Grateful Dead at New Monk, Berkeley, ca. June-July 1971

One night I went to hear Jerry play a gig with Merle [sic] Saunders at a small place in Berkeley and one by one, for 'no reason', the rest of the Dead showed up too, and eventually they got on the stage and started playing -- Charles Reich, Spring 1972 (Reich 2003 [1972], xv).

Assuming that it wasn't all a dream that Charles Reich dreamed, is this --Grateful Dead at New Monk, Berkeley-- a thing that we might locate more precisely in time? We have the socio and the geo, how about the chrono?

Below, I'll speculate, with a bit more justification (but properly still a romanticized view) that it was

I have dated, as best as I can, the Rolling Stone Interview (SSI) and the Stoned Sunday Rap (SSR), which puts us in the June-October timeframe for the former and either March 5, 12 or 19, 1972 for the latter. We are looking for a JGMS gig in a "small place in Berkeley" during each. It doesn't have to be one of the interview dates, per se. Reich was living at the Co-Op in Berkeley at this time, so he might have moseyed down to see Jerry and Merl on any random night.

Let me start by saying that if the Jerry-Merl gig was not billed, I can only guess at when it might have happened. This would have left no trace for me to find. I identify my favorite possibilities below.

If this substituted for a billed gig, I might have more to say. Let's go to the data.

RSI: June-October 1971


I provide below a list of Garcia playing small Berkeley places from June to October, 1971 - the first window. I have included New Riders gigs on the off-chance that Reich, writing in spring 1972 and probably still high from the Stoned Sunday Rap (SSR), crossed some wires. The Longbranch Saloon was a small place in Berkeley, but it was New Riders territory, and while Reich could have confused two of Jerry's very active side-gigs (NRPS and JGMS still working hard), I doubt it.

Figure xxx. Jerry Garcia at "a small place in Berkeley", late June - October 1971

That leaves  2119 University. Recall that Freddie Herrera first booked Garcia on Thanksgiving Eve, 1970 at the Keystone Korner in San Francisco, with the New Riders. They'd work together there another forty times into the summer of 1972. I don't know when Herrera took over 2119 University –there are booking patterns that would be detectable, I think, but I haven't quite parsed them—but in mid-1971 he was ramping the club up as the New Monk, which Garcia played eight times in two months (all pictured above). In early 1972 Freddie would rename it, simply, Keystone, transitioning it to his main club, and for the next dozen years (March 8, 1972 - March 22, 1984) Garcia could play the room, on current count, 216 times, his home away from home and the lifeblood of the Keystone business model.

JGMS at New Monk during this period runs June 4-5, June 26-27, or July 3-4. June 26 is known to have happened as Jerry and Merl, from an expost in the illustrious Hayward Daily Review (see here). July 3-4 would be right on the closing weekend of the Fillmore West - were members of the GD at these shows? If not, maybe a nice little gig in Berkeley would be fun, no spotlight on that side of the Bay, all eyes turned to the West.

Accordingly, assuming we are talking about the Dead playing what was billed as JGMS gig at the New Monk during the time that Charles Reich was around for the RSI, I can conclude "ca. June-July, 1971".

SSR: March 1972

If it was during the time of the SSR, things are a little easier: Sunday in March 1972 with Jerry in town could only be March 5, 12 or 19. Assuming Reich was in town for more than just a Stoned Sunday, the following JGMS Keystone gigs are all live candidates:

Wed March 8
Thurs March 9
Wed March 15
Thurs March 16

Like the New Monk dates, there is no tape of any of this, alas. All other things being equal, I'd say I favor a Wednesday night over a Thursday.

In Sum

Well, this is about the end of the line for this little mystery. When did the Dead play at "a small place" in Berkeley, in lieu of Garcia - Saunders, for Charlies Reich to witness, either during the RSI or the SSR periods?

If JGMS unbillbed:

• anytime ca. June-October 1971 or March 1-20, 1972.

If JGMS billed:

• June 3-4, 1971. This feels least likely to me.
• June 27, 1971. Possible, but it's a Saturday and no-one remembers?
• July 3-4, 1971. If they weren't at Fillmore West, totally possible.
• March 8-9, 1972.
• March 15-16, 1972.

