Based out of Santa Cruz, California, The Puffball Collective consistently performs extended musical journeys crafted to lift you up. We present this music to scintillate your souls, soar your spirits, groove your bodies, and bounce your booties, sending all to “Higher Ground”🎶 "We’ll take you there"🎶 by performing the kickin' music of The Allman Brothers, The new Mastersounds, The Grateful Dead, Peter Rowan, Puffball'ized Bob Dylan, Sly Stone, Billy Preston, The Band, & The Beatles! The Puffball Collective also features an amazing catalogue of original compositions ranging from acid jazz to freaky funk, Americana to bluegrass, rock~a~billy to sweet soul, and blues to psychedelic rockers”.
Bass, vocals / Doug Dirt
Guitar, vocals / David Cameron
Guitar, vocals / Marc Sveen
Keys, vocals / Lachlann Kane
Drums / Paul Garcia
Percussion / Warren Charles Jones
Doug "Dirt" Greenfield: Bass, Vocals “Puffdaddy”
Doug "Dirt" Greenfield is a bassist, singer , dancer and provocateur of joyful noise. Performs in the Banana Slug String Band (31 years), Slugs and Roses(10 years) , & The Intangibillies (5 years)! He has gathered this de-light-full musical collective to help all to reach their highest puffball dancing potential. Doug is the heart and founder of the Puffball Collective.
Lachlann Kane: Keyboards, Vocals. “Pladapuff”
Lachlann’s piano style (think Leon Russel and Jerry Lee Lewis) and organ style ( think Garth Hudson) make him a great addition to any rock band.
And the high vocal harmonies are a PLUS! The Santa Cruz native plays with Jim Lewin’s Edge of the West, as well as Scott Cooper’s Barrelmakers and the DB Walker Blues Band.
Marc Sveen: Guitar, Vocals “Sparclpuff”
Marc’s musical life started when he took his brother’s guitar from his room without asking. His other brother bought him his first electric, and in the late ’80s he formed a band with friends called HBI. They said it stood for Happy Boys Incorporated, though everyone knew better. HBI ran on Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, and Hüsker Dü.
After studying with guitar teachers around the suburban Bay Area, Marc found new heroes in Larry Carlton, Robben Ford, and Jerry Garcia. In the early ’90s he studied music at Diablo Valley College, where Steve Sage ran a Rock R&B class that blended multi-instrumentalists and vocalists into bands to perform for the community. That class shaped his musicianship, and he’s grateful for it. He then studied music, with an option in recording arts, at Chico State, playing in bands and recording many groups along the way.
After Chico, he spent a couple of years as a live sound engineer for Royal Caribbean, sharpening his audio chops on the seven seas. He landed in Santa Cruz in the late ’90s and has been creating, recording, and performing ever since.
Marc feels very lucky to have made music with great friends for so many years. To hear what that sounds like, look up 2 Beans and a Grape and Torpedo Cafe. Today he’s focused on his project Velour (Velourband.com), and he’s happy to have spent the last 11 years helping cultivate the vibe and sound of The Puffball Collective.
Paul Garcia: Drums “Snap crackle Puff”
Paul is living the dream behind his vintage Slingerland drums. Hailing from the rich Southern California music scene, Paul's first bands tended toward the punk/surf variety. Paul's diverse musical tastes pretty much run the entire gamut of the music spectrum, with a specific affinity for the music of the Grateful Dead. After moving to Monterey in 1997 Paul worked with the Santa Cruz based band Phicus for a number of years. Eventually settling near the beach in Santa Cruz, a wide range of musical opportunities have kept him very busy doing what he loves, simply making great music with great people. Paul turns up on the drum chair for such diverse bands as the Banana Slug String Band (doing kids 'edutainment' music) and plays straight-up Grateful Dead tunes with Slugs and Roses and Spirit of ‘76. Paul has also branched into the bluegrass-tinged hybrid styling of Groove Grass and the Intangibillies and Americana with Amee Chapman & the Velvet Tumbleweeds and also West by Southwest.
Gary Kehoe: Percussion
Gary has been drumming at the forefront of world music in Santa Cruz and the Bay Area for decades.
Gary studied music with the groundbreaking world music, improvisational group Oregon for three summers at the Naropa Institute in the late 70’s , and has played with many Bay Area groups, including Sambada, The California Honeydrops, Special Fun, Banana Slug String Band, Santa Cruz Steel,Sol Circle, master drummer Babatunde Olatunji, RCA Recording Artists Opa Fire, Sol Caribe, Chi Mizu, to name a few(several). Gary’s favorite color is blue and feels that lasagna rules!
