Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    


The Deadhead scene:


•a model for the formation of microculture:

•an economic/social example of (mostly) peaceful collectivism

•served as a harbor for the shamanistic fringe in a society without
shamans

•a stellar example of mediascape, or dramatic immersion into a
musicking scene

• connection with the primitive impulse, and the Nekyia as rite of
passage

• an alternative to mass culture/privatization

• although mobile, a vibrant example of community formation

• a cure for the ontologically inevitable state of postmodern ennui

• a catalyst for consciousness revolution (toward a global
consciousness)


OR,

• escapist bullshit

• youthful folly

• self-indulgent drug scene

• example of all that is wrong with our over-indulgent and permissive
American society.

• sex, drugs and rock'n'roll hedonism

• GUD, what has this world come to? 
  

    
slippage.  Yes to what Xian said.
  

    
<71>:  Oh yeah.  The first Dead album I bought was _Aoxomoxoa_ back in
1988, partly for that Rick Griffin masterpiece of a cover, partly
because I had heard and read about what a trippy band this was supposed
to be.  I found the music therein to be pretty pedestrian at that
time.  

By 1989 I was going to a university and living in a dorm that had a
few Deadheads in it and they were fun people to hang out with.  I could
see by now that the band's music could be highly enjoyable to their
fans, but it just hadn't caught on with me.  One autumn evening a
dormmate played a compilation that had the single version of "Born
Cross-Eyed" on it and I was intrigued a bit, but still not really
grabbed.  Toward the end of that year I went out and bought the first
album, _Anthem Of the Sun_, and _Live Dead_.  I listened to those three
albums and I thought they were good once I had tasted their music, but
I had yet to digest it.

Then, one day during winter break I was listening to Side 1 of _Live
Dead_ for the fourth or fifth time, and I let myself go with the music.
 Then came the middle section where the band becomes quiet, and Garcia
gently and softly begins trilling, with Constanten's organ setting a
nebulous background, then Garcia arrives at one near-climax, then he
begins again, Lesh and Weir along with him weaving circles into circles
with mounting tension, intensity, and volume, Garcia's notes now
insisting circular cascade into the silver-aqua force field where ice
petals bloom long before they revolve, his notes now outer-Coltrane
chords screaming joy approaching, galactic forces tearing loose from a
wildly-blazing nebula close by, into what one might consider a black
hole, but a benign one ultimately.

After that, I listened to the rest of _Live Dead_ and it FINALLY
clicked for me, especially the mad Scottish-polyrhythms of "The
Eleven," the love-of-life cover of "Turn On Your Lovelight," and the
post-galactic Feedback.  Then the first album made sense, especially
"Viola Lee Blues," and then I was ready for _Anthem..._.  By the time I
had completed the album's musique-concrete
fall-all-over-yourself-over-and-over-again-and-come-up-smiling sound, I
had a new favorite band.

My aforementioned dormmate, at my request, taped that "Dark Star" plus
_From the Mars Hotel_ and _Blues For Allah_ for me and that was it. 
Toward the end of the spring semester I got my first live
tapes--November 1967 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles and
12-28-69 at the Hollywood, FL Pop Festival, and I would never be the
same again.

Then two years later, I went to my only shows, all three May 1992
shows in Las Vegas.
  

    
Oh yeah, after my cataclysmic _Live Dead_ experience, I finally
enjoyed _Aoxomoxoa_.  I enjoyed it even more when I found a used copy
of the original (and far superior) 1969 mix.
  

    
I think the question "Did it matter?" is important and am glad David asked
it because thinking about that question been part of my meditation on the
book. I can't answer for everyone but certainly can say that, for me, yes,
it certainly did matter. A few ways:

* Current pop music is a short-attention-span activity. That's not true with
all of the world's music, with art music, or most of Western concert
music... but it's certainly true of most music we are exposed to now on a
daily basis. Live Dead showed me that it was possible to work on longer
forms within pop music, not only by playing rock-hero guitar solos. Can you
make "Around & Around" work in more than 3 minutes? What about "Tennessee
Jed"? Yes, you can. I'm not the biggest Dennis Miller fan but always laugh
at one of his jokes: "You know what my favourite Dead song is? THE SHORT
ONE!"

* Technically inept singers can be more expressive than their more
technically competent counterparts. There are some Garcia ballads that still
make me cry, and it's not because Bryn Terfel or Renee Fleming feared for
their jobs.

