Long Strange Trip - The Untold Story of The Grateful Dead (2017) - full transcript

Grateful Dead:
♪ Y'know death don't

♪ Have no mercy

♪ In this land

♪ Death don't, wow

♪ Have no mercy

♪ In this land

♪ in this land

♪ Come to your house

♪ You know he don't

♪ Take long

♪ Whaah



♪ You look in bed this morning ♪

♪ Children find that your

♪ Family's gone

♪ I said death don't

♪ Ohh

♪ Have no mercy

♪ No mercy

♪ In this land

I love dead.

Hate living.

Jerry Garcia:
I used to draw pictures

of the Frankenstein monster,

over and over, you know,

endlessly
in different positions.



I think part of it had to do

with the thing of being afraid
the first time I saw it,

the thing of having it have
that power of fear over me.

He's one of the strangest
tales ever told.

He deals with the two great
mysteries of creation:

life and death.

My mother, I think, must have
taken me to see it...

Abbott and Costello
Meet Frankenstein...

In 1948 I guess that was.

I was 6 years old.

My father had died
the previous year, in '47,

so that also made it
kind of a heavy time

in my life emotionally,

and it was another big reason

for my clamping on to it,
kind of...

That power of fear.

I think there was some desire
on my part to embrace that,

to not let that
control me that way.

That whole business
evoked something,

something very strong.

And it hit me in that...
In that archetypal center.

You know, vaboom, you know.
Dong, you know.

That was my first sense of

there are things in this
world that are really weird.

I don't think I knew that
before I saw that movie,

that there are things
that are really weird,

and there are people
who are concerned with them.

That became important to me,

and I guess I thought
to myself on some level,

I think I want to be concerned
with things that are weird.

I think that seems like fun.

♪ Saint Stephen with a rose

♪ In and out
of the garden he goes ♪

♪ Country garden
in the wind and the rain ♪

♪ Wherever he goes,
the people all complain ♪

Man:
It's a real challenge,

if you're not
already a Deadhead,

to love the Grateful Dead

because there's so much
distraction.

♪ Stephen prospered
in his time ♪

But if you ignore the rabid fans

and ignore the entire lack

of all the expected elements
of American entertainment,

then you will find...

there's a richness
that fills your soul.

The Grateful Dead
explored freedom.

And they were the cutting edge

of a phenomenal re-examination

of American values.

For me, the Grateful Dead

is the most American
of all bands

because each musician
that started that band

came from a completely
different place musically,

and they somehow managed
to make it work.

You got a bluegrass
banjo player,

you got a blues
harmonica player,

you got a folky guitarist...

R&B drummer...

you got a avant-garde
classical composer

picking up the bass...

and not long after that,
a marching band drummer.

And, oh, by the way,

a genius lyricist

who created, in his lyrics,

a non-literal hyper-Americana.

And you take
all these streams...

and you dissolve egos
with acid...

and you stir vigorously.

That's Grateful Dead music.

A 1, 2, 3, 4.

I spent most of my adult life

as the biographer
to the Grateful Dead.

How this happened was,

in 1971, the Grateful Dead
put out an album.

On the back of it, it said...

They set up a post office
box in San Rafael.

Then I had just written
this book about Kerouac.

So I sent a copy
of the book to Jerry,

and it changed my life.

Kerouac was Jerry's great hero.

Reading On The Road

was absolutely an essential
part of his growing up.

Garcia: He really means
something to me.

That's... That thing of the
typewriter rolls, you know?

I mean, that... that's so much
like my way of thinking,

- you know what I mean?
- McNally: Yeah. Yeah.

Just, like,
put it out there, man.

Like a record, you know?

That's what you want
a record to be, you know?

No starts or stops,
none of that shit.

That seamless stuff, you know,

that just, it works.
For me, that stuff works.

Other people it doesn't work
for, but for me it works.

Woman: I had never
encountered a mind like that.

And that's really what
was compelling to me...

Was the way his mind
worked, you know?

That's why I went for it then,

and then, 30 later, again,

and probably why I'm
sitting here now.

I read On The Road at age 14

before I started high school.

The beatnik world,

it was so much
a part of who I was

and everywhere I went.

Man: Well,
there was a bookstore.

Brigid Meier:
It was in Menlo Park.

At a coffee bar called Kepler's.

And in that bookstore

one was liable to run across
all kinds of other people

who were 18, 19 years old

hanging out reading On The Road

or The Dharma Bums.

- Meier: Allen Ginsberg.
- Trist: Ferlinghetti.

- Kenneth Patchen.
- Howl.

- All the poetry.
- Eastern mysticism.

- Buddhism.
- Left-wing politics.

All of that.
It was all going down.

I would call them

post-beatnik proto-hippie
kinds of people

looking for something
meaningful in life.

We were the weirdos, the freaks.

That was my tribe.

And there, at Kepler's,

the first person I think
I saw was Garcia.

There's this beatnik guy
with a guitar.

He was a folk singer
at that point.

I think he was only 18.

And Robert Hunter, who was
also part of that group.

While they did not
write songs together

until some years later,

I had this sense that there was

a true partnership
forming there.

Is it cued up? I don't...

We met sometime in March.

So that's 1961,

and then my birthday's
the end of May.

It's Jerry and Bob, boys.

Jerry and Bob sang, played.

Hey, I have an announcement.

Barbara's father
would like to know

if anyone wants any more food.

Woman: Oh, God.

- ♪ I was born about 10,000 years ago ♪
- Years ago.

♪ There ain't nothing
in this world ♪

- ♪ That I don't know.
- I don't know.

♪ I saw Peter, Paul, and Moses ♪

♪ Playing
ring around the roses ♪

♪ And I'll whoop the guy
that says it isn't so ♪

T'ain't so, Mister.
Now you listen to this.

We were all finding
inspiration with each other

in discovering
that we had something

of a family of a group.

♪ And that's about
the niftiest thing ♪

♪ That man has ever done

Hunter had an interesting
distinction

amongst all his crew

in that he had a car,
a very ancient car.

Meier: The four of us...

Bob and Alan and Jerry and I...

Became like a team.

They'd pick me up after school.

We would go on road trips.

And there was this feeling.

We were feeling something
that came from the beatniks.

You know, this wonderful,
wonderful sense of connection.

And I can remember Hunter
reciting Dylan Thomas:

"And death shall
have no dominion..."

Remember we were
all a generation

that had come to age under
the threat of the bomb.

Not very conducive

to seeing a meaningful
life going forward.

Garcia: It was
about possibilities,

and they were in the air.
They were just in the air.

And everybody was also waiting

with this sense of something
is about to happen.

It was just like everybody
knew it, you know.

Everybody was waiting
for this thing to happen.

Something was gonna happen.

And everybody did what they
could to make it happen.

- Smoke.
- You know, people would try...

You try.

...weird shit,
you know what I mean?

Smoke.

Everybody got turned on to pot

during this period and loved it.

Mm. Good. Good.

You know, it seemed like people

were losing faith
in this reality.

Like, this can't be
all there is.

There's just not enough to it.

There's not enough to it.

It's not that interesting,

and it doesn't require
enough of me.

It is not a challenge.

It isn't... It isn't
enough fun, you know?

Oh, yeah. Jerry's
all about having fun.

We saw the Godard
film Breathless,

and I said, "I want
my hair like that."

Jean Seberg.

Although I had been modeling
Macy's ads in the paper

and making
a hundred dollars a day...

Jerry said, "Let's go for it."

And so he helped me
cut my hair really short

with nail scissors.

That was the end
of my modeling career.

That picture, of course,
is in the Tunnel of Love.

I really loved him.

I had already
started art school.

And I had this whole
beatnik vision

of art and love

and literature, music.

Garcia: Being with Barbara
was like a dream, really.

She brought such joy with her,

and she gave me her acoustic
guitar when she was 15.

That was the my first acoustic
guitar that I owned myself.

You know, she bought it for me.

What a wonderful thing
to do, you know?

I mean, she's the one
that got me on the road,

really, you know?

And she was the first person
to have any faith in me.

♪ I wanna be with you

We were gonna
be together, you know?

♪ Under the sun

♪ The sun that shines

And it was all gonna be great.

Good.

Garcia:
I didn't really start

to get serious
about music until...

- Music?
- Uh-huh.

...until I heard my first
bluegrass music.

Garcia:
My father was a musician.

My mother was
an amateur musician.

My father was
a professional musician.

So I grew up
in a musical household,

but the first time I decided

that it was something
I wanted to do

was when I heard
five-string banjo...

Earl Scruggs played
five-string banjo.

I fell in love
with the sound, and I...

I thought that's something
I have to be able to do.

Bluegrass is
a conversational music.

The instruments kind of
talk to each other.

That was a model for
how a band could work.

It's a way to organize music.

Meier: Once he got
into the banjo,

Jerry completely fell
down the rabbit hole.

He felt that he had connected
with something really pure

and really authentic.

And would practice all the time.

And I found bluegrass music

to be really tiresome.

I'm so sorry to say this,
but I got bored.

Garcia: The Grateful Dead

is really a collection
of friends.

Man:
I think I'd have to say

that the Grateful Dead,

what we know
as the Grateful Dead,

started when Jerry met Pigpen.

Garcia: Well, when the
Grateful Dead first started,

we had one strong suit.
We had Pigpen in the band.

And he was this guy
from Palo Alto

whose father had been a
rhythm and blues disk jockey.

For him, the blues
was very natural,

and he played harmonica,
and he sang really well.

♪ Well, I see that woman
goin' behind the hill ♪

♪ I'm gonna find that girl,
I'm gonna do my will ♪

♪ Ain't it crazy

He really had no real
wish to be a performer.

We sort of forced him into it

because we knew he could do it.

So he was kind of
the front man for the band.

He was our powerhouse guy.

Man: And then Bob started
taking lessons from Jerry.

Bob Weir: You know, I got
started with this band

when I was 16.

Bob and Pig and Jerry
and Bob Hunter

formed a band called...

Weir: You know,
we were a jug band.

We were an acoustic band.

There was a lot of focus
on precision and technique,

on getting it right.

If you were playin' bluegrass,

you were playin' a...
It's a fairly rigid idiom.

Everybody was practicing
furiously,

and Jerry practiced more
than anybody, I think.

There were times when,
every now and again

he'd intimate that I
ought to practice more.

And generally speaking,

I'd pick up my guitar
and go sit in the corner

and, uh,
and practice a little bit

until, you know,

until I got frustrated
and put it down

because, you know,
it's frustrating

playing an instrument
when the guy over here

can just play anything
that you can play

and then play rings around that.

Garcia: Because of being
too concerned with technique

and too concerned with...
And frozen, you know,

and all the sudden
I found myself being a person

that I didn't want to be
and that I didn't like.

I felt the music
that I was making

getting sterile
and inhuman, see?

And I... I went as far
as to murder that person.

You know what I mean?

To stop playing the banjo

and to give up that whole thing.

And that was, like,
part of the reason

for getting involved
with the electric guitar

and all that is are all
fundamentally reactions

to that trend in myself.

Weir: When we picked up
the electric instruments,

the focus on idiomatic
purity dropped away.

I viewed The Warlocks...

While this is a blues
band in one sense,

it's also a kind
of mutated bluegrass band

on a certain level.

And I thought it'd be nice
to have an electric band

where the instruments talk
to each other you know?

And so everything we did
came from that idea.

I think it may have
been May 8, 1965,

when a bunch of friends and I

came down to Magoo's
Pizza Parlor

to catch Jerry's band
The Warlocks.

I was immediately
in love with the sound...

of electric guitars.

Oh, you know, I mean,

it was really thrilling
to be up close to it

because all I'd heard
of that music was records.

Garcia: When I met Phil,

he was a lunatic
classical composer.

He was writing this thing
for four orchestras,

you know, and a super
live wire, Phil was.

When I first met him,
he was a real live wire,

so we hit it off like sparks.

Phil Lesh: Jerry,
just out of nowhere,

sat me down in one other booth.

He said, "Hey man,

"I want you to play
bass in this band.

"I know you don't play the bass.

I know you can do it."

♪ ...trouble all my life

I said, "Okay, Jerry."

And I was just stunned

because, like, the whole
world just opened up.

I mean, this just came
from like manna from heaven.

♪ Out in the cold

My chance to play music

with somebody who wanted
to make something

that was unique.

Man:
Everybody in all bands,

they'd listen to other musicians

to learn to be better players.

And Garcia was
that person for me.

He was like my music teacher.

He taught me
about chord changes.

When I was 17 years old,

I didn't even know
what a change was.

Garcia: You know,
he was, like,

just a teenager,
just a kid, you know.

When me and Pigpen and Weir

talked about puttin' together
an electric blues band,

the only drummer that I really
played with around that area

that I felt really had
a nice feel was Bill.

So I talked to him, and he
was just as weird as ever.

I mean, I really,
really didn't understand

anything he said, you know?

I asked him
if he wanted to play,

and he was just like, you know.

I said, "What?"
He said,.

I... "Okay," you know,

so we played, and it was great.

Bill Kreutzmann:
It was far out.

It was far out to be in a band

with a person that was also
your guiding light in music.

Weir: I learned by example
from... from all those guys

but probably Jerry the most.

I was the kid in every regard.

They were all my older brothers.

Of all my older brothers,

Jerry had the most to say,
I'll say that.

And I think he understood

that, if we listen to each other

and lean on each other

and react meaningfully,

stuff is gonna happen.

Lesh: The thing that I got

was the sense that Jerry
was going somewhere,

and if I could help
get him there...

I was gonna do it.

He was already deeply
into the band as a vehicle.

He wanted better things for it
than Magoo's Pizza Parlor.

He wanted to make it
art, you know,

like, high art.

He would never admit
to that, but I did.

Garcia: Typically, we played

six nights a week,
five sets a night.

It was a great way to get good.

We were young enough to love it.

And it was also about the time

that Kesey and his
collection of friends

came to our attention.

Original prankster credo
was never trust a prankster

because, no matter how I try,

I will eventually lie to you,

even though I may not want to.

If I say one thing today...

It may not be...

Reporter: Kill that.

Go ahead. Would you
repeat that again?

McNally:
In the early sixties,

Jerry hooks up with a guy
named Ken Kesey

who's written
a revolutionary book

called One Flew Over
The Cuckoo's Nest.

Kesey gathers around him
a number of people,

one of which is Neal Cassady,

who is the basis for
Dean Moriarty in On The Road.

Along with Kesey
and his friends,

who were dubbed
the Merry Pranksters,

they become interested
in a drug called LSD 25.

On the governmental level...

the original idea had been

that this was
a potential weapon.

So they began a number of
different psychedelic experiments.

Narrator:
Now drugged with LSD,

the men found it
difficult to obey orders.

When an officer ordered
a leader to drill the squad,

he responded with
"You want 'em drilled?

You drill 'em."

There was much laughter,

and soon the results
were chaotic.

McNally: Through
the MK Ultra program,

the federal government
introduces this drug to Kesey,

who begins taking it in ways
that they never imagined.

Kesey: I've always thought

that this is one of those things

that proves that God
has a sense of humor

when you realize it was the CIA

that really turned on America.

And then Kesey
starts planning a series

of what they came
to call Acid Tests.

- The acid test.
- The acid test.

- The acid...
- Hey, once again.

Garcia: The thing that was
fun about those days

was that people came
to the Acid Tests

for the acid tests, not for us.

You know, the Acid Test
was not that kind of scene.

Everybody paid to get
into it... everybody.

You know, we paid each
a dollar to get into it.

We weren't famous.

Nobody came to the Acid Test
to see us, you know,

so nothing was expected of us.

Announcer: Yes,
the Merry Band of Pranksters

are the stars in the movie
The Acid Test.

Lesh: It wasn't a gig.
We weren't required to play.

We usually wanted to,
but not always.

Announcer: Pigpen.

Garcia: There were times
when we would play,

like, two or three tunes

or even a couple of notes
and just stop.

It was great to have
that kind of freedom.

Man: Come on now.

It was totally fun,

and they were very
liberating for us

because it kind of went along
with where we were going,

which was we were
experimenting with psychedelics

as much as we were
playing music.

Narrator: LSD was isolated

by Stoll and Hofmann

in a Sandoz
pharmaceutical company

of Basel, Switzerland.

The doors swung wide open

for research into the
biochemistry of psychosis.

Our attention will be focused

on the experiences of our
volunteer subject Bill.

I'm going to give you this cup

that contains lysergic acid
100 microgram.

Weir: It was a lot
of trouble to go to.

I mean, you know, it...

A lot of the LSD experience
is not fun.

Announcer: Listen to me.

You have to work your way
through some stuff.

Announcer:
It feels pretty good.

Kreutzmann:
This was a saving device.

This was a way of being safe,

gettin' away from
all that straightness.

It's like, holy shit,

thank God there's a place
we can go that's cool.

This thing comes over me

of... almost like the singing
of angels or something.

♪ I wrote a letter

♪ Mailed it in the

♪ Mailed it in the air

♪ Indeedie

♪ Wrote a letter

♪ Mailed in the air

Kreutzmann:
The camaraderie in that,

the fellowship in that
is so powerful.

♪ I have got a friend
somewhere ♪

Somehow I don't seem
like I'm myself.

I feel as though I'm
several other people

and all of them better.

Kreutzmann:
That whole thing

about losing the ego,
losing the self...

You don't lose anything.

You just don't have
to be anybody.

It's not about losing
anything, really.

It just comes in totally free.

It's a blank canvas that you
can paint any way you want.

Do you have the pleasant feeling

that you described before?

Yes, uh, I still have it.

I'll never get over it.

It's something that...
I'll never be the same.

Do you find it easier
to draw this picture

or a little more difficult?

It's... It's a lot of fun.

♪ ...by now that I

♪ Have got a friend somewhere ♪

Kreutzmann: And then you got
to spend all night there.

See, I never
understood why the...

Why the music
had to stop at 2:00

because LSD will keep
you going all night.

Doctor: 2:48.

What follows now
is called by Bill

a messianic experience.

There it is. I feel
these lovely colors

vibrating all over me.

Oh, it's lovely.

- Any lines?
- Ohh.

Any forms?

Just like the shimmering
water, you know?

Do you feel happy now?

Do you feel happy?

- Yes.
- You must be

because you have tears
in your eyes.

Ohh.

Is that a beautiful experience,

would you say?

Bill: I would say yes.

Describe it again.

Oh, I don't know.

Mmm?

Doing fine. Just try
to describe it.

Oh, you just... You don't know.

I mean, you...

you wanna give yourself...

You wanna give yourself such a...

What happens when I do this?

I don't know. It sort of...

Ahem, nothing much,

except that I was sort of
getting somewhere,

- and you interrupted it.
- I see.

Sort of irritating
in a way, I suppose.

I know, but this experience

was getting to be
a little overwhelming.

Isn't that right?

Well, I wouldn't say.

I'd like to keep it up.

Garcia: I'm a person who was
looking for something,

and psychedelics and music

are both part
of what I was looking for.

Psychedelics are probably

the single most significant
experience in my life.

♪ Bring it on

♪ A little bit higher

Lesh: It's safe to say,
I think,

that the acid test experience

really formed the band,
you know,

as a, uh, group mind.

♪ A little bit higher

And the audience
was part of that.

♪ A little bit higher,
higher, higher ♪

♪ A little bit higher

I remember distinctly receiving,

like, literal communications
from the audience.

- ♪ A little big higher.
- ♪ A little bit higher

Nothing in words.

Sometimes it was like
actual musical ideas,

little fragments of melody.

That's how the Grateful Dead
evolved as they did

was because everybody listened
really hard to each other.

- ♪ Movin' on up.
- ♪ A little bit higher

That's the only way
it can happen.

You have to listen.

You have to listen.

But we discovered

there was another band
called The Warlocks,

who later changed their name
to the Velvet Underground.

And they had a record
out already, so...

I told the guys, "Hey,
there's another band called The Warlocks."

Oh, God, we can't have that name.
Some other band has that name.

We should probably find
another name for ourselves.

We gotta find
a new name, you guys.

Jerry just came over
to the house one day.

We were over at Phil's house.

We started looking
through some books.

We were trying to come up
with a name for the band.

And Jerry just was wandering
around kind of randomly.

- He had this kind of...
- Picked this dictionary.

- Dictionary.
- Funk & Wagnalls I think it is.

I picked up this dictionary
and just opened it up.

And literally the first thing
I saw when I looked at...

Down at the page
was Grateful Dead.

That's the first thing I saw.

The folklorists would
call it a helper motif.

A hero runs across
a mysterious stranger.

Later, it turns out
to be a corpse

who helps him achieve his quest.

It was like...
Kind of, like... creepy,

but I thought it was a
striking combination of words.

McNally: Grateful Dead...

The expression is not
really about death.

The stories are about karma:

How you live your life

and how you relate
to other people.

By confronting death,
you learn how to live.

And Jerry was forced
to confront death

at a painfully early age.

He was only 5

when his father drowned
on a fishing trip.

That's why it was just
a remarkable event

when his chubby little finger

fell on the words
"Grateful Dead"

when they were
looking for a name.

Garcia: It's just repellant
enough, you know,

to sort of filter
kind of curious onlookers.

And I turned to Phil,
and I said...

"Hey, man, how about
the Grateful Dead?"

- Like, jokingly, you know?
- I'm jumping up and down.

"That's it, that's it."

Because that concept

embraced all of the
spiritual rebirth aspect

of what we were trying to do

and what we'd experienced
at the Acid Tests.

This is who we are.

We're the Grateful Dead.

We're grateful to be dead

because now we're going
to be born anew...

into this incredible world

that we're just
glimpsing the edges of.

And it was perfect.

Reporter:
These people are hippies.

They all declare themselves
rebels against our society.

It is hard to figure out

what positive things
they are in favor of.

Their main colony has grown up

in a low-rent district
of San Francisco

which is called Haight-Ashbury.

The place has become
a mecca for young people

who come in search
for something new

and significant for themselves.

♪ See that girl,
barefootin' along ♪

♪ Whistlin' and singin',
she's a-carryin' on ♪

There were a lot of people
there that were like us:

people whose whole lives

they'd been a little
bit different.

They were all people whose
life experience had been

that they were a little out of
whack with everything else.

And they were artists,

and they were poets and writers

and all kinds of people...
People who were, like,

influenced by the beatniks
in a sense.

And they sort of came together,

and it was this ideal
place for it

because the rent was real cheap.

The houses were wonderful,
the beautiful old Victorians.

You know, you get, you know,
four or five people,

and you fix it up
any way you want,

and it was a great way to live.

What we're thinking about
is a peaceful planet.

We're not thinkin'
about anything else.

We're not thinking
about any kind of power.

We're not thinking about
of those kind of struggles.

We're not thinking
about a revolution

or war or any of that.
That's not what we want.

Nobody wants to get hurt.
Nobody wants to hurt anybody.

We would all like to be able
to live an uncluttered life...

A simple life,
a good life, you know?

And, like, think about
moving the whole human race

ahead a step.

Reporter: There are
many apartments

and houses in Haight-Ashbury

maintained by hippies
who work in places

where employers do not mind
bizarre dress or long hair.

This is the house of
a popular local band

which plays hard-rock music.

They call themselves
the Grateful Dead.

In those early days,
it was the most basic

hand-to-mouth scale
you can imagine.

The whole band would live
together in a house.

And we could go and play

anytime we wanted.

Weir: We were living
on top of each other

for a few years, you know,

in the same house,
sharing the kitchen.

You know, people would bitch

about who didn't
close up the milk carton.

It was a family,
uh, kind of deal.

Lesh: We played
together every day.

Every day.

We used to think ourselves

as being fingers on a hand.

They can move independently...

but they're real...

They're all connected
at the core.

Kreutzmann: One of the songs
we came up with

early in our career
was "The Other One."

The technical aspect of it is

it's a 4-4 with a 6-8
laid on top of it.

Musicians know exactly
what I'm talking about.

You're always hearing
two different time levels,

4-4 and 6-8.

And that's a 4-4, right?
And then it goes...

In "The Other One,"
I can go anywhere I want.

There's nothing
that you can't do in it.

That song allowed me to say.

"God, man,
we can do anything."

That's when I really knew
there were no limitations,

no limitations
with my imagination.

Man: We started working
on these rhythm games.

1, 2, 3, 4...
I go "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1."

And that's where it started.

It started with "The Other One"
kind of stuff.

And then we took it out.

Garcia: When Mickey joined,

it was more than adding just
another drummer, you know.

He was like... represented
another level of formal music.

Mickey Hart: Out there
in the rest of the world,

there are time signatures

that people here in the West
couldn't even conceive of.

Mickey's interest
in the Indian music

and Eastern music

and polyrhythms
and things like that

gave us a lot to work with.

And so I would listen,
I would introduce them,

and Bill would put
the touch to it.

And then, all of
a sudden, I got it.

"Okay, good, we both got it.

All right, let's go after it."
Bill loved it.

Bill could translate
my crazy ideas,

and he could make them swing.

He and I had met
at a Count Basie concert,

and he invited me
to come to see the band.

At that time, I didn't know
their music at all.

All I knew was that they
had just changed their name

from The Warlocks.

The music was fearless,
in a way.

It was so full of energy
and chaotic.

And in the set break,

Bill said, "Let's go get
another set of drums

and you can play with us."

And we played.

So after it was all over,

Jerry looks, and he says,
"This is the Grateful Dead."

He said, "We could take this
around the world."

It's alive.

It's alive. It's alive!

It's alive!

Garcia: There was a conscious
decision in my life

to be involved in
something that was living.

And the Grateful Dead,

that's it.

So, like, I know
the trick that you do

to get everybody up and dancing,

and I know the trick that you do

to get a standing
ovation, you know?

We've learned those things
as a group, right?

But you can't rely on them
because they're lies.

Once you know them,
they then become a device,

and once it's a device,
it's frozen.

I mean, I don't see any sense

in doing the same thing
over and over again,

no matter what it is,
no matter how boss it is.

It's like, to me,

uh, being alive means
to continue to change.

I remember one time
after the Watts Acid Test,

which was particularly strange.

You know, it's dawn.

We drove the bus over
to the Watts towers,

and we got out
and looked at them.

