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Promo Photo Courtesy of Bruce Lish

Music of the Mountains: KC36 Orange Sunshine Band

A brand new jam band is debuting at Howlin Wind Brewing and Blending very soon!

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ROLLINSVILLE -- There’s a new jam band rolling into town, although the members have been playing locally for years. This new band is calling themselves KC36 Orange Sunshine Band (shortened from (KC36 and the Orange Sunshine Band). The name is a reference to the disco-funk group KC and the Sunshine Band, as well as to the strains of marijuana known as the KC36 and the Orange Sunshine. The band’s lineup consists of guitarist Doug Diminico (a core member and leader of Smooth Money Gesture), mandolinist Dave Pullins (a core member of NoGo Gilbillies), drummer Larry Nivissimo, saxophonist Brush Lish, and bassist John Heiland. Nivissimo, Lish, and Heiland have frequently collaborated for over three decades, also currently playing together in the Grateful Dead tribute group AoxomoxoA.

Heiland grew up in Chicago, surrounded by “upriver Mississippi bass and blues.” He started learning basic blues when he got his first guitar, but he didn’t start performing until he moved to Colorado in 1991. He lived next door to professional musicians, who heard him play more at that time, and he started playing bluegrass at Ward’s Millsite Inn, where other bluegrass musicians welcomed him in weekly Saturday night jams. He joined his first band, the Sugarloaf String Band, shortly after, connecting with similar groups such as Yonder Mountain String Band and Leftover Salmon.

During his time in Sugarloaf String Band, he went on the road with Shanti Groove, a jam grass group that also included Nivissimo and Lish in the lineup. After Sugarloaf dissolved as a group, member Ryan Jones (who has since worked with Galactic and is now the production manager of the New Orleans live music venue Tipitina’s) sold Heiland his bass, which he had played in college. That started Heiland’s trajectory as a bass player, forming bands with Nivissimo and Lish such as Fat Rabbit and the Funkytonk Heroes. After Funkytonk Heroes, they formed another group, Seeing Stars Band, which has since morphed into AoxomoxoA. Now, to fulfill a birthday wish from Lish, the three musicians have brought in Pullins and Diminico to form yet another group, KC36 Orange Sunshine Band.

The name KC and the Sunshine Band is a reference to the last name of vocalist Harry Wayne Casey and his home state of Florida, nicknamed “The Sunshine State.” KC36 Orange Sunshine Band embraces this, even making advertisements resembling a license plate from the state. However, Lish also has associations with Florida, having graduated with a creative writing degree from the University of Florida in Gainesville. During his time there, he was able to spend time with another University of Florida graduate – Ken Kesey, the beat writer known for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and his group The Merry Pranksters. Kesey had come back to Gainesville in the late 1970s for a writers' conference, and through a mutual connection, Lish was able to spend time in the evenings with Kesey during that conference. He jokes now that he and his group of “young Deadheads kidnapped [the] Merry Prankster[s] chief back when he was in his 40s and we were in college,” but he also says it changed his life to be able to entertain a hero of his at that time.

Around 1987, Lish picked up the saxophone again and started taking private lessons. He had played alto saxophone between his first and ninth-grade years in group lessons and school bands, but ultimately stopped for three primary reasons: he would have to transition to a new band conductor and his previous conductor was one of his biggest inspirations; he had just gotten braces; and if he had joined again, he would have had a direct conflict between playing soccer and playing in the marching band. However, he decided to pick up the saxophone again as an adult, buying one from a local pawn shop.

Another inspiration for Lish’s playing was Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia. The band was directly mentored by Ken Kesey, playing as Kesey’s primary house band at his Acid Test parties. Along with this connection to Lish’s writing background and the musical inspiration that Lish found through Jerry’s groups (The Dead, The Jerry Garcia Band, and Legion of Mary, in particular), he found another musician through the Dead’s newsletter – John Coltrane. According to that newsletter, many of the Dead’s members listened to and respected Coltrane, and once Lish started listening to Coltrane, he embraced his music, too.

Heiland jokes that KC36 Orange Sunshine Band, at least for him and Lish, feels like “what [would have] happened if John Coltrane and Jerry Garcia had a baby together.” Heiland himself discovered Coltrane after a random encounter at his regular subway station in Chicago. On his way to the subway one day, he heard a station sweeper whistling a lovely tune. Heiland asked the sweeper what the tune was (it was the jazz standard “Polka Dots and Moonbeams”), and they started talking more about music – Heiland’s playing, their music tastes, etc. Heiland revealed he hadn’t listened to much jazz, and the sweeper told him to listen to the Coltrane album Lush Life. That was Heiland’s hook for Coltrane.

Now, of course, the members that will encompass KC36 Orange Sunshine Band have all settled in Colorado. Heiland has lived in Colorado for 44 years now, and when he started playing in the state, other musicians told him that the state’s music scene was open, friendly, and not harshly competitive. Over his time here, he has predominantly found that to be the case. Both he and Lish have also seen a massive depth and breadth of talent in the state since they started performing here. Through all of their ventures and performances, their primary hope is that somehow, they inspire their audiences to pursue their own musical ventures, expose them to new artists, and just allow them all to have a good time.

You can see the debut live performance of the jam band KC36 Orange Sunshine Band at Howlin Wind Brewing and Blending, located at 51 A Main Street in Rollinsville, on Saturday, February 1, 2025, starting at 5 p.m.!