It’s been almost a year since I started my current band. We originally had a dads and kids jam/playgroup at the fieldhouse of our parents’ group. We’d bring the kids and acoustic instruments and order pizza and just play as much as our kids would let us. One of the dads has been writing songs for decades and had just gotten himself a spot in our summer music festival, but he didn’t have a band. I offered to play bass, more because I really wanted to play music in front of my whole town than because I was that into his music, which was kind of Americana/bluegrass infused.

At that point, we had procured ourselves a large jam room downtown. It used to be a yoga studio and was not being used and we were lucky enough to get to use it for free. We had a small PA and sometimes a loaner drumset. At this point the Tuesday playgroup/jam was becoming more of a practice where our kids were distracting us. Then there was a Thursday night jam which was getting to the point where there were 5 guitars and 3 basses all playing at once and it was very straight ahead and bluesy.

As the festival was getting to be 2 months away, my friend told me that he didn’t think I’d be able to learn his songs in time for the festival and he had found a guy with a real upright who also plays in an orchestra, and I was really bummed for a bit, but I realized that playing a gig just for the spotlight rather than for love of the music was not really the right motivation.

So, I was without a band and not really loving what was happening with the open jam and I decided I needed to organize my own thing. I put out an ad on craigslist looking for people into progressive rock. I heard back from a guitarist, a sax player, and a guy who plays pretty much everything.  We jammed a bunch of King Crimson songs, a little bit of Pink Floyd, and some improv stuff. The following week the sax player did not return, but the three of us left formed the core of what is now our band. A few weeks later we took out an ad looking for a drummer. We had one respond who has his own warehouse jam space in Oakland and a wife who sings and also plays bass. After playing with him in our jam room once, we moved it all to his place and the band was formed in August of ’09. Shortly thereafter, the jam room got rented out and was no longer available for anyone. We made it all happen at the right time and it was meant to be.

Shortly thereafter, it was announced that my town was having a fall festival and all the bands in town were invited to play, so we had our very first gig. That was last October and the last time we played live. After such a long wait, we’ve got 3 gigs lined up now, and the first one is this Friday!

The venue is a medical marijuana clinic, so it’s going to be an unusual show. Since it’s not a bar zoned for live music, we’re going to keep the volume low. We’re bringing electric drums and small amps. We’ve added a few tunes to our repertoire since the October gig, and we’re also going to do a lot of spacey improv jams. It’s going to be a lot of fun. For more info, to see some videos from our last gig, and to get onto our mailing list, click here.

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