Mike Wilhelm and Neon perform at a private party. Also shown are Mark Phillips, drums and Patrick Walker, bass. Photo by Mark Smith.

LOWER LAKE – Popular local duo Mike Wilhelm and Neon will play at 2 Goombas in Lower Lake's Tuscan Village on the Friday after Thanksgiving, Nov. 27, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

The deli and restaurant is located adjacent the post office on Main Street.

Internationally renowned 67-year-old guitarist/vocalist Mike Wilhelm has had a long and varied professional career starting in Los Angeles in the early '60s. In 1964 he was a founding member of the Charlatans, the first of the "psychedelic" San Francisco rock bands who started a movement that swept around the world.

He has played venues from L.A.'s Troubadour to San Francisco's Avalon, Fillmore, Winterland and Cow Palace to both the Bottom Line, New York City and the Bottom Line, Nagoya, Japan. In 1997, the Charlatans were invited to play at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and a video of that performance and accompanying interview are enshrined in the museum's archives.

A mannequin dressed in Wilhelm's Charlatans stage clothing is the centerpiece in the current exhibition entitled Something's Happening Here at San Francisco's Museum of Performance and Design in the War Memorial Building on Van Ness Ave. opposite the City Hall. The exhibition runs through August of next year.

Wilhelm has played in many well known venues in Europe including the Roundhouse, London; the Pavilion, Paris; the Paradiso, Amsterdam and (as a member of Flamin' Groovies) the largest of all, the 20,000 plus capacity Sportspalast in Berlin with headliners the Police. Lake County is indeed fortunate that Wilhelm decided to "retire" here in 1995.

Vocalist/percussionist Neon is blessed with a voice described by Wilhelm as "blue velvet." It is an apt description but it does not begin to capture the emotion she puts into her renditions of blues classics. To see and hear her perform is to become her fan. She has also had a long career and before deciding to settle in Lake County was lead singer with the well known Native American band the Troublemakers featuring harmonicist, actor and activist Gary Farmer.

The two have developed a musical chemistry that captivates the attention of the audience, a seamless melding of Wilhelm's unique fingerstyle guitar and barrelhouse baritone interwoven with Neon's beautiful, evocative voice and adept percussion rhythms plus their vocal riffs and harmonies which make their performances equal more than the sum of their parts. Their music runs the gamut from blues to Americana and folk to rock.

If you cannot make their Nov. 27 performance they will play again the following week on Dec. 4 at the same time and place. They will also appear on Monday, Dec. 21, with the Bottle Rock Blues & Rhythm Band at the Blue Wing Saloon & Cafe in Upper Lake from 6:30 p.m. until 9 p.m. on the occasion of Blue Wing proprietor Bernie Butcher's birthday.

For further information and live performance videos visit www.youtube.com/TheMonkeybeat or Google "Mike Wilhelm."

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Written by: Alexandria Johns

Published: 19 November 2009