Jerry Garcia, On “What It Means To Be A Deadhead”

Leave a reply

“The Deadhead is that person – wherever they turn up in society – that’s looking for an adventure in America. Something to do that’s not like what everybody else does and a chance to get out and scare themselves a little. We’re one of the last frontiers where you can go out and get scared and have a scary time of it, and maybe have a little trouble, but also find a lot of support and make a lot of friends and that. So, it has its own energy and [Deadheads] carry on quite nicely, even without us. So it’s a sub-society of some kind. I don’t want to call it a counterculture because that’s not really what it is, it’s really an expression of the kind of larger American picture. America as an interesting place to be in.”

Let It Shine

Leave a reply

This Little Light of Mine

One of the Top 5 Near Death Experiences I had travelling alone: I took the Metro North an hour out of New York City and found myself at Pete Seeger’s Great Hudson River Revival. A storm popped up out of nowhere and those of little faith started fleeing to the shuttles out of there. I sought out the only real shelter on the entire premises: a pavilion right next to the banks of the Hudson. The wind kicked up and it started raining sideways and I thought it was the end. Someone under the shelter started singing This Little Light of Mine, everyone joined in, and the storm was over as soon as it began. I watched one of my favorite bands against the backdrop of a clear sunset a few hours later and everything was beautiful and perfect.

Snock Comes To Town

Leave a reply

T’was In The Merry Month of May

Michael Hurley 4

Be careful what you wish for: a few weeks ago, I framed my rejection letter and ticket to commemorate the long, winding road I traveled to get the Grateful Dead Fare Thee Well show last July. I also framed a Michael Hurley illustration that same day and ruminated that I did not yet have a tale of overcoming great odds to see him, but hoped that I someday would. I decided that I needed a long drive to clear my mind, and Michael Hurley was the only one there to keep my company as I played his albums on repeat down those two-lane Virginia back country roads. I watched the sun rise over the Blue Ridge Mountains as Sweedeedee played in the background and although I was profoundly alone, I also was not.

Soon after I got home, it was announced that he was coming to play a show in Louisville for the first time in eight years. Since that day, nothing else has mattered. The pre-sale sold out in six minutes, and not unlike the Fare Thee Well show, the pre-sale did not treat me well. I started crying at work, which seems to confirm that I’m kind of dramatic, something that’s recently been brought to my attention. I agree, but will defend that I feel that I only get worked up over things that matter. Music is the only thing that’s consistently made sense in my life, which may sound juvenile, and maybe it is, but it’s always seemed bleak to me that disconnection with art and beauty and a sense of self is a mark of maturity. It’s a bridge over the gap of existential isolation, a balm that soothes the forlorn ache of the distant star, a brief reprieve from the horror of human existence. Ever since I was four years old or so, I remember listening to Simon and Garfunkel on cassette and feeling what the Irish call “yarragh.” There’s only been twice in my life that music couldn’t reach me and those were absolutely the most terrifying times that I hope will not come again.

Michael Hurley

Michael Hurley is an artist you either get or you don’t. I discovered him accidentally – I moved back home to Kentucky and felt like I didn’t belong. I spent most of my time with an old friend who also felt a sense of spiritual homelessness. He’d had a rough year and we’d lie on the floor and listen to Michael Hurley and talk about all the ways he’d dreamt of dying. And it may sound strange, but I remember it fondly. The people who keep you company as you claw your way up from rock bottom know you in a way that others never truly will. I didn’t realize that Michael Hurley had crept into my being, it just happened. Here I am at the peak of my obsession and he’s come to town. I am overwhelmingly grateful. I feel that if someone’s music and expression have touched you so deeply, it’s important to give them due reverence.

Michael Hurley (2)

Be Realistic: Plan For A Miracle

Leave a reply

Some Rise, Some Fall, Some Climb

Gather ’round, children, and I’ll tell you a tale of faith and perseverance. It all began when the Fare Thee Well shows were announced last January. All of us Deadheads in our twenties had no idea how to fill out a mail order ticket request and spent hours watching YouTube videos and reading and rereading the instructions. (According to older Heads, Jerry himself used to just call your house and walk you through the process). I can’t remember agonizing so much over meeting formatting requirements for any paper I ever wrote in college. The night before the deadline (it was February 20th, I believe?) I remember still feeling a little anxious that I’d fucked it up somehow as I sealed the envelope and wrote, “Some Rise, Some Fall, Some Climb,” in synchrony with the words to Terrapin Station which was playing in the background, so I deemed that a good omen.

Fare Thee Well

July 5th, 2015. Stephanie predicted the China > Rider opener. It was magical.

Rejection Letter

I was one of the last batches of rejection letters. I held out hope til the bitter end, too, but eventually I still received the dreaded self-addressed envelope. I’d tried the Ticketmaster release as well just to cover all of my bases, figuring I’d sell or miracle any extras I could possibly end up with (just getting a face value ticket was a miracle, but I digress). The morning of the first Ticketmaster sale, I manned my battle station on the couch in the corner of the house with the best WiFi reception. I had my Spanish-speaking friend briefed with instructions on what to order if he could get through on the Spanish ticket request phone line. Five minutes before tickets went on sale, the cops knock on my door. I did not have time for this. We’d had a party the night before, and apparently a party guest had showed up with a stolen iPhone, and our house was the last place it had been pinged. So, my roommate is out front in his bathrobe dealing with that once the tickets go on sale, and finally they leave, thank ye gods. Like my stress level wasn’t already through the roof. I waited in line to get through to buy tickets and watched the wheel spin for at least an hour and a half before I accepted defeat. At the time I still held out hope that my tickets could come in the mail any day.

fare thee well letter

Help > Slip

I got the rejection letter and was pretty bummed, to say the least. About a week later, my friend tells me that there’s going to be a previously unannounced second Ticketmaster release in a few days. At that point I’d nearly abandoned all hope and had even cancelled our hotel reservations (which I made the day the shows were announced). I was pretty sick of disappointment by that point, and the morning of the second Ticketmaster release I almost didn’t even roll out of bed to try, but figured, might as well. I sat in that same spot on the couch, turned on Help On The Way, and prepared to wait.

As soon as Slipknot faded into Franklin’s Tower, the transaction went through. I messaged Stephanie Harvey nothing but a screenshot, “Colleen, you’re going to see The Grateful Dead.”

Wave That Flag, Wave It Wide And High

Going to Chicago that 4th of July weekend was probably one of the most important things I’ve ever done. There we were all in one place. I’d never seen a town overrun with Deadheads before, and it was everything I could’ve hoped and wished for. It was pretty great running into a bar full of Louisville people in Chicago who were there to catch the Rumpke Mountain Boys after the Saturday night show. I legitimately believed that The Pranksters were on their way to pick us up in a limo and take us to a warehouse party for at least an hour. We made some new friends that slept in our closets and on our floors, and ran into some old ones, too. The experience is another story entirely, the road to Chicago was such a long, strange trip in itself.

Soldier Field

Soldier Field, 4th of July weekend 2015. The Grateful Dead played their last show before Jerry passed here on July 9th, 1995

I guess the moral of the story is: never miss a Sunday show.

 

The Beginning / Leaving Home

Leave a reply

Down By The Banks Of The Ohio

Angel From Montgomery was the last song I sang before I left my home. I met some friends in a dark karaoke bar that always smells like a swimming pool, to conclude a hot summer night spent standing down by the banks of the Ohio. Earlier in that night, stars shone above as we stood below, Willie Nelson leading the congregation to plead, “may the circle be unbroken,” to proclaim, “I’ll fly away,” and testify, “I saw the light.” I wandered into the karaoke bar as the night drew to an end only to confess, “to believe in this living is just such a hard way to go,” into a microphone that had seen better days, which smelled (and tasted) like sweat. Excusing myself to go pack, I bid farewell to my friends and hometown sometime after midnight – I was out the door and swept up in the current of the endless highway. I merged onto I-65 in the sober light of day the next afternoon. I was Southern-bound. The Grateful Dead were on the radio. “I’ll get up and fly away,” Jerry resounded. 

Music City, USA

I unpacked my suitcase in my new bedroom in Nashville that night, terrified and exhilarated. Jerry Garcia’s familiar voice provided comfort in a strange city, as he ruminated about telling sweet lies and saying good night one last time though the radio: “to lay me down (to be with you, once more).”

