13

GETTING OLDER

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Will Sims

Waverly, Alabama

We went to Deer Creek, Indiana, in 1995. Deer Creek was a super cool fun place to see the Grateful Dead. We didn’t know the whole thing was all about to end. It was the year that everyone stormed the place because there were too many people outside, and they didn’t play the second night. I was at that one, and that was my last show.

We’re high as hell, they played “Throwing Stones,” and I remember looking at my buddy and saying, “Dude, they just played that song instrumental.” I totally didn’t hear the words, right? But I could see the blue ball spinning crazy on top of the stage. I was totally fucking in the music. I was not in the lyrics. It was like they had done an instrumental. In the first set, I was so high, I thought “Throwing Stones” was completely instrumental.

After that, I was just frying. I realized that they were probably singing, and then I started coming back around. I was really having a good time. They played a long first set and came out after the break and played the second set. But people stormed the walls, and they shut it down and didn’t play the next night. That was the last time I ever saw the Grateful Dead play.

The night before Jerry died, I’d been up all night planning our fall tour. I was living at my parents’ house, and my mother woke me up. She’s crying her eyes out. She didn’t want to wake me up to tell me that Jerry had died. I’ll never forget seeing her eyes. It’s safe to say she wished she could’ve seen the Dead. She has this huge special place in her heart for the band. She loves Jerry. Anyway, I remember her waking me up that morning—it was like her own mother had died, you know? She was so sad. I said, “What’s wrong?” and we sat there and cried together on the couch.

We just balled. She was so sad because she knew how much it meant to me, and it meant a lot to her. I mean, she really appreciated—she saw what it did to me. She saw how it changed me in a positive way. You’re probably not going to find a lot of parents who say that about the Grateful Dead. It really did change me; she totally got it, and she totally understood what an amazing, positive experience it was in my life—and that’s what it was. I mean, yes, it led me down some rabbit holes that some people would rather not go down with the drugs and stuff, but she understood that it was overall a positive thing. I think she cried more than I did when Jerry died.

The Dead still run my life. I live next door to this little music venue in a town of 120, and we have this really cool music venue. I was over there once, and one of our local really great musicians sat down and said, “What kind of music you been listening to lately?” We were about halfway through a show and standing outside having a smoke. I said, “The Grateful Dead.” And he just started laughing! I told him to come over and listen to some Grateful Dead with me.

I’m kind of an audiophile, and my stereo sounds good. I put one from the Vault on the record player, and we just were in there dancing and listening and loving it. That’s the thing: no one is making this music anymore, man. It’s fucking gone. I shifted to the Panic after the Dead—I mean, I was listening to them while I was listening to the Dead, but it’s not the same thing. The Dead are just irreplaceable, and it’s not coming back. It’s a beautiful moment in time that we’re not ever gonna fucking get back. And I so appreciate it.

Stanley Mouse

Poster artist extraordinaire

In the 1960s, there was a great spirit in the air. The feelings were thick. I don’t know that it will ever happen again. I think maybe it was like the Second Coming, but nobody really noticed. Whatever it was that was going on, it was really heavy.

I don’t miss those days, because they were intense because of the war, free-speech demonstrations, drugs, cops, free love, and revolution in the air. I guess it was all relative. What I mean, the war was scary, but the scene was great fun, so it all balanced out somehow. The slaughter of our generation and the great joy of the spirit—I wouldn’t trade those days for now. Just like I wouldn’t trade being young again and being there again … well … it’d be nice to be young again! I miss that. But it’s replaced with a mellowness that’s really nice. It seems like the recklessness of youth is replaced with a universal overview of life. There was so much going on back then. Just to have long hair was a strong statement. There was a lot of partying. I mean, they didn’t say, “Just say no!” The thing to do was anything you could get your hands on.

Susana Millman

Long-time Deadhead and GD photographer; aka Mrs. McNally

Jerry worked an album with Ken Nordine called the Devout Catalyst, word jazz. Ken was one of the original hipsters. I got to photograph him and Jerry. Ken is now 94 and sharp as a tack, still making art on his computer. God bless. He’s kind of Mr. Chicago, and I wonder if they’re going to invite him to the upcoming shows and show a little fucking class. We’ll see. Or maybe let him buy a $500 ticket because it’s all about the money. There are so many layers of bullshit politics.

