Episode 19 of Hooked on Creek features a conversation with Dave Bonan. Dave has been part of the Max Creek scene since the early 1990s.
In this episode, Dave and I cover a lot of ground, including some inevitable comparisons to the Grateful Dead and Phish, but we also dig deep into songs, setlists and the rich community of fans that have supported Max Creek for nearly 50 years. Dave has a valuable historical perspective on Max Creek and is a musician himself, so I think you are going to enjoy our conversation.
This episode includes Max Creek’s full performance of Scarlet Begonias recorded live at the Living Room in Providence, Rhode Island, on August 20, 1999. It also features a portion of Emerald Eyes performed live by Max Creek on March 16, 2001, at Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island.
Episode 19 transcription
You’re listening to Hooked on Creek, a podcast, celebrating the music, history and fans of the legendary jam band Max Creek. I am your host, Korre Johnson, and you’re listening to episode 19.
Thank you for joining me on episode 19 of Hooked on Creek. In this episode, I’m going to share a recent conversation I had with Dave Bonan. Dave has been part of the Max Creek scene since the early 1990s. Over the years, Dave has formed a number of different connections to the band and has developed a valuable historical perspective on their music, including Creek set lists.
Dave is an incredibly interesting and funny guy and a musician himself. So, I think you’re really going to love our conversation about Max Creek. And be sure to stay tuned through the end of the interview because I conclude this episode with a sizzling-hot version of Scarlet Begonias performed by Max Creek that is one of Dave’s favorites.
Now, I’m always looking for suggestions on Max Creek shows to cover, topics to discuss or people to interview in this podcast. So, if you have ideas or suggestions, please head over to hookedoncreek.com and click the contact link to send me a message. All right, now let’s get started.
[interview begins]
Korre: Dave Bonan, thanks for joining me on Hooked on Creek.
Dave: Quack, quack, my good friend.
Korre: So, Dave, I understand that you are a bit of an amateur historian for Max Creek’s music. Can you tell me more about that?
Dave: I’m kind of an amateur historian for a lot of things in my life because I’m a history guy and have been a journalist for many years. And, I always add a deep historic aspect to anything that I write so people can have a context and that’s just my M.O. So, it only made sense that getting into Creek early on in my life — I’m just like a sponge for information, but I remember it all and I want to impart it to other people.
Korre: So, take me back to the beginning. Do you remember the first time you were exposed to Max Creek?
Dave: Yeah, I do. I was living in Jersey. I grew up in northwest Jersey and my parents didn’t know that I would escape — they’d know I go to Pennsylvania, but they didn’t know I’d go up to Woody’s in Massachusetts or the Berkshires to see Creek. And we kept hearing buzzes about the band where I lived. I lived in the country in the middle of nowhere, so we would often go to the Berkshires to go see Creek. And my first show was back in March ’93. Actually, it was February 19, I’m sorry, ’93 at Woody’s. And I kind of understood right at that moment what the music was about. It took me about three or four shows, but it was something I’d never heard before. And I had been listening to a lot of things, like Beck and that kind of music, and was a Deadhead at a young age due to my sister’s influence. So, it was a nice transition.
Korre: It sounds like you were exposed to really good music, like the Grateful Dead, even at that age. At that point in time, could you see some similarities between what you were hearing in Max Creek and what you were probably already familiar with in the Grateful Dead’s music?
Dave: Yeah, but the Grateful Dead, periods like ’88 to late ’91, were really, really good. And then parts of ’93 were good here and there, but it wasn’t consistent. And what I noticed early on from seeing Creek was they just let the music play the band. They’re chasing that zone where they lock in, and the music goes to another level. The proficiency and their musicianship is just so elevated. That’s what I’ve been chasing all this time. That’s what musicians always chase is that feeling or that moment. You post a Creek show on the Facebook page every single day — the Creek forum — and we’ve all been to so many shows, it’s unbelievable, but we can remember each setlist sometimes. Or “Oh, I remember being at that show.” Everyone’s got a specific memory, even though we’ve seen way too many that there’s no way. No one can remember all that. But Creekers are diehard with our facts and our music and our support.
