Thursday, December 26, 2019

Garcia Interview by Ben Fong-Torres, ca. fall 1975

jg1975-xx-xx.interview.ben-fong-torres.gdao-379555

Garcia, Jerry, 1942-1995, "Ben Fong-Torres interviews Jerry Garcia. Interview recorded circa 1975 for the documentary radio program "What was that?" broadcast on KSAN-FM in San Francisco [radio broadcast]," Grateful Dead Archive Online, accessed November 10, 2013, http://www.gdao.org/items/show/379555.

The interview is given as 1975, at least some of it takes place at His Master's Wheels, and there's a snippet with Nicky Hopkins. I have Jerry and Nicky et al. there working on what would become Reflections mostly in September-October 1975, so this seems the most likely timeframe.

Sketchy notes below the fold.

Monday, December 16, 2019

Old And In The Way Performance List

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7TAYus5LRzuWXRydUZFLVJ5UzRsQ2RWSjFLTHBrQUtLY2dR/view?usp=sharing

Here's a list of all known-to-me performances by Old And In The Way. It includes a few rehearsals and a handful of studio dates, but is mostly live gigs (N=49). Date-venue combos that show up twice indicate early and late shows. This info is in my spreadsheets (as is all kinds of other stuff), but for ease of presentation as a document I didn't include it here.

Comments and all that most welcomed!

Sunday, December 01, 2019

Jerry, tògòtigi - JGB at the Warfield, Wednesday, March 9, 1994


Marquee for Jerry (who?) at the Warfield, March 9, 1994. I would LOVE to find out who the photographer is and give credit.
I love the image above, of the Warfield marquee reading just "Jerry" for the March 9, 1994 JGB show, because, assuming his last name is not photoshopped out, it speaks to who Jerry had become by the last year of his life. In the Bamana language of the Mandé culture of West Africa, he had become a tògòtigi - "proprietor of his own name" (Skinner 2004, 157). "In Mandé social thought," musicologist Ryan Skinner has elaborated,
the purpose of these acts of self-making is to make a name for oneself (ka tògò sòrò, literally “to find one’s name”) and become what people call a tògòtigi, or an individual who is the owner (tigi) of his or her given name (tògò)".  Malian literary critic and cultural theorist Chérif Keïta summarizes that "The togo is the axis of individuality and desire for personal distinction" (Skinner 2015a, 22).
The concept applies across artistic fields in the Mandé world, especially among griots "expert hereditary professional" (Dubois 2016, 32) storytellers --musicians, poets and artists-- charged with carrying forward the collective knowledge embodied especially in the oral tradition (but see Chérif Keïta 2005). In the musical realm,
the artist who improvises a running solo, incites the dance with a syncopated rhythm, and makes his instrument sing with a novel melody asserts his dynamic and creative agency as a performer. He claims his individuality, a distinctive subjectivity symbolized by his first name, or tògò, and the status and identity of being a tògòtigi the achieved state of making a name for oneself, of being an owner (tigi) of one's name (tògòtigi ) ... There is an existential risk in such acts of musical distinction and innovation (Skinner 2015a, 88).
Anyway, not that, in certain circles, people didn't know who just-Jerry was before 3/9/94, but I have always loved this marquee for capturing it, the culmination of the name-claiming journey which began on a seasonal May day in 1968, when the name "Jerry Garcia" appeared on a sheet of paper billing a musical event for the first time since the formation of the Warlocks. Over decades of gradual assertion and musical differentiation, and eventual commodification, he had successfully made his name. That progression is probably the main arc of Fate Music, where I'll get into it hopefully more artfully and definitely at greater length.

The show is off-pattern in a few other ways. First, it was a single-shot on a Wednesday night. While midweek Warfield gigs were not unheard of, they almost always took the form of multinight runs. Indeed, though I have not gone and checked, I can't think of another Warfield one-off like this one in the Wolfgang-Warfield era (December 1989-April 1995). Second, the handbill is especially lame.


I wonder if this show was pinned down late, and/or if ticket sales were slow, or if BGP was just on a tight budget, but this is about as basic as it ever got.

