Jerry Garcia: Touch Of Grey

The Spring Tour of 1987 was an interesting time for the Grateful Dead. Garcia had pulled out of his nose dive, and with his rejuvenated energy, everyone was brought up. Though I’d been working with Jerry and John Cutler on the new Dead record (In the Dark), my job as Lesh’s and Mydland’s roadie-in-training for that tour took me far away from my dream of becoming a film director. Don’t get me wrong -- traveling cross-country in the Dead’s crew left me with permanent life lessons, although I suppose they could equally be called scars.

In the last nights of the tour, Jerry and I were talking in his Chicago dressing room about the story boards Gary Gutierrez had sent. Jon McIntyre, the band’s manager, came in to run Arista’s idea of a “making of” video to go with Gutierrez’s music video (Touch of Grey) past Garcia since it would be the band’s first. So, I dropped out of the final days of mixing the album.

In an interview with MTV, Jerry Garcia explained how I came to be involved in the Making Of A Touch of Grey video. “Justin is Bill Kreutzmann’s (our drummer) kid, and he’s a film whiz,” Garcia clarified. “He worked for the Smithsonian, their film department there, for a couple years and he worked for Francis Ford Coppola. He’s got a background in film. That’s what he wants to do, and he was around. I thought Justin would be perfect for this. He knows the scene. He knows what we’re doing, and he’d been working as a second engineer on the record so his feet were wet, so to speak. The perfect guy to call in to do it. So he did it, and he did a nice job, too. It’s one of those happy things of serendipity.”

One night while they took a dinner break, I brought a film crew into Front Street Studio to interview Garcia, who thought it would be cool to show Deadheads what the studio looked like. Though I asked him many things, I only used the parts that concerned “Touch Of Grey” for the video. What follows is the complete interview, although I admittedly wince at some of my lame questions. I was, after all, only 17 years old, and this was my first interview. True to form, however, Garcia saved the day with his thoughtful answers.

Like a Deadhead listening to a tape of a favorite show, reviewing this interview transports me back to some good, old days when I worked with and got to know Jerry.

The whole idea of the Grateful Dead doing a music video is kind of strange to everybody. Can you explain what brought that about?
Garcia: I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to do something with Gary Gutierrez, who did the animation on our early Grateful Dead film -- any opportunity to work with him is always fun. We were working on this album and I thought somewhere along the line the record company was going to require a video from us, so I sent some rough mixes of the tunes to Gary. They liked ‘Touch Of Grey,’ and it just sort of fell together. His idea was so good that everybody loved it immediately, and the record company went for it.

With this record and the video, do you think you’ll reach a whole new audience that might not have ever heard of the Grateful Dead?
Garcia: Hard to tell.

Also, it seems that now that you are middle age, that you’re involving your children more. Do you think it’s good for re-circulating?
Garcia: Sure. Especially if they find a place that’s comfortable for them. Annabelle (Garcia’s oldest daughter with Mountain Girl) has been wanting to do this kind of work for a long time. So I can relate to it because when I was 15, I already had my first electric guitar and here I am. It’s neat that we’re able to provide a context for the kids to work in.

Do you think this will be the big one -- the double platinum album?
Garcia: No telling. Every time we make a record, we always hope that somebody will buy it. And it’s disappointing when they don’t, but on the other hand, after 20 years of no particular success with records, I can’t say I’ll be crushed if this record doesn’t go platinum in a week.

It seems that the recording has a more live sound than on past albums.
Garcia: Yeah, the sound is good. It sounds more like the way we play -- more…it’s the way we perceive music to work. The studio is a little sterile, and the studio playing approach is a sterile approach compared to what we do. So yeah, we were able to capture some of that feeling for this.

You’re using a shortened version [of ‘Touch of Grey’] -- slowed down to articulate emotions out of the skeletons. Are you going to have trouble trying to lip sync that at half speed?
Garcia: I don’t know whether we’ll have to lip sync at half speed or not, I doubt that we will, but operating the puppets would be easier, probably. They have the option of changing the speed in a number of ways to make it easier for them to operate to whatever is the best operating speed.

Is there any fear that the skeletons might outshine the band in the video?
Garcia: I don’t doubt that they’ll outshine us. Probably better than us. They’ll be the stars of the video.


When we went over there today, it seems like what they’re trying to do is capture the characters of the original band members in each skeleton. Do you think they can get real close with that?
Garcia: Yeah, those people are really good at this stuff.

Can you give us a little history of how you got involved with Colossal and The Grateful Dead Movie?
Garcia: Gary Gutierrez is a great guy to work with. He has endless enthusiasm and he has great ideas, and his whole scene has gotten to be very successful in the last ten years. He’s really done well. It’s always nice having an excuse to work with somebody that you like and somebody whose work you like. And it doesn’t pop up that often in the music world where you get a chance to do something collaborative with other people apart from the music itself, which is a collaborative venture, at least the way the Grateful Dead does it. So, it’s neat to be able to include more people, more energy, more kinds of ideas, more minds. And it’s just fun to do.

