In late March 1975, Peter Simon interviewed Garcia at the “film house” (230 Eldridge Avenue, Mill Valley, CA, 94941), for publication in New Age Journal (Simon 1975).
NAJ:
You’re also doing a solo album and touring with Merl Saunders. In that you have so many projects at once, how do you channel your energy so productively?
Jerry Garcia:
Well, things tend to work and overlap, generally speaking. I wouldn’t really be able to concentrate on sitting in front of a movie editing device for eight hours a day; I can do it pretty easily for six, though. I feel my attention is on it and I can do a good job keeping up with it. I like to play music in a studio situation – that can also hold attention for six or eight hours. If I’m on the road, I’m not doing anything during the day; I’m playing evenings. So during the day is a time which is convenient to compose. I might sit around an hour a day just playing the guitar and practicing and maybe learn something and maybe some ideas would come out that are like songs. That represents maybe two or three hours a day on the road where nothing else is happening but television and a gig that night. Usually a gig will take maybe four or five hours, total time actually playing maybe two of those or two-and-a-half. It may look like more, but it isn’t really that much. (Simon 1975, 54).
Note to self: I want to juxtapose this creative accounting with other kinds — Rakow’s, for example — and with other, perhaps less creative accountings (see “Accounting the JGB: October 8, 1975”).
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