Furthur on down the road (goin down the road feeling fairly good)

Onward and upward!!! Saw my cardiologist yesterday and he said "I am not concerned". A medication adjustment(stopped one BP pill) seems to be working. The real test will be tomorrow at rehab and we see if my BP is better. he said thereis not really a problem with it being low unless I feel bad, which I did.

I am thinking that the worst is over(for now). This has been an interesting and educational experience I could have done without. I am still determined to turn it into a good ting. So may people have thanked me for writing about it, and if it helps one person to avoid or respond to similar problems I will happy.

Live long and prosper!

Six weeks down the road...

It's been over a month now since the "event". The recovery has not been as smooth as it seemed at first or as I hoped. Soon after my last posts I started getting short of breath from time to time, and real tired along with that. Not all day, not everyday, but enough to have me concerned.

I started the cardiac rehab class a couple weeks back, been a real good experience. Great program, wonderful staff and it's nice to hang with my fellow cardiac cases. What happens is we get portable EKG transmitters that keep an eye on our heart rates and we work out on treadmills, exercise bikes and recumbent stairsteppers. Our progress is closely monitored as is our blood pressure. After 40 minutes of aerobic work we do stretches and relaxation stuff and discuss a pertinent subject, like food choices, exercise etc.

But even with the exercise(3 times a week) I was really not feeling better. last week I had a couple days of being really short f breath and just feeling generally lousy: no energy, aches, depressed. After the honeymoon of feeling better right after my procedure it was discouraging and disconcerting. At first I figured it was just getting used to the medicine, I was told it takes a month or so to stabilize. But by last week, I was starting to wonder if there wasn't some other problem.

Yesterday when got to class my blood pressure was 90/48! Maybe the medicine is working too well. Exercising did not bring it up more than a few points and the nurses were quite concerned. Instead of taking it twice during the class they must have taken it six times. They were surprised I wasn't fainting every time I got up.

Now I had been trying to get in to see my doctor, but it is so hard to get an appointment by yourself. I finally was able to schedule one:July 7! Over a month down the road. That just didn't seem right. So yesterday I asked the rehab nurses if they would call my doctor with their concerns, maybe that would get me in. I called my doc again today and laid it out to the guy at the call center. After maybe 15 minutes on the phone he got me a better appointment: June 29th. He said he had gotten no message from the nurses. Still frustrated I took the apt, but said i was gonna keep pushing. A while later I got a call from a physicians assistant who actually had some advice(cut back on one of my blood pressure pills). But the big thing was that I needed to see the cardiologist and that's where the nurses note went. So after being on the phone for well over an hour today, maybe 2(mostly on hold listening to crappy musak that was constantly breaking up) I managed to get an appointment with the cardiologist tomorrow.

So, the care I have gotten has been excellent, got no complaints there, but what I have had to do to get to the care has been a royal pain. And I have good insurance(thanks to TJ and a few hundred dollars a month) What hell it is for people without.

Something is dreadfully wrong in our "greatest country in the world". It's just gonna get worse with the graying of America. People die for lack of affordable health care, people have to make choices between food and medicine.

Call me a socialist, but HEALTH CARE FOR ALL is imperative, if not now when?? I know other countries have figured it out. The care my daughter got in Israel was inexpensive, very personal, and very skilled. She said that doctors there make a living but don't get rich, they do it out of dedication to helping people.

So I got my fingers crossed that the doc will have an answer, more on it tomorrow.

Getting better all the time!!!

Still mending and adjusting to this new phase in my life. For example: instead of 3 pieces of left over pizza for breakfast I now have a bowl of Go Lean Crunch with a heaping portion of wheat germ over the top. Reading labels has become a new obsession. Did you know that wheat germ has no cholesterol and no sodium? Little discoveries like that make my day. Or did you know that a serving of sardines has 40% of a day's allowance for cholesterol? Needless to say the sardines didn't make it into my basket.

Tomorrow I go get oriented for Mercy's cardiac conditioning class. I guess you get 20 minutes of education and then they hook you up to monitors and exercise you for 40. My insurance should cover it for six weeks 3 times each week. I really do want to get back to working out, I had been slacking for a month or so before the "event" and been laying low since(2 1/2 weeks) Starting to lose muscle tone.

I am determined to use all this to my advantage, it's time to get real about my health!! Heart disease changes your look at life, even a small event like mine points to so much: my state of denial and the preciousness of life for example. I can imagine how life changing a major heart attack would be. In my case, it happened in such a way as to be a blessing, hopefully it will help me have many years of living, loving and grooving!

