The email started innocuously: “Hey, hope all’s well.” It was from a record company publicist suggesting there was a show at my local spot I might want to go see. Dave Alvin’s jam band had a new record out, they’d played a successful first live gig at Hardly Strictly, and they were going to take the show on the road to a select few west coast clubs. Wait, what? I vaguely remembered Alvin and a couple of the Camper Van Beethoven guys had done a psychedelic-tinged album a few years back, but I thought it was just a one-off tribute sort of thing. Whatever the original intention, apparently everyone had fun, they’d gone back in the studio for another round, and they were adding a short tour. I had to go hear this.
The show started with Groovin’ Is Easy, as does the album, The Third Mind 2. It’s a Mike Bloomfield number and singer Jesse Sykes gives it a bit of a Grace Slick sound, appropriate given Bloomfield’s San Francisco band, Electric Flag. That led into In My Own Dream, from fellow Chicagoan Paul Butterfield, with a more defined groove and some unmistakeable guitar licks from Alvin. Those two didn’t fully prepare me for what was next, a bluesy, psychedelic take on the pre-doo-wop Jaynett’s 1963 hit, Sally Go ‘Round the Roses. The original was less upbeat than most of the songs of the era, but this version takes that up (or maybe down) several notches.
The Alvin/Sykes original, Tall Grass, marks the midpoint of both the album and the live show. It’s an ode to the soul of a place, physically and emotionally. The live show from there went to a somewhat expected place, with one of the Grateful Dead’s more well-known covers, Morning Dew. The regular set and the record both finish with a Fred Neil number, A Little Bit Of Rain. Encores were another Neil tune and Highway 61 Revisited. I would have been happy if they’d also played Why Not Your Baby, a Gene Clark composition with its Fairport Convention feel that was the one studio song not in the live set.
At an age when a lot of musicians are happy to just play their fan favorites for their fans, Alvin, Sykes, David Immergluck, Victor Krummenacher, and Michael Jerome decided to do something way out of their comfort zone. Utilizing a Miles Davis technique for recording that starts with nothing but some lyrics and a key to play in, they improvise until they find a sound they all like. You won’t hear anything from their collective back catalog in this band, but if you want to experience a set of musicians at the top of their game improvising down a psychedelic rabbit hole, go catch The Third Mind.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.