So said in August 1969 one David Rubinson, Fillmore Records head who had been a producer at Columbia Records, working with Big Brother, Mike Bloomfield, Moby Grape, The Chambers Brothers and Taj Mahal, and other groups ("if picasso" 1969).
It's a good line.
It especially caught my eye because, in sniffing around 12/12/73, I went to the Archive to check out the Dead show from that night. The show is not very good, especially for the period. But this particular fileset has the Atlanta soundcheck, lots of interesting little nuggets. There are far fewer soundcheck tapes out and about than there should be, if you ask me. The first track is identified as "Sleigh Ride" (wiki), and there is a bar of that. But at around 2:40 of that first track, Keith and Jerry work up a few turns with "Heart And Soul" composed by none other than, you guessed it, Hoagy Carmichael.
So let's consider this a marker to talk about Garcia (named after Jerome Kern), who in this period was working up a stunning version of Irving Berlin's "Russian Lullaby", playing show tunes, and a tie-in to Hoagy Carmichael, who twice, independently, crossed my radar on this day.
REFERENCE:
"if picasso fucks my wife i'll kick his ass," NOLA Express, August 29, 1969, pp. 8-9; apparently reprinted from Good Times.
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Reading Notes: Dupree 1974
 |
| Zoo World, January 31, 1974. "Cover photo captured by Mario Algaze the afternoon of a Leas Campbell presentation of the Grateful Dead at Curtis Hixon Hall in Tampa, Fla.", December 18 or 19, 1973. |
 |
| A clean-shaven Jerry Garcia in Tampa, Florida, December 18 or 19, 1973. Photograph by Mario Algaze, published in Zoo World, January 31, 1974, p. 12. |
Dupree, Tom. 1974. Grateful Dead: Hipper Than the Average
Corporation. Zoo World, January 31,
pp. 12-13.
The pictures are from Tampa. As the Thoughts On The Dead guy might say, Billy looks like he wants to
The article draws from December 12th in Atlanta, meetings and interviews with band members, a few expost reax to the show. As the title implies, the main topic of discussion is Grateful Dead Records, and business matters (this appears to have been an industry paper based in Nashville, I should probably know that).
p. 12
booking firm: Out Of Town Tours
Dead inspired travel agency Fly By Night
"Garcia's country group Old And In The Way"
Sparky And The Ass-Bites From Hell
Weir interview
Meeting in the Regency Hyatt House Hotel, not where band is
staying. Bob is there to sightsee the tony hotel's glass elevator, architectural
emanation of American opulence, on the side of a newspaper interview downtown. Pull-quote paints picture of a wine-snobby Bobby, which is partly true but
pretty unfair for a guy who has worked hard for fifty years despite probably
sitting on a pile of family money (the Atherton house he grew up in alone would
make quite an inheritance). In his seventies as I type this, tonight he's playing the second night of GD50 in Santa Clara.
Weir: the hippie thing was a good time, but we've moved on.
Record company: "the Dead organization picked a network
of conventional distribution firms" to get the Wake of the Flood into the stores.
p. 13
Rock Scully is current road manager – when did Cutler leave
the road?
Weir says they have reduced
their risk by having a less diversified portfolio than most record
companies. They don't have to pay for the 6 or 7 Donnie and the Doughnuts
records that lose money. They have just the 1 GD record, which they have some
idea can sell. "Any fears about the company's success in its initial
stages have been quieted: the album is about to go gold, with RIAA
certification expected to come in January, just about two months after
release" (Dupree 1974, 13).
"The Dead organization … is hoping the LP will provide capital
to bolster and expand other aspects of its operation" (Dupree 1974, 13).
Interesting – note that at this early stage, no mention of Round Records, Round
Reels, etc. I want to triangulate to when we get the first mention of the Round stable of shell corporations.
Ever the anti-businessmen, Rock and others say the album
kind of sucks! (Dupree 1974, 13).
"I like it," Garcia says of Wake of the Flood. "I thought the material was very good. And
there's no question that we were rushed on it. We did that to ourselves,
really, by leaving ourselves too short off time. But, considering, I think it
turned out pretty well" (12/12/73, Dupree 1974, 13).
JG: "Phonograph records are misleading … First of all,
there's an artificial start and stop, the physical dimensions of an album. …
There's only, what, 22 minutes to an album side, and our thoughts are much
longer than that" (12/12/73, Dupree 1974, 13).
Odd moment 12/12/73 Garcia to say they now like big rooms
because of the WOS: "If we couldn't get off in them, we wouldn't play big
halls. But now we understand them about as well as we understood theaters when
we were playing them" (Dupree 1974, 13).
Rock 12/12/73 says the band will take five days off, play
the Florida gigs, then take a month or two off. "That's the whole band I'm
talking about. Garcia has never taken a moment off since he picked up his first
guitar. He is playing somewhere every night" (Dupree 1974, 13).
Keith speaks! 4th column, p. 13 "I'm sure
there are a lot of relatively honest ways of calling attention to yourself, as
long as it's not hype. We are not in a position to be ripped off. We can't
afford yet to give $3,000 to a local distributor and then have him forge
newspaper receipts on us. Where we're at right now is, we have people on the
inside we can trust. Now we're trying to find the people on the outside that we
can feel the same way about. But with this operation, we're gonna be honest if
we have to beat some ass."
"Or take it in the ass," Weir says. "We've
done both. We just are trying to take some of the sleaze out of it, and say
that things should be done in an above-board manner or not at all."
