The Grateful Dead

[winterland121072]

Right...rumor is that Weir and Pig were actually fired from the band...which is belied by the Grateful Dead shows surrounding these dates...

[Lammycat]

My memory recalls that Weir was indeed fired from the band, but simply kept showing up at practice until he wore the others down and they relented to give him another shot. He didn't miss any playing time concerning shows.

 

re: Pigpen, I believe he was fired too and actually missed a few shows due to it in '68 but was allowed to rejoin soon after the firing.

[Analogman]

I've always rather liked that song Clementine ever since I first heard it. The version from February 2nd, 1968 (Crystal Ballroom, Portland, Oregon) is fantastic.

[Mr. Heartbreak]

Listening to 10 October 1968 - matrix....interesting that this show (and 08 October 1968) was only jerry / mickey / phil  -  no bobby or pigpen...Mainly meandering and varied forms of Dead songs - interesting but nothing dazzling or remarkable.

 

 

I was just playing this show for the first time this past week. You're right, nothing notable at all. I was hoping it would have some of the famed '68 ferocity, but...not so much.

Moving on to some '74 shows soon for a whole different vibe.

[winterland121072]

i think 20 June 1974 is arguably the strongest (and most underrated) show of June 1974 - all of 1974. The Truckin' through China Doll is really really impressive...

[Analogman]

The page is up for the:

 

Beat Club film

 

(Two of favorite Beat Club performances: Slade doing Hear Me Calling and Santana doing Jungle Strut.)

[calvino]

I thought Blair Jackson stopped writing for Dead.net - nice to see him back.

 

Probably will catch the film.

 

I have the show - it was part of the Complete Europe 72 set - I think I only listened to it once - need to give it another listen.

 

Pretty poor camera work on the this one by Lemieux, which is kind of funny.

[winterland121072]

The firing...

 

http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2011/03/1968-firing.html

 

There was also the point that Pigpen’s songs were a huge and popular part of the stage show.
Constanten said, “When Pigpen fronted the band it became something else, because his thing was so cultivated and established in its own right that it became its own thing – sort of a psychedelicized blues band. I’ve heard it said that the Grateful Dead at that time was two bands: when Pigpen was fronting the band and when he wasn’t…”

But while Weir’s skills had grown since the Warlocks were formed, Pigpen seemed to be standing still – and the band grew more irritated about this.
Lesh wrote, “Jerry and I were operating in an acid-fueled collective mind-meld. We were so excited by this that we were ignoring the fact that Pig didn’t seem to be connecting with us on a musical level. As Jerry and I spun farther and farther out, we began to see Pig’s contribution more as an anchor than as a balance or ground.”

Danny Rifkin believed that “Pigpen was not really a keyboard player, and I can recall people complaining that he wasn’t evolving musically the way the rest of the band was; that he was kind of a drag on the band musically… He was a great blues singer, but he got lost as a player. I think he had a ceiling or limit in his ability as a keyboardist that he couldn’t get past... He couldn’t anticipate where the music was going. When it was his thing he did fine.”
Sue Swanson said, “I think they left him in the dust musically. He was in over his head on the keyboards – especially when the others really…got out there and he was drunk. I mean, how could he possibly follow? Obviously it was a source of some frustration.”

Jon McIntire summed up: “The real far-out spacy stuff wasn’t what Pigpen related to… In the beginning [Pig’s organ playing] was really imaginative and the tempos were good, and then, after a number of years…it was just not good playing. The timing was off. I think it led to a lack of musical communication.”
(McIntire felt this was mostly due to Pigpen’s drinking habit. The band themselves didn’t seem to think so. Weir said, “I think the drinking might actually have helped his performances,” and Garcia said, “He was never too drunk to perform.”)

One incident stuck with McIntire, a confrontation with Pigpen: “There was a band meeting in the middle of one of the recording sessions and they were attacking Pig. I think Jerry was furious with him about the music. They were saying, ‘You drink all the time. You just hang out. You’re zonking out in front of the TV all the time. You don’t do anything.’ And on and on… Pigpen would nod and say, ‘Yep, that’s who I am.’”

Weir also came in for his share of attacks. In McIntire’s view, “Musically, Bobby hadn’t yet taken the bull by the horns. Pigpen’s timing and pitch were off because of his drinking, but Bobby just hadn’t matured yet as a player.”
Rock Scully saw that “Garcia really loved him and respected him, even if they had their falling-outs. They had their tough moments…”
Jonathan Reister thought “Bobby was our little juvenile delinquent. Most of the band fights were about his guitar playing.”

Sue Swanson recalled, “It was never easy. Every day…there was always some kind of psychodrama going on at some level or other. One person was disagreeing with another, or they were going to fire Weir. Pig was not playing right, or somebody was being a motherfucker, or Billy was pulling some maneuver with the money. It was always something.”
One specific time in ’67 came to mind: “I can remember many times when one or the other of them was going to be fired from the band. They played up in Toronto for Expo ’67, and I remember during that week Bobby was supposed to be fired, but obviously it didn’t happen.”
Lesh also remembers this in his book, noting that the band was unhappy about their Toronto performance on 8/4/67: “Jerry and I started grumbling to each other about the music. With too many shows and not enough rehearsal, the music wasn’t moving forward to our satisfaction. Bobby, being years younger and a bit spaced, became our target. We confronted him after the show about working harder to keep up. The end result…we all played better the next night.”

