All language subtitles for GRATEFUL DEAD - Long Strange Trip (2017) - Part 2 -Eng

This was a new form.

♪ You make my heart sing

And it was very successful.

Monterey Pop made Jimi Hendrix
and made Janis. That film.

Because it brought them
to a mass audience.

♪ Wild thing

But the Grateful Dead
were never really comfortable

with being in front
of the camera.

For them, you know,

the meta-narrative of
the Grateful Dead was that,

we're like you, we're freaks.

You know,
we're not lookin' for a job.

We're not lookin' for a career.

We're not sure what
we're fuckin' looking for.

In fact, we're not even sure
if we're looking for anything.

In fact, we don't
even know where we are.

Who are we?

We're the same as you.

You're the same as us.

There is no real distinction.

Six, take one. Tail slate.

Cutler: The camera validates
that distinction.

Doesn't it?
You know what I mean?

The camera's filming you,
you know.

The camera's filming you, why?

Because you're more important

than anything else that it
could film, you know.

And it's like this probing
kind of eye.

Ha, you rat.

I mean, it took me 18 months
to get the Grateful Dead

to agree to do a photograph.

Well, that is the gentleman
who's taking a photograph.

There's the camera, here.

I kept saying to them,
"Listen, we need a photograph.

"If we're going to do publicity
for the Grateful Dead,

we need photographs
of the Grateful Dead."

Garcia: Where's the fucking hotel at?
Let's go to the hotel.

"No, we don't do photographs."

We're trying
to do a group photo.

But, why don't you
do photographs?

"Well, it's not important
what we look like.

What's important is the music."

Hey! Fuck off!

Cutler:
Trying to promote a band

that doesn't want to be filmed

or have their picture taken
is very difficult.

Nice to see you today.

Cutler: And the people
that were sent to film them

weren't the right people,
were they?

Care for a beer?

Nobody had told them
or warned them,

don't drink anything
around the Grateful Dead.

Okay, cut.

Garcia: I remember that there
was the Playboy After Hours show.

Cutler:
In this time period,

the Grateful Dead were using LSD

not only to get high,

but also as a kind
of defense mechanism.

I mean, giving people LSD
when they didn't know that

that was what was gonna
happen to 'em.

Garcia: The whole thing was
just really weird, you know?

All the people who were at
the party are extras, you know,

and they're
from Central Casting.

You know,
and they're sitting there

with glasses of ginger ale
and all, you know.

It's laid out like an apartment,

but it's in a Hollywood
sound stage.

And there's Hugh Hefner,
you know,

and all these melons.

And, the union coffee pot there
got dosed.

And the whole thing turned
from an artificial party

into an authentic party.

I remember they had dosed
the coffee with acid.

♪ Wishing well
with a golden bell ♪

♪ Bucket hanging clear to hell

Smith: That night,
I went over to see them.

♪ Stephen fill it up and lower ♪

Smith: And they were
on a break upstairs,

and I came up the stairs
and there they were.

And Jerry gave me a hug.

"How ya doin'?
What's goin' on?

I'll get you some coffee."

I said, "No, no, no, no."

♪ Speeding arrow,
sharp and narrow ♪

You see the situation we had.

I mean,
their idea of it was all fun.

And that's what the Dead were.

- Lev: Fun.
- Fun.

Weir: Holy Jesus. Wow.

Cutler: The word on Garcia's
lips for four years with me was,

"Is it gonna be fun?"

Weir: Okay, this is London.

Cutler: I mean,
the Grateful Dead were about fun.

Weir: This has never been seen.
I don't know why.

Roll camera.

- "A" camera.
- "A" camera.

And then we'll be on our way
to Philadelphia.

Cutler: I mean, you can sit there
and, yeah, we're makin' a film.

But the film's you know, next
week, next year, who knows what.

But this is now.

Nice to see you today.

Cutler: They said,
so you wanna make a film?

Fine, you know,
we'll go for that.

Care for a beer?

Meanwhile, let's see
if you can handle this

while it's all goin' on,
'cause we can.

This is what we like to do.
So good luck.

- Man: We need a director.
- Okay, cut.

Man: Forty-nine. Take one.
Head slate.

This is the Grateful Dead.

Cutler:
So the film crew

slowly came under

the influence of psychedelics.

Announcer: The Grateful Dead.

Man: Did you get that?
What's happened?

♪ Driving that train

♪ High on cocaine

♪ Casey Jones you better

♪ Watch your speed

♪ Trouble ahead

♪ Trouble behind

♪ And you know that notion
just crossed my mind ♪

Cutler: They start off
with a very formal idea

of what you do to film a band,

and slowly it got weirder
and weirder.

It's not easy, you know,
to take a trip and sit there going,

"Now, I'm making a film here,

and I must ensure that
I get everything in focus."

All that tends to go
out the window.

Man: Here's roll two.
Sound, roll two.

They just succumbed.

They didn't have sufficient
psychedelic experience

to overcome the effect
of the acid

and, you know, make a film.

Garcia: The thing I'm talking
about is being able to handle

the environment that you're
operating in when you're high.

Which is, like,
a weird place to be,

and it takes a while
to get into it.

Cutler:
Jerry was of the opinion

that if people get high
around your scene

then, you know,
they need to be looked after.

Man: Jerry, we haven't got a
director. We need a director.

Garcia:
I'll tell you what it is.

It's the fact that these trucks
are on either side of us,

making it seem as though
the horizon were quite high.

