Furthur adventures of the Grateful Dead family

Bob Weir and Phil Lesh’s Furthur project is getting on down the road on its first U.S. tour.

The new band is warming up with an eight-night stand in Mill Valley, California. The shows are called “Live Rehearsal Sessions” and, no, you can’t get a ticket. The band even asks that the ticketless stay away from the town and the two venues.

The Furthur winter tour officially begins Feb. 5 in Miami and is scheduled to end March 8 in Portland, Oregon.

The band consists of Weir (guitar, vocals), Lesh (bass), Jeff Chimenti (keyboards), John Kadlecik (guitar), Jay Lane (percussion), and Joe Russo (drums). The musicians have ties to the family of Grateful Dead-related acts such as Dark Star Orchestra and RatDog.

Furthur debuted in September with a three-night stand in Oakland, Calif. They played New Year’s shows in San Francisco, at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.

The set list looks familiar to Deadheads, of course. Songs so far include “Touch of Grey,” “Eyes of the World,” “Here Comes Sunshine,” “Brokedown Palace,” “Ship of Fools,” “Truckin’” and “Turn on Your Lovelight.”

Here’s a swatch of the Furthur New Year’s Eve show review by Garrin Benfield on JamBase:

This is a living, breathing band capable of rocking, spacing, and generating some serious psychedelic boogie. … The first half of the first set on New Year’s Eve felt like an old school Dead show, when songs were not all necessarily connected by long segues. … (The next set) was, with just a few exceptions, a gorgeously drippy psychedelic excursion through “Cassidy,” “The Wheel,” “Dark Star” and perhaps most notably, Pink Floyd’s “Time” from Dark Side of the Moon.”

Digital downloads and CDs of the tour already are available via the Furthur band’s website.

Mill Valley was selected, apparently, so the band could stay home, rehearse during the day, play the shows at night and sleep in their own beds. The small town, however, is having issues with the inevitable Deadhead hangers-on. The Marin Independent Journal reports: “Some see this as an economic windfall, bringing glamour and excitement to Mill Valley. Others complain that unsavory Deadheads without tickets have been trashing their downtown.” Weir and Lesh had asked fans without tickets not to show up, saying they wanted to continue to be able to play similar shows in small venues.

Furthur is named for the 1939 school bus owned by Ken Kesey and used in the ’60s as psychedelic transport for the trippy writer and his extended family, the Merry Pranksters. At one point, the Beat era heavyweight Neal Cassady was the bus driver. The story was well told in “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.”

Here is the Furthur tour schedule:

February 2010
5th: Miami — Bayfront Park Amphitheatre
6th: Orlando — Hard Rock Live
8th: Atlanta — The Tabernacle
9th: Asheville, N.C. — Thomas Wolfe Auditorium
10th: Charlotte, N.C. — Bojangles Coliseum
12th: Hampton, Va. — Hampton Coliseum
13th: Fairfax, Va. — Patriot Center
14th: Ithaca, N.Y. — Barton Hall
15th: Bethlehem, Pa. — Stabler Arena
17th: Buffalo, N.Y. — Shea Performing Arts Center
18th: Manchester, N.H. –Verizon Wireless Arena
19th: Amherst, Mass. — Mullins Center
20th: Utica, N.Y. — Utica Auditorium
22nd: Newark, Del. — Bob Carpenter Center
23rd, 24th: New York — Radio City Music Hall
26th: Uncasville, Ct. — Mohegan Sun Arena
27th: Atlantic City, N.J. — Trump Taj Mahal

March
2nd, 3rd: Chicago — Auditorium Theatre
8th: Portland, Oregon –Portland Memorial Coliseum

RatDog and the Dark Star Orchestra also have booked shows for the first half of the year.

Heroes of Woodstock in a last hurrah

The Heroes of Woodstock tour plans to continue for at least one more night, ringing in the New Year at a New Mexico concert.

Jefferson Starship and Quicksilver Messenger Service are wrapping up a European swing before the holiday gig. They were joined on the summer Heroes of Woodstock tour by Big Brother and the Holding Company, Canned Heat, Country Joe McDonald and a few other acts such as Ten Years After and Mountain.

The concerts were far above the usual oldies merry-go-rounds, but nothing came near artistic triumphs — such as Jack Bruce’s sets on last year’s Hippiefest tour. The 50- and 60somethings who came to Heroes of Woodstock hoping for the hits got most of them. A few artists mentioned the Woodstock festival, but the tie-in proved largely marketing and packaging.

