A Long Strange Trip (76 page)

The band spent more than the usual amount of time doing advance press for the album, and the first result was a cover story in the “capitalist tool,”
Forbes
magazine. Scrib had convinced the band that something so bizarre as the Dead in
Forbes
would generate especially intense talk— “buzz,” in the jargon—in the music industry about the coming album. Coincidentally, nine days later, there was another boomlet. Bill Graham owned a vacation home in the resort town of Telluride, Colorado, and wanted to put on a Dead concert there. Some residents objected, and the issue went to a referendum. On May 26 the town voted 384 to 117 to welcome the Dead, and the item flashed around the country.

The “Touch of Grey” video made its debut on MTV on June 19, and it was an instant hit. The bonfire of success had begun to burn. The process had more than a few elements of lucky accident, chance, or fate— call it what you will. At its inception, MTV’s taste in videos had run to Michael Jackson/Madonna flash dance, and then moved on to heavy-metal big-boob pieces. It was the Dead’s peculiar luck to produce “Touch of Grey” at precisely the time that MTV’s hierarchy decreed that some old guys would be nice. The first time that MTV’s staff saw the video, they watched not merely the customary first minute but the whole thing, and then ran it again.

That weekend the Dead played at U.C. Berkeley’s Greek Theater, and Garcia chatted with journalist Blair Jackson about what seemed to be the band’s impending major success. Garcia had no answers. The band was already in stadiums, which were no fun. Video couldn’t replace live gigs, and the entire concept of being too successful was foreign to his mind—after all, his idea of success was still the day-to-day reality of not having to work a job. Besides, he had heard the promise “
This
album’s gonna be big” too many times to take it seriously. Arista’s enthusiasm for the album was extraordinary, he admitted, “almost contagious,” but he was not quite convinced. In part, his dubiousness derived from modesty.
In the Dark
and “Touch of Grey” would succeed for many reasons, and his near-death was a major one. It helped that the single was a very good song, excellently recorded, and supported by a record company and an entire industry that had positive feelings about the band, now twenty-two years along. In the
Rolling Stone
cover story, Mikal Gilmore quoted Dead-basher Dave Marsh, who dismissed the band as “nostalgia mongers . . . offering facile reminiscence to an audience with no memory of its own.” Robert Hunter responded that yes, the band did appeal to “some sort of idealism in people.” In the 1980s, idealism
was
nostalgic. Even the most happily narcissistic yuppie on Wall Street could not fail to see the screaming avarice of the decade. For a brief incongruous moment, the Dead’s daffy integrity had a general appeal.

In the Dark
was released on July 6, opening at no. 77 on
Billboard
’s chart and the “Hot Shot Debut” of the week. Two weeks later it reached no. 47 in sales and no. 1 in album rock track airplay.
Rolling Stone
gave it its warmest review in years: “[It] bespeaks an effortlessness long absent from their
ouevre . . .
[The songs] hark back to the sprawling, easygoing charm of their hallowed
American Beauty
era. Despite nods to technology . . . this
sounds
more like a Dead record than anything they’ve done in years.” And in the
New York Times,
Jon Pareles gave them an intelligent appreciation: “The best Dead songs do something most rock doesn’t even attempt. Like old-time mountain music and blues, they stare death, bad luck and metaphysical demons in the eye, then shrug and keep on truckin’ . . . [Songs like “Touch of Grey”] are all obstacle course, realistic and illusive; they insist that with a wink and a grin and a little ingenuity . . . it’s possible to make it through . . . They don’t spell things out; their music demands an active, cooperative listener . . . The Dead are professional amateurs, happy to stay that way. And even if their music weren’t such a pleasure, they’d be something rock always needs: the exception to every rule.”

On July 4, the Dead and Dylan began their six-stadium tour together near Boston, on a hot and humid night made steamier by an overcrowded field after fans jumped down out of the stands. By and large, the tour was a disappointment. For once, the Dead were sober and enthusiastic. Unfortunately, Dylan was neither. He forgot his own lyrics, and the keys the songs were played in. “There were plenty of occasions,” said Weir, “when he’d start playing a song and I had no idea what he was doing . . . He might play a song that we’d rehearsed but in a completely different way.” Only one show seemed inspired, and that was at the New Jersey Meadowlands, where 71,598 people saw songs like “Wicked Messenger” and “Chimes of Freedom” played with passion. In Oakland, the next-to-last show, critic Derk Richardson wrote, “It was easy to suspect that the agin’ folk hero was actually capitalizing on the popularity of the Grateful Dead . . . Dylan didn’t extend himself to the band or the music.” He retained a sense of humor, however. At the last show, in Anaheim, he pulled out “Mr. Tambourine Man,” which they’d never rehearsed.

