Grateful Dead and Tie-Dye: A Journey with Courtney Pollock

0:08BubblemanAll right. Excellent. Welcome, everyone. Just give it a second here.

0:12SpeakerJust going live on YouTube.

0:24BubblemanAll right, everybody. It looks like we're going live. Here we are. Excellent. Shout out to everyone who's in the chat room watching right now. We are about to start up. Hash Church 5.0 Episode 13. I'm going to let the Dragonfly Earth Medicine in because today they are the gung-ho's and they're the ones that are the closest. So welcome everybody to Hash Church 5.0 Episode 13. We're going to celebrate Phil Lesh and the Grateful Dead today.

0:53BubblemanSo I'm pretty excited about this. In fact, I am... Hella grateful. Hella grateful for the opportunity. Not gonna lie. Not gonna lie. How you guys doing? Dragonfly Earth Medicine, Josh and Kelly in the house.

1:07Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineWe're doing well. Thank you so much, Marcus. How are you feeling today?

1:11BubblemanI'm feeling okay. You know, it was my 29th wedding anniversary yesterday. So I celebrated that with my beautiful wife. We had a really nice time and just... You know, celebrate the time as they pull out these milestones in our lives. In fact, it's why I was trying to make myself look nice and shave for my wife and I shredded my face, which proceeded to bleed for about a half an hour straight.

1:35BubblemanI was just standing there dabbing out my face. And so that's why I'm going to have these little cuts on my chin today. So I want to welcome Brian, who's popping into the room here. He's just looks like he's figuring some things out right now. Don't worry, logistically, I do the same thing every time I get on this program. I gotta push the record button and then I gotta make sure we're live and then I gotta, it's a lot.

2:01BubblemanSo let me know if I can walk you through anything, Brian, if you need to get lit up on audio or whatever. There's also a chat mechanism on the bottom screen. So if you click that little chat button, it'll open up on the right side. And that way, if you have no audio and you still need to talk to me and send a message, you can do so through there.

2:21BubblemanYou can also send me a message through the box that you, Mark Scaldone and myself have going. If you need to pass on any, we'll walk you through it either way. I think we got Wade popping in right now. Yes. Yes. I always look forward to Wade's camera turning on. Can you hear us?

2:39Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineWe're trying the new microphone.

2:41BubblemanOkay. No, you guys, you guys are great. I can hear you as always. So wonderful. Good to see you. Dragonfly Earth Medicine in the house. Couple of deadheads, eh?

2:54Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineOh, there we go. We got Brian now. And there's Wade. Welcome, Brian. Nice to see you. And many blessings.

3:00BrianWade, love you. Wade, you look very beautiful today. So happy to see you this morning in that beautiful sunshine.

3:04BubblemanYeah, dude. All right, looks like Courtney's popping in. Courtney is, of course, an incredible tie-dyer. He was doing the tie-dyes for the backdrop of The Grateful Dead for many years, and he has an incredible story to share with us as well. Dr. Mark Scaldone, Deadhead Supreme, at the top of the love of The Grateful Dead. We have Dr. Marks. Someone said in chat today, I love The Grateful Dead 116th as much as Mark Scaldone, and that's a fucking lot.

3:37SpeakerHey, Marcus. I'm plugged in, so hopefully I'll be able to play a song that's audible. You know, I think I'm loud enough or projecting in the room enough that it'll come through okay in the broadcast. So if it sounds like crap, we'll turn it off. But let's see. I think I have it wired up. No problem. I'm good. Oh, that's awesome, dude. Hey, Brian.

3:59BubblemanCan we hear Brian? Yeah. Good to see you. Brian's in the room. Courtney is now also in the room. And Ryan Lee, Chimera, is also in the room.

4:12Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineHey Mark, hey Ryan, hey everyone. Courtney, nice to meet you. Thank you so much for the tight eyes that we all tripped out on so many times at Dead Shows. And with the wind just rippling in the back and just with the notes flying through the air and the ribbons and the smells of ganja and patchouli. Beautifully said. What more can we ask for, my friend? Thank you so much.

4:37BrianI had to go and get on my oldest Grateful Dead shirt. 1986, my first show, Alpine Valley.

4:46SpeakerCongratulations. Trouble ahead, Jerry and Red. That was the summer of 86 when you got sick. Yep, I was there. I was awesome in 86, right? It was hotter than hell there, if I remember.

4:59Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineIt was hot, but it rained. 87 was the rain year, right?

5:02BrianBoth of them. Both of them were.

5:04SpeakerYeah, 87 and 89. 88 was the so-called Dust Bowl. That was the Alpine Valley Dust Bowl. And there was like a night off in between two nights. And yeah, they're on tour with, was that the Dylan and Petty year? I can't remember. Dylan and Petty was the 86 year, right? Yeah, because I saw the Rich Stadium.

5:27Josh Dragonfly Earth Medicine87 is Dylan and the Dead.

5:28SpeakerYeah, 87. That was Dylan and the Dead.

5:30Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineThat's right.

5:31SpeakerTom Petty and Bob Dylan came out as the main act that the Dead actually warmed up for Summer Tour 86. I saw that show in Minneapolis and in Buffalo. Yeah, those were great shows.

5:45Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineWhat year was your first show?

5:47SpeakerMy first show? Yeah. 77.

5:51BubblemanOh, coming out with the heavies. Holy shit.

5:56SpeakerI was 14 years old, man. I was 14. I didn't know what I was at, you know?

6:00Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineWas it Ithaca?

6:02SpeakerBut living in no English town is living in northern New Jersey was like a whole dude. You know, it was really a really strong place to grow up and see the grateful that, you know, wherever they were playing after school. It's like, oh, the Syracuse shit. That's only three hours. Oh, Hartford, two hours. Shit. The New York City shows were just a bus ride. I mean, that was real easy.

6:24SpeakerSo it was great to be. Growing up in northern New Jersey.

6:27BubblemanYou must have laughed extra hard, Mark, when I sent you that meme the other day just before Halloween that said, these kids think they're getting candy tonight when really I'm handing out the Grateful Dead at Cornell 5877. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's what's up.

6:43Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineWhat kind of a kid were you at 14 before you saw the shows and then what kind of a kid were you at 15 after a year of listening to the Dead and going to see the shows?

6:54SpeakerMe? You. Oh, yeah. Well, I started playing guitar again. So I'd actually, I'd learned guitar early on. And then started playing guitar. When I heard Eyes of the World from English Town, I was like, it was so just like in the groove. And Jerry was just so, so good. And so it was just, it was just so good. I can't, I don't know. I'm like stuck for superlatives, but I was like, you know, I think I could play that.

7:25SpeakerAnd I started playing along and, you know, fortunately they let us tape so we could, you know, play the tape again and again and see how they make the transition from, you know, eyes into not fade, that not fade away that day was incredible. And it was just an incredible show. It was just incredible childhood growing up, seeing the Grateful Dead. And as it relates to Hash, we've said it plenty of times here on Hash Church, Is that the Grateful Dead Tour brought kind bud from NorCal across the country and turned us on to, yeah, turned us on to really, really great weed.

8:01SpeakerAnd it's like, at some point you have to say that that All of this alone has impacted way beyond the music of the band. I mean, everyone knows what kind weed is, right? I mean, it's absolutely fact.

8:16BubblemanIt's authenticity is what the Grateful Dead with how the whole scene moved around. It was this protection of authenticity from the music industry. And shout out to the tapers and shout out to the band for allowing tapers because that Thank you so much for being here.

8:52Bubblemanis one of the most incredible things that I really I myself I started taping in 95 and it was at a fish show that I first I just bought a DAT recorder because I was kind of like what's going on people you can record the shows I just went and bought a DAT recorder on the sort of you know just without really thinking about it was very expensive I was in Missoula Montana and I'll just never forget being able to tape concerts and record concerts and I know that a lot of that Thank you so much for joining us.

9:47SpeakerThank you so much for joining us.

10:06SpeakerWell, listen, we have some special guests today.

10:10BubblemanSorry to cut you off, Mark, but I want to make sure that I mention these gentlemen. I'm going to get Ryan to introduce Courtney as he was the introduction to me. Once introduced Courtney, Maybe we'll let Courtney, you know, tell us a little bit about himself and some stories and we'll kind of go down his pathway for a while of his experience with the dead. And then we'll do the same thing with Brian and you can introduce him, Dr. Mark, and we'll kind of go down that pathway.

10:37BubblemanIt's going to be super loose as always, Hash Church. We're just going to be grateful and, you know, Thank you so much for being here, both of you, as well as everyone else. It's such a pleasure for me to introduce Courtney. I was working up the coast of British Columbia

11:03SpeakerLike 2017 with a company that was trying to get a project off the ground there. And I'd go into this restaurant bar and have dinner at nights. And Courtney was always sitting in town at the bar with like the most beautiful women in town, you know, quite young. And it was just like, who is this guy? And, you know, one night we sat down and just started chatting.

11:26SpeakerWe were sitting next to each other. And, you know, he's just he's from the same region of England as my mother is. You know, he's a very intelligent gentleman and super kind. And he just started telling me stories and I was asking questions. And anyhow, I'm just going to leave him with you guys today. I've got other stuff going on. So I'll try to listen in and watch along, but I know I can't leave him in better hands.

11:49SpeakerAnd he's got some incredible stories. And I just, I think that you should know about his life and his journey from England to the West Coast and beyond. And yeah. Courtney Pollock, everyone. Please check out his website, Courtney Tie-Dye. If you search Courtney Tie-Dye, you can find his website. Go check it out. Buy some shirts or some mandalas or whatever, and you'll be really happy to have something that is from the same kind of collection and master hands as the guy that made all the tie-dye for the dead.

12:20SpeakerSo without further ado, this is Courtney. Thank you, Ryan. Hello? Okay, I'm armed. Well, that was a lovely introduction. And I love I love Brian's backdrop. That's like, oh, that's my favorite thing. Yes. So I came onto the scene. Well, it was 68 I left England and went to New York and started a boutique in Greenwich Village, which was the first of its kind on the West, well, anywhere in the United States, I think, having lived in London and just across the river from where Carnaby Street was situated.

13:07SpeakerAm I coming through all right? Absolutely.

13:11BubblemanWe can hear and see you. Perfect.

13:13SpeakerThank you. So I started this boutique and that was where I first saw a tie dye come in. This lady came into the store. Gorgeous woman. Oh, my God. Young woman. And she had a bed sheet that was tie-dyed and it was pulled over her head and it was concentric rings of dye. And so I thought, hmm, how would I make concentric rings in, you know, never having considered anything like this before?

13:47SpeakerAnd I went, well, you fold it in half, into quarters, into eighths, and then you've got this thing like you're making a paper airplane. Then you can divide all these sections off and then you've got all of these little cells that you can do stuff in and apply your color. The whole... My whole method of the tie dye was conceived in a millisecond. It was just like a download, bang.

14:12SpeakerAnd it was quite a long time later before I was able to play with it, get dyes and cloth and play with it. But from the very first, it came out like it is now. I've just refined it a bit. Nothing's really changed all of these over half a century. But anyway, so I came across from the East Coast to San Francisco area in the mid 70s.

14:46SpeakerAnd there was this little place, a little kiosk really on the Haight, right opposite the park there.

14:58SpeakerAnd it was accommodation finders. So I went in there and I said, yes, I'm looking for accommodation. You know, I just left this 500 acre farm in Vermont, you know, a little kind of a small commune with friends. And so I'm looking for something to rent, you know, rolling green hills and And they said, oh, yeah, right, man. We'll find you a place to crash for the night in the city.

15:22SpeakerAnd, you know, with 12 other people in a room. And they said, we're just about getting people off the street. And they said, yeah, you want to live in Marin County where all the rich dope dealers and rock and rollers live. And I said, oh, yes, that sounds just perfect. Thank you. And they're laughing. And this guy says, I'm on the phone to this guy from Marin.

15:42SpeakerHe just called in right now. And he gave me the phone. And this guy wanted to share his house in Nicasio Valley Road in Marin County, which is across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. And it's a garden county back then. It was just beautiful, rolling green hills and little hamlets and one traffic light in the entire county.

16:05SpeakerAnyway, I went out to this place and it was, one side was rolling green hills and the other side was redwood trees and a lot of old growth. And we pull up through the redwoods and there's this stone cottage, stone and wood, and big chimney stack and... And it's built around two giant redwood trees. I mean, massive, you know, like we're talking four foot diameter, five foot diameter trees.

16:32SpeakerAnd the whole house is built around them. They grow right through the house. I go in, I said, well, this is fantastic. And this guy that I, you know, I had met him at the Grayhound station. I popped over from San Francisco and there I am. And he, little Volkswagen pulls up, this little guy in a polyester suit gets out, and I'm in tie-dye rags and patched jeans, you know, you know, young facial hair that I should have shaved off, you know, it was just this awful.

17:07SpeakerAnyway. Anyway, we chatted on the way. He said, well, you're a lot more freaky than I expect. I said, why on earth did you list with this switchboard? And he said, well, I was fed up with the straight world. I want to see what the other side's doing. I said, well, you got me. And so we went into this house. Oh, beautiful. Two bedrooms, got all the mod cons.

17:31SpeakerAnd I said, well, this is fantastic, but I don't have much money. I couldn't afford this. He said, no, no, no, it's okay. It's only $80 a month. I said, what? I said, gosh, I'll have, I got a hundred bucks. I'll have 20 bucks left over for food. He said, no, no, your half is 40. So $40 a month on this, you know, it was a 150 acre private estate.

17:49SpeakerAnd, um,

17:53SpeakerOh my gosh. Anyway, we chatted. He went off to his room. He had to work in the morning. I went to my room. I get up in the morning into this lovely empty house. And I put a little backpack of tie-dyes on my back and walked on down the Casio Valley Road and looking for, you know, a residence that had freaks living there, you know, some kindred spirits.

18:21SpeakerAnd about a mile down the road, I look up this driveway and there's an old American flag and there's horses in the pasture and there's this young fella feeding the horses. And I wander up and I said, anybody at home? He said, oh yeah, Frankie's in there. Just go bang on the door. And I said, thanks, you know, we'll get together, we'll chat. And we introduced each other, went to the Palm House.

18:47SpeakerAnd this beautiful pixie looking chick with a ring in her nose comes to the door. And I said, hi, I just moved in down the road and I'm your neighbor.

19:00SpeakerWould you, you know, she said, oh, come on in. I'll get some coffee going. I said, well, I've got some of my tie dye work if you'd like to see it. She said, oh, yeah, I'd love that. Just hang stuff up and I'll get the coffee going. There's a tray over there. Roll yourself something. I was like, oh, I've landed. And So she comes out with the coffee.

19:21SpeakerI've got stuff all hanging out. She stops and goes, oh, my God. Oh, these are the guys who love this. They'll be here. Oh, and here they are now. And these two big white vans, you know, peeling up the driveway, screeched all these rowdy roadies rumbling to the house. And they stop. They look around. They go, fire up, man. You can do our stage stuff. And that was that.

19:45SpeakerThat's how I met the Grateful Dead. And then was the day, it's for sure. What year was that, Courtney? That was 1970. That was 1970. So was this, was this, so Frankie, it's interesting when you, when you said the word Frankie, you were probably expecting to see a man, right? Yeah. So we all know who Frankie is. Frankie was Bob Weir's girlfriend at the time. And so, so this was the house, it was in.

20:15SpeakerThis was the Rucka Rucka Stud Ranch. Oh, this is Rucka Rucka. Okay. Rucka Rucka. Okay. Okay, not to be confused with Mickey's Ranch in Nevada. No, which happened just a little later. Well, about the same time, actually. Yes, it was already going. In fact, my partner, later partner... You said the word Frankie. You were probably expecting to see a man, right? Yeah. Anyway, yes. So, it was Rex Jackson, you know, there was...

20:50SpeakerThere's three or four of the guys anyway, they said, yeah, you can do our stage stuff, do our speaker front, and Rex Jackson said, yeah, I'll make it happen. You know, we go down to the office tomorrow and, you know, the band will be back off the road. We're just traveling across in his own car. And, uh, Anyway, all those covers that were on the Europe 72 tour that got a lot of video coverage when the band toured Europe in 1972.

21:20SpeakerAll of those beautiful tie-dye covers were yours. I take it. Yes. What I did because Rosie McGee had been doing, you know, The standard tie-dye of the time, she did a good job. And in fact, you know, there's still pieces of hers that are still alive and well. And she was working at Olympic and, you know, it was when I talked to her later, she said, well, you know, doing that is a lot of commitment and time.

21:52SpeakerAnd, you know, I have a job and, you know, I'm hanging with Phil and da-da-da. And, you know, So anyway, she said, I said, well, how about I do an entire stage design where each block of cabinets for each of the band members have their own kind of color theme, which is what I did. And of course, so the stacks fitted together and basically I did everything in mandalas back then, you know, like with these, you know, thing behind me.

22:28SpeakerAnd

22:32SpeakerIt said recording stopped. Are we still on?

22:36BubblemanYes, I had some difficulty, but I just started over again. It's like the YouTube live kept going and it just the recording for the podcast. Just I just had some technical difficulty, but instead of reacting to it and being like, no. I just let it flow through me. And so we're good. You can keep going. I heard your story and it was incredible. It kept going even with me in the background not working out.

23:00BubblemanSo we are back up and running. We're doing good.

23:06SpeakerSo, yeah, so that, and I remember that, I mean, oh, so the next morning, I hung with the guys for a bit, went back, walked up back down the road, and the very next morning I went, well, I'll go down and visit Frankie, have a cup of coffee, and... I came out of my driveway, which is a long winding driveway through the redwoods, and came out onto the road.

23:31SpeakerAnd it's a little, you know, it's a country, little country road. And right at that moment, this bright orange BMW 2002, as it was called, the model number, pulled up. And there's this young, handsome ponytail guy sitting there. And he says, hey, you need a ride? And I said, oh, yes, I'm just going a mile or so down the road. And they said, oh, I'll jump in.

23:56SpeakerAnd he said, where are you headed? And I said, oh, the Rucka Rucka. He said, oh, oh, that's my place. I said, oh, well, then you must be Bobby Weir. And he... Um, and I, we introduced each other and, uh, I kind of briefed him on, you know, how I'd met Frankie in coming into the area. And, uh, so, uh, we went into the house and he saw my stuff and he went, oh man, this is great.

24:25SpeakerHe said, okay, where, um, We'll go into town and go to the office and meet band. And, you know, if they're okay, you know, I'm on board with it. And so that's what happened. We went in, I met the band. They loved the stuff. They said, yeah, man, just rock it out. Do what you like. And so that's what happened. So I did the design. And I remember right then I measured, we went over to Front Street and measured up the cabinets and I started work on producing them, you know, figured out what I was going to do for each band member's stack and all the, you know, auxiliary amps and stuff that's, you know, to make a kind of a cohesive arrangement that was a plan so that whenever they set up, they know where everything goes.

25:16SpeakerAnd... And then the first gig, and you know, to this day, I can never have found out or can remember where that gig was, but it was a pretty small venue. I know it had big purple velvet drapes behind the stage. It was probably not much bigger than a movie theater. I don't know. And I was backstage. Putting these speaker fronts on the cabinets while they were setting up for sound check.

25:45SpeakerAnd I remember it took about three or four hours for me to put all these. And Winslow was running the frames back and forth to me. And I said, how's it going out there? He said, oh, yeah, you know, it's it's you know, everything's fitting just fine. And the band's about to start the sound check. And so I'm I'm back there. By the time I got all the pieces done it was three hours and probably maybe longer and um i came out and got to see it for the first time uh and uh so that was thrilling you know i went oh it's working it looks just like i pictured it only even better and uh so that was how that first uh setup went And that was 1970.

26:33SpeakerSo, you know, exciting times, but I wasn't impressed by anything at the time. I remember going, oh, because I'd done stuff for the incredible string band back in Syracuse, New York. I'd done big three-day amphitheater environments with great big mobiles and stuff.

26:59SpeakerIt was a free concert that friends of mine put on. They were pot dealers and they all pulled money. And we had three days, nonstop music that was all financed by these, these Hot guys. And so that was a great success. So I had had experience with, set up for rock and roll and the incredible string band set up, you know, they invited me to go on tour, but I said, no, I did.

27:29SpeakerI should carry on with my, on my own path because I'll get lost in the, you know, I want to get up there and sing. And anyway, so that was that was back in those early days. And of course, each of the band members, including the equipment guy and all the people in their office, wanted to get shirts and stuff for their walls. And the big mandalas became everybody wanted one.

28:00SpeakerAnd So those were heady days. And Frankie introduced me to so many of the local Marin County rock and roll bands. At the time, everybody wanted to live there. It was this beautiful garden county. And it was really only 15 minutes from San Francisco across the Golden Gate. So it was a great place to be in the country, right that close to the city.