At the end of the interview, Keith "Godchaux drags on
his cigarette, then leans over purposefully: 'I'm not averse to hustling,
either'" (12/12/73, Dupree 1974, 13).
Saturday, June 27, 2015
GD at Gold Rush Festival, Lake Amador, CA, October 4, 1969 - CXL
"Tribe Pushes Gold," Berkeley Tribe, September 12-18, 1969, p. 13.
"Gold Rush is on - 24 hours of rock-folk-blues on the shores of Lake Amador, a private lake resort miles from anything. " Scheduled for October 4th, planned acts include Ike and Tina Turner, Sons of Champlin, Taj Mahal, Grateful Dead, John Fahey, Cold Blood, Albert Collins, Linn County, Al Wilson, Country Weather, Daybreak, Kaleidoscope and Southwind.
Things look to have been pretty far advanced, with lots of buy-in from various hip community forces, including the Tribe.
Since the Dead played Boston that night, they certainly weren't there. Did the event happen? Either way, I'll call it a canceled Dead gig.
Ron Polte on the Demise of the Carousel
Bottom line:
A bunch of hippies, a bunch of good people, got together and refused to run a business. And, I'm sorry, you've got to live in that world if you're gonna run a business.
On Rakow, in particular:
What Ron Rakow did to those people, he chained them to a machine that couldn't make money. It wasn't free. And the energy of all those good people in that building wasn't going anywhere, It was being trapped. Because he chained them to a financial problem, which was $9,000 a month rent, plus 20%. They couldn't have made it in 25 million years, man.And then when he was going down, and he was $66,000 in the hole and they were in danger of losing it, they ran to the community and said, "Let's get the community together, together we can save it." It was a bummer to lay on the community.In front, had Ron Rakow been honest with himself about business, he would have said, "$9,000 a month is too fucking high. And if we can't get this dance hall for $5,000, let's not take it. But instead, he took it. So it just went down the tubes.
On Graham taking over:
The only reason that Bill Graham got that dance hall was because they gave it to him. He would not have taken that dance hall. Ask Ralph Gleason, Ron Rakow, Bill Thompson, Rock Scully ... They said, "If we can't score it by Wednesday, if we can't make any deal with the owner to come up with the eight grand or a new ballroom manager, and a new organization, then you're free to go do whatever you want on Thursday. And that's what he did.
Ideas for the future:
Let's get together, do a benefit or a festival, and rent two places like the Matrix for a year, one at the south end and one at the north end of the city. And hire a couple of people to manage those 2 or 3 hundred capacity rooms, and put the young bands in there. … We should do that. Right now, there's a lot of wounds to heal and everybody is tired after the Carousel, so it's gonna take a little while. But it should come to pass.
The festival idea would manifest as the ill-fated Wild West Festival. At the same time, the Matrix really did take up some of the slack left by the Carousel (the Tuesday Night Jam morphed into the Monday Night Jam), and the Family Dog had the south end of town covered, albeit in a bigger room with the problems of rent and overhead and all that Polte identified as problematic for the prospective hip community musical operations. Indeed, Chet Helms never could make the Dog work, and he was out in less than a year.
REFERENCE:
Darlington, Sandy. 1968. Ron Polte: A Good Word for Bill Graham. San Francisco Express Times, July 31, 1968, p. 13.
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Zabriskie Point in Sausalito
In a flash, it was the possibility that Jerry might have gone and checked the movie out on some random night, maybe a little thrill at it, music and movies two great loves, and a little feeling of pride in the whole thing, not least the sweet little piece of playing he laid down at MGM Studios, a young man with a future. Or maybe it wasn't ... but it certainly might have been.
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Tonsorial Undertakings
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/24/8834319/wikipedias-most-edited-pages
Wonder why WWE wrestler the Undertaker is on the list? He may not be as historically significant as Hitler, but his fans' devotion more than makes up for it (sample edit note: "This is notable in that it was the first time he was seen as the Deadman without his long hair").
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Jerry on Jerry
http://www.kentucky.com/2015/06/23/3913570/book-of-jerry-garcia-interviews.html
A book of previously unreleased Jerry Garcia interviews is coming out this fall to mark the 20th anniversary of his death and the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Grateful Dead.Looking forward to it!
Hachette Book Group imprint Black Dog & Levanthal announced Tuesday that "Jerry on Jerry" will be published in November.
The book will be edited by Grateful Dead biographer Dennis McNally. The interviews range from Garcia's memories of childhood to his thoughts on drugs, songwriting and politics.
GD 6/23/74 Jai Alai Fronton
Play it loud.
https://archive.org/details/gd1974-06-23.akgd1000e.moore.berger.105755.flac24
Sard Thee Well, Jerry Moore.
Only Grateful Dead version of "Let It Rock".
Interviewed by Ken Wardell 6/8/74 backstage after the Dead's Oakland Coliseum show, Garcia talked about the tune, which he put on Compliments:
https://archive.org/details/gd1974-06-23.akgd1000e.moore.berger.105755.flac24
Sard Thee Well, Jerry Moore.
Only Grateful Dead version of "Let It Rock".
Interviewed by Ken Wardell 6/8/74 backstage after the Dead's Oakland Coliseum show, Garcia talked about the tune, which he put on Compliments:
One of the reasons that we did that song was that, in my opinion, that’s Chuck Berry’s most economical tune. It only has three short verses, and no catchy refrain that made a lot of his other songs popular. And it’s just a direct, hard, simple narrative. It says what it says, and it’s dynamic, and it’s all of that. It’s just a beautiful piece of rock n roll poetry, whatever that is. That’s what that song is to me. The lyrics to it are incredible.