It's kind of like being
in a valley.

And the human response to
being in a valley is to think

of "we're cornered."

But we're not really.
It's only an illusion

because of these trucks.

And if you step out
to where you can get

a little bit of air around you
so the horizon is kind of,

like, below the center
of your vision,

you'll feel much better.

Yeah, yeah.

Cutler:
He was directing these people

to how they could have
a better time.

That's it, man.
That's all I know.

Cutler: And I think that was
the protective armor at work.

Garcia sabotaged the film,
in essence.

Hey, you guys can...
You also must remember

that at any moment you can put
down your equipment and split.

Cutler: And, in the end,
the crew started to film themselves

instead of the band.

One guy, I noticed him,

it was like he
was shootin' a gun.

He kept on triggering
the camera,

It was like little shots.
Boom, boom, boom.

In fact, if you give acid
to people

and you ask them to paint
or do creative things,

they mostly produce
absolute chaos.

Are you getting emotional again?

The synapses or whatever

are suddenly speeded up,
massively so.

And so, all of the sudden you
can see a connection between

what's immediately
in front of your eyes,

and something else
that wasn't apparent.

What was hitherto coherent
becomes incoherent.

They know that they're trying
to make a film,

but now, what's going on in
their heads is, like,

super fast episodic shit,
you know?

Like, it's this, it's that;
it's this, it's that;

it's this, it's that.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,

boom, boom.

And then, it just disintegrates.

It's interesting, isn't it,
to look back on it, you know?

How far out the
Grateful Dead actually were

at that stage in their journey.

I mean,
that was their sacred space.

Music for the Grateful Dead
was a very sacred thing,

you know what I mean?

Not to be interfered with by me

or anybody else for that matter.

Garcia: Sure man,
that's what playing is about.

That's what performing is
about for us, you know?

See, music should be
that sort of thing.

Music should be holy.
It shouldn't be business.

And because music
is business here,

it's awful,

'cause it's designed
to make money,

not designed to do
what music's supposed to do.

Cutler: So, in the end,
the film never happened.

The remains get boxed up
and forgotten about.

It's almost like
a subliminal desire

not to be successful,

which actually redounded
to their benefit and credit.

They worried that, you know,
the more famous they were,

the less room for movement
they would have.

And they were dead right.

Prankster:
It's almost working.

I think that it is now working.

Prankster: Yay!
We're back on the air again.

Woo-woo!

And, Gunther, your child is at
the child care kiddie center.

Your child's name
is Carl, Gunther,

if you've forgotten about him.

All little kiddies that
are hurt and sick and lost,

over to the kiddie corral
for their gathering.

Here he is now with the report
on the... our water situation,

uh, which has become
very dry in the area,

with probably another three
hours to go with the intensity.

So there's gonna be, uh,
according to his report,

as they get it going,

a fire truck will
move slowly along there,

and spray out from its nozzle.

So here you go,
the Grateful Dead.

Dennis McNally:
Jerry regarded every day

that he didn't have to
go out and find a job

as a miracle.

And as they looked up
in the early '70s,

the Grateful Dead were
kind of mildly amazed

that they had an audience.

That it had grown.

And they found that
if they just kept touring,

they could make a living.

It wasn't a fancy living,
it was just a living.

♪ All I know is something

♪ Like a bird within her sang ♪

♪ All I know she sang

♪ A little while
and then flew on ♪

♪ Tell me all that you know ♪

♪ I'll show you

♪ Snow and rain

Phil Lesh: I think that
one of the best things

the Grateful Dead ever did

was deciding in essence that we
weren't gonna become recording artists.

You know, that we weren't
gonna be pop stars.

I really don't believe any of
us ever gave a shit about that.

We were a working band
and we were gonna...

We're gonna... we're gonna go
out and bring this to people,

bring this music to people,
and bring 'em together.

I think that, uh...
That kind of freed us up

to not be afraid
to make a mistake.

Jerry Garcia: We make an
effort to... to play honestly,

rather than put on a...
Some sort of packaged, uh,

pre-arranged,
pre-determined show.

We don't bring
a set list on stage.

We don't plan things.

We want it to be more dynamic.

We want it to be more exciting.

We want it to be unexpected.

We want there to be
surprises there.

We want the people to feel they're
participating in it, you know?

And it... If you approach
music from that point of view,

it becomes a very
rich experience.

Dennis McNally:
Committing to improvisation...

Wholly committing to
improvisation...

Implies taking risks.

It's a philosophy of leaving
yourself open to possibility,

and leaving yourself
open to magic.

Donna Jean Godchaux:
My husband and I,

we had been seeing the Grateful
Dead whenever we could.

Total fans.

I was a singer and Keith was
a trained classical pianist.

I came home one day and said,

"Let's listen to
the Grateful Dead."

And Keith said,

"I don't wanna
listen to it anymore.

"I want to play it."

He had never played
rock and roll before.

And I said,

"Okay, well, let's go
get in the band."

I mean, it was
as simple as that.

That sounds so...

I don't know what
it sounds like to you,

but at that time
it was just normal.

And that's why I had
the audacity

to come up to Garcia
after a show and say,

"Keith is your next
keyboard player."

♪ Some folks trust to reason ♪

♪ Others trust to might

Donna Jean Godchaux:
Just like that.

♪ I don't trust to nothing

Donna Jean Godchaux:
Keith was in the band.

