WHY IS THAT HAIRY MAN GRINNING?
GRATEFUL DEAD, MOST BELOVED FREAK BAND ON EARTH
Perhaps when the day March 29 dawned on Necropolis, blessing
with preemptive spring warmth and sunshine, there was no connection between
that sudden burst of life and the fact that as thermometers rose in Central
Park dark during the night, the final note of “Saturday Night” and seven days
of Grateful Dead music was booming like a rainbow surfer’s dream through a
synchronated mass of human energy contained by the pulsating walls of the
Academy of Music. Matters of cause and effect are liable to take strange turns
in the minds of the faithful when consciousness-expansion passes through town
on that good old tried and true Grateful Dead tribal bandwagon.
At that precise moment in time, the point where Bob Weir
struck his last blow into glowing pink air positively reeking with the barnyard
scent of the universal tool, guitar falling like some thunderous flashing
celestial hammer, stopping frozen at the bottom of its arc, then wheeling back
up and away over his head, anything seemed possible; the rush was on the riding
wild; the earth was turning and you could feel it, like you had just jumped off
a bike at 100 mph and you were standing there, still traveling but suspended,
body and brains reeling madly between perfect free-floating connection and
scrambled sensory overload…the usual, in fact, the normal Dead-induced high
point.
Jerry Garcia, lead guitarist, explains: “In relating to
somebody who is seeking more space, the basic thing is being able to open a
window, to let them see that there is more space before you can even think
about it. I think we’re just a first step in that whole progression, and on a
good night we can illustrate that there is more space.” (Rolling Stone, February
3, 1972)
How do they do it? Art and science and magic all adding up
to advanced expertise in cosmic trickery, fancy-fingered tripping along the
road to the grail; random historical accidents bringing them together at the
start of the psychedelic revolution, spearheaded by them and Kesey’s
Pranksters, Owsley and his acid, Golden Gate Park, Summer of Love, the Acid
Tests, the fabled brotherhood of Dead and Angels on the streets of San
Francisco, Altamont, multi-colored, multi-media mind-blowing emporiums of
crazy, terrifying, ecstatic new world visitations upon conscience-stricken
America. Where are your children, parents? They’re out on an evening with the
Grateful Dead, blitzed on acid and changing overnight while you worry about
them being raped or something. Everyone who heard them in the halcyon days of
hip has his or her tale about the start of something big, about the first night
Jerry and his troupe of Cosmic cowboy philosophers hit town…
Now, after seven “official” albums and six years of music ranging
from the incredible atmospheric excursions of “Anthem of the Sun” and “Live
Dead” to the sweetly bubbling torrents of new-style country-rock that grace
“American Beauty” (a delicate rose of an album, as its title implies), they are
stars with money and fame; they sell whole stacks of albums; they’re beginning
to make “solo” albums – Garcia’s is out already, and Bob Weir has one coming
under the title of “Ace,” by all accounts a work liable to impact with the
force of 10,000 atom bombs, strings and horns and choruses and all. As yet they
have not made it to the cover of Time, or played the Garden or Shea Stadium,
but that’s not their style. Who knows, though; one day somebody up there on
Madison Avenue may just catch onto what’s been happening in this country for
the past six years or so; maybe someone will realize that the Dead are the most
beloved freak band on earth.
Their style is self-effacing to the point of invisibility;
what really matters is the music and what they can do with that potent tool.
Whereas the Stones have an acute understanding of the power of theatrics, and
employ their knowledge to the full, the Dead treat that side of the rock ‘n’
roll life with circumspect caution, draping themselves in the denim of the
masses while they blast out music which is both amazingly complex and
delightfully, dancingly simple. It’s all in the coordination of instruments,
the exquisite rightness of a harmonious blend of two guitars, bass, organ,
piano, and drums (groundwork driving by Phil Lesh on bass and Bill Kreutzmann
on drums, middle-ground shifting fill by Weir on guitar, Pigpen on organ, and
Keith Godcheaux on piano, flights of fancy courtesy of Captain Trips (and now,
occasional vocals by Keith’s wife Donna).
A scene from long ago before the bullets and the onset of
grisly reality. A Manhattan
party is buzzing to the tune of acid punch; a monstrously fat female scumbag
resident, still beautiful unto herself, coils her rolls around a bearskin rug,
all but smothering the frail male she clasps to her heaving acid-ripped bosom.
“Alligator” by the Grateful Dead is flowing from everywhere; Jerry has just
finished a flight. The Blob reveals a Truth to her captive companion: “He’s
Gandalf, man.” A long pause while the Pig grunts and groans and the alligator
slithers in and out of his slime, then a contradiction: “No, no, no, no, man –
he’s Bilbo!!!” “Ooooh, OOOOOOOOH, he’s both, man, he’s Captain fuckin’ Trips!!”