Sunday, June 21, 2015
NRPS (formerly The Murdering Punks) - August 7, 1969
There has long been a tape identified as New Riders Of The Purple Sage (NRPS), Thursday, August 7, 1969 at the Matrix in San Francisco. Corry has found corroborating evidence for the dating, though of course the tape cannot be tied to the Ralph Gleason "On The Town" listing he found, which bills the band August 6-9.
Matt Smith has recently undertaken a great high end transfer of Will Boswell's tape of this show, somewhere (but not too far) downstream from Matrix proprietor Peter Kafer's copy.
What an opportunity! We get to hear more or less the first gig of the New Riders an sich (Corry, see link above). Marmaduke jokes that they formerly called themselves the Murdering Punks, and they certainly murdilize a few arrangements here in what sounds for all the world like a public rehearsal. Thanks to everyone involved in creating a world in which we can hear this stuff.
My notes aren't very extensive, so let me just drop a few markers.
1) Proto-New Riders. Fascinating, exceptionally sloppy stuff.
2) The tape distorts throughout, especially on the pedal steel.
3) "Kaw-Liga" is a great freaking song. See also 7/30/70, another Thursday at the Matrix.
4) Garcia's tone on the pedal steel is unlike any other I hear him achieving. I doubt he's technically very proficient, but the soaring sound of the instrument grabs you right in the lonely spot more than a few times.
5) This copy is missing a second iteration of "Last Lonely Eagle" - see my notes, which conclude that it probably was played in both sets, since the second LLE segues over continuous tape into the show-closing "Six Days On The Road". More generally, I suspect that this reel #1 and reel #3, with a reel #2 MIA from public circulation.
LISTENING NOTES
New Riders of the Purple Sage
Matrix
3138 Fillmore Street
San Francisco, CA 94123
August 7, 1969 (Thursday)
70 min PNW flac2496 shnid-133326
--15 tracks, 69:53)--
--set I (10 tracks, 43:04)--
t01. [0:27] Kaw-Liga -4:28 [0:14]
t02. If You Hear Me When I'm Leavin'
t03. tuning (1) [1:25]
t04. Superman [3:42] [0:36]
t05. Mama Tried [2:25] [0:02] % [0:11]
t06. Games People Play [5:53] [0:21]
t07. Last Lonely Eagle [5:24] [0:01] % [0:06]
t08. Truck Drivin' Man [3:09] [0:05]
t09. Me And My Uncle [3:30] (2) -4:07
t10. Delilah [3:47] (4) % pre-set II [-0:05]
--set II (5 tracks, 26:48, incomplete)
t11. Long Black Veil [5:44] % [0:06]
t12. All I Ever Wanted [8:02] [0:10]
t13. Henry [3:35] % [0:10]
t14. Don't Take Any Chances [5:21] [0:03]
[MISSING: Last Lonely Eagle ->]
t15. Six Days On The Road (5) [3:30] [0:08]
! ACT1: New Riders Of The Purple Sage
! lineup: John Dawson - rhythm guitar, vocals;
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - pedal steel guitar;
! lineup: David Nelson - lead guitar, vocals;
! lineup: Bob Matthews - bass;
! lineup: Mickey Hart - drums.
JGMF:
! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [m:ss] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the "real" time of the event. So, a timing of [m:ss] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.
! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19690807-01
! JGC: http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1969-08-07-the-matrix-san-francisco-ca/
! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/133325 (PNW flac16); http://etreedb.org/shn/133326 (PNW flac24)
! map: https://goo.gl/maps/htd1l
! venue: http://www.chickenonaunicycle.com/Matrix%20Shows.htm
Matt Smith has recently undertaken a great high end transfer of Will Boswell's tape of this show, somewhere (but not too far) downstream from Matrix proprietor Peter Kafer's copy.
What an opportunity! We get to hear more or less the first gig of the New Riders an sich (Corry, see link above). Marmaduke jokes that they formerly called themselves the Murdering Punks, and they certainly murdilize a few arrangements here in what sounds for all the world like a public rehearsal. Thanks to everyone involved in creating a world in which we can hear this stuff.
My notes aren't very extensive, so let me just drop a few markers.
1) Proto-New Riders. Fascinating, exceptionally sloppy stuff.
2) The tape distorts throughout, especially on the pedal steel.
3) "Kaw-Liga" is a great freaking song. See also 7/30/70, another Thursday at the Matrix.
4) Garcia's tone on the pedal steel is unlike any other I hear him achieving. I doubt he's technically very proficient, but the soaring sound of the instrument grabs you right in the lonely spot more than a few times.
5) This copy is missing a second iteration of "Last Lonely Eagle" - see my notes, which conclude that it probably was played in both sets, since the second LLE segues over continuous tape into the show-closing "Six Days On The Road". More generally, I suspect that this reel #1 and reel #3, with a reel #2 MIA from public circulation.