Third, as to the show, it's fine, but what jumps out at me is that there is not a single Garcia-Hunter original here - it's all covers. Jerrygarcia.com makes this relatively easy to see, since the originals have hyperlinks and the covers do not. I spun through '93-'95, I think, and didn't see any other shows without at least a "Deal" or a "Run For the Roses" or something else. If I find time and motivation I might dig deeper, though I understand that this has no particular importance, it's just a curiosity. But it's a Garciaverse curiosity, which is kind of the bread and butter of JGMF, so there you go.

An hour first set was just about what he seemed to be going for, and 75+ minute second set is nothing to sneeze at. Chuck Vasseur pulled a typically great tape. The performance is fine, all pluck and less fire, which was his style at the time (no onion on his belt, as far as I know). Donny does some nice hard trapping in Don't Let Go, and everyone sounds just fine. Well, John doesn't "sound" much at all, but that was pretty much par for the course in this timeframe, too, and it's all good by me.

Listening notes below the fold.

Friday, November 29, 2019

Dawn of the NRPS

I am sure you have already pre-ordered, as I just did, but just in case, here's link to the upcoming Owsley Stanley Foundation (OSF) release called "Dawn of the New Riders of the Purple Sage". I cannot freaking wait to hear this!

https://owsleystanleyfoundation.org/bears-sonic-journals/dawn-of-the-new-riders-of-the-purple-sage/

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

ca. November 1-2, 1970 fragments

Having just posted on Janis's wake, which is said to have taken place on 10/26/70, I find myself wanting to at least take a stand on a few other gigs which have left me a little befuddled over the years.
The first involves a "First Annual San Francisco Halloween Marathon Festival of the Performing Arts", running 8 PM Friday 10/30/70 through midnight Sunday, 11/1/70 at the Harding Theater. Among the artists scheduled to appear during the 40 continuous hours of music we find Thelonious Monk, Les McCann, NRPS, Bobby Hutcherson, the Rafael Garrett Circus, Shades of Joy, Beefy Red, Pemmican, the Hot Hush Puppy Rocking and Jamming Society, the Ann Halprin Dance Troupe, theater groups and filmmakers. Subtitled "Marathon '70", the event was put together by Delano Dean, Lenny Sheftman and Gerry Pearlman of the Both-And, with proceeds going toward establishment of the Harding as an ongoing center for the performing arts.

Wasserman wrote the event up in general terms on 11/4/70, though he didn't mention the New Riders. Let's assume they performed as advertised. Since they were in Stony Brook on 10/30 and 10/31, I list this as a NRPS gig on 11/1/70 at the Harding. I guess I have already written this up, so you can just consider this pinned in my own data, and enjoy the above snippet of the Chron.

! announce: "A Halloween Marathon at the Harding," San Francisco Chronicle, October 23, 1970, p. 50;
! listing: San Francisco Chronicle, October 30, 1970, p. 45;
! expost:  Wasserman, John L. 19701104. On the Town: Marilyn Maye--Zing in the Anthem. San Francisco Chronicle, November 4, 1970, p. 58;
! mention: "From the Music Capitals of the World", Billboard, November 21, 1970, p. 25 (accessed via Google Books);
! JGMF: "NRPS: ca. 11/1/1970?" URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2009/11/nrps-ca-1111970.html.

The second is also at the Harding, and comes from a listing I found once the digital Examiner came to my attention. From that entry: "11/2/70 (Monday): Jerry Garcia / BBHC / Ice / Cleveland Wrecking Company. Harding Theater. Benefit for A Learning Place. I don't know if this would have been NRPS or JGMS; I am listing as JGMS for no particular reason."

So, another benefit, same building, the next night. Odd, but, OK.

! listing: San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Datebook, November 1, 1970, p. 27;
! listing: San Francisco Examiner, November 2, 1970, p. 35;
! JGMF: "New-to-The-List from the Examiner, 1970-1972," URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2018/10/new-to-list-from-examiner-1970-1972.html.