The music never stopped!

I feel better than James Brown

This picture was taken on my first gig back this Saturday, actually a house warming party for Bayou Boy Boss, Ron Bombardier. 6 days after my surgery and you can see the health coming back. Ah, the miracle of modern medicine. Again and again I see the value of allopathy, particularly in acute or dire problems. Quick intervention saved my heart from any damage from being deprived of blood. It took less then 5 minutes for the paramedics to arrive after Ryan made the call, and maybe 10 to get me to Sutter Faith Auburn ER. The docs and staff there and at Mercy were nothing but great! I will never forget you.

Went and saw my PCP yesterday. He said 2 things that really stuck with me: 1. "The game has changed" 2. "With lifestyle change there is no reason you can't live to a ripe old age"

He said that this might be a blessing in disguise, I could have gone on a long time without an "event" and the blockages could have gotten way worse before they reared their ugly heads. It was small enough that with quick intervention there was no damage but it was big enough to get my attention.

Already TJ and I have taken steps to improve what was a pretty poor diet. We have become label readers. We are determined to turn this into a positive thing.

What is amazing is how quickly I felt better. Almost immediately I could feel the difference. Looking back I can see that this had been in the works for a long time. Past few months I just felt OLD. I wondered why I really didn't want to do anything but sit on the couch and watch cop shows(between Law and Order, CSI, NCIS, Bones, Cold Case Files, Criminal Minds etc. you can pretty much fight crime around the clock). Was my well managed depression coming back? Did I have lung problems? Was I old or just lazy? I had been to the doc with breathing problems 3 times but he couldn't find anything. Heart disease is often silent, we only find it too late.

What I have learned from all this is: listen to your body and be proactive with your doctors. And taking care is more than just a saying.

In closing let me say this: Have Mercy(pun intended) and It's a brand new day, let the man come in and do the popcorn!!!

Heart Trouble

It was Friday afternoon, the day before my birthday. I was just finishing up 2 days of recording for the upcoming Stardust Cowboys' CD "That's How the Cowboys Swung the West". Flying Whale Studio is up in the hills past Colfax on the site of an old gold mine, very cool place and Bruce the engineer/owner does great work.

As I pulled out of the driveway, my left arm started cramping soon followed by my right and then a shooting ache across my chest. I kept driving, thinking maybe it was the stress of recording, too much coffee or what???? After a few minutes of it I pulled off the highway and Ryan, the drummer pulled in behind. I walked around for a few minutes and the pain seemed to subside. "Well I guess I am OK" Back on the road, within 5 minutes the pain is back twice as bad. At that point I was pulling onto the freeway, but I was getting concerned. I spotted the Weimar Park and Ride and pulled off and Ryan was right behind me. "Maybe you better make that call"(911)

After a dropped call or 2 Ryan had the paramedics on their way. They took this VERY seriously. Strapped to the gurney, with oxygen in my nose, they gave me a spray of nitroglycerin and soon I was feeling ok. They took me to Sutter Faith in Auburn. At this point I felt pretty good.(See the first picture). After an EKG, blood tests and an ultrasound the doc came in and told us (TJ came up) that everything looked ok, but SOMETHING had happened. He said I could go home but this really needed to be looked into, he would let me go if I promised to go see my doc as son as possible, but he really thought I should stay and have a stress test.

Now me, I wanted to go, we had plans to go celebrate my birthday in SF, like we usually do. He said OK but didn't look to happy. When he left to start the discharge process, TJ convinced me to stay so I was admitted. TJ told me she had bought tickets to see the Giants for my birthday. Damn!!!

So the next day I spent at Sutter they did a bunch of tests, including a chemical stress test, where they scanned my resting heart then shot me IV with a drug that made my heart race like exercise(way easier than the gym) and scanned again. I still mostly felt good, had one reoccurence of the symptoms. Tests were clean. I was still hoping to make it home for at least a bit of my birthday.

But the cardiologist Dr Birdie, wasn't satisfied. I was told that one in 12 people like me have a false negative on the heart tests and my story was so classic heart attack stuff he wanted me to go to Mercy in Sac and have a heart cath.

So another night in the hospital. Easter Sunday morning I was put in another ambulance and taken to a great cardiac hospital, Mercy, in East Sacramento. Around 11 they prepped me for surgery. I called TJ, wanted her to be there when I went in but for once things moved FASTER than expected. They wheeled me down the hall to the heart cath room. My cardiologist was Dr. Singh, a fierce looking Sikh who wore his turban as he worked on me. Don't know what drugs they gave me, but the next thing knew I heard them talking about a stent. One of my heart arteries was pretty much totally blocked, the one that supplies the back side of the heart.