LISTENING NOTES
New Riders of the Purple Sage
Matrix
3138 Fillmore Street
San Francisco, CA 94123
August 7, 1969 (Thursday)
70 min PNW flac2496 shnid-133326
--15 tracks, 69:53)--
--set I (10 tracks, 43:04)--
t01. [0:27] Kaw-Liga -4:28 [0:14]
t02. If You Hear Me When I'm Leavin'
t03. tuning (1) [1:25]
t04. Superman [3:42] [0:36]
t05. Mama Tried [2:25] [0:02] % [0:11]
t06. Games People Play [5:53] [0:21]
t07. Last Lonely Eagle [5:24] [0:01] % [0:06]
t08. Truck Drivin' Man [3:09] [0:05]
t09. Me And My Uncle [3:30] (2) -4:07
t10. Delilah [3:47] (4) % pre-set II [-0:05]
--set II (5 tracks, 26:48, incomplete)
t11. Long Black Veil [5:44] % [0:06]
t12. All I Ever Wanted [8:02] [0:10]
t13. Henry [3:35] % [0:10]
t14. Don't Take Any Chances [5:21] [0:03]
[MISSING: Last Lonely Eagle ->]
t15. Six Days On The Road (5) [3:30] [0:08]
! ACT1: New Riders Of The Purple Sage
! lineup: John Dawson - rhythm guitar, vocals;
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - pedal steel guitar;
! lineup: David Nelson - lead guitar, vocals;
! lineup: Bob Matthews - bass;
! lineup: Mickey Hart - drums.
JGMF:
! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [m:ss] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the "real" time of the event. So, a timing of [m:ss] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.
! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19690807-01
! JGC: http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1969-08-07-the-matrix-san-francisco-ca/
! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/133325 (PNW flac16); http://etreedb.org/shn/133326 (PNW flac24)
! map: https://goo.gl/maps/htd1l
! venue: http://www.chickenonaunicycle.com/Matrix%20Shows.htm
! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/08/matrix-3138-fillmore-san-francisco-ca.html
! seealso: Arnold, Corry. 2010. August 6-9, 1969 The Matrix, San Francisco New Riders Of The Purple Sage. Lost Live Dead, February 16, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/02/august-6-9-1969-matrix-san-francisco.html, consulted 6/21/2015.
! historical: The material is pretty primitive ... the official NRPS concert history at http://www.nrps.net/music/1969.html suggests that this is their 6th show, though that would include what are understood to be Garcia/Dawson duets on at least two occasions. They certainly seem to be trying to find their feet here, and it wouldn't surprise me if this were one of the very first full-band gigs.
! personnel: LIA (comments to this post): "That is absolutely not Phil on bass. He couldn't play this primitively in '69 if he tried. The bass player has a totally different sound & fingering than Phil - he only plays the root notes, crudely & repetitively. I say it's Bob Matthews, unless a two-fingered bass player steps up as candidate."
! setlist: I surmise that we have reel #1 (the set II material) and reel #3 (the end of set II and the show). Furthermore, other dubs of the Peter Kafer tape have a second version of "Last Lonely Eagle" in set II, segueing without tape discontinuity into "Six Days On The Road". I am guessing someone left it off because they thought it extraneous, what with repeats being nearly unheard of in the Garciaverse. But the band the song are brand new, the whole thing feels like an avowed rehearsal, and I would not be surprised to learn that they had tackled it in both sets.
! R: Recording Info: MR > R (Peter Kafer) > 7.5 ips reel (Will Boswell)
! R: Transfer info: Akai GX636 direct tape head output > Bottlehead tube tape pre pair Tesla tubes circa 1980 > Apogee Mini Me 24/96 > Apogee Mini DAC monitoring and mastering > FLAC. Mastered By Matt Smith, April 2015.
! R: seeder comments: Notable gain difference between songs.
! R: stunning SQ in terms of a representation of the source tape. The source tape is super bright and oversaturated, especially on the steel guitar, and the fileset faithfully captures all of that. (What else could it aim to do?)
! P: t01 What an incredible song. Not 100% together, but Hank Williams ... early 2 Garcia's pedal steel lead is just incredible - not the most gifted, but just in terms of the sound he is getting out of the instrument, trying to give acoustic form to that sound in his head.
! t03 (1) JD: "The name of this organization is the New Riders of the Purple Sage, formerly the Murdering Punks." A little later, after some stage chatter. "Oh ... I'm told there's a Murdering Punk left. There's still a murdering punk in the organization. We ain't sayin' ... for the protection of the audience. For the protection of the band, for that matter." Someone says "Let's do that 'Superman' song, JD into mic "the 'Superman' song".
! P: GPP is rather shambolic.
! R: t07 LLE tape warble 4:48, I think I hear some warbling after that.
! P: t08 TDM late 2 kind of falls out of key.
! P: t09 MAMU has that real drippy "Kaw-Liga" feel, very dark.
! t09 (2) "We're gonna play 'Delilah' and then we're gonna take a break for a couple of moments." Someone else: "Then come back and play some more."
! R: t10 more tape warble
! R: t10 (4) "Thank you. Right. //"
! P: t12 AIEW early 3 there is some very ethereal playing that reminds me of some of the bending that Garcia would do in latter-day versions of the Manhattans' "Shining Star" (youtube). Nelson is doing some real nice stuff, is that Nelson, or the steel? Wow, this is some amazing steel ethereality.
! P: t13 Henry mess up ending, but not bad overall, given the other songs.
! P: t14 DTC again there is some real ethereal stuff happening in the guitars.
! P: t15 SDOTR they don't know how to end it. These arrangements are checkered at best. This is a public rehearsal.
! t15 (5) "We're gonna make it home right now. Thank you very much."
! seealso: Arnold, Corry. 2010. August 6-9, 1969 The Matrix, San Francisco New Riders Of The Purple Sage. Lost Live Dead, February 16, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/02/august-6-9-1969-matrix-san-francisco.html, consulted 6/21/2015.
! historical: The material is pretty primitive ... the official NRPS concert history at http://www.nrps.net/music/1969.html suggests that this is their 6th show, though that would include what are understood to be Garcia/Dawson duets on at least two occasions. They certainly seem to be trying to find their feet here, and it wouldn't surprise me if this were one of the very first full-band gigs.