Even from the audience, Sat Khalsa saw that “Jerry was enormously frustrated with Bobby. Bobby would get spaced out… When they would all be stoned together and really go out there, I would see Bobby standing on the stage not playing. Jerry would be taking off…and Bobby would be standing there, holding his guitar.”

Rock Scully has made some interesting claims about what the problem was. According to him, “Garcia said, ‘Bobby’s not playing electric guitar, and if I’m going to get good at my instrument…I need a solid, electric rhythm behind me.’ Which was weird because…Garcia developed his style from having to comp a lot of rhythm.” (This contradicts what Garcia said above about the role of rhythm in the Dead, though…)
Scully further says, “Between the two of them [Weir & Pigpen], we were just getting a lot of fill. We were getting a lot of mid-range mush. Phil Lesh had taken his instrument into a lead-bass-playing thing, and there was no bottom end. It was totally up to the drummers.” (I’m not sure this is what we hear on the tapes…)

In any case, in August ’68 Garcia came to a decision.


II. THE FIRING

Rock Scully told the story:
“Jerry kind of put it on me to fire them. It was a totally musical decision. Bobby wasn’t progressing – he was still playing the electric guitar like an acoustic guitar, and Jerry was trying to get him to loosen up and be a rhythm guitar player. Bobby was still a student, but not listening. God knows what they thought was going to come out of it – we were recording in this studio down on the Peninsula [Pacific Recording in San Mateo]…
I don’t think that Pig, without being high on LSD, could quite understand the direction the music was taking. And their music did change a lot in that period. Jerry spent a lot of time trying to describe and explain where he thought the music was going – and so did Phil…
But if [the firing] had to happen, it came at a good time, because we were just sort of doodling in the studio. We weren’t making any money. We didn’t have any gigs booked, so there was really no loss, except emotionally. I was against it, but Jerry put it on me as the manager to do it. Phil was behind it, and so was Kreutzmann. But to fire nearly half your unit…”

As Garcia would demonstrate throughout his life, though, he was not up to dismissing people face-to-face.
As Scully recalled, “Garcia said, ‘Scully, you go fire them. I can’t work with them anymore.’ He wouldn’t do it. He had me do it.”
Jon McIntire thought, “It was totally in character that Garcia would ask Rock to do it rather than doing it himself… Garcia should have done that himself.”
Donna Godchaux would later say, “If there was something that Jerry did not want to get involved in, he would just be absolutely absentee. On a certain level, Jerry was very out-front and aggressive, but then when it came to certain things, he was very much a coward. I called him the Cowardly Lion.”

Lesh also remembered, “It seemed to be time for another confrontation, so Jerry suggested to me that we ask Rock to help us communicate our frustrations to the rest of the band. Rock’s solution: call a meeting of the band and lay everything out on the table. Despite Rock’s efforts to help us verbalize our feelings, neither Jerry nor I was very eloquent, and the meeting ended with everyone feeling bad, and with no resolution.”

The meeting took place near the end of August ’68 – remarkably, Owsley taped the meeting. (It seems the band had been listening to the Aug 23-24 shows at the Shrine, which had apparently been taped with an idea towards releasing a live album; but the band was unhappy with the shows and rejected them.)
The tape of the meeting reveals a very uncomfortable band having a hard time communicating. (I don’t know if Pigpen was even there.) Rock Scully was forced into the role of spokesperson.
Scully: “The situation as it exists right now, musically, depends on four guys. The weight is on four cats in this band, not six as the band is now formed. It seems like the music is being carried to a certain level, then staying there. I notice it mostly from the way you guys respond to your own music; and you guys tire of music that has much more potential, many more possibilities, too soon… It never gets any better. Matter of fact, it begins to get worse. Very fast, too fast for the material, because the material is complex and groovy and much further out than most music is these days…”
Garcia: “All you gotta do is listen to the tapes there and test them.”
Lesh: “You can’t really get but two or three of them on, man, even those are with reservation… So after this weekend, we decided that’s the end of that. No more.”
Weir didn’t respond.
Scully: “…It’s a week later and you still have no words. It doesn’t matter, that happens to be where you’re at.”
Garcia: “Asking him for explanations is like not where it’s at… Just the whole conflict is not where it’s at…”
Weir: “The idea of faction is not where it’s at… I’m losing control of words here…they are falling apart in my mouth. I’ve said all I can say for now…”
Scully: “You’d never have to say a word if it were in your music.”
Weir: “I’d never have to say a word if it was in the way I tied my shoes.”
Hart: “I think it’s time for me to make a motion. Unless anybody else wants to talk about anything.”
Weir: “A motion? What’s that?”
Hart: “Split… Not unless there is anything else on the agenda?”
Scully: “Well, we haven’t talked about anything more immediate than an EP and this record, really, in terms of Bob and Pig, and I think that you guys oughta make your intentions clear. You haven’t to them so far. You were planning to, Mickey, but you are now making a motion to adjourn something that was started and not finished.”
Hart: “I thought it was all just said.”
Scully: “No. You can’t just think those things, man, you have to say them when it’s this kind of scene.”
Garcia: “Well, here’s where it’s at, man. You guys know that the gigs haven’t been any fun, it’s been no good playing it, because we’re at different levels of playing, we’re thinking different thoughts and we just aren’t playing together…”
Lesh: “I really don’t want to work in that form, man… All four of us don’t want to work that way.”
Scully [to Garcia]: “Listen, man, why did you not correct him?… He’s speaking for all four musicians, Jerry…”
Garcia: “Oh, yeah, right.”