Korre: Going back to that idea of you being a bit of an amateur historian. I understand that you’ve also been part of the scene that’s collected setlists and offer those setlists up to tapers. Can you talk about how you stepped into that role and what that’s meant to the community?
Dave: I think I started doing setlist back in probably ’94, ’95, and it was just something that I did. There were a lot of tapers back then. Even from the mid-to-late ’80s, there were the same amount of tapers at every show, and there were always the same sources. And then as you come to now, you go through minidiscs, and the tapers — it’s dwindled. The experience is still there for Dead & Company and all the shows that allow taping. But the Creek taping scene is small, but mighty, and they all take care of each other. And we’re all nerds in some way. The digiphiles and the audiophiles, and the folks using DATS and minidisks, we thrive helping each other out. I taped a few times in my life, but I didn’t really like it. I was more of like a word guy. So, we work hand-in-hand. We’re both nerds. We both need each other. We have to help each other out with the music to make sure it’s right, because I’m all about posterity and history and preserving the moment.
Korre: So then in the mid-to-late ’90s, did you get into collecting and trading tapes?
Dave: Yeah. I was always a Dead and Creek tape trader. I think my first time I was at Lupo’s. I think it was like ’94 or ’95 in Rhode Island — in Providence, a big Creek bastion — that’s where I ran into Tommy Lessard. A shout out to Tommy — the big, tall redhead. Woo. Woo. You hear him on the shows. You know, it’s Tommy in the audience. He was hopping around outside, had a shoe box of tapes. He’s been a taper and a sharer for years. He gave me my first few Creek tapes from 1990, and I was friends with him ever since. And we’re both rabid dissectors of shows.
Korre: You know a little bit of my backstory. I haven’t seen the band in concert yet. And so, given this long view of seeing the band for this long, is there like an ingredient that you’re looking for or something that you see in a show that you know makes it stand out or maybe memorable in your mind?
Dave: You’re just waiting for the band to lock in. Like when they’re not in a rush and they’re feeling good, and you know they’re feeling good. You can call it on a weekend when there’s a Creekend —. it’s two shows in a row. You go, “OK, well, it’s probably going to be the first night going to be good or the second is going to be good.” Who knows how that’s going to be, or maybe the first set and the second set of each night were better than the previous ones. But you also know if you go enough, you know the song rotation and you know, what should be up next, or you can push the band a little bit to like, “Hey, you want to play that song,” and keep it fresh in their memory and maybe they’ll put it in there.
So, it’s not an easy question to answer. There are too many variables, but they usually start off with like a three-song opener. Each member gets a turn, and they usually segue into each other. And it’s usually the openers like 25 to 45 minutes or so. That’s how they get their feet wet. And as soon as they lock in after the groove in the first song, and then they just take off and you see what they’re feeling. I guess I am just chasing those moments. But everything always sticks out — your favorite songs, the way they played, maybe a nuance, maybe a new pedal. But certain songs they play always bring me back to the first time and John Rider’s Dark Water is one of those songs. I can woo woo that song for the rest of time and I will never get sick of listening to it. It feels like pure Creek when you listen to it.
Korre: And so Dark Water, I understand that’s one of their older tunes, right? That came out — I think he wrote that in the mid ’70s. Is that right?
Dave: I thought it was ’72 or ’73. He’s done some story times on it at shows.
Korre: This band has been around for so long. How do you look at their entire career and sort of put chapters to the story of this book? I mean, I look at the band and it’s easy for me to kind of break it out by like eras of drummers, but maybe others could look at it by decades or maybe by the albums they released. And I’m wondering, how do you look at this long history of the band and sort of put chapters around this bigger story?
