Dawgology

[SternART]

I used to drive Mike & Darol to the gigs.....top down on the DS Cabriolet & they would practice on
the way to the gig....driving IN THE CAR!!!....now a '64 Citroen convertible is a rare sighting anyway, but
with a longhaired guy fiddling in the back seat, and an even longer haired guy riding shotgun & playing
mando (those were Todd's glory days with long hair), and an even longer haired ponytailed guy driving,
we must have been a sight to behold. They played a lot of hole in the wall clubs in those days between the
good gigs like the GAMH. I remember one Keystone Berkeley gig, early on.....maybe 6 or 7 was all there
were in the audience. Dawggy came out & asked them if they should play, the band was about as big as the
audience that night, but they were privvy to TWO smokin' sets of Dawg music.....this was before the first
record hit & they moved a rung up the ladder of show biz success. I KNEW how great David's music & band
were & felt privileged to be so close to all that creative energy.....not only are they talented, but they are
very bright guys too. David was feeding them jazz records, stuff like Bill Evans Trio, or 50's Miles Davis, we loved Oliver
Nelson's arrangements....Blues and the Abstract truth etc. The DGQ went thru a growth spurt, John Carlini was out for
arranging the King of the Gypsies movie score, and Tony Rice became a jazz chord monster, from jammin' with
John.....everyone was improving all the time & David kept honing the arrangements & allowing room for creative
soloing....everyone was really dedicated & working hard to improve as musicians. Great energy to be around.
I'm really proud on them boys, watching their careers blossom for 30 years has been great fun.

[Scotti Adams]

..this is great stuff...keep it rolling.

[jmcgann]

A few days after I turned 18, the DGQ played their first tour, and I was new at Berklee. Went to the show and...

I Became A Man!!!

Seriously- that, to me, threw down the gauntlet, big time. Got me a metronome and realized how far I had to go!!!

[Patrick Melly]

Arthur wrote: "They played a lot of hole in the wall clubs in those days between the good gigs "

My first DGQ sighting (maybe their 2nd or 3rd gig) was at a slightly surreal venue - they played at an elderly lady's storefront "opera house" out in the fogbound avenues of San Francisco - it was filled with the lady's ferns and cats and she was scooting around to rescue both from the crowd. It was sold out when we got there - when the ticket guy walked away we followed him in. I had come to hear Tony Rice - I was learning to flatpick guitar then - but we were unprepared for what we heard inside. The format was as described above - bluegrass(y) before the break, DGQ after.
The first set was dazzling enough: Richard Greene and Darol doing twin fiddles on one mike (quite a visual, given their respective heights); Bill
Keith wowing my banjo-picking girlfriend (I'm still married to her, sold the banjo); T. Rice as still as a statue while blazing away on these impossibly
fast & cool solos; Grisman bopping around as if possessed.
Then the DGQ played, and changed everything I thought I knew about acoustic music. I like to think the whole crowd knew something very
different was unfolding in front of us. The crowd was certainly hanging on every note.
After that show I borrowed my mom's Vega cylinderback and started trying to find the territory the DGQ introduced us to that night. Not there yet.

[SternART]

Patrick......was that the gig the PA broke in the middle & we somehow patched it back together to work again?

[Monte37]

My notes:
I remember all the small "church/hall" gigs that were totally accoustic where Rudy would get up and do some tunes.
I remember Rudy correcting my music at his J street candy store, and all the times he visited our group when we played at the GMH.
I remember starting the count of Ricochette to Hal Blaine.
...all the people I met as result of David any time I visited or at gigs...everyone really.
Daryl living downstairs at David's and always playing...always.
I remember that Joe Craven first played his fiddle case with his hands.
I always remember Art and his omnipresent tape machine..no MP3 then.
I remember how we all felt we were witness to something special.
I remember first seeing David play after us at the Stanford KZOO radio station with Skunk Cabbage. David and Clarence.
I remember asking David for lessons at Gryphon Music, and him saying yes...I end with my start.

[humblemex]

Great stuff indeed, Arthur. I knew you'd have the goods. Lots of good stuff from others, too. Can you remember where and when we met? Was it at the Family Light Music School gig in Sausalito five days after the Monroe show? That was actually the first time I saw a full DGQ set, and I knew then I was going to be hanging around as close as they would let me. I loved the whole sound but the combination of Dawg and T was unprecedented and irresistible. The Gasoline Brothers, indeed."

If we didn't meet there, it must have been backstage at the Music Hall six weeks later in March, 1977. Let us be clear: Arthur Stern is arguably Dawghead #1. We were instant musical soul mates, bound by a shared love of the DGQ, the Grateful Dead, fruits of the earth, and the mandolin. The Dead connection is no fluke; Dawgheads # 2 and #3 are likely Jay Ceballos and Mary Barry, two kind souls and musicians who have been Deadheads pretty much as long as there have been Deadheads.

