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Happy Harpur Day, everybody.
Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Tag: 1970 (Page 7 of 9)
Portland, Oregon, is known for many things: its rare-cheese district, the Space Needle, and its indigenous Itruca people. (In accordance with the progressive politics Portland is known for, the Itruca and their culture is scrupulously protected, and they run around in loincloths shooting at monkeys with blowdarts. Several people have noted that you can either be indigenous to Oregon or you can shoot at monkeys with blowdarts, but not both; the people that pointed this out were all Twitter-shamed.)
The Rose City is also home to Mr. Completely, who passes along this piece of truly trivial trivia for the discerning Rock Nerd/Gear Fetishist: though the Dead and the Beatles* don’t have many connections, Garcia (briefly) shared a guitar with George Harrison (kinda).
Garcia (surely at least half-drunk, since this is the Festival Express) stumbled onstage to jam with Delancy & Brewster (or maybe Daffodil & Booboo, I can’t bring myself to care) and was given the Telecaster he’s playing in the above picture.
Delacroix & Bingbong were some sort of folk-rock duo that George Harrison hooked up with after his wife broke up the Beatles. (That’s the true story: Yoko was a patsy.) Eric Clapton was also in their band for a minute, too, which makes you wonder if the combo was nothing but the least interesting members of British bands – a reverse supergroup. John Deacon on bass, I suppose.
The guitar–a 1968 rosewood Tele–has a rare pedigree: it was one of two custom-made by Fender (the other was for Jimi Hendrix) and was used at both the Let It Be sessions and the rooftop concert they ripped off from U2. Other than the exotic lumber, it seems to be a stock Tele.
Look:
![[PDF] George Harrison's Fender](http://thoughtsonthedead.com/wp-content/uploads/PDF-George-Harrisons-Fender.jpg)
So here is the question: why was Garcia–the fussiest man alive about his equipment–playing a strange guitar? This was the Festival Express tour: he had his stuff with him, the sunburst Strat and whatever acoustic this is:
Hey, Billy. Nice hat.
“Stay on target.”
Sure, right. SO: here’s my thesis. Garcia wanted to play the Beatle’s guitar. There’s no way he’s more than five feet away from his guitar; no matter how rushed the jam session, he could have grabbed it. Garcia knew that was George Harrison’s old guitar and wanted a crack at it.
Also to be remembered: that was a new guitar. ’68 was two years ago in this photo. Not a vintage guitar.
Also to be mulled over: the Grateful Dead was the least telecaster band there was. Factually and spiritually, the Dead were anti-telecaster. (Bobby has a couple now, and it just doesn’t look right.)
Also to amuse you: George’s 1968 rosewood telecaster was re-acquired by the Harrison family, and they shipped it to Fender, where it was taken apart and measured scientifically to be reproduced by the Fender Custom Shop for $13,500 a pop. They made one hundred. Family paid half-a-mil to get the sucker back. You can do math.
(A STERN WARNING: that last link is to a Rolling Stone article and those fuckers autoplay videos. If Trump promised to execute people who autoplay videos in their sites, I would vote for him. That’s my key issue.)
*I am expecting I shall be apprised of the Marin/Liverpool links in the Comment Section.
New theory: everything’s not connected to the Dead, it’s all connected to Ronnie Tutt.
Stop being weird.
Nothing weird about loving the Tutt.
True. You just phrase your compliments so oddly.
Yeah. Anyway, it’s the King singing Neil Diamond, with King Tutt on the drums. Of note is the song’s length: a little over two-and-a-half minutes. Elvis got bored if a song lasted three minutes, and would start doing karate. Also, like all of Elvis’ Vegas arrangements, the tune doesn’t end so much as it stops. It’s great regardless.
Plus, the sound of Ronnie Tutt’s drums is “thrump.”
Good call. Well-spelled.
This is the New Riders in 1970 at the Fillmore, and my favorite part of the shot is Garcia’s rickety wooden folding chair. You know Bill Graham charged him rent on it, too.
Hey, Miles. Whatcha doing?
…
“Motherfucker, I’ll throw you off a bridge.”
Mr. Davis.
“Better.”
Mr. Davis, where did your hatred of the white man come from?
“Paying attention.”
Well put.
“Black man who don’t know the white man is the devil is worse than the white man. And nothing’s worse than the white man.”
Your logic may be off there.
“Logic is a white man’s lie.”
And now you’re back to making sense.
“Course I make sense. I invented jazz.”
You didn’t.
“I’ll take your ofay ass to that bridge, boy.”
Fine, fine: you invented jazz.
“And being masculine.”
No. No, you didn’t. And please speak up.
JAZZSLAP!
Holy shit, did you just slap me?
“You get the back of the hand next.”
You’re a terrible man.
“Yeah. You gonna turn off my music?”
No.
“So, who wins?”
You didn’t go for subtlety in your automobiles, did you?
“A black man can’t drive a Ferrari?”
A black man can drive whatever the hell he wants! I was referring specifically to you.
“You saying I ain’t a black man?”
You have the worst interpersonal skills I’ve ever seen.
“Suck my dick, honky.”
Simmer down, Mr. Davis. Which Ferrari is this?
“1967 275 GTB/4. 3.3 liter V-12 with six carburetors. How many carburetors your car have?”
None.
“So, I win.”
I don’t think that’s how technology works.
“Shut the fuck up. This car was designed by Pininfarina and built by Scaglietti. Who designed your car?”
A guy named Richard, according to the internet.
“White motherfucker.”
Why would you assume that?
“What’s his last name?”
Andrews-Perry.
“Hyphenated white motherfucker.”
Sure, probably. Didn’t you end up crashing all of your cars?
“I bought ’em: I can do whatever I want with ’em.”
True.
Sometimes the bullshit and legend and ego and revisionist historiographying get in the way and it’s easy to forget that they started out as friends who put stickers on each other.
Another pic from 1970–in fact, from the show I recommended from January–at the old Fillmore East. Of note, Mickey’s goofy grin and Bobby in the back fixing his guitar.
From Queens College on 10/10/70. (No SBD extant and I have not listened to the AUD, which looks kinda rough. Caveat emptor.)
The guy in the long-sleeved shirt on the bottom right is checking his phone.
January in New York City is a dark time. Days are 20 minutes long at most and there is not even Christmas to look forward to: just another ten weeks of gloom, snow, and bitter windy cold.
But the Dead have work to do and, fresh from their New Year’s run at Boston’s The Ark, they played the Fillmore East on 1/2/70. For unknown reasons, the tracks are repeated on all the streamable versions of this show so you’ll have to figure something out or just give up and turn the car at a tree and hit the gas: choice is up to you.
But I would advise sticking around for a little longer; give this one a try. Mason’s Children opener, nice Easy Wind, and a great Live/Dead sequence (with a tragic cut removing the very end of Dark Star and beginning of St. Stephen.)
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