Dave: Well, first off, I’m a big shout-out guy. So, I have to first say that Ed Hall — he’s a 75-year-old Creeker, he used to be the merch guy — everybody say hi to Ed. He’s transferred over, I think 1,200 shows on archive.org, from digitizing and transferring and cleaning up, and he’s just a machine. Carl Walter, Creek historian, and all the old crew who I’ve learned from, who I’ve worked with and want to share in the future. So, I just wanted to shout out to the Creek Freaks and the forum folks and we’re all a tight little weird family.
Korre: You’re looking at the band from a perspective that I don’t have, which is to see the people offstage and onstage that support the band and what they’re doing, right?
Dave: Yeah. We’re all a community and we all do what we can and play to our strengths. I produced a couple of shows with Creek in the late ’90s. It was something I was wanting to do. We’re all a family — some closer than others, but it really is a family affair. Like when I don’t see my friends for a while, like with the pandemic, I really, really, really miss these people who I’ve been seeing shows with for more than half of my life. And it’s just like regular family, same with Dead lot and Dead shows. It really is a family of people that don’t really fit into anywhere else, but somehow, we fit together.
So, getting back to your question, I look at it as not decades, but from a setlist guy who reads the setlists and listens to all the shows. I look at it in years, like drummers, sure, ’71 to ’85 Bob Gosselin — great guy, hilarious guy, plays it straight. He did all the real road work, including what 283 shows in ’83 or something like that. Guy is a machine. And Bob is a great guy and a good drummer. He’s not my favorite drummer, but he’s still a really good drummer. I like other styles.
So, I liked the era of a Greg DeGuglielmo— Degugs — from ’85 to ’91. And then Greg Vasso, who learned from him going to shows. They were friends and he took over from ’91 to ’96. Both had different styles on certain key songs of Creek that you can air drum and remember when you’re listening to old shows. Vasso had more of what I was looking into for types of drumming, because I’m a drummer myself and percussionist.
And then my favorite drummer era is Scott Allshouse from ’97-ish to 2010, because there was a time he came back and filled in with the other two drummers after Rob Fried had passed away in ’04, ’05 — the percussionist. So, Scott Allshouse had this way of playing that I like to describe as just poetry in action. I call it technical cursive. That’s what I call it. He can play like Mickey and Billy. He is classically trained, but he can jam, but he can groove. It’s a thing to watch. And there’s certain songs that he can play on that you’d only rather him play on like Emerald Eyes.
No one can take the end of that song and all the jam of the chaos and then beat out a cadence and bring it all together into one little, you know, non-chaotic thing. I speak highly of the guy. And Bill Carbone and Jamemurrell Stanley are now, since 2012, late 2011, the new, newish section. And those guys have a history, and they are unbelievable in their own right. They’re just powerhouses. I look at it from the drummer aspect. And I also look at it from the setlist aspect.
I am a setlist reader. It’s kind of like my fingers are dancing through history when I’m looking at all the shows. I’ve made parallels between the Grateful Dead and Max Creek with setlists. You can look at certain years and see certain sets that they played or certain songs that they played in certain orders that fit that time period, like Grateful Dead 1971 had a very raw feel to it. ’73, ’74, was very jazzy — one drummer. ’76 was fresh. ’77 had a haze to it.
You can summarize, after listening to a lot of shows, what aura each time period had. Same with Creek is what I find. With the setlists, they always change. But there’s a couple of years where they’re on autopilot, where everything’s working — Grateful Dead, ’89, ’90. Creek had raw ’91, ’92. “93, ’94, it was very kind of jazzy, fluid Creek. Those shows were amazing. And then you have the setlist from ’97 and ’98 were very similar. ’99, 2000, 2001, had its own thing to it, almost like a three-year autopilot. It’s just very fun to make comparisons, other than just people who go to shows, close their eyes, listen to the music, don’t see any interaction and go home. They got their experience in the way that they enjoy it. For me, it’s kind of like Rain Man. I like critiquing and criticizing and comparing and going deeper and deeper into places where people can talk about the music in a fulfilling way, even if it’s not always about the music.
