Fate Music

Category: drugs

  • Dropping the Banjo

    4640 What I was trying to do was basically mathematical, mechanical. It was basically like a dead end, it stopped being interesting. I never really decided, it was just ‘I can’t play this thing anymore’. … LSD made me want to hear longer sounds, be freer, not be restricted, musically, and not be such a…

  • Biblical Serendipity Alert

    Let’s start by recognizing that, insofar as the probability of a given event happening is the product of the individual probabilities of all of the events needed to produce it, we certainly shouldn’t be here. Everything is impossible. It’s nonetheless funny when individually improbable streams cross, which is what’s happening when we talk about serendipity.…

  • Risk and Challenge in the 1970s

    Here’s a back-of-the-napkin sketch, my subjective assessment, of the musical risks and challenges associated with Garcia’s 1970s bands (qua personnel and repertoire) playing black and race-fusion music. So, this includes Wales-Garcia, all of the Jerry and Merl outfits, and all of the JGBs. It excludes NRPS, OAITW, GAMB/GASB (playing mostly white roots music), and the…

  • Jerry’s New Year’s Eve – LN jg1975-12-31.jgb.all.aud-Falanga-Menke-8664-retrack.noshnid.shn2flac

    GarciaLive 5 GarciaLive, volume 5, December 31st 1975 Keystone Berkeley (2014) is out, available via jerrygarcia.com. Let me start by expressing gratitude for these GarciaLive releases. Having been a massive outlier in my interest in Garcia on the side, having often expressed frustration at the paucity of Jerry shows released under the old regime, I…

  • Cabaret Economics

    I have been dinging Garcia during his hard times for playing really short sets. Check the tag for 1985 for a sample. I knew I had heard him talking about what a burn short sets were. And I have found at least one instance, at http://www.gdao.org/items/show/378627 (Jerry Garcia interview, broadcast on WHMR, November 27, 1978).…

  • January 18, 1985: Strung Out and Busted

    January 18, 1985 has got to be Rock Bottom for Jerry Garcia: strung out and busted. But let me step back. Six days earlier, Garcia gave an interview to Jas Obrecht and Jon Sievert (Obrecht 1985, 2010). Obrecht reports that the interview took place at the home of Nora Sage, said to be a fan…

  • LN jg1985-06-01.jgb.all.aud-corley.20921.shn2flac

    There are some points I’d like to flesh out, about The Mission, Jerry’s San Francisco DNA, and the rest of it. But there’s just not time to do everything. Another show with the Modulus Graphite guitar. I hear no difference. Sets are still short in historical perspective. For the book I’ll be able to make…

  • “awww, no, last song?!?” (LN jg1985-06-03.jgb.all.aud-russjcan.92786.flac1644)

    Keystone Palo Alto on a Monday night, as Garcia is trying to kick his junk habit. The show is mostly notable because Garcia plays a Modulus guitar. Playing anything other than the Irwin “Tiger” at this time was an exceptionally rare event. Blair Jackson’s amazing Golden Road (no. 7, Summer 1985, p. 9) mentions that…

  • Jerry’s gotta clean up his act, man (LN jg1985-03-02.jgb.all.aud-rlouk.99524.flac1644)

    Ticket stub for Jerry Garcia Band, The Stone, 492 Broadway, SF, Saturday, March 2, 1985. Contributed by Erik VanO. First Garcia Band show since the bust on 1/18/85. It delivers a three-song, thirty minute first set. Apparently the ladies were late in arriving. But ol’ Jer makes up for it by stretching out almost a…

  • Bullshit! Bullshit! Reprise (LN jg1985-05-31.jgjk.early.aud-pinedo.32007.shn2flac)

    updated 20140408 I have told the story once before of the Jerry Garcia/John Kahn acoustic duo early show on May 31, 1985, in the context of Bill Graham’s branding of the ’86-87 JGB tours down south as “The Jerry Garcia Band Electric“. I want to flesh out a bit more detail from the two named…