It seems at this stage in the game, you guys can pretty much choose who you want to work with.
Garcia: Right. No matter how it comes up, it’s always interesting. This is a hot year for us, so far.

How has the tour gone?
Garcia: Good! What I remember of it.

Will this record tie in with the summer tour?
Garcia: Well, it’s hard to tell. The release of the record has to do with the delay in between our delivering the masters and their actually manufacturing the records. Sometimes it takes a long time; sometimes it doesn’t take so long. It depends on what the backlog is at the factories and all this other stuff. So that can come down to a spread of between say three-and-a-half to four weeks if they’re really rushing, to two-and-a-half months. So it really depends on when these things all find their way into the stores, and then they start putting advertising money into it and so forth. Luckily with us, we’re more or less ongoing, that is to say we don’t have a yearly tour and that’s the end to promote the record. We don’t work that way; we work more or less continuously so that everything ends up promoting everything else. So it really doesn’t matter what comes out first or what appears first or any of those things. For us, everything we do has some promotional value as far as everything else that we’re doing is concerned. It doesn’t really matter. It’s just place and time, too. Warner Brothers is still selling our old records from 17, 18, 19 years ago, and every time we appear, we are also promoting them. So everything we’ve ever done is slowly creeping along.

There haven’t been any headaches so far. The biggest headache…well, I’ll say the one big headache, which is always a headache when you’re making a record, is now we have delivered a mixed short version of the single which means that now our whole project has moved along a little bit and that means there are certain problems that go along with that. That’s the worst part. It means that we are now working under deadlines. We don’t create one for ourselves, but sometimes that works against you.

Sometimes, when you get to almost the end of a project, it can go on and on for months. So this, in a way, is helpful because okay, now, we have to deliver a mixed version of the edited single -- the edited version of ‘Touch Of Grey’ -- by this date in order for them to be able to animate to it -- in order for them to be able to do this whole thing. And also for Arista to release a promotional single to promote the album -- all these things now have dates attached to them. That’s the worst part -- it’s the dates. But like I say, it’s a mixed blessing -- it may be the best part. It may be the only reason that the record gets done.

I first heard ‘Touch of Grey’…I heard Hunter do it. He does it with a different melody so I rewrote the melody. He did it completely differently, but I love the way it worked. I’m not sure what it’s about, either. But everybody seems to think it’s about growing older and something like that, so I’ll go along with that. It seems reasonable. I don’t know whether Hunter meant that in the lyric or not; but for me, the song has turned into an anthem in this last tour. Everybody loves it. It doesn’t matter what it originally meant anymore. It’s acquired a meaning. Hopefully, it does mean different things to different people. I like to not tie things down, if possible. But it’s a great song to sing. It’s a great song to perform. It really works well. So from a musician’s point of view, does the song have a life of its own? It has a life of its own, so it’s a good choice.

Skeletons and the Grateful Dead have been synonymous throughout the years, and it seems like it would have been hard to bring in the skeleton idea after all these years without the band being tired of it.
Garcia: Yes. There’s that, and it’s almost gotten to the point where someone mentions skeletons, everybody goes, ‘Oh no.’ But the tie-in is obvious, and if it is a good enough idea, like Gary’s last creation in the skeleton world with the Uncle Sam skeleton with the top hat, we still use it here and there as a logo or to identify us. I don’t know whether I’d accept this from anybody else, but I think Gary’s ideas are funny enough and fresh enough. They’re the way he wants them to be. Even though the idea of skeletons is not exactly a new one to us, this version of it may be terrific. This might be something special, so that’s the reason for going for it.

Now that this is your last record for any company, that basically makes you free from the music business. You’re not under contract. You can do the greatest Mary Poppins tunes you’ve ever heard. Are you guys going to maybe move in a different direction as opposed to album, tour, album, tour, sort of?
Garcia: Well, we never really have done that very much anyway, at least not that strict in the music business sense. We don’t know. We are wide open. We’ll see how this record does. Events have carried us this far, and we’re just going along and that seems to work pretty good and we sort of take a hands-off approach. Kind of let things happen. So we’ll see what happens -- where this gets us. Right now, we’re in motion. We’re on our way somewhere. It’s hard to tell where.

The video is like a performance piece except that it starts on a darkened stage with the band coming out and doing our little pre-show thing. It’s based on the Grateful Dead in performance, as far as our fans know us, and we don’t come out with a big splash or anything. We sneak on stage and fool around in the dark for a long time. Well, this takes it from that point. It starts at that point with us puttering around. But there’s something a little funny. You can’t quite see everybody, and then we’ll reveal the skeletons when the lights come up and the performance starts. The skeletons are full-sized, articulated skeleton puppet guys that will play the first part of the song and then there’ll be a bunch of stuff that happens to them like skeleton gags, and they eventually will sort of transmogrify into us playing live ‘cause they represent us anyway. They’re wearing our clothes and playing our instruments and so on. That’s the sense of it. So it’s skeletons to us. And it’s sort of a play on the ‘I will survive.’ Something about that, plus the Grateful Dead idea, in a large way, and hopefully, it will be funny and it will look good and it will work.

And will there be more videos if this is successful?
Garcia: Sure. Anytime you are successful in the music business, there will be more.