Headliner Jefferson Starship had but one Woodstock veteran, band leader Paul Kantner. The band performed all Airplane songs. The singer was Cathy Richardson, who displayed plenty of attitude as well as capable/passable vocals. Richardson didn’t try to channel Grace Slick, to her credit. Her take on “White Rabbit” include some theatrics that were … plenty odd.

The “Airplane” came out swinging with Fred Neil’s “Other Side of This Life,” which the originals played at Woodstock. This version had plenty of muscle, as in decades past, promising more than the band ultimately delivered. Watering down the set was a jam session on “St. Stephen” that featured ex-Grateful Dead keyboardist Tom Constanten.

Country Joe MacDonald played host, singing some of his old band’s psychedelic classics such as “Porpoise Mouth.” In between acts, he abused deserving members of the audience (”I hate hippies”) and led the Fish/Fuck cheer.

The early highlight was the Big Brother set, with singer Sophia Ramos getting her share of standing ovations as she sang the songs Janis Joplin made famous. She brought something to each number, but gave the Joplin fans a taste of the original. On some numbers, we swear, she actually outdid the late great singer.

Sure, Ramos’ always-on showmanship felt a bit much for Joplin’s raw classics, but there were undeniable thrills — cheap and otherwise.

The tour edition of the band featured three original members: guitarist Sam Andrew, bassist Peter Albin and drummer Dave Getz. Andrew made way for newcomer Ben Nieves, but still had some jaw-dropping chops to display on “Summertime.”

Canned Heat, which has remained active through the decades, recording some decent albums along the way, brought their boogie vibe nightly. The hits included “Goin’ Up the Country,” “Let’s Work Together” and “On the Road Again.”

Original members Larry “The Mole” Taylor and Harvey “The Snake” Mandel made the trip, along with franchise player Fito de la Parra on drums. Bassist Greg Kage and guitarist/harp player Dale Spalding handled the bulk of vocals. Canned Heat in any form is worth seeing.

Ten Years After is fronted these days by Joe Gooch, a capable singer and guitarist in the awkward spot of subbing for long-gone Alvin Lee. While he hit all the licks and sang all the right lyrics, the fire and passion must have been buried in the mix.

This was no cover act, however, considering Ten Years After came with original members Leo Lyons (bass), Chick Churchill (keyboards) and Ric Lee (drums). Lyons’ classic bass runs brought on cheers, as on “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl.” In L.A., the audience got off on “I’m Going Home” and a couple of rockers, but seemed lukewarm on the relatively lengthy set.

Mountain played some of the tour’s stops, but unfortunately none on the left coast. The New York Times noted that band leader Leslie West was “rasping and yowling and making his guitar sear through a flamboyant set” during the stop in the Woodstock area of Bethel, N.Y. He married his fiance on stage, and immediately ripped into “Mississippi Queen.” Awww.

The “Airplane,” Country Joe, Canned Heat and Big Brother are doing the New Year’s Eve gig.

Tour of the living Os Mutantes

Brazilian psychedelic rockers Os Mutantes spring back to life this fall with their first album of new music in 3 1/2 decades and a tour of North America.

The recently recorded “Haih or Amortecedor” is due Sept. 8 on Anti-Records. The band’s tour then begins in L.A. and ends in Austin, Texas, the nation’s two indie music capitals.

Os Mutantes were the Flaming Lips of the ’60s, given to psychedelia, fantasy, found sounds, musical collages and prog rock. They often wore odd costumes on stage, mocking the military governments that ruled their country for decades to come. They were key players in the counterculture Tropicalismo movement that grew up after Brazil’s 1964 coup d’etat.

Their best-known song is “Minha Menina” from the debut album, “Os Mutantes.” About a dozen albums are in print in the U.S., largely due to top indie musicians’ props to the band over the past decade.

The core band recently consisted of three longtime members: Arnaldo Baptista and Sergio Dias, the founding brothers, and drummer Dinho Leme. The singer Zélia Duncan has performed with them in recent years, along with a pack of supporting musicians. A recent song featured female vocalist Bia Mendes and male vocalist Fabio Recco.

Founding singer Rita Lee, who has enjoyed a long solo career, no longer performs with the band. She has praised and condemned the new Os Mutantes, once saying she did not want to be associated with “a bunch of old guys raising money for their geriatric treatments.” (continued)

The band began as a trio of telegenic Sao Paulo teenagers in 1965. They were big Beatles fans and were drawn into experimental music as their British idols flirted with the weird. Os Mutantes also performed more traditional music and recorded with Gilberto Gil. Drugs and the usual personnel clashes led to the band’s breakup in 1978.