Once my head cleared(matter of minutes) I had this great feeling of well being. I guess this had been building up for some time. I'd been short of breath and sort of narcoleptic a lot for the past year or more, and I guess now we know why.

So they took me back to my room with strict bed rest instructions. After a while my nurse comes in with what looked like a tire jack. It was time to take the drainage tube out from my thigh where they threaded the cath into my femoral artery. Then the nurse leaned on me with all her wait holding the incision closed for a few minutes, then they moved me to the edge of the bed and jacked me too it with the tire jack. Lots of pressure. 20 minutes of that and they took the jack away but taped a sand bag to me to keep the pressure up. All told I was flat on my back for 7 hours.

I got really great care at Mercy, pretty much everyone was really nice, supportive, skilled. They made a difficult experience not really "pleasant" but tolerable. They really care.

The next morning I met with a teaching nurse. She explained what had happened, what they did and what I needed to do. Mercy has won many awards for their heart program, deservedly.

So now, life will be different. I never expected to be a heart patient. I need to change my diet exercise more, avoid stress. Got 9 pills to take everyday, all with long lists of side effects and interactions.

So this was nothing like a near death experience, it pulled me down into my body, not out of my body, but it was a brush with mortality none the less. The staff at Mercy was so upbeat it didn't really sink in until Monday when I finally got home.

Life is precious, every second of it and the most precious thing is the love and support i got from my family and the dozens of friends who expressed their support!!! I love you more than words can tell!!!

Finally I rocketed to the early 21st century

So this Christmas I was totally blown away when I was gifted with an ipod touch from my dear sweet TJ. I thought we had agreed to not spend on each other so much as the kids and other family as money was a bit tight this year. So imagine my surprise when what looked like maybe a deck of cards was a brand spanking new ipod!!!!!

So I have spent the last month dumping my music collection on my computer and then to the pod. Been digging deep into the huge stacks of CDs in pretty much every room of our house. I been finding things I haven't seen in years. Some of the best: John Scofield's Ray Charles Tribute, 100 Year Hall- Grateful Dead, lots of jazz, Sonny Boy, Little Walter, James Brown, Tower of Power and the list goes on.

It's just an 8 gig box, which means 6.5 usable. I got 800+ tunes on there still a couple gigs free.

What I don't understand is how I lived without one for a decade?!? It certainly enables my ongoing love affair with music of all types. I love having it when I work out at the Y, in the car, when I am teaching or practicing.

Being the technophobe that I am, I have barely used any of it's other features, except the camera, which actually works pretty good compared to my phone cam.

I am determined to get back into regular blogging, see you on the 'net.

Another one bites the dust

Goodbye 2010 and hello 2011!!!!!!

Damn this year went fast!!!! Remember in old movies how the passage of time is symbolized be the pages of a desk calendar blowing in the wind, faster and faster!! Isn't life like that????

How did I get so old!! Why are my friends showing grey and wrinkles??? What's going on here??

2010 was quite a ride, mostly good!!!!! Had some fat times and some lean times, but what else is new. In spite of the tough economy I am still eking out a living doing what I love with people I love. This summer I rehooked up with the Stardust Cowboys and fell in love with Western Swing. Between the Cowboys, the Bayou Boys, Wingnut Adams and Frankie Lee most of my summer was spent on the highway. It was like being on tour all summer except I got to come home more nights than not and sleep in my own bed. My HRR and my GPS were my most constant companions. Took a couple great vacations with TJ, one to SF and another to Seaside Oregon. Everyone was relatively healthy, solvent and happy. I am truly blessed with a great life.

Someone said (Freud?) that success in life is having love and satisfyingly work and I have them both in spades.

So all I can hope for is more of the same in 2011. To all my friends and family: Keep on keeping on, love life in spite of it's hardships, live long and prosper. I love you more than words can tell!!!!

Dark Star Orchestra at the Crest 10-11-28

Set One: Iko Iko ; Hell In A Bucket ; Loser ; Cassidy ; Dupree's Diamond Blues ; C C Rider ; Deal

Set Two: I Need A Miracle > Bertha ; Playing In The Band > China Doll > Jam > Drums > Space > Playing In The Band > Black Peter > Sugar Magnolia ; One More Saturday Night
Encore: Keep Your Day Job

Filler: Let Me Sing Your Blues Away Show from 86-6-9 Cal Expo TJ was pretty sure she was there.

