Here is a DRAFT of the 1965 material I'm working on as caretaker. If you all can take
a look at this, I would appreciate any input you have.
Post your thoughts to the list or to me by email, but please not both. Thanks, Teddy
:^)
===================
BAND The Warlocks
VENUE Menlo College
CITY Menlo Park
STATE CA
DATE 04/??/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS Date and show uncertain.
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS
BAND The Warlocks
VENUE Magoo's Pizza Parlor
CITY Menlo Park
STATE CA
DATE 05/05/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS David Sorochty: There is an article in the "1983/84 Concert Program" booklet
written by
Dennis McNally which tells the history of the band. In there he writes:
"Garcia also had things to say about his new group, and two weeks later Lesh went to
see them at a Menlo Park pizza joint called Magoo's, his long Beatle-cut hair flying
as he tripped and danced and got told to sit down by the management and got very high
on Pigpen mashing his brain with "Little Red Rooster", So when Garcia took him aside
to a booth after the show and said "Hey man, it looks like you're going to be the
bass player for this band," it was the simplest truth in the world, even if he'd
never touched a bass in his life."
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Teddy GoodBear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Dennis McNally, David Sorochty
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
BAND The Warlocks
VENUE Magoo's Pizza Parlor
CITY Menlo Park
STATE CA
DATE 05/12?/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS David Sorochty: There is an article in the "1983/84 Concert Program" booklet
written by Dennis McNally which tells the history of the band. In there he writes:
"Garcia also had things to say about his new group, and two weeks later Lesh went to
see them at a Menlo Park pizza joint called Magoo's, his long Beatle-cut hair flying
as he tripped and danced and got told to sit down by the management and got very high
on Pigpen mashing his brain with "Little Red Rooster", So when Garcia took him aside
to a booth after the show and said "Hey man, it looks like you're going to be the
bass player for this band," it was the simplest truth in the world, even if he'd
never touched a bass in his life."
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Teddy GoodBear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Dennis McNally, David Sorochty
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
BAND The Warlocks
VENUE Magoo's Pizza Parlor
CITY Menlo Park
STATE CA
DATE 05/27/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS David Sorochty: There is an article in the "1983/84 Concert Program" booklet
written by Dennis McNally which tells the history of the band. In there he writes:
"Garcia also had things to say about his new group, and two weeks later Lesh went to
see them at a Menlo Park pizza joint called Magoo's, his long Beatle-cut hair flying
as he tripped and danced and got told to sit down by the management and got very high
on Pigpen mashing his brain with "Little Red Rooster", So when Garcia took him aside
to a booth after the show and said "Hey man, it looks like you're going to be the
bass player for this band," it was the simplest truth in the world, even if he'd
never touched a bass in his life."
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Teddy GoodBear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Dennis McNally, David Sorochty
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
BAND The Warlocks
VENUE
CITY
STATE CA
DATE ??/??/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS by Susan Green/Burlington Free Press 10/2000: In 1965 Phil Lesh decided to
take a year off from his academic pursuits at Mills College. He'd been majoring in
avant-garde composition after a childhood spent playing classical violin and trumpet.
"I would have gone back and probably studied conducting, but then I met this guy
named Garcia," he recalls.
That fortuitous encounter with folk guitarist/vocalist Jerry Garcia brought the 25
year-old Lesh into a group that included keyboard player Ron "Pigpen" McKernan,
rhythm guitarist Bob Weir, and drummer Bill Kreutzmann. The Warlocks were born,
initially cranking out amplified rock standards at a time when acoustic was all the
rage.
As they began to take more and more original approach with lyricist Robert Hunter
collaborating on many songs, The Warlocks changed names. Good thing. Warlockheads
doesn't roll off the tongue with quite the same ease as Deadheads.
The Dead hooked up with author Ken Kesey and his legendary Merry Pranksters, an
assortment of pleasure-seeking bohemians immortalized in Tom Wolfe's 1968 book, "The
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." This association represented a new chapter for the
musicians who were smoking copious amounts of marijuana, taking LSD and performing at
the outdoor Trips Festivals in the Bay Area. The Dead assumed a prominent place in
the vanguard of the nascent hippie movement with San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury
district as ground zero.
