by Bob Makin

North Jersey-based Stir Fried draws more people in Colorado than it does across the Hudson River in New York.

The situation inspired two very tasty tunes on "Last of the Blue Diamond Miners," the band's third independent album on its own Falbo Records. "West of the Mississippi" is a bluegrass-flavored tribute to Quixote's True Blue Cafe, the Aurora, Colo. club that has become more of a Stir Fried stomping grounds than any of the plethora of Gotham nightspots. The title track is a sincere country-rock tune about pirates, whether they be at sea or within the music industry.

They and the rest of the album's tasty tunes inspired contributions from such musical heavyweights as:

* New Orleans R&B fixture Dr. John, who sings on the opening murder mystery of "Vanessa," plays Fender Rhodes on the James Brown-inspired original "Sex Machine" and strokes the same grand piano heard on John Lennon's "Imagine" on the Dylanesque country tale "Let it Be Known."

* P-Funk's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame keyboard master and fellow New Jerseyan Bernie Worrell, who plays organ on the New Orleans-flavored funk epic "Blood Brother/C'est Le Bonne Rue" and the soulful, bluesy funk of "Quagmire."

* Widespread Panic keyboard player Jo Jo Herman, who guests on the title track.

* Progressive banjo great and Bela Fleck mentor Tony Trischka, who plays on "West of the Mississippi," "Vanessa," "Let It Be Known," the slow-burning folk-blues of "Black Dress" and the warped, mellow country rocker "Nothin' To Do."

* Fiddle legend Vassar Clements, who appears throughout the new album and on last year's live outing, "ElectriFried," a follow-up to 1997's self-titled debut.

* Pedal steel guitarist Buddy Cage, who replaced Jerry Garcia in New Riders of the Purple Sage, played on the seminal '70s Dylan album, "Blood on the Tracks," and has been a freelance member of Stir Fried on all of its recordings and most of its tours.

So how is a jam outfit that has to go all the way to Colorado to get a decent gig able to enlist such an incredible lineup of talent?

Simple.

They had balls big enough and chops good enough to ask. But they also had some connections.

Stir Fried was formed in 1989 by childhood friends John Markowski, the son of songwriter-producer Tommy Kaye, and Vincent Lorenzo, a University of Miami-schooled jazz percussionist. When lead guitarist Jan London joined the group shortly thereafter, the three formed Falbo Records and recruited dynamic vocalist Joanne Lediger, funky bassist James Alvin Harrison, solid drummer Chris Lacinak. Then Cage came on as a freelancer.

Besides a wonderful Dead-like mix of American roots music and funkadelic fun, Stir Fried also taps into the songs of Markowski's biological father, Thomas Jefferson Kaye, composer of such pop hits as "96 Tears," "This Magic Moment" and "One Man Band" and producer of such artists as Barbra Streisand, Steely Dan, Timothy B. Schmidt of The Eagles and Dr. John. Kaye also was friendly with the Grateful Dead, particularly Jerry Garcia.

But Markowski didn't get to know Kaye until he was 17 after Larry Markowski, his legal father and his mother's second husband, passed away. The father and son immediately teamed up musically, but when Kaye also passed away unexpectedly in 1991, his son vowed "to keep the music living."

So on every album, Stir Fried records three of Kaye's tunes. One of them, "Hoe-Bus," is the band's signature live tune. This time out, there's the rootsy '70s-dripping funk of "The Door Is Still Open," "C'est Le Bonne Rue," which segues nicely from Markowski's and Lorenzo's "Blood Brothers," and "Vanessa," which Dr. John originally performed with guitarist Mike Bloomfield and harmonica great John Hammond on the Kaye-produced early '70s all-star album, "Triumvirate."

Kaye also hauntingly inspired "Black Dress," which chronicles the emotions surrounding his death. "Last of the Blue Diamond Miners" was the last song that the ailing alcoholic tunesmith had tried to write. Markowski took the title and channeled his father's pirate-like spirit.

The music industry has nearly come full circle since the days when Tommy Kaye wrote and produced his '60s and '70s hits. In an age when record conglomerates, already aligned with corporate radio, are considering turning singer-songwriters into Brill Building-like employees with no control or ownership over their own songs, Stir Fried is completely independent of that muck. No one owns Stir Fried but Stir Fried. And while that's a struggle, the band continues to grow musically and professionally with each CD.