As a final point, I'd just note that this timeframe really shines a light both on how much our boy liked to play, and on how ready he was to fly back home between gigs in other time zones, when logistics might suggest he not do so.

October 10-12, he does three gigs in New York and Jersey, then flies home to play the Matrix for two nights, before flying back to Philly for a gig on the 16th. Then Cleveland and Minneapolis, back home to the Matrix, three nights off before gigs in DC and St. Louis on 10/23-24. Home for Janis's wake, two nights in Stony Brook, home for these two benefit gigs and, on November 3rd, a session with Crosby at Heider's as well as a Matrix gig, Heider's again on the 4th, then playing somewhere in the state of New York every night (often Dead and New Riders, sometimes two shows a night) from the 5th through the 16th (less a canceled show on 11/15/70). And on and on and on through the end of November. What a nut.

Pearl's Wake

Around November 3, 1970 the Associate Press (AP) had an item in lots of papers noting that Janis Joplin had left $2,500 in her will for a big ol' celebration of her life after her passing. Invitations went out reading "The drinks are on Pearl", and it happened at the Lion's Share in San Anselmo. The AP story (e.g., in the Red Bluff Daily News, November 3, 1970, p. 8) says that the GD and other rock groups entertained.

Mastropolo 2015 puts the date of this event as 10/26/70. I don't know how he knows that, but there it is. (update: as usual, Corry was on it before I was --in this case, a decade!!-- and the date comes from his post.) He references the memoir of Janis's road manager John Byrne Cooke in saying that members of the Quick, Big Brother, and the GD formed various playing combinations, which is a little different than a GD gig per se.

As of now, I am listing this as a GD gig. I am also coding the Wales-Garcia Matrix gig advertised for this date --the latest with Howard's name on it, as far as I can recall-- as canceled. Any thoughts on that?

I also note that LIA hipped me to a canceled GD gig in Columbus, OH, between 10/24 and 10/29. Janis's wake may well account for the cancellation.

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

MTV Interview, June 2, 1983

I don't know where this would have taken place, but the date of June 2, 1983 seems right, in between shows at the venerable Roseland Ballroom on 52nd Street and promoter John Scher's main room, the Capitol Theatre in Passaic outside of Philly.

I have gotten direct quotes on the Garcia-on-the-side (GOTS) material, and sketchily paraphrased the GD history and other stuff. The man was just so brimming with energy. Check him out around 7 minutes in to part one, talking about the amazing creativity and peculiar genius of so many Deadheads. Good stuff.

update: if you want verbatim, you can copy it from ... the published transcript. D'oh!

! ref: Blackwood, Nina. 1983. Jerry Garcia: Interviewed for MTV. Relix 10, 4 (August): 16-20.

Where Was Garcia on May 29, 1987?

As I have noted, Garcia's final Keystone Family gigs before jumping ship to Wolfgang as his permanent and exclusive hometown promoter took place at the end of May 1987, as In the Dark was getting huge. The big fella would play very few club gigs after the Wednesday (27th)-Thursday (28th) and Saturday (30th)-Sunday (31st) Stone shows.

The Friday gap night always just struck me as a day of rest. But, well, was it?
The Hermes Project, based in Malibu, was promoting a world premiere showing of "The Hero's Journey", a film about mythologist Joseph Campbell, featuring the man himself, plus special guests on a panel, plus a reception. Music composed by Mickey Hart and Rand Wetherwax --presumably "The African Queen Meets The Holy Ghost"-- "with special performance by Jerry Garcia" [itals original], all scheduled for Friday, May 29, 1987, 8 PM, at the Director's Guild, 7950 Sunset in LA (map).

The event got other line announcements in the LA Weekly and the LA Times, but I found no ex post accounts, nor have I ever heard of this thing before. Of course, the November 1, 1986 "Ritual and Rapture" event at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre in San Francisco is well known, and it included a performance of the Hart-Wetherwax composition, with Garcia playing a headless Steinberger. Blair Jackson wrote it up in Golden Road (no. 13, Winter 1987, p. 6).

But did this encore event happen on May 29, 1987? I sure would like to know.

