Tears in the Fence Poetry Festival 2018

I spent most of last weekend at the Tears in the Fence Poetry Festival, mainly in the Stourpaine (Dorset) Village Hall, with occasional sojourns to the nearby White Horse pub.  For anyone who enjoys hearing high-quality poetry read live, this really is an annual event worth investigating.  You need quite a lot of mental stamina for it, mind.  Someone was counting and by the time it wrapped up it was reckoned that 389 poems had been read out in performance – the work of nearly 40 writers by my count.  You also need a pocket full of cash, as nearly everyone who’s got books of their work to sell brings them along – which amounted to two trestle tables laden with tempting (and often beautifully designed) literary morsels. 

For those who don’t know it, Tears in the Fence is a literary magazine.  It appears two or three times a year and it’s now on its 68th issue – which places it amongst the more long-lived of such publications.  If, as I was for some time, you are baffled by the name, bear in mind that the magazine has quite a strong political agenda and in its early days supported the ‘Right to Roam’ movement.  So it refers to ‘tears’ in both senses of the word.  It features a variety of poetry, some accessible and some that requires work on the part of the reader to get to grips with.  It also runs a number of short stories each issue and has a lengthy review section covering mainly poetry publications, though I’ve contributed some fiction reviews in the past two or three issues myself.  If you’re interested, more info can be found at: https://tearsinthefence.com/

The Festival, from what I’ve gathered of its history, was a large and thriving concern some years back, and then slipped into hiatus for a while.  It was revived in 2014.  I sauntered along as a punter to this one, having been living locally for a year or so.  I ended up getting involved in workshops that are given by the magazine’s editor, poet David Caddy, and from there my interest and sense of connection grew.

As mentioned, contributions to the festival are of a high standard, and to be honest some of the poetry – at least on a single listen – went way beyond my ability to get to grips with whatever the writer might have been trying to say.  Sometimes that doesn’t entirely matter – it’s possible to appreciate the flow of words crafted in sequences as you might enjoy a piece of music for its sound qualities and its rhythms.  But for me that part of it works even better when I can make at least some sort of connection, so here are some (not all) of my personal highlights from the festival.  On the Friday night I found this with the ecologically themed (but multi-layered) work of Jeremy Hilton and the meditations of Paul Matthews.  One of the latter’s poems, ‘The Light That I Know’ considers a picture of the oldest light in the universe, as seen on the glossy pages of a Sunday colour supplement and speculates as to whether the vastness of the universe cancels out the significance of small things.  Or that’s what I thought, listening to it.  I’ve bought his book, ‘This Native Light’, so if I figure out that my little summary is inaccurate, I’ll post an update on that.  Also that night, I was taken very much by the writing of Welsh Asian poet Jessica Mukherjee.  She covered a wide range of topics in her reading, from Magdalen laundries to floreography to the ramifications of Brexit, and her work was clear, powerful and (importantly for me) accessible.  Having lived in South Wales for many years I particularly enjoyed a poem in which she spoke of her efforts to get to grips with the concept of Dewi Sant (St. David) until she ‘heard him in the waters off the Mumbles’.

Concerning the three long sessions on the Saturday my memories are already blurring but mention should I make of the following.  First off, South African poet Louise Buchler’s impassioned reading of her long and powerful prose poem: ‘Your Woman is in Pieces’.  And then – in a performance that astounded the entire audience, I reckon – Amy McCauley reading (sometimes reciting) with pointed intensity from her book ‘Oedipa’, whilst stalking around and through the audience, and at intervals beating out rhythms on the floor as she read.  I’ll need to read her work before I can figure out what it’s actually communicating, but the memory of that performance will, I suspect, add a layer of significance to it.  The afternoon was graced by 1.62 of the stories of Seattle based author Lou Rowan, whose first tale of a food slopping slob took time to build to a humorously strange climax.  Also the work of Romanian born Maria Stadnicka, who was one of the ‘hits’ for me of last year’s festival and who took on chairing some interesting discussion sessions as well this time.  Her poems, dry, sparse and surreal, have a knack for disrupting the mindset of reader or listener, jarring and sometimes very funny.  I was also drawn to the poems of Peter King, particularly his s.f. poems describing imaginary planetary landscapes – with something of the quality of Italo Calvino’s ‘Invisible Cities’.  Marvellous stuff.  That hardly does justice to the day, but is all I’ve time to mention.

Joanna Nissel’s precise and well-crafted but moving work caught my attention on Sunday, along with Linda Black’s word cascades, but on all three days I could have written of strong qualities in the work of everyone who read.  The other thing that’s worth mentioning about the festival is its friendly, supportive atmosphere.  There was little if any sense of overbearing egos that can be a drag at arts events. 

So there you go.  If you fancy participating in this celebration of words next year, the dates are 13th-15th September and details will appear in due course on the TitF website.  Modesty forbids me to speak of my own contribution, but festival stalwart Andrew Henon has kindly posted a video of my reading at the 2017 festival and perhaps in time will do likewise for 2018.  Here’s the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jap7R4ITZGw&feature=youtu.be

Spoon-fed with Film Music

Last night me and the other half watched the film ‘Dr Marston and the Wonder Women’ on DVD.  The film has much in the way of merit, it deals sensitively with some interesting issues, ‘taboo’ to a large extent even in current times.  At the same time, possibly because it has a great deal to pack into its near two hour running time, it tends to over simplify and fudge some of those same issues.  But one thing about it, for both of us, did tend to undermine its impact and credibility.  The music.

Like the vast majority of mainstream films it made heavy use of an orchestral styled score to emphasise mood, atmosphere and emotion.  More often than not, I think, this music tends to be a sort of pseudo classical music when used to underscore stories that are biographical, historic, or concerned with emotional events.  Genre films tend to have their own soundtrack conventions – atonal music in horror films, electronica or ambient works in science fiction and so on.  All this comes into the category known as ‘non-diegetic’, which is to say that it is not heard as a part of the story, as for example when a character switches on a radio and a certain song or piece of music is heard.

It’s this non-diegetic music with which I often find I have a problem.  There are certain conventions that work on us psychologically in generally predictable ways.  Sadness is evoked by minor chords, ‘borrowed’ minor chords in major scales or ‘suspensions’ (which as I understand it involve short moments of dissonance resolving into consonant harmonies).  Yearning, specifically I read, can be expressed by a technique known as ‘appogiatura’ in which a non-chord note appears in the melody.  Happiness, of course, is associated with major chords.  Strong rhythms, shifting dynamics and build-ups enhance action sequences.  And so on.  It is one of the wonderful mysteries of music that these musical structures have these effects upon us, and I’m not suggesting that all films should do without them.  My problem lies with the sense that I am too often being spoon-fed.  The soundtracks tend to drench me in the required emotion, rather than allow me to arrive at my own conclusions from the dialogue, the acting and the storyline itself.  In doing so, for me, they detract from the impact.