Although it was a time of unparalleled experimentation with drugs and
lifestyles, the band never slacked off. "We worked hard, " Lesh says. "In those
first five years, we played for hours at a time every day, rehearsing or just
jamming."
Lesh's sensibility helped convince the others that "we could go beyond the
three-minute song by improvising in a way that looked to jazz."
The Dead soon became known for long, winding meditations on its own tunes or those
the band admired written by others. With what one critic described as "extraordinary
bursts of imagination," the sound was electric and never repetitive.
"We liked to play for dancers," Lesh says. "That's how we got the highest level of
feedback from audiences. At one Trips Festival. I looked out at 5,000 people dancing
in waves, forgetting themselves in our music."
The excitement of live Dead did not translate to the group's albums. "We were never
really good, frankly, at recording. That was always secondary to us."
High Times 12/2000 by Paul Krassner:
Garcia originally started smoking pot in his early teens. He loved to get stoned with
his friends and go to a drive-in movie. In those days you could get a matchbox of
marijuana, fifteen skinny joints' worth, for as little as $5.
It was not surprising, years later, that one could find a
kilo of Acapulco Gold in the kitchen of the Dead house in
San Francisco.
"Jerry taught me how to roll joints," recalls Steve Parish.
"He was a great joint roller. He liked seeded weed best. He
thought weed went downhill when everybody did sensimilla."
Garcia used to tease Dead songwriter Robert Hunter by
threatening to leave a big pile of joints in the middle of
the dining-room table for Hunter's parents to find. Hunter
later became a participant in the Veterans Administration
program of experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and Jerry
pumped him for information about LSD. And, in 1965, with
David Nelson and Sara Rupenthal, who became his first wife,
Jerry took his first acid trip...but certainly not his last.
"We had enough acid to blow the world apart," he would tell
Robert Greenfield, author of Dark Star, "We were just
musicians in this house and we were guinea-pigging more or
less continuously. Tripping frequently if not constantly.
That got good and weird."
It was while tripping on acid that Garcia listened to the
Beatles and to Bob Dylan's first electric album, destroying
in the process Garcia's prejudice against amplified music,
and so, with his band, the Warlocks, forerunner to the
Grateful Dead, Jerry gleefully turned his talent from
bluegrass banjo-picking to rocking with an electric guitar.
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Teddy GoodBear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Marc Blaker, Susan
Green/Burlington Free Press 10/2000, High Times 12/2000 by Paul Krassner.
BAND The Warlocks
VENUE Frenchy's
CITY Haywood
STATE CA
DATE 06/18/65?
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS Phil Lesh's 1st show. Date uncertain.
David Sorochty: There is an article in the "1983/84 Concert Program" booklet written
by
Dennis McNally which tells the history of the band. In there he writes:
"They got a three night gig Frenchy's in Hayward, came back for the second night, and
discovered they'd been replaced by an accordian, clarinet, and bass trio."
Alex Allan:
This doesn't seem consistent with Phil's own comments to Michael Lydon in an article
published in August 1969 when he said "I had never played bass, but I learned, sort
of, and in July 1965 the five of us played our first gig - some club in Fremont." [In
"Garcia- by the Editors of Rolling Stone"].
Marc Blaker:
Having spent 6 years in exile in Hayward I can attest that they are close by and
indeed share similarities including a border.
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Teddy GoodBear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Dennis McNally, Alex Allan,
"Garcia- by the Editors of Rolling Stone", David Sorochty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Marc Blaker
BAND The Warlocks
VENUE Frenchy's
CITY Haywood
STATE CA
DATE 06/19/65?
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS Date uncertain. 2nd Show at Frenchy's cancelled.
David Sorochty: There is an article in the "1983/84 Concert Program" booklet written
by
Dennis McNally which tells the history of the band. In there he writes:
"They got a three night gig Frenchy's in Hayward, came back for the second night, and
discovered they'd been replaced by an accordian, clarinet, and bass trio."
