Perhaps the most bootlegged Garcia-on-the-side gig is
acoustic Garcia and Kahn, attributed as the Oregon State Penitentiary,
2575 Center St. NE, Salem, OR 97301, May 5, 1982 [JGC
| JGBP | map | etree showid-48429]
Lots of these have been liberated into freely-circulating lossless formats (shnid-4423, shnid-11463, shnid-17900), which are all pretty
much the same source tape, as far as I can tell. It’s a clean if overloaded soundboard
recording, probably straight from a cassette master.
acoustic Garcia and Kahn, attributed as the Oregon State Penitentiary,
2575 Center St. NE, Salem, OR 97301, May 5, 1982 [JGC
| JGBP | map | etree showid-48429]
Lots of these have been liberated into freely-circulating lossless formats (shnid-4423, shnid-11463, shnid-17900), which are all pretty
much the same source tape, as far as I can tell. It’s a clean if overloaded soundboard
recording, probably straight from a cassette master.
I will try as much as possible to leave aside all of the
other interesting questions around this show, most important of which is how,
for whom, by what artifice is it that Garcia came to be playing Oregon’s
maximum security prison in 1982? Now that is a story I’d like to hear told.
other interesting questions around this show, most important of which is how,
for whom, by what artifice is it that Garcia came to be playing Oregon’s
maximum security prison in 1982? Now that is a story I’d like to hear told.
update: the story can now be told, and while it’s interesting, it’s not as interesting as Garcia coming in to help his dealer. A guy named Steve Stilling had been serving time in the OSP since 1974 for armed robbery, among other things (Cowan 19820725). A career criminal (he was arrested for armed robbery again less than six months after a December ’83 parole, and I gather that he has recently been an unwilling guest of the great state of Colorado), he spent the early 1980s as a prison impresario, booking dozens of acts, including Garcia. /update
Because I obsess about dates, it’s important to me to establish that the bootleggers, whomever they were –an interesting question in its own right– misdated the gig. The Garcia-Kahn prison gig was not held on May 5, 1982, but on June 5, 1982. I first discovered this in an out-of-place folder in the amazing Grateful Dead Archive
in the Special Collections and
Archives at the McHenry Library at
the University of California, Santa Cruz. I have since found independent confirmation, an expost report noting the Garcia-Kahn prison show “last week”, published on June 11th, 1982 (Cowan 19820611). So this is 100% confirmed at this point.
As far as I know, the only data in support of the current
listing derive from the bootleg. There are no known pictures or audience
recordings. update: there is a picture, in a newspaper (Kadel 1982). Naturally enough there are no tickets, handbills, bright posters or
happy memories of hippies and hard-timers twirling together under strobified
fluorescents. The Oregon State Penitentiary is the kind of place into but not
out of which one checks, like the Hotel California or a Glade Roach Motel. Its
colorful history as a maximum security lockup reaches back to
territorial days, includes a long rogues’ gallery of freaky frontier criminals,
and gave birth to Warden J.C. Gardner’s 1866 patented Gardner Shackle, a.k.a.
the “Oregon Boot”, consisting “of a heavy iron band that locked
around one ankle [which] kept the inmate off balance and deprived him of
agility,” thwarting escapes into the Oregon wilderness. There have been
and probably are some hardcore, toothless, violent motherfuckers in there.
listing derive from the bootleg. There are no known pictures or audience
recordings. update: there is a picture, in a newspaper (Kadel 1982). Naturally enough there are no tickets, handbills, bright posters or
happy memories of hippies and hard-timers twirling together under strobified
fluorescents. The Oregon State Penitentiary is the kind of place into but not
out of which one checks, like the Hotel California or a Glade Roach Motel. Its
colorful history as a maximum security lockup reaches back to
territorial days, includes a long rogues’ gallery of freaky frontier criminals,
and gave birth to Warden J.C. Gardner’s 1866 patented Gardner Shackle, a.k.a.
the “Oregon Boot”, consisting “of a heavy iron band that locked
around one ankle [which] kept the inmate off balance and deprived him of
agility,” thwarting escapes into the Oregon wilderness. There have been
and probably are some hardcore, toothless, violent motherfuckers in there.
Yet somehow, bootleggers would like us to believe, Garcia
played a gig there on May 5, 1982. It has some verisimilitude, of course:
Garcia is the kind of guy who might know the kind of guy doing time in the Oregon
State Pen, maybe owe or just like to do him a favor. The Oregon node of Garcia’s social network
is old, deep and strong, dripping in the ancient acid of La Honda and the Kesey
crew, the Dead’s Oregon roadies (lots of folks from rough and ready Pendleton),
Mountain Girl (who lived there after she and Jerry broke up big in 1976-1977) and
so forth. Maybe it’s overdetermined that Garcia would play there! Anyway, it’s
too crazy to make up, but, what can I say, I am a skeptic and it never felt
quite right.
played a gig there on May 5, 1982. It has some verisimilitude, of course:
Garcia is the kind of guy who might know the kind of guy doing time in the Oregon
State Pen, maybe owe or just like to do him a favor. The Oregon node of Garcia’s social network
is old, deep and strong, dripping in the ancient acid of La Honda and the Kesey
crew, the Dead’s Oregon roadies (lots of folks from rough and ready Pendleton),
Mountain Girl (who lived there after she and Jerry broke up big in 1976-1977) and
so forth. Maybe it’s overdetermined that Garcia would play there! Anyway, it’s
too crazy to make up, but, what can I say, I am a skeptic and it never felt
quite right.
