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Sunday, February 20. 2011

Uncle John’s Band

Been in a Grateful Dead state of mind, for a long while now. Years really. Every day there’s different song by the Dead playing in my head. Today’s pick: “Uncle John’s Band.” Not a bad choice, one of their more popular songs. A few days ago, maybe a week or more even, someone told me her favorite Dead song was “Dire Wolf” and that became the song of the day tripping through my brain.

It’s not like I don’t enjoy other music, other bands and musicians, I do. David Bowie, James Gang, and by extension Joe Walsh, Yes, Elvis Costello, Rollins Band, Soundgarden and of course Frank Zappa. I’ve been a Zappa fan a lot longer than for the Grateful Dead, but the Zappa song “Titties and Beer” isn’t playing in my head at the moment.
 Well, there are titties running through my thoughts, but they’re running to “Uncle John’s Band.”

Don’t know the what and why of it. I’ll put something else on and really get into it, singing along. Jane’s Addiction lately, The Police, but when I’m traveling or just sitting through the boredom of work, it’s a Grateful Dead song floating through those synapses.

Being a Deadhead is a state of mind, sort of like being a surfer. Nothing else much matters more than surfing to surfers, or skateboarders. We often read of these old surfers living a life of luxury, without most of the modern amenities we would consider luxury. They just pack themselves off to the North Shore or the pier at Huntington Beach (or wherever) and go surfing. That’s the luxury: they don’t have to do much of anything else. That’s what they live for, like Laird Hamilton. He gets paid to surf.

Deadheads are pretty much the same and up until Jerry Garcia died, the most ardent would hit the trail for every tour and follow the band from one venue to another. Every tour: summer, winter and spring and fall.

Most of my Dead shows were Alpine Valley Music Theater in East Troy, WI. Up until the mid-1980’s a person could get a grass seat ticket for less than 20 bucks and see the show. But then the band strangely got even more popular and getting tickets became difficult and then nearly impossible. By that time I was reviewing music for a living so getting concert tickets got easy: someone else arranged and paid for them.

From that time on, the Dead shows had these tens of thousands of people following from one venue to another, most of them without tickets, clogging up the road getting into Alpine and otherwise making the show a difficult experience. And hundreds of them holding up little cardboard signs: “LOOKING FOR A MIRACLE! I would be forever grateful for a ticket!”

You’re looking for a miracle? Go put on some clean clothes and get a job! You’ll see just how miraculously your life changes. Well, I had gotten cynical somewhere along the line and that whole … hippie-dippy Woodstock … mentality just wore thin. Once in a while I’d see some cute young Deadhead girl holding a sign, glance over at whoever had my other ticket and think, “Damn! Shoulda come alone …”

But never when my Dead show companion was my sister Elaine! She and I attended that infamous afternoon show at Alpine one year, can’t remember the year, maybe 1987. Who can recall all the details? Even though I had quit the drinking and the drugging by then, the details, nearly 25 years later, are somewhat fuzzy.

Had my last drink and doobie in September of 1984. I had been to a few Dead shows up ‘til that point and didn’t think much about that fact. But when the Dead came around to Alpine for the 1985 Summer Tour (June 21&22), naturally some friends and I went. Somewhere in the first set, while laying on the grass—yes, at the time one could actually sit on the grass at a Dead show—I sat up and announced, “I actually like their music.”

Some of the people attending with me had been to a Dead show or two with me prior, so they looked quizzically in my direction. What can I say? Life in general and Dead shows in particular was a blur prior to September 30, 1984.

Then there was the infamous, in my history, Red Rocks show August 12, 1979. Lainey, her first husband Jeff and some of their friends took me along, complete with all the chemical enhancements one would expect a bunch of hippie-types would ingest before, during and after a Grateful Dead concert.

Now, the Red Rocks amphitheater is up in the Rocky Mountains, above the Mile High City. Unbeknownst to me, the sea-level dwelling guy I was (and am), the scarcity of actual oxygen in the atmosphere at that altitude can and does help to diminish one’s mental capacity, especially when ingesting said chemical enhancements. I was fucking ripped before the concert even started. Slept through most of it.

The few times I was … err … somewhat … conscious, it was clearly apparent there were at least 15 people on stage. Truly! But, according to Elaine, and she would know, she was also in attendance, there were only seven people on stage at any one time. I could be mistaken.

It was a great show! I have the board mix bootleg on my iPod and I’m looking at the set list right here. Wish I could remember it.

So, there have been some forgotten moments of the Dead live, but there have been some great moments of the Grateful Dead as well! Like the year Elaine and I saw them at Alpine Valley in the afternoon and the year I brought my friend Harold Annen to his first Dead show. He’d never been to see the Dead.

The crowd was at a fever pitch during “Estimated Prophet” and then, while in a Jerry Garcia filled solo segue they sidled up into “Eyes of the World” and the crowd erupted, Hal looked at me in wide-eyed excitement: it was the greatest concert experience of his life. His mind was flying like the wild geese in the West, to paraphrase “I Know You Rider.”

There have been some great memories of and around the Grateful Dead, like the hapless Deadhead who, in 1994, was selling tickets on the Strip in Las Vegas because he lost his money playing Blackjack or something. Guess he didn’t find his miracle. Las Vegas will do that to a person.

Tinley Park, Illinois could have been a great place to see a Dead show, but by then, 1990, the Deadhead crowds had attracted rude, crude fans that thought nothing of stealing from others. My last Dead shows were at the World Music Theater, July 21-23, 1990. By coincidence, the Dead keyboardist at the time, Brent Mydland, died just three days after these shows. He has been my favorite keyboardist for the Dead, having been in the band longer than any of the other keyboardists.

Then there was December of 1989 when my brother Carl and I toured the Southwest, from Albuquerque, NM to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, Las Vegas and Laughlin, NV and then on to San Diego, CA. After a few days bouncing around Southern California, off I went to the Bay Area for the Grateful Dead Holiday Shows at the Oakland Coliseum. On New Years Eve promoter Bill Graham descended from the rafters in a giant egg, dressed as a chicken. Bonnie Raitt and the New Grass Revival opened for the Dead. That was a great show!

You can’t go wrong with any live recordings by the Grateful Dead, the Dick’s Picks series is great! My favorite version of “Deal” is Dick’s Picks XIII. Scorching guitar solo by Jerry. One Hundred Year Hall has my favorite version of “Chinacat Sunflower>I Know You Rider.” Ladies and Gentlemen … is a recording of the Dead’s five nights at the Fillmore East in April, 1971, some of that venue’s final concerts. Ron “Pigpen” McKernan at his best and a great version of “Turn On Your Lovelight.”

Dick’s Picks XXII starts with a mind-blowing version of “The Music Never Stopped>Sugaree>The Music Never Stopped” and Dick’s Picks VI has my favorite versions of “Estimated Prophet>Eyes of the World” and “Scarlet Begonias>Fire on the Mountain.” I’m gonna guess “Scarlet Begonias” is Elaine’s favorite Dead tune. She sent me a picture of her scarlet begonias.

Ten hours ago I was wondering if I could possibly find 800 words of interesting stuff to write about the Grateful Dead. Now this is moving in on 1,400 words. This isn’t a history of the Grateful Dead, this is my history with the Grateful Dead, so it might not be that interesting to most of you, but it’s been damn interesting to me! You want a good read about the Grateful Dead, read Dennis McNally’s book, Long Strange Trip.

Anyway, I got the Dead on my brain. “Come hear Uncle John’s Band, playing to the tide …”

Posted by Tim Forkes in Life at 06:01 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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