With the Little Wheels Band at Don Quixote's International Music Hall. Felton sits above Scott's Valley, which sits above Santa Cruz. Friday night the weather broke for us, making it low clouds and high times at Don Quixote's. The room was built back in the 1950s for big bands, and has a nice dance floor and a roomy stage -- though both the FOBs and the Little Wheels Band, who got the night rolling, filled it rather full. It was the first outing for the band since October, and we broke a good bit of new material: four new tunes (Purple Bandana, EVery Night, Tunnel 64, and Kick it Open), and radical overhauls of two tunes with a bit of stage history (Take a Drive, last performed in 2002, and Every sTreet, which Ann and T Bone Burnett reworked for our recording sessions last October. (For the record, a scheduling miscommunication put Barry on the East Coast, so Bert took up the guitar slack, and had some great moments!)

Slabtown was hopping! Even the rain couldn't dampen our spirits. Back on the road after our studio hiatus, we had that great feeling of rediscovering our repertoire: everything was fresh. Even though we've been rehearsing madly, we were finding interesting harmonic nooks and melodic crannies to work with. At least, they seemed interesting to us in the moment. The moments started adding up early: Alligator's homage to the early days of the Dead had the patrons of Slabtown in a very good place by the time we took the stage, and we eased into "Nick of Time" with the feeling that good things were coming, and the jam into "Devil's Kitchen" brought the energy level up nicely. From there, it was a great ride, culminating in the public debut of "Blink of an Eye," a new tune from Ann and Roger: we plan to make the recording available soon.

Back to WOW Hall, one of our favorite venues! Eugene is a town that is completely comfortable for us, and the W.O.W. Hall is a great place for a musical party. Once again, Alligator raised the temperature to the combustion point, and all we had to do was ride the crowd's enthusiasm. It felt like family.

NRPS is back!! We opened for the New Riders of the Purple Sage. We heard good things about this latest incarnation of the New Riders, which includes David Nelson and Buddy Cage. As noted in an emergency e.mailing, an unplayable field postponed our opportunity to play for Giants fans on their way to the home opener in the morning. Just as well, it turns out, as our bass player found himself in the proverbial emergency room, coming to a deep understanding of the proverbial kidney stone (the proverb, of course: "A kidney stone gathers no olive branches"). But this is the day of Better Living through Chemistry, so the band was at full strength for the evening show at the Great American Music Hall, where we opened for the New Riders of the Purple Sage. Lots of familiar faces in the audience may have been the inspiration, but whatever the case, the band hit hard and connected with a set that included several new numbers.

The Rock Bottom Remainders are writers who rock, and in the words of member Dave Barry, "play music about as well as Metallica writes novels."

We had so much fun the last time, we thought we'd do it again: teaming up with Bob Weir and Mickey Hart and adding the New Riders of the Purple Sage to the ticket. We kept our campaign promise and rocked the House (and the Senate). Senator Leahy has been a true stalwart on the ramparts. It wouldn't be Washington without complications: the hotel manager put the kibosh on our soundcheck, and Caesar's wife was seen fleeing a whiff of ye olde Humboldt air freshener. But good money was raised for good people, and good music was played, first by the New Riders of the Purple Sage, who opened with "Panama Red" (Mrs. Caesar should have known!) and built up from there, closing with a "Garden of Eden" that sounds all too fresh today. The Flying Other Brothers followed with a brief solo set, then were joined by Bob Weir and Mickey Hart. For the finale -- glorious mayhem! -- both bands were joined on stage by Senator and Mrs. Leahy on vocals and tambourine. For those keeping score at home, that's three drummers, two bass players, five guitarists, two pedal steel players, and the OK Chorale. As for consciousness, following the concert, Weir urged everyone in the room to get hold of their friends and make them vote. "If every Deadhead in Florida had voted, this would be a very different world today." Well said, Bob.

The Return of the Groove to Union Square: To open our set of Union Square encores, we appeared with the Al Fresco Dancers and Bag Lunchers: Be among them!! A gorgeous afternoon, sunny and warm, played the generous host for our inaugural Jewels in the Square show this year.