Though Lesh does seem to be giving an ultimatum here, it’s hard to say if this tape is a ‘smoking gun.’ I don’t think the firing took place then and there, for the band went on to play several shows at the end of the month – the Avalon on August 28, the Fillmore West on August 30-September 1, and Sept 2 at the Sky River Festival in Washington (a festival they went to on the spur of the moment, just because it sounded groovy). There was then a two-week break in shows, while recording sessions got underway at Pacific Recording. (There was supposed to be a show in San Jose with Frank Zappa in mid-September, but it was canceled at the last minute due to poor sales, according to McNally.)
The band also started recording their new album (then tentatively called Earthquake Country) in early September, but little is known about these early sessions except that they weren’t very productive. Recordings started with St Stephen, which obviously would have required Weir’s involvement. (The band partook in generous helpings of nitrous oxide and STP during the recordings, to make sure they were as impaired as possible. In October they managed to record Barbed Wire Whipping Party – not a promising start for the new album!)

That doesn’t look like the schedule of a band falling apart. It is possible that during September, though, as Scully says, the band decided to take the next step and kick out Weir and Pigpen. He tells a dramatic story:
“Pigpen took it very hard. It was horrible for him. He was crying about it later. I was really upset about it myself. I was upset with Jerry and Phil for making me do it – I thought it was something they should have handled. I think they meant it as a warning, [but it] turned into a weird event. I spent a lot of time with Pig through that period, because it was a number of weeks before he played with them again. What he did was he played the piano all day and all night. But I don’t think it was ever meant to stick. Bobby went off to practice, too, so they both took it to heart.”

The way Scully interprets it, the ‘firing’ was really more of a warning to get Weir & Pigpen to dedicate themselves more to the music. “Garcia knew what he was doing. He was just scaring their asses; rattling their cages. They took a couple of weeks off. Weir went and got some more electric guitar training. Pigpen had just moved to a Hammond organ, so he got some help from friends and learned how to play the foot pedals and how to expand his knowledge.”

Weir was asked in 1992 if he and Pigpen had actually been fired. “Oh yeah, for a few months. We were the junior musicians in the band, and Jerry and Phil in particular thought that we were sort of holding things back. The music wasn’t able to get as free because it was hog-tied by our playing abilities, which was kind of true. I guess that what they were headed towards was fusion jazz, though that hadn’t actually happened yet… It was complicated and required a great deal of facility on the instruments. So they played without us for a couple of months…
I worked on playing, because that’s still what I envisioned doing with my life. It wasn’t the best time of my life. I kept working on guitar and singing. I was thinking about [joining another band], but I figured first things first – I oughta woodshed a bunch. I spent the time doing that, and more or less not thinking about what I was going to do next, until I had woodshedded enough that I felt I had something…to bring to whatever I was going to move into next. I never did get to that plateau – I found myself back in the band…”

Jon McIntire heard an interesting story from Weir: “I wasn’t there, but I do know that Bobby was fired. Although the band at one point said Bobby wasn’t fired, he said, ‘I most definitely was.’ He left the room where he was fired and hitched a ride because he didn’t have a car and it had been raining and then the ride let him out and he stepped out and fell facedown into a ditch in the mud.”
McNally tells a different version of the story: On Weir’s 21st birthday (Oct 16), he was out of the band and had no ride. Pigpen called and invited him for a drink in San Francisco. While hitch-hiking to the bar, he fell into a rain-filled ditch.
(While something like this happened, I think it was only later that Weir connected it emotionally with being fired, as by mid-October he was regularly playing shows. Possibly, though, he was feeling insecure – we know Pigpen wasn’t playing shows at that point.)
Weir was living in Bill Kreutzmann’s garage at the time. In September the Dead had moved their rehearsals from the Potrero Theater in San Francisco to the Hamilton Air Force Base warehouse in Marin. Weir started living there, practicing guitar, “trying to stay out of the way,” and nursing vague plans to move to New Mexico.

Weir’s version that he was out of the band for “months” is quite curious. It couldn’t have been that long, but clearly the event had an impact on him. Scully only says, “They took a couple of weeks off.”
McNally says Weir and Pigpen simply kept playing shows. “No one had the heart to enforce the decision, and the two firees didn’t seem to understand that they’d been fired. The band continued to gig as the full six-man band.”
Garcia had a similar memory of the firing: “It didn’t take. We fired them, all right, but they just kept coming back.”

Although Weir suggests he was out of the band for quite a while, the show dates suggest otherwise. The only lengthy break in Dead shows comes between 9/2 and 9/20/68 – and as it happens, we have a ‘Hartbeats’ studio date from 9/21/68, with Garcia, Lesh, Hart, and a guest guitarist - no Weir or Pigpen. (Just a short Clementine jam from this session was played on the Taper’s Section.)
The 9/20 show has both Weir and Pigpen (and, frustratingly, both a short tape and a long drum solo). There are a couple more Dead shows we don’t have tapes for (9/22 and 10/5), and then the Avalon Ballroom run from 10/11-10/13, where Pigpen apparently didn’t play. While Weir was carrying on, this suggests that Pigpen was indeed out of the band at this point – I can’t think of another show from the year where he doesn’t even show up. Evidently, as Scully said, he took it harder than Weir did. (While these shows are highly regarded, partly due to the absence of Pigpen’s keyboard, they illustrate one trouble the Dead faced without him – they’re the only two back-to-back Dead shows I know of with identical setlists.)
We’re missing the next show (10/18), but 10/20 sees the triumphant return of Pigpen, dominating the short show with no less than three big numbers (Schoolgirl, Lovelight, and Caution).

