The show was scheduled months in advance: three artists- Oaklandpsych-rockers Howlin Rain, area favorite GospelbeacH, and jamband upstartPacific Range- playing at the Moroccan Lounge, a popular club in downtown LosAngeles. Fans circled it, noting thetiming; a midweek date in late August on the heels of the Lockn festival. That was significant. Sadly, it became more significant than anywould have wanted.
GospelbeacH, led by singer-songwriter/guitarist BrentRademaker, is a group whose membership has fluctuated throughout its nascentexistence. The first album they recorded,Pacific Surf Line, featured guitaristNeal Casal, a longtime friend and collaborator of Rademaker, and, at the timeof its release in 2015, a rapidly emerging player on the scene. Casal was gaining notoriety within the jamworld as the guitarist in the Chris Robinson Brotherhood, and with CirclesAround the Sun- an all-instrumental quartet that had provided setbreak musicfor that summer’s Fare Thee Well Grateful Dead performances.
An avid photographer, Casal took the cover shot forGospelbeacH’s follow-up, Another Summerof Love. For a forthcoming thirdalbum, due this October, he was back on guitar. “I played the mixes for him, and asked what he thought,” saidRademaker. “He said his guitar was tooloud. I told him that’s what people wantto hear.” Rademaker was right. It was what people wanted to hear.
Casal wasn’t so much an anti-guitar hero- his influencesincluded some of music’s most heroic; Keith Richards, Jimmy Page, Jerry Garcia-as he was anti-hero worship. He acceptedcompliments graciously, humbly, and then quickly deflected any praise back ontothe music or the band performing it. Hewas a soldier forever in service of the song.
Casal died on August 26, 2019, just two days afterperforming for a final time- at the Lockn music festival in Arrington,Virginia. His last moments onstage werefirst with his band, Circles Around the Sun, and then with an all-star ensembleassembled by bassist Oteil Burbridge (Dead and Company) that included Bob Weir,Melvin Seals, Eric Krasno, Duane Betts, and Jason Crosby, among others. He sang lead on Garcia’s “Cats Under theStars” and played beautifully complementary guitar.
At festival’s end, he was headed back to the West Coast,letting friends know of his intentions to make an appearance at theMoroccan.
Outside, on that late August Wednesday night, a Metro trainhummed past the cozy club cornered into the outer reaches of L.A.’s Japantownneighborhood. An old Japanese templestood shadowy and distinct across the street. It was reverent, and quietly serene, but for the dozen or so gathered tosmoke and talk prior to GospelbeacH’s slot.
They all wore stickers on their shirts that read I (heart) Neal Casal. They hugged and cried, and hugged and criedagain with each new arrival to the tribe. Collectively, they entered the club, and joined dozens of others asGospelbeacH moved through their emotional set. Rademaker prefaced songs with anecdotes about Casal’s contributions, andbrought up guitarist/singer Sam Blasucci (Grateful Shred, Mapache) to jointhem, singing harmony on “In the Desert.”
Howlin Rain finished the night with a performance that, ifnot for the somber overtone of the evening (or perhaps because of it), rose toa glowing pinnacle with its determined intensity and cathartic release ofenergy. Guitarist and singer EthanMiller and his trio of rock torchbearers played as though on a mission, leadingfurious new entries around a pair from the their last studio set, The Alligator Bride, as well as “Underthe Wheels,” echoing the title of their forthcoming live release. It was bold, and commanding, and the nextprogressive step for a band that just seems to be getting better each time out.
In the barroom after the show, Rademaker sat in a booth withfriends. He looked exhausted. In a pause between condolences from passingfans, he said without prompting, “Neal wouldn’t want us to be to be sad. He’d want us to be happy. We need to be happy.”