Sergio Dias has been the constant in the band. The new album featured longtime collaborators Tom Zé and Jorge Ben.

In 2007, Os Mutantes returned and played Brazil for the first time in 30 years, performing for 100,000 fans. The reconstituted band also performed the year earlier in London and at the Hollywood Bowl as support for Flaming Lips.

Their fans included Kurt Cobain, David Byrne, Devendra Banhart, Nelly Furtado, the Flaming Lips and many other indie artists. Beck named his 1998 album “Mutations” — featuring the lead single, “Tropicalia.” Byrne released a greatest-hits album — “Everything Is Possible” — on his label.

Sergio Dias on the new album:

“Living the conception and birth of this album, as an individual, was the most intense experience, for it was as if time has ceased to exist, and I was bouncing from life to life, decades through decades, revisiting myself as a 16-year-old boy playing guitar and feeling so free and, as any teenager, indestructible.”

Here are the Os Mutantes 2009 tour dates:

Aug. 28: Los Angeles, The Echoplex

Aug. 29: San Francisco, Outside Lands Festival
Sept. 1: Redway, Calif., Mateel Community Center
Sept. 2: Portland Ore., Aladdin Theater

Sept. 3: Vancouver, the Commodore Ballroom

Sept. 4: Bellingham, Wash., the Nightlight

Sept. 5: Seattle, Bumbershoot Festival

Sept. 19: Yosemite California, Symbiosis Fest

Sept. 24: Denver, Cervantes
Sept. 25: Omaha, Waiting Room

Sept. 26: Minneapolis, Cedar Cultural Center
Sept. 30: Cleveland, Beachland Ballroom

Oct. 4: Boston, Sommerville Theater
Oct. 8: New York, Webster Theater

Oct. 9: Pittsburgh, Mr. Smalls

Oct. 10: Columbus, Ohio, Capitol Theater
Oct. 11: Lexington, Ky. WRFL Fest

Oct. 13: Tampa, Skipper’s

Oct. 14: Ft. Lauderdale, Culture Room

Oct. 16: Atlanta, Variety Playhouse

Oct. 17: New Orleans, Tipitina’s

Oct. 18: Austin Texas, La Zona Rosa

Moby Grape vet subs for Saxon on tour

Moby Grape guitarist/songwriter Jerry Miller has joined the California ‘66 Revue tour, stepping in after the death of Sky Saxon of the Seeds.

The tour’s full lineup now is the Electric Prunes, Love and Miller.

The package tour runs Aug. 4 through Aug. 18, with Miller coming aboard for the last week. California ‘66 plays the Northeast and Midwest, although organizers say the tour may continue if interest is sufficient.

Update of Aug. 6: The tour now appears down to Love, Miller (on some dates) and “special guests.” The web site announced the Electric Prunes would only play the WPKN benefit on Aug. 6 in Fairfield, Ct. That show also reportedly will feature a Blues Magoos reunion. Love (Baby Lemonade) plan to continue the California ‘66 tour in venues that want to keep the booking, the web site said. The clubs should: This version of Love is well worth seeing and includes original member Johnny Echols.

Jerry Miller played lead guitar in Moby Grape and wrote some of its finest songs, including “8:05″ and “Hey Grandma” from the 1967 debut album, and “Murder in My Heart for the Judge” from its second (double) LP. He plays with his own band in Washington state and reunites occasionally with the other surviving members of Moby Grape.

Rolling Stone has Miller on its list of the greatest guitarists of all time.

The highly respected Miller gives the tour a solid citizen from the psychedelic era. The tour also has the two founders of the Electric Prunes and one of the original guitarists from Love.

Arthur Lee, the legendary frontman of Love, died a few years back. The Love band on this tour is actually Baby Lemonade, which capably backed Lee in the last years of his life.

Saxon died five weeks before the tour was to begin. The California ‘66 Revue is now dedicated to the memory of the garage/psychedelic music pioneer.

California ‘66 tour dates include Philadelphia (Aug. 4), Montreal (Aug. 8), New York (Aug. 9), Chicago (Aug. 12), Detriot (Aug. 15) and Cleveland (Aug. 16).