Weir: You know,
we were young.

Jerry was... Christ, what was he?

Maybe... 21, 22

when, uh...

When he...

had that realization
with the Watts towers.

Garcia: See, the city
of Los Angeles said,

"These things are dangerous.

They're gonna fall down
and hurt somebody."

So they moved wreckers

and things like that
in there, and cranes,

and they tried to pull down
this guy's towers

after he was dead.

They couldn't budge them.
They couldn't pull them down.

So they said,
"Well they're solid."

So now they're in the tourist
pamphlets and stuff like that.

But my thoughts about that
were something like,

Well, if you work by yourself
as hard as you can, every day,

after you're dead,

you've left behind something

that they can't
tear down, you know.

If you work real hard,
that's the payoff.

The individual artist's payoff,

that thing that exists
after you're dead.

You know, and I thought,
Wow, that's not it for me.

Instead of making something
that lasts forever,

I thought, I think
I'd rather have fun.

Weir: He was saying "Fun.
I just want to have fun."

For me, it was more
important to be involved

in something that was
flowing and dynamic

and not so solid that you
couldn't tear it down.

I just started
giggling with him.

I got it.

In eternity...

nothing will be
remembered of you.

So why not just have fun?

I guess it's probably
a diminutive way

of saying something that
people would try to enshrine

in much loftier terms.

You're there
in the exploding moment.

And I was there with him,
you know,

and I was down with that.

Yeah. Let's have some fun.

Hart: Drums give their life
in the playing.

They decompose.

You know, we beat 'em up.

When a drum comes
into my collection,

it gets sampled and put in
the memory banks.

I'm trying to develop
an instrument

that will allow me
to go into the future.

So you can do all kinds
of things with it.

This is the one that does it.

This is the time
and space machine, really.

That's what this thing does.
It's a time and space machine.

Weir: It's almost inescapable
that if you work at something,

you're gonna build something.

There's no information at all.

Well, we were workin' at it,
this book of songs...

Is there a label on that one?

...and a book of recordings.

Uh, let's pull these.

Everybody's trying to decide
what it was we were up to.

And what this meant,
and what that meant.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Then they closed the book
and put it on the shelf.

Ah, you wanted to see footage.

Oh, this is, this is...

Hollywood Pop festival.

Holy Jesus.
Okay, this is...

Nineteen-Seventy.

This is the holy grail here.

"Rehearsal Roundhouse,

including Candyman
and Live Dead."

Christ. We're gonna need
a screening room, I guess.

Let's set up a little theater
at TRI, get some take out.

This is gonna be fun.

Man: Emotional content.

Weir: Holy Jesus.

Wow.

Okay, this is...
This is from London.

I wonder if this has soundtrack
on it?

This has never been seen.

...a moment or two, and then we'll
be on our way to Philadelphia.

I don't know why.

Sam Cutler: Well, I mean,

I can tell you exactly
what happened, right?

Man:
One, take one, tail slate.

Cutler:
This was a period when business

was looking at the hippie scene

and working out different forms
of how to commercialize it.

The perfect, idyllic childhood
of the Grateful Dead

as a group of musicians
was over.

The Haight-Ashbury was destroyed

by becoming popular.

So, the hippies left.

I've constantly traveled
all my life.

That's the dream, you know.

Get a van and go to bed in it,
cruise around America.

A tour manager's role is
a very odd thing to define,

because what a tour manager does
is what's ever necessary

to keep the whole
damn thing rolling.

Rollin', rollin', rollin'.

If you're gonna to be the tour
manager for the Grateful Dead,

the kind of person that
you are is a person that's

prepared to deal,

in essence, with anything.

You know, I mean,

'cause if you're not
prepared to deal with it...

Uh-oh.

So, what's happening here,

I've got a cop right behind me.

I think he wants to...

Are we being pulled?

We are.

My black jacket is on the bed.

It's got my driver's license
and everything in it.

Pass it to me, please.

I don't have any issues
with the police,

'cause I never travel
with drugs.

There's a simple reason.

There's no necessity
for me to travel

from A to B with drugs,

because all the drugs
I would ever need

are wherever I happen
to find myself.

I mean right now,
within thirty minutes,

I could find any drug
that I want.

I could look on the street.

I'm not going to go talk
to that guy, am I?

The Lubavitch or whatever you
call those people.

I can just look at people.

I go, "Oh, yeah. There's the guy
to talk to." I know that.

Yeah, instinctively.

Well, go on, get out
of the fucking way,

you fucking idiot.

People ask who the Grateful Dead
were, what they are, right?

And one time,
I was sitting with Garcia.

We'd just smoked a joint.

I'd only known the man,
I don't know,

three days or something.

I says, "Well, what are
the Grateful Dead?

"Who are the Grateful Dead?

What is this thing
called the Grateful Dead?"

And Jerry said, "Well,

"if you think of the music
business as a forest,

"the thicket
of the music business,

"and you come to, like,
a little break in the forest,

"and there's a patch
in the sunlight of grass...

"and in the middle
of that patch...

"there's some little
flowers growing.

Those flowers,
that's the Grateful Dead."

Jesus, man,
you know what I mean?

For fuck's sake,
you know what I mean?

But, that's how they are.

Garcia:
Dingy little airport.

Cutler: I was very lucky
to be with the Grateful Dead

for their first European tour...

paid for by Warner Brothers,

you know, their record company.

Where's the rest of them?

Warner Brothers wanted
to turn the Grateful Dead

into a very successful
rock 'n' roll band.

What a revolting display.

They were only interested
in one model

of what constituted
the Grateful Dead.

That was a model
that sold records.

- Is this the new album?
- Yeah.

There aren't any old ones.

It took years, in fact,
for the Grateful Dead

to provide Warner Brothers
with something

that Warner Brothers
was capable of selling.

Before that, it was like,

"Oh my God, what do we do
with these people?"

Got to look good now.
I want final cut.

I was president
of Warner Brothers Records,

and it was a pop company,

and our roster included acts

like Peter, Paul and Mary,

Petula Clark, Frank Sinatra.

We had a terrific label,

and we had some terrific acts,

but we were missing
a whole ingredient.

We didn't have a real rock band.

And right up in San Francisco
was this scene going on,

and I realized we that we had
to make a connection

with this group of musicians,

not that I really understood
their lifestyle.

There was one band
that was not signed yet.

It was the Grateful Dead.

But, we knew that
the Grateful Dead

were one of the leaders
of the pack.

And so somebody set up
a meeting,

and then I met with the band.

It was like a Fellini movie.

Weird things were happening,

and the smell
of dope in the air,

and I realized
that I wasn't dealing

with Dean Martin here anymore.

I'm a middle class guy
from Chelsea, Massachusetts

and had never really been
involved in that kind of society.

And even in the music business,

the wildest act we had
was Trini Lopez.

And I'm trying to imply
that I'm a guy of the streets,

that I understand their music

and would do
a terrific job for them.

And we got together
and thrashed out a contract.

And then we got
these guys in the studio,

and then the stuff hit the fan.

♪ Na-Na-Na

- Right?
- Yeah, yeah.

The first couple of albums
were very difficult.

The underground stations
played them,

but no pop station was gonna
play a fourteen-minute drone

with Jerry on the guitar
rolling along.

And I said, "Is it possible
we could have maybe a single?

Is that possible?"

♪ Look for a while

♪ At the China Cat sunflower

♪ Proud walking jingle
in the midnight sun ♪

Hart: We were the last thing the
record company wanted to see.

Oh man, we drove them mad.

All right, let's get...
Let's do this.

They would send us letters
saying things like,

"You're over budget here,
over time.

You guys are crazy."

And then, we would grade 'em
and send it back to 'em.

♪ China Cat

Garcia: Our strategy was,
what we want to do is,

we want to play in the studio.

We want to learn how
the studio works.

We don't want somebody else
doing it, you know?

It's our music,
we want to do it.

So, what we did essentially was
to spend lots and lots of time

in the studio fooling around
with stuff, you know?

Let's try this.
See what happens when you do this.

Whoops!
That's not going to work.

Let's try this over here.

No, no. You know, it was a trial
and error kind of thing.

Hart: I remember,
the one day, Bob thought,

"Oh, it's a full moon.
We gotta go to the zoo."

And so we went ahead,
and we started climbing over the gate.

And we were laughing so much.

We were so high, you know.

Smith: The band thought
they could come to town

and go to the zoo,

and hang out until it closed,

and at night,
turn on their tape recorders.

We gotta record the animals.

And they believed they could
communicate with the animals.

And then one day, Bob Weir said,

"I have an idea.

"We go out on a hot,
smoggy day in Los Angeles.

"and we record thirty
minutes of heavy air.

"And then, we go to the desert

"and we do thirty minutes
of clear air, and we mix it,

and that could be
like a rhythm track."

They always claimed that I would
never understand their music

until I turned on.

That one time I did
the laughing gas with them.

Acid rock, motherfucker.

Whatever that gas is called.

- Nitrous rock.
- Would you like some gas?

The costs were going crazy.

The most expensive project we'd
ever had at Warner Brothers Records.

And still, they wanted
more money for the studio.

And I said, "More money?"

You've spent over
the record amount."

"We need more money."

More.

But we knew we had
to stay with this,

and I could only hope that they
would put out something commercial.

And they came in
with the artwork,

and the title,

"Aoxomoxoa."

I still can't pronounce it.

Aoxomoxoa.
It's a palindrome.

Not my idea of a hit record.

Lesh: The record company was
gonna take what we gave 'em,

like it or not.

And we didn't care if they
dropped us from the label.

We don't give a shit.

Grateful Dead always
wanted to play live.

That was our fundamental thing.

Recording was like making
an ad for the band.

Kreutzmann:
When you went into a studio,

each track you take,

you gotta play it the way
you did the first time.

And I never was good
at keeping time.

Time...

I'm probably the worst drummer
at keeping time,

because I don't think
about drumming as keeping time.

It's not like that.

Keeping time is something
a march band might do.

For me, it was keeping feeling.

I like to take the song
so far out

that you don't remember
what song you're in.

And sometimes that would happen.

I would be playing along going,

"This is fucking great man.

"I can't believe this shit.

This is outrageous."

Right? And go,

"Oh shit, what song is this?

"Oh, it doesn't matter.

It's working,
just keep playing."

Lesh: The moment is king.

This is collective
improvisation.

No one person can think
all this up themselves.

And when we're really on it,

we can open the valve.

Cutler: The Grateful Dead
didn't really care about,

you know, having a particularly,

commercially successful record.

And they certainly didn't care
about making lots of money.

When I joined them,
they didn't give a fuck about money.

That's six pennies.
That's twelve pennies.

We call it a shilling, right?

Some of them are new
and some of them are old,

so you do it by size basically.

So what I did was,
I saw it as my role

was to show them how to make
a living of being musicians.

Dollar twenty, right?
Half a pound.

And how to come back
from tour with some money,

which they never did.

They always came back from tour,
there was no money.

All right, if something
cost you eight shillings

and you gave them a pound,
how much change would you expect?

Garcia:
If they gave me eight shillings?

- Cutler: If it cost eight shillings...
- Twelve shillings.

...and you gave them a pound,
you'd expect twelve back, right.

Garcia, you're brilliant.

Duh.

Cutler: And I think
the Grateful Dead hired me

for one simple reason,

because I had something
that they needed.

I was the tour manager
for the Rolling Stones

in 1969.

And then after
the Altamont Festival,

I went to work
for the Grateful Dead.

Jerry was fascinated

by how the Rolling Stones
organized their trip.

He wanted to know how

a band could survive...

as a band, do what they loved,

which was playing music.

Man: Mick, you know Jerry,
don't you?

Yeah.

Cutler: Because of course,
the Grateful Dead had no idea

of what being in a major
big band actually involved.

I don't know man.
We've been here some time now.

How long have you been here?

Oh, upwards of a couple hours.

- No, no.
- Yes, really.

Cutler: No idea.

Completely naive.

Children.

Children in a man's world.

Peace, brother, peace.

But something
very interesting happened

at the time when I joined them,

not that it had anything to do
with me, I hasten to add,

which was that
the Grateful Dead,

I think, my view of it is,

is that they were
attempting to redefine,

as every generation
of American artists does,

what it means to be
an American artist.

What, in fact,
it means to be an American.

Artists in America constantly
struggle with this.

They want to define
what America is.

They want to discover
what America is.

They want to find some clue

to what it means to be American.

Americans have got
this very, very strange

and interesting preoccupation

with the discovery
of what constitutes America.

What it is.

In America, people leave home

and go out in search of America.

People in England don't set out

and leave home and go
in search of England.

That would be quite
preposterous.

♪ Well, the first days
are the hardest days ♪

♪ Don't you worry any more

♪ 'Cause when life looks
like easy street ♪

♪ There is danger at your door ♪

Hart:
We were living in the Haight,

and it was getting hot for us.

There were buses coming
by the house...

You know, tourist buses.

This is the home
of the Grateful Dead.

The feared.

...the world which they live in,
they take many trips,

and the trip of the hippies...

Hart: And, so we felt like,
you know,

it's time to get out of town.

So I was the first one
to move out of the city,

and I went to a place
in the country.

Everybody started coming out
one by one.

And, you know, within
a short amount of time,

everybody started becoming
psychedelic cowboys.

♪ Goddamn, well, I declare

♪ Have you seen the like?

And we loved it in the country.

Loved the trees, loved the
wood, loved nature.

♪ Their motto is
don't tread on me ♪

We were learning about
everything that is wild.

These are wild sounds.

And so, it started
to effect the music.

♪ To take his children home

We were discovering what
Grateful Dead music could be.

♪ Candyman

♪ Here he come
and he's gone again ♪

♪ Pretty lady
ain't got no friend ♪

♪ Till the Candyman
comes around again ♪

You're going out of tune a lot.

A bunch.

Sing it out, man.

I mean, don't sing it loud,
but sing it out.

Garcia: When it came time
to do Workingman's Dead

and American Beauty, really,

that's really kind
of one long record.

I talked to the guys and said,
"Why don't we approach this one

"as though it were, like,
a country and western record,

"or like California
country and western,

you know like, Bakersfield."

♪ And is gone again

"And why don't we put
more energy into the vocals

"and making the vocals sound
as good as they can

and not getting hung up on
the instrumental surroundings?"

It's off a little.

Take a big breath
but those notes sound.

No, no, no.
Hold that D on, against...

I don't care how you hold it.

No it's not.
That's not why it's hard.

It's hard to hold the D
against the slide.

Why?

Don't hold it against the slide.

- Hold it against his G.
- Hmm.

It's really weird if you don't
slide at the same velocity.

You know...

♪ Again

Two, three, four.

♪ Again

Whoo-hoo.

Garcia: We were deeply
in debt to the record company

because of our
huge studio costs.

We thought, "This time, let's go
in and make a record the easy way.

"Let's have the material
written and rehearsed

"and record it as quickly
as we possibly can.

"And you know,

"let's go after a light touch,

"rather than complex
psychedelic fantasies.

"You know, let's,
let's try painting

a simple picture, you know."

♪ Come on boys and gamble

♪ Roll those laughing bones

♪ Seven come eleven

♪ Boys, I'll take
your money home ♪

♪ Look out look out
the Candyman ♪

So, we actually went about it
with that in mind.

With the idea of making it a
simple record.

And, yeah, it worked out good.
+Lt worked out good.

♪ Pretty lady
ain't got no friend ♪

♪ Till

♪ Candyman comes around again

Smith: I remember
I was in my office,

and somebody said,
"The Grateful Dead are here."

And they came in,

and just flat expressions,

no thing like that.

I said, "What's up?"

He says, "You know,
we finished the record."

I said, "Great,
when are we going to hear it?"

He says, "Well, right now."
Boom. "Casey Jones."

♪ Ridin' that train
high on cocaine ♪

♪ Driving that train

♪ High on cocaine

♪ Casey Jones you better

♪ Watch your speed

It was a home run
with two great singles,

and it was called
Workingman's Dead.

Man: Workingman's Dead,

the newest from Jerry,
Phil, Bob, Bill,

Mickey, and Pigpen.

Ready now on Warner Brothers'
albums and tapes.

♪ Come hear Uncle John's band

♪ By the riverside

♪ Got some things
to talk about ♪

♪ Here beside the rising tide

♪ Come hear Uncle John's band

♪ Playing to the tide

Smith:
They were writing melodies,

and it was songs that
you could make sense out of.

And it was a great,
great record.

I told them I wanted
to send them out on a tour.

And I said, "We'll take
big ads in trade papers."

And we even did a commercial.

Man: Yes, friends, America's
hardest working rock band

now presents Workingman's Dead,

an album of country-flavored
tunes by the Grateful Dead,

an album different from anything
they've ever done before.

Ready now on Warner Brothers
albums and tapes.

Steal it.

Cutler:
When Warner Brothers got.

Workingman's Dead,

they were like, "Yeah."

They could see a way forward,

out of the fog.

Warner Brothers was
so pleased with the album

they wanted them to go to Europe

and offered to pay for it.

So, we hurriedly
put it together.

When we got off the airplane,

there were these filmmakers,

and they'd come
to film the Grateful Dead.

How do you look upon
the English festivals?

I haven't been to one yet.

You've not heard
about 'em at all?

Oh, a little bit,
Hyde Park and so forth.

Cutler: Warner Brothers
thought the idea

of making a film
was important, you know?

Because at the time,
nobody even knew who

the fuck the Grateful Dead were.

Prior to the sixties,

the idea of making a film

about a specific band,

or a show like a Woodstock
didn't exist.

♪ Wild thing

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.

♪ Well, I know you rider

♪ Gonna miss me when

Lesh: I did not want
to take a break.

I was so into it,
and it was just developing,

and it was getting better
and better and better,

and I was having
the time of my life.

♪ Gonna miss me

My fear was,
once we took a break,

it might not come back
together again.

And the Grateful Dead is the best
thing that ever happened to me

until I met my wife.

And I did not want to let it go.

Not even for a minute.

Huh?

Lesh: From 1967 on,
it was constant.

We averaged 80 shows
a year, on the road.

I guess people were
just getting tired.

Well, what happened was that
everybody sort of went their...

Their separate ways
to let things cool out.

Never waste a drop.

Weir: And that period of rest

really kind of saved us.

It's not just momentary fatigue
that you're running down,

and you look back
on your lifestyle,

and you can pretty clearly see
what's been doing it to you,

then prudence decrees that you're
gonna have to alter your lifestyle,

or you're not gonna
make it very far.

I don't think that I can
really fairly expect

to live for a long time
if I'm on the road

six months out of the year.

That's hard on you.

When the Grateful Dead
took a break,

we didn't stop for a second.

Not me and Jerry.
We just went right into the Garcia band.

We kept going.

♪ Later on,
the bottom dropped out ♪

♪ I became withdrawn

♪ The only thing
I knew how to do ♪

♪ Was to keep on keepin' on
like a bird that flew ♪

♪ Tangled up in blue

Parish: We were playing
nightclubs night after night.

Putting all our energy into it.

You see, Jerry just wanted
to be a guitar player.

He wanted to play
as much as he could.

So we never stopped
for one second.

Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen
and the Deadheads of the world,

the Grateful Dead!

Weir: When we came back
together,

everybody had
a bigger bag of tricks

to bring back to the fold.

And that was really
a golden era for us.

You could pretty much
walk into a show

and expect that we were
going to achieve liftoff.

We were... We were
pretty damn reliable.

♪ Oh, go

♪ Go, Johnny, go

♪ Go

♪ Go, Johnny, go

♪ Go go go

♪ Go, Johnny, go

♪ Go, Johnny, go

♪ Go

♪ Johnny B. Goode

Lesh:
That period, the late '70s,

were extraordinarily productive,

and some of the most
popular shows

that we've ever played
are from that period.

At the same time,

something wasn't right.

That's just from my perspective.

But something fundamental...

There was a...
There was a kind of hole

in the whole thing somehow.

Barlow:
We did do the Egypt thing,

which I think was a huge,

huge thing for creating a sense

of solidarity
and mystical purpose

for just about everybody.

But, oh God, it was just...

There was all manner
of wickedness.

♪ Long distance runner

♪ What you holdin' out for?

Parish: As darker drugs
moved into the scene,

it became more about trying
to protect your brothers

from falling too deep into
things that you knew about.

I was a streetwise kid,

and I knew everything
that happened

when you fucked around
with heroin.

But Jerry,
he got caught up in it.

♪ The more that you give,
the more it will take ♪

♪ To the thin line beyond
which you really can't fake ♪

♪ Fire, fire on the mountain

♪ Fire, fire on the mountain

♪ Fire

Parish: Jerry was the epitome
of the Grateful Dead,

the heart and soul of it.

He was responsible
for being the guy

to keep this whole machination
that we have built goin'.

And it's hard
to live up to that.

The drugs that go along
with being that person

are not conducive
to health and life.

Barlow: You know,
we were asking ourselves

to maintain a kind of
creative openness

and leaning-into-it-ness...

and passion and all that stuff.

As we got older,
it just got harder.

And it was all kind of
gathering ourselves up

for what was gonna be...

What turned out to be our...

You know, our big decade,

which was the '80s,
going into the nineties.

I hope there are people
watching this documentary

who don't know the Dead

or are just being
introduced to the Dead.

And I think you're gonna ask me

about some... I don't know...

What you're gonna
ask me about, but...

Prankster: Tonight's acid
test will remain in part

from its paralysis voyage
into the void

for the remainder of the night.

That's right. Just a...

- Hey, Bear.
- Get off the stage, will you?

What's that?

Al Franken:
Are you gonna have,

like, an animated Jerry
over your shoulder

going like,
"Oh, I wouldn't do that"?

Is that like an idea
you can put in the movie?

I'm not a Grateful Dead scholar.

I'm a Grateful Dead fan.

You know...

I'm a Deadhead.

We caught up with the band

in Hartford, Connecticut,

and their fans
called the Deadheads.

Perhaps as important
as the Dead themselves...

The Deadheads.

Self-described Deadheads

who are undoubtedly
the most enthusiastic cult...

Male reporter: Deadheads...
A faithful following

that comes here again
and again for the music,

but at the same time
a whole lot more.

Man: Yep.
They're Deadheads.

McNally: In, uh, 1984,

I became the Grateful Dead's
publicist.

We'll start in about 15 minutes.

I got hired because the
receptionist said, "You know,

"the media calls,
and nobody calls them back,

and they yell at me,
and I don't like it."

And Garcia said, "Ah, get McNally to do it.
He knows that shit."

By the middle 1980s,

the people of my generation,

all these people are now
in their middle 30s.

They have careers.

Some of them are in the media.

They not only know
about the Grateful Dead,

they want to cover
the Grateful Dead,

and they want
to do it positively.

So they're gonna send a camera.

The Grateful Dead
are one of the...

The press would arrive.

They would be assaulted
by this incredible scene...

...and suddenly
the story became

not the band but Deadheads.

And everybody
had the same question.

Man: Okay, what is it
about the Grateful Dead?

What is it about the Grateful
Dead that brings you here?

Woman:
Why are you a Deadhead?

Why am I a Deadhead?

Wow. What is this for?
Is this, like,

just for your own
personal satisfaction,

or is this like...

Wow, that's weird. Wow.
Do you, like... Is this fun?

Box slate.

Back to the Grateful Dead.

In the 1980s, I had retired,

and I wanted to write a book.

And so for two years

I took this tape recorder out

and started to do
these interviews.

Joe Smith on tape:
Jerry, thank you for this.

- You know I'm doing this book.
- Garcia: Yeah.

And you're a very key
player in it,

so I if you got a few minutes

- I'd just like to talk.
- Absolutely, man.

You know, I, I have such
a fond feeling for you guys.

Smith: Well, this is
years later, you know,

and all the venom

that had been taken
out of the relationship...

Smith: Why is it
that this one aggregation,

this one combination,

can continue to do it
23, 24 years later

with audiences that weren't
alive the first time around.

- Right.
- What is it that you guys got?

I haven't the slightest
idea, Joe.

It is one of the great
phenomenons

of the entertainment world.

I think now,
during the eighties,

the Grateful Dead kind of
represents something

like hopping railroads,
you know what I mean?

- Yeah.
- Some... Something like that,

or being on the road
like Kerouac.

- Yeah, yeah.
- It... it...

But you can't do those
types of things anymore,

but you can be a Deadhead.

You can get in your van

and go with the other Deadheads

across the United States.

"Now, that looks
like fun," you know?

You have your war stories,
you know?

- Yeah.
- Stories about the time

that you were driving
through Des Plains

in the middle of the night,
got four flat tires,

and some farmer helped you out

and put you up and...

I think that's

what motivates
the audience now...

The spirit of being
able to go out

and have an adventure
in America at large,

you know what I mean?

Woman: We're here.

We were chasing your ass
all the way across country.

Man: We've been chasing you
from fucking Nebraska.

Garcia: The whole thing
is that Deadheads

have a certain
sense of adventure,

and it's tough
to come by adventure

in this new, lame America.

Male reporter: Roll over,
Boogaloo Shrimp.

That's the First Lady
Nancy Reagan

trying out some
break dance steps today

on a visit to a New York
rehab home for teens.

Now she ready
to slip on some tie-dye

and go to a Dead concert.

McNally: Ronald Reagan is
president in the eighties,

and the great reaction
had begun.

As a matter of fact,
I have here...

The reaction
against the sixties.

...District Attorney
of Alameda County.

It concerns a dance...

Ronald Reagan ran as governor

and as president
against the sixties,

and it worked.

Three rock and roll bands

were in the center
of the gymnasium

playing simultaneously
all during the dance.

And all during the dance,

movies were shown on two screens

at the opposite ends
of the gymnasium.

These movies were the only
lights in the gym proper.

They consisted
of color sequences

that gave the appearance
of different-colored liquid

spreading across the screen,

followed by shots of men
and women on occasion,

shots where the men
and women's nude torsos,

on occasion,

and persons twisted and gyrated

in provocative
and sensual fashion.

- ♪ When I married me a bad girl... ♪
- The young...

McNally: A certain
proportion of Americans

say "No, we don't think so,"

and run away to join the circus

and follow the Grateful Dead.