We had a good time. Me, still kinda thinking it was the real band expected a long line of people waiting to get in, wanted to get there the moment the doors open. TJ being a cooler head(heads ARE cool, like our sticker, "if You're Not A Head You're Behind")
got us there about 45 minutes before the advertised time and we walked right up to will call and had our pick of seats, in the 5th row. Hall never got much more than half full.

Band hit the stage on Dead time, about 20 minutes late, immediately hit a strong groove with Aiko. First thing I noticed:Jeff Mattson is a bad ass, much stronger presence than Stu Allen.

Well I got to say, that the slight cheesiness of it all is forgotten when the band starts cooking. These guys have learned their lessons well, they breath together like the Dead, actually tighter musically and way better vocally. And the Dead have never had a keyboard player like Rob Barraco, and keys play a much bigger role. Rob is a great singer, did all of Brent's tenor parts strong and crisp. I think it's the quality of that gives it legitamcy.

The other thing is : IT WORKS!!!!! IN spite of a crowd that was a bit small to generate high energy, we did get it off the ground. I think with a couple hundred more than the 500 or so it would have been a better party, but it kept it comfortable for the old folks. And I think that is what the DSO is about. letting middle aged hippies be Dead Heads for a few days. I heard many people talking about the 2 nights before at the Regency in SF, (sample: "It sucks being 50, I am so sore from dancing)



But the main thing is, this is one hell of a band, really listen to each other and really hear, maybe like the Dead without hard drugs The schedule they keep(1876 shows in 12 years) is James Brown worthy, they got to be in great shape. They really look like they are having fun, and when the music turns weird they are right there ready for it. Rob Eaton the guy that does Weir, leads the band on stage just like Bobby did(people always say Gar was the leader, but from what i've seen it was Pig Pen in the old days, and Weir later, at least on stage).

They played a really long 2nd set, and I think they kinda lost the crowd with drums/space and the monster jam after it, before the playing in the band reprise. it started to feel like a yuppie Sunday night, quite a few bailed. The ones that did missed out on one real high pont, Rob Barraco doing Sing Your Blues Away. Not only is he a way better singer than Keith was, he is a way better singer than anyone ever in the Dead and offshoot, even better than Warren Haynes who is one singing white boy in my opinion. I think Rob, having been with Phil gives them a bit of street cred, at any rate he may be the most underrated musician around.

In closing let me say there is nothing like a DSO concert except a Dead show.

Come on honey let me sing em away!!

Feast or famine.....

is the story. After the maybe the best summer I've had in years and a great month of August, everything slammed to a halt last week. Down to 1 or 2 gigs a week and 13 students.

For a long time it seemed like that old saw about entertainment thriving in hard times was true, I have ridden out more than a couple downturns and it seems to start like that, people party to forget, but after a while people just flat out run out of money.

Why am I typing this? 2 reasons: 1. Joe needs work and students, just trying to put that out there everywhere I can. 2. We all need to support the arts and each other, support local small business, even it if it costs a little more, the big stores sell below cost to squash the competition.

If not us, who? If not now, when?

Summer times come and gone my oh my

And what a great summer it was!!! Played a bunch of great summer type gigs with The Jokers, Wingnut Adams, The Bayou Boys, The Stardust Cowboys, Frankie Lee and my band and more. Put thousands of mile on my car, saw some amazing sights, and even made a little money. I love my job!!

A few highlights: The Crawdad Festival in Red Bluff, The Cowboy Poetry Festival in Big Bear Lake, Redwood City Blues Festival, Goldhill Vineyard, Lake Alamanor Country Club, The Frankie Lee benefit, Cindy and Paul's wedding..............

I'm a cowboy....

It was with some trepidation that headed to Big Bear Lake for the Cowboy Gathering to play with the Stardust Cowboys. It's long drive from Sacramento, 470 hot dusty miles.

I am in no way a cowboy, I wasn't sure how I would fit in, would Iget my ass beat for not driving a pickup truck? I was told we had a 5 o'clock sound check, left home around 9:30. At 3 I am outside of Victorville and I get a call that the sound check was moved up to 4 and how soon could I get there? So I jammed the last 80 miles got there about 4:45. Walk into the venue, sound check stalled on crappy monitors. Beautiful state of the art theater, with a former Neil Diamond rotating stage set as part of the stage(gotta love Southern California), but two Kustom semi pro monitors. Eventually we do our sound check and I check into my room. Big Bear Lake is a big time resort for people from San Bernadino and LA. It reminds me of Tahoe(the town does, not the lake) an old resort town stretched out over miles of highway.

