Gigs & Venues

Music & Words

On Our Minds

Connections

Robin has been playing guitar since 1958. He started out in a bluegrass band in high school, and got into a folk/jug band whilst attending college in the Midwest, but typical for folkies, Robin was heavily influenced by the British Invasion of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. He also became an early admirer of the Doors and Cream. When Bob Dylan made his "electric" breakthrough, the idea of a folk singer that had a band behind him really got Robin’s creative juices flowing. From his surfing days in Southern California, he says surf guitar was also an influence “in the way they used sparse melodies rather than the ton-of-notes on the guitar of other styles of music.” Throughout all the groups he has played with he has always felt that his role was “to embellish the music that was going on-to fill the holes.” After settling in Half Moon Bay in the 70s, he hooked up for several years with Kevon as a back-up guitarist for Free & Easy. After a stint as a steel and guitar player for a country copy band, Robin joined forces with Kevon again a few years ago to focus on their own acoustic-based music. Soon after Phil joined the group, adding his own music, they all realized that Free & Easy had evolved into something new: Blame it on the Dog. "Music has come full circle from rockabilly, to the Beatles, to acid rock and disco, from punk to grunge, all the way around to acoustic music again. If you hang in there, believe in what you’re doing, chances are that music will come back around to you again."

NOTE: Kevon actually parts his hair on the other side. (He wants you to know that.) Playing music since the 60's-but doesn't remember it--Kevon has seen the music scene go from the acoustic-based folk groups of the early 60s, to the electric rock groups of the late 60s and early 70s. He then watched the dark ages of disco spread over live music like a pall, only to see the forces of good bring the universe back into harmony with a resurgence of acoustic based folk/rock in the 90s. What a long strange trip it's been. In founding the predecessor to BIOTD (called Free & Easy) in 1973, he started a 30+ year relationship with Robin Rourke that sometimes “feels like a sitcom.” Music styles came and went but the music went on. Kevon calls his songwriting style "melodic with a dance beat,” though he is first to admit to being "musically schizophrenic; I listen for, and try to write, good songs, not in a particular musical genre." This could also explain his diverse influences-from John Stewart (of the Kingston Trio), Country Joe McDonald, The Beatles, The Grateful Dead, and Jimmy Buffet to Carlos Jobim, Boz Scaggs, John Hiatt and Van Morrison. After a 35+ year career playing guitar and singing at “assorted bars, concerts and parties,” Kevon feels that the lineup in the current Blame it on the Dog brings together "the right ingredients for a musical feast. We each add a part that when stirred together, makes a tasty dish.

Leo doesn't really play klaghorn or stritch, but always includes those as a benediction to Rahassan Roland Kirk at the beginning of all things musical. Leo's a longtime guitarist who picked up the fiddle about 30 years ago as a change of pace. He is a time traveler and comes to us from several musically rich eras: traditional string musics, medieval polyphony and plainchant, bluegrass, hard rock and bebop. Leo brings with him all things from the 70's that DIDN'T suck, such as Jethro Tull, Mahavishnu Orchestra, The Allman Brothers, Leo Kottke, David Grisman, Echoplex, etc. Regular worship is conducted at the feet of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Stephane Grappelli, Pat Martino, Tony Rice, Ian Anderson, Jerry Goodman, Kevin Burke and Maria Kalaniemi (a kick-ass Finnish accordionist). Leo hails originally from the Garden State, so we have him taste anything first before we drink it. He's been playing in rock, jazz and country rock bands for quite a while. On the site where Leo participated in the seminal Paterson, NJ fusion band BrainBath, there now stands a statue of Lou Costello.
Leo has studied with Beverly Somach, sometime soloist with the N.Y. Philharmonic; Julie Lieberman, and David Balakrishnan, late of the Turtle Island String Quartet. He's played with Kevon and Robin on and off for twenty five years, old friends having a go at some cool original tunes, hangin' on the coast. Oh, and he's Polish, so he collects odd bits of wood for a rainy day.

The newbie of BIOTD, Phil joined the band a little over 10 years ago, after moving up to the Bay area from Los Angeles. He has balanced his work in high-technology journalism and communications with stints in LA-based bands that played everything from originals to disco covers--"and I survived." He also admits to surviving childhood accordion lessons, and his musical interests were re-kindled by the Beatles and the British Invasion of the 1960s. Paul McCartney was the first bass player to really inspire Phil--"even on crummy little stereos you could hear how McCartney moved every song along". From there, rock bassists such as Jack Bruce of Cream and Chris Squire of Yes, and jazz bassists such as Jaco Pastorious and Ron Carter expanded his vision for what a bassist could add to a group's sound. He also plays electric guitar on some songs, "and it adds to my sense of melody and harmonic spacing on the bass. Different instruments, different roles, but it broadens my thinking on both." He adds that joining BIOTD was "totally serendipitous. I was ready to just explore the local singer-songwriter scene on the Coast when I got a chance to play with Robin and Kevon. And there I was carrying a bass again. It's fun to face the challenge of developing the right bass grooves in the context of great songs with strong vocals."