♪ Never even put
a stew bone in the pot ♪

♪ She's on the road again

♪ Sure as you're born

♪ Catch a policeman
on the road again ♪

♪ She's on the road again

♪ Sure as you're born

The whole world that, you know,

kind of, Jack Kerouac
and the Beat Generation

had risen up against,

was still kind of
there, you know,

pressing everybody,
but in new forms.

But when you went
to a Grateful Dead show...

you would glimpse
over a kind of horizon

of, uh, you know, American crap

that was usually
all you got to see.

♪ Come on, pretty mama

♪ Let's get on the road again ♪

McNally: It wasn't
for everybody, you know.

It was an acquired taste.

♪ Catch a policeman
on the road again ♪

In the early 1980s,

the Grateful Dead
were still very much

an underground phenomenon.

Deadheads became Deadheads
by being mentored.

You'd have an elder
sibling or friend,

and he would turn you on
to the Dead.

I had friends
who would give me acid

and then play Aoxomoxoa.

Aoxomoxoa: it's a palindrome.

One of their most wild
experimental albums.

And then I had another friend

who would play me Europe '72.

And I remember listening
to the transition

where out of the chaos

condenses
"The Morning Dew."

And so that sort of
beguiled me enough

to go to my first show.

Whoo!

Steve Silberman:
And I remember,

like, 20 minutes into this show,

I'm hearing this
incredible improvisation

on electric bass

played through
quadraphonic speakers

and Phil moving notes around

in three dimensions
through the audience.

Like, I had never
seen anybody do that.

And I remember
thinking, like, My God,

this is, like, the best music
I've ever heard in my life.

This is for me.

I want to see this
as much as I can.

♪ Sometimes we live
in no particular way ♪

♪ But our own

And so I basically started going

to see them whenever I could.

♪ Sometimes we visit
your country ♪

♪ And live in your home

♪ Sometimes we ride
on your horses ♪

♪ Sometimes we walk alone

♪ Sometimes the songs
that we hear ♪

♪ Are just songs of our own

♪ Wake up to find out...

Silberman:
You know, I was surrounded

by this incredibly complicated

and incredibly well
established social structure.

♪ It's speeches,
it's homeland and... ♪

The physical layout
of a Grateful Dead show

was like a mandala
with different regions.

And if you look at a mandala

in traditional Tibetan Buddhism,

there are, like,
these different sectors

of the mandala.

You know, here are
the angry gods,

here are the people suffering.

Grateful Dead shows
were like a mandala.

You know, people knew
where they would sit.

There would be, you know,
the Phil zone people out here

and then the Jerry side
people over here.

There would be the deaf zone

where people would
be holding balloons

that vibrated with the music
because they could not hear.

But, by holding the balloons,

they could literally sense
the vibrations of the music.

And they would dance,

and there would be a live
sign language interpreter

providing interpretation
of the lyrics.

There was, you know,
a whole crew of Wharf Rats,

who were people following
the 12-step path,

who would have meetings
during the set breaks.

Spinners would be out
in the hall, you know,

having literally
religious experiences

because they thought
Garcia was a prophet,

and they'd be bowing down.

Or there were tapers.

They would, you know,

go there with all their gear
and set up their gear.

♪ The wind in the willow's
playing "Tea For Two" ♪

♪ The sky was yellow,
and the sun was blue ♪

♪ Strangers stopping strangers ♪

♪ Just to shake their hand

♪ Everybody's playing

♪ In the heart of gold band,
heart of gold band ♪

When I first started
going to Dead shows,

they didn't yet have explicit
permission from the band,

so it was still in a sense
a form of bootlegging.

Weir: Portable
recording equipment

was getting pretty good.

And people started
showing up at our shows

with expensive equipment...

Nice microphones,
all that kind of stuff...

Recording the shows,

and the record company
wanted to, you know,

"We gotta shut that down,"
uh, you know,

"because those people are
gonna record your shows,

and then they're not
gonna buy our records."

We were confronted
with two options:

we can either be cops,
or we can let 'em in.

We didn't want to be cops.

Whoo!

♪ Shakin' on Shakedown Street ♪

♪ Used to be the heart of town ♪

How do you feel about people
taping Grateful Dead concerts

and trading the tapes?

Garcia: Hey,
when I'm done with it,

if somebody can find
use for our music

after it's been performed,
fine with me.

As it turns out, we get credit

for all kinds of visionary
business practices

and stuff like that.

We were just doing
the easiest thing.

In fact, what happened was,

this was the greatest promo tool

in the history of music.

You give away your music...
Your recorded music,

and you make your money
on selling tickets.

♪ Maybe you had
too much too fast ♪

And since every show
is different,

you could record every show,

and you still wouldn't
have heard it all,

and you'd still want
to go to that next show.

♪ Maybe you had
too much too fast ♪

We doubled or tripled
our audience. Why?

Largely because of taping.

Yow!

My generation got into it
mainly through tapes.

The core of the canon
reached people

through this hand-traded stuff.

If this plays, it's a miracle.

I went to boarding school.

You know, we were in a place

where there wasn't
much else to do

besides, you know, sit around

and listen to music and talk.

You start to discover
that some people,

the older people,
have, you know,

100, 150, 200
Grateful Dead tapes.

Well, you listen to one,

and you begin to understand
what's going on in that tape,

and you become interested in it.

You listen to it
over and over again.

And then you get another one,

and you begin to learn
what's going on in that one,

and you begin to understand
the language of that one.

Play.

And, you know, over time...

you build up this collection,

and you listen to them enough

so that you begin to see
an arrangement in a sequence

and a narrative of
the band's performances

as are represented
by these tapes,

which, you know,
are little snapshots

from each year, each tour.

To start with, you know,
you're not really aware

of one year being
different from another,

but after a while, you begin
to say "Oh, you know,

1971 sounds like this."

1973 sounds like this.

Later, you learn
that there was variation

even within that year, within
that week, within each night.

I think that's
part of the appeal.

You start to understand
what's going on in the music.

You hear the patterns.

You hear the deviations
from the patterns.

The differences
between recordings

makes it seems alive.

♪ Dancin' in the street

♪ Dance in Chicago

You're really hearing

how each, you know,
musical performance

represents an evolution

or devolution
of the band over time.

♪ Dancin', dancin'

♪ Dancin' in the streets

♪ Dancin', dancin'

♪ dancin' in the streets

For the discerning Deadhead,

it's sort of an endlessly
fascinating body of work

to say this one...
This one's good in this way,

and this one's
not good in this way.

You know, this one...

This one's really good,
and this is why.

There's a central irony
to the whole thing,

which is the band that was
sort of most dedicated

to the ephemeral experience
of playing live,

performing something once
in a certain way,

is the band that's been sort of

most obsessively recorded
and catalogued in history.

You know, I never had
a great collection.

In fact, some of the people

that had the great collections,

I mean, they were...

They were weird, you know?

Al Franken:
You know, I mean,

I've listened
to a million "Althea" s.

Now I very much focus on, like,

what year when
an "Althea" was played.

The "Althea," uh,

from, I think it's May, 1980,

Nassau Coliseum,

to me is, like,
the most hair-raising solo.

My God, that solo
is unbelievable.

It was so unbelievably great.

You tell me... You...

Hampton is one of
your favorites, right?

So I listened
to the "Althea" from that,

and that has the flavor
of that one,

but it ain't that one.

- Did you listen to it?
- Amir Bar Lev: Yeah.

- Am I right?
- Yeah.

Only Deadheads would,
like, talk like that.

Silberman: Believe me,
after you'd heard

150 versions
of a particular song,

you'd have a kind of platonic
form of the leads,

or whatever, like, in your head.

And then Jerry would play
something slightly better.

So I would have to sort
of negotiate with myself.

It would be like, "Well,
I saw the last six shows,

so do I really need to see
the next two?" you know.

But inevitably I would
end up, like, hearing

about what they'd played on
the night that I didn't go,

and I'd be like, "Fuck."

The Dead had a way

of sort of frustrating
your attempts

to moderate the obsession.

You guys got any extra
tickets for tonight?

- I don't have any extra ones...
- Come on.

- ...for tonight myself.
- You don't?

But I'm sure they'll be around.

- You goin'?
- Oh, of course we're goin'.

All right.
You go last night?

Oh, yeah.

Boy, that was a good
jam, wasn't it?

Man: Where'd you guys
come from?

Rhode Island.

All the way from Rhode
Island to see the Dead.

Took us a week to get here.

We had a hell of a time, man.

Two months to get back home.

I left last week, and it
took six days to get here.

It was pretty fun on the way.

Spent Christmas in Arcata.

Anything within 600 miles
is automatic.

You can make that in one night

and still make it to work
in the morning.

Last night was my 45th
show this year.

I make almost all
the shows of the year.

I drive that big Ford.

And you guys, uh,
off the record,

are welcome to smoke
a joint with us.

But I really need
a miracle for tonight,

you know, like, I'd like
to be holdin' a ticket.

You know what I mean?
I really would.

♪ I need a miracle every day

Got any tickets?

♪ It takes dynamite
to get me up ♪

Help me, please!

♪ Too much of everything
is just enough ♪

♪ One more thing
I just got to say ♪

♪ I need a miracle every day

You know, I started going
to see them in 1984,

and I remember
at that point, they still...

Still were a strange,

forgotten, almost sixties cult

that was sort of shambling
around America

pretty much ignored
by the culture at large.

It was a pretty intense,
small scene.

It was overwhelming,
and it was kind of scary.

We were 15.

You know, I was sort of
a clean-cut kid,

and it was not a clean-cut
scene necessarily.

What'cha need?

The sense of menace
was always there.

Which I didn't quite
understand myself.

You know, the bikers
that would go,

rough guys, there were drunks.

I didn't, kind of,
get that part.

Fuck off, you.

Franken: You know,
I'm a very,

you know, gentle person.

Nick Paumgarten: And sometimes
it was just a madhouse.

So that... that aspect of it
just frightened me.

I remember, sort of,

survival was sort of the thing

when I went to shows...

Surviving the crowds
and the bathroom lines.

Franken:
I couldn't go

to the bathroom there.

And, I remember, like, Deadheads

who were barefoot going in

to go the bathroom,

and I was, like, going like...

I can't handle that.

Man: Thank you.
Thank you very much.

- Thank you.
- Welcome in, folks.

Walk, walk, walk.
Don't run, don't run!

- Walk.
- Here you go.

Paumgarten:
It was not like, you know,

being a middle-aged guy

going to see a show
with your seat number

and showing up
and maybe getting an IPA

and being shown to your seat

and sitting there
and being like, "Oh,

this is a nice presentation
of decent music."

It was... It was...
It was an adventure.

♪ Well, I was feelin'

♪ So bad now

♪ Asked my family doctor
'bout what I had done ♪

♪ I said now, Doctor

♪ Doctor

♪ Mr. M.D.

♪ Doctor

♪ Ow, can you tell me

♪ Doctor

♪ What's ailing me

♪ Doctor

♪ He said Yeah, yeah, yeah

♪ Yeah, yeah

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ All you need

♪ All you really need

♪ Is good lovin'

♪ Because you got
to have lovin' ♪

Weir: And as the years
went by...

♪ Well, you got to have lovin' ♪

we just got better at it.

♪ A little bit of lovin'

♪ Good lovin'

And then,

when Brent started
playing with us,

we had three really good,
strong singers.

We could really knock it
out of the park

with our choral vocals.

♪ Don't you want your daddy

♪ To be all right?

Paumgarten: After Keith
and Donna Jean Godchaux

left the band,

they brought in Brent Mydland,

who was a fabulous
keyboard player

and a wonderful singer,
actually.

He really revitalized the
backup singing for the band

and gave it some muscle,
made the sound bigger.

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ All you need

You know, and it seemed like,

for a while,
that they were feeling it.

♪ Is good lovin'

♪ Well, you got to have lovin' ♪

♪ Good lovin'

♪ And you gotta have lovin'

♪ Good lovin'

♪ Oh, a little good lovin'

♪ Good lovin'

Get it on!

♪ Good lovin'

♪ Gimme, gimme, gimme,
gimme some lovin' ♪

♪ Ah, you gotta have lovin'

♪ Good lovin'

♪ Gimme, gimme,
gimme some lovin' ♪

- ♪ Good lovin'
- ♪ Ah

Silberman:
There was something

that was uncanny

about the wave form
of a Grateful Dead show.

- ♪ Got to have lovin'
- ♪ Good lovin'

You know, there were two sets.

The first set was usually
more contained musically.

There would be more kind of

chorus, verse, you know,
structure of the songs.

But then, in the second set,

almost anything could happen.

There would be a period
in the second set

where you would be
actually brought back

to the very elemental
essence of music

by the drums and space sections.

Percussive rhythms
from the jungle...

or from the desert
in the Middle East.

Hart: The idea is
to take the audience

on a trip, you know,
on a journey.

If you asked me
what business I was in,

I would say transportation.

We're in the transportation
business.

Silberman: I think that what
made Grateful Dead music

so appealing for people
who were tripping

was that it was a way
of having experiences

that were almost
a primordial initiation.

Like in cultures where

young men would be taken
away from their parents,

often by a Shaman.