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Teddy GoodBear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Dennis McNally, David Sorochty
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
BAND The Warlocks
VENUE Frenchy's
CITY Haywood
STATE CA
DATE 06/20/65?
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS Date uncertain. 3rd Show at Frenchy's cancelled.
David Sorochty: There is an article in the "1983/84 Concert Program" booklet written
by
Dennis McNally which tells the history of the band. In there he writes:
"They got a three night gig Frenchy's in Hayward, came back for the second night, and
discovered they'd been replaced by an accordian, clarinet, and bass trio."
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Teddy GoodBear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Dennis McNally, David Sorochty
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
BAND The Warlocks
VENUE Fireside Club
CITY San Mateo
STATE CA
DATE 08/??/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS Possibly for three nights.
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Deadbase.
BAND The Warlocks
VENUE Big Al's Gas House
CITY Redwood City
STATE CA
DATE 08/??/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Deadbase.
BAND The Warlocks
VENUE Cinnamon A-Go-Go
CITY Redwood City
STATE CA
DATE 08/??/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Deadbase.
BAND The Warlocks
VENUE In Room
CITY Belmont
STATE CA
DATE 09/??/65 -- For Six Weeks
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS The Warlocks played five nights a week for six weeks according to Deadbase.
David Sorochty: There is an article in the "1983/84 Concert Program" booklet written
by
Dennis McNally which tells the history of the band. In there he writes:
"They landed a six week gig at the In-Room in Belmont, where Larry the bartenderwould
enliven the procedeings by squirting lighter fluid into ashtrays and torching the bar
when things got rolling - one night he went too far and the band had to run back in
to rescue the equipment and they backed the Coasters one week and played six nights
every week and began to cook their musical souls into a fine blend."
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Teddy GoodBear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, David Sorochty
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Dennis McNally, Deadbase
BAND The Warlocks
VENUE Palo Alto High School
CITY Palo Alto
STATE CA
DATE 09/19/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS Jack Fisher: On September 19, 1965 Palo Alto High School was the site of one
of the last official shows of The Warlocks. Unfortunately, there was already in
existence a band by that name in Portland, OR thus bringing to a close the carreers
of The Warlocks and opening the carreer of a new group called "San Francisco's
Grateful Dead" whose 1st official show at The Fillmore Auditorium was billed as such.
Good thing too. Otherwise, we'd all be old "warriors" rather than "deadheads". --
Jack (who was there both times)!
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Teddy GoodBear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Jack Fisher
BAND The Warlocks
VENUE Longshoreman's Hall
CITY San Francisco
STATE CA
DATE 10/16/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS I don't know if this is accurate?
-- Joel Selvin:
The Family Dog put on their first dance, "A Tribute to Dr. Strange" at the
Longshoreman's Hall. Bands that played were the Jefferson Airplane (first performance
outside the Matrix), the Charlatans, the Marbles, and The Warlocks. The master of
ceremonies was Russ (the Moose) Syracuse. -- Selvin, Joel. (Summer of Love. New York:
Penguin. 1994. p 28).
-- City of San Francisco Museum < http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/rock.html >:
Family Dog collective dance and concert, a tribute to Dr. Strange, at Longshoremen's
Hall with The Jefferson Airplane andthe Charlatans, and the Great Society. Russ "The
Moose" Syracuse of KYA was master of ceremonies.
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Teddy GoodBear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, David Sorochty
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Selvin, Joel. (Summer of Love. New York: Penguin. 1994. p
28), City of San Francisco Museum
BAND The Warlocks
VENUE Mother's
CITY San Francisco
STATE CA
DATE 11/03/65
SET1 Can't Come Down, Mindbender ; The Only Time Is Now ; Caution (Do Not Stop On The
Tracks) ; I Know You Rider ; Early Morning Rain
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS Warlocks - Autumn Records Demo, "The Emergency Crew".
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS
BAND The Warlocks
VENUE Pierre's
CITY San Francisco
STATE CA
DATE 11/??/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS Possibly three nights.
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Deadbase.
BAND The Warlocks
VENUE
CITY
STATE CA
DATE 11/06/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS Bill Graham's first: benefit to raise money for Mime Troupe, busted for
performing in park without a permit. Airplane, Fugs, Warlocks, Committee,
Ferlinghetti + more.
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Teddy GoodBear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, David Sorochty
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
BAND Merry Pranksters/Warlocks?
VENUE
CITY Soquel, Santa Cruz
STATE CA
DATE 11/??/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS Soquel, near Santa Cruz (Warlocks?): 1st Acid Test?
The Deadhead's Taping Compendium -- p.85: "The parties were outgrowing La
Honda...first acid test was held in November 1965.
RECORDINGS Master recordings of "Acid Tests" by Pranksters: "were several Ampex 601
two-track stereo reel-to-reel tape decks..." -- [Ref.: The Deadhead's Taping
Compendium -- p.6 Ken Babbs & p.85].
CONTRIBUTORS Teddy GoodBear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, The Deadhead's Taping
Compendium p.85, Owsley Stanley III.
BAND Grateful Dead
VENUE Big Nig's House
CITY San Jose
STATE CA
DATE 12/04/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS "San Jose Acid Test". 1st appearance as "The Grateful Dead".
Transcribed by Teddy GoodBear: Grateful Dead Family Album -- p.30, The Deadhead's
Taping Compendium -- p.86 Jann Wenner (founder of "Rolling Stone" & quoted from
various other books): "Here they were in the living room at someone's house playing,
and..."
To see the concert art:
http://www.goodbear.com/concert_art/12_04_65.html
-- March 1972 Playboy Interview by Ed McClanahan (reprinted without permission):
SCENE: The Dead's business office in San Rafael, where Bob Hunter, the Dead's
lyricist, has just been telling everybody about a friend recently returned from a
trip to Cuba. Enter Ramrod, one of the band's equipment handlers.
RAMROD: Now the first time *I* ever saw Jerry Garcia was in midwinter 1965, in Ken
Kesey's house up in La Honda. I'm lounging around Kesey's living room, see, and
this extraordinarily curious looking party comes shuffling through. In point of
fact, he's the very first true freak I've ever laid eyes on, this somewhat
rotund young man with a hairdo like a dust mop dipped in coal tar, and after
he's gone Kesey says that was Jerry Garcia, he's got a rock'n'roll band that's
gonna play with us this Saturday night at the San Jose Acid Test, their name is
the Warlocks but they're gonna change it to the Grateful Dead.
At the time, to tell the truth, I wasn't exactly galvanized with excitement by
this bit of news; after all, only a few Saturday nights before that I'd attended
what I've since some to regard as the Olde *Original* Acid Test, a curiously
disjointed but otherwise perfectly ordinary party at Kesey's house featuring
nothing more startling than an abundance of dope and a drunken Berkeley poet who
kept loudly reciting Dylan Thomas and, at midnight (hours after I'd gone home,
adept as ever at missing the main event), the ritual sacrifice and subsequent
immolation of a chicken.
But what I didn't know then was that 400 people would turn up for the San Jose
Acid Test, which begat the Palo Alto Acid Test, which begat the Fillmore Acid
Test, which begat the Trips Festival, which begat Bill Graham, who (to hear
*him* tell it, anyhow) begat Life As We Know It Today. Still, like I said, I
couldn't possibly have known that at the time.
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Teddy GoodBear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, The Grateful Dead Family Album
p.30, The Deadhead's Taping Compendium p.86; Jann Wenner (Rolling Stone Founder).
BAND Grateful Dead
VENUE Fillmore Auditorium
CITY San Francisco
STATE CA
DATE 12/10/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS "Mime Troupe Benefit - Appeal II, for Continued Artistic Freedom in the
Arts". Other artist(s): Jefferson Airplane, The Great Society, John Handy Quintet,
The Mystery Trend, The Gentlemen's Band, the VIP's and others. Bill Graham second
benefit for Mime Troupe, at Fillmore (first time there) Fillmore & Geary - 3,500
people.
