From: ddee@sunny.er.usgs.gov (David Dee)
Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead
Subject: Garcia Interview, Musician 10/81
Keywords: Thought it might help !
Date: 12 Nov 92 20:49:26 GMT
Article-I.D.: rsg1.1992Nov12.204926.29783
Organization: U.S. Geological Survey, Reston VA


Found an old Musician mag when unpacking some boxes. 
Thought a few of you out there might be interested.
Excerpts from an interview with J. Garcia by
Vic Garbarini.


M =~ Musician
J =~ Jerry


** Please excuse typos and/or mispellings, I'll try to be as
accurate as possible. Thanks !! **


cut here 8< ------------------------------------------------------ 

Garbarini had been asking Jerry about influences on the band:

M: I was talking with Ray Manzarek recently and he remembered
reading Kerouac describe this sax player in a bar who had
*it* that night, and how badly Ray wanted to get *it* too ...
whatever the hell it was.

J: Hey, that same passage was important to us !. Very definitely.
Our association with Neil Cassidy was also tremendously helpful
to us in that way.

M: And of course there was Kesey and the Acid Tests. That must
also have been about going for the essence and not getting stuck
in forms ...

J: Right, because the forms were the first thing to go in that
situation. You see, the Acid Tests represented the freedom to go
out there and try this stuff and just blow.

M: Did the acid simply amplifly that impulse, or did it open you
to the possibility in the first place?

J: Both. The Acid Test opened up possibilities to us because there
were no strictures. In other words, people weren't coming there to 
hear the Grateful Dead, so we didn't have the responsibilites to the
audience in the normal sense. Hell, they didn't know what to expect!
Sometimes we'd get onstage and only tune up. Or play about five notes,
freak out, and leave! That happened a couple of times; other times we'd
get hung up and play off in some weird zone. All these things were okay
, the reality of the situation permitted everything. That's something
special that doesn't happen in regular musical circles -- it took a 
special situation to turn us on to that level of freedom.

M: Had you experimented with either acid or musiccal "weirdness"
before?

J: Yeah, we'd taken acid before, and while we were on the bar circuit
playing seven nights a week, five sets a night, we'd use that fifth set
when there was almost nobody there but us and the bartenders to get
weird. We joined the Acid Tests partly to escape the rigors of that 
45 on, 15 off structure that the bars laid on us every night.

M: Did you have ideas about what all this might open you up to, or was
it just "let's step through this doorway"?

J: Just that: let's step through this doorway. We didn't have any
expectations.

M: Do you feel any ambivalence about it now? Acid had a down side for
some people ...

J: No, I loved it. I'd do it again in a second because it was such a
totally positive experience for me, especially when you consider that
we were at the tail end of the beatnik thing, in which an awful lot of
my energy was spent sitting around and waiting for something to 
happen. And finally, when something *did* happen, boy, I couldn't get
*enough* of it. When we  fell in with the Acid Test, I was ready to 
pack up and hit the road. We all went for it.

M: How did that evolve into the whole Haight-Ashbury scene?

J: What happened was that the Acid Test fell apart when acid became
illegal, and Kesey had to flee to Mexico. We ended up down in L.A.
hanging out with Owsley in Watts, then moved back to San Francisco
three of four months later.

M: Were psychedelics really the main catalysts in initiating the
Haight scene?

J: I think it was a very,very important part of it. Everyone at that
time was looking hard for that special magic thing, and it was like 
there were clues everywhere. Everybody I knew at least had a copy of
'The Doors of Perception', and wanted to find out what was behind the
veil.

M: What closed that doorway?

J: COPS!!

M: Just cops?

J: That's it, really, cops...It was also that this group of people
who were trying to meet each other finally came together, shook hands,
and split. It was all those kids that read Kerouac in high school --
the ones who were a little weird. The Haight-Ashbury was like that at
first, and then it became a magnet for every kid who was dissatisfied:
a kind of central dream, or someplace to run to. It was a place for 
seekers, and San Francisco always had that tradition anyway.

M: Sort of a school for consciousness.

J: Yes, very much so, and in a good way. It was sweet. A special thing.

M: Sometimes I think that whole scene was a chance for our generation
to glimpse the goal, and now we've got to find out how to get back 
there.

J: Right, and many people have gone on to reinforce that with their
own personal energy. It *is* possible to pursue that goal and feed the 
dog at the same time. It just takes a little extra effort.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Somethings to think about,
Dave
-- 
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#  David Dee     ddee@sunny.er.usgs.gov                                #
#  Cartographer                                                        #
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