Related content:
Woodstock tour reunites fest bands
Prunes, Love, Saxon head East
Top psychedelic albums: Love’s “Da Capo”

Woodstock tour reunites fest bands

In this summer of all things Woodstock, some of the best bands from that sainted mud fest are hitting the road on a package tour.

Jefferson Starship (Airplane), Country Joe, Ten Years After, Big Brother and the Holding Company and Quicksilver Messenger Service will strive to bring back the vibes.

The 40th anniversary of Woodstock flashback experience will be less than complete, of course, with the passage of all these years. But most of these acts have stayed active over the decades and should turn in good shows.

Jefferson Starship doesn’t touch down with Grace Slick or Marty Balin; Ten Years After performs without Alvin Lee these days; Canned Heat’s key talent died back in the day; Big Brother continues on without Janis Joplin; and the psychedelic Fish have long since disappeared from folk singer Country Joe’s bucket.

The Heroes of Woodstock show stops in Bethel, N.Y. (nearest city to the Woodstock fest) on Aug. 15. Kicking it up for that anniversary event will be Levon Helm (the Band) and Mountain.

Key tour stops include New York City (Aug. 12), Philadelphia (Aug. 18), Los Angeles (Aug. 23) and the Sausalito Arts Festival (Sept. 7). Expect to see most but not all artists at each stop.

The tour operates with a license from Woodstock Ventures and has the corporate backing of Warner Bros., which has released a new version of the “Woodstock” movie, as well as its label Rhino, which plans a massive CD box set of the festival’s performances.

Meanwhile, the fourth edition of Hippiefest returns to the road July 21, running through Aug. 16.

Artists are marginally in the psychedelic arena, if at all, but ’60s music fans should be pleased to catch up with Mountain, Felix Cavaliere (Rascals), Mitch Ryder, Brewer and Shipley, Chuck Negron (Three Dog Night) and Joe Molland of Badfinger.

Last year’s Hippiefest included Jack Bruce of Cream, who wandered through some of the legendary power trio’s more esoteric songs. Also aboard were Eric Burden and his latest rendition of the Animals.

The hosts are the lovely Flo & Eddie (pictured), who always come prepared with plenty of acid casualty jokes. They’ll sing their Turtles hits, which hold up brilliantly as performed by their spot-on band. Last year, the whacked-out duo ordered everyone under 21 out of the Greek Theatre, sort of kidding.

Major tour stops for Hippiefest are in Detroit (July 21), Baltimore (July 23), Minneapolis (July 28), L.A. (July 31), San Diego (Aug. 2) and Fort Lauderdale (Aug. 16).

If you’ve seen the shows, please post a short review via the comments. Psychedelic Sight will behold the concerts in L.A.

Read the 2008 Hippiefest concert review.

Prunes, Love, Saxon head East

The “California ‘66 Revue” brings together three key acts from that pivotal year in rock history: the Electric Prunes, Love and the Seeds (repped by singer Sky Saxon).

(Update: Sky Saxon died June 25. He was replaced on part of the tour by Moby Grape guitarist Jerry Miller.)

Update of Aug. 6: The tour now appears down to Love, Miller (on some dates) and “special guests.” The tour web site announced the Electric Prunes would only play the WPKN benefit on Aug. 6 in Fairfield, Ct. That show also reportedly will feature a Blues Magoos reunion. Love (Baby Lemonade) plan to continue the California ‘66 tour in venues that want to keep the booking, the web site said. The clubs should: This version of Love is well worth seeing and includes original member Johnny Echols.

Recalling the heady days of the Sunset Strip, the package tour in August makes a run up the East Coast, into Canada and over into into the Midwest.

The Prunes founders James Lowe and Mark Tulin came up with the concept of touring behind the year 1966, which saw garage rock and folk rock merge into early strains of psychedelia.

Love, one of the greatest bands of the psychedelic era, carries on after the death of founder Arthur Lee. Original Love guitarist Johnny Echols is at the helm, at least figuratively. This is no exploitation act — the new Love, in reality L.A.’s Baby Lemonade, were Lee’s band in the years of his post-prison comeback. They perform Lee’s masterworks from “Forever Changes” with precision and verve. Love’s songs and albums are solid citizens on this web site’s lists of the best psychedelic albums and best psychedelic songs.