* The cult of the original artist, a recent conceit, needs to be questioned
all the time. There was a time when (IMO) Bob Weir was a better live
interpreter of Dylan than the writer himself.

* Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Aversion to risk runs deep, in most
people's social lives and certainly in corporate life and government acts.
That's appropriate sometimes - I'd like my pilot to be risk averse and a
slave to his/her checklist, thankyouverymuch - but in most cases it isn't.
Master your basics then give it a go - you might cause a train wreck but you
might open the doors to heaven for a few minutes too. For me, a bad show was
when the band didn't try... a good show was when they improvised despite the
occasional failure... a great show was when the crowd came along for the
ride as the band drove to points unknown. I try to live my life that way and
trace my attitude back to shows.

* It's OK to get bombed once in awhile. The history of the human race is
inextricable from our history self-intoxication - what is bread but a sorry
substitute for beer? Sadly, this became too much a part of the scene, an
excuse to get blotto and pretend the laws of the land just didn't exist. But
the show was a fairly safe place if you over-indulged, and there are far too
few such places left. The vile War on Some Drugs continues, at great cost,
and I don't think it would make me so angry now without my tour memories.

* I have waited my entire life for the uncertainty I feel about humanity
(and my place in it) to become a little more certain. It never happened,
despite "settling down" to a degree (mortgage payments, a dog, a  non-DH
wife, etc.) Being at a show always made that uncertainty OK for me. There
are no more shows, but I try to remember that lesson.

I don't think any of those lessons was profound (you might even say they
were obvious and trite) but I owe my taking them to heart to live Dead.
  

    
Robert Randolph puts on a hell of a show.
  

    
Great post, Barry - thank you!  And the rest of you, too - nice to see so
much good stuff after being away for two days.

Last night's David Nelson Band set went deeper than any of the Dead tour
music I heard on CD.  Sorry, kids, but that's how I feel.  It may be that
Nelson carries the storytelling aspect of the GD trip more strongly today
than the Dead themselves without Jerry.  Barry Sless, Mookie Siegel, John
Molo, and Pete Sears!  All those years Pete was more known for his keyboard
playing than his bass playing - the man is amazing on bass.  And another key
factor in my judgment of this is that there's a new batch of Hunter lyrics in
Nelson's - 7 on the new NRPS album and at least one more that didn't make
that disc ("Fivio," which Nelson played on KPFA; you can hear it in GD Hour
1084, which airs the week of June 29).  The DNB played "Where I Come From"
last night.  It's vintage Hunter, likely telling his own story as well as
a couple of others at once.
  

    

I have to register a bit of an objection to Scott MacFarlane imposing all
that mytical mystical superstructure on the Grateful Dead concert.  Joe
Campbell went to one Grateful Dead show and pronouced it "the answer to the
Atom Boms," and then delivered one of his standard presentations at a con-
ference with Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart, et al.

It can just as easily be said that the second set structure of the latter-day
Dead concert (which by the way was a step in the petrification process to
fans like me who came up in the years when the structure was a good deal more
random) was a purely musical matter, giving the aging players a chance to
take another break in the middle of the set (to get high? quite likely, but
that's a speculation we'll reserve for a different attempt at remote phycho-
history).  Making the second set (in most instances) a continuous musical
flow with drums and then space made for a more concise presentation,
requiring and allowing less unstructured exploration.  All too often in those
later years, the opening song of the second set was a step down a path whose
contours were very well-known.  The vast Jurassic sea of Grateful Dead music
eventually dried up and left a diminished Mono Lake of concentrated,
abbreviated exploration that rarely yielded ecstatic discovery.

If you leave aside the philsophical projection/analysis, my sad and somewhat
snarky explanation makes perfect sense on a human, professional-musician
level.

The truth, of course, lies somewhere in between.

P.S.  There was great wonderment in the discussion boards during the Dead's
spring 2009 tour, seeing "second-set songs" in the first set.  "Hell in a
Bucket" thrown into the middle of the first set just like any other song -
wonder of wonders!
  

    

That post could use a rewrite and some additional information, but I'm on the
road and don't have time to revise it.  I'll come back later to inspect the
damage.
  

