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80dcUvmVWzM
|
Jerry Garcia 1976 interview
|
Garloo
|
https://youtube.com/watch?v=80dcUvmVWzM
|
2021-02-06
|
PT26M13S
| 321,173
| 5,837
| 934
|
en
|
auto-generated
|
Yes
| null | 25,348
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a contemporary music critic has suggested that the four greatest musicians who ever lived in alphabetical order are bach beethoven the grateful dead and mozart in that order and we're delighted to have with us however accurate that music critic may be we're delighted to have with us jerry garcia the founder and and lead guitar and vocalist of the grateful dead who's spoken of is one of the most prolific musicians uh today and jerry explains that that's because he's crazed he's obsessed we'll find out in a minute when we meet jerry garcia the grateful dead and find out what he believes we'll see [Music] jerry garcia the the the question i guess that the program asks at the beginning and the end and most of the time during the middle is who are you and uh what turns you on so just for a change instead of sneaking up on you can i come right in straight and honest and say who's jerry garcia and what turns him on well i'm somebody who plays music or tries to and i can i think of myself as a person who's a music student and and what turns me on is being able to to play and being able to continue developing i think you know that's that's pretty that's it fairly simply and then there's concentric circles of you know greater and lesser turn-ons i mean did you mean i read at one point where you said uh i'm i'm a slow learner i'm not very talented so i really have to work to learn yeah and to grow and i uh you put a lot of emphasis on that on the growth on the experimentation on the change you said i don't want to end in the cul-de-sac of success right exactly yeah i agree well my my feelings about that are that uh that there is uh a convention in uh what you could broadly describe as entertainment that states essentially once you have your act down once you have it together keep on doing it that's what the people want you know they're coming back to see judy garland for the empty billionth time and you know whatever you know they're they're there to see you do your little dance and and i i feel that's what a serious limit on uh anybody who you know feels that they're an artist you know rather than an entertainer not to say that being an entertainer is no good but yeah but i would rather think that i'm involved in something that's more open-ended than that you know i'd rather not be able to see the end that clearly right and it's probably a thing of level it may even be i don't know this but one of the reasons that the grateful dead now are are actually playing in four different groups um that you do this they even encourage this i mean you're doing solo work yes uh albums with the group partly it's explained by the cost of the of travel and just putting the show together and putting it on right there are other other less obvious reasons that i think that have a lot to do with our attitude toward what we're doing and our feelings about what it is and and what it should be and we felt that by having reached that the end of a certain level of the that cul-de-sac that that we were talking about that uh in terms of for us or for a rock and roll group for a performing musical group uh the end of that really is the colossal the what we call the mega gig in a the huge stadium you know yeah that we we played in those and that's where we ended up in terms of the largeness of our audience the greatness of demand for what we were doing and so forth and so on we felt that that was a dead end and there was no place to go from there and that at that point the experience for us got to be one that was totally controlled in the sense of airplanes to motel motel to gig backstage heavy security nobody near the stage you know and yeah and and what's worse is that it's also reflected in the way those very large venues deal with people they deal with them and it's that sort of cattle prod methodology you know lots of cops lots of frisk lines lots of tightness you know and we felt that what we were doing and what we wanted to do was definitely not that you know that was clearly not it so then it became a question of well what do we want to do and since that represented the end of the line developmentally you know of what's there in america you know what what exists that's it that's the end of the line you can't go anywhere bigger there's no place bigger than those you the astrodome or whatever right that's it so from there it's a question of what we would like to do is improve the quality of the experience both on the level of what we're doing amongst ourselves and how we interact with the audience and what the audience experiences when we're there in that sense we're we're the don coyotes of rock and roll you know we're we're uh you know we're doing something nobody else cares to do which is trying to figure out how to make the experience what which we value and which are audience values something that's more in line with what it what it feels like which is a positive sort of outpouring of good energy and uh that's that's that's the reason we stopped was to think about it and to not have to continually be meet you know just crank it up and yeah we didn't want the neatest thing that you you said about the uh the big amphitheater thing i was reminded of this it's so expensive to travel that you said we ought to do one of two things either develop a space a huge uh astrodome or whatever that would be our home base that the grateful dead would play in and then other groups could use the part of the year right and i was going to suggest the candlestick park might be available for you that's too big and secondly i like your other idea that they declare you a national resource right government could that would be very sensible in my opinion go back i want to know more about you but first while we're talking about the grateful dead in the beginning it wasn't always uh at least my recollection now it's hard for me to go i'm going back to the 6768 when you guys were playing with um jefferson airplane and quick silver messenger service in these groups i there's one story at least about uh a drug experience now i know that you were a friend of ken kesey's young that you talked about taking acid and even playing on acid yes there's a story about a kool-aid thing where acid was dumped in is that the truth yeah you guys were playing yeah freaked out it's true it's definitely true it happened more than once but it was you it was the sort of thing where rather than we didn't that wasn't what we did you know what we did was always pretty much the same which was to play music and that's been our main concern no matter how weird it got you know but because of the times and because of what was going on there was all the inevitable dealer you know who would come and feel that you know in an altruistic gesture would say well here's this jar of apple juice you know and i have a convenient 300 hits of mescaline here and i'll just pop it in treat everybody well yeah right you know something along those lines and then of course you know i mean if you didn't know what was going on and you drank and this happened to me countless times you know what i mean it's not like something that happened to innocent victims in the audience it happened to everybody you know i mean i was i numbered myself amongst those those uh victims victims yes and uh it would be that sort of thing you know you there was no way to gauge really what there was because the whole thing is uh was you know enveloped in secrecy how much jerry was were drugs is it blown up how much there certainly was a counter culture you are very much a part of it you yourself are even spoken of as the guru the the leader the spokesperson for that rock counter culture and how big a part of that whole movement was drugs i think it has kind of a happy ending it certainly does for you all well i think the drugs were important in so far is that they were a way for people to find out that there was more going on than what they had previously considered to be reality there was another level of reality or maybe many lots of levels i think that that experience in my life that experiences proved to be more valuable than most of the other things that that have happened to me in my life remember that i'm a person who leads us a sort of limited existence i'm i play and a lot of my time is devoted to practicing and and i'm focused and it's fairly singular you know what i mean that's what i do i don't really do much else you know so in terms of what's available to me is experience not too much and being able to uh back in the days when lsd was legal you know and it wasn't uh wasn't a crime to take it or it wasn't a crime to change yourself you know for me it was an incredible opening up i mean it it made me realize that there was a lot more than what i even suspected and i suspected a lot you know isn't that amazing with all of the travel with the reading and you're into art you're in the filmmaking now you're sure you've cut over 40 um albums you know or been involved in them you're into engineering you all have the the most famous in any case sound system in the world right all these interests and this what most people would think of as a variety of experience you think of yourself as somewhat insulated or isolated right because well basically i'm i'm functional you know i i do the things that i'm supposed to do you know and and i'm i'm interested in doing them and and always intended to do them you know so i know i don't feel bad about it but i realized that it's somewhat limited you know are there other ways when you talk about the high now i know that uh you're more concerned about health and yeah you've talked about consistency things that drugs won't do that oh yeah again so you're not into the drug thing now how do you get these highs is the spiritual a part of this spiritual consciousness yeah yeah it is of course i think i mean that's part of the whole consciousness i i mean really my i i'd like to make one one point clear about drugs first of all i don't feel uh a way a certain specific fixed way about drugs i think the worst thing about drugs is that they're illegal you know i think that's the real thing that creates problems on all those levels and that's just my own observation and it doesn't mean that make all drugs legal or anything like i'm not saying that but that's what i think that leads to i think that's what's really wrong about it more than anything else no worse than drinking coffee say you know what's a drug you know what's a drug we have drug stores right yeah right so you know all that yeah um i think the thing of getting high is really what we were all sort of into at the time the the what that means is something that i can't really i can't really say what it means i can't i can't put a name to it other than getting high and the people who know what i'm talking about know what i'm talking about i'm assuming anybody who doesn't know what i'm talking about either they haven't gotten to go yeah oh we'll be right back okay with you all and jerry garcia and the grateful dead and we'll get high oh great we're just sitting here in the old studio at kpix exchanging altar boy stories from the good old days and uh finding out that even jerry garcia the elevator of the dead has a few altered how does this older boy how does a nice roman catholic boy like you jerry i should be more serious we we ended the segment talking about turning people on and from a spiritual vantage point or within a spiritual consciousness-raising context yeah and that kind of ties in with the fact that you were born and raised a catholic or maybe it doesn't i think that has something to do with your with the beauty and your music and your art the drama of your religious hearings have something to do with it yeah it probably has something to do with the thing of uh running intensely wanting not to blow it you know i don't want to be guilty you know do you still feel that oh a certain amount but no not really so i was sort of a lazy fair uh catholic you know my parents were were loose catholics rather than devout catholics and so it was the kind of thing where they would send me to church you know that doesn't last now it didn't it didn't it didn't you know it didn't take really and i did i wasn't exposed to to the real heavy stuff catholic chur catholic school and so forth my brother got that but i missed it [Music] your parents your dad left when you were very young your mom raised you and worked and i heard her death in what 69 70 had a real impact on this she was very important for you well yeah yeah it was uh it was very it was just strange you know i mean it's it's like once they're gone that's it you know that it's that flash which i was aware of really but i was never really very close to my mother so i felt that well you know that there's something that i wasn't able to complete you know there's something that i didn't really do i didn't really i didn't i never felt i never was able to say to her like i thought you did okay you know i was never able to finish that idea but i don't feel that really our relationship i don't feel as though it's gone forever i feel as though uh more like that was underlying throughout you know what i mean she always respected what i did and liked the fact that i was a musician and liked what i was doing and so forth and she never judged me even through things like involvement with drugs and stuff like that you know she was always pretty good and so i don't feel really too badly about it but it's a shock you know like those things like things like that always are and but on another level of course it it's it's interesting how once your parents are gone you know you know like the foundation you know that's that's what you plug into yeah it's very it's it's strange on some levels it's liberating on other levels it's very uh sad you know yeah jerry one thing i i have to make this comment may sound like a departure from where we are but um i think people would expect jerry garcia of the grateful dead who does not appear on on television they would expect a meeting you this close of a much more sort of i don't know far out flamboyant uh you know heavy dude type swinger i i don't know i think we have stereotypes of musicians and stereotypes of the certainly the grateful dead jefferson airplane there's a whole mystique about the dead end about jerry garcia and you're very um you're very real very believable very uh normal dare i say am i blowing your holy nature no no i don't think so are you conscious of that a kind of disparity between who you really are and what people expect of you well sure because it works both ways too i mean on some on some levels the media relation to the reality is it's always wrong i think i believe you know i believe it never is very accurate because of just everything you know language itself is one heavy bias you know so it's but uh you i've i've been uh what described both ways you know more radically than i am more conservatively than i am so there's a discrepancy on either level you know what i mean i don't really feel that i don't i don't relate to that for one thing i sort of taught myself that early not to not to believe that that's who i am you know that's not me yeah and so i don't relate to it and luckily uh my my the kind of fame that i'm involved in whatever such as it is is low enough of a profile so that i'm not constantly being reminded of it you know i know people don't run up right now no it's much cooler than that the and and yet people talk about and maybe there's a difference between you uh when you're on stage performing communicating musically and you sitting here as you said using words right uh they're because people talk about the saint-like quality or whether people put it there and it's like the thing you were saying before i thought very meaningfully i i said to you how my churches are empty i need this crazy tube to reach young people right you don't you can go to winter land and fill the place up with tens of thousands of young people and you said yeah and i i feel responsible yeah i am concerned about that i think it's it's that kind of a leadership not an ego mania but a a concern hey here i am because of my talent because of timing because of you know i know that you put words down and say well words are often lies because you can never communicate the whole feeling the whole meaning and music does it better you you've said that many times because it's more it's freer it's more open and it allows for people to come in at different levels right different backgrounds right so what but you are communicating something you're well i try to make an effort to certainly you know what is can you describe that or talk about oh well it's difficult since the things that concern me tend to be not verbal in nature you know they they tend to be experiential the the the fact is that most of my life is uh has to do with certain kinds of experience that have been repeated you know like many times the the high energy experience of playing uh for a large body of people and for the purpose of reaching some some level you know and so that that energy and that uh that thing is something that i know about but can't really i can't say what it is so what i talk about if i can talk about things i try to i try to make it so that what the content of what i'm saying is you know reflects something that i know on that level i can't say it so i have to not say it you know i have to talk around it or something you know your music does that too doesn't it and i sort of throw out little snatches little phrase thought things there isn't a whole neat package yeah it's just there is bother you bother your bottle right right you mean i have to think i i have to yeah i i think i personally feel that that people like that i mean i know i do you know and it's just it's on some levels it's all very simple and on on other levels it's difficult to talk about yeah you're very conscious of i i think the grateful dead probably have done more certainly they're one of the most generous major groups in the country they've done more free concerts and spontaneous gigs and fundraising things and stuff but um you're very much aware of this continuous sort of feed and be fed the interaction between you and the audience which you say can't be captured obviously in a record or even in the film you're doing a film now right uh what on the last five shows at the winter land and uh to see i mean maybe some experience can be communicated in film it's a cam and television that's why we tried it yeah can it happen you know maybe you can or maybe you can you know yeah it might work well it's not working too well on tv the uh midnight specials and so forth even with all their cameras you can't i think it reduces it too much you know that particular kind of experience i think it just makes too small you know that's uh that's one level of it the hard thing is that you don't get any kind of feedback then because you're not into fame and money no but i'm into a more direct kind of feedback i like to be in a situation where i can really talk to the people who like our music you know and we have a pretty good two-way flow that they write to us pretty freely and by and large they're pretty articulate they they know what they know what we're doing and we recognize them by the way they speak to us you know what i mean so we know that what they're talking about is what we're talking about yeah and so that that we know we're aware of that reciprocal thing that's amazing i know you send out you have a mailing list of 35 000 or something and you send out a preview what are they called samplers you know audition copies of the albums before they right for the records i think and they send stuff to us too and they talk to us and tell us about what it is that's a part of you that collaborative effort because i know in the beginning your music was eclectic you started with the jug band kind of the bluegrass sound banjo guitar and then got into the whole thing blues and jazz and which is a great thing and you kind of explored all those ramifications and now you're into a whole new form for creating right there you do listen to all at all different levels right well it's uh because it's more interesting uh from the standpoint of uh a person who's involved in lots lots of different kinds of energy that that that's what that is what's interesting to me and on a certain level that's that is what i do also i deal with lots of different kinds of energy and i i feel that i'm essentially someone who who works in to things you know rather i'm not an artist in the solo or in the the independent artist in the garrett mold you know i'm not that sort of problem right i'm you know part of dynamic situations and and that's where i like it and that's where i feel i function best and and the grateful dead is a collection of people are all people who have come to that idea yeah all through various different ways and and it works you know that's that's really all we have to say about what we do you know if you want to see it work if you want to see a situation work that doesn't have any leader that doesn't have any plan or doesn't and is utterly formless really from moment to moment then and you know you don't have to guess about whether something like that will work we have it and it's working yeah and you know how can you do that without bumping egos well we bump egos but uh i think but everybody has learned that the best things happen when everybody agrees and feels that that's the right thing to do rather than one person has an idea and everybody else feels a little funny about it so we go on that level if somebody doesn't like it we don't do it and we've learned to trust each other after a long long enough time of fiddling around with this idea we've learned to trust each other to the point of saying well if you know if courseman doesn't like it it's no good and that that idea comes from the idea basically that no idea really makes it if you can't include everybody in it if you can't bring everybody you know what this sounding like marriage or a good marriage or a good family well it's i think it's just a good way to to for people to work together yeah right and of course it depends on what they're doing i think you probably run into trouble if you're trying to build a bridge you know you know you can't improvise on that level too well but i believe that if you had people that were all really skilled at that particular world that they could do it because on another level i mean on the mathematics level architecturally that's musically that's what the grateful dead does is we're creating architectures you know architectural models if you will of kinds of music and they work and each person adds their own personality to the whole thing and it works you know somehow and i think that everything could be that way really jerry when you talk about energy to talk what's the source of your own do you you know i think energy we have the old-fashioned word we used to use a lot was faith or the spirit uh grace life enthusiast whatever but what is the sword where do you go to prime the pump well enthusiasm that you were almost said but then and through enthusiasm i think i mean the thing of uh feeling good about it is like really as far as i'm concerned that's the gold in the situation that's the payoff if there is one on the level of why am i involved i'm involved because i like it and because it feels good and and the enthusiasm of feeling good about something you know i think that's that's the most important thing about about it is you know yeah on a personal level like what do i get out of it that's what i get out of it and i don't think that i could do anything for any other reason you know i couldn't nothing else would be that you know nothing else would be that kind of a payoff i don't i don't uh riches fame power that just it well it shows it shows in you you've also thought describe music as your yoga is your meditation right and and by that i just i just mean that uh i think that it's a good thing to have some one thing that you can work on on a more or less a daily basis and be able to see improvement in your own terms that is a result only of your own energy being put into the thing you know what i mean it's the kind of thing anything that you decided to do if you did it every day and it was something that you could notice yourself improving even if it was whatever it was you know cats cradles you know you know crossword puzzles prayer sure they're all forms and they're all and i think that the things that keep opening in front of you that's the more you do them the better you get at them you know that idea i think is really a nice idea to have in your life it keeps you centered to something you know yeah you don't have to be worried about how you're being judged in some absolute sense but you can judge your own progress on a day-to-day basis and you and when you're doing something like that you know when you're off and you know when you're on you're on yeah we're off thank you children for the discipline and the sharing and the growing thank you all we'll see you next week believe god bless us all
|
NVkkbJ_KI2Y
|
Jerry Garcia Interview "The History of Rock 'N' Roll"
|
Matthew Ziegler
|
https://youtube.com/watch?v=NVkkbJ_KI2Y
|
2013-08-14
|
PT52M44S
| 1,281,409
| 12,552
| 2,045
|
en
|
auto-generated
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Yes
| null | 50,994
|
[Music] we'll start with Cam roll number 17 this [Music] is your name who you are what you really do who I am and what I really do let's see uh I'm Jerry Garcia and I play the guitar for the Grateful Dead amongst other things and uh your own musical influences when you were growing up who did you listen to as a as a kid uh do you really want you really want to hear that well well me I can more country music essentially the whole you know I I had lots I had eclectic influences let's put it that way I I I heard virtually every kind of music my father was a musician you know my mother was a was a um a coloratura uh you know soprano and I just you know I mean I heard every kind of music my mother my grandmother loved uh country music at the Grand Old opery and Harry ens and his Royal Hawaiians I mean I heard all kinds of my ears were full of music you know so I plus the popular music of the time the 40s and 50s you know when I was growing up but I was on at the the Inception of rock and roll I listened to rhythm and blues I had an old older brother who was a rhythm and blues nut and so I I got rhythm of Blues from him and then rock and roll as it developed in the 50s was like my music that was my native music so to speak and uh that was the thing that made me want to play was rock and roll the first thing I heard when I heard the electric guitar and Chuck Barry and all the great you know licks the rock and roll licks and just the sound of the electric guitar I thought God I really want to do that and I got my first electric guitar when I was 15 and that was it and what did you play at first uh well I first played electric guitar uh I I took piano lessons as a kid but it didn't take So guitar playing was really the first thing I took where I really wanted to do it I didn't I didn't know that I wanted to do it I just couldn't stop doing it and but the first thing I got really serious about in the sense of uh being rigorous uh was the five string banjo and I I heard bluegrass music and that that that that got to be something very important to me and uh so I I swung off into that for four or five years and and really started to work hard hard at the five string banjo and that's where I slowed records down and you know I wanted it to sound exactly right you know not just approximately right and uh I did that for a while and then then the the rock and roll wave came up you know with the Beatles and stuff like that hey that looks like it'd be fun to do and besides I know this music you know and so having a preference for the kind of more um like the Chicago sound the blue sound the Marshall chess sound uh that sort of thing uh our band when we started a band it was kind of more like the Rolling Stones say and so far as it was that that kind of music uh we started playing not quite a blues b band you know sort of a blues band and uh with kind of folk and country in western overtones so that's you know that's that's my background pretty much but it really there's there's nothing I haven't heard I mean you know so apologizing for the question in advance the the way that the uh the sort of dead got together in the sort of early stages perhaps somehow I mean you you really want to hear all this stuff it's just it's so okay well I mean well the The Grateful Dead uh is really a collection of friends people that were around at the time and uh and who played some you know I mean not everybody was really really uh the in the when the grateful Dad first started we were called the warlocks we used to we we had one strong suit we had Pig pin in the band and he was this guy from paloalto whose father had been a rhythm of Blues disc jockey so he for him the blues was was very natural uh and he played harmonica uh and he sang really well you know and uh he really had no real wish to be a performer we sort of forced him into it because we knew he could do it and uh so he was kind of the front man for the band he he was he was our he was our Powerhouse guy and the rest of us could play better than him but he could sing better than or anybody else so that he would that he got to be the front man for the band and uh uh it it it worked well we eventually we ended up kind of uh playing the divorce clubs up and down the Bay Area you know down the peninsula and East Bay and San Francisco we ended up playing Broadway in San Francisco which was about as far as you can go as a band in those days you know we had uh we were working for the local uh uh agent the guy that booked all the bands in the Bay Area and worked with the Union this guy did his name was Al King and he used to book the strippers and dog acts and magicians and anything you can think of you know he was like the guy in the Bay Area and so we were doing that that's that was our circuit we played typically we played six nights a week five five sets a night that was what we did we just did it and did it and did it and then and we we got we got good dude I mean it it was a great way to get good and we love we were young enough to love it you know and it was also we made enough so we could quit our day jobs you know that was what we did that happened immediately that was the first thing that happened to with us so we were we were already you know like burning out on the professional level that was was available to us about the time the the acid test came to our attention but we were already from palal we all knew key and we all knew friends that of ours that were involved with him we'd all take an asset ourselves and so it seemed natural to go we got invited actually to to one of these parties this is before they were AET tests even there was just parties and we got invited to one of these parties we went down to we plugged all our stuff in and played for about a minute and then we all freaked out but we made a good impression on everybody in that minute you know so we we were invited to the next one and so we just started playing these things they were great fun for and they were very liberating for us because after all I mean we' come we'd come to our uh like Sunday night shows that you know and after having spent the day Stone on acid up in the woods somewhere and we come down to the bars and play you know Sunday night it was like you know we were playing like sort of maliciously you know CU it was so lame you know at that time we were pretty burned out on it and so we were ready for something completely free form it kind of went along with where we were going which was we were experimenting with psychedelics as much as we were playing music so that uh those things got were had a a happy new home in the acid test which was exactly free for enough and where we we were we had no significance we weren't famous nobody came to the acid test to see us particularly we got to play or not play depending on how we felt we could play anything we could think of which meant that we didn't have any constraints on our performance we didn't have to be good even or or recognizable even so we got to do we got to we had an opportunity to visit experiment highly experimental places uh under the influence of Highly experimental chemicals before a highly experimental audience you know it was ideal you know and and that was something that we got to do long enough to get used to it you know and uh that that's you know the kind of territory that I don't I think very few people have been lucky enough to have that kind it was like a gift uh very few people have been lucky enough to to get that not only that we had the peripheral uh perks of of getting to hang out with key and Ken Babs and Neil Cassidy and uh you know a lot of interesting people an awful lot of interesting people and meeting more each time you know the acid test would perform the way gravy and so on all these people are people that we met through the the U the ages of the acid test so to speak and uh it you know the AET has started started uh develop expanding at an incredible rate I mean it started from about enough people to fill a room this size to uh enough to fill the Long charman's Hall in San Francisco and and it was just it was had no virtually no advertising or anything you know and uh you you had a you had a sort of be detective to even find out where they were going to be you know but but even so they got to be immensely popular and more and more people came to them more and more people got high it was an incredible situation I mean it seemed like after about three or four months it seemed like the ASD was going to take over the world in about a year it was totally fun and it was uh it was a great um it was it was a wonderful multimedia event is is what all what I can say it it really worked it was absolutely entertaining it was uh it was uh 100% fun you know that's all I can say really and it was utterly Cosmic to boot one thing it was interesting to me about the aest is that it does it's a breakdown between the audience and the performer something you try yeah there there really was no audience you know to speak of I mean there was no per uh there was no Entertainer entertained thing everybody was entertaining everything there was entertaining every event everything that happened was entertaining and he didn't need to uh you didn't need expertise you know what I mean so you you didn't need the uh the um the the musician chauvinism you know you you know the artist chauvinism like I can do something you can't do you know now all that stuff went up in smoke which I think was very good you know was good for everybody everybody learned a lot from that that process uh I think everybody who ever went to an acid test came out a different person you know and and loved it I mean that that's the sort of thing it was were you involved in the or were you to have been involved in the SS graduation that that bill gr pulled the plug up he's talking about the mic you know the story of that yeah I remember it was there was kind well see that that time we had regular shows so the acid test there was a conflict there we had a regular show and the acid test graduation was happening that night now it's possible that somebody was trying to use it as a kind of a power play you know well you know I don't know but but by then we we had we knew that if somebody was going to pay us to play we had a responsibility and the acid test was not that kind of scene it wasn't about getting paid you know what I mean it wasn't really about that everybody paid to get into it everybody you know we paid each a dollar to get into it you know so it wasn't that kind of thing and then all the money went into a plastic sack if somebody was hungry they took a couple of dollars out and went got some you know what I mean went it was totally know roll out we rolled out totally dot dot dot it was like totally totally I don't know communistic do it Mar wonder if you comment on um on on key Cassidy wavy I mean and the kinds of r mainly Cassidy actually well Cassidy is one of those kind of people that you you you know it's he's so such he was such an overwhelming um trip Cy I don't know I I it's hard to even know what to say about Cassy he was so singular I mean it's just well for one thing he was like the best uh the the ultimate uh sight gag person you know what I mean physical comedy person you know uh plus he was also the world's best stand-up comic too uh he had an incredible mind that he would do this thing he did to everybody everybody has reported on this he did to everybody you might not see him for months you know and he would pick up exactly where he left off the last time he saw you you know like in the middle of a sentence he would pick up and you you first of all you go what what the hell and then you'd realize oh yeah this is that story he was telling me last time you know and you it was like so mindboggling you couldn't believe that he was doing it he used to do this thing that was this this was something that used to that killed me and I see saw him do it a lot of times he'd take a a dollar bill you know from anybody you know take a dollar bill and he would he he' put his hand on it like this and he he and they and they say the numbers you know this this serial number and you know I've saw saw him get it right like two or three times the serial numbers you know what I mean he just had this he had this thing you know and his driving if you go for a drive with him it was like the ultimate Fear Experience you know that you you knew you were you knew you were going to die there was no question about it and it was something so unbelievable he he loved big uh Detroit irons you know big cars and he like driving in San Francisco he would go down those Hills you know like 50 miles 60 M an hour and do Corners you know blind Corners going down those Hills if you can imagine like going down uh Franklin you know like top speed you know what I mean you know disregarding anything stop signs signals all the time talking to you and maybe fumbling around with a little teeny roach you know trying to put it in a matchbook you know and also tuning the radio maybe and also talking to whoever else was in the car and never seeming to ever put his eyes on the road ever you know and this like it would be you'd be just dying you know you'd be you'd be dying and and he would just he would he it would effectively take you past that whole fear of death thing you know it's like a a difficult experience because there's nothing else like it apart from like almost like surviving an airplane crash possibly or something I don't know what but and I mean it was just so incredible you know just his output you know what I mean uh and he he felt he was he was the first person I met who who he himself was the art you know what I mean he was an artist and he was the art also and he was doing it consciously as well you know so he had he did things he he worked with the world I remember one time after a u a party after the Watts acid test which which was particularly strange and we drove the bus over to the Watts Towers uh for a minute or two and we got out and looked at him you know and we were you know it's Dawn we went over to Wy gravy's house which was down in like oh off of Western you know way the hell off somewhere funny in Los Angeles and he had a little house and we had the bus there and a bunch of us are sitting on the lawn and we're all kind of crunched from have been up all night Stone on acid you know it's like the dawn it's Sunday morning now the Dawn and and the bus is parked across the street from our point of view we're on the lawn and it's Sunday morning early early and uh here's Neil you know and he's he's ripped his shirt off he has no shirt on now and now he's