While Garcia and Lesh downplay the event, Scully and Weir both say there was a definite firing in which Weir and Pigpen had to leave, which is hard to pinpoint. Possibly they’re exaggerating. The middle of September does seem like the most likely place for it to have happened - but then we have the mid-October Avalon shows without Pigpen.
The ‘firing’ may have been not so much a one-time event, as a feeling among everyone that Weir and Pigpen had to leave soon - but nobody wanted to force them out; so they just kept playing shows as usual while the band tried to figure out what to do.
This wasn’t an unusual strategy for the band. As Weir said, “We’re procrastinators. The bigger the problem, the greater the procrastination.” Lesh also confirmed, “Avoidance of confrontation is almost a religious point with us.”
So bad feelings just simmered for a couple months, through September and October, but no one would take action when the two outcasts kept showing up…

(There is an obvious parallel ten years later, when everyone wanted Keith & Donna Godchaux out of the band but no one would say anything, just suffering silently for months until they convened a meeting in February ’79.)

Some have speculated that there was no firing – even Scully admits that the episode was just meant to be a ‘warning’ to Weir and Pigpen to shape up. My feeling, obviously, is that there is just too much smoke for there not to be a fire. The ‘firing’ was a confused and ambiguous event at the time, and is even more so in people’s memories.
But even if we discount Rock Scully’s story entirely – both Garcia and Weir report that there was a firing (Weir feeling much more disgruntled about it) - Lesh writes cautiously that the band did consider dropping Weir and Pigpen - there’s the August tape in which the band is, at the least, unhappy with Weir - on top of the October shows in which Pigpen is uniquely absent - as well as independent journalists writing in ’69 confirming that Weir and Pigpen had almost left the band. (I’ll mention those reports later.)
This was something more than a stern finger-shaking.

The band’s disarrayal had one immediate result – they canceled their planned European tour of October ’68.
Jefferson Airplane was touring Europe in September (along with strange booking-mates the Doors), and the Dead intended to follow them. A series of October dates was set up with Warner Brothers and announced the month before (and published in Billboard). Ads were even printed for shows at the Roundhouse in London, October 11-12, with Fairport Convention!
http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2009/11/october-1968-grateful-dead-european.html
The Dead had been thinking about a trip to Europe for some time. Ralph Gleason reported on March 13, 1968, that “it is hoped to organize a European tour later this year” (with help from the then-Carousel owner Bill Fuller, who also owned ballrooms in the UK). The March 9, 1968 issue of Rolling Stone said the Dead planned to tour in Europe in the spring (and, improbably, Japan and Australia as well) - but Rock Scully said the band needed to finish the Anthem album for Warner Brothers before they could go: “We’ve already spent $60,000 of Warner Bros money, and they want to see something for it.” This seems to be the roots of the planned October ’68 European tour, which fell through. Scully said later on, “We never did quite figure out how we would’ve paid for that trip, so we went back east instead. It sounded like a good idea at the time, though, and we promised ourselves that we would get to Europe someday…”

Of course, there could be any number of reasons the tour evaporated. The Dead themselves probably didn’t lose interest. Quite possibly Warners noticed that Anthem of the Sun wasn’t selling so well; or hearing that the third album sessions were off to a disastrous start, they decided not to finance the trip. The Dead were, after all, still in debt and sinking deeper. But it’s hard not to think the Dead’s internal dissensions didn’t have something to do with it as well. The Dead may have had a hard time convincing Warners that a tour of Europe was still a good idea when they were getting rid of their most popular member! (How would you sell Pigpen t-shirts in Europe with no Pigpen?)

So with Europe out of the picture, the Dead went in a new direction.


III. THE HARTBEATS

[Skian]

Thanks for posting that account. I'm glad that juvenile delinquent got his act together. He turned out pretty good too.

 

Has anyone caught any of the Ratdog shows? I'm seeing them Wednesday. Setlists look rather GD heavy.

[calvino]

Caught Ratdog in Chicago, last year -- I enjoyed it quite a bit. Saw a bit of webcast last month and enjoyed that, also --- like the two bass attack and Kimock fits well, too.

 

I never minded the slower tempos of Ratdog --- as long as it went somewhere - the tempo's never bother me. I have seen some boring Ratdog shows, though.

 

Will be catching them (with CRB) at the end of August down in St. Louis - which I am looking forward too.

[Mr. Heartbreak]

I have seen Ratdog a few times and always enjoyed it. Also seeing them on the upcoming tour with CRB. Really looking forward to both acts.

 

Been listening to the show from 5/12/74 at University of Nevada, and it has a few highlights but mostly is subpar for '74 (people on setlist.com rated it 4.43, whereas surrounding shows are 4.9, 4.8, etc., so I know it's not just me). Lots of sound problems early on, then lots of lyric flubs later. Jerry struggles with the still-new U.S. Blues, Donna is just about intolerable during Row Jimmy, and Bobby has brain farts aplenty. There is a pretty cool Truckin' > Nobody's Fault But Mine > The Other One section, but Bobby flubs the Other One lyrics badly and kinda ruins it. Then, during the encore Sugar Magnolia, he apparently does fine until he has to sing the actual name of the song! Hilariously bad, but not hilarious enough to listen to it again.

 

Got a few other '74 shows I have downloaded which I will be moving on to shortly. Some great versions of Playing and Eyes that year, so really looking forward to them.

