zero

I wanted to apologize a touch for raining on anyone's parade. Reading over people's comments and seeing the pics I am reminded of how wonderful everyone is. Do you sense there's a long but coming? I just really worry for myself and others, either that we'll do ourselves irrevocable harm, physically, mentally or otherwise, and likewise who will be there if we do. I realize it's a drag but in any culture based on herculean dionysian feats of debaucherous strength the question needs to be asked.

You think are weekend romps are hectic holy sh!t is this weird.

Bohemian Grove

Oh and I actually really liked Wassabi this time but also thought they were going to play much longer and should've been called Soundtrack Of Our (drug crazed) Lives.

I only saw the Saturday night and really can't imagine how you all made it through the whole weekend. Of course within being there for two hours I was more than well caught up with the folks who'd been there for days. Apparently kung didn't get the memo that he's dead. This was about the time that I began my municipal run for Mayor of Mootown in the 4th and 5th dimension and my provincial bid for PMPP (Psychedelic Member of Provincial Parliament) in the 6th, 7th and 8th dimension. Don't ask where on god's green earth I come up with this sh!t. Apparently some random guy has an hour or so of me talking ass during the dark night of the soul. Also heard that Lauzon took sh!t from Izzy who thought he was me, or guilt by association, for being that drunk ass with the gun! Thought Wilson was going to hoof me at a few points. Trust me when I say that the irony of being the biggest freak at the mother of all freakshows is not lost on me (to quote someone 'this guys crazier than Bobby Jones'). Not sure how I feel about all of that. As usual I'm sort of or really embarassed about my behaviour but at the same time they shouldn't even call these things festivals just Drug Bashes. Pots, kettles, blackness. Feel like I took a few more years off my life and am really wanting to actually take the major step back from this scene I have been threatening for awhile. Oh and the music was good too especially that nero tune.

Not that this is a funny occasion but the funny part about Sasheen Littlefeather is that she turned out not to be native at all and was basically just another white person in face paint taking away a 'role' from an actual native.

I think he's really hit or miss. He's really played out his whole schtick though I must agree- he's very much like Robin Williams, Mike Myers (I HATE THAT GUY!) or even Jim Carrey in that regard (although williams and carrey have been somewhat saved by dramatic turns that myers needs to do more of like as Keith Moon).

How about this for the best pilot you've never seen.

Jack Black stars as Jack Austin, an astronaut on the run from NASA after a solar accident makes him the smartest man in the universe. Owen Wilson plays his talking motorcycle. Produced by Stiller, who also appears in the introduction and as a strip club DJ.

I think we're forgetting that this thread is supposed to be about me for christ's sake.

I buy almost every word of it. Sounds entirely probable.

You know Adam isn't making such an out there remark really. There are some 30 million Canadians and 10 of them live in Ontario. That said as someone passionate about rural issues in an era focused on cities as the engines of the economy I have to believe we're all in this together. It's sort of like that group of single people on the Simpsons who didn't want to pay for everyone else's kids. The same could be said of city dwellers who don't want to pay for county side roads and sewage treatment in Bancroft. Yet when all those city denizens get off for the weekend a good number of them traverse those county roads to get to their cottages and getaways. Canada has a lot more resources than the ones in the ground.

That was the idea so don't draw the ire and Bruce Banner can hang out for awhile.

This all sounds very familiar.

How do you adequately respond to this kind of sh!t? I mean I’d love to take the bait and kung is the only one who can put this borderline challenge in his place but kung is dead. You all killed him. Accounts vary as to the death of kung and as the myth is separated from fact I will keep you informed. Right now the most reliable account is that he bled out after being gutted in the yard with a toothbrush fashioned into a shiv by a lanky Mexican chick with horn rim glasses. As to the kung/zero connection certainly there are a number of similarities the least of which is an erudite prose style and high level of insight into the human drama in and around shows.

Deek seems to have forgotten about the mutually parasitic relationship of the journalist and promoter. ‘Just make us look cool’. In any case how this waste of skin wants to have it both ways is beyond me. I mean he obviously bothers to read everything kung has written and doesn’t seem to deny the quality but then he wants to trash him for not contributing to the scene or being a negative influence. fu©king energy leeches.