he's no shirt no shoes and these these funky old chinos you always have they're always like just about to fall off you know and he's first of all he he George Walker is driving the bus so George George is driving the bus and and Neil is like the guy directing him into the parking place you know a little to the left a little to the right he's doing all the signals and he directs him right into a a stop sign an arterial stop sign and knocks it it Shear it off boom and the stop sign falls down so then NE gets up then the bus is parked Neil gets up and he's got the stop sign you know and he's like kind of trying to put it make it stand up you know and so he's there with this stop sign and down the street come like two really straight little old ladies you know they're on their way to church Sunday morning you know and here's Neil he's like the cosmic Village drunk you know what I mean he's like and he's got the stop sign you know they're they're trying not to see him you know and he's doing this whole whole series of uh kind of like good morning ma'am you know kind of panim you know this extravagant thing all the time with he would kind of like stand up the stop then walk away from it it start to fall and he' grab it just as I'm about to hit you know and all this stuff happened it was like amazingly great it was just beautiful perfect timing you know it's just extraordinarily beautiful you know and he he his the way his body moved the way he looked and everything like it was just absolutely his face is so expressive he would go through millions of Expressions just millions of them and just his whole body language and everything was so communicative it was just amazing it was I I I was dying I thought I was going to die it was so hilarious it was so and it was absolutely perfect you know it was like a little silent movie a silent ballet you know you know in the morning lasted about maybe a minute and a half you know two minutes but it was perfect you know it was like a perfect moment it was just great and I mean Neil Neil was that guy I mean he he he just could do that you know that's that's who he was you know he was that guy in the real world you know he was this this something he was he scared a lot of people a lot of people thought he was crazy you know a lot of people were afraid of him and lot most people I know didn't understand uh at all you know and but he was like a musician in a way I mean if you're he liked musicians he always like to hang out with musicians that's why he sort of picked up on us and me and we hung out together a lot and he like he liked the company of musicians when you were living in the hate was he around yeah he was off and on he stayed up in our our attic when we were in 3 710 he had a little little Camp up there you know with a mattress and his his old chinos his old jeans and stuff like that were up there and he would come in and hang out for a week or so every month or so you know every couple of months maybe you know he'd come in and uh yeah about the the he when you were um During the period of time when you would do uh pre concerts in the Panhandle I mean you give us a little context on that what why you would what the community was like and and how the dead well there wasn't really we were you know there were a lot of people there that were like us they were they were um people whose whole whole lives they'd been a little bit different you know from everybody else they were the people that were looking for something different they they they would have been they would have become beatnicks you know what I mean they were all people who were like uh influenced by the beatnicks in a sense and they were artists and they were poets and writers and all kinds of people uh but all they were all people whose life experience had been that they were a little out of whack with everything else you know during high school or you know their whole lives and they sort of sort of came together and uh and it was it just an ideal place for it because the the rent was real cheap the houses were wonderful they're beautiful old victorians you know and you get a you know four or five people and you can rent a huge a wonderful Victorian house fix it up any way you want and it was it was great it was a great way to live um and you know it was there was no community in the sense of we are a community but then after after the first uh thing called the human being that thing was like yeah there is all these people that we're all you know it's like yeah there is a community there is this whole big Community you know it's all these people who are who potentially are know each other we're all those people who are the weird ones you know and it was all of a sudden you discovered all these people who were like you you know and that was the neat part about it first that was the first thing that of course that disappeared immediately I mean as soon as it started getting to be uh uh publicized you know then then it all of course it evaporated immediately you know and and it no longer be it no longer was uh it no no longer was uh important you know it no longer had any uh Power re I mean really you know it did for the first couple of minutes and then it went whoosh you know and it was gone you know it was it wasn't relevant anymore not to the people who started there you know and and as soon as that happened everybody started to just disappear you know they disappeared over to Marine County and other places and because nobody want nobody wants to be in the center of the spotlight you know not not in your life maybe in your work but in your life and you know those of us who were performers like the Grateful Dead and stuff we just performed and we we at that time we started going National we started touring the whole United States so it was no longer uh it was no longer Community to us in the real sense in the real sense that America became our community and uh you know that was it it was it was really a moment there was like a breath there for a moment that was like an open door you know it's like oo look you know then bam It Slam shut again immediately and everybody finally MO moved out of the original people there everybody left when the tanks came down the street the National Guard came I mean the hate Ashbury you know like what was more harmless you know was totally harmless and and they the the reaction ultimately was the National Guard fixed bayonets you know tanks on on ha Street it was like come on you know this is like something of an overreaction you know and it was it was it was so completely uh um skewed you know it just it didn't make any sense anymore that was it you know everybody any everybody who had any uh anything going for them really left after that that was it that was the end of it but there was there was something that everyone took with them I mean something did happen well there was a moment there you know there was a moment there where there was a vision there was a very clear wonderful Vision that that that but see it had to do with everybody acting in good faith it had to do with everybody uh behaving right you know what I mean it it had to it it you know sorry there was a lot to it it was wasn't a simple thing you know it was a deep it was there was a lot to it that that that thought that's because that's speed speed so more on the point of essentially what happened at that one moment when it was together well I what happened was that everybody got a glimpse of something you know I I don't I can't I can't say what it is I don't know what it is I know to me it was like might have been something like Limitless possibilities you know what I mean something like that maybe you know but I mean the thing was that in the meantime in my life what had hap what had happened to me just a little before that was that IID had you know some incredible psychedelic experiences that were so Cosmic that were so uh so huge in scope you know what I mean that I knew that I I I knew that it uh all of a sudden I had to revise everything that I thought I knew knew about anything you know I I had a you know I said this stuff is coming from somewhere if it's coming if it's if it's not out there it's coming from me it's coming from my mind my brain that means my brain has an infinite amount of capacity in there that I had no no sense of I didn't know I didn't know anything about it but there it was and I've seen it you know I not only saw it but I walked around in it I had a million incarnations in it I lived and died in it you know what I mean I had experiences beyond anything I've ever experienced more real than anything I ever experienced in this world you know and I mean I was packing that knowledge around with me you know what I mean so the thing of that this this door opening was like it was one of those things that we were all inducing it as well as perceiving it you know what I mean it was I don't I mean it's hard to say you know I I think it was probably everybody saw what they wanted to see or what they needed to see or whatever it was you know they'd all been been brought there somehow for that moment you know for that moment and you can't even say what it was or when it was or what it what it boiled to or anything like that it wasn't even like that it was just something you know and uh but for me it's been enough energy to keep me going this long you know and I I don't see any end you know at least for me in terms of uh my work you know of of information in uh in terms of do I need to go looking for for uh material you know no I don't I don't need to go looking for material I have like an infinite amount of material has been posited it you know and and all I have to do is like tune into it which is really easy to do cuz it's always there you know so so it's you know uh I mean you know I don't know how to say it except that it's real to me you know what I mean that that those experiences were real to me and and nobody can take that away from me the realness of it you know what I mean so it it doesn't doesn't matter to me whether it has any historical value or whether it's measurable in some objective way I don't care you know it doesn't matter for me the subjective reality is what counts I mean what I experienced is what what what happened to me and that that was uh that that uh like there's a lot I know a lot of people who shared something like it their own version of it you know and who are still moving with the that energy that energy is propelling us and that energy it was also had enough gained enough momentum over the years to to to do everything I mean it is partly responsible for all the things that have happened historically since then in some way you know it's part of it it's part of the of the gain in Consciousness that the last half of the century is represented and that includes all the things that go go with it you know all the the the hardware the technology the um the BrainCraft you know that that uh that has subsequently sprung up and it's it's still rolling you know it's it's still happening and people are still still sort of that that experience is now available you but what was incredible for me is that I felt everything that you just said you know pH differently in my own way in Vermont yeah through the music I don't think it's place it's not a it's not it's not Place specific you know what I mean it's not sight specific in terms of rock and roll music that was the music that flowed around on the on the albums that that made people like me in different locations feel the same thing we were doing you know psychedelics at the same time which well once you were touched by that you know was like dog on your shoe you know you couldn't get it off for you know I mean it was it's part of everything you did you know and I mean you know you're sort of touched by this wand you know ding okay you know now some percentage of everything you do is going to have that thing in it you know and it it'll communicate it to anybody who's can can dig it you know so when you toured in those in the 60s then uh and going to town probably we've never seen anything remotely like you or that's for sure I mean how are people responding were they into the group or were they well uh the audiences caught on always they always caught on the people in the world you like not here you don't you know you walk into a like a you know holiday in or you know some place to say oh no you know not here you know that we got that kind of reaction the first couple of years we were out you know was like because people weren't used to seeing freaks then you know and that was still a big novelty you know so that was fun for us cuz it was the last of the the last chance you had to shock people just by the way you looked just by the way you were you know you didn't even have to think about it or work at it at all you can just walk down the street people go oh my God you know that was fun that was we we got in on the last of that probably uh the the the music music well the Greatful Dead has always been like a a very much very chancy musical experience and back then what we were doing had the the nature of it was that some nights it would be just awful and some nights it would be wonderful you know and and if people caught us on an awful night they went away going what was that you know and if they caught us on a wonderful night they enjoyed it and they came back again you know it's like totally a roll of the dice you know we something we never had any control of we still don't have any control over it but now our bad nights are are accomplished you know now we could now we can at least sound decent you know if we don't if we don't if we were not experiencing authentic inspiration if we're exper you know authentic inspiration then something magical sort of takes over but if we're not now we can at least sound professional you know it's in tune you know everything is like supposed to be you know it's it's an okay performance the songs that you were doing at that time you were doing some covers like TR be good but what what and some of your own music I mean how did you decide what to play we we always had a problem with deciding what to play We we've never been able to decide what to play at all you know so back then we were much more free form because we we we just were not able to decide what to play so somebody would just start something and uh the way we've handled it since then is that we we still can't decide what to play but uh but now at least we have a lot of stuff to choose from um your songwriting with with with Hunter I mean that is that a I mean my haha songwriting uh it's one of those things it's a default situation you know what I mean it's like somebody in the band's got a you know like one of those things are well who's going to play who's going to play bass the guy that plays guitar worst that's the way it is in most bands you know there's like certain things so this the writing writing songs got it was a default thing you know but all of us do some writing so so that that I didn't never felt that bad about it but for me it's one of those things it's like a craft you know it's like uh throwing in a pot you know it it's a craft you you there's a certain craft to it it's not uh for me I don't know whether my song writing Rises to the level of art there's one or two songs I think I've written and Hunter and I have written that I think are truly wonderful and uh but you know whether anybody else thinks that I don't know and and I don't certainly don't feel like I'm a wonderful songwriter my output is very small you know I mean I I'm not prolific by any means Hunter's output compared to mine is like it's about I'd say about 50 to one he's like so prolific uh but Hunter and I have a wonderful working relationship so it's a it's always a happy experience erience writing with him and and that's usually I don't write unless I write with him you know and David is another collaborator David uh David grisman is another person I collaborate with comfortably for me that's pretty much what I do I am pretty much a collaborator I'm pretty much a person who who works with other people not a person who works alone well the the Greatful Dead is one of the most collaboration and musical groups there is I mean I don't know if collaborationis what is that coll collab never mind what would that word be you you work so well as a as a team you understand each other maybe was it partly through the the kind of free form work you did in the 60s that you developed more you weren't doing songs so much you're actually making music well you know what what it really has to do with it it the people in The Grateful Dead are are uh pathologically anti-authoritarian so uh so it's just you I nobody can tell anybody what to do ever under any circumstances so uh so that Pro produces a certain amount of uh also if you ask somebody to play something they'll never play it uh so it produces the kind of uh music music by um by Confluence you know or uh by by friction or by opposites by by U you know it's it's conflicted it's it's uh and that makes interesting it has a great deal of tension you know because everybody plays so differently from each other I mean it's like uh nothing on this Earth will make me play like Bob you know nothing on this Earth will ever make me play like Bob and I'll be damned if I'm GNA play like Phil you know what I mean it's like you know what I mean it's one of those kind of things each one of us experiences some version of that you know and it's just it's not even something we consciously do we just do it it's like as it's as as pure as mother's milk you know what I mean it's pure innocence it's like no there's no premeditation it's just something that's there you know we don't we never decided it we don't we don't inspect it we don't deal with it it's just there you know and I've never in my never once in all the years we' played together have I ever been able to predict what Bob will play or what Phil will play in a given situation or the drummers for that matter you know I mean I just have no idea you know I have I don't have a clue and it's it's to me that makes it really interesting you know what I mean it's just there's something the band always has this quality that is totally unpredictable and there's just no way that you can say what it's going to sound like I mean it just it changes completely its character completely you know from night to night and uh you know it just I mean there's just no way to stop it you know so it's one of those things it's not not like how did we arrive at it it's just like how how can we escape it you know you know that way I don't think I don't know I don't think so you know and our our liy designer works that way too so I mean the whole show has to work what are they going to do she I don't what happen what happened to the I like we're actually we may use a clip of I know your writer from the old avone that um do you have any what was the history of that song of the song I mean how how did you bring Jesus well it's an old folk song I mean it's it used to be like a standby really in the in the uh coffee houses and stuff like that and I never performed it as a Bluegrass person or as a uh I never was a foky very much you know um I just wasn't that good you know I I mostly played in bands with other people but I I always like that song and no matter who did it you know and there was like all kind of these folk versions of it and stuff like that there were really I mean there were really modern versions of it really I I always like the song so I I just you know I just uh of the ones that I could remember the arrangements the versions of it melodically and as far as this chord structure and so forth that was the one that I sort of called from my own memory I really don't have I don't remember where I learned it I don't remember who who taught it to me or why I even uh why I chose it except it's just a nice song and I thought it would be ideal to do uh with electric an electric band I viewed an electric band as really um well it's strings you know it's a still a String Band fundamentally even though it's electric uh so that and the addition of