28:36SpeakerSo I was doing stuff for all those bands. And then we did, typically they would be the Sons of Champlin and New Riders of the Purple Sage would open for the Grateful Dead when they did local gigs. And... So I did stage sets for them. And so the whole evening for these local gigs would be, they'd have tie-dye stages and, you know, a lot of them wearing tie-dye shirts.

29:09SpeakerAnd so, and it was just, I was, I was so busy doing stuff. It never really impressed me what, what was actually going on. And of course, in retrospect, it was, It became historic, all of that stuff, because it hadn't really been done on that scale of the big impact. And of course, the difference between what I was creating Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

30:06SpeakerThe dye will absorb, but it won't run through. And that way you can fill up these cells, as I call them, and lay one color over another, and they won't move in there. You can push the dyes up, but if you go deeper into what you've already dyed and then just go deeper into the next color and dye that margin above it and so on, The colors stay separate so they don't all smudge together and get brown or run away or anything like that.

30:38SpeakerSo that was the concept and it worked beautifully and it's still alive and well as long as my hands hold up. And so that was the impact of that.

30:53SpeakerOn the scene back there, back then, and of course, Europe 72 that we were just talking about, was by then a lot of the stuff had faded and it was getting ragged and it was, you know, burn holes in from, you know.

31:13SpeakerConstantly renewing bits and pieces. So it wasn't actually the best set up for the 72, but it was still good. And it still hadn't been seen until then, you know, out in the big world. And that was actually that year. I went to go on tour, but I ended up throwing the I Ching and it said, oh, gateway to the east. And I went, gateway to the east, oh, Persia, the land of the mandalas and the ceramics and all of this fine art and this ancient culture.

31:47SpeakerAnd I was like, yeah, I'm going there. So I hopped a plane from England, from London to Tehran,

31:59SpeakerAnd I get off. It's two in the morning. It's like a glorified garage is this airport in Tehran back in 1972. And, you know, I get stopped by the customs and they take me to the police station at the airport. And they're talking in Farsi and I don't understand a thing they're saying. You know, I'm just nodding and smiling. And I got, you know, I've got the curly mustache.

32:23SpeakerI got the long hair. I got the acid eyes. I've got, I've got, I'm all dressed up. My girlfriend at the time was a, you know, wonderful designer. I had these silk shirts with velvet pants and all of this stuff. And I looked like some, like an alien to them, you know, and they're like, you know, I don't know. Anyway, this guy that I was on the plane with me, we actually didn't talk, but I noticed him because he looked like a young Bob Dylan.

32:53SpeakerHe'd obviously made his image in the fashion of Bob Dylan's look. And anyways, I bang on the police door and this guy sticks his head in and he says in Farsi, excuse me, this is my friend. We got separated. He's my guest. And And then he says it in English. And I said, ah, yes, yes. Saved. And so he said, give them a few dollars for their silly visa.

33:22Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd I went, ah, visa, visa. Yeah, yeah.

33:26SpeakerGave a few dollars and they all marked up, you know, put all the pretty color stamps in and then off. And I go off with this fella. And we drive into the city and his parents have got a beautiful apartment. They own the only drug. It's the biggest drugstore in Tehran.

33:49SpeakerThey're very well to do for what you'd call middle class. They weren't the haves, you know, they weren't from the lineage, the moneyed people, but they were doing very well. And this guy, Farhad, he said, ah, in the morning, my friend, he sent a car. We go visit with him. So the next morning, this limousine with all of the royal ensigns flying, all these royal flags pulls up and Farad says, oh, our ride is here.

34:24SpeakerSo I come down and get in this great big and this chauffeur driven limo and we go drive through Tehran up onto the Palace Mesa. And, and then we pull into this, you know, great big mansion into the courtyard. And there's, we drive around to the side where this, this eastern wing of the, of this mansion. And, and we go up these, Marble staircase with pillars and all of them go into this giant boudoir.

34:57SpeakerIt's this one guy's bedroom. And their way in the end of the room is this four-poster bed with this diminutive little fellow in there that's like a really extraordinary looking fellow. It looks like his face had been... Shattered and kind of put together off kilter, diagonally across his face is this great scar where the two pieces kind of two sides met together. And his face is peeling and I said, oh, that guy's a mess.

35:30SpeakerAnd anyway, we come in and this guy raises himself up out of his divan, you know, and he says, oh, Farad, oh, you bring me... He said, ah, you bring me American Guru, which was kind of quaint. And all in one sentence before I'd even said hello. He says, yes, you were. He said, ah, you have a seed. And I said, well, as a matter of fact, I do.

36:04SpeakerI had come into the country. I had this Grateful Dead rose patch sewn on the back of my pants. And inside it was a thousand hits of clear light for the windowpane, which back then would, you know, 200 mics per little tiny, you know, eight inch square. And so,

36:33SpeakerI became the guest at Ali's house, his parents' house, but we had our own wing. And he said, I get refreshment. And he pulls his, you know, bell pull. And, you know, a little later, this servant's come in with this great big, Brad Brescia, not a Brescia, not a bra, a Brescia of hot coals and all of these spheres, all these beautiful ceramic spheres around and this long, It's a lathed, you know, turned ornate thing that you screw onto these spheres.

37:14SpeakerAnd it's the opium tray, opium. And it's a bafou. And so we have, and then another guy comes in with a tray of espresso coffee. So he introduces me to how to smoke the bafou. And... And so we're off to a really good start. And I ended up spending four or five, six months there. But right away, within those first opening minutes, Farad and he looked at each other and he said, ah, for Courtney, Victoria.

37:54SpeakerAnd they said, oh, perfect, yes, yes, Victoria. So they were all at college in London at the university there, one of the universities. So she'd be here in a few days. So we will arrange a party. So they did. And I met this beautiful woman and we just fell for each other right away. And then we became an item like now. But in order to get together, you know, you can't just, you know, So they arrange a grand party where we will officially meet.

38:40SpeakerAnd sure enough, you know, when I looked across the room through all these people and this vision of loveliness appeared, and we just looked at each other, it was like something out of West Side Story where it was just like... All you see is each other and we just gravitated towards each other and it was like love at first sight. And in order for us to kind of get together, they arranged a couple of days at this private ski resort that their friends had.

39:11SpeakerAnd that's where we kind of got together. We had, you know, our own rooms, but of course we could meet up. And I'd never skied before. And we all go up on this. I got the equipment and, you know, somebody gave me lunch. Anyway, we go all the way, all the way up to the very, very top. And then you see the weather closing in, you know, and I'm like, Well, and they all said, okay, see you at the bottom and off they take, you know, and I'm standing there on the top of this hill looking down and I just like, okay, I just commit myself to the downslope and I'm, now I was, I was already, you know, doing, you know, I was strong.

39:54SpeakerI was, you know, doing marathons and stuff. And, um, I would just race down the hill and when it flattened out a bit, I'd throw myself on my back. And so I came to a slow down and come to the next And then just that's how I got down the mountain and which was a bit precarious because I didn't know how to turn or do anything. But anyway, it was it was a thrilling few days and I got kind of got the hang of it and got better at it.

40:24SpeakerBut I was still just kamikaze down the hill. And then one day the management came to me and they said, Excuse me, Mr. Courtney, please, can you stay off the slope for today? And I was like, well, yes, what's going on? He said, oh, the Shah, he come to ski. I said, yeah, okay. So we all kind of assembled up at the halfway house in this restaurant, halfway up the mountain.

40:53SpeakerAnd sure enough, there's the shot. He's like diminutive little man. And he's got like 40 armed army personnel, always, you know, machine guns, skiing in this great big circle, you know, around him. So they're all like 50 feet away. And he's just like, they're all, you know, coming down the slopes. And I was like, man, what a life, man. They've got no privacy, no nothing. But, you know, he's here in this, you know, beautiful private ski resort.

41:25SpeakerOh, my dog's gone into something. Anyway, and that evening, because he knew Victoria and Ali and all of that. Yeah. And... so we were presented to the shah uh and um and he gave me this gold sovereign to commemorate the the persian new year and uh which i i lost but uh that would be a fabulous memento um and uh so i was introduced to the shah and of course he knew everybody because they're all the the haves you know the They were all attached to either the government or the royal family.

42:13SpeakerAnd what a scene. Anyway, Victoria and then her sister took up with Ali, my host, her younger sister. And so the four of us became inseparable. We were doing all this stuff. Oh, a little caveat. My Victoria, she was married to the guy who would have been the Shah of Persia, Shah of Iran, He was the direct descendant for the last 3000 years of the ruling family.

42:47SpeakerSo he was, you know, he was a powerful businessman and they were married. They had a I think the kid was about 15 months old at that point. And so she wasn't really free, but she said, oh, so I was like in the city in Tehran with Ali in the big mansion. And I said, you know, I would like to go out into the country. And they said, oh, we have a winter place.

43:19SpeakerSo we drive out with Ali through the snow. You know, it's the snow. And we come into this valley. And it's all terraced and waterfalls, but you know that it's all frozen. So we get into this and the servants weren't expecting us. And they kind of all live in these underground somewhere. They would appear out of nowhere. And they'd set the house up and, you know, they come in, there'd be a low table and you get in and they put all these It's a brazier of hot coals to warm it up under the table and you have this corsi which covers everybody from the waist down around the table, locks all the heat in and the heat rises up and you're all nice and cozy.

44:07SpeakerBecause the house is this great big edifice, absolutely freezing. And they bring food and espresso and then the opium tray. Oh my gosh. And so I'm out there and then they say, well, we have to leave. You know, you have the servants, they look after you. And so Victoria says, Courtney, I don't know when I can see you next. I have so many, many duties, you know.

44:40SpeakerI said, we'll make it happen. So I get up in the morning and I meditate on Victoria's, all her duties falling away and see her get in her car and drive out of the city and come up through the mountains. You know, it's about an hour or two trip, hour and a half. And then I, and I would do this up on the mountain. I'd go up to the last tree on the mountainside and look down and I'd see her car come out into the valley and come down through.

45:11SpeakerI'd walk down and meet her. She said, oh, like magic, all my duty fall away. I can come to you. And so anyway, we ended up tripping around, her and her sister and Ali and myself went to meet the Great Fidel on tour. So that's when we, and we met up in Paris. And that was when I first that was when I first met the bear. He'd just gotten out.

45:37SpeakerAnd so. We're up in the center of the balcony, and then this little man comes. He said, hey, hey, what are you doing out there? I said, well, we're guests. He said, I don't know you. So I said, wait a minute. I come out to the aisle and say, yeah, let's get, you know. I said, it's my guests, you know, I don't want to disturb them. And I introduced myself.

46:03SpeakerOh, he said, oh, you're the guy that's doing the tie-dye stuff. He said, no, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm Owsley. You know, I, uh, So we met and he said, no, no worries. Sorry about, you know, bother you. So that was when I first met him. He'd just gotten out from his four year stretch. And, you know, I don't want to go on too long because I'm monopolizing the time here.

46:25SpeakerSo anyway, that's so the girls met the band after the gig, which is a fabulous gig. Oh, my gosh. And it's so good. And then they had a little private party for for us. And just the band and a select few, Ramrod, Parrish, and a few others to kind of keep everything covered. And so that was a really wonderful meeting. Eventually, when... Victoria had to go back to attend to her son.

47:06SpeakerAnd when she came back out, she ended up going with Weir. You know, we'd had our time. We had a beautiful, wonderful romance. And then she ended up being Weir's girlfriend for years after that. And

47:24SpeakerWell, you know, you know, Bob Weir, he's known for stealing women from their other men, right? I actually heard that a few times. It's very musical. Of course, he was my first friend and the first person I met from the band. And, you know, it was share the women, share the wine. You know, it was definitely, that was what was going on in those days. And, you know, it was just fine.

47:54SpeakerBut, of course, she was drawn to the glamour of the, you know, he was a star by then, you know. When I met him, they were just... Before everything exploded, you know, into fame and money, you know, the success. So that was... They were lovely days, you know, lovely times, especially in Marin County where, you know, you could go on horseback for days and never have to, you know, cross a road.

48:30SpeakerIt was just open. Now it's so full up with East Coasters and the prices of, you know, they're like a hundred times what they were back then. It's absolutely ridiculous. But there are people still all there. The ones that stayed there, you know, grew with the times and the crisis, and most of them had their own places. Weird place he got in the 70s, up on the mountainside of Mount Tamalpais, and he's still there.

48:57SpeakerHe got, you know, and he had his recording studio built there. It's a nice place, but it's kind of modest. But of course, it's... I think it's really expensive now. I think he paid 240,000 back then when he got it. It's got to be three or four million now. Anyway, so yeah, those those they were the early, early, wonderful, memorable days. Of course, within that time frame, there was a lot of interesting little scenarios that went on, especially around the 1,000 hits of Clearlight that I brought in, because I didn't have any money.

49:39SpeakerSo LSD was my exchange item. Currency.

49:49SpeakerBitcoin before Bitcoin. What an incredible story. What an incredible... I'm just sitting here thinking about some of the images you must have seen in those shows and being in and around the band. And, you know, Big Steve Parrish has got a talk show that he does on the XM Grateful Dead channel. And he talks about just, you know, being Jerry's best friend all those years. Yeah. All his gear around.

50:19SpeakerAnd yeah, he was like his personal manager. Oh, yeah, absolutely. You didn't get to Jerry if you didn't get to Steve first, right? Steve had to deal with all kinds of weirdness. You could imagine the levels of weirdness that they've had to deal with over the years. But yeah, what a wonderful story, Courtney. Courtney, let me take a detour here and introduce my friend Brian, who's joined us today.

50:45SpeakerBrian and I, Brian, we met 10 years ago at New Orleans Jazz Fest. I do believe that's right when we met. And Brian is a really good friend of another close friend for mine named Jeff. And we're all music lovers and Grateful Dead kids. And You know, I didn't realize it at the time, but Brian and I were probably had a bunch of the same shows together.

51:08SpeakerWe were at some of the Radio City shows back in 1980. And yeah, I mean, I've grown to appreciate Brian's sort of like the main documentarian that covers the pranksters. And the pranksters, as you know, has roots in beat. And the Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. And so it's such an important piece of the culture that birthed the Grateful Dead, right, Courtney? Absolutely. What was going on back then?

51:44SpeakerAnd you have to think that, again, the intersection between the pranksters and the Grateful Dead, things changed from that point forward. I mean, yes, they did. They came straight out of the beat generation. That's right. That's right. And they had those values. And it was different. It was unusual. And of course, they've always been very casual people. They were very... Ordinary kind of people, if you like.

52:15SpeakerAnd they weren't hipsters or anything. They weren't any, if anything, you know, they came out of, well, it was the beat generation and the beatniks. I wanted to ask Courtney, did you read On the Road? And in part, I talked to John Cutler about this, you know, your fellow Brit, and how that book changed, totally changed his life and the way he describes it. It was the first book in his life that he read it all the way, he read it, and then as soon as he got to the end, he started and read it all the way through again.

52:48SpeakerAnd that was in England in 57 or something. So did you read On the Road before or after you came to America? I was off to... After everything happened, I mean, I was a quantity surveyor working in Piccadilly in London in my three-piece suits, my black Jaguar. And so I was so far removed from anything hip at that time. But my family were all musical. My grandmother was a world-famous opera singer.

53:21SpeakerAnd my mother sang in one of the big bands of the big band era. And so music was on both sides. So we all grew up with music and ad-libbing, singing, making harmonies and doing stuff. So I was absolutely drawn to the scene when I first... But when you said John Cutler, did you actually mean Sam Cutler? I did. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Right. My dear friend, Sam, you know, we became really close.

53:51SpeakerWell, we were really close in those early, early days coming out of London. And

53:59SpeakerAnd then, of course, he died a year or so ago. I was delighted to be able to have a good conversation with him. Literally a day or so before he passed, you know, he was kind of propped up in his bed with his phone and You know, he said, I just wanted to spend some more time with you. And, you know, he always said, can I just build a shack in your back 40?

54:25SpeakerI was like, well, it's not really my back 40. But, you know, you can hang out as long as you want. We did. He'd come over and spend three or four months at a time. But yes, I read all of the early literature when I kind of became hip to it. And what was your question? Well, just that he was mentioning how the pranksters sort of birthed the dead in the sense that the dead...

54:59SpeakerYou know, they played their first shows before they were even the dead. They were still the warlocks playing at Kesey's Acid Test, and they all cite that environment as the world that created their worldview and their idea of possibilities. And the pranksters all directly came from the beach. They all cite on the road as the

55:22SpeakerAnd then, of course, Jerry, every single, I've got quotes from every single member of the dead except Mickey, all citing on the road and the beach as their primary influence. Right. So I just was going to, I just, I was just asking how, if that, you know, comported. Absolutely. Absolutely. And it was, it was a refreshing introduction to a world that I had no idea about when I came on the scene.

55:58SpeakerYou know, the band was still up and coming. They just had the success of the Working Man's Dead and the Rosie's one. And then all the tie-dye on the stage and everything exploded all at that moment. And that was when Cutler, Sam Cutler, was in in those early days and became the tour manager where he became the manager. And he opened up his offices just half a block up from Thurston Lincoln where the Grateful Dead's old Victorian house and their offices were.

56:40SpeakerAnd of course, that was kind of my home from home. And so...

56:51SpeakerAnd of course, you know, Sam, having come from the stones, you know, and that whole debacle that ended up as a debacle, you know, it's amazing stories because I got inside info when we'd be hanging around and, you know, I said, well, so what really happened? And he said, well, you know, I'm going to write, I'm writing a book about it. You can't always get what you want.

57:13SpeakerAnd it's gravelly, boys. You can't always get what you want, Cooney. And I said, that's for sure. Yeah. What a character. And so, you know, I got a lot of inside info and a lot of it's in the book, you know, and it was, it was pretty, he was up against a lot of stuff that he had to deal with on that tour, the first Stones tour.

57:39SpeakerBut, you know, it was our good fortune that Jerry, he said, well, at the end of the Altamont debacle, the stones took off in the helicopter. We got you back, Sam! And, like, he left behind, right? And Jerry Garcia came up to Sam, he said, you know, this wouldn't have happened if we hadn't, we wanted... So, you know, it would probably have not come to happen without us joining up with the lineup.

58:11SpeakerAnd he said, you know, so, but you come back with me, Sam, and we'll sort you out. So they went back to his place in Logsborough. And we're in. And Janice Joplin lived half a block away on the corner. He fell right into it. And then he became their tour manager. And

58:40SpeakerHe and I just would, you know, we'd go out to San Francisco and go bird hunting, you know, birds. Birds is the custom of the euphemism, the English euphemism for girls. So Sam and I go out hunting down the best girls in the best clubs back in those days and share all these wonderful stories. So, but the, it took a long time. They never really, they never grew out of their roots, of course.

59:17SpeakerThey were always there. And that was the band. And that influenced, mightily influenced their lifestyle, the freeform music out of the acid tests, of course. And, of course, Keezy, what a character. Oh, my God. But anyway, you know, that, you know, my, I, I got to hang with Keys here in Egypt, but that's a whole nother story. Let's give somebody else a moment.

59:51Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd our friend Sunshine, his daughter, and maybe she's watching right now. She is.

59:55BrianHi, Sunny.

59:56Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineSunshine Kesey and Caroline are there and Eugene and Easy Farm and Ken Babs and all that, you know, just are an important part of our, you know, introduction into, you know, the whole entire way of life and everything. So, yeah. Love these stories. Wonderful, wonderful people. Oh, my gosh.

1:00:17SpeakerIt's wild that you said Fifth and Lincoln. That was what Sam's office? It was the Graves and Dead offices. Okay. Because Kerouac is buried at Seventh and Lincoln in Edson Cemetery in Lowell, his hometown. Oh, just coincidentally. Yeah. Yeah, that's a similar name. Now, Sam's was the...

1:00:45SpeakerThey were new buildings up on the next block, so that would have been on Lincoln. And, you know, it was very different. The 5th and Lincoln is an old Victorian house, which I ended up renovating the inside because I kind of grew up doing that stuff. You know, having grown up in old Victorians from an early age, I was... Well, my dad had shown me how to do it, and I had to do it.

1:01:17SpeakerDoing up these old buildings with all the plaster left, you know, walls. And so, Fitz and Lincoln was, you know, some of the rooms were falling apart. The rooms cracked, the plaster was falling out. So I went in there. And restored it, renovated it. And that was just prior to Rakow coming in. Rakow actually financed that out of his fund that he got from the Boston bankers.

1:01:49SpeakerWe were sharing a house together by then. Actually, it was David Crosby's old house. And a touring pool, a lovely house. And a rec out called from Boston. He says, I got the financing and I'm on my way back. And I said, great. Well, I, you know, I got, I got a nice house. You got, you got a place here. Cause we used to live on this little ranch where I had the barn and And we had made the little homes and the main house was Roger Lewis and a couple of the ladies.