    
<a bit of an objection>

I'm sincerely interested in hearing Peter's version of GUD and its
larger relevance because I wasn't part of the caravaning Deadhead
scene.  I was a Seventies' Dead Head tapping into the vinyl far more
than a live scene that only came my way in Seattle a few times from '75
to '80. That's the relevance of the Phases of the Dead––Psychedelia,
the Godchaux/songwriting era, the emerging Deadheads of the Mydland
era, the Stadium/Touchhead scene.  All very different chapters of the
same book.  The Deadhead scene didn't coalesce until the beginning of
the '80s.  

My own immersion into the Dead scene pales in comparison to yours,
David, so I never got to see the warts and moles and adult acne behind
the proverbial veil.  Putting words to those transcendent moments of
the GD at their best ain't easy, but the ability of this band, (and the
GDs' linkage to all the skullfucking hippie shit), is the reason why
it matters to me now.  Just trying to figure it out, trying to make
sense of my own maze, and asking myself whether any of this retains
relevance in any sense to the larger contemporary social dynamic.  

Steeped as the GD music is in the mythos of Americana, mythical
archetypes simply allow us a language to describe this experience. The
mystical sensations that the band could summon at its best was pretty
fucking amazing in my book.

FWIW. 
  

    
This whole discussion has had me thinking more about how/if/why the
Dead scene could/should be transposed onto larger culture. Outside of
some utopian revelries ("wouldn't it be cool if..."), I never looked at
the scene as a blueprint, but as an alternative. Personally, I'm
dubious about any system holding together on a mass scale and retaining
the purities that made it appealing in the first place. If that’s ever
happened, I don’t know about it. So when I think in terms of elements
of the Deadhead scene contributing to society on a larger scale – I
think about it on the smallest scale. The individual. To me, that’s the
flashpoint of transformation. In fact, I’ve always had a deep
appreciation for Plato’s Theory of Forms, which basically says that the
idea of something – prior to material manifestation or even physical
sensation – is the purest form of reality. Since I bang my thumb with a
hammer and scream, I think you need to take ideas into the material
world, but I also agree that as soon as you put governing systems into
play, those systems begin to deteriorate. Often, rapidly. 

When I addressed these issues in GUD, I kept them at the personal
level, as was appropriate for the book. Personally, I carry the spirit
of the scene alive through my writing and through sharing that writing
with other people. Of course, at this point, I’m incorporating a myriad
of influences, as any artist needs to do to keep growing.  But as I’ve
stated here previously, the doors to those influences got kicked open
through the Dead scene. So when I think of how the Dead scene can
contribute on a larger scale – I think about all the individuals out
there who have had their molecules rearranged at shows and through the
music. I think about them out in the world, experimenting, pushing
their own envelopes, showing up to their own lives day after day and
chasing down their own muses (whether that’s repairing an engine or
teaching Environmental Ethics or cooking a killer burrito). Let’s call
it a critical mass of spirit. If you can keep that going on an
individual level and share it when you can, you’re likely to do more
good than harm.     
  

    
<83>:  You pretty much summed up my feelings on Grateful Dead music
through the years, and why for me even a hot 1989-90 show (and there
were several) just cannot hold a candle to the excitement of 1968, the
baroque-into-country 1969 shows, the raging shows of 1970, or the
songs-into-ever-deeper-space performances of 1972-74.  It does seem
that the band got tired of being out there on the edge without a
roadmap back as time went on.  Certainly, the demands of touring the
U.S. three or four times a year took their toll, as did certain band
members' lifestyle choices that came into play during the second half
of the 1970s.

Then also, Weir mentioned in a book of interviews with band members
that starting about 1976-77, a conscious effort was made to tone down
and reign in the extraterrestrial sonic explorations that reached their
peak in 1972-74, as Weir in particular felt they were leaving their
audience behind at times.  It may be that they then discovered that by
ossifying their sets to a greater extent than previous (and instituting
the Drums, and later Space segments into the middle of the second
sets), they would have more energy left over to deliver a dependable,
if not mindblowing, remainder of that night's performance, and also
have enough left over for the rest of the run in whatever city or town
they were in.  It was well and good that they could thereby cut down on
the possibility of a horrible or boring performance and be counted on
to give at least a decent show to their ticket-buyers.

But by electing to do so, they also greatly cut down on the
possibility of performing a show, or even just a moment of a show that
was truly transportational and cataclysmic.  And as we all know, there
is little or no possiblity for great art without risk.
  

