Elves, Gnomes, Leprechauns and Little People’s Chowder and Marching Society Volunteer Fire Brigade and Ladies Auxiliary String Band

Reading Notes:

Dister, Alain. 2007. Grateful
Dead: Une légende californienne. Paris: Le Castor Astral. ISBN
9782859207298, 254 pp.

Dister 2007, 22: Jerry’s “beau-père” was Wally Matusiewicz
… was that Ruth’s husband? Says he taught Jerry the rudiments of the guitar,
don’t remember that elsewhere. “Wally was not a drinker, but he didn’t disdain
the good Lord’s herb, which he considered less dangerous than alcohol.” #family,
#Wally Matusiewicz, #Ruth Garcia

Dister 2007, 22: his teacher at the California School of Fine Arts
was named Wally Hedrick, who was close to the Beat poets. (?), #Wally
Hedrick, #Beats

Dister 2007, 24: after taking a joyride, he was offered a choice
between prison and the Army. #Army

Dister 2007, 24: his Army drill sergeant “initiated him in the
delicate art of finger picking on an acoustic guitar”. “Certain of his comrades
were part of the Kingston Trio” (?) #acoustic, #folk

Dister 2007, 24: before the joyride and the military, Jerry “briefly
took part in a jazzy group, The Chords, in the little Northern California town
where his mother placed him” #pre-GD

Dister 2007, p. 27: Robert Burns, dit Hunter, born June 23, 1941 in San Luis Obispo. #Robert
Hunter

Dister 2007 p. 36: “One can get nothing from the banjo if one does
not have an innate taste for a job well done” … JG as workaholic. “The rest,
love, family, hanging out with friends, and the corresponding substances, those
were always a sacré foutoir, the uncontrollable part of his existence” …
suggests that music was the one thing Jerry could really exercise some control
over. #workaholism, #drugs

Dister 2007, p. 44: ca. 1963, while married to Sara and
working at Morgan’s, in a band as follows. Garcia on banjo. Hunter on guitar. NB
NRPS parallel: “Hunter was the first victim [of Garcia’s expectation of
virtuosity]: he was thanked and thrown out of the group … An enthusiastic
player but with little talent, he gave way to Eric Thompson.” Also Pigpen,
Kreutzmann. Name of the band? “Elves, Gnomes, Leprechauns and Little
People’s Chowder and Marching Society Volunteer Fire Brigade and Ladies
Auxiliary String Band” … became Black Mountain Boys. #pre-GD, #Eric Thompson,
#Bill Kreutzmann, #Pigpen

Dister 2007, 44: autumn 1963, Garcia and Hunter are in the Badwater
Valley Boys and meet Bill Monroe at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles.
Implies that this was before 11/22/63, JFK assassination. #bluegrass, #Ash
Grove

Dister 2007, 44: Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions gig played the
Tangent on 1/25/64. #pre-GD

Dister 2007, p. 61: after Frenchy’s, they spent three nights in a
row at a Broadway strip joint, Pierre’s, autumn 1965. #pre-GD

Dister 2007, 66: had to change from Warlocks because there were
bands by this name in England, Florida, Texas (including future members of ZZ
TOP) and a NY-based quartet comprising Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling
Morrison and Mo Tucker, the future Velvet Underground. #pre-GD

Dister 2007, 74: GD in LA from February-May 1966 #GD

Dister 2007, p. 78: Olompali ca. June 1966. #Olompali

Dister 2007, 90: “Jamming together, or sitting in with each other’s
bands, is what fundamentally distinguished San Francisco’s music scene from
LA’s.” #collective improvisation

Dister 2007, p. 91: Bay Area rockers grew out of the folk scene,
especially in Berkeley and Palo Alto. “Ces habitués des hootenannies sont
également rompus à l’exercise de la jam-session” #collective improvisation, i.e., #jam

