Dark Star Orchestra keeps ‘Dead’ tradition alive

By Diana Nollen

Night after night, city after city, Dark Star Orchestra raises the Dead.

This band, whose members are scattered coast to coast, gathers to pay homage to the psychedelic hipness of the Grateful Dead, which disbanded after Jerry Garcia's death in 1995.

The goal is to recreate the feel of being at a Dead concert, by playing the quintessential jam band's actual set lists.

All the band members know that feeling firsthand. A Dead Head collective, they've seen more than 920 Dead concerts.

Drummer Rob Koritz, 41, of St. Louis, saw 93 Grateful Dead concerts, beginning in 1987, his senior year in high school.

“I wish I had been born a little earlier and had gotten to see them more,” he says by phone from his home a few days before hitting the road again. “I missed 25 years of Grateful Dead history.”

He didn't want to miss any more, so he and his high school buddies followed the band coast to coast and into Europe in 1990.

“I knew it was going to be different every night,” he says. “You might not see a great show (that night) but you don't want to miss the next one, because that might be the great show.”

Now he's helping a new generation discover the magic he relished. The band's spring tour will swing through the Englert Theatre in downtown Iowa City on Monday night, playing a mix of an actual Grateful Dead set list and whatever they feel like when they get there, Koritz says.

Dark Star Orchestra started in Chicago in 1997 and spends about seven months on the road, playing about 130 gigs, Koritz says. He joined in June 1999.

“I had been playing here in St. Louis as a professional musician, playing everything you can imagine,” he says. “I was playing in Grateful Dead bands, new bands, way too many weddings. I was itching to play Dead tunes again. When the opportunity came up, I decided to try it, and here we are, 1,700 shows later.”

He doesn't consider Dark Star to be a cover band.

“I look at it like performance art,” he says. “What we do is definitely a tribute to the Grateful Dead, but what's so important is that it can be different every day. The concerts can go in any direction at any moment, so I look at it as performance art.”

The band's name comes from one of the Dead's earliest and biggest hits.

“Through the years, (‘Dark Star') was the band's number one vehicle for improvisation. We tacked on ‘Orchestra' because in a sense, what an orchestra does is play certain repertoire and interpret it as we see it.”

Dark Star succeeds where other cover bands might stumble because of the music and their dedication.

“It goes back to the kind of music,” Koritz says. “We're very successful because we're good musicians. We study this music and hold it dear. The Grateful Dead's music is so open to improvisation that the music stays fresh no matter what.”

The ever-changing nature keeps Koritz coming back for more.

“Because it's improvisation, it's fresh all the time. We all do pine to do other things,” he says. “On breaks we do other things, play with other bands. I have a company that goes out and uses drumming to teach communication skills and multiculturalism. I put drum circles together to take drums to people who have never played them. If everything goes right, in a couple of hours, I'll turn them into a musical ensemble.”

He started playing drums at age 6, and for his next birthday, received six months of drum lessons and a snare drum. His “incredibly supportive” parents built him a soundproof room and he set out on a path that led him to study classical percussion at the University of Arizona and jazz percussion at Webster University in St. Louis.

His musical influences are many and varied.

“Everybody I've ever heard is a musical influence in one way or another,” he says. “You learn what to do and what not to do from every musician you see.”

FAST TAKEInformation: www.englert.org or www.darkstarorchestra.net

What: Dark Star Orchestra

When: 7 p.m. Monday. Feb. 8

Where: Englert Theatre, 221 E. Washington St., Iowa City

Tickets: $27 In advance, $30 day of show, through Englert box office, (319) 688-2653, or www.iowatix.com