THE WHO & the GRATEFUL DEAD

In March of 1981 I landed in London on tour with the band that my dad, Bill, was a founding member of called the Grateful Dead. The Dead were in England to play a four night run at the Rainbow Theatre as part of a short European trip that came about because Pete Townshend had phoned Jerry Garcia and asked the band to play with The Who on a German television show called Rockpalast. As odd as the pairing of these two 60’s bands seemed they had worked together before and the groups had a respect for each other, particularly Townshend and Garcia who seemed to be two sides of the same 60s rock legend coin. As the Rockpalast show neared the old stories started coming out. The Who and the Dead first met in 1967 when they both played at the Monterey Pop Festival. The Dead had the misfortune of having to go on between The Who and Jimi Hendrix!


In a 1994 interview Jerry Garcia recalls meeting The Who at Monterey: “We were scheduled to go on after The Who. They had been out at our motel all the previous night trying to get Pigpen (original Dead member) to come out. ‘Cause they’d heard about Pigpen and they wanted to party with the Pig. He wasn’t having any, he wasn’t opening the door for no English guys. Anyway, we’d heard a little about The Who by reputation but we had no idea what their act was like. So we’re standing there watchin’ and their music is good, they’re playing solid and Daltrey’s singing good. Then they do ‘My Generation’ and do their destructo routine. We didn’t realize they’d made an art of blowing shit up. It wasn’t just something they did, they were good at it. So we’re standing there amidst the debris and smoke and it’s time for us to go on. I don’t think anybody even saw us, they were still recovering from The Who. So we went on and played our set and then Jimi came on and just annihilated the place and then he destroyed all his shit, too. We might as well not have been there.”

By the time 1976 rolled around both bands had achieved the unthinkable and remained together as groups since the mid-sixties working night after night on the road. The two Day On The Green shows, put on by Bill Graham, were my first introduction to The Who. Even though I was only 7 years of age I already had a frightful impression of these crazy hotel wreckers from England. My dad had to pull me from behind his leg, which I’d been using to hide behind, in order to introduce me to Keith Moon. To my surprise he seemed very sweet as he bent down so he could shake my hand and say hello. In the dressing room the two bands traded war stories. The Dead’s other guitarist Bob Weir asked Moon if it was true that he had driven a Rolls Royce into a swimming pool and Keith said, “If you’ve got it, sink it.”

After the Dead’s set the second day Pete came up to Jerry and told him that he was amazed that after watching two different shows the Dead had not repeated one song. The Who had been doing the same show for the last year and a half, Townshend told him.

Sitting on my dad’s shoulders I got the feeling one gets just before a roller coaster ride speeds up as The Who started playing. From my angle I could see WHO written in bold letters on the top of Pete’s amp and watched wide eyed when Keith stood on top of his massive drum set. Before The Who’s encore the second day Pete dedicated “Shakin’ All Over” to the Grateful Dead and their fans.


One time when both bands were at the Navaro Hotel in New York, Jerry Garcia heard what sounded like a bird thumping on his window. Minutes later the sound was more like a knocking which wouldn’t be strange if he had not been on the tenth floor.

Pulling open his curtains Garcia found Keith Moon peering at him from the small ledge outside. Amazed, Jerry invited Keith into his room and Moon explained that since he had climbed out the window of his room he couldn’t get back in because it was dead bolted. Without another word Keith started tearing through the wall in Jerry’s closet until he had dug himself a hole big enough to crawl through. Mission accomplished, Moon and Garcia went out for a night on the town where Keith got away with things, such as biting pretty girls’ asses, that would get Jerry slapped if he tried.

So years later I’m sitting with some of the Dead family in the restaurant of our German hotel and keep looking at the loud table of Who people. Following my dad over he introduces me and my hand is pulled around the table by the band’s crew while John Entwistle and Kenney Jones continue to eat oblivious to their pranks.

When two crazy outfits like The Who and the Grateful Dead get together I’m surprised the hotel was still standing by the morning. I passed Roger Daltrey as he and two huge roadies were on their way to see if they could break into the hotel’s closed work-out room. My dad and the Dead’s other percussionist, Mickey Hart, sat on either side of Kenney Jones and they all tried to one up each other, story for story, drink for drink. Garcia and Dead manager Rock Scully walked outside where they found Pete sitting alone on a bench. His mood was black as Pete told them The Who were finished and he couldn’t face going on with all the problems in the group. Doing what anyone from the San Francisco 60’s scene would do, Jerry and Rock took some acid with Pete. As the effect of the drug started Pete’s mood seemed to lift when he looked around and said “nature, bloody hell, it’s still out here.”

Back inside the hotel’s two bars were almost completely destroyed by the crew members of both bands. The floor was carpeted with broken glass, the video games were smashed and if there was a single glass that had not been thrown against the wall it was because somebody had not seen it. Next morning I was walking down the hall with one of the Dead’s girlfriends who asked if I was going to catch the early van to see The Who’s show. Saying no, the man in front turned and questioned: “You’re not going to go and see The Who?” Years later I recognized that he was Richard Barnes and got to thank him for convincing me to go to the show.

