We're going back to Roux Louisiana! Et toi?

July 3, 2010: We had a blast when we played at Roux Louisiana in Santana Row, San Jose, in April, and are excited to be going back on Saturday, July 10. Summertime evenings on Santana Row are a lot of fun. Families, young singles, lots of people out there having fun.

Roux Louisiana itself is a swell place. Good food in the restaurant, a very kewl oval bar, nice bandstand for the likes of us!

Get there early, please, to hear Jasmine Joshua sing a few tunes before she runs away. She has tickets to see Paul McCartney that night, so will just do a few tunes, then split.

We understand. After all, she'll sing with us hundreds of times, we hope. But how often do any of us get to go see Paul McCartney perform live?

We start at 5:45 p.m. Be there on time! Bring the kids, if you have any. We love to make toddlers dance. No cover charge. We play till 8:45 p.m.

Doc sings one at Murf's Broadway Lounge, August 17, 2008. Photo by Pam Desjardins or Robert Lacy-Thompson

July 3, 2010, cont'd: Hey! We just booked Saturday night, July 24, 2010, at Murf's Broadway Lounge in Redwood City. Fun place!

We've played there several times -- in fact, it was one of the first places Tony and Doc ever played together as Dr Gone & Serious Condition.

Earlier that day, just a block away at Courthouse Square, the Police Activities League Blues Festival is happening, with a good line-up of mostly East Bay bands. We urge you to go to that festival, then cruise by Murf's for a nice cocktail and some dancing with us!

Big News Dept.: The night before we play at Murf's Broadway Lounge, about two blocks away, what used to be known as The Little Fox is going to have its "soft opening," its first show since Eric and Lori Lochtefeld took over as owners.

The Fox Theatre and The Little Fox used to be owned by John Anagnostou and Mike Monte, but those fine fellows ran into recession-driven money troubles, and the place went dark in December.

The Lochtefelds are a great couple and have wonderful plans in mind for the place. Click here to read about their plans.

The Little Fox still has its marquee calling it that, but for now at least, the place will be officially known as Club Fox.

Fine with us! The Golden Gate Blues Society Blues Jam, with Jam-Master Vince Caminiti, will be returning to that room, which is good news indeed for musicians and fans.

July 23 is the "soft opening," following the Friday evening performance of the aforementioned PAL Blues Festival. A more formal kinda opening will be held at a date to be named later, we are told.

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At South First Street Billiards. From left are Doc, Jasmine, Steve, Tony and Ty.
Gary DesJardins photo. Click on it to see a larger version

The jury is in
June 21, 2010: Dr Gone & Serious Condition with Jasmine Joshua on vocals and Ty Gellis on drums is one hell of a good band.

OK, I am tooting our own horn here, but trust me: I would not lie to you.

Anyway, we had our first gig with the new blood, at South First Street Billiards, and the sound was smokin' hot.

I ain't gonna crow about it too much. Have a bunch of stuff to get done, and little time. But ... we're excited. We're happy.

Above is one of several wonderful photos Gary DesJardins made. He also shot some video, and we will post some of that eventually.

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Lots of news, including, gig on FRIDAY!
The GOOD news, June 8, 2010: On Friday, June 11, 2010, we will be performing at South Street Billiards in San Jose, which is, no kidding, a pool hall, art gallery and club for live music. Also, ping-pong! Really, what else is needed? They got food, too.

We'll be playing from 10 p.m. till 2 a.m. You can bring the kids earlier in the evening, but by the time we start playing it will be 21-and-older.

We are very excited to have Jasmine Joshua and our new drummer, Ty Gellis, as part of this gig! We are still working on adding tunes for Jasmine to sing, but don't worry, she has plenty to do even on Saturday.

We will have fun! If YOU come, it will be even MORE fun!

More GOOD news, June 8, 2010: We found another great drummer, Ty Gellis! Here's what we have to say about Ty: At practices, he's been playing everything as if he was born to it. He has corrected us on tunes we were playing wrong. He is a wonderful musician, and

Ty Gellis

we are so happy to have him.

Here is what he has to say about himself:

"Coming from a musical family, Ty first started playing drums @ age 8. After growing up in Michigan listening to such locals as Grand Funk, Ted Nugent, & Bob Seger to name a few, he moved to LA in 1979 eager to make music on his own. He began to study privately for a few years, while engaging in many local Top 40-Classic Rock Bands.

After surviving the Metal period of the '80s, Ty decided to take some time off music for a while to go back to school. During this period he developed a strong liking for Jazz, Fusion, & Blues. After seeing years of incredible musicians in many small LA clubs, it inspired him to eventually get back into playing music again once his career was intact.

Fast forward many years, Ty lives up in the Bay Area, works for a great innovative company, and is now getting to finally play the Blues. He still loves to go out & see live shows whenever Serious Condition isn’t performing. Ty also drums for another local Blues band, and does studio work whenever he can.

Ty list’s 2 of best ever musical experiences as getting to meet Frank Zappa & Ringo Starr."

Welcome to Serious Condition, Ty!