922

I’d taken an internship in Nashville on a whim, and decided in the matter of a few weeks that it was time for me to go out and into the great wide open. I’d always been reluctant to leave my hometown, but a broken heart will drive you out onto the road like nothing else. I’d found an affordable place in Nashville on Airbnb. It seemed idyllic and beautiful, and I immediately fell in love and knew it would be a much better fit than the $1,200/month dorm rooms at Vanderbilt. I read every single review, Facebook stalked the host, consulted a few of my friends – but ultimately, I decided that I didn’t care what anybody else thought, and simply told them with unwavering conviction that I was moving to Nashville to live with strangers I found on the internet. I drove down the winding road leading to the holler that contains the six acres that the Village occupies, as my heart raced with anticipation. “If I don’t call you in the next 15 minutes, I’m dead and buried in somebody’s basement,” was the last transmission I sent to a friend before pulling up the gravel driveway for the first time.

The Village

The host came out to greet me. He introduced himself and helped me with my suitcase and gave me a tour of the land: the main house, the barn, the RV camping area occupying the space behind the barn. I quickly realized I’d be far from the only other person living there. I had a revolving door of anywhere from eight to fifteen or more roommates at any given time, travelers of all ages from all over America and the world. It wasn’t unusual for me to come into the kitchen to fetch my laundry and encounter someone I’d never met before from some country I’d never been to, like the aspiring country singer from Australia who I shared my fancy cheese with during my first week there. Believe it or not, you eventually get used to strangers walking into your home, having to introduce yourself to someone sitting on your front porch, and being awoken by roosters crowing. Everyone I described it to back home called it a commune, which I eventually stopped fighting, but seeing as how “commune” tends to have Charles Manson-y connotations, I preferred to call it a “village” since, you know, that’s less weird.

rsz_paradise3

My first summer at the commune Village was the most exciting and adventure-filled summer of my life to date, but there will be plenty of time to regale you with stories of what happened in the time between my first arrival and my first departure. And really, it is as weird but also not as weird as it all sounds.

Back Home, Again

The last few weeks of my first season in Nashville was mourned by taking the long way home after my internship each day, listening to the River Jordan on repeat for 20-something miles with the windows down and a cold wind in August blowing in, driving down a two-lane highway until the sun went down, with an aching feeling that this beautiful summer of waking up and not knowing which city I was in was about to come to an end.

rsz_paradise2

It’s been exactly five months since Paradise has been my mailing address and I feel this rest has been needed, if you can call driving straight through from sunrise to sunset to New York and walking its streets until my feet bled, finding myself in Chicago from time to time and being in Nashville every other weekend a “rest.” I like to believe that when last summer faded into fall, it was only just the beginning, not the end.

Exodus From Atlanta

Leave a reply

Fire At The Ellis Hotel

On December 7, 1946, the deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history claimed the lives of 119 people at the Ellis Hotel, formerly The Winecoff Hotel, in Atlanta, Georgia. As I was making the reservation at the Ellis yesterday, I thought I could deal. I couldn’t. I lay awake alone in my room all night thinking about the stories I’d read about it being haunted and what it would be like to be burned alive. I slipped in and out of nightmares. At some unholy hour of the night I decided that if I weren’t going to be able to take my rest, I should just get an early start on the road back to Nashville. My gas light was on, so I stopped at the first gas station I came to – one with bars on the doors and windows with a sign that read “WE SELL PEPPER SPRAY” in bold letters. Incidentally, I think this is the same gas station we’d made some kind of drunken scene in after the Dispatch show the last time I was in Atlanta. I vaguely remember something about pizza or fried chicken, or maybe it was just because she was barefoot and maybe I was involved. Anyway, I made it to the radio station in Nashville on time this morning (okay, five minutes late), wide-eyed and delirious, but I made it and just showing up is most of what life is about.

