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Slight Return

The longest-running band chapter of Brian's civilian life - and it started with a case of mistaken identity. He joined Slight Return as the bassist. One rehearsal later, they heard him play saxophone. The bass player was suddenly the sax player - and the original bassist, who had just quit, was called back in. Problem solved. Band upgraded.

He played regularly from 1997–2000 while living in San Diego, then continued coming down from Los Angeles for the bigger-money gigs after relocating - including booking the band for his own hometown crowd in Long Beach. A decade of setlists, stages, and a band with two distinct modes: the formal wedding act and the anything-goes bar and party version.

The setlist was pure classic rock - the Stones, the Beatles, the Pretenders, Tom Petty, Chicago, Van Morrison, Springsteen. All the crowd-pleasers. All the reliable floor-fillers. It was a solid second income and the crowds loved it. But for Brian, the honest truth is that it became musically unfulfilling fairly quickly - it started feeling like an obligation more than a passion. He wanted to quit more than a few times. It was mostly fun, so he stayed.

What kept him there? Keyboard player Bob Adams - who had a way of dragging Brian back in every time he was ready to walk. A decade is a long time for something you weren't sure you wanted. But the gigs were real, the band was good, and apparently Bob was very persuasive.

"I'd played exactly one gig with them when we took these professional band photos. I had no idea I was in for the long haul at that point." - Brian Grace

By 2004, Brian was living in Long Beach - but he booked his San Diego band back up the coast to play his own Long Beach hometown. The crowd already knew him. That tends to happen when you're a local musician who's been on the scene for years.

Fresh off a semester at Berklee College of Music in 1990, Brian formed Cosmic Fire - a name lifted from Todd Rundgren's A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, the ambitious closing suite on Side 2 of his 1975 Initiation album. For their debut gig at Grantsville Days - a small-town summer celebration in Brian's hometown of Grantsville, MD (pop. 550) - the setlist mixed Brian's own originals with Rundgren covers, including The Inside Looking Out, The End of Summer, Addicted to Love, and Couldn't I Just Tell You.

June in Western Maryland: freezing cold, roughly 40 degrees. Cosmic Fire lasted only a handful of gigs that summer before Brian transitioned into the Porcupines, trading his post-Berklee rock ambitions for some hippie sax work in the Maryland hills.

11:11 was a quasi-hippie SF band that played fusion in the vein of Billy Cobham, Santana and the Grateful Dead which was more than enough to get Brian's attention. He liked the guys, liked their strange smart vibe, and liked the music. There was just one small problem: Brian was still in the Army Band at the Presidio, which meant a mandatory military buzz cut - and in San Francisco in 1994, that wasn't exactly a look that blended in with the tie-dye crowd.

The tension wasn't about the music - they loved his playing. It was strictly about appearances. So Brian did what any reasonable person would do: he went out and bought a wig. A huge, curly, brown, heavy-metal-thick late 1980's era rocker wig. He showed up to rehearsal one day completely unrecognizable and absolutely ridiculous-looking - but hey, he just wanted to fit in. The band's reaction was reportedly priceless.

He played one real show with 11:11 - at the legendary Hotel Utah in San Francisco. People were into it. Brian was having a blast. Shortly after, guitarist Tom pulled him aside and fired him. Nothing personal, he said. The wig, however, survived - Brian kept it and wore it to several Halloweens over the years that followed.

Tim Dawe was a hippie-folkie physics professor at City College of San Francisco with a lot of character and a healthy anti-authority streak - two qualities that were more than enough to keep Brian around for a few months of gigs around the city and a studio album session in early 1995. Brian played bass, branching out from his usual guitar and sax work.

The deeper connection: Tim Dawe created the Penrod album, released on Frank Zappa's Straight Records label. Zappa - a one-time San Diegan - connects to Brian indirectly through Chad Wackerman, Zappa's longtime drummer and a key figure in Brian's musical orbit. Six degrees of rock and roll.

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Solo Live Gigs

Somewhere in the hundreds of gigs played over the years, Brian carved out a parallel solo life as a live saxophonist. Private parties, formal engagements, VA Nursing Award ceremonies, corporate law firm events - most notably a long run of solo gigs at the prestigious Long Beach firm of Keesal, Young and Logan. No band, no rhythm section waiting for a cue. Just Brian, the sax, and a room full of people who didn't necessarily know what they were about to hear.

The format was his own invention: play live over his original recordings - CD tracks with the sax removed - so the rhythm section was already there, grooving, and Brian played on top live. Then mix in jazz standards: Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Miles Davis, Coltrane. All the stuff he really loved. All the music that made him a musician in the first place.

"I must say - I actualy got more positive reactions from my own music than I did with the standards. That always gave me hope. But that was then, and this is now. Time to reflect and let go."

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Playing with the Big Boys

On September 2, 2008, Todd Rundgren was debuting his album Arena live from start to finish before its official release - an intimate, one-off event for the Rundgren faithful at the Celebrity Club in downtown Las Vegas. Brian was there as a fan. An uberfan, really. With his tenor saxophone waiting in the trunk of his rental car like a small, stubborn piece of hope.

A few months earlier, Brian had celebrated Todd's 60th birthday in Kauai - about 200 friends and family at his newly built house. He had met him, talked with him, spent time in the orbit of the artist whose music had shaped so much of his own life. To Brian, Todd Rundgren has always been more than a rock star. He was a muse. One of his deepest musical inspirations.

That night in Las Vegas, Brian started asking around Todd's camp - carefully, nervously. At first, the answer was no, which he completely understood. The stage is sacred. But thanks to a few people who remembered him from Kauai, including Michele, Todd's wife, the door slowly cracked open.

On Stage

From stage left - Brian in position, sax up, inside the music with Todd.

Todd Watches the Solo

Todd looking on as Brian solos on Pissin'. The key was brutal - concert B major, C# major on tenor. The crowd went wild.

The Announcement

"Give it on up…tell 'em who you are!" Todd leaned into the mic and handed Brian the moment.

About an hour before showtime, Brian ran to the rental car, grabbed his saxophone, and set it by the stage - still unsure when or even if the moment would actually happen. Then, halfway through the set, the call came from Todd himself. The song was "Pissin'."

He learned the melody quickly, listening to Todd's guitar and finding his way into the song. For the first minute, he could barely hear himself in the monitors. Then the sound opened up. And suddenly he was there - inside the music, standing beside his favorite living rock star. And playing music with him.

When Todd gave him room for a solo, Brian stepped into it. The key was brutal - but somehow he found the path. The solo rose, and the crowd went wild. In that instant, he was not just the uberfan at the edge of the stage. He was a musician inside the dream.

After the Show

Greg Hawkes - The Cars

Keyboardist of The Cars, at the Todd afterparty. By 2007, Todd had stepped in for Rik Ocasek as frontman of The New Cars - thus Hawkes in the room. One album, one wild lineup.

Michele Rundgren

With Michele Rundgren - the person who went backstage and came back with the words that changed the night.

Lisa On Stage

Wife Lisa joins Brian on the stage after the show. The rental car saxophone had delivered.

Todd & Brian

Post-show photo with Todd. The uberfan and the muse - same frame, same night.

With Rachel

Part of the Rundgren faithful who made the night happen.

Denny Laine - Wings / Moody Blues

Founding member of The Moody Blues and Paul McCartney's Wings. The night before (Aug 29), Brian had caught Denny's show A Walk Down Abbey Road at Texas Station. Met him at the Todd afterparty the next day.

Superfan Anna

With superfan Anna - the Rundgren community that made this night possible.

Prairie Prince - Todd's Drummer / The Tubes

That's Prairie Prince - Todd Rundgren's drummer, and also the legendary stickman for The Tubes. A serious player in a room full of them.

At the end, Todd gave Brian a look of approval, then leaned into the mic: "Give it on up… tell 'em who you are!" Brian told the crowd he was Brian Grace from Long Beach, California, thanked Todd, and tried to take in the impossible fact that a lifelong musical dream had just happened in real time.

His friends call these moments “The Brian Grace hookup” - that strange and beautiful current where random, unique, wonderful things somehow happen. This was the ultimate one. In June 2008, he met and partied with his idol in Kauai. Three months later, he stood beside him in Las Vegas and played saxophone on his stage. A dream truly goes on forever.

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Satisfaction

After the Slight Return decade wound down, Brian landed in a very different kind of band - Satisfaction, a Rolling Stones tribute act based out of Newport Beach. A new instrument front-and-center: keyboards, with occasional sax duties and vocal contributions alongside. A different creative mode entirely from the cover band years, but the Stones catalog demands a certain kind of committed performance - and Brian delivered it.

The Satisfaction chapter ran through 2007–2008. Photos and live video from those gigs are coming soon.

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The Hard Cuts

A more recent band chapter in Brian's performing life - The Hard Cuts, an R&B and soul cover band he was part of briefly in 2015. Back in the pocket, back on sax, back doing what he does best: playing live with a band that grooves. Photos and live video from the Hard Cuts exist and are coming to this page.

The Hard Cuts represent the bookend - the last band chapter before Brian's focus shifted fully to his own studio work, his solo recordings, and the catalog you now hear on Explorations, Re‑Sounding, and beyond. A few passable video clips also exist and may appear on the video page.

Watch Live Video →

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Live on Video

Sweetwater Inn · Mill Valley, CA · 1995

Two solo performances at the legendary Sweetwater Inn in Mill Valley - just Brian, an acoustic guitar, and a musician on a one‑of‑a‑kind percussion instrument. Songs from the Early Rock Daze (1987‑1992) era, fully improvised. Raw, intimate, no undo button.

The Live Side of Brian Grace

The studio catalog - Explorations, Re‑Sounding, Hodgepodge Jazz Garage, and beyond - tells one side of the story. But Brian Grace has always been a live musician first: the saxophonist who finds the pocket in any groove, the guitarist who reads a room instantly, the bass player who shows up and serves the song.

Seven years in the Army Band. Six months on a national Soldier Show tour. Playing for a sitting President. Soloing on stage with Todd Rundgren in Las Vegas. Cosmic Fire on a cold June night in Grantsville. The Porcupines playing Dead songs in a Maryland bar. The Marshall Brothers in Baltimore with a mullet to match. A fusion band in SF that fired him for his haircut - the wig that survived several Halloweens. A hippie physics professor with a Zappa connection. A decade with Slight Return from San Diego to LA. Sweetwater Inn. The Rose Bowl. South Korea. This page is the counterbalance - the live side, the in‑the‑room side. More still coming - Brian has not ruled out playing live again; he's just looking for the right combination.