gdead.berkeley.edu/gdead.berkeley.edu.tar/gdead.berkeley.edu/pub/gdead/miscellaneous/where-we-came-from

Internet Message Format | 1994-01-10 | 26KB

From [e-mail] Sun Jan  9 14:28:57 PST 1994
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All this stuff is readily accessible in the current literature for any
asshole who can marginally read, but there's so many of us out there
that just got started, or missed this or that for one reason or another,
I took the liberty of passing on some information...

[From: [e-mail] (David Gans)
Date: Sun Jan 09 22:18:00 PST 1994

The quotes are from Jerilyn Brandelius's "GRATEFUL DEAD FAMILY ALBUM,"
a splendid document full of great pictures and lots more excellent text.]

Happy Sunday.  And God bliss you...


From [e-mail] Sun Jan  9 14:22:38 PST 1994
Article: 109970 of rec.music.gdead
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"What we would do was get up $200 and rent the Fillmore and put on the gig.
It was a shoestring operation.  The entire production would be $350.  We
would make our own posters.




A network began to form, of light shows and all, at the same time.  Bill
Hamm, who was one of the original liquid light show persons, was around
doing lights.  A production company formed so that we could produce shows.
Not that it was all one company (everyone would function as an individual),
but in those days everyone would come, and it would fit together as a
whole when you got there.  There was NOT a whole lot of consideration
given to whether it was part of one company or not.

That's where the original "Family Groove" came from.  It wasn't just the
Grateful Dead, but it was a whole entire scene that began happening
around San Francisco."

           - Dan Healy


From [e-mail] Sun Jan  9 14:23:07 PST 1994
Article: 109971 of rec.music.gdead
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"The Dead had taken off and gone to LA to hang out with Kesey and the
Pranksters, and when they moved back it was to 710.  There were two houses,
not just one.  710 was the one that became famous, but there was another
house a few blocks away on Belvedere Street that Phil and Kreutzmann lived
in.

"It was pretty loose. It was really a good scene.  There was very little
money: the whole vibe of sharing was what was happening in those days.  It
was one of those situations where nobody ever really needed anything.  It
was kind of magic that way.  We had what we were doing and that was basically
all we needed.   Everyone had a place to sleep and clothes to wear and food
to eat.

"We'd start partying some Friday and get really stoned and hang out.  Come
Sunday morning we'd all decide to go play live in Golden Gate Park.  We'd
play in the Panhandle.  This was around 1967.  So we would decide on Sunday
morning.  At about 8 or 9 o'clock somebody would run out and rent a flatbed
truck and a small generator.  We used to pull the truck up in front of 710,
throw all the equipment on it, and roar over to the park.  We'd start up
our generator and start playing.   We had it down."

          - Dan Healy


From [e-mail] Sun Jan  9 14:24:05 PST 1994
Article: 109972 of rec.music.gdead
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"There were fifteen or twenty of us depending on the day.  The rent was
cheap, the ceilings high, the kitchen tiny, the front steps a great place
to hang out on sunny days. It was a couple of blocks to the store, and it
always seemed to take a real long time to get there and back, what with
stopping totalk to friends who'd divert you from your mission at every
opportunity to go have coffee, smoke a "J", or just sit on there front
steps for an hour or two.

"Most of us living there didn't work at any regular job- we paid our rent
with a combination of endevours.  The mainstay was  the band around whom
we'd gathered as spouses or friends, with each of us contributing what we
could as managers, technicians, equipment handlers, or bookkeepers.  The
household chores fell to the women and they were no small task.  Dinner
for twenty was a daily occurance- so was food shopping.  Doing laundry
was a nightmare monopolizing 22 machines and it didn't take long for the
women to restrict the chore to their own "nuclear unit".  It was very rare
to find peace and quiet; also elusive was real privacy.  For while you
could close your bedroom door to be alone, you always had to encounter
people on the way to the bathroom, or in the kitchen, or on the steps, or
in the hall- it was dense.  You couldn't really keep any secrets.  On the
other hand, you never had any trouble finding a friend to share them with.