Transcribed by Teddy GoodBear:
||||On The Town||||
Lesson for the S.F. in The Mime Benefit
||||by Ralph J. Gleason||||
The benefit for the San Francisco Mime Troupe Friday night at the Fillmore Auditorium
(it was billed as "Appeal II, for Continued Artistic Freedom in the Arts") was a
roaring success. Over 3500 people paid $1.50 apiece to be there.
But it was a great deal more than a benefit. It was substantiation of the suspicion
that the need to dance on the part of a great number of residents of this area is so
great it simply must be permitted.
The Friday night affair was basically a rock 'n roll dance such as the ones the
Family Dog put on at the Longshore Hall.
If this city was run for the citizens, such affairs would be commonplace and
conducted say, once a month at the Civic Auditorium where there used to be numerous
dances during the swing era.
* * *
At 9:30 there was a double line a block long outside the Fillmore Auditorium. At 1
a.m. it was still there, the individuals were new but the packed house still existed.
Inside a most remarkable assembladge of humanity was leaping, jumping, dancing,
frigging, fragging and frugging on the dance floor to the music of the half dozen
rock bands--The Mystery Trend, The Great Society, The Jefferson Airplane, the VIP's,
The Gentlemen's Band, The Warlocks and others. The costumes were freeform
Goodwill-cum-Sherwood Forest. Slim young ladies with their faces painted a la
Harper's Bazzar in cats-and-dogs lines, granny dresses topped with hugh feathers,
white hats with decals of mystic design; bell-bottoms split up the side! The
combinations were seemingly limitless.
At each end of the huge hall was a three foot high sign saying LOVE. Over the bar was
another saying "No Booze", while the volunteer bartenders served soft drinks.
Alongside the regular bar was a series of tables selling apples! The only dance
(outside of Halloween) I've ever been at where they sold apples, Craaaazy! In a
corner past the apple table was a baby in a carriage, sound asleep with a bottle and
a teddy bear clutched in his (her?) arms.
This crowd was so far out that when Milton Hunt, the distinguished North Beach
boulevardier, entered wearing a scrape and a black sombrero and escorting a girl
dressed in a Vikki Duggins skirt (cut six inches below the hipline and supported by a
thin net top and that's all!) no one turned a hair. It was that kind of a night.
Although it was a benefit for the Mime Troupe in its fight against "the law's delay,
the insolence of office" to which their handest refers in Shakesphearean terms, there
were thousands there who never heard of the Mime Troupe or at least never had been in
one of their shows, as Ronnie Davis pointed out.
They were there for a multitude of reasons, and the reasons bear examination. Some
were there because the Mime Troupe represents, along with Jerry Ets Hotkins, a battle
for creativity in the arts. Others, and more I suspect, were there because the Mime
Troupe's park use hassle dramatizes another aspect of the struggle of US against
THEM.
Still others were there as part of the rock revolution. They don't. need booze (as
the swing era dancers did). All they need is the sound of the guitars. They get high
on decibels alone. And they are hurting to dance.
* * *
SAN FRANCISCO has been hell on dances for years. The police obviously regard mass
proximity of the sexes to the sound of music as a hazard equal to a time bomb. But I
suspect this attitude will have to be tempered. The actual demand for dances is going
to increase. The whole rock revolution points to dancing, the music ineluctably moves
one to move.
Another thing about the Friday night revel. There were no guards inside. There was an
absence of uniforms and there was no trouble. It was the kind of crowd were over a
dozen people stopped dancing, got down on thier hands and knees to help a girl find a
contact lens that had popped out during a particularly dramatic movement. They
scrambled on the dance floor for a few minutes and found it. She cleaned it in her
mouth, popped it back in and the dancing continued.
Don't knock the rock, as the British used to say.--Ralph J. Gleason (S.F. Chronicle,
12/13/65).
http://www.goodbear.com/concert_art/12_10_65.html
David Sorochty:
FWIW Rock Scully gives the following info in his book "Living With The Dead":
12-10-65: Little Red Rooster, I Know You Rider, Midnight Hour, Early Morning Rain
Obviously that info comes from memory, not tapes.
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Teddy GoodBear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Adrian M. Johnson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "The Art Of Rock" book [The "Last Days" Booklet],"The
Art Of The Fillmore" book, David Sorochty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Ralph J. Gleason
(S.F. Chronicle, 12/13/65).