[i'm only sleeping]

...Donna is just about intolerable during Row Jimmy

I have to check that show. Apart from some squeaking in PITB, I've never understood Donna haters...In my view, her singing used to mix very well with Jerry & Bob

[Mr. Heartbreak]

She was great in the studio, and wonderful on live recordings from about '76 on...but those first few years where she could not hear herself in the monitors, she was almost always flat/off-key/out of tune. It's amazing, because she was really a better singer than anyone else in that band, but she ruined many a great song with her caterwauling. I love her in the late 70s when she could hear herself.

[worldrecordplayer]

I have seen Ratdog a few times and always enjoyed it. Also seeing them on the upcoming tour with CRB. Really looking forward to both acts.

 

Been listening to the show from 5/12/74 at University of Nevada, and it has a few highlights but mostly is subpar for '74 (people on setlist.com rated it 4.43, whereas surrounding shows are 4.9, 4.8, etc., so I know it's not just me). Lots of sound problems early on, then lots of lyric flubs later. Jerry struggles with the still-new U.S. Blues, Donna is just about intolerable during Row Jimmy, and Bobby has brain farts aplenty. There is a pretty cool Truckin' > Nobody's Fault But Mine > The Other One section, but Bobby flubs the Other One lyrics badly and kinda ruins it. Then, during the encore Sugar Magnolia, he apparently does fine until he has to sing the actual name of the song! Hilariously bad, but not hilarious enough to listen to it again.

 

Got a few other '74 shows I have downloaded which I will be moving on to shortly. Some great versions of Playing and Eyes that year, so really looking forward to them.

Speaking of '74 Dead, here's Stormy Mondays, '74 Dead part 4.

http://www.jambase.com/Articles/122073/Stormy-Mondays-Grateful-Dead-1974-Retrospective-Part-4

[mountain bed]

The firing...

 

http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2011/03/1968-firing.html

 

There was also the point that Pigpen’s songs were a huge and popular part of the stage show.

Constanten said, “When Pigpen fronted the band it became something else, because his thing was so cultivated and established in its own right that it became its own thing – sort of a psychedelicized blues band. I’ve heard it said that the Grateful Dead at that time was two bands: when Pigpen was fronting the band and when he wasn’t…”

 

But while Weir’s skills had grown since the Warlocks were formed, Pigpen seemed to be standing still – and the band grew more irritated about this.

Lesh wrote, “Jerry and I were operating in an acid-fueled collective mind-meld. We were so excited by this that we were ignoring the fact that Pig didn’t seem to be connecting with us on a musical level. As Jerry and I spun farther and farther out, we began to see Pig’s contribution more as an anchor than as a balance or ground.”

 

Danny Rifkin believed that “Pigpen was not really a keyboard player, and I can recall people complaining that he wasn’t evolving musically the way the rest of the band was; that he was kind of a drag on the band musically… He was a great blues singer, but he got lost as a player. I think he had a ceiling or limit in his ability as a keyboardist that he couldn’t get past... He couldn’t anticipate where the music was going. When it was his thing he did fine.”

Sue Swanson said, “I think they left him in the dust musically. He was in over his head on the keyboards – especially when the others really…got out there and he was drunk. I mean, how could he possibly follow? Obviously it was a source of some frustration.”

 

Jon McIntire summed up: “The real far-out spacy stuff wasn’t what Pigpen related to… In the beginning [Pig’s organ playing] was really imaginative and the tempos were good, and then, after a number of years…it was just not good playing. The timing was off. I think it led to a lack of musical communication.”

(McIntire felt this was mostly due to Pigpen’s drinking habit. The band themselves didn’t seem to think so. Weir said, “I think the drinking might actually have helped his performances,” and Garcia said, “He was never too drunk to perform.”)

 

One incident stuck with McIntire, a confrontation with Pigpen: “There was a band meeting in the middle of one of the recording sessions and they were attacking Pig. I think Jerry was furious with him about the music. They were saying, ‘You drink all the time. You just hang out. You’re zonking out in front of the TV all the time. You don’t do anything.’ And on and on… Pigpen would nod and say, ‘Yep, that’s who I am.’”

 

Weir also came in for his share of attacks. In McIntire’s view, “Musically, Bobby hadn’t yet taken the bull by the horns. Pigpen’s timing and pitch were off because of his drinking, but Bobby just hadn’t matured yet as a player.”

Rock Scully saw that “Garcia really loved him and respected him, even if they had their falling-outs. They had their tough moments…”

Jonathan Reister thought “Bobby was our little juvenile delinquent. Most of the band fights were about his guitar playing.”

 

Sue Swanson recalled, “It was never easy. Every day…there was always some kind of psychodrama going on at some level or other. One person was disagreeing with another, or they were going to fire Weir. Pig was not playing right, or somebody was being a motherfucker, or Billy was pulling some maneuver with the money. It was always something.”

One specific time in ’67 came to mind: “I can remember many times when one or the other of them was going to be fired from the band. They played up in Toronto for Expo ’67, and I remember during that week Bobby was supposed to be fired, but obviously it didn’t happen.”

Lesh also remembers this in his book, noting that the band was unhappy about their Toronto performance on 8/4/67: “Jerry and I started grumbling to each other about the music. With too many shows and not enough rehearsal, the music wasn’t moving forward to our satisfaction. Bobby, being years younger and a bit spaced, became our target. We confronted him after the show about working harder to keep up. The end result…we all played better the next night.”

