Dave with Ted at the La Honda Fair 2012
by craig eddy
When sitting with Dave Barrow this month's candidate for The Face of Local Music I realized there are many parallels in our musical growth. Dave had lessons early in his childhood but didn't start playing music with other people until college. His first band The Baked Clams was a fraternity band. They would play at full volume in the living room and annoy all the neighbors. Dave's musical influences were the Rock bands of the 80's. The Cult, Led Zepplin, Aerosmith gave him his Rock roots so I had to ask "then how did you end up playing Bluegrass?" He he blames his old friend Dave Packer for that. They used to get together to play vollyball in Portola Valley and would sit around jamming afterwards. His friend Dave suggested they all go to the Strawberry Music Festival because of all the jamming that goes on there around the campsites. Barrow fell in love with the jam scene and started going to the Good Ol Fashioned Bluegrass Festival in Hollister too. Dave's camp at Strawberry is famous for their all night sessions. He tells of getting his first credit card with a 1500 dollar limit and immediately went out and got a 1400 dollar nice acoustic guitar for jamming. Dave splits his musical time between The String Slingers, The Mountain Men and the up and coming Rock band Pathetic Honey. The last year Dave and Patheic Honey have been putting together their first CD project. He hopes it will be out by the End of the World Party at Applejack's on December 21st. The String Slingers will be playing for the Brookdale Bluegrass festival at Scopazzi's in Boulder Creek on Dec 1st. On Nov 30th Pathetic Honey will be doing their CD release party at the Devil's Canyon Brewery in Belmont. For a few years now Dave has been doing some solo performing and will be doing so at Alice's on Wed Nov 21st. Dave has been booking the Thursday night music at Alice's for several years now so he is able to get a gig there now and then. Favorite gigs include the first time they played the La Honda Fair and also a Saturday night gig at the Evergreen Lodge just outside the Strawberry Music Festival. Dave says of all the musicians he has played with, Ted Kratter (see article at lahonda.com), Dan Newitt and Andy Roberts are his favorites. You can keep up with Dave via Facebook and if you want to contact him with comments on Alice's music or if you want to get booked use email at [email protected] Don't forget that Pathetic Honey will be celebrating the end of the world at AppleJack's on Dec 21st.