With Elvin Bishop, JGB/Melvin Seals, David Gans and many more. OK, we wondered a bit, when we saw the signs directing us to the festival co-located with the signs to the Sewage Treatment Facility. And then the road to the backstage area did this little thread-the-needle through pits of bubbling readioactive waste! (That part is a little bit exaggerated, but we're trying to convey a sense of adventure here!) But everything was copacetic and totally together: a beautoiful site hard by the river on a gloriously hot day -- with an air-conditioned RV for strategic retreats. We heard the end of David Gans set, and a fine performance by Donnie Brand before taking the stage ourselves. WE were followed by Melvin Seals and JGB, and by the Elvin Bishop Group: A lot of good music to temper the heat of the day!

This has been an annual love-in, and this was no exception: even the bugs gave us a bit of slack! Plenty o'bubbles in the air, and some strong jams on the menu, as well.

We opened for the great Melvin Seals and JGB at this pair of dates in Colorado. We love converted movie houses: You always get great sightlines and a good stage. The Gothic Theater in Englewood is a great example, and we had a ball here, teeing it up for Melvin Seals and JGB. Whatever effects we might have been feeling from travel, altitude, or the band's resident chest cold, we got a very warm response from this engaging room. We note that the crowd included a couple of painters, one of whom, a synaesthetic with whom Barry has previously crossed paths and had invoked with a t-shirt just two nights earlier, painted his impressions through the performances. Ahhhh, psychedelia!

Instead of High Noon, think High Tea this month. And having thunk, we acted on it: we provided the groove for the Happiest, Hippiest Hour in the City. But was he a guest artist or a member of the band? Nobody knows for sure, though it can be said with assurance that the presence of G.E. Smith on the bandstand always adds to the strength of the brew. He even laid down the Telecaster for a tune or two in favor of the Mysterious Green Guitar, invested with mystical powers by some psychedelic leprechaun! This was a great way to begin our encore with the Jewels in the Square series, with first appearances of "Ohio" (TBone Tony Bove on vocals), "Drink Up and Go Home" with G.E. Smith on vocals, and "Let It Rock" with G.E. again; and one of the longest sets we've played without a break . . .

With GE Smith sitting in on lead guitar. Big Island Shindig opened the show. There was something Phishy about this gig, and it turns out to have been Big Island Shindig. We'd had some fun with these guys before in Eugene, and they warmed up a somewhat sparse audience well. The Mt. Tabor is an old theater, very spacious, with a fine patina of punk and high spirits: this was our first time here, and we are coninually impressed by the breadth of Portland's music scene.

Opening for Melvin Seals and JGB. Barry was on the road with Phil Lesh for a few weeks, but our frequent collaborator G.E. Smith joined us for these dates. North County San Diego has plenty of high-end communities, and an interesting mixed culture in sleepy shore towns like Solana Beach. The Belly Up carries the arc of a quonset hut into the realm of rock and roll with great style: a sweet vibe, solid sound system and welcoming local crowd worked well for us. We played well, and then enjoyed another fine set from Melvin Seals and JGB, with G.E. sitting in to trade few licks with Melvina nd guitarist Stu Allen.

With G.E. Smith. Our first venture into the Chicago area, on a night notable for several reasons: G.E., who had kinfolk in the audience, signed a baseball; Ann had her female parental unit, e.g. mother, in the audience for her first taste of FOB rapture; and one of our vans was attacked by an ent.

With G.E. Smith. It just doesn't get much better than this, from the standpoint of a working band. We spent a truly ridiculous amount of time at O'Hare, which somehow failed to frazzle us. I mean, hey, we made it on time, so no sweat! After Colin John's acopustic blues set, the house was packed and primed for action. And from the first notes of the perfect opener -- Yes, "Ohio," of course -- it felt like everyone in the room, including the throng on the bandstand, was connected to the same source. Amazing crowd! When it came time for us to stop, they'd have none of it! Even G.E.'s cowboy crooning on "Drink Up and Go Home" failed for once to clear the room, so we dipped once more into the Dylan book in our quest for closure.

With G.E. Smith, lead guitar. We think someone told us that the Winchester used to be a bowling alley; it must have been an intimate set of lanes, which made for an interesting music venue. Howard Danchik, our front-of-house master mixologist, was seen scratching his head throughout the evening. But the folks in the room told us everything sounded fine, and things felt pretty good on stage. And, miracle of miracles, we managed not say, "'Ello, Cleveland!" from the stage.

Call us crazy: we wanted to play this gig with Tea Leaf Green, despite the fact that we played the night before in Cleveland. Most of us had less than four hours sleep and a flight schedule that still required a frantic dash to make it out to San Geronimo through blazing temperatures. The one amongst us who was relatively well-rested was Barry, who rejoined us after a month's sojourn with Phil and Frineds. What a day for it, as they say! Did we mention it was hot? Oh yes: How about 107 degrees Fahrenheit when we went on, with the late afternoon sun dead in our eyes. Combat conditions, for sure, and we probably took some casulaties in the course of the set. But we stared adversity in the eye and lived to play another day. Or something like that . . .

With G.E. Smith. Our summerlong crossing of paths with Melvin Seals and JGB continued on the east coast, with this visit to a room deeply steeped in the spirit of Jerry and the Dead. Barry is a familiar and somewhat heroic figure in these parts, and we were well received by an enthusiastic crowd that included TBone Tony Bove's pals from college many years ago, one of which (the infamous Pete) was escorted about by a Russian blonde bombshell known only as Tanya . . .

With G.E. Smith. Penn's Peak is a beautiful facility perched high on a hill -- which, when you think about it, is a good location for a ski resort, which is what it is in months when the temperatures aren't in the neighborhood of a right angle. And it's not like the crowd was small, but this is a cavernous space . . . TBone Tony Bove's cousin, whom he hadn't seen in 30 years, came out for this one.

With G.E. Smith. Supporting Melvin Seals and JGB. This was a monumental show: a couple or three thousand folks showed up, open to whatever we were bringing. And in mid-set, it occurred to G.E. that what is now the public Market was not so very long ago the main passenger rail station in Rochester, and that the great Son House had lived in Rochester for a time, had lived here in fact during the time that he wrote the classic "empire State," which holds a notable place in G.E.'s (and hence our) repertoire, and that the trainstation rfeferenced in the song was . . . well, where we were. So he called the audible when he stepped to the microphone for his mid-set feature, and what came out was simply frerocious, lifting the rest of the set to an even higher point. Melvin and JGB were to find the assembled multitudes more than ready when they got to the stage: a great day all 'round.

With G.E. Smith. Times Square on a Saturday night, and two shows to w work through at B.B. King's. The first featured the reunion of that famous L.A.-based punk band, the . . . uh, right, I can't quite, right on the tip of my tongue, y'know, they're the . . . Well, here's who they are: they're the guys who exercised their right to punkish behavior by tossing a full deli tray from backstage into the "mosh pit" (check my usage on that, please) in front of the stage. The moshers then duly exercised their rights to punkish behavior by throwing it all back onto the stage, where it arrived in somewhat worse condition than it had departed. What this amounted to was a need to hose down the stage before we could set up, which delayed things by, oh, an hour, and cut into our soundcheck and boohoohoohoohoo. So by way of revenge, we played a great show in G.E.'s home town.

When in doubt, hit the road: With summer on its way out, we took a deep breath on our return from Alaska and headed back out, this time for a week's worth of shows opening for Particle. This band has a great sound, built on solid grooves and a raft of electronic effects. Thye go non-stop, and the effect is entrancing. We kicked off at the Last Day Saloon in Santa Rosa, a short hop up the road: it's the only club we've played in quite a while that carries a dress code, which most of us passed.

It's worth mentioning that Chris Shaw put together one of his "panorama" poster series, a five-piece '50s retro set that sparkles like an Ipana smile. This was a box of a multi-purpose room that lacked stage acoustics, but made up for it with a great crowd. Big fun.

There is something so very "Wow" about the W.O.W. Hall in Eugene. The memory frame from this evening came when G.E. Stepped to the microphone for his oh-so-funky rendition of "Sugaree," which drew the to-that-point reticent dancers out of the shadows and into full spinning mode -- and then it was Katie-bar-the-door! We'll end this here, before we are taxed for over-hyphenation.

