Cloud Surfing

I’ve been listening to the new double CD of highlights from the Black Tie-Dye Ball with the Zen Tricksters and friends.

From the online store page:

On November 12, 2005, The Zen Tricksters and Special Guests Mickey Hart, Donna Jean Godchaux, David Nelson, Tom Constanten, Michael Falzarano, Rob Barraco, Greg Anton, David Mackay and Wendy Lanter, came together for the first ever NYC Rex Foundation Black Tie-Dye Ball Benefit and created a night of incredible musical chemistry. Recorded LIVE at the Concert Hall , New York Society of Ethical Culture. This Two Disk Set captures the amazing energy of the concert. All the proceeds of the sale of this CD go to the Rex Foundation.

The ZT-Donna Jean collaboration was the genesis of a new band, Kettle Joe’s Psychedelic Swamp Review: the Tricksters, Donna jean, the wondderful keyboardist Mookie Siegel (of David Nelson Band fame), and singer Wendy Lanter (whose CD was produced by the Tricksters’ Tom Circosta). The band is performing this weekend at Nelson Ledges Quarry Park in northeastern Ohio, along with the New Riders of the Purple Sage, Hot Tuna, Dark Star Orchestra, myself, and many others.

The Black Tie-Dye Ball CD sounds great, and so does this new band. Check ‘em out!

Joel Selvin’s article in today’s San Francisco Chronicle fills in a lot of details, including the gruesome means of Vince’s departure.

It also gives a little more information about Vince’s December 1995 suicide attempt in Santa Cruz. Add that to what Bobby told me on the air 6/14, that they checked him in at the ER as “John Doe” to keep it out of the newspapers, and you wind up with a much more humane story than vincewelnick.com webmaster Mike Lawson’s initial blast (which he moderated considerably not long after) suggested.

I’m on the road, on a terrible connection, so I can’t add anything at the moment.

Read it if you have the stomach.

I got a call a little over a week ago from KWMR, the community radio station in Point Reyes Station. They carry my radio show, and I usually go out there at least once a year to assist with fund-raising. I am a strong supporter of community radio, and both Rita and I feel a tremendous affinity for both the physical and social settings.

The benefit had been scheduled for quite some time, but I guess they made a late decision to have a second stage for smaller acts between sets by the three bands on the mainstage. I was offered the last slot, between The Mother Hips and the Alison Brown Quartet.

I said yes, of course! Rita loves an excuse to visit west Marin, and so do I. Supporting KWMR, hearing my friends Hot Buttered Rum and two acts I’ve never seen before – I don’t see the downside. I emailed Aaron Redner, HBR’s fiddle player, and he agreed to join me in my set. And on Sunday I extended the invitation to the other band members.

I had been told there would be no amplification at all on the second stage, so I just brought my Martin – no looper, etc. Turns out they did have a sound system, powered by a donated mobile solar unit. Just as well not to have all the signal processors for a thirty-minute set anyway.

Bryan Horne, HBR’s bassist, agreed to join Aaron and me. While The Mother Hips were playing on the mainstage, Aaron and I met near the second stage to run through an original song I wanted him to help with: “That’s Real Love.” We had more time to kill, so we also ran through “Lazy River Road” (which I refer to as “a Grateful Dead song for people who think they don’t like Grateful Dead songs”), and my song “Save Us from the Saved.”

The afternoon was just as sweet as could be. The KWMR people made me feel like a real asset to their occasion; Jerry Lunsford, “The Hippie from Olema,” informed me he’s booking one of the venues in Pt. Reyes Station and offered me a gig in August; the hospitality tent was stocked with tiny sweet oysters, which made my bride very happy; the place was teeming with children, middle-aged hippies like us, younger hippies, and really old hippies, too. I mean “hippies” in the sweetest sense of the word: people who tread lightly on the earth, dress a bit more colorfully than I usually do, enjoy good music – you know. It felt good to be there among these people.

The sound system was live even when the stage was not being used. There were kids playing on and near the stage, including a little guy with an inflatable guitar who sat on the stool and hollered into the live microphone from time to time while Aaron and I were trying to rehearse nearby. A little closer to showtime, I sat on the edge of the low stage and conversed with two girls in probably the 4-5-year-old range, each of whom had a painted face and was gnawing on a peach the size of her head. They were covered in juice.

The fog hovered offshore, keeping the temperature in the just-about-perfect zone without impeding the sunshine one bit.