There are excellent films that do almost completely without non-diegetic music.  The Dardenne Brothers’ ‘Two Days One Night’ (about which I wrote in this blog several months ago) is a striking example.  The Coen Brothers’ ‘No Country For Old Men’, or Woody Allen’s ‘Annie Hall’ also.  Even Alfred Hitchcock chose not to use it in his films ‘Rope’ and ‘The Birds’.  It’s pretty clear that it is possible to evoke a strong response in viewers without this element in the mix.  Or if it is deemed appropriate by the director, why not keep it to a minimum?  Francois Ozon’s ‘Frantz’ I found to be a deeply moving film that used its soundtrack music sparingly and wasn’t afraid to do without it entirely in key scenes.  When I watch a film like this I feel I am able to make discoveries and draw conclusions for myself, without being told what to feel, often in unsubtle terms.

By all means include music in the soundtrack creatively.  It can be used, for example, to make an ironic commentary on what is being shown, or to add an element of emotion that is not included in what we are seeing/hearing within the story.  Yann Tiersen’s music in ‘Amelie’ for example adds a whole extra and often-humorous layer to what is shown and said onscreen.  Some films, like the wonderful ‘Koyaanisquatsi’, have been built around existing pieces of music.  Just don’t ladle it on, as so many mainstream films and so many of the well-known film-music composers seem to want to do.  Or maybe I’m just being some sort of art-snob, and should just accept that most people prefer it that way.  I don’t know.  I just feel that films in general would be better off and the experience of viewers would be enriched without it.

As for ‘Professor Marston…’, well, it wasn’t the worst example by any means.  The score was tasteful and on the whole quite pleasant, I’ll give it that.  It’s just that, for me, it added nothing whatsoever to the film, and I wished there was some kind of facility on the DVD player by which I could turn it off and enjoy the experience without being told so obviously what to feel.

A Bath-Time Candle

She peeled off the single strip of sticky tape, and pulled apart the tissue paper in which it had been wrapped.  “Very special candle,” she said to herself, imitating the middle eastern accent of the man in the market who’d sold it to her.  She sniffed at it.  The scent was still clear and strong, but definitely unfamiliar.  She placed it on the tiled ledge that surrounded her bath, a little away from the other candles that stood there.  She turned the taps and poured in the bath mix.

When it was full and the foam thick and inviting on the water’s surface, she took a lighter from a shelf and bent to light the candles, leaving the latest addition until last.  It was the least substantial of them all, yet there was something about its richly marbled, ochre red surface that had attracted her to it as it lay on the barrow where she’d bought it.  Something about that unfamiliar scent, too – a little spicy, a little like cedar-wood, a little of meadow flowers.  He needn’t have said a word, that seller.

She slipped off her dressing gown, hung it on the door and switched off the bathroom light.  As always, when she undertook this pleasant ritual, the tiny bathroom was transformed.  The perfect little flames, the warm steamy atmosphere, the mingling fragrances – all brought a sense of exotic cosiness to the bare functional room, with its plain white tiles, compact sink and mirrored cabinet.  That feeling was enhanced by the soft sensations of lowering her body through the foam and into the water, until all that could be seen of her – were there anyone to observe – was her face peering through the foam.

She was calm.  At ease.  Somewhere outside that door, the world and its hassles ground grimly on, but here she was detached and secure.  Nothing struggled to suck her attention, no desperate problems demanded that she conceived a solution.  Not now.  Not here.  This was refuge.

Thus, when she became aware of a series of sputtering sounds and raised her head slowly to see what was their source, she felt no sense of perturbation to discover that all the other candles had extinguished themselves, one or two of their wicks still smoking.  Yet the new candle still burnt with a generous flame.  It was sufficient. 

It was curious that the others had gone out.  She would investigate later.  She lowered her head back into the water, immersed in the crackle of tiny bubbles bursting, and closed her eyes.

That scent.  Even amidst the foam, it was stronger now.  Her thoughts were  of palaces, of exquisitely tended gardens overflowing with blossom, elegant figures in silken robes walking slowly, observing the richness that surrounded them.  She imagined herself strolling amongst them, participating freely in their subtly worded conversations, occasionally drawing forth laughter with remarks that were both witty and apposite. 

She could have been Scheherazade, re-telling the vast cache of nested tales that had saved her from death over the course of those one thousand and one nights, blessed with the learning she had acquired from vast but long lost libraries.  For there were none who could tell as she could of the fisherman and the djinn, of the three apples, the City of Brass or of Princess Parizade and the magic tree.

And in each of the magic trees that surrounded her hung golden, gleaming apples, perfectly ripened in the glow of a now descending sun – whose light rays pierced a scattered chaos of cloud forms, filling the firmament with radiance in a thousand exquisite shades of colour.  And in this sylvan idyll, she walked on, dressed now in elaborate robes that might have been painted by Rossetti, Millais or Burne-Jones, in that lush fantasy to which they subscribed of a past that never was.

That fictive past was hers in which to roam freely, its parameters just adjacent to those more commonly shared by the human throng.  If there was decay here, it merely served to feed and nurture rebirth.  If there was despair, it was simply a stage on some journey that led to revelation.  If there was terror, it was but a step from ecstasy.  So she strode, her body upright, her legs firm and sure, on a pathway that passed by pagodas, pantheons and pantiled archways, in a crowd of companions or in the simplicity of solitude.  Onwards.  Tirelessly onwards.

Until at last she knew she needed rest.  And where better to rest than in the still, sun-warmed waters of a tiny lake to which she came, grass edged and partially shaded by leafy beech trees and blossoming banks of rhodedendrum?  So she stripped herself of the silks and the braids which had adorned her body, and lowered herself into the lake.  Its temperature seemed at one with her own.  She swam a few languid strokes, then flipped to lie on her back, water supported.  And were there some traces of foam on its surface?  Was there not a faint sense of recognition about this water, and the lingering traces of a scent that was both familiar and strange?  She closed her eyes, floating, drifting, savouring all that she had perceived. 

When at last she opened them again, she was in her little bathroom, and the only light was the burning nub of a once ochre-red candle.  A few more minutes and she would have been in darkness. 

She rose, grabbing a towel, wrapping it around herself and stepped out of the bath.  She hesitated for a moment before pulling the cord to switch on the light. It would be intrusive, she knew, but it had to be done.  A prelude to everything that ‘had to be done’ when she stepped out of that little space within which the infinite had momentarily opened.  But she was not unprepared.  She felt clear and certain, ready for anything.

Too bad the candle had burnt down so completely.  She would look for that man next time in the market, she was sure. 

But she was not so sure she would find him.

Whatever happened to the Grateful Dead? 4: Bob Weir

The profile that follows was originally published in the weekly online magazine ‘Gonzo’, issue #289.  It was the fourth of a series of pieces I wrote for the magazine concerning former core members of the Grateful Dead, taking a look at their musical activities following the demise of the original band with Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995.

I felt that a lot of former ‘Deadheads’, especially here in the UK, had tended to lose interest in these guys’ activities, which seemed a shame as all four of them had, each in their own way, edged into new and worthwhile musical territories.  Obviously, those like me who did keep track could use the internet to keep abreast of their activities and access some of the music.  But for anyone who hadn’t bothered, I thought a few pointers towards selected highlights might be enough to rekindle interest.