I feel Blessed to be part of this band. Getting Jasmine in the band is a dream come true, and Ty is fabulous, as are Tony and Steve. I love making music with these people, and am so grateful I get to do so.

The bad news, June 8, 2010: Lesta T left the band. He'd gotten mad at Doc about something

Lesta T

(Nothing new there! Everybody gets mad at Doc occasionally.), and decided to do his own thing musicially. We were sad to see him go, because he is a great drummer, a great musician and a great guy! But we wished him well.

He had gotten a street-performer permit and was going to trying busking in San Francisco for a while.

But, more bad news, Lesta is now a guest of San Mateo County. He is accused of doing some things. His prelim hearing is on June 11. We don't know if he did what he is charged with doing.

Lesta is a great guy, and it was a delight to have him in the band. We hope his stay behind bars is a short one, and he gets to breathe free air again soon.

That's the blues for ya.

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Young blood in the band!

And now we are five: That purdy young thang in the photo is Jasmine Joshua, international woman of mystery, who has just joined Dr Gone & Serious Condition.

Jasmine Joshua

By "international woman of mystery," we mean to say that if you travel all around this planet, you will find a lot of people to whom Jasmine is a complete mystery.

Here's what we know about her: Doc met her through his day job. One day they were talking, probably via e-mail, and he probably mentioned this band, and she probably mentioned that she was a singer.

That led to Jasmine trying out with the band on Saturday, April 17, 2010, and she knocked everybody's socks off. In fact, it took all day and evening to find them all. One of Doc's socks turned out to have flown up his nose, and surgery was required to get it out of his nasal passages.

At any rate, we also know that Jasmine has sung in rock bands and bluegrass bands, and we know that when she sang with us on Saturday she really brought the goods.

And she was able to improvise on the spot, which is, ya know, important to a band that has Doc in it, because ya never know what fool thing he might try.

Jasmine will be singing lead on some stuff and helping out on background vocals on some tunes. We love the way she sounds and feel like we won the lottery.

In other imporant kinda news: Serious Condition is going to make itself available for gigs without Dr Gone on weekdays. This is because the Mad Doctor can't do most gigs on weeknights because of his "day" job. Sigh.

But Tony, Steve, Ty and Jasmine will be a potent force for the delivery of musical entertainment, even without Doc. Or maybe for some gigs, Doc will show up at the last second for the last set or something.

The point is, we are now an agile, flexible, fully equipped and multi-talented entertainment powerhouse! Well, we always have been, but even more so now.

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A cell-phone view of Roux Louisiana while Dr Gone & Serious Condition perform.
Photo by Kevin Nordenstrom. Click on the photo to see more
photos from the April 9 show at Roux Louisiana.

Click on the photo to see more photos from the show at Roux Louisiana on April 9.
Thanks to Ken Mensing for most of the photos.

A great time at Roux Louisiana

Wowsers, what a night! Santana Row is really jumpin' on Friday nights, and lots of wonderful, fun, good-lookin', happenin' people cruise through Roux Louisiana there, or step in to hear the music, have a drink and have dinner.

For us, it was a complete blast to play for such a great crowd, on April 9, which included a lot of our friends. There were pals of ours there we hadn't seen for years.

Plus, some families -- we love it when we get toddlers dancing. What a blast to see the tykes bouncing their hips around. So cute.

Anyway, a real fun time. Word is we might get some more bookings in there, and we sure hope we do.

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Come to Roux Louisiana on April 9

We'll be there from 6 to 9 p.m. So, you know, drop by after work, if you are one of those kinds of people, which is to say, employed.

If not employed, drop by anyway, you'll still have a good time.

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Doc, Lesta, Steve and Tony, from left. Yasemin Altunsoy photograph

Here we are at Sonoma Chicken Coop Almaden

Good place, good food, we played good music: But I can't help but notice, looking at the photo above, that I am increasingly looking like a bullfrog peeking out from under a lily pad.

But I like that hat. It'd probably help if I dropped some weight.

And don't worry about Steve, I think that's his happy face.

We liked the Sonoma Chicken Coop Almaden, hope we get to play there again sometime.

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In praise of the noble Chicken

January 17, 2010: I've been thinking about chicken. I eat a lot of chicken, in many forms (fried, roasted, in soups, cold on salads, etc.) and sometimes while gnawing on a bucket of wings from the Oasis in Menlo Park, I will think, "A chicken had to die to give me this wing. Actually, a lot of chickens had to die, because there are many wings in this bucket, and if I have done the math correctly, there are only two wings on each chicken. Therefore, several chickens had to die for me to have this meal."

Sometimes I am tempted to count the wings in the bucket and divide by two to come up with an exact number of chickens who were required to give up their all to feed my hunger and maintain my current level of overweightedness, but I am afraid to do so.

Because, what happens if there is an uneven number of wings in the bucket? What if there are 21 wings? Were there ten and a half chickens? Or was one chicken born a freak, with only one wing? Was it allowed to join in all the chicken games, or was it relegated to the freak corner of the barnyard, where it was laughed at and teased by the bi-wing chickens?

It's a lot to think about, and frankly, I just don't have the time.

