Sister Double Happiness

Sister Double Happiness was an American blues-rock band from 1986 until 1995, formed in San Francisco, California. Its core members were Gary Floyd and Lynn Perko, who were both in the punk band the Dicks. Sister Double Happiness' music was an integration between deeply personal and spiritual themes plus the socialist stance of the Dicks, with a heavier blues influence. The band's original members also included ex-Offenders bassist Mike Donaldson (ex-MDC) from San Francisco, and guitarist Ben Cohen (ex-The Pop O Pies), Sister Double Happiness was one of San Francisco's most popular club bands of the late 1980's, continuing to record and tour through the mid '90s. They released their self titled debut on Greg Ginn's Sst Records in 1988, and Floyd subsequently went through a religious conversion to Hinduism. The band resumed activity in a couple years and signed to Reprise, released Heart and Mind, and toured soon after with Nirvana on their breakthrough Nevermind tour of large theaters. With a heroin problem hindering Donaldson's professionalism, the band brought in the much younger Jeff Palmer on bass. Despite a solid blues rock sound, major label backing, and Gary's booming soulful vocals, Sister Double Happiness never broke through commercially. The band soldiered on for a few more years as an indie act with stronger touring popularity in Europe, releasing material there via Sub Pop/Glitterhouse and two more albums in the US on Dutch East India and Glitterhouse a German affiliate of Sub Pop, 1993’s Uncut and 1994’s Horsey Water . A second guitarist Danny Roman was added and Miles Montalbano eventually replaced Palmer on bass. When the band's dwindling commercial prospects petered out, Gary Floyd formed The Gary Floyd Band and Black Kali Ma as well as performing at occasional Dicks reunion shows. A posthumous live acoustic collection of Sister Double Happiness surfaced in 1999 that was recorded 8 years earlier in San Francisco. The last line up of the band reformed sporadically for a few reunion shows in the early 2000's but the members stayed busy with other projects. Perko had joined the sucessful indie rock act Imperial Teen, and Cohen played with the less well known El Destroyo. Donaldson briefly rejoined MDC circa 2005 but passed away in the Netherlands in 2007. Roman played with Floyd in his blues based side projects. Montalbano busied himself as a video editor. After leaving SDH, bassist Jeff Palmer was a longtime member of The Mommyheads and did a brief stint with Sunny Day Real Estate.