You know, they would
have to spend,

like, three days in
the wilderness, fasting,

learning that the world
was serious

instead of superficial.

Learning that things like
life and death were real.

Becoming an adult.

It's not to say that, you know,

people couldn't enjoy Dead
shows while they were sober,

but for people who, you know,

were taking
psychedelics like me,

which I did hundreds
of times at Dead shows,

it was an absolutely
exquisite opportunity

to explore this rich

musical tradition

that they were
sort of serving up,

you know, nightly,

in this incredibly
well architected form.

And then you'd be returned
to the, kind of, human world

through the ballads
that Jerry would sing.

Like, Jerry would often
come out of space

with "Stella Blue."

It was as if he had
found a place to stand

in the middle of the universe

where he could look at
everything outside of him

and utter something
meaningful about it.

♪ All the years combine

♪ They melt into a dream

♪ A broken angel sings

You know, a very common
experience about psychedelics

is that you feel
like you're on the verge

of sort of cracking
the cosmic koan

or getting the cosmic
joke or something.

And then it would slip away.

♪ It all rolls into one

And, I think the lyrics
kind of flirted with that...

♪ And nothing...

where they would, you know,
almost hand you something

that sounded like
the big answer,

but then it was, you know,
ever so slightly slippery.

♪ There's nothing you can hold ♪

♪ For very long

Paumgarten:
The lyrics for me...

The good ones...

They do hang around like
scraps of important poetry.

♪ Stella Blue

There's something
ingenious about Hunter

where the lyrics
all have these level

of involving the listener in
whatever story's being told.

♪ Stella Blue

Robert Hunter was
a very subtle lyricist.

Trist: He was part
of the Grateful Dead

because he was creating
the words they sang.

Always referring
back to those roots

that we shared
in the early sixties.

McNally: Hunter was Jerry's
partner on every level.

They were close enough.
They went back far enough

that Hunter could be
the source of words

and Jerry could be
comfortable singing them.

Garcia: I can't get
on stage and sing a song

that doesn't have some
emotional reality for me.

Hunter is very good about
writing into my beliefs.

You know?

He... He understands
the way I think.

Silberman:
His lyrics seem to come

out of a much older world

than they literally came out of.

♪ In the timbers to Fennario

♪ The wolves are running round ♪

It was like those songs came

from some kind of subterranean
old, weird America.

♪ I beg of you,
don't murder me ♪

One that had important
information in it.

♪ Please don't murder me

That you would kind of have to

live your way
up to understanding.

Weir: Hunter's
got his own window

into what those songs are about,

what they mean to him.

He's notoriously reclusive,

uh, so I doubt
that he would be willing

to sit for an interview,
but he might.

I could call him and...
Or text him or something.

If you can get him to talk,
it'd be interesting to see.

I think a lot of times,
people want to know

what he meant
by this or that line.

No artist wants to sit there

and explain
why he did what he did.

It's sort of counter

to the whole point of
doing something artistic.

Well, it is fun

to learn how songs
are written, right?

I guess.

Generally speaking,
when I listen to a song,

you know, I don't ponder.

"What was he trying
to get at here?"

I always do that.

I always try to figure out

what the words mean...
What do they mean?

What's...

But it takes all kinds right?

Mm-hmm.

But he knows
we're coming, right?

Bar Lev:
No, he does not.

Ah, okay.

You know, Robert Hunter
was a very elusive person.

He did not like photographs
circulating of him.

He wouldn't even appear
in public for many years

because he wanted
to retain his anonymity.

Hunter would just
kind of appear,

or he would disappear
whenever he wanted to.

That's who the guy is.

And that's why
his lyrics suggest...

"I'm anywhere you want me to be.

You can't catch me."

This is a man who will
pull out a gun and shoot you

if you start, you know,
analyzing his lyrics.

He will not answer
questions like that.

No, you can't exp... Nobody w...

Well, I can't
explain his songs, no.

McNally: He won't do it,
nor should he.

If he did,
the illusion would be gone,

and that ain't no fun, you know?

Silberman: His lyrics
were not easily cast

into some narrow
range of meaning.

You know, it's like,

I love the lyric to "Dark Star,"

even though it's
one of the most...

You know, you can't
explain what it means.

Well, let's see.

Dark star crashes,

pouring its light
into the ashes.

Reason tatters.

The forces tear loose
from the axis.

Uh, searchlight
casting for faults

in the clouds of delusion.

Shall we go, you and I,

while we can,

through the transitive
nightfall of diamonds?

What is unclear about that?

I mean, it says what it means.

♪ Dark star crashes

♪ Pouring its light

♪ Through ashes

♪ Reason...

Godchaux: The lyrics
are worded in such a way

that anybody who hears
a Grateful Dead song

can interpret it

so that it becomes meaningful

to their own life.

It is so personal

to each and every person
who listens to it,

it belongs to you, honey.

It's yours.

♪ Shall we go

♪ You and I, while we can?

And that's the key,

and that's the genius

of the Hunter/Garcia
collaboration.

♪ The transitive
nightfall of diamonds ♪

Silberman:
Both Robert Hunter's

and John Barlow's
best lyrics did that.

Those songs would become,
like, good, wise advisors

that you could take with you
through decades of life.

Come right here,
and it's all about this:

"See ya at the next show."

When this one's over,

we're not going anywhere
but to the next show.

Man: And how long are you
gonna keep doing this?

Like the band does
another 20 years,

I'll do another 20 years.

Silberman:
It was really profound

to keep coming back
over the years

because you would see people,
you know, get older.

Eventually they'd be
coming with their spouse

and maybe their kids.

Eventually they'd be
getting gray hair.

It's like we would all
be growing old together

in this place that kept
recreating itself

in a way that was both
reassuringly familiar

and excitingly new every time.

I think, for a lot of people,

Grateful Dead shows were
experiences of renewal

in the same way that it would be

within a...

An established, uh, religion.

♪ I wanna tell you
how it's gonna be ♪

♪ You're gonna give
your love to me ♪

♪ I want to love you
night and day ♪

♪ You know our love
will not fade away ♪

♪ You know our love
will not fade away ♪

♪ Not fade away

Lesh: It is more like
a ritual than a concert.

Everybody's ecstatic together.

I always said,

every place we play is church.

That says it in a nutshell.

Barlow: You know,
there really was

a holy thing
that happened there.

There's no question.

But it wasn't
coming from Garcia.

It wasn't coming
from the stage, actually.

It wasn't coming from
any particular place.

It never does.

We realized that we had
to be really very careful...

because if the Grateful Dead

was going to form a religion

beyond just having
a religious-like thing

that was following it around...

it would constrain our ability

to get into the future properly.

♪ You know our love
will not fade away ♪

♪ You know our love
will not fade away ♪

♪ You know our love
will not fade away ♪

♪ You know our love
will not fade away ♪

♪ You know our love
will not fade away ♪

♪ You know our love
will not fade away ♪

♪ You know our love
will not fade away ♪

♪ You know our love
will not fade away ♪

♪ Mmm-bop, bop, bop-bop

♪ You know our love
will not fade away ♪

♪ Mmm-bop, bop, bop-bop

♪ You know our love
will not fade away ♪

♪ Mmm-bop, bop, bop-bop

♪ You know our love
will not fade away ♪

♪ You know our love
will not fade away ♪

♪ You know our love
will not fade away ♪

♪ You know our love
will not fade away ♪

♪ You know our love
will not fade away ♪

♪ You know our love
will not fade away ♪

See, for the first
18 years or so,

I had a lot of doubts
about the Grateful Dead.

I thought maybe this is really
a bad thing to be doing,

you know, this could be,
like, really pernicious.

Reporter: Because you
were aware of it.

Because I was
aware of the power.

If I had started to think
about controlling that power,

it would be like,
perilously close to fascism.

And, so I did a lot
of things to sabotage it.

It's like, "Fuck that, you know?

"I'm not going to go
along with this.

I don't want
to be a part of this."

I mean, it's the thing of it.

You don't want
to be the king, you know?

You don't want
to be the president.

You don't fuckin' want that.

I mean, nobody wants...
Nobody should have that.

♪ Fare you well, my honey, oh ♪

♪ Fare you well

♪ My only true one

♪ All the birds
that were singing ♪

♪ Have flown

♪ Except you alone

Steve Silberman: Jerry
once said something like

"I live in a world
without a Grateful Dead"

because, he didn't have some
group that was, you know,

that he could go see

that would lift
the burdens of his life.

You know, he was the guy

who was lifting
everybody else's burdens

without even trying.

And he couldn't do it
for himself, clearly,

because meanwhile,
he's going back to his house

and smoking heroin all day.

Nick Paumgarten: By the time
I came on the scene

in the mid-eighties,

Garcia was probably at his
unhealthiest, you know,

up until, basically,
when he died.

♪ In my time

I feel like the extent to which

he allowed himself
to fall to pieces,

there was some element
of the canny artist in that.

I mean, this is me projecting
onto him entirely.

Maybe it's giving him
too much credit,

but it suited the music
that he was performing

when he was shrouded in death

because a lot of Garcia's
music is about death.

That's an appeal of the man

that you have to
discover over time.

You don't see it immediately

because of the way
he presents historically

as this sort of big,
happy, hippie icon.

You get to know,

if you listen to the music,

that actually he's a deliverer

of dark news, you know?

That's where you really
begin to take him seriously.

♪ Fare you well, fare you well ♪

♪ I love you more
than words can tell ♪

♪ Listen to the river
sing sweet songs ♪

♪ To rock my soul

♪ Listen to the river
sing sweet songs ♪

♪ To rock my soul

This is where I'm working

on archiving a bunch
of Jerry's stuff.

This is my endless project.

You know, I was always
expecting when I...

When I would listen
to the Grateful Dead music,

there was gonna be some, like,
overt message, you know?

Something there,
like, oh, that's it.

But I can't tell exactly

where the magic is
in... in these things.

You know, but there's definitely

something special going on.

This is a great reel
from a press release.

Back here I have a couple of,
um, like, family shots.

There's Jerry.

This is... This is
the daughter picture.

He's holding his wallet.

I'm probably
hitting him up for money.

Um, this is in Hawaii.

He looks pretty frickin'
happy, to me.

This is actually
at Ken Kesey's house.

Me and Jerry in '86.

My mom, Mountain Girl,
took this picture.

Growing up in the Grateful Dead,

I never got
to experience the show

as a fan did, you know?

So, it didn't make sense to me

why all these people
have this, um,

deep, deep connection to my dad

that I sometimes felt
like I had to compete with.

You know, they toured a lot,

and it was really hard
for him, you know,

spending that much
time on the road.

And we gave him, you know,

he got his space
when he came home.

I would just sit, you know,

and hang out next to him
while he played his scales.

And we'd watch
TV shows together.

And weird movies, you know.

Twilight Zone stuff.

Shall we put the heart in now?

Yes.

Ludwig.

Here's some old, uh,

sketches of little
Frankensteins.

Frankenstein was a recurring
character for him.

Um, you know, Jerry
loved horror movies

and stuff like that, so...

The Frankenstein,

the harmless little
companion that you create

that ends up dominating
your whole world.

Work.

He was exhausted.

I'm exhausted.
I must get sleep.

Work, finish, then sleep.

The Grateful Dead thing
had gotten so big

where you're kind of, you know,

working just to keep it
going at a certain point.

Not that, you know,

not saying it should have
ended or anything, but...

I wish that, uh,

he would've just got
some fucking rest, you know?

Dennis McNally: Summer of '86,

we played two concerts
in Washington, D.C.

It was over a hundred degrees,

and Jerry was out there
for three hours a day,

and he got dehydrated.

And about three days later,

he went into a diabetic coma.

Garcia: I just laid down
one day and didn't get up.

During the time
I was actually in a coma,

my main experience is
a kind of tremendous struggle

in a kind of a futuristic,

sort of spaceship-y
kind of vehicle

with some kind
of insectoid presences.

Prankster: The acid test is
everywhere in this spaceship,

everywhere you are,
you're all on...

Garcia: Kind of like invisible
time travelers from the future

looking at me, you know.

I had this image of myself...

I love death.

...as these little
hunks of protoplasm

that were stuck together
kind of like stamps

with perforations between 'em.

And they were a gift.

They were these kind
of, like, message units

or message carriers,

and I thought they were, like,

kind of like my bloodstream.

And that was my image
of my physical self.

I came out of my coma...

feeling fragile...

but I'm not afraid of death.

It made it easier for me
to focus on the things

that I really wanted
to accomplish.

It had that kind of
attention-getting, you know,

the thing of you could
go at any moment.

You never know, you know,

so you might as well
just try to crowd

as much as you can possibility
get into your life.

This week,
the Grateful Dead released

their first studio
album in seven years,

In The Dark, over which

their so-called Deadhead
fans are delirious.

They always love it
when I don't die.

I always get a lot
of mileage out of that.

Reporter: The Grateful Dead
are very much alive and well.

Their last album, Into The Dark,

was their best selling ever.

Their single, "Touch of Grey,"

became their first top-40 hit.

♪ I will get by

The Dead racked up over
$26 million in ticket sales.

Woman: ...one of
the highest earners

in the entertainment
business last year.

The band's music makes millions.

There's an ice cream
named after their leader.

The Dead is even
on the internet.

