Members of Southwest Colorado band State 38 remember their early days playing cheap bar gigs, when waves of smoke drifting up from a sea of patrons negated any desire for a post-show cigarette.
“I hung my clothes outside every night and I got a can of that spray stuff, not Glade but like that,” said drummer and vocalist Jim North.
While their jam-band sound harks to a time when you could smoke indoors, the Grateful Dead was in its heyday and long, meandering instrumentals were just what fans craved. Their spontaneous grooves, best experienced live, might be just what this modern era needs.
“This may be an end of an era for live music,” said guitarist Billy Kneebone. “I'm thankful that there are some young people that are doing this. But when I was young, we were all doing it.”
Live music is not going away quietly. State 38 played WildEdge Brewing Collective’s ninth anniversary party in Cortez this month to a lively, full house. The band arrived early and finished late, watching old-timers and hipsters jamming to a nostalgia revival.
“Our running joke is how many songs into the set do we go before we throw away the set list and just get more in the wing it mode,” said vocalist and guitarist Eric Johnson.
The interplay between drums, guitars, bass and vocals is a minor miracle, considering the winding roads each member took to State 38.
Kneebone’s first concert with his 10th-grade band marked the beginning of a volatile love affair with gig work.
“One time we got a gig in a bar, and none of us even drove yet. My father had to drive us to the gig,” Kneebone said. “And at the end of the gig, they gave us some money and my jaw kind of dropped like, ‘All this and money too?’”
But it wasn’t easy. Kneebone worked late-night gigs, playing four-hour sets for $50 a pop and keeping irregular hours to make ends meet.
“When you're on tour, you're driving five hours through a blizzard. You get to the venue, and the kitchen's closed and you can't have any food. Oh, and you got to start early. Oh, by the way, at the end of the night, you're not getting paid,” Kneebone said.
Still, the pursuit of those rare moments of musical transcendence kept him going. His meeting with bassist Damian Hagge was equal parts chance and fortune.
“I was just hanging outside Walmart with my bass and Billy found me. He said, ‘Do you have any tie dye shirts?’” Hagge said. “I said ‘No sorry I don’t.’ He said ‘That’s all right; you can play anyway.’”
After years in commercial music, playing saxophone riffs for house tracks, Hagge left the corporate world for a software day job and nighttime bass routine. A self-described “jazz guy,” improvisation is where he thrives.
North felt a similar incongruence. He was a rambunctious child, unable to sit still during strict and repetitive piano lessons. His parents, both ex-marching band drummers, and his mom a concert pianist, struggled to keep him contained.
“I was a 2-pound, 3-ounce premature baby, so I spent three months in an incubator. And when I finally got out, it was on,” North said.
His nature led him to the drums. Sixty years later, after a turbulent youth that once left him without a home or car but still one drum set, he credits music as life-saving.
“Drumming and music has been one continuous stream through my life that I appreciate more now than ever,” North said.
“I’m just very fortunate to have met these guys, and they let me do what I do and dig what I'm doing,” North said. “I've found a place where I fit.”
Johnson came to music later than the others. After moving to Southwest Colorado 20 years ago, a few guitar lessons sparked what would become his first experiences performing live.
“My first time playing live or stepping on a stage was actually in this community,” Johnson said. “All I had was a guitar sitting in a closet when I moved here.”
State 38’s early shows at Blondie’s Trophy Room were humble. Most patrons treated the band as background noise. It seemed their most attentive audience were the taxidermy deer heads peering down with their eerie black eyes.
“Everybody’s in the back drinking, and we’re in the main room with some friends and people that care about the music,” North said.
“Fireball Friday,” Johnson said with a laugh.
But while bar patrons were more engaged in the clack of pool balls and the slam of a fresh pint on their table, something among the band members clicked.
Kneebone remembers North’s first drum solo at Blondie’s.
“My jaw just dropped. Because at rehearsal, he didn't do anything; he just did his drum part,” he said. “Our first gig, he took it solo at Blondies and I was just like ‘Whoa, where’s Jim and why are you in his body?’”
The early performances of State 38 were defined by the blues, country and classic rock. But as the band shifted toward jazz and jam-band improvisation, Kneebone said they began attracting a loyal audience that kept coming back, most of them devoted Deadheads.
They provided a unique sound that people in the region were longing for, and began naturally shifting to a Grateful Dead style that was deeply inspiring for all of them.
Some like Johnson and Kneebone were classic Deadheads, but North came to appreciate the music much later.
After the death of Grateful Dead founding member Bob Weir in January, State 38 felt a renewed sense of purpose in carrying that musical tradition forward.
“That kind of, in a strange way, reignites appreciation and interest, and almost an obligation now to keep carrying the little torch of what they’ve done,” North said.
State 38 has had its ups and downs, but the music has carried them through it all. Earlier this month at WildEdge Brewing Collective, they carried the music to the crowd’s delight.
“I’ve done gigs all over the world, right? ... Southwestern Colorado really has a specific vibe which is really good for playing live music,” Hagge said.
Their June 13 gig at Mancos Brewing Co., scheduled for 5 p.m., invites Southwest Coloradans, Deadheads and non-Deadheads, to celebrate 10 years of State 38.
With no recorded albums to their name but a few videos, the band thrives in the heat of the moment.
“I don't care what legacy I leave recording-wise,” North said. “I want to leave a legacy that when I go, somebody goes, ‘Man, last night, that drummer was on it. He was on fire. Oh, he passed? Oh, that's sad, but man, last night …’”
avanderveen@the-journal.com