! personnel: LIA (comments to this post): "That is absolutely not Phil on bass. He couldn't play this primitively in '69 if he tried. The bass player has a totally different sound & fingering than Phil - he only plays the root notes, crudely & repetitively. I say it's Bob Matthews, unless a two-fingered bass player steps up as candidate."
! setlist: I surmise that we have reel #1 (the set II material) and reel #3 (the end of set II and the show). Furthermore, other dubs of the Peter Kafer tape have a second version of "Last Lonely Eagle" in set II, segueing without tape discontinuity into "Six Days On The Road". I am guessing someone left it off because they thought it extraneous, what with repeats being nearly unheard of in the Garciaverse. But the band the song are brand new, the whole thing feels like an avowed rehearsal, and I would not be surprised to learn that they had tackled it in both sets.
! R: Recording Info: MR > R (Peter Kafer) > 7.5 ips reel (Will Boswell)
! R: Transfer info: Akai GX636 direct tape head output > Bottlehead tube tape pre pair Tesla tubes circa 1980 > Apogee Mini Me 24/96 > Apogee Mini DAC monitoring and mastering > FLAC. Mastered By Matt Smith, April 2015.
! R: seeder comments: Notable gain difference between songs.
! R: stunning SQ in terms of a representation of the source tape. The source tape is super bright and oversaturated, especially on the steel guitar, and the fileset faithfully captures all of that. (What else could it aim to do?)
! P: t01 What an incredible song. Not 100% together, but Hank Williams ... early 2 Garcia's pedal steel lead is just incredible - not the most gifted, but just in terms of the sound he is getting out of the instrument, trying to give acoustic form to that sound in his head.
! t03 (1) JD: "The name of this organization is the New Riders of the Purple Sage, formerly the Murdering Punks." A little later, after some stage chatter. "Oh ... I'm told there's a Murdering Punk left. There's still a murdering punk in the organization. We ain't sayin' ... for the protection of the audience. For the protection of the band, for that matter." Someone says "Let's do that 'Superman' song, JD into mic "the 'Superman' song".
! P: GPP is rather shambolic.
! R: t07 LLE tape warble 4:48, I think I hear some warbling after that.
! P: t08 TDM late 2 kind of falls out of key.
! P: t09 MAMU has that real drippy "Kaw-Liga" feel, very dark.
! t09 (2) "We're gonna play 'Delilah' and then we're gonna take a break for a couple of moments." Someone else: "Then come back and play some more."
! R: t10 more tape warble
! R: t10 (4) "Thank you. Right. //"
! P: t12 AIEW early 3 there is some very ethereal playing that reminds me of some of the bending that Garcia would do in latter-day versions of the Manhattans' "Shining Star" (youtube). Nelson is doing some real nice stuff, is that Nelson, or the steel? Wow, this is some amazing steel ethereality.
! P: t13 Henry mess up ending, but not bad overall, given the other songs.
! P: t14 DTC again there is some real ethereal stuff happening in the guitars.
! P: t15 SDOTR they don't know how to end it. These arrangements are checkered at best. This is a public rehearsal.
! t15 (5) "We're gonna make it home right now. Thank you very much."
Friday, June 12, 2015
The Common: September 5-6-7 ish, 1969
 |
| Berkeley Tribe, August 8-14, 1969, p. 3. |
Regular readers will know that I have been chasing the idea of "Jerry and the Jeffersons" in my head for a good long while. It narrates the arc of Garcia's life as a process of gradual privatization. I started it years ago, have picked it up and put it down repeatedly, have kept adding to it, etc. It is stewing in my brain.
Annie's photo at the center of p. 3 of the August 8, 1969 Berkeley Tribe shows Jerry Garcia dressed as Bluto, standing and talking at a meeting of The Common, in the Family Dog On The Great Highway on the afternoon of Saturday, August 2, 1969. (This copy is a scan from my old photocopy, with all of my marginalia and stuff. Within a few years, this page will become accessible via the Independent Voices collection.)
I have a lot to say about this moment in time. I have a lot to say about The Common, though it's already very nicely trated in Michael Kramer's Republic of Rock. Kramer scooped me in using the Bluto photo - I had been holding back on it for the book, but he beat me to it. It's a great image, and he has good taste!
The idea of being scooped is a weird one that I don't want to get into. Needless to say, there are some really good bits that I am holding back for the book, some really great stuff. On the other hand, I am swimming in data, more stuff is coming out every day, and odds of really losing anything are pretty small.
Correspondingly, I wanted to drop this little nugget on you.
The great Good Times entertainment listings for Friday, September 5, 1969 in the prior day's issue list at Family Dog "Malachi, Rubber Duck (mime) and a jam with members of 3 groups we're not allowed to name. Lights by Temporary."
Verrryyyy innnnterresssssssting.
First, note Rubber Duck, which is the psychedlic mime-and-minstrelsy thing around Joe McCord (see here), sometimes involving TC and Garcia.
Second, more importantly, "a jam with members of 3 groups we're not allowed to name". I don't know why, exactly, they couldn't name the bands, nor at whose request. But I wonder where Mr. Garcia was, this Friday night?
Third, the reason we ask this is that it sheds light on the tapes made by Owsley Stanley ("Bear"), dated September 6, 1969, featuring the Jefferson Airplane at the Family Dog with Garcia, Mickey Hart, and others sitting in, and Sunday, September 7th, featuring Jorma and Joey Covington, Garcia possibly playing some drums (see Dick Latvala's cassette copy jcard below), and the lot of them playing a weird little set of drunken surf music at the Edge of the Western World.