    

I don't mean to deny anyone the vaildity of their experiences, of course.
What I object to is the presumption of a certain level of intentionality that
I don't think existed.  The Grateful Dead came in through a very small window
in time and space; they had company, but a lot of the other events and
institutions have faded from the scene, and some also from memory.  The Dead
met so many different needs for so many different people, it's inevitable
that they became a prescription for the world's ills to some of them.
  

    
Full agreement here with David's #83, #88. Well-thought and well-put. 
  

    

From Julia Postel:

> I would like to know if he found any of the fan communities in the lot -
> did he get stickers at the shows? did he read Mikel or St Mikel? - if he
> read any of the [GD fanzines] of the time and if so, what ones and why.....
> that sort of thing...  thanks for giving us the opportunity to participate
> in the discussion!
  

    
Yes well thought and well put and making me feel like I've been called
out to clarify what I'm surprised that David doesn't get about what I
say.  However, I was also surprised when David said (a couple weeks ago
in The Well) that the GD stopped being hippies about 1967.  That
floored me, too, because it represented to me a very narrow definition
of the term "hippie."  In any event, clarification is good, and these
are simply honest differences in perspective. 

So, David, when you hosted a "Dark Star" marathon on the shortest
day/night of the year on Sirius Satellite Radio, there was no Dionysian
intentionality?

When David Gans stands up as a Rubber Souldier and sings "into the
light of the dark black night," he is in no way conjuring up the "very
small window in time and space" of the late '60s that was also very
Dionysian and very much contributed to a profound paradigm shift in
consciousness in American society?

The cauldron of change in "Advanced Western" culture from 1967-1972
was led by the youth, yet was significantly different than Peter's
Deahead immersion of 1987-1992.  One thing I've learned from his
thoughtful posts is how his Deadhead idea of "alternative" referred to
a subcultural scene, not the prospect of an "alternative" society.
It's clear that Peter does not think that the Deadheads possessed  the
hippie's we-can-change-ourselves-and-thereby-change-the-world idealism
that would help usher in an "alternative society".  The caravanning
Deadheads never had the critical mass for change promised
(misleadingly, as it turned out) by the "Woodstock Nation."  

Still, my questions to Peter stem from a fascination about but what he
thinks are the commonalities and disconnects between the original wave
of hippies and his era of Deadheads, and what relevance this may or
may not have in a larger contemporary cultural context.  

Some in the late '60s, like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, the Weather
Underground, and even Emett Grogan of the Diggers, operated with
intentionality, with the idea that the shift of consciousness underway
was a first step that would lead toward political revolution, and a
more egalitarian society.  I would never suggest that the Grateful Dead
(or the Pranksters) ever operated with this sort of "blueprint" or
"intentionality". 

I also don't believe the GD set out to create a Wagnerian-style, or
Nietszche-esque audience Nekyia either.  The Dionysianism of the Dead
was mostly inadvertent and most definitely tied to that very small
window of time that helped define them.  Unintentionally, and without a
net, the Grateful Dead most certainly tapped into something potent. I
think that this vibrancy is what sustained interest in the band for
thirty years, even when, road weary, they played at less than full
potential.   

In other words, I do believe that the GD music discovered a creative
edge where light meets dark, where their fans could gather and
celebrate that magic. This was part of the consciousness shift that the
band tapped into and which created the sort of allure that attracted
paying customers for thirty years and more.
  

    

> So, David, when you hosted a "Dark Star" marathon on the shortest day/night
> of the year on Sirius Satellite Radio, there was no Dionysian inten-
> tionality?

Not that I know of.

>  When David Gans stands up as a Rubber Souldier and sings "into the light
>  of the dark black night," he is in no way conjuring up the "very small
>  window in time and space" of the late '60s that was also very Dionysian
>  and very much contributed to a profound paradigm shift in consciousness in
>  American society?

No, he isn't.  He is playing music that he loves.

Again, I am not attempting to deny you your interpretation of these matters.
But I am sure you will acknowledge that it's entirely possible that the
people who made these things happen were not doing so with any great con-
sciousness of the traditions and myths you invoke.  Indeed, I think most
genuine spiritual and cultural movements arise spontaneously from the random
collisions of human beings and/or from the powerful impulses of visionaries.
It's really hard to design these things; better they should just happen.

More.
  

