I’ve been playing with the same band for 44 years. The first thing this indicates is that we’re old or at least getting up there in years. Other than that it also points to a propensity to keep beating a dead horse. For certain we weren’t actively playing for all those years but as far as I can remember, we had a least an annual get together to play in most of those years.
I am telling you this so I can tell you we are the opening act at the 23rd Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival next Friday at 3:00 PM. Warning: we aren’t bluegrass…..but that doesn’t make us evil!
The band formed in Niagara Falls, NY, which is important because that is where we lived and it would have been darn difficult to form anywhere else, for instance Schenectady or Secaucus for obvious reasons. Rumor has that the group originally formed in 1966… or 1968. Dates can get hazy that far back for a variety of reasons, one being that it was just a very long time ago but the leading theory on the brain fade is some collective loss of brain cells due to a condition called “impetuous youth syndrome.” I joined in 1972, I think (see the previous sentence).
Our band, The Amazing Dr. Zarcon’s Breathing Machine (for the source of the name see the above paragraph), became fairly popular in our town and in Western New York. Finding good gigs was not to hard and we played regularly and we were actually getting paid.
Getting too big for our britches we moved, together, to the Bay Area in 1976. We had a good little run at first. We got lucky and landed some good gigs from San Francisco through Los Gatos but this was California. Even good gigs didn’t pay the bills.
While not necessarily the best student of my art of being a musician, I was a very adept student in the culture of being a musician. Anyway there was an old adage that I learned in my cultural studies that came into play at his time “don’t quit your day job”. We didn’t have jobs but we got them very quickly and being the trained professionals we were, we didn’t quit them. Gigs got farther and farther apart and they weren’t so good anymore.
With adding families and life’s responsibilities, finally the gigs went away. A couple times a year we would get together and play but that was it.
Time passes, as you always hope it will, and in 2009 we had the opportunity make our first CD. We recorded for two days at Levon Helm’s studio in Woodstock NY even getting to meet Levon. While critically acclaimed (if you believe that I have some investment opportunities to show you), it didn’t sell well. If you’re interested I have about 4 dozen or so you can get your hands on right away.
Probably, this would be a good time to tell you that The Amazing Dr. Zarcon’s Breathing Machine is as much social club as a band. Over the near half-century of our run there have been over 20 members of the band. Members of this collective live all over the US. As for the band playing at GOF, we have four members who made the trek in 1976 and three newer members.
About 5 years ago most of us were finally able to quit our day jobs and started playing gigs again. The GOF has been very good to us and this is our fourth time playing this great local festival. We also are playing for the fourth time at the 14th International Jug Band Festival in Sutter Creek, CA on Saturday August 20. Our set is at 7:15. This festival is free and is a full day of jug bands, jook bands and hokum bands.
That’s it for this month. Enough rambling for one column. If you’re at GOF drop by and say hello. I’ll have some tequila and beers to share. Same goes for Sutter Creek.
Okay no beers or tequila at this one but good jamming this weekend at Santa Clara Valley Fidddlers Association Jam in the Rose Garden park in San Jose. Hope to see you there too.
