tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post1138879008350339550..comments2024-03-26T23:10:34.814-07:00Comments on Grateful Dead Sources: Pigpen Interview, 1970Light Into Asheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-92070499508518491212017-01-03T22:14:59.038-08:002017-01-03T22:14:59.038-08:00Very minor footnote: Pigpen mentions a comic song ...Very minor footnote: Pigpen mentions a comic song that Rod Albin used to sing about George and the IRT: "the conductor shut the door on him and cut poor George in half."<br />This was 'Georgie and the IRT,' a parody of the Carter Family's 'Engine 143' which was on Dave van Ronk's 1961 album "Van Ronk Sings."<br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7lcOHE3Or4 Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-28933971341109475252016-08-13T09:11:32.901-07:002016-08-13T09:11:32.901-07:00Here's some stuff about Hank and Pigpen and Gi...Here's some stuff about Hank and Pigpen and Ginny Good from a book called "Ginny Good." G.<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0XZDyR77aQ<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGXzJoW34P4<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo6jmfGJJAU<br /><br />Thanks. G.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-30868868619882443962016-07-23T23:26:31.423-07:002016-07-23T23:26:31.423-07:00A very fine interview indeed,...........Thanks!A very fine interview indeed,...........Thanks!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10346040716134734164noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-20060497897818943222016-07-09T07:34:38.589-07:002016-07-09T07:34:38.589-07:00Thanks for this!Thanks for this!j.s.c.https://www.blogger.com/profile/12448126423107499410noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-41465473403552934072016-06-27T00:59:07.920-07:002016-06-27T00:59:07.920-07:00Happy news! With the help of another Dead scholar ...Happy news! With the help of another Dead scholar I'll be able to transcribe the other Pigpen/Hank Harrison tape, which I'll post next.Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-20379121892183669802016-06-23T22:55:09.707-07:002016-06-23T22:55:09.707-07:00The 4/17/67 issue of the Stanford Daily had a revi...The 4/17/67 issue of the Stanford Daily had a review of "The Great Blondino": <br />“Drone music is provided by Moving Van Walters and his Truck. The Grateful Dead, who have title if not talent, also get in on the act.” <br /><br />Wheeler Dixon wrote about the film in his book “The Exploding Eye”: “A drone-like musical soundtrack by the group Moving Van Walters and His Truck accompanies the dreamlike footage… Nelson’s Super Spead (1967) is a 13-minute multi-screen light-show film, with an original soundtrack performed by the Grateful Dead.” (The Exploding Eye: A Re-Visionary History of 1960s American Experimental Cinema, p.131) <br /><br />It's hard to say whether these soundtracks will ever come to light. See the comments here: <br />http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2012/12/russian-river-to-mchenry-library-via.html Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-55748377269977899332016-06-23T22:52:09.942-07:002016-06-23T22:52:09.942-07:00This tape isn't complete - there must have bee...This tape isn't complete - there must have been more Pigpen interview material I haven’t heard. The interview printed in The Dead Book evidently comes from another tape. (Hank may have tampered with Pigpen's quotes a bit, but it mostly sounds like the authentic Pigpen, full of names and random details.)<br />The new book This Is All A Dream We Dreamed also has a short Pigpen quote on the Dead's LA visit, which is also said to come from a May 1970 Harrison tape:<br />"We moved into the place in LA and started trying to promote our band. Which worked okay, except the cops ordered us to take down the posters off the telephone poles we nailed them to." (p.38)<br />So more might come to light someday.<br /><br />Some interview highlights: <br />- The night Phil and his friends went to Magoo's, all high on acid. Garcia "said that night that he would never take acid and play." (This was months before the Acid Tests, and Garcia was still new to acid.)