tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18366371.post2741113065824312871..comments2024-03-15T18:58:45.318-06:00Comments on Jerry Garcia's Middle Finger: Garcia Talks Locally, Fall 1972Fate Musichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05648291938690043423noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18366371.post-2334255639520882162014-07-22T06:36:15.076-06:002014-07-22T06:36:15.076-06:00Cool. Sounds like ol' Jer was a little grumpy....Cool. Sounds like ol' Jer was a little grumpy.Fate Musichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05648291938690043423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18366371.post-60093737078706445282014-07-21T12:57:22.088-06:002014-07-21T12:57:22.088-06:00I have kind of an interesting factoid regarding th...I have kind of an interesting factoid regarding the 10/9/72 show. A bunch of us from UCSC went up for show, and sat in the balcony. It was my college roommate Tim's birthday, so our mutual friend (and my recently former girlfriend) Debbie got it in her head to try to get the band to play happy birthday for him. During the break, Garcia was hanging out at a backstage area next to the stage (which was located on the long axis of Winterland at the time, and she went up to him and asked him if they would do so. His reply was "Lady, we can't play happy birthday for everyone who comes to our shows" or something to that effect. It is entirely possible that the Hayward reporter got access to him at or near the same time.cryptdevhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13944617292210813801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18366371.post-19145836798845589402014-07-01T23:35:36.157-06:002014-07-01T23:35:36.157-06:00The SF Chronicle would briefly interview Garcia no...The SF Chronicle would briefly interview Garcia now & then, but otherwise yes, he did talk more to the press elsewhere. (Which makes perfect statistical sense.) For mainstream publications, he was something of a niche figure, but in the underground press he was a person of major interest - if they could get to him. A lot of these early out-of-town interviews appear not so much for "commercial" reasons, but were printed in the wake of a Dead tour (often after the Dead had gone home), since that's when the writers had access to him.<br />In some periods he seems to have generally refused interviews, or accepted based on who wanted it; at other times he made himself more available. (Standard practice.) For instance, in the Europe '72 jaunt he did quite a lot of "publicity" interviews with various European publications - after he got back home, very little. <br />Of course, the giant Rolling Stone interview came out at the start of the year. That should probably be considered "local" media in Garcia's terms, though it was read everywhere. <br /><br />It's also interesting to note how Garcia can vary his replies depending on how close he feels to the interviewer - that is, whether they're "straight" or asking boring questions, or if they share his mindset. It was possible for an obscure New York indie zine to get much better responses from him than a local reporter, depending on who they were... So perhaps the level of comfort he felt with individuals outweighed the difference between "local" and "elsewhere" - it was possible to meet people "from where he's from" anywhere. And I would venture that the level of interview "commercialization" was just as prevalent in local chats as out of town, perhaps more so.<br /><br />Anyway. It is something of a shock to see that he considered the Berkeley shows not very good. No doubt if they had asked about Veneta, he would have said something like, "Oh, we were out of tune, it was too hot..." One has to wonder which shows he did think were good! (He admitted to Rolling Stone after the 5/4/72 Paris show, "We played peachy." But it's rare to hear that kind of thing from him; typically just disparagement.)<br />Usually Garcia would consider four nights in one venue to be ideal for the Dead; it's the kind of setting he often favored in interviews. But it's a rather different prospect to say that even four or five shows were just a "warmup" and the Dead wouldn't play well until they were out on tour! <br />Perhaps Garcia himself couldn't pinpoint why the Dead's "home" shows were often more subdued affairs...Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.com