1:02:26SpeakerI eventually moved into the main house there and Rakow came in, took over my barn and And then later on, I got the Crosby's old place.

1:02:39SpeakerAnd that's where he arrived with the banker's daughter. Not only did he get the money, but he got the daughter as well. And so I gave them the... I offered them the... The main bedroom suite. And I didn't need much. I just needed my workspace. And so a lot happened. All those early years seemed like for a long time, you know, between 1970 and like the mid 70s.

1:03:14SpeakerIt seemed like a longer block of time than the next 50 years, quite honestly. So much went on. When Phil wrote his book, Searching for the Sound, it's the autobiography of his life. Um, like 75% of the book takes place up to about 1970 or 73 or something, you know, and now the next 50 years takes about 25 pages. Yes. Well, that's how it went. You know, everything telescopes, you know, as time progresses.

1:03:47SpeakerYeah. Phil, um, Phil and I had lovely, we, we, he, we live pretty close together. Um, and, uh, so we get together. A lot of evenings and just hang and talk about sounds of, you know, he was You know, he had a, he was classically trained and, you know, I had a certain amount of, you know, a self-taught scientific mind and thing about, you know, frequencies and sound and how it affects the body and all of this stuff.

1:04:15SpeakerSo we'd have these deep conversations, you know, all that stuff. We had very similar mindsets. And so he was a real kindred spirit. And, you know, and then of course things got busy and then, you know, You hardly ever see anybody. But, you know, this show is a wonderful celebration around, you know, remembering Phil. So, but it's a good excuse to, you know, dig into those early days of the band and the creation and the whole thing.

1:04:55SpeakerWhat a wonderful, extraordinary and historic time, you know, as it turned out.

1:05:00BubblemanWell, they're incredible stories, Courtney. They're absolutely incredible stories. And it's just wild that you just happened to step into that time and space. Just at the right time to be able to be a part of that. And I've just got to smile. I could listen to you for days tell these awesome stories. But definitely thank you for bringing it back around to Phil and just that sort of celebration.

1:05:25BubblemanAnd any old Phil stories that you guys want to get into, we're definitely down with here. And I definitely do want to come back to eventually, and I'm sure everyone else does on the panel, to you mentioning going to Egypt. So we got to get into that a bit as well.

1:05:42SpeakerLovely. You were introducing somebody else.

1:05:48SpeakerJust before we... Yeah, so I had introduced my friend Brian Hassett. So Brian is a noted author and documentarian of the Pranksters and the Beat Movement. He's also, he's got a great web page called Brian Land. Am I saying it right, Brian? It's Brian Hassett. It's my name. It's BrianHassett.com, but I just called it Brian Land, like, Yeah. So just you can hear about his thoughts. He's he's he's got a great perspective on life.

1:06:17SpeakerAnd I just love him because he's he's a great storyteller. And I know he's sort of connected to the prankster scene. And, yeah, so I really love you just to share that kind of like. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

1:07:01SpeakerAcid doing free thinkers in the middle of the, you know, craziness of the 60s. I mean, how did this all happen, Brian? Like what was the instigating event that brought these two things together? Well, as Jared, it was, it was, it was Kesey's acid test in La Honda first, where it was, where they had the gatherings. And then they, which was this beautiful log cabin out in the Redwoods.

1:07:24SpeakerIt sounds like the kind of place you were living, Courtney, but down south a bit in La Honda near, sort of near San Jose-ish. And... And so Kesey was throwing these parties that were based on the bus trip. And did somebody know about the warlocks or the Grateful Dead at that point? Like, well, as Jerry says, like they, you know, they were all kind of in the Bay Area.

1:07:49SpeakerAnd again, we're talking, you know, sort of spring summer of 65. So before they've even become the Grateful Dead. And, but they were all just on the scene. And, you know, Garcia talks about, you know, they all talk about Thank you for joining us.

1:08:23SpeakerDown in La Honda doing, you know, doing crazy stuff. And so I'm not sure how the very first, you know, connection was, but they got invited to come and sort of play at the house parties. And then the very first, then the house parties outgrew the house. And, you know, as Kesey describes it, you know, you They were, he had this nice home, cabin type home, log cabin style type home.

1:08:55SpeakerAnd, you know, if a hundred people come to your house, that's a lot of people. And so they were, you know, kind of, they have to clean up all week before the next party the next weekend. So that's when they started to, they moved the first time they had, you know, an acid test. Outside of Kesey's living room was at Babs's place in Soquel, I'm saying that right, Santa Cruz.

1:09:23SpeakerAnd the dead played that, I believe, it was right when they were changing their name for Warlocks to Grateful Dead. And so that's what they were birthed out of. And and, you know, living in the living, performing, being part of this freeform scene where everybody was on acid and kind of anything goes. And as you know, again, as Jerry described it, you know, we could either play or not play.

1:09:50SpeakerSo it was this idea of kind of anything goes. And they were all really intelligent. All of those prankster types from Keezy and Babs were, you know, in the advanced Stanford writing class. And Neil, talk about Neil for a second. Yeah, sure. So and so Neil Cassidy was was the bridge that he was Kerouac's muse. He's Dean Moriarty and on the road. Which, you know, Kerouac wrote, by the time of his death, he had 13 books published, but now there's literally 50 different books written by Kerouac in print.

1:10:28SpeakerBut the big one is on the road. And he, Cassidy drove Jack Kerouac around in the car and was sort of the hero figure or anti-hero. And So, and that came out in 57, even though the events took place in 47, but, and it, it changed literature, you know, in the same way that, you know, Brando was, and James Dean were exploding acting and Jackson Pollock was exploding painting and Allen Ginsberg was exploding poetry.

1:11:05SpeakerSo, Kerouac's On the Road was what exploded novels. And so, you know, Jerry and all the guys, everybody read that book and it was like, oh, you know, there's people out there like me. Oh, there's a way I can live that's not, you know, in the leave it to beaver suburban houses. That, you know, we, America was all sort of being taught, this is how you should live.

1:11:32SpeakerAnd here was this guy with no job and no car hitchhiking his way around the country, having adventures and going to jazz clubs and chasing girls and smoking tea. And gee, that's a, so that blew everybody's mind from, you know, like Donovan to Janice considered herself a beatnik and changed everybody's lives. So Cassidy was kind of the hero of this. And I remember Jerry saying, In an interview, they'd heard that the people in On the Road were real people.

1:12:03SpeakerAnd that was a big revolutionary thing. Like, you know, in Huckleberry Finn, there wasn't really a Huckleberry Finn. He was a figment of Mark Twain's imagination. But On the Road, everybody in that book was a real person. And my God, this guy who drives cars like a maniac and picks up girls in every town he goes to and talks a million miles an hour and is conversant in jazz and all of these worlds.

1:12:25SpeakerThat's a real guy. And so eventually, so by, geez, oh yeah, it was at Perry Lane. I don't know if you guys know about Perry Lane was this little enclave of cabin houses that was sort of for students and or faculty of Stanford University, this little kind of one block or two block dead end little road there and near Stanford. And And Kesey lived there. And it was all these kind of artist types lived on this little lane.

1:13:02SpeakerAnd George Walker, who sadly can't join us today, but he was there at the time too, maybe like 22 years old. And this is where Kesey was living. Had just moved to after Cuckoo's Nest. And when he was writing Sometimes a Great Notion. And...

1:13:26SpeakerThis guy, the house that Kesey ended up renting used to have, the guy who lived there before him was a pot dealer. And one day, and then he moved out, Kesey moved back, moved in. And one day, Cassidy went there to score pot. And I guess nobody was home or something. And Cassidy's cars were always breaking down. And he was parked in the guy's driveway and started kind of trying to fix his car and get it working.

1:14:00SpeakerAnd turns out to be Kesey's house. And so that was how Neil Cassidy and Ken Kesey first came into contact with each other. And Kesey, of course, On the road, you know, changed Kesey's life as well. And and when he sort of realized that this was freaking Neal Cassidy and Kesey was a lot like Jack in the sense that they were both super hyper intelligent. Well-read, new music associated with other very smart, very cool people, much like the Beats were this whole collective of smart people, filmmakers, painters, musicians, filmmakers, I say, photographers, poets, and novelists.

1:14:46SpeakerAnd Kesey kind of attracted that same scene. He was sort of a central guy like that. And And so Cassidy, suddenly, you know, Jack by 62-ish, Jack is kind of, you know, no longer that central spark in a circle. He's now sort of living in suburbia Northport with his mother and so on, and he's no longer on the road. But here's Kesey just coming into that time period of his life being the center of a galaxy of amazing people.

1:15:23SpeakerAnd so Cassidy sort of like recognized that right away and fell in with them. And so that's how, um, you know, Cassidy got on the scene and then, you know, he ended up driving the bus across the country. And, and then by the time the dead sort of connected in with Kesey, they were just in awe that this Neil Cassidy guy was part of their scene. And they, uh, Bill and Jerry and all of them and Bob were all blown away by this Cassidy guy.

1:15:58SpeakerAnd like he's a few years older just as Kesey was. And so and he was confident and worldly and and intelligent and playful and so and he was older like maybe 10 years older i don't know the exact and and so you know when you're i don't know 23 years old and somebody's 33 years old it's like wow they know everything and so And so that, so Kesey, I mean, Cassidy kind of became this driving force for both the dead and the pranksters.

1:16:34SpeakerAnd a story, one of the times I first met and spent time with Phil was, so I wrote, so, and I had hitchhiked to this, the largest gathering of the beach that ever happened was in,

1:16:53SpeakerBrian, Brian, wait a second. Back up for a second. Tell the audience who you are, like where you are, where you're from, and like where did you grow up and how did you, yeah, get to this point of where you're at? Do you want to? Yeah. Well, I mean, I grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, man. And no way. Yeah, I grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

1:17:18BubblemanNo! Yeah, for 23 years. I served 23 years in Winnipeg, Manitoba, dude. Yeah, wow. Huh.

1:17:27SpeakerWell, we'll talk about that. I knew there was a reason to get you two together. That's trippy, but yes, please do go on. So anyway, so in this, in like, oh, about 76, 77, you know, I met this older guy, Will Hudson, who played, was kind of the leader of this band that was the central band in the scene. It was much like the way the Grateful Dead was the central band of all the bands playing in SF.

1:17:52SpeakerThis guy was the leader of that band. And I and he let me hang out at his house and he didn't really let people do that. And I was like, why is he doing that? And I asked him decades later, he said, Well, it seemed like you got it. And anyway, so he turned me on to the dead, right? In Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1977 ballpark. They didn't even have, remember record stores had those plastic folders that would say, you know, Led Zeppelin and you could go to that and then those would be all the records by that band.

1:18:23SpeakerThey didn't even have Grateful Dead sections in the record stores. So it was very difficult to kind of get their stuff. And there was no... You know, we didn't know anybody who taped or anything like that. So it was kind of this real challenge to find the records and stuff. But I kind of threw this guy's tutelage and he told me to read Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

1:18:47SpeakerAnd so that was sort of how I got on this train. And so when I graduated high school, I got a job just to make enough money to buy 1967 Dodge Fargo window van in Winnipeg, Manitoba. And I said, you know, this van is going to get me to the Grateful Dead. And, you know, the closest city to Winnipeg was Minneapolis, which is 500 miles away. Like that's how isolated Winnipeg was.

1:19:24SpeakerAnd so I got the van and drove to the West Coast, you know, right after high school. And sure enough, got tickets to the show in Seattle. Summer of 80 and it was like a 7,000 seat, you know, relatively small little Coliseum thing and general admission. And so got there and I remember and by that time, dig, it's like I'm 19 years old, I guess. And I had never met a person in my life who had ever been to a dead show.

1:19:55Speakeris how isolated things were in winnipeg never met a person been to a show and so we go to this first show and i'm assuming it's everybody's first show And we're standing there on the floor in the GA and tell somebody it's our first show. And it's your first show. No way. Hey, Bob, it's these guys' first show. Who's these three here? It's their first show. And like everybody turns around and looks at us and like, no way, it's your first.

1:20:27SpeakerAnd we're like, oh, what the hell? Like, what's the big deal? And of course, head blown off and And that began the journey. And then I moved to New York City to go to NYU like a couple of months later. And right then was when Radio City happened. And I got wind of it. I think I'd been in America for like two weeks. And the Radio City tickets were going to go on sale on Monday.

1:20:56SpeakerAnd I went with my out to dinner with my mom, wanted me to meet some aunt or something. And like, I kind of picked this place in Midtown that I knew was near Radio City. And then we have the dinner and Friday night and we walk out and I'm like, and it had just been announced tickets going on sale Monday. So I sort of steered the two old ladies towards Radio City and there was already the line starting And I went over to it.

1:21:26SpeakerAnd at the end of the line, some guy is holding a piece of paper and says, we're all signing in. And then we're going to give the list to the box office on Monday morning. So the scalpers can't jump the line, which was the way things were back then. And so I'm like, OK. And I was like number 120, I think, online outside Radio City. And so I ended up sleeping on the sidewalk out there like my second week in America, age 19.

1:22:01SpeakerI lived that whole weekend outside Rockefeller Center and took acid and, you know, and we had the place to ourselves. Because Midtown completely cleared out of people on the weekends because nobody lived there. And so it was just deserted and people had little boom boxes and were playing dead tapes that were echoing off the concrete buildings, which sounds so trippy when you're on acid, like everywhere you go, you're hearing, you know, Jerry's guitar noodling away in this space.

1:22:37SpeakerOh, there you go. Great one. So that photo, which I was going to talk about later, but by the way, that little button, that's a Phil Lesh button I'm wearing on my jacket there. That's Halloween Radio City. And the reason that photograph exists is because I had that night just found Molson Canadian for the first time in a deli in New York. And I was so blown away.

1:23:04SpeakerI said, Tom, take a picture. I got to show people back home. They won't believe I found Molson Canadian in New York. But so so anyway, so I went to all those Radio City shows and and and I knew of on the road because of. Oh, yeah. Well, that was an interesting thing, because, you know, back then. You know, how we got information was so different than now.

1:23:29SpeakerAnd I would, you know, read all these, you know, Rolling Stone and Crawdaddy and Circus and whatever the other ones were. I kept seeing this mention of this book on the road by this Jack with a weird last name. And if I had just seen it once or twice, you know, it wouldn't have had much impact. But once I started to see it by the third or fourth time, I was like, I got to find out, find this book everybody's talking about.

1:23:57SpeakerSo I, of course, got on the road and and then. Right. My two heroes when I went to New York City as a 19 year old, my two heroes in life were Ken Kesey and Bill Graham, because those seem to be the two guys that made shit happen. And and within a year of being in New York, I was working for Bill Graham, helping put together the Rolling Stones tour of 81 and 82.

1:24:25SpeakerSo I got to actually work with my hero, Bill Graham. And so by the next year, summer of 82, I wanted to, I'd been in New York at that Manhattan at that point for what it was like two years. I wanted to get back to my roots in Vancouver where I'd been living, went back there with the mission that summer was to meet Kesey. And so, yeah,

1:24:50SpeakerSo let me understand this. You went from Winnipeg to New York City to Vancouver. Yep. So now you're in Vancouver. Yeah, summer of 82, just for the summer. And well, so this poster is up there on the wall. So... And that year, my girlfriend's sister was turning 18. So I thought, okay, well, you know, she's old. I can, Uncle Brian can buy her some, you know, adult books.

1:25:20SpeakerAnd I went to get her on the road. And we were living in the cool, you know, Greenwich Village type neighborhood in Vancouver. I went to the corner bookstore to get on the road. And there was No Kerouac on the shelf. And I'm like, what the hell? And I went to the next bookstore. Still no Kerouac. It took me to go to the sixth bookstore that day.

1:25:43SpeakerThis is how out of favor Kerouac was in 1982. And I go walking into the The store and I don't even go to the shelves anymore. I just go straight to the kiosk, you know, and right behind the people in the kiosk. I don't know if this is going to work. Oh, I don't think it's going to. But there was this poster of. Jack Kerouac, I don't think that worked, of a Jack Kerouac on the road.

1:26:12BubblemanHe did for a split second. We saw it.

1:26:14SpeakerOh, okay. Yeah, we did. Okay. Well, so, like, I can't find the book anywhere. And then suddenly, here's this poster of this on the road conference, which you can see it's got Abby Hoffman, Timothy Leary, you know, David Amrath, and Ken Kesey. And then down in very tiny print that you'll surely not be able to see at the very bottom, it said, and I'm seeing this thing, my jaw just dropped open, like what the fuck?

1:26:41SpeakerAnd at the very bottom, it says partially funded by the Grateful Dead. And I'm like, what? So it was this huge summit in Boulder, Colorado, which the other beat novelist of the time described as, we had come from all over the country, from all periods of Kerouac's life, and more of us were together than had ever been in one place at one time before. So it was the biggest gathering of these people that ever exists, ever happened before or since.

1:27:14SpeakerAnd Kesey was on the bill. So I contacted them and said, I didn't have like, it was like $300 in 1982 to attend this thing or something. And I was like, I don't have the money for that, but I'm a show producer guy. I could help you. Produce the events. And they're like, yeah, we need somebody like you. So I hitchhiked from Vancouver to Boulder and sort of had with one of my ostensible assignments was to be Kesey's handler.

1:27:45SpeakerAnd if you know anything about pranksters, trying to handle them to do anything. Good luck with that. Yeah, as I soon learned. But I fell in with, you know, we hit it off. And then when I was going home, of course, they live in Oregon. So they said, come and stop by. And I went and kind of stayed at what ended up living, staying at Babs's house for a weekend and spending all my time over at Kesey's house and saw the bus, you know, the 64 bus for the first time and all of that.

1:28:17SpeakerSo, um, And so all of this happened, okay, back when I was 21 years old. And then somebody posted a photo of this time gathering to one of the Kerouac groups on Facebook. And everybody was like, oh my God, look at all those people together. Holy shit, that's just mind blowing. And to me, it was like just a picture of my summer vacation. And I was like, well, what's the big deal?

1:28:44SpeakerAnd then they were like, oh, Brian, tell us about it, you know? And so this book, which, oh, it's kind of weird about the focusing on this. Anyway, this book, which is a thick 5.5 page, I was started simply as a comment on a Facebook post. And I start writing the story about this thing. And I've got audio tapes because back then I... Carried one of those little handheld cassette recorder things.

1:29:16SpeakerSo I recorded a bunch of stuff and taking pictures and stuff. And so I start writing what began as a comment on responding to a question on a Facebook thing. And I'm writing the story I just told you about going to the bookstore and not being able to find it, the copy and everything. And I'm like, well, this is longer than a comment on a Facebook post.

1:29:39SpeakerAnd then I thought, well, I'll make it a post on my website. And then I keep writing and writing and writing, and I end up telling the whole story. And at some point I went, this is a book. And I wrote the whole arc of the thing in 11 days. I had done a prior book to that, the Temp Survival Guide about temping in New York City, very nomadic way to make a living, but it was great.

1:30:07SpeakerAnd I wrote that book from start to finish in six days. And so I wanted to do this in a week, you know, like write fast because I could go into writing. But if, you know, people who write things over a long period of time, You know, three months later, you can't remember what exactly you wrote three months ago. But if you write it really fast, you can kind of be weaving things in and out because you just wrote this yesterday or three days ago or something.

1:30:37SpeakerSo I was... You know, rushing to kind of like, I want to write this in 10 days. I mean, it's seven days and then get this thing done. But then I kept finding new stuff and old notebooks and things. And then, okay, get it done in 10. And then it, but it took 11. So I wrote the whole arc of this story, including going back to Kesey's place and hanging with him and Babs and everybody and George Walker.

1:31:01SpeakerAnd so that happened. So then anyway, this all connects to a great Phil story. So I wrote in the book, I go into the connections between the beats and the pranksters. And there's two great, I included two great quotes, one by Jerry, one by Phil, about how much Neil meant to each of them. And like the Phil one ends with... I vowed to myself that in the future, I would live up to Neil's inspirational example.

1:31:44SpeakerAnd Jerry wrote something else similar to how Neil Cassidy changed each of their lives. And so then the book came out and I was out there in SF at the Beat Museum through this big conference that was kind of like an echo of the 82 thing. And now I was part of it and presenting and interviewing and on panels and all that. But I stopped in earlier.

1:32:12SpeakerTo John Cassidy's house. And I had become friends with all the Cassidy family, actually. Oh, back in the 90s or something. And John Cassidy was Neil and Carolyn's only son. Of course, Neil died in 68. Carolyn lived until 2013. And John was their only son. And he's named for Jack. His name is John Allen Cassidy. Allen is for Ginsburg. And Kerouac's real first name was John. And like his first time he was published was always as John Kerouac.