 

Even from the audience, Sat Khalsa saw that “Jerry was enormously frustrated with Bobby. Bobby would get spaced out… When they would all be stoned together and really go out there, I would see Bobby standing on the stage not playing. Jerry would be taking off…and Bobby would be standing there, holding his guitar.”

 

Rock Scully has made some interesting claims about what the problem was. According to him, “Garcia said, ‘Bobby’s not playing electric guitar, and if I’m going to get good at my instrument…I need a solid, electric rhythm behind me.’ Which was weird because…Garcia developed his style from having to comp a lot of rhythm.” (This contradicts what Garcia said above about the role of rhythm in the Dead, though…)

Scully further says, “Between the two of them [Weir & Pigpen], we were just getting a lot of fill. We were getting a lot of mid-range mush. Phil Lesh had taken his instrument into a lead-bass-playing thing, and there was no bottom end. It was totally up to the drummers.” (I’m not sure this is what we hear on the tapes…)

 

In any case, in August ’68 Garcia came to a decision.

 

 

II. THE FIRING

 

Rock Scully told the story:

“Jerry kind of put it on me to fire them. It was a totally musical decision. Bobby wasn’t progressing – he was still playing the electric guitar like an acoustic guitar, and Jerry was trying to get him to loosen up and be a rhythm guitar player. Bobby was still a student, but not listening. God knows what they thought was going to come out of it – we were recording in this studio down on the Peninsula [Pacific Recording in San Mateo]…

I don’t think that Pig, without being high on LSD, could quite understand the direction the music was taking. And their music did change a lot in that period. Jerry spent a lot of time trying to describe and explain where he thought the music was going – and so did Phil…

But if [the firing] had to happen, it came at a good time, because we were just sort of doodling in the studio. We weren’t making any money. We didn’t have any gigs booked, so there was really no loss, except emotionally. I was against it, but Jerry put it on me as the manager to do it. Phil was behind it, and so was Kreutzmann. But to fire nearly half your unit…”

 

As Garcia would demonstrate throughout his life, though, he was not up to dismissing people face-to-face.

As Scully recalled, “Garcia said, ‘Scully, you go fire them. I can’t work with them anymore.’ He wouldn’t do it. He had me do it.”

Jon McIntire thought, “It was totally in character that Garcia would ask Rock to do it rather than doing it himself… Garcia should have done that himself.”

Donna Godchaux would later say, “If there was something that Jerry did not want to get involved in, he would just be absolutely absentee. On a certain level, Jerry was very out-front and aggressive, but then when it came to certain things, he was very much a coward. I called him the Cowardly Lion.”

 

Lesh also remembered, “It seemed to be time for another confrontation, so Jerry suggested to me that we ask Rock to help us communicate our frustrations to the rest of the band. Rock’s solution: call a meeting of the band and lay everything out on the table. Despite Rock’s efforts to help us verbalize our feelings, neither Jerry nor I was very eloquent, and the meeting ended with everyone feeling bad, and with no resolution.”

 

The meeting took place near the end of August ’68 – remarkably, Owsley taped the meeting. (It seems the band had been listening to the Aug 23-24 shows at the Shrine, which had apparently been taped with an idea towards releasing a live album; but the band was unhappy with the shows and rejected them.)

The tape of the meeting reveals a very uncomfortable band having a hard time communicating. (I don’t know if Pigpen was even there.) Rock Scully was forced into the role of spokesperson.

Scully: “The situation as it exists right now, musically, depends on four guys. The weight is on four cats in this band, not six as the band is now formed. It seems like the music is being carried to a certain level, then staying there. I notice it mostly from the way you guys respond to your own music; and you guys tire of music that has much more potential, many more possibilities, too soon… It never gets any better. Matter of fact, it begins to get worse. Very fast, too fast for the material, because the material is complex and groovy and much further out than most music is these days…”

Garcia: “All you gotta do is listen to the tapes there and test them.”

Lesh: “You can’t really get but two or three of them on, man, even those are with reservation… So after this weekend, we decided that’s the end of that. No more.”

Weir didn’t respond.

Scully: “…It’s a week later and you still have no words. It doesn’t matter, that happens to be where you’re at.”

Garcia: “Asking him for explanations is like not where it’s at… Just the whole conflict is not where it’s at…”

Weir: “The idea of faction is not where it’s at… I’m losing control of words here…they are falling apart in my mouth. I’ve said all I can say for now…”

Scully: “You’d never have to say a word if it were in your music.”

Weir: “I’d never have to say a word if it was in the way I tied my shoes.”

Hart: “I think it’s time for me to make a motion. Unless anybody else wants to talk about anything.”

Weir: “A motion? What’s that?”

Hart: “Split… Not unless there is anything else on the agenda?”

Scully: “Well, we haven’t talked about anything more immediate than an EP and this record, really, in terms of Bob and Pig, and I think that you guys oughta make your intentions clear. You haven’t to them so far. You were planning to, Mickey, but you are now making a motion to adjourn something that was started and not finished.”

Hart: “I thought it was all just said.”

Scully: “No. You can’t just think those things, man, you have to say them when it’s this kind of scene.”

Garcia: “Well, here’s where it’s at, man. You guys know that the gigs haven’t been any fun, it’s been no good playing it, because we’re at different levels of playing, we’re thinking different thoughts and we just aren’t playing together…”

Lesh: “I really don’t want to work in that form, man… All four of us don’t want to work that way.”

Scully [to Garcia]: “Listen, man, why did you not correct him?… He’s speaking for all four musicians, Jerry…”

Garcia: “Oh, yeah, right.”

