the stage with artists like Jimi Hendrix, The Allman Brothers, Los Lobos, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Sam Bush, Elvis Costello, Paul Butterfield, Michael Bloomfield, Levon Helm, the Grateful Dead, David Crosby, and Carlos Santana among others. Sears' solo CDs include Watchfire with guests Jerry Garcia, Babatunde Olatunji, David Grisman, Mickey Hart, Mimi Farina, and Holly Near. Along with Jeannette, who wrote the majority of the album's lyrics, Sears became involved with human rights issues in Central America during the 1980s, and led a highly successful radio drive to raise food and clothing for refugees from the civil wars of Guatemala and El Salvador sheltering in the bay area. They formed a non-profit video production company called "Watchfire Productions", with Mark Adler, Mary McCue Obrian, and Emmy Award-winning documentary film director Ray Telles, producing a music video about human rights abuses on the Mayas of Guatemala. The project was funded by Jerry Garcia and the Rex Foundation, the Tides Foundation, and Earth Island Institute. Hundreds of free copies of the video were distributed free of charge to human rights organisations around the world working to help stop the genocide in Central America. It was also aired extensively on the Canadian Much Music TV channel. During the mid-to-late 1980s, Sears and singer-songwriter, activist Mimi Farina, played at many benefits and protests in the San Francisco Bay Area in support of various Central American human rights, and environmental related causes. He once joined bluesman Nick Gravenites on the back of a flatbed truck, to drive down Market Street in San Francisco, playing the blues in support of nuclear disarmament, and protesting the US-backed injustices in Central America. They were joined by a hundred thousand other peace marchers. In 1988, a group of citizens from the Soviet Union marched across the US as a show of support for peace and the end of the Cold War between the two countries. On 16 July 1988, a concert was held in the Band Shell in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, organised by Ron Frazier and Bill McCarthy, who had hosted a previous event for the marchers in Los Angeles. Sears was asked to provide and organise the music for the event, so he invited his current band, ZERO, along with other musician friends including Jerry Garcia, whose band the Grateful Dead were performing later that night at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. Several Soviet rock bands, folk