♪ I will survive

McNally: In 1987,

we finally have a radio hit.

With "Touch of Grey"
in the top ten,

tens of thousands of people
just heard it on the radio,

and they went, "Oh,
I want to go to that show,"

and, of course,
they can't get in

'cause it's already sold out.

So they go down anyway,

and they find a party
the likes of which

no 19-year-old
ever walks away from.

And we go from having
a thousand people

on the outside of our show,

uh, to 5,000.

And that simply overloaded
the environment.

♪ I will get by

Mickey Hart:
It got so, so popular,

so powerful a draw,

that the biggest places
were too small,

even the stadiums.

Playing to the stadiums

were akin to playing
in the studio

because the people
were all there...

There were 60,000 people there...

But it was basically...

You didn't have any touch
with those people.

They're hundreds
of feet away from you.

Phil Lesh: In the stadiums,

you're gonna have no contact
with your audience.

It's just not possible.

You know, it's just a sea
of faces about this big

and waving arms.

Man: Has success
spoiled the Dead?

- Yeah.
- Bob Weir: Yeah.

Sam Cutler:
I came back to America

after 30 years away.

I was absolutely gobsmacked

by the influence
of the Grateful Dead

and how it spread
all over the United States.

And then this is what
the mainstream culture

does, you know?

It neuters things

and declaws things, you know,

by absorbing them, you know.

They kinda love you to death.

Paumgarten:
The scene kept evolving.

They attracted
a new legion of fans.

And they became
popular and accepted,

and you found out
that, you know,

Peter Jennings went to shows

and Senator Leahy
was a Deadhead,

and the Grateful Dead,
God bless 'em,

were fine with that.

I found it affirming,

the fact that it was a big tent.

It wasn't just a bunch
of hippie chicks

or prep school
Deadheads or spinners.

They were open
to all kinds of people.

That was always part of it.

Garcia: Events have
carried us this far.

You know what I mean?

And that seems
to work pretty good

when we sort of take
a hands-off approach,

you know, kind of
let things happen.

So we'll see where this gets us

'cause right now
we're in motion.

We're on our way somewhere.

It's hard to tell where.

Cutler: What's
interesting to me

is the reaction
of the Deadheads.

When the Grateful Dead
became locked

into playing huge stadiums,

I mean, the Deadheads picked up

on the original ethos
of the Grateful Dead,

their inherently
anarchic tendencies.

And all of a sudden,

it was like they'd been stalked

by 50,000 lunatics.

Lesh: We should've known
that something was coming

when we realized
that a lot of times

there were more people
outside the shows

partying and trying
to find a way in for free

than there were inside.

♪ I spent a little time
on the mountain ♪

♪ Spent a little time
on the hill ♪

♪ I heard some say

♪ "Better run away"

♪ Others say
"Better stand still" ♪

Hart: It got so chaotic,

you couldn't take it
out of the bag.

We wanted to make
a statement saying that:

"You guys got to police
yourselves," you know?

You gotta be good neighbors,
you don't want to...

You can't be pee on the lawns
and everything.

You have to respect people.

McNally: What we
were trying to do

was simply preserve
our ability to do a show

under conditions in which
you had far too many people

saying "Oh, I'm just
here for the party,

even if I can't
get into the show."

And it's all too much.

Jerry Garcia did not
bargain to be the mayor

of a traveling
counter-cultural town.

Listen, please,
because this is serious.

McNally: And so I'd
get the band members

to record these letters.

...so at our sold-out shows,
if you don't have a ticket,

- please don't come.
- Got any extra tickets?

- Lesh: We really mean this.
- Just one ticket.

Jerry just couldn't bring
himself to do one of those.

Uh, but Phil didn't mind.

Folks who run this shop,

I need it starting
to be shut down now.

Lesh: We wrote more than one
open letter to Deadheads.

The area around every
Grateful Dead concert

is subject to the local
legal system.

- But it did nothing.
- Deadhead: Come on.

It's a joke.

Deadheads are a determined
bunch, though,

you know, uh, not much
for listening to rules.

When they were younger guys,

first startin' out
on this thing,

they decided just, "Okay,

"the rules aren't
cuttin' it for me.

"Society's typical way of dealing
with things isn't cuttin' it for me,

and I want to follow
my intuition."

I'm coming in, brother.

I'm coming in.

I got you.

Female Deadhead:
They cut loose.

By doing that,

their music has grown

into this blossoming
monster, you know?

So we do the same thing,

and they do the same thing.

The Dead's fans have always been

among the mellowest
on a music scene,

but lately they've been
having some problems.

Reporter: Charges
against Deadheads ranging

from public lewdness
and disturbing the peace

to using and selling drugs.

Hart:
It was a scary thing,

because you don't want
to wake up in the morning

finding people
are in jail, or deaths.

I said, "Oh man,
this is dangerous."

You know, we'll be responsible

for things that we can't control

or that they can't control,
and it'll get out of hand.

♪ One way or another

♪ One way or another

♪ One way or another

♪ This darkness got to give

McNally: Many of the people
without tickets

have no responsibility
or obligation to our scene.

It's up to you as Deadheads
to educate these people

and to pressure them
into acting like Deadheads

instead of maniacs.

They can only
get away with this crap

if you let them.

If you're not
part of the solution,

you're part of the problem.

Yeah, don't you do that.

The spirit of the Grateful
Dead is at stake,

and we'll do
what we have to do...

- Yeah.
- ...to protect it.

Yeah. I mean, the whole point
with the Grateful Dead

was we didn't tell anybody,
you know, to do nothin',

you know?

Just the idea is repellent.

The idea that we're gonna now

start telling people
how to behave.

I mean, we're not the
government, you know?

We're just musicians,

and it's enough
to try to control...

McNally: The main thing

was getting Jerry
to co-sign the message.

But he was such an
anti-authoritarian.

He was just said,
"Get somebody else to do it."

Man: Well, Phil said
that he would like Deadheads

to not bring hard drugs
around the Dead.

How do you feel about that?

I think drugs are really
a personal thing,

and anybody... everybody has
the right to take 'em...

- Mm-hmm.
- ...as far as I'm concerned.

- Yeah.
- And in my world,

everything is legal, you know,

and everybody can do
whatever they want,

and, I mean, I...

John Barlow: Jerry
did not do messages.

Period. End of story.

Man: Is there anything
that you feel Deadheads can do

to help out the Grateful Dead?

Garcia: Yeah, they can
keep having fun.

I mean, there was certainly
an underlying message

that was about
thinking for yourself.

Ignore alien orders.

Steve Parish: Jerry never
liked to talk to the audience

'cause he realized that they
hung on his every word.

Everybody in the audience
would think

that Jerry was there
to play to them that night.

And he was. He tried to.

He liked to have
the lights up a little bit

so he could see
the faces of the audience.

- He drew off of them.
- ♪ Drifting and dreaming

You gotta remember,

when you start
with the early days...

you couldn't tell the difference

between the stage
and the audience.

It was just
an extension of that.

But as time went on,

Jerry became
this icon to people.

And that became impossible.

Weir: I had a tough time

walking the streets
of any town we were in.

Jerry couldn't do it,
flat couldn't.

He was stuck in a hotel room
wherever we went.

He couldn't go out.

And there were people

scaling the walls of the hotel

trying to get at him.

That just drove him nuts.

Trixie: I spent
a lot of time on stage

staring at the audience

and just wondering
what they're seeing,

why are they so enraptured?

But I remember, um,

just knowing
that I shouldn't go out

and mingle with the Deadheads.

There had already been

kind of certain breaches
of personal space.

I think Jerry was already
a little freaked out

about the weird, um, things

that people
were projecting on him.

♪ Dear Mr. Fantasy,
play us a tune ♪

♪ Something
to make us all happy ♪

♪ Do anything

♪ Take us out of this gloom

♪ Sing a song, play guitar

♪ Make it snappy

♪ You are the one...

Weir: We were just
beset by people

who had just gone off
into this imaginary world...

♪ You break, you break
down in tears ♪

...to the point where
Jerry was basically

a messiah figure.

♪ ...a straight mind you had

♪ Wouldn't have known you

♪ All these years

Woman: How do you feel
about the fact

that you enjoy such
a divine-like status

in the eyes
of so many of your fans?

I mean, yeah, but I don't think

anybody takes it that seriously,

- you know what I mean?
- You might be surprised.

Well...

Then I'll... I'll put up with it

until they come for me
with the cross and nails.

You know?

One of the things that upsets me

about what happened
with Jerry in the nineties

was how isolated he was

in the middle of this
incredible community.

And I think he was
really suffering,

particularly after
Brent Mydland died.

It was obvious
that Jerry and Brent

really had some kind
of very deep

and mutually, uh,
enriching connection.

Weir: After Brent died
from heroin overdose,

the music kind of
sagged a little bit.

I think Jerry... the... the fact

that he was kind of
shut in by circumstance,

and you add on top of that
the band is not what it was...

well, that's a little...

That's a place where the plot
sort of turns a little bit,

and, uh, and he started
looking for a way to get out.

♪ I'd rather be
in some dark hollow ♪

♪ Where the sun
don't ever shine ♪

♪ Then to be

♪ In some big city

♪ In a small room

♪ With you upon my mind

Brigid Meier: April, 1990...

I get a letter from Jerry.

I haven't seen him, really,

for 28 years.

And he said,
"I'll always love you."

Okay.

What am I supposed
to do with that?

Then, a year later,

there was a note
from Dennis McNally,

their publicist,

the designated liaison.

And he said, "Call me.

Jerry would like to see you."

But, I mean,

he was living
with somebody else,

had a child with someone else.

In order to have a conversation,

we had to couch it
as an interview.

Garcia: I mean, you really
sort of started me going.

You bought me
that guitar, you know?

You're partly responsible!

So I took a tape recorder
and did an interview.

Yeah.

It goes by fast.

The last fifteen years
has been furious.

I'm sorry to hear that.

We never decided to go somewhere

or to become something,
you know what I mean?

Yeah, it's funny...
It's funny... it's...

At some point or another,

after I got out of the hospital,

when I had my coma and all that,

somewhere in there
I... I... I kind of...

I have this memory now...

I don't know
where it came from...

That's like as though you and I

had continued with our
lives together somehow

and had a whole alternate life,

you know what I mean?
But it's like...

I mean, it was
incredibly awkward.

He says, "You know,

there's a part of me that
is still in love with you."

still is very much
in love with you, you know?

Still, always.

It's a little scary.

McNally: She interviewed him

for an article that would
appear in Tricycle.

It was the Buddhist magazine.

I arranged it.

She was Buddhist,

and he was curious about it.

McNally was actually
the mastermind.

I don't know if that's entirely
a story I want to tell.

Uh, suffice it to say...

He did all he could
to facilitate this.

There was something there.

Both of them felt it.

It became like
a military operation

to extricate Jerry
and get me in there.

And eventually he went
to Hawaii with Brigid.

I didn't know
what we were doing.

I had no idea what we were doing

until about day 3.

We... We started scuba diving.

I'd never done it before,

and he was...

masterful.

He was an extraordinary diver.

Bill Kreutzmann:
Jerry and I started diving,

I think back in '86.

You couldn't keep us
out of the water.

He loved diving.

He loved the ocean,

and and used to do
this thing with his hands

so it looked
like a squid, right?

Like that.

And fuckin'... out of nowhere

all these fish
would come around.

You know, it was like,
he had this attraction.

Whether it was fish,
audience, whatever, you know,

He always had this way
of attracting things.

We liked to dive

because it has
a sense of freedom

that I don't know where
else you could get that.

Here was this beautiful
buffer, the ocean,

that kept all that
outside shit away.

You didn't have to
sign autographs

or any of that crap.

Meier: So he turned me on
to that world of his.

And I loved it.

I loved it.

At one point,

we're tired after diving
and hanging out.

He just looks at me,
and he said...

"Would you marry me?"

I said, "Yeah, okay."

So I didn't know what we were
doing until that moment.

Then he got on the phone.

He calls Hunter,
and he calls everybody.

He says,
"We're getting married."

And he's all excited,
and he's all happy.

It's like, "Okay,
what do we gotta do?"

Acupuncture.

Quit smoking.

Exercise.

Walk around the lake every day.

We... We started
working on Bowflexes.

We had a trainer,
personal trainer.

Suddenly he feels creative

and he wants to start
writing songs.

Hey.

Get in there, fellers.

Meier: And it's like,
"Hunter, come on over."

They wrote six songs.

I mean, it was just this
amazing eruption of energy.

Okay, I'm ready.

1, 2, 3, 4.

Meier:
There was this feeling.

It was real.

I wasn't the only one
who felt it. They felt it.

It was like, we're back.

We're back to those days

when we used to pick you
up from high school

and drive around,

and we were all together,
and it was all new,

and it was all fresh,
and it was all...

alive.

McNally: Reconnecting with
someone after 30 years...

there's no way that you
can't feel, you know,

in some weird way
that you're young again.

Hunter certainly thought so.

He wrote "The Days Between"
about just that.

It's the last
Hunter-Garcia masterpiece.

It's about looking
back on your youth

and seeing your whole life

that has passed in the interval,

and that's...
That's "The Days Between."

It's your life.