"During the day one of the bedrooms became the band office, and the carpet
became worn with people coming and going.  Add the constant traffic to the
notoriety the band had already achieved, and it's easy to see how the house
became of intrest to the authorities."

         - Rosie McGee


From [e-mail] Sun Jan  9 14:24:35 PST 1994
Article: 109975 of rec.music.gdead
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"We heard it through the grapevine- [i.e. the Human Be-In], and a half a
dozen of us started early that morning to walk the couple of miles to the
park.  As we walked along Lincoln Avenue, we noticed other groups of
neighbors walking in the same direction.   More joined in off side streets,
and by the time we turned north into the park, we were a large, laughing
group.  A half a mile later, we were a horde and as the Be-In took shape
through the day, we were awed and thrilled as the Polo Fields filled up
with over 20,000 people.  It was a day of innocence and hope; and in many
ways the last moments of naivete for a neighborhood that had just gone
public...It seemed amazing we knew by name so many of the hundreds
gathered...

"Stories about the Haight-Asbury sold lots of magazines and newspapers in
1967, the more sensational the better, and many people planned their summer
vacations around coming to see for themselves.  In the ensuing crush, the
neighborhood people retreated into the background, or just moved out.  As
for the crowds of seekers who had been promised the "Summer of Love", they
were a year too late."

       - Rosie McGee


From [e-mail] Sun Jan  9 14:25:15 PST 1994
Article: 109977 of rec.music.gdead
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"How DO you get a job on the Grateful Dead staff?  Well a resume' probably
won't do you much good, and there is no tried and true path to being hired.
Initially, it's who you know.  If you just happen to have someone on the
inside who will vouch for you ("She's cool"), if you appear just when a
desperate need opens up, ("Hey, you sittig in the kitchen, c'mere!"), and
show a willingness to take on some lengthy mind-numbing task with the hope
of better times ahead- you're in!  But once you've done that first
assignment, JUST TRY to walk away!  If you're good at the job, you may get
stuck with it until you scream for release.  On the other hand, if you
persevere and are around when a new and different desperate need opens up-
you can probably get THAT assignment.

"As for job security, don't worry. Sure, you can get fired, (never for the
reason you suspect), but if you show up the next morning, there's always the
chance no one will know you're supposed to be gone.  You can also quit and
go away for three years to live a double life- no problem- you'll probably
fill a need the very week you get back.  And one of the band will see you
and say, "Hey, how was your trip? Haven't you been away for a couple of
months?"

          - Rosie McGee


From [e-mail] Sun Jan  9 14:25:31 PST 1994
Article: 109978 of rec.music.gdead
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"I remember telling Garcia once that there is sort of a charmed circle
around the Dead, that we were safe as long as we directed our energies
into the band.  In order to achieve that kind of inroad into the
consciousness of the times you almost have to feel you are magic.  As
cynical as I am now, and as childish as magic might sound, I still feel
it and believe in it.  I've seen the results of it- all over the world
there are communities of people whose touchstone is the Grateful Dead.
It's a vanguard of some sort of consciousness that has not yet died, a
coming together of people who are vaguely anarchistic but peaceful and
loving.  I think the whole band feels this commitment to people...if the
Dead were to break up, what would ever replace it?"

            - Robert Hunter


From [e-mail] Sun Jan  9 14:26:46 PST 1994
Article: 109984 of rec.music.gdead
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"The campground just south of the Downs at Santa Fe is filling with
vehicles from all over the United States- vehicles plastered with Grateful
Dead stickers and filled with hippies and dogs and kids- but filling in
an orderly way.  They are the fans- Dead Heads- who have come from Virginia,
New York, Illinois, Kansas, Colorado, Washigton and California.  They have
come from all over, just to be a part of this, many trailing after the band
as it makes the 1983 western tour.

"They need a safe place to sleep, and so a safe place, a camp ground has
been provided...by the Hog Farm, a group fully as unique as the Grateful
Dead and their fans.  The Hog Farm is an 'extended family', the Hog Farmers
say, and playing host for Dead Heads is one of the many things they do
well. They came together in the late '60's around a small core of writer
Ken Kesey's LSD-inspired Merry Pranksters, and have evolved with their
skills and interests right along with the times.