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Emerge and See: Hunter Hosting Garcia at the Cellar Door - May 15, 1978 (DISCONFIRMED)

update 20210526: this seems not to have happened. David Kramer-Smythe reached out to David Morgenstern, who was with Comfort at this time. He remembered this gig for other reasons, but said Garcia definitely did not join, and that, in fact, Garcia never sat in with Comfort. So this is one of those cases of .... hmmm ... how does such a specific (if uncertain) memory form? What do we do with such a memory? In the absence of other advice. I will just keep this here for posterity.

Courtesy of slip at JGBP, this:
May 15, 1978 Robert Hunter and Comfort 
This was a three night run, the 14, 15, 16th at the Cellar Door in Washington DC.  
(The 14th  we saw the Dead play in Providence, RI. We were just finishing a post  spring semester  Vermont > Springfield > Providence run, so my memory of this event is extremely fuzzy, but it happened.) 
Anyway – towards the end of the Hunter show, Steve Parrish..what was he doing there?... helped roll a doorway sort-of-thing out on stage. It was like a big stage prop with a man-size keyhole shape cut-out. What…A giant keyhole? 
Then, I remember smoke machine and a siren howling like an ambulance. Lights flashed. The Cellar Door was a pretty small and dark venue as I recall, so this was kind of jarring. 
And then the PA screamed “Emergency…Emergency…Emergency” and gradually slowed to say “Emergggge an Seeeeee,” “Emergggge and See,” “Emerge and See,” Emerge and See!!!” 
And a fellow in a bozo mask walked through the keyhole. The fellow was Garcia. 
This is where it gets fuzzy....I forget what he played, maybe Boys in the Ballroom [sic]? Promontory Rider? Goodnight Irene? It wasn’t a standard Dead tune. 
Who’s got the tape?
Who, indeed? Can anyone confirm or deny?

Tuesday, October 01, 2019

Help Us Out

Head over to Nick's place and render judgment on the appropriateness of the title "Merl's Tune" for the Garciaverse tune by that name, versus the titular line of this post.

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Monday, September 02, 2019

Major New Piece of Instrument Research

Michael Clem has published a major piece of research into Garcia's instruments over at LIA's old stomping grounds. I don't know gear, and will surely make use of it whenever I have a question about it.

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Alice Kahn Fall 1984 interview annotations

These are for my purposes, no pretense to completeness.

