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August 31, 2005
"We think we can spot phonies..."
Another fine Jon Carroll column in today's SF Chronicle:
.... We think that we can spot phonies, people who are playing against type for nefarious reasons. Usually we can't, which is why con games are still popular; people always overestimate their ability to judge character. There are dozens of academic studies suggesting that people cannot tell a liar from a truth teller, even though they're sure they can. The more accomplished the liar, the truer that is -- you may be able to spot an 8-year-old boy stretching the truth, but good luck with a 40-year-old stockbroker. If he wants to fool you, he'll fool you....
It occurs to me then to wonder how much of reality I have been missing. I often accept the shorthand; I often take people at their word. I find, looking back on my life with increasing discomfort, that too often I have been impressed by people who were seeking to impress, rather than people who were impressive. I have been dismissive of people who were awkward rather than stupid. The more I think about it, surrounded by a swirling mass of people who are all, no doubt, visionaries or villains of incredible complexity, the more uncomfortable I become....
Posted by gans at 1:53 PM | TrackBack
GLIDE Magazine article about DG
Very nice piece about me by Chad Berndtson in the online magazine Glide. It's titled "David Gans: Dialed In." Two excerpts from a long piece:
It’s safe to say that David Gans knows his Grateful Dead: the radio show he hosts, the beloved "Grateful Dead Hour" - still broadcasted on KPFA 94.1 in Berkeley, California and syndicated nationwide - is twenty years old in 2005.But what makes Gans especially compelling, even after twenty years charting the thrilling and oft-murky waters of this unique music, is that the show itself is but the tip of the iceberg in his own music-oriented career. Gans acknowledged in a recent interview the ongoing importance and prestige of the Grateful Dead Hour, but made clear that it will, in the end, be only part of his multifarious legacy --a superb musician in his own right, making music will always be his first and truest love, even if he’s lost none for the music of the Dead, which still continues to excite him.
Another excerpt...
Through everything, the format of the "Grateful Dead Hour" hasn't much changed. The wonders of digital technology and the internet have made it easier than ever to access Dead material (archive.org hosts more than 2500 freely downloadable shows, for example), but don’t seem to affect the future or mission of the show itself."I’ve never programmed the show for the hardcore collectors," Gans says. "That the music is so widely available is a great thing, and I feel like I’m hear to add something. I'm a scholar and a historian of this music, and the choices I make and the value that I add in producing this show is of zero interest to lots of people, but it's of sufficient interest to sufficient numbers of people."
One thing Gans has always consciously avoided is the notion that his position in Grateful Dead history - however unique relative to the fan side of things - at all makes him some sort of exalted, end-all-be-all Grateful Dead expert or number one fan.
"One of the things I’ve known for as long as I’ve been doing these shows is that there are a lot of people who could do it. It drives me fucking batty when I read headlines of magazine articles and stuff where they proclaim me, like, the premier Deadhead," he says. "Obviously, I know what I’m talking about and bring something to the gig that the 'average' Deadhead might not have, but by no stretch of the imagination do I see myself as the premier Deadhead."
Posted by gans at 8:58 AM | TrackBack
August 30, 2005
The Bush Adminstration vs. nature
This administration and the congressional majority are profoundly anthropocentric, following a line of thinking that nothing is doing any good unless it is producing a commodity for human beings. Human beings are, according to the fundamentalist theology of this administration, God's chosen species. We have have therefor been authorized to despoil as necessary in order to accumulate rich trusts, houses on steroids in gated communities, Cadillac SUVs, and golf memberships on exclusive links. Commodity outdoor recreation is the closest thing to a commodity that a national park can produce; it's quantifiable in user-days and park admission dollars and is focused on what is fun for the people involved, not what is good for America's crown jewels of nature.
That's Jordan Fisher Smith, author of Nature Noir: A Park Ranger's Patrol in the Sierra, a memoir of his years as a Ranger on the American River in northern California. He's being interviewed right now in inkwell.vue, an online interview forum I am involved with.
Smith goes on:
...in this administration, science and resource protection are subordinated to the will of big business and a kind of posturing toward freedom--freedom to drive a snowmobile in a national park. Meanwhile real personal freedoms--freedom from unreasonable search and siezure under the Fourth Ammendment, for example, are curtailed in the name of national security. We've been seeing multiple cases where environmental scientists report findings and the president's people change those findings before they're released.
The interview is a good read, and I expect the book is, too.
Posted by gans at 9:51 PM | TrackBack
August 28, 2005
Photos from August festivals
I played the Gathering of the Vibes in Mariaville NY August 12-14, and GratefulFest at Nelson Ledges OH August 19-21.