My own interest is not so much on the live performance of the band’s old material, which – understandably in many ways – all four of them tend to fall back on.  Not that the reinterpretation of an old song hasn’t on many occasions wowed me, of course.  But it’s what they have done that is new and exploratory that excites me and on which I tend mainly to focus.

                                                                   Weir: Still Here
                                       
                                     A look at the work of Bob Weir, post Grateful Dead

An old friend, now deceased, used to fancy himself as a bit of a psychedelic guitarist.  He kind of noodled on the guitar in spare moments when he felt so inclined, and over the years we stopped expecting him to progress all that much.  But towards the end of his life, he moved to France and somewhere along the line got friendly with some accomplished musicians who lived in Paris.  Their tastes were more eclectic than our old friend’s, but they were fond of the Grateful Dead and content to play in that style.  They’d travel down to his place, happy to have some space to practice and jam, and they generously took time out to teach him a few licks so he could play along with them.  One bucolic weekend I and another member of our old network joined them for a weekend.  We could hear that he’d learned a lot, and played his guitar with greater confidence, but it was also clear that our new found Parisian friends were still some considerable way ahead of him.  In a break I was talking to one of them and asked him how he felt about our old friend’s contribution to the music.  He smiled indulgently and said: “Ah, he is our ‘Bob Weir’.”

It would be utterly inappropriate to compare the actual musicianship of Bob Weir to that of our friend.  Bob’s been a serious, practising musician since the early 60s, and has well and truly proved his worth.  But in the early days of the Grateful Dead, his musical calibre was sometimes in question – to the point where, for a brief period, he was ‘fired’ from the band.  This wasn’t a brilliant decision on the part of the others, they ‘fired’ Pigpen too.  What were they thinking?  And since then I think it has been recognised that Bob plays in a unique and entirely individual style.  What was shaky, perhaps, at the start became his strength.  I’d like to think that this was what the French musician was referring to – the way that, not being schooled in the conventional manner of acquiring a skill, a determined learner can find his or her own way to something special, something from within.  Or maybe he just figured that that was the politest way to answer my question.

So, Bob…  Once, though not with much competition, the prettiest boy in the Grateful Dead, for the last decade or so his face has been shrouded in a fierce shock of white and grey whiskers as he’s worked his way through his share of post-GD ventures.  These have included The Other Ones, The Dead, Furthur and Dead and Company – all of which I’ve covered in profiles of other ex-members of the band.  If you’ve read those, you might remember that, while I’m ever respectful of skills displayed, the majority of them have failed to impress me very deeply.  What interests me has tended to be the ex-members’ new and exploratory activities, and that’s what I’d like to winkle out here.

Bob Weir had a pretty good track record on this front, even before the post-’95 period I’ve been looking at in these pieces.  Whilst his first solo album, 1972’s ‘Ace’ was virtually a GD album with Bob as leader, he delved into a lighter, more pop oriented style with Matthew Kelly and Dave Torbert in Kingfish in the mid 70s, and explored both jazz and reggae stylings with his ‘80s  band Bobby and the Midnites.  Some of this approach found its way into the later Grateful Dead repertoire in songs such as ‘Lost Sailor’, ‘Saint of Circumstance’, ‘Estimated Prophet’ and ‘Hell in a Bucket’.  His next venture as leader, the band Ratdog, continued to explore these zones.  It grew out of live duet performances with distinguished bassist Rob Wasserman in the late 80s and early 90s.  With varying line ups, Ratdog toured fairly regularly (depending on Weir’s other commitments) until early 2014.  Some of its key members were guitarist Mark Karan, Jeff Chimenti on keyboards and drummer Jay Lane.  It’s repertoire included a good many Grateful Dead songs, both Weir’s own and some of the material formerly sung by Jerry Garcia.  It also included material from his solo and former band albums, covers ranging from Bob Dylan to Pink Floyd songs, and as it developed a fair quantity of original material.

Much of this found its way onto the band’s only studio album, ‘Evening Moods’.  Released in 2000, it featured the then current line up plus a number of other musicians who’d passed through the ranks, including saxophonists Kenny Brooks and Dave Ellis and harmonica player Matthew Kelly (a former Kingfish colleague).  As an album it gets off to a cracking start with the song ‘Bury Me Standing’, which I consider to be as powerful and memorable as any piece of work on which Weir has writing credits.  Set to a tight funk rhythm it builds in intensity with some superb, almost Middle Eastern sounding riffs and fine guitar by Mark Karan, joined by Bob (I assume) on slide towards the end.  Words and music suit his vocal delivery perfectly.  The lyrics, by Weir and one of his then-current writing partners, Gerrit Graham, concern the regrets of a character who perceives his life to have been driven by forces beyond his control, hence: ‘Bury me standing, I been too long on my knees.’  Not sure if it was ever performed live – shame if it wasn’t.

Of course, the problem of getting an album off to such a strong start is maintaining the standard, and there ‘Evening Moods’ runs into problems.  Next track, Weir and Barlow’s ‘Lucky Enough’ passes muster – a quiet, reflective song about states of depression with a nicely worded chorus that concludes: ‘But you may find grace / If you’re lucky enough.’  We then pass via ‘Odessa’ – one of Weir’s never quite convincing rockers – into the jazzy zone, where the songs meander tastefully, introspectively and without much to latch onto in the way of tune.  There’s a bit of a rally towards the end with late Grateful Dead song ‘Corrina’, the well-brassy ‘October Queen’ and thoughtful closer ‘Even So’.

A 2CD live album followed, dominated by the band’s versions of GD songs, plus a few selections from the studio set.  Live soundboard CDs were a available for a while, but I’ve no idea where these could be tracked down now.  File sharing sites?  I scooped up a fair 2004 set (with a lovely segue covering ‘Matilda Mother’ and ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’) and a couple from 2007 when Steve Kimock depped for an ailing Mark Karan.  I’m fond of both guitarists, but Kimock, in my opinion, brought a little more finesse to the jams and the band tended to stretch out more interestingly around him.

Ratdog last toured in 2014 and have only reconvened on a one-off basis on a couple of occasions since then.  The last of these was a memorial event in August 2016, following the untimely death of Rob Wasserman.  There remains talk of further outings, so perhaps we’ve not heard the last of them.

Like all his former GD colleagues, Weir has performed as a guest or in short-lived collaborations with a variety of other musicians over the first two decades of this century.  Many of these collaborations have taken place at the ‘virtual venue’ of Weir’s Tamalpais Research Institute (TRI) studio, launched in 2011.  To quote some blurb: ‘TRI is a state-of-the-art multimedia performance studio, designed for broadcasting live high definition (HD) video and audio streams directly over the internet.’  It streams shows and posts videos and audio streams on YouTube, Soundcloud etc.  Here’s just a few of the artists who’ve done TRI: Jackie Greene, Warren Haynes, Ratdog,  Dhani Harrison, WAR, Blackberry Smoke, Lukas Nelson & The Promise of the Real, Father John Misty, Widespread Panic, Primus, Furthur, Slightly Stoopid, The Be Good Tanyas, Jonathan Wilson, Neal Casal, members of The National, and former Black Crowe Chris Robinson.  There are videos of Bob, alone and jamming with a good many of the above.  Like Phil Lesh’s Terrapin Crossroads it has clearly become something of a creative hub.  There’s even been a very musical chat show, running under the name ‘Weir Here’.  All in all, a person could lose several days of his/her life just catching up on seven years of TRI material.

Out of the hub have sprung new creative partnerships, such as that between Steve Kimock and Leslie Mendelson that I covered in Gonzo 261.  Weir certainly seems to have brought out the inner Deadheads in young American band The National.  These guys went on to co-ordinate the three CD set ‘Day of the Dead’, on which an astonishing variety of bands and individual musicians – from Kurt Vile to Orchestra Baobab – cover songs from (or create music in the style of) the Grateful Dead catalogue.  Bob himself turns up on the final track, a live version of ‘I Know You Rider’ with the National.

The same link up was a contributory factor in Weir’s most recent solo venture – a sortie into what are described as ‘cowboy songs’ on the 2016 album ‘Blue Mountain’.  Bob, as any fan will know, has been a purveyor of cowboy songs from the early days of the Dead.  His version of John Phillips’ ‘Me and My Uncle’ is close to definitive, and his Marty Robbins covers – ‘El Paso’ and ‘Big Iron’ - have been long enduring.  Inspired, so the publicity material runs, by his time working as a ranch hand in Wyoming when he was fifteen years old, ‘Blue Mountain’ blends the cowboy vibe with the perspective of an ageing man looking back on life.  The majority of the songs were co-written with singer-songwriter Josh Ritter – though we are not told whether he too put in time as a ranch hand in his youth.

At its best and most resonant, on songs such as ‘Gonesville’ and ‘Lay My Lilly Down’ Weir and his supporting musicians (including members of the National and various Ratdog-ers) nail this wistful and timeless atmosphere beautifully.  They have that sense of songs that have always existed, just waiting to be plucked out of the ether by the writers.  The same goes for Bob’s almost entirely solo rendition of ‘Ki Yi Bossie’, one of those ‘Wharf Rat’ style songs that take a sympathetic and well-informed look at folk who are down on their uppers.  The eerily arranged ‘Ghost Towns’ too works particularly well, but some of the rest of the material doesn’t hit the spot for me.  Maybe there’s a limit to how many cowboy songs I can take at one sitting.  Americana has its charm, but does tend to run to excess a lot these days.  ‘Blue Mountain’ is a respectable contribution to the pantheon, just not a stand-out.  Weir has played some of the material live with some of the other contributors, but don’t go expecting to hear these songs at Dead and Company shows.

So, along with Hart, Lesh and Kreutzmann, Weir’s still here.  It may seem that I have a tendency to damn him with faint praise somewhat, and it’s true that my affection for him has its limits.  But there’s no shortage of respect on my part for his restless vitality, his politics (see online for more on that) and his service to the music that I love.  Weir’s musical history is dotted with gems and I’d like to leave you with one that’s accessible on the web, if you’d care to check it out.  It’s Bob performing solo with acoustic guitar.  The song is ‘Big Bad Blues’ – with a brilliant late Robert Hunter lyric and which was performed too few times in the Furthur era.  I can’t retrace the original video I came across of Bob singing it, but here’s a link to another TRI video that gives some idea of how powerful a performer Weir can be with a first rate song to sing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nry2YBKjO8

Whatever happened to the Grateful Dead? 3: Bill Kreutzmann

The profile that follows was originally published in the weekly online magazine ‘Gonzo’, issue #282.  It was the third of a series of pieces I wrote for the magazine concerning former core members of the Grateful Dead, taking a look at their musical activities following the demise of the original band with Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995.

I felt that a lot of former ‘Deadheads’, especially here in the UK, had tended to lose interest in these guys’ activities, which seemed a shame as all four of them had, each in their own way, edged into new and worthwhile musical territories.  Obviously, those like me who did keep track could use the internet to keep abreast of their activities and access some of the music.  But for anyone who hadn’t bothered, I thought a few pointers towards selected highlights might be enough to rekindle interest.

My own interest is not so much on the live performance of the band’s old material, which – understandably in many ways – all four of them tend to fall back on.  Not that the reinterpretation of an old song hasn’t on many occasions wowed me, of course.  But it’s what they have done that is new and exploratory that excites me and on which I tend mainly to focus.

                                                           
                                                                        Sticks Man
 
                               Profiling the music of Bill Kreutzmann, post-Grateful Dead.

Creatively, I think, Phil Lesh and Mickey Hart were the guys who covered the most ground, out of the four surviving Grateful Dead originals, but over the last twenty years or so their colleagues’ work has not been without considerable merit.

Bill Kreutzmann then, this time round.

Kreutzmann kept a low profile, musically during the mid nineties.  He’d made his home in Hawaii, and seems for a good few years to have concentrated his creative energies on other work, including film-making and computer based artwork.  His first serious venture back at the drum-kit was a short-lived trio known as Backbone who put out a self-titled album in 1998.  This one passed me by, I’m afraid, and now seems pretty much unobtainable.  By all accounts it was firmly blues and r’n’b based and even the relatively short tracks on the album contained a fair dose of loose jamming.

Interviewed at the time and asked the inevitable question as to whether he would get back together with his former band-mates, Kreutzmann seemed reluctant.  ‘I didn't want to tour with the band after he (Jerry Garcia) died. It would be like the Beatles without John Lennon. There is no such thing.’  Nevertheless, he was tempted by the idea of a New Year’s Eve 1999 reunion which he thought would be ‘fun’.  An intermittent series of link-ups followed and have continued to this day with the current Dead and Company band.  Some newly written material emerged during the 2003-4 and 2009 periods of touring as The Dead, but seems to have been rapidly sidelined.  A shame in my opinion.  Everyone loves the old songs, of course, and instrumental, even vocal reinvention has always been part of the performance, so I’m not going to knock the pension package ventures but a strong dose of the new is something I’m always looking for.

This Kreutzmann has embraced in a good many of his other ventures, so the rest of this piece is devoted to them.  First up was another band, The Trichromes.  I don’t think they lasted any longer than Backbone, but managed to turn out some very pleasant recordings.  Initially ex-Santana/Journey guitarist Neil Schon was a fifth member, contributing to an e.p. release containing one excellent new song ‘Dice With the Universe’ with lyrics by Robert Hunter, plus a couple of lengthier live tracks.  They were down to a four piece when they recorded their 2002 self-titled album.  This featured eight songs with lyrics by Hunter, including a re-recorded and slightly less satisfying version of ‘Dice’, two more by guitarist Ralph Woodson and a long instrumental to close.  A little reminiscent of mid 70s Allman Brothers, the album mixed pop, rock and folk elements never quite hitting the heights but mostly enjoyable. 