I find his comments about Joe Garcia to be quite revealing. There are a few other good nuggets in here. Man, even in the depths of his Rock Bottom period, he sounds engaged and articulate. What a mind!

~~~~~~~~~~~

A Long Way From Spain: JGB at SUNY Stony Brook, December 9, 1977

LN jg1977-12-09.jgb.all.aud-matera-fix.137736.flac2488

Not much time to post much detail, so some bulleted observations.

1)  Keith is playing some classical-Spanish sounding thing at the end of s1t01. Then, @ 7:21 of "Lonesome And A Long Way From Home", I hear John hitting some Spanish stuff, too. Check it out because, while Jerry was Swedish-Irish on his mom's side, his father was, of course, full-blown, born-in-Spain Spanish and, well, that's just fun.

2) I love "Reuben And Cérise" (Hunter's spelling, with French-accent-snob-appeal-to-me), and this one has some great power chords, but they repeat the ending figure a large number of times. I didn't count, but it's too many.

3) This LAALWFH is just amazing. It clocks in at 27 minutes, but, more importantly, it's endlessly interesting. It really gets wide open, not just in a noodly-spacey sense, but always remains musical. I was impressed with what young Buzzy, the studio drummer who often, rather necessarily, played metronomically on this first tour, with new material, with a band lacking in temporal discipline, lays out in this open idiom. The whole band sounds great here.

4) Maria is absent. She was on and off this tour.

5) The previews I reference provide great color around Stony Brook Deadheadism, the purest and ur-ist form of the broader genus Deadheadus Eastcoasticus.

6) About 165 minutes of music on a tightly-edited tape. Second set clocks in at 95+ minutes. Good bang for the six bucks and fifty!

Oh, and I found a pic, uncredited. Happy to supply credit if the identity of the photog emerges.
Garcia at Stony Brook, 12/9/77. Photographer unknown to me at this time.

Jerry Garcia Band
Pritchard Gymnasium, State University of New York
1 Center Drive
Stony Brook, NY 11794
December 9, 1977 (Friday)
Matera MAC shnid-137736 fix shnid-137720

--set I (6 tracks, 68:47)--
s1t01. Harder They Come [12:03] [0:06] % [0:15]
s1t02. Catfish John [10:52] [0:10] % [0:08]
s1t03. That's What Love Will Make You Do [11:13] [0:03] % [0:08]
s1t04. They Love Each Other [7:11] [0:13] %
s1t05. Knockin' On Heaven's Door [14:22] [0:02] % [0:05]
s1t06. The Way You Do The Things You Do [11:50] (1) [0:05]

--set II (7 tracks, 95:43)--
s2t01. Midnight Moonlight [14:53] [0:07] % [0:06]
s2t02. Gomorrah [8:21] [0:04] % [0:02]
s2t03. Tore Up Over You [9:22] [0:04] %
s2t04. Simple Twist Of Fate [15:30] [0:07] %
s2t05. /Reuben And Cérise [8:58] [0:02] %% [1:08]
s2t06. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [9:17] [0:04] % [0:04]
s2t07. Lonesome And A Long Way From Home [27:26] [0:09]

! ACT1: JGB #4*
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-b;
! lineup: Keith Godchaux - piano;
! lineup: Buzz Buchanan - drums;
! lineup: Donna Jean Godchaux - vocals.
[! absent: Maria Muldaur - vocals]

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [mm: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 [mm: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/19771209-01

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/4444 (s2 Nak 300s shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/16859 (reshn of shnid-4444); https://etreedb.org/shn/77713 (pitch-correct shnid-4444, flac1644); https://etreedb.org/shn/137720 (Matera flac2488); https://etreedb.org/shn/137721 (Matera flac1644); https://etreedb.org/shn/137736 (Matera flac2488, this fileset); https://etreedb.org/shn/137737 (Matera flac1644 fix).

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html. I denote this configuration as JGB #4*, since Maria Muldaur is not present.

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/efyWYZ1ew4qmbr4v9

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/10/pritchard-gym-suny-100-nicholls-road.html

! exante: “Ticketron Gets Garcia Tickets Before Campus,” (SUNY Stony Brook) Statesman, October 28, 1977, p. 3, accessed online;

! exante: Grossman 1977;

! exante: Razler 1977;

! review: [positive] Alkon 1977, who liked the show. Misidentifies drummer as Tutt. That said, he didn't like the "irritating" 75 minute intermission.  "Outraged" by a five and a half hour concert (8-1:30) with three hours of music: "When Keith and Donna sat down on the piano bench for a smoke and fifteen minute chat I felt like I was invading their privacy! I realize that a group needs frequent breaks, but the Garcia Band abused the privilege, showed disrespect for their audience, and unprofessionalism."

! seealso: JGMF, "The mystery of the Jerry Garcia Band 11/28/77 ticket stubs," URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2010/02/mystery-of-jerry-garcia-band-112877.html. Wherein I go on at great length about a very small matter of tickets misprinted with the date of 11/28/77.

