The Particle People parting party

A revered jam band reunites with its former guitarist after losing two of its biggest fans

Particle plays Saint Rocke on Friday night.

A short history of a surreptitiously big band:

It began in the middle of a night near the turn of this century on a boat under the Golden Gate Bridge. A keyboard player, a bassist, a guitarist, and a seriously thumping drummer welcomed aboard a boatload of partiers who’d spent the night at a large amphitheater listening to the band Phish.

The entire ragtag crew grooved, deliriously, until dawn.

“People were dancing like popcorn,” recalled drummer Darren Pujalet. “We all just looked at each other and said, ‘Hmmm, might have something here….’”

Thus was born Particle, although not without a tragic hitch. Shortly thereafter the band’s guitarist, Dave Simmons, suddenly died. He was a young man whose body was wracked by a lifelong struggle with diabetes, but despite his frailty, he’d been Particle’s most elemental source of musical energy.

The three remaining members – keyboard player Steve Molitz, bassist Eric Gould, and Pujalet – reacted strongly to Simmons’ death.

“We just really said, ‘It’s going to be a full bore thing, or nothing at all,’” Pujalet said. “He passed, and I don’t know – we just knew there was no middle ground any more. It took the middle ground away.”

Rather than fading away, Particle was further forged. Guitarist Charlie Hitchcock joined, and the band began one of the more remarkably strange and strangely successful journeys in recent rock n’ roll history. They quickly became known for their wee hour gigs and for a careening, exuberant sound that one early fan dubbed “space porn funk.” They turned the notion of a concert sideways – gigging in tents, boats, bowling alleys, bars, on mountains and in deserts – the band would devote entire shows to the weirdest themes they could dream up. Once, in Boston on Halloween, wearing Red Sox uniforms, they played an entire show of television themes.

“John Popper from Blues Traveler played that show and we just did like Night Rider themes and all these cool TV show themes,” Pujalet said. “We just did these random themed events, just a ton of them, real parties.”

A funny thing happened on the way to and from the parties, however – the band got big. They were a hit on the festival circuit and found themselves playing before 20,000 people at Lollapalooza and Coachella and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. A band of followers dubbed “Particle People” traveled around the country to their shows. And the band toured relentlessly, playing 140 shows a year.

What was truly unusual was they did it all without recording a single record. By music industry standards, they weren’t just grassroots. Particle was a revolution.

In 2004, The New York Times – in its business section – ran a story titled: “The Unorthodox System: First Build a Fan Base, Then Record an Album.” The article marveled that the band, which was just about to release its first record, had thrived while creating what was essentially a new business model – even bands such as Phish and the Grateful Dead, particularly at their outset, released records.

“The group’s unlikely accomplishment will come to an end later this month, three and a half years after its first gig, when the four-piece group releases its first disc, Launchpad….” The Times reported.

Particle has by now played 1,200 shows, but a show this Friday night at Saint Rocke will represent one of its most epochal moments. Five years ago, Hitchcock, a South Bay native, was released from the band for reasons that were never really made public. Particle has since toured with a number of guitarists – frequently employing a pair of players, Scott Metzger and Ben Combe – but on Friday Hitchcock will for the first time return to the stage with his former band mates.

The reunion will be celebratory, to be sure. But like the guitarist’s arrival with the band back in 2000, this convergence is coming about in part because of a preceding tragedy. Two of the most devoted fans – Greg Lobdell and Jimmy Lebloch, both who’d been following the band since its beginning – passed away unexpectedly in the last month.

The Particle People are gathering.

“People are flying in from all over the country,” said Pujalet, who is a longtime Manhattan Beach resident. “Not only are there two family members that are missing, but the fact that Charlie is playing is a really big deal to people. We haven’t played together in five years. It’s a good time to come back together for a great cause.”

Hitchcock said he wishes it hadn’t taken tragedy to bring about the events that led to Friday’s show. But he’s also looking forward to rejoining a groove that still comes like second nature after playing hundreds of Particle shows.

“It’ll be good to play the old tunes I haven’t played in many years and see a lot of friends,” he said. “We had a thing musically that was cool, for sure. But a lot of things happen to bands.”

