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MikeA
05-27-2010, 03:43 PM
I mentioned a review I'd written on "Long Time Gone" in the Crosby, Stils and Nash thread. Here is that review I wrote up on the "Dead".

"Living With The Dead", Rock Skully with David Dalton
Copyright 1996
Pub Little, Brown & Company
ISBN 0-316-77712-9

381 pgs
11 pgs index
16 pgs BW Glossy prints

Are there any "Deadheads" out there?

Ugh, let me rephrase that: Are there any out there who admit to being "Deadheads?"

If you lived through the Mid to Late 60's, you lived through the Summer of Love (1967) and you might have experimented with the lifestyle changes taking place that were spurred on by the evolutionary (not revolutionary) scene set in San Francisco by those living near Haight-Ashbury. If you did, you know what I'm talking about. Embroidered Jeans. Flowers in your Hair. "Groovy". "Far Out". "Dosed". "Acapulco Gold". "Sunshine". "Purple Owsley". "Trippin'". "Acid". Need I go further?

The major players of that day were Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company, Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver, Jimi Hendrix, Hell's Angles, The Pranksters, and of course, the Grateful Dead. A bit later on, there was another pioneer involved from LA who moved to San Francisco...David Crosby and "yes", the Cros was involved with the Dead too! There was another player in that scene and one crucial to the times...one Owsley Stanley...a millionaire who was in pharmaceutical development and really into experimenting with the refinement of LSD....ACID!

This book is written by Rock Skully who was drafted by Owsley Stanley to be the manager of the band that Stanley had discovered, "The Dead" who at the time were called the "Warlocks". Stanley was not only the major proponent of LSD (Timothy Leary was "just" a spiritual guru living in New York...Stanley was MAKING IT!), he was also one for developing or modifying stage equipment that was at least a decade ahead of its time. You'll discover that Owsley developed stereo setups that were just unheard of back then. All recordings were mono as were the concert performances....except for the Dead's. It was Stanley along with "the Pranksters" who conducted the Acid Tests, setting the scene for what probably was the foundation for the laser light shows and films and animations used onstage today during rock concerts.

This book however, is told the way a stoned Rock Skully recalls experiencing it....one long and hilarious Acid Trip! Everyone in the band including the crew, with one exception was normally dosed on LSD. They couldn't help it...they were living in a house where Owsley lived in the attic with a pill making machine for the LSD and the dust from that production literally permeated the air and coated everything in the house including the inhabitants! The keyboardist, "Pigpen" did not do drugs. He was heavily into that alcohol trip since the ripe old age of 13.

The book might be a little hard to believe for some because of the graphic way in which Skully describes the events as they unfold. But the literary approach that Skully employed turned what might have been a very "dull read" into one that is tremendously humorous. And, to have done it any other way would not have conveyed the "the times", especially of the Dead members, nearly as well.

The goals of the groups in San Francisco were almost polar opposites of the goals of the LA bands of the day. This is particularly true of the Dead who seemed to be worried about money no further than what it needed to stay out of bankruptcy and provide them with new equipment (and drugs). To that end, they put on numerous "free concerts" in San Francisco, New York and in Monterrey up in Canada! They did benefit concerts for such benevolent organizations as the Black Panthers and Hell's Angles! But they also did benefits for the "Diggers" who provided at no charge, food and clothing and other necessities for the hoards of young people migrating to Haight-Ashbury during its Golden Age. That Golden Age didn't last though. It really got nasty as is documented by Skully as the criminal element moved in and gangs started warring over turf.

The members of the band came from diverse backgrounds musically.

The driving musical force of the group was without doubt, Jerry Garcia whose roots were surprisingly enough, Bluegrass, Folk Music and Jug bands.

Phil Lesh was a college graduate and had a formal education in Music Theory. Lesh played base, but was described as playing it as a solo instrument like Jack Bruce of "The Cream".

Ron "Pigpen" McKernan came from a heavy Blues background...an acknowledged encyclopedia of the blues, was on keyboards.

Bobby Wier was taught guitar by Garcia and was supposed to be the rhythm force of the band. The youngest member, he was the practical joker of the group.

Billy Kreutzmann was the drummer and in the beginning, had the most experience since he had been in several Rock and Roll bands before the Dead.

The entire book reads like a Keystone Cops comedy. Everything from lobbing mortar shells from the roof of their home at 710 Haight to the front steps of the Police Station (disarmed shell of course), to stealing a million and a half dollars of amplifiers and other gear from Fender at the Monterrey Festival (they teletyped their admision of guilt before the crime was ever comitted and promised to return the equipment unharmed within a week and honored that promise. The purpose: a free concert!)...Skully describes it all from a purple haze of acid.

Their antics offstage are documented from all over the world as they toured by airplane, bus and train. The drug busts, escapes from riots, five day train ride across Canada...it's all there along with some insights into some of the Dead's song composition. But the emphasis of the book is NOT on the musical talents of the Grateful Dead!

Skully does remain true to "rock bio" form in the sense that he does describe the events surrounding the production of nearly all if not all of the albums the Dead released.

Skully does, in his on way, bring out the dark side of substance abuse though he does not get up on a podium and preach about it. The Grateful Dead were a very different type of group made up of a very different type personalities than we are familiar with today (particularly Jerry Garcia) and it takes someone with the approach that Skully took in writing the book to more or less get it across...as much as it can be "got across!" He did a pretty good job of documenting "chaos" and the Dead if nothing else, were Chaotic.

It was a very good read.