♪ But I know...
Let's do it again.

One more time.

Jerry Garcia: Donna.
Where's Donna? Where's Donna?

- Come here.
- We're gonna do...

We're gonna do "Playin'
in The Band" again.

Donna Jean Godchaux: And then
I started rehearsing with them,

and it was just like unreal.

I was getting to be
a part of it.

I mean, I would go
anywhere to see these guys,

and yet, I am singing
with this band.

♪ Oh-oh, yeah

♪ Playin'

♪ Playin' in the band

♪ Daybreak

♪ Daybreak on the land

♪ Playin'

♪ Playin' in the band

♪ Daybreak

Donna Jean Godchaux: You
know, to this day, I marvel

that it can be that inclusive.

♪ Daybreak

♪ Wanna play in the band

Donna Jean Godchaux: We're
all playing in the band,

all of us.

If you were in the audience,

you were included
in the experience.

You know, I'm a fan,

and now, I have
the best seat in the house.

It was a magical thing,
that's all I can say.

Steve Parish:
Being a fan of the band,

which I was originally before
I even started working for 'em,

I represent a guy who
crossed over the barrier

into that world,
into the heart of it.

There was no other band
like the Grateful Dead,

and there was no other crew like
the Grateful Dead's equipment crew.

We all slept with
the same women.

We all got messed up together.

We knew everything
about each other.

It was not a normal relationship

between a band and a crew.

You ever watch the movie
"Air Force"?

You know, World War II,

and they would always
show these bombers,

and the guys would be
in the bomber,

and there was
a guy from Brooklyn,

and there was
a guy from Montana,

and there was
a guy from Chicago.

That's how it was, kind of.

They were really what you
would call the wild bunch,

they were older than me.

Sparky, Kidd,

there was Jackson and Ramrod,
and Johnny Hagen.

These guys were real cowboys.

Jackson was quick
with his fists.

He had this sense about him
where he would knock a cop out.

And Ramrod, he never read
a book in his life.

He told me he read
two pages of "Tom Sawyer."

I would literally read to him,
you know, and he liked that.

When Jackson and Ramrod told me
how they had met in reform school,

I realized that I had

a common brotherhood of
wildness with these guys.

They were the country version
of the city boy that I was.

Steve Parish: We began
to embrace this lifestyle

of all for one and one for all.

We always had that feeling
in the Grateful Dead,

mostly emanating out of Jerry,
and all of the guys,

that we were intricately
a part of it,

helping them get down the
road and to create the music.

♪ I can't stay
much longer, Melinda ♪

♪ The sun is getting high

♪ I can't help you
with your trouble ♪

♪ If you won't help with mine ♪

♪ I gotta get down

♪ I gotta get down

♪ I gotta get down to

♪ To the mine

Sam Cutler: The Grateful
Dead's equipment crew

were famously, um...
belligerent.

But, I mean...

we always got on well.

I didn't stand any bullshit.

Nobody stood any bullshit
from anyone.

They were expected to, you know,

work like dogs and they did.

Steve Parish: To have this
opportunity to work with this band,

to do this thing,

you realize that you were
caught up in something

that was bigger than you.

When I was a kid,
my father would say,

"Do I gotta
hit you over the head

"with a bag of pennies every day

"to knock some sense
into your head?"

I knew what he meant.

Because if you don't take
that opportunity...

If you don't take it
and use it...

You're wasting something.

What does the skull with
the lightening bolt represent?

It meant, bang, man,
you got enlightenment.

And you're gonna use it
to change the world.

We were exploring Europe.

We were going to
all these amazing places

in the history of my life
I couldn't believe.

And for me, as a kid
coming from New York City,

this was incredible.

♪ Gone are the days
when the ox fall down ♪

♪ Take up the yoke and
plow the fields around ♪

♪ Gone are the days when
the ladies said please ♪

♪ Gentle Jack Jones
won't you come to me ♪

Steve Parish:
We were taking LSD every day.

And the LSD that Ramrod...
God rest his soul...

Had mixed up,
we only took one bottle

because we had to go through
customs constantly.

That one bottle,
he had made a mistake of,

and he didn't realize that it was ten
times stronger than what we took at home.

And so it made for really an
intense, intense psychedelic trip.

♪ Brown-eyed women
and red grenadine ♪

♪ The bottle was dusty
but the liquor was clean ♪

♪ Sound of the thunder
with the rain pourin' down ♪

♪ And it looks like
the old man's gettin' on ♪

Magical stuff was
constantly happening in '72.

Stuff that I... to this day...

I almost can't explain.

And they were pushing us
into the light,

and the light was bright.

♪ Well my mama told me,
my papa told me too ♪

♪ Now my mama told me,
papa told me too ♪

♪ Well I shouldn't be here

♪ Tryin' to sing these
railroad blues ♪

Steve Parish:
We spent all that time

on the buses together, laughing.

We brought our girlfriends,
we brought kids,

we brought 50 people with us.

Before you came,
I was all alone.

It is bad to be alone.

Alone, bad.

Friend, good.

Man: We are friends, you and I.

Monster: Good.

- Friends.
- Friends.

Joe Smith: They
traveled in the phalanx.

Like a baby's soccer game,
you know, the swarm.

Friends, wives,
women nursing babies.

And it was how to get by
on $50,000 a day in Europe.

Joe Smith: They'd have a truck
there recording an album.

I said it's got to be
a double album.

I got to get a shot to
get back the money

you're spending on all this.

Dennis "Wiz" Leonard: One of the names
that was considered for the album

was Back Home Broke...

'Cause it was true,
you know, they had blown it.

Sam Cutler:
Dennis Leonard,

Dennis "Wizard" Leonard,
was a Deadhead

before joining the Grateful
Dead on the Europe '72 tour,

and he was responsible for
the recording of all the shows.

We recorded everything.

Because somehow or other,
you know,

I mean,
the bills had to be paid.

And so the Grateful Dead owed
Warner Brothers a record.

Dennis "Wiz" Leonard: I sat
in front of the multi-track.

MM 1000 Ampex machine.
Gorgeous machine.

And, my world was
this little truck

where I basically rode levels,
watched the meters,

and essentially evaluated
what they were doing.

If you look at the tape boxes,
that's where I put my notes.

We had the star system.
You know, like,

a star meant it was pretty good.

Two stars meant
it was really good.

Three stars meant
we thought it was stellar.

♪ Sugar Magnolia,
blossom's blooming ♪

♪ Head's all empty
and I don't care ♪

♪ Saw my baby
down by the river ♪

♪ Knew she'd have to
come up soon for air ♪

Dennis "Wiz" Leonard: So,
it's the last night on the tour.

I'm stuck in the truck.
Everybody was high as fuck.

No one else could be found.

And, you know, there was a problem
with a microphone that, uh,

I talked to Parish about,
and you know,

it just was, like,
drooping on the stand, and I said,

"Can you put a coin in the
screw slot and tighten it?"

And, you know, Steve was
a piece of work back then.

He said, "Fuck you.
Come out and fucking do it yourself."

Oh, jeez, so, you know,
I look over at the tape machine,

and I had just put an hour and a
half load of tape on the machine,

and... okay,
I'm gonna lock the truck,

and I'm going inside,

and no one's gonna be
in the truck.

Didn't feel great about that.

Got in, coin,
tightened up the microphone,

and as I was walking back to
the center of the stage,

the steps to go down,

the band dropped into
"Morning Dew."

I said, "You know what?
Fuck this.

"This is where I am."

And, you know,
I made the decision there

that I had to be right there.

Sparky came over to me
and said, "Are you okay?"

I said, "I'm okay."

Garcia just looked at me and
shook his head, like, you know...

And in that instant,
I knew that I was busted

because no one was in the truck.

The raised eyebrow
over the eyeglasses,

it was saying,
"I know who you are,

"I know what you're doing,
and it's okay."

♪ Walk me out

♪ In the morning dew, my honey ♪

Dennis "Wiz" Leonard:
Because no matter what,

they really wanted everybody
to be there with them.

Their relationship
with the music

was so dependent on the audience's
relationship with the music.

That was the fuel
that made it all work.

And recording even was a
backburner to the music.

♪ Can't walk you out

♪ In the morning dew, my honey ♪

Dennis "Wiz" Leonard: "Morning
Dew" is an old folk tune.

It's a post-apocalyptic
commentary on a world

once people have all died off.

♪ I can't walk you out

"I can't walk you out
in the morning dew."

"It doesn't matter anyway."

Sitting right behind Garcia,

he did a good part of
his solo in that tune

with his back to the audience

with tears
streaming down his face,

'cause he was right there.

He was playing for all of us,
for all of humankind.

You know, he was like
the storyteller.

The minister.

You know, I don't know what kind
of label you want to put on him.

And, uh, finished the tune,
I went back in the truck,

slowly opened the door and
everything was just fine.

I finished the tour and
went back to the states,

and my favorite image
of Jerry Garcia was

bouncing out of
the control room,

where he was mixing
"Europe '72."

He looked at me and he said,

"Wiz, 'Morning Dew'
from the Lyceum

"is 100 percent
on the album."

And he looked at me, he said,

"And no one
was in the truck."

And, you know, that was what
the band was all about was,

you know, the...
The tarot card, The Fool,

just blindly taking
the trip off the cliff.

♪ I guess it doesn't
really matter ♪

♪ Anyway

You know...

that which was the Grateful Dead

is the elephant with the 500
blind men and women in it.

I mean...

everybody's got a different
understanding of what that thing was.

And...

I'm vain enough to think that mine
might be better than some people's

since I did have
this unique position

of being both
inside and outside.

I just think that there's a lot of
bullshit around the Grateful Dead.

We managed to create just about
the most dysfunctional family

that's ever been created
on this planet.

I remember just, like,
the very beginning,

my first interactions with them.

I'd been hanging around

'cause Weir was my
official best friend,

and we'd just started
writing songs together.

And looking around I thought,

goddamn, these guys are like

a real swaggery,
you know, macho lot.

The... The idea of
somebody from...

From inside that scene crying,

just... you didn't do that.

Well, fuck, sometimes
it's a good idea to cry.

And we've got a lot
to cry about, frankly.

And, you know, it hasn't... it
hasn't been properly wept over.

Very little of it.

Pigpen.
Alas, I knew him well.

Oh, Pig.

Why the hell would people
put guitar picks down

on the grave of
the keyboard player?

Answer me that.

He was such a sweet man.

♪ Turn on your light

♪ Let it shine on me

John Perry Barlow:
Pigpen was kind of like

the persona of
the Grateful Dead.

♪ Let it shine,
let it shine, let it... ♪

♪ All right

Mickey Hart: Pigpen would come
out and he'd get people up.