One of the hardest working but most underappreciated acts in the jam band scene, Stir Fried has several upcoming dates in Colorado with Clements and Trischka. Then the band will head back home to Jersey at the end of the month to play a birthday party for Clements on June 24 at Mexicali Blues in Teaneck. The gig also will be a hometown record release party. After a festival in Syracuse, N.Y., it's back on the road for a tour of Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, West Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

During a rare downtime, I spoke with Markowski, Lorenzo, London and Cage who had a fascinating, insightful story to tell.

BM: How did the three main guys in Stir Fried come together?

Vincent Lorenzo: I grew up with Johnny. We were childhood friends who always shared in the arts through school. When we were growing up, we were always in Grateful Dead and Stones cover bands, but Johnny was always writing music. He was always sneaking in his original music since he was 14 years old. I went to the University of Miami to study jazz, but Johnny stuck around and played in bands like the Jo Jo Hipster Band. Then I ended up in Teaneck, N.J., with Johnny and Jan and we formed Stir Fried in the summer of 1989.

BM: Buddy, how and why did you hook up with Stir Fried?

Buddy Cage: Oh that's real simple. I'm a total independent. I don't stick with any one thing. I put all my energy into a lot of things, but I'm a maverick. So I was doing a gig with multiple acts on it in upstate New York. My deal was that I would play with any band that wanted me to play with them. They were one of them. Johnny came up and said, 'Would you mind playing with us?' When we started to play their tunes, I said, 'Jesus man, this is a groove I can get into.' I was comfortable with it. They love what I do and I love what they do so I started working with them. And they pay me.

If groups were just too fucked, I wouldn't be interested. I take care of my responsibilities. These guys are straight shooters and very appealing. And they asked me from the get-go, 'What can we do to get better?' And I told them exactly the things they needed to do. They are now able to express their music a lot better.

BM: What do you enjoy bringing most to Stir Fried?

Cage: When the rhythm section is really cookin', that's where I get a great deal of satisfaction. I also love watching a group take veteran experience of mine and use it instead of ignoring it. I just hate to go around the same track twice.

BM: Did you bring Vassar into the group?

Cage: In a way, but they already had an in to Vassar. They were trying to work with him on some level. Vassar and I had worked together over 25 years back to the Old and In the Way days touring with New Riders. I'm an undisciplined player and Vassar's that way too. He just couldn't do play bluegrass for any long stretch of time. He couldn't be in the studio for any long stretch of time. He just needed to have a freedom of expression. Well, Old and In the Way certainly provided him with that. When he came in to do gigs with Stir Fried, I certainly encouraged him that that was the way to go, that he had found a home.

BM: How often does Vassar tour with the band?

Cage: Whenever he can. He comes in on gigs that want Vassar. From his end, he encourages gigs that they book with him for Stir Fried to come in because he loves playing with the band. Anytime Stir Fried can play with Vassar and we can get a gig where they can pay his nut and not have to hurt anybody financially, then that works. We're always trying to work that way. There's a limit where you don't want to be considered Vassar's backup band...but we have had people ask if Stir Fried could do a couple of Vassar tunes. So they've gone to the bench and pulled out a couple.

BM: Does Stir Fried ever do New Riders tunes?

Cage: No. That's probably my preference. Johnny has mentioned that he'd like to do some, but I have no interest.

BM: You do some of the same covers the Dead used to do?

Cage: Yeah. They're not Dead tunes, but we will do a Dylan tune, things that the Dead did. They said, 'We wanna do this tune 'Mama Tried.' And I said, 'Oh yeah, whose version.' They go, 'The Dead.' And I said, 'No, no, it's not a Dead tune. It's a Merle Haggard tune. Wake up!' But that's one that they loved and we love too.

BM: How'd you like working with Bernie Worrell, Dr. John and Tony Trischka?

Lorenzo: It was an honor to work with these cats. They're all Hall of Famers engraved in the history books of rock 'n' roll. Some of the songs on 'Blue Diamond Miners' are 16-17 years old. We thought we were doing a fabulous job with Johnny's songs. But all of a sudden, people like Bernie and Cage and Tony and Dr. John and Vassar just competely blow the roof of them. I mean, shit we've got Dr. John on some of our music. Now it's a song.

Johnny Markowski: That's why we did it, to take ourselves to another level.

Cage: Working with Bernie was great, man. Without any mind-altering substances, he went in and absolutely did an honest day's work that was just wonderful. Johnny knew what he wanted from him, and he got it. It was just a real great experience.

When Vassar and Tony came in doing live overdubs between the two of them, that was wonderful. They knew exactly where they were going and had a great time doing it. When it came down to Dr. John coming in, it was just so neat. Johnny got him to sing on 'Vanessa.' It was just wonderful.

Markowski: I just thank God for giving us the opportunity to play with all these musicians we got to play with. They are inspiring. They would teach us what we should do. It was great to get to share that recording experience with those people. I thank everybody who appeared on the CD from the bottom of my heart.

BM: Buddy, there's a tune on 'Blue Diamond Miners' that sounds like the music you made with Bob Dylan on 'Blood on the Tracks.' I love the way you, Vassar and Tony blend that country instrumentation very well.

Cage: That just happens with three players like us. I couldn't explain it to you any better than that. There's no formula or grid for it. There'll be a nod, a twitch or a smile that indicates a shift over. I like that holes are left. But they're good holes. Sometimes silences are notes too.

BM: How did you end up using the piano on which John Lennon recorded 'Imagine'?

Lorenzo: It's at Iiwii Studios in Weehawken. The owner worked with Lennon. We were in Studio A and The Black Crowes were in Studio B cutting their new album.

BM: Comment on how, like most jam bands, Stir Fried's tunes are created out of jams and performed live long before they're ever recorded.

Lorenzo: It's about being in the moment. We all take those chances up onstage and we all like to venture into what's not known for us. Most of the time, we come up with some great things. Sometimes it doesn't work, but it's not embarrassing. If we fall our faces at least we can say, 'I tried.' Eighty percent of the time we hit a home run because we're committed to the music. The music steers what we do, we don't steer the music. We try to reproduce in the studio what we do live. Most bands will try to reproduce live what they do in the studio. What's the sense?

BM: Comment on what you're most proud about 'Last of the Blue Diamond Miners?'

Jan London: The people who've heard it have been blown away by how good it is. Being so close to it, it's hard to see. I think it's good but to have the affirmation of folks is really great.

Markowski: I really like the song 'Last of the Blue Diamond Miners.' I wrote a couple of songs with my dad, but we haven't recorded them yet. We plan to do that in the future. The last two years my dad was living, he was writing 'Last of the Blue Diamond Miners.' I heard bits and pieces of different songs he tried to use with it, but he never finished it. So I took the title of the song and wrote a different version. Me and my friend Sully sat down and wrote it while we were on another friend's 36-foot cabin cruiser. It was like being on a pirate ship. So we wrote this song about pirates around the title my father had.

I'm really happy with it. And I think my dad is too. His ghost haunts the studio. That's no rumor. There's witnesses. It's unexplainable, but it's cool. We welcome him in. No one's afraid of the ghost.

BM: Johnny, comment on your relationship with your dad.

Markowski: When I was a real little kid, my mother and father were divorced and my dad took off and started doing all these crazy things, not taking responsibility for his kids. My mom remarried and I was adopted. Then when I was about five years old, I really started enjoying music. I started playing the drums. By the time I was 12, I was writing songs. When I was 14, I was in a band writing songs that the guitar players didn't know how to play so I started playing guitar.

My stepfather passed away when I was 16. At that point, I didn't remember my father at all, but my older brother Tommy did. I decided I wanted to meet my real father. From then on, it was a musical excursion with lessons from him day after day.

Tommy Kaye was a great producer and songwriter. My dad was real tight with Dr. John. They hung out quite bit. My dad did two of his own albums in the early '70s with members of Steely Dan. They were great albums, but they were shelved because the record company got sold. That's why I play his music. When he passed away in '91, he was a hard-core alcoholic by that time. But I forgave him and he asked me to keep the music living. I said, 'Sure.'

'Vanessa' felt right this time, and I knew I wanted Dr. John to sing and play on it. I knew 'Vanessa' was a tune he was familiar with. 'C'est La Bonne Rue' just worked live during a jam with 'Blood Brothers,' and I just really love 'The Door Is Still Open.'

BM: Buddy, were you mutual friends with Tommy Kaye through Jerry Garcia?

Cage: No, I didn't know him. Johnny told me, 'Do you remember '96 Tears'? And I was like, 'Fuck yeah, man. I dug that tune in the '60s.' He said, 'Well my dad wrote that.' All of the other connections with all the other players that he used, evidently a lot of players really liked what Tommy did.

