The first of two gigs this month with the Rowan Brothers, this one should be a great time. It's the first time we've been down in the Santa Cruz area since we opened for Leftover Salmon at the Catalyst a year and a half ago. Band of Brothers I.

Our return to the Little Fox find us once again in the company of the Rowan Brothers, with the added attraction of the Papermill Creek Rounders, featuring David Nelson and Banana in bluegrass mode. Band of Brothers II!

A celebration of America's best Senator, Barbara Boxer, for her courage at the Condi Rice hearings. This was also the CD Release party for our studio album, "San Francisco Sounds." We were so impressed with the courage of our junior Senator that we decided to dedicate the evening to her, and we persuaded a few of our friends to come out and play. It didn’t take much persuading, in actual fact. So lines formed outside Slim’s early on that Friday night, and never really abated. We heard from David Jacobs-Strain, a singer-songwriter and blues acolyte, and from the Court and Spark, a young San Francisco band with a genre-busting sound. Then it was FOB time, and as we were getting the cumzoutas and gazintas all sorted and satisfied, Boz Scaggs came up on stage and called the Senator to the stage to receive a framed poster for the event signed by all the participating musicians – a horde including, in addition to ourselves and friend and occasional SuperFOB G.E. Smith, Country Joe McDonald, David Nelson, T Bone Burnett, Bob Weir, and the aforementioned Mr. Scaggs. Senator Boxer’s remarks were casual but to the point: “Dick Cheney is so scary!” she confided in describing the difficult choices she had made over the past few months. And then the music started – and didn’t stop for well over four hours!

This whole weekend was just jam-packed (pun intended) with talent! We all needed a wake-up call after the Slim’s show the night before, and this one was as deep in many respects. There were some great moments from David Gans and the Rowan Brothers, whose sets established a Beatles thread that permeated the evening. Mark Karan, playing with Robin Sylvester, Kenny Brooks and our own Pete sears and Jimmy Sanchez, delivered another of his signature sets of convolutions and evolutions of great songs – which we had to follow! We recruited T Bone Burnett to add some of his special sauce, and enticed the Rowans up on stage, and generally created enough mayhem that most of the packed house were able to overlook the overflow from the sanitary system that rendered the dancing a bit of a soggy exercise.

GE Smith and Acoustic Hot Tuna!!!! Bill, Jimmy and TBone Tony Bove were part of GE's band. David Lindley was also there and the whole thing was taped for "50 Watt Fuse" (documentary about G.E. Smith by Taylor Barton).

Another promising night for great music supporting a good cause: holding the Humboldt County Sherrif's Department accountable for their outrageous treatment of non-violent protestors. We played with David Nelson and a raft of special guests including Melvin Seals and some of the principals in this legal crusade. And for Masters of Cermony, who could be more masterful than Chet Helms and Wavy Gravy?

What a weekend — long and occasionally strange, at that! In the days before the weekend, we learned a couple of worrisome things: Vince Herman, exuberant front man for the late, lamented Leftover Salmon, had emergency surgery to fuse two vertebrae that were in danger of severing his spinal cord; and Bill Laymon, well-known bassist for the David Nelson Band, found himself in the hospital, baffling doctors with some troubling symptoms. One result: for the first time in years, Pete Sears took his bass on the road with him. Those who know him as a keyboard player may not recall that Pete held down the low end for Jefferson Starship back in the day, and having played keyboards behind Nelson on many occasions, he was a natural choice to fill in. So we arrived at May Daze, trailing a cloud of dust as we arrived on Thursday evening for a sound check, only to find that the rigors of building a stage had taken somewhat longer than expected. We went off in search of dinner, at the best BBQ place in Strasburg, CO. OK, the only BBQ place in Strasburg. This may explain why the Nelson crew found us so easily, whereupon followed a finger-lickin’ session of swapping lies, with an undercurrent of real concern for Bill, who was still stuck in San Francisco, awaiting the results from a spinal tap. Friday night featured the incomparable Bill McKay from Leftover Salmon on “Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad” — and after we did our thing, Pete admirably defined the pocket for the Nelson band. The lineup included Stir Fried with Buddy Cage, the David Nelson Band, Shakedown Street, One Kind Favor, Dan Walker and the Sky, The Menagerie, Electric Side Dish, Big Metal Rooster, Eclectic Echo, Peek Freens, Dead Zone, Harmon Brothers Band, Mumbouli, Phix, Last Bus, Ethereal Plance and Shanti Groove.

To hear excerpts from the show, check out the Flying Other Brothers free podcast -- May Daze in Colorado episode.