Korre: You mentioned that you had the opportunity to help Max Creek produce a few shows in the ’90s. For somebody like me who’s not as close to the music industry, what does that mean?
Dave: I was a college political activist and marijuana reform activist working on a state level, unpaid for many, many years in college — with NORML and things like that. We ran a festival in the late nineties called the JOHNES Festival, but it was spelled J-O-H-N-E-S. It stood for Join Our Hemp Nation Earth Day Spectacular. It was a big-ass festival. The University of West Conn. in Danbury, it put that yearly festival out of business — my event, which was free and brought in people from all over the fricking place. They considered hiring me to run their program because they’re like, “How do these hippies do it?”
So, I did a Creek ’99 and 2000 at West Conn. at the Charles Ives Center. That was one of their favorite venues, they told me years later, still. It’s just a memorable floating stage on the water. It was ’99 and 2000 and I did another one in 2000 on the New Haven Green for the Green Party back in the day, and that was really fun. So, you get to meet the band over the years and become friends with them. Some are more friendly than others. Some just have different ways of interacting with people, but they’re all open to us. We’re all together. So, you interact as part of their lives over the years and later on in life, it’s more rewarding, I think. And Mark Mercier sat in with our bands back in 2016, I believe.
Korre: You’re referring to your own work as a musician, is that right?
Dave: Yes.
Korre: Tell me more about that. You mentioned that you were a percussionist, is that right? Or still are?
Dave: Yeah, I was a sidelined from an injury — spine surgery — two years ago. But yeah, I’ve been in many bands in the Danbury, Connecticut, music scene, which is a very fiercely independent music scene. I was a saxophonist growing up as a kid through college and high school and did voice and tons of programs for voice and music and then got to West Conn. and got into some psychedelics and changed my instrument from saxophone to percussion. I was better at percussion in a quicker amount of time than I was on a lifetime of saxophone. So, I guess it was always meant to be.
And then, I emulated Rob Fried and later became friends with his good friend Joe Montineri, who builds Bill Carbone’s drums with his custom drum shop. You make friends with the right people, you emulate how people play, you talk to Rob Fried and he shows you things and you learn and then eventually I try to become Rob Fried — and it worked. Not as great as he is.
Our band was Phoenix Tree and I kept trying to make them into Max Creek. They accused me of that in later years and I would play dumb, but it was true. Because why not emulate Max Creek? They’re consistent at every fucking show — more consistent than any band I’ve ever seen play that many shows and still be tight. So, eventually we had an Indiegogo campaign for our new album at Carriage House Studios in Stamford, and one of the events on the little summer tour was getting Mark to play with us — and he did. We recorded it for a DVD, and it was the top of our game because were playing a lot — hardly rehearsing, just being tight, as well. It was one of the best shows we ever played, and he elevated all our performing.
Korre: It sounds like you had a connection with Rob Fried and he had been such an integral part of the band for so long. What kind of loss was it when Rob Fried passed away to Max Creek and fans of Max Creek?
Dave: He just oozed friendliness and good energy. He was a collector of sounds, which is what I became — a collector of sounds. I have things from his old rig that isn’t just a wall hanger. I actually use it in performance again. So, it lives another life. He passed away in ’05. He was in the band from ’79 to ’04 and that’s a long time. He played with other bands, too, and was well known in the scene. He played with Tina and Chris from Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club rebirth. It was a big loss in the music scene because there was no one like him.
When he left, there’s a hole in the music because he added so many flourishes and layers and things that you still hear them today. I have a whistle that he would use. I have a wind whistle and a siren whistle and all these gadgets that he would use, that I would use. He was a very big mentor. So, I brought them to a show once and I gave it to Jamemurrell on percussion. I gave him I think the whistle and the bird whistle that sounds like a lark.