When I first started taking photography seriously in the late '60s, I began a log that tracked every roll. Each entry has a roll number, the date it was exposed, the subject(s), and the venue. Because of that, I can be pretty darn precise in establishing dates when things happened. I can't tell you how happy I am that I made that decision; the log and my contact sheets are my journals.

The Monroe gig I talked about was the year before Frank opened for him. That was in Oct, 1978, and Frank's band consisted of Darol Anger, Todd Phillips, Kathy Kallick, and an unidentified banjo player. I'll bet someone here knows. I definitely remember you getting busted by the man himself. Hope you knew somebody that was taping at home.

FWIW, I believe Joe Craven ranks with Tony Rice, Darol Anger, Mark O'Connor, and Mike Marshall in the Hall of Fame of most-gifted, influential DGQ alumni.

[Dan Cole]

This entire thread is great. I think it really reinforces something my dad told me a long time ago. He said "if you want to bowl 300 games, you have to bowl with guys that bowl 300 games." Same goes for the mandolin, or anything else one wants to aspire to. Being lucky enough to be in such an influencial circle in anything you do really is a key to success.

Art, et al, I envy you!

[tjg]

A book should be written! Great info!

[Patrick Melly]

Arthur wrote:".....was that the gig the PA broke in the middle..."

I don't remember a total breakdown - I do recall many audience calls for more volume for individual instruments, to the point
that David said something like "You go back there and tell them - I can't even deal with telling them."
Arthur, do you think that show got taped? It was very early.

[AlanN]

Enjoyable reading, for sure. And sure beats reading about Anna Nicole Smith

And Tim Ware fits in here somewhere, as he was in a parallel universe, mando wise. I remember reading that he saw the DGQ in a church in the day, and was somewhat crest-fallen, as he was doing something similar, but different, with mandolins.

It was all good, still is, actually.

[Scotti Adams]

..hey..Ive got a Tim Ware Lp...nice stuff.

[SternART]

Jon, I can't recall if we were introduced in Sausalito, or if I just saw you hangin'.....I remember you were always so discreet, you'd zip down close to the stage a coupla times a show, stay low, shoot & disappear. And once you were "in the club" backstage, we were almost invisable. As long as we didn't interrupt & let them take care of bidness, we were welcome to be in there. The band would circle up & reherse changes in the harmony lines, arrangements, order of solos, etc right down to the wire.....how did they remember all that stuff???.....David drove the bus, but it was like spontaneous group art, created right before our eyes. That last photo, the "Gasoline Brothers" was my favorite time backstage. Tony used to tune up and play the same exact run every time.....and that intuitive thing he & David share is a special musical brotherhood, there was just an inner joy they had hearing & playing off of each other. And the TONE of those two players with great instruments, heard from up close is etched into my soul......so many times, the band would stand in a half circle around me for one more rehersal tune, before hitting the stage.....now that is surround-sound! I made a point of going downstairs at the Music Hall, to greet them as they made their was back to the dressing room, to congratulate them on a good set.......was talkin to Tony once & telling him I thought this particular section of his solo in 16-16 was incredible......He said heeeey....I was thinking that too, I wonder what I was playing?!......he was just "in the zone". Darol & Mike lived virtually next door to each other in houses in the Oakland flatlands & were "always" playing together. They developed a special bond & musical partnership that lives till today. Another great combination. A vivid memory I have was listening to Todd teach his old mando parts to Mike.....all day..... while I was working on a stained glass project in my art studio. When Todd switched to bass, Mike became the 2nd mandolin voice in the band. Marshall was like a human tape recorder, heard it, played it back once or twice & he had it. And the kid could just swing the rhythm, his heros were Sam & David & his rhythm was like a combination.....when Mike showed up on David's porch, from Florida, he already had learned most of the licks on the first album.......Jon....you mention Jay & Mary, they became regulars backstage too, and now years later play in the Djunkyard Gypsies, a swing band up in the Grass Valley area. I remember them coming up to the soundboard & asking if they could meet David, so I took them backstage.....wasn't like there was any security or anything....anyone could have met them if they wanted to....and do you remember Darol's grandmother?.....she brought baked good to all the Music Hall gigs.....after the first record came out those Fri/Sat night gigs, every month or two at the Music Hall were a special part of the genesis of the DGQ.....I'll tell you though, I wasn't a player till '79 when I figured I was hangin' around all this incredible music, maybe I should give it a try too, Todd loaned me a Gibson A model, and showed me how to hold a pick & David already had Ten Tunes in Nine Keys out & that had a coupla Dawg tunes in there & I was off.....Marshall really knows how to teach too, many of my early lessons were with Mike and ideas he shared with me were usually over my head, but later as I developed enough to understand what he was talking about, I saw the basic building blocks of music were being made simple....he always could see exactly where I was, teach me something I could work into, but also leave me with some hot lick that I could do now.....so I saw immediate progress & in my world of puppy Dawg music.....I was jammin'.....once he made an observation to me about Sam & David that really hit home for me. Mike said that Sam's playing went in spirals and David's was more symmetric......perfect way to communicate music to a visual artist.......playing the mandolin is one of the hardest things I've ever tried to do, knowing world class players I saw what was possible, but it also gave me a much better understanding of how talented they really are. In that respect these guys are really musician's musicians.....you almost have to play yourself to understand the level of difficuly and the creativity & proficiency in their playing. So many of the audience members were also musicians....Tim Ware was mentioned, Bob Alekno, Dix Bruce, Dave Balakrishnan, Becky Smith, Richard Sommers, Jim Kirkland, Tom Rozum among others, many got involved in the Mandolin World News. A "New Acoustic" scene evolved in the Bay Area, mandolins were cool, and there were a lot bands, some shortlived for a few gigs others with longer duration. Many of these had DGQ members, moonlighting or experimenting with their own tunes and ideas. It was a cool era to be in the Bay Area.