We couldn't do that.

I mean, Jerry couldn't do it.
Bob couldn't do it.

Phil certainly couldn't.
You know?

But Pigpen could.

♪ I'll tell you one of
the reasons why... ♪

As soon as Pig got up,
everybody got up and danced.

He had that thing about him.

♪ Kind of thing that
makes me feel so good ♪

When he sang, you had fun.

♪ And the reason

♪ And the reason

♪ And the reason

♪ All right

♪ And she's got
box-back titties ♪

♪ And great big noble thighs ♪

♪ Working undercover
with a boar hog's eye ♪

♪ And the people got up

♪ And the people slowed

♪ I got the people up

♪ Ahhhhhhhh

Mickey Hart:
Pigpen was a blues guy.

And the Grateful Dead
started as a blues band.

That's not where it wound up.

When the shuffle
turned into a triplet,

Pigpen couldn't play those.

He just couldn't quite
get that kind of thing.

Sam Cutler: Garcia and
Pigpen started this band.

But a lot of people
form bands that...

And fall by the wayside
as the dream develops.

Of course, the Grateful Dead had the
experience of the acid tests, right,

where they all took
the same drug, acid,

and everyone got crazy together.

Everybody except Pigpen.

Pigpen: Hey,
there ain't no power on the stage.

Sam Cutler: To Pigpen,
it was ridiculous.

Pigpen: No electricity
on the stage.

Fix it.

Prankster:
This is the Captain speaking,

we have reached
our first emergency.

Pigpen: Why don't you
rectify it pretty damn quick.

Prankster: Let's everybody put
their worries and frets to mind

to produce some electricity
for the stage.

Pigpen: Hey, man, stop your
babbling and fix these microphones.

We need some power.
Power.

Loud! Loud!

That's better now.

Sam Cutler: Pigpen
didn't grow with the band

because Pigpen was busy
killing himself on alcohol.

You know, I mean,
alcoholics don't like acid.

They're trying to close down
the doors of perception,

not open them.
You know what I mean?

Mickey Hart: When things started
getting a little strange,

he kind of warped out,
lost interest,

and just drank and drank
and drank.

Finally, you know,
it killed him.

John Perry Barlow:
It was so sad.

I felt so bad for him, you know.

I just felt like they... they
weren't actually making any effort

to keep him feeling
incorporated.

It was heart rending because
he was so sensitive and sweet,

and, uh, easily wounded.

Man 1: 48, take one,
head slate. "A" camera.

Man 2: "A" camera.

Because nobody wants to
look at me. Good grief.

Jerry Garcia: Everyone
wants to look at you, Pig.

You're beautiful.
Let's put it back a little bit.

Steve Parish: Pigpen was an
amazing soul of a person,

and sometimes when you have

such a rare gem
of a person in there,

and he's like... you're
dealing with him everyday,

it becomes a task.

And so, when I was first around,

I was pushed together with him

because, on the road,
nobody else wanted to room with him.

But, he was so soulful.

Man: He's all yours.

Steve Parish: And at
night he would come alive,

and he drank, and he would
teach you the blues.

♪ I said goodbye,
goodbye, poor Katie ♪

♪ It's the last words
I've got to say ♪

♪ And Na, Na, Na, Na,
poor Katie ♪

♪ It's the last words
I've got to say ♪

♪ 'Cause if I don't
meet you tomorrow ♪

♪ I'm gonna getcha early
in the next day ♪

John Perry Barlow:
Looking back on 1973,

yeah, it was a huge
turning point.

Though... though most people didn't
recognize it as such at the time.

Uh, in fact, it became
a line of demarcation.

After that,
it seemed like there was

an awful lot of death
taking place.

♪ Like a steam locomotive

♪ Rollin' down the track

♪ He's gone

♪ He's gone, and nothin's
gonna bring him back ♪

♪ He's gone

♪ Ooh-ooh-ooh

♪ Nothin's gonna
bring him back ♪

Sam Cutler: You look back on
the life of the Grateful Dead,

and it is littered
with dead people.

I remember my mother
one time said...

I saw my mother, I went to
England, and I was visiting,

I saw my mum
and she was in her 70s...

I said, "You don't look very happy.
You all right?"

She goes,
"Oh I'm at that time in my life

"when all of my friends
are dying."

I said, "Fuck! My friends are
constantly fucking dying."

Steve Parish: When Pigpen
died, the band sat around,

and everybody was wearing
their dark glasses.

We were crying.

In the Grateful Dead sometimes
you'd get that glimpse of

how fast we were moving
through the world.

Rex Jackson,

the toughest motherfucker
around,

gone.

And Ramrod and Johnny Hagen,

all these guys are dead now.

It was a hard life.

And it took its toll, you know,

and you had to understand that.

Man: Have your ticket
out and ready! Let's go.

Must have a ticket.

Have 'em out and ready.

♪ Look for a while at
the China Cat sunflower ♪

♪ Proud walking jingle
in the midnight sun ♪

Lesh:
Every time I go on stage,

I walk on stage
with the knowledge

that anything can happen.

The important thing is
to be open.

Not to go in
with any preconceptions

about whether
it's gonna be bad or good

depending on how
the sound check went.

We always tried to keep it
as open as possible,

and that's what we learned
from the acid test.

Cutler: What the LSD
experience teaches you

is that all things are possible.

And that's how
the Grateful Dead played.

You know,
Phil certainly doesn't play

what one would describe
as a conventional bass.

And Bobby ended up
inventing a whole way

of being the unique rhythm
guitar player.

But there's nobody who ever
came anywhere close to Jerry

in terms of being able
to manifest

the psychedelic
experience musically.

Having taken LSD,

you become this person
who's aware of the fact

that life only has a certain
amount of predictability to it.

Jerry was a master at setting up
a kind of musical expectation

and then dragging you off
in another direction.

McNally: The Grateful Dead went
into the music for the adventure.

And they went into it having had
that experience with the acid tests,

in which you treated
your audience like partners.

That's why they did things
like spend

an unconscionable amount
of money on the sound system,

because that's the link
between them and the audience.

It was the sound.

Parish: Jerry wanted to put a better
quality of sound out to the people,

and all the guys did.

So we built this thing together

that became
the most unbelievable PA

that you could imagine.

And we called it
the Wall of Sound.

Lesh: The Wall of Sound?

I loved that thing.

I mean, it was the best PA ever.

It was the best sound
I can possibly imagine.

And it was also the biggest.

It was absolutely apocalyptic.

It was like the voice of God.

Parish: Oh yeah.
We built that PA.

We did that ourselves
in our spare time

with our own two hands.

I learned to weld.
Heely showed me.

We welded
the first horns together

that we carried ourselves.

And at the heart of the dream
of it was Owsley, or Bear,

and his sound design genius.

Weir: That's the gleeful sound
of our PA as it warms up.

Pigpen: Hey Bear, there's not
gonna be another fuckin' word sung

until them goddamn
monitors work.

Weir: That, ladies and
gentlemen, is Bear, none other.

Lesh:
Bear was a mad scientist.

A little bit of a mad scientist
among many other aspects.

Weir:
Augustus Owsley Stanley,

or better known as The Bear,

made probably the best LSD
that has ever been made.

Cutler: Oof, that was
particularly powerful LSD,

you know, Jimi Hendrix
wrote Purple Haze

in honor of a brand
of LSD that The Bear made.

Weir: He more or less fueled
the psychedelic revolution,

or whatever you wanted
to call it.

Cutler: In a way, yeah, it changed the
consciousness of the Western world.

Weir: It certainly fueled us
in our little explorations.

Parish:
When the Grateful Dead started,

Owsley bought 'em all their own
equipment with his acid money.

Lesh:
He had sort of adopted us

from the Fillmore Acid Test on.

He put a lot of energy and, yes,
money, into the Grateful Dead.

Parish:
In the early days,

what there was in P.A.s
was just so inadequate.

Hart: We realized that if we were
gonna play for larger crowds,

we were gonna need
a real delivery system.

And, if sound was the product
of all of this work,

it better be fucking good, man.

Lesh: Bear's dream was
to have a system

that you could hear for a mile.

No distortion between
the string and the speaker.

That was his holy grail.

At first,
that was just a fantasy.

But then, Bear started

seriously thinking
about how it could be done.

The first thing was,

he'd move all the speakers
for everything behind the band

so we don't have any
complicated interference.

He built differential
microphones,

which are two microphones
connected out of phase.

You sing into one of them,
and the one that's out of phase

eliminates all of the feedback.

We found that dispersion
of speakers is much better

if they're placed
vertically together

than if they're spread out.

And so that lead
to the thought of,

"Okay, it had to be large
and tall to push air

so you that could hear it
for a mile."

Parish: Phil Lesh,
he had a stack 32 feet high.

Why was it 32 feet?
Because that's a standing bass wave.

So everything was based on
some kind of deep science thing.

We built this thing together

that became
the most unbelievable PA

that you could imagine.

But, by the time we got to '74,

the Wall of Sound
was making us crazy.

We had to get up
at six in the morning.

Eight o'clock,
we had to be at that hall...

convincing the union guys
that what we were bringing in

was something that was needed.

They'd never saw rock and roll
shows with these kind of things.

Three trucks full to the brim
with all this heavy gear.

Ten o'clock,
the trucks were empty.

It took us till noon
to stack the 500 speakers.

Wired it up all afternoon.

The band came in
about four o'clock

and sound checked.

And then the doors
opened at seven.

And then they play till
one or two in the morning.

It took us four hours
to take it out.

Here's six a.m.,
we're driving to the next place.

Lesh: I'm sure we could have
made it more efficient and easier

to set up and everything.

We didn't give a shit.

We were gonna do it,
and we were gonna blow it out

until we couldn't do it anymore.

It doesn't matter
when that happens.

While we got,
it we were gonna do it.

The Grateful Dead are dumb.

You have to understand
something.

They make fabulous music,

wonderful, amazing music,

the best music of any band
I've ever been involved with.

Fabulous.

When it came to business
decisions... stupid.

Sam brought a professionalism
to the office,

which was needed at that time,

but he ran up against
the fact that he was not

dealing with a hierarchical
organization.

I was brought in to manage
the publishing company,

but our roles within
the Grateful Dead family

actually overlapped a lot.

We all did a little bit
of everything.

And Sam found that he was
dealing with a collective,

and these were not
music business professionals.

It was a nightmare.
Nightmare.

First off, they didn't
know how to make decisions.

Trist:
Everybody had a voice,

and everybody's voice
was equally listened to.

Cutler: When I first went to a
meeting with the Grateful Dead,

there was all
these people there.