Because when Jay joined the band, we showed him pictures of Rob’s old rig and then we also gave him some percussion and tried to help him build it in the way that Rob played so he would fit in easier. It’s a hard thing to emulate. I said, “Here Jay. Here’s the lark whistle that Rob plays. Maybe if you play Emerald Eyes tonight, you can use it at that one part. And he goes, “Oh, that’s cool.” And sure enough, they played it that night, which was great. He played it in the exact same spot, and he just watched everyone in the band kind of go, “Oh yeah.” Like they were taken back to it. I told them after the show, “I brought that. I bought one like Rob’s, I gave it to Jay and lo and behold you played it. Scott said, “Oh, I hear it all the time.” Whether or not Jay or Rob plays it, it’s always in the ether.
But when he died, it brought back more Creek family. It brought back the other drummers. It brought back to Degugs and Vasso and Allshouse. So, they played with two drummers from ’05 to late 2011 or the fall of 2011. It was any amalgamation of the three drummers, and it was great to have them all in the mix again, playing their interpretations of those songs. You got to hear them sing again because a lot of those drummers have original songs that they sang with Creek for many years. So, it was good to hear those again live.
Korre: It sounds like you had some personal interactions with the different band members. How would you describe their personalities off stage? Is it something that I could interpret from what I’m hearing on stage or is it much different? I mean, how would you describe Mark, Scott and John?
Dave: They’re all different in their own ways, but you can’t tell when they’re on stage because when they’re on stage, they’re fucking gods. My God, when Mark plays a solo, like See Things My Way, he’s heroic. They soar. I can’t think of anything that’s not cheesy with metaphors to describe them. Mark is very, very open and he’s got a heart of gold. He’s just fun to talk to and he’s just such a warm gentleman. He is really super talented — ragtime and blues and gospel. He is great.
Scott, I’m told he is very shy. I’ve met him many times and we’ve talked here and there. I can stare at him all day and watch him play guitar. I know John is shy, but I love talking to John. I always ask him about songs and I always pushing him to get stuff back in rotation. He’s one of my favorites to talk to because he needs some warming up. Sometimes people need warming up. Just because they are like rock gods stage doesn’t mean they’re the same on the ground. I like to poke things out of people. I like to take them out of their comfort zone.
Korre: Well, as a person with a historical background, it sounds like you might be throwing song suggestions their way if you’re looking for something on a certain night?
Dave: Sometimes Mark will be like, “Hey, what do you want to hear?” And the audience will randomly come up to me and I’ll tell him and he goes, “Oh, we haven’t done that in a while.” I’m like, “Well, you asked me.” And then they’ll nail it. I love that.
I rode my bicycle to Sterling Stage near Canada to see Creek. I’d been going to Sterling Stage forever. I hadn’t gone for a while, and I incorporated that on my two-week bicycle trip. I biked to Sterling Stage. It was a great homecoming. Mark’s like, “We can comp you.” I’m like, “No, I paid for the festival. I have no problem,” or something like that, but I just want a song. I think 350 miles deserves a song. And he goes, “Yeah, what do you want to hear?” I’m like, “Evening Sun.” Because I’ve been listening to a lot of ’93, ’94 shows up on the way. Sure enough, they did it and it was just wonderful to hear an old staple again.
I know Scott doesn’t usually play a request, but sometimes more than often he will. You know, people get sick of hearing the same request for 50 years. But John I like to push the most because he’s got just different songs, and he’s got a style that I’ve never seen anyone have with bass. He told me one day, he is like, “You’re the only one who pushes me to play this stuff. And I always forget that I like these things.” I’m like, “Well, that’s what I’m doing. I’m trying to be a very nice thorn in your side to help you remember these great songs that need to be played more.”
Bill and Jay are completely open and awesome and fun to hang out with. Overall, the entire band is very accessible, and you can’t say that about a lot of bands these days. That’s what you can take away. They need us and we need them.
Korre: I look at the band as they approach their 50th anniversary next year and I wonder where is this band going and what can we as fans expect? I’m wondering if you have a perspective on what you think the next few years for this band looks like as you look ahead of this huge milestone they’re coming up on.
