hearts are at, it depends on where everybody in the audience's heads and hearts are at, what kind of stew gets cooked up with everybody being thrown in the same pot that night.

JM: As far as equipment goes, you seem to be kind of a purist in that you use a Telecaster, the Les Paul, Paul Reed Smith. It doesn't seem like there's a lot of effects in your sound.

MK: I've actually got lots of effects and a pretty complicated amp rig. The main reason is not to jump around doing a bunch of gimmicky stuff, but to have real solid analog versus digital versions of classic guitar sounds and guitar approaches to use in my palette. I use pretty traditional guitars. I'm using newer amps, but a lot of amps that I'm using are based on old circuits that were developed in the 50's and 60’s.

JM: What kind of amplifiers are you using right now?

MK: Primarily, I'm using an amp from a company called 65 Corp and it's called the London. It’s based on a sort of combination of a Vox and a Marshall. The other head- I’ve switched between two - is from a company out in California called Two-Rock that Steve Kimock turned me on to. It's not a clone or a knock-off, but it's based on the much talked about Dumble amplifiers. I've got 7 or 8 effects pedals and things, but I've got everything in selectable loops so that if I'm not actually using it it's not in the circuit path at all. Like you stated earlier, I'm kind of a purist.

JM: Do you use much in the way of distortion?

MK: Actually, a fair amount. Not necessarily applied the way one would hear it more regularly in a pop or heavier rock context, but absolutely. Distortion sort of winds up - to me, anyway - giving a lot of character to a guitar tone.

JM: Are you mostly self-taught?

MK: Predominately, yes.

JM: When did you start playing?

MK: I was probably about 9 when a took a beaten-up folk guitar...

JM: Now for the big question: Where does Mark Karan go from here?

MK: Man, I don't even know. I think that one of the things about this whole experience is that I've stopped trying to predict that kind of thing. If somebody had asked me 10 years ago what I'd be up to today - considering that I started doing all this stuff 8 years ago - [laughs]

JM: Do you do any odd jobs back in the day like most musicians tend to do?

MK: I spent most of my life doing a combination of multiple things. I did a lot of nights in dumpy blues/rock 'n roll bars for fifty bucks that were really, really fun for no money; I've been in a lot of bands that were, as they say, "going for the brass ring," trying to get their own little record deal for their own thing. Again, a lot of fun, a lot of work, no money. [laughs]

JM: Do you think a young musician - 18, 20 years old - can still go out to San Francisco today and do things like you did with the current housing prices?

MK: That's really a tough question. Yes, I think it can be done. Do I think it's even remotely easy and would I recommend it? No. I think it can be done but the criteria for what you need to survive has to fit. I spent a lot of years doing couch surfing, I lived in my truck for nearly five years...

JM: Wow.

MK: I always had roommates well into my 30's. When you look at stuff like that, it's really kind of comes down to what you need in life. If what you want is to - relatively early - get into a comfortable apartment, get yourself a sweet babe and maybe start making babies, music is probably not for you. [laughs]

Labels: Bob Weir, Mark Karan, Ratdog

July 11, 2006 Philadelphia, PA
by Jim McCoy

Photos from Red Rocks courtesy and copyright of Susana Millman Photography.



Bob Weir first took the stage at Philadelphia's original Electric Factory just over 39 years ago as an original member of the Grateful Dead. Over a decade removed from his days alongside Jerry Garcia and company, Mr. Weir and Ratdog continue to make the Electric Factory their regular touring stop when passing through the City of Brotherly Love. The skeptics would deride Bob Weir as an aging dinosaur and Ratdog's tye-dyed fans as shiftless stowaways on a counterculture train that began running out of steam long before Garcia's last notes blew through the Windy City in August 1995; however, Tuesday's two hour-plus show demonstrated that Weir and his cohorts genuinely enjoy making music together and are not simply going through the motions for ol' times sake and their cut of the gate receipts.



