Third Mind – Reno, Nevada

Back a few years ago, I got into The Blasters. Since then, I’ve followed their guitar player, Dave Alvin,  into different bands and soloed all over the map. I never say this phrase much, but Dave Alvin is a true American treasure. I’ve heard the man play roots rockabilly, old country, punk, rock and roll, hard rock, and psychedelic/jazz type of music as The Third Mind. It’s nothing that this man can’t do on guitar. 

The Third Mind is a band co-founded by Dave Alvin and bassist Victor Krummenacher (of Camper Van Beethoven) with the idea of creating spontaneous, live-in-the-studio music without rehearsals. The concept is inspired by the free-form recording techniques of artists like Miles Davis, where musicians simply pick a key, start playing, and let the performance evolve organically.

They took this folk song by Richard Farina and gave it some bite with Alvin’s guitar. It’s a folk song stretched into something wider, keeping the original intact. I have also heard them cover Dark Star and Morning Dew (a song originally written and recorded by Canadian Folk singer Bonnie Dobson) by the Grateful Dead. Reno, Nevada, is on the 2025 album Right Now!. This song feels like a drive through the desert at night.

Dave Alvin: I had a crazy idea and was looking for musicians who perhaps didn’t think it was so insane. Many years ago I’d been reading John Szwed’s excellent biography of Miles Davis, “So What”, and was fascinated by his thorough descriptions of how Mr. Davis and his producer, Teo Macero, created some of his classic electric albums like Bitches Brew and Jack Johnson. Basically, Miles would gather great musicians in a studio, pick a key and a groove and then record everything live over several days. Then he and Mr. Macero would edit and shape these improvisations into compositions. Having never recorded like that, I had a fantasy to try it someday if the fates ever allowed.

One night after a gig in San Francisco, a decade or more later, I mentioned this fantasy to Victor Krummenacher. I’d known the always musically adventurous Mr. Krummenacher for a couple of decades (since he was a young buck bassist in Camper Van Beethoven) and hoped he would understand.

The Third Mind
Dave Alvin: Guitar, Vocals
David Immerglück: Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals
Michael Jerome: Drums, Percussion
Victor Krummenacher: Bass, Vocals
Featuring:
Jesse Sykes: Guitar, Vocals

Here is a full performance by The Third Mind

Reno, Nevada

It’s a long, long way down to Reno, Nevada
And a long, long way to your home
But the change in your pocket is beginning to grumble
And you reap just about what you’ve sown
You can walk down the street, pass your face in the window
You can keep on fooling around
You can work day and night, take a chance on promotion
You can fall through a hole in the ground

Now there ain’t no game like the game you been playing
When you got a little something to lose
And there ain’t no time like the time you been wasting
And you waste just about what you choose
There’s a man at the table and you know he’s been able
To return all the odds that you lay
But you can’t feed your hunger and you ain’t getting younger
And your tongue ain’t got nothing to say

It’s a long, long way down to Reno, Nevada
And a long, long way to your home
But the ground underneath you is beginning to tremble
And the sky up above you has grown
There’s a time to be moving and a time to be grooving
And a time just for climbing the wall
But the odds have been doubled, and it ain’t worth the trouble
And you’re never going nowhere at all

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

36 thoughts on “Third Mind – Reno, Nevada”

  1. Pingback: Third Mind – Reno, Nevada – MobsterTiger

  3. Thanks for this. As a big fan of Richard and Mimi Fariña, I was happy to hear someone cover them – especially someone like Dave Alvin! I lived in San Francisco when Camper van Beethoven was on the rise but never got around to seeing them.

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    1. My pleasure…I heard this and then remembered the original. I haven’t heard it a lot but I liked it.
      Anything with Alvin…I know is good. This was something a little different for him and I like it. This configuration really fits the Dead influence.

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  4. Love this. You’re posts on these guys and Dave Alvin along with CB have heightened my appreciation. Just for a little background Morning Dew is a song written and recorded by Canadian Folk singer Bonnie Dobson. It’s a long story of how it made its way to the UK, Led Zeppelin and then back to North America and the Dead. No idea Dave Alvin got into it as well.

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    1. Thank you Randy! I fixed it…I filled it in beside the title..
      I like these guys a lot…I love the improvisational way they are recording. You can get some great things by mistake…or doing something you wouldn’t normally do in just writing and recording.

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  5. He sure doesn’t let the grass grow under his feet! Cool little travelogue video. Song’s not bad, didn’t totally grab me but man, if they recorded that unrehearsed and more or less spontaneously, that’s impressive!

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  8. No town could suit Dave better than Reno. Man are you digging deep. This sounds so good to my ears. “American Treasure?”. No argument from me. At least I know what I’ll be listening to today. I spun the Blasters ‘Non-Fiction’ this week. Love it and this also. Great stuff Max. Off the road map for sure . Dave’s guitar does it for me.