Turns out that, as they are wont to be, the bootleggers were
half-right. Garcia and Kahn did play this gig, but not on May 5th.
It happened on June 5th.
half-right. Garcia and Kahn did play this gig, but not on May 5th.
It happened on June 5th.
June 5th makes logistical sense, insofar as sense
has anything to do with it — Jerry and John were undertaking an odd little road
trip which someone in the Garcia office had the cheek to call, with daring high
modern hubris, the “Northwest Acoustic Tour”. The trip is known to
have included a pair of Friday night shows in Portland (at the
evocatively-named Neighbors of Woodcraft [wiki]) and
Saturday and Sunday gigs in the South Eugene High School Auditorium, as far as
I know Garcia’s final high school gigs. (JGC
commenter Eric Blond says there were two Eugene shows on 6/5, which would
make this a very rare three-show day for Our Hero.) All of this already feels
rather improbable, but strange things happen when Keseys are involved, as I
seem to recall they were with the Eugene shows, something about one of the
family youngsters if I recall correctly. (A preview notes that tickets will be
available not only at local record stores and at the U of O student union, but also
at Springfield Creamery.)
has anything to do with it — Jerry and John were undertaking an odd little road
trip which someone in the Garcia office had the cheek to call, with daring high
modern hubris, the “Northwest Acoustic Tour”. The trip is known to
have included a pair of Friday night shows in Portland (at the
evocatively-named Neighbors of Woodcraft [wiki]) and
Saturday and Sunday gigs in the South Eugene High School Auditorium, as far as
I know Garcia’s final high school gigs. (JGC
commenter Eric Blond says there were two Eugene shows on 6/5, which would
make this a very rare three-show day for Our Hero.) All of this already feels
rather improbable, but strange things happen when Keseys are involved, as I
seem to recall they were with the Eugene shows, something about one of the
family youngsters if I recall correctly. (A preview notes that tickets will be
available not only at local record stores and at the U of O student union, but also
at Springfield Creamery.)
For example, one “Reverend Chumleigh” opened the Friday
night shows in Portland and recalls the following (from a source that I can’t
seem to put my finger on):
night shows in Portland and recalls the following (from a source that I can’t
seem to put my finger on):
My opening performance for the Garcia solo tour … was at the
Woodsmans hall in Portland, on the third floor. There was a Mormon wedding one
floor below us. Kesey was NOT there. There were two shows both two hours late,
but luckily for the crowd waiting outside there was a liquor store on the
corner. Roberto Morganti, an incredible unibrow juggler, was to do five
minutes, Moz Wright, sword swallower/fire breather was to do five minutes, and
I was to do 45 minutes. It all went horribly wrong because no one producing the
show cared about anything but Garcia, who remained in hiding … We didn’t
actually see him except on stage for the whole tour. Opening night, a very scary
guy jumped up on stage and acted in a threatening manner despite Garcia’s large
Gorilla Biker bodyguard who just let him do it. My first words to him (the guy who
jumped on stage) was “Full moon tonight, isn’t it?” (and it was). He
grew angry, and I said “You’re lucky I’m not Jerry Garcia because you’d be
dead by now, and not grateful”. He advanced on me and I kept beseeching
the bodyguard who was standing at the foot of the stage to do something, and he
didn’t, so I picked up my brass goose head walking stick and began to do my
Kindo exercises with it and the guy backed off and left the stage. I was to put
it mildly, fucking furious.
Anyway, there in the Archives, in a folder in a box in the
Grateful Dead Archives, is a little set of documents around the “Northwest
Acoustic Tour”, and there it shows the Oregon State Pen gig, 12-2 on Saturday
the 5th, then an hour drive south to Eugene for the evening show or
shows. If there were still a Jerry Site, I’d update it, but, alas – instead, I
have made the change in my spreadsheet, and suggest you do the same.
Grateful Dead Archives, is a little set of documents around the “Northwest
Acoustic Tour”, and there it shows the Oregon State Pen gig, 12-2 on Saturday
the 5th, then an hour drive south to Eugene for the evening show or
shows. If there were still a Jerry Site, I’d update it, but, alas – instead, I
have made the change in my spreadsheet, and suggest you do the same.
REFERENCES:
! ref: Cowan, Ron. 19820611. Elsinore ‘sequel’ casts Moyer in catbird’s seat. Statesman-Journal (Salem, OR), June 11, 1982, p. 10D.
! ref: Cowan, Ron. 19820725. Inmate brings showbiz to prison. Statesman-Journal (Salem, OR), July 25, 1982, p. 3E.
! ref: “OSP Parolee Arrested,” Statesman-Journal (Salem, OR), April 26, 1984, p. 3B.
! ref: “Grateful Dead leader to play this
weekend,” Eugene Register-Guard,
June 3, 1982, p. 5D.
weekend,” Eugene Register-Guard,
June 3, 1982, p. 5D.
! ref: Grateful Dead Archive, MS332, Business Papers, Second
Accrual (preliminary), Box 1008.
Accrual (preliminary), Box 1008.
! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19820604-01, https://jerrybase.com/events/19820604-02, https://jerrybase.com/events/19820605-01, https://jerrybase.com/events/19820605-02, https://jerrybase.com/events/19820605-03, https://jerrybase.com/events/19820606-01
! ref: images of the 6/5/82 concert program can be found via
URL http://home.earthlink.net/~deadtraders/South_Eugene.htm.
URL http://home.earthlink.net/~deadtraders/South_Eugene.htm.
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