Weir is arguably on the right hand side of the rhythm guitar throne that has been occupied by Keith Richards ever since the latter tuned a 5-string Telecaster to an open G chord and began pounding out one classic after another for decades. Weir's quirky rhythm guitar style is not only unique, but it allows the music to breathe despite Ratdog sometimes having as many as 7 musicians on stage during the show. He is no less adept a guitar player as he was while regularly touring with the Dead, and his vocals were delivered as professionally and sincerely in this intimate venue as they were when he was playing racetracks and football stadiums. He extended the ending of New Speedway Boogie-written in the aftermath of the Rolling Stones-headlined Altamont festival-using the crowd as backing vocalists. With the audience repeating the refrain, "One way or another, this darkness has got to give," Weir continued his vocal stylings over a tune that seemed oddly apropos in the post-9/11 and War in Iraq era, just as it was in '69 when the ideal of California peace and love hippiedom (and a young man) was stabbed to death by a knife in the hands of a Hell's Angel.



Weir surrounds himself with competent musicians, and the smiles between them during their musical interplay revealed that they can still have as much fun playing as the markedly younger audience does bopping around on the floor below. Weir is content to place Ratdog's lead guitar duties in the hands of Mark Karan, a longtime friend of the Dead scene who was playing a milestone 500th show in that role. Not simply a Garcia stand-in, Karan infuses some of himself in between the trademarked riffs in the Grateful Dead material. His highlight was his solo in Tennessee Jed, which gradually climbed to a peak that resulted in the audience yelling out their collective approval. Weir himself also took a rare lead break on his acoustic guitar during a nice version of Jack-a-Roe, on which Billy Nershi of String Cheese Incident also took part and contributed acoustic lead lines throughout.



The older blues-based covers like "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" and "Big Boss Man," now long-separated from their roots with Garcia and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, had begun to become nothing more than a novelty even when played with the Dead in the 90's. The same still applies today, as these numbers seemed to plod along toward their conclusion. There was, however, no denying the enthusiastic response from the crowd to original Dead material like "Tennessee Jed," "Standing on the Moon," "Touch of Grey" and the encore, "Ripple." Similarly, Ratdog's own "Ashes and Glass" was very well received, and Weir scores extra points for working Dylan's epic "Desolation Row" into the set and appearing to recall almost all of the words.



Ratdog will never be able to replicate the vibe and musical adventures (and misadventures) of the Grateful Dead, but that can be said for every band on the planet today and, truth be told, possibly for the rest of time. Instead of being looked upon as a Dead substitute, Ratdog should be taken for what it is: a bunch of talented musicians fronted by a rock legend, all of whom enjoy making some good music together and giving the audience their money's worth. There were a lot of smiles on the faces of concertgoers both during and after Ratdog's set, which is really the truest review of all.

Labels: Bob Weir, Ratdog

Last summer, String Cheese Incident anchored The Big Summer Classic, a month-long tour featuring Keller Williams, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Umphrey's McGee, the Yonder Mountain String Band, New Monsoon and Xavier Rudd, that brought back the spirit of the touring festivals of the sixties. For their innovative efforts, SCI (and the others) were rewarded with a 2006 Jammy for Tour of the Year. While it appears that String Cheese will not revive the Classic this summer, their touring plans for the year are ambitious nonetheless.

The bluegrass influenced jam band, who serve as an inspirational model of self-sufficiency for indie bands, will hit the road on June 24 with Bob Weir & Ratdog for an intriguing double bill. The two groups will remain together for 14 shows over three weeks, playing a weekends worth of shows at Red Rocks in Colorado over the July 4th weekend as well as a pair of shows at New York City's Radio City Music Hall (July 13, 14).

The Cheese will then head to Minnesota where they will team up with old friend Keller Williams to reform The Keller Williams Incident at the 10,000 Lakes Festival in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. From there, the band will head north to Anchorage, Alaska for a pair of shows en route to Japan for the Fuji Rock Festival, where they will be on the bill with the Benevento Russo Duo.

Labels: Bob Weir, Ratdog, String Cheese Incident