Naturally, Corry is on the case. I can't really try to parse the specific dates of the specific materials, but I do think that the Good Times listing sheds new light on this event, especially in terms of my "Jerry and the Jeffersons" frame.
The guy who wrote the book which is to Airplane stuff as my listening notes are to Garcia stuff says that the jam on 9/6/69 is the "longest time of an Airplane improvisation, jam or song ever!" (Fenton 2007, 158). The Jeffersons played their asses off this night. Though the sonic journal bears some imperfections (sorry, couldn't resist), it has been featured as some sort of quasi-official release.
Annie's photo at the center of p. 3 of the August 8, 1969 Berkeley Tribe shows Jerry Garcia dressed as Bluto, standing and talking at a meeting of The Common, in the Family Dog On The Great Highway on the afternoon of Saturday, August 2, 1969. (This copy is a scan from my old photocopy, with all of my marginalia and stuff. Within a few years, this page will become accessible via the Independent Voices collection.)
I have a lot to say about this moment in time. I have a lot to say about The Common, though it's already very nicely trated in Michael Kramer's Republic of Rock. Kramer scooped me in using the Bluto photo - I had been holding back on it for the book, but he beat me to it. It's a great image, and he has good taste!
The idea of being scooped is a weird one that I don't want to get into. Needless to say, there are some really good bits that I am holding back for the book, some really great stuff. On the other hand, I am swimming in data, more stuff is coming out every day, and odds of really losing anything are pretty small.
Correspondingly, I wanted to drop this little nugget on you.
 |
| Good Times, September 4, 1969, p. 19. |
Verrryyyy innnnterresssssssting.
First, note Rubber Duck, which is the psychedlic mime-and-minstrelsy thing around Joe McCord (see here), sometimes involving TC and Garcia.
Second, more importantly, "a jam with members of 3 groups we're not allowed to name". I don't know why, exactly, they couldn't name the bands, nor at whose request. But I wonder where Mr. Garcia was, this Friday night?
Third, the reason we ask this is that it sheds light on the tapes made by Owsley Stanley ("Bear"), dated September 6, 1969, featuring the Jefferson Airplane at the Family Dog with Garcia, Mickey Hart, and others sitting in, and Sunday, September 7th, featuring Jorma and Joey Covington, Garcia possibly playing some drums (see Dick Latvala's cassette copy jcard below), and the lot of them playing a weird little set of drunken surf music at the Edge of the Western World.
 |
| Latvala! |
Naturally, Corry is on the case. I can't really try to parse the specific dates of the specific materials, but I do think that the Good Times listing sheds new light on this event, especially in terms of my "Jerry and the Jeffersons" frame.
The guy who wrote the book which is to Airplane stuff as my listening notes are to Garcia stuff says that the jam on 9/6/69 is the "longest time of an Airplane improvisation, jam or song ever!" (Fenton 2007, 158). The Jeffersons played their asses off this night. Though the sonic journal bears some imperfections (sorry, couldn't resist), it has been featured as some sort of quasi-official release.
 |
| The Family Dog Presents the Jefferson Airplane at the Family Dog Ballroom, Featuring Special Guest Jerry Garcia (Charly SNAP 293 CD, 2007SNAP 293 CD, 2007) |
Furthermore, the Jeffersons had never really been very close to Chet Helms, by appearances. I have generated some data (not ready for prime time) suggesting that these parties crossed professionally less than they should have, given the contexts in which they moved (compare JA to GD in this respect). The Jeffersons were more Bill Grahamers from the beginning, and the Dead were more Chet Helmsers. So the fact that the Airplane would play an unadvertised gig for Chet in September 1969 is noteworthy (LIA). This and the 2/4/70 "Night At The Family Dog" filmed session (see) are really the only two instances I can find of the Jeffersons doing something for Chester.
My big takeaway, though, is what this tells us about The Common, a very fragile little bloom that burst out momentarily and then faced the fate that things that live must.
REFERENCES:
Arnold, Corry. 2010. September 6-7, 1969 Family Dog At The Great Highway, San Francisco Jefferson Airplane/Grateful Dead. Lost Live Dead, January 30, 2010, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/01/september-6-7-1969-family-dog-at-great.html, last accessed 1/19/2012.
Fenton, Craig. 2007. Take Me To A Circus Tent: The Jefferson Airplane Flight Manual. West Conshohocken, PA: Infinity Publishing.
Johnson, Art. 1969a. Out on the Edge. Berkeley Tribe, August 8-14, 1969, pp. 3-4.
My big takeaway, though, is what this tells us about The Common, a very fragile little bloom that burst out momentarily and then faced the fate that things that live must.
REFERENCES:
Arnold, Corry. 2010. September 6-7, 1969 Family Dog At The Great Highway, San Francisco Jefferson Airplane/Grateful Dead. Lost Live Dead, January 30, 2010, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/01/september-6-7-1969-family-dog-at-great.html, last accessed 1/19/2012.
Fenton, Craig. 2007. Take Me To A Circus Tent: The Jefferson Airplane Flight Manual. West Conshohocken, PA: Infinity Publishing.
Johnson, Art. 1969a. Out on the Edge. Berkeley Tribe, August 8-14, 1969, pp. 3-4.