Dave: I don’t think they care about the milestone, honestly. I talked to John after a Creekend in Providence a couple of years ago. Me and Jay and John went to eat at the diner the next day. We just chilled out and ate for an hour and talked. I said, “Hey, the 50th is coming up. If I can be of any help, I would love to throw my hat in the ring.” Just letting them know that there’s support from people, either artistic or monetary or whatever — people want to help. And he’s like, “You know what? I’m not even thinking about that. All I want is a horn section.” It’s like, “All right. That’s cool.”
Clearly, they know that it’s coming up. They know how old they are in the music. But they’re not their age. They play like 35-year-olds. They’re young at heart, but they’re consistent and raw and they open your mind and beat your brain up a couple times. They change time signatures on a dime. They’re the masters at reading a room. They can just do anything at the drop of a hat. They’re so fine-tuned as a unit. Just because they’re not playing 80 or 90 shows a year doesn’t mean that they’re not playing with that proficiency at all times. They give it their all, like jazz guys who are playing their last show. I don’t think they’re going to change. I think they’re going to keep staying consistent past 51, 52 years. That’s how they’ve been doing it, and they haven’t really changed the model. It’s worked for them.
Korre: My introduction to Max Creek is by way of Phish and Mike Gordon. And I wonder, when you look at this jam-band landscape, if that’s what you want to call it, where do you see Max Creek’s position in this landscape with bands like Phish and the popularity that Phish has and the fan base and the following they get? Where do you see Max Creek sit in this landscape, at least in your mind?
Dave: I’m a Creek snob. I mean, I saw Phish many, many years, 92 to 99, the meaty part, when they were coming up and out for real, for real. I don’t know. I don’t want to be the guy who compares both bands, but I’m going to be that guy who compares both bands. Phish was great in college and later on it was like happy go lucky, jazzy, nonsense lyrics. It was good. It was a good distraction of music and some good jams, but what they were accused of in later years and is just too much fucking noodling. It wasn’t even jamming anymore. It’s just noodling and like drawn out, but not — it doesn’t make me hard when I listen to it. I don’t get a Creek boner from it. It’s like when Creek plays a song and they’re just going, there’s ups and downs and crescendos and decrescendos and they’re just many, many climaxes and nuances.
And then I listened to a couple of the free Phish streams for the pandemic, and some were good, and some were not, and a lot of new material was good. But the overall thing I brought away after watching so many shows recently was, I don’t get the same satisfaction repeatedly from a Phish song’s jam. It just seems that they finish a song and then they jam for 20 minutes, but there’s like one big climax and it takes fucking forever to get there. They’re happy and the audience is happy, and I’m not taking away from the music. It’s just whatever tactic they’re using is the same old tactic and it doesn’t get me off.
Whereas I see a Creek show and I’ll get off a hundred times during the night. I don’t know, apparently lots of people like Phish enough to see the same old shit, even if it’s a different set list. But the music just, I don’t know. And there’s a lot of Creekers out there who agree with me, and we’ve talked about it at length.
Korre: As a Max Creek fan, then you’re OK with lending Scott over to Mike Gordon or do you think that’s taking away from what he could be doing with Creek?
Dave: It’s not our call. He’s been doing everything right. Creek got just desserts opening for people and Phish opening for them many times and they’ve collaborated. They were always known as the legendary Max Creek. It was a rumor in their own time. That’s what Rider coined, I believe. And right around ’95 or ’96, around their 30th anniversary, the promoter started calling them the legendary Max Creek, which is also a nice thing because they are legendary — and they still are.
Yeah, so they were the first band basically to play Grateful Dead Music in the repertoire back in the early seventies. Nobody was doing it, and people would pigeonhole them as a Grateful Dead cover band. And as they got more originals, less Dead, it fell to the wayside, but it was still there as an influence, an inspiration. But their musicianship paid off many years later when Phil was doing the Phil and Friends show with Particle and String Cheese and trading off different people and his friends in ’99, 2000.