Another jewel of a town, historically perhaps best known as the childhood home of Harley Brookins. The FOB have played some crowded stages before, but I think this may be the all-time record-holder: fitting our various selves in around Particle's gear, in particular their keyboard rig, was an exercise in pragmatism and contortionism that totally fills a very small space in our cololective consciousness.

Three shows in Portland in '06, at three different venues. The Aladdin is a well-maintained venue that attracts a good many fine acts, two of whom were in fine form tonight (blush!). A noteworthy moment came with G.E.'s rendition of Robert Johnson's "Love in Vain," made famous by the Rolling Stones.

The Armory in Ashland is essentially a gym: lost of cinderblock and parallel walls, slapback and echoes to confound the unwary performer. But the endpiece of our mini-tour with Particle had some extended back and forth, as Ben and Steve joined us for a barn-burning "Stella Blue," and G.E. and Barry and Pete and Tony -- Did we miss anyone? -- joined in for an epic voyage through Pink Floyd space -- and beyond. !

Tea Leaf Green scheduled an acoustic show to buttress their electric set at the Fillmore the next night, and we were only too glad to lend unplugged support. The textures of acoustic playing take us (and the music) in different directions; feedback demons made a couple of obilagtory appearances, but that reflects the intensity of the preformance as much as anything else.

Benefit for the Mill Valley Film Festival with G.E. Smith, Simon Kirke, Taylor Barton and Special Guests. OK, in the interests of full disclosure, we acknowledge that we had a dog in this fight: Fifty Watt Fuse, Taylor Barton's documentary about G.E. Smith, made its debut at this festival, and Pete, Jimmy and Bill make musical cameo appearances therein. But the benefit show was a real kick, with Taylor doing a few songs, a delectable Dan Hicks performance, and a Marin-ade of guests led by Bob Weir -- including an impromptu appearance on drums by emcee Dana Carvey (Yo, Garth!!!).

Possibly the high point of FOB history so far, and certainly the largest crowd we've ever wowed, with estimates ranging from 15,000 to over 40,000. We were slotted between friends: T-Bone Burnett with an acoustic band front-ending us, and Hot Tuna following, on a day that spoke clearly to the greatness of San Francisco as a music town.

One of the reasons the San Francisco scene is so rich is the remarkable number of music venues endowed with personality and vibe -- and none more so than the Great American Music Hall. And speaking of personality, it was a grand reunion for us with Vince Herman, late of Leftover Salmon, whose new band Great American Taxi wraps his unique stage presence in a more tuneful package.

Benefit for Little Kids Rock. The percussion rig for the great drummers of the Greg Rolie Band took up most of the stage, but we found more than enough room to stretch. With a cause like this, and so much good spirit in the air, everyone came out a winner -- Bert even won the silent auction for a guitar that had belonged to Joe Satriani!

Co-Bill with Great American Taxi, featuring Vince Herman, formerly of Leftover Salmon. "Unseasonably warm" is a phrase we're quite fond of, comes winter, and it applied to this lovely day in Denver. And yet it took a while for us to warm up: It had been a while since we'd worked as a group. But the eminent Howard Danchik, front of house maestro, said we hit our stride a few songs into the set, and we never looked back. The set ended big, generating calls for an encore that were satisfied by a smokin' Sugaree. We enjoyed watching steam rising from the crowd on the sidewalk during intermission (of course, there is the possibility that it was smoke).

4th Annual Mark Vann Foundation Holiday Benefit Show, w/ Great American Taxi, Pete Wenick & The Boulder Valley Vanntastics, Bill McKay Band, Sally Van Meter, Rue, John McKay, Reed Foehl, & Many Special Guests & Surprises To Celebrate The Life Of Mark Vann. What a way to go! We were in a great venue, with a great crowd on both sides of the footlights, and a great cause to boot. Sam Howard of JGB sat in with us in commemoration of our good times over the summer, and Bill McKay intertwined keyboard lines for the finale, and the FOBs left the stage, not with a whimper, but a bang.