As the decade rolled on, not unlike Steve Kimock (with whom he has frequently played), Kreutzmann participated in a number of short-lived, ad-hoc and one-off line ups.  One, Serial Pod, in 2005 involved a largely instrumentally jamming collaboration with Mike Gordon and Trey Anastasio of Phish.  Other links have included taking the drumming seat with the David Nelson Band on several occasions and in 2006 re-uniting with Mickey Hart as The Rhythm Devils.  This line-up I described more extensively in my Mickey Hart piece in Gonzo 225-6, but here I will just mention one of the few still available soundboard recordings of this band.  You’ll need to go to Live Downloads.com and pay for this one, but – titled Rhythm Devils Concert Experience – it’s a nice compilation of some of their best tracks and can be downloaded for a small sum (it also came out as a DVD).

2008 saw a somewhat more prolonged venture, the Bill Kreutzmann Trio (aka BK3), with Oteil Burbridge on bass and Max Creek guitarist Scott Murawski.  They played a good few gigs around this time and have occasionally reconvened since.  Material included the inevitable Grateful Dead covers, some of Murawski’s songs and one or two new compositions.  Audience recordings of some of their shows can be found on the Live Music Archive.  Something about Murawski’s guitar style never quite clicked for me, so with such material as I downloaded and listened to long since deleted I can’t tell you too much more about them.  They had their enthusiasts though – here’s a quote from a review: ‘At times it got out of hand, at times it worked. One magical moment occurred during the segue into "Franklin’s Tower" where Kreutzmann exploded into one of his patented four measure rolls across the toms, ending in a triplet pattern on the fourth bar that Murawski duplicated with synchronistic beauty. A delight to the senses.’  Maybe you had to be a bit of muso to appreciate them.

The collaboration that thrilled me somewhat more began the following year when Kreutzmann jammed with a singer-guitarist known as Papa Mali.  Aka Malcolm Welbourne (he got the nickname from Burning Spear, we are told), he already had a couple of well-received rootsy r’n’b albums under his belt at this time.  Louisiana born and New Orleans based, his music had a nice if somewhat inconsistent swamp rock feel about it, with raw vocals reminiscent of if not quite in the same league as Dr John.  He was and still remains a fine, improvising rock guitarist.  Playing with Kreutzmann, along with Tea Leaf Green bass man Reed Mathis and multi instrumentalist Matt Hubbard, brought out a hitherto unexplored psychedelic edge to Mali’s music.  What ensued reminded me strongly of the energy, drive and raw edges of the Grateful Dead back in their 1967-69 heyday.

Check out their two shows, available again on the LMA, at the Las Tortugas ‘Dance of the Dead’ event (31-10-09) for a powerful dose of this band.  They tended to start the proceedings by going straight into a jam that would segue into some of the potentially looser material from Mali’s albums such as ‘Do Your Thing’ and ‘Firewater’.  There’d be a smattering of 60s Dead covers, before running on to the often lengthy highlights of their early gigs.  These included Mali’s ‘Early in the Morning’ – a blistering hard rock version of the folk song ‘Little Sadie’ - ; and powerful covers of John Lee Hooker’s ‘Bottle Up and Go’ and Dr John’s ‘Walk on Guilded Splinters’.  It was psychedelic rock at the top of its game, jam-heavy but loaded with excitement.  In the second of the two Las Tortugas shows they broke out, pretty much for the first time, a new song with some of the best Robert Hunter lyrics I’d heard in years.  It’s the lament of a punch-drunk loser character, beyond caring whether he lives or dies.  For my money ‘King Cotton Blues’ is up there with ‘Wharf Rat’ or  ‘Black Peter’ amongst Hunter’s most affecting ‘in-character’ songs.  Check out the unforgettable chorus: ‘King Cotton Blues, boys / Be it understood / Shotgun is too merciful / Hanging is too good / Drowning too uncertain / And poison is too slow / To snuff a worthless widow’s son / Whose time has come to go.’

With Willie Nelson guesting on the chorus vocals this song was the centrepiece of their 2010 album ‘7 Walkers’ – which was the name they’d given themselves as a band by then.  Hunter presented them with several more strong lyrics tailor made for Welbourne’s croaky but passionate vocals and bayou stylings, such as ‘Louisiana Rain’, ‘Chingo’, ‘New Orleans Crawl’ and ‘Sue From Bogalusa’.  By the time of the album’s release, Mathis (back with TLG) was replaced by former Meters bass man George Porter Jr.  They were still shredding it live through 2010 and on into 2012, with the album’s title track extending into a powerful live epic.  A second album was spoken of, more Hunter lyrics apparently in the pipeline, but it never happened.  Though they never disbanded as such, they’ve not played as a band since.  It’s possible a period of perhaps severe ill-health on Welbourne’s part may have had something to do with this.  Videos I’ve seen of him in more recent years show a man who has lost an awful lot of weight, though he seems healthy enough now and brought out another solo album in 2015.

Kreutzmann, meanwhile, maintained his loose association with Reed Mathis in various jamming situations and the two continue to play together when the opportunity arises.  For a while in 2014 they had a four-piece band formed, under the name Billy and the Kids, with Aron Magner of the Disco Biscuits and Tom Hamilton Jr.  Compared to the 7 Walkers venture I felt both the name and the repertoire (Grateful Dead covers pretty much exclusively) lacked inspiration.  It was quickly superseded, following the Dead’s 50th anniversary ‘Fare Thee Well’ concert series, by the Dead and Company outfit.  Some one-off shows have proved more interesting, in recent years.  In September 2014 for example, a line-up for the ‘Lock’n’Step Festival’ combined Magner, Hamilton and Burbridge with guitarist Steve Kimock and featured a wonderful guest spot on two songs by blues man Taj Mahal.  And in December of that year Kreutzmann linked with members of the David Nelson Band , Mathis and multi-instrumentalist Jason Crosby in the curiously named Trypto Band.  Meanwhile back with Murawski he has worked with former Copperhead bass man ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson and Donna the Buffalo singer Tara Nevins – a combination that looks interesting, but which I’ve yet to hear.

Of the two former Grateful Dead drummers it’s Mickey Hart who tends to grab the limelight with his flamboyant character, exotic percussions and imaginative ventures, while Bill K tends to be the solid rhythmic backbone of whatever band he plays with.  But his improvisational skills match those of all his former outfit’s members, and – so long as it’s not just rehashed Dead songs – I’m more than happy to listen to anything he gets involved in, should the chance arise.  Some of it may perhaps leave me cold, but when the spark ignites it’ll be powerful and exciting stuff.

Whatever happened to the Grateful Dead? 2: Mickey Hart

The profile that follows was originally published in the weekly online magazine ‘Gonzo’, issue #225/6.  It was the second of a series of pieces I wrote for the magazine concerning former core members of the Grateful Dead, taking a look at their musical activities following the demise of the original band with Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995.

I felt that a lot of former ‘Deadheads’, especially here in the UK, had tended to lose interest in these guys’ activities, which seemed a shame as all four of them had, each in their own way, edged into new and worthwhile musical territories.  Obviously, those like me who did keep track could use the internet to keep abreast of their activities and access some of the music.  But for anyone who hadn’t bothered, I thought a few pointers towards selected highlights might be enough to rekindle interest.

My own interest is not so much on the live performance of the band’s old material, which – understandably in many ways – all four of them tend to fall back on.  Not that the reinterpretation of an old song hasn’t on many occasions wowed me, of course.  But it’s what they have done that is new and exploratory that excites me and on which I tend mainly to focus.

 
                                                               Devilish Rhythms

                                    The many creative ventures of ‘rhythm devil’ Mickey Hart.

Of all the musicians who were a part of the Grateful Dead, Mickey Hart has arguably had the most varied and unpredictable solo career.  Unlike his generally laid back Californian colleagues, Hart is a fast talking, self-promoting character with something of the showman/charlatan about him.  His interviews tend to read like press releases.  On the whole, there’s something endearing about his enthusiasm for whatever project his restless mind has latched onto.  I imagine, though, that he could be a bit wearing in person.

Between 2011 and 2013 he managed to braid together many of the varying threads of his work into one almighty outfit, the Mickey Hart Band, and this piece will focus largely on that intensely productive period.  Prior to that, however, let’s take a look back at his activities outside of the Dead since the early 70s, kicking off powerfully in the form of his 1972 album ‘Rolling Thunder’.  With a spectacular Kelley/Mouse designed sleeve, this album drew in large part from the pool of Californian musicians who participated in the making of Paul Kantner’s Jefferson Starship and David Crosby’s ‘If I Could Only Remember My Name’.  It’s a rousing, energetic, mostly rock styled piece of work, containing several strong, memorable songs and it stands up well to this day.  Recording sessions continued with a view to a follow up.  It never found release but most of the completed or near completed tracks can be found for download on the web these days.
 
Hart’s ethnomusicalogical interests were already surfacing on this album, manifest in both the Shoshone Indian Invocation with which it begins and the contributions elsewhere of tabla player Zakir Hussain.  Hussain was a major collaborator in Hart’s next album, released on the Dead’s short lived ‘Round’ label and featuring an almost entirely percussive outfit known as the Diga Rhythm Band.  The focus on drums and percussive instruments remained throughout several more record releases, running up until the middle 90s.  These included ‘The Apocalypse Now Sessions’ (with Bill Kreutzmann), ‘At the Edge’ and ‘Planet Drum’.  There was a sense of parallel development between these albums and the increasingly elaborate ‘Drums’ segments which spotlighted Kreutzmann and Hart during Grateful Dead shows.  Rooted in what was frequently a bit of a curse in 70s rock music, the drum solo, these became one of the most exploratory passages in (usually) the second set.  Hart brought ‘world music’ to the table with things that rattled, things that boomed and things that buzzed, many of which I assume he’d located and collected on his travels.  There’d be an element of electronica creeping in to the sound too, especially as the remaining members of the Dead began to re-assemble and ‘Drums’ morphed into ‘Space’.  In the late 80s and early 90s there was often little difference between these improvisations and the new and fashionable music of outfits like The Orb.  Hart’s albums likewise, whilst zestfully rhythmic naturally, explored sound textures and ambience inventively.
 
Outside of his own recordings and performances, Hart – as mentioned – spent a great deal of time travelling, studying and recording music across the world during this period.  He was looking particularly for forms that were in danger of cultural extinction, in association with such august bodies as the Smithsonian Institute, and issued a large number of these recordings, details of which can be found on his website.  He was also writing fairly prolifically.  At least four books on music have appeared so far.  Haven’t got round to reading any of them myself, but from the titles I see in Wikipedia I’d say it’s a safe bet that the emphasis is largely on percussion.
 
But unpredictability has been a constant facet of this man’s career and the release of the album ‘Mickey Hart’s Mystery Box’ in 1996 certainly took me by surprise.  It was a song based album, and though some of the tracks were ‘rapped’ by Hart (a touch affectedly, in my opinion), the majority were graced by the elegant vocals of the Mint Juleps.  Originally UK based, the Juleps were a multi-ethnic female harmony singing group, who I’m pretty sure made regular appearances on UK TV programme ‘The Tube’ in the early 80s.  How they ended up in Hart’s orbit I’ve no idea, but their superb vocals on a full set of lyrics by the Dead’s Robert Hunter were a match made in heaven.  The music behind the vocals remained largely percussive, but with bass, keyboards and occasional guitars thrown in.  ‘Mystery Box’ remains a personal favourite of mine to this day.  A fine twelve minute version of one of the stand-out tracks, ‘Sito’, performed at one of the 1996 ‘Furthur Festival’ gigs, can be accessed on YouTube.
 
Over the next ten years Hart continued to release still more albums of mainly percussion based music, whilst participating in the post Garcia groupings of The Other Ones/The Dead and collaborating with other musicians besides.  Then, in 06, he got together with Kreutzmann once more, reviving the name ‘Rhythm Devils’ – a nickname with which they’d been dubbed in the Dead and had used for the ‘Apocalypse Now’ album – and recruiting the hugely accomplished Steve Kimock on guitar, along with Mike (Phish) Gordon on bass.  With a mixture of material from their existing repertoires, plus a handful of new songs with lyrics provided once again by Hunter, they took to the road.  They added singer Jen Durkin, who’d previously been in a band known as Deep Banana Blackout.  After the bliss of the Mint Juleps, her strident voice didn’t quite cut it for me.  Credit where credit’s due though, she managed superbly a tongue twister written by Hunter in the chant-song ‘Fountains of Wood’.  You try rapidly repeating ‘Multiphonic, supersonic, catatonic, anodyne,’ a few times, let alone singing it.
 
There were various incarnations of the Rhythm Devils over the next five years, several musicians passing through the ranks.  Invariably tight and very much a dance act, they struck me as one of the most interesting and exciting new projects from any ex-member of the Dead.  But what came next was quite transcendent.  Although he somewhat prosaically stuck with the name Mickey Hart Band, the outfit he formed between 2011 and 2013 (releasing two albums and undertaking two US tours) was a near perfect synthesis of just about every pie that Hart ever dipped finger into.  I can find little whatsoever to criticise about the Mickey Hart Band of that time, except perhaps that Hart might have done better to steer clear of his own attempts to write lyrics.  No matter, they mostly sound good even if on the whole they don’t seem to make a lot of sense, and both the albums have a further dose of yet more lyrics from the ever prolific Hunter.
 
But the music, that was pure transport.  Sometimes I imagined it as a cross between the Grateful Dead and Daevid Allen’s Gong at their very best.  It’s pretty damn good on both the albums, particularly the first – somewhat portentously titled ‘Mysterium Tremendum’.  Live they took it to the max.  Fronted by two powerful singers, one of whom was an outstanding black female vocalist named Crystal Monee Hall, they brought together the complex, multi faceted rhythms of world music, a bunch of really memorable tunes, a slew of Orb-esque electronica and samples and a whole division of deep, deep drones.  Hart even managed to find yet another superb guitarist in Gawain Mathews.
 

 Their shows were non-stop, mixing material from the albums with a selection of often radically re-arranged Grateful Dead songs and the occasional fascinating cover (Cream’s ‘White Room’ was a cracker).  Hart brought a few marginally gimmicky concepts to the feast – tone patterns based on signals from stars and other heavenly bodies, followed with the second album by sounds generated from a skullcap of sensors picking up rhythms from his own brain as he played.  There was a fair bit of bull in all this, but it was all part of the fun (just as that bit of daftness was, I think, with Gong).
 