I posted some photos on flickr.
Posted by gans at 9:25 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 26, 2005
A gift from the coffee lady
I got the sweetest note from Jen, the proprietor of the Dark Star Coffee Company - one of my favorite vendors at Nelson Ledges Quarry Park, where I played two festivals this summer:
I grew up on folk music & feel that I learned more American history from music than school. When I listen to your lyrics, I feel like a kid again. You are the folk singer of the Deadheads. You tell stories and keep it alive for our children. Thank you story teller. - Jen 'The Coffee Girl'
Now, I struggle daily to establish a musical identity for myself that's separate from my identity as the Grateful Dead radio guy, but it is an undeniable fact that much of my original music arises from and talks about my Grateful Dead experience and my music-festival experience. There are songs that deal directly with my adventures on the road (e.g. "River and Drown"); there are songs that deal directly with the Deadhead experience (e.g. "Who Killed Uncle John?"); and there are songs that deal obliquely with my experiences in the belly of the beast (I'm not telling). Jen's kind note is a very satyisfying acknowledgement of my success at telling that story.
Posted by gans at 2:50 PM | TrackBack
Trent Lott
I saw Senator Trent Lott on The Daily Show and heard some of his interview on Fresh Air with Terry Gross.
He sounded so damn reasonable and affable, such a regular guy. But I wasn't amused. I just thought, "That fucker spent three decades smearing the halls of democracy with shit, and now he writes a book complaining about the smell?"
Posted by gans at 9:18 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 23, 2005
Pat Robertson advocates assassination of Hugo Chavez
Initially gleaned from Media Matters for America:
ROBERTSON: There was a popular coup that overthrew him [Chavez]. And what did the United States State Department do about it? Virtually nothing. And as a result, within about 48 hours that coup was broken; Chavez was back in power, but we had a chance to move in. He has destroyed the Venezuelan economy, and he's going to make that a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent.You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don't think any oil shipments will stop. But this man is a terrific danger and the United ... This is in our sphere of influence, so we can't let this happen. We have the Monroe Doctrine, we have other doctrines that we have announced. And without question, this is a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us very badly. We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.
As a friend on the WELL said, this story has legs (as well it should). Bloomberg reports as follows:
Evangelist Robertson Says U.S. Should Kill Chavez (Update1) Aug. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Television evangelist Pat Robertson told viewers of ``The 700 Club'' program that the U.S. should kill Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop the Latin American country becoming a ``launching pad'' for extremism. [snip] ``We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come to exercise that ability,'' Robertson said yesterday on the program, an audiotape of which was posted on the Web site of the Christian Broadcasting Network, founded by the cleric and based in Virginia Beach, Virginia. ``This is a dangerous enemy to our south controlling a huge pool of oil.''
BBC News: TV host urges US to kill Chavez
Voice of America: US Christian Broadcaster Calls for Chavez
Assassination
Isn't it time America stopped listening to these bloodthirsty creeps? Isn't it about time decent Christians started policing what is being said and done in the name of their Lord?
Posted by gans at 11:58 AM | TrackBack
August 22, 2005
"Jesus is watching you"
My friend Stu took this photo in Farmington NM in February.
I see a lot of nasty "religious" messages in my travels. Today, driving across Pennsylvania on I-76, I saw a billboard whose exact wording I don't recall, but it included the phrase "God is to be feared!"
Who the fuck wants to live like that?
Who benefits from this belittling of the human spirit?
Posted by gans at 8:07 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Who Will Save Us from the Saved?
This new song has been very well-received on tour, and it's already gotten a little bit of airplay. It is on my new CD, Solo Electric; you can hear the track here (mp3).
WHO WILL SAVE US FROM THE SAVED?
Words and music by David Gans
Such a lovely planet
Wonder how it came to be
Was it chaos or creation?
Was it God or entropy?
Now the spirit may be sleeping
But it dwells in every heart
I put my faith in nature
Of which we are a part
There are many here among us
Who believe this world is theirs
When it's beaten and depleted
They will rise into the air
And the ones who don't believe them
Face a dark, eternal grave
No one knows, but they are certain
Who will save us from the saved?
I put my faith in nature
What I hear and smell and see
Til I meet that higher power
I'll do what makes sense to me
And if what I would call a good life
Is what you must call depraved
Give me freedom from religion
Who will save us from the saved?
I honor your traditions
And insist you honor mine
In a world with any justice
Blasphemy is not a crime
You believe what you believe in
I respect your wish to pray
But if you try to make me join you
I'll resist you all the way
I'm not saying I know better
I'm just saying we don't know
Til the day we get an answer
I go where my heart says go
It's a narrow-minded Jesus
I see reflected in your eye
He was all about compassion
If he knew you, he would cry
I put my faith in nature
What I hear and smell and see
Til I meet that higher power
I'll do what makes sense to me
And if what I would call a good life
Is what you must call depraved
Give me freedom from religion
Who will save us from the saved?
©2005 Whispering Hallelujah (BMI). All rights reserved.
Posted by gans at 7:42 PM | TrackBack
August 11, 2005
Writers and critics...
Excellent column by Jon Carroll in the August 10 San Francisco Chronicle.
I still read criticism of books I will never read. I suspect lots of people do. Part of it is to get a gloss on the culture -- ah, Bret Easton Ellis, looks like I won't have to crack the latest novel either -- but also to listen to the sound of thinking. It's not about agreeing or disagreeing -- opinion isn't really the point of criticism, although that's what everybody takes away from it -- it's about watching a thesis being developed, about watching an idea being defended.
I read reviews of books I'll never read, too. The New Yorker's book reviews are long and thoughtful and informative. Jon again:
Writers have a reason for writing what they do and how they do. Good critics can unearth the reasons, or perhaps even find reasons the writer had not thought of. (An accomplished critic can always make a good book better; a good critic is part of the chain of meaning).
One of the many things I learned from the late Jerry Garcia was that being interviewed is an opportunity to learn something about yourself. There are things you know and do but you don't really think about them until you have to put them into words for someone else.
One of my complaints as a musician trying to become more visible in the world is that it's hard to find writers and journalists who will engage my work critically; I guess that will come as I become more well-known. It is always interesting and almost always illuminating to learn what someone else thinks I'm trying to say. Of course, sometimes it's annoying, but what the fock.
My newest song, "Who Will Save Us from the Saved", doesn't need much interpretation. But there are other songs in my canon that don't yield up all their meaning on the first listen, nor the first ten.
Posted by gans at 9:09 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 9, 2005
DG interview @ jambands.com
Nice interview by Randy Ray on jambands.com
From the intro:
After the demise of Garcia in August 1995 and the subsequent collapse of the Grateful Dead, I continued to listen to Gans on a weekly basis but I became more interested in Gans himself, instead of his program. Ironically, it would be this ten-year period&emdash;from 1995 to 2005&emdash;that would see the artist become much more than a radio personality. I finally decided to ask him for some discussion time after almost 20 years of listening to his voice, reading his books, groovin' to the albums he worked on as a producer and his own amazing recordings with lyrics that aren't afraid to dig deep into an issue to reveal raw truth. To my delight, Gans did not hesitate. He asked if we were going to cover Dead activities post-1995 or his career and I quickly replied: "Yours."
An exchange from the interview:
RR: You have grown as a musician as you have branched out in the last ten years. What are your studio and live highlights as a songwriter, musician and producer?DG: Co-producing Might as Well: The Persuasions Sing Grateful Dead with Persuasions leader Jerry Lawson was a most precious and life-changing experience. Being present, and being able to assist, while they learned those songs and made them into Persuasions songs, taught me a great deal about how music is made, and shed new light on a group of songs that have been dear to my heart for years.
As for my own performances, I have had more high times than I can enumerate. I've been writing songs and performing, solo and in bands, for more than thirty years; since I started touring in 1997 I've been on stages and in living rooms (and back yards), in front of audiences ranging in size from the low one digit to upwards of five thousand, alone and with other players. As long as there is someone to connect with, I'm happy.
Posted by gans at 8:57 PM | TrackBack
More Jerry Garcia stuff...
Lots of stories in the media today, on the tenth anniversary of Jerry's passing.
Paul Liberatore's front-page story in the Marin I-J
On the Al Franken Show today, they decided to start a campaign to get Jerry on a postage stamp.
high Times piece by Mark Miller.
Posted by gans at 2:08 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 7, 2005
Dog Days at SBC Park 8/6/05
Our first Giants game of the season - August 6, 2005. It was the Giants' ninth annual "Dog Days" event. Fans brought their dogs and had a parade before the game, and then sat in the bleachers to watch the Giants beat Houston 5-2. Rita and I went with our friends Sandy and Ron and their lovely dog Bonnie (not pictured), who has the best ears in the business. These two fellers were not fighting, by the way - just having some fun!
Click on the picture to see more images from this sweet event.
Posted by gans at 10:59 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 4, 2005
The Days Between
It's been ten years since Jerry Garcia passed away.
Robert Hunter posted this in his online journal at dead.net:
August 3, 2005Ten years since old Jer kicked the bucket? Seems more like fifty. Nothing about his passing seems like "only yesterday," rather as long ago and far away as my childhood.
From the sublime to the vicious, everything that could be said has been said and said again. Yet, the essential mystery of who Jerry Garcia was remains. What can be said with fair assurance is that he was a source, an original way of seeing the world that agreed with others in a few broad and important outlines, but which in just as many other dimensions confounded all expectations.
I wouldn't say he delighted, in any Whitmanian sense, in what appear to be his contradictions, nor that he had control of them; predictability was not his strong suit. Not even self predictability. He could be alarmingly kind in situations where kindness was the last response to be expected - and altogether gruff where sympathy seemed the more natural response. You could almost say he had weather rather than climate.
Few would disagree that a key part of him remained isolated, unknown and unknowable. His art is the closest thing to an available roadmap of his singularities, amorphous clues, and clues only, to the nature of his true affections. Where he entered, he dominated, generally to his dismay. He knew he was not a leader, more a scout striking out in the wilderness of his intuitions, unwittingly summoning others to tag along through virtue of his magnetic personality and apparently deep sense of inner direction, but basically antipathetic to following or to being followed. Driving back and forth across the bay from Larkspur to San Franscisco on Workingman's Dead recording sessions, our conversations would range wide, or, sometimes, nothing would be said at all. I remember once we got to talking about directions. He professed to having none and inquired as to mine. "For the time being," I said, "I'm just following you following yourself." "Then we're both lost," he muttered.
A persistent image I have of Jerry which seems strangely resonant with his coming and going: a brilliant sunny day on a boat bobbing above the abyss of Molokini where the floor of the ocean suddenly drops off a cliff and plunges to unknown depths, I watch him check his gear then sit on the edge of the boat and tumble over backwards into the water, which is clear to a depth of several hundred feet. I watch him dwindle in size as he descends further and further, spread eagle and motionless, until he is only a speck to the eye, then disappears altogether from view and there is no more Jerry, only ocean.
Got this email from cartoonist Steve Lafler, pointing to a comic about the Dead that he posted on his own blog. The comic is well worth a look.
Dear David,Been missing your radio show after a move to Portland (after 20 years in Oakland...) but happily figured out how to listen to KPFA archives on my wife's fancy new laptop!
As the tenth anniversary of Jerry's passing is upon us, I felt compelled to post some comics about the big guy on my blog. Take a peek if you get a chance, I guarantee it's funny as well as poignant.
All the best,
Steve Lafler
My friend Teri Dobra sent this to a newspaper in New Jersey that was looking for comments on Jerry. I reproduce it here with her permission:
I never really knew Jerry Garcia, I never got a chance to meet him or to talk to him, but I always fantasized that we would hit it off right away. The band was too obscure to gain much media attention - and we liked that just fine. They were ours and we were theirs. We survived off of each other and that was the understanding between us.Jerry kept us together through good times and bad. He was able to reach a chord in us. His guitar melodies could get you up and grooving with your neighbors or could soothe you like a lullaby. His emotional interpretations of lyrics could bring you to tears or leave you with "nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile!"
Each show was a journey we went on together, and a celebration that we were able to do it together again. Every song had the ability to speak to us, to teach us, to help us through a difficult time. More often than not, the songs would take on different meanings depending on where we were in our lives. It's the reason we treasure our tapes of past shows. It allows us to relive not only the music but our emotions and always gives us the opportunity to "see" something new.
I've had the most fun at Grateful Dead shows and for that, I'll always be grateful.
We miss you Jerry - it's not the same here without you.
Posted by gans at 9:50 PM | TrackBack
August 3, 2005
Top Ten musical (listening) moments from my July tour
10. "Rain and Snow" - Peter Rowan and Tony Rice et al at MagnoliaFest Midwest in Bean Blossom, Indiana
9. "Vincent Black Lightning" - The Tumbleweeds on the Porch Stage at MagnoliaFest Midwest
8. "Riddle of the Universe" - Donna the Buffalo, Positive Friction - because it's always in my Top Ten
7. North Country - Michael Stadler's new CD
6. Moon on My Pillow - The Spud Puppies, Pick of the Litter
5. "You Can't Save Everybody," the title track from a 2004 CD by Kieran Kane and Kevin Welch
4. Chavez Ravine - Ry Cooder's amazing new album.
3. "Willie Taylor" - Uncle Earl, She Waits for Night
2. Buddy Miller's entire set at MagnoliaFest Midwest
1. "The Road" - Russell Smith, The End Is Not in Sight