Narrative Favorites:

Of all of these possibilities, here are my favorites, for narrative reasons:

• Sunday, 7/4/71: This would be fitting for our young Americans, who seemed to like playing on Independence Day, celebrate Jerry's independence as he heads to Heider's (with Bill Kreutzmann) to lay down Garcia.
• Sunday, 8/1/71: I like the idea of Sunday, August 1, 1971, four weeks after the 4th of July, a birthday party for the boy who just got his solo record in the can, followup to the prior year's party at the Lion's Share, at which the New Riders appear to have "headlined" over the acoustic Dead.
• Wednesday, 3/8/72: an otherwise quiet Wednesday, so few eyewitnesses, plus first time for Garcia at Keystone (per se).
• Wednesday, 3/15/72: Wednesday, plus celebrate Phil's birthday.

 Thoughts? Rare for something so big and out in the open to stay so penumbral.

Signpost to a New Space and Stoned Sunday Rap - Dates

I have just finished transcribing the parts of particular interest to me from Signpost to a New Space and the Stoned Sunday Rap (Garcia, Reich and Wenner 2003 [1972]), and I have now posted reading notes.

Me being me, I have always wondered about the dates of these sessions.

Here is the timeline for what went into the Rolling Stone Interview (RS 100, 1/20/1972), summarizing my own reconstruction.

• Summer 1970: Charles Reich visits Jann Wenner, urges him to interview Garcia
• Spring 1971: Jann called Jerry
• July 1971: Reich is ready to go. The "next Saturday", Reich and Wenner go up to Sans Souci, where Garcia and MG had only been living a few months (papers May 1971). We learn that Garcia had to be in Berkeley for a gig that evening.
• July 1971: Garcia is making his record, in the present tense
• I have concluded that the above, constituting the first five hours of the RSI, took place Saturday, July 24, 1971, ca. all afternoon and into the evening (dinner time), consistent with it being a Saturday and Jerry has to leave for a gig with the NRPS.
• When I went through Signpost three years ago I wrote "July 1971 gig @ New Monk – empty set as of 8/3/2012". In the meantime, I have spun more microfilm at the San Francisco Public Library, revealing the previously unknown gig that unlocked it all for me.
• Note: an Anonymous DeadEssays commenter did some great sleuthing on this and reported September 5, 2012, getting us some of these time points, noted in comments by LIA. I am not sure how much that informed my own thinking, or if we truly have multiple independent progress on the question. Either way, the key dating seems very likely.
• ca. August 1971: Reich did two more hours "A few weeks later" [from 7/24/71], which we can only pin to ca. first half of August 1971;
• undated: the GD are mixing Skullfuck at some point;
• ca. October 15-16, 1971: Reich came back "a few months later". This could be either October 15 or October 16, 1971, based on Jerry seeing Mickey Hart at the Croz-Nash concert "last night";
• ca. October 1971, Wenner did four more hours.

Here is the timeline for the SSR:

• March 1972: Reich dates his introduction to spring 1972, tagging the SSR to a "Sunday morning, a foggy, quiet day in March" (Reich 2003, xx).
• Garcia has to do some mixing work on Ace that night.
• ca. March 20 - May 27, 1972: Garcia in NYC and Europe.
• That leaves March 5, March 12, or March 19 as the dates of the SSR.
• Note Wenner's misrembrance: writing in May 1972, he says SSR took place "almost half a year after publication", which was 1/20/72. It looks more like two months to me, unless I am missing something.

I'll post some pretty voluminous reading notes, not sure how to format since I have way more tags than Blogger will allow. The RSI sessions are far more informative than the Rap, which indeed has all the hallmarks of really high people being high together, in highness. There's some great color - Mountain Girl is incredible, I would love to meet her some day, and Annabelle makes some cute appearances - but not much content of interest to me.

REFERENCES

! ref: Garcia, Jerry, Charles Reich, and Jann Wenner. 2003 [1972]. Garcia: A Signpost to New Space. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press.

! JGMF: "NRPS: July 24-25, 1971, New Monk - New to The List,"

URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/09/nrps-july-24-25-1971-new-monk-new-to.html.

! JGMF: "Reading Notes: Signpost to a New Space and Stoned Sunday Rap," URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2015/11/reading-notes-signpost-to-new-space-and.html.

! ref: Reich, Charles. 2003 [1972]. Introduction. In Garcia, Reich and Wenner 2003 [1972], xi-xxi.

! ref: Wenner, Jann. 2003 [1972]. Foreword. In Garcia, Reich and Wenner 2003 [1972], vii-x.