Earlier today I was envisioning a conversation with Bill Graham and Jerry in the afterlife where they were talking about how much money they made when their object was not making money. There was something beyond making money that was going on, and yes, they made a ton of money in the process, but that was not the guiding light of what determined it. And now I guess they kind of see it as being another corporate thing in 21st Century America. The music will be very good in Chicago, and they’ll play it thoroughly, they’ll play it carefully, they will play it—I would imagine—according to the way Phil wants it played, and Phil is a brilliant musician. But it just won’t be the same, what can you say? But nothing is. The only thing constant is change, as we know, and sometimes the direction of change is more in line with one’s thoughts and dreams than other times.

Steve Eichner

Photographer

I’ve changed. I’ve graduated. But I still love to go to Dead shows. The last great Dead experience was in Las Vegas, when Blues Traveler played at Bally’s, and the Dead played three days. I was all hooked up with backstage passes, and the great experience was still there for me. What I learned from the whole thing is that you don’t need to have money to have fun. That was my whole angle when I was younger because I was rebellious against my parents. They were very money oriented. My experience being crazy with the Dead got a lot of the angry-young-man out of me. It gave me an outlet for that. It showed me that if you ain’t got nothin’, you got nothing to lose. You don’t need anything to really have a good time. If I was in some city and I was down and out and I didn’t know how I was gonna get to the next town, and I was hungry, womanless, I could just sit back and listen to the music, and that was enough to warm me and get me through the next day. It was never that bad.

Jerry Miller

Moby Grape/Jerry Miller Band guitarist

This last Gibson centennial concert they had at the Fillmore was real nice. Everybody was a bit older—they got the kids and the grandkids now—but there still is that magic around. That brought me back a bit, about twenty-five years, seeing a lot of these people. It’s always mellow in the midst of great confusion. Everybody realized that everything’s not perfect, it’s crazy, people look funny, and everybody grooved with it. Do our own thing. Don’t get crazy; have fun.

David Gans

Musician, writer, radio producer

I created a niche for myself in the Grateful Dead by getting involved inadvertently in the radio thing. I do a good job, I know my stuff, I learned how to produce a radio show, and I’ve learned how to distribute the radio show. I had no qualifications when I started. Whether they meant to or not, the Grateful Dead allowed me to become the professional personal that I am now. The music lured me. Phil encouraged me, Bobby encouraged me. It is still a really fun job. Doing this music for a living it really enjoyable. There’s a drawback to it in the sense of not having enough time to do all the other things that I’d like to do, but as day jobs go, it’s just the greatest. I’ve never lost my enthusiasm for Grateful Dead music. It’s been challenging and rewarding every step of the way. The Grateful Dead, one way or another, allowed me to do this thing and thereby enabled me to become an extremely satisfied, fulfilled, middle-class homeowner.

Timothy Leary

Chaos engineer

The 1960s were so amazing because you’d go off, and you’d be on the street, and suddenly you’d meet someone and they’d say, “Hey, come on over to my place,” and we’d take acid. There were several times you’d bang around San Francisco, and you’d meet Cassady or somebody and you’d go over to their place and somebody would be strumming some chords, jamming. Looking back on it, I think, “Shit, I didn’t appreciate how great that was.” It was pretty normal: just some guy sitting there playing a guitar!

I was on a bill with the Starship about a month ago in Las Vegas, and we’re sitting around backstage for hours. We were saying, “Shit! We were doing this thirty years ago, hanging around backstage.”

John Perry Barlow

Dead lyricist, cyberspace pioneer

I went to a Dead show in Denver once, and there was this reporter there from the Rocky Mountain News who was doing a profile about me for the business section because I was about to debate John Malone, the head of TCI, a big cable company in Boulder. The reporter had never been to a Dead show, and he wanted to go to one to get some background for his story. But I told him that the Dead scene is not very characteristic of the current me. But as I explained the metamorphoses of events to him, what had me in cyberspace, and what had intrigued me all along with the Grateful Dead and its scene, I could see a great continuity. Just finding that continuity re-expressed so clearly was sort of memorable to me. The best thing about this whole thing was that he was with me at the concert all evening, scribbling notes, having his life change before his very eyes. He was about thirty-three, never had anything to do with the Dead, never smoked anything—the whole thing. He’d been very suspicious of it and had not had direct contact. And there he is in the very fucking core! It’s hot right there, and his brain is boiling! It was great watching this guy melt.

Bobby Weir with Cajun chef Rick Begneaud’s son, Dylan, Marin County, California, 1990. Courtesy of Rick Begneaud.