♪ Walked upon a mountaintop

♪ Walked barefoot
through the snow ♪

♪ Gave the best we had to give ♪

♪ How much we'll never know

♪ Never know

It wasn't me.

It was...

He got in touch
with a part of him.

I was just a catalyst, okay?

But he...

I think he had been
suffering for a long time

under the weight
and responsibility

of this behemoth.

I mean, at one point...
I can... I remember him.

We're in the kitchen,
we're talking,

and he said, "You know,

"I'd like to just live
on the ice cream money.

"You know, I could do that.

I could just live on that
and say the hell with this."

And, I said,
"Well, why don't you?"

"Oh, man, come on,

"do you know how many
people are depending

on this show
going down the road?"

And I understood in that moment.

It was a machine by then.

It wasn't just a bunch of guys

getting together
and making music.

This enormous community
was demanding

that he be the Grateful
Dead's Jerry Garcia.

Where's the freedom in that?

McNally: The Grateful
Dead became a weight.

By the Grateful Dead,
I do not mean the six guys,

I mean the phenomenon.

He had fifty people,
including me,

whose paycheck
he was in charge of.

And their families.

And a million people
who demanded that he play

eighty nights a year
for their happiness factor.

And it was a weight.

It was a responsibility.

This was a guy who didn't
want responsibility.

So he self-medicated

and had been doing so
for a very long time.

Meier: I can remember a
really chilling moment.

I'm backstage and I'm sitting
on the black equipment boxes.

And the doctor is telling me,

yeah, Jerry's using again.

Suddenly, it's all too obvious.

He's been out of it,

and he's been unpleasant
to be around.

And then the road manager,
he's saying,

"You know... you know,
Jerry's cool,

he's cool,
he can handle this."

I said, "Well why don't...
Why doesn't he go into rehab?"

"It's cool, he's gonna kick.
He always does,

and just, just
hang in there with it."

"Why don't we just
do an intervention?"

"Don't say anything.

"This is the Grateful Dead, man.

"We gotta keep this show goin'.

We gotta keep goin'."

Cutler: The secret of
longevity in the music business

is to get away from it.
Alright?

You gotta leave it man.
Fuck off.

Learn how to be
a deep sea fisherman.

Go SCUBA diving.
Whatever it is.

Snow skiing. Become, and be,
something completely else.

For somebody like Garcia, I mean,
that's the only way to survive.

Lesh: We had staff
that, you know,

depended on us for their living.

And we convinced ourselves
that we owed it

to our employees to keep going.

Right or wrong.

I could wish that we'd
thought more about Jerry.

And, uh...

So, yeah.
That's a...

That's a tender place.

Meier: So, after the show,

we go back to the hotel room.

I say, "I just want you to know

"that I know that you're using,

"and that's fine,
that's okay, that's cool.

"You do what you wanna do,
I don't... I'm not gonna try and stop you.

"I just really don't want
any secrets between us.

You know, I just
don't want any secrets."

And he looked at me,
and the room got cold,

and he says...

"I think it's time
for you to go now."

And he said, "You know,
I can't thank you enough,

but this isn't gonna work."

The band left,

and then I left for the airport.

I never saw him again.

That was that.

McNally: Have you ever had
a friend who was addicted?

Until they decide that
that's what they want,

everything you can say
is just gonna go

in one ear and out the other.

It's not like the band
didn't talk to him.

It's not like the band...
The band didn't, you know,

stage periodic, you know,
big throw down interventions.

That's the way it was.

Parish: He was my
boss, and my friend,

and somebody that I wanted
to protect from harm.

But could I help him save
himself from his own self?

I always thought of
Jerry as a strong guy.

I remember one time when a guy
came bolting out of the audience

so quick before
I could get to him,

and he was zeroed in
on grabbin' Jerry to hug him.

A lot of time people
would just want to

jump up there and hug 'em,
you know while he's playin'...

It's awkward.
And Jerry took his guitar,

and point foremost,
bang that guy

right in the solar plexus
and didn't miss a note,

and knocked him into my arms.

I said, well there,
you know, you see it.

He was strong, you know.

And, I didn't ever think

that he would get
deteriorated in that way.

Kreutzmann: I always thought
we were gonna be able

to get through to Jerry,

that we were gonna be able to
help get him into treatment.

We had seen
Jerry clean up and...

We've all racked our brains.

...and be in great shape.

What could we
have done differently?

I had faith that Jerry
would come back around.

The only thing we could have
done was to have taken a break.

Another break.

You know, and I would've-
I would've-

I would've been
okay with it this time.

But I never thought
that if we did take a break

that Jerry would stop.

He would just go out
with the Jerry Garcia Band

and keep going.

Trixie: Jerry was a
very strong individual.

Hart: Jerry Garcia was
a lot of great things.

You didn't tell Jerry
what to do.

He was a really cool guy.

You know, until
he killed himself.

Yeah, until he killed himself.

That's really what happened.

Barlow: I remember toward the
end of the fateful last tour,...

they were playing
Meadowlands in New Jersey.

And I turned around,

and there's Garcia
looking all white.

You know, everything's,
like, his beard, his face,

his skin is, like,
he's-he's kind of like

a luminous white figure,

already kind of angelic.

And I think he'd
just had enough.

Cutler: Garcia was suffering,
being in the Grateful Dead.

I don't think that
it was the dream

that he, you know,
wanted realized.

The Grateful Dead had become

a hugely successful
rock and roll band,

and in the process, of course,

they lost certain things.

Paumgarten:
You see people cheering

even when they should be crying.

Either because
the performance is very poor

or because the song is-is,
you know, is a dirge.

♪ Yesterday I begged you

♪ Before I hit the ground

Paumgarten: He's singing
about his own death,

looking like he's about to die.

♪ All I leave behind me

♪ Is only what I found

Paumgarten:
When I was younger,

it made the music more
interesting for me.

But by '95,

it was a depressing and
pretty intense experience.

You know, he had
something in him

that embraced his own
self-destruction.

Garcia: I feel that
my real responsibility

is to the audience
in the now, you know?

There was a conscious
decision in my life

to be involved in something
that was flowing,

and dynamic, and living...

and not so solid that you
couldn't tear it down.

Something that had
a life of its own

and I was just a part of it.

McNally: Monuments are an
attempt to subvert death.

To transcend death.

To make a monument of
something freezes it forever.

That is exactly opposite
what Jerry wanted.

From the very beginning,
Jerry wanted to do something

in real time

and to touch people's hearts.

He wanted to make
the Grateful Dead

as open-ended as possible.

Garcia: For me it
has a lot to do with

getting out of the way,
you know what I mean?

At some point I decided
not to be "me"

and to be "they."

When it's something more
than my own little self.

That's it, that's the goal.

McNally: In the last year and a
half, two year of his life,

when the diabetes was
playing havoc with his moods,

I knew he didn't
want to do interviews,

and so I didn't ask him.

But six months before he died,

I got a request,
and I took one look

and I went "This
he's going to want to do."

Garcia: My mother, I think,
must of taken me to see it.

McNally: The interview was for a
show on the American Movie Channel

called "The Movie
That Changed My Life."

Garcia:
You know I had my head down

and I cried
and except occasionally

I would glimpse the screen
and go, "Oh, ah!"

He immediately just sat down

and said, "Oh yeah!"

And started talking
for half an hour.

Garcia: That whole
business evoked something.

It like, touched something,
you know what I mean?

Something... I don't know what.

Something very strong.

It might have been the-
the thing of

a dead thing brought to life.

Frankenstein's Monster,
after all,

is a drive to reanimate or to...

To produce life.

Dr. Frankenstein:
It's alive.

Garcia: And it hit me in
that archetypal center.

Dr. Frankenstein:
It's alive!

You know like, vaboom, you know?

Dong, you know?

♪ Death don't

♪ Have no mercy

♪ In this land

Garcia:
But, really it's workin'.

The Grateful Dead is this
living, breathing thing.

♪ Death don't

It's not up to us to define it.

♪ Have no mercy

Or to enclose it in any way.

♪ In this land

It's whatever it is.

♪ In this land

I think that's one of
the parts of its magic.

The effect seems to be
not defining it

is that it becomes everything.

Woman: Nancy Smith and Ed
Rooney were the two winners,

but we're gonna break in
and break format,

- um, for a moment here.
- Man: Yes.

Woman:
We just got some real bad news.

Reporter:
Okay, that's fantastic.

- Thank you.
- You're welcome.

My pleasure.
I really enjoyed it.

Male reporter: Could I
take a few quick photos?

Oh, god, if you have to.

Male Reporter 2:
It's incredibly tragic,

and it's a little
frustrating right now

because we don't know
anything more than the fact

that Jerry Garcia has died.

He was found dead
a couple of hours ago.

Male Reporter 3: There's no easy
way to break this news to you,

but it's true, the unthinkable,

and the inevitable has happened,

and Jerry's gone.

Male Reporter 4: ...Grateful
Dead died earlier this morning

in California,
of an apparent heart attack.

Male Reporter 5: He's said to have
died with a smile on his face.

Garcia: Well, thanks a lot,
you guys, I certainly enjoyed it.

Woman:
Thank you.

♪ Fare you well, my honey

♪ Fare you well,
my only true one ♪

♪ All the birds
that were singing ♪

♪ Are flown

♪ Except you alone

Man: Hi. Bob would like
to make a brief statement,

and please, no questions.

♪ Going to leave
this brokedown palace ♪

Well, I guess some sad
news has come our way.

This morning, Jerry Garcia,

our friend and my brother,

passed away.

And I guess not much
can be said about that,

except that we also
have to remember

that his life was a...

far more a blessing
for all of us.

And I think we should,
perhaps, if we're gonna

dwell on anything,
dwell on that.

Thank you.

♪ In a bed, in a bed

♪ By the waterside
I will lay my head ♪

♪ Listen to the river
sing sweet songs ♪

♪ To rock my soul

Weir: Jerry wasn't interested
in building something

that will stand
the test of time.

But I-I don't think
that what we see

as time can put an end
to what we had.

I think it was, is,
and will be there.

Those moments were more alive

than-than anything
that a heart pumps out.

That's what we were living for.

And that was what we were
trying to coax through

on any given night on stage.

That was the fun.

That was the fun
he was talking about.

That's eternity.

♪ River gonna take me

♪ Sing me sweet and sleepy

♪ Sing me sweet and sleepy

♪ All the way back back home

♪ It's a far gone lullaby

♪ Sung many years ago

♪ Mama, Mama,
many worlds I've come ♪

♪ Since I first left home

♪ Going home, going home

♪ By the waterside
I will rest my bones ♪

♪ Listen to the river
sing sweet songs ♪

♪ To rock my soul

Garcia: I'm real happy
with the Grateful Dead.

I'm real happy with it.

What I'm hopin' is to be able to

see some way of extending
this idea beyond ourselves.

You know what I mean?
I wanna be feeling

that this idea
can continue without us.

It doesn't have to be
the Grateful Dead,

but something, you know?

Kerouac's books opened up
doors for me that...

That put me in
this life, you know?

I would like to do that
for somebody else,

you know what I mean?

And then it will
be there for anybody

who's got the spirit
to go for it.

♪ Fare you well, fare you well ♪

♪ I love you more
than words can tell ♪

♪ Listen to the river
sing sweet songs ♪

♪ To rock my soul

♪ Doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo ♪

♪ Doo doo-doo-doo,
doo-doo doo-doo ♪

♪ Doo-doo-doo

♪ Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo

♪ Doo doo-doo-doo

♪ Doo-doo doo-doo

♪ Doo-doo do doo-doo-doo

♪ Doo-doo doo-doo

♪ If my words did glow ♪

♪ With the gold of sunshine ♪

♪ And my tunes were played ♪

♪ On the harp unstrung ♪

♪ Would you hear my voice ♪

♪ Come through
the music? ♪

♪ Would you hold it near ♪

♪ Let there be songs

♪ To fill the air

♪ Ripple in still water ♪

♪ When there is
no pebble tossed ♪

♪ Nor wind to blow

♪ Reach out your hand ♪

♪ That path is for

♪ Your steps alone

♪ Ripple in still water ♪

♪ When there is
no pebble tossed ♪

♪ Nor wind to blow

♪ You who choose

♪ To lead must follow ♪

♪ But if you fall

♪ You fall alone

♪ If you should stand ♪

♪ Then who's
to guide you? ♪

♪ If I knew the way

♪ I would take you home ♪

♪ La-da-da-da

♪ La-da-da-da-da-da

♪ Da-da-da, da-da

♪ Da-da, da-da-da

♪ Da-da-da-da

♪ Da-da-da-da-da-da

♪ Da-da-da-da

♪ Da-da da-da da

Thanks a lot.

See you in a little while.

♪ I wanna tell you
how it's gonna be ♪

♪ You're gonna
give your love to me ♪

♪ I wanna love you
night and day ♪

♪ You know my love
will not fade away ♪

♪ You know my love
will not fade away ♪

♪ Not fade away

♪ My love is bigger
than a Cadillac ♪

♪ I try to show you
but you drive me back ♪

♪ Your love for me
has got to be real ♪

♪ You're gonna know
just how I feel ♪

♪ Our love is real,
not fade away ♪

♪ Not fade away