[mandopete]

A book, I agree! #DAWG music is so important and it sounds like you folks may have enough material and pictures possibly for a book.

Speaking of great stories, I love the one that David tells about meeting Todd Phillips. #He said that Todd approached him with a deal to trade mandolin bridges that Todd made for mandolin lessons.

Grisman summed it up with, "pretty soon I didn't need any more mandolin bridges and Todd didn't need any more lessons."

Great stuff.

[bgmando]

SternArt -- wonderful stuff, thanks.

In the Midwest -- So many of us had loved the Lovin Spoonful and Byrds and Buffalo Springfield. Bands that all mixed folkie/acoustic stuff with rock. Then there was The Band and Dirt Band.

So many folks were in a "folk-rock-mixed" mode as they learned to play, formed bands and jammed.

Hearing the DGQ first album froze people in their tracks.

Suddenly there was a swing from folk-rock leanings to jazz among the cool and proficient players. And as an antidote to Dawg overdose -- a push to sharpen Monroe and rootsy tone tunes in the repertoire.

I think delights found inside the door Dawg opened made players suddenly look for other doors they may have missed, too.

[humblemex]

A book, I agree! #DAWG music is so impotant and it sounds like you folks may have enough material and pictures possibly for a book.

First things first. Funny, but I knew I was documenting something important from the first time I saw these guys. Dawg knew, too, and we talked about "the book" that would happen someday. In fact, after David gave me my first good mandolin in 1979, an f-style Blue Bell, I promised him I would provide the photos gratis. Here we are almost 30 years later and that book seems a steep hill to climb. That's why I started this topic. I love the idea of a collective experience, and the web gives us options we never dreamed of long ago. Believe me, it's already occurred to me that we can also post mp3s.

My general plan is to introduce the photos and commentary more or less chronologically. One great benefit to this form is that people can post their comments and images in any order as their memories are tweaked. The whole chronology can be sorted out later. I've got a lot of images and I'm in no hurry to get them all posted. To a certain extent, it behooves us to stretch this out and get as many knowledgeable voices involved as we can.

Tim Ware was certainly a pioneer. His "Tim Ware Group," released in 1980 on Kaleidoscope, was one earliest examples of bands who adopted Dawg's example. Unfortunately, I don't think that's ever made it to CD although I understand there is a "Greatest Hits" package available from Menus and Music (http://www.menusandmusic.com), a mail order web site run by Sharon O'Connor, the former cellist in Tim's band. I can't figure out how to find it on her site, however. Tim now builds beautiful websites for a living, including Arthur Stern's if I'm not mistaken.

[mandopete]

A little off track, but your comment about "knowing this was something important" makes me think about what Chris Thile is doing today.

So is this idea going to merely live as a thread here on the cafe or is there some plan to publish these sort of memoirs?

[humblemex]

So is this idea going to merely live as a thread here on the cafe or is there some plan to publish these sort of memoirs?

As I said, first things first. Let's see where it goes. Meanwhile, it's free and happening right now here on the Cafe.

[mandopete]

Merci Phil,

That's some incredible stuff and with the score to boot.

Tres Magnifque!

[SternART]

It was a long stretch between Marshall & then Thile showing up. I thought Chris' How to Grow Band with Bryan Sutton
was like the next generation's Strength In Numbers Band. A nice growth step for Chris, I enjoyed them at Wgrass.
Unfortunately they didn't play this Blind leading the Blind (first movement) I've heard about. While Chris & these
other young musicians are major talents, the difference with the DGQ was IMO the compositions that Grisman wrote. His
body of incredible original music & arrangements has passed the test of time. That first album sounds as fresh today
THIRTY years later, as it did in the late 70's. I look forward to seeing where Thile can take the mandolin.