Later, Dylan talked at length about the positive effect the Dead had on him. They “taught me to look inside these songs I was singing that, actually at the time of that tour, I couldn’t even sing. There were so many layers and so much water had gone round, that I had a hard time grasping the meaning of them . . . I realized that they understood these songs better than I did at the time.”

In the Dark
’s success had many effects. One of the more positive ones was a noticeable increase in Brent Mydland’s self-esteem. For the first time, he had a crew member paying direct attention to him, although Bob Bralove was hardly a conventional Dead roadie. A graduate of Hampshire College and a professional pianist himself, he had worked for a computer company and eventually become Stevie Wonder’s synthesizer programmer. After working with Merl Saunders on
The Twilight Zone,
he had helped John Cutler on the
In the Dark
overdubs, and in June he’d joined the organization. His larger mission with the Dead was to introduce them to MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) technology, and over the next two years they would slowly move into a new level of electronics. A new Kurzweill synthesizer added to Brent’s capacities, and he began to sing at least one song in almost every show. In the fall he would add more cover tunes, including the perfect-for-him Neville Brothers’ song “Hey Pocky Way.” In the healthy era of 1987, everyone got a little more and rather better attention.

Naturally, the impact of
In the Dark
peaked in New York City, where the band had come in September to play five sold-out nights at Madison Square Garden. The band was sitting in a dressing room one night before a show when Scrib came in to tell them that “Touch of Grey” had just hit the Top Ten, topping out at no. 9. “I am appalled,” said Garcia, and he mostly meant it. They had their first immediately platinum album (
Work-ingman’s
and
American Beauty
had sold that well, but over years), and that called for a presentation ceremony backstage, a stereotypical “grip and grin” of happy band and smiling record company executives. If the band was especially impressed by their success, it didn’t show, and getting them to pose with Clive Davis was one of Scrib’s less amusing chores. Later, a paternally proud Davis would feel that the band members were excited by their success, but he was perplexed by one thing. “I could not believe that they could have a set during the life of this single that did not include the single. I knew that’s the way it worked, but—”

In the Dark
was only part one. That same week, Garcia, Weir, Hart, and Clive Davis hosted the New York media at a premiere screening of
So
Far.
It was an excellent piece of work, and codirectors Len Dell’Amico and Garcia had much to be proud of. Video and computers had made editing fun, and let them experiment, to the point that the staff at their editing facility initially thought them crazy. After the sound track was edited down, they began to free-associate visuals, with Garcia clucking, “Too literal, too literal!” Eventually, they found images of 1940s jive dancers, war, and a computer-generated chessboard that fit beautifully with the excellent music, and
So Far
would be worthy of the weeks it spent on top of the video charts. The video also represented an important business move for all parties concerned.
So Far
was Arista’s first video project, and the company would do very well by it.

It was also part of a new record deal, though not the one the band at first anticipated. As the band finished
In the Dark,
they had sworn repeatedly that they would avoid multialbum deals in the future, leaving themselves free to do what they wanted. Instead, Hal Kant and Jon McIntire negotiated a three-album deal for the then-highest royalty rate in recording history, at $3.50 per CD. Amazingly, the contract also permitted the Dead to release live recordings from their archival vault, an idea that would gather considerable momentum down the line.

When asked how he was reacting to success, Weir replied, “You know those occasional pistachio nuts that are really tough to open? Now I just throw them out.” Prosperity definitely showered down. Hunter was able to buy a new home, and there were new cars aplenty, including Garcia’s top-of-the-line sixteen-cylinder BMW 750. A more important change in his life was his new lover, Manasha Matheson, and their daughter, Keelin, born later that year. After years of isolation at Hepburn Heights, Garcia had almost immediately greeted his return to health with a new relationship. He spent most of his time at Manasha’s place in Mill Valley, although he bought himself a new home, too. But before he could really enjoy it, he had to go to work.

