I had a crazy idea and was looking for musicians who perhaps didn’t think it was so insane. Many years ago I’d been reading John Szwed’s excellent biography of Miles Davis, “So What”, and was fascinated by his thorough descriptions of how Mr. Davis and his producer, Teo Macero, created some of his classic electric albums like Bitches Brew and Jack Johnson. Basically, Miles would gather great musicians in a studio, pick a key and a groove and then record everything live over several days. Then he and Mr. Macero would edit and shape these improvisations into compositions. Having never recorded like that, I had a fantasy to try it someday if the fates ever allowed. One night after a gig in San Francisco, a decade or more later, I mentioned this fantasy to Victor Krummenacher. I’d known the always musically adventurous Mr. Krummenacher for a couple of decades (since he was a young buck bassist in Camper Van Beethoven) and hoped he would understand. – Dave Alvin   It was an accident, really.  But at some point long ago, somewhere in San Francisco, we were joking, (at least I thought we were). Dave said he’d been offered a standing gig in a club there,like one Monday a month.  And that if I was game, he’d call me and we’d put together a set. …And we had to play Grateful Dead’s “Truckin’”….Dave had covered Garcia’s “Loser,” and I spent a few years playing it with Cracker, so I wasn’t sure if it was a joke.  Musicians are poker players and storytellers anyway,and we’re all, at best, unreliable narrators.  I left Dave that night thinking, “Yeah, I could play some Grateful Dead with Alvin…”But I was probably drunk, maybe high, maybe both… I think it was during a kind of weird part of my life when this conversation occurred, and in the blur of the evening I was slightly confused if it really happened at all.  That said, in 2018, I wound up back in southern California. I ran into Dave somewhere in LA and he asked what I was up to. I said I was going off to a free improv gig, and Dave said, “yeah, we should get together and improv sometime.” I think that part is accurate, although maybe it’s not?   So I thought, OK, well fuck it.  I’m calling the best players I know for this kind of thing.I’m calling Immy (David Immergluck), who I’ve been in bands with for 30 years. The guy who scared John Hiatt with a delay pedal. The guy who tries to sneakin Michael Karoli licks into Counting Crows gigs. The guy who I’ve recorded a 15-minute one note song with in Monks of Doom. The guy who’s been trying to sell me on the Grateful Dead live ’77 tour since 1986… – Victor Krummenacher