"Down the road a bit is a big converted school bus, painted with Grateful
Dead symbols.  The interior is crowded with bunks and tables and chairs,
as any bus that houses six people ought to be.  Up front in the kitchen
area is a girl in her early '20's selling avocado, tomato and sprout
sandwiches for a dollar apiece.  The dollars add up, and help get the bus
from concert to concert.

"Milling about among the vehicles and people are the tie-dyed shirt
sellers, and the tie-dyed hat sellers, Grateful Dead button sellers and
bumpersticker sellers.  It is a small, transient, but throbbing community
one that will grow up and pass on in a weekend.  It is not only the band
that brings it all together, but the lifestyle as well.

"As evening decends upon the campers the bonfires are lighted and peaceful
crowds begin to collect around them.  There is very little hype there, no
social posturing, just a bunch of humans gathering around a warm spot,
talking, joking, singing, or just staring into the flames.

"'It is a joy for us to provide these services so that this may occur,'
Wavy Gravy says.  At one time there were no campgrounds for the traveling
Dead Heads, and they were forced out into the hostile streets when the
last tunes died away.  But the Dead themselves took pity on the Heads
and moved to have the campgrounds provided.  'These places make state-
ments in creative anarchy,' Wavy Gravy says.  'You see that with out
anyone being in charge these little communities spring up.'"

       - Howard Pasell (The Santa Fe Reporter, 14 September, 1983)


From [e-mail] Sun Jan  9 14:27:02 PST 1994
Article: 109985 of rec.music.gdead
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"Just like grandma moses- just like Auld Lange Syne-  Play the change,
however strange- And get it right this time!

"Its been a hard haul- 20 as the crow flies- When your backs to the wall-
Got to play it as it lies

"Let there be music, dance and the beating of drum- Drop whatever you're
doing and come on the run- Twenty years later the groove is just starting
to click- It's all variations on some impossible lick

"Come hear Uncle John's Band- Playing to the years- Come along or go alone-
Like an avalanche or a rolling stone

"Wave that flag- Wave it while you can- Long as you keep coming- You've got
a band

"Thanks for twenty years of being an audience which is the envy of every
other rock and roll band alive.  Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke!

"Write if you get work.

"Spare change?

"Don't touch that plug!"

      - Grateful Dead

    (Twenty Years So Far)


From [e-mail] Sun Jan  9 14:27:19 PST 1994
Article: 109988 of rec.music.gdead
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"Community is something really important to me, if for no other reason
than because I come from a very small town in an isolated place where even
my enemies would help me if I were in a certain kind of trouble, because
there's a bond we all share.  But America, for whatever reason- and I
think corporate policy has a lot to do with it- is erasing the idea of
community, and people need that desperately.

"So the Dead Heads have done something wonderful.  They've done a little
conceptual blockbusting and realized that you don't have to do it in one
place.  It doesn't have to be out in the middle of a cornfield somewhere.
It can be anywhere in America, and they just take it on the road.  People
get to know each other and they help each other out.  It's one of the
things that makes it possible to do this for all the frustrations involved-
because you want to go on supporting that.  We're doing some pioneering
work in how to create communities and keep them together in the future.
Rather, I should say THE DEAD HEADS are doing it; I don't think we- the
Grateful Dead- have that much to do with it on that level.  We have the
same relationship to their community as the corn does to a small town in
Iowa probably.

"I was watching a New Years Eve gig and it was clear to me how TRIBAL it
felt.  Good communities are tribes.  They have rituals and myths and those
kinds of deeper realities that light up everyday reality and give it some
substance.  I felt like I was looking at a tribal ceremony, and I liked
that."

         - John Perry Barlow


From [e-mail] Sun Jan  9 14:27:27 PST 1994
Article: 109989 of rec.music.gdead
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"There's a better way.  There has to be education, and the education has
to come from the poets and musicians, because it has to touch the heart
rather than the intellect, it has to get in there deeply.  That was a
decision.  That was a conscious decision."