BAND Grateful Dead
VENUE Muir Beach Lodge
CITY Muir Beach
STATE CA
DATE 12/11/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS "Muir Beach Acid Test".
To see the concert art:
http://www.goodbear.com/concert_art/12_04_65.html
Owsley "Bear" Stanley III:
...There were two "Acid Tests" which I didn't. go to after my "initiation" at the Dec
11 Muir Beach event...
David Sorochty:
FWIW Rock Scully gives the following info in his book "Living With The Dead"
12-11-65:
Hog For You Baby -> Good Day Sunshine, Early Morning Rain
Obviously that info comes from memory, not tapes.
Joel Selvin:
Third public Acid Test. Last minute it was moved to lodge near Muir Beach. Augustus
Owsley Stanley III arrived and tripped out on LSD. Screeched chair across the floor,
left log cabin screaming and crashed his car on the side of the road. -- (Selvin,
Joel. Summer of Love. New York: Penguin. 1994. p 42-43.)
In the "GD Family Album" per Mountain Girl:
She talks about Owsley & his "screeching chair". She thought he was obnoxious.
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Teddy GoodBear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, The Grateful Dead Family Album
p.30, Owsley Stanley III, David Sorochty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Selvin, Joel
(Summer of Love. New York: Penguin. 1994. p 42-43).
BAND Grateful Dead
VENUE The Big Beat Club
CITY Palo Alto
STATE CA
DATE 12/18/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS "Big Beat Acid Test".
Owsley "Bear" Stanley III:
There were two "Acid Tests" which I didn't go to after my "initiation" at the Dec 11
Muir Beach event, one was in Palo Alto and the other one was in Portland. There were
two before that also.
-- March 1972 Playboy Interview by Ed McClanahan (reprinted without permission):
Anyhow, I didn't go to the San Jose Acid Test. But a few Saturday nights later
I did make it over to a ratty old night club called Ben's Big Beat, in the mud
flats beside the Bayshore Freeway for the Palo Alto Acid Test; and the what's-
their-names, the Grateful Dead, they were there, too, Jerry Garcia plucking
strange sonic atonalities out of his Magic Twanger, backed up by a pair of
cherubic-looking boys named Phil Lesh, on bass guitar, and Bobby Weir, on rhythm
guitar, and a drummer -- Bill Kreutzmann -- who looked so young and innocent and
fresh-faced that one's first impulse was to wonder how he got his momma to let
him stay out so late, and, mainly, this incredibly gross person who played
electric organ and harmonica and sang occasional blues vocals.
Pigpen, someone said his name was -- beyond a doubt the most marvelously ill-favored
figure to
grace a public platform since King Kong came down with stagefright and copped out on
the Bruce Cabot show. He was bearded and burly and barrel chested, jowly and scowly
and growly, and he had long, Medusalike hair so greasy it might have been groomed
with Valvoline, and his angry countenance glowered out through it like a wolf at bay
in a hummock of some strange, rank foliage. He wore, as I recall, a motorcyclist's
cap, crimped and crumpled Hell's Angel style, and heavy iron-black boots, and the gap
between the top of his oily Levis and the bottom of his tattletale-gray T-shirt
exposed a half-moon of a distended beer belly as pale and befurred as a wedge of
moldy jack cheese.
Sitting up there at that little spindly-legged organ, he looked enormous, bigger than
life, like a gorilla at a harpsichord. But the ugly mother sure could *play*! To
one as dull of ears as I, who'd always pretty much assumed that the only fit place
for organ music outside of church was the roller rink, those ham-fisted whorehouse
chords he was hammering out seemed in and of themselves to constitute the most
satisfying sort of blasphemy. And sing! The way this coarse-voiced ogre snarled his
unintelligible yet unfathomably indecent talkin'-blues phrases would curl the very
Devil's codpiece; fathers of teenage daughters must have shuddered in their sleep as
far away as Burlingame that night. Verily, he was wondrous gross, was this Pigpen;
yet such was the subtle alchemy of his art that the more he profaned love and beauty,
the more his grossness rendered him beautiful.