Get the picture?

Adrienne introduced me warmly from the big stage. There were a few dozen people, of all ages, already in chairs before me as I began, and more people headed my way as the set progressed.

I began by thanking everyone for supporting KWMR, etc., and launched into “Shove in the Right Direction.” Very well-received. I followed with “It’s Gonna Get Better,” also well-received. Two energetic, positive-themed songs – great way to start. Then I brought Aaron up and we did “Lazy River Road,” “That’s Real Love,” and “Save Us from the Saved.” Bryan joined us for the last two songs, “Jackaroe” and “Friend of the Devil.” I felt great up there along, great with Aaron supporting and soloing, and great with Bryan slapping bass solos on both songs. The energy was terrific! It lasted maybe 35 minutes, every moment of it a pleasure.

Photos by Rita Hurault

My voice is one of many included in a two-hour documentary by Paul Ingles, titled Everything Was Right: The Beatles’ Revolver.

My wife, who was an original Beatlemaniac (age 14 when they played the Sullivan show), really loved it, and said it not only enriched her knowledge of the Beatles, but will also improve her understanding of music in general.

The program is airing at various times around the country on PRI (Public Radio International) affiliates. Check your local listings, and demand that your local PRI affiliate put Everything Was Right: The Beatles’ Revolver on the air if they haven’t already.

Paul’s web site includes extended interviews with many of the participants, including Beatles historial Mark Lewisohn, musician Shawn Colvin, author and critic Jim DeRogatis, myself, and others.

There’s also a brilliant “Revolver” montage created by Douglas Grant.

Robert Hunter turns 65 today.

Thank you for today’s journal entry, RH, and happy birthday. As always, you provide rich food for thought. I don’t agree with every word of it, but I am never unappreciative of your perspective. We’re all getting older with you, and we’re all trying to make contact through that “prevailing noise.” Your words have always cut through the drivel, and you have made better use of vagueness than just about anyone I read and hear.

6.23.06

Before I Wake – notes on turning 65

Ours was no chance alliance. Events conspired to make it what it was and not otherwise. The path by which it materialized is closed now, eroded by rain, flash flood, hurricane and revised memory. The path that is not closed is still in process and so cannot be defined. It will become its own definition. Who will walk it is a mystery, but it will be no chance alliance.

Hope cannot cut through the prevailing noise of this era, we must sustain what remains of that ephemerality from the ashes of the 60′s, a generation whose dreams were dashed and did not recover. There is never success, there are only efforts.

Since the new path cannot be defined, it cannot be attacked, ridiculed, turned back on itself and scuttled by those who resent its glaring and unforgivable unusualness. The desire of adversaries will be to prove that, despite its unusualness, it is very usual indeed. The usual makes inevitable inroads into the unusual since its force is unrelenting. But first it must be defined.

The unusual emerges from unpredictable quarters, thrives awhile, makes mistakes, innocent and otherwise, similar to its predecessors, and suffers an eventual descent into usualness, thereby surrendering its uniqueness, more often than not pleading economic necessity. Which is not untrue.

Meanwhile, vagueness is the protection of the path to come. There’s no bull’s-eye on that target until it becomes solid enough to be decorated with one. Are there any identifying marks? “Adequate conceptions in whose possession true felicity consists,” advises Spinoza.

What will cause its destruction? Notoriety. Defined into prominence, it will be consequently defined out of existence, surviving only in a much altered form if at all. But there is a thread of continuity between all such paths: an identifiable sense of hope.

Courtesy of Mary Eisenhart, this item from the “It’s Only Rock’n'Roll” auction site:

394: Jerry Garcia Earliest Known Soundtrack Recording

Category: Grateful Dead
Starting Bid: $500.00
Number of Bids: 13
Current Bid: $1464.10

1964. Jerry Garcia’s earliest paid soundtrack work can be heard on this one-of-a-kind 16mm film entitled “I Want To Be A Camper”, produced to fulfill a Stanford University student’s Master of Arts in Communication degree requirement. Upon completing the filming at a summer camp for diabetic children in King’s Canyon National Park, a friend of the filmmaker suggested Garcia for the job of augmenting the film with suitable acoustic guitar instrumental music – - a job for which he was paid $50. The filmmaker relates: “I doubt if we had to do any re-takes, as I remember him getting the feeling I wanted very easily. I also remember being impressed with how much hair he had!” The never released soundtrack is sold with full copyright.