Tomorrow, February 4th, I'm leaving work early. I'm gonna grab a stack of CD's, throw on some shades, and bravely venture to Hollywood, CA. As I get a bit older (not really that much wiser, though) and since I've moved to San Francisco, the desire to drive for hours to catch a show comes with less frequency than it used to. Hell, why ever leave your backyard when you are a short drive from the Great American, Fillmore, and Warfield? Well, tomorrow The String Cheese Incident will be checking into the House of Blues in Hollywood for a two night stay. 'Nuff said, I'm making the trip and plan on slipping through those notorious L.A. traffic jams like a greased pig down a water slide. The reason for my sudden explosion of motivation is that one of a couple of bands which I feel is guaranteed to put on mind boggling performances each and every night is within reach; and that is something we all know is priceless.

At the time of my conversation with Michael Kang, he had just finished working on SCI Fidelity's latest venture: an album which also features the likes of Darol Anger, Mike Marshall, and Paul McCandless. Somehow, Michael Kang found some time to record in between an amazing New Year's run and a Winter Carnival Tour 2000 which is now underway. Even more amazing, Michael was kind enough to make time for the following interview. Chatting with one of my favorite musicians indeed proved to be a treat. Beyond being a stellar musician, Kang is a thoughtful, insightful, and well spoken person who seems quite dedicated to his craft.

DR- Well, I'd like to start off by congratulating you on the great New Year's run. How do you reflect on that event?

MK- It was the culmination of a lot of work on a lot of people's behalf. It was just an amazing experience for us to get to do that. And, for that many people to show up...well, we were really thankful that everybody was there. It was really a great year in a lot of ways. There hasn't been much rest afterwards; I haven't had much of a chance to reflect on it necessarily. It was a great experience but, I'm also really excited to just get back on tour too.

DR- I did a review on it for JamBands, and described it as a sensory playground.

MK- Yeah, it was bordering on sensory overload (laughs). It was a great experience, and the best thing for us was that we got to spend it with a lot of people we kind of known over the years that have become good friends of ours. It wasn't really done through a standard contract with a regular promoter or anything. It was basically put on by all of our friends, especially a lot of people from Oregon Country Fair and John Dwork and Peak Productions and all those people. So, that felt really special in itself. So, we're glad for that. And then it was great to have all of our families there. We just kind of tried it out in a new space, and it was a really positive experience for us.

DR- This New Year's obviously came with a lot of hype and expectations.

MK- Yeah, even though nothing really happened in the world overall. It did come and put a lot of pressure on our performance and for everybody to just blow it out and do something completely crazy.

DR- And that's my question. Is this a onetime blowout for you, is this the start of a great tradition, or don't you know yet?

MK- New Year's is always gonna be one of those experiences, but this just happened to be the two thousandth year. We try to bring a lot of rituals and a lot of special shows into the experience on different dates. Solstice has always been more important to us in a lot of ways. We did the Solstice run at the Fillmore, and this year it's gonna be at the Warfield. Those are important shows too.

DR- In terms of the band's New Years traditions, it seems like this was your first New Year's that was undoubtedly a String Cheese Incident event.

MK- Yeah, that's something we've really decided after all the years of doing things with other people. And especially after coming off tours with other bands...we love being able to play with everybody else, but we always got done with the experience feeling like we're the kind of band that only gets warmed up after playing an hour and a half.

DR- The midnight parade was an undescribable event. And, it really seemed focused on inspiring everyone towards a more positive way of thinking and lifestyle. Where did you find the inspiration for the parade?

MK- Well, it was not actually all our ideas. The parade, that's where a lot of our friends, and people like Peak Productions put it together with us. There were some hundred other people working on it; and we didn't really give them that much direction. We kind of just said it's up to people's own creativity to come up with it. So, they just all got together. It was all basically based around looking at the different archetypes of what our society is made up of, or what our ideal world would be made up of and bringing those and recognizing them. There was a children's float, a goddess float...a Gaia Float, they all represent things that are important to us in the next millennium. Actually, not even the next millennium, things that are important to us right or and in the past as well.

DR- You rung in the New Year with Bob Marley's One Love. Why did you choose this song, and how hard was it selecting a song for the occasion?

MK- We wanted something that everybody could sing along to (laughs) and it just seemed really fitting along with the feeling of the entire event.

DR- I noticed a few cameras around the venue, is a video possibly in development?

MK- Yeah, that's something the Peak Production guys organized and I think there will be a video release. There should also be another String Cheese historical movie; a good friend of ours has just been shooting video of us in the last three years. It's really interesting to see, there is so much stuff that has happened in the last three years. All of our fans kinda get to see what has been going on.