        - Robert Hunter


From [e-mail] Sun Jan  9 14:27:59 PST 1994
Article: 109990 of rec.music.gdead
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"We were terrible business people!  We made mistakes from the outset (as
managers of the Carousel Ballroom in the '60's).  We opened up with the
Dead and the Airplane, and the next weekend, we didn't have anyone, and
then we opened up again the following weekend.  Well, if you're trying
to establish a place as a draw, that's death.  We didn't keep the momentum
going.  At either the second or third show, we had so few people show up
that instead of charging admission, we went around Haight Street passing
out tickets, and then when people got there we gave them free food and
free ice cream.  Free everything.  We turned it into a party.

"And it was FUN.  It totally changed the atmosphere.  And it gave us the
reputation of being street people, which is what we were.  We had a
great love for this place and gave our lives to it for that period of
time.  Everyone did.  Everyone cared a LOT about each other, and the
care was genuine and it showed.

"To me it was freedom, true freedom.  You can do anything here and it's
OK, as long as you don't hurt anyone.  That's the kind of anarchy that
shows that people at their basis are good; they don't need constraints
to MAKE them good.  So that's what we were experimenting with.  The
Carousel was the epitome of anarchy at its finest.  A lot of people
found it scary.  But I think a lot of people in San Francisco found it
to be exactly what was going on, and very important to them, and
exciting, warm and wonderful.

"I have a lot of faith in the resiliency and street savvy of the Dead
Heads.  I also have a lot of faith in their gentleness.  In fact, that's
what I have the MOST faith in- that nonconfrontive, noncombative attitude.
And the more that can be shown as the hip attitude to have, the better
off we are."

        - John McIntire


From [e-mail] Sun Jan  9 14:28:09 PST 1994
Article: 109991 of rec.music.gdead
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"Rock music has never seemed to be that interesting to me.  But when you
see a room with 8,000 young people for five hours going through it to the
beat of these boys, and when you see 8,000 kids all going up in the air
together...Listen, this is powerful stuff!  And what is it?  The first
thing I thought of was the Dionysian festivals, of course.  This energy
and these terrific instruments, with electric things that zoom in...This
is more than music.

"It turns something on in HERE, (the heart).  And what it turns on is the
life energy.  This is Dionysis talking through these kids.  Now I've sen
similar manifestations, but nothing as innocent as what I saw with this
bunch.  This was sheer innocents.  And when the great beam of light would
go over the crowd, you'd see these marvelous young faces in utter rapture-
for five hours!  This is a wonderful, fervent loss of self in the larger
self of a homogenous community.  This is what it's all about!

"It reminded me of Russian Easter.  You go to the Cathedral at midnight
and you hear "Kristos anesti!" "Christ has risen!" "Christ has risen!"
It's almost as good as a rock concert!  It has the same kind of feel.
When I was in Mexico City at the Cathedral of the Virgin of Guadelupe,
there it was again.  In India, at Puri, at the Temple of the Jugannath-
that means 'the lord of the moving world'- the same damn thing again.
It doesn't matter what the name of the god is, or whether it's a rock
group or a clergy.  It's somehow hitting that chord of realization of the
unity of God in us all.  That's a terrific thing, and it just blows the
rest away."

       - Joseph Campbell


From [e-mail] Sun Jan  9 14:28:22 PST 1994
Article: 109993 of rec.music.gdead
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"For us, there never was a debate, it was over from the very beginning.
The very first acid trips, the very first excursions into psychedelia
revealed- what ever there is, there's more than we've been alowed to
believe.  We don't know what it is, we can't describe it, we just
suspect its existence, but we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that
there's more than anybody ever let on.  We KNOW that.

       -Jerry Garcia


From [e-mail] Sun Jan  9 14:28:29 PST 1994
Article: 109994 of rec.music.gdead
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"To get really high is to forget yourself.  And to forget yourself is to
see everything else.  And to see everything else isto become an understanding
molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe.  And I think every
human being should be a conscious tool of the universe.  That's why I think
it's important to get high.  I'm not talking about unconscious or zonked out.
I'm talking about being fully conscious."

           - Jerry Garcia


From [e-mail] Sun Jan  9 14:28:36 PST 1994
Article: 109995 of rec.music.gdead
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"You have to look for archetypical directions with in the poetry, and then
you have to see if it strikes a chord in your soul."

            - Ace