Cosmic Carl percussion

Growing up as a kid, my parents wouldn't let me have a drum kit in the house. So in my teen years, I bought a used pair of fiberglass Cosmic Percussion congas from a friend, and took snare lessons in college. But around 2000, I met my 1st hand drumming teacher, Jaqui MacMillan, who was the understudy at Omega Institute to Babatunde Olatunji, the master hand drummer who brought West African style drumming to America in the 1950's. Babtunde was most known for his Drums of Passion and song "Jingo" which was performed by Santana at Woodstock. I witnessed him perform with the Grateful Dead at their Rainforest benefit at Madison Square Garden in 1988. I got on the bus with the Grateful Dead in 1985, my 1st show being Hershey Park 1985! I saw 72 Dead shows, and 8 Jerry Garcia Band shows through 1995 when Jerry Garcia parted from Earth. Over the next decade, I grew into the scene at dozens of late night fire circles playing djembes, doumbeks, etc and took doumbek lessons with Daveed Korup. Next, I aspire to learn to play the tablas, quite the challenge, but I'm up to the task. I maintain strength in my hands through my work as a massage therapist since 2000. From October 2009 through November 2011, I performed as the percussionist for The Wharf Rats, an awesome Grateful Dead & psychedelic jamband playing the MD/DC area. John Kadlecik from Furthur/co-founder of Dark Star Orchestra sat in on fiddle with us in May 2010 after his John K Band opened our double bill at The Senator Theatre (circa 1939) in Baltimore. We were officially the last bands to ever play full concerts there. I have also performed with Kiva (www.kivasong.com) for 9 concerts over 2 years, and performed the Grammy-nominated album "Arkansas Traveler" live with Michelle Shocked & the Avett Brothers in front of an audience of 700 (State Theatre - Falls Church, VA 2003). For my 40th birthday, I created my own Woodstock-themed Americana music festival I called "CosmicFest" on Aug 1 & 2, 2009. I sat in with the legendary Shannon McNally (Mississippi), as well as Cherokee flutist Michael Redsky (NY), and the Boro Boogie Pickers old-time bluegrass band (PA), and my friend Banjer Dan Mazer joined in all the fun hoedowns that magical weekend. I've also sat in to jam with Ishtar (Pittsburgh), and Incus (MA). I have recorded studio percussion tracks with: Trekkie Jones (Annapolis 1/16) Jillian Borchard (Maryland 3/09) William Racine - Peabody Conservatory (Baltimore '07) Niko Woodruff/Nicole Cooley former Kiva co-lead singer (Floyd,VA 7/08) Molly Griest - on her debut album Soul Exhibition (Ellicott City, MD 2000) Percussionist/hand drummer in The Jolly Llama & available for live acoustic/electric jam bands, world music, classic folk rock, etc in the MD/DC/NOVA area.