1:32:51SpeakerAnd Neil said, well, I'm not going to name my son Jackassidy. So that's why it's John. But anyway, so I stopped in to see John, you know, just before this conference, this big summit was going to take place in SF. And I read, we sat on his balcony there and I read him, oh, John, I've got these great quotes by Jerry and Phil about your dad. And I read them to him and I, I'm going to get choked up now remembering it.

1:33:28SpeakerAnd he started crying. And so it was this really, you know, heavy, beautiful moment where he was hearing Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh saying that his dad was their hero and that they were trying to live up to John's dad's inspiration, right? So it was this very touching, beautiful moment. And then when I finished the Phil thing, you know, we got... I'm getting choked up remembering it, but we got up and hugged each other and...

1:34:03SpeakerHe was shaking, you know, it's just a beautiful moment. And so after that, I went up to Marin. I had somebody up there to visit. And Phil had opened Terrapin Crossroads. And... And it was right around, it was, so I wanted, oh, A, I got to go to Terrapin Crossroads, and B, I'd love to bump into Phil. And so I went there. So it was going to be, it was Father's Day of 2015.

1:34:35SpeakerAnd Graham, Phil's son, was playing at Terrapin Crossroads. And a friend of mine, Al Robinson, and It was a bass player hit me. Hey man, FYI, it's Father's Day and Graham is playing at Terrapin Crossroads. Good estimation, you know? So I went, brought the book and sure enough, Phil comes walking in and goes and sits in a booth behind the stage and he's all alone. And I was like, oh, this is the perfect moment.

1:35:15SpeakerSo I just walked up and started and said, hey, Phil, I got a great story for you. And oh, so I sat there and I told him what I just told you. And I got choked up again then, you know, thinking about my good friend getting choked up and told Phil the story. And he, of course, just loved it. And I gave him a copy of the book and kind of that was that.

1:35:51SpeakerAnd then I went back and I'm sitting at those tall tables by the stage and I'm looking over at Phil in the booth and he is sitting there just like reading my book and blowing off everybody in the bar and just sitting there reading my book. Wow. You know, and then and so that happens for a while. And like, again, I mean, he reads it for like a half an hour or something like that.

1:36:19SpeakerAnd all alone at this booth. And and then I think that's the way it went was. And I said, oh, gee, I should get a picture of this, you know. So I went back over and I said, oh, hey, Phil, can we get a picture together? Brian. And like, he loved me by this point now, you know, and, and he absolutely jumps up. And we go to take the picture.

1:36:47SpeakerAnd he said, Wait a minute, and he reaches over onto the, you know, the booth table and grabs the book and, you know, holds it, you know, holds it up, you know, proudly and, and points at me and, you And we do that. And then like about 10, his wife and about 10 friends came in and they all went and sat at like a long table. And, you know, I'm kind of keeping my eye on him.

1:37:11SpeakerAnd sure as shit, he's sitting there at this table in the bar while his son is about to start playing, ignoring everyone and sitting there reading my book in his lap.

1:37:25SpeakerIn a crowded bar with all of his friends sitting around him. He's not talking to anybody. He's just sitting there reading my book. And then I thought, oh, and that picture that you put up, Mark, I went over and said, oh, this is a funny thing because There's there's the frickin button. Somehow that thing survived from I must have bought that in the 70s, early 80s, something like that, because I'm wearing it at Radio City.

1:37:54SpeakerSo I was wearing a freaking Phil Lesh button, not a Jerry Garcia, not a Bob Weir in that photo. And I I went back over it and you said, look at this, you know, like. Here I am wearing you on my jacket at Radio City, you know, in 1980. So I was just sort of, so that was the first time that we kind of got to spend time together.

1:38:18SpeakerAnd I was just so stunned at how taken he was by the book, you know. Wow. What a cool story, Brian. Thank you for sharing. Thank you. That was so awesome. It must have been. Well, you know what our other friends, Trey says, read the fucking book. Yeah. The Helping Friendly book? The what? The Helping Friendly book, he said. Oh, I don't know. Well, there's one other thing that is directly connected to that that I may as well tell.

1:38:54SpeakerThat And it's the Merry Pranksters, right? So, you know, Zane, Keezy, Ken's son did this 50th anniversary of the 64 trip, right? That changed history. You know, the 64 bus trip by the Pranksters, Spawn Magic bus by the Who, Magical Mystery Tour by the Beatles. You know, when the Partridge family came on TV, they had them driving around in a painted school bus. All of that came from Keezy's bus.

1:39:25SpeakerAnd, uh, um, uh, so, uh, and George Walker was a central guy on that bus. Okay. And then, and then Zane in 64 in 2014 does this 50th anniversary tour thing. Uh, and, and then the second bus goes and tours all around the country and, and, uh, and, uh, and that spawned. These kind of prankster reunions that this guy, Chris Foster, the Wizard of Wonder, threw in a secret location in the Midwest.

1:39:55SpeakerAnd So George Walker came to one of these and we hadn't seen each other. And he was one of the 12 guys on the original bus with Neil and Ken. And he's featured prominently in the movie Magic Trip and so on. And he comes to this thing and we see each other for the first time since 82, you know, fell in love, you know, like really just sort of bonded like blood brothers.

1:40:22SpeakerAnd And I performed at it. I do performances. And he couldn't believe how I brought Kerouac to life. And then he happened to say, well, I do Neil Cassidy. I was like, oh, really? So I went out that morning before the next day's events and found a copy of On the Road and blew up. There's this one section in On the Road where Jack and Neil are in the back of a car talking about the it, like the magic thing in life.

1:40:53SpeakerAnd I thought, oh, let me photocopy this and George and I can perform it. He'll be Neil, I'll be Jack. And, you know, I put the pages in front of him and he just, in the first cold reading, became Neil Cassidy. So we began doing shows and...

1:41:17SpeakerAnd then in 2019, we were doing a tour of the West Coast and we're playing, and it was going to be July 4th and Phil was playing at Terrapin. So we decided to drive up to that show to see Phil for the first time. Oh, and that as part of the thing, when we do this, Jack and Neil sitting in the back seat and on the road.

1:41:47SpeakerThere's this one line where the driver says, for God's sakes, you're rocking the boat back there because of how animated Jack and Neil were. And I would always have somebody in the audience yell that line out. So we go to Terrapin, Phil and I, I mean, George and I, and see Phil and hang out and so on. And... While we're talking, we walk, I pull, you know, the book out of my, um, Thank you so much for joining us.

1:42:44SpeakerAnd hands the card to Phil as though he dropped it. And Phil just looks at the thing and goes, for God's sakes, you're rocking the boat back there. And performs the thing, realizing like instantly that it's a performance line and actually delivers the line as a performance piece. So that was just a funny George, Jack, Phil.

1:43:08BubblemanNice action. That's hilarious, man. Very cool. Very cool. I wanted to bring it back to, well, first I wanted to welcome everyone else in the room before I bring it back to anyone. A bunch of other folks rolled up. Michael's in the house. Mojave's in the house.

1:43:26Etienne FontanEtienne is in the house.

1:43:29BubblemanBrian is in the house. And G-Pad, I don't know your actual name, homie.

1:43:36Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineThat's Dave, our friend Dave, down out in the Eugene area. Super old friend. We've done an amazing amount of dead shows together. We're all kind of part of that self-reliant back to the land, you know, parking lot, you know, life inspired, changed by Grateful Dead and barter fairs and Growing your own food, your own medicine, making like the craziest hash and best flavors ever. So welcome Dave Sweetleaf, the OG plant down in Oregon.

1:44:08Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAmazing person, tons of You know, legacy stories, super fun. I just, you know, Jay is one of our closest friends, you know, over all these years. So we wanted to invite him on, you know, again, we all have a million stories and they're super fun to tell. We came in a different era, you know, in the later 80s and early 90s. And then we were a part of that kind of, you know, Welcome, Dave, there, and we all welcome everyone in.

1:45:06Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd I do really appreciate all the stories. Kelly did get to, you know, meet Ken Kesey and go to the Kesey farm and stuff. Yeah. And just, you know, because Eugene and University of Oregon was kind of a place where Ken Kesey went after All of those years, he became, you know, a professor at the University of Oregon and helped become, well, you know, and my uncles, anyway, a lot of people took those classes, my uncle included.

1:45:37Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd, you know, and then it was the Springfield Creamery and that era of bringing in organic food and organic delivery. It was the first organic food, you know, The Springfield Creamery, the first probiotic yogurt in America, you know, which has started to become about health. You know, for a bunch of the, you know, people that kind of got disillusioned out of the protests and everything. Okay, we're going back to the land, back to our home, back to our roots.

1:46:08Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineWe're going to do a new world that's not reliant on the medical, the medical or the military industrial complex. And we're just going to create our own world. We're going to build our own houses. We're going to grow our own food. We're going to make our own clothing. And we're going to have babies at home, homeschool. And that was a really important part of our like enter in, you know, to the whole thing, make, you know, things that we could save our own seeds and stuff.

1:46:37Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd so even the organic food movement really kind of came in a lot of ways out of that, you know, Oregon era as well.

1:46:45BrianYeah, I entered into the scene in 90, 1990 in Eugene.

1:46:51BrianAnd the first summer that I went out there, my neighbor, Carolyn Sikora, amazing woman, said, hey, I'm doing this thing called the Oregon Country Fair. And I was like, oh, cool. All right. I guess we're going to check out something like that. She said, yeah, you know, you should just come out with me for the weekend because I'm helping everybody out. And I didn't know anything about it.

1:47:17BrianAnd I packed a bag and I was fully enrolled for all summer classes that entire year. It was paid for by Kind Bud. Thank the Lord. If it weren't for Kind Bud and the Grateful Dead and swinging bags, I would not have a double major and a master's at the University of Oregon. Thank you, Kind Bud, Eugene, Oregon.

1:47:39Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineSo I'm more shaken on a shakedown stream. That's just it.

1:47:42BrianSo that was super helpful at that time. But I actually packed my bags for the weekend and I never left the Oregon Country Fair for a month and a half and ended up, you know, spending 31 years there, meeting the family. I was, you know, helped run the fair. I was fair central. And so because of all of that, we just got to meet the family and be a part of Really deep roots in Eugene.

1:48:15BrianAnd those deep roots, you know, weren't just, you know, the Grateful Dead, but just also what Josh was talking about was the origination of Blueberry, the origination of Kind Bud, DJ Shorts, Genetics, Dave, I know that you were a big part of this. I met Dave on Dead Tours swinging bags of weed, trading P-Bud and trading Kind Bud even before I knew Josh. So, you know, I really feel like so much of the organic, regenerative, thought out health and wellness was instigated out of Eugene, instigated out of the Oregon Country Fair, instigated out of the Grateful Dead, and really had the good weed to back it up.

1:49:16BrianThank you so much for joining us today. I'm so happy to be here with you today. I'm so happy to be here with you today.

1:49:41BrianYou know, I never really had tickets, but I never once got, you know, led out of a show. Like I went to every single show and I was miracled forever because I always had the good weed and I was always allowed in backstage and always able to trade with everybody on tour because of that route in Pleasant Hill, because of that route with Ken Kesey and because of, You know, Oregon Country Fair and the Grateful Dead.

1:50:11BrianAnd Dave, I would love to hear some stories from you. I just feel like whenever I'm with you, I can always go right back. And, you know, at this time, it's really important to know that shit was illegal, hardcore. So. You know, even though it sounds like there's, oh, all of this fun and there was a lot of money being made and there was Kind Bud and there was sort of a birth of this second generation of people saying, you know, fuck the establishment and glass and artwork.

1:50:47BrianBut in that freedom was also us having to deeply take care of each other. Feds were on tour. Feds were in the lots. We all knew who they were. They needed to be followed. And we all really needed to watch each other's back so that we could carry on making sure to get good weed out throughout all of the United States beyond Tor. So Tor became sort of a center location.

1:51:16BrianAnd a lot of weed was exchanged there and then made its way out all over the US. So as hippie and as tie dye and as patched out and as, you know, hazed out as it sort of as hooded up as it seemed, there was a very finite, incredibly intelligent family workings of family exchanging hash, exchanging LSD, exchanging Weed. Dave, I'd love to hear some stories from you because, you know, you're just so come from that era.

1:51:54BrianAnd, you know, when I think about those intricacies and us being able to really do our work with the man in the lot at all times, some cool stuff was done. So, Dave Sullivan.

1:52:11SpeakerWell, thanks, everyone, for having me on this and sharing your story. I think that I kind of logged on a little late, so I've missed the beginning of this whole podcast, but it's been really cool to see people tell, you know, the pioneers in the Grateful Dead movement telling the backstory and these stories that we never got to hear. And like Josh said, we were lucky enough to kind of catch the tail end of the whole Grateful Dead experience.

1:52:40SpeakerAnd for me personally, I think around 82 or 83, when I was just a little kid, that was when the metaphorical bus came by my neighborhood. A buddy of mine, my next door neighbor, his name was Carmen Masella. And I know that the Grateful Dead world is vast and takes over the whole planet, but it also feels really small. Like we're all one degree of separation from each other.

1:53:07SpeakerSo if anybody watching this podcast knows Chaitanya Masella, He used to go by Carmi Masella, and he was my next door neighbor as a kid. And I remember around 82, I was, I don't know, 10 years old, and the school bus came by as the dead was playing Spectrum or somewhere in Philly. And I remember all of the other neighbors were looking, like, peering through their blinds out the windows like aliens had landed in the backyard as these long-haired teenage hippies were hacky-sacking out front.

1:53:38SpeakerLike, it was like some weird, like, cult seance that they were doing. And I was like, whoa, that's so cool, you know, like... It was like, I think that that minute I was hooked. I didn't even know anything about anything. And then, you know, a few years went by and every time the dead would come to town, the bus would roll up and the hippies would roll out and they'd grab a shower and get food at the neighbor's house and then bounce out.

1:54:01SpeakerAnd then for a few years as I got older, it was like, wow, the dead can come back to town. I haven't seen the bus come by, you know, and then sure enough, Carmi became a Hare Krishna. And I think lived in New Zealand for a bunch of years. And then, so my parents' mind, you go to Great Dead Show, you fry your brain, you join a cult.

1:54:18SpeakerYou know, so they was, there was always a huge resistance for me going to shows and my parents put like a pretty tight leash on me. So, but it's one way or another, you couldn't stop us from going to the Dead Show when they came to town. And luckily being a, In that area, that tri-state area, you can hit like a Philly show, a Landover show, RFK, New York, and, you know, I can rack like a hundred dead shows under our belt before we even graduated high school, just by a two-hour drive in all directions.

1:54:46SpeakerSo that was like a really cool place to be, and we're lucky to experience all that, and I think that One thing that everybody, you know, every deadhead has their own unique story and we can all relate. So mine's probably just maybe generic, but it's my story. And I think that what really stands out with, I think that in all of my friends, even probably Josh and Kelly, none of us would know each other without the Grateful Dead.

1:55:18SpeakerYou know, I think that my, in high school, My high school buddies who are still my lifelong friends, we all kind of hit the ground running. And that was one common bond that we had. We'd go out to the woods on the weekend and just bang on instruments and make some noise and carry a Grateful Dead tune. And that music really brought us together. And I think we all had our searchlight cast so wide.

1:55:47SpeakerSo when you go to shows, It was like, this is all the people in America and around the world that are also thinking outside the box. And that kind of inspiration hit all of us. And I think that for me personally, it was part of my journey to end up on the West Coast and being a ganja farmer and organic farmer and the network that I have and And I think that the first time, you know, as a ganja farmer, I think the

1:56:31SpeakerThe first time, you know, we would get brick weed back in the day in high school. And then I remember in 88 at the first show I went to, we got a bag of kind bud and ate for like 30 bucks. And it was just like, whoa, I didn't even know weed could be that. It was like a whole other, it wasn't even, that was not weed, you know?

1:56:48SpeakerAnd then we were hooked. And I think that, I think that the spirit of the adventure of the dead also overlapped into I'm not who, I might have been Keezy. There's a quote, like, when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. And I kind of feel like that's how. Okay, okay, cool. That quote is sort of how a lot of us sort of evolved into our lives and our businesses that we have today.

1:57:24SpeakerLike Kelly said back then, like the stakes were high.

1:57:30SpeakerWe've been doing a lot of stuff. We've been doing a lot of stuff. We've been doing a lot of stuff. We've been doing a lot of stuff.

1:57:53SpeakerI think that would have never happened. We would have never even gotten that inspiration to do things like that if it wasn't for our time and being able to be a part of, you know, Dead Tour and that kind of free spirit of a whole entire sort of society on the dead lot. And I think that, you know, there's a, I think, you know, in honor of Phil's passing and with the, What the Grateful Dead means to me, I think one thing that really sums it up, I was telling this to Josh last night.

1:58:32SpeakerWe had this buddy of mine that I met through the weed game in the 90s on the islands up in British Columbia. Back then he used to go as Spherelina Dave, and then later Leaf. If any of you Canadians watching, if that name rings out, please get in touch, because I've been looking for him for a long time. But anyway, he was, he's just on another level in general, but he, he's probably 10 years older than me, but he missed the whole Grateful Dead experience.

1:59:05SpeakerAnd I remember we were at like, I think it was like 2005 or six at Bonnaroo. Josh and Kelly had their booth there and we had our food booth there. And Phil and friends were playing. And I remember everybody was boogieing down. We're sitting in our food booth and watching everybody dancing in front of us and Phil's on the main stage. And it was like, man, this is so cool.

1:59:30SpeakerWe're actually here and this is happening. And I remember Leif, Spirulina Dave, was dancing and getting down with everybody and And then I remember Josh picked him up and started spinning him around. And he looked like a rag doll. He weighed like 30 pounds as Josh was like gleefully spinning him around and Leif was just cracking up hysterically. And then afterwards we were kind of reminiscing on the night and he was like, man, I just, I never really got to Grateful Dead and listen to music much.

1:59:59SpeakerBut at that moment when Josh was spinning me around and we're all dancing with our friends, I was like, I didn't even know that you could have this much fun. Like this is the most fun I've ever had in my whole life. I think when it comes to Grateful Dead stories, those are the things that just pop out in my head right off the bat.

2:00:16SpeakerHey, I'd love to ask Mark and Courtney or anybody else, including yourself, about 1990. That's when you said you got on the bus there, Kelly. that was you know i was there for the whole last 15 years 1990 i just thought was great like when it was tragic that brent died and we all love him and he was to this day my favorite keyboard player in the band but when hornsby joined That reinvigorated band in the second half of 1990 is some of my favorite Grateful Dead ever.

2:00:54SpeakerAnd I just wondered if Courtney or Mark had any observations on the transformation that happened with them at that time.

2:01:03SpeakerWell, for myself, 1990 was kind of a turn point in my life. So I actually went up to Eugene. Well, I started in... In California growing, I went indoors. I'd been growing since 1968 outdoors. And I went indoors at about 89 and developed a system. Of course, things were mostly clockwork, but they were electronically switched on and off.

2:01:39SpeakerI had kind of moved away from the scene and was focusing on my little enterprise and still doing my tie-dye work. And so I wasn't really, I think it's better told by somebody that was actually right in the middle of it in the 90s. Yeah, I was right there, Brian. You know, I was I was, I saw the last eight of Brent's show. Well, let me go back before that.

2:02:15SpeakerSo, you know, I did start in the Keith and Donna era, but I cut my teeth for the most part during the Brent years. I remember my first Brent show. I missed the Binghamton shows in the spring, but I went to Madison Square Garden on September the 9th, 1979. And we came in during the middle of Jack Straw. And I had no idea that they had made the personnel changes.

2:02:42SpeakerAnd when I saw that big head of hair over the piano, I said, Donna's playing piano. This just, this just did not compute. And unless you saw the small little thing back in March saying that they made this personnel change in the New York time, you would have never known. Now, again, they played Binghamton and they did do some East Coast shows, but they didn't play New York City until the September shows.

2:03:12SpeakerBut for Brent's last show, we were 14th row. And for Vince's first show, I was front row. I was front row right in front of where for Vince's first show there in Cleveland. And, you know, I don't know. It seems like, you know, the weight of the organization and the touring machine that they had become needed revenue and that revenue needed Jerry and the boys on the road, which I think we all know now in retrospect, maybe led to To his ultimate undoing, because, you know, when you looked at Jerry in 1995, he was only 53 years old, yet he looked like he was he was 80.

2:04:00SpeakerI think there were so many people pulling him in so many different directions. I didn't really think that last marriage that he got involved in, you know, took him in the right direction. I think there were a lot of negative. Things in Jerry's life, although toward the end, Brian, I don't know if you remember this, but in 1992, I was living in Fort Collins, Colorado at the time.

