It's one of the nicest parts of my job as Sundazed's west coast guy: chewing
the fat with any of our artists who hit the stage anywhere within shouting
distance of my northern California home. Whether it's Dean Torrence playing a Jan & Dean gig at the Santa Cruz boardwalk six years ago or Peter Lewis (Cornells/Moby Grape) sitting in more recently with his pals in the Electric Prunes at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall in 2002, Bucky Wilkin doing his one-man version of Ronny & The Daytonas at Cupertino's Flint Center, or the Syndicate of Sound--including founding members Don Baskin, Bob Gonzalez and John Duckworth, along with guest vocalist Sal Valentino (Beau Brummels)--last summer at the Santa Clara County Fair, I try to be where the action is.

Last week it was breakfast in Santa Cruz with former United States Of America vocalist Dorothy Moskowitz and Peter Albin, bass thumper for Big Brother & The Holding Co. I'd met Dorothy--who now teaches music in the Piedmont, Calif. school system--last summer when she invited me to a San Francisco church to see East Of The Sun And West Of The Moon, a kids' drama for which she'd written the musical score. We agreed afterwards to get together soon for a chat about her days as the vocal glue that kept the U.S.A. from spinning off into different galaxies.

The stars were in conjunction when Dorothy visited some old pals from the U.S.A. in Santa Cruz on the same weekend that another one of my recent liner-note interviewees, Banana of the Youngbloods, was scheduled to play with the Barry Melton Band at the Brookdale Lodge. It's the same place that hosted the post-funeral reception for Moby Grape's Skippy Spence a few years back. Reputedly haunted, the Brookdale Lodge, built in the '20s, has a creek tumbling right through he middle of its restaurant. Talk about fresh catch of the day! I knew it would be a good night when a Buffalo Springfield tune was blaring from the jukebox in the bar the minute we walked in.

The Barry "The Fish" Melton Band, fronted by the former "Fish" of Country Joe & The Fish, sports an all-star lineup in the grand tradition of the Dinosaurs from a few years back. Melton plays gnarly guitar and does most of the vocals (including songs like "Superbird" that he sang during his Country Joe days) Banana handles the keyboards, Peter Albin plays bass and Roy Blumenfeld, one-time skinsman for the Blues Project, plays drums. Mixing in a healthy dose of blues and mid-tempo shuffles, the Melton band sounds as good as you might expect from such seasoned pros.

The next morning, peering over mountains of ham, eggs, omelets, pancakes and steaming hot coffee, Dorothy, Peter and I held the post-game wrap-up at a Santa Cruz cafe, where Dorothy revealed that Sundazed's recent release of the U.S.A. album had blown the dust off the lines of communication between her ex-bandmates. Ecstatic w3ith the reissue, she's even considering performing again in the new year with a couple of old friends, probably some modern-classical material, she says. If it happens, rest assured Sundazed's west coast guy will be there to give you a full report.

----Bottoms up, Prof. Jud Cost