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    1. Glad you liked it CB…although I thought you would of course. I found this band around a couple of months ago…and I never heard them. Dave Alvin…there is not much more I can add to his greatness. I never thought of him playing in a band like this…improvising…that is a hard gig man. I love their music…it’s different. He is touching all the bases.

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      1. Trying to keep up with the music that comes out of Dave and his cohorts is a full time job. As for playing in a band like this, the song and music suit him. It’s your insight on the improv that you appreciate more thanI. Good musician just make it sound and look easy. Dave rules and Reno is a perfect fit. America with some sandpaper in the lotion.

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      2. Yea I can see where I would appreciate that more.,. hell they sound better than most bands that rehearse something to death.
        I went through their songs and there are a few that sounds close to a 1967 vibe. You are right though about this song…it just fits perfectly. And…that video (which I don’t usually pay attention to) he is just cool. Sandpaper in the lotion…that I will have to put back.

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      5. He was playing small clubs with Tom Russell and Peter Case playing Merle Haggard songs. Like you say he covers a bunch of different styles. His songwriting is so good. I was reminded of that by the Non-Fiction album.

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      7. Case is good. We have talked about and listened . He bears some solid listening time. I just listened to the live in studio session. Hearing that just leaves me so inspired. That is one cool bunch of players. When I first heard Alvin he would ri those 20-30 second solos that were like machine guns so to hear him fan out and go full solo is giving me more of what I like.
        I first heard Jeff Beck do ‘Morning Dew and Tim Buckley do “Sally Goes Round the Roses’ Loved those versions but this band stole them for today anyways. Thanks buddy.

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      8. Yea I remembe Russell and us talking about Case…I’m about to listen to some. I would imagine Alvin is a dictionary of music…he knows it. Cool dude…I have something else to listen to tonight.

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  9. Another well written and subtle song- ‘you can walk down the street and see your face in the window’. There’s a lot behind that that’s easy to miss at first listen/glance. Sort of a ‘Reflections Of A Loser,’ or maybe I’m just reading too much into some good lines? Ah who knows, but it sounds damned fine to me!

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  10. Thank you for posting this. I’ve been aware of this project of his, and haven’t taken the time to listen. Guitars are unreal. Will definitely watch the full performance video. Anything he is connected with will be worthwhile..

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  11. Thanks for reminding me of the song and album, Max. Even though I included both in a September 2025 weekly new music review, I since cheerfully had forgotten about it.

    When I just pulled up “Right Now!” in one of my streaming providers, I saw The Third Mind have a new four-track album/EP scheduled for March 13. It’s titled “Spellbinder!” One track, “Reap What You Sow” is already out – great sounding bluesy song! Unfortunately, the release falls within my upcoming blogging hiatus.

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  12. Sorry for recent silence. Didn’t get a chance to listen to this, but I shall. Rock and roll is not an improvisational sport and the one argument against that idea (the Grateful Dead) are exactly what I’m talking about. But if anybody can pull it off, I suggest Dave Alvin is one of the few. Another would be Richard Thompson, but that’s a different story.

    As for Peter Case, I strongly suggest the first album. Not the Plimsouls, but the Peter Case with “Steel Strings,” and more. As soon as I get some time I shall find a couple goodies on You Tube. The Plimsouls were good, his work on the Tulare Dust was strong but that one record is an absolute killer.

    Interestingly enough, in the last couple of weeks you have posted a handful of stuff that makes me want to listen and discover. I have written about music since the early 1970s and long ago gave up as it being next to impossible. You, magnificent Max, has done it over and over again in the last few blogs. I am humbled, amazed, and applauding.

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    2. I finally got around to listening to The Third Mind. I enjoyed. Surprised at Groovin’ Is Easy, but pleased. I admit to being pleased at something entirely different, though. There is a potential here. The improvisational stuff is musically great. But hearing what Alvin says about tight bands makes me hope that they, the Third Mind, will get tighter. It ain’t my music so I can’t describe where they might go, I have no idea, but adding the discipline that is a big part of what he calls “tight” to the improvisation of what The Third Mind is doing. THAT WOULD BE SOMETHING.

      There is some precedence for this. Go back and compare the studio Booker T versions of songs they also did live. Yes, a different feel, but even the studio and then the edited, hit version of Time Is Tight. The two recordings tell two different stories and I love ’em both.

      I wonder, and I hope, if this is what Alvin and company might have in mind.

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      1. It could be what they have in mind. I was surprised but shouldn’t have been on them covering some Dead songs because of that improvise element is strong in the Dead of course. Alvin can do about anything.

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