2:04:25SpeakerAnd I know that we had planned on going to the revival of the Oregon Country Fair that summer when I think Jerry had either hurt himself or was due to his health. That he was not not feeling up to tour or I don't know. I thought that there was either a scuba diving accident or some general illness. But let's face it. I mean, just the weight of the road was really taking him down.

2:04:54SpeakerAnd, um, I wrote him a letter and I sent it to the San Rafael office. In fact, I wrote a song called Take Care Jer, you know, kind of like my way of telling him. And I also, I included with the lyric of the song, Thank you for joining us.

2:05:35Speakeryou know in uh in uh in um 92 uh oh i'm sorry uh in in uh yeah in in december of 92 they came to mcnichols arena and i don't know if you know this but in that time period he had rekindled his relationship with barbara meyer Uh one of Jerry's first girlfriends and I think the first person that like kind of like was was Jerry's true soulmate in life and when he had re and that's I think just before he he remarried or married Deborah Coons right which was You know, again, the ultimate, the final wipe.

2:06:17SpeakerAnd he just, I guess, so Barbara had actually come to that McNichols show and you could just hear it in Jerry's playing, Brian. If you listen to that morning dew from that second night, It is just incredible how he could channel his emotions into his music like no other person. I mean, Jerry Garcia changed the way live music is played and the connection between his emotions And those notes that only his thing, Jerry was somebody who you could hear two notes and know exactly who it was.

2:06:56SpeakerIn fact, I'm so trained that I can tell you what guitar he was playing and what error that was based on hearing a few few notes from that guitar. So Jerry was able to really make that Thank you so much for joining us.

2:07:30SpeakerLike some guitar players have this big ego like Joe Bonamassa and other people like that. But Jerry had no ego at all. And so he was able just to channel his soul and his energy through his music like no other person that came before him. And I think everybody, whether you like the Grateful Dead or not, or you even understand Jerry Garcia's impact on music, Everybody after Jerry has been affected and impacted by the way that Jerry plays.

2:08:01SpeakerAnd let's face it, the Grateful Dead started this whole thing of the jam band genre that maybe Fish and other folks have kind of like taken, but they don't like saying passing the torch, but Ultimately, I think the Grateful Dead were part of that thing that said, look, we can go beyond just these four bars and really take music out there. And the perfect manifestation of that is Dark Star.

2:08:31SpeakerIt was never played the same way twice. It was always this exploration, this communication that They had, I mean, maybe Courtney, it would be interesting for you to comment on The other bands of the era. So bands like Quicksilver and the Airplane and even like CSN. I mean, you said you were living in Dave Crosby's old house. I got to think there were probably some seeds stuck in the floorboards of that house, right?

2:09:02SpeakerBut wouldn't you think again that there would be other bands that were able to kind of like do that, but nothing ever even comes close in my mind And now you can go to any city in the United States and there is a Grateful Dead band playing somewhere. Jerry Garcia's music is never more present than it was back then than it is today.

2:09:32Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineOh, absolutely.

2:09:34SpeakerYou can't say that for the airplane. You can't say that for Crosby Stills. You can't even say that for bands like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. Now, there are Floyd and Zeppelin cover bands, but not to the magnitude that Jerry and the Dead. But, Courtney, please. Absolutely. I actually saw a statistic that there are almost a thousand tribute bands of 700 of which, you know, tour and, you know, do regular shows.

2:10:02SpeakerAnd but they, you know, starting with the the acid tests, that free form expression was it was born out of that. And of course, it's It changed the face of Music, musical expression, rock and roll expression, if you may, forever. And that's one of the reasons that Grateful Dead became, you know, the musicians band. They were like, they were so highly respected for their free form association of the moment.

2:10:45SpeakerAnd as you said, every dark star is different, which is true for most any of the, the, The cosmic explorations that came out of any of their songs. And that was what I lived for. That was my favorite thing. That and the drum breaks. I loved that. Even their small little country ditties, you know, the Bakersfield songs and, you know, me and my uncle. And I mean, they were kind of like the cosmic cowboys.

2:11:19SpeakerHave you? Absolutely. Absolutely. It was always an expression and exploration of, of when it was cosmic. It would definitely be, you know, take you outside of everything. With a solid stripe of Americana, you know, which is like, we are a nation of immigrants, right? And we assimilated cultures from all over the world. Whether it was the slaves who brought, you know, African rhythms and rhythm and blues ultimately through the New Orleans and Memphis.

2:12:00SpeakerI mean, that's the beautiful thing about early Grateful Dead is that they were an electric blues band with Pigpen as the front man. And Pigpen was singing those Otis Redding songs with Soul. I mean, these kids were in their 20s. Oh, yeah. I mean, who, you know, how does someone like Pigpen exist? I mean, it's just it's amazing to think that they were channeling basically the music of black people into basically this new art form or They said what rhythm and blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll.

2:12:39SpeakerAnd again, I believe that what made them go electric, like many bands of the day, was seeing the Beatles in 1964 on the Ed Sullivan show, like had an effect on just not everybody, right? Hard day's night, man. Hard day's night was what did it. The movie Hard Day's Night was what they cite that like they went and saw that movie in the theater and saw the girls chasing the band and Jerry put the banjo in the closet and got an electric guitar.

2:13:07Collin PalmerWell, Mark, the one thing that really stands out from a musical point of view for the dead is they all individually are songwriters and they all contributed unlike a lot of modern bands where there's bluegrass in the band, there's Phil with his jazz background and his understanding of Coltrane and like you said, his ability to go beyond the eight bar blues and truly transcend and play root notes and be Sort of like Dave Holland for Miles Davis, where he was just like a really solid root note player that could really accentuate as also a rhythmic player, which is kind of difficult to say the least.

2:13:43Collin PalmerSo, you know, as they move through eras, they really evolved as not only a band, but players themselves and those influences. And, you know, Don Buchla is a, you know, the synthesizer creator. That was also a major influence for the keyboard section and that influenced their recording sessions, much like the images I sent you the other day from Blues from Ala. That's, you know, there was a lot of technicalities that the band went through, but they were learning and creating together as a unit, much like Jerry talked about as picking up an object as a hand.

2:14:16Collin PalmerWe're all a finger working as a unit to pick it up. And, you know, if one is responding to the other, that's where that magic is.

2:14:25SpeakerYeah, so those photos that you sent me, Colin, thank you for that. Courtney was from Rucka Rucka. So I guess that's where Bob Weir's studio was. He didn't have a studio at Rucka Rucka. It's at his house on Mount Tam Pius. Oh, Mount Tam, that's right. Yeah, man.

2:14:46Collin PalmerYeah, he still has that studio today. I actually interviewed him for Macintosh years ago in that studio. It was a real honor to do that. It's a relic in there. His guitars, the way he lines them up, and it's quite beautiful. It's really awesome. But the band itself, you know, I have a question for, I guess, the group here that was with them on tour. You know, the community really held each other up.

2:15:18Collin PalmerAnd there was a lot of times where it was hard to get show to show. But somehow everyone made it. You know, Josh Kelly, you want to talk a little bit about how that played a major role is, you know, how things kind of moved around and how you did share and were able to really support one another. Maybe they're muted.

2:15:46SpeakerWe're muted. No, they're not muted.

2:15:49BubblemanNo, they aren't muted? Then why can't we hear them?

2:15:53SpeakerThere they are. It's the Illuminati. I want to talk about it.

2:15:58BrianHow about now?

2:15:59SpeakerWe can't actually go.

2:16:01BrianThere you go.

2:16:03SpeakerOkay.

2:16:05BrianI didn't really hear the first of it, but I did want to tell my very first Grateful Dead story because it absolutely 100% changed my life. I would not at all be the person that I am today if it weren't for 1986 July or August Alpine Valley shows. I was supposed to be babysitting because I was 16. And I came from Virginia. So my parents were super strict.

2:16:41BrianAnd if they even knew that I even smelled marijuana or was going to see the Grateful Dead, I'd be in trouble. So I lied to my parents. I told him that I was going babysitting and my best friend's big sister took us out there. And, um, So, upon arriving into the lot, which is huge at Alpine Valley, it is very sprawling. So, people that go to Alpine Valley, they sort of know where their camping spot is.

2:17:10BrianThey know where they're going to see their whole scene. Everybody knows where Shakedown is going to be set up. I didn't know anything about what was going on. And within the first hour and a half, I lost everything. My tickets, my luggage, my friends, everything. I lost all of them. And I had this sweet hippie couple take me in and I helped them serve vegetarian chili all week long.

2:17:38BrianAnd I was miracled all three tickets. And I got high on mushrooms the entire weekend because I was serving vegetarian chili and they were giving me little bits of mushrooms the whole time. So it was my first real like trip on the scene and I was watching their kids and I didn't know anything, but I knew that I was selling the shit out of that vegetarian chili for sure.

2:18:04BrianAnd they were giving me weed and I was like, my people, my God, where were they all these years, my whole life? And then I thought as as the shows were ending, totally miracle the whole time, lost my shoes. This lady gave me a hippie dress, gave me a pair of Birkenstocks. I was like fully outfitted. And then I was hitchhiking on my way out of the show and my friends picked me up.

2:18:33BrianAnd that was my first weekend of the Grateful Dead. And it changed my life. And all I could think about is when is the next dead show? And when am I going to meet all those people and that family and the sales of all the organic food and those children who I met the very first year became teens and then early twenties. And I knew those families forever and I still see them sometimes spinning I'm on West Coast shows somewhere.

2:19:08Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineThat's it. I just then offered you to go up to Alaska eventually, then work with the Alaska Thunderfuck and do rafting because we were all really into rafting at the time because that was just like going into the mountains, getting into the most gnarly class five rapids you could. Thank you so much for joining us today.

2:19:42BrianAnd then my wearer really became kind bud. So I just started swinging Mexiweed out of Arizona for a long time. I know that shit was sprayed with Paraquat. It had like really weird white powder on it. And it took us forever to go through two pounds of it, one kilo, because there was so much plastic and bottle caps and bottoms of people's flip flops and fucking ties and Who the hell knows?

2:20:13BrianSo really, that was my beginning of swinging weed was like brick weed. And then to see my first bag of kind bud, it changed my entire life. So the Grateful Dead changed it. And then getting the right medicine, you know, really changed it. And I was coming down from Alaska. And I had just got done working for, yeah, yeah. ATN sold the bricks. Yeah, we all sold bricks.

2:20:41BrianSorry, people. But I was totally met up with Johnny Appleseed in the summer of 90, of 91, right? No, 90. Of 90, the summer of 90. And I grew an entire field of Alaskan thunderfuck. And I brought a pound. We brought three pounds down in our forerunner that looked like it probably had weed in it and through the border of Canada and Alaska. And I got caught at the border with a pound and a half.

2:21:22BrianAnd I had a fake ID on me. And the fake ID was a real ID, but with my picture on it.

2:21:29Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineThanks, Chi-town.

2:21:31BrianSo it was super, super snowstorming out. And they said that they were going to let us off on our own recognizance. To just make sure that we, they fingerprinted us and everything. Make sure that we were just going to stay at the hotel down the road and just come back in the morning to like get booked. I don't know. I'm thinking I'm fucking out of here. But it was sweet because he only found a pound and a half of three pounds.

2:21:58BrianSo we went through a different border. We came down.

2:22:01Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineNo computers. We came down through Oregon. Hey, we'll do another border. How about this? Let's do another border.

2:22:08BrianAnd so that pound and a half of Alaskan Thunderfuck in the summer of 1990 was traded with a pound of Oregon Kind Bud. And that's how it all started for me was the connections of being able to take Alaskan Thunderfuck, trade it, and then get that beautiful connection of the blueberry of Kind Bud to then take it

2:22:35Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAll to every single tour and then all throughout the U.S. And the Trinity and the White Witch and everything, the Master Kush and everything that started coming out of Eugene, which was, which was super amazing. And yeah, I mean, it was, you know, when I first went to the shows in 1990, I was 16 and people were walking by going, but Bud's, or no, they were just like not holding it up yet.

2:23:00Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineThey were just saying Bud's Acid Shrooms. And I was like, oh, no, I don't have any. Thanks. Thanks, brother. No, I don't have any. And then I started realizing, oh, they're offering me Bud's Acid and Shrimps. And I'm like, I like this. And glow sticks first came out. And then there was like glow sticks all around these balls at night. And so we were super tripping in the Autzen Stadium parking lot.

2:23:27Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd then we would also go to barter fairs in the fall. So barter fairs were a big thing. And when you learn about going on tour, you started being like, oh, well, we're going to wild craft food out of the The zone that we're going to go to and make that food at the shows to like to then get, you know, farther along to the next, you know, show or whatever.

2:23:47Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineSo we wanted to go beyond the grilled cheese sandwich, which was sold for $1 on the lot at the time, which was two pieces of Wonder Bread and one Velveeta slice.

2:23:58BrianMaybe two Velveeta slices.

2:24:00Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineIf you were lucky, you'd get like maybe garlic powder and a... That was the brick weed of grilled cheeses. More expensive. So, you know, dollar of cheese, you know, grilled cheese for the win. But we started realizing, oh, if you have a food booth at the shows, you get in before like all the cops show up. Because you're there setting up the show and setting up the booth.

2:24:27Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineSo you kind of want to set up the booth and the show and become part of productions in order to get everything onto the parking lot.

2:24:34BrianBecause then all the weed and the mushrooms can be brought in before all of the cops come. So that was super helpful for a whole lot of years and making sure that, you know, all of the best strains made it out to the East Coast from the West Coast. And that really is what started even Dem Pure and the regenerative movement was that we were up in the hills and only buying from organic, beautiful family members that I knew from tour.

2:25:05BrianAnd so that's how it all started. And if we were bringing out, you know, 300 or 400 pounds or whatever, It was all tied to family. It was tied to a name. All of those families had kids. They needed that money to be able to get through the next season and to be able to maybe pay off their mortgage or whatever. So it was the Grateful Dead and cannabis that really set up a tremendous amount of the farms that are all owned in Northern Cali.

2:25:38BrianIn Southern Oregon that are still legacy farms today. And they were all paid off because And that's what we discovered British Columbia in 1998 and wanted to have a better situation and that's when we discovered bubble bags and that's when we discovered making hash and that's when that whole

2:26:09Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineThank you for joining us.

2:26:30BubblemanIt mentioned earlier the 1972 Europe, which was amazing to tell that story. But another for me as a person who's just watched the dead from afar and been a fan and, you know, collected the bootlegs and done all of that. I would love to hear about your trip to Egypt. And was this the same trip to Egypt that the that the dead went on? Oh, absolutely.

2:26:59SpeakerGo ahead, Courtney. So I was still down in Marin. Actually, I was out in Inverness Park and Mountain Guild had decided that I was a clean liver and a marathoner and training every day. And I had the local bakery coffee shop. Well, she had the local bakery coffee shops. And then she sold them to me. They moved out nearby me. She wanted to produce a more healthy lifestyle for Jerry.

2:27:42SpeakerAnd he couldn't really take to it. He had too much dependence on other things to keep him going.

2:27:56SpeakerSo I was out there working the coffee shops, doing my, a lot of very busy life. I had all kinds of things going on. I had lab in the backyard. I had pot on the hillside. I had mushrooms in the cellar. We had a little tabbing machine. Oh my God, all kinds of stuff going on, on that 15 acres that I had overlooking Tomorrow's Bay. And then suddenly, It's going to be Egypt and they're all, you know, at the end of the tour, they're going to fly out to Egypt and do a three day free concert at the Pyramids.

2:28:33SpeakerAnd And I was like, I didn't have, you know, I didn't have the wherewithal. I didn't have any. And my friend, Charlie Hiltzheimer calls me up. He said, Courtney, are you, are you going to Egypt? And I said, no, I can't afford it, Charlie. And he said, I've got your ticket. You're on the, on the, on the plane. It's a charter. You know, there was three or four, 350 of us or so went on this charter.

2:28:54SpeakerAnd so,

2:29:00SpeakerI ended up preparing. It was about a day or so and almost another day's travel. It's a long way. It's about 22 hours flying time back then. And we ended up at the Mina House Hotel at the bottom of the hill over the Great Pyramid. And it was going to be about 10 days. Before the band actually joined us out there. Keezy was with us with some of the pranksters.

2:29:29SpeakerWe were all on the plane.

2:29:33SpeakerKeezy was, of course, you know, him and the pranksters were partying. They were drink, they drank the plane dry. They were also kind of, you know, high as well, of course. And there was people smoking pot. There was, you know, it was, So when we got to Paris, we all got funneled onto this freight elevator and locked in there while they stripped the next plane of all booze.

2:29:58SpeakerAnd then we get on the next leg to Egypt and there was nothing, no booze, no nothing. We were getting punished for getting high on the first flights. We ended up at two in the morning at the Mina House Hotel And there's the pyramid up on the hillside there. And amazing. And so much, so many of the family members were on that plane. And Mountain Girl and the daughters and so many of us.

2:30:36SpeakerBefore the band came in and my personal journey was a spiritual adventure. I wanted to, you know, plumb the depths of the pyramid because I knew that this was some ancient wisdom that was involved some, you know, some technology that we had lost. And so the first morning, And by this time, I'd been up two days. And eight o'clock in the morning, which was only, you know, four or five hours after we actually kind of settled in at the hotel.

2:31:07SpeakerAnd we just sat around the pool, you know, waiting for dawn. And I was at the head of the line for the first showing of the inside of the pyramid. And we went up into the King's Chamber. Finally, all the way up into the King's Chamber, you crawl through this little antechamber and then into the King's Chamber. And all of this... Tourists, all this gaggle of, you know, cacophony of all different languages bouncing around the King's Chamber.

2:31:36SpeakerEverybody rushes to the so-called sarcophagus. And without a thought, I jumped into the sarcophagus and went, hit the side of the sarcophagus.

2:31:52SpeakerStarts ringing the... King's Chamber, all the resonances, the whole pyramid starts to ring. Everything's in resonance to itself. And it's like an F sharp, something like that. And so... I just stayed in there, you know, made this first tone and all this sound all just disappeared. That was just a single pure note. And about a minute, a long minute of doing this tone and the lighter, the finer it was attuned, the bigger the sound got.

2:32:31SpeakerAnd I stopped to take a breath and it was absolutely silent. Oh, so it's like. And looking down at me in this box. And the guide ushered everybody out. Out, out. And he said, stay. And he backed out doing his obeisance. And he just, off he goes. And I just stayed in there toning. And then the next to a group with a different guide came in. Same thing.

2:32:56SpeakerHe just... Let everybody see and then and I spent you know four or five hours that first session in there and from then on I'd spend four or five hours every day in the sarcophagus doing the toning and um i had appointments to go to all of these forbidden places uh night and day until and then the band arrived by then uh i had access just everything i could go in to the pyramid into the subterranean chambers um

2:33:33SpeakerI got to have full access to all of these tombs and Ship of the Sun that they were excavating and all of this stuff. And I remember I was in the reception area of the Mina House Hotel when they arrived and Garcia came in. And of course, I wore nothing but running shorts, sneakers, tank top, and a headdress to protect from the sun. And I ran everywhere.

2:34:06SpeakerI think Mountain Girl probably been on, you know, in contact with Garcia at the end of their tour and saying how things are going over here. And Garcia comes in and he sees me and he runs over and he kisses me on both either cheek. He said, ah, Courtney of Egypt. And he said, I hear you've opened the place up for us. And I said, well, actually, I'm just doing my own thing.

2:34:31SpeakerYou know, Alan Trist and, you know, He kind of, you know, got the tour going, you know, got the permission for us to come over and do that. And for the band to come over and do that. So the experience in Egypt was absolutely wonderful for me. It was life changing. Since I was a little boy, I had always known that I was going to spend time, spend a night in the Great Pyramid.

2:35:04SpeakerAnd I didn't even know what the Great Pyramid was. It was just there in my, since I was a little boy. I can't remember. I never read about it. I just said, no, one of these days I'm going to, you know, spend time in the Pyramid. And there it was, you know, all of this decades later is happening. And so, and then Keith, he would, he came up with a film crew.

2:35:28SpeakerHe actually held a camera, took a movie of me being interviewed in the Seagull figures. And doing the toning and all of that stuff. There's a lot of cute stories. But I remember going down into the subterranean chamber that first day and finding the pit and then looking across the pit because we just had a little candle, you know, looking. And there's this little opening on the other side of the pit.

2:36:08SpeakerAnd I said, well, I got to check this out. So I had that next day, I was down there early in the day, early in the morning with Nicky Scully and I took her down to have the experience. And I said, I'm going over to that little opening there on the other side of the pit. There's some old cables and stuff there. And I kind of swung my way across and crawled into this little opening.

2:36:36SpeakerAnd I'm crawling down this tunnel that's like deep under the pyramid.

