Facebook Has Its Uses

I was just about to go cold turkey and quit the addictive Facebook for the rest of eternity, when my sister Lesley called to report she had just dutifully gone to see her husband/my brother-in-law Austin de Lone play in the Barry “The Fish” Melton Band in Monte Rio California.

After the gig, she met the legendary Barry Melton, the co-founder and original lead guitarist of Country Joe and the Fish (Barry 'moonlights' as a criminal defense laywer and last year retired as Public Defender of Yolo County), and informed him I was on Facebook. As a result we have linked up.

When I was a teenager, Country Joe and the Fish's hypnotic first album Electric Music For the Mind And Body was mind blowing! Not in a million years, would I have foreseen that ex-Dinasour Barry Melton would one day be a cyberspace friend when I relentlessly played the album at top decibel volume to my bemused aunt and uncle (Frank Sinatra fans) in their house in Beverley Hills.

Immediately after I linked up with Barry, I called up the 60's DJ Jeff Dexter to ask him if I saw Country Joe and the Fish play at his psychedelic music clubs, Middle Earth and the Roundhouse. Jeff joked if I couldn't remember seeing them, then I must have been there!

I'm sure my memory will be revived when I see Melton perform in the summer as his band will be touring in the UK then. And as I sold my last vinyl collection centuries ago, I shall now officially download Electric Music For The Mind And Body for a trip down memory lane.

P.S. Although I'm not officially Barry Melton's PR (!), his next gig is on March 13th at The Saloon. Austin will be on keyboards, another old musical hero: ex- Big Brother and the Holding Company's Peter Albin will be on base and Roy ("The Blues Project" and "Seatrain") Blumenfeld will be on drums. I do hope this plug will guarantee me a seat.