DR- You guys always seem to have plenty of special guests, which obviously must keep things fresh. How would you describe the impact of these colloborations?

MK- It's kind of making connections with the outer music. We'd really like to include as many people as we can in our experience. Part of the reason this album came along for me is because I got a chance to play with Darol (Anger), Mike (Marshall) and Paul (McCandless) and all those people we considered our heroes for a long time. And, just to incorporate them into what we do just kind of opens up different musical worlds. I'd say overall it's just one of those things that as we continue to hone our craft, its something that we hope to do- incorporating people that have influenced us in the past. We all know that we're not the greatest musicians in the world or anything like that, we're simply trying to just do what we do in the line that we do it. Just to include the people, it's a great learning experience, and its great to hear other people play the music that we've written, it makes it more interesting.

DR- How about when the band was in its very early stages, were there any particular established players who played with you before you really had really established yourselves?

MK- It's hard to say because we've had a lot of sit ins. That's part of the festival thing, it really does solidify that. I think even our second or third year we had some people sit in with us. And, Paul has been playing with us for a number of years. He's from the band Oregon, and he also used to be a Flecktone with Bela. Grisman (David Grisman) has kind of been around and seen us for a few years. The first time he played with us was like three or four years ago. So, its been happening kind of steadily; different people come along at different times.

DR- I'd like to touch on the String Cheese Incident's connection to the Grateful Dead. Being compared to the Dead seems inevitable for you guys. But in the last year plus you did the Kaiser New Year's thing, and you did the Summer Sessions with Phil & Friends. What does it mean to you to actually have a tangible connection to the Dead. How do you feel about that; what does that mean for you?

MK- Well, for different members of the band, at least for me and Travis...I went to a few Dead shows in my time, it's great. I used to watch those guys on stage and really get off on what they were doing. The Dead for me really opened my mind to the possibilities of music. And, being able to play improvised rock music in that setting, or rock-bluegrass whatever it is, it's a privilege to be connected in some realm. I think we all do the same thing; I think ultimately our goal together would be healing and community through music. Also just musical expression in an improvised sense brings about so much in life for us. That's one thing I really got from touring with Phil this summer, that he's just so happy to be alive doing what he's doing. He's really an inspiration in that way, he's just on fire right now.

Of course, now that we're connect in that sense there are going to be comparisons. I think we have similar musical tastes and backgrounds probably within the realm of what we do. But, it's something we kind of figure is gonna happen because they are in a lot of ways the models of how many homegrown jambands are modeling their organizations. Not to give away your power to anyone else, that's the model we've followed in our organization.

DR- It seems that so many Jambands are compared to or measured against either the Dead or Phish. What are your thoughts on this?

MK- I think it's inevitable that it's going to happen. We hope to be able to do our own thing. But to say we're not influenced by them to a certain degree would be a complete lie. I love Phish; I know Travis really digs them. In the last year I went to like four or five Phish shows (laughs), and I love what they do. I loved Trey's playing before I ever picked up the mandolin. They're definitely an influence to a certain degree. But, I listen to so many different kinds of music that influence me and get me off in different ways. They are one of the greatest bands in rock and roll history. And the comparisons, I don't really mind; if they compare us to Phish, then it's an honor to be compared to those guys. But, we try to do our own thing in a different way. Just like we can be compared to the Dead, we can be compared to Phish because we have similar sensibilities in what music is about. I think Phish represents the most modern combination of what's happening in the world music scene in a really big rock and roll sense. They combine so many different kinds of grooves, and so many different kinds of elements in their music that they really bring out. And that's kind of what we strive to do to because we really love so many different kinds of music. What we try to do is open it up as a democracy in the band to really let everybody have individual expression about what they want to do, what they want to play. And, that's probably the biggest comparison. They have a big love for bluegrass, obviously we do, the Dead did as well. It's the modern folk American music. Phish is much more into rock and roll than we've ever been, because none of us really have that much of background in that.

DR- I want to pick your brain a bit about this whole jamband thing. In a conversation with Karl Denson, I asked him what he thought about bands like Medeski, Martin & Wood, String Cheese Incident, Government Mule, Widespread Panic, and Tiny Universe being grouped in this same family of Jamband. What's your take on this?