The Who’s set blew me away that night. From the laser lights during “Who Are You” to the sheer power of “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” As they watched “Pinball Wizard” on the monitors backstage my dad told the Dead’s sound mixer that they really needed to play into the vocal and get as much punch as possible so they wouldn’t sound flat compared to The Who. After The Who’s encore they walked into the backstage area as Garcia was going into his dressing room. When Townshend sees him he yelled “GARCIA!” and then followed him inside his room.



Later during the Grateful Dead’s part of the show Pete came into our dressing room and sat down next to me. Pete looked edgy as he looked around and realised he was in the wrong room before walking out again. Towards the show’s end Pete got on-stage with the Dead and played three songs. Unlike most musicians who sit in, Townshend didn’t just stand to the side but got in the middle of the stage and jumped around. I was watching from the side and I thought he looked cool even when Pete was just lighting a cigarette and dancing to parts of the songs he didn’t know.

As the sun was rising the bus dropped us off back at the hotel after the very long Rockpalast show. Entering the lobby who should be laying on the couch but Townshend who raised his arm and shouted “GARCIA!”

A year and a half later my dad and I are backstage at The Who’s 1982 concert at Oakland Stadium. Since getting back from Germany The Who flame has been burning so strong that nothing else seems to matter to me. After the show we go into Townshend’s dressing room where he introduces us to his wife Karen. Pete was saying that sitting in with the Dead at Rockpalast was hard because he was having the chords shouted at him. He was also surprised at having trouble keeping up at some points because he thought the Dead never rehearsed. My dad asked why Rabbit is not playing with The Who this tour and Pete said “he’s got great ears but when he gets money it goes up his nose and into his brain.” Knowing what a Who freak I had become my dad asked Pete to sign a tour program. As he does I tell him that he signs autographs like my dad and Pete looks up and says “what, you mean a scribble?”

The following year I had everyone in the Grateful Dead sign one of their programs for Pete. In his return letter Pete asked me to give his love to all the guys in the Dead and wrote that The Who had really ceased to function. Around that time Jerry Garcia told Musician magazine “The Who are one of the few truly important architects of rock ‘n’ roll. Townshend may be one of rock’s rare authentic geniuses.”

My Bio (because people have been asking)

I was born to the world of art, or more specifically of music, and the highly creative if unconventional world of the Grateful Dead, where my father Bill has been the primary drummer for the past 40 years. In 1978, when I was eight, my father gave me a Super-8 film camera, and my path was set for life.

At the time, he was working on the percussion soundtrack for Apocalypse Now, so I not only had fascinating opportunities for shooting, but an immediate and extremely powerful example of cinematic genius in Francis Ford Coppola.

Backstage at Dead concerts became my sets, and the people -band, crew, family, hangers-on - became my actors.

I became close friends with Francis’ son Gian-Carlo, and when I was 16 I shot my first real music video with him called “Nobody’s.” It was of a band which my father and Dead keyboard player Brent Mydland had put together just for the purpose of giving Gian-Carlo and I a chance to work. Later that year I interned at the Smithsonian Institutionís film department.

I was 18 in 1987, and the Dead had just finished the CD In the Dark, which featured a single, “Touch of Grey” that was their first video, by Gary Gutierrez. Jerry Garcia invited me to direct a “Making of” video about the “Touch of Grey” video, which was not only highly satisfying, but was Number 1 on the Billboard charts for a month. Over the next few years, I worked as a production assistant on all the succeeding Grateful Dead videos, as well as on the records themselves. I was a second unit director on the band’s two pay-per-view broadcasts, as well.

In 1989 I was assistant director on Red Surf, which starred George Clooney.

I wrote and directed a video for Jerry Garcia and David Grisman called “The Thrill is Gone” in 1991. It was later used in the movie about them, Grateful Dawg, for which I was associate producer.

In 1992 I made “Backstage Pass” a long form Grateful Dead home video.


I worked on Pete Townshend’s 1993 pay-per-view, Psychoderelict, as a
production associate.

In 2001 I was in England directing “An Oxís Tale,” a film for John Entwistle that was unfortunately not completed due to his
death.

I worked as a production associate on two projects for VH-1; “Legends,” about the Who, and “Behind the Music” about The Black Crowes.

In 1999 I directed and edited a Grateful Dead video, “Liberty.”

Most recently, I did an “Alabama Getaway” web video for The Dead as well as created electronic press kits for The Mother Truckers, Samantha Stollenwerck, and a music video for “The Wheel,” for the Jerry Garcia Estate LLC.

LINKS:


THE MOTHER TRUCKERS


SAMANTHA


JERRY GARCIA

The Thrill Is Gone

As I walked onto the set of 'The Thrill Is Gone' I came to the realization that I was really going to direct a Jerry Garcia/David Grisman music video. The modern San Francisco club had become a 1940's speak easy thanks to the great set design of Danny ColAngelo. The connection between my Grateful Dead family and the Grisman Dawgs had gone way back. Now Gillian Grisman and I were partners in a film company. We'd played together as kids, and now they needed a video for the Garcia/Grisman album. As my best friend's father, Francis Coppola, had always told me, "Steal from the best." I used my best friend, Gio Coppola's montages from his dad's flick, 'The Cotton Club' for inspiration. Having worked with Garcia before I knew he had no love of spending endless time on a film set. Jerry's health had already caused a month's delay and some feared he might not have a lot to give toward this project. The first time I passed he and David joking with each other on their way to the set, I knew Jerry was going to be up for it.