Particle People

Jimmy LeBloch and Gregg Lobdell. Artwork by Jeremiah Harrison and Whitney Padgett. Prints of the art is available with proceeds going to a foundation established benefiting the two recently departed Particle People. See www.phalonart.com

The distance between the stage and the audience is a far gap for most successful rock bands. They stand above their fans, and it’s not just a physical distance.

Particle, from that very first gig on the boat in San Francisco Bay, was able to form a different kind of connection. They didn’t play at people; they played for and with people. And from the outset their fan base – which was deeply connected to Phish and the Grateful Dead, since Particle frequently played late night after-parties – came from all over the country.

“It wasn’t just a San Francisco crowd,” Pujalet said. “It was like a kid who two days later was sitting in his cubicle in New York City and talking to some guy he met in the beer line who lived in San Fran or LA or Austin, Texas, and he’s going, ‘Hey man, that weekend was really fantastic, bro…I can’t wait to see you again out on the road.’”

Like Phish and the Dead, Particle didn’t merely attract fans. They formed a community. That kid in the cubicle in New York City might not have known the person in the cubicle next to him or in the next door apartment. But he soon came to know a far-flung community of like-minded Particle People with whom he’d groovily communed.  “There is something tangible you can grab onto,” Pujalet said. “And there are people he resonates with.”

The Particle People got around. They traveled and traded recordings of shows – which the band happily allowed – and very quickly numbered in the thousands. Hitchcock realized early on that many of the same people were showing up at the shows all over the country. He said the band formed a closer relationship with such folks – they’d look out from the stage night after night and see familiar faces.

“Everybody is feeding off each other,” he said. “They are feeding off what we are playing, and it feeds into the energy of what we are doing. It’s a symbiotic kind of thing. If we were playing by ourselves in a band room it’s a totally different energy – some of the things you can’t even play unless you are in front of an audience because a lot of the music is improvisational. It’s not really a set thing. That affects the music.”

Particle fully hit its stride at the very first Bonnaro Music Festivals in Tennessee in 2002 and 2003. Bonnaro would later become a well-known “jam band” festival, but in those early years it was still forming, and Particle was a big part of that.

“It was just a totally unknown project at that time and it became like this Woodstock this first year, and we were really deep rooted in that,” Pujalet said. “We did a really long set during the day, but then we did this set at 3 a.m. ‘til like 6 a.m. that first year just using a basic PA – this was back when Bonnaro was like ‘Whatever flies…’ that first year. We were like, how are we gonna top that? And the next year we did a five hour set from 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. without stopping. There were 20,000 people there at 3 a.m., and still 5,000 at 8 in the morning…It was incredible. It was such a spiritual moment.”

“There is a different vortex you tap into – just being up on stage, ping-ponging back and forth with the energy of 20,000 people. It’s absolutely an exponentially energetic feeling.”

The sweet-natured Lebloch, who was always at Particle shows with his twin brother until he passed away of natural causes last month, is one of the reasons for Hitchcock’s return.

“He was always such a nice guy, having fun, just seemed like a good soul,” Hitchcock said.

If there was a mayor of Particle People, however, it was Greg Lobdell. Very early in the band’s career he formed a website called RoadsaBreeze.com (named after a song) that became a community hub, with set lists, photos, and message posts.

“These two kids who passed away, both of unforeseen medical situations, all natural stuff…just unfortunate situations that just happened so fast,” Pujalet said. “It happened so close together. This kid Jimmy and his twin, they did everything together, they were like attached at the hip. Greg Lobdell was a very deep-rooted Particle family member.”

Few bands know their people the way Particle does. Fewer still would honor a fallen fan with a show. And the idea of bringing back Hitchcock – despite a somewhat acrimonious parting with the band five years ago – is something that particularly honors the band’s oldest fans.

“It seemed to be such a natural fit to have Charlie come back,” Pujalet said. “So we asked him to come back. It’s just going to be a really special moment.”

Particle plays Saint Rocke Friday night. See saintrocke.com for ticket info or particlepeople.com for more info on the band. ER

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