//http://www.powells.com/biblio/0316009989
This is the one I've been hoping for. Order now you can get a signed copy and a 4 song cd.
Phil Lesh is a great musician and a great man and HE WAS THERE!
The Grateful Dead was as much his creation as it was the the fat guy that stood stage left. He is one of the few in my opinion qualified to talk about Mr. Garcia.
I can't wait!
yeah, but I wish they posted that promo FIRST. I already ordered the earilier promo via amazon, which isn't quite as tasty. damn, maybe I should order a second copy?
j :lol:
Got the book today in the mail. Right from page one it is obvious that Mr. Lesh is first and formost a MUSICIAN. As he says, and I so relate to this, music has "defined" his life.
This is gonna be good!
i'm convinced.
hope to get mine soon.
judih
I am up to the Acid Test days. I caught the very tail end of the era, a lot through my older brothers tales of beatnick glory.
What glorious days! Let us keep that spirit of freedom, love and joy alive in everything we do! As Phil and Hunter say "it means more now than you'll ever know"
Thank you and leave it on!
Finished the book. Good stuff folks. It really does give you an idea of wehat it was like from the inside, from one of the 4 people on the planet that were there for the whole ride.
Deadhead to Kruetzman: Bill, you went to every single Grateful Dead show!!
My book came in the mail today - not bad - from April 20 - May 11th
+ a CD with comments including my all-time upper favourite Box of Rain.
Great timing. Can't wait to clear my mind with Lesh speak.
letcha know
judih
LONG LIVE PHILLIP CHAPMAN LESH!!!!!!!
I'm about 1/2-way through. It's really great to hear about the beginnings of the Dead from one of them.
-TM
Through Phil's compassionate eye and broken heart the same old stories take on a new glow. So human a man!
The wife picked up a copy of Phil's book the other day for me. It is nice to read Phil's perspective on things.
JRL: I just read Phil's take on the valentines day show in 1968 when they opened the Carousel Ballroom. The second set was dedicated to Neil Cassiday, who had died some days earlier. Phil said the show was sort of a proto-type of things to come and remembers it as being a monster to boot.
Anyway, I'm listening to that set as we speak and just want to remind you that you, too, have a copy.
Alligator..........
lw
I will check it out. I was listening to the 1980 Fox Theater show. I am still not sold on that era but because of your regarded opinion I am digging deeper. Garcia does seem to be singing pretty good and got a wicked tone with those false harmonics.
Good book though, isn't it. Dr, Lesh is a great soul. Listening to some of the later shows, when Garcia sounds totally nodded out, I hear Phil take the whole band on his back and carry them through.
I just finished the book. Couldn't hardly put it down.
A few details have become lodged in me craw...
Phil has an entheogenic world view consistent with the general population of this site.
However, he claims that most doses he consumed consisted of less than 100 ug. I could see that being a wish for most instances of dosing before going on stage. But those guys were drinking out of dosed beverages communal fashion and there ain't no guarantees on dosage management at that point, as described vividly in the one instance he copped to getting way high before a show.
I can't help but wonder if some of this has been a little watered-down in a desire to keep his own children from doing some of the things he did. (I read no mention of his experiences smoking dmt, although others close to him have publically discussed his usage of the chem in question. I'd really like ot hear Phil's take on dmt.
When all is said and done, Dan Healey appears to be the only person in the scene Phil chose to villify to any extent. The two managers embezzling band funds seemed to cause Phil less consternation than Healey's antics at the sound board, in the end.
The funny thing is, we caught a couple shows of that dead tour with sting mentioned. And I distinctly remember thinking that it was a little dissapointing to hear the meager little sound sting was able to muster in Soldier Field. It was a joke, really. And now it turns out healey was sending only 75% of available power through the pa for their set.
And the bidness of healey regularly messing with Boby in the mix appears to have been substantiated as well. In the end, Phil calls healey an amateur guitarist with sites on Bobby's place in the band....
I had wondered for a long time if'n healey lowering bobby in the mix wasn't approved by the band after they tried to fire him and pig. But the book makes it pretty clear that wasn't the case.
lw
The thing with Pig and Weir happened years before the Healy stuff Phil talks about. Phil appearently respects Weir's musicianship.
I didn't remember the 100 mic citation. Hard to believe though. Given that Owsleys standard was 200+ and that Phil was in the middle of the most hooked up psychedelic scene on the planet. I would think he got a bit more than that from time to time.
An other thing too. Phil had a pretty big rep for meth use in the day and look at how skinny he was in the Live Dead pictures. Injected meth was a huge part of the scene back then, and not just in the declineing Haight St years. Phil claims that it was a pre Dead short term thing. Who knows?
All in all Phil seems to have stood his ground. He seems to have weathered the storm with his soul intact. I am sure there is much darkness that he attenuatted for the sake of decorum, I mean I am sure he must have some anger issues with the way Garcia folded his winning hand. A band that intense and long lived has the same kind of dynamics as a family. Is there a support group for bandmates of drug addicts? Guess I should ask the guys I play with.
Right on.
The 100ug quote is found on page 147.
And there ain't nothing subliminal about the glow of a well-dosed jug of juice, nor the tingle one gets from handling a freshly dipped sheet.
lw
Sounds like a typo. Should read 1000 mics?