The day started by shooting some bar and 'filler' scenes. With each set-up I was getting more comfortable directing the crew, yet I was nervous about having enough time to get all of the footage we needed of the band performing the song. As we tried the first few takes, I realized Jerry had never heard the way David had edited his solo. Once he got that down, all I was nervous about was that Jerry would find out I was responsible for the " HORRIBLY OUT OF TIME CLAPPING," used to cue the song's start.

Of course shots that were supposed to get done fast took a long time and vise versa. Taking advantage of the time Jerry and David were on the set, we shot their scenes first. Watching the band run through 'The Thrill Is Gone' I got the feeling, just seeing Garcia in a gangster suit and tie would be worth the price of admission! Throughout the day Jerry never lost his sense of humor, even when Gillian repeatedly asked for his pants to be fitted. "I'd never do this for the Grateful Dead," Garcia remarked at one point.

While the crew set up for the exterior shots, the musicians swapped jokes with Ricky Jay, a man who has mastered the art of using cards as weapons. A light rain fell as I walked through the sidewalk shots with David, Jerry and the camera man, Barney ColAngelo. My attention was so focused on the set that it took me a while to notice that people were gathering across the street in front of a wall where someone had spray painted GRATEFUL DEAD in large letters. It never donned on us that shooting a video with Jerry Garcia , on a major San Francisco street, would draw attention. Between takes Jerry commented that he'd been on this street all his life. First, as a kid, he was a bouncer for a local night club. Throughout the following years he played thousands of gigs at that same club, which was across the street from where we were shooting, "and I'm still fuckin' on Market Street!"

Around 1a.m. we completed the shots needed for the video's opening and closing and I said goodnight to David and Jerry. Having all of their scenes in the can made me more relaxed, until I saw the weary gang of extras that had been waiting all day to start shooting.

Justin Kreutzmann

Happy Birthday David Graham

Happy Birthday David!
We've traveled down a lot of roads, through every backstage hall, been witness to unconceivable weirdness and rock 'N' roll magic.
Through it all David has been my best friend and I love him....

DGP forever, Justin

John Entwistle

Steve Luongo and Justin Kreutzmann visited John's estate to film new footage for a "rockumentary" concerning John's career up to and including his preparations for the upcoming US tour. Steve's journal of this production will be updated as it progresses:

Thursday the 18th [May 18, 2000] started like any other day except for the fact that I was getting ready to fly to England. Why? To begin shooting a documentary on my friend, business partner and of course the bass guitarist of the millennium....John Entwistle.


How did this come about you ask? Well, it began with an e-mail from Justin Kreutzmann. Justin is a film maker with several impressive credits. He mailed me about doing a piece on the John Entwistle Band. I didn't think the timing was right for a JEB piece but the more I thought about it the idea of a piece about John and his history kept popping into my mind. Eventually Justin sent me his demo reel and full length pieces he had done on bands like the Grateful Dead, The Black Crowes and others. I forwarded the tapes to John while Justin and I began brainstorming about a video project. One thing lead to another and eventually we found an investor who agreed to finance the initial UK shoot.


So here I am packing for another trip to rock and roll wonderland. I was picked up at 8:30 for my usual 11:10 flight from Kennedy in NYC. When I arrived at Kennedy I found out that the flight was delayed because of weather so I headed for the Virgin lounge for a bite to eat and some virtual reality games. Finally....we boarded and I was asleep before we hit 10,000 feet. I slept most of the way and woke up in England 2 hours later than I was supposed to.. The plan was for me to meet Justin who was flying in from San Francisco. His flight arrived almost the same time as mine in the same terminal. It would have been perfect if my plane wasn't late. Oh well the best laid plans.... So Justin and I meet in person for the first time and then into the car for the journey to John's. We talked about the project and started to form a schedule to follow for the next 4 days.


When we got to John's he and Lisa were waiting with the dogs (Scarlet and Marlene). Hugs and kisses were followed by the exchange of presents. Over the years it has become tradition for me to bring an animated toy from the gift shop at Cracker Barrel. It began a few years ago with John purchasing a sunflower in a pot that blinks its eyes and sings You Are My Sunshine. After a couple of months on the bus with this thing we were all ready to murder the little bastard. It is triggered by movement and scared everyone that passed it. And after the fright you had to listen to the thing sing THE WHOLE SONG......!!! Believe it or not the toy made it back to England with John at the end of the tour and it was waiting to greet us when we walked into the bar sort of like a Chucky doll. So what was the animated gift this trip? Billy The Big Mouth Bass. It's a mounted fish that sings Take Me Too The River and Don't Worry Be Happy. The tail flaps and the head turns as the mouth moves perfectly with the lyrics. I also brought the dogs some talking collars. You can record a digital message on the collar and play it back. I can't wait to hear what gets recorded on these things.