BM: How do you like working with Tommy's tunes?

Cage: They're terrific. Some of the staples Stir Fried has are Tommy Kaye tunes. They're wonderful. But I told Johnny a little while back, 'Your old man's tunes are great, but you're certainly no less than he was as a songwriter.' He doesn't take a second chair to his dad at all.

BM: It's just a lot different industry. It's a lot harder to get heard.

Cage: I'm not one who seeks deals. I never have, I never will. The first thing I signed was in '68 with Albert Grossman for Ian & Sylvia's Great Speckled Bird album, which is one of the pioneer country-rock bands. Ever since then, I've been leery of it for great reason. So I've encouraged this band from the get go, 'Don't sell out. You own yourselves.' What happy news that was when I found that these three principal guys of Falbo Records aren't beholden to a soul for a single dime of investment. That meant they could do things that they wanted to do without having to cough up, relinquish or abdicated any control on their end. It's tough, but any good road is tough too I've found. There is no shortcut between money and pride. I've stuck with these guys as they've gone through the learning experiences. There's a lot of frustration and neuroses about financial situations, but they hold onto it without selling any of it off. I'm proud of them for keeping that up.

Getting a deal isn't even a deal that you want. I've been up against this stuff for 25 years for Christ's sake. They have gotten to a place where if they can start selling CDs on their own...you know Clive Davis is going to hear about the fact you sold 30,000 CDs in a summer. We would love help to sell some more, but it's a different package when they don't own you. You know, the company store. That's what record companies are, the company store. It's the story of the old railroads and open pit miners and the factories and all that shit. That's what they are, man.

BM: That way you've got more of a bargaining chip.

Cage: You are the bargaining chip, and if they just want to sign on, they do what's called a distribution deal. If they don't want to, fuck 'em. Do what you want to do, but if they do, you have the right attorneys in on it and you know what percentage to offer them for selling your own product, the one that you own.

BM: Falbo is probably not going to get Stir Fried on corporate radio in the near future, but some of the tunes on 'Blue Diamond Miners' are very radio friendly.

Cage: But they're getting some radio play. Who the fuck needs Time Warner? They just want to get out of the hole, man. They don't need palaces in Barcelona. They just need to get an even break. And that's what they're building for themselves.

BM: How does web radio, like JamBands Radio and Phoenix Radio pick up the slack of those corporate entities that don't even know they're out there. They still get radio play throughout the world on the Internet.

Cage: I feel it's wonderful. In this new territory, there's obviously going to be some governmental thing to go down to ensure that artists are paid for their work. But it's wonderful because all the choices are people's now instead of the Top 40.

It's like the Brill Building. At that time, songs were written and they were owned by record companies and they were shopped around to their artists and all the artists did the same shit. Artists didn't have control over what they did. It was all controlled by the record companies. Dylan changed that because he came in as his own singer-songwriter and was able to sell amazingly. He came in and changed it all around and record companies were non-plussed. They were absolutely baffled that this could happen, but here it was. And this paved the way for all the stuff after Woodstock.

Now the record companies have established themselves in connection with the corporations that own the fucking radio stations, but with the Internet everybody has access to everybody's material and they can pick and choose what they want. It's a great way for people to listen to your stuff and not involve record companies. They're in a place where they have to rethink what they do because if they don't, they're dead.

'West of the Mississippi' is a tribute to how well the band has done in Colorado, particularly to Quixote's True Blue Cafe and its owners, Jay and Phil Bianchi.

Lorenzo: For eight years this band played to nobody. Nobody was getting it. Then we went to Colorado two years ago. Johnny and I wrote that tune on our maiden voyage back from Colorado. We blew into the state. All the praise in the world goes to the Bianchi brothers who took faith in Stir Fried without even talking to us. When we got out to Colorado, a plethora of people opened up their hearts and their homes and their ears to what we were trying to say. We did a two-week run and every night was packed, particularly the Quixote shows. We wrote that tune in a matter of 10 minutes as we were heading home crossing over the Mississippi.

BM: What other clubs have been like Quixote's?

Cage: Legends in Las Vegas. Even when Stir Fried didn't bring anybody in, they stuck by them. They've done well in Atlanta, Mississippi for Christ's sake. They're like, 'Please don't think of us as your poor country cousins. Please come back to our little town and play again.'

