On Spirit Wings
Boulder Creek Band ‘Medicine Road’ Heals Through Music
By Julie Horner
Pablo Eagle used to ride his motorcycle through the Santa Cruz Mountains regularly. For some reason one day he took his pickup. It was a beautiful day for riding, warm and dry, with no wind at all. A motorcyclist with a woman on the back passed him. “God, I wish I was on my bike,” he thought, just man and bike riding free. Suddenly a branch as big as a small tree landed right in front of him. It was almost like he’d had a spiritual vision. “I look up… It made me think about the drought…I’d seen it coming.” Another motorist stopped to help but wound up mostly watching. “All the adrenaline was in my body, and I just picked the damn thing up — I was holding it like ‘this’ in my arms — and I threw the log. Had I ridden my bike…it spooked me. Now I don’t ride so much.”
As singer/songwriter for Boulder Creek based band, Medicine Road, Pablo Eagle believes in healing through music. Joined by Jonathan (Skippy) Sherred on bass guitar and vocals); Doug Underhill on drums and background vocals; and Sean Woodward on lead guitar and background vocals; Medicine Road “spreads the love of life and healing into the wind so that brother wind will carry the healing tune all over the world.”
Primarily a guitar player and lyricist, Pablo Eagle pays homage to his Yaqui/Mayan roots by adding wooden flute to the Medicine Road sound. “When I picked up the flute, I was amazed I could play it…it was a natural thing.” They decided that the flute was going to rule. He remembers one show, “I was playing notes I didn’t know my flute could play. I was playing through my nose, through my throat, I was flying around…it was an out of body experience. People were coming out of the crannies…I don’t even know where these sounds were coming from. We blew that place away.”
The music is groovy psychedelic rock jam laced with a haunting Native American sound reminiscent of the music of R. Carlos Nakai. Medicine Road plays mostly original material that is centered on musical healing and positive energy. “We feel our music is good medicine for the heart, soul, and body. Praise for the beauty of nature.” Their song, Earth in the Key of A, is like envisioning a rainforest and bringing everyone into it. “I’ve been Medicine Road for a long time. I want to do it ‘til I die. We’re still a young band…we’ve reared our head around…we’re ready to take off. Our smoke signals are out there.”
The sound can be anything from psychedelic, country, hard rock, jazzy, and or folky, all in one show.
“Our goal is to heal with the music. Through the music and through the lyrics. We put out ideas of the pain of the problem – ‘this’ needs to be fixed.” It becomes a recycling of negative energy, he points out, turning it around into positive and “healing as you go. That’s what I do with the music. If we can’t heal ourselves, who can we heal?”
Pablo Eagle has been making music in Boulder Creek forever. He lived in a rented room at the Rainbow’s End coffee shop back when and remembers asking his landlord, “Are you sure you don’t mind if I play music? She said, ‘I love rock and roll and my husband’s deaf.’” He describes how he wrote, Boulder Creek Mama, a song that has become a Medicine Road anthem: “I wrote it 25 years ago at the Junction before it was a park. There was this beautiful young lady in a bikini…she was about to jump off a rock…I was inspired.” The girl who was Boulder Creek Mama worked at Johnnie’s. He asked her if she wanted to come see his band. She said no. He said, I wrote a song about you. She said she was flattered, but that was alright. He said, do you have a boyfriend? She said, yeah, kinda. He never saw her again but the song lives on. “We always end our shows with it because it drives everyone crazy, gets people dancing.”
Pablo’s grandfather used to dance and sing to the sun. Now Pablo Eagle and Medicine Road are part of Native American Heritage festivities at Foothill College. “I will always stand up for Native people. We just got Obama to call off the Keystone project. Now there’s the Dakota pipeline.” He feels he has an obligation to Native peoples…to stand up against those who are “always messing with indigenous people.” He has strong opinions about cutting down our redwoods trees too. “Everything is a catch-22. If it’s alive, it has a positive and a negative aspect…and there’s the grey area where we’re trying to bring people to the positive side.” He wants to give people a positive example through his music. “In Native American heritage, you have two types of people: Those who follow the red road, and those who follow the black road. Red road people have positive energy, they’re not putting people down, they’re building things. Those on the black road follow and engender negative extremes. We want to help the people in the grey area. Medicine Road is the healing road.”
Peace, Love, and Rock-n-Roll! Medicine Road is just an honest hard-working, loving, long-haired psychedelic hippy rock band.
On the Web: reverbnation.com/medicine
On Facebook: @medicine.road.band
Featured image: Doug Underhill, Skippy Sherred, Pablo Eagle, and Sean Woodward of Medicine Road
Read more about Santa Cruz local bands in the San Lorenzo Valley Post Music section.
Julie Horner is Co-Founder and Editor for the San Lorenzo Valley Post. Julie lives and works in Boulder Creek and is an active participant in the county's vibrant music scene. She loves the outdoors and is the go-to expert on Santa Cruz Mountains hiking trails.