Next thing we knew, it was Saturday afternoon, and we got word that Bill Laymon was en route. He seemed a bit weak when he arrived, but his playing that night was as strong as ever. This, by the way, makes David Nelson one of the very few who has played with both the Dead and the near-dead. Mookie Siegel of the David Nelson Band joined us on organ. The lineup included Stir Fried with Buddy Cage, the David Nelson Band, Shakedown Street, One Kind Favor, Dan Walker and the Sky, The Menagerie, Electric Side Dish, Big Metal Rooster, Eclectic Echo, Peek Freens, Dead Zone, Harmon Brothers Band, Mumbouli, Phix, Last Bus, Ethereal Plance and Shanti Groove.

To hear excerpts from the show, check out the Flying Other Brothers free podcast -- May Daze in Colorado episode.

Come Sunday, and with it menacing storm clouds and intermittent rain, when who should appear on the scene but Vince Herman, patched together with the usual baling wire and bubble gum, and with the addition of a very rakish neck brace. We prepared a modified set list when Vince allowed as how he might just join us for our set, and so Strasburg’s May Daze was the venue for the unofficial debut of Vince and the Stiffnecks (having decided that the neck brace was not enough like a clerical collar to support a band called Father Vincent and the Altar Boys). We played into the teeth of a driving rain, it must be added, that ultimately caused the cancellation of the festival’s final set by Stir Fried. We note with great pleasure that Mookie Siegel also sat in with the band on the mighty Hammond, as he had on Saturday. Got that? Right. We returned to the Bay Area with our faith in the healing power of music confirmed once more.

To hear excerpts from the show, check out the Flying Other Brothers free podcast -- May Daze in Colorado episode.

There's nothing like a pagan festival to get your summer off to a righteous start! We joined up with the Rowan Brothers, the David Nelson Band, David Ganz, and Joseph Langham here, at a weekend's worth of party hosted by the redoubtable James Taylor Jones.

There's nothing like a pagan festival to get your summer off to a righteous start! We joined up with the Rowan Brothers, the David Nelson Band, David Ganz, and Joseph Langham here, at a weekend's worth of party hosted by the redoubtable James Taylor Jones.

Town Square -- A full day of very Independence-oriented music, in the fresh air of the historic Plaza. With the David Nelson Band, Kulica, and Deltron 9. FREE!

This was a great situation: an all-ages show benefitting Ronald McDonald House. David Nelson Band also appeared.

Many of you will already be familiar with the harmony of setting and style that they call Dead on the Creek. This annual celebration of the eclectic appetites of Jerry Garcia, music enthusiast, took place at Uncle John's Camp on String Creek in the hills above Willits, California. It was a full weekend, and a brilliant little vacation. We were coupled once again to the mighty engine of the David Nelson Band, Sunday night's closer, and Saturday featured Garth Hudson's new vehicle, Burrito Deluxe.

This is the third year we’ve participated in this benefit for the Novato Schools, and each year the event has gotten bigger and better.  This year the headliners were Journey, and they still do their thing awfully well.  This was a pretty good day for the Flying Other Brothers as well: as we began our set, clouds began to move in, but by the time we concluded, we had even blown the clouds away.  We were joined by Joli Valenti, son of Dino Valenti, and his son Cody, for renditions of Dino’s classic “Get Together” and Dylan’s generational hymn, “The Times They are a-Changin’.”

This is one of the Bay Area's best events, and we were delighted to have a spot on the main stage, following the Little Wheels Band. Here's the top line: a 1229 pound pumpkin. Well over half a ton of gourd. Ugly. Then there's the weather forecast: chilly, windy, rainy. Ugly. But the reality was quite different: sunny and pleasant, with just a hint of cloud to remind us how lucky we were. And there were hordes of people braving choked highways to come and have their picture taken with the pumpkin -- at least the pumpkin wasn't making any promises about presents or any other behavioral incentives. Now, our luck didn't entirely hold, as a small infestation of bugs and quirks in the P.A. system cut into our set a bit. We did manage to deal out a few grooves that got some butts out of seats and into a dancing mode -- and maybe we cleared ourselves a technical path for tomorrow's performance.

This is one of the Bay Area's best events, and we were delighted to have a spot on the main stage, following the Little Wheels Band. The weather held, the technical gremlins were apparently partied out from Saturday's mischief, and a goodly number of gourdophiles (well, what would you call pumpkin lovers?) were wearing their dancing shoes. I'd call that harmonic convergence, and we rode it into a very satisfying place, from our point of view. We had a great team picture taken, with the our crew, the production team, and any of the aforementioned gourdophiles enthusiastic enough to crowd up to the stage and say "cheese," which we'll get up on the website as soon as possible.