Backstage at the Academy of Music, Jerry Bildalf Trips, the
homey dwarf with the lightning at his fingertips, picks organic orange out from
between his teeth lost somewhere in a riotous sprouting of wiry locks, and
mutters something cryptic about rock ‘n’ roll stars-cum-spiritual leaders; it’s
a position he has to acknowledge, but finds difficult at times, especially when
he gets to thinking about just who his audience is these days.
The truth of the matter is that when a six-day New York
concert sells out in less than that number of hours, the audience is likely to
contain an overwhelming majority of Seconal pubelets (this after the commercial
success of the Dead’s last three albums and, of course, the explosion of Hip).
The teentsy hedonists react to the Dead like so many Pavlov doggies, bouncing
their plump butts from first note to last, openly imbibing the most noxious
brews available at the cheap end of the druggie market, while the music mood
shifts from easy-rolling rock-country-blues, then into the heaviest rock ‘n’
roll currently available to mankind, and then on and out into the space music
stuff – an optional extra on almost any Dead number, usually reserved for the
last hour or two when audience heads are open and the band themselves are fully
in synch. Jerry is careful with his charges, knowing he can accomplish
something beautiful, maybe ease some tensions, transcend some contradictions,
cut a few knots and let the Flow take over.
Above all, the Dead are a road band; try as they may, they
have not yet been able to reproduce their amazingly pure live sound on record.
“Live Dead” was badly recorded, too muddy on all but the very best stereo
equipment. “Anthem of the Sun” was similarly flawed but nonetheless brilliant,
and “Grateful Dead,” their latest double live album, lacked something almost
undefinable, some fullness that must have been there from the start. With the
ultimate live-recorded work in mind, they are taking a 60-track ABC recording
unit (containerized for air travel) with them on their first tour of Europe –
that and a permanent sound system which truly boggles the mind. It’s an
earthbound spaceship, nothing less, attended with loving devotion by a whole
itinerant tribe of technician heads. And while that mighty recording mother
gobbles up the notes for their next double live album, the European natives will
feast their eyes on the Great Garcia t-shirt (still the garb of C.T. despite a
visit to Nudie’s meant as a concession to English foppery). The lights will be
slewing all over the walls, and those who gave birth to the Stones will come
face to face with a phenomenon they still don’t really understand. They will.
Besides the sound equations, though, there is the color of
the concert experience, the scarlet midnight hour when the theatre of the
absurd mingles and warps with joyous inspiration, grisly reality, and a whole
mess of the most freaky little flashes; Mickey Mouse by R. Crumb all dolled up
in polished tinsel and an old workshirts, while onstage the band plays out fire
and rain and sunshine into a hallful of feelers waving crazily in the dark.
Octopus feeding time.
The Dead played seven nights with one night off; Saturday
was their benefit for the Hell’s Angels. Then they played as backup band for Bo
Diddley, ranged in a grinning line behind Big Bo’s black silk bulk, the best
band he’s ever likely to play with. It was party night, and their own set was
loose, nothing too strenuous. The first night and the last were the musical
high points, but Sandy Alexander, president of the New York chapter of the
Hell’s Angels, was ecstatic, and why not, indeed? He’d come with his brothers
from 3rd Street
and all over the USA,
riding shotgun to the Angels stagecoach on their gas buffalos. They pulled up
to the curb on 14th
Street in a ragged but impressive line (what else
can you expect in Saturday night traffic – “The Wild One?”), and after they’d
all been filmed by Geraldo’s Hipnews Concession, the Grateful Dead their old
buddies went and threw a monster of a party for them. What a fuckin’ night!!!
As the boogie progressed, tasty party mayo splashed all over
the green leafy stuff – hard cash for bail money, spark plugs, chrome polish,
and all the other expenses of high style Angel living. The Breed never showed
up (luckily for them), and the party was cool. No Rolling Stones to slide that
little extra manic hysteria in there; no Altamont, no stabbings, just party
time, everyone awash in a frothing sea of vile foamy liquids, psychedelic
beercans, innocent but potent macrobiotic cookies, weed by the ton, coke by the
ounce, speed by the pint, Boone’s Farm strawberry wine…
“Let’s get it on for the Hell’s Angels of the USA!” yelled
Bob Weir into the mike, and while some more impressionable brothers almost
swooned away from sheer excitement, the band launched into their first number –
“How sweet it is, to be loved by you…”
WATCH OUT FOR THE FUNNY-LOOKING JUG, they had told me by way
of warning, but the intrepid drugger in me took over, and in the twinkle of an
eye, while the Dead launched into their best-ever “Dark Star” (this being
Tuesday night, the last show), a jabbering circle of groupies, writers,
chemists, and Angels dissolved into misty dayglo abstracts to the festive
tinkle of discarded nitrous oxide cylinders plinking onto the floorboards like
so many spent shell-cases. If only it had been like this at Verdun;
it probably was like this at Da Nang.