There was so many fuckin'
people, it was ridiculous.

They were all part of this

amorphous blob of people
called The Family.

Trist: It had the characteristics
of an open system.

Cutler:
I don't deal with families.

I deal with rock and roll bands,
you know?

Trist: One that cared
a lot about the employees.

Cutler:
I don't deal with old ladies,

I don't deal with friends
of the band.

Trist:
One person says no,

then it's not on.

Whatever.
I deal with musicians.

You want me to do this,
I'll do it,

but I ain't gonna deal
with all these other people.

McNally: When is the twelfth?
Is it a Wednesday?

- Man: No, it's a Sunday.
- Hart: The tenth.

Weir: I say, the twelfth.

Hart: What day is it?
Cutler: What's a camel?

It's a horse designed
by a committee.

Garcia: Why don't we
make it one of those...

Man: Well, I didn't wanna
fuckin' sit there anyway.

Parish: This is Steve.
I'm at the meeting.

Everything's going
to pieces, man.

People are screamin'
out of turn.

The whole place
is burning down, man.

Cutler: I'm a great believer
in tellin' people,

"This is what needs
to be done."

But of course,
that didn't endear me

to a lot of people
in the Grateful Dead.

So, eventually,
I said "good luck" and left.

Parish:
Sam knew how to treat the crew,

and he had the experience

to take us through those years

of our first growth spurt.

But by the time we got
to '74, he was gone.

Lev: Who was in charge?

Well, I'm so glad you asked that

because I came up
with this, man.

Because we would hear that
a lot of times from promoters.

"Who's in charge here?"

We'd hear it from cops.

"Who's in charge here?"

And I came up with this saying.

I said,
"The situation is the boss."

There were times when I was
in charge of everything.

There were times when Jerry
was in charge of everything.

And then, at another time,
it would be somebody else.

It would be a truck
that had a blown carburetor.

That carburetor was
the boss at that moment.

♪ There's mosquitoes
on the river ♪

♪ Fish are rising up
like birds ♪

♪ It's been hot
for seven weeks now ♪

♪ Too hot to even speak now

♪ Did you hear
what I just heard? ♪

Say, it might have been a fiddle.

Parish: In '74,
we took the Wall of Sound

over to Europe,
and it was about impossible.

If you think the United States
couldn't deal with it,

Europe, they couldn't deal
with it at all.

They didn't know why
you had to bring

this much sound equipment.

What were you thinking?

♪ There's a band
out on the highway ♪

♪ They're high-stepping
into town ♪

Parish: We worked so hard,
exhaustion was setting in.

And cocaine was leading
the pack now.

We were in such
a drug fueled world.

We didn't have anybody
telling us no.

And God forbid, if somebody did.

If it was your old lady
or your wife, she was gone.

If she tried to do it as much as you
did, she was gone.

You both were gone.

Everybody was crazy.

Hart: Oh, yeah.
Backstage, it was total chaos.

People were doing
heavier drugs, you know.

The cocaine came in.

The heroin came in.

The booze came in.

It was everywhere.

You realize, of course, that we're
engaging in illicit activities here.

Hart: You had to have
a lot of discipline.

We didn't have a lot
of discipline in some ways.

Lesh: When we went
to Europe in '74, it was...

It was gettin' really crazy.

And everybody, I think,
was gettin' too deep

into the rock and roll fantasy,
you know, world.

Parish: I don't give a hell
what anybody believes, man.

Every drug that we took,
we used for self exploration.

Nitrous Oxide puts you
in that place

where you're at rapture
of the deep, basically.

So your body is living
off of nitrous,

but we're made
to live off oxygen.

So your brain goes to this place
where it's lettin' go...

of reality and consciousness,
and you're dying.

You're gratefully dying.

That's why you laugh,
because it's funny, man.

You understand everything
at that moment, man.

Everything makes fuckin' sense.
This thing happens...

Oh that, yeah,
the music on this thing!

And you, your leg
and your arm, bam!

And your mother's glasses, wow!

And then you come out of it,
and you can't get back there.

You can't go back to that spot,

but yet you know
for the rest of your life

that there is that high place.

If you're takin' drugs
just to hide from the world,

you're gonna become
a hidden person.

If you take drugs
to find the world,

you're gonna become
a vibrant human being.

Barlow: One of the things
that I don't think

people have properly appreciated

about the culture
of the Grateful Dead

is our utter comfort
with paradox.

You know, we were never an
either-or kind of a culture.

We were always both-and.

The Deadheads, you know,
they had a very strong sense

that there were good guys
and bad guys

and they knew who they were.

There is good, and there is bad.

Good, bad.

With us, it wasn't so clear.

You know, we had a...

We had Hell's Angels
hanging around for ages.

You know, and those are people who
don't even try to be good guys.

Sacramento's coming down,
San Jose's coming up,

Davis City's coming in,
Richmond, Frisco will be here.

And here's a good friend of ours
right here from San Francisco.

Hey, how come we never
cake fight, Bobby?

Man: Cake fight!

Is this your guitar?

Barlow: I mean, at one point
I complained to Garcia

about what I thought was
the unnecessary presence

of all the Angels
thuggin' it up backstage,

making everybody
kind of nervous,

and making it even harder
for women in a scene that

was already misogynistic
to the max.

And he said, "Well, you know,

I don't think that good means
very much without evil."

Which is true.

But that doesn't
necessarily mean

that you have to always have
a seat for evil at the table.