Vicki, the band co leader hands me a shirt and scarf, retro cowboy all the way. My cowboy duds weren't cowboy enough. I head back to the venue, the Performing Arts Center and we close the show with a 45 minute set. Next day we play one set outside and one set back at the PAC.

What I found out that this is not a rodeo, didn't see one horse, it's a cowboy poetry and music festival. The attendees were poets, history buffs, lovers of legend,story tellers mixed with some real working cowboys. very nice folks, thoughtful and soulful.

One of the other performers was the great Sourdough Slim, last of the Vaudeville Cowboys. Think of a mix of WC Fields and Will Rodgers, he plays the accordian, guitar, harmonica, sings, tells stories and does rope tricks sometimes at the same time.

Another guy I enjoyed was cowboy poet Russ Knox, a working cowboy. I really like his work.

All and all it was a very fun weekend, and I hope to back there with the Stardust Cowboys again next year.

Jam Culture

When I was young, my buddies and i would call each other and say "let's jam today", meaning lets get together and play some music with no real goal other than playing. Later on when we said "jam" it meant improvising with no predetermined structure, as in "jam band".

Later on, when I started playing clubs there were after hours jams and Sunday jams at clubs. These often attracted top area players, and the Sunday music was often way better than what happened all week.

In the past 20 years we have witnessed a whole "blues jam" culture sprouting up. From maybe 2 a week at the old Torch Club we now have 10-20 a week just locally. What is cool is that it gives players who don't play gigs a chance to play regularly, gives pro payers a chance to hang out and play with people they don't normally work with, people get to network, hone their skills.

It's also a way to get a crowd any night of the week, a well run jam will draw players and listeners who get a multi act show for usually no cover. Some nights and Sunday days there might be 4 or 5 happening in town.

Each jam seems to have its own culture, it's own set of unwritten rules. The tone is set by the hosts, each one does it a little different. Hosting a jam is not an easy task, the jammers show up with high expectations of a great musical experience. For some it is there only chance to play and they got a lot invested in it.

The challenge for the hosts is to let everyone who signs up to get a chance to play and hopefully have a good time, while keeping the show rolling a long and the quality of the music high enough so people will come to listen. We need those listeners, they fill the seats and keep the till ringing.

It's a hard job, harder than it looks and you are never gonna satisfy everyone. It's like soup: you got to have the right mix. The jammers can be demanding, they want to play at this time with these people, and sometimes it gets ugly when people don't get their way.

At it's best a blues jam is a combination of the excitement of a big revue type show, a place to learn the art of playing in musical ensembles and fellowship akin to church.

It doesn't matter what they say about you.............

A few weeks ago my friend Kathleen McCoy Grover asked me if she could interview me for a column she writes in the Lincoln Messenger. She came down to the shop and talked to me for an hour or so, and whipped up this:

Folk music made a huge impact on Joe Lev

Behind the Bars column

Kathleen McCoy Grover Special to The News Messenger

If ever there was a musician’s musician, it would be Joe Lev.

He was born in 1952 into a family of musicians steeped in the controversial melting pot of Chicago’s folk-music community.

“My parents, Milt and Marge Lev, were part of the big folk-music scare of the late ’50s and early ’60s,” Joe said. “My mom studied guitar at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago with Frank Hamilton, a replacement for Pete Seeger in the Weavers. I remember going backstage at a Frank show and seeing how entranced I was. He told my mom, ‘Get that boy a banjo.’”

His family moved to Sacramento in 1958, where his parents joined the newly formed Folk Music Society.

“My folks soon were officers. We went to concerts, workshops and hootenannies,” Joe said. “I remember my parents dressing me up in my little wool suit to hear people sing about sharecropping, gambling, drinking and women of ill repute. Sitting in the dark, I was captivated by the magic one person with a guitar, some stories and good song could weave.”

One milestone event was bringing the then blacklisted Pete Seeger to American River College. Joe may have just been 8 years old but the memories and the messages he heard made a huge impact on him.

Music surrounded Joe. His mother gave guitar lessons and classes; folk music was it for him until he was 12 when his older brother, Ben, brought home a Fender guitar and Silvertone amp.

Soon, bands were practicing in his garage every week and Joe traded his banjo for an electric guitar.

Music has been the one constant in Joe’s life, “a unifying thread, a fascination bordering on obsession.” Growing up in the north area of Sacramento near Carmichael, he and his friend, Paul Narloch, had a whole series of bands.

Just after graduating from high school, Joe and Paul were in his first “good band,” Buckwheat.