The Great American Adventure 

I don’t know how it’s taken me this long to follow a band on tour. I have a newfound respect for musicians out on the highway. I only made it to four of the six shows The Felice Brothers played in the past week and I am exhausted, and all I had to do was just show up. Louisville to Nashville to Birmingham to Atlanta. They do this for weeks at a time, playing in a different city every night, usually six nights a week. They finish one show, pack up and drive through the night to the next city and do it all over again. They don’t have roadies or a driver for their bus – they persevere because of their own blood, sweat and tears (but mostly sweat). Some guy at the show in Atlanta who thought he could Felice harder than us speculated that they sleep on their bus, I don’t really know about all that, but I don’t doubt that they would if they had to. Having the energy to put on a solid performance night after night and having any amount of patience to deal with people cornering them and talking their head off after the show (guilty) despite all of this is mind-blowing.

Shout-out to the couple I met at the show in Lexington for sharing the spirit of reckless abandon and giving me a reason to come to Birmingham and Atlanta this weekend. I do believe this is an excellent example of my theory of “if you’re the person having the most fun in the crowd at a show, all of the other fun people in the crowd will gravitate towards you.”

Speaking of reckless abandon, I understand that the Felice Brothers got their start by playing in subways in New York City. The passion, drive and blind faith I see in them is everything music should be. It’s simultaneously mournful and rapturous – while so many other musicians coming out nowadays produce something so contrived and cliche, their music flows from them in a way so natural, like the way the moon pulls waves across the ocean. It got me through some heavy trials and troubles, so I feel the least I can do is be insanely fanatical in return.

Back On The Farm

Anyway, last night was enough excitement and heightened blood pressure for a while… like, at least a week. Feels good to be back home. I was so exhausted once I got home from the radio station, even once I woke up from my nap I didn’t have the energy to go the journey to the grocery store and had planned on being bummed out about eating pretzels all night. I’m grateful that the Ukrainian who is staying in the room the Australian was in last week was generous enough to share his dinner with me as we discussed the conflict in Ukraine. For those of you who missed the memo, I’m living in a commune. I’d been in denial about it because we’re not off-the-grid or autonomous or whatever, but if we’re going by the dictionary definition, it’s a commune. So, that’s neat.

That’s enough over-sharing for a while, you may now return to your regularly scheduled programming, like this – have you ever considered that every lighting bug at which you marvel its beauty is really just trying to get laid? Think about it.

“I Love You, But Jesus Loves You The Best: ” How I Became A Deadhead

Leave a reply

The Road To Legend Valley

The flow of the stream of traffic on I-70 East began to slow as we approached Exit 132 for Thornville. As we came to a standstill on the exit ramp, the mercifully overcast gray sky graced us with a cool breeze. From our perch high atop the exit ramp, I surveyed the rolling fields below, populated with people united by a common purpose. The caravan of cars packed to the brim with camping gear and hula hoops (the essentials) created a kaleidoscope of red taillights before me. This was not my first rodeo: in fact, I knew the way to Legend Valley well enough by now that I don’t think either I or my navigator had to once glance at the map. However, this time was different. This was the first time All Good would be hosted at Legend Valley since the residents in the small West Virginian town which had hosted it for years prior had driven the festival off of Marvin’s Mountaintop. Apparently, Masontown didn’t much care for long-haired, freaky people. Although I’m sure many in the sea of cars before me lamented this fact, I was quite at peace with it. I had heard horror stories of the emergency breaks of vans parked on its steep slopes failing, resulting in their barreling down the mountain through camper’s tents… besides, Legend Valley was about half the distance from my home in Louisville than was Marvin’s Mountaintop.

rsz_1009

I Need A Miracle

Our car crept down the ramp and onto the two-lane road leading to Legend Valley, which was now only a few hundred feet away. The pace of progress allowed for time to exchange pleasantries with fellow travelers and observe the people holding cardboard signs with the words “I Need a Miracle” scrawled across them. I was unable to deliver any their miracle, but it ignited something inside of me to realize that I was amidst people who knew where the phrase was from and what it meant: a clever, empathic way to plead for tickets; an allusion to a song by the band all here held in high regard: The Grateful Dead.

