ALTITUDE WELLNESS:
                        LEFTOVER SALMON 
                at the High Sierra Music Festival
               July 4th Weekend - Bear Valley, Ca.

 Timothy Lynch, da Flower Punk
  May 10, 1997 - Berkeley, Ca.
 

     Many people, especially those that live outside of major urban centers, will 
use the number of miles they'll travel to see a band perform as a yardstick of 
how much they like or love a particular band and its concerts.  I live in 
Berkeley, California, however.  That's about 15 miles from the Fillmore 
Auditorium, the Great American Music Hall, Slim's, the Warfield Theater, the 
Maritime Hall, the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, New George's (San Rafael), 
or the Oakland Coliseum.  It's about 25 miles from Sweetwater, in Mill Valley 
or the suburban Concord Pavilion.  I can walk to the Greek Theater.  Since just 
about any band I'm interested in seeing will play one of more of these halls 
when they come through the Bay Area, I need a different reference point. 
 
     The yardstick for me is not how far I'll travel physically, but how far I'll 
travel *metaphysically*.  Does a band know where that ineffable, musical 
"there" is?  Can it probably or usually take me there?  Do I count on the band 
to do my rituals, which means *ecstatic dance* and intense, active *listening*?  
Will the experience help to open and cleanse every chakra and pore in my 
body?  Will I cancel appointments and reschedule responsibilities so that I can 
take in every gig the band has to offer in my area?  Do I buy tickets to all the 
nights of a run as soon as they're available so I won't risk being shut out of a 
single minute of music?  Will I tape every night, too, and spend the between gig 
hours listening to those tapes and dubbing them for others?
 
     Of all the bands on the road in America, there is only
     one that consistently meets all those criteria for me: 


                        LEFTOVER SALMON.
 

     LEFTOVER SALMON plays a blend of music it has aptly been dubbed 
"Poly-Ethnic Cajun Slamgrass."  They start from a bluegrass base, using 
guitars, mandolins, banjos, fiddles and basses the way the gods intended those 
instruments to be played:  with talent and with gusto.  Then, they rock it out, 
speed it up, add drums, and jamming improvisational journeys.  That's the 
"Slamgrass" part.  It is three parts New Grass Revival and one part Grateful 
Dead.  It is delicious. 
 
     As soon as they see a potential border, they cross it.  That's the "Poly-
Ethnic" part.  Caribbean flavors abound, such as the old Jamaican standards 
like "Boo-Boo" or "Zombie Jamboree."  Reggae meets Memphis Minnie *and* 
Led Zeppelin in "When The Levee Breaks." Zydeco and cajun are also found in 
abundance in the music of LEFTOVER SALMON.
 
     The bottom line:  LEFTOVER SALMON is quite possibly the best band on 
the road in America in 1997.  It is most certainly my favorite.  They take the 
best aspects of the Grateful Dead (rooted in all the American musical 
traditions, and then some; jam hard every night with different songs in different 
orders; with audiences burning pounds of herbs that smell like heaven) and the 
best parts of the bluegrass festival scene (every member of the band is an 
*extremely* talented picker; they seem to know every version of every 
standard ever written;  the voices are every bit as important as the playing; 
they are very, very funny; and, "take the hands off the clocks, we're gonna be 
here a while"). 

    Take LEFTOVER SALMON and add it to the High Sierra Music Festival 
and you get two of the West's finest musical offerings at once.  The High Sierra 
Music Festival also takes the best aspects of the Grateful Dead concert scene 
and combines them with the best of the bluegrass festival scene while avoiding 
all the musical narrow-mindedness that can prevail amongst partisans of 
either.  The is an intense feeling of *altitude wellness* I get at the High Sierra 
Music Festival (which is held some 7,000 up in the sky along Highway 4, in the 
Sierra Nevada Mountains).  It is similar to the feeling I get when I see Leftover 
Salmon anywhere.  Add the two together, and the sensation of *altitude 
wellness* is not merely doubled, it is raised exponentially. 

      Please note an important fact about what I mean by altitude wellnes is not 
a simple, albeit encoded, drug reference.  While partying and getting loose is 
encouraged at the High Sierra Music Festival or at Leftover Salmon shows, 
the kind of reckless, anonymous & irresponsible parking lot scenes around a 
Dead show are not.  LEFTOVER SALMON is a class act, so is the High Sierra 
Music Festival.  When these two class acts are intersecting, I'm pretty sure 
that heaven is right here on earth.