the the drums and that made it sort of more like Bluegrass which is a more intensely rhythmic kind of music so for me the elements were there it was like a I viewed the the band The Grateful Dead or or or the warlocks or whatever from the very beginning it's like well this is a blue blues band in one sense in other words the the instrumentation and everything is is traditionally what what a blues band has had and in that sense this is a traditional band but it's also a kind of mutated like a kind of like a Bluegrass man on a certain level I mean you could approach it Bluegrass is a nice metaphor for how music can work as a group in other words uh blue grass is a conversational music and I thought it'd be nice to have an electric band that was that way it was conversational where the instruments talk to each other you know uh and it's a way to organize music so for me I know your writer and the arrangement particularly The Grateful Dead Arrangement that with Grateful Dead uses is is has a lot of conversation in it and the instruments kind of talk to each other and uh that was that was the sense that I thought that was a model for how a band could work you know what I mean and it's extracted from all kinds of things but that's fundamentally an early model of how how a band could work so which is my my my throw out you know it's what I threw out say okay how could a a a five piece which we originally wear a five piece electric band work how could it how could it relate how could the instruments relate to each other what would their roles be you know you know and so forth uh so that was you know that was it with bits and pieces of regular stuff like in blues one kind of style of Blues the two guitars like Jimmy Reed say uh two guitar and harmonica style of Blues the way the instruments work there is there's a conversation between the guitars one guitar plays low runs and the other guitar plays little high licks less frequently but they work they stay out of each other's register they stay out of each other's range and it's a very pretty sound and the base plays you know just simple stuff in the bottom and that the and the harmonica plays like over the top and it it has there's a sense to it you know and it makes it very transparent because the instruments are are open their discussion is like open you know there's a lot of air in there it's a it's a pretty way to work so we sort of patterned the way we work the way we approach things kind of extrapolated from that idea I mean you have to decide somewhere along the line when you're playing you have to decide are we all going to play the same or are we all going to play differently I mean the Greatful Dead always had the disease where we played differently so that's what we had to work with but luckily that approach is not un totally unknown I mean it's it's a way a lot of musics work that way either they work that way because the instrumentation is different like in a string quartet or they work that way because uh uh the music demands it you know like in I say a mandolin Orchestra you know where everybody's playing the same instrument but but they're all playing different parts your your own uh guitar style involved over the I mean you you have so much confidence in Ian you don't feel like you have to you know go berserk in order to make people hear what you're getting across well I I'm hoping to not have to go to berserk at all I mean I will if it the situation really calls for it but really I my model for playing is is based on a psychedelic experience also my my model for like when I go on stage what am I trying to accomplish okay here's the story there's one time we played it was we playing at the old Filmore and it was after Bill Graham wasn't running it anymore so it was some independent like a hippie some some hippie local hippies rented it for some cause or another or whatever anyway we were playing there it was with but Bill Bill wasn't running it so it it's a little a little bit strange and uh there like some weird bands were playing on the same build with us like maybe like at that time say like the Flaming groovies or something like you know what I mean some of the bands that were happening back in that time this like the late ' 60s uh or the middle late 60s um so somebody some this guy who was like sort of a famous freak in ran around the scene in those days comes in and he's got this big birthday cake he's got this huge big birthday cake you know you'll look I'm looking at thinking that that thing has got to be dosed I just know this this suck I know I know it's dosed you know I'm looking at it and looking at looking at it and thinking yeah that's sure it's then I said but it it looked good you know it was beautiful this beautiful big you know so I thought I well I'll just I'll just take a little a little of the frosting here you know just you know I'll just take a little snack so I took this and then somebody comes in and says yeah we put uh about 800 hits of acid in that frosting you know and I go oh God you know I'm gonna oh Jesus Christ I'm G to be totally wiped out with this you know and and by this time I didn't really enjoy playing uh you know under the influence of psychedelics cuz I didn't have the freedom to quit if I wanted to it wasn't really that much fun to play when you when you don't have the option you know when you don't have options so I mean it it uh it it wasn't something I was looking forward to and and so I'm sitting there and I'm waiting to play and we're we're later get getting later and later and later and I'm coming on now I'm going down all the place is swimming and and I start to hear the overhear people you know I'm all going off in this paranoid space I thinking God this place is full of Mafia guys and they're all trying to kill me you know I got that notion in my head you know this guy you know this guy comes in he's he looks he looks exactly like a mafia guy you know he say here he want something to drink I look poison you know that no no no thanks you know it's like everybody is armed to the teeth they're all trying to kill me okay so and we're I'm waiting there to go oh I'm this is it this is my last night night on Earth you know I'm convinced of this now still in this Psy like a roar you know and so we're going down on stage you know to go and play and I'm I'm going out there I thinking oh God you know J what have I done to deserve this you know I'm going to go out there and play and they're going to kill me you know you know so I and the only thing I could think of to do was I I I said okay I'm just going to play for my life I'm going to play for my life that's what I'm going to do you know and so I played for my life and they let me live ever since then you know I mean that so that you know ever since then I thought that works you know for me is to to play for my life you know so you know that that uh you know when I forget what I'm doing or why I'm doing it I I play for my life wonder what what comment you have on some of the newer music um you know uh Punk and rap that kind well rap is not music for one thing I mean it isn't music you know it's it's talking that's what it says rap rap means talking it's not music it's talking in meter it's got rhyme and it's got it has meter it has Rhythm it's not music um it's uh you know it's okay I mean there's nothing wrong with it I I have no no problem with it it just isn't music you know and people who get to be great at rap are not great musicians they're just great at rap you know it's not there's no no Road from rapping into music you know what I mean you know and and music is something that you can get better and better and better at I don't know if you can do that with rap you know I I don't know whether it has that kind of space in it or that kind of go leads off into Infinite numbers of possibilities music does rap I don't know whether it does rap also has the problem this language specific so uh you know if you don't understand English you know rap I mean you know it doesn't communicate except it sounds neat um as far as the new music goes there there the there isn't a whole lot in the way of new music there's some stuff which is very derivative you know what I mean it's like uh people who are copying people who copied people who copied Robert Johnson say you know what I mean it's it's it's far removed and its derivative it's it's removed enough from the original Source uh that the people who are playing it don't actually know where it came from and it it it's like all like everything else it's a Way Station anybody who's who's young and playing is going to either they're going to get better or going to quit playing you know they're they're probably not going to get worse you know so that that that means that somebody is on the ride you know somebody's on okay somebody decide to get on the music ride and I look forward to seeing them get improve you know with age if they have anything going for them at all uh otherwise you know I don't know the exper the but the level of expertise that's available now to to any Young musician is wow it's incredible they can they can all play I mean technically speaking the in most instruments have have enjoyed an incredible increase in technical skill uh and that that uh that that skill that virtuosity is available to everybody in the in the old days forget it you know there would you just you know I mean if you're going to get good you pretty much had to teach yourself pass beyond a certain point and now now these instruments have uh you know there's a whole there are whole new levels of play playing ability which have made it more well now it's got the thing that every other everything else has which is dividing the technique from the the uh from the substance you know what I mean it's like uh It suffers in a way from technique music does because technique you can get caught up in it and uh and lose the substance for me music is a is a emotional it's emotional in nature it it communicates emotionally that's one of the things that does really well and I think that if you don't if that isn't the sense of what you're doing then I don't know what what it is [Music] hi my name is Dick lotala and welcome to a grateful Dad Vault right here is some live tapes from uh 1972 and 71 era the Europe 72 tour actually which is one of our better tours and and um back over here on the other side there's uh all the 7in tapes from uh 69 through 81 so how long have you I was hired in 1985 uh and I uh been basically organizing the tape since then but I I had a a previous experience I have a home collection like I was collecting tapes since time began so I already had some experience of organizing using the name de how how long have you been doing your home tap my Grateful Dead uh collection started in 1974 I started collecting tapes and uh then I did nothing else for about 10 years I have a huge collection at home and um now being responsible for this this many tapes is just uh overwhelming I should say so could you describe where we are how many tapes there are here we're in uh one of the Grateful Dead vaults the main one where most of the live stuff exists um which is the important stuff from my perspective uh and we have it on all different formats and there's stuff existing from 69 through the present so um this is basically the main Vault there's other vaults with stuff from solo projects or other record projects and things like that but what about other band members texes that's what I was saying solo projects there's downstairs there's Mickey's area well actually this is Mickey's area right here and then Jerry's area is over here and um then Bob has an area downstairs and you know Hunter has an area there's a whole bunch of different uh people solo things that are exist downstairs so how many live recordings do you figure there are um geez that's really almost impossible to determine you know I mean there's thousands and thousands of tapes uh there's one group of people that you know got into uh estimating how many shows and documenting them and there's you know a couple thousand shows so each show generates a lot of tapes just the live stuff that exists yeah uh the is it are they how many tracks different T during different years you take us through that uh I'm two track oh well uh in the beginning they only recorded two track except when they were recording for an album or something like that and then it would be multi-tracked some of the live shows when they were doing a live album um but basically there's just two track tapes from the 69 through 81 and then digital happened right after that so our tapes were put on digital but that's still not multi-track you know uh so most of the stuff is basically uh two track and a few shows on multitrack what we have here that you're looking at is one of the better Grateful Dead tours in 1972 Europe uh it's multirack tapes um and there's about 25 shows um some of which will eventually release on as part of our live Vault release program but um this is just one of the awesome tours that we hopefully get to hear someday some of the shows what album did this become oh this would be on under the live Vault release program you know we have like a dick piic which is this two track stuff that's uh you can't mix or mix down in any way and then the multirack stuff is more special stuff that is we call the From the Vault series that was started a couple years ago so that's uh that's basically the same live Vault release stuff but not multi-track it's just two track shows of which there's lots but there's a lot of problems with them you know like uh the shows weren't recorded for posterity they were just recorded to hear the next day so you get a lot of missing parts of the show so there's and there a lot of problems with two track multitrack on the other hand you can mix down and make it sound very very decent so there one two three what do those numbers mean on the that's just a a cataloging system according to uh uh uh you know putting them in a book this um doesn't refer to any particular thing uh the shows are what you know I look for like the dates are right here here I mean the the it says Bas drum FL Tom if you could oh those right in here these are the what's on the multirack um this is the uh 16 tracks and what's on them like the first track is the Bass Drum Floor Tom and snare and overhead high hat base bass lead guitar rhythm guitar and then the vocals and then an organ on4 and piano on 15 and uh I can't read that last thing who the vocalist on that t um well Bob and Jerry of course and uh Phil uh might have sang a song or two and um then Keith might have no he didn't sing and pig pen pigpen had a vocal too all right what you're starting to look at now as contrasted with dick PX is Dick's mess this is an area where uh I need to fix up a lot this is uh one of the band members areas where he has all his projects this is Mickey Hart's area and U it goes along on the other wall here and then the next Al Cove and um this boy generates a lot of music this is some more of Mickey's tapes here and now you're going to be seeing the 7in tapes in the back there those are live shows which is very good stuff there and just on the right is Jerry's uh section where some of his live album work is uh documented here on 2in multitrack tapes what you're looking at now is some of the multitrack tapes this is Jerry 14in M mul track this is Jerry Garcia band uh live show and a couple other shows coming up here and then the winterland 1974 winterland shows are down here further and if you go a little more down you'll see the 1972 Europe live tour uh there's some 25 shows that exist from that tour and there's some of the better shows that the Grateful Dead have ever performed roll away roll away
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SafPFpDNvpw
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Jerry Garcia - Grateful Dead Guitarist - Last Film Interview - April 28, 1995
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Silicon Valley Historical Association
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https://youtube.com/watch?v=SafPFpDNvpw
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2019-01-19
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PT48M30S
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en
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manual
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Yes
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native-born there everyone thank you very much for forgiving me some of your time and this is for the Valley Historical Association you can give it back to me just before I die I might want that like 15 20 minutes you ask your permission that we can use this in our upcoming video and maybe you put it out in cyberspace what news well I don't care I don't care what you do as long as you don't do something incredibly embarrassing no I wouldn't do it if I really mattered to me about you know we quit doing those porno movies last week so if the lights get to you say something and we'll shut them on first second sorry kitty former oh man just kill me hey so so hot did they actually burn my neck I think I really burned actually but I came on stage I have teeny-weeny blisters all over I couldn't believe it yeah I mean those suckers do they when they crank them up yet I don't know how you play I remember I saw you years when I was long ago at the Iowa State Fair fairgrounds and I just thought that was the hottest day on earth and oh [ __ ] one time we played Kansas City the big yeah we played that place and it was like the 4th of July or something like that it was so humid at haunt and it was it was like it was measured believe that believe it or not it was amazing at 130 degrees it's inside the stadium on my floor all right we were playing there playing and in passing unconscious bodies it's like you know like like a bucket brigade I mean the whole shits like it's like play to the death champ you know I mean it was like you know I was yeah everything was wet it was everything that they had then but we had an easy after us Willie Nelson played you know first I think I think code and it started raining then you know and it was that kind of rain that doesn't have any direction you know it's just water in the air I mean you can swim up and still like so like hot enough work where the water was they didn't steam okay okay let's talk about let's get on to the real stuff that's right okay so this is a history of Palo Alto and it's actually growing into more of a history of Silicon Valley and you know we're looking at well I'll tell you I mean this plate you know it was there was a lot happy I found some interesting connections what I lived down there as a kid I I went to a little school called memo pardon me memo ups yeah it was the first year that this school would just be built as a a junior high school that means some of the ninth grade down the peninsula on the the good side of the freeway you know the bad side of the field was East Palo Alto now are you singing out there and I went to school there too everybody did and you know it's just you know that's where all the black people live you know so then they they put this new new junior high school and it it's you know we were we were in the first class or so the first first two classes of it and you know it had that oh don't think about it being so close to Stanford the the the education of the School of Education and stuff like that you know the educational the people that were studying education or one thing or the other we're constantly using our little school as a place where you experiment with programs of one sort or another yeah so I was involved in this thing they had this thing when I was going there called a fast learner program where the brightest kids first aid tested everybody and the brightest kids we're all all like two times well three times a week went to college level classes in any of you know about maybe half a dozen classes or maybe maybe eight or nine classes that you could choose whatever you wanted so I I used to take a class and a science class and and got to basically just got to do it