<br />- Pigpen's response to Neal Cassady. They talk about Neal in the present tense, even though he'd been dead for two years. (Bobby also mentions seeing the bus Further on the road for the first time, with "Neal at the wheel...the effect was devastating.") <br />- Pigpen's long story about going up to the Portland Acid Test and back. He doesn't say a word about the actual Acid Test, just the road trip! (But he does say a lot about the Watts Acid Test, the "who cares?" lady and his "gospel rap.") Bobby mentions that the Pranksters were recording on the road - "there are tapes of this," "there were movies taken...there's footage," "those guys up there in Oregon have a wealth of shit." <br />- Pigpen has a fond memory of 'Something On Your Mind' at the "original Fillmore" in '66 (Bobby also remembers "the rap part"), and Hank asks about the Rio Nido '67 gig. More surprisingly, Hank has heard the Rio Nido tape, and implies that there are more tapes around before Bobby cuts him off...so Dead 'family' members were listening to these tapes even that early. (Probably more than survives today.) <br />- Hank asks about "The Great Blondino" soundtrack, which Pigpen doesn't seem to remember. Unfortunately, the film is still unavailable so I don't know what the Dead did for the soundtrack. Pigpen has a much clearer memory of doing "Your Sons and Daughters" with Jon Hendricks in '66 (he liked the song, too).Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-21982324580386927652016-06-23T22:16:49.305-07:002016-06-23T22:16:49.305-07:00This hour-long tape presented many problems in tra...This hour-long tape presented many problems in transcribing. Pigpen sat far from the microphone and was hard to hear; he tended to talk fast and mumble in sentence fragments, and sometimes the others talked over him; and often two people are talking at once. So I couldn’t pick up everything, and there are many little gaps in this transcript, especially proper names (there were many names I couldn’t make out). <br />This is about as complete as I can make it - I omitted some repeated sentences and false starts, and a lot of “you knows” & “yeahs.” (Petersen in particular constantly backs up everything Pigpen says with a chorus of "yeah! right!" which I left out.) [Words in brackets] are uncertain or implied. A lot of corrections could still be made to the text here.<br />The three speakers weren't alone - at least one other guy was in the room, and a silent girl comes in midway, but rarely is anyone else heard.<br /><br />Hank wrote in his intro to The Dead Book: In 1968 "I decided to write a book about my friends... In the fall of 1969, I saw the Altamont crisis on television and called Phil Lesh in Fairfax. I would live with the Dead in Marin and write the book."<br />He seems to have pursued it intermittently in 1970-71, eventually publishing the first installment on his own in 1973. The spring 1970 date for this tape seems correct. <br /><br />Hank could be a pushy interviewer, often pressing for little details to get the story straight. It seems he was doing thorough research for his book, interviewing people and even digging up Phil's student records. I hadn't known that Bobby Petersen was helping him with the research, but Petersen was very enthusiastic about it - perhaps initially they were going to be co-authors.<br />As an interview, this is a near-disaster. It turns from an interview into a three-way conversation where the others do most of the talking and keep digressing - we learn much about the interviewers, little about the Dead. Petersen keeps interrupting Pigpen & talking over him, answering Hank’s questions for him. (When Pigpen does tell an extended story, about the Watts acid test, the others interrupt him so frequently with their own random stories, it's almost comic.) <br /><br />One inevitable shortcoming is that since the interviewers both spent a lot of time with the Dead, they pass right over some topics as shared knowledge, and instead mostly talk about various friends they know. It's remarkable that both of them had gone with Phil to see the Warlocks at Magoo's, for instance, but the reminiscing about that night is soon cut short. A lot of time is spent with really inconsequential anecdotes and gossip, or trying to remember what happened when and who was where. (No one recalls dates very well.) <br />So usually the most interesting information here tends to be in asides, or just briefly brought up before someone jumps in with a new topic.<br /><br />Hank & Bobby seem to have a good idea of what they're going for - Hank particularly wants to know when Pigpen first met everyone, and what shows stood out for him. Petersen wants to get into the early pre-Dead days, especially the Chateau era: "I’d like to get earlier...Novakovich and that kind of stuff, because that was when it was all happenin’... Those cats ought to really be mentioned strong, man - you know, David X and Lester and those guys, because they told us something."<br />However, after all the digressions we end up not hearing any Joe Novakovich stories at all except that he gave Pigpen a harmonica! (Hank wrote a little bit about him in The Dead Book; he was still hanging out with the Dead at Olompali.) So we don't learn much about the Chateau days here, except from the piece printed in The Dead.Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.com