![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/zero_naught_again.jpg\")
As spinoff projects go, I\u2019m generally indisposed to be interested in a band that has its origins in the world of the Grateful Dead. While I enjoy the Dead\u2019s studio albums \u2013 and recently\/belatedly discovered the joys of the soaring \u201cTerrapin Station\u201d suite \u2013 the jamcentric nature of that whole scene isn\u2019t my cup of tea.<\/p>\n
But exceptions do exist, and one is, so to speak, Zero. Formed circa 1981 in the Bay Area, Zero was launched by Steve Kimock and Greg Anton, both then recently of a band led by former Dead personnel Keith and Donna Godchaux. Zero would count among its ranks a number of legendary musicians, including Nicky Hopkins and Vince Welnick, and they\u2019d work with stars of the Bay Area jam-rock scene like John Cipollina.<\/p>\n
The band was initially an instrumental outfit, but Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter eventually collaborated with the group, adding his words to some of their music. As one would expect, Zero was (and remains) at its best live onstage, where their exploratory nature could take flight.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s what\u2019s captured on Naught Again<\/i>, an archival release documenting a run of live dates at San Francisco\u2019s Great American Music Hall. Recorded across three October nights in 1992, the set features a mix of originals and covers. One might not expect a reasonably faithful reading of The Who\u2019s \u201cBaba O\u2019Riley,\u201d but Zero delivers it ins a fashion quite similar to the original studio recording. A reading of Jimi Hendrix\u2019s \u201cLittle Wing\u201d explores the band\u2019s original character rather than attempting to clone Hendrix.<\/p>\n
The playing is superb, and \u2013 unlike the Grateful Dead \u2013 the vocal work is uniformly strong. The 2CD set is dedicated to the many among Zero\u2019s ranks who have left us. Sound quality is crystalline, and for fans of dreamy, mildly exploratory rock, Naught Again<\/i> is well worth a listen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As spinoff projects go, I\u2019m generally indisposed to be interested in a band that has its origins in the world of the Grateful Dead. While I enjoy the Dead\u2019s studio […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23127,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,62],"tags":[4863,4862],"class_list":["post-23126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-rawk","tag-steve-kimock","tag-zero","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23126"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30910,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23126\/revisions\/30910"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}