At any rate, chicken is a great food. I am convinced that if it were as rare and as difficult to farm as lobster, it would be worth even more than lobster.

But as it is, anybody can raise chickens, almost anywhere. Given the ease of farming them, and how great they can taste, it is no wonder that chicken is such a great and popular food.

Chickens, I salute you.

(I have a slightly off-topic story to tell you about chickens. I used to have a friend named Alan who was gifted with a gigantic IQ but not much desire to use that IQ in regular, expected ways. As far as I know, he never went beyond community college in his education although he was a bit of an autodidact, and last I saw of him I think he was working as manager of a mobile-home park or somesuch. When Alan was still in high school, he had a pet chicken. Wherever did Alan go, the chicken did follow, and so forth. Alan being Alan, and being gifted with a big brain and no interest in using it for anything really constructive, Alan spent a summer learning chicken language. Yes, actual chicken words. Yes, I snorted in derision when he told me about chicken language. But one day we went out to Leona Valley to visit our journalism teacher, who kept a number of chickens in a coop. Alan said, "Watch, I am going to tell all these chickens there is a potato bug in the area. They love potato bugs." And he made a certain clucking sound. All the chickens immediately started hunting around in a bit of a frenzy. And then he sweet-clucked a hen into walking very slowly and romantically toward him. ["Well, he may be a BIG rooster," I can imagine she was thinking, "And he's kind of funny looking, but man, can he talk that sweet talk!"] And then Alan picked a fight with the resident rooster, who started strutting around impressively to show Alan how tough he was, and to convince Alan to look elsewhere before they had to get down to serious cutting time. I have since played with chicken language myself on a few occasions, but I seldom meet up with live chickens in my current lifestyle.)

So, here is the point of all this stuff about chickens: On Saturday, January 23, 2010, this great band, Dr Gone & Serious Condition, will be performing at THE SONOMA CHICKEN COOP!

Think about that. It's heavy, man.

As it happens, I was raised in an area where there were many chicken and turkey farms, and let me tell you, you do not want to be downwind of a real chicken coop on a warm day in the Antelope Valley, unless you happen to have been born without a working nose.

But, The Sonoma Chicken Coop isn't like that. It's actually a really nice building, kind of modern, pretty, with, you know, tables and chairs and stuff, and serving people who will bring food to your table if you are willing to pay for it.

Which is to say it is a restaurant. The family can come!

Many fine bands have played at The Sonoma Chicken Coop, and we are very pleased to finally be able to add it to our own résumé.

We'll be making music at The Sonoma Chicken Coop Almaden from 8 p.m. to maybe midnight.

Please come see us. Have some dinner (I understand the chicken dishes especially are very good), have a few drinks, enjoy the music. We hope you will dance the chicken dance (as performed by Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in "EDtv"), but we can't ask for everything. Regular dancing would suffice.

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WWW Dr Gone & Serious Condition

Click on the marked tunes to hear mp3s or see videos. Some from rehearsals with modest recording gear. We're still learning how to do video, that much will be obvious. If a video doesn't start automatically, click on the play arrow.

"Ain't That Lovin' You"
"Angel of Mercy"
"Bad Case of Love"
"Badge"
"Black Dress Boogie" (original)
"Black Magic Woman"
"Blues Deluxe/Gamblers Blues"
"The Blues Is My Religion"
"Blues Man On Saturday Night"
"Born in Chicago"
"Born Under A Bad Sign"
"Brown Sugar"
"Caldonia"
"Cold Shot"
"Crosscut Saw"
"Crossroads"
"Dangerous Mood"
"Done Somebody Wrong"
"Drivin' Wheel"
"Feelin' All Right"
"Further On Up the Road"
"Get Back"
"Hard Times"
"Help the Poor"
"Honky Tonk Women"
"Hoochie Coochie Man" video
"How Blue Can You Get?"
"I'm Ready"
"I Wants To Be Loved"
"Jelly Jelly"
"Johnnie B. Goode"
"The Joy That Music Brings"
"Key to the Highway"
"Killin Floor"
"Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat"
"La Grange"
"Left Overs"
"Lie To Me"
"Little by Little" video
"Little Wing"
"Livin' in the U.S.A"
"Long Grey Mare"
"Love Me Like A Man"
"Messin' With The Kid" video
"Midnight in New Orleans"
"Mojo Workin'"
"Need Your Love So Bad"
"Need Your Love So Bad" video
"Pride and Joy"
"Red House"
"Route 66"
"Shakin' All Over"
"She Caught the Katy"
"She Moves Me"
"Since I Met You"
"The Sky is Crying"
"Song for Vala" (original)
"Statesboro Blues"
"Still Got the Blues for You"
"Stormy Monday"
"Sugar Tree" (original)
"Summertime Blues"
"Sweet Little Angel"
"Texas Flood"
"Tush"
"Up The Line"
"Wee Wee Hours"
"What A Life"
"Wild Women Never Get the Blues"
"Yonders Wall"
"You Never Can Tell"
"Your Mind Is On Vacation But Your Mouth Is Working Overtime"