And they were doing auditions for the full Phil and Friends crew. So, Mark Mercier and Scott Murawski tried out, I think once or twice. They didn’t make the cut, and we didn’t like that because those guys are unbelievable, and they deserve Creek’s influence. But whatever. It didn’t happen. It didn’t work out that way. But it kept paying off. They kept playing with people who were amazing. And I don’t know, Scott played with Mike Gordon and Billy K. and Oteil Burbridge with BK3, which was unbelievable couple years. He is getting credit where it’s deserved. Was it three times on with The Allman Brothers? I still can’t watch his solos without rewinding a hundred times because it just blows me away. He can just rip a solo at Suwannee and Live Oak Florida and then doesn’t even compare to what Warren is going to do. Scott just unleashes.
So, when we see Mike Gordon Band and Scott, a lot of us like the music to a point like half and half, I’d say 50% of the time. But we go to support Scott, and he’ll play five Creek songs usually in that repertoire. So that’s how you can find Creekers at Mike Gordon shows. And then you woo woo the audience and there you are. Yeah, Creek’s career has paid off. I mean, they didn’t do it to be millionaires, but they’re getting the collaborations that they deserve.
Korre: Do you think in a way that you’re grateful that they didn’t become as big as Phish because it’s more special for you? Or do you think actually if they became that big, it’d even be more special?
Dave: They were big for a long time in New England and other places. You talk to Carl Walter and all these Creek historians. If you knew Creek back in the ’80s and you saw them, you had it in. Everyone was just doing that. I read old interviews in the late ’80s where they talked about maybe going to Europe and trying something. It didn’t pan out. And in Creek time usually takes a little longer, but they definitely played at least I think 30 some states. They have followings in Colorado and the entire New England, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic is all Creek and California and Colorado are Creek bastions.
If they had done H.O.R.D.E. tour in ’92, ’93, they probably would’ve played 90-minute sets and played shows all around the country to a festival stadium crowd and gotten huge. And who knows why that didn’t happen. It is a thing of mystery and lore that’s been danced around. I don’t know enough to speak about it, but I can theorize on it. But if that happened, would the intimacy of still be there like we have now and we’re lucky to have? It’s kind of like both sides of the equation, I don’t know how that would work. But they’re still playing at peak musicianship, so I mean, we should be lucky for what we have now instead of realizing what would’ve become 20 years ago or more.
Korre: Do you find yourself still introducing the band to people, your friends, family, coworker?
Dave: All the time.
Korre: How do you introduce the band to somebody who’s never heard of Max Creek? What’s the key that unlocks that door?
Dave: If my friends trust me and my musical tastes, I’ll tell them, “You should be going to this show and you know me and you should trust me on this. This is one of those moments where you trust me, OK, I will give you the ride. I will pay for your ticket. I’ll buy your beer all night to stay until the very end.” I’ll do that kind of thing. And I’ve introduced people over the years who still go with me a couple times a year. But there’s always someone at every Creek show who’s never seen them, always.
And you can see them at a show, you can spot them from a mile away. And I usually go up and like, “First time?” “Yeah, how did you know?” “Oh, I could tell.” And I’ll talk to them like a foster parent at a Creek show, taking them to their first show. And I’ll just be very amicable with them and ask them if they’re coming tomorrow, and if so, maybe I’ll buy their ticket. And they’re taken aback by that. Sharing the music is what’s going to keep a fan base going. You want to bring in new people all the time.
Korre: So, Dave, tell me, do you have a favorite Max Creek song? And if so, what is it?
Dave: OK, so I’m a Libra. You can’t ask a Libra to have one favorite song. All right? It’s either one or the other, and we’re going to feel guilty about it no matter what. So no, I don’t have a favorite song. I’ve made a list of about 500 Creek songs that are my favorite. I’ll list them in alphabetical order and go. Well, Dark Water, because that’s just old pure Creek and Fading Away that he debuted, Rider, in ’99 New Year’s Eve has the same feel to Dark Water but makes me want to cry because the lyrics are just so poignant.
