tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post8260899458768834341..comments2024-03-26T23:10:34.814-07:00Comments on Grateful Dead Sources: August 1, 1969: Family Dog, PlaylandLight Into Asheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-64417847017254826292020-09-08T07:50:15.640-07:002020-09-08T07:50:15.640-07:00Thanks, Rick! Just scan and email to jgmfblog@gmai...Thanks, Rick! Just scan and email to jgmfblog@gmail.com. Picture is fine, no need for PDF. Fate Musichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05648291938690043423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-75718630209647865832020-09-07T21:09:55.021-07:002020-09-07T21:09:55.021-07:00Sure...how would I go about that? Scan, create PDF...Sure...how would I go about that? Scan, create PDF, send? Let me know how to get it to you.<br /><br />Rick Herbert<br />Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16073687576406150144noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-52331165807086943682020-09-07T11:20:30.279-07:002020-09-07T11:20:30.279-07:00Oh my goodness - would you be willing to share a s...Oh my goodness - would you be willing to share a scan of that? I would love to receive scans of any of this kind of ephemera you might have. The Common is a really big deal to me.Fate Musichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05648291938690043423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-49980089238700649282020-09-07T10:15:09.117-07:002020-09-07T10:15:09.117-07:00I have the original typed-out note, on a half-piec...I have the original typed-out note, on a half-piece of yellow paper, which reads: "The Grateful Dead in believing that light shows for the most part cannot exist and better themselves on the prevailing level of fees, has offered to bring the salary for this weekend's light show up to the monietary (sic) demands of the light show guild".Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16073687576406150144noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-6853345235311346942018-09-13T22:06:53.580-07:002018-09-13T22:06:53.580-07:00I added a few short articles from the San Francisc...I added a few short articles from the San Francisco Examiner. These are very much from a distant outsider's viewpoint (they explain to the readers what a "light show" is) and do not provide the detail of the underground papers, but they do offer a few extra tidbits and quotes. <br />It's mentioned that the Dead "offered to take a wage cut" so the light artists could make more. It sounds like the kind of "righteous," equitable offer Garcia would make, although the Dead were just as broke and in debt as the Family Dog. Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-54757740772896769802018-09-11T15:26:49.960-07:002018-09-11T15:26:49.960-07:00Owsley recalled the light strike in a later interv...Owsley recalled the light strike in a later interview - <br /><br />Bear: Back in 1969, all of a sudden the light show guys who were paid enough money to keep themselves going, decided that they were as important as the bands. And led by a guy named Jerry Abrams, they held a strike...<br />JG: He did do some of the best shows.<br />Bear: I know. But he struck us out at the Great Highway, the Family Dog out there. Part of the way through it, Ram Rod and I went out and talked to him and said, “People don’t come to the light show, they come to hear the band. We like having you there, it is like a part of this whole thing that has kind of grown up, and we will pay you a reasonable amount, but we can’t meet your demands, there is just no way. What we will do is we will just go to theatrical lighting, and you guys will just be cut out. Break it off now and we will try to work it out.” He wouldn’t do it. That was the end of the light shows; there was virtually none after that... <br />[Light shows] shifted the focus away from standing there and watching the band like you would stand there and watch a play or watch an opera. Which was good in itself, because when we went to the theatrical [lighting] setup the band became more of a central thing, and for the most part people stopped dancing as much.<br />https://medium.com/@hrheingold/june-27-1990-interview-with-jerry-garcia-c63ddb4178d1<br /><br />I don't think light shows winked out quite as suddenly as Bear says, and they eventually phased out for other reasons than the strike. What's interesting to me here is how he remembers (or exaggerates) his own role in the negotiations. <br />And the question remains: did he tape the Jerry-less Dead jamming with flute players that night? I have my doubts... Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-85399785285186125282018-08-22T20:49:29.936-07:002018-08-22T20:49:29.936-07:00I added the first two articles, "Lights Out&q...I added the first two articles, "Lights Out" from the 7/31/69 Good Times, and "Lights Out" from the 8/1/69 Berkeley Tribe. Nothing new on the Dead, just more background on the light strike, with emphasis on Garcia's immediate refusal to cross the picket line. (He tells the Tribe that "it doesn't have anything to do with unions or picket lines," he's just supporting the Guild.) <br /><br />The 7/25/69 Berkeley Barb had a lengthy interview with Chet Helms talking about the Family Dog on the Great Highway, and his plans for it. The Dead come up once: <br />"I think that the headliner, secondliner, thirdliner format and repeat that we've been on for three years is deader than a doornail. It does not really fairly present most of the acts. I believe that we're entering a time in which each act should be presented...one time only in the course of the evening... <br />I feel just from my experience in the last three years that an electronic band wants to play anywhere from an hour and fifteen minutes to an hour and a half in terms of their energies, on up to two hours. And so basically if there's an electronic act that I'm featuring here, I'd like to give the act anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours one time at a prime time in the evening, not at the end. By and large most of the people have left at the end. Give that band a chance to really get their rocks off. <br />I would like to encourage bands to play symphonic sets. One of the things that was really marvelous and magical about the electronic music at the outset of the San Francisco scene three years ago was that people felt very free to play a 20-minute number, a 25-minute number, an hour number, or never stop. It would move from movement to movement, and become very eloquent and symphonic. It was an entire sort of voyage... <br />The Grateful Dead is the only band around here that very often on a whim does an entire symphonic set, without stopping, sort of a unified thematic integrity and direction, instead of always eclecticism. Instead of trying to do everything, trying to please everybody as opposed to making a statement." <br />(from "Walking the Dog," Berkeley Barb 7/25/69, p.9) Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-83140079683954499132017-08-04T22:31:26.121-07:002017-08-04T22:31:26.121-07:00Since we don't know when or why the Dead were ...Since we don't know when or why the Dead were removed from the Aug 5-7 Fillmore West shows, we can only speculate - I don't think it was actually "last-minute," that is, that very day. But their name was awkwardly removed from the show poster, leaving a big blank spot, so they must have pulled out in some haste after the poster was designed, and no replacement name was ready. <br />Corry speculated that it had to do with the upcoming Wild West Festival (to get a bigger draw for the Dead at Kezar by not having them play the planned Fillmore run a few weeks earlier). <br />Another possibility, perhaps, is that Graham yanked the Dead off the billing himself once he learned they were playing a Family Dog run on Aug 1-3, withholding the bigger Fillmore earnings from them out of spite, to show them who was boss. <br />Whatever the case, they seem to have played at the Family Dog as often as possible in summer/fall '69, to support Helms. Not that it helped in the long run: the Family Dog closed the next year and Helms pretty much left the concert business, while Graham continued to thrive. Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-10260087690548985782017-08-04T07:58:51.863-07:002017-08-04T07:58:51.863-07:00On JA, I do note that they inaugurated the FDGH on...On JA, I do note that they inaugurated the FDGH on 6/13/69, so the helping hand predates The Common. But that was also a payday for the Airplane, unlike 9/6/69.Fate Musichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05648291938690043423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-31395579777992364612017-08-04T07:57:44.052-07:002017-08-04T07:57:44.052-07:00LIA, your analyses are totally compelling, as usua...LIA, your analyses are totally compelling, as usual. I need to process.<br /><br />On the last comment first, I would also add that JA had previously been much closer to Graham than to Chet, but the September 6-7 thing and maybe the 2/4/70 thing have always indicated to me that, in The Common period, they were trying to chip in to help Chester, as well.<br /><br />I had never thought of the FW cancellations as connected, but it's a fascinating thought. Maybe Bill was saying Fuck You to them ("you slimy little man!").Fate Musichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05648291938690043423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-78386022782230337822017-08-03T22:35:37.684-07:002017-08-03T22:35:37.684-07:00Rock Scully's offer to mediate seems well-mean...Rock Scully's offer to mediate seems well-meaning but ineffectual (his comments are hilarious - "Let's have a fucking good time!" "Hare krishna!"). But it's amazing to see Garcia immediately take charge of the negotiations, which impressed the reporters. Shortly after arriving and finding arguing strikers in his way, he offers, "Let's get Chet and talk," sits everyone down, passes out weed for all, and has them rap to find a consensus - just like a Dead family meeting! <br />Garcia is concerned about "the inequities" between the performers and the others - "right now the bands get more money than anybody else, and that's not righteous" - and says everyone should "work together collectively" to find a solution. He reminds everyone that no one has money - "we’ve got a big family and we’re broke...Chet is a good friend who is also broke...the artists in the Guild are also broke." <br />From a post-'90s perspective, what really stands out is that Garcia feels responsible for everyone - particularly the audience. "There are a bunch of people inside whom I feel responsible for too. We’ve got to decide something here and let them know about it.” (I'm reminded of the Toronto 1970 Festival Express show, where Garcia came out as the spokesman to calm down the protesters.)<br />Though I know less about his involvement in the later Common meetings, he seems to have been a leading voice in them as well - not only does the Berkeley Tribe have a picture of him giving a speech at the August 2 meeting, a later article also quotes him from an August 19 meeting: “Nights? Nights?” Jerry Garcia was shouting, “what about during the day? We got musicians running around looking for a place to jam – why not here?” <br />http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/04/family-dog-at-great-highway-august-13.html <br /><br />The confrontation with Bill Graham may explain a small puzzle in the Dead's schedule in summer '69 - they were billed for shows at the Fillmore West, August 5-7, but canceled at the last minute (their name was removed from the poster). Meanwhile, the only shows they played in San Francisco until the end of October were at the Family Dog. There's some discussion of that here: <br />http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/01/grateful-deadjerry-garcia-tour.html?showComment=1435097203140#c4230745176226705214 <br />I wonder whether this was a move by the Dead to show Graham that they were siding with Helms - although canceling Fillmore West shows would have had severe financial ramifications for a broke band. <br />Nonetheless, within a few months they'd patched things up with Graham again, and Fillmore West shows continued as usual until 1971. Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-87456419364191340582017-08-03T22:35:23.390-07:002017-08-03T22:35:23.390-07:00I added a lengthy report on the light strike from ...I added a lengthy report on the light strike from the Good Times newspaper, "Personality Power," courtesy of JGMF. It's incredibly detailed - an hour-by-hour account of what went down on August 1, with dialogue - and fills in some of the blanks we had. <br />There were many typos that I corrected. I included the full article, which goes on to describe the first meetings of the Common at the Family Dog to discuss the strike (much of this is repeated in the other articles). Though my interest is only in the Dead's involvement, it's still an inside look at San Francisco music politics circa '69 - and if this seems like an angry debate, it was dwarfed by the citywide squabbles over the Wild West Festival.<br /><br />Remarkably, the dead.net witness (in the first comment above) is confirmed - the Dead did indeed jam with a guest drummer and two flute players from the audience. It's also remarkable that Phil, Bob, and Bill decided to go on at midnight even despite the strike, and without Jerry or Mickey. As Bill's quote suggests, they just wanted to play a show regardless - and Phil even had "a heated argument" with the disappointed strike leader, who accused them of betraying him. The Dead probably expected in advance that Jerry & Mickey wouldn't show up. <br />The Good Times reporters sigh, "It just wasn't the Dead." (Too bad the reporters didn't catch the Dead show two days later!)<br /><br />The timing of the New Riders show at Bear's Lair is curious. The article says the light-show strike had been announced "last Tuesday," July 29. The first ad for the Bear's Lair show ran in the Daily Californian that very day, July 29, so it must have been scheduled earlier - before Jerry knew there would be a strike. There were two shows scheduled (8:30 and 10:30), so I presume Jerry's plan all along was to arrive back at the Family Dog around 12:30, which he did (along with Mickey) - I don't think they were too concerned about being "on time," since the Dead frequently started shows late in that period. <br />In any case, the strike went ahead, and the rest of the Dead didn't feel like waiting for Jerry; I would imagine they'd talked earlier that day about whether to go on. Abrams claimed that "I talked to Jerry Garcia, and he told me he wouldn’t cross our picket line." Apparently he got (short-lived) reassurances from other band members that they wouldn't play without Jerry - maybe they expected it would all blow over, or that the crowd would just surge in once they started playing! Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-26845199019593345352017-08-03T20:01:55.997-07:002017-08-03T20:01:55.997-07:00So it seems that on Aug 1 '69, Weir, Kreutzman...So it seems that on Aug 1 '69, Weir, Kreutzmann and Hart jammed--but with who? All very odd. <br /><br />One thing that this whole scenario shows me is how Garcia was pretty calculating at getting what he wanted. He didn't like personal confrontations, but he liked getting his way. Garcia wanted to play, didn't want to cross a picket line and didn't want to be "the face" of the dispute any more than he already was. So he booked a gig across the bay. All accounts of the "Light Show Strike" seem unaware that Garcia was booked elsewhere. Garcia thought the whole thing through. If he had been called to account (by Rolling Stone or the Chronicle or something) he could have just said "I thought the gig was canceled so I booked another show, and at that point I was committed" or words to that effect.<br /><br />Garcia has agency here, he's not just a passive actor.Corry342https://www.blogger.com/profile/08049035074121231425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-27261026844083261062017-08-03T16:56:35.213-07:002017-08-03T16:56:35.213-07:00The Dock of the Bay piece is remarkably level-head...The Dock of the Bay piece is remarkably level-headed. Indeed, all of the coverage provides pretty good balance around the knotty problems of art and commerce. Agree about the "end of the 60s" feel around all of this.<br />Fate Musichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05648291938690043423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-61379335597393215852017-08-02T07:58:49.144-07:002017-08-02T07:58:49.144-07:008/1/69 has long had a powerful hold on me. The onl...8/1/69 has long had a powerful hold on me. The only Jerryless Dead show, I guess.<br /><br />Yes, the guest players the next two nights certainly feel like they are part of The Common vibe. Then there's the Wales gig at the end of the month, the Airplane stuff on 9/6 and 9/7, etc. They played all kinds of rarities in their Dog gigs as well, Big Boy Pete and New Orleans and all that sort of stuff. Man, I wisht I had been there ...Fate Musichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05648291938690043423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-21096796391296297222017-08-01T22:51:21.108-07:002017-08-01T22:51:21.108-07:00The first community meeting at the Family Dog was ...The first community meeting at the Family Dog was on Saturday afternoon, August 2 - Garcia was one of the speakers. The next meeting on Tuesday, August 5, was where Graham appeared and had a fit, which seems to have finished off the light artists' demands. Nonetheless, the idea of the Common at the Family Dog continued over the next few months. <br /><br />The Berkeley Tribe article does say that the Dead didn't play on August 1, but is contradicted by every other source. It's notable that we have two witnesses saying they crossed the line - "I came to hear the Dead," regardless of any strike, and a few hundred people went inside anyway to see the show. (The exact number varies in each report.) As usual, the Dead's presence inspired fans to shove their way in - "if they didn't play then I wouldn't cross the line" - although it's not reported that the other groups had any issue with playing.<br />It's odd to think of Garcia & Hart negotiating in a truck outside while their bandmates were jamming in the Family Dog - especially after Abrams proclaimed that the Dead couldn't cross the picket line. I wonder if their invitation, "anybody that can play can play," had anything to do with the mystery guests who showed up on August 3 - although those guests were not just random people from the audience, it doesn't seem coincidental.Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-80987824715587616562017-08-01T21:39:20.102-07:002017-08-01T21:39:20.102-07:00Here is McNally's description, set amid the ch...Here is McNally's description, set amid the chaotic preparations for the Wild West Festival: <br />"In the last days of July, promoters Bill Graham and Chet Helms received a letter from the Light Artists Guild signed with the pseudonym "Ma." It announced the existence of the guild, demanded equal billing for light shows with the bands and a fee of $900 for a two-show weekend. [...] <br />When the band arrived [on August 1], they found the guild picketing the building and, with power supplied by Helms, staging a light show on the outside walls of the Family Dog. Years later, Jerry Abrams, the LAG leader, would defend their actions: "As long as light shows were being hired and we were a certified art form...we felt we should be compensated and publicized...we struck the Family Dog first because it just turned out that that was the first weekend we were going to do it. The Dead were playing and we figured we could reach the most people... I had assurances from Jerry Garcia...that he would honor our line. Chet knew, everybody knew." Both Chet and Jerry said they did not know in advance, and Garcia certainly felt that, as he later put it, "The whole thing was stupid." <br />There were around 400 people inside and perhaps a thousand outside at the Family Dog when Garcia and Hart arrived [from the Berkeley show]. Whether Jerry Abrams knew it or not, he had a perfect victim in Garcia [whose grandmother was a union leader]... Garcia