The Grateful Dead's Mickey Hart came to Chico on March 9, 2012, to show off his new group, the Mickey Hart Band. He visited KZFR radio in the afternoon and performed at the El Rey Theatre at night. This new ensemble is more diversified than his many past projects, which have included Planet Drum, Bembe Orisha, and the Global Drum Project, all of which have focused on celebrating rhythms and percussion.

The Mickey Hart Band, which has been organically forming only over the past nine months, also produces danceable jam-rock, a couple of ballads and makes a few visits to the Grateful Dead catalog. With this band, Hart has broadened his musical scope beyond the horizon by actually scientifically harnessing and collaborating with the whole universe. In an interview for the Chico News & Review (see story at http://www.newsreview.com/chico/longer-stranger-trip/content?oid=5377494), in support of his new CD, "Mysterium Tremendum" (due out April 10), Hart said that the new record and the live-music product contains samples from outer space. Beginning as light waves captured from deep space then converted into audio bits with the help of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and Meyer Sound in Berkeley, these faraway sounds have been sorted and filed, and the samples are then accessed and released into the Mickey Hart Band mix.

“It’s a very emotional experience,” Hart said. “We’re changing the light waves into sound waves and having a conversation with them. I make music with it and dance with it. I like the energy.”

Photos shot for Steel Ties. All images ©Alan Sheckter / AlSheck@comcast.net. Images may not be republished without documented consent from the photographer.

Mickey Hart Band, El Rey Theatre, Chico, CA
Set 1: Bertha / Let There Be Light / Starlight / Who Stole the Show / Scarlet Begonias > Fire on the Mountain
Set 2: Heartbeat, Slow Joe Rain / Supersonic / Endless Skies / The Other One / Cut the Deck / Not Fade Away e: Papa Was a Rolling Stone / Franklin's Tower