 

Though Lesh does seem to be giving an ultimatum here, it’s hard to say if this tape is a ‘smoking gun.’ I don’t think the firing took place then and there, for the band went on to play several shows at the end of the month – the Avalon on August 28, the Fillmore West on August 30-September 1, and Sept 2 at the Sky River Festival in Washington (a festival they went to on the spur of the moment, just because it sounded groovy). There was then a two-week break in shows, while recording sessions got underway at Pacific Recording. (There was supposed to be a show in San Jose with Frank Zappa in mid-September, but it was canceled at the last minute due to poor sales, according to McNally.)

The band also started recording their new album (then tentatively called Earthquake Country) in early September, but little is known about these early sessions except that they weren’t very productive. Recordings started with St Stephen, which obviously would have required Weir’s involvement. (The band partook in generous helpings of nitrous oxide and STP during the recordings, to make sure they were as impaired as possible. In October they managed to record Barbed Wire Whipping Party – not a promising start for the new album!)

 

That doesn’t look like the schedule of a band falling apart. It is possible that during September, though, as Scully says, the band decided to take the next step and kick out Weir and Pigpen. He tells a dramatic story:

“Pigpen took it very hard. It was horrible for him. He was crying about it later. I was really upset about it myself. I was upset with Jerry and Phil for making me do it – I thought it was something they should have handled. I think they meant it as a warning, [but it] turned into a weird event. I spent a lot of time with Pig through that period, because it was a number of weeks before he played with them again. What he did was he played the piano all day and all night. But I don’t think it was ever meant to stick. Bobby went off to practice, too, so they both took it to heart.”

 

The way Scully interprets it, the ‘firing’ was really more of a warning to get Weir & Pigpen to dedicate themselves more to the music. “Garcia knew what he was doing. He was just scaring their asses; rattling their cages. They took a couple of weeks off. Weir went and got some more electric guitar training. Pigpen had just moved to a Hammond organ, so he got some help from friends and learned how to play the foot pedals and how to expand his knowledge.”

 

Weir was asked in 1992 if he and Pigpen had actually been fired. “Oh yeah, for a few months. We were the junior musicians in the band, and Jerry and Phil in particular thought that we were sort of holding things back. The music wasn’t able to get as free because it was hog-tied by our playing abilities, which was kind of true. I guess that what they were headed towards was fusion jazz, though that hadn’t actually happened yet… It was complicated and required a great deal of facility on the instruments. So they played without us for a couple of months…

I worked on playing, because that’s still what I envisioned doing with my life. It wasn’t the best time of my life. I kept working on guitar and singing. I was thinking about [joining another band], but I figured first things first – I oughta woodshed a bunch. I spent the time doing that, and more or less not thinking about what I was going to do next, until I had woodshedded enough that I felt I had something…to bring to whatever I was going to move into next. I never did get to that plateau – I found myself back in the band…”

 

Jon McIntire heard an interesting story from Weir: “I wasn’t there, but I do know that Bobby was fired. Although the band at one point said Bobby wasn’t fired, he said, ‘I most definitely was.’ He left the room where he was fired and hitched a ride because he didn’t have a car and it had been raining and then the ride let him out and he stepped out and fell facedown into a ditch in the mud.”

McNally tells a different version of the story: On Weir’s 21st birthday (Oct 16), he was out of the band and had no ride. Pigpen called and invited him for a drink in San Francisco. While hitch-hiking to the bar, he fell into a rain-filled ditch.

(While something like this happened, I think it was only later that Weir connected it emotionally with being fired, as by mid-October he was regularly playing shows. Possibly, though, he was feeling insecure – we know Pigpen wasn’t playing shows at that point.)

Weir was living in Bill Kreutzmann’s garage at the time. In September the Dead had moved their rehearsals from the Potrero Theater in San Francisco to the Hamilton Air Force Base warehouse in Marin. Weir started living there, practicing guitar, “trying to stay out of the way,” and nursing vague plans to move to New Mexico.

 

Weir’s version that he was out of the band for “months” is quite curious. It couldn’t have been that long, but clearly the event had an impact on him. Scully only says, “They took a couple of weeks off.”

McNally says Weir and Pigpen simply kept playing shows. “No one had the heart to enforce the decision, and the two firees didn’t seem to understand that they’d been fired. The band continued to gig as the full six-man band.”

Garcia had a similar memory of the firing: “It didn’t take. We fired them, all right, but they just kept coming back.”

 

Although Weir suggests he was out of the band for quite a while, the show dates suggest otherwise. The only lengthy break in Dead shows comes between 9/2 and 9/20/68 – and as it happens, we have a ‘Hartbeats’ studio date from 9/21/68, with Garcia, Lesh, Hart, and a guest guitarist - no Weir or Pigpen. (Just a short Clementine jam from this session was played on the Taper’s Section.)

The 9/20 show has both Weir and Pigpen (and, frustratingly, both a short tape and a long drum solo). There are a couple more Dead shows we don’t have tapes for (9/22 and 10/5), and then the Avalon Ballroom run from 10/11-10/13, where Pigpen apparently didn’t play. While Weir was carrying on, this suggests that Pigpen was indeed out of the band at this point – I can’t think of another show from the year where he doesn’t even show up. Evidently, as Scully said, he took it harder than Weir did. (While these shows are highly regarded, partly due to the absence of Pigpen’s keyboard, they illustrate one trouble the Dead faced without him – they’re the only two back-to-back Dead shows I know of with identical setlists.)

