Kai Kln 1995-08-19 at Riverfront Park in Marysville CA, “Gathering Of The Vibes” festival
1995 saw the re-release of our first cassette on CD, spearheaded by Aaron Loper, who also landed us at a festival gig “Gathering Of The Vibes” up at Riverfront Park in Marysville CA supporting The Mother Hips on a Saturday night. The band packed up their families and friends and the Family Kln made camp at the park, ready to conquer another weekend. Friday night was Protein, Filibuster, and Cake, all getting well deserved attention in 1995 and all rocking the venue with their unique and high energy sets. Saturday was leaning more towards the “jam band” genre and included Beggers, Steak, Yellowood Junction, Occams Razor, Cosmic Freeway, Jambay, Kai Kln, and The Mother Hips, but in 1995 the jam band formula hadn’t been codified yet so the day had lots of variation in sounds and styles. Kai Kln finally was up on stage around sunset, and after a noisy soundcheck we were ready to go! The Mighty Kai Kln had brought the musical mercenary Donny “Cream And Sugar” Snyder along to play Congas and add some extra flavor to the set. Knowing our songs and fueled by ancient elixirs of courage and bravado, Aaron Loper scaled the scaffolding and manned the spot light for the duration of our set, giving us a lighting edge as the sun set. Eric Bianchi, who also knew our songs and tolerated our tomfoolery, was brought on as soundman to our benefit and also taped (ADAT) this four-track recording as he mixed the show. Pretty quickly many of the frisbees we had brought as part of our merch were flying around the crowd. Rather than a skit, we had thrown together a musical intro number which Gene nailed, introducing the band and setting Neil up for a joke. Then right into a set of choice songs that, though there were some of our mellow songs, didn’t shy from some heavy hitters. Some highlights and songs of interest, Is It True with a Beatles tease, lots of album tracks played even faster, unreleased Scott Anderson song “Creeping” (we were still working this one out but it's a good version), another unreleased Scott song “Birds and Birds and Bees”, a killer version of Seven with some conga action, and our fan favorite cover of Whipping Post which we added the Jam’n’Jelly arrangement to and went into our closing Hamm’s Jam. The set left us riding high after winning over the diverse crowd and leaving them cheering. Good times were had watching The Mother Hips and retiring to the family KLN camp for the evening. Our friend Steve Mullen caught (most of the) set on video which has been converted by Jim McLain and found on his YouTube channel. Sunday rounded out the festival with Preacher Boy and the Natural Blues, Box Set, Mumbo Gumbo, and Booker T. and the MGs.

The recording had to be only four track, rather than 8, because of limitations at the venue, so mixing this was trickier, the bass guitar was mixed on both guitar tracks and so couldn’t be separated, but it does sound pretty great even before it was mixed for release, Eric Bianchi took good care of us on the board. I hope everyone can enjoy this listen as much as I did, this is a fun set with Neil and Gene both cranking up the stage banter and the song versions are pretty unique as well.


A video exists of this show as well, look for it on www.youtube.com/user/Taperjjim