Live soundboards of the second tour shows were available for a while on Hart’s website, but were not to be found when last I looked.  The albums (the 2nd one was called ‘Superorganism’) give a fair idea of the band’s strengths, but if you can find any soundboards of the shows on file sharing sites, I’d recommend them.  Hart, like most of the Dead, takes care these days to keep soundboard recordings largely off the internet and audience recordings tend to muddy the complex and layered sound – but there are a few on the Live Music Archive and some are fair recordings.
 
To my disappointment, as the faff about the Grateful Dead’s 50th anniversary shows began to accumulate, Hart let the band members go their separate ways.  Though he and Kreutzmann doubtless add sparkle to the currently running Dead and Company band, it all seems a bit business-as-usual compared to what was achieved by the MHB.  The only thing that’s caught my attention from Hart in the last year or two was a studio collaboration with veteran jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd, of which there was but a five minute extract on YouTube available last time I looked. 
 
Nevertheless, Mickey Hart gives the impression of being a pretty tireless guy and age does not appear to have slowed or mellowed him that much.  I live in hope of more pleasant musical surprises from this rhythm devil before he and his drumsticks make their exit.

Not all that long after the above piece was written came the announcement that Hart was to release a new album, 'Ramu', which then appeared late in 2017.  In many ways it was pretty much what I was hoping for.  Although not a re-appearance of the Mickey Hart Band it had the same level of vitality and inventiveness that I found on their albums.  One track featured a further collaboration with Charles Lloyd and there were strong contributions from a number of other performers of varying degrees of fame.  It was not accompanied by any live performances at the time, presumably due to Dead & Co. commitments.  I reviewed the album in Gonzo 272 and may well re-run the review here once these 4 pieces have run.

Whatever happened to the Grateful Dead? 1: Phil Lesh

The profile that follows was originally published in the weekly online magazine ‘Gonzo’, issue #222.  It was the first of a series of pieces I wrote for the magazine concerning former core members of the Grateful Dead, taking a look at their musical activities following the demise of the original band with Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995.

I felt that a lot of former ‘Deadheads’, especially here in the UK, had tended to lose interest in these guys’ activities, which seemed a shame as all four of them had, each in their own way, edged into new and worthwhile musical territories.  Obviously, those like me who did keep track could use the internet to keep abreast of their activities and access some of the music.  But for anyone who hadn’t bothered, I thought a few pointers towards selected highlights might be enough to rekindle interest.

My own interest is not so much on the live performance of the band’s old material, which – understandably in many ways – all four of them tend to fall back on.  Not that the reinterpretation of an old song hasn’t on many occasions wowed me, of course.  But it’s what they have done that is new and exploratory that excites me and on which I tend mainly to focus.  

                                           
 
                                                             A Garland of Pearls

                            The post 1995 career of former Grateful Dead bassist, Phil Lesh.

“We treat it as a repertoire.  In Grateful Dead terms, that means every performance can be different.  All versions of the songs are true, just like a fairy tale,” said Phil Lesh in 2009 of the many songs he has been performing throughout his working life as a musician.  He was, at that time, engaged in a new band project with former Dead member Bob Weir, Furthur, which was to be his main focus for another three or four years.

The ‘long strange trip’ did not end with the death of lead guitarist Jerry Garcia and the disbandment of the Grateful Dead in 1995, but for Lesh it took a little while to regain velocity.  There were serious financial problems facing the organisation that had grown around the band, and Lesh himself had contracted hepatitis C, culminating in 1998 with a liver transplant that saved his life.  Although he’d been involved initially with the band’s first attempt to regroup as ‘The Other Ones’ in 1998, he’d withdrawn from the line-up after the release of their one official album, a two CD live set, ‘The Strange Remain’.

Upon his recovery he began to develop the idea that was to become ‘Phil Lesh and Friends’.  He had become aware that the ‘repertoire’ was being adopted by many other musicians, who not only played Grateful Dead songs but used them as a springboard for improvisation, in the same spirit as the Dead had done.  The idea was to play with these musicians in a fluid, ever-changing line-up, seeking fresh approaches to the Dead’s songs and also taking on board other material: tunes he’d long wished to play, along with those brought in by his ever-changing musical partners.

In his 2005 autobiography, ‘Searching for the Sound’, Lesh said of this concept:  “As a bandleader, I like nothing better than to plan shows in which I can string songs and improvisations together thematically, like a garland of pearls, and then encourage the musicians to step outside their standard way of thinking and play – completely in the context of the moment.  I continue to seek out multiple musical partners, in a quest for that elusive chemistry that comes and goes as it wishes.”  It was to prove a fertile inspiration and has continued to this day.

One of his first close and continuing colleagues in PL&F was Steve Kimock, a guitarist whose calibre was established over many years with his own band Zero.  Lesh's initial interest in working with Kimock had been consolidated when the guitarist had played with The Other Ones.  However, despite the bassist’s claim that he would always work with Kimock, that partnership lasted for only a year or so and the two have not played together again as far as I know.

Which was a shame as Kimock’s fluid and versatile guitar work wove elegantly with Lesh’s melodic and ever inventive bass lines, as can be heard particularly well on soundboard recordings of some of the first PL&F gigs, available for download on the Live Music Archive website.  For three nights at San Francisco’s Warfield Theatre they joined forces with Trey Anastasio and Page McConnell of the band Phish, plus drummer John Molo.  They established their territory with a 33 minute Viola Lee Blues, and the stratospheric impro continued through all three shows.  They delved into the Dead repertoire including numbers long since abandoned in the Garcia years such as ‘Alligator’ and ‘Mountains of the Moon’.  To these they added Dylan covers, songs from Phish’s repertoire plus one of Kimock’s, and an unexpected rendition of Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’.  As a statement of intent, those gigs stand tall.

More line-ups followed in hot succession.  Jorma Kaukonen of Hot Tuna/Airplane fame, UK keyboard/bass man Pete Sears and others within a month or so (official release ‘& Love Will See You Through’ – a double live highlights set).  Then came collaborations with the wonderful David Nelson Band, jam bands String Cheese Incident, Moe and Zen Tricksters, Little Feat, Merl Saunders and many more.  Lesh is, I think, an ethical and magnanimous sort of a gent (he has made a point of including a personally delivered organ donor appeal at every gig he’s played since 1998, not to mention his part in setting up the charitable Rex and Unbroken Chain Foundations) and in those days was happy to allow free soundboard recordings onto the internet.  They are well worth tracking down.

