Sometimes, we cross paths with famous people, or in my case, with people whoe who would become famous. The summer after my freshmen year in college I lived in a small, affordable apartment with two other dudes behind the Safeway in east Davis. One was my buddy MI, who I befriended in 2nd grade and with whom I am still friends. Our other roommate that summer was another Davis kid named Josh Davis. I don’t recall how it is that Josh became one of our roommates, as he was a year younger than us and wasn’t part of our crew. As I compose this, I think the connection was that he also worked at Steve’s Place Pizza, which was the local pizza joint (owned by the father of a classmate) that many of my friends worked at at one time or another during the early 90s. Yeah, that’s it–he was a Steve’s Place co-worker!

MI and I lived with him that summer, which was a fateful summer for us because it the summer we became fully immersed in the world of the Grateful Dead, and all that that entailed. (Suffice to say, we didn’t get in to the Cal Expo shows that summer, but we did visit the parking lot.) Anyway, Josh was going in a very different direction. Keep in mind, this was 1990. Josh was getting in hip hop and had a show on KDVS the local college radio station. From there, after parting ways with him that summer, Josh eventually became a world renowned DJ with moniker DJ Shadow. Being an era before social media and the era I went down the Grateful Dead rabbit hole, I lost touch with Josh and didn’t realize he had become a succesful musician until the early 2010s, about 15 years ago. I remember that he as a pretty chill roommate and a good co-worker.

The reason I am sharing this story today is because I came across an article announcing that DJ Shadow is playing a concert this December with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London. Pretty cool!