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| K. COLEMAN (2024) |
I grew up superficially familiar with the Grateful Dead. My father had a copy of "In the Dark", and many a millennial have probably heard of the album's hit single "Touch of Grey". The magic of the Grateful Dead reached younger fans in MTV's 1980's era with a new Top 10 hit and a video where puppeted skeletons played before an audience. I was in college when I started diving deeper into their music. It was through a variety of circumstances. My classmates in high school didn't generally listen to the Grateful Dead. I remember one upperclassman wearing a Phish badge on his backpack, but that was it for psychedelic jam rock within my purview at the time. In my sophomore year at Syracuse I was introduced to a free-spirited subculture of students inspired by science, transcendentalism, music, art, nature, mysticism, and maybe some substances. At least during my time at Syracuse, I may have been one of the few SU students who generally hung out with the SUNY ESF community. I attended some open mic nights at Marshall Hall, I created a weekly comic series for the Knothole newspaper, took two writing courses at the school and attend some Armory Square concerts in support of my editor's band "Odom". To be fair, not all ESF students are latter day hippies, and many of those friends have achieved great things in zoology, veterinary medicine, biotech, ecology, and other sciences. I found ways to translate that culture and nerdy interest to my coursework as an art student at Syracuse's VPA school. I would experiment with a wide range of subtractive and additive materials. There was deep meditation and vegetarian breakfast with the sunlight pouring in while I wired on watercolor paintings. I looked for innovative ways of using crayons when studying nude models in studio. My professors were as surprised by my working barefoot on the polished concrete in the studios as they were by my describing color scheme goals as a Lisa Frank palette. Not even using drugs, it's just part of my eccentricity and spiritual attunement that I can deeply explore psychedelic space reflecting the music I hear. Some afternoons, I pick tarot piles based on what I see while listening to Paramore.
I personally started collecting Grateful Dead CD's. It may have been my growing up on acoustic folk music that first drew me to "American Beauty". There's the second acoustic album "Working Man's Dead", and 1979's "Shakedown Street" where bassist Phil Lesh, and the drumming duo of Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann gave the Grateful Dead a disco groove. That example of Disco Dead gives more validity to the mood of my H&M shirt with rhinestones and a mirrorball in the center of the band's emblem skull design. Then, there's "Terrapin Station". I would often listen to Terrapin on the way to Sunday services, and "Estimated Prophet" resonated with me just as much as any hymn. The way that everything just opens up with the call & answer section between back up singers and Bob Weir. The Terrapin Station suite gained more importance for me once I experienced a Grateful Dead offshoot concert for the first time. The acoustics building on how the audience sings along in communion with one another.
Art-wise, the Grateful Dead (and the iconic "American Beauty" alum cover) impacted my eye for design. The team of Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse created posters and album covers that I would put in the same conversation as Alphonse Mucha's contributions to the art nouveau movement. The three artists found extraordinarily ornate ways to create commercial illustrations. One year, I blew an egg hollow for Easter, and painted the Kelley-Mouse rose on it in thin coats of acrylic paint. In 2016, I tested my pumpkin carving skills with that detailed piece of psychedelic flora. With woodcarving tools, I worked to thin certain sections of pulp in order to change how the light got filtered. To those music fans who listened to the Grateful Dead when Jerry Garcia was still alive, I will say that it worked sort of like "liquid light shows", but with pumpkin pulp. I've included a photo at the bottom of this entry. Stanley Mouse was on Twitter at this time (back when "Twitter" was under an earlier management entity). I was even more proud of my accomplishment when Stanley responded, saying that he appreciated my pumpkin tribute and gave it his seal of approval.
Jeff Beck's passing encouraged me to see more icons perform their craft, while there was still the opportunity to share space with the fans and artistry. One of my first concerts of 2023 featured Denny Laine (of the Moody Blues and Wings) putting on a Vh1 Storytellers type of show where he'd alternate songs with stories from his 66 year career. Rock star parties in 60's London. COVID 19 lockdown. Elements of his friendship with Paul McCartney which go deep "Beneath the Waterline". The night ended with Denny leading the room in a singalong of "Band on the Run". Later that year, Laine passed away, and I was able to look back on that concert as part of how his music affected my life. In June 2023, I managed to see the Dead & Company's stadium tour when Weir, Hart, John Mayer, and their crew reached Fenway Park. That night was so amazing, and bore great stories to carry with me and pass on. Weeks later, Phil Lesh & Friends were touring through the Leader Bank Pavilion. From what I understand, Phil Lesh sought out concerts of a more intimate nature. While Fenway Park show filled a baseball cathedral with rock & roll spirituality, the Pavilion is the relative revival tent. Just as moving, but the space and scale isn't as overwhelming. Sitting on patio furniture on the venue's concourse, I saw generations of Deadheads welcoming in newbies. Young children being brought up on the music, just as I knew a handful of James Taylor's songs at an early age. From my seat's distance, one generally had to rely on the video cameras and screens to see in more detail as the octogenarian Lesh lead his band of friends through Grateful Dead songs, taking time out to get revel in some musical jams. Those improvisational exhibitions are a trademark for musicians of the Dead diaspora. About halfway through, the skies grew heavier. I wore my L.L. Bean Duck Boots for rain, but didn't expect what would come next. A huge thunderstorm occurred. On the South Boston waterfront, there's so much open space that we could only take shelter under the cavernous tent and watch Mother Nature lose her shit jamming with Phil Lesh. No, they didn't pick that moment to play "Box of Rain". but "Eyes of The World" made for a movingly metaphysical backdrop while torrents up water poured down between us and the flashes of lightning. There was so much lightning that I recorded 30 seconds of the show just for the sake of documentation. Identifying more as a concert photog, it takes something pretty spectacular for me to roll camera during a performance. The band did play "Terrapin", but had to cut the setlist short for the sake of safety and their equipment.
This October, I have been planning to sing "Ripple" at the Midway Cafe's "Queeraoke" program. Halloween is about as much a time for celebration at Queeraoke as Pride Month. Singing this Grateful Dead staple from the "American Beauty" album has some spiritual significance to me. Especially in the musical sense. For those who celebrate All Souls Day, Samhain, Halloween, Dia De Los Muertos, and other similar holidays of this point of the year, there is mutual belief in a "thinning of the veil" (as some say) between us on the mortal plane of existence and those who have passed on. In a way that would even relate to those not believing in an afterlife, "Ripple" is about how a musician's spirit resonates on their music long after they've passed on. It's like in the movie "Coco" just how important it is to honor the memories of the deceased. For all the gifts that Jerry Garcia, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, and Phil Lesh gave us, we pay those gifts forward by sharing their songs. That's not to discredit their surviving bandmates, but this celebration for those theoretically in the hereafter.
I have admittedly buried the lead in not speaking specifically about Phil Lesh as an individual until this point in my post. It's that I din't know the man well enough as a person, and he wasn't one of the most interviewed bassists. I did however hear that dry wit when Craig Ferguson asked Lesh about the Grateful Dead's use of recreational drugs. As someone who got into the Grateful Dead 40 years late, what stands out to me about Phil Lesh's specific contributions is how someone trained in violin and trumpet could pickup a bass and learn the instrument as he goes. He brought interest in avant garde classical music and improvisational jazz to the tapestry of the Grateful Dead's signature sound. His role in that band's composite is distinct as those of Mouse, Kelley, Garcia, Weir, McKernn, those Rhythm Devils behind the drum kits, and other artists who co-created the Grateful Dead's legacy.
Thank you Phil.
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