Characterizing a difference of opinions or perspectives as lying is not reasonable. Email and online correspondence has a stronger likelihood for misunderstanding due to a lack of physical cues and indicators of sincerity. Promoters want to blow their nut on someone's face just like anyone else.

Serenity now serenity now serenity now serenity now.

I almost forgot kung was dead because if he wasn't he would've gone off on a major tear on why felchers like those are the reason that the gauntlet has to be run. Serenity now serenity now.

Highly recommend this group. Incidentally one of Marc Friedman's (The Slip) current favourites.

Brent was a return to the roll that Pigpen had in the band. Certainly delivered with a different bent, but none-the-less, at the time that the Band was looking for a replacement for Keith, they decided that their new Keyboard Player would be more musically fluent, both as a Keyboard Player, but also as a Vocalist & Showman!

Keith, God Bless Him, was neither a vocalist, nor a showman & it was the Band's desire to make that role more dynamically involved & evolved than it had for the prior 9, 10 years....

There was also a concerted effort not to try and replicate Pigpen, because quite frankly it couldn't be done & that's not where the Band was going in direction. Ironically, as beloved as Pigpen was, the Band was phasing him out by committee, long before he got sick. It had gotten to the point that nothing was being written with Pigpen in mind any longer. Everything that was being written was for Garcia & Weir to perform & Pigpen was left with having to pick from the Blues Sandards that he loved so much.

I truly believe that had Ron not gotten sick, that after the 75 hiatus that the Band would have returned without him in the lineup. I know that I had conversations with Ron & he felt like an occassional feature in the scheme of things by 1971. He understood more clearly than anyone, that if the Dead were to grow as a band that he would have to step aside.

The awful truth about the Deaths in the Grateful Dead, is that it spared us from having to see many ugly scenarios play out over the years, as the Band's personal growth would have dictated personnel changes during the 30 years.

As Dewit so aptly put it, when Family & Business mix, the probable outcome is generally going to be discerned with a lot more angst than sheer business relationships........

To tell the truth, the unspoken consensus was always that the only unreplaceble members of the Band were probably Garcia & Lesh. The reason I say this is that the very fabric of what made them the Grateful Dead & distinguised their sound as theirs, was the unique styles of playing that Garcia & Lesh brought to the table. That fabric has been sorely tested since Garcia's death & my summation has been equally indentified.

Alphonso Johnson is one of the Premier Fusion Jazz Bass Players alive & to question his virtuosity would be ludicrious & at the same time, when Alphonso was the Bass Player on the 2000 Tour, it sounded like a completely different band! The texture, the locomotion was not there!

I am listening to 02-19-78, JGB, as I type this & the one thing that strikes me, is that even though I am listening to Garcia in a different band, playing Moonlight Midnight (a non-dead tune), that the groove, the essence, the melodic identity, the magic that is the Grateful Dead, is just oozing out of this performance!

When I listen to certain P&F's performances, I get the same experience I just described above. I think at one point that Weir was in that groove also, especially with Kingfish, songs like "Jump for Joy" was so much the essence of the Grateful Dead. In the here & now though, you only really hear that coming from P&F's & it's totally due to Phil's trademark texturing. It is certainly the reason that Phil won't entirely abandon his desire to do Crusader Rabbit gigs on occassion, because he knows that's it's important for him to tap into that essence once in awhile! It's like musical nutrition & these guys have been eating out of that same bowl for going on 40 years....

Well, obviously, this rambling diatribe covered a lot of ground, but I felt compelled to share some of my personal read on the Dead......

This is old news but I found these comments from a Hornsby intimate revealing.

I may have an advantage, being a bit more closely in touch with the reality of Bruce's references. I caught 4 shows on the 2000 TOO Tour & when I say I caught shows, I mean in the dressing rooms etc...

Hornby's feelings, while not stated as eloquently as he may have, really hit the nail on the head, concerning all of the dis-harmony that existed on that last tour!

Put in perspective, that Bruce had become friends with all the guys & more specifically Phil. When he signed up for the TOO's it was pretty damned close to being a representation of the remaining Dead, sans Billy, who at the time was grooving in Kauai & needed to be there for his soul.....

Then over the next 2 1/2 years everything within the remaining Dead Fraternal Order had disintegrated into "brother bashing", unspirited playing & a sense that they were just generally going through the motions!

Alphonso Johnson is an old friend of mine, going back to his days in Weather Report & his read halfway through that 2000 tour was "how did this band get so big in it's heyday?? At the Shoreline Amphitheatre I had that very question possed to me by Alphonso & I responded with one word, Garcia!!!!

Also, I dare say, that none of you were in those rooms listening to the nasty things that were said to Bruce, when he decided that he wouldn't be performing with TOO again!

One thing I shouldn't need to remind you guys, is that whenever you get "The Word" on certain issues concerning the GDP Family, you are only receiving the periphery of what actually went down!

The truth is that TOO's had disintegrated into a weak & disinfranchised band, that by Tour's end had no inkling of the spirit, the magic, that WAS the Grateful Dead!

As far as Hornby's playing goes. He's a gifted Piano Player & Song Writer, period! He's not a great Keyboard Player, that's why there was a need for Welnick in the lineup. In terms of musical fluency, Brent was the most gifted all around Keyboard Player the Dead ever had. You can't put Keith in that comparrison, because once again Keith was a Pianist & not a keyboard player! Besides Keith's drug problems (that inhibited his playing) the other reason that Keith was opted out of the band was that he had a massive resistence to playing any other keyboard instrument than the Piano.

While Jerry was still alive & Bruce was guesting in the band, he did the band proud with his playing, his obvious sense of reverence for the band & his love for the individual characters.

It has been the remaining members of the band that has incited the reaction that seems to be of a consistant nature, since Jerry's passing! It seems that every time a musician departs & or turns their backs on anything Dead, that the fans immediately want to burn the person in effigy (sic)!

As well as I knew Jerry, I can guarantee you that he would have turned his back entirely on the crap that has played out in the last 7 years also!!!

In closing, before you start throwing stones at Hornsby, remember, that each & every surviving member of the Dead has said & done things since Garcia's Death, that have been much more critical & damning of the Dead Scene!!!!!!!

If the thunder don't get ya', then the lightning will!!!!!!!!!!!

Kimock is Great, Kimock is Good

The Steve Kimock Band rolled their dog and pony show into the cosmopolitan centre of Toronto last night. Parlaying an offhand comment of Jerry Garcia's and a handful of 'Deady' allegiances into a full blown career the ensemble seems to have latched onto the perfect combination of textural sonics and the classic personality cult.

The level of musicianship and in particular the dynamics of the ensemble make them at very least one of the more significant groups of their ilk. While this is obviously a group thing clearly Kimock is the meal ticket. Rescuing his sidemen from a degrading career backing up the Lyle Lovett's of the world on short casino runs Kimock, or rather the Kimock organization, seems to have found the ideal business plan for a touring band pandering to the post-post aquarian relics of a bygone age.

In a recent Canadian interview when asked about the Jerry connection Steve conceded that the Grateful Dead affiliation has been a mixed blessing. Hoping perhaps to doff off the question altogether Kimock said simply: 'The comparisons with Jerry’s playing begin and end with using a clean tone and modal improvisation.' While the statement may indeed be true the nature of the bands touring and recording life belies a far greater oath.

To speak to the stylistic similarities certainly the polished but rough hewn tone and lyrical style of both players have multiple points of confluence. Kimock's group improvisations led with a firm hand bear little if any resemblance to the bulk of the Grateful Dead's material. Still at points he dips into little teardrop tremolo runs flecked with a deep wa effect that seem in part, even if unconscious, to sheepishly assume the mantle of the bearded one and more likely to pander to the sentimentalism the audience has for his loss.

A high tide carries many boats they say. When the Grateful Dead came crashing from the mountainside like a flash flood they left deep rivulets and streams that have proved excellent spawning grounds for whole new ecosystems of sound. Defining that landscape populated by a fierce and even perversely affected audience has been one of the Grateful Dead's greatest legacies.

In their wake, after 30 years of touring bludgeoning that very legacy into North American pop culture like a clubbed seal's blood into arctic pack ice, a host of spin-offs have arisen. It's standard California industry logic, take the least desirable or down on their luck member of a hit cast and package something around them. Stealing a page from the television programmers handbook the Joanie loves Chachie's in the Grateful Dead constellation include ensembles such as: Ratdog (Bob Weir's side project), latter day incarnations of the core group as the Other Ones and The Dead as well as the self-explanatory Phil Lesh and Friends. Upon Garcia's passing the role of lead axe slinger/ spiritual godfather went out to tender. There were few if any takers.