♪ Ran into the Devil, baby

♪ He loaned me 20 bills

♪ Spent the night in Utah

♪ In a cave up in the hills

♪ Set out running
but I take my time ♪

♪ A friend of the devil
is a friend of mine ♪

♪ If I get home
before daylight ♪

♪ Just might get
some sleep tonight ♪

Garcia: Hell's Angels happened
because of freedom.

They're free to happen.

And they're a manifestation
of what freedom is in essence.

Reporter:
And yet, you have an Altamont.

Somehow I feel that you're
being, maybe, too forgiving.

Garcia: I'm not... I mean, you
know, well, what's to forgive?

- There isn't any blame.
- Reporter: There is no blame?

Garcia: No, man,
there isn't any blame.

Because who're you gonna blame?

You'd have to blame everybody,
you know?

We're all human beings,

we're all on this planet
together,

and all the problems
are all of ours.

Not, some are mine
and some are theirs.

If there's a war going on,
I'm as responsible as anybody is.

If somebody's murdered,
I'm responsible for that, too.

At some point or another
somebody has to say,

there can be
no Hell's Angels, you know?

And who's gonna say that?

It's just, you know, it's not
what I'm interested in doing.

The question is
how to work it out, man?

How can you have freedom
and still work it out?

There was a strong belief,

primarily on Garcia's part,

that it was important
that it be leaderless.

He did not want
to be the leader.

Never mind that he was,

and there was no way around it,

and, you know, often times
bad things happened

because he wasn't willing to...

He wasn't willing to assert

what was basically
pretty obvious.

Trist:
Jerry once said to me,

when I was getting
a little excited

about putting off
some project or some idea,

he said, "You know,

don't try to do anything
with the Grateful Dead."

That, you know, because
the collective, in a way,

is a classic example
of following the Tao.

The way things went down

were the way they
were supposed to go down.

And, you know, nobody really
knew what that was.

Barlow: Because nobody
wanted to be in charge,

and nobody wanted
to say no to anything,

it became pretty clear that...

we had become a fully
dysfunctional family.

Godchaux: I don't want to get
into the whole drugs thing,

but it just got unbearable.

It got unbearable on Keith
and me as a husband and wife,

as a couple with a child,

and Keith and I
were burning out.

Barlow: At one point,

Alan Trist went
completely crazy.

I mean, the sanest guy
in the whole scene, basically.

Trist: My susceptibility
to what we call around here

the Marin Spin

was probably likely to kill me.

And I was out of Dodge
for a period there,

until I became more connected

with gentler approaches to...

To self-abuse, if you're
going to put it that way.

McNally: It was difficult
just trying to limp along.

I mean, remember, they were
spending incredible amounts

of money on the sound system.

And they paid the crew, which by now
had gotten to be a respectable size...

Radically more
than any other employees

in the history of rock and roll.

They were supporting
lots of people,

including their own families.

And it's too much.

It's all too much.

That's not tenable.

Barlow: You know,
and it finally just...

It reached a point where...

in late '74...

everybody sort of
simultaneously came

to the conclusion that it just...

It just wasn't worth it.

Uh... and we broke up.

Lesh: It was decided somehow
that we would take a break.

And, if you're gonna do that,

then it's probably a good idea
to do some farewell shows.

♪ I know you rider

♪ Gonna miss me when I'm gone

Lesh: And so,
we'd booked these last...

four, five shows
at the Winterland.

♪ I know you rider

♪ Gonna miss me when I'm gone

♪ Gonna miss your baby

♪ From rolling in your arms

Lesh: And somebody on the management
side came up with an idea,

"Well, let's make
a movie out of it."

- Man: This is sound roll TH6.
- Take one.

Lesh: Jerry really loved that 'cause
he's always wanted to direct a movie,

so this was his chance,
so he kind of jumped on that.

Barlow: We had something
like eleven camera crews

ostensibly making a movie
that was gonna sum up our work.

And that was gonna be
the end of it.

♪ The sun will shine

♪ In my back door someday

But it was kind of fraught
with weirdness

from the beginning,
not surprisingly.

Our sound mixer
kind of went belly up,

mentally speaking.

During our actual recording,
at the end of the last show,

he was found cowering
under the soundboard.

I don't know why,
and I never have.

I'm not sure
I even wanna speculate.

♪ I wish I was a headlight

♪ On a northbound train

♪ I wish I was a headlight

♪ On a northbound train

♪ I'd shine my light

♪ Through the cool
Colorado rain ♪

Barlow: Something that
wasn't in the movie was,

behind the scenes,

there was actually
kind of a war going on

between the acid heads
and the coke freaks.

You know, so, one of
the manifestations of this

that was really hilarious

was that Rex Jackson
positioned himself

right at the top
of the stage stair,

and he wouldn't let you go
on stage unless you took

another drop out
of the Miriam bottle.

Parish: His thing was, "Well, I'll tell
you what I'm gonna do tonight, Steve,

"I'm giving everybody
who comes up these stairs,

they're gonna get acid, you know,
they're gonna just get LSD up the ass,

and then they'd better fuckin' behave
themselves, you know, whatever."

But it wasn't working,
and it was getting crazier.

You see,
he was trying to hold on to

the camaraderie
of the early Grateful Dead.

Barlow: And sure, it was a great way
to keep the coke freaks off the stage.

But it was also a great way
to make the music become

increasingly more psychedelic.