All of us here at Greg Robertson's WAKE are greatly saddened and deeply affected by the tragic loss of Michael Jackson. The entire music world felt a great disturbance and a profound sense of emptiness. We are eternally grateful for the tremendous body of work left behind which continues to inspire us.
Thank you for the music, Michael, and may you rest in peace.

It was a very bittersweet perfomance from Greg this night because it is the very last open mic night at Magdelena's Teahouse. They are closing!

Greg was the next to last scheduled performer and by the time he took the stage there was a very palpable atmosphere all about the place. Before Greg could even get to his stool, Augustine, Magdelen and Miko were already at their African drums, ready to beat 'pon 'em. Since he had a percussion section ready, Greg put on his Pack Back to start the set. As soon as the now familiar strains of the opening lines began their reverberations, Eleanor and many other nameless hippies began dancing around and everyone was into it. They even sang along(!)

Then Greg took the audience on a tragic journey to that great inland fresh-water sea (Lake Superior) for a 10-minute version of true story of the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, by request.

Then, since Miko was present, Greg played The Weight, since its one of her favorite songs. (Is he any relation to Robbie Robertson?)

He finished with Nothing's Wrong, T S Baker's 'green' song; always a favorite at that venue.

The current economic collapse had spelled doom upon the teahouse and, as mentioned earlier, this was the very last edition of Magdelena's open mic Wednesday night. After the show proper, Greg was joined in an impromptu jam session by Augustine, Rick, Ikes, and Jason. They played till about 1:30 in the morning.

The entire event was recorded and some of this material may appear on the next WAKE album.
[All of the show should be available on Song Dogs Music DVD early 2010.]

Greg was able to make tonight's show after having missed last week due to viral infection. He narrowly missed being hospitalized but antibiotics and Xango brought him back to the living with no infection spread to the new tissue.
An acoustic version of The Temptation's Can't Get Next to You started his four song set.
Since the room was full of musicians, he did Benden White.
Then Greg performed his medley of Uriah Heep's The Wizard and Pink Floyd's Time (always a favorite).
Fran was there with her beautiful voice and she complimented Greg's guitar as he complimented her superb voice, (she really does have a great voice and Greg was honored to be feted by the likes of her.)

Just one month to the day since his open heart surgery, Greg again was able to play for a middling sized group at the Teahouse's Wed-night open mic.

After staggering to the stage, in obvious pain (he vehemently eschews his pain medication), he started with an acoustic version of Emancipation.

The next song, he introduced thusly: "You'd better like this song cuz it takes a couple years to play, has a million words which I forget half of and make up new ones on the way."
He then launched the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald; a 7-minute (short) version.

Then, again this week, by request, he did Benden White.

He then [lied and] said he'd do only one more song:
Pink Floyd's Take it Back.

He followed that with Only You to finish off the half hour set.

(Part of this set, as well as part of last weeks, exists on video and will find it's way up here at some point. -ed.)

On Wed. Feb. 25, Greg appeared again at the Magdelena Teahouse and we have visual proof! He played a medley of Uriah Heep's The Wizard, and Pink Floyd's Time, which was very cool because he tuned the E down to D, (of course) for The Wizard and tuning it back up to E 'on the fly' for the second part of Time (what they call the reprise of Breathe on the album). Then he did, by request, Benden White. Being only three weeks out of open heart surgery, he stopped there but will play more next week as he always tries to hit the Wednesdays at the Teahouse.

Also look for him at the Lutheran Church in Okemos on Sunday, March 8.

On Wednesday Night, Feb. 18th, only two weeks after his open heart surgery, Greg played Magdelena's. They have an open mic night every Wed. and Greg felt like that was the perfect atmosphere, not knowing how long he'd be able to play, given his fragile medical state. He ended up playing four songs, all of them from the upcoming, "Sister's Big Brothers" Project. He opened the short but sweet 15-minute set with Only You, the first time that one had been played in public, it being the latest song he'd written. He followed with the instrumental Tune It Up! which [although this Song Dogs Classic hasn't been released yet] had been performed live since its composition in 1999.
Then he did Benden White by request.
Greg finished off with Back in my Life.
Then he left, being quite sore. Everyone was pleased to see him up and around and most agree that, for some odd reason, his vocal quality has changed for the better since his surgery, not that open heart surgery SHOULD have any effect one way or another.

Greg's glad to be alive and thanks you all for your support and prayers.

On the frigid morning of February 4, 2009, Greg Robertson presented himself to the able hands of cardiac surgeon, Alonso Collar and a team of fifteen or twenty assistants, nurses, anesthesiologists and such like. They first gave him a big shot of morphine in the butt because they had to have his calm understanding of what the procedure would entail. So with the morphine, statements like ,"Ok ,first we're gonna saw your breast bone in half with a power saw. . . you ok with that?" met very positive responses. Yeah, he was cool with that. Then, since they are honest folk, they did exactly what they told him they would do: They cut his breastbone down the middle with a power saw, opened up his ribcage like a pair of barroom doors in an old western movie, and cut into the tissue of his heart, excising the old, bad, only two-thirds there valve, replacing it with a new valve, specially grown for the occasion from bovine tissue and stapled, wired and glued him back up. . . Only to cut back into him to find where he was bleeding from and to try to stop it! They did. And Greg, content in the arms of Morpheus (figuratively and literally!) dozed on.

When he was aroused from his 'slumber' he found himself attached to all sorts of medical apparatus attached to him to keep him alive. Various systems within his body had to be shut down for the operation and, one by one, these devices were detatchd from him. First the breathing tube was removed, then the repirator itself was no longer needed (though he kept the oxygen for a day or so). Then his pace maker wires were cut and his discharge tubes removed. The only post-operative complication came three days after the surgery. Since he'd had one complete blood transfusion during the surgery, he wasn't transfused when they went back in to fix the arterial bleeding.. So he just ran a bit anaemic. But that night it caught up with him and you can see from the heart monitor read out that he kept, he was quite irregular for a while. But they balanced off his electrolytes and gave him a bag of blood and he's been fine.

For six weeks he must put no more than 5 lbs pressure, pushing or lifting for each arm. This gives the breastbone a chance to mend properly. After this he'll have to undergo 4 to 6 months of cardiac rehabilitation. But he is well enough to play and will soon begin branching out, doing a few small clubs and bars between Lansing and Flint and gradually get his strength back.

it was so funny ...
there was no concert ...
it was the name of their first project :
Live from Denver Colorado, it's the Song Dogs !
but everybody thought the cover to the album was an add for a concert that 12,000 people or more showed up to ... but the band didn't show up.
it wasn't a concert, it was just the name of the group in the beginning.
we thought it was really funny.

we shortened our name to just Song Dogs for the 2nd Album - which pretty much no one bought cause they were all really mad that we didn't show up for the concert.

our third album was the classic Sambales (1989)
which has earned us 25 times what the first album made.

now - after being disbanded for over a decade - we are back together again, in the studio working on our 7th project.


come back here for more details.