Kimock a relative unkown, a regional player in the San Fransisco scenes of the 70's and on, seemed a likely enough fit particularly given his predecessors fondness. These were big shoes to fill and anyone who said otherwise would be lying. Having hung up the name the Grateful Dead now dubbed The Other Ones- Steve was slotted into the mix to varying levels of success. He later went on to Phil Lesh's ensemble, perhaps a more creative attempt to reinvigorate the huge back pages. He is said, perhaps mythologically, to have left that setting with the phrase: 'I don't want to play Maggie's Farm no more'.

It is that intersection then, between the struggle for an authentic true voice and what might be called a vocation, that is of particular interest. Are you an artist or are you a player? One is reminded of the effect Bruce Hornsby's presence had in revitalizing a lagging Garcia. More recently a seemingly curious choice in Joan Osborne was made to compliment The Dead's style. Both good artists in their own right who received a modicum of recognition at least in the form of radio play which they were not faulted for.

Maintaining dignity as an artist in your own right then becomes increasingly hard particularly in the bizarre petri dish of the bedraggled parking lot culture of the Dead and their kin. Kimock seems to have suffered under this yoke somewhat. Although pity is not not a sentiment that comes readily to mind. The benefits of association with this megolith have been manifold. Surely too they are actively courting this niche with everything from the Bob Masse style posters, mandala inspired stickers and dates at festivals with names such as Smilefest, Baja Bash and the Trinity Tribal Stomp.

While each of these type of bands often has a loyal and often fiendish following this audience seems particularly enamoured. Kimock's bond with his audience and the borderline devotion they show him has as it's backdrop then this rich tapestry of history. Put another way it is simple economics- supply and demand, perception and price. Artist guarantees rise as perceptions around the artist grow through whatever means, if an ad hoc aquaintance with The Dead works for you then go with it. There's good money to be made by anyone Garcia et al. ever coughed, pissed or breathed on. And go with it they have.

Still there is an eery quality to the whole milieu. Kimock's fans have gained their detractors becoming known for a kind of clannish highland mentality that could be put more plainly as off putting. The organization curiously handles the artists as if they were erstwhile Aguileras or Spears. It all seems a bit out of place but it comes with the territory of playing to nomadic well-intentioned but often feverishly drug enhanced patrons. One cannot help but notice in Steve something that borders on bridled contempt, genuine bemusement and benevolent kindness towards his audience.

So this was the scene that played itself out on Friday June 18 at the Opera House. Steve had not played in Toronto for something like ten years since playing with another Dead spinoff Merl Saunders Rainforest Band. Local heads from around Southwestern Ontario mingled with Kimock's loyal moonies, in town for a group wedding, and a few stranglers who came to see 'that guy who played with Jerry'- in all a crowd of about two and a half hundred strong.

The security pounced and controlled the crowd employing surveillance and counterintelligence on the spun horde usually reserved for visiting heads of state. Joints were lit and promptly rebuked. The bacchanalian canucks were gently but insistently rebuked for speaking while the guru is playing having apparently not read the backgrounder on 'behaviour and best practises' circulated by the president of the American fan club Elron Hubbard. All the while the band sinuously and languidly slipped through number after number of inexplicably connected instrumentals.

Drummer Rodney Holmes tried to steal the show with his at times masturbatory explosion of double bass drum histrionics. Rhythm guitarist Mitch Stein played the perfect foil to Kimock's supple lead and lap steel work. None of the players seemed to have any time to have thought up anything they were doing and effortlessly embraced one anothers concepts. At times playing off the colour of notes, other times time was the in joke, timbre and touch gracefully meeting. The effect of the whole was something like the dynamic tension of opposites: revealing and concealing, light and dark, covered uncovered, heaven and earth. Love in action if the two are in fact distinct.

The all instrumental two set excursion was something like a riddle wrapped in an enigma. If you were listening closely enough, to the words that were not there, a question was being asked and it was something like 'what are you holding back honestly'. This sphinx like figure, this cat under the stars, this Nadya, asked a question hitherto unanswered or even spoken.