We walked out to John's studio to say hello to Bobby Pridden who was in the middle of mixing a new album for Pete Townshend. It sounded great as Bobby's work always does.


More hugs and after that we all went into the bar to examine "the new rig" for the up coming Who tour. John fired it up! Wow its sounds like a whole band all by itself. No matter how may times I hear it (and I have heard it plenty, on stage and off) it always sounds new and fresh to me. He has a one of a kind sound. No mistake...that's Entwistle.He has added some new components including Ashdowne amps that look as cool as they sound. After a quick dazzling display of bass wizardry we headed back to the kitchen.


Enter stage left....some friends. Sonia, John, Nicki and Gary.....oh boy, here comes a party. Then Bobby Pridden and his son Ben. John made "Billy" sing for everyone that entered the room and we wound up having a blast as we always do. John started telling stories and I kept thinking "save that one for the video...no no save that one too....." John has added some speakers and power to all of the TVs in the house so every room has its own mini theater....did I say mini? Everything looks and sounds great and as many of you know already he has about every video or DVD that was ever made. Each system has every kind of player made, video, DVD, DAT, MINI DISK, CD and whatever else Sony makes. Oh wait a minute...no turntable or 8 track????


As I have said before "in the States I am an early riser." My day is from 8am to about 12 or 1am unless we are touring. In England and especially at John's I keep the same schedule but since it's 5 hours later here than in NY I wind up being on John's schedule which is more like 12pm to 6am. Sometimes things just work out like that. Justin and I are looking forward to starting tomorrow and John has already had a lot to offer as far as the project goes.

The video gear has arrived from the hire company in London so now it's official.....we're starting a video tomorrow. We started looking at some of the archival footage that we brought from the states including the very first notes I ever played with John Entwistle. How cool it is to look back at our friendship and musical collaboration over the years. Nicki asked me about how we (John and I) met. As we watched the video I told her the old NAMM story about how we were introduced and I asked him to jam. As we watched that performance she said "this is so cool" and I looked at the screen and said "at this point he doesn't even know my name." Man, we have come a long way in 13 years. Justin and I continued to watch old footage of The Who and the JEB until it was time to turn in. I am looking forward to this project.


Day 2: We spent most of the day doing pick up shoots of the house and grounds. The 2 most important shots for today are both in John's bar. We are doing "the rig" section first and then some impromptu conversation. We started off by having John show us his new rig setup. The thing really sings and poor Justin has to sit right in front of the speakers while filming John playing. OK, so much for his left ear. At least he still has one good one...for the time being. John played his ass off. His bass was ripping Justin's head off but Justin didn't seem to mind. I am sure the shots are great to match the demonstration that JE was putting forth. Things were falling off of the piano including a glass of red wine. The wine made a large red stain on the oriental carpet which was mostly white. John said we should pour white wine on it and scrape it up with a spoon while it was wet. But we were so into the shoot that we didn't. After a while Lisa came in and poured some salt on it because it had dried. Guess what....it didn't work. Was John upset? No! He said we should make an outline of a body with tape to make it look like a crime scene. So we did! I got some white tape from the studio and created an outline with the wine stain near the head.... The next shot was John and I talking about the rig and his preparations for the upcoming tour. The conversation reconfirmed that the only thing John gets nervous about before a tour is his equipment. I have decided not to go into too much detail about the subject matter except to say that as always John's quick wit and dark sense of humor is in full view. After that shot was finished we moved over to the bar to continue talking. Instead of doing it interview style we decided to take the fly on the wall approach and just let the camera run while we partied and talked. I am hoping we will capture the life that John lives outside of his career. I have known John for 13 years but somehow the stories still seem fresh as his tells them again. We shot for hours and captured some rare moments. As I said I won't go into detail but I doubt that many of the stories from this nights shoot have ever been heard before. At least they have never been recorded.

Day 3: We wanted to get some shots of John working in his art cottage. Justin and I went over to the cottage to set up and found that all the camera lights would make it uncomfortably hot, which might get in the way of John working or telling stories. We are trying to capture a relaxed atmosphere and the heat would have interfered. Justin tore down that setup and moved into the dinning room in the main house.

John often does art work on the huge formal table so it seemed to make sense to shoot this section in there. John fiddled with a drawing of Hendrix. We talked about art, rock & roll, touring, marriage, career and singing Al Jolson songs while standing on a table. The range of conversation was wide and we wound up shooting in there for the better part of 3 _ hours. Once again I heard stories that I have heard a million times but they were just as intriguing as the first time I heard them. We asked John about Mrs. Gibbs because we were planning on interviewing her the following day. I know.....who is Mrs. Gibbs? I am NOT telling. I am hoping to turn Mrs. Gibbs into a rock icon or at least a trivial pursuit question.


Day 4: 10:30 time to go interview Mrs. Gibbs. I know I said I wasn't going to tell you about her and I am not. I am sure that there is some clever person out there that can expose my secret. All I will say about Mrs. G is that her interview was all I had hoped it would be. She was perfect and a great addition to the story. You'll see...