2:36:46SpeakerAnd I get to this place and it's like a barrier. And suddenly all of my creaturehood fears are welling up after the darkness and all these, you know, and I froze and I said, stop this, Courtney. Don't be ridiculous. There's nothing to fear but fear itself. This is just a portal, okay? Just about to pass the portal and Nicky's quavering voice came out Billowing Down Tunnel. Courtney, I don't think you should be down there.

2:37:21SpeakerI said, why not, Nicky? She said, the Rosicrucians are having their initiation ceremony in the Great Pyramid that they have once a year. And it's happening right this moment. And you're disturbing the acoustics of the pyramid. And I was like, well, Nicky, I'm here. We're here out of, you know, before it's open to the public while all the special stuff's going on in the King's Chamber. And the King, you know, it's things have changed.

2:37:49SpeakerYou know, it's gotten weathered. It's gotten beaten down. It's like, I'm probably the... Fine attunement that these happen. So this seemed to get correct. I took my way. And then I passed this portal and kept on. And then finally it ends. There's nothing there. It's just bedrock. You're, you know, it was a blind tunnel, as I called it. So I squiggled around because it's not very big and laid with my head against it and closed my eyes and focused, you know, on the apex being above me, way up there, you know, several hundred feet.

2:38:26SpeakerAnd suddenly I'm out in the stars, out in the, I'm traveling through the universe and all of these galaxies are being born and all this stuff is happening. And I'm going through eons of, And it's just an extraordinary experience. And then I finally, after these, it seems like, you know, forever, millions of years, billions of years, I come back and come back down into the pyramid. And suddenly I come up and I, I wake up, I come back into the pyramid.

2:39:06SpeakerInto my body. And I thought I'd just be a desiccated husk because I'd been gone for since the dawn of the universe. Anyway, and I realized, you know, that Nikki said, are you all right down there? I said, oh, hi, Nikki. I said, I'm back. And I realized that I'd had a moment of eternity. I had experienced this moment of eternity in the creations of all and everything.

2:39:42SpeakerAnd it was, I don't know, part of the initiation through the Great Pyramid. I eventually wrote about a journey through the Great Pyramid as an initiatory sequence from the fool to the magi. And it's like a... It actually paralleled the tarot. I didn't realize until I'd written all these 78 stanzas and suddenly realized that it paralleled the tarot, you know, the story, the great story. And so all of this stuff had happened.

2:40:14SpeakerBut by then I had access to the pyramid any time. And the band came and I took people down to the subterranean chamber. I remember Bill Walton, he was still in his full stardom of being the greatest basketball player of the times. He had a broken leg. He wanted to get up into the Great Pyramid. That forced tunnel before you get to the Grand Gallery isn't very big.

2:40:44SpeakerAnd he's seven foot two. And he's got his leg in a cast, so he can't crouch. He's got a stiff leg. He said, well, how am I going to get up there? And I said, OK, you're going to go up backwards on your ass and I'm going to carry your leg, which is what we did. He'd go push up every step and I'd carry his leg until we got him up into the king's chamber.

2:41:11SpeakerAnd that was funny. I had to carry Carrie's leg forward going back down. But there's a number of little stories about the characters that were on that trip. And of course, culminating in the three days of free music, which was at the old temple by the Sphinx. And, you know, it was quite extraordinary. But by then I was like so into the pyramid that I didn't, you know, I was in and on the pyramid most of every day.

2:41:52SpeakerI would run to the top and back for an errand and take people up and do stuff. I could go to the top of the pyramid and back faster than anybody on record at that time because I was like a goat, you know, and just come down like I'm doing skiing moguls and bounce from block to block. One mistake and you're gone. And anyway, so there are three days of concert start.

2:42:22SpeakerI had determined that it was going to culminate in a full moon in total eclipse on the final night of the music. And up until then, I'd spent the whole first two nights of music in the Pyramid. And then I'm at the entrance to the Pyramid. Bands started playing. I'm waiting for the pyramid to be opened for me and I hadn't made arrangements of anything and I just projected this in my head and then The moon's starting to go into eclipse.

2:43:02SpeakerIt's total full moon and in total eclipse. And it was the end of the zodiac. It was a full moon in Pisces in total eclipse. It was really magical. There's all these peace talks and going on around the planet. It was a really incredible time. And then suddenly there's the mayor of Giza and he just looks at me and not a word, he just opens the pyramid.

2:43:26SpeakerAnd I go in and pitch blackness without any light at all. And we go up into the king's chamber and there's Alan Trist and John Cutler. And they are trying to get the sound. We're trying to wire it for sound so the sound from the stage would be reflected back from the acoustics of the King's Chamber. But it

2:43:54SpeakerIt never did work. And the, you know, the pyramid kind of defies the technology of our electricity and all. It's all very intermittent. You see, you know, it's very strange forces going on in around the Great Pyramid. But so eventually, John and Alan I left the King's Chamber and went out, went back down, and I'm left alone in the darkness. And then I spent those three or four hours of the eclipse in the sarcophagus, just tuning to the forces at work in there, because it's like a focal point in the pyramid.

2:44:43SpeakerI'm doing the toning, you know, and then eventually I decided that it was time I got up and went down in total blackness, down, down, and finally there's the entrance and there's a guard waiting outside for me and I come out of the blackness and he unlocks it and I don't know, a little spooky maybe. And I go down to the stage and it's all evening. The power had been intermittent.

2:45:25SpeakerAnd I... I saw Asley, I took a dose. But what was extraordinary was all of us, all of everybody was all, you know, the backstage. They were all on the one side of the stage. And I was the only one on this side of the stage where all the cables come together. There's the nexus of where the big cables all cross over. And I remember going and standing right over that and looking down the band and Phil looking back up at me and suddenly...

2:45:57SpeakerAll the sound came on and I just spent the next few hours dancing on the nexus of where those big power cables ran. And, you know, the bands looked back up and it's like, you know, powering it, bringing the forces of the, you know, that energy and everything opened up. And then Bill Graham had He had arranged to have 40 horses and 20 camels waiting for us after the gigs.

2:46:30SpeakerAnd that was the end. It was getting packed out. And to go into the desert, into the sands, about 15 kilometers away was this place called Sahara City. And it's a nightclub, a tent city nightclub, where they have kind of illicit stuff and belly dancing and all that stuff. And I remember, you know, the band got on, horses mostly, and the horses are gone. And all the camels are just sitting down, you know, how they kneel down.

2:47:00SpeakerThey all had a camel driver, like an old man or a young boy. And they got this switch, you know, and just tap the back of the camel and get up, you know, moving. And I look around, I went, there's a camel with nobody. So I jump on his back and I go, he stands up and I go, come on, just making the noise of the switch.

2:47:28SpeakerAnd, uh, and, um, Following the horse tracks across the dunes, you know, and it was a full moon. The eclipse had happened. The sun is rising and the moon is setting. And they're both full orbs because of the Earth's atmosphere. Both orbs are visible for 20 minutes, half an hour. And the colors, oh my God, you know, that dawn and the whole experience of being... Finding myself on a camel alone in the desert on top of a dune and looking at these orbs and, you know, nothing.

2:48:06SpeakerI realized, you know, that I was the only one, me and the camel were the only water in sight. We're pretty, you know, but I could still see the horse tracks. So I finally found my way to this Sahara City nightclub. And, you know, we had our experience there and got a bit of food and something. And then I came back with Keith Gelcho. We both jumped on a horse and rode back.

2:48:39SpeakerAnd that was the night of the music. One experience... But so many little vignettes happened all in and around with all these amazing characters. And, you know, I remember going to the Steps Pyramid of Saqqara for the day with Ken Kesey. And that was an experience. We're walking along the side of the stepped pyramid. And Keith is saying, yes, well, when they build them, you know, everything, they're all living around the base of the pyramid and, you know, you can find artifacts.

2:49:22SpeakerAnd I went, huh. So I ran down into the bottom by the, you know, and I'm walking along the bottom of the pyramid and I stop and I plunge my hand down. And I come up with this artifact. And Keezy's like, what is it with you English people in archaeology? And I was like, yeah, it's in the blood. And then I found out we got this hieroglyphs in, you know, it's beautiful color and everything.

2:49:54SpeakerThis old ancient, ancient pyramid. And I was looking and I was suddenly realized I could interpret these These hieroglyphs just kind of like, you know, downloads. And I'm telling this story and I'm holding this, it's like a really heavy, it's almost like a meteor followed after, like a sphere. And, you know, a lot of little things like that. But what I suddenly, by then I'd been up for about 17 days and nights without sleep.

2:50:31SpeakerI'm just doing the pyramid experience and getting my whatevers, you know.

2:50:38SpeakerAnd we were heading back to, you know, to Mina House and the Great Pyramid. And he said, why haven't you just suddenly you just dropped off? You're like, you know, I said, well, I didn't get my pyramid fixed today. It's like, you know, it's like you're not sleeping for three weeks. It's really caught up with me. So we get back and, you know, I got my I went to the pyramid and got my fix.

2:51:04SpeakerI got revived.

2:51:08SpeakerSo even though, you know, everybody's got a great story about their time at the Great Pyramid and especially the band and, you know, but I was on my own trip. So that was my experience. Everybody's got their own story of what really happened for them.

2:51:30BubblemanI love how you're on a camel in the desert near the pyramids going off into the unknown. And you can tell that it was your own experience because in that experience, you don't even drop the fact that you're following the grateful fucking dead. On the camel, like that was an incredible story, Courtney. It might be the greatest story I've heard ever in regards to a Grateful Dead story.

2:51:58BubblemanIt gave me a good laugh and it made me feel really good and brought me joy. So I appreciate that and definitely want to hear more of that all the time.

2:52:09SpeakerCourtney, are you... Courtney, were you there when George Walker and Ken climbed the pyramid to fly? We were all up there and Ken was there too, but George climbed the pole. The apex of the pyramid is kind of missing where the cap, you know, there would have been a capstone and anyway, that top 60 feet or whatever is a flagpole. And so... They had somebody had the great, brilliant idea to hang a great foot head, steal your face flag up there.

2:52:44SpeakerSo George Walker, you know, being a boatman, you know, he shins up and ties this flag up there. Well, on the way down, he's skimming down. He gets a splinter this, this big in his dick.

2:53:05SpeakerSeriously. And I saw him, you know, gets down. I can't remember who it was that operated on him. Kind of interesting. Everybody was like, hmm, getting this splinter out of his dick. That was, anyway, when we, within an hour, some native Egyptian boy had skimmed up that pole and got that flag and took it down.

2:53:37SpeakerBut yeah, that's that time. That is incredible.

2:53:42BubblemanOkay, I laughed harder on that one than I had laughed previously on all the other things that you said. And that wasn't... Oh, it's just neat. You know, listen, we all have our stories, some more than others. Yours are very unique because you were having your own experience, but you were doing it within the chaos of the Grateful Dead.

2:54:04SpeakerWell, chaos is kind of, you know, I went away and, you know, I ran away and joined the circus.

2:54:13SpeakerThat's the way I think of that whole experience, you know. It was...

2:54:23SpeakerBecause in the early days, it's rock and roll. You're making it up as you go along. You know, things are evolving. The venues change. And you all have your little part to play. Mine was hanging stuff up, you know, stage or wherever. And so we were all making it up as we went along. And the big backdrops, when, of course, those started, nothing like that had ever been done.

2:54:53SpeakerI have a giant tie dye backdrop because you can't tie dye a piece of cloth 1500 square feet. You have to create a design that goes together in sections. So when it's all together, it makes one continuous design. And ideally, you know, it looks flawless. So you can't see the seams. And from an audience perspective, it looks flawless. And so that, you know, those were improvisations that happened.

2:55:25SpeakerAnd, you know, a lot, so much great stuff came out of, you know, the development of the sound. And of course, you know, the wall of sound, oh my gosh, you know. And I remember saying to Asley, I said, you know, this is going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce this wall of sound. If this money went into the technology of producing, Big, pure sound and miniaturizing it that could be sold throughout the world.

2:55:57SpeakerYou know, it seems to be that money better spent. And he said, you're probably right, Courtney, but we're, you know, we're going to do what, you know, we're going to do it our way and do, you know, make sure it's like the best analog ever produced. You know, and of course, later on, very shortly after, in a few years, they were producing small, big sound out of small, you know, the new technologies.

2:56:27SpeakerBut the Grateful Dead were always ahead of the curve when it came to improvisational development of the sound and their music. And that's one of the reasons they were so highly respected among the musical community of other players in the world. You know, they were so unique in so many ways and their whole journey as they advanced and developed sound and, you know,

2:57:06SpeakerQuite extraordinary and such an honor to have been around on the bus during those early decades.

2:57:18SpeakerHey, Courtney, I'd like to ask you, I'm not sure if you were, if he was around at that point, but my uncle, who's not my blood uncle, but he was my dad's partner in crime and my best, his best friend and someone I grew up with, taught me how to drive, very close family friend. He was the dad's early road manager, Jonathan Reister. Um, JR. And, um, he knew Jerry from Palo Alto, Palo Alto days, but also, um, another close friend, Rosie McGee.

2:57:51SpeakerYeah. Um, photographer. Yeah. And, um, also Tom Salter, I think was part of that. Well, those are really more sixties. They were, yeah. More late sixties into the maybe early 72 or something. Yeah. Rosie's really the only one that, uh, that I, you know, Really know and became good friends over the years. And of course, she was the first one to do any kind of tie-dye pieces on the stage for the amps and things in those early years when they were starting at Haight-Nashbury.

2:58:30SpeakerAnd she was partnered with Phil at the time. And of course, she's still, you know, still putting stuff out. But Ruth, I don't, I never did know those. Of course, I knew the names, but I never did meet them. Yeah, Rosie, Rosie's still, she's, she's still around. She's awesome. She's still a good friend. She was like our, also our, our childhood family photographer. Right. My, my, my mom moved to Marin in like 63 or so, and then, then moved to Haight-Ashbury right after that.

2:59:07SpeakerAnd that's after that, that's where my dad and Jonathan Reister became partners in crime. What a great time. Yeah, all kinds of stories growing up about the dead. And my family, we spent time at the ranch and stuff. And my mom used to tell me, I grew up with all kinds of crazy stories. I never really knew the significance of it until growing up later. And then the dead kind of reemerged in the 80s and became this big thing.

2:59:35SpeakerBut yeah. Anyway, it's awesome just hearing your firsthand account because all the stories that I heard from Jonathan, Jonathan was kind of a notorious character and you never knew what was true and what wasn't. The Dead, they were this bigger than life. And one thing I was going to mention earlier when you guys were talking about kind of just the Dead as an industry, it's like, I think they were the first, they weren't just a band, right?

3:00:03SpeakerThey were like a Thank you so much for joining us.

3:00:37SpeakerYeah, we had our own booking agency and a guy that would arrange it for us. But it was Frankie Weir at the time that started Fly By Night Travel. Perfect. Fly By Night. Here today, gone tomorrow. You know, it ran for a year or two. So we were saving a certain amount on the tours, you know, through having our own travel agency. And then it was gone.

3:01:09SpeakerIt was just done. Yeah. There were a lot of little enterprises that started up. We started our own record company that was in the rackout days. And it was Round Records and Grateful Day Records. And there was a number of albums out. There was the Mars Hotel album. There was the Robert Hunter album. There was Keith and Donna. There was a Weir album, Bobby Ace. And there was all these, suddenly there was, you know, a half dozen.

3:01:50SpeakerAnd Started a rack outside of the record company. We were living at the big house that was Crosby's household house at the time. And I went out as the lead promotion man for the South East. And I said, why do I get the Southeast particularly? He said, well, because of your Englishness and the fact that when we got busted down in New Orleans, we hadn't been back since, you know, and they were pissed at us because they felt abandoned.

3:02:26SpeakerSo you're going to start at the High Life Stadium in Florida and work your way up the coast. And you're going to, you know, you are going to open up, you know, the sales and things through radio shows for the band to come in a couple of days behind you. And so that's, that was an interesting gig to overcome all of this sudden angst against, you know, they deserted us, they left us, you know, been everywhere.

3:02:57SpeakerAnd I just, I said, well, they did get, you know, I said,

3:03:03SpeakerIt wasn't very, you know, and they weren't really welcome back, you know, except for the fans. But they're back now, you know, and it worked for me. I smoothed things out and I had a great time doing live radio shows, mostly FM stuff. Back then, of course, you got a car. You got a map and there's no phones or anything like that. So you pull into a city and you go to a phone booth and you open the phone book and check out the major FM stations and then call them up and make appointments, you know, around the mapping it so that you can cover as many as possible in an afternoon and evening and go and, you know, do a show, you know, do a talk show.

3:04:00SpeakerSo met some interesting people. I met a guy with big snakes, a guy with a cheetah.

3:04:12SpeakerI'm in his living room. That guy smells a little gamey in here, you know? And he'd gone off into another room and I go... And I turn around, there's this giant wild cat right there. His head's right there, panting down my throat, down my neck. And a lot of interesting characters that were, you know, radio show hosts. So did these shows and as for the record company, it was quite successful for a while and then realized we didn't have the distribution that we could have with the big labels.

3:04:51SpeakerSo we went back to Warner Brothers or Columbia, who at that time, I can't remember, Warner Brothers. So, and what was, where did we start with that question? What was it?

3:05:08BubblemanWe're just on the long, strange trip, Courtney. You're just taking us on the long, strange trip.

3:05:14SpeakerIt's so good, dude. You also mentioned another band that I think people should know more about, which is an amazing band at the time, and also a friend through Rob Clark, Terry Haggerty with the Sons of Champlain. Yeah, they were great. And also just about Phil as well, the connection with the Sons, Terry Haggerty and Phil and 420. Uh-huh. That's where that all comes from. That's where that comes from.

3:05:48SpeakerWell, my most outstanding experience with Sons was that they said, you want to come out and do, we got, what did they call them? They call them, you know, they were, You go to the top of Mount Tam, they had modified these big old heavy framed bicycles and they would kamikaze down the mountainside and then get a ride back up and do it again. And so I get on this, you know, thing.

3:06:17SpeakerWell, that was the beginning of mountain bikes in the whole world. The very beginning, and suddenly there's the potter, there's the, there's, and I got invited by one of these, there was two guys that had started this company that had the state-of-the-art mountain bikes in anywhere, right there in Marin. And I said, I'm involved, I've got my own thing going, you know, but I, you know, I'd like to keep up with it and go out riding and, but the Sands and Haggerty, they're, you know, they were real, Real true characters that never veered from the path.

3:06:56SpeakerYou know, they're absolutely splendid people. And in those early days, they were just great to hang with. But anyway, that was a little bit of history about the mountain bikes developing right there from them. And...

3:07:16SpeakerAnd, you know, I can't remember why they stopped, you know, being the sons of Champlin. It kind of phased out before the 70s were over, seems like. But, you know, those days, of course, they'd always start open locally for the Grateful Dead, and then the NURPS would do second, and then the Dead would come on later. And so I was doing their stage stuff for each of those bands.

3:07:46SpeakerAnd they were wonderful times. And everybody was still developing, exploring. And we were all young. We were all in our 20s, every one of us at that time. And just splendid. So but yeah. Tell me more about the sons that you, about what you know. Um, yeah, no, Terry Haggard. He's a good friend. Um, and he's still around. He's still amazing guitar player. Um, uh, great grows, amazing cannabis, you know, great breeder.

3:08:29SpeakerHe's still in, he's still out there. Um, but I just thought not a lot of people know the connection with 420 on how this big, how this, this number became a thing with cannabis. And it's because of that small community there and the Waldos, the Waldos who in Marin, right. Who coined that term, the older brother. Went on tour with the band that was formed with Terry on guitar, Phil on bass.

3:09:00SpeakerAnd I want to say Dave Crosby might've been on that too, but it was just a thrown together band. I don't know how many nights they went out, but the older brother of the Waldo was the guy who brought the 420 to the dead through that tour. And that's why we have the 422 this day is because that little Marin County thing And our little community. And then it went right.

3:09:24SpeakerYou know, how did the name 420 arrive? Well, that was supposedly they were looking for a patch and they were going to meet at a certain time of the day. So they they just a small click had that had the number. But then the older brother through his little brothers also knew it associated it with cannabis. And then so they took that on tour with Terry and Phil.

3:09:48SpeakerAnd then that stuck with the dead the rest of the every other tour from then. And that's today why we have. Cool. Cool. That's it.

3:09:59Etienne FontanSimultaneously, we as activists with a group called the Cannabis Action Network, we were out of the Bay Area. And of course, the SEVA Foundation and others had adopted us. And so the dead would invite us to their shows in the Bay. And then so would Jerry for his shows at the Fillmore. And yeah, I got one of the original 420 shirts. And we started sharing that because Cannabis Action Network split it off that summer into the Lollapalooza tour.