JGMF: The hoot and the open jam session spontaneously evolved in
many different contexts. Multiple discovery is common in science (wiki), biologists see tons
of convergent evolution (wiki),
and even some anthropologists talk about cultural universals (Brown 1991). Anything
that has this quality of coming up again and again in the human condition is,
in brief, probably really important. And playing music together is one of these
kinds of things, really down to the root of our natures. I am talking shelter,
warmth, maybe some food and drink, some good old goddamned human company. Get a
room for the sex if you can, but the drugs and rock ‘n roll are never far from
the fire, and that’s true for white folks in Appalachia and black folks in the
Mississippi delta. Beat a drum, pluck a string, sing a little. In the American
context, hollers, Gospels-spirituals, blues, jazz, soul, R&B, funk, and any
other “black music” you can think of, whether South, North, Midwest,
Great Migration, or wherever, has its improvisational tradition, and this is no
less true of your old-timey, folk, Gospels-spirituals, bluegrass, country,
rockabilly, rock or heavy metal. It’s a people thing, painted in the
riotous colors of every other kind of earthly variation.

Dister 2007, p. 103: GD were evicted from Olompali and refuged at
Camp Lagunitas in ca. August 1966. Moved to 710 Ashbury in September 1966. #Olompali,
#Camp Lagunitas, #houses

Dister 2007, 126-127: story of stealing the equipment from Monterey
Pop. P. 127 equipment (le matos) “duly returned eight days later [6/26/67],
after having been put to use during a free concert in the Panhandle, a concert
in which both Eric Burdon and Jimi Hendrix participated (but
where are the tapes?)”

JGMF: I list 6/21/67 at the Polo Grounds (no source, not in
Deadlists) and 6/24 at El Camino Park in Palo Alto (http://rockprosopography101.blogspot.com/2009/07/june-24-1967-el-camino-park-palo-alto.html,
last consulted 3/28/2011), but nothing from the Panhandle.

Dister 2007, 134: the 10/2/67 bust and subsequent police harassment
“ended the [MG-JG] dream of living in the middle of the cauldron” of 710
Ashbury, with the baby and all that, living in the attic. “They would first
move near the Palace of the Legion of Honor, not far from the Presidio where
Jerry did his brief military service. A little later, they’d cross the Golden
Gate Bridge for Larkspur bungalow rented out by John Cipollina’s father.” MG in
Greenfield says they lived there six months. #houses

Dister 2007, 141. This is interesting about early GD musical
interactions. “Early in November 1967, Pigpen (or maybe Garcia) allows me to
accompany him into the recording studio.” Anthem of the Sun … “The little
studio is somewhere downtown. Everyone’s there, squeezed around the console.
Garcia’s listening to live tapes, pushing buttons, switching from one solo to
another, juggling the mix, barely taking the time to the others what he had in
mind. Weir s’emporte, he’s like that,
rock ‘n roll energy, shooting nasty looks when he didn’t agree. The exchanges
are pretty sharp, one could think that these guys aren’t on the same
wavelength, that the group is at risk of imploding at any moment. Several
alternative musical conceptions, as many different ways of engaging them …” #Bob Weir 

JGMF that’s a cool little piece of color right there.

Dister 2007, p. 143. Says that TC came into the GD at the
time they were working on Anthem … it comes into the narrative before a
discussion of November 1967 … #Tom Constanten

Dister 2007, 146: first live Dark Star was 12/xx/67.

Dister 2007, 147: Ramrod, first roadie, arrives late December
1967. Rex Jackson came next?

Dister 2007, 150-151. Description of a February 1968 gig at San
Quentin. He says “I believe that the day of the concert, or the day before,
they found Neal’s body on the side of a railroad track somewhere just outside
of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.” That was February 4, 1968. Later below, he
says that “Phil Lesh had stayed in Oregon after a series of concerts in
Portland and in the colleges and universities in that neck of the woods. So Bob
Weir played bass.” I think he is conflating some stuff here. The correct date,
based on contemporary ex post reports (the best kind of data) clearly confirm
Thursday, 2/15/68 as the date of this event (UPI 1968; Torgerson 1968; see also
Hannan
2009 SQ LLD post).