Next it was time to set up at Queenie's (John's Mother). I have known Queenie almost as long as I have known John and she is interesting, intelligent and very funny. Her view of John's career is unique and I think we captured that during her interview. She told us a lot of stories that I had never heard. I was listening to a mother talk about her child. It sounded like any mother talking about their offspring. The only difference is that her son is one of the greatest musicians in the world. She also talked about the fans and said she trades letters with several of them. She seems to enjoy doing it.


After we finished at Queenie's house Justin went to set up in John's studio where Bobby Pridden was mixing a new Pete Townshend album. We did some cutaways of Bobby mixing. The PT album was recorded live. When we started Bobby's interview we talked about that fact that this would be the 4th live album in a row that was mixed at John's studio. It started with Left for Live then Sadler's Wells, Blues to the Bush and now Pete's new one. We talked about how John and Keith were the ones that brought Bobby into The Who. They took him out for a drink at a local pub, Bobby bought a round and that got him the job. Bobby and John both said separately it was most likely the last round he ever bought.


Now it's time to finish with John. He said he wanted to do his last interview for this piece while sitting behind the wheel of his new Rolls with the drop top down. He looks cool behind the wheel even if he doesn't know how to drive.


When John was done we finished the shoot with Lisa outside. She talked about life with John, hopes and dreams and the fact that she felt safe in the house while John was touring. Why shouldn't she...with 10 dogs roaming the property and a security system that will drive you deaf and the same time you are being devoured by the hounds of the Entwistles. After all the interviews were over we all went out to dinner. Justin, Queenie, Gary, Nicki, Sonia, Chris, Leah, Lisa, John and me.


Towards the end of the night I grabbed one of the photocopies of Jimi Hendrix. It was one of the ones John was working on during the interview in the dining room the night before. He makes these photocopies to test out different colors. I got his pen box and started adding my own colors to the black and white line drawing. John saw this and started coaching me. It's not as easy as you might think. When I was done John said I should sign it. I said "But I only colored it in." So he took the picture and wrote "Drawing by John Entwistle" and I wrote "Color by Steve Luongo." I will have it mounted and hang it in my studio. Jimi is wearing a red and blue jacket with gold trim and he's playing a sea-foam green Stratocaster.

As always everyone drifts home at different times. This is truly my second family...I will miss them when I leave tomorrow. I stayed with John and Lisa until about 3am and then I went back to my cottage. When I got back to the cottage Justin was finishing his packing and I still had mine to do. Justin said he would wake me to say goodbye. His flight to San Francisco leaves at 11:30am. Mine is at 6:30pm.


Day 5: Justin woke me at 8am and we said goodbye. Gary woke me at 8:30am to get the keys to the land cruiser so he could haul the video gear back to the hire company in London....thanks Gary. Sonia woke me at 11am to ask if I wanted to have lunch. Gary woke me at 11:30am to tell me he was on his way back from London. I figured I should get up. No one else called.... Gary and Sonia both stopped by later to say goodbye and have a cup of tea. We chatted for a while and then they left, I finished packing and went to the main house to wait for my car. Bobby was there and we said goodbye although I will see him in NY on the 6th of June. I went upstairs and said goodbye to John and Lisa. I hate that part. My car arrived, I hopped in and it was off to Heathrow. The drive though check in is a breeze. After the lady comes to the car to check you in they drive you right up to the lounge. A quick lunch and time to board. I called Laurie from the plane to say I was on my way home. As I finish this journal I am sitting in seat 1H. It has been a great trip. I believe we will edit the footage into an entertaining documentary and add to the legacy of John Entwistle. The bassist of the millennium......and my friend! Thanks for reading, Steve Luongo

MTV made us do it!

MTV Woodstock Kids


Interview from the summer of '94, featuring four children of musicians who were at the Woodstock Festival and look back on some things they remember, or don't remember. Featured are Justin Kreutzmann (son ofBill Kreutzmann of The Grateful Dead)25, China Kantner (daughter of Grace Slick & Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane)23, Seven Ann MacDonald (daughter ofCountry Joe MacDonald)25, and Delphine Robertson (daughter of Robbie Robertson of The Band)24.

Justin: My dad, Bill Kreutzmann was a founding member of The Grateful Dead and played for 30 years.

picture

Justin (cont'd): I was actually taken to the Woodstock festival at three months because my parents couldn't find a babysitter.

Delphine: Right after I was born we moved to Woodstock. It was very natural, very organic. Everyone was nice and had a lot of hair.


Justin: Well, the best memory I don't have of it is when my dad told me, is um, they had a sound guy at the time named Osley, who was more famous...

China: Oh, yes!

Justin: ...for making acid in the 60s. And crazy enough they let him do sitcoms. (story jumps forward) So, it starts to rain and they're playing on a steel stage, and every time Weir, or Pigpen, or Garcia test their guitars, they got huge shocks. And um, they're also picking up radio frequencies from all the FM..from the walkie-talkies...which they used in...

Delphine: Spinal Tap.

Justin: Spinal Tap.