3:10:31Etienne FontanAnd then I did the Horde tour, which was Black Crows and everybody else. And this was, you know, 93, 94. So we were spreading the 420 culture throughout the other services. But of course, because Bill Graham Presents put on the Horde tour. So it was a lot of simultaneous family members. And the groundswell just really happened organically again because of the Waldos using that 420 term as an underground situation.

3:11:01Etienne FontanBack in 93, no, spring of 94, I just got finished with the Windy City Weed Fest in Chicago. And I took a train from Chicago to Los Angeles to make my way up to the Bay Area back to the homestead. And I had like four crates of all hemp stuff with me that I had sold that I took with me. And I was... Literally heading out of Grants Park and there was, I realized, oh shit, I'm about to go from Chicago to LA to San Francisco and I've got no weed.

3:11:38Etienne FontanAnd so I hit this woman up as I'm leaving and I'm like, what you got? She's like, weed, weed, weed. She puts out her palm and she's got four grams of the crappiest weed. I took the whole thing. I get to the train.

3:12:03Etienne FontanOddly enough, I get on the conductor puts me on the last seat in the last car. And it's all these African American women on a pilgrimage to San Diego for a Bible convention. And I'm like, Oh, I was sitting there the whole time. They're like, Oh, man, I bet you that Samson guy with his long flowing hair. They were sexually objectifying every, you know, everybody in the Bible all the way along the way.

3:12:31Etienne FontanBut Randomly, like somewhere right before Colorado. I'm wearing that 420 shirt and I'm sitting in the smoking section on the Amtrak. And I'm just kind of sitting there and kind of leaning back because I'm sitting there like, oh my God, I wish I had kind butt. And as that happens, this guy walks by and he stops, he steps back and he points at my shirt and he says, I know what that means.

3:13:01Etienne FontanCome with me. And of course, you know, I tried my best to act as cool and as calm as possible. And I, you know, Get up. I follow him and he goes off and we go off into a baggage car and he proceeds to pull out a little fluffy bag. And of course, if anybody knows, a little fluffy bag usually contains a very nice glass pipe. And that's what he did.

3:13:25Etienne FontanHe produced this beautiful glass pipe. And of course, so I start reaching into my pocket to match. You know, I'm like, sorry, dog. All I got is this, you know, crappy, you know, press stuff. He's like, no, no, no, dog. Only kind, but touches this pipe. Right. Proceeds to pull out this kind Nug, packs the bowl and then proceeds to just get me absolutely higher than a kite.

3:13:48Etienne FontanAnd that was all off of just that 420 shirt. So that was, again, how the underground networking of 420 just constantly seeped its way throughout the United States because we used it, we projected it, and then we educated people on it because everybody's like, well, what does 420 mean? And of course, that's the time we get high. And it just really naturally, organically spread throughout all 50 states and in Canada.

3:14:15Etienne FontanAnd it's just, Yeah, we we bonded with it because the dead had and we again bought that shirt on the dead lot and just spread it. And that's just how it all naturally organically spread throughout the country.

3:14:30Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd that's delightful. That's also the beginning of the Snodgrass. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

3:15:04Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineFirst, you know, sort of accidentally fused silver and gold into the glass and, you know, kind of produced what changed colors once resin went on the inside of it. And Bob's one of the stories I really love about Bob tells us that when he was young, he had a math teacher that says, you know, have you ever heard of the bell curve, Bob? Bob, and he's like, well, as all of humanity, we learn something super slow together, but we'll all teach everyone what we're learning.

3:15:37Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd if we all learn everything at the same time, then we all of a sudden rise really fast in our intellect.

3:15:48Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd becoming more intellectual and being more able to produce better things. So Bob's like, I want to teach everyone so we can all come up together and create like this bell of awareness. So Bob decided he was going to teach anyone that came along how to blow glass, you know, and rather than take it on and privatize it and say, oh, I'm going to make a million dollars on this new technique.

3:16:11Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd he just really loved it. The art of transforming glass and borosilicate into something really magical and started basing out of Eugene, Oregon again, like a lot of the pranksters did and everyone at the time and the Oregon Country Fair, that's where we were all at as well. And started teaching anyone that came and started, you know, teaching at the Degenerate Art and having the art studios and everyone that came by, he would teach them.

3:16:45Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd Bob still to this day is an amazing person with, you know, his son is Bob Snodgrass, his son, his grandson is Bob Snodgrass. There you go. You got a Robert Earl Snodgrass. Is that number three? Does that say Robert Earl Snodgrass? Oh, no, it's the bus, right? It's the bus, yeah. Out of a Volkswagen bus on tour. So when the snotty's rolled up and it was true, it was like the first way to take really like higher grade weed and then not smoke it out of shitty metal, you know, or shitty plastic.

3:17:22Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineYou know, you were taking something that was super high grade and finally had like all these different smells and looks and you were all of a sudden seeing trichomes and crystals and you're like, you know what, I want to experience this on a higher level and then learning about like heating up glass and using hot glass to heat the weed up instead of a lighter so you don't have to have like the butane going in.

3:17:47Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineSo right away in the early 90s, you know, Bob Snodgrass and the Snodgrass, All of our family really inspired all of the glass movement. I know Marcus has a connection with Marble Slinger and a lot of the people that distributed glass across the US and Canada and different places. And they were really important. And it was along the legacy of the Grateful Dead where it was kind of a share culture.

3:18:12Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineBut it was, you know, you were sharing super high grade, really, you know, heady stuff. And, you know, the glass movement was really something special. And, you know, we're blessed to share a grandchild with Bob. So Bob's part of our family. And we have this beautiful granddaughter named Lucia. We're really proud of that, you know, and so we love the Snodgrass family and they still tour around and teach everyone and they do everything from like glass skulls to the traditional, you know, top hat, the bubblers, the dragon, the pipe with the dragon in it where the smoke comes through the dragon and stuff.

3:18:57Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd so it's funny how Eugene kind of keeps coming up, but it was kind of like this kind of Subculture and Mountain Girl and Carolyn, you know, she wrote one of the first cannabis growing books called Primo Plant in 1976. And Primo plant really is something special. And after the California times, a lot of the family did go up to Oregon and on the coast and over in Port Orford and in different places and really kind of connected with the land.

3:19:30Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd I know that's where Mountain Girl finished her book and the Primo plant and just kind of, and her father was a botanist and she was really into plants and everything. We have a lot of love for her and the family. But that book is super influential and super organic. Talking about burying snakes at the bottom of the hole or fish at the bottom of the hole.

3:19:57Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineThere you go. ATN has a top hat. If you had hammer, yeah, the hammer top hat, you know, and that was I mean, if you had a snotty on tour, you were really stoked. And everyone remembers the first time they they broke one, you know, as well. And the marbles. On there. And his grandson, Bob Snodgrass, 1998, is an amazing black glass blower as well. So keep looking for and the Snodgrass family genetics.

3:20:31Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineBobby and Meredith also are still blowing and amazing glass and really still innovating, still blowing like, you know, different Everything from, you know, star, you know, different things that come from the sky, meteorites, uranium, all kinds of different things that glow, you know. Moldavite. Exactly, moldavite, that's it. And then also, like, I think it's like some of the uranium type things, which is weird because it's radiated and stuff, but glows when you put a black light to it.

3:21:08Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineSo you take one piece and you look at it and then you take the black light to it, bam, it's a whole different set of colors. And there's some really beautiful marbles that come from that and stuff. So, yeah, I mean, it's a lot of the world that we have here does have roots in that counterculture, which really the Grateful Dead held that. And it was a big part of our inspiration.

3:21:30Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineWe're always so respectful to our elders and People like Courtney and even Nikki Scully was from Eugene and did all of her stuff out of Eugene. And she created a space, a country fair called Altered Space, which was an altar, which had different deities and different things from all over the world and continued to take people on tours to Egypt. Which is really special. And there are, as I know, Indigo out of Eugene still does a lot of tours, or at least who knows if they still do them.

3:22:01Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineBut those tours kept going, Courtney. A lot of people. Yeah.

3:22:11SpeakerI spent a lot of time with Nikki at the Pyramids, and it was right after that experience, of course, that she changed her life and started doing power tours to the power centers of the planet. Machu Picchu, of course, and the Great Wall of China, but the Pyramid was definitely a regular experience. And I remember the first time I took Nicky up to the top of the pyramid because I had a good safe route up.

3:22:46SpeakerAnd we get to the top and right at the very moment that we get to the top of the pyramid, coming up from the other side, It was a friend of both of ours, no, actually a friend of mine, and I introduced the two of them, and they partnered up with the power tours and importing things from that moment on. It was quite another cosmic moment. This gal living in Marin, And she had come on her own recognizance to the Pyramids, you know, to be with, you know, as experienced as they did playing at the Pyramid, and just arrived at the top of the Pyramid from a completely other route, dangerous route, actually, at the moment that we got to the top.

3:23:41SpeakerAnd, of course, they just, you know, just... Hit it off immediately and became great friends. And out of that is when the Power Tours started with Nicky.

3:23:56Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineSo that's really cool. And Sunshine Kesey is a good friend of ours. She talks about being at Egypt in 1978 and she was 12 years old. One of the few kids, you know, that were kind of really on the tour and cruising around and stuff. And she just had so many good experiences. I won't bother like telling what her experiences are because it's best coming from her.

3:24:20Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineBut You know, she had just an amazing time, you know, walking around Cairo and the pyramids and then seeing like that show was, you know, something special. And, you know, I know that was a really influential time for a lot of people. And I think that spirit of kind of spirituality, you know, meets, you Thank you so much for joining us.

3:25:02Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineThat type of resonance that really inspired us to really continue what we're doing, which is just create super interesting gardens, go beyond straight lines, create curves, bring art into your life, make it magical because life can be really mundane. And if you don't have like some sort of magic around you or some kind of You know, intention or something, you know, it doesn't have the same kind of significance.

3:25:30Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineSo, you know, it's, it's, it's a past time, but it's also a present time. And it's, it's maybe a spirit, the spirit of things, you know, that we, we continue and move forward. And I think we need those kind of times more than ever right now. So I'm appreciative. I'm appreciative to hear about the that's that spirit of just, you know, You know, really live in life, you know, and not being sort of bound down by, you know, the whatever is out there, which dulls you, you know, and I and I love the sharpness of just feeling free, you know, wild and free, growing, feeling healthy.

3:26:10Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineI also like that you are a marathon runner. And I love that health and well being. You know, kind of touch where you're, you know what, we're out here to feel good. We're out here to live a long life, try and be as healthy as possible, have a blast, try and create some interesting companies that we can create some fun products that benefit the earth and humanity.

3:26:30Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd I mean that, I think that's the positive side of everything that we learned from the movement, you know, and I think that's what we want to continue moving forward with.

3:26:40SpeakerAbsolutely. Life is an art form.

3:26:46SpeakerAnd every day is special. And every day we create. And, you know, it's tragic when people get caught in the mundane and in their Daily woes and toil. But just to remember that, you know, this is, we have, every moment is a gift and life is the greatest gift of all. And that we aspire to create more and better. It's wonderful that you young folks are still carrying the torch forward and, you know, doing more and better.

3:27:29SpeakerSo that's great. Thank you.

3:27:36BubblemanWell, I appreciate all the stories today for sure. We still have a half an hour. I want to say hi to Brian. I know he hasn't been able to chime in yet. If you wanted to say what's up, buddy, I know you're just kind of getting better from feeling a little down with some virus or something, but hopefully you're feeling better.

3:27:55SpeakerYeah, just coming back around almost all the way through it. I'm just happy to listen to the stories here. Definitely a huge part of my life and that pulls me into the Grateful Dead and the culture is the keeping alive of the folklore and the tradition to storytelling. So this is kind of like right in the act of that love for the culture that's the folk, you know, for the folk and the storytelling side.

3:28:23SpeakerAnd myself with Phil. Phil is like a father in this where, you know, my days started later on in the, in, you know, seeing The Grateful Dead and seeing shows where Phil was actually, you know, post Jerry, I went to California in 95 just after a week after Jerry passed. And I guess it was, I would say the impact that that had on me, even though it was just as I was just hearing them through my parents, you know, Thanks for watching.

3:29:13SpeakerAnd therefore it was kind of Phil was the man, Phil was the father. So just really happy to be part of this, to listen to the folklore and the stories that are getting told today. Thanks for having me.

3:29:26BubblemanYeah, sorry for sneezing right when you were talking. That was my bad. I had smelled some really nice hash and it kind of tickled my nose. I was like, no, I'll be fine. And then as I was about to sneeze, I was like, I bet you my mic's not muted right now.

3:29:41Etienne FontanJohnny B, mute your mic, Johnny B. Right? You're pulling a Johnny B there. Out the gate there, bud.

3:29:49BubblemanDude, I'm happy to pull a Johnny B. He's fucking awesome.

3:29:53Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineWe got to see Phil Lash at the Country Fair during the 50-year anniversary. And it was a really special show because it was a Friday night show. They played a night show at the fair, at the main stage. And it just was like a really special time when it just felt like people from all ages from all eras people were that were there from the first show to the to the last show um and phil had like his family i think his sons or whatever playing with them and it was just so and you can listen to it online um it was just super spirited really fun it was a super awesome different take on on dead songs and playing them and phil just really so good all the way up until the end of his style of playing and the way that he would just Thank you so much for joining us.

3:31:06Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineHey, while there's a downtime, I want to give a shout out to our friend Wade.

3:31:36Etienne FontanOur friend Wade is on with us and he's going of course through his cancer treatment and all of that. So I've just posted the GoFundMe in the YouTube. So if anybody has anything you can spare, life is hard enough with cancer. And of course the cost of expenses here in the United States is absolutely terrible. So I'm going to take this time to do a plug for Wonderful Wade Laughter, who is a Vietnam veteran and one of our friends in the groups of the Veterans Action Council.

3:32:08Etienne FontanOf course, we know all of you hash churchers love Wade too. So I want to hear from Wade and say hi to him. But I also want to remind everybody to please, if you have $5, $1, whatever you can contribute to share to that GoFundMe.

3:32:24BubblemanI've also pinned that GoFundMe to the top of the chat.

3:32:28Etienne FontanGood. Thank you.

3:32:31SpeakerDid anybody else see Phil and Friends shows? You mentioned the Oregon Country Fair. I was there. We haven't talked about that. We talked a lot about The Grateful Dead, but what Phil did in the whatever, 30 years since then with his Phil and Friends and bringing in a different ensemble for virtually every show. It was absolutely a remarkable way to continue the musical exploration and experiment that the Grateful Dead were.

3:33:02SpeakerYou know, Dead and Company, you know, largely are playing within the same, almost a cover band. I know that they're good and so on, but Phil was absolutely continuing the experiments that The experimental music that the dead were and continued that until, you know, this year. And does anybody have any thoughts or stories about seeing Phil and friends in the last 20 years?

3:33:34SpeakerThey were an incredible ensemble.

3:33:38BubblemanI sure loved the bootlegs with Trey and Mike. What was it at the Fillmore?

3:33:45SpeakerYeah, that was in 99 at the Warfield.

3:33:48BubblemanThose were mental. Those were actually some of my favorite bootlegs, period, ever.

3:33:54SpeakerYeah, that was in April of 99.

3:33:56BubblemanThat was some magical music.

3:33:58SpeakerYeah, you're absolutely right, Brian. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I was really, you know, a Garcia guy through and through. And so when Jerry checked out, it was like almost a difficult thing to kind of think that someone else is playing in his position in that band. And, you know, I think we all have our favorite Jerry kind of clones. I mean, Trey just brings an incredible energy all unto himself and certainly came through the Grateful Dead portal in his learning of music.

3:34:39SpeakerAs is many players these days, I think, again, I think Jerry affected just what he did to live music and what he did to his guitar affected everyone that came after him. But to speak specifically to Phil and friends, you know, I think that like for a lot of us, you know, and again, I guess you'd call me a purist, like one of the things I didn't like about like Like, uh, Phil and Bobby singing songs that, that Jerry sang.

3:35:10SpeakerAnd that was like, it, it, it didn't, you know, immediately like. Like affect me in some ways. Like I, I remember, and I'm looking at a picture right now from, from 1983 and seeing Jerry just put his all into a Black Peter that just was just so powerful. I mean, Black Peter was a song about death. It was a song about, you know, just experiencing death and it was so.

3:35:41SpeakerPowerfully delivered, right? Brian, I mean, Black Peter to me was like one of the songs that, and when I hear Bobby sing it, It's just, it's just not there for me, right? Or like Phil, you know, for years we were in the audience, remember during the Brent years, let Phil sing, we want Phil, we want Phil, right? And then finally he got a mic, I think in what, the end of 85 and in 86, he brought back Box of Rain and, you know, Tom Thumb's Blues and all that stuff.

3:36:10SpeakerSo it was good to hear Phil sing Phil's songs, but let's face it, Phil just didn't have, The delivery that Jerry did like on a terrapin station or on something like that. But you're talking, you're vocally, vocally, man. Garcia was absolutely unique and I think should be in, you know, top 10, you know, rock music vocalists of all time in terms of his soul. But the playing, what Phil did.

3:36:37SpeakerSpecifically, in terms of like, you know, when somebody dies in a famous rock band, and somebody, you know, they form another band, and then it's the same band that they then take for years and years on the road and so on. Bill, Did something that no, and this is supposed to be a Phil tribute show. He did something that no other musician, and please anybody throw in a suggestion if I'm wrong about this, but no other musician in music history, and I mean classical, jazz, anything, Thank you so much for joining us.

3:37:30SpeakerAnd I think that's one of his greatest legacies that, you know, Weir has talked about, you know, that sort of the vision he had of being up above what is Dead & Company now and when he's dead and seeing them all continuing the thing. And that's great. But that was like five or six musicians he's got in Dead & Company. What Phil Lesh did was... Incorporated all of the, like literally over a hundred musicians came and played with him under his tutelage, under how he understood music, meaning under how the Grateful Dead understood music and trained them and taught them from Holly Bowling to Stu Allen to you name it, Jason Crosby.

3:38:11SpeakerAnd You know, imbued them with the firsthand knowledge of how the Grateful Dead create music. And no other, you think of any other rock band or even jazz, nobody, Louis Armstrong didn't do this, Dizzy didn't do this, where they put a different ensemble together virtually every show they played. And he did this for however many years that was, 25 years. And so all of these musicians are out in the world now who have played with one of the two genius composers of the Grateful Dead.

3:38:50SpeakerYou know, Jerry had all his bands, but how many people were in all of his bands? You add them up over over all of the years he had the Jerry band. Was it going to be 20, 30 musicians? What Phil Lesh did and continued to do with that inclusive approach to music to include all of these different musicians who he knew were top level players, I think that's going to turn out to be one of the great legacies of, you know, certainly Phil Lesh's greatest legacy and ergo the Grateful Dead's.

3:39:24Collin PalmerYeah, I think you're saying that in a beautiful way because, you know, I understand, Mark, where you're coming from, but, you know, I didn't get the chance to live through the 80s and watch a decade of the dead. You know, I got the very tail end, went in one summer of the dead. And, you know, for me, but from a musical point of view, I really appreciated the other ones.

3:39:46Collin PalmerI appreciated... Their influence on me as a young musician, it allowed me to get the sense of exactly what you're talking about, Brian. And then Phil, Phil Leshin, friend, same thing. I would go around and try to listen to every show. I used, my friends, I used to count how many shows Phil would play throughout every year and aspire to try to play that many shows. You know what I mean?

3:40:06Collin PalmerBecause it was, it was that important to us to be Playing music in the way that he was influencing us and we were that into it. It just made a lot of sense. But what reminds me of what Phil's doing as much what Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock and a lot of those players did where they had a lot of session players that were really close to them and their family and they brought them and created their, really lifted their careers up.

3:40:33Collin PalmerLike Steve Kimmock, You know, it's a good example of that. You know, he came through that. And I used to, you know, I don't know. It's it makes a lot of sense for me. But I understand where Mark's point of view is, where it's hard to listen to another player fill in the shoes of a player's voice, so to speak, in this case, and, you know, not deliver that same delivery.

3:40:56SpeakerBut to me, it's it's it was it was about being born at the right time. And I think, yeah, uh dave was saying earlier he he grew up in uh what outside philadelphia yeah i grew up in northern new jersey and yeah it was easy to commute to see the grateful dead and if you i graduated high school in 1981 i mean my gosh i just think about that whole year of 1981 there were like three east coast tours i mean and and they were playing college venues And I don't know, when I go back and I listen to it, It was so fucking good.

3:41:38SpeakerIt was so good. And like Brent's formative years in the band, like, you know, 79, 80, you know, Brian, Radio City. I was there at the Capitol Theater in Passaic the night that Belushi came out. John Belushi did Somersaults, came out, and then with a bottle of Jack, you know, was singing, you know, U.S. blues. Man, it was just, it was such a magical time in American culture.