Rick Begneaud

Cajun chef for the Dead, artist

I always had this dream about having my dad come to a Grateful Dead show and have him on the couch in front of the soundboard because then he wouldn’t have to move around. He’d have been able to really hear the show and have his vodka cocktails and just hang out. He would never smoke any weed, but he would hear what the band really sounds like. This is what I’ve done late at night, having a puff or two or a glass or two and thinking, “Oh my god. Nobody knows what I’m talking about.” Other Deadheads know what I’m talking about, obviously, but my dad never really knew what the Dead did. I would just love for him to have some understanding. To this day, he doesn’t get the music or that energy of a show.

Chuck Staley

Restaurant owner, Roswell, Georgia

One of my top three favorite songs is “Terrapin.” I love “Terrapin.” My buddy and I were at a show in DC, and they went into “Terrapin”; we both simultaneously went, “They’re playing Terrapin again?” It just caught us off guard that we both said that to each other. We kind of looked at each other and said, “I think it’s time to get off the bus.”

They had played it three times in six nights, and we both said, “I think it’s time. This just isn’t doin’ it anymore.” Jerry had what we called the “Jerry-okee”—the lyrics in front of him on the teleprompter. It was hard to see, and he would put his heart and soul into it. People always ask about our favorite years, and some of our favorite stuff is 1984 or ’85 because that’s when Jerry was struggling, and every show was an effort for him. People were complaining that his voice sounded terrible, but I said, “Not to me, it didn’t.” To me, that was his heart and soul.

You could tell within the first couple songs how a show was going to be, how high the band was. People always ask if I ever regret anything about all those years on the road. My only regret is not starting sooner. I was too young. I wish I could’ve seen them in the 1980s, I wish I would’ve seen them at Radio City Music Hall, wish I would’ve seen Pigpen. I count my blessings I got to see what I saw.

Honestly? I haven’t talked about the Grateful Dead to anyone in fifteen years. The Dead are all I listen to to this day. I have a huge tape collection. One time this kid came into my restaurant in Colorado and said, “I hear you’re a big fan of the Dead. I was a taper for seven years.” At that time, my tape collection was lacking like 1982 to ’85. He said, “If I didn’t tape the show myself, my buddies did. I have all these masters where the tape stops when the show stopped. Never listened to. Do you want to come check it out?”

My buddy and I went to his house, and it was weird because when we walked in, the place was all pristine, kind of uptight, and his wife was like, “Who are those guys?” We go down to his basement, and he pulls out two big old lockers, like the ones you used to take to camp. I said, “You want to get rid of these?” and he said yes.

Obviously, I wasn’t going to sit there and listen to all the tapes. I said, “I will pay you for the cost of the tape. So, like, two bucks each.”

He said, “What about my time?”

I said, “I’m not paying you for your time. I’m paying you for your tapes.” He had a thousand tapes or so. It was absurd. Huge. I said, “Just let me pull a couple out to hear them.” I randomly pulled out three, started listening, and they were the best tapes I’d ever heard.

When I left, he said, “Yeah, man, I feel like I’m leaving the church.”

I said, “You were never part of the church.”

He said, “What?”

I said, “You’re getting rid of all your tapes, and you don’t even listen to the Dead anymore? Fuck you,” and walked away … after I’d put all the tapes into my car!

I get in the car and my buddy said, “Damn, dude, you were pretty rough on him!”

I’ve got friends who I saw a hundred shows with who don’t listen to the Dead anymore, and I just don’t understand it. To me, I love it. I truly love the music. I have cases and cases of tapes stacked against the wall. I have 3,000, probably, 3,500—somewhere in there. I think every show from 1983 on.

Miriam

Health-care analyst

I started going to these Dead dances in 1996. We were trying to hold on to something because Jerry died. And then we saw Ratdog and Further in ’96. But there’s a lot of things I don’t remember at that time because it’s a time just too painful to remember, so the memories drop off.

We can’t get it back. We’ve got tapes, so we can get there in a way because there are so many people who taped those shows religiously. My friend Fred was on the BART one day, and a CD case was just lying there on the seat next to him. I don’t remember what year it was, but it was after Jerry died. Fred brought it over to me and said, “Miriam, I think you should have these. Of all the people who would love this, it would be you.” A lot of them are from Dick’s Picks—a lot of the recordings went to The Vault and recorded them onto CDs. There’re some really, really good shows in this random case that Fred found. The Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia Band, Bob Weir, and Ratdog and other things are in there. But the most important are the Grateful Dead CDs.

The whole world needs a really good Grateful Dead show with all the bells and whistles right now, even though it can’t happen. I’m just saying what we all need is a really good Grateful Dead show with Jerry there, the vibe, the crazy drummers, the music, the dancing—the whole thing.