Remembering Greg Brown of CAKE

I just found out that Greg Brown, the guitarist for the band CAKE, passed away this weekend. I had not talked to Greg in many years, but knew him fairly well several decades ago. Before he was in CAKE, he was in a band called Saturday’s Child, and I recorded an album with that band in my 8-track basement studio in Sacramento, CA. There was one particular Saturday evening (a coincidence) recording that album that to this day still ranks as one of the top 5 musical moments of my life. It was just Greg and me overdubbing guitars, and – in particular – a guitar solo on one song. The tape was full, all 8 tracks were filled, but there was a space on the lead vocal track where we could punch in the solo. I was late to get home (upstairs) for dinner (my wife Maria was upstairs and hearing every note Greg played) but I had to see it through. At some point, it dawned on me that I was in the presence of brilliance and that this might be what it was like to see someone like Jimi Hendrix play guitar. Every take Greg did was amazing and also completely different from the previous take. For about 30 minutes I just sat there punching in the guitar, erasing forever the previous take. “Nah, that wasn’t it,” Greg would say, “Let’s do it again.” It felt criminal to erase each previous take, but Greg was insistent. At some point he got what he wanted. I was in kind of a daze from witnessing it and had no objectivity left. No big deal, just another day in my basement studio and I went upstairs and cooked dinner. Funny though, that evening is etched into mind as if it were yesterday. Top 5 seriously. 

A few months later, Greg and the rest of the three piece band Saturday’s Child - Victor Damiani on bass and Todd Roper on drums - joined John McCrea and Vince DiFiore in CAKE. On CAKE’s second LP Fashion Nugget, he wrote their hit single “The Distance.”

I lost touch with Greg, but frequent Tape Op contributor Dana Gumbiner formed a band called Deathray with him after Greg moved on from CAKE, and he and Greg remained close up to the present day. Dana played me a few rough mixes of some songs that Greg had recorded with him a year or two ago and they were, of course, brilliant. I would always ask Dana when they were gong to finish up those tracks and looked forward to hearing Greg playing music again. 

Please read and share Dana’s heartfelt post to his friend Greg on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/deathray.is.ok/posts/i-cant-begin-to-express-how-sorry-i-am-to-have-to-type-these-words-this-hurts-so/1231950599033954/

And here it is, The Distance. Go Greg.