November 9, 2009:Y'all know about the Bridge School Benefit that Neil and Pegi Young organize every fall for the Bridge School?
The concert happens yearly at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View. The school, "whose mission is to ensure that individuals with severe speech and physical impairments achieve full participation in their communities,"
was established with money from the first Bridge concert, which was held in 1986.
Neil Young gets some of his musician friends to come play, people buy tickets, everyone has fun and the school helps people.
No, we weren't asked to play at the Bridge School Benefit.
I don't know how that happened. Probably the invitation was lost in the mail, ya know?
But we did manage to score the gig playing at the bar of the hotel where the musicians were staying, on Saturday and Sunday nights (October 24 and 25, 2009), and it was a blast.
We didn't see Neil Young or Gwen Stefani or Sheryl Crow. At least, I didn't. Our friend Missy saw Young and Crow in a conference room near the bar.
But we saw and met lots of other wonderful musicians, and jammed with a few of them. And some of the guys in the band met Zeke Young, one of Neil Young's sons, a recording engineer.
The jamming was a real treat.
First cat to sit in with us was Spooner Oldham, a pianist who was part of the original Muscle Shoals sound, co-writer of "I'm Your Puppet"
and "Sweet Inspiration," and a member of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.
Guess what? He's a great musician, and it was sweet indeed to play some tunes with him.
Other guys from Neil Young's band who sat in were Rick Rosas on bass and Karl Himmel on drums. They did a thing on Sunday night that knocked my socks off.
Adam Kittredge of Jets Overhead borrowed my guitar and sang several songs on both nights, and Rocky Roberts did one tune on Sunday only.
Ben Keith, a great pedal-steel player, was at the bar but didn't want to make music with us on that night. No pedal steel at hand for one thing.
But he put money in the tip jar three times that I saw, and was otherwise one of the nicest people we met those two nights in a whole big crowd of nice people.
The audience there was all musicians or people who spend there whole lives hanging out with musicians.
And they were great to us. They applauded, they yelled appreciation, they made us feel great.
It's a wonderful thing to make music for other musicians, people who really know music, and have them really dig it.
Everybody had a lot of fun.
We're real grateful to the hotel that hired us, all the nice folks who work there and who took care of us, and grateful to Neil Young's road manager,
Eric Johnson, who put a kind of official stamp on things.
Nah, we can't tell you where it happened. Great place, though.
-- drgone@seriouscondition.com
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MP3s
Doc on Sunday finally thought to pull out his little digital audio recorder and catch some of the tunes. He just put it on a counter by a monitor, so the mix isn't great. And some of the sound is really bad. But ... it' s something.
"Jelly Jelly"
This is when Doc woke up and grabbed his recorder. We join the song right as Spooner Oldham is finishing a solo. Also on this recording: Doc on vocal and
second guitar; Tony on lead guitar; Lesta on drums; and Ken on bass.
"Comes the Hurricane" Rocky Roberts borrowed Doc's guitar and sang one of the tunes off his new album. Check it out at rockyroberts.com. We left the part on here where he tells Tony the structure of the tune. Karl on drums, Rick on bass.
"Route 66" This is Serious Condition, with Tony on lead vocal.
Photos
Doc made a few photos during the jams when other people were playing his guitar. Click on them for larger versions.
Spooner Oldham was polite enough to look at a chord chart he didn't need while playing one of several tunes he did with us. He sounded great.
Rick Rosas is an awesome bass player and an amusing fellow. He borrowed Steve Ackley's bass on Saturday and Ken Mensing's on Sunday.
Karl Himmel borrowed Lesta T's drums on both nights. On Sunday, he and Rick threw out some jams that had me screaming. Amazing.
Adam Kittredge was a crowd favorite and led jams on some Tom Petty, Stones, Beatles and Neil Young tunes.
Adam Kittredge plays Doc's guitar. That's Serious Condition bassist Steve Ackley at right.
Kittredge and Tony Lacy-Thompson on guitars, Himmel on drums and Steve on bass. Tony played lead on every song. Everybody else kind of came and went.
Rocky Robertson sat in briefly on Sunday evening.
With Himmel on drums, we were able to get Lesta T out front to sing and dance "Beast of Burden."
Ken Mensing has a sip while Rosas, right background, borrows Ken's bass. Ken also played guitar during the Sunday jam.
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