Is that really an unhorsed knight I see lumbering ducklike in fetid armor? A
plastic toy cowboy horseman minus steed? A Viking lost in a time warp? A Roman
slave-master? Why, no, nothing of the kind; it’s just an out-of-town Angel
reeling away from his turn at the hose, playing walking custard pie.
Why is Jerry always off on the sidelines, grinning that
hairy grin?
Tuesday night again; two Bronx groupies bump and grind their
way past the demure ladies of the Dead tribe, like cheap hookers in a
free-school communal dining room. One of the velvet cutie-pies washes Bob Weir
in a flood of garlic from a yellow maw, and confides that she used to be a
topless dancer (and worked her way up?). Weir says “far out.” Just another
little vignette of the road, another mote in the old sunbeam. Why is that hairy
man grinning?
Tuesday night the Dead played the best set I have ever
heard, every note in place, every opportunity for improvisation taken.
“Trucking” slid into one of Weir’s new high-power country rockers, loaded with
melody and texture and sweet sliding riffs; that boy has finally learned to
sing, with a vengeance. The Pig rendered sweeping blues, blowing everything
from his tiny emaciated frame down into his wailing harp. Jerry took the lead on
“You Win Again” from way back, and then it was time for some sensuous
pyrotechnics with “Mister Charlie.” “Brokendown Palace” followed, back in the
sweet groove, then “Cumberland Mine” with a rip-roaring extension, another new
Weir number, “Big Railroad Blues” slamming down the track almost like Casey’s
train, “El Paso” like Marty Robbins 10 years on and out, a magnificent collage
of pieces from “Anthem of the Sun,” “I Know You Rider,” and then, to top it all
off with a true blast of sheer power, “Casey Jones,” roaring the first set to a
close. Thunder and lightning could do no more.
By the time they were done with “Wharf Rat,” “Dark Star,”
“Sugaree,” “Playing in the Band,” “Not Fade Away,” “Going Down the Road,” and
“Saturday Night,” several thousand delirious people had entered orbit – and
we’re back where we started. As usual, the second set was much, much heavier
than the first, and Tuesday night the boys in the band were on the ball as
never before in my five years of Dead experience.
Sitting hunched over on an empty speaker case while the
Academy crew sweated to comply to the strenuous demands of the Dead crew
seeking perfection (that’s the name of the game, all the way from
self-management to guitar-strings), Jerry Garcia pulled on an only-the-tops-special,
relaxing before the serious stuff started that first night. “It’s really far
out, just too fuckin’ neat, man,” he said with that same huge grin. “I mean,
we’ve only just started getting’ into what we can do. There’s no limit…and
we’re all feelin’ good.” Now, ain’t that good news?
(by Patrick Carr, from the Village Voice, 6 April 1972)
I posted a comment on a shorter edit of this article here.
* * *
THE GRATEFUL HELL’S ANGELS
The Grateful Dead gave a benefit performance for the Hell’s
Angels at the Academy
of Music on 14th Street
on Saturday night. A venerable tradition: benefits by performing artists to aid
the victims of injustice. How did the bikers enter this category?
Last weekend the police burst into a six-story tenement on East 3rd Street
that the motorcycle gang has almost entirely taken over. They found revolvers,
1000 rounds of ammunition, knives, a machete, and a bomb. They arrested two
Hell’s Angels, Vincent Giralomo and Anthony Morabito, who have long arrest
records, and held them on $75,000 bail each.
The police raid had its origins in an incident of the
preceding week. According to residents of the block, a slender young Puerto
Rican boy was walking from the bodega at the corner of 3rd Street and First Avenue,
carrying a bag of groceries, when one of the Angels pounced on him and took a
can of beer, a pork chop, and some other food. The Angel, who has been
identified by police as Giralomo, is a fat and powerful-looking six-footer who
wears a ring in his nose and tattoos over most of his body, including “Fuck
You” spelled out on his knuckles. According to the boy, the Angel punched him
and sent him crashing against an iron tenement staircase. When the police
arrived they found the boy sobbing, his face bloodied and swollen.
The boy was visiting New York
from Puerto Rico and was badly shocked by the
attack, but residents of the block were not so surprised. They spoke of
frequent harassment and occasional beatings of passing blacks in the three
years since the Angels settled on the block. They complained about the Angels’
practice of randomly insulting women who pass their headquarters and the 2 and
4 a.m. revving of motorcycle engines.
One woman who recently moved away after living on the block
for 10 years said she left because of the “hideous – even painful – noise of
the motorcycles, the garbage piled on the sidewalk in front of the Angels’
building, and their conversion of half the block into an outdoor garage for
their bike. The Angels have imposed law and order on the block,” she said,
“their law and their order.”
The admission fees of thousands of suburban teenagers at the
Dead’s concert will enable the arrested Angels to meet their bail and continue
to roam East 3rd Street
until the trial.
(by Ann Aboto, from the Village Voice, 30 March 1972)