Local All Stars Pay Tribute To Classic Grateful Dead Albums At The Chapel
By Dave Pehling
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- A group of talented local players from such notable bands as Howlin Rain, Earthless, the Chris Robinson Band, Mother Hips and many more gather to celebrate a pair of landmark Grateful Dead albums -- Aoxomoxoa and Live/Dead -- at the Chapel for two nights starting Monday.
Love them or hate them, there is little denying the enormous influence the Grateful Dead exerted on rock music in the Bay Area and beyond after emerging from San Francisco's counter culture scene in the mid-1960s. The house band for author and Merry Prankster Ken Kesey's notorious Acid Tests, guitarist Jerry Garcia and the Dead became synonymous with hippies and the Summer of Love in 1967 with their exploratory jams and simmering musical stew of blues, country, rock, jazz, bluegrass and psychedelia.
While the two albums being celebrated at the Chapel didn't provide the commercial breakthrough the band would find with their later more folk-oriented hit albums American Beauty and Workingman's Dead, Aoxomoxoa and Live/Dead (both released in 1969) in many ways capture the experimental spirit of the band better than any other records in the Dead catalog. An early adventure in the then cutting technology of 16-track recording, Aoxomoxoa found the band layering audio effects and unusual additions like a vocal choir on "Mountains of the Moon" while indulging in unfettered, nearly free-jazz take on acid rock. Live/Dead became the band's first hit record, capturing the magic of the band's legendary onstage prowess and gift for extended improvisation that -- even for a band as well documented as the Dead -- still stands as one of the best concert recordings of their 30-year career.
These two nights marking the 50th anniversary of both these seminal Dead albums are being curated by Bay Area modern psych institution Ethan Miller. One of the leading lights of the local neo-psych movement for two decades ever since first rising to notoriety as a founding member of unhinged psychedelic-punk group Comets on Fire in 1999, guitarist Miller has had an important hand in a number of significant bands to emerge from the region's fruitful scene.
In addition to Comets, Miller has been leading his more jam/roots-minded outfit Howlin Rain since the mid-2000s, exploring the laid-back style of late '60s SF psychedelia of the Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service that inspired him while growing up on the Lost Coast. He's also leads his ferocious punk-psych power trio Feral Ohms and is a member a member of local supergroup Heron Oblivion with Comets bandmate Noel Von Harmonson, guitarist Charlie Saufley (ex-Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound) and drummer/singer Meg Baird (who has her own solo career in addition to playing with Philly psych/folk band Espers).
For this two-night celebration, Miller has enlisted friend and onetime Howlin Rain member Isaiah Mitchell (the virtuoso guitarist in heavy-psych power trio Earthless and his quartet Golden Void), keyboard player Adam MacDougall (The Black Crowes, the Chris Robinson Band, Circles Around the Sun, Phil Lesh and Friends) and the Grateful Shred rhythm section of bassist Dan Horne and drummer Austin Beade to serve as the core band for the performances.
On Monday night, the band's recreation of Aoxomoxoa will include additional guest appearances by keyboard player/singer Brigid Dawson (formerly with Thee Oh Sees and currently leading her new band, the Mothers Network), Tarnation singer Paula Frazer, guitarist Greg Loiacono (Mother Hips and Chris Robinson side project the Green Leaf Rustlers), Real Estate guitarist Alex Bleeker, classically trained pianist and Grateful Dead/Phish interpreter Holly Bowling and singer/songwriter Steve Gunn (ex member of Kurt Vile's backing band the Violators).
Tuesday's rendition of Live/Dead will feature guest spots by Gunn, Once and Future Band guitarist Raze Regal, ALO guitarist Dan "Lebo" Lebowitz, experimental six-string great Bill Orcutt, Miller's Heron Oblivion bandmates Baird and Saufley and multi-instrumentalist Jason Crosby (Bruce Springsteen, Carlos Santana, Phil Lesh and Friends). Mad Alchemy Liquid Light Show will provide appropriately mind-altering visual projections both nights. A portion of the proceeds from the two shows at the Chapel will benefit the Rex Foundation, the charitable non-profit organization founded by members of the Dead in the early 1980s.
50th Anniversary Tribute to Aoxomoxoa and Live/Dead
Monday-Tuesday, Oct. 28-29, 7:30 p.m. $25-$30
The Chapel