Lately I’ve been doing a loop jam that I call “Cassidy’s Cat,” starting with a bit of “Cassidy” and intertwining with snatches of “China Cat Sunflower” and bits of other Grateful Dead melodies. This week I am in New Jersey performing and recording with the Shockenaw Mountain Boys (Tim Carbone, John Skehan, Andy Goessling and Johnny Grubb of Railroad Earth). Mandolinist Skehan in particular is quite well-versed in GD music (he interpolates a little of “Bird Song” in the performance of “Bird in a House” on Railroad Earth’s live CD Elko) – he and violinist Tim Carbone did a gig or two with Phil Lesh and Friends, and RRE has been known to cover “Terrapin” and “The Wheel” in concert.
We opened our show in Wilkes-Barre Friday night with a full-band rendition of “Cassidy’s Cat.” A guy in the audience was pretty excited by what he was hearing, and when we heard him holler “St. Stephen!” I introduced a bit of that melody into the jam. A few minutes later, the same guy called out “Dark Star!” and so we threw that into the mix, too.
Saturday night, January 13, at the Fountain House in Newton NJ we opened with “Cassidy’s Cat” again. Skehan and I talked ahead of time about how to approach the intertwining of the themes, and the rest of the band was in on it, too. Here’s the result (excellent matrix recording by John Major and Rich Levy using Mike Partridge’s house mix and a Soundfield microphone) – I suppose you might call it “St. Cassidy’s Dark Bird Sunflower” or something.
Let me know what you think. This blog accepts comments, you know!
Hey David, that was a fun jam. How long did it last? Kind of like William S Burroughs infamous technique of cutting up his prose and then re-pasting it in a new order, except yours was much smoother and mellower.
The audio file is complete – or should be. Six minutes, 46 seconds.
David,
I wish I was more musically versed to describe how much I liked this song. I really love your loops and I really love Dead (especially these songs)…so this was a very special treat to hear this jam. The way the songs flowed in and out was very cool.
I hope this makes an appearance at Springfest 🙂
Thank you for posting this!
Jim
I saw you do this solo recently, when you opened for the THUGZ and Play Live Dead at the Ashkenaz (7/23/10). I love it! I’ve been sharing the link to this page with my Deadhead friends. More than three years later, I’m still enjoying this recording!
I think this piece is a really good example of the approach you take to the Dead’s music when you perform in Dead Dreams, as well as how you approach the Beatles music with Rubber Souldiers.