Jay Lane said it best, "I don't know what to say about the Trio except for the fact that it was the birth of something brand new no one had heard before!"




Band of Brotherz...revolutionary urban music, threatening a higher level of social consciousness, with an infectious danceable groove.

Band of Brotherz...seamlessly blending hip hop, live instruments, samples, politics, alien technology, reggae, revolution, bong hits, freedom, poetry, justice, tofu products and world peace...
 


Band of Brotherz...fifth release,"DeadBeatz Vol.1" is a collection of the first Official Grateful Dead-Hip Hop Remixes, featuring live performances by the Gratetful Dead's Bob Weir, Lou Reed's Grammy Award winning Bassist/Collaborator Rob Wasserman, Les Claypool's Multitalented Gabby La La, and many more.

Band of Brotherz...On Tour Now, featuring Rob Wasserman on Bass, Gabby La La on Sitar, with Special Guests.

     What do you get when you cross a hillbilly from the hollow, an inked up biker, a lot of love, and mix it all up RatDog style? You get the subject of our newest Tour Member Bio. Ready to find out more? Sit back, relax, and read on... it's time to get into the Groove...


     Groove joined RatDog's traveling circus in Fall of 2006, and has been lighting us up ever since. However, when he joined us he was no stranger to the road.

     It all started when he was in seventh grade. According to Groove he was, "skippin' school, and gettin' high, when I caught the movie Roadie with Meatloaf!  I thought, 'that's the life I want!'" Pretty good story, and if you've ever met Groove, you know it's the honest truth.

     A few years later, Groove hit the road at 19.  As he puts it, "I jumped in a bus instead of a college, and grew up on the road." Groove cut his road chops with a biker band called The 69 Band. He made $20 a night along with everyone else in the band, with the rest of the money going to gas, tires, and road expenses. He never said what they originally hired him for, but by the end of the first night, he was The 69 Band's newest lighting designer (LD.) Groove lit the band, packed gear, and traveled around in busses and U-Hauls to all the great biker events...Sturgis, Daytona, and countless Motorcycle Club parties. The hardcore biker scene was the nightly hang for him. Over the years, Groove worked his way up from LD to Band Manager. Managing, or "babysitting," as he calls it, was not really what he signed up for, so after three and a half years, he jumped ship and headed for home to see what was next for him.

     After spending some time doing construction work, Groove decided to enroll in a broadcasting school at Broadcasting Institute of Maryland (BIM), which moved him to where he still lives today...Baltimore. He scored a job in broadcasting and continued to work construction, but Groove could not stay away from the light up toys for very long. While working at a radio job in 1997, Groove met a band called JAY JAY!  As Groove tells the story, "I saw this amazing band on a full stage with only two lights in the front & two lights in the back on this explosive set!  After the gig I asked the keyboardist if their LD was not there, to which he replied, 'We don't have one!'  I then realized I needed to get back into live entertainment again!" After that, Groove started to do gigs around town, and in Fall of 1999, caught the eye of the 9:30 Club in Washington D.C. and became one of their house LDs. The 9:30 Club, of course, leads us directly to RatDog


     The Dead and Dead-related activities had already been a heavy influence in Groove's life. It all started on October 8, 1983 in Richmond VA, Groove remembers his first concert ever like it was yesterday. "I was fifteen and fresh out of rehab...my world was changed!" He never would have imagined at the time the role he would get to play in today's "Dead World." After several gigs over the years working crew with RatDog when they came through town, Groove eventually landed the LD gig for RatDog in Spring 03 at The 9:30 club. Groove's first performance got A RatDog Triple Approval, Groove describes it best: "I was met onstage by an overenthusiastic Jay Lane!  He got my number and address, then Charucki whisked me up to the tour manager's office, and he told me, 'it was the best he's seen this band presented' and also got my info! RatDog's sound mixer Michael McGinn, had already asked for my info!" What a night. Things just kept getting better, and life took another unexpected turn for Groove.

    Shortly after his night with RatDog, Groove got into Baltimore's local Film Union through a construction gig, and began new adventures working on movie and television sets, including  the HBO show The Wire. Then one day, three years after his LD night with RatDog, Groove was packing to go off on a movie gig to Rhode Island when he got the call he was waiting for. The call was from Jay Lane and it  did not take much more than Jay saying,  "Hey man, you want to come out and play?"  Basically, after a brief discussion, Groove had a plane ticket for Fall Tour 2006.  Finally, a Roadie again!


   
     Groove is with us now, and the rest is yet unwritten. So we wrap up the latest Tour Member Bio with Groove's message to all the Boneheads out there...

     "I never want the band, the crew, or most importantly the fans, to feel ripped off!  My life has now become focused on helpin' people see what they are hearin'!  I play to the 15 year old in me, spendin' my bread for a ticket & wantin' to be wowed!  I never want to harsh anybody's mellow!  I AM LIVIN' THE DREAM!! PEACE!"


