Short-lived Palo Alto rock and R&B band led by guitarist Troy Weidenheimer. Pigpen, Bill Kreutzmann and, now and then, Jerry Garcia on bass.
While Garcia was deep in bluegrass, a small electric scene was forming around Swain’s Music Store and/or Dana Morgan Music in Palo Alto, where Ron “Pigpen” McKernan worked part-time. Guitarist Troy Weidenheimer started a rock-and-roll and rhythm-and-blues band there called the Zodiacs, with Pigpen on harmonica. The band went through several drummers, most often a teenage Bill Kreutzmann. Garcia sometimes filled in on electric bass when he wasn’t busy with his bluegrass groups, which was an early taste of the rock rhythm-section work he would pick up again in 1965. No recordings or dated shows survive.
The Zodiacs were the first band to put three future Grateful Dead members on the same stage, about two years before the Warlocks.
