Jerry Garcia was born on August 1, 1942 and in 2017 we’re observing his 75th birthday. This anniversary calls to mind my BEST AMERICAN BANDS OF ALL TIME LIST. I won’t get into all of the details of that list here, but I will tell you that when I first made that countdown about 12 years ago the Dead were highly considered for the top spot: the Dead were hugely influential and the culture they created around their live performances was as pioneering as it continues to be long-lived. I love the band’s Working Man’s Dead and American Beauty albums, and I think the Dylan & The Dead album’s live take on “I Want You” might be the definitive version of that song. All these things are true. That said, my favorite Dead-related project is a stoner-bluegrass record called Old & In The Way which featured Jerry Garcia on banjo, David Grisman on mandolin, Peter Rowan on vocals, and the late great Vassar Clements on fiddle. Here’s the AllMusic review of their eponymous debut…

The first release from Jerry Garcia’s short-lived backcountry bluegrass act was this 1973 recording that also highlighted the amazing skills of mandolin player David Grisman. The quintet actually released only this record, recorded at a series of performances in 1973, but the sound caught on with Grateful Dead fans and the record actually built up the group’s legacy long after they disbanded. The songs themselves, mostly penned by guitarist Peter Rowan and Grisman as well as a handful of traditional numbers and even a revamped version of the Rolling Stones’ classic “Wild Horses,” are delivered with the sincere reverence of true bluegrass fanatics. Soaring multi-part harmonies; fiddle, guitar, banjo, bass, and mandolin lines that seamlessly intertwine with a good-time feel; and exceptionally solid musicianship round out the ten-track effort. Fans of the Grateful Dead’s jolly throwback tunes should already have this in their collection, but even those put off by the member’s psychedelic resumés will find that Old & in the Way is nothing of the sort. This is the sound of purists re-creating the music they grew up with and it’s both enjoyable and inspiring to listen to. Like American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead, this record showcases Garcia going back to his roots, and it shows that he and his buddies have more than the chops required to live up to their legend.

Here’s Old & In The Way…

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I just watched the The Sunshine Makers documentary. The 2015 flick tells the story of two idealistic young men in the 1960′s. The pair couldn’t be more different, but they both shared a common goal: to manufacture and distribute a massive amount of LSD, thoroughly convinced that the insights provided by the drug would create a kind of mass enlightenment that would change the world. You might not have heard of Nicholas Sand and Tim Scully, but The Sunshine Makers takes viewers on a tour of the 1960′s acid underground to meet the psychedelic pioneers at Timothy Leary’s East Coast Millbrook retreat, clear to California where the Grateful Dead, the Hells Angels and legendary acid manufacturer Owsley Stanley make San Francisco the acid capital of the world. Here’s a bit from VICE…

Acid made me want to devote myself to my life, but when chemists Nick Sand and Tim Scully first took it it made them want to devote their lives to the drug. For them, it wasn’t dissolution—it was a mission. “We thought LSD was going to change the world,” explains Sand in the new film The Sunshine Makers, which premieres at the DOC NYC festival this Wednesday. “By opening people’s minds, everyone would experience such a sense of love as to bring about world peace.”

Sand’s first LSD experience bordered on the biblical. As he recounts on camera: “I was with friends at a lakeside retreat in [upstate] New York. I sat in front of a fire, nude, in the lotus position. I just wanted to be naked. I didn’t want to be encumbered by clothing. And then I went much further than that and disappeared. I was floating in this immense, vast space, and a voice shot through me. It said, ‘Your job on this planet is to make psychedelics and turn on the world.’”

Three thousand miles away in San Francisco, and sans the voice of God, Scully was struck by a similar thought: “As we were coming down I felt fresh and new. The smells of flowers and trees were intense. I thought: [I] could make this stuff and give it away to anyone who wanted to be turned on .”

The flick just started streaming on Netflix and I’ll be publishing a review in The Contributor next week. If you don’t have Netflix the movie is also showing on YouTube.

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Last night, I was feeling sleepy, thinking about hitting the hay. Out of nowhere my girlfriend told me that Hugh Hefner had died — she was surfing the internet on her phone. “Damn, Hugh Hefner is dead. The end of an era,” I thought.

The truth is that Hugh Hefner was likely the last victim of the 2014 death hoaxes that have plagued our collective media culture. Hugh Hefner is alive and well and presumably preparing to celebrate the ushering-in of 2015.

I was prepared to write a memorial about Hef’ and his heralding of the sexual revolution back in the 1950′s, and now I think I’m going to go ahead and highlight the man and his work anyway — after all the Playboy After Dark television show is celebrating it’s 45th anniversary following its debut in 1969.

Here is a massive playlist of vintage music performances from the show featuring the Grateful Dead, Deep Purple, Ike & Tina Turner, The Byrds, and interviews with celebrities like Sharon Tate from the program which ran through 1970.

Stay Awake!

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