Minneapolis Grateful Dead tribute Shotgun Ragtime Band hit their 750th consecutive Sunday show a week ago, a feat they never envisioned when they set out 14 years ago.
But they built the whole thing, which founding member Kevin Wick calls a “commune,” to last — to be there every week for anyone in the local Deadhead community to rely on, fan or musician, rain or shine.
“We have never missed a Sunday since we started,” Wick said. “It was like June of 14 years ago.”
Not even the pandemic forced the music to stop.
During Covid times, the band practiced eight feet apart from each other in the parking lot of the Driftwood Char Bar in South Minneapolis and streamed to sometimes thousands of people.
Wick said it’s a commune in the sense that the band is committed to piecing together a lineup each Sunday based on seniority, with a roster that is about three-people deep at every position.
“We operate as a commune in our governance,” said Wick.
Wick and Phil Wong met in high school around the Dead’s 1989 show at The Met in Bloomington.
Wick has played the most shows, he mentioned, when I asked if anybody was in charge. Wong is next.
“People have tried to peg that on me, but I don’t really accept the role,” said the 52-year-old Wick, echoing Jerry Garcia. “The person who is in charge is the person who has played the most SRB gigs. I guess that is me. Someday that will be different.”
The band has faced some obstacles in the feat to keep it going every week.
“We’ve had all kinds of things where other shows would have got canceled,” he said, mentioning a power outage in the middle of one show, or snowstorms that closed schools the following morning but did not stop SRB.
“If you have a community, you have to be able to count on it,” he said, as to what really has pushed this band to keep it consistent. “During those times, when things are hard, are when people really need to count on things being there.”
There are folks such as Spike and Tiffany Brown, fixtures on the Minnesota jam scene. Sundays at the Driftwood is where they first connected with local Deadheads after moving here from Colorado.
“We didn’t know anybody,” said Spike Brown, who attended show No. 750 last week. “We were here like every week.”
Some Sunday regulars who didn’t happen to be Deadheads have converted, including bar owner Heidi Fields, Wick said.
The band itself needed the Sunday show last year when long-time drummer Steve Fine died after a battle with cancer.
“Steve was huge,” said Wick. “There would be no SRB without Steve. He played the first gig. Next to me, he had played the most shows. … He is still a huge part of us. What is really cool is when a drummer plays with SRB, even if they are playing for the first time, they have to play to us. And we actually play to Steve’s rhythm. I have noticed in the band that I can hear Steve. He is our (metronome). I can hear him. We played 1,000 shows (the band has many shows outside of Sunday, as well) together. I hear his rhythm in everything we do. … If you lose your rhythm for a second, you have to do something to get it back. Steve’s rhythm saves me. We are so improvisational. One of the reasons we have gotten really good at it is because Steve’s rhythm is still there to save us when we are really far out.”
Steve Fine’s widow, Laura Fine, still attends every Sunday, as do many of the significant others of other players such as Wick’s wife Leah or Wong’s Tina.
“Steve was very proud of SRB and how far they have come,” Laura Fine said. “For him, being the drummer...all he wanted to do was ‘play the drums good enough to make them dance.’ The band was so Grateful when they had show No. 100! Now at 750, it sure feels good!”
The band has improved a bit over the years. They had been practicing for a couple of years together on Sundays before the opportunity popped up at the Driftwood.
Mike Corcoran, who splits the duty playing the role of Jerry Garcia each week, has had a couple runs with the band. He moved away to California for a period.
“It’s been there for me and it's been a part of what shaped who I am and what I'm doing today in more ways than I would have ever imagined for better or worse but mostly better,” he said.
Various band members mentioned different shows, and sit ins over the years with the likes of JT Bates, Camile Baudoin (of the Radiators) and Zach Nugent (though some of those mentioned weren’t on a Sunday), but Corcoran pointed to what amounted to his going away show before he left for California.
“I didn’t know I’d be coming back,” he said, mentioning cutting his beard (which has since grown back) on stage. “That one looms larger.”
One would expect any improvisational band that has played for a decade and a half to improve, but that has been baked into the design. One of the rules is that members listen to each show each week before commenting on anything.
Sometimes what they think sounded good in the moment isn’t as good as they thought, and vice versa.
“If you are going to come in here Sunday complaining about last week, you better have listened to the recording,” Wick said. “By listening first, it forces us to be kind to each other and ourselves. The recordings aren’t the goal, but it’s the only thing we have that tells us how did it go. … On stage, you might be reading high energy in the room to indicate you are playing well. Those things aren’t always correlated.”
When it comes down to it, the whole point was to build a Deadhead community and to mainly keep the sound of the original Grateful Dead alive.
“The thing I really like about SRB is that we’re very traditional,” Wong said. “Not like the Other Ones, or Ratdog. I like to keep it very Grateful Dead. That’s what we go for.”