Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Tag: jerry garcia (Page 74 of 139)

You Can Shave My Head

mickey bald 83

Another pic by David Gans, author of the long-time fave Playing in the Bandfollows up on the previous pic of Mickey in a schmucky hat to reveal that the hat’s purpose was to cover his freshly shorn skull, which Mickey has shaved for a reason known only to himself and the Lord, and quite frankly, even’s God’s a bit mystified.

Theories abound, however:

  • Aerodynamics.
  • Sexual purposes.
  • A drunken, manic Billy had snuck up behind him five or six times that afternoon with a battery-powered clipper and sheared jagged h0les out of his hair; this was the only thing Mickey could do.
  • He wanted his head to look more like a drum.
  • Took too many sleeping pills, shaved it off in a fugue state, woke up like that.
  • Lice.
  • Mickey had a side gig impersonating Henry Rollins at children’s parties, bar mitzvahs, and quinceneras.
  • Garcia accidentally set his hair on fire.
  • Sold his locks to get Billy a chain and fob for his pocket watch. Billy, though, had sold his pocket watch to get Mickey hair care products. And among gift-givers, they are the wisest. They are the drummers.
  • Just participated in the largest heist in Frisco history, he can’t leave town for 24 hours, and his picture is in every window. Mickey co-stars with Demi Moore in this summer’s funniest chase movie, San Francisco Blues!
  • Just broke up with Kevin Federline and the paparazzi won’t leave him alone.
  • Bobby was showing everyone how big a bubble he could blow and you can guess the rest.
  • Someone accused him of talking the talk; Mickey needed to prove that he walks the walk.

There Are No Accidents

Here’s something nifty and right up TotD’s alley: Garcia sings Zevon (and plays piano, too!)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiZrHi7IWLU&w=420&h=315]

The song is a great one, Accidentally Like a Martyr, but it’s a note or two out of Garcia’s range. He does, though, get a neat little semi-solo on the electric Rhodes in the middle of the tune, and this might be the only known recorded performance of Parish on drums. Garcia has apparently told him that the merest glance at the cymbals will result in harsh treatment.

Show Stopper

band bid you goodnight

Honestly, you two: knock it off. Yes, Keith ate a handful of off-brand hippo tranquilizer and crawled into the piano twenty minutes ago but he has a weird way of sensing things even when he’s comatose.

PLUS Bottom right, third guy in, blue shirt: is that the Phantom of the Opera? What the dick is going on here?

ALSO Mickey is there why?

AND If Garcia doesn’t have a lit Camel in that left hand we can’t see, I’ll blow the Pope in Macy’s window.

De Other Harmony

Grateful Dead in Concert | Saratoga PAC 24 June 1984

FROM THE DESK OF JERRY GARCIA:

To the Grateful Dead:

It pains and bothers me to write this open letter, but I have reached the end of my tether and an understanding needs to be reached. My point is simple: I do not know when nor why my microphone became communal property, but it needs to stop.

We are not that type of band–this is my first argument. We do not have stage clothes, nor stage moves. We stand there and play.  Three of us don’t even stand, and if I could figure out a way to sit down: I would, too. There’s no running about or leaping; neither of the drum sets levitate and start spinning while shooting fireworks. We just stand there, so it looks weird when, having spent the preceding two-plus hours relatively motionless, one of you comes gooning towards me to harmonize poorly.

Another point: certain people have microphone privileges and the rest of you don’t. I shouldn’t have to explain this, but if a vocal mic has not been provided for you, that means you do not have mic privileges. It does not mean that everyone’s mic belongs to you. It also does not mean that you are allowed to yell ethnic slurs into your bass drum microphone, but one problem at a time.

We turn to the singers: all of you have your own microphones. If it breaks, you may alert the nearest member of the road crew, who will replace it. At no point is it ever necessary to shimmy up behind me and make like Bruce Springsteen and Little Steven. Besides it sounding terrible, your sudden appearance six inches from my face freaks me out every time. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I am barely conscious and easily startled.

I here must make a small but urgent digression, and if nothing else from this letter sinks in, hear this: the drummers are never to sing anything ever anywhere. Was this not a rule? Perhaps this rule was not articulated because of its self-evidence. Neither of you are able to sing. You do not know the words (which, admittedly, has never stopped Bobby) and are prone to making up your own lyrics, which are always about sex and blood and sexy blood and bloody sex.  (If these reasons were not enough, one of you–and I’m going to just come out and say it was Billy–tried to come up and sing with me and tripped over your drum kit, dismantling half the thing and then when Bobby came to help, you punched him in the dick so, you know: end of first set. Drummers can’t sing.

In conclusion: next person who tries to sing at the same mic with me is getting bitten on the nose.

Sincerely,

Garcia

Disharmony

bobby jerry one mic

“Garcia.

“Garcia!

“GARCIA!”

“What’s going on, Bob? Our heads are physically touching; you don’t have to scream.”

“We’re sharing a mic! Classic rock move, man.”

“Yeah, about that: you wanna go the fuck back to your own microphone before I call Parish?”

“Just wanted to sing with my buddy is all.”

“Aww, sorry, Bob. C’mon back.”

“Really?”

“Fuck, no. Go where you’re supposed to be.”

Greatest Show On Earth

jerry red plaid 80s sad

The circus had been there last week; the place still smelled like exotic shit. Lion and elephant shit smells different from horse shit. Not that he could tell: thirty years of unfiltered Camels will do that to a sense of smell. Parish told him so and he believed it.

Was he going to one of the small, darkened rooms he preferred? Or the stage that paid for the rooms? For what went on in there. To or from, don’t matter: he would end up where he wanted to be. No one could ever argue with him, everyone dutifully chorussed after it was over.

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