China: My mom hated the bathroom situation. And I think it freaked her out that she was in the middle of 500,000 people.

Clip runs of Country Joe MacDonald singing "Fixin' To Die Rag" at Woodstock festival.

Seven: His solo performance was simply because, you know, the schedule was blown and they didn't have anybody...(to China) I think it was your parents that were like having trouble getting in from the hotel or whatever the case might be.

China: Mmm hmm. Right.

Seven: And they were suppose to go on and somebody came up and said, "Go on!" And a guy came running up and handed him a guitar and he goes, "Well, I don't have a strap. The guy came and ran over and tied some string to it. And then he goes, "Well, I don't have a pick." And they gave him a matchbook, and then they just shoved him out there and said...

Clip of Joe MacDonald on stage as the announcer introduces him.

Seven (cont'd): He said he was just totally, absolutely terrified.

China: (holding up her mother's dress) This is the dress my mother wore to Woodstock. Along with some white bell-bottomed pants and some shoes...or maybe not some shoes. And some of the sweat marks have every part of Woodstock you can imagine (holds up and smells dress).

Delphine: This is a picture of Bob and my older sister and it was taken inside our house at Woodstock.

Seven: (pointing to tickets under glass) This right here is an original Woodstock ticket. Very interesting note, eight dollars, eight dollars, eight dollars, total, twenty-four.

WOODSTOCK '94?

Seven: My father said in an interview the other day that they were talking about corporate Woodstock and blah, blah, blah, and he said, "Well you never know, the walls still might come down." And which I thought was pretty funny. I mean you never know. I mean, I hate to underestimate my generation.

Justin: Forget Generation-X, this is like "Generation Next."

China, Seven, Delphine: (in unison) Generation Next!

China: That is so perfect.

Delphine: So awesome!

China: Generation Next, that's what we are.

Reporter on ending note from Woodstock II festival Seven, Justin, and Delphine are all here, having driven from L.A. And uh, somebody will try to find them in the crowd later, but not me.

close encounters: John Lennon/Jerry Garcia

Close Encounters:


When Justin Kreutzmann was growing up in the Grateful Dead world (his dad is drummer Bill Kreutzmann) he used to get yelled at to turn the Beatles music down that blasted from his room, "Granted, they were trying to rehearse at the time". But Justin recalls the other Dead drummer, Mickey Hart, coming to his room and declaring "the Dead need to get that punch the Beatles have." Here Justin recalls for Lennon.Net the story told to him by Jerry Garcia of his meeting with John Lennon:

In the early 70’s Jerry Garcia was starting to make solo records when the Grateful Dead weren’t working. On one of those first efforts he recorded ‘Imagine.’ Before a Jerry Garcia Band show, in New York, John Lennon came by to thank him. Lennon told Jerry that his version of ‘Imagine’ was the first time someone had covered one of John’s solo tunes. After the show they talked for a while and Jerry invited John to come back the next night to join him on stage. John said he would return the following day and do a sound check with the Garcia Band so they could work up a few tunes. Lennon never came back and Garcia thought that all the imposing Hell’s Angel’s hanging out backstage might have “scared him off.”


© 2004 Lennon by Lennon Ltd All rights reserved

don't believe the truth

Pop Whizz

One evening before performing on "Saturday Night Live" each member of the Grateful Dead was unexpectedly asked by NBC to provide a urine sample.

Fortunately for the band, drummer Bill Kreutzmann was sufficiently sober to suggest a solution: his young son, Justin. "My dad said, 'Go in the bathroom,'" Justin recalled, "and there were six little cups lined up. I'm like, 'Get me some water!'"

[Justin once appeared in the classic documentary Woodstock - as an infant being lifted out of a helicopter. (He later became a film and video director.)]

[Trivia: The term 'Grateful Dead' derives from an Old English folk tale in which a traveler enters a village and finds the villagers desecrating (or refusing to bury) the body of a dead man because he had died owing creditors money. The traveler, having paid the dead man's debts, is later saved by the dead man's grateful spirit.]


Kreutzmann, Bill (1946-    ) American musician, Grateful Dead drummer [noted for such works (with  The Grateful Dead) as The Grateful Dead (1967), Anthem of the Sun (1968), Aoxomoxoa (1969), Blues for Allah (1975), Steal Your Face (1976), Terrapin Station (1977), Shakedown Street (1978), Go to Heaven (1980), In the Dark (1987), Without a Net (1990), One from the Vault (1991), and DickÂ’s Picks (1993)]

[Sources: Vanity Fair, Nov 2001, p. 186]

the ten commandments of rock 'n' roll

Suck up to the Top Cats

Do not express independent opinions

Do not work for common interest, only factional interests

If there's nothing to complain about dig up some old gripe

Do not respect property or persons other than band property or personnel

Make devastating judgments on persons and situations without adequate information

Discourage and confound personal, technical and/or creative projects

Single out absent persons for intense criticism

Remember that anything you don't understand is trying to fuck with you

Destroy yourself physically and morally and insist that all true brothers do likewise as an expression of unity.


Robert Hunter

happy birthday Gio!

...time is a funny thing...it just keeps passing but some things I just can't get passed....