R.I.P. Erik Kleven, great bass player

Sorry this isn't about another Eastern Euro pop video.

Erik Kleven, a guy who was pretty much a local legend, a musician par excellence and a friendly, positive influence on the music scene here in Sacramento, died yesterday in a head-on collision that killed three other people. He was driving up Highway 16, what we locals call the Jackson Highway, through Rancho Murieta in his 1964 Volvo Amazon, most likely headed to a gig in Sutter Creek or Jackson. In the awful photo in our local daily, you can see his bass amp sitting on the pavement next to the trunk of his crushed car.

The last time I saw Erik play, he was providing the low end in Tony Passarell's free jazz ensemble at Old Ironsides, sitting there blowing through a wraparound Sousaphone tuba while saxophones squealed and squawked around him. He played with everybody, and was the most reliable provider of low-end sonics in the region. But I probably saw him appear the most times as the bass player in Anton Barbeau's old band, the Joy Boys.

I was at Anton's show at the Fox and Goose last night when the news hit. Former Joy Boy Creed Maggiora was playing drums, which made me remember Erik and Joy Boys guitarist Don Hawkins, who weren't there. Then Allyson and Kevin Seconds, who were playing in their band Ghetto Moments a block over at Old Ironsides, popped in to pass on what they'd heard, and because I was in the back booth next to the door, I guess I was one of the first in that club to hear about Erik's demise. Which is weird, because you're looking toward the stage and seeing people on it, and seeing people in the crowd, who are having a really good time, and you know that, in a matter of minutes, they will hear the same news you just heard, and they will feel that same wave of awfulness and sadness and incredulous sense of "What the fuck?" that you're experiencing at the moment.

Erik was the kind of quiet but ubiquitous presence who touched a lot of people in life, played a lot of great music, and is touching them now in death. I'm sorry if I'm getting all Sammy Maudlin here, but that's the way it is. R.I.P., Erik.