It wasn’t a conscious decision that I was going to be a performer at that time. The company I’d been working for had gone bankrupt, everybody was splitting off and I was at this party where I was being offered all of these computer jobs.īy this point, I’d had an interaction with Stevie Wonder over the computer stuff and it looked like there was a possibility of continuing a little more. It started when I was working in the Silicon Valley area doing computer stuff. Can you recall a transition point when you began to think about becoming a live performer? You have a master’s degree in composition and also worked behind the scenes for many years as a sound tech. The following conversation with Bralove focuses on his work through the onset of Dose Hermanos and a subsequent interview with Constanten will continue the narrative. Their latest album, Persistence of Memory, blends studio recordings and live cuts, all of which capture their efforts to remain entirely improvisational. The pair not only drew on their Dead connection but also on common reference points in the realms of classical music and the avant-garde. This led to a similar role on the Dead’s In the Dark, after which Bralove began touring with the band, initially providing assistance with MIDI technology, and eventually contributing live sounds to the musical collages during both “Drums” and “Space.”īralove and Constanten began their creative partnership shortly after Jerry Garcia’s passing in 1995. Following his discharge, he joined the group in the studio for Aoxomoxoa and on the road from late-1968 through early-1970 (with his apogee perhaps being the transcendent “Dark Star” on Live/Dead).īralove first worked with the Grateful Dead in 1985, while helping music director Merl Saunders capture and create keyboard sounds for The Twilight Zone reboot.

Later in the decade, while stationed in Las Vegas serving as a computer programmer for the Air Force, Constanten spent some of his weekends on leave recording Anthem of the Sun. Some of that collective ethos draws on their (un)common experiences with the Grateful Dead.Ĭonstanten met fellow music student Phil Lesh at UC Berkeley in 1961, and the two became roommates. It’s pretty much, ‘How do I feel right now?’”

“It’s about being in that psychedelic moment,” Bob Bralove says of Dose Hermanos, the fully improvisational keyboard duo that he created with Tom Constanten in 1995.

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