We’re missing the next show (10/18), but 10/20 sees the triumphant return of Pigpen, dominating the short show with no less than three big numbers (Schoolgirl, Lovelight, and Caution).

 

While Garcia and Lesh downplay the event, Scully and Weir both say there was a definite firing in which Weir and Pigpen had to leave, which is hard to pinpoint. Possibly they’re exaggerating. The middle of September does seem like the most likely place for it to have happened - but then we have the mid-October Avalon shows without Pigpen.

The ‘firing’ may have been not so much a one-time event, as a feeling among everyone that Weir and Pigpen had to leave soon - but nobody wanted to force them out; so they just kept playing shows as usual while the band tried to figure out what to do.

This wasn’t an unusual strategy for the band. As Weir said, “We’re procrastinators. The bigger the problem, the greater the procrastination.” Lesh also confirmed, “Avoidance of confrontation is almost a religious point with us.”

So bad feelings just simmered for a couple months, through September and October, but no one would take action when the two outcasts kept showing up…

 

(There is an obvious parallel ten years later, when everyone wanted Keith & Donna Godchaux out of the band but no one would say anything, just suffering silently for months until they convened a meeting in February ’79.)

 

Some have speculated that there was no firing – even Scully admits that the episode was just meant to be a ‘warning’ to Weir and Pigpen to shape up. My feeling, obviously, is that there is just too much smoke for there not to be a fire. The ‘firing’ was a confused and ambiguous event at the time, and is even more so in people’s memories.

But even if we discount Rock Scully’s story entirely – both Garcia and Weir report that there was a firing (Weir feeling much more disgruntled about it) - Lesh writes cautiously that the band did consider dropping Weir and Pigpen - there’s the August tape in which the band is, at the least, unhappy with Weir - on top of the October shows in which Pigpen is uniquely absent - as well as independent journalists writing in ’69 confirming that Weir and Pigpen had almost left the band. (I’ll mention those reports later.)

This was something more than a stern finger-shaking.

 

The band’s disarrayal had one immediate result – they canceled their planned European tour of October ’68.

Jefferson Airplane was touring Europe in September (along with strange booking-mates the Doors), and the Dead intended to follow them. A series of October dates was set up with Warner Brothers and announced the month before (and published in Billboard). Ads were even printed for shows at the Roundhouse in London, October 11-12, with Fairport Convention!

http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2009/11/october-1968-grateful-dead-european.html

The Dead had been thinking about a trip to Europe for some time. Ralph Gleason reported on March 13, 1968, that “it is hoped to organize a European tour later this year” (with help from the then-Carousel owner Bill Fuller, who also owned ballrooms in the UK). The March 9, 1968 issue of Rolling Stone said the Dead planned to tour in Europe in the spring (and, improbably, Japan and Australia as well) - but Rock Scully said the band needed to finish the Anthem album for Warner Brothers before they could go: “We’ve already spent $60,000 of Warner Bros money, and they want to see something for it.” This seems to be the roots of the planned October ’68 European tour, which fell through. Scully said later on, “We never did quite figure out how we would’ve paid for that trip, so we went back east instead. It sounded like a good idea at the time, though, and we promised ourselves that we would get to Europe someday…”

 

Of course, there could be any number of reasons the tour evaporated. The Dead themselves probably didn’t lose interest. Quite possibly Warners noticed that Anthem of the Sun wasn’t selling so well; or hearing that the third album sessions were off to a disastrous start, they decided not to finance the trip. The Dead were, after all, still in debt and sinking deeper. But it’s hard not to think the Dead’s internal dissensions didn’t have something to do with it as well. The Dead may have had a hard time convincing Warners that a tour of Europe was still a good idea when they were getting rid of their most popular member! (How would you sell Pigpen t-shirts in Europe with no Pigpen?)

 

So with Europe out of the picture, the Dead went in a new direction.

 

 

III. THE HARTBEATS

Man I'd kill to hear that Owsley tape of the "firing". Thanks for sharing!

[worldrecordplayer]

Happy 4th of July. Wave that flag!

 

[jw harding]

Leavin' Texas, fourth day of July...

 

[Atticus]

Today I decided to try out some 70s dicks picks shows on spotify. Got a couple minutes into a scarlet begonias and Donna started wailing. It was like Jerry was stepping on a cat. Jesus.

[Analogman]

I don't think I knew that Grace ever sat in with the band:

 

 

THE GRATEFUL DEAD
Winterland Arena
San Francisco, CA.
October 9, 1972

Grace Slick (vocalist of Jefferson Airplane) sings on Disc 2
track 2, plus helps out with harmony on several other tracks.

 

[mountain bed]

I don't think I knew that Grace ever sat in with the band:

I sort of recall reading that 10/9 and/or 10/10 had some collaboration. Is that quote signifying that it's been released in some way? The words "disc 2, track 2" make me wonder.

[IRememberDBoon]

no one else likes The Hartbeats? or as my tape was labeled "Mickey and The Hartbeats"

That is some of the most beautiful music ive ever heard. I used to spin that 68 tape over and over and over.................

[NoJ]

THe Hartbeat shows were ok. A bit of a mess, kinda disjointed if I recall correctly. Its been a few years since I listened to any of them.

[Lammycat]

I don't think the Hartbeats shows were any better than shows with Bob and Pig.....

[winterland121072]

agree with the hit / miss regarding the Hartbeats...Interestingly, the best shows of October 1968 (imho) were the 10/12 adn 10/13 shows ---- with Pig / Bob...

[NoJ]

You mean w/o Pig, right? Bobby was at those shows.