“We were Americana, 30 years too early,” Joe said. “We had a sparkle like the Flying Burrito Brothers. It was an idyllic time; I was out of school and still living with my parents. My friends lived nearby and we played a lot … just a bubble in time, hanging out with my friends, playing down by the river almost every day. We played a lot a hippie-type gigs and had a really good following.”

When he was 20, Joe met “Bongo Bob” Smith who introduced him to Oscar Robinson. Oscar ran a music school in Oak Park where Joe learned to play bass.

“I was like a musical monk, taking classes, practicing and playing for 10 hours a day for the whole year,” Joe said. “He taught me being a musician was a respectable profession. You have to be willing to do the hard work. It just depends on how much you’re willing to suffer.”

It was a new mindset for Joe and changed the path of his musical career.

Oscar put together a band called The Hustlers (1972 to 1974). “It was my debut as a bass player, which turned out to be the best decision I ever made.”

Since 1970, he has played on average 200 gigs annual in bands that cross over into nearly every genre of music.

He has been married to his best friend, visual artist T.J. Lev for 16 years. They make their home in downtown Sacramento.

Joe has played with Steve Foster and the Jokers, Bayou Boys, Jahari Sai Quartet, Frankie Lee, Wingnut Adams Funky Soul Brigade, Mick Martin and the Blues Rockers, The Bayou Boys Band and the Stardust Cowboys.

He teaches at The Guitar Workshop in Sacramento and volunteers with Blues in The Schools. He played at Dillian’s Bar and Grill with Two Tone Steiney and The Cadillacs, and currently hosts two weekly Blues Jams with along with The Jokers in Rocklin and the Jimmy Collazo Band in Roseville. Joe jams with Olen Dillingham, a Lincoln resident and member of Western Swing Hall of Fame.

Last spring, The Jokers played their Sun City Lincoln Hills debut concert to a full house.

”The harder we rocked,” Joe said, “the more they liked it. I witnessed the magic only music can create as boomers, octogenarians and better were transported to another space and time, through the music of their youth.”

Joe is not only a musician’s musician. He embodies the best parts of the ‘quintessential unrepentant hippie’ by bringing people together to celebrate life in joy and harmonious humanity.

For more on Joe, see http://morethanatouchofgray.blogspot.com

1012 views and counting!!!

Thank you all for checking out my random musings about my little life. Y'all must have too much time on your hands or something.

Now for my next trick I think I will continue the story of the origins of my secret identity, how I got to this place in life.

I sometimes ponder how incredibly lucky I am. Over and over I took the hand I was dealt and did my best to blow it up. So to be here with work I love and thrive on, owning a house(well the bank owns most of it) the love of a great woman, kids, grandkids and more friends than I can count I can only attribute to that old saying "angels protect fools"!!

Ah, it's good to be alive!!!!

What a long long time to be gone and a short time to be there!!

Jerry Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) One Man Gone

This being Garcia Week (between his birthday and his yahrzeit (anniversary of his leaving) I figure this to be as good a time as any to ruminate on his meaning to the world and his meaning to me.

I didn't snap to the Dead as quick as my friends did, there was so much new music every week, they were just one out of many. I remember a photo spread in Look Magazine on the SF bands, and the Dead looked scary. I heard the first album, it was OK, Anthem and Aoxomoxoa kind of went over my head. In October of 69 we went to the KZAP(underground radio station) 1st birthday party at Cal Expo, in Building A, the amphitheater was years away and the Dead headlined. They had some technical difficulties, but certainly got my attention. Still got memories of an early Cumberland Blues, High Time, Pig Pen singing Good Morning Little School Girl and Weir telling the yellow dog story. Years later I was gifted with a tape of the second set, only High Times was on it from the memories. I was pretty blown away, it seemed like a three ring circus, all seven of them seemed to be doing something significant, who to watch???

Couple months later, night before New Years eve, Paul shows up at my door with a very early copy of Live Dead and some 60s style refreshment. At the proper time we put on Live Dead and I GOT IT!! never been the same since. I had been trying to play free improvised music with my friends for a couple years, it was always more miss than hit but occasionally amazing things happened, but these guys DID IT!!! The Dark Star on Live Dead still blows me away to this day. What a feat of collective improvisation!!

So I started listening to them all the time, went to shows at Winterland when I could. They touched me on so many levels, they seemed to be doing something different than all the other bands. It was like church!! It was so keyed into life and so renewing!

As the years went by I kept on listening and reading everything I could find. When I learned of Garcia's folkie roots a lot of threads of my life were tied together. I came to love them like big brothers I admired from afar and tried to emulate. They were rock stars but not, they seemed to bring their real selves onto the stage, and what a motley crew they were. I loved them all but it was Garcia that got my attention the most.