    

> Some in the late '60s, like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, the Weather Un-
> derground, and even Emett Grogan of the Diggers, operated with inten-
> tionality, with the idea that the shift of consciousness underway was a
> first step that would lead toward political revolution, and a more
> egalitarian society.

Sure.  But the Haight-Ashbury scene was a neighborhood cultural revolution
that attracted a great deal of attention because it was so, well, attractive
and the Beatles (et al.) had flooded the world with color and optimism.  The
Diggers didn't create it nor promote it; they attempted to SERVE the scene in
accordance with their own cultural mission.

Maybe we can say that the Dead attempted to change the world with guitars,
Rubin & Hoffman with hammers, and the Diggers with soup ladles.

The Dead DID want to change the world.  I remember a conversation (not an
interview) with Phil Lesh somewhere along the line in which he said that ex-
plicitly, adding, "and if we had to dose a few people along the line,
well..."  But of course, it was Grace and Paul who wanted to dose the Nixons.

But the idealism of the early days fell by the wayside as the realities of
the world and the music business set in.  When the Dead hit the road, their
internal culture changed.  Developing their music and earning a living were
enough of a challenge without taking on the remaking of the world.

They did - knowingly, I'm sure - provide this wonderful traveling petri dish
in which lots of other folks were able to do their own culturalmutation ex-
periments.


> I would never suggest that the Grateful Dead (or the Pranksters) ever
> operated with this sort of "blueprint" or "intentionality".

Okay.  I wasn't aiming that solely at you, of course, but I'm glad to see
your clarification.


> I also don't believe the GD set out to create a Wagnerian-style, or
> Nietszche-esque audience Nekyia either.  The Dionysianism of the Dead was
> mostly inadvertent and most definitely tied to that very small window of
> time that helped define them.  Unintentionally, and without a net, the
> Grateful Dead most certainly tapped into something potent. I think that
> this vibrancy is what sustained interest in the band for thirty years, even
> when, road weary, they played at less than full potential.

> In other words, I do believe that the GD music discovered a creative edge
> where light meets dark, where their fans could gather and celebrate that
> magic. This was part of the consciousness shift that the band tapped into
> and which created the sort of allure that attracted paying customers for
> thirty years and more.

In short, then, we have little or no disagreement.
  

    
To step away from generalizations and into the specifics of when I was
touring - no, the people I toured with (and, really, most I met on
tour) weren't political in any overt way. There was some of that stuff
there that you could uncover, but it was cause based (Tibet,
Rainforest, etc.) rather than focused on changing the larger system.
There was in no way a sense that going to a bunch of Dead shows was
going to change the country. We were there for the music, the dance,
the fun, the adventure, the travel, the good times... Again, it was an
alternative, not a model for shaping the mainstream. That sort of mass
idealism was long gone by the time I reached my teens. The closest I'd
say the Dead scene came was by having general "rules of conduct" (for
lack of a better term) to govern participants. But I'd classify it more
in the way the shadow of supernatural authority governs a society.
Basically, a karmic based system. Do right by the scene and you'll be
covered with tickets, a place to crash, and general good things. And
just like any supernatural governing system - the purpose is to
preserve order. In this case, it's a way for Deadheads to police each
other in order to preserve the survival of the community. 

Hi Julia - thanks for your question! I fondly remember getting the new
Duprees Diamond News in the parking lot and taking it off to a corner
to muse over and relax with. In fact, an old tour buddy told me he just
found a big stack of them at his house. I'm jealous - may need to
persuade him to send me a bunch of them. It was always fun to walk
around and spot cool new shirts(so many creative folks with wonderful
humor in their work), bumper stickers, jewelry, etc. At different
times, I sold some of everything myself too: shirts, devil sticks,
artwork, food and drinks, and other stuff. Of course, there was also
lots of bartering. Given the choice, it was understood that trades were
the best way to go. And if you could trade whatever you had for a
ticket... pure gold.    
     
  

    
<culturalmutation>

Perfect word at the core of this good discussion, David. 







slippage
  

    

"culturalmutation" was a typo, meant to be two words.  For the record.
  

    
Not anymore it isn't.  You've changed everything now!
  

    

See?  Intentionality had nothing to do with it!  Happy accident!
  

    

Peter, what are you working on now?
  

    
<99> Great question.

 <93> >Maybe we can say that the Dead attempted to change the world
with guitars,
Rubin & Hoffman with hammers, and the Diggers with soup ladles.< Very
well put.