and you'd study just that subject all day long you didn't do any other stuff it was great fun I mean it was like so you know being there but anyway when I was down there I I had this teacher tremendously he got in trouble all the time this guy did first of all I was with all the wiseacres here I was a lot of smart kids from this this other school that I'd been in right my little school you know and they put all the bright kids together it was dangerous you know because we're a little smartass along with it so we had this kind of unsteady Second World War vet as our male teacher over and over in East Palo Alto for the our first year of junior high school seventh grade I named mr. Greene perfectly nice guy but you know this little hey get a little bit of battle fatigue in there Oh Oh whatever the euphemism they had were the post-traumatic shock syndrome anyway he's a little unsteady and we kind of distinct of bathing him you know and do you know cuz we're pulling weird drinks out of him dear Louis somebody finally cracked right up and just Eve quit he beat up some kid he left his like not last net last time I remember seeing was he was checking the counter at the counter and the Safeway hi mr. green by this time he's like his mouse is moving but nothing's coming out anyway so as a replacement now for this this this class got the replacement we got next was an extraordinarily read neurotic woman from somewhere God knows where who is like one of those women who dress over dresses for you know junior high school you know like big boobs but one of those like tied down yet down the middle the day she's like and she's like furious you know she's operating just under furious oh she's got fury free-flowing fury for anything yes she also snapped yeah she finally yeah that was it so finally we got this Sunday guys last guy knows everything in that okay this guy's gonna be bombed this [ __ ] right out mr. Johnson but mr. Johnson turned out to be great he turned out to be really amazing and he got eats talk to the class like they were like we were adults just a seventh grade you know you talked to us like a dull so mr. Johnson with mr. Johnson I learned lots and lots about every kind of fake I mean they're all kinds things by the time I that that grade it was over I was starting to get seriously I was starting to learn things you know and he he was incredible he'd come to school he had an mg TC one of those old beautiful and Jesus tonight with a big square hood it's not you know not not the little pointy confident shaped ones but the ones does it be long straights where you know it's nasty grout you know and he also had a Vincent Black Shadow the fastest accelerating motorcycle of the time you know it's like a real monster motorcycle I need a motor the teacher on a motorcycle whoever and he'd come out to school his motorcycle was a black leather jacket yeah this is like 1954 I mean you know he was really really outrageous and he and everyone once in a while his wife would come and she was like beautiful she was a real peach you know she looks really great and mr. Johnson recognized that I had a certain amount of facility of withdrawing I could draw pretty well and so he had me you know wisely but he also didn't knew that I was a confusion artist you know like you know if he good secret say it you know and but he got me involved in doing all these things that you know murals and you know supervising all kinds of stuff and doing the class plays and all that stuff and you know so I ended up being that guy and he fed it back to me and his wife who was an artist lost herself she was real great they were very helpful this guy mr. Johnson I dry Johnson was his name it turns out at that time cake Easy was like you know you know like like a freshman at Stanford and I didn't know this is the later of course but she's he and she was totally about how he used to hang out at White Johnson's house and why Johnson's the guy that taught turn easier to pot now that's that's what I heard are you I mean you know in terms of like what kind of a place was Palin I mean deeply subversive you know I mean but in a visionary kind of far out way you know what I mean because I was ready for anything after I met Dwight Johnson I was ready for anything you know I mean I was truly ready for anything and my further experiences did I move back up to the sea my experiences from beto were just more reinforced you know but but I got to be quite a you know I guess a bohemian you know this is before they started the word beat maker that's the you know beat generation area that was like out you better ask me some direct questions wrong you know we talk to guys like wozniak you know and in jobs well much younger you know sure but what they say is that because you know of the place of the counterculture that came before them that you know inspired and drove them to pull the computer out of the mainframe yeah I think yeah I believe it you know I believe it because it was hot it was a happening scene there you know really sure I don't camp birds yeah nice guy really really nice yeah excellent yeah excellent great why do you have my permission I'll try to be more sovereign leave more pregnant pauses advice on Thursday Willy legate I'll just make a statement I'll make a bit resin yeah you know keys he was at Stanford take an acid for crying out loud I was Hall later I mean this much later I'm talking about another brand I was talking about before was when I back when I was I was a kid I mean this is like 50 50s you know and but it was a short hop from there to what I went back there to about 1960 59 to 60 when I went went back after I've been in the army and you know it was I still went to the same I still found it friendly and I went to two East Palo Alto where one of my friends from from junior high school actually somebody I'd known for a long long time was stayed at a guy's house in junior in a party in East Palo Alto because it didn't cost him anything he says I said hey you think I could stay there too he said sure sure bring your car I just bought a car my first car which was a nice 50 Cadillac 50 get like sedan I bought from a cook in the army and so I took it and I brought down to talk I just did I suggest to get it down there and then it died it died in the parking lot pass just behind the kind of the building where my friend was staying so I just you know I just may be comfortable in there that was became my house that was my apartment so the first step but I would go over to to my friend Laird this is this is guy Laird who I've known almost all my life I mean he's still he's lived the lives on some land I bought up in Northern California is still up there he was a guy who was tremendously fascinating with all the beatnik stuff and be literature and all that and as was I and I so I I made my car you know and then some of the time I would sleep inside in the in the apartment on the on the folding bed you know one morning got there steamboats Lee and this guy comes in he says Jesus Christ he says Wow I bet you have to shave three times a day he says this black guy named David and hey crack me up I said you have to save the day so I had to hang it out with this guy David McQueen a real great guy and we and I would go out looking for odd jobs you know and I mean really like we were like that Laurel and Hardy of East Palo Alto we would get we'd Freddie's a little you know like 20 bucks a day job yeah I'm moving Fraser here here you take the heavy end no God no no look out for that like totally silly but he was there like the first I did sort of like befriended me a lot you know and then some time or another somebody brought a guitar a little acoustic guitar over to this guy's house and I I played a little and david mokuba he heard me play the blues he just killed it me says why man with the soul like he was so like what you got man and I was a tremendously flattered you know and he'd say she's like come on I gotta take you rock you take me around to all of his friends places and I played play the blues and people would go blue everybody feed me you know I'm pretty said I got to be I was totally comfortable there you know I was just you know I didn't think anything of it really you know I mean it I didn't I guess it was exceptional but it didn't to me it felt very very normal you know I mean I I didn't really know anything about the Blues but my brother had been a fan of rhythm and blues and I've been listening to it you know all my life I mean at least as far as I can remember you know I mean this is back in the days when guys like John Lee Hooker were had hit you know in the rhythm blues world I mean this foggy got country blues guys you know and the Bay Area had lots of blues cats old-timers you know you know all these guys they were I mean they're they're a lot of and they're they're around and and and it was like a sort of distinctives style in the Bay Area and then there was all that there was all those the Chess Records you know that the Chicago blues Muddy Waters and all those those guys are so wonderful I mean that that music I grew up on you know I I didn't didn't occur to me then I mean that was the music that I I heard that and my grandmother was a nut for the grand ole opry she played the grand ole opry every Saturday night so I got that sound in my ear the fiddles you know and you know sometime around here was the funk music things started was happening the Kingston Trio and all that stuff and so the thing of having an acoustic guitar you know and being able to pick a little bit was like you know I you know I wanted to I got fascinated by that I heard this guy play figure style guitar finger-picking you know I said jeez I gotta do that that sounds great you know I could still learn how to do that yeah and I added and things got to be that way I might be I would hear something and I would just love it you know and I feel like I was getting closer and closer to kind of the golden soul of what I wanted to do you know the thing about music you know and it music got my attention and art stopped having you know I mean their art so I just I didn't even think you know I just I just want to do this and so I spent all day picking at the guitar you know listen to records and slowing them down and do that you know that's definitely what to do well I'll tell you man it was the people that were George perfectly kind I mean I never had to worry about eating I never had to worry about a place to stay I I never had to worry about money I never had a job people looked after me and I didn't I didn't ask him to you know they just did I was always so delighted you know I sighs so far happy died I all I said what could I do I can I do any detail sometimes I can help out in some way but more often than not it was just having the kind of their hearts and also over there by Stanford you know when I got hip to that I mean there were these like all these Stanford girls you know there's different girls and they would always bring me I got great stuff to eat you know and I met Hunter of course who was when I first met him Robert hire when I first met him he like I had just gotten out of the active service part of of the service he was a he was a weekend warrior though where I was a regular army guy and so and what I when I got kicked out that was it I was out a hundred when he got kicked out he had to go back every you know like a one weekend a month you know and all that say Horizonte keep his hair short you had to do all these things he couldn't be he couldn't get totally weird he always had those national guard okay Bob national guard to know that he'd be you know out there like counting the moths on the moon or something you know totally bizarre if he'd have to come way back from that you know okay Bob come on Maggie I get your uniform on Vegas right so when we first met each other his car like mine had died he moved it right next to mine East Palo Alto you know so we were there we were we were automobile natives in this empty lot and the other interesting coincidence was his car had he had like two or three great huge you know ten gallon cans of crushed pineapple that he boosts that I guess from mess hall you know and I I had thousands of plastic spoons and forks I don't remember why I took them I sigh I thought I should have them though they were everywhere they were in life glove compartment they were stiff stuff those are the seeds they're everywhere you know every nook and cranny in the car in plastic spoons and forks and so we would have these you know that was like breakfast you know hey how about some how about some fresh pineapple today bobgoblin that would that was it so we were able to we were able to make do with that for a pretty long time that was how we got to know each other really that was fun and but see and also see socially you power off there were there a couple of coffee houses like like continental style coffee houses they were you know had a nice informed menu you know and a lot of nice good good coffee you know you get wired to the idea for 25 cents and all the children the kids of the of a lot of the Stanford you know the the the people that worked at the university the the the staff you know and the you know of all of the various departments you know they're the kids we're all terrifically precocious and there was this one kid who there was a San Francisco newspaper columnist of the time named Paul Spiegel a justice Mel's name SPE eg like Springsteen Spiegel and then Paul Spiegel and his son I know this scent for I noticed that actually since back when I was in you know junior high school that I was like a year younger younger than me or so and he was kind of like the lion of the little this little social scene so I met him you know and we hit it off pretty well immediately and we got off on each other we were both heavy readers and we both had shared the same sort of cruel sense of humor pretty much a soul and we had a good time together but very shortly after we got to get we were getting to know each other one night after a party somewhere it was gonna be a little accident and Paul was killed and I and some of the other guys there was four of us in the car we were all injured some and but Paul was Paul died so in the aftermath of that that whole little scene kind of pulled together and kind of gained a kind of sense of purpose you know because he was like a really gifted he was a gift he was a painter and he had the touch he had the thing you know what he would have become good so that was that was like kind of one of those little kicks of the as you need to get you going you know that was one of one of my kicks it works pretty well and I mean really for me it just then I started to get really serious about music I understand here why didn't you go like back to New York I had no interest in going in New York you know I really didn't I mean I liked it here and I also I the people here I love them you know I cared I cared about the people that I would there were like you know my little my social set you know I loved him I thought they were that's what there was a lot going on there you know and I thought I have time to go to New York New York New York some other time you know and you know I just did - did their New York was he calling to me yeah I really you know we say about that time do people New York were starting to come out here you know got from the West Coast you know it was just starting to light up a little out here you know and and that one then you know things started really rolling that this is still early 60s early like 60 to 61 62 63 right around there I mean I still had a few years to go as a during the folks care you know to get to be a real confident bluegrass player and that was my connection to New York that's where I met the New York guys cuz they were that was they were the first serious folkies and so the bluegrass players the first ones that I met there could really cut it or from the East Coast yeah and they were amazed that I was out here in the West Coast although there was a couple of us out here that could play well and so that that that started happening you know that reciprocal thing and you know like that and it did start once you got rolling it started moving really fast you know all this stuff started moving really fast I mean within the space of a year so then of course Kennedy got snapped boom yeah yeah oh all in the world you know new reality you know put on the brakes you know to check things out girl you know what I mean it was like that was another impetus it was like now what okay [ __ ] you you know thank you you know if you're gonna shoot there if you're very done there's something that's good it's gonna get shot [ __ ] it you know we're not gonna let you have it anymore you know see everything changed then yeah and also that's about the time we started to leave the phone the started ceilings too small and other things we're calling this well the city yeah was it was the vastus actually is what goddess which was like a like we went to the Moon or Mars or something like that we went to another reality rather than this one and it served better you know you know it was truly cosmic kind of entertainment but you know that actually it actually brought a lot of kind of all along with it it's strange you know I mean you know it'd be hard to it's hard to sort of separate one thing in and out and it was the lifestyle the way of life there was easy be weren't afraid you get on to be on the streets in the middle of night hollering and the police wouldn't think there was somebody being killed I mean there wasn't you know it wasn't worst-case preparation you know they weren't they weren't ready for the most horrible thing to be happening and it really was horrible it was almost always innocent and pleasant even and it was just a great great way to live you know it's a great place to live a great way to live and the people were nice and we we were lucky enough to get to be able to get weird at a time when as far as sight notes were concerned they were still legal for one thing and the other thing was that nobody knew what the [ __ ] you were yeah yeah so if you're if your behavior defies description you know what I mean what's the guy doing wanna know he's standing up seizo upside down by the lamppost over there he's got one leg Raptors this the telephone pole and he's arms out and he's screaming something about Merry Christmas I don't know what that was you know it's like you know your behavior so weird and you know and but you're not harming anybody or scaring anybody I mean the people realized its place harmless you know it really it's okay you can be as weird as you want it's like in England they have this thing where as long as you don't bother anybody it can be as weird as you want and they kind of they kind of treasure they're mad people are they kind of like if you're if you're crazy no problem less uptight more fun time or just a period oh yeah well for us that we had as much time to be young and carefree and and having a wonderful time sort of that sort of life we had as much of it as anybody could possibly want I mean it was it was really great really was it was also enough time to to develop the skills that you needed like for me from being able to spend enough time working on my playing so that it wasn't developed in a frenzy it was developed out of love my own personal love for it you know and you know well stuff I don't know any other way to say it really because I did meet people who learned on their other way other ways you know there's sort of other envelopes and it's not that that they could do I mean to do what they did technically was any better or anything but sometimes it had a a darker purpose to it sort of I mean it was good and everything was well I skied it but but sometimes it lacked that the thing of heart you know how music I should have should always have it even mechanistic be that music promised him though I don't think that I don't think the Pow Wow I had a clue the reason anything at all might have happened there was because there was a lot of people there and it's a college campus always kind of protein m'as not that anybody