 

Bob Weir and Mickey Hart shared the stage at a high-priced benefit for Minnesota Senator-hopeful Al Franken Sunday afternoon. The longtime bandmates played a short, spirited set at Washington's Willard Hotel. Weir and Hart’s  acoustic set consisted of the Grateful Dead’s “Friend of the Devil,” the traditional “Stealin',” Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” and the Grateful Dead’s  “Ripple.”

  
 Then came February 9th, 1964, when all of America sat down to watch the Beatles introduce themselves on the Ed Sullivan Show.  "I instantly knew what I'd be doing for the rest of my life.  High-heeled boots, screaming girls, you betcha," said Mark with a smile. "The music didn't suck either". He soon had an electric guitar - a Super Astrotone, made in Japan - and within a year he'd headed down to San Francisco's Flagg Brothers to buy his Beatle boots (so did Bob and Jerry and Phil).  
    From the beginning, his approach to the guitar was individual.  He didn't practice, he played.  "I wasn't interested in working; it was a passion to me.  Songs, not scales.  I don't play fast, I don't play fancy, but I do have a sense of what works and a willingness to take chances."  Passionate indeed.  He broke a string on the Astrotone the first day he had it, and since it was Christmas Day and he had to do without. "I literally cried."  
    As the sixties progressed, he moved south of the city, but attended school in San Francisco at Polytechnic, on the edge of the Haight right across from Golden Gate Park.  At 13 and 14 he was the kid hanging on the fringe of the hippie scene, seeing Janis Joplin and Big Brother play for the Diggers's Free Food scene on the Panhandle, the Dead at a Sunday afternoon show at the Fillmore (the Doors opened), and then the Dead again when they closed Haight St. and played on a truck on March 3, 1968.
He loved the Sons of Champlin and Quicksilver Messenger Service, and got to know the Bay Area following them from Marin to Santa Cruz.  So when he graduated high school, he piled his stuff into a panel truck and moved to Marin, where he joined a band led by Sarah Baker, who taught him how to be a professional, as against just being able to play.
 

The 1970s saw Mark playing all over northern California in more bands than he can remember, interestingly including Marty Balin's Rock Justice, a rock opera featuring many Bay area luminaries.  It was also the decade that formed his foundation in music, spirituality, philosophy and idealism.
    Then New Wave hit, and one night hearing Joe Jackson's Look Sharp and Elvis Costello's Armed Forces, he fell in love.  It took the British invasion music he loved "and made it sophisticated, but with a raw sassy edge. It updated the Beatles." So the 80s found Mark playing in local new wave and rock bands like Secrets, SPYS, Alex Call, Elan. There was even a brief stint with Huey Lewis.  
    Mark landed his first real tour with Paul Carrack (Squeeze) in 1988. When another opportunity followed with Dave Mason (Traffic),  ("half of my early chops were stolen from his Alone Together album"), it set up a lifetime pattern of playing with his musical heroes.
    Mason was out of LA and that was reason enough to head south to immerse himself in the record industry. Shortly after arriving Mark met the folks that ran Studio 56, a high end recording facility in Hollywood and  spent several years as a writer and producer there.  While making music for the studio's music library, he honed his skills in production, arrangement and engineering and was able to explore his singing and songwriting.
    In addition to his work at Studio 56 he did session work as both a singer and a guitarist, singing commercial jingles and playing on records, film scores and TV soundtracks. Outside studio life he played constantly and ended up touring the U.S. and Australia with Sophie B. Hawkins.  Mark also hooked up with yet another musical hero, Delaney Bramlett, with whom he's played with on/off ever since. (Delaney's other guitar players have been Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, George Harrison,  & Jimi Hendrix)!
     One day in 1998, he came back from a vacation in Mexico to find two messages on his machine inviting him to audition for the Other Ones.  With no expectations - "I always sucked at auditions, I always freeze.  But the chance to play with those guys - I couldn't pass it up."  It was meant to be.


After the Other Ones tour, Bob was finally ready to add a lead guitar to RatDog, and once more he auditioned.  There was a brief detour with another guitarist, but very quickly the band decided Mark was the right guy, and that was ten years ago and counting.  The band's grown, oh my yes.  But now?  "We do it like a bunch of guys who've been playing together for ten years - as one thing, an entity. And we rock." Damn straight! 

check out pictures from 12/30 and New Years Eve of RatDog and other combos with Phil and Friends

 Last Wednesday, Mark Karan paid a visit to the band Boris Garcia, who were playing on David Gans' "Dead to the World" show on KPFA in Berkeley.  He sat in on a number of songs, including "Through the Window," "The Other Side," "Radio Song," and "Beautiful" , (seen here with Jeff Otto, Bob Stirner and Stephe Ferraro .) You can hear the show on KPFA's archives. Here he is with the host .