MK- It's kind of a loose term, I've come to realize it's a very loose term. Jam meaning that at any point you might want to open it up. But people have been doing that, Miles Davis has been doing that, since way back when. And, improvised music, we're by no means masters of that. There are people that will blow us away in any small club in New York. Now Karl, I just saw him this weekend actually, his whole band, they're much more oriented around the funk thing. All the bands have different characters, but they all share a similar intent in that they are willing to let the freedom of the music reign in their performances. Even though we get lumped together, I think we're all very different. There are some things that bring us together, you know Karl has played with us, and maybe we might attract a similar type of fan base since we're not commercial, radio type bands; none of us are really pursuing that type of career. And I think there's a certain element of the population right now that is into those types of band that are alternative in the sense of really just putting out different kinds of music. A lot of it is groove and dance oriented which I think is a powerful thing, getting people involved to dance at shows it brings the crowd and the band together into one unity.

DR- In the last few years, this Jamband scene has grown tremendously. Do you have any theories on the reasons for this great success?

MK- Well, I think you have to look originally at what the Dead did, which was really groundbreaking. I read Bill Graham's book, and really got the sense that the Dead really started something new in terms of what they were doing at the time: alternative, popular music without commercialization or radio. Then Phish kind of carried the torch after the Dead broke apart, and that opened up a whole other realm as well. I wonder, I really actually wonder now new it is, although there's really a lot of bands doing it right now. Before we were a band, in 1992, Phish was really just getting started, there was ARU (Aquarium Rescue Unit), there was Blues Traveler, there were bands doing this kind of thing. I wondering how many of those bands I didn't even know about were playing back then. Leftover Salmon was a pretty small band at that point. So, I think its been going on for awhile. I don't know how far back I can really take it, but there's always a lot of bands expressing themselves in a lot of different ways.

DR- I would like to talk for a bit about the scene or vibes at an Incident. It seems like the String Cheese family has really tried to develop a unique, fun, and positive environment. The music, decorations, batik art, and hula hoops, they all create a festive energy. What kind of experience are you trying to create?

MK- We like to create an experience where people can kind of just have fun with the music. Over the years, people have just created their own thing. We kind of spurred the hula hoop thing at one point a couple of years ago at Telluride Bluegrass and tossed a bunch of hula hoops out there. But, then people have just kind of followed with their own freaky energy or whatever it is (laughs). And, people have come up to us and said they wanted to get involved. The fire dancing, there are these two women in San Francisco that started doing that a while ago; and that spurred on a whole different thing.

After being at Oregon Country Fair, and seeing all the different things that can be lumped into performance art, we just want to give people the space to do whatever they want and express themselves in whatever way that they want. Ultimately, obviously for us, we're trying to create a good, festive atmosphere through our music. And, that's what we're going to try to do. As for what people do with that, its up to their own creativity. That's how we'd like to leave it as this point. We've kind of gotten to the point where people have a certain space where they can express themselves. That's hopefully what we've been able to create: a space for people to be able to do whatever it is that they want to do without any restrictions creatively or emotionally or whatever.

DR- And, beyond the 3 or so hours a person is at a concert, or at an Incident, do you feel your music has any deeper, long-lasting results?

MK- I guess I think it can because I've seen it happen. Ultimately, I would say that our goal would be to open up or at least touch people in a creative way so that they can bring that creative manner so that they their own life. That would be my ultimate goal, our goal, to bring that kind of inspiration to people in whatever way they can feel it. But that's not just something that should come from me, or our band. We just want to let people carry the torch into their own lives. I guess my goal is just to play music and satisfy my musical interests and just let that go where it goes. I would hope that people get something from the experience that really opens them up in some way. At the same time, it could be something where people go out and forget about what ever it is there were thinking about and just think about dancing.

DR- Finally, the scene at an Incident is so diverse. Old bluegrass fans, old Deadheads, young kids, and everyone in between, and they are communing in a common experience. How would you describe the String Cheese Incident family, and what challenges do you face as it gets larger?

MK- It's changing, its always changing. The family is always going to be growing. And, its been great to have all these new people get into the band. Its hard to describe the family necessarily because it is a pretty diverse group of people. We hope that whatever happens, people bring the same intentions when they first got there, which is enjoying the band and the possibility of what can happen on any given night. Of course that changes over time.

I know there are a lot of people worried about our scene getting too big or out of control; and that all goes back to how people treat it in their own way, or they're own space; what energy they bring to the show. In a number of ways though everyone's gotta take on responsibility for themselves. Certainly drugs are an issue that comes up at times. I know it's a touchy subject to say, but at many jambands show there's often a lot of drug intake that goes on in the crowd. It's not really up to us, but people will do that. There's a part of me that wants to keep it clean to a certain extent because there's a lot of different people that come to shows. We want to respect everybody's right to enjoy whatever it is they enjoy. And I think it's all about responsibility and taking care of your own actions.