Seattle's Kuli Loach: Keeping The Dead Alive

Who are the members of Kuli Loach?

Ron Dickson: songwriter, lead guitar, vocals

Mick Lane: rhythm guitar, vocals

Mike Beaulieu: bass guitar

Ed Coke: drums, harps, vocals

Nestor Espinosa: percussion

Playing music around town has taken on a certain poignancy for Kuli Loach, a Seattle improvisational rock and R&B band in the Grateful Dead and Allman Brothers tradition.

The band, which plays a mix of '60s, '70s and Grateful Dead covers, as well as its own original music, has found its audience hungry for live Dead music since the death of guitarist Jerry Garcia last year.

"Sometimes when we launch into one of these songs, I feel a rush off of the audience," Dickson says. "It's a chance, I guess, for them to dance to this music again. It used to be that people could hear our songs in-between real Dead tours. But now that option's not there anymore."

Local Deadheads have welcomed Kuli Loach (named for a species of tropical fish owned by a friend of Dickson's) since its formation in 1986.

Even back then, the band members knew the sound they were after.

"Mike, Mick and I were all Deadheads," Dickson says. "Our drummer had a jazz background and didn't know Dead music that well when he came. But his improv background led us to some unique sounds of our own."

Since then, the band has entertained audiences at Parker's, the Paramount, the Backstage, the Blue Moon, KISW's Nudestock '91 and the Seattle Peace Concert series, among other venues. The band also has opened for Country Joe McDonald, Zero, the Dinosaurs, and Merl Saunders & the Rainforest Band.

Kuli Loach has released three self-produced collections of original music on cassette, and is included on a sampler CD from Relix Records. It just finished recording a demo that is scheduled to be released in April.

In the meantime the band is happy playing for Seattle audiences receptive to its Deadhead spirit of "freedom, mystery and discovery," says Dickson. "Our music is about the searching through and trying to stand in the moment that you're playing. Trying not to push things a certain way and getting to a point where we can let the music just play the band, not vice versa."

Since Garcia's death, that has become even more important.

"Jerry's death lit a fire under us," Dickson says. "When we play these songs now they've got to be just right. Every time we play them, it feels like a tribute. We have no pretensions of being pretenders to the throne. But I think people recognize the spirit we play the music in - it's out of love and respect. We keep the music alive and help people remember some great times through the music."Where to check out Kuli Loach: Feb. 17 at Highliner Tavern; March 1 at the Dubliner. "Music for the Mind," a sampler CD featuring Kuli Loach's "Revelation," is available through: Relix Records, P.O. Box 92, Brooklyn, NY 11229.