Neal Casal Enlisted Local Drummer Mark Levy To Help Craft Set Break Music For “Fare Thee Well” Shows

FRANKLINS OF THE WORLD
Neal Casal, Adam MacDougall, Dan Horne, Mark Levy

Our friends at Billboard.com posted this interesting piece of news and we had to share. After being asked by filmmaker Justin Kreutzmann (son of Grateful Dead drummer Billy Kreutzmann) to lend music to the visual elements Justin created for the hour long set breaks during the Grateful Dead’s “Fare Thee Well” run, Neal Casal (Chris Robinson Brotherhood) jumped at the opportunity but knew it would be a challenge.  “Justin wanted music that didn’t repeat so it’s not the same program for every show,” said Casal. “I thought it was kind of insane, because it is.”

The music, five hours worth, came together in just two days at Castaway Seven Studios in Ventura, California.”We didn’t have too much time, so we would talk over a certain feel that we wanted, play for 10 to 15 minutes and rehearse the part once or twice,” said Casal.”We’d start out in the style of a Dead song but eventually stray from the script and end up in these spaces where none of us had been before. It became quite an adventure, which didn’t end up sounding like the Grateful Dead, but was in the spirit of the band.”

Much like a Dead show, the music Casal and company produced is never repeated. Casal noted that the goal was to “capture the essence of the Dead” but in a way unique from the Dead songs themselves.  Many of the tracks, however, are nods to Dead classics with names like “Scarlett Magnolias,” “Friend of the Dead,” and “Fakedown Street.”  Players in Franklins of the World included Casal’s bandmate in CRB Adam MacDougall, Dan Horne (Cass McCombs, a Casal side project), and local drum hero Mark Levy (The Congress).  Keep and ear out for a possible release of the material that may also be in the works.