I’m going to go just per band member, maybe I’ll just do a short list. John Rider, Dark Water and Fading Away. Mark Mercier, Said and Done, which was, it’s a prophetic song now, and it was prophetic in ’99 when he came out. And Howard Johnson’s, that’s their hilarious comedy-bluegrass take on the restaurant chain. It’s brilliant. If you close your eyes and listen to it, it sounds like a Shell Silverstein poem,
Bill Carbone, the Bees. That’s a recent song for him. I fucking love it. And I tell Bill that, and some people don’t and that’s all right, too. But it sounds like Desmond Dekker and Devo, and when you explain it like that, maybe it’s a little bit easier to take. And Down in the Jungle, Jamemurrell Stanley’s song that he wrote when Creek played in Costa Rica. That song is just great.
And with Scott Murawski, it would be a Heartbeat and Leaves because those are just raw energy emotion songs. I might say that when I’m at Sterling Stage listening to a Heartbeat, lying in a field, tripping, looking up at the mountain air and the sky — and it’s such a beautiful ballad and everything is good in the world, and then it gets raw and rock and roll — and all of a sudden I’m at the front of the stage slam dancing during a ballad. I mean, that’s how raw Creek can get on certain songs that take you to another emotion, which is very odd. Outside of Home is great.
And then as a band, the song Trippin’. It’s about LSD and driving all over the country and playing music. It’s such a good song that it’s in the vein of rollicking song. I love the word rollicking. I only use that song when I talk about Chuck Berry, that kind of ragtime-bluegrass-blues kind of McCoy Tyner kind of deal. Trippin’ belongs with Let It Roll by Little Feet, One More Saturday Night by Grateful Dead. It just has that feel that it’s a song about doing LSD. It’s on an album already and it’s so good and it’s so funny.
And favorite shows? I have a lot of favorite shows. I would say I have a top 50, I’m sure we all do, and it always changes, but 5-8-93 is one of my favorites. Regular set list for a 93, 94. But, you have songs in there that are gospel and ragtime, but Creek can also jam spirituals — John Henry and I Wanna Die Easy. Songs that you don’t even hear in church that they have been playing for years on stage and just rock out. I mean, it’s hard to categorize a band like this that has so many genres in their repertoire. You can’t just say, “Oh, they’re this type of band or this type of band.” You just have to be prepared to take a journey.
A good show for you guys to listen to is 8-20-99, that’s The Living Room in Providence. The second set is a completely seamless set — and Scarlet Begonias. I want to close with, there’s certain songs that Creek does better than the Grateful Dead. And we all agree that it’s Loser and I Know You Rider. I know that’s probably blasphemous stuff for people to hear but go listen to it and then prove us wrong and then we’ll trade some words.
But the 8-20-99 Scarlet Begonias, wait until they lock in, and you hear that moment where everything just locks in and then the crescendo starts to build and they’re on autopilot until the end of the song. It’s a really good introduction to hear how their mind works when they’re just taking a regular song that the Grateful Dead can do amazing things with and hear their take on it. Because they are known for cover songs, too, in the way that they do it in their own way.
Korre: Dave, thanks so much for joining me on Hooked on Creek. It’s just been such a pleasure to talk to you. I really am so glad you took the time to reach out to me and share your history with the band.
Dave: Oh, no problem. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
[interview ends]
All right. Let’s play that version of Scarlet Begonias Dave was talking about. This is Max Creek performing live at The Living Room in Providence, Rhode Island, on August 20, 1999.
And that concludes episode 19 of Hooked on Creek. Huge thanks to Dave Bonan for joining me on the podcast. I am so grateful for the opportunity to get to know him and learn about his love and appreciation for Max Creek. And if you’re curious, the song I played during the introduction to this episode was Emerald Eyes performed live by Max Creek back on March 16, 2001, at Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island.
If you have feedback about this episode or recommendations for future episodes, visit hookedoncreek.com and click the contact link to send me a message. Thanks for tuning in!