It was appropriate that The Third Mind’s recent appearance came at The Hamilton Live, which hosts a number of Grateful Dead-related events. The psychedelic supergroup even finished their main set with a cover of the Dead’s “Dark Star,” rounding out a fine evening of highly improvisational, eclectic, and supremely skilled musicianship.
As the pride of Downey, California, guitarist Dave Alvin told the audience, “We all do other things.” Alvin first came to prominence in the blues-rock band The Blasters, along with his brother Phil, and has played with punk legends X as well as The Flesh Eaters. He’s received Grammy nominations for his nearly four-decade career a solo artist, with work ranging widely over blues, country, folk and rock.
At The Hamilton Live on Oct. 19, Dave introduced his fellow California native (and hat enthusiast), bassist Victor Krumenacher, as an “alternative rock pin-up boy”: He’s a founding member of Camper Van Beethoven and the Monks of Doom, and he’s been making his own records for over 30 years. Meanwhile, Jesse Sykes’ unique and haunting vocals lent themselves perfectly to the band’s aesthetic; she has a new album coming out soon with her band, The Sweet Hereafter. And in addition to his tenure with Better Than Ezra, drummer Michael Jerome has toured and recorded with legends like John Cale and Richard Thompson. For this tour, guitarist Mark Karan took the place of multi-instrumentalist David Immergluck (who, like Krumenacher, is a member of Camper Van Beethoven and the Monks of Doom and has also played with more roots-oriented bands like The Counting Crows and singer-songwriter John Hiatt).
The Third Mind emphasizes musicianship, improvisation, and spontaneity, recording without rehearsing, and “whatever happens, happens.” As such, they interpret existing music — “old folk-blues songs from the ’60s” — rather than writing and playing original songs, though many of the group’s members have outstanding reputations as songwriters. On Sunday night, they began with The Jaynetts’ “Sally Go ‘Round the Roses,” followed by “Grooving Is Easy,” by the Electric Flag. Introducing, “Pretty Polly,” Alvin referenced the title of the band’s most recent album, saying, “Nothing says Right Now like a seventeenth-century English ballad.”
Stream Right Now! by The Third Mind on Bandcamp:
The eclectic set included electric blues (the Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s “In My Own Dream” and “East-West”), jazz (Pharoah Sandears’s “The Creator Has a Master Plan”), folk (Fred Neil’s “Little Bit of Rain,” which doubled as an accurate description of the evening’s weather, and Bonnie Dobson’s “Morning Dew”), and classic ’60s folk-rock (The Youngbloods’ “Darkness, Darkness”). The Grateful Dead connection came up again in their encore; Elizabeth Cotten’s folk-blues classic “Shake Sugaree” was frequently covered by that band. They sent the audience home with “Reno, Nevada,” by the duo of Mimi & Richard Fariña.
Local band GXB opened the show. Their straight-ahead, hard rock music hearkened back to the classic bands of the ’70s. Their loud, aggressive sound, made for an interesting contrast with the slower, hazier, more psychedelic direction of The Third Mind — though Dave Alvin certainly pushed up the volume at times.
This show featured one of the most interesting and diverse setlists I’ve witnessed, and the band stretched out and dug into these songs. By its nature, this was a one-of-a-kind show — while they may be playing many of the same songs from show to show, the loose, minimally structured nature of the performance means that, like the Grateful Dead, no two shows are the same. And while their recordings are excellent, this is a band you really need to see live to understand its full power and magic. With all the other projects they’re involved in, there may not be many opportunities to catch them, so make sure to see them if you can.
