When Work is Play Time: The Loren Gardner Band Makes its Mark at the Loading Dock

Loren Brad Gardner has every musician’s dream come true: a team of crack players who can change keys at the drop of a quarter note in his Loren Gardner Band as well as a steady gig at one of Northern Michigan’s premier nightspots.
Guaranteed.
The Loren Gardner Band plays dance-friendly funk, jazz and pop every Tuesday at the Loading Dock in Traverse City, where Gardner is the manager/partner. It’s the perfect marriage of a bar and a band.
“We don’t get paid on Tuesdays, we just play,” he says. “That’s our rehearsal and we don’t charge a cover at the door. It’s a win-win situation for everyone because we’re fortunate to be able to have a place to play, and as a bar owner, I have someone willing to play.”
Gardner says the band grew out of improvisational jams at the Loading Dock and has evolved over the past year.
“The band was born on stage here with people getting up and playing off the cuff,” he recalls. “I’d play sax over the top of whatever we were playing.”
A year of rehearsal/performances has allowed the band to mature under stage conditions with Kurt Bowman on lead guitar, Nesta and Conan on percussion, John Lindenau on drums, Bill Balderach on lead rhythm guitar and Arom Wilinski on bass. Local rapper C-Note also frequently stands in, while Gardner switches off on guitar, sax, trumpet and vocals.

A LIFE IN MUSIC
Gardner, 35, has spent most of his life in music. A 1987 graduate of TC Senior High, he attended Interlochen Arts Academy in 1985-’86 as well as a number of summers at the music camp. “I studied everything from violin to trumpet and voice,” he says.
He went on to pursue a major in music at Western Michigan University, studying classical voice and trumpet. As a rock/funk musician today, Gardner brings a background that includes the study of music theory, opera, orchestra and choir.
A chance encounter with a saxophone gave him a musical change in direction.
“I had been playing piano and violin since the first grade and was studying trumpet in college when I started playing saxophone,” he recalls. “A friend from across the hall at our dorm lent me his sax and I really, really liked it. From then on, I adopted it as my main ride.”
Gardner hit the road after college, winding up in an administrative post at the Pasadena Playhouse outside Los Angeles. There, he got a glimpse of show business at the top, with actors such as Christian Slater, Stacey Keach, Mike Brady and Dustin Hoffman practicing their stagecraft inbetween film and television gigs.

BACK HOME
“Eventually I left California with a bunch of friends, playing music, making jewelry and doing hair wraps from town to town -- just being hippies,” Gardner says. “We went to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras and Jazz Festival and then came back here to Northern Michigan for a couple of weeks and all of my friends from California just fell in love with the place.”
An unexpected encounter on the road home led to his membership in The Dopes, considered by many to be the best alternative rock band ever to come out of Northern Michigan.
“On our way back up to Traverse City my friends and I went to a Grateful Dead concert at the Palace,” he recalls. “At the time, I would carry a soprano sax everywhere I went just to jam, and I started playing at this drum circle in the parking lot.”
As luck would have it, Travis Harrett, drummer for The Dopes, was playing in the drum circle and the two made a connection. Gardner started playing sax and keyboards informally with the band and became a full-fledged member about six months later. He ended up touring with the The Dopes through the western states and all over Michigan as well as their weekly Petoskey gig. Today, his band covers some popular Dopes songs, including “The Man” and “Flowerland.”

THE LOADING DOCK
While in California, Gardner had worked the L.A. bar scene along with his Playhouse job. That experience led to a position at Union Street Station in TC for several years. Eventually, Gardner became partners with Ryan and Ted McManus of what was then J.R.’s Warehouse, who were looking for a new direction. “They asked if I’d like to partner up at the end of the J.R. days, and I thought it was a good idea, but the name of the business and the inside had to change, so we started the Loading Dock.”
Gardner became chief financial officer and general manager of the Loading Dock, which has gone through an extensive remodeling over the past few years. Today, there’s a sequestered lounge with pool tables and sofas in the back of the nightclub, along with an upgraded stage and seating out front.
The Loren Gardner Band grew out of sessions on off nights and open mics, with several of the band members holding down jobs as bartenders at the Loading Dock.
The band plays a mix of original tunes, improv jams and a motley crew of covers. “We don’t do covers to rote; we do them our own way,” Gardner says. “Everything from The Who to Bill Withers, Prince, Lionel Ritchie and Johnny Cash. We’re playing everything from funk to country, but with our own twist on it.”
The band is also dabbling more in rap, thanks to the efforts of C-Note, who always gets a jump out of the audience to the dance floor. And they’re doing in-house live recordings, capturing the band at its improvisational best. Once a CD is produced, Gardner plans to shop it around to friends in the music industry.

LOOKING AHEAD
Considering the mysterious trends of the music industry, which seems to be merging such diverse genres as country and hip-hop at present, Gardner says he doesn’t know where his band will end up. But now that their sound has gelled, they’re starting to quest out to venues from Bellaire to Detroit.
“Fortunately, I’ve got friends from other bands and in the bar business that allows us to get out and play other places without having to go through the normal process of submitting a promo pack and getting in line,” he says. “We’re going to do more playing out, concentrating on tightening up our sound. We’ve got enough material to play two shows without repeating anything right now, and we want to start traveling around.”
In the meantime, you can catch the Loren Gardner Band in its creative crucible every Tuesday at 10 p.m., with a stage full of players who are obviously high on performing.
“It’s like the difference between fishing for fun and fishing for food,” Gardner says. “We’re playing for fun and not out of necessity because we have to. It’s a labor of love for me, all in the name of having a good time and getting better.”
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