It's all a question of getting out there. How much do you believe in the music? You hear all this hype about bands, but that all stops as soon as you plug in. But if you believe in what your band does, take it out there. If you can afford to take a hit for a year, maybe you can play enough places where you'll actually get people to hear your music. They'll either like it or won't. But who needs hype? If they liked it the first time, maybe they'll come out again and bring a friend.

BM: Do you think your New York following will catch up to your Colorado following?

Lorenzo: I hope so. All our success is in the state of Colorado and it's Central USA. I think if we keep pounding the state of Colorado, it will just continue to grow from the center of the U.S. and out. Instead of hitting 15 states a little bit at a time, I think the best plan for Stir Fried is just to hit one state and really make an enormous buzz.

Here's the greatness of the state of Colorado. Everybody in the state is from somewhere else. It's like the whole United States of America is in Colorado. So when we blow into a town like Boulder and we touch 200-300 people, we're not just touching the city of Boulder. Eventually those people are going to leave because they're either tourists or students or they live in Boulder but they travel. So someone leaves a Stir Fried show in Boulder and tells eight to 10 people about the band, those eight to 10 people aren't from Colorado so you've really touched a whole nation just by working the state of Colorado.

BM: Do you plan on moving to Colorado like it says in 'West of the Mississippi'?

Lorenzo: My proposal to the band was, 'Let's move to Colorado.' This was two years ago. We need to move to Colorado, buy a house, live in the same house and make music 24-7 and kind of recreate the old days of the Grateful Dead. But because of wives and ex-wives and children and because of aging family members, it just wasn't in our best family interest to pick up and move. That's the one thing I'm very proud about Stir Fried.

But on a business level, all the money we spent on gas getting to Colorado, we could have put a down payment on a house and had a big piece of equity in the company. And instead of living on the right of the nation and going all the way left, if we lived in Colorado, we'd just have to go a little bit to the right and a little bit to the left and up and down every now and again.

BM: What's the best and worst part of running your own label?

Markowski: The best part is being able to express yourself any way you want, to produce and arrange your own music. I come in with the songs, but it's cool that the whole band gets to express themselves as musicians. We're all sharing a collective groove. And we're able to play whatever gigs we want to play. If we were on a major label, we probably we might not get to play the festivals we like to play, like the harvest festivals and the pro-marijuana festivals. I like to play them because I think marijuana should be legal for medical use.

When we're at Quixote's, we play to the 150-200 capacity in there, but the people we're meeting are cool, partying people. They're not part of the mass commercial media. I'd love to be like a band like The Radiators. For me, it's not about playing stadiums or enormodomes. For me, it's connecting with people who really want to see us, not because they've been influenced by the mass media, but because they really like what we're doing. That's what The Radiators have been doing for 20 years, making a good living.

But there's a lot of work we gotta do. Jan works tremendous hours on the band. Vincent does the promotion. He answers 1,200 emails when we get home from touring. Then we have to gear up new material for the next tour even though people would be happy not to play music at all because they just played it for 30 straight days. There's a lot of effort and work that goes into a record company when you don't have other people to do it for you. We're not at that level to have other people do our business.

London: The best part is making your own decisions and destiny for better or worse. It doesn't always work, but having that freedom is great. The worst part is working 12-hour days and sometimes not putting your instrument first. I used to practice my guitar for two hours a day every day. But nowadays, I have to take care of business. We're fortunate and strong enough to find our market out in Colorado. There's signs that it's spreading.

Lorenzo: The best part is that you don't have to answer to anybody but yourself and the band. We're in the hospitality business and the retail business. It's like selling pizza or a hotel room. You've got to make the costumer happy and you have to be very hospitable doing it. It doesn't matter if we're selling records or a slice of pizza, we're a business. We sell records. You have to have patience, you have to be persistent and everybody has to be committed. We're very fortunate to have that commitment. Everybody in this band is committed to the big picture. The big picture for Stir Fried isn't fortune and fame. It's about getting to drive around the nation, meeting great people, playing some music and sending some money home to our families.

Our allegiance to the service of the music is held in the highest. This band and all its members have sacrificed everything: family, friends, wives, ex-wives, children and as embarrassing as it is, we've even sacrificed our health in honor of making great music. Being up on that stage is completely priceless. It's the best high in the entire universe.