The Electric Prunes scored one of psychedelia’s first radio hits, “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night).” Their “Mass in F Minor”” concept album was among the most ambitious of the era, despite its somber bloat. One of the movements of this rock Catholic Mass was used in “Easy Rider”

Sky “Sunlight” Saxon led L.A.’s the Seeds in the mid-’60s, defining garage rock with the howling hits “Pushin’ Too Hard” and “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine.” Their second album, “A Web of Sound,” featured one of the first long rock workouts, “Up in Her Room,” clocking in at 15 minutes. While the Seeds found immortality as a garage band, Saxon moved on to psychedelic explorations in following years. The Seeds appeared in the hippie movie “Psych Out” with Jack Nicholson. Saxon moved to Austin recently and had a new band, Shapes Have Fangs.

Tour promoter Patrick Hand said he wanted to see how the revue was received in “intimate venues”: “If the public is as enthusiastic in attending the shows as the clubs have been in booking, then I have no doubt we’ll be back on the road later in the year.”

California ‘66 tour dates include Philadelphia (Aug. 4), Montreal (Aug. 8), New York (Aug. 9), Chicago (Aug. 12), Detriot (Aug. 15) and Cleveland (Aug. 16).

Related content: Woodstock tour reunites fest bands

Jack Bruce the cream of Hippiefest

Eric Burdon headlined, the crowd loved time-tripping with the Turtles, but only Jack Bruce delivered the transcendent at the 2008 edition of the “Hippiefest” concert tour in its L.A. stand.

Bruce, the former singer and bassist for Cream, has gone on to a prolific solo career, but he catered to the spirit of the peace-and-love package tour, playing only the songs he made famous with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker.

The Cream reunion shows of a few years ago made it pretty clear that Clapton, at least, considered Cream to be Bruce’s band. Playing here under the stars at the Greek Theatre, Bruce replaced his famous bandmates with musicians from the Turtles’ ace band. The results remained magical.

Bruce opened solo, issuing the drones of “Deserted Cities of the Heart” on an acoustic guitar. Then it was on to the bass and “I’m So Glad,” “Sitting on Top of the World,” “Politician,” “White Room” and, of course, “Sunshine of Your Love.” Guitarist Godfrey Townsend had the crowd roaring as he raced through Clapton’s guitar parts, accurate but not slavish.

Too short a set, but with the brevity came power. (In New Jersey, Bruce played almost an hour and a half. Sigh.)

Eric Burdon and his “Animals” worked through a couple of his psychedelicized numbers — “Sky Pilot,” “San Francisco Nights” and “Paint It Black” — while also working the hits: “When I Was Young,” “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” and, of course, “The House of the Rising Sun.”

Original Animal Hilton Valentine was along for the ride on guitar, obviously having big fun. A young lady played bass and took on the cheerleading chores. Burdon wore a T-shirt that declared “War on War!” which was his former band, briefly.

Burdon continues to be a solid shouter, although the quality of performance seems to have slipped a bit in recent years — or perhaps the act loses a bit going from club to auditorium. Still, the 67-year-old sent the crowd home humming and buzzing.

The opener was Jonathan Edwards of “Sunshine” fame, followed by original Bandfinger member Joey Molland, who ran through the ill-fated band’s hits with spirit and precision (”Baby Blue,” “Come and Get It,” “Day After Day,” “No Matter What.”)

The Turtles took the stage early due to some issue with Melanie. The set was too short, with a few great numbers left off. The crowd loved the summery sounds of “You Baby,” “It Ain’t Me Babe,” “Elenore,” “She’d Rather Be With Me” and, of course, “Happy Together.”

Why the Turtles at a hippie fest? The two singers, Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, embraced the weird after their pop run, campaigning with Frank Zappa’s band as the The Phlorescent Leech & Eddie. They served as hosts as well, reminding the crowd of the joys of drugs and advising youngsters in the crowd that they were not particularly welcome. (They were kidding, somewhat.)

Flo chatted about his hip replacement, only months before. The hospital drugs were first-rate, he reported.

Melanie made it onto the stage to perform her hits such as “Those Were the Days” and “Brand New Key,” accompanied by her guitarist son. Back in the day, the set would be well described as a diva downer, with the artist talking as much as she sang. Time has not been kind.

The crowd — miles from L.A. hip — seemed to have a great time reviving the ’60s, with some folks dressing up Halloween-like as their former hairy selves. Night of the living hippies.

Here’s hoping Hippiefest: A Concert for Peace and Love tries for a fourth edition of its summer package tour, providing a brightly colored bookend to Ringo’s always entertaining All-Starr Band shows. Those were the days, indeed.

(Photo from this Hippiefest PhotoBucket page.)