[AlanN]

#That first album sounds as fresh today
THIRTY years later, as it did in the late 70's.

With you there, buddy.

As is often the case, at least for me, the first is the best. I group the 2 Grisman albums, Kaleidoscope F-5 and Hot Dawg together as coming from the same space, largely because of Tony Rice.

Spectrum was a band in the late 70's with Gaudreau, Fleck, Lawson. They put out 3 records, the first, to me, is the best.

Doyle Lawson's first Quicksilver LP is da bomb, in spite of the elec. bass. Will The Circle Be Unbroken 1 beats 2.
Country Gazzette first record is great.

You get my idea.

[Scotti Adams]

..yea..I always thought the first Manzanita was the best too #Seriously...does anyone know what # Pag Doyle recorded that first Lp with? That thing was huge sounding.

[humblemex]

I can't pinpoint the month that Kaleidoscope F-5 was released but it was probably sometime in the spring of 1977. Right away it created an identity for the band and generated airplay. As we have since discovered, it also galvanized acoustic musicians everywhere. Mike Marshall is just one of many players who have told me that album literally changed their life.

I guess that shouldn't have been so surprising when you think about what hearing Dawg music for the first time did to Tony Rice. In a 1977 Guitar Player interview, he described how Bill Keith had recruited him to play on his album, Some Bluegrass, for Rounder. At the time, Tony was the bluegrass guitarist and the bluegrass vocalist playing in the hottest bluegrass band anywhere, J.D. Crowe and New South with Ricky Skaggs, Jerry Dougas, and Bobby Slone.

"When I got to the gig, Grisman was there," he recalls. "This cat really fascinated me because before we even got to the studio to start the album, he played a tape of him and Richard Greene with The Great American Music Band. From the minute he put the tape on, it sounded like something I had always heard in my head, acoustic instrumental music arranged like we're playing it now--without vocals. All of a sudden this guy shows up and he has this tape of him doing it. I wanted to part of it right then, but I was playing six nights a week with J.D.

"David and I kept in close contact, and he kept asking me when I was going to come to California. I was dying to but I had a commitment to J.D. and was making a living. In hindsight, I should have gone with David right then. I finally just had to play this music so I moved to California in October 1975 and slept on Grisman's couch for months while we rehearsed for hours every day."

With the album, 1977 was the breakout year for Dawg music. I must have seen the band perform 10 times that year. I know it had a big effect in U.S. but I'm curious how it long it took for its impact to be felt overseas. The mandolin family had long been a staple of British, Irish, and Scottish traditional music with outstanding players such as Dave Swarbrick, Andy Irvine, and Mick Moloney. Anybody who was there who can shed light on that?


Tony Rice, Bill Amatneek, John Carlini backstage at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco.

[SternART]

Possibly that photo taken with John Carlini was the era where they were working on the King of the Gypsies soundtrack. The move was released in '78...and as I recall the first record was heard by Federico De Laurentiis, son of Dino De Laurentiis the famed movie producer, and Grisman got the gig for the soundtrack. Carlini at the time was conducting and composing for the Ice Capades. I remember him coming to the Bay Area when scheduling permitted, taking David's Gypsy tunes and orchestrating them for the symphonic parts of the soundtrack. This was the movie where David hired Stephanne Grappelli to both play and act in the movie. In fact Grisman, Carlini, Andy Statman, Matt Glaser, Buell Neidlinger and others became the band appearing in several scenes in the movie, most notably the Gypsy wedding, and a funeral scene. They had David shave his beard, for the only time I can remember, except for a big handlebar moustache. This was just one of the doors that opened from the first DGQ record. Too bad the movie wasn't a BIG hit, so the music would have been heard by more people. There were plans for a soundtrack album, that were scrapped when the movie flopped. I think it was even recorded but never released. A medley of tunes from the movie became a part of the set list in this era. But one thing leads to another and the Grappelli connection was made and Stephanne then recorded a few tunes on the DGQ's next album, Hot Dawg.

[glauber]

Jon, there were a few other GASB gigs with the lineup of:
Great American String Band
* Jerry Garcia - banjo, vocals
* David Grisman - mandolin, vocals
* David Nichtern - guitar, vocals
* Richard Greene - fiddle
* Taj Mahal - bass
* Buell Neidlinger - bass (4-26-1974 to 6-13-1974)

I found a torrent for GASB, June 13 1974, Berkeley, CA

It doesn't seem to be well seeded right now, though.
[edit: it actually downloaded pretty quickly, in case anyone else wants to try]

I was curious about Taj on bass (though from the dates you mention, he wasn't in this one). How amazing how many of my favorite Americans are connected.