"Far *out*!" the teeny-boppers and their boyfriends in Ben's Beat kept exclaiming
while Pig worked. "Isn't he far f*ckin' *out*!" It was an expression I'd not run
into before, but even at first hearing it seemed destined, if only for its sommodious
inexactness, to be with us for a good long while. In any case, it accommodated Pigpen
very nicely; he was indeed one far-out gentelman, no doubt about it, none at all.
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Teddy GoodBear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, The Grateful Dead Family Album
p.30, Owsley Stanley III.
BAND Grateful Dead
VENUE The Matrix
CITY San Francisco
STATE CA
DATE 12/??/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS
Teddy GoodBear:
(See 1/15/66 - "Portland Acid Test" for more of Bear's comments). His comments were
made off the top of his head & therefore may not be accurate.
Owsley "Bear" Stanley:
There were only two Matrix shows, one in Dec '65, and the one before the Fillmore AT.
The Matrix was a crummy little closet of a venue with barely enough room for 50 to 60
people to stand in, the big name bands didn't play there after they got up and known.
The hall couldn't pay more than $100 for the act. They seldom had two acts/night and
so far as I know never three. The Dead played there twice when they were unknown.
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Teddy GoodBear<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Owsley Stanley III
Any questions, comments or concerns about this Web Site should be directed to Nathan
Wolfson. The adaptation of this material to html was done by Teddy GoodBear and is ©
copyrighted by Deadlists. DeadLists is a communal, not-for-profit project. Grateful
Dead performances are a matter of public, historical record. However, the additional
material presented here may not be duplicated except for similar, non-commercial
purposes, with this entire document preserved (including this notice) intact. All
rights are reserved by the contributors and participants in the DeadLists Project.
Inclusion of information regarding recordings does not denote that these recordings
are available to the general public. Some information has been generously donoted
from private collections.
BAND Grateful Dead
VENUE Beaver Hall
CITY Portland
STATE OR
DATE 12/25/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS Portland Acid Test - day uncertain. See 1/15/66 entry.
-- Teddy GoodBear:
Bear's comments were made off the top of his head & therefore may not be accurate.
-- Owsley "Bear" Stanley:
Portland acid test was either on Dec 18 '65, or Jan 15 '66. There were two which I
didn't go to after my "initiation" at the Dec 11 Muir Beach event, one was in Palo
Alto and the other one was in Portland. There were two before that also. Only one
other one did I miss, the first one in LA in late Feb in Northridge. So I missed a
total of five of the AT's. The Dead were always the centerpiece of the Acid Tests,
the real reason for its existence, and it could not have taken place without them.
The band at the time rated their participation above any other activity in
importance.
Owsley later goes on to say:
I met the Dead formally at the Fillmore show on 11 Feb '66. The Northridge Acid Test
was 19 Feb, the Sunset Blvd. test was 25 Feb. I was not at the Northridge Test. Watts
was in March.
Joel Selvin:
-- Dec. (around Christmas) - Acid Test in Portland, Oregon. Selvin, Joel. (Summer of
Love. New York: Penguin. 1994. p 43).
RECORDINGS
CONTRIBUTORS Teddy GoodBear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Grateful Dead Family Album --
p.30, Owsley Stanley III, Selvin, Joel. (Summer of Love. New York: Penguin. 1994. p
43).
BAND Neal Cassidy & The Warlocks
VENUE
CITY
STATE
DATE ??/??/65
SET1
SET2
SET3
ENCORE
COMMENTS Listed as: "Neal Cassidy & The Warlocks 1965".
RECORDINGS
As of 2001, the recording that circulates:
Grateful Dead & Merry Pranksters
The Acid Test Reels
1965-1967
A chronological compilation of the Acid Test recordings listed in
The Grateful Dead Tapers Compendium Volume One.
Disc Four: Related Recordings
Neal Cassidy & The Warlocks 1965
1. Speed Limit
studio recording/Prankster production tape circa late 1965
CONTRIBUTORS Teddy GoodBear<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