! pic: URL http://www.dead.net/fanphotos/jerry-stony-brook-1977

! historical: the previews provide great color around Stony Brook Deadheads wanting to camp out for tickets and such. Stony Brook is just about ground zero in the development of campus-based GD mania and the history of the East Coast Deadhead.

! R: field recordist: Phil Matera

! R: field recording gear: unknown mics > unknown cassette deck

! R: lineage: MAC > Reel (Maxell-UD135, 1/4trk @ 3-3/4) > Teac X2000R > Korg MR1000 DSD DFF@ 5.6MHz > AudioGate > 24/88.2 Wave > Wavelab6 > OzoneRx4a > Ozone6A; CD Wave > TLH > Flac24. Transfer by John Hance.

! R: This is a fix of shnid-137720. The last 2 tracks of the second set have changed.

! R: patches from shnid-77713: s2t01-Midnight Moonlight, s2t04-Simple Twist Of Fate and s2t07-Lonesome

! R: seeder note: "Thank you Phil & JJ! Salah Febuary 7, 2017"

! R: very nice recording

! P: overall: voice sounds a little fatigued.

! P: s1t01 KG is playing some Spanish-classical thing at the end of the track.

! P: s1t05 KOHD KD on electric piano

! s1t06 (1) JG: "We're gonna take a break for a little while. We'll be back a little later."

! R: s2t05 RAC cuts in

! P: s2t05 RAC is very good. Some huge chords. But it does on too long. Quite a bit too long.

! P: s2t07 LAALWFH. This LAALWFH gets *way* out there. @ 7:21 John is hitting a Spanish theme. I think this is pretty incredible, though hard to characterize. Just great open playing by every player.

Sunday, August 18, 2019

Howard Rheingold Interviews Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir

https://archive.org/details/RheingoldGarciaWeirInterview

Not sure I know this one, pinning it here so I can find it again!

The Bard on WLIR (Long Island), March 1978

http://tela.sugarmegs.org/_asxtela/asxcards/RobertHunter1978-03WLIRInterviewRoslynNY.html

Robert Hunter
1978-03-xx* Roslyn, New York unknown hotel (Hunter's room)
Interview by Denis McNamara for 92.7 WLIR-FM Garden City, New York (M?-FM)
"Sunday At 9:00" radio program -expanded edition- (3 shows/parts)
"A Conversation With Robert Hunter"

Not sure how close in time this was to the 3/12/78 Long Island show with JGB, NRPS, and Comfort (w/ Hunter). He says some interesting things about particular songs. I will just post annotations for the stuff that interests me.

2826 how about working for JG as a solo performer? Does that affect your writing?

2840 Sometimes. The best that can happen is that I'm just being prolific. some discussion

2915 first Garcia solo album related to the American Beauty and Workingmans field of material

3040 Deal is a reflection of what it's like to be in the rock and roll business

3815ff Bob Weir album

3916 CUTS a tune that I had been working on for years. I started working on it in London. ... a subterranean march of cats

4000 then there's a song which is my Orpheus it's called Reuben And Cérise which is one that I wrote several years ago for his second album Reflections but it just didn't around to gettin done until now. It's an Orpheic epic set in New Orleans ... he narrates this tune beautifully he recites it "her hair hung gently down" - "when Garcia sings this thing, it just brings goosebumps up my arm. It shivers up my spine - the full tragedy. I think we got Orpheus.

4213 record company stuff RH denies that it was economics. "I'll tell ya - I didn't give 'em the material. Here we were, all set up, ready to go, ready to rip, and if I had written albums like I've been writing ... it's just one of those situations where you get this nice snazzy Cadillac and the battery doesn't work for some reason. My streak ended. I don't know what it was. But ... WOTF I think has some excellent songs on it ... didn't grab [inaudible] exceedingly laid back, for one thing ... one of the problems was the choice of tempos on songs like Row Jimmy Row ... Stella Blue ... 1/2 Step ...

4418 first RH album Rum Runners I love the songs my singing is a little short of pathetic 4525

4610ff Blues for Allah 4646 people didn't take to it

4719 Crazy Fingers is his favorite from BFA

5320 JG wanted to do Tiger Rose!

5445 Tiger Rose

5515 "with Rum Runners, I didn't know [it would be released], and I don't think I could have sold that album if I didn't have my own record company, because it doesn't meet professional standards for recordings. It's quite dirty, in some respects."

5536 "Tiger Rose was produced by Garcia. ... I am afraid that the tracks sound more like Garcia music than mine, which may be good or bad. It has that mellowed out sound that he's into, whereas Rum Runners has this real rough-and-ready, which is my own style. ...Cruel White Water / Wild Bill

5652 excuse for TR vocals

5715 Mickey as anti-producer. Mickey Hart is the most wired cat you've ever met in your life. He has so many ideas, we had to like put em in a bag and tie it up and put em in the corner..... 5757 unsupressable ...