couldn't [cross the picket line]...he felt a sense of responsibility to his greater musical community, an obligation to try to mediate if nothing else. <br />Chet, Jerry, Mickey, Rock, and a representative of the LAG, Bob Ellison, crowded into Ram Rod's equipment truck and began to talk. As Hart recalled it, Garcia said, "It's not about the fuckin' lights, it's about the fuckin' music... Yeah, there should be more equity and lights should be treated with respect, but this is not the way to go about doing it." Mickey, being Mickey, was ready to fight his way out, but calmed down. And instead of a negotiating session - there was nothing, really, to negotiate - it became a catharsis, each of them singing the same tune. No one was making money, and they were all emotionally stretched to the limit. By the time they exited the truck, it was too late to play; in their absence, the band had thrown together a jam, but the full Dead did not perform." (McNally p.323-24 - he then recounts the meeting with Graham.) <br /><br />The Friday strike was ruinous for Helms ("I was counting on the Dead to pull us out - we'd have 1500 inside and 2000 waiting to get in on a normal Friday"). He said in the Rolling Stone article, "Friday night finished the Family Dog as a business." However, Dead shows proceeded as usual on August 2-3, after the strikers dropped the picket line and agreed to negotiate in the meeting a few days later, described in Rolling Stone.<br /><br />All this describes what happened outside the Family Dog...however, I'm personally more interested in what happened inside! It's striking that some members of the Dead felt free to put on some kind of a show regardless of the strike. Did Bear make a tape of the Garcia-less Dead in a public jam session? Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-44802785310405290272017-08-01T21:39:02.117-07:002017-08-01T21:39:02.117-07:00Dock of the Bay was a short-lived San Francisco un...Dock of the Bay was a short-lived San Francisco underground newspaper that ran for a few months in late 1969. <br />These articles have very little to say about the strange Dead show on 8/1/69 - just a few words, really - but a lot about the heated strike context in which it took place. <br />Along with the collapse of the Wild West Festival, which happened at the same time, there's a strong end-of-the-sixties feel here, especially in the Dock of the Bay article with its elegiac paragraph on the way concerts used to be, and its concern over the "runaway commercialism" and "cancerous boil" of the music industry. <br /><br />One witness on dead.net who went to the show commented on the light-show strike: <br />"They were picketing outside the Family Dog - projecting the light show on the front of Playland. They had an extension cord coming from inside, and I noticed a handwritten sign in the window that said "Power supplied by the Family Dog," and as I was reading it, I noticed - thru the window - Chet Helms nodding and smiling.<br />Everybody was debating whether to honor the pickets, or ashamedly break solidarity just to see the Dead. I'm ashamed - I crossed - I'd hitched all the way from Minnesota just to see the boys - but the joke was on me, as the lightists had convinced Jerry not to cross - "I ain't goin' in!"<br />So there we were, watching Billy and Bob (scabs!) and maybe Mickey jamming. They said, "Anybody that can play can play." That wild guy that danced with everybody - remember him? - got up and played drums. I was too chicken, damn it.<br />One night when Jerry did show up, they had a couple of guys sitting in on flutes - very informal." <br />http://www.dead.net/show/august-2-1969#comment-3385 <br /><br />Garcia, oddly, was playing another show with the fledgling NRPS at the Bear's Lair in Berkeley that night: <br />http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2010/01/nrps-bears-lair-uc-berkeley-berkeley-ca.html <br /><br />Michael Kramer has a page on the light-show strike in his book The Republic of Rock: "The 'scene...was absurdly festive,' local underground newspapers reported. 'Dog staffers passed out carnations... [One man] served a trayful of macrobiotic bread to projectionists working from the roof of a van' and 'power for the light show...supplied...partly by extension cord from the Dog.' Helms, Jerry Garcia...Jerry Abrams of the Headlights light show, and others retreated to a van to discuss the strike.... By the end of the talks in the Dead's Metro van, the Light Show Guild members agreed to suspend their strike. In return, Helms called two 'community meetings.'" <br />The Berkeley Tribe stated, "There's no reason why the rock bands and ballrooms can't return some of their monies to the community." The idea was for money to circulate within the community, rather than being given to "the hip capitalists." Kramer goes on to describe how the idea of community involvement evolved into the experiment of the Common at the Family Dog - also see: <br />http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-common-september-5-6-7-ish-1969.html Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.com