Say Hey
Dennis McNally recalls, April 12, 1993 at Candlestick Park, before Garcia, Bob Weir and Vince Welnick sing the National Anthem for the Giants' home opener:
I turn to Willie Mays, who is legendary for being cranky, and I said, “Mr. Mays, can I introduce you to Jerry Garcia? He’s going to be singing the National Anthem today.” And Willie says, “NO!” and then he yells at the other two guys [Giants greats Willie McCovey and Gaylord Perry], “Come on! We have to get to this alumni event. Let’s go.” And they go. And I turned to Jerry, and he was cracking up. What I realized with Jerry at that moment was that he was so fed up with people wanting something from him that the idea that somebody didn’t give a shit who he was absolutely made his day.
"Excerpted with permission from "Deadheads: Stories from Fellow
Artists, Friends & Followers of the Grateful Dead" by Linda Kelly.
Copyright 2015, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc."
Palmer, Tamara. 2015. New Edition of Old Grateful Dead Book
Revisits the Time Willie Mays Refused to Meet Jerry Garcia. NBC Bay Area, June 11, 2015, URL http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Book-Excerpt-The-Day-Willie-Mays-Refused-to-Meet-Jerry-Garcia-307013421.html.
h/t dm
Grateful Dead (1967)
I am listening to the Rhino remaster of this, and it sounds great. I don't revisit this record that often, but despite the autocritiques of everyone involved, to my ears it sounds totally vital.
Monday, June 08, 2015
So He Goes Nowhere
https://archive.org/details/gd1980-06-08.SonyECM250.walker-scotton.miller.88452.sbeok.flac16
This fileset is great - awesome tape by Joani Walker. It also includes a few great tracks from the Warren Zevon set and a post-show interview with Bob Weir. Here's an interesting little exchange, 24 minutes into the interview, or thereabouts.
This fileset is great - awesome tape by Joani Walker. It also includes a few great tracks from the Warren Zevon set and a post-show interview with Bob Weir. Here's an interesting little exchange, 24 minutes into the interview, or thereabouts.
Bob: "Garcia, who's really visible for miles ... he can't go anywhere. He gets absolutely no peace anywhere. So he goes nowhere. He stays with his friends, and that's about it."Weir sounds full of regret that this is Jerry's circumstance. I note that and note that this was Garcia's reality, part of the Burden of Being Jerry as observed by Bob, already by 1980.
Interviewer: "And people are still 'Captain Trips'ing him."
Bob: "Yeah."
Interviewer: "That must be, in a way, a kind of Hell, the times that that happens that he doesn't want it."
Weir: "Well, on the other hand he's sort of architected his life around that, and lives quite comfortably within the confines of the existence that he's more or less constructed for himself. He practices a lot, he writes. He hangs out with his close friends."
Saturday, June 06, 2015
Signpost
I have started trying to transcribe everything I need out of Signpost to a New Space (Garcia, Reich and Wenner 2003 [1972]). Terrible title on amazing material. It's going to be quite a process, don't hold your breath. I hope it doesn't takes as long as NRPS-Matrix-1970-07, "Jerry and the Jeffersons, part I", or some of my other tortured gems.
update: reading notes now posted, 5.5 months later.
update: reading notes now posted, 5.5 months later.
Friday, June 05, 2015
Grr ah. Grr ah. Grrr rrrr rrrr ah.
Introduction
The Stanford Daily is archived and searchable back to 1892. This has been up for a little while, but a recent dip of the toe suggests that either the optical character recognition (OCR) process by which scanned images become letters has been improved, or the searching has been improved, or something - because I found a bunch of interesting stuff, more Dead than Garcia related.
Big 'C'
So, why is the Daily Californian (http://archive.dailycal.org/) so woefully behind? Some affluent Deadhead Berkeley alum needs to step on up to the plate. I bet $100k could be matched up in various ways and could help whatever work is (hopefully) already underway to completion.
Go Bears (unless they are playing the Buffs, or the Huskies)!
Broader Point: Patrons of the Arts (and Letters, and Sciences)
Oh yeah, and in thinking about tagging this, I am creating a new tag called patrons-of-the-arts, to identify philanthropic opportunities that might be of interest to folks who might come across Jerry Garcia's Middle Finger. In various posts I have talked about the importance of affluent, interesting people providing philanthropic support for some of the institutions that we have called "public" - commonly provided goods the consumption of which is, public choice economists would say, "nonexcludable". This, of course, is the very idea of "open access" resources, as the Independent Voices repository plans to become from 2017.
In the US we used to provide for public goods through taxes. Somewhere along the line, questions one might have thought settled, as that we should all pony up to care for the young, infirm, and elderly, we should probably pay to educate all of the children independently of everything else - opened up again, and the answers have changed.
I credit California Proposition 13 (1978) for this, which phenomenologically correct, at least. If I recall correctly, 1978-1979 saw the loss of the hot lunch program at Burton School in Lafayette, along the old railroad line running in from the Delta and over the Oakland Hills to the Bay, now, in affluent suburbs, trails for the requisite fitness pursuits. More importantly to a third grader, the after school sports program was eliminated, though it was probably made up by terrorizing ten square miles on our Mongoose bikes (private goods, natch). Burton shut down after that year (as did a number of others across all the levels in the Lamorinda School District covering the towns of Lafayette, Moraga and Orinda) in a big old consolidation that sent us to the newly-christened Burton Valley Elementary (on the former twinned campus of Merriewood Elementary and Fairview Intermediate), where kids from all the the eliminated schools came for the first time, to the Merriewood kids' home turf. Many got their first dose of meaningful class and other socioeconomic difference in this encounter. Even through the crow don't fly, some kids from the Walnut Creek side of the hills were zoned in and had to drive up and down a few ridges to a rather different neighborhood, bringing all sorts of socioeconomic exotica with them, divorce, alcoholism, abuse, even some kids who didn't get A's and weren't already queuing up the Cal and Stanford applications. Hard times after Prop 13.
