Medicine Dream will take the stage Nov. 21 at Wendy Williamson Auditorium to celebrate the international release of its new CD, "Mawio'mi." The musician you won't see onstage is blues guitarist K.C. Lafever, the man whose life and death made the dream a reality.

Four years ago in Oregon, after struggling with alcohol and drug abuse, 30-year-old Kenneth Carl Lafever fired a gun and ended his life. That gunshot echoed across the Pacific Northwest, into his Northern Cheyenne Nation homeland in Montana and through Alaska, stunning those who knew and loved him.

Paul Pike was one of many who gathered in his memory at Unity Church. He sang "True Friends," a song he composed for the services. "To lose someone to drugs and alcohol, it's a wake-up call," Pike said recently. "It's something that's been poisoning our culture for a long time. There comes a time when you just have to say no more." He met other mourners, among them, the intertribal Sleeping Lady Singers and Cea Anderson. With K.C.'s stepmother, Mary Lafever, Paul and Cea sang "Amazing Grace." The rest is Anchorage music history; one man served as catalyst for a unique collaboration.

A thread of this story winds back to Newfoundland, Canada, to the small city of Corner Brook. At age 4, Paul Pike began to play drums -- not Native drums but drum-set drums. And he became aware of a spiritual stirring.

Of mixed Mi'kmaq Indian, French and Irish descent, Paul was raised in a predominantly Catholic community. When his family got ready for church, he longed instead for the forest or the hills. "I felt closer to God there," he said.

He fished, hunted and picked berries in the woods around his home, practicing what Alaskans call subsistence. But he didn't learn, for example, the word Elimastlukwek, Mi'kmaq for Corner Brook. His family, like most Mi'kmaq families in the area, didn't acknowledge their Native culture.

Paul had dreams of making it in music. By 9, he was playing guitar, and at 14, he had gigs in bars. Then at 21, his Montreal band, Fear of Flying, got a gig at Chilkoot Charlie's in Anchorage.

Married by then to an Athabaskan woman from Northway, in 1990 he settled in Anchorage. During his brief marriage, he played heavy metal music in bars, a training ground for musicians that can turn into a trap, he said.

"I learned a lot about the loneliness that comes with alcohol," he said. "It's like being a fly on the wall and seeing things happening." Sometimes he'd talk to bar patrons about giving up alcohol. He began to feel like "a whale hunter working for Greenpeace."

After a few more years of the heavy-metal bar circuit, he quit writing songs. "I was composing music that wasn't real to me. I'd compose a song and, a week later, I was sick of it. It didn't speak to me."

Working in a local music store, he met K.C. Lafever. By then, Paul was going through an identity crisis. "My heart and soul said I'm Mi'kmaq, but every time I looked in the mirror, I saw the other mixtures. K.C. was a blue-eyed Indian as well. He helped me put that in perspective.

"North America is the only place where people count their blood quantum. It's not a culture club, it's a citizenship. He gave me the confidence and strength to move forward, to just be me."

Paul had an idea about mixing traditional powwow sounds with contemporary rock. Most people he talked to couldn't imagine it. But K.C. could. They talked about composing this new blend of Native music together. "Medicine Dream might have been more bluesy with K.C.," Paul said.

It was grief over K.C.'s death that gave life to the dream they had shared. "People who cared about sobriety and cared about K.C." came together. All except keyboardist John Field and drummer Dave Helzer have Native Alaskan or American Indian roots.

Drummer and vocalist Buz Daney is Choctaw; vocalist Cea Anderson is Aleut, Lakota and Swedish; lead guitarist George Newton is Aleut and Inupiat; bass player Ralph Sara is Yup'ik; and spoken word artist Paulette Moreno is Tlingit, Japanese and Mexican. Contemporary music with traditional drumming, chanting and vocals contribute to Medicine Dreams unique sound.

To honor their ancestors, Medicine Dream members are committed to sobriety. The group does not play in bars or anywhere alcohol is served. And they donate profits from their CDs to the prevention of suicide and alcohol abuse.

That's not as easy as it might sound. Most regular venues for music are in bars. And even an occasional beer can cause trouble, as one Medicine Dream member learned. At an Aces hockey game, he was spotted with a beer in his hand. A fan asked "Aren't you with Medicine Dream? Aren't you supposed to be sober?" That was his last beer.

Medicine Dream's band members have changed from time to time. Last year, a slightly different version of the group released their locally produced "Identity" CD. Paul remembers driving down the road with the radio on and hearing "blah blah blah" and then "from Medicine Dream."

"My heart just soared. This is what I've lived for." The song was "Lightning Flashes the Sky," written for K.C. the day before his Montana memorial service. It also appears on the new CD.

On a whim, he says, Paul sent "Identity" to two national record companies. Within days, they both showed interest. Last April, he signed a 7-year contract with Canyon Records in Phoenix. Now the CD is in the hands of worldwide distributors.

The journey from the dream to Medicine Dream has been short. Once again, near the anniversary of his friend's death, Paul will sing, "You had a gift, sometimes you had it all /When I stumbled in my darkness, you were there to catch my fall." It's a farewell to K.C. Lafever kept alive through music.

"We keep reaching out to people who may be in trouble," Paul said. Maybe Medicine Dream's music can help one person step off the path of self-destruction. "I like to think of it as a form of healing."

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