welcomed any of it you know nobody welcomed any of it really and it really it was a couple of doctors that opened up the place to Hanjin the top of the tangent and they were slightly visionary you know just slightly you know and they like the music and that was it it wasn't wasn't because there any part of say the university or the the hierarchy of the community itself you know any not a clue you know I mean not I don't know whether it would have been possible for it to do anything would scare it you know what I mean it wouldn't have been helpful and the nature of all was happening was so delicate and so bizarre and had a kind of it had a kind of unfocused diffuse well I mean it's the sort of thing that it's difficult to talk about even now because there was the the point about it was that it didn't have a sitter it wasn't directed from by outside forces or by the normal history as we normally perceive it it was not about those things you know that's that's that wasn't what it wasn't that wasn't what it was about and it was about possibilities I think and they were in the air they were just in the air and everybody was also waiting when the sense of something is about to happen was so imminent you know I mean it was just like everybody knew it you know everybody was waiting for this thing to happen something was gonna happen and it was just so obvious and everybody did what they could to make it happen you know people would try weird [ __ ] you know I mean I mean everybody was everybody got turned on to pop during this period and loved it everybody tried other other forms of other kinds of drugs crystal and so forth and didn't like it so lore liked it a lot but it made him crazy did lots more you know and really what it was was everybody was waiting for psychedelics everybody's waiting for LSD because of what we'd heard about it when everybody had heard about it it seemed like you know it seemed like that thing of the sense of losing faith in this reality like this reality is not it is not that great you know this is just it's not that good can't beat all there is there's just not enough to it there's not enough to it it's not that interesting it isn't it isn't enough fun it doesn't it doesn't require enough of me it's not a challenge you know Derrick gotta be it's gotta be more well LSD hit the streets finally that was like it yeah yeah you were looking for more here it is this is for this is more than you can imagine I mean and for me that's what that's what that was I mean I it's not I realized that drugs are not politically correct right at this moment but you know psychedelics for the people that were waiting for them they were exactly the thing they're exactly the thing you know I mean because they have that way of being individual they're not nobody people don't experience exactly the same effects they experience themselves and themselves sometimes themselves it turns out to be utterly delightful sometimes it turns out to be a total bummer but either way you you've got more of it to work with well you've taken psychedelics and seen the bigger picture you know so sometimes it meant that I gotta get to work or I'm gonna be this way all my life you know sometimes that's what I admit sometimes it meant no more psycho dogs they're they're too weird for me but I think I'd better go and join a monastery somewhere guess the only way to work this out is the long slow way yeah I'm panicked unhurried some people it was like something those yes okay where's the next terminal you know I'm ready you know yeah I'm ready to move to the next square you know and you know it hit people where they needed to be and it was the thing that everybody was waiting for and it was and everything opened right up right in front of the boom like that it was it was truly amazing and that that that hole lasted for about a year year and a half maybe it was like this magic kind of oh where the honesty was still legal it had been made illegal yet and the idea of being high was so new that nobody recognized it and you were freedom to freak out completely get as high as you want to do out in the open and they could take it to jail for it and that was really a wonderful thing to have experienced you know that was like yeah I mean after that there's that really I mean for me in my life there's no turning back there was no back but not just a matter of turning back but the idea of backtest was gone like all directions were forward from there you know I mean and as far as like information and material you know it's like having so much material I mean and it stays with you too like the experiences that I experienced back back in those days the psychedelic days they were more real than anything I ever experienced in this on this level you know they were there way more real you know they had they were so much more detailed and lifelike and and beautiful and horrible and everything else in every and all the way you know down to the teeny tedious medias smallest iota of discriminant material every bit of it was you know was it was incredible I don't know yeah that that's just one of the reasons I started disqualifying yourself from this discussion about a serious levels because there simply is conventional wisdom won't accept this subjective of a overview you know for me that's the point that's what it well that's what it was about it was it was most subjective and you know I I'm so glad that it happened in my lifetime and I got to experience it at its purest you know I've just I feel like I'm luckiest person in the world really their game and hey that's it you know I don't remember the first time I met him when he was working with a friend of mine named Troy widen heimer we played the band together the band was well we played the band together I played bass and he played drums but he was 17 years old and you know he was like the teenagers that's the kid yeah and I played a few shows with him stuff like that and then one when me and big van and weird talked about putting together a you know like a like electric blues band there's something that sort the only German that I'd really played with around that area that I felt really had a nice feel was Bill who was 17 or 18 right now by now he's 18 so I talked to over the he was he was just as weird as ever and I really really didn't understand anything he said he was like what okay I asked him he wanted to play he was delighted he was just all over the place in any you know so we played it was great you know he'd worked out for it I didn't realize what it's truly strange Presley was until we started getting tied together then that was a no-no a whole other bill jumped out you know that that bill is a total a total remember seeing you played the tangent upstairs yeah told him so Pigpen I know I remember when I met him he was like 14 he's like a grubby little kid you know from dad lived down there and near Los Altos and you know he played a little harmonica and a little a little guitar he used to ask me to show him some guitar licks blues licks and I would show up stuff and he picked up the guitar by himself and in about a month about a couple of months he was playing you know tonight pretty dice he had a real feeling for the music and he it was in his ears it was his father was the first rhythm blues disc jockey in the Bay Area so he been here in the music all his life and he had a real feel for it it was very natural to him he's a great guy he was very funny - he had big big big head up a real pixie quality it was just love really lovable really fun but I tried tweedle maybe you know a bar or a loader a computer Oh his Silicon Graphics a rig that I could screw around with I like the power it's got well I don't know about the music itself adjust the approach you know we well that's just it's just part of that's what you is we're just moving into the 90s I mean you know or actually moving into the the next millennium it's our music wants to its have as much as many possible ways to express itself as it can it just it's just another tools more tools no not really III can not to be I'm not so far let me put it this way my ideas tend not to be musical I don't want really want to be in the musical part of it I'm much more interested in the graphic part of it you know it's possible that sometimes I'll do and I mean I'm converse with it I've got versa but it isn't isn't my favorite way of working yet yeah dum Delhi yeah Mori yeah yeah he's a nice guy it's way inside I used to work at datum organs and then me and Bob used to go over and work at this place called good though good talk maybe it was Draper's know what's the rapers it was it was guitar city or something like that it was what the hell it's the kind of tree in it I don't remember wasn't rapers I don't think no it was up on El Camino and this very nice guy agree on the place was a good little guitar store but uh weird I both taught up there you know like after hours kind of was our moonlighting job yeah that was our first gig no well yeah the close to it mighty early yeah yeah I something like I don't even know if we got pizza to tell you the truth we didn't charge anybody anything to get in or anything but the place was packed it was packed to the rafters the second we played on Mike on Tuesday night or something like that the second Tuesday and I only played the place was absolutely floor-to-ceiling I mean it was out on the street it was just totally you know it was amazing it was incredible I mean the first time we played it ended up that way second night we played it started that way you know I just got more and more intense you know they didn't let us play the third night that was it too much you know too much going on well Jack Casady Neal Cassady I don't think so I think you'd have to be around a bay area but you also had to be a fan of the world oh yeah we don't help they help to read and have read the books and you know who know you know and I mean Neal Cassady was always around in the world that I was in he was like peripheral to it somewhere when I was at the artist he was somewhere around North Beach there you know new people who knew him and I knew people who knew them all over the way funny I got to I got pretty close to it myself I got to be good friends with him he was one of those guys that was truly was a very special person you know and one of those one of those things I mean it you know for me I my life is I mean psychedelics and Neal Cassady are almost equal in terms of influence RP and because Neal Neal III don't even know how to say it I don't even know how to say he was his own art you know it's like he wasn't a musician neal cassady I mean he was like a a set of one yeah and and and he was it he was the whole thing top bottom and beginning everything and people do it you know and people would be drawn to it and destroyed or else they would be repelled from it you know everybody people reacted every conceivable way I thought he was hilarious I thought he was just the greatest thing in the world you know I really loved him and I had no fear no fear I never worried about whether I was going to lose my life riding in a car with him I knew I was gonna lose my life I didn't worry about whether I was going to I do I was going to do but learning how to give everything up like that as a wonderful thing it's a little tool and I don't know how I could have learned it like nothing else would have made me learn it yeah just like racing over San Francisco you know like the service to say that Pacific Heights yeah at like 65 miles an hour you know making those hills and those quarter isn't going the six Ellison in the middle of traffic just yeah I'm doing things where you can't possibly make this Carter don't even try it and the meal is like not even he doesn't even look like he's paying attention to anything to the road or anybody or anything any he's like and he just whips it and you you you look out the window you know you realize you're on the sidewalk you know you're like a half an inch away from a telephone pole over here and he's I mean it just it just it's insane totally believed that he did it all the time as he was that was the thing that he was truly great at there was other things that he was barely very very good at he was enough to boggle about you know quite a few people I mean Neal was very taken with uh I mean Jeezy was very taken with him and obviously Jack Kerouac was and it was an unbelievable human being the energy that he had and the the vocabulary that he had of of gestures and expressions oh boy he was funny and he also had a trip in his rap do you yeah yeah I mean I don't know I don't know what to say about deal some people just thought he was crazy he's crazy get him out of here I don't wanna be here yeah a lot of women he frightened him he was too too out of control a lot of men travell that they had to somehow get with all the contests with him that doesn't work out good they'd always I don't know what they'd always try something good yeah the thing about a deal was people wanted to compete with him without having any sense of what stayed up all night I don't know what is competing with it was one of those things it wasn't obvious anyway if you want any more than that you're gonna have to talk to somebody else you
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OmFQMwPKGxQ
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Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia And Bob Weir On Why They Let Fans Record Their Shows | Letterman
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Letterman
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https://youtube.com/watch?v=OmFQMwPKGxQ
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2022-02-01
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PT6M9S
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and my first guest for more than 17 years the grateful dead have been making rock and roll history with very few personnel changes and uh ecstatic fans known as deadheads they are truly a cultural phenomenon but the grateful dead are more than just a band they are a community of about 100 people whose energies go into their albums concerts and films would you please welcome two members of the grateful dead jerry garcia and bob weir [Music] welcome welcome to the program gentlemen let me uh ask you just a question you're probably tired of hearing of uh hearing uh you probably more than anybody represent uh uh san francisco and uh all of the bn and that sort of thing in those days and what what year what this is what year would this have been 60 uh um somewhere between 64 and 67. now that seems like it was it was 66 and 69 wasn't it yeah that's about right this is close enough it was was that it seemed like a very romantic exotic time was that fun uh exciting yeah nothing but fun yeah yeah uh can you describe uh your favorite memories from that era well i thought it was the acid test and that was a barrel of fun yeah and uh more fun and a frog in a glass of milk and you were you were about to say hey wait i was going to apologize for not having any memory [Applause] i'm pretty sure it was fun though uh did you have any any sense that things uh were forever going to be changed after that well i guess your memory oh you're taking a hike yeah the thing about the the thing it seemed as though that uh at the time it seemed as though things were gonna change real fast you know because because there was this amazing momentum i mean it started out like when the acid tests were happening they started with uh you know 50 60 people or something like that in a matter of weeks there was it escalated to 3 000 or something like that it had this amazing effect of uh you know this juggernaut quality of uh picking up lots of people as it went along so it seemed like things were happening uh with tremendous uh there was a sense of history going on there you know at the time everybody was conscious of it now i mentioned in the introduction here that you uh you have your own self-sustaining community uh of about 100 folks that go into the production of films and records and so forth do you still have that same feeling in in your little community yeah sort of yeah pretty much yeah do you find yourselves isolated to a certain extent yeah yeah is that good uh probably well it depends you know good it's probably good for us yeah yeah we we would probably meet more different interesting people if we weren't so isolated but we are maybe yeah that's true this is the phenomenon of the the phenomenon of your fans of people who enjoy what you do the dead heads [Applause] we got an ash string an entry yeah i think we can get you one we can certainly send out another one yeah uh what what does that name typify ashtray no no i'm kind of new here so am i um we're all doing our best yeah uh what does that mean exactly grateful yeah no no no the dead heads is it just a catchy phrase or um yeah i just sort of turned up really i mean uh well there were acid heads you know and there were you know speed heads and uh grassheads and now it turned into a deadhead yeah is that that generally thought of as a flattering term though we uh you gentlemen just finished uh two nights in uh over in new jersey and um i'm sorry nasa and uh uh you you just continue to do a lot of big concerts but you don't sell as many records as other uh traditional concert groups yeah yeah and as a matter of fact you don't mind people taping your music in concerts not particularly now why that seems to be defeating the the idea of selling records well if we ever make a real good record then uh then probably they'll rush out and buy that anyway yeah yeah i mean and besides the tape spread bring back memories to him and all that kind of stuff and the shows are never the same ever yeah i mean not even ever you know i mean and uh sometimes they're remotely the same yeah sort of uh and and when we're done with it they can have it you know [Laughter] i was reading articles about your uh work today and uh the phrase x chemistry came up yeah and it was in context of something which occurred on stage what uh what would that be x chemistry i've never heard this uh i've heard it i've heard it at least one of you has heard it yeah right right there are very various different versions of what it is but what it really has to do with it it just has to do with being on or uh the thing of uh it happens with anybody who works together uh in some sort of a group situation like bill walton used to tell us that it was something that that would happen that happened when he was playing basketball or linkage yeah it's just just it's gestalt linkage yeah there you go right a union might say that uh it's uh the thing of having some more happen than uh then strictly cause and effect you know but also that's you're placing yourself in a great deal of jeopardy uh potentially right yes yeah it's taking a chance i mean it used to be that we failed way more than we succeeded but you sort of mastered that energy not really yeah i couldn't say that you couldn't say that we mastered it it's an interesting notion nonetheless you
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dnIGtHNBL4g
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Jerry Garcia's funny acid story / Grateful Dead LSD story (WAY DEEPER MEANING) [2160p Rescale]
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Christopher Hazard
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https://youtube.com/watch?v=dnIGtHNBL4g
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2020-11-03
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Could not retrieve a transcript for the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnIGtHNBL4g! This is most likely caused by:
Subtitles are disabled for this video
If you are sure that the described cause is not responsible for this error and that a transcript should be retrievable, please create an issue at https://github.com/jdepoix/youtube-transcript-api/issues. Please add which version of youtube_transcript_api you are using and provide the information needed to replicate the error. Also make sure that there are no open issues which already describe your problem!