By 2001 it looked like the line up might be turning into something more fixed.  Lesh had begun a long lasting musical relationship with ex Allman Brothers and Gov’t Mule guitarist, the mighty Warren Haynes.  This version of PL&F, sometimes referred to as ‘The Quartet’, was rounded out by guitarist Jimmy Herring (Jazz is Dead), keyboard man Rob Barraco (Zen Tricksters) and then consistent drummer John Molo.  They developed some fairly standard sets and began to come up with new material including collaborations with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter.  A surprise studio recorded album appeared in 02, ‘There and Back Again’.  There’s a strong set of melodic and vital material to be found on this album, and it’s one of my few regrets as regards PL&F that Lesh seems to have lost faith in these fine songs.  They are rarely if ever performed now, even when ‘The Q’ occasionally reunite.

In 2003 came the first incarnation of ‘The Dead’ as Lesh linked up once more with Weir, Kreutzmann and Hart, bringing Haynes, Herring and Barraco with him.  Something of the spirit of PL&F seemed to pervade this version of the band.  New material, interesting covers (‘Cortez the Killer’, ‘Eight Miles High’, ‘Milestones’) and GD rarities kept their sets less predictable, along with guest appearances by the likes of Steve Winwood and Willie Nelson.  They even got back together with Bob Dylan at one point.  Deadheads seem often to look down on these reunions, but personally I still find a lot to enjoy in live recordings from this period.  The addition of quality singer Joan Osborne at this time rang the changes still further for the good.

As both ‘The Q’ and the Dead went their separate ways in 04, PL&F reverted to its original concept and line ups varied throughout the next three or four years.  Lesh formed new links, many of which have continued on occasion to this day, with musicians such as jazz guitarist John Scofield, former Black Crowe Chris Robinson, singer songwriter Jackie Greene and musical couple Larry and Teresa Campbell – former sidekicks to Levon Helm at his Woodstock home based ‘rambles’.  Whilst I continue to applaud Lesh’s ever welcoming spirit, I did start to find some of these collaborations less appealing personally.

At this time another problem began to emerge for me in my appreciation of this music.  Not only was I listening to the PL&F recordings, but also some of Bob Weir’s Ratdog and a whole bunch more jam bands covering Grateful Dead songs.  Quite a lot of them were beginning to wear out for me.  No matter how well played, no matter how many fine instrumental interludes they contained, I was getting more than my fill of ‘Sugaree’, ‘Ramble on Rose’ et al.  Every version may be different, but the words and the core tune do tend to stay the same most of the time.  My tendency is now to look for the non-GD covers, the pieces the other musicians bring, the occasional newly written songs, and skip the rest – with some exceptions.  I no longer pay the same close attention I once did.

I found this to be the case with the second and shorter incarnation of The Dead in 2009 (though not without highlights) and the early days of the aforementioned Furthur.  In 2010 new songs did actually begin to creep into the latter’s repertoire, enough I reckon for them to have made a decent album.  I particularly enjoyed the ones newly written with Robert Hunter such as ‘Seven Hills of Gold’, ‘Big Bad Blues’ and ‘Colors of the Rain’.  There are some downloadable live versions of these excellent songs, but vocals tend often to be lost in the mix.  Studio versions of those three and a good few more would have been welcome.

It was, I read in one interview, Lesh himself who was least keen to record those versions.  I accept there is little income to be made from making albums, these days, and to a lesser extent Lesh’s argument that the songs are ever evolving, there are no ‘definitive’ versions.  But the songs can’t evolve if they aren’t played, can they?  To be fair, one survived – in more recent line ups, Lesh has repeatedly revisited ‘The Mountain Song’.  The origins of this one do go back to the early 70s and the sessions for Paul Kantner’s ‘Planet Earth Rock’n’Roll Orchestra’ project.  It can be heard as a ‘round’ on recordings bootlegged from that era with the singing of Garcia, Grace Slick and David Crosby amongst others.  It’s been rewritten since then by various folk at various times, Lesh’s version using lyrics written by Robert Hunter and arranged by his son Brian.  A stirring and lovely song.  Thanks for at least keeping that one alive, Phil.

After Furthur played its last gig, Lesh again went his own way.  He and his wife Jill had, around this time, set up a restaurant cum music venue in San Rafael, California, called Terrapin Crossroads – which, in some ways, was the realisation of a Grateful Dead dream project from somewhere back in the 1990s.  Although Lesh’s line ups still play some concert hall and festival venues, he has cannily used the premises to bring the music home, rather than keep it on the move.  Inspired in part by Levon Helm’s barn venue and the ‘rambles’ there, Lesh hosts jam bands aplenty, along with his own continuing projects.  These now include new assemblies involving his now grown and well musical sons, Brian and Grahame, such as the Terrapin Family Band.  A loose collective of mostly younger musicians play in these bands, with and without Lesh on bass.  One that has taken my interest is ‘Communion’ in which he does participate.  Although they started with GD repertoire pieces they have, on their occasional appearances, brought in some exciting new songs and well rearranged covers.  A refreshing take on the classic West Coast rock sound, in my opinion. 

PL&F at Terrapin largely concentrated, over a period of 3 or 4 years, on reproducing entire Grateful Dead shows or albums from the 60s onwards, a venture in which, for reasons established already, I had little interest.  Now and again, however, the excitement returns.  A concert in 2015 featured among the guests, notable and veteran jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, and on drums, Billy Martin of Medeski, Martin and Wood.  Although they did stick mainly to material from the repertoire, Frisell and Martin brought enough freshness and vitality to the jams to entirely overcome my ennui.  Another highlight from that period was a shorter set at the Lockn’ Festival featuring a three lead guitar line up of Warren Haynes, the David Nelson Band’s Barry Sless and none other than Carlos Santana.  Tasty.

That year also saw the Grateful Dead’s 50th anniversary and the surviving original members’ five ‘final’ shows, augmented by Trey Anastasio, keyboard player Jeff Chimenti and associate band member Bruce Hornsby.  A much heralded and multi-million dollar event, I’m sure it gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure but for me the ennui returned almost if not quite full on.  I’ve listened to all the shows and there are some nice versions of many of the songs, for sure.  The jams are pleasant, though for me lack the excitement of the Anastasio/Kimock pairing back in 1999.  The only bits that seem to hit new territory on the whole are the drums/space interludes.  Of the shows, the most interesting I found was the first, in which they played a set of entirely 1960s material.  Whilst I would probably prefer to go back and hear a Dead set that was actually recorded in the 60s, some of this worked well for me.  I suspect that Lesh had a lot to do with the choice.  As mentioned he’s been responsible for reviving long unplayed songs from this period, and at one point they even assay one of the more ‘out there’ numbers: ‘What’s Become of the Baby?’

To many people’s surprise, Weir, Kretzmann and Hart elected to continue working together after this event, bringing in guitarist John Mayer and others, under the name Dead and Company.  Lesh declined to join them.  Reaching his mid 70s he was understandably tired of relentless touring.  His current projects are, besides, probably of greater interest.  An occasional appearance with his former colleagues is, I would think, not out of the question.  But for me, such excitement and interest as I maintain will centre on Terrapin Crossroads and its community of musicians.  This would, to use a bit of 21st century jargon, appear to be a ‘hub’ of some considerable creativity.  Whilst I shall continue to avoid the songs of which I am weary, I intend to keep an eye and if at all possible an ear on whatever emerges that is experimental, adventurous and new.  And for that, again, thanks Phil.