Summer 1963 pickup trio with Pete Wernick on banjo, which put Garcia on mandolin.
In the summer of 1963 a young New York banjo player named Pete Wernick was spending the break in Palo Alto and looking for people to play with. Garcia was the better banjo player, but Wernick could only play banjo, so Garcia moved to mandolin and Hunter played guitar. The self-mocking band name suits a loose summer group. It played a few gigs before Wernick went back east in mid-August. The band left almost no trace beyond memories and a newspaper ad, but it’s an interesting footnote.
Wernick went on to become a leading bluegrass banjo player and teacher, known as ‘Dr. Banjo’, and a founder of Country Cooking and Hot Rize. He often talked about that summer with Garcia.