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ytXCROlis5s
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Jerry Garcia Interview [1080p Remaster] October 13 1989
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Christopher Hazard
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https://youtube.com/watch?v=ytXCROlis5s
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2022-07-10
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PT30M37S
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okay you ready all right jerry 24 years together when a fan looks at the 24 years they see hits they see concerts they see tours when you look back what do you see oh god i see uh well a large part of my life i've spent doing something which has turned out to be more fun than i thought it was gonna be and it's lasted way longer than i imagined it might and it's taken me places that i would never have ever imagined you know so it's i mean uh it's it's hard to uh to separate myself from you know what i mean from this from the experience i mean after all it is my life you know that's like for me it's 24 years of all kinds of stuff of of you know like everybody goes through you know life and death and kids growing up and um and you know stuff happening and the grateful dead has been this one constant uh continuous source for the during the whole thing so it's it's a big uh big chunk you know it it it stopped being stuff like a career or a band or even a family and that kind of stuff a long time ago it's gone way past that you know by now you know when you first started i i wouldn't exactly call the grateful dead mainstream no but now here it is uh i mean don henley's got lyrics about deadhead stickers on a cadillac you've got a top you've had a top ten single are the grateful dead mainstream in 1989. uh i don't know whether we're mainstream or not but we've certainly become a kind of a cultural artifact of some kind you know i mean the uh yeah it's hard to tell whether or not our music is accessible to uh the large america but we always thought it was you know i mean it uh i i'm the wrong person i asked that question really you know we'll see if this next record does really well then it's uh it's yeah then then we're some somewhere if we're not in the mainstream we're pretty close to it you know how did touch of gray that success changed the band or did it it didn't really change it very much no uh mostly it made it so that that now having lunch with record company guys very comfortable they're really nice yeah and you know that that that's probably the main in terms of the quality of life you know it it really uh it we it's hard for us to separate our our regular slow continuous success with the you know what i mean that where that record by the time that came out we were already doing pretty well you know so it's really hard to gauge it whether it's added lots of new people to our audience or you know it's just there's no way to measure it so it's it so it uh it it's more a kind of a a surprise a kind of a left field thing you know but it does it hasn't really affected us too much i think if anything it's given us more confidence about making records and i feel like well i mean you know hey you know you know i read a lot of definitions of uh or the definition of deadheads what's jerry garcia say what's a day dead hands yeah oh god you're really getting me today uh deadheads uh well my experience with them is like is again it's hard to characterize it's been a long time now and there's been lots of them and they come in all shapes and sizes and forms and they're they're everything from uh street people to uh uh solid professionals you know they're all over the place they're they're on capitol hill you know they're they're in part of heart and lung team you know out in sacramento they're everywhere they do they're they've permeated society you know they've they've become a mainstream in a way i mean there's a lot of mainstream deadheads even the new york city police department's got a lot of deadheads in it they're all over the place so it's like that's kind of fun you know uh we meet people who are uh you know the mayor of milwaukee you know you know it was comfortable enough to bring his wife and his wife come to the show you know hey i'm mayor of milwaukee you know sure you know yeah yeah me too no i am really he says he brings that he breaks out the car the other guy really was the mayor of milwaukee and a really nice guy and it's kind of i mean that part of it is kind of encouraging that uh it's not something that's just uh it's like there is this there is this little culture that of people people who identify themselves by what something that they like and something that's a good thing in their lives like i mean all right there it it's it's it's broad you know that's the dead heads are not they don't fit into a category real easy you know one thing you take care of your fans in terms of the way they can get tickets through the mail newsletters there seems to be a love a genuine love for the fans of the grateful dead from the band yeah well they they they they're paying the rent you know i mean uh they're the ones who keep this happening as much as we are you know what i mean so they've invented us just like we've invented them in a way i mean you know it's it's a mutual there's a mutual thing happening there i mean it's uh but that's true with every band really it's just whether or not the band chooses to deal with it or not really it's i mean you don't exist without your audience it's that simple really so i mean our audience has has been uh particularly giving uh in that they they aren't it's not like a showbiz audience you know what i mean the the the the they come as much to for the to be there and enjoy each other probably as as for any specific concert i mean they don't come to hear us do our hits you know we don't have any kids they come to hear us do whatever we're going to do and or to try stuff or to hear something new or to hear us do old stuff or to hear us even have a bad night you know sometimes and it's still the experience is still rewarding for them for reasons that may not have anything to do with the music but just the idea of being someplace and celebrating their own existence or something like that in the early days uh uh the grateful dead there were times they were saying that you guys were i won't say broke but weren't rolling in dough broke is good says it but somewhere in there you're very organized uh with the tickets with t-shirts with newsletters where did that organization how did that begin well it evolved very slowly from that thing of being broke you know i mean it would work bro you know uh somewhere back there actually from very early on we we were doing pretty well and supporting ourselves i mean it really uh i mean once you're making a living you know everything above and beyond that is just is extra so for and we started making living before we even made our first record we were doing pretty well and playing at the ballroom scenes in san francisco that fillmore and the avalon in those days so we were you know we're doing it we're making a living uh going through the thing of um of starting to uh we got into trouble in a couple of situations because of stuff like spending too much money producing a record now when you're not making all that much but just making enough to get by and all of a sudden there's a you have a a a record a bill but back in those days like of 150 000 to make a record that's you're broke you know then you're in the hole and that that then that starts to look scary because it looks like more than you can and then then there's all the tax stuff and everything that goes along with it so everything is compounded by just complexity so after going through a couple of those kind of scenes is it's it got to be uh important that we at least make keep our scenes straight as far as the taxes are concerned and all the rest as far as the the way the outside world deals with us you know and we don't definitely don't want to have to go to jail for stuff like taxes and so it it just makes sense you know you're dealing with that world you can't avoid it so we've just made an effort to try to keep that as together as possible and then the rest of it we've just evolved i mean it used to be that we would try we would have managers and so forth that would say well manage us you know or you know manage our affairs or whatever but it doesn't really work not for us they're stu we're all too it's finally it we recognize that we need to have a hands-on kind of relationship to it so we have meetings where we talk about all the stuff that comes up and everybody hates them you know i mean everybody you know we complain about them and moan and groan and everybody hates it but we do do it you know and and it's it doesn't it isn't really too hard but you you do you have to do it so that's one of those things that just experience you know that's the greatest the best teacher of all in these things and after you know you make the same mistake 10 years in a row you know oh i get it you know it's been kind of like that for us really you know this stuff is mostly stuff errors it's a comedy of errors really and eventually you learn do things the right be more thorough and so forth all stuff that we don't want to do but you know it seems like with many bands in concert they reproduce the record exactly it seems like the word for the grateful dead in concert is improvised yeah that well we would probably do we would probably reproduce the record exactly if we were disciplined enough to do it but it's just you know it's just uh forget it it's out of the question it doesn't you know so what happens instead is i mean by now our fans realize that's they're not going to hear the record they may hear the songs but they won't definitely won't hear the record so that but that's okay i mean really from a musician's point of view a record is kind of like a a painting you know it it's you have a chance to really study every all the detail and you can you can be sure that everything that happens in the song uh has the benefit of um supervision so you can pay attention to incredible detail when you're playing live it's uh a whole lot it's a whole other experience it's it's like a snapshot you know it's like a polaroid it it what what what's there is what's there and the moment provides new things sometimes sometimes they're better sometimes they're worse but they're they're really it's really two different things like apples and oranges almost you know it's uh it's it just for us that's been our our big trouble making records really is we've never been able to get that live energy into the grooves you know and we go in the studio and we might be able to get it to sound superficially okay but it's just no life you know people like you know uh that's been the big mystery for us and but we're starting to get to where we can do that now we're starting to understand what it is what it takes to make that happen many bands they hear the words bootleg tapes they go crazy but the dead sort of promote the trading and the hoarding and the passing around of bootlike performances well i don't know about the hoarding trading advantage the thing is that we don't discourage the tapers but it's just because it's a reality you know that even if you even if you try to prevent people from taping they're going to tape anyway it's just there's just no way to stop it really so for us it's one of those things of uh first of all they're coming they're paying to hear the music you know and i mean after we're finished with it you know it's gone you know so why why shouldn't they take the music that they paid for home with them i mean i don't see any problem with that really and i uh i i think that probably there's a superstition anyway in the music business that if you let people tape your music somehow they won't buy your records i don't think that's true i mean at least it hasn't seen it doesn't appear to be true as far as the grateful dead is concerned that is to say that if people buy buy tickets they also buy records uh what whether they tape or not and the fact that there are enormous numbers of tapes down there in circulation i mean it's just it doesn't seem to affect you know it doesn't seem to affect us in any kind of serious way except that we have a reputation for being people who are lenient about taping you know that's about the most serious repercussion and of course there's the thing of that i mean if you're worried about concealing your mistakes then you might have a legitimate thing about preventing people from taping like if you decide that uh your experience your performances have to be absolutely perfect before you want them you know but i mean realistically you know nobody is has absolutely perfect performances it just doesn't have not in this world you know so so since people are going to be taping i mean it's just i i it's one of those things where i disagree with the traditional approach to it that's all you know and and it's we've been doing this for a long time it doesn't seem to have bothered anybody tell me about the new album built to last uh it's pretty good it um it's got some good songs on it uh this it's really it's kind of hard to talk about it's just uh i hoped that they would have released it by now but they're releasing it on halloween which is i guess cute you know uh it this is our first record that where it's truly a studio record it isn't partly live and partly studio like in the dark was we approached it as though it were a live record even though it wasn't in front of an audience or anything we still our the methodology was basically live recording this record we approached it just as though i mean totally from the studio so it's totally from the it's really constructed from the songs out so it's it's uh a different approach than what we've used in the past but it seems more musical and it seems like it's uh it it has more energy and more discipline so from my point of view from a producer's point of view this is a really good record from the grateful dead i mean by really good record i mean this will hold up compared to anything else in the the world of you know professional recording you know it's it's at that level so this is like one of those ones where i don't have to go don't listen too hard to these cuts because you know this everything on this record is is really nicely done and i i'm pretty happy with it whether or not anybody likes it or not of course that's a whole other matter into a foolish heart the new video yeah tasty video yeah it's nice a lot of old images mixed in with the new and there's a dedication or a thank you at the end yeah tell me how you mix the images and tell me about the thank you as well well the idea came from i guess uh gary gutierrez who's the director and the hunter who wrote the lyrics of course were uh got together and talked about it what kind of imagery they thought they wanted well 100 wanted to avoid any specific tie-ins with the lyrics he didn't didn't want it to be literal and gary had a sort of a notion about a kind of uh the the little a proscenium stage a kind of an old-time victorian stage setting and and also about stage craft just like the look of the old malays films which is which are used in the in the video uh this these are a pair of french guys who who made movies around the turn of the century and they were the first guys to actually do special effects in movies they had explosions and disappearing stuff and they did actual camera tricks you know backing up the camera and ghosts and people disappearing and all that stuff they were the first ones to take advantage of that part of cinematography they sort of invented really the early vocabulary of cinema magic and so this is owes a certain amount of its flavor to this sort of victorian late victorian uh kind of naive you know theatrical you know stuff and it's it's just it's just one of those things that we hunter has always loved this kind of stuff and gary gutierrez is also a fan of it too and and me too you know and it's just it sort of tumbled into place and also with gary when working with him we always give him ridiculous restrictions you know it's like okay gary you can make we want you to do the video but you can only have the band for 20 minutes you know so you know he has to work within things like that you know you know really limited situations um so he doesn't get as much cooperation as probably would be makes sense but we the band is like very difficult on photographers and in any of this any kind of situation that requires performing you know it's it it's not our forte so so he has to put up with all this stuff but he's very good with us and we've worked with him before he did touch a gray too uh so everybody's has has a lot of confidence in his work so and he also did uh the animation for our grateful dead movie from the from the 70s which is uh real neat stuff yeah so everybody trusts him so he's an easy guy to work with and anyway it came out pretty good most of the time they don't like to have to cut to smoke ready okay with the growing even bigger popularity of the band with some of the deadheads there have been a few problems along the road but the band has really responded to that well it's again it's it's uh it's it's there's no there's no problem that's that's specifically the audiences or specifically ours it's always all of ours you know what i mean the responsibility is always joint right yeah so uh when stuff happens like if there's any confusion at a show or violence or anything that upsets the local populace it always falls on us anyway so we i mean we have to deal with it it's unfortunate to have to start to try to to tell people what to do outside of the concert you know what i mean it's um i mean we're not the government you know it's we're just musicians and it's enough to try to control what's going on inside the show you know that in itself is difficult and uh just the idea the ideas repel it to the idea that we're gonna now start telling people how to behave you know i mean you know who has the right to do that certainly not us you know so it's one of those things where really all we can do is open it up like into turn it into a dialogue of some kind and say here's what they tell us the police in this town say unless something that happens in relation to the camping or the vending scene that goes on outside the grateful dead shows be grateful that it's not going to be able to come back to this town anymore it's that simple it's really you know so our choice is to let you know about it and you have the choice of either willingly uh um you know stopping that's