In early 71 I got a copy of American Beauty hot off the press. I was kind of let down, no more "machine eating" jams, it was a record of songs. As years went by I came to realize that it was a landmark work of art, art for the ages. It seems timeless, never gets old.

As my musical career progressed I pursued jazz and funk. The Dead became a sort of guilty pleasure, one I didn't let on about. I saw em in 74 and a few times in the 80s. I missed the whole Deadhead phenomenon, by the time people "toured" I was a night club musician with shiny shoes and a family to feed.

I remember being in SF in the 80s for my bass lesson and eating in a little cafe I read about Garcia's heroin bust. I was pretty flabbergasted, hard drugs seemed the antithesis of everything they meant to me.

A few years later I remember hearing a live broadcast of a solstice show and Garcia sounded quite awful, sometimes in the wrong key. Hmmmm?? What was happening?????

Later when my hippie reformation began I reconnected. I bought CDs of Anthem, Aoxomoxoa, and Live Dead. They became a soundtrack of what was happening to me. Went to a couple shows at Cal Expo, just loving the communion and fellowship.

Aug 9, 1995 TJ woke me up with a call. She said, please don't flip, but Jerry Garcia died last night. Man, I felt a piece of me die right then, like losing a family member. I went to the garage and brought in a big stack of speakers and my bass amp, turned on the radio and the rock stations were playing nothing but the Dead. I plugged it into my amp turned it up. Went across the street and I couldn't hear it so I went back and cranked it up even louder.

That night we went to a hastily organized vigil in Capitol Park. The radio station basically co-opted the event. I remember the DJ saying "don't bring drugs to the park, thats what jerry would have wanted" yeah right! When we got to the Rose Garden(how perfect) the station had set up a big mobile unit and insisted on playing a long interview from Bob Weir from sometime in the past and plenty commercials. I went looking for Bob Keller(great DJ) and told him how weak that was. But try as they might they couldn't contain the event. it turned into the biggest drum circle I ever saw, with hundreds of people, people dancing, people crying, dozens of people in the trees.

I went home and wrote a song, a blues song called:

One Man Gone

Woke up the other morning, didn't have the blues

Till my baby said "honey I got some real bad news

One more good one has bit the dust and there's nobody left that we can trust"

One man One Man Gone, left us here to sing this song

So I got a bunch of speakers from out of my shed

I didn't give a damn about what the neighbors said

Hooked em all up, turned it up to eleven

So they would know who was knocking on the doors of heaven

One man One Man Gone, left us here to sing this song

We went down to the park later that

From miles around, from left and right

Dance and drum, sing and shout

Till the heat came 'round and threw us out

One man One Man Gone, left us here to sing this song

Dark Star crashes on the Golden Road

I still don't know but I've been told

On the other hand I'm here to say

Don't let the music stop, we won't fade away

One man One Man Gone, left us here to sing this song

Rest in peace, and thanks for a lifetime of inspiration!!!

Let there be songs, to fill the air!!!!!

Joe Lev and Friends

Of course by now I need to tell you that I do most of my work as a sideman for various recording artists and bandleaders. I love being an "essential sideman" to paraphrase Ron Carter.

On occasion I get a call for a gig myself and I usually assemble some of the fellas under the name "Joe Lev and Friends". This time I was contacted by the great jazz piano player Jim Martinez. He said a friend of his worked at a winery and was interested in doing a a blues show and he thought of me!!

So after some negotiation, I booked a show for JL &F at the Gold Hill Vineyard Aug 28th @1 PM.

Now the fun part!! I have a lot of very talented friends so who to get?? I told Bryna at the winery that I was gonna bring her a band of bandleaders. Putting together a band is like casting a play or making soup, you need ingredients that compliment each other. I was also loking for maybe some guys that could help sell tickets. I really want this to be an off the chart success.

I got the line up booked, it's an embarrassment of riches, the Miami Heat of the blues.

Read it and weep: Steve Foster guitar/vocals

Aaron King guitar/drums/vocals

Kevin Burton keyboards

Wingnut Adams drums/harmonica/vocals

and your humble blogger on bass/vocals

Looks good on paper, I just hope there is enough ball for LeBron and Dwayne to stay happy. Everyone of these guys can carry a whole night by themselves, it's a gas to call them my friends.

Advance tickets are just $20 and you get lunch and wine or beer.