Elsewhere on the blog I have advanced the claim that great cities deserve great libraries. San Francisco Public Library and San Diego Public Library (SDPL), Salt Lake City, of a few I have visited, seem to have gotten some good support from their communities. The fundraising must be good in all of those places. Tip o' the cap. There is no more research efficient public space in the Garciaverse than sitting at a state of the art film scanner at the San Francisco Public Library. I am using it, but someone else paid for it. Thank you.
Anyway, educational institutions are in the same predicament, I am sure Cal could use the support. The Stanford Daily archives display individual donor names on returned search results. So one could probably curate around one's own years of attendance, for example. Very cool. The Californian may well have lots more stuff than we know and think for essential work around Berkeley and everything it has experienced and must, in some ways, represent. It'd be fun reading.
In Closing: The Hat
In closing/by way of reminder, here are a few needs that I have observed in my own research.
The Stanford Daily is archived and searchable back to 1892. This has been up for a little while, but a recent dip of the toe suggests that either the optical character recognition (OCR) process by which scanned images become letters has been improved, or the searching has been improved, or something - because I found a bunch of interesting stuff, more Dead than Garcia related.
Big 'C'
Golden Bear is ever watching;
Day by day he prowls,
And when he hears the tread
Of lowly Stanfurd red,
From his Lair he fiercely growls.
Day by day he prowls,
And when he hears the tread
Of lowly Stanfurd red,
From his Lair he fiercely growls.
So, why is the Daily Californian (http://archive.dailycal.org/) so woefully behind? Some affluent Deadhead Berkeley alum needs to step on up to the plate. I bet $100k could be matched up in various ways and could help whatever work is (hopefully) already underway to completion.
Go Bears (unless they are playing the Buffs, or the Huskies)!
Broader Point: Patrons of the Arts (and Letters, and Sciences)
Oh yeah, and in thinking about tagging this, I am creating a new tag called patrons-of-the-arts, to identify philanthropic opportunities that might be of interest to folks who might come across Jerry Garcia's Middle Finger. In various posts I have talked about the importance of affluent, interesting people providing philanthropic support for some of the institutions that we have called "public" - commonly provided goods the consumption of which is, public choice economists would say, "nonexcludable". This, of course, is the very idea of "open access" resources, as the Independent Voices repository plans to become from 2017.
In the US we used to provide for public goods through taxes. Somewhere along the line, questions one might have thought settled, as that we should all pony up to care for the young, infirm, and elderly, we should probably pay to educate all of the children independently of everything else - opened up again, and the answers have changed.
I credit California Proposition 13 (1978) for this, which phenomenologically correct, at least. If I recall correctly, 1978-1979 saw the loss of the hot lunch program at Burton School in Lafayette, along the old railroad line running in from the Delta and over the Oakland Hills to the Bay, now, in affluent suburbs, trails for the requisite fitness pursuits. More importantly to a third grader, the after school sports program was eliminated, though it was probably made up by terrorizing ten square miles on our Mongoose bikes (private goods, natch). Burton shut down after that year (as did a number of others across all the levels in the Lamorinda School District covering the towns of Lafayette, Moraga and Orinda) in a big old consolidation that sent us to the newly-christened Burton Valley Elementary (on the former twinned campus of Merriewood Elementary and Fairview Intermediate), where kids from all the the eliminated schools came for the first time, to the Merriewood kids' home turf. Many got their first dose of meaningful class and other socioeconomic difference in this encounter. Even through the crow don't fly, some kids from the Walnut Creek side of the hills were zoned in and had to drive up and down a few ridges to a rather different neighborhood, bringing all sorts of socioeconomic exotica with them, divorce, alcoholism, abuse, even some kids who didn't get A's and weren't already queuing up the Cal and Stanford applications. Hard times after Prop 13.
Elsewhere on the blog I have advanced the claim that great cities deserve great libraries. San Francisco Public Library and San Diego Public Library (SDPL), Salt Lake City, of a few I have visited, seem to have gotten some good support from their communities. The fundraising must be good in all of those places. Tip o' the cap. There is no more research efficient public space in the Garciaverse than sitting at a state of the art film scanner at the San Francisco Public Library. I am using it, but someone else paid for it. Thank you.
Anyway, educational institutions are in the same predicament, I am sure Cal could use the support. The Stanford Daily archives display individual donor names on returned search results. So one could probably curate around one's own years of attendance, for example. Very cool. The Californian may well have lots more stuff than we know and think for essential work around Berkeley and everything it has experienced and must, in some ways, represent. It'd be fun reading.
In Closing: The Hat
In closing/by way of reminder, here are a few needs that I have observed in my own research.
- New Englanders, including members of the Boston Area Deadheads Who Give A Shit Foundation (tagline: "Share The Wealth, Kids!"): Buy some great digital scanners for the Boston Public Library.
- Cal Bear alums: drop your battle ax on Stanford's head, and all that. I want to spin through the Daily Californian, and posterity will thank you!
- Anyone: the Grateful Dead Archive, Special Collections, Mchenry Library, UC Santa Cruz.
- The Independent Voices project to digitize and, by 2017, make open access a collection of underground newspapers. I don't know how this collection will relate to the Underground Press Collection microfilm - one hopes that IV will totally deprecate it - but it looks like a great project that will allow us to understand ourselves and our world better than ever.