that kind of stuff or avoiding that kind of stuff uh or or else it's just there's not gonna be nothing you know so the choice is it's dire like that you know it um some places are d deal with it better than others and it's not one of those things is an entirely black and white situation it's it only it really seems to be area sensitive so some places where uh there's a lot there's residential zones near a concert facility that's kind of the worst stuff and in the kind of places where we're playing more than one day so like a one-shot deal is no problem it's just like a sporting event you know the audience comes they can be as rowdy as they want they're gone the next day but when it's two or three days then then then that's when problems start so it's it really is partly us juggling the places that we appear based on um availability and what what kind of uh facilities are available and coming to grips with this in terms of the taos on a kind of a one one-on-one basis that's really the only way to do it so some of the towns have people who are are pulling for us say hey we want the grateful dead to come to come to town it's it works out good for us and maybe another part of the town of saying no we don't want them back here no matter what so sometimes it's that kind of thing it's a complex deal but we try to address them individually you know each each place each venue and and and we expect for the fans to be sympathetic to whatever whatever is required there you know it's one of those you have to i mean we've never had to deal with this kind of stuff before it's like you you can you can get so successful but then now it's a whole other you know so we're at the level now we're topping out in terms of success and uh it turns out that there's a whole bunch of new problems there you know so either we have to define how we're going to do this um by either some really incredibly creative solutions or else we're going to have to restrict where we play or something like play in certain centers so that we play like on the east coast for say three months at some place and everybody from the whole area could come you know you know i mean it's it there's any number of possible ways to go but we do have to deal with it you know so video becomes an alternative and all these things you know all these other things so we're trying out what we can because we don't want to find ourselves out of existence because we're too successful you know it seems silly when you were a young man just getting into rock and roll did you have any idea of the road that was before you and are you pleased with how it's turned out oh yeah it's turned out a million times better than i could have imagined you know i mean yeah it's i mean i i hoped i think uh when we started playing i i hoped for something better than just uh or something more interesting than just uh say like conventional success you know and it's always been more interesting and it hasn't been at all conventional so it's it's uh yeah i'm real happy terry thank you you're welcome thank you very much that was a treat i think so the big bands then were the allman brothers the grateful dead bruce was just coming i'd heard of you before that but that was my first real experience of of living the grateful dead experience and and deadheads i remember a guy named frank ursa lacrosse player lived across the hall for me and he was like from new york new york you know and he's like we're going up to see the dead here then we're going up to uniondale the nassau i'm like wait if you see him why are you going to see him again deadheads one word answer right and that was the first time i ever heard of that he he was fanatical about you guys and um and that was the beginning and all through my radio career and all that sort of stuff uh the thing i said in radio and when i first started it was what casey jones right you know there were about four or five songs they'd let you because lee abram's a name you know very well i'm sure came in and just started paring things down because when i got into radio i got into it for hey let me play this record i found last night at a party that's what it's all about yeah yeah and then you come in and the records had grease marks across the the the songs you couldn't play i'm like this is you know what is this stuff here so but exactly and we're watching too and we are watching so but it used to be so much fun to get in there and you'd play anything yeah you know well it used to be really entertaining to listen to it yeah i'll be back because you leave here stuff you've never heard before that's it you know that that's always i mean that's interesting yeah this whole style of music i never even knew existed well there's a station down in bethesda it's not even in bethesda anymore whfs in maryland which was a station i grew up listening to and they would play anything anything and you click it on like i said you'd let it go for half an hour or an hour and think and they sometimes they tell you what they played sometimes they would but it was always entertaining and it made you think a little bit too because it wasn't like oh yeah led zeppelin oh yeah rolling stones you know it wasn't like that right and that's the way radio should be should make you think a little bit yeah you know yeah well there was a good that good there was a good period of time back there i don't know maybe he'll come back again or something well you know what i surprise everybody that's it they're going to go free for them tremendously successful yeah they'll say free form what a concept right right tom donny there's a name i haven't heard in a while yeah like this okay well my neck is fucking killing me yeah so uh police sit like this yeah so uh let me any w i came to new late in the game of freeform radio it was like six years ago now i was on with him for three years scott great guy the professor i love him scott so it's happening incredible yeah and dave herman might you know dave as well yeah yeah all those guys yeah but to me it was like hey going to the vatican the vatican of rock and roll you know with scott being the pope because every dj in the country you aspire to hit any wfm that's the one that was really he's an amazing guy yeah i'll be seeing him sometime this week probably yeah yeah he's one of the first guys to really start just supporting us and the big apple yeah well give him my best when you say i will you know he's uh he was also the first guy i ever saw who was like like the consummate pro you know i mean he would he used to drink those tumblers that's right he doesn't do that anymore he doesn't he's yeah and it's standing up and he queue up turn teams yeah that voice yeah he's interviewing you at the same time he was unbelievable it was incredible to watch him he was jerry when i auditioned so to speak for the show they called me up from another radio station and so he calls everybody fats hey fats how you doing with that and so he said let's go out to dinner and so we go out to dinner and what we did we went from bar to bar to bar and i'm thinking i was drinking heinekens just trying to lowball it a little bit there and he's drinking scotch by the end of the night i thought i think i have the job but i have no idea where i live i was smashed it's amazing interviews and stuff like this that's about it really what do you like to eat oh uh well last night we stopped and we were going to stop at nathan's me and mickey did john our sorrows and some hot dogs but please closed at 10 o'clock 11 o'clock yeah i couldn't believe it it's not right in new york you shouldn't be able to get 24 24-hour a day hot dog that's right in new york hey yeah all right well new york is a great place to eat oh that uh i i i go i go down to umbertos too and uh little italy you know the clam house down there they wanted me to get a pictures there with frank sinatra and pope and stuff the crosby stills and nash and pictured them down there oh god yeah that's a great place to eat i mean new york shit it's this is this is it for eating mm-hmm yeah this is it okay let me start asking questions here and just say whatever you want as it comes out um for years you've never done reverse questions sure we do oh yeah we do them yeah sorry i'm sorry i thought they did no we do that all the time okay you ready yeah okay when you started out the grateful dead okay okay that's okay that's it okay when you started out the grateful dead weren't exactly mainstream are the grateful dead mainstream in 1989 no no we never were okay etc i've read definitions of the deadheads in time and newsweek you're jerry garcia what's your definition of a deadhead well there are little tiny people about this big bulbous heads and long feet i'm doing this as a two shot is that a problem what do you mean a two shot it should should be just the back of his head and basically me yeah yeah sure okay okay you're right that's okay here we go um there they go yeah i have two things and then we're out of here okay okay two questions and we'll get you out of here um it's just the fbi yeah that's okay as long as it's not the irs you seem to take care of your fans there seems to be a genuine love between the grateful dead and the grateful dead fans we need each other one jerry i've seen a ton of fans and they're the best okay okay here we go when you were a young man just getting into rock and roll did you know of the road that lay ahead of you and are you happy with the way it turned out no and yes thank you okay make it fast because he's got to go shot he can go oh he can go
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i7IjVJmPq1Y
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1974. An Interview with Jerry Garcia about the Hell's Angels
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Geraldo Rivera
|
https://youtube.com/watch?v=i7IjVJmPq1Y
|
2025-01-26
|
PT2M33S
| 13,911
| 155
| 48
|
en
|
auto-generated
|
Yes
| null | 2,383
|
let's take a look at an interview I did uh with Jerry Garcia the lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead uh in California in Northern [Music] [Music] California Jerry Garcia met the Hell's Angels in the middle 60s when writer and counterculture hero Ken ke had them all over to his place for a party there not too many people you meet that you can like say wow there's somebody who's like you know real really serious about what they're doing whatever they're doing you know like there's a lot of people who are doing doing things halfway or doing them talking about doing things but Hell's Angels are people who are real serious about what they're doing they they're doing it for what about if what they're yeah but what about if what they're doing is is antisocial you know the general image well what is an antisocial man let's start from there you know I think this is an antisocial Society I think the world is antisocial the Oakland Tribune headlines for the year that that Sunny bger Went to went to prison uh the horror stories they told about the Hell's Angels on an almost daily basis wild allegations some sometimes sensationalism other times uh uh but some residue of Truth at least at some level they aren't the 4 club and they aren't the Boy Scouts of America the Hell's Angels are uh uh a motorcycle club that is generally known as an outlaw motorcycle club and that has had numerous brushes with the law uh does any of those kinds of things affect the way you feel about them no because I'm sort of an outlaw space myself you know what I mean I'm no heavy duty Outlaw but you know I mean I'm a bust I've been busted I've been in jail you know I know where all that stuff is at that's and and and I'm doing that because I feel strongly enough about it to do it and I don't care if I have to get popped for it you know there like might be a point where I would care you know I might not want to die but I would be willing to get popped anyway you know what I mean it's like it depends on how committed you are but H's angels are committed on a very heavy level I can really appreciate that you know what I mean are you afraid of them ever sure sure why because they're scary man you know they're they're all big you know and strong and and good in in in all the violent spaces you know they got that covered you know I mean scary is what one of the things Hell's Angels Are
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-jw1ZDCtgto
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Grateful Dead & Jerry Garcia interview on LSD & live show 1967 at the Dead House, SF
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MJ
|
https://youtube.com/watch?v=-jw1ZDCtgto
|
2022-05-03
|
PT7M14S
| 70,862
| 1,255
| 239
|
en
|
auto-generated
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Yes
| null | 4,722
|
[Music] the hippies are capable of extremely hard work even though they tend to approach work as the rest of us do sport some of them are very successful this is the house of a popular local band which plays hard rock music they call themselves the grateful dead they live together comfortably in what could be called affluence there are many other similar houses or apartments in haight ashbury maintained by hippies who work in places where employers do not mind bizarre dress or long hair their concept of a new style of life unites them and that concept is in most cases drawn from the drug experience the grateful dead themselves acknowledge they have used lsd warren wallace asked them what they thought the hippie movement was trying to accomplish uh what what we're thinking about is a peaceful planet we're not thinking about anything else we're not thinking about any kind of power we're not thinking about any of those kind of struggles we're not thinking about revolution or war or any of that that's not what we want nobody wants to get hurt nobody wants to hurt anybody we would all like to be able to live an uncluttered life a simple life a good life you know and like think about moving the whole human race ahead a step or a few steps yeah or a half a step or anything or at least not more positive at least not going around in circles like it is now do you think that your movement or your idea the hip idea is essentially connected up with drugs yeah i would say that that that's uh a large part of the framework i think that most of the people who are hippies now came to it through drugs yeah but it's not a dope movement we're not trying to spread no we i think for personally that the more people turn on the better world it's going to be we were talking before about a way of being and and and one of the ways of of achieving that being is through through uh drugs expanding your uh consciousness consciousness changing yourself but like most of us have given up uh the psychedelic drugs anyway uh yeah right well we've learned something from them and now we're kind of playing around with that knowledge and what have you learned well it's you can you can point out the example that the people that live in the community and uh you know play around with dope and stuff like that they don't have wars you know and uh they don't have a lot of problems that the uh the larger society has uh in essence and the scene has grown up with us and we have grown up with the scene we've all grown up together and uh we feel more like children than ever right uh we're cause we know what we're trying to do we're trying to grow up [Music] the way the hippies want to live seems in the end to consist of childish postures they claim they want to be left alone but they are masters at setting up public occasions which are bound to draw attention if not interference just as an unruly child will act up in a way that attracts adult intervention and then complain about it nearly every sunday there is some such event here music is blurring forth from the open windows of an apartment on the corner of hate and ashbury while in the street below a crowd of hippies celebrates the sunny day traffic stops the crowd grows finally the police roll in with paddy wagons and nightsticks [Applause] the crowd parts clearing the street everyone waits to see what will happen [Applause] [Music] [Applause] today there is no violence and there's a reason for this the band called the grateful dead have announced they will make music in the park well merry christmas folks let's go and the crowd moves along provided with a place to go something to do the grateful dead are playing a tomb called appropriately enough dancing in the street [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] most of these people are young most of them come from middle class homes on the average they are well educated or could be if they wanted to but they do not want that nor much else in our civilization except on their own terms in many ways their terms have the glitter and the attraction of the bright and bold and noisy but it appears to be style without content [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] they object to the ills which beset society war social hatreds money grubbing spiritual waste but their remedy is to withdraw into private satisfactions [Applause] when one thinks of the problems of our day which cry for attack and imagination and youthful energy this seems like the greatest waste of all the movement appears to be growing use of drugs appears to be spreading there is the real danger that more and more young people may follow the call to turn on tune in drop out [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you
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0HWq-kHC6Zg
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Interview with a Millennial Deadhead - Erica Reacts to the Grateful Dead
|
Erica Retro Gaming
|
https://youtube.com/watch?v=0HWq-kHC6Zg
|
2025-07-11
|
PT1H23M
| 383
| 26
| 18
|
en
|
auto-generated
|
Yes
| null | 82,908
| "All right. Hello. Welcome to today's episode of Erica Reacts. Today we have another dead head inter(...TRUNCATED)
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bzxYXOWQ8tQ
|
Jerry Garcia : Best Interviews on Video (LoloYodel)
|
LoloYodel
|
https://youtube.com/watch?v=bzxYXOWQ8tQ
|
2016-05-15
|
PT41M34S
| 302,262
| 3,412
| 399
|
en
|
auto-generated
|
Yes
| null | 33,725
| "[Music] Warren Wallace asked them what they thought the hippie movement was trying to accomplish uh(...TRUNCATED)
|
End of preview. Expand
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jerry-garcia-interviews
Description
Jerry Garcia interviews with full transcripts
License
cc-by-4.0
Usage
from datasets import load_dataset
dataset = load_dataset("jaysooner/jerry-garcia-interviews")
Source
This dataset is part of the GratefulGPT project - an AI system focused on Grateful Dead knowledge and culture.
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