3:42:09SpeakerI mean, the not ready for prime time players were all around those radio city halls, gigs. I remember seeing Al Franken and Tom Davis there. And I remember seeing Lorne Michaels and the whole, I mean, there was just a culture that was around at that time. And to me, it's like the Grateful Dead were kind of like the survivors from the 60s. Like there must have been something in the Kool-Aid, right, Courtney?

3:42:39SpeakerSomething preserved these hippies through the 70s where shit just crashed. And now here we are in the 1980s and the Grateful Dead had this tremendous songbook. I mean, think about the songs. I mean, my gosh. Look at their creativity in between the 1968 and like 1980 or something like that. I mean, these are and Robert Hunter and John Perry Barlow were just magically crafted the English language into the music of our life.

3:43:17SpeakerYou know, I mean, anybody who knows me knows how much I love to I listen to Grateful Dead music every day of my life, every day. I listen to Grateful Dead. And my wife thinks that sometimes, like, how could you just keep on listening to the same? It's like, no, I find different things in the live recordings. And there's so much of a rich treasure. And then I think about, OK, well, let's see, dead in companies playing the sphere and plane tickets are going to be this and hotels going to be.

3:43:50SpeakerYou know what? I'd rather take that money, Brian. And go to Jazz Fest next year and see 10 bands I've never seen before. Hold on, Mark. You're going back to 1980 and stuff and the dead and stuff. And just to conclude this tribute to Phil show, like do not go and see Phil. And did anybody here speak to the Phil and Friends continuing the experiment that the Dead and Company are kind of playing the songs and as good as Maren, O'Teal, and all of that is, Phil was really just musically, forget the vocals, I understand nobody can sing a Jerry song like Jerry did, but the way Phil musically was taking the ensembles that he was putting together every night, I felt...

3:44:41SpeakerUnquestionably, he was the one guy who was actually taking the music and stretching it and exploring it and expanding it like none of the other members of the band have done since he died. He and Jerry were the two musical geniuses. I mean, savants in that band. And, you know, one of them, Bob, went on and formed a kind of a, and I don't mean this really in a disrespectful way, a cover band.

3:45:11SpeakerThey were playing the Grateful Dead stuff the way the Grateful Dead played it largely. But Phil was taking, and this is a Phil show, he, this is really important, for the last 25 or more years, he was taking the music and really stretching it. You guys, we spoke of Dark Star earlier. He was really musically stretching it and allowing other musicians We're going to master a class musicians to play in that ensemble and to take that music under his tutelage, under his conductorship, you know, Leonard Bernstein of in teaching them and allowing them and to And I think that's, I think that's the most important part of his legacy that he, you know, like, like you want to take the other ones, the other ones, the dead, all the different ensembles they had.

3:46:12SpeakerYou know, you can add up all those musicians that might be 20 people that played in all those bands. What Phil Lesh did, he trained like literally a hundred or more musicians that all learned what he was doing and are taking that out into the world. And not only did nobody else in the dead do that, I don't think anybody else did that in any in any genre, jazz or folk or rock musician.

3:46:37SpeakerAnd so I think that's the thing that's going to live on the longest of what anybody did post-1995. Good. Well said.

3:46:51SpeakerYes, I agree. I mean, Brian, that's why we have you on today, because we love your perspective, and you're absolutely spot on correct. I can't disagree with anything you just said.

3:47:03Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAbsolutely. I would agree with that as well. I would also give love to John Cullen, you know, which is like Jerry's other bass player for all of his, every single... You know, solo band that Jerry did, including bluegrass, acoustic, all that, including Jerry band, everything. John Kahn was his guy. And so there was something really special about maybe those two archetypes within Jerry's life. I feel like we're super influential because really, John Kahn died pretty close after Jerry did.

3:47:38Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineYou know, but I do believe that Phil had the quality, you know, within the jam that really shined through and it wasn't really about sort of the flash of the way that the song was written or whatever. It was more like the roots of it. I think Billy Kreutzman had some really amazing Thank you. Thank you.

3:48:19Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd I think that was the kind of heartbeat of the culture, which was like the drum circle. But it was the funnest times ever when Phil would play through drums. Sometimes Phil would play through drums and space and just like go on that super windy. But I think like the dead were never into distortion. And I think Jerry and Phil were just really about like super clear channeled, clear notes.

3:48:45Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd that's like the way that I really felt like seeing that last show for us in the 50 year anniversary of Country Fair really was kind of like, oh, well, this is what I would hope would happen to like the dead music, that it wasn't just a cover band. It was like there was an essence to the music and then being surrounded by all of those like people and the spinners and the dancers and was like there was like a kind of I don't even, you know, we don't even, Dave and us, and we don't even go to the country fair anymore.

3:49:19Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd it was kind of like a pastime for us in this moment. So it kind of hit us at a time. And there was like going to Bonnaroo and seeing Phil and friends with 100,000 people around with the massive big stage, you know, sound was pretty sweet because most of my stuff was on the West Coast. So yeah. Seeing like the crazy 100,000 person venue type thing at Bonnaroo was pretty special.

3:49:46Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineAnd then Phil and friends coming up and doing that. But it's amazing that he had that kind of influence, Phil did. And to be able to bring that many people together is like, it is something a jazz musician would do. Like jazz music, the whole thing about a jazz bar is just come up every song, you know what I mean? And new drummer, let's do that, you know?

3:50:07Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineNew keyboard player and I love that spirit and I would also just add that some of the really coolest shows that after Brent died are when Branford Marsalis and Bruce Hornsby played together with the dead and there was like super quality jamming and in some cases Vince, I think probably Vince's best playing was when he was with Bruce. And of course, we wish Bruce would have been the choice for a keyboard player because that would have progressed the music that I think that us as music lovers would have liked to have seen, you know, Vince filled in like an odd vibe kind of, you know, but, um,

3:50:49SpeakerI tell you what, for those of us who were there and lucky enough to see it, I know Brian would agree. Jerry and Brent had incredible chemistry on stage. Like, I had seen Keith play with With the band saw Keith actually play with Jerry Garcia band. Keith never. I mean, there was and I don't and I saw a bunch of Vince shows, too. And I don't think that Vince ever had that chemistry with Jerry.

3:51:19SpeakerRight, Brian. But but. But hold on. A, I want to keep this unfilled, but B, what you're saying, it wasn't Vince, it was Hornsby. How Jerry loved Bruce Hornsby. And those times when he would step over to the outcut in the grand piano and play to Hornsby, and he and they, for that 18 months that they were in the band together, I think Hornsby was... You know, at least during that time, Hornsby, who is also a musical savant, you know, Garcia suddenly had this guy who had ideas in the moment, in the split second improvisation of music.

3:52:04SpeakerAnd you could see when Jerry would turn to go over to Hornsby and sort of walk up to that, you know, the cut in the piano and play to Hornsby. Like to me, you know, I saw them for 15 years from 80 to 95. And, um,

3:52:22SpeakerTo me, that was just the most, I don't know, electric beauty, like the smile on Jerry's face that he had this new guy that was just so... You know, you know, Coltrane level improvisational on the grand piano that he had that guy to play with. Do you, do you not, you know, what do you think about that? So in, in, in summer 88, summer tour 88, Hornsby warmed, Hornsby and the range warmed up.

3:52:54SpeakerThank you so much for joining us.

3:53:09SpeakerI want to say it was a place in Ohio. It was Buckeye Lake. Yeah. So Hornsby would come out, you know, and all they would give him would the squeeze box, you know, and for sugar, he would come out and play the squeeze box. And it's like, give that boy a grand piano. And so I remember at RFK in 92. Thinking, man, can't they just go to your local, you know, piano store and get this guy a piano?

3:53:35SpeakerThey got him up there with the squeeze box. But even with the squeeze box, right, Brian? I mean, you're right. Hornsby had a certain musicality that immediately made the connection with Jerry, right? And I don't think that was ever there with Vince. And so you're absolutely right. When you had Vince And Hornsby there. But imagine being Vince, man, being, oh my God, wait, you guys, you just hire me.

3:54:04SpeakerNow you bring in this big guy. And Hornsby had a couple hits, right? He was doing his own, he was doing his own thing. And I'm sure it must've been, you know, really, I mean, it was just, we saw-

3:54:20Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineOrnate Coleman, you know, a really amazing jazz.

3:54:24SpeakerYeah, that was 93.

3:54:25Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineYeah, that was also just kind of like a lot of the hippies are just like, whoa, what's up with Ornate Coleman? And you just get into this crazy, amazing fusion world and everything. And the Chinese New Year shows, Mardi Gras shows were super fun. Yeah, just those shows, you know, were also really fun, you know, during those times when they would kind of go into like big jams and have parades going through.

3:54:56SpeakerOh, yeah. Well, Bill Graham loved that spectacle, the Chinese New Year's and all the New Year's, you know, coming in on a big joint or, you know, being father time. I mean, the spectacle of that was always incredible to behold. But, you know, just to go back to what we were talking about with Phil and Phil and friends, you know, I can totally relate, Brian, because, you know, I know a couple of those.

3:55:23SpeakerI know Rob Bracco. I know Stu, you know, and yeah, the time that they spent in that thing has completely changed them. It kind of like wiped out preconceived notions of how this music is played to, oh no, this is how you play it when you play it with Phil. And when you play it with Phil, you're playing it All right, let's get back to the show.

3:56:03SpeakerFor adopting his melodic runs and kind of like, I guess the counterbalance of Jerry's melody and the way Jerry would play melody against the, you know, the harmony or the, I'm sorry, the melody of the song, way his lead would be like a second verse or a third verse. Phil credited Jack Cassidy, which I never really knew, but I guess Jack is kind of credited of creating that style of playing bass.

3:56:32Josh Dragonfly Earth MedicineThat's really cool because Jorma Kalkinen and Jack Cassidy have continued to play all the years as Hot Tuna. And Hot Tuna is a really cool duo. And the way that they interact because they were in Jefferson Airplane and then they started, kept going. And Jorma Kalkinen plays such interesting chord progressions. And very unique styles.

3:56:58SpeakerAnd the two of us are a student of Reverend Gary Davis. He's a Reverend Gary Davis ragtime guitarist. That's how I would describe Yorma. Right. Absolutely. Yes. So cool. And just when you're speaking of speaking of the basses, I was just reading recently since Bill passed it like. Bill like invented and designed the five string bass for Alembic and then the six string bass and had them custom built for him that and as I recall my history and is that um nobody in rock and roll for sure was playing a five string bass until Phil Lesh did and then nobody was playing a six string bass until Phil Lesh was so he the guy was So hugely instrumental in not just the evolution of the instrument, but in the evolution of the role of the instrument in popular music.

3:57:59SpeakerAnd I just think, you know, when we're having this discussion about Phil today, Those are just fundamental facts of history that are going to go on forever. And yes, I totally, nobody could sing a Jerry song like Jerry. And I have since grown an even greater appreciation for his vocal styles when you hear people who knew him well try to sing his songs. And even Phil and Bob can't do that remotely within like...

3:58:30SpeakerA hundred miles of how he could soulfully deliver a song. But how Bill Lesh innovated the bass in electric music in the last 50-something years, that is going to be his legacy. That he transformed the bass from a rhythm instrument into a lead instrument. And that's, I just, it's fundamental. We haven't really talked about that much today, but... So I want to get that in there that this guy changed an instrument, just as the Grateful Dead invented jam bands, a whole genre of music.

3:59:06SpeakerBill Lesh changed bass playing forever. And that's, we need to get that in there.

3:59:13Collin PalmerHe invented melodic bass playing. Let's just say that that's definitive. Like there's no arguments at all. And also one thing you guys were saying with Bruce Hornsby, that's why he was such a good fit. It's because he's a melodic player and melodic players fit with root players like Phil that is a melodic root player that holds and locks down the room. It's the kick drum and the bass that holds the room down.

3:59:37Collin Palmerright so that's you know he controlled whether we all understand it or not every move throughout the night and it's through his melodic ability and his understanding of of really just not just his own instrument but other instruments which allowed him to play and intertwine with you know bobby's playing Which is another amazing thing, you know, which how many inversions he learned to be able to play every note, all the different ways you can play a single note, which is really unique because how Phil played, it would really match, you know, and they would really interplay off of one another.

4:00:16Collin PalmerIn that melodic playing, there's really no other bass player I can name that's as definitively melodic. I don't know why.

4:00:26Etienne FontanWell, I guess at the time, I mean, jazz wise, you would think of Jocko, you know, but Jocko was his own jazz thing, where as opposed to Phil was taking a song and because of his musicianship, dancing along through it, where, of course, Jocko was really following it. But I can confirm as a bass player, 40 years. Yeah, there was no fives. There were no sixes. Olympic is still the, you know, its own stratosphere because of Phil and the Their ability to work together and to their longstanding relationship.

4:01:03Etienne FontanI mean, you look at the old Olympic base, I said the other day, and look at the one with all the knobs and switches on it. And it looks like pure, absolute chaos. And it sort of is. However, now it's pure control in a way that now my buttons pull up three, so I don't have to have three different buttons all over the way. So the technology that has grown is now across all bases, including the fours, the fives, the sixes, the sevens, et cetera, because of their ability to sonically push things at a level that it challenged The makers to be able to match their creatively, sonically, technically, and that availability to push music to a whole other level, then opened up that whole kaleidoscope for a whole series of musicians, you know, jazz and otherwise have absolutely ridden that coattails and Taking it to another stratosphere now, right?

4:02:05Etienne FontanI mean, now you've got like 19 string basses that, you know, are completely obnoxious and stuff like that. But musically, what he was able to consistently do and weave and challenge himself is not something you usually see it with such an established musician as himself. That's out in the spotlight playing live all the time. They stick to their classics. They don't usually free range, you know, the Allman Brothers and And then later on, what was Blues Traveler, John Hopper would come in and play, etc.

4:02:40Etienne FontanAnd just the sonic creations they were able to uniquely prescribe. Brian, I think you nailed it on the head is what, you know, Phil was so adept at was selecting and choosing such choice musicians that every night it was so unique that. You could record everyone and hear the same song and every song every night would be a different length, tone, sound, groove, et cetera. And that is a technical ability that very few musicians have had.

4:03:11SpeakerAnd nobody that nobody took that public, man. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

4:03:32SpeakerIt did like again, studying music, man, like we've got rock and roll, whatever you want to go back to 55 or 45, like all of the great ensembles, all of the great musicians throughout all of history. I mean, again, all of the great band leaders that that are that are historic and and changed music themselves, Louis Armstrong and everybody else. They didn't go out night after night with a different ensemble.

4:03:58SpeakerThey picked some great cats and then they took it out. Miles Davis, Hot Five and all the rest. This guy went out there, he'd do six nights at the Capitol Theater and play with six different ensembles, like in front of a paying audience of 3,000 people. Nobody, please, anybody, I've been looking for this for years. Anybody, correct me if I'm wrong, I can't find a musician in any genre who ever did anything remotely like that.

4:04:25SpeakerAnd so part of the reason why that can happen, Brian, Thank you for joining us.

4:04:50SpeakerAnd I played Grateful Dead music with a group of people that had never played together in front of an audience. But what brought us into that room is we all know the songbook, right? We know these songs. Those of us who play Grateful Dead music, it's part of what runs through the blood of our veins. And it's just, it's so cool that Phil can do that because people have learned that genre and it really, it deserved its own XM channel.

4:05:23SpeakerIt really deserves its own record band. I mean, you were saying before they didn't even have a label for the You know, all of the Grateful Dead music, including Jerry Garcia Band, Old and in the Way, Kingfish, and then all these other new projects that have come up ever since, I mean, deserves its own category. And like we said, just about Grateful Dead cover, I mean, it's just so wonderful when musicians, maybe without the rehearsal required, To play in front of an audience can get together that night spontaneously and do an interpretation of these songs that we've listened to forever, right?

4:06:08Collin PalmerCompletely new. What's really funny is like, you know, as a young musician, I was like, drilled in my head, you got to learn the real book, the real books, everything you got to learn. And the real book is exactly what you're saying, but the real book of the Grateful Dead. And you know what I mean? And it's really funny, because like, it's so real, in such an awesome way.

4:06:29Collin PalmerI, you know, wanted to say one thing you were saying about the about Phil, it's, you know, the listeners should understand that it is A six string bass allows you to have an extra low B string, an extra high C string. What that really allows you to do is gives you this superpower as a musician to play things that weren't meant for the bass at all. And you can go far beyond what the base is meant to do.

4:06:53Collin PalmerAnd that that as we're sitting here talking, I had this epiphany. I was like, oh, my gosh, that's so crazy because I was just listening to the other one the other day and he was doing things. Bill was literally doing these runs on his base that I was like, how is he doing this on his base? Because it's not technically something you play on a base. And it just all clicked at this moment.

4:07:12Collin PalmerSo that that pushing his own ability and his instruments and his tools, so to speak, and his tool belt allowed that to happen for us. And that's really unique. You know, Brian, that's I didn't realize that he was so involved in creating his his I knew I know all about his gear. But I didn't realize he was, you know, like Trey, sitting down with his maker, trying to get different tonality, different frequency ranges, so he could go out and have his sonic power.

4:07:44Collin PalmerYou know, that's really unique.

4:07:46SpeakerIt's really cool. Let's call this podcast episode Sonic Power.

4:07:53Collin PalmerYeah, I mean, that's a true fill.

4:07:58BubblemanAbsolutely. Listen, I was, we're getting towards the end. I don't mind going a little bit over because I kind of wanted to finish it with maybe one more story from Courtney about Phil, you know, a specific Phil engagement or experience that you had with him or, you know, really, really anything in the Phil department.

4:08:20SpeakerRight. My best times with Phil, of course, was in Marin County. And there was a bar right by the sleeping lady in Fairfax. He lived nearby there. And for a while I lived in that little hamlet. And we'd meet up at the bar. He'd like to just hang out with the natives, so to speak, you know, the local folks. And just, you know, be... Be in the mix with the regular people.

4:08:56SpeakerHe never went off into that pitfall of big ego or stardom or any of that stuff. He was always just the regular man quietly doing his extraordinary stuff.

4:09:20SpeakerI do remember that I had this lovely Mercedes. It was just such a great car. And he had this young girlfriend that was just, I said, let her drive. We'll just like, you know, Go roaming throughout the county and just shoot the shit. And just free rolling and chatting about everything. And it always kind of came down to acoustics, resonance, and the way the sound moves through your body.

4:09:58SpeakerAnd, you know, of course it can be It can be a weapon, but it can also be glorious. And he was always right. You play along that edge of experimentation to have big sound that really moves you without it being disruptive to the body, to the body cells.

4:10:28SpeakerThat was one of the most outstanding things that I remember. I mean, since he's been filling friends, I've been kind of outcast from the United States and from my, somebody fingered me for growing indoors and I ended up having to do time and then ended back in Canada because I was, I was kicked out of the United States. So I didn't get to see Phil and Friends, which I'd love to have done, you know, because I so appreciate everything you've all said about, you know, that his extraordinary uniqueness and addition to music.

4:11:14SpeakerBut I just honor and cherish the times that I have had with him, apart from concerts, of course. And, you know, he's truly unique and wonderful and honorable person. And thank you.

4:11:34BubblemanAwesome. Well, thank you for sharing, Courtney. And thanks for coming on today and just telling your stories and giving your perspective. It was definitely very awesome. Appreciate you as well, Brian, for coming on and sharing your vast knowledge of the dead and all things fill and your passion. I can taste it. It's palpable. It's awesome. So appreciate that. Really, thanks, everyone. Thanks, Dragonfly Earth Medicine and Mojave and Dr. Mark and Etienne and Colin and Michael, who we didn't actually get to hear from, or Brian.

4:12:06BubblemanWade, if you want to finish off, we're going to get the last sentence of the show or paragraph or page or whatever you want to say, because we... We got mad love for you, Wade, and we appreciate you. So, yeah, we'll let Wade finish it off. And I'll just say now, may the full melt bless your bowl sooner than later, everyone, while you're listening to a tasty Dark Star with Phil dropping the bomb.

4:12:33BubblemanGo ahead, Wade.

4:12:38SpeakerWhat a wonderful stroll down memory lane. All those references to San Francisco and to Eugene, Oregon. I, uh, It's funny, I never got deeply involved with the Grateful Dead. I did get to know the Family Dog and Chet Helms and some of the shows that they did. The Sons of Champlain, for example, was one of the last music shows I saw down in San Francisco years ago.

4:13:13SpeakerAnd yeah, I'm doing actually pretty good. Again, Bodies, not a lot of fun, but heart and soul, especially today, feels very inspired by all of the memories and the beautiful people being described. So thank you, Marcus, for bringing this all together and blessed be to all of you. Have a great weekend.

4:13:41BubblemanLove you, Wade. Peace out, everybody. Much love. Thanks so much. Be in touch via email. Appreciate you all.