by Darol Anger

The dreaded LA basin, 2nd gig gala performance site of Comotion, appears at the bottom of a cap of virginal white haze as we crest the last desert rise heading west from Swingin' Vegas. Talking to our silver-haired driver, Dale, I discover the happy facts that not only is he an ex-Air Force guy, but has worked in the ministry as a pastor-- and played jazz trombone for years, and utterly digs our group. Exactly the kind of guy you don't mind putting your life in his hands as you speed down the road at 4 AM in a little tiny bunk box.

However, nothing can shield us from the vibe of the weirdest place on earth, Los Angeles.

Sunset Boulevard, House of Blues, 2.5 levels of hipness up from the Hard Rock Cafe, a Disneyland for those who know who Robert Johnson was. At least the place is staffed by real pros who have the funny stories. and they really can make that great greasy salty sweet BBQ, too. It's just too funny to see, on Sunset Boulevard, right between the slick multi-story glass & steel stuff, a fake ramshackle meandering rusted-out corrugated steel gigantic shed all covered with kudzu vines and voodoo art. Like going from Tomorrowland over to Frontierland at the Magic Kingdom.

Man, everybody looks so good down here. Everybody else, that is. I guess I was expecting a bunch of jaded business types as an audience, but why would any of those people come to our show in the first place? We got a nice bunch of folks, pretty much the same as any of the jam band audiences, ready to dance and listen. And a great guest list! One thing this band as is some interesting friends, and a lot of them showed up in LA. One of the most fun things was having Vickie Randle from the Tonight Show Band, come up and play drums with us. What a monster player and fantastic feeling in her percussion playing. She's an old buddy from Oakland, and when she got up there we just didn't want her to ever leave. The whole band fell in love with her, and we certainly kept her laughing.

Lots of friends showed up to this gig: Richard Greene, my original inspiration for the fiddle, visited backstage, looking a bit bemused. He's just finished doing a semi-classical Celtic fiddle tune project with piano. It must have been interesting to see a band like this and remember his pioneering electric fiddle work with Seatrain in the early seventies...these years and this scene seem like a slightly improved version of those years: better drugs, better attitude, cleaner smarter kids, feminism. Kang had friends from Brazil there, a young musician who lives in LA and his mother who was visiting from Brazil. There are so many ties between these two giant countries with lots of different people in them, with euro-african musical cultures, and friendly emotional people who can't do enough for you. Lesa Terry from the Uptown String Quartet stopped by. Guitarmaker to The Stars Danny Ferrington checked in, with stories about the famous folks he's hanging out with-- he still can't believe it. All the band members had friends there, it was hard to get back to the stage to play the second set. But we eventually did and played a real good Frank Zappa tune, Slime ( I am The Slime From The Video) in tribute to that special magic quality that this place brings to the world. Still trying to get the volume issue straightened out on stage. We have guys from different bands with varying levels of onstage volume, and people are trying to deal with it as best they can; so far this is a really loud group for some of the acoustic guys. Maybe not so loud for the electric guys, but they have been using in-the-ear headphone monitors, which cut out a lot of noise. It's hard to run those for everyone because we don't have a special mixing board with us for the headphones, consequently it's a tougher setup and so we wind up with people fighting the drum volume-- two drummers make a lot of sound-- and ringing ears, and loud amps on stage, and general confusion. It's an ongoing problem which sometimes seems better, sometimes worse, and the fact that we're playing so many different styles of music seems to make it tougher somehow.

Thankfully, the crowds are completely open to the music and seems to love it all. Some of us haven't really experienced this phenomenon of the same folks touring around with the band and showing up dancing night after night. It's very comforting, actually, though Mike observed that in this part of the music business, the band functions more like a dating service for most of the folks. Or we're just there to provide a venue for the party. That really hit home when we went over and saw Phish for an hour or so before our Vegas show. Those guys seemed to have so little ego, they were just playing the music they liked, but the folks that were there were really more there to be with each other. It was nice, and reminded me of course of the Dead shows. Though I think Phish were maybe better musicians technically, they were still sort of the 'house band'. It does make you appreciate the folks who show up right up front night after night and smile at you.

I think it's really hard to get big audiences any more that will sit and listen intensely to the musical details for 2 hours, which is why jazz and classical music have relatively small audiences. Those of us who have played mostly those kind of shows sometimes get a little disoriented by Jam Culture, because it's more of an energy-directing gig. The moves are larger and more generalized, but there's a whole subtle art to it. Kang really knows his way around that scene, and we're pretty much working from his direction on set lists and show orders. I don't know any band that does that stuff better or more conscientiously than SCI. Anyway, it's all a pleasant change from going out there and being on the spot for every little detail of your music.

Palookaville in Santa Cruz. An exciting day: A transmission hose on the bus popped in LA and we sat by the side of the road in the mountains from 6 AM to 1:30 waiting to get it fixed. I can't believe this nutty schedule we're on- play these late shows, start at 10 or so (on a weeknight!) yak and eat & smoke in the bus til 4 or 5AM, than pile in the bunks and sleep while Dale wheels on up the road to our next place. Only we wind up sleeping til 1 or noon which seems late but it's really only about 5 hours, and some of us do better than others in a bumping noisy bunk. At least it's dark in there, with the little curtains and so on. Some people love it- they feel like it's a coffin and they just sleep and sleep. Problem is that the air conditioning is so cold and dry and blasting in there. I always wind up with a sore throat after a day or two. Anyhow, we're out there near this truck stop, waiting for the mobile emergency repair guys to finish fixing our bus, and there's an amazing taco truck right across the road which sells those little tiny soft tacos; you can get highly and exquisitely spiced meat most of us normally don't touch: besides bbq beef & chicken tacos, you can get all the pig. Pork, bbq pork, pork in chili sauce, pork tongue, pork brains, ears, noses, and other parts. How do they make that stuff taste so good? They put lots and lots of chilis. And then they put in more chilis. And on top of all that, they add a chili or two, and top it off with a radish & cilantro. And chilis. I ate four. I won't tell you what kind. Anyway, we wound up getting into Santa Cruz at 6:30 for an 8PM "doors", and for a band that does 5 hour sound checks, it was a real cram but we did it! Kudos to the intrepid crew at Palookaville, more great folks, great party. Starting to recognize some of the dancer audience, and getting a feel for the energy level of the audience. Can't wait to play in the Bay Area tomorrow, on our home turf, the Great American Music Hall!