LOL I'm guessing phil got closer to a 1000ug dose from the apple juice jug during the intense experience described in the book than he did to 100ug. hehe
jrl: Sure the incident with bobby happened way earlier in their career than the deal w/ healey. But he ran sound for them on and off for many of those years, I'm guessing.
lw
Have you heard that rehearsal tape on "So Many Roads", at the end of the tune(can't remember which) Garcia says "Dan, Dan, where are you?"
he sounds a bit perturbed.
Nothing worse than a sound man on a power trip. I was on a show with Maria Mulduar. For our set( I was playing with The Lewminators) I remember that the monitors really sucked.
Well when Maria got up there she started giving to the sound man big time and he just turned on her. Every time the guys tried to sing the back up parts the mics weren't even on in the house.
later I did a gig with Chris Burns, Maria's keyboard player and musical director. He told me that normally they would have interceded with the crew, smoothed things over, but she had just cheated them out of their travel money and they just let her twist in the wind.
Another book on the Dead I need to buy, I'm already so behind in my reading. thanks for the reviews guys. :D
Maverik- Put this one at the top of the list. It's the real deal from the horse's mouth.
I'm not finished but so far this is a great book.
Page 153 - "I've always felt that different batches of acid had different personalities, alchemically fused into the experience by the consciouseness of the person who made it."
Probably the same could be said for extracts.
I am reading it for the second time. First time for the story, second for the jewels.
Okay, okay, I ordered the book.
Which part of the CD do I lick? :shock:
LOL
The dose on the disc is for your stereo, silly.
That reminds me...... There was a run of dead shows back in a different statute of limitations where the dose du jour on the first night was on green, non-perfed construction paper. The little odd shaped pieces looked bunk as hell. But when me friends had me eat one, they only had to follow me around for about 10 minutes before I was able to give a seal of aproval to buy a quantity.
The next night featured purple construction paper, just as knarly as the green. But you should have seen some people's faces when presented with cut up shards of a material straight out of childhood. hehe
lw
It reminded me of the "cammo" blotter story. It appears lost to spiritplants.com, but basically, I had this dream were I was in this lot. This guy was tring to sell obviously bunk sheets of paper. I confronted him and he admitted there was no acid, but they were magical anyway. Each pattern printed on the paper did different things. I couldn't quite understand his descriptions of some of the stranger fractal and eyeball patterns in my already enlightened condition, but settled on a free sample of some with a cammo pattern. He explained it would make me and everyone else who took it tonight invisible to everyone else. Anyway the show when on and I realized i was invisible. I could look around and notice the other "invisible" people. It was cool for a while, but then the spinning girls saw right through us and it was a bit scary their magic was so powerful.
WELL wake me up and smell new coffee!
it finally dawned on me that Phil speaks this book - he must have dictated most of it into a tape recorder. This book is meant to be told not simply visually read...(this is a 'duh' situation)
This book is spoken word and it's brilliant. You can hear the orchestrations, the sounds woven. You can hear the sudden epiphanies and waves of creativity. It's all there in the voice.
What a great writer.
You know i made the strange comparison of Dylan's Chronicles which is totally a word on the page book - a joyous amalgam of metaphors and juxtapositions - all visual (e.e. cummings - if you know what i mean)...but Phil! Phil is not to be followed along silently! Phil is to be read aloud.
To an appreciative friend with minds enhanced and open!
what a book!
thanks again jrl for putting this one in my hungry grasp.
judih
Ain't it though? I read it once for the story and again for the music. Phil is a mensch, no doubt about it. Makes me proud of my hippie roots.
Hey, Sistah! We started recording Yogev's tune "Not the One" yesterday and are going back today to work some more!!
Great. Ahl's happy - just shared that good piece of news with him. "It's a good song" and he's nodding his head.
May the energies flow!
j
Give my love to the whole family, I feel that we are one through SPF and young Yogev he just blended in to ours like he is with yours. Just a great young man and a giant talent. What a diamond in the rough! And he will come home a changed man.
a diamond in the rough, that he is!
a jewel.
(He has a brother as well - more rounded and a double bass player. Sweet as sugar pie.)
Work your spell, joe, and the spell will work its charms over all.
goodness gracious vibes
j
Phil was in rare form last week. During one techinal break, he began reminiscing about the good old grateful dead and their lengthy breaks. Reminded me of something straight out of SNL, to be honest. And then there was the conversation on stage concerning what Phil said he could smell rolling down the hill. Young Ryan Adams was describing the smell of homegrown, but Phil made the comment during the break right after the circus joint had been fired up. EVERYONE was smoking da kine. But I only smelled a couple of circus joints. hehe
lw
You ever hear the show where Phil(pretty sure it was Phil) sez "Is someone smoking coconuts out there?"
The last two paragraphs really sum up the book:
There will never be another band like the Grateful Dead. It was born at a time when magic and change were in the air, and it felt then as if we were an integral part of some cosmic plan to help transform human consciousness.
Like family members who still celebrate with one another after the patriarch of the family has passed on, my brothers and I play on, and I always feel Jerry's presence at our shows. No one can be replaced in the hearts of those who love them, but I still feel the necessity to play - for those who come to dance and those who hope to find magic, communing together with friends and family.
At a show on the first Furthur tour, when Los Lobos ripped onto their most excellent version of Bertha. I knew Garcia lived on, and that I would be forever Grateful.
The Music will always play the band, if the band will let it...
j 8)
There is one band and it is us