Back home patching my bones

Well I made, and better than I had any right to expect. I guess there are a few more rodeos left in this old guy.

Played 5 gigs in four days, drove 700 miles. Played a lot of great music. The set with Frankie Lee at the Redwood City Blues Festival stands out. Frankie rose above his recent health problems and put on a stellar show, turned back the hands of time for 45 minutes. That's the power of music, it's life!!!!!

Had a good time with Wingnut too, so good in fact I hired him to be a friend on my JL&F gig coming up next month. I already got Steve Foster too. It's gonna be a band of band leaders, all people that I have worked for and with many many times.

The last gig was last night down in Madera with the Stardust Cowboys. It was hot and miserable in Madera and I got there with several hours to kill(my GPS took me a quick way there from Groveland) Now waiting is the hardest thing and musicians got to hurry up and wait all the time.

It being like 104 and with no place to land, I went down to Fresno and saw the latest very forgettable Tom Cruise movie "Knight and Day". Pretty medium stuff, but it was cool in the theater and the light weight entertainment was just what I was looking for.

Then back to Madera to set up in the Lion's Park. It was hot and sticky, the PA sucked and we were all drained, but the smallish crowd loved our Western Swing and Stardust Cowboy originals. I guess there is a tradition of Western music there, our fiddle player Olen told me of a Bob Wills veteran living near there.

So a little teaching today, a jam session gig, then a well earned day off tomorrow, if I do say so myself.

On the Road

I'm gonna be burning up the highway this weekend, it's always a part of being a musician.

I've always loved traveling, starting with our great family vacations as a small child, reading Kerouac as a teenager inspired more highway dreams. Hit the road quite a bit with club/casino bands as a young man. (plenty of stories there)

I still love to travel, but sometimes it just becomes a chore driving 3 hours to play a 45 minute set somewhere. Don't get me wrong, I love to work, love my work, but as I get older it gets tougher. And getting better gigs usually means traveling more.

For example this week: last night(Thursday), was an easy drive to Lodi to play the Farmer's market with the Bayou Boys. I was home on my couch by 10 PM. Today it gets a bit harder; tonight it's a couple hours to Groveland with Wingnut Adams, Saturday afternoon it's 3 hours to Redwood City for the blues festival with Frankie Lee then another 3 back to Groveland. Sunday you can find me in Madera for a park concert with the Stardust Cowboys, then back another 3-4 back home.

Like I said I do what I love and love what I do. I love seeing new things, meeting people, playing music in a variety of places. But many hours this week will find me out on the freeway on the open road, winding over a mountain pass, or making my way through bay area traffic. If you see a dusty gold Chevy HRR, honk and wave!!

TJ and Lindsey bought me a GPS(we call her Mandy) for Father's Day. What a great invention!

It's been especially helpful on the bay area freeway system, which always confounds me, being directionaly challenged.

Time to get back truckin, see you next week!

Making hay while the sun shines

Thats' what they say about show biz or business in general: feast or famine. Right now it's feast, August is shaping up pretty undernourished(have bass will travel!!! Call me please).

5 gigs this week:Monday at the Station, Wednesday at the Hacienda, for the weekend Friday with the Jokers in Sacramento, then I hit the road with the Stardust Cowboys, ending up in Lake Almanor on Sunday.

I have spent hours slaving over a hot computer learning the Cowboys songs. They do mostly originals plus some great Western Swing mostly by Bob Wills. I am really falling for the whole Western Swing thing, it combines many of my favorite musics:Jazz, Blues, Country, Bluegrass into something entirely it's own. Makes me want to get another upright(bass violin), it's the right instrument for the style.

Next week 7 gigs. After the usual Monday and Wednesday jams, Thursday it's the Lodi Farmer's Market with the Bayou Boys, then I hit the road: Friday, the Iron Door in Groveland with Wingnut Adams, Saturday Day the Redwood City Blues Festival with Frankie Lee, then back to the Iron Door for Sat. Night. Sunday, I head down to Madera to the Cowboy Festival with The Stardust Cowboys.

I am a bit nervous about working so much in so few days, but I got to get it whilest I can. I can sleep in August! Doing double gigs and working night after night really wear me down these days, even though I am in maybe the best shape of my life, the years do take their toll.

Still here......

I have been real busy these past couple weeks, lots of gigs with the Bayou Boys, the Jokers, and Frankie Lee. Now I am knee deep in Western Swing getting ready for my gigs with the Stardust Cowboys. Takes a lot of time to learn a repertoire and I am dealing with diverse styles.

So rest assured there will be more stories of the past and present and until then thank you and leave it on!!!