Category: 1971

  • Lenny Hart’s term of employment

    I had never quite seen this much specificity on the dates around Lenny Hart, but in combination with some other factors (Gar talking about the situation with Rakow at the Family Dog, which the GD were playing through 3/1/70), this really seems pretty precise. Hart was arrested July 26 in San Diego on a Marin…

  • San Francisco Sessions, 1971

    I have been processing information from contracts filed at the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) Local No. 6 in San Francisco. San Francisco Sessions, 1967-1968 San Francisco Sessions, 1969 San Francisco Sessions, 1970 San Francisco Sessions, 1971 San Francisco Sessions, 1972 There is nothing representative about these – I have information on stuff that is…

  • Reading Notes: Signpost to a New Space and Stoned Sunday Rap

    These are “reading notes” – little stuff I cull when I read. I copy and paste the quotes into thematic documents (e.g., drugs.docx), so all of this has been “processed” out of the book, and up one level, into thematic or other kinds of buckets. You may not find the quotes of greatest interest to…

  • Grateful Dead at New Monk, Berkeley, ca. June-July 1971

    One night I went to hear Jerry play a gig with Merle [sic] Saunders at a small place in Berkeley and one by one, for ‘no reason’, the rest of the Dead showed up too, and eventually they got on the stage and started playing — Charles Reich, Spring 1972 (Reich 2003 [1972], xv). Assuming…

  • Signpost to a New Space and Stoned Sunday Rap – Dates

    I have just finished transcribing the parts of particular interest to me from Signpost to a New Space and the Stoned Sunday Rap (Garcia, Reich and Wenner 2003 [1972]), and I have now posted reading notes. Me being me, I have always wondered about the dates of these sessions. Here is the timeline for what…

  • The Demise of the Matrix, 1971

    The Matrix at 3138 Fillmore Street (San Francisco, CA, 94123) [map | JGBP]: it’s daunting to type those words and then imagine adding much to what we know, so meticulously gathered over decades. So I’ll zero in on a relatively blank space: the venue’s demise in 1971. Ross Hannan and Corry Arnold’s Chicken on a…

  • Contradictions Are Fun

    The human spirit … is the favorite home of contradictions, indeed they do not seem to prosper or even find viable living conditions outside it. José Saramago, All the Names, p. 228 Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders were advertised to play the Matrix at 3138 Fillmore on Wednesday, March 3, 1971. But as far as…

  • Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders at the Keystone Korner, May 20, 1971 (LN jg1971-05-20.jgms.80mins.sbd-boswell-smith.126365.flac2496)

    Corry heard a lot of this keyboard work as Howard Wales. So did I. I also heard Jerry’s guitar tone as 1968, and the recording as the Matrix. I parsed the tape, which seems correctly identified, we talked it over, and I think we agree that this is some very interesting tape. Speaking for myself,…

  • Hey Merl, you wanna do that tune in ‘G’? Get spaced out a little? LN jg1971-05-11.jgms.partial.aud.28784.flac1644

    Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders Matrix 3138 Fillmore StreetSan Francisco, CA 94123 May 11, 1971 (Tuesday) 20 min flac1644 shnid-28784 –(2 tracks, 19:58)– t01. talk and tuning (1, 2) [1:03] t02. Save Mother Earth [18:44] [0:10] ! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders ! lineup: Jerry Garcia – el-g; ! lineup: Merl Saunders – keyboards,…

  • Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders at the Matrix – A Dialogue

    [ed: Corry sent me an email about Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders at the Matrix, which turned into a rather elaborate exchange on the subject. One piece of our correspondence involved the tape traveling as 5/20/71. This is some of Garcia’s finest playing on tape in any context. I highly recommend that you check it…