Back in March, he, Sandy Rothman, John Kahn, and David Nelson had played an acoustic set at a benefit gig in San Francisco, and Bill Graham had come into the dressing room raving. “This is great. I can see the roots of the Grateful Dead here. It’s so cool, I’ve got to take it somewhere.” In an effort to find a venue in New York that John Scher had not already used, Parish had earlier suggested to Graham a Broadway theater.
“Broadway!”
said Graham, and acted on the thought: in October 1987, Jerry Garcia played eighteen shows at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater, selling out so fast that he set a Broadway record for ticket sales. It also meant that Garcia was playing in two bands, electric and acoustic, both matinees and evenings. In between, he would nap in a dressing room that had been used by Mary Martin and Vivien Leigh.

It was a good winter for Garcia. He told an interviewer, “I see more light than I do darkness right now. There is a trend towards understanding. ” More practically, he spoke up at a December all-employee meeting and suggested closing down the office for two weeks in early January. When someone asked, “Can we afford to?” he responded, “Hey, this is looking like work; this is supposed to be fun!” For his own fun, he took his first vacation in years, going to Hawaii, where he completed his scuba training with his old friend Vicki Jensen, one of the gang from Mickey’s ranch. He returned tanned and in love with the underwater world, and he would stick with his new hobby.

Late in January 1988, he joined Carlos Santana and Wayne Shorter in a benefit, “Blues for Salvador,” and he was so brilliant, playing with such fire, that Carlos Santana stopped playing and saluted him. Just to confirm the sweetness of the moment, the master jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman invited him to contribute to the album
Virgin Beauty.
It was a lovely experience. At one point Jerry asked for some musical clarification, and Coleman hauled out his saxophone and explained his “harmelodic” theories. “When I hear his playing,” Garcia said of Ornette, “I hear something that I always wish would be in mine—a kind of joy and beauty. And it always sounds right.”

Nineteen eighty-eight began for real on March 12, when the band attended the Bammies, the Bay Area Music Awards. It was an act of noblesse oblige, and for Garcia in particular, it was very hard. After winning Best Bassist, Best Album, Best Song, Best Guitarist, and Best Group, the Dead joined Huey Lewis and the News in a final jam, where Garcia had to play on a borrowed amp, which was hell for him. But for him the night was intrinsically twisted. The very concept of awards implies winning and losing and competition, and that was foreign to him. Acknowledging the respect of the Bay Area’s music scene was the courteous thing to do, but it was a forerunner of the price that a hit record would exact. That month, as part of the preparation for the spring tour, Hunter sent a letter to the Dead Heads.

Here we are sitting on top of the world . . . which raises the question of who
we
are—the answer is: partly us, partly you . . . The good old days when we were your personal minstrels have been overshadowed by a new reality which
must
be addressed. We are not a political, religious nor a grass roots movement; not a counter culture, drug culture, nor the latest big shakes snatch and run glamor act—we are a symbiotic funmachine designed to get 10,000 or more heads straight at a pop . . . Many doors have been closed to us in the last several months due to the trash and boogie behavior of new fans who have no regard for the way the Dead do things . . . What began as a spontaneous vagabond marketplace has devolved into a competitive and obnoxious full scale illegal rip off, squeezing out the gypsy Deadheads . . . We intend to step on it—hard! . . . Understand that we are doing what
must
be done to ensure our rights and yours . . . In other words, “when life looks like easy street there is danger at your door.”

During a three-night run at Oakland’s Henry Kaiser Convention Center in March, press coverage focused on neighborhood gripes about public urination and the Dead Heads’ absorption of parking. The day after a spring-tour concert in Hartford, Dead Heads camped in the city’s Bushnell Park were rousted at 6 A.M. by cops with bullhorns and a fleet of tow trucks. A check for $2,500 to the park’s foundation mollified the local authorities, but the negative press buzz was established. While the band typically refused formal responsibility on the principle that Dead Heads had created themselves, they tried to address the situation by choosing two members of the Hog Farm commune, Calico and Goose, and two other Dead Heads, Lou Tambakos and Barbara Lewit, to go out on the summer tour to establish some form of direct communication with the audience.