349

Garcia

I remember when Jerry Garcia died. I was about six years old. As many children of the 90s, I had quite an impressive collection of Beanie Babies. I recall sitting in the back of my mom’s minivan, holding my newest trophy: a tie-dyed bear named “Garcia.” I demanded my mom tell me more about who this Garcia person had been and how he could have been so cool as to merit not only his own Beanie Baby, but a tie-dyed one at that. She struggled to explain to me a G-rated version of who The Grateful Dead were and why Garcia met with an untimely death the same way that my extended family members were taken aback with my inquisitiveness in response to their comments about my choice of attire: “You ready to go to Woodstock?” All that my six-year-old mind could wonder was, “What’s a Woodstock?” It sounded like a place I’d like to go, if there were people there who dressed like me. From my earliest years – and I accredit this to an infatuation with the show “The Wonder Years” and the discovery of a totally awesome leather fringe vest in my dress-up box – I wore nothing but bell-bottom jeans, round, tinted glasses, rib-knit tops and headbands, no matter what the occasion. By the 4th grade, I was already tired of being asked “when I was going on” at my elementary school’s talent shows. “This isn’t a costume,” was a phrase that crossed my lips more times before my 12th birthday than most will be able to boast their entire lives.

Unfortunately, I was about 40 years late for Woodstock. However, I was right on time for the 16th Annual All Good Festival. Early, even. My travelling companion and I knew the gates to the campgrounds would open at 12:00 p.m., and so there we were, creeping down that two-lane road at 11:59 a.m. in hopes of staking out one of the more desirable camp sites. My longtime friend and partner-in-crime was behind the wheel of my car as we approached our destination.

286

“I’m so heady, I’ve been on tour since before I was born.”

My copilot has been a Deadhead since the womb: her mom saw the Grateful Dead in concert while she was pregnant with Stephanie. Stephanie also saw the Grateful Dead at Legend Valley with her mom, before Jerry’s death – something few members of our generation can honestly say.  In fact, legend has it that Stephanie’s mom is a primary reason why glass is now contraband in the festival grounds of Legend Valley: as the story goes, before Stephanie was even thought of, her mom stepped on a piece of broken glass early in the weekend and refused to leave to seek medical treatment, not wanting to miss any of the music. By the end of the weekend, her leg was more than just a little infected… and so, microbrews are best left at home, although the festival staff is usually patient and understanding enough to allow you to pour your booze into the acceptable plastic containers.

A Cold Wind In July

Come nightfall, Stephanie and I found ourselves standing front and center for Phil Lesh and Friends, a band fronted by Lesh, the former bassist for the Dead. We hadn’t eaten since we’d crossed the state line and I was beginning to feel faint. I had left our campsite in a hurry and in the midst of the excitement, had forgotten all of my money and so the food vendors and beer tents only taunted me. Lesh’s spirited performance hadn’t waned at all with the passing decades, but somehow even his radiantly sheepish grin and kind eyes framed by his wire-rimmed glasses could not assuage my irritability. I had dressed for July heat, but the temperature only continued to drop as the wind picked up with the storm rolling in. I did not anticipate shivering in the front row, cold and hungry, when planning the pilgrimage to see what remained of the Dead.

285

And We Bid You Goodnight

Stephanie reluctantly followed as I retreated from the front lines of the crowd to sit in the grass. We were now on the outskirts of the crowd, only barely illuminated by the light of the stage. Yearning for the blankets and warmth my tent promised, I considered abandoning the concert grounds altogether. As I sat at the foot of the grassy hill feeling sorry for myself, I suddenly noticed a conspicuous absence of Lesh’s pulsing bass line. My gaze rose from the ground to the stage as the band gathered to center stage, their instruments at rest at their sides. As the saying goes, time stopped as I was overcome by the a capella song. Phil Lesh and Friends recited the worn, yet timeless, words to the traditional “And We Bid You Goodnight.” Stephanie’s mom had passed down her knowledge about the rituals involved with different Dead songs to her and Stephanie, in turn, educated me. This song would often signify the end of set, the end of the night. I realized, at that very moment, I was part of an experience that transcended space and time. I was being sent off by this song under country stars to make my bed in a tent, to drift off to sleep to the wood whisper the same way as so many had before me. I remembered that I was supposed to clap twice after the word “goodnight.” Forgetting all cold, hunger and thirst, I looked up to the stars, the same stars seen by those who came before me, as the Dead assured us, “I love you, but Jesus loves you the best.” The band sang, “and I bid you good night,” and I faintly clapped.

rsz_362