Grateful Dead Hour no. 1059

Week of January 5, 2009

Part 1 16:45
Boris Garcia 12/10/08 KPFA performance studio, Berkeley CA
THE OTHER SIDE (with Mark Karan)
MIDNIGHT MOONLIGHT (with Peter Rowan)

Part 2 39:40
Grateful Dead 6/22/74 Miami Jai-Alai
EYES OF THE WORLD->
JAM->
WHARF RAT->
SUGAR MAGNOLIA
~
JOHNNY B. GOODE

Boris Garcia is a Philadelphia-based band with three excellent songwriters. Here’s what I said about Boris when I played a track from Once More Into the Bliss in GD Hour #1055:

Boris Garcia is a band from the Philadelphia area that I’ve come to know and love in the last few years. One of the band’s three excellent songwriters, Bob Stirner, was in the Dead-influenced Philly band Living Earth for many years; you have made heard their CD on Relix back in the day. I crossed paths with Boris Garcia on the festival circuit and became a fan right away; my first (and toughest) criterion for appreciating a band is songwriting, and this band has three fine songwriters. As for the name, here’s what band member Gene Smith says about it in the band’s bio: “We were in the studio with a bunch of different guitarists. One of them was Tony Rice style, and the other was Flamenco/Middle Eastern. East meets West, and it was definitely odd, and Jeff [Otto] said, ‘This is weird. This is like Boris Garcia’s Family Reunion.'”

When Boris Garcia came to KPFA on December 10, 2008, they were joined by Ratdog guitarist Mark Karan. Earlier in the week I had been asked by Peter Rowan‘s management if he could come in that night and play a few songs to promote the 25th-anniversary Rex Foundation benefit, Sweet Music Everywhere, scheduled for 12/13. The Boris guys said they’d be glad to cede a few minutes of air time to a musician we all admire; when Peter showed up during our pre-air soundcheck, it quickly turned into a collaboration. “We know ‘Midnight Moonlight,'” said Bob Stirner, so they ran through that one quickly. Then Peter got the band up to speed on his arrangement of “The Cuckoo Bird.”

You can hear the 12/10/08 broadcast in its entirety on the KPFA archive. The playlist and some photos are in this earlier Cloud Surfing post. Susana Millman posted some photos of the broadcast event here.

The Grateful Dead Hour is made possible in part this week by Grateful Dead Productions, announcing Road Trips volume 2 number 1, MSG September 90. Two CDs and a bonus disc with great musical moments from the 7-man lineup with Bruce Hornsby and Vince Welnick on keyboards. More information, sample audio, and ordering link on the official web site, dead.net.