Latest / Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann / Music Series 5: Dean Budnick / Relix / Jambands.com / Grateful Dead / Phish / Billy Strings

Transcript

Music Series 5: Dean Budnick / Relix / Jambands.com / Grateful Dead / Phish / Billy Strings · Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann

• 0:01
  Welcome to another episode of Come Together.
• 0:14
  Things should be comfortable with We're live.
• 0:16
  Welcome, Dean. I'm so happy there's several
• 0:18
  months in the in the works, but I'm so happy to do this.
• 0:21
  Yeah, that we were trying and finally we got it done.
• 0:24
  So here we are. Here we are.
• 0:26
  So you have, you've done so many wonderful, wonderful things in
• 0:31
  your in your career. And I love talking to people
• 0:35
  that turn passion into something, something real.
• 0:40
  And that's something that they, you know, something that
• 0:42
  manifested something real. And whether or not it's a
• 0:44
  business or profitable or whatever, like almost doesn't
• 0:46
  matter to me as much as the effort and having gone out like
• 0:50
  out of your way to really pursue something 100% the way that like
• 0:53
  the best to the best of your abilities.
• 0:55
  And, and it looks like you kind of done that with music and
• 0:59
  writing and, and particularly with this whole flavor of jam
• 1:04
  music. And so I wanted to, you know, I,
• 1:08
  I guess we could kind of go back to the beginning, but if you
• 1:12
  were introducing the concept of jam music to people, how would
• 1:15
  you kind of explain it to someone that had never really
• 1:17
  heard of it? Sure.
• 1:19
  Well, let me step back and say right.
• 1:22
  So I founded jambands.com in 1998 and at that time I answered
• 1:28
  that question a lot. And in fact the reason I founded
• 1:32
  jambands.com in 98 was because of that very question.
• 1:36
  There were these collection of bands that were out there that
• 1:40
  were doing something unlike anyone else truly.
• 1:44
  And there was a community of bands and there were there was a
• 1:47
  community of fans. And I thought, well, why don't
• 1:50
  we see what we can do? No one was paying any attention.
• 1:52
  Rolling Stone wasn't paying any attention.
• 1:54
  Mainstream media wasn't. If anything, they were very
• 1:58
  derisive about all of these groups.
• 2:02
  So I, I started this, this website with, with a bunch of
• 2:05
  people that many of whom I knew from online and I wouldn't meet
• 2:09
  for years, years and years. In some instances, a lot of them
• 2:13
  were very young and then have gone on to do some crazy things
• 2:16
  in the world, especially in the music space, like Jesse Jarno,
• 2:19
  who's written books and does the good old Grateful Dead cast and
• 2:23
  Benji Eisen, who eventually wrote a book with Billy
• 2:26
  Kreutzmann and now manages Billy and a lot of other artists as
• 2:30
  well. I'm, I'm drifting from the
• 2:31
  question. I do understand that, but that's
• 2:34
  OK, you know, but that's OK. But but ultimately, listen, what
• 2:37
  I would say is their bands that are committed to improvisation
• 2:44
  in the live setting, that can't be defined by their fealty to
• 2:51
  anyone given musical genre genre because they they drift across
• 2:58
  and they delve into this and that.
• 3:02
  And, you know, if I'd go beyond that, I'd probably say, and, and
• 3:06
  you know, I've have nurtured a particular community of fans who
• 3:11
  are, who are, you know, willing to embark on a journey with them
• 3:16
  on any given night, something akin to that.
• 3:19
  That's an awesome answer. It's, it's such a great answer
• 3:22
  because when you meet someone and they're wearing a Grateful
• 3:26
  Dead T-shirt and you say like night T-shirt or something,
• 3:28
  they're wearing a fish hat or something like that or one of
• 3:30
  the doughnut T-shirts or something.
• 3:31
  And you go and like you make an inside joker reference.
• 3:34
  Like you immediately have a relationship with that
• 3:37
  individual. And like, you could be on the
• 3:39
  subway, you could be in France, you could be skiing in
• 3:42
  Switzerland. It doesn't make a difference
• 3:43
  everywhere you go. And then there's a, there's the
• 3:45
  recognition that, hey, like we kind of like this far out thing
• 3:49
  together. Like this is cool, you know?
• 3:51
  There's nothing like that truly, when you have that, when you
• 3:53
  have that shorthand, when you have that language.
• 3:56
  And I even think about it like fish actually manifested that in
• 4:01
  a very real way in the 90s when they had their secret language.
• 4:05
  And so the idea is they, they, you'd see a show and they'd be
• 4:08
  in the middle of the jam and they, they play a little cue for
• 4:12
  the audience and everyone simultaneously would go dope.
• 4:16
  And if you walk into the show, you're like, wait, what?
• 4:19
  And, and also, I think you'd think that's really cool.
• 4:22
  How can I, how can I be a part of it?
• 4:24
  Like it, it never was distancing everyone.
• 4:27
  It was like a prank that you could be a part of if you didn't
• 4:30
  know anything about it, But then you were welcomed inside and
• 4:33
  they would often explain or the people around you would explain
• 4:36
  during set break or after the show.
• 4:38
  So there really was sort of that, that, that collective
• 4:41
  sense of, of community with a little bit of a wink.
• 4:44
  I think, you know, you see the Jam fans have a, I think a good
• 4:47
  sense of humor and more often than I think, you know, we
• 4:51
  understand what maybe that maybe some people aren't totally down
• 4:55
  with what we're into and that's OK, That's OK, that's cool.
• 4:58
  We could be self effacing about it.
• 5:01
  I my my first, my first live J Rad show, Joe Russo's almost
• 5:07
  Dead. That's how I actually, I, I
• 5:09
  discovered them before I even discovered the dead because they
• 5:12
  did an awesome cover of Springsteen's Atlantic City that
• 5:15
  just blew my mind. And I was a huge Springsteen
• 5:17
  fan. And then I heard the band's
• 5:18
  version. I was like, that's pretty cool.
• 5:20
  And then I heard J Rad and I'm like, what is this?
• 5:23
  This is so great. And then my friends, like, if
• 5:25
  you think that's good, he's like, check out the music that
• 5:28
  they're covering. And I'm like, what are you even
• 5:29
  talking about? He's like they're cover band.
• 5:32
  You know, it's pretty awesome, but they would love they would
• 5:35
  love to hear that. Like I think that that they
• 5:37
  would say, well, that's what we're trying to do.
• 5:39
  Like they don't want to be limiting in any manners.
• 5:42
  They're just making music, you know, it's interesting.
• 5:45
  Be cool. I I just interviewed Tommy
• 5:46
  Hamilton from that band. I think it's up on.
• 5:49
  To view him, I've been driving his press person crazy.
• 5:53
  It's up on it's up on relics.com.
• 5:55
  People can check it out. But but the one thing I said to
• 5:57
  him was at the beginning, right? He was a Grateful Dead fan from
• 6:00
  when he was very young. And Joe Russo knew nothing about
• 6:04
  the Grateful Dead, but eventually was invited into the
• 6:07
  band further with Phil Lesh and Bob Weir.
• 6:10
  So he learned their catalog. But the three other guys in the
• 6:13
  band were had knew nothing essentially about the Grateful
• 6:16
  Dead. So but so the three other guys
• 6:20
  in the band knew nothing about the Grateful Dead.
• 6:22
  And you could hear it, I think in the music.
• 6:25
  They would they would every night.
• 6:27
  They would just take things not at all anywhere near what the
• 6:30
  Grateful Dead did. They were just finding their own
• 6:32
  way. And when you when I asked Tommy
• 6:34
  about this, I'm like, listen that that was true at one point.
• 6:37
  What happens when the other members of the band actually
• 6:41
  learned about the have learned about the Grateful Dead after
• 6:43
  all the time? Does that impact what you do?
• 6:45
  And he's like, no, you know what?
• 6:46
  We're just five friends hanging out.
• 6:48
  He said, if we're not making it, we, we'd be doing this on stage
• 6:51
  with Grateful Dead quotes. And then if you see us
• 6:53
  backstage, we're doing it with film quotes.
• 6:55
  And that's just who we are. What you're seeing on stage is
• 6:58
  US55 dudes trying to make each other laugh and try to go.
• 7:02
  And I, I think you've got that. And so I think it's awesome.
• 7:05
  And I think he would think it's awesome the way the way you came
• 7:07
  to it. Yeah, it's super cool.
• 7:09
  I was listening to them the other day.
• 7:11
  I was coming back from the gym and if the South Florida traffic
• 7:16
  is just out of control, terrible.
• 7:19
  And it was a 20 minute drive that turned into an hour and 40
• 7:21
  minute drive. And I'm sitting in the car and
• 7:24
  thankfully I have AJ on me and I put on AJ rad concert and and
• 7:28
  I'm thinking to myself while I'm listening, I'm like, it sounds
• 7:31
  like they're painting a tapestry, a canvas, like a
• 7:34
  tapestry. And like, and like you could see
• 7:36
  as they set up each song like they're they're going into music
• 7:42
  never stopped. And like the whole introduction
• 7:44
  was like a like a couple of minute long.
• 7:46
  Like it just felt like they were setting the stage.
• 7:48
  It felt almost like a Broadway show.
• 7:50
  Like, you know, you're going to like introduce different aspects
• 7:52
  and then you're going to and then and then different
• 7:55
  instrument instruments come in and like, and music is always
• 7:59
  obviously very associated with with imagery and lights and
• 8:02
  stuff like that. And that's such an integral part
• 8:04
  of the of all. Like, you know, these jam these
• 8:06
  live shows and I just, I, I, I kept on thinking about how
• 8:10
  visually magnificent just the music was and how strange it is
• 8:14
  that like, that's the way I'm translating it, you know, It's
• 8:18
  really, really cool. Yeah, no, they're not.
• 8:19
  By the way, that's also, I would, I would encourage anyone
• 8:22
  to see them at a place like the Capitol Theater if you can.
• 8:25
  Oh, Chester. So that that was great.
• 8:27
  It's just a great. Match of the visual, because the
• 8:29
  visuals there are really, really elevated and the music you get
• 8:32
  on the stage for them, yeah, yeah.
• 8:34
  The first time I went to them was at an outdoor concert in
• 8:37
  Connecticut. I think I was it's called
• 8:39
  there's a bowl there. I forgot what it's called, but
• 8:43
  then the second W you W you, yes, yes, yes, that's right, the
• 8:46
  music bowl and and they had a sax player with them and and
• 8:50
  they also so talk about inside jokes.
• 8:53
  So I'm at this first show and like I I'm pretending like I
• 8:56
  know what I'm talking about and I was really excited.
• 8:58
  I was hoping to play China cat. I know your rider and they
• 9:01
  opened with with Scarlet Begonias and then I'm talking to
• 9:08
  someone and I'm saying, hey, man, I hope they play this.
• 9:09
  He goes, yeah, you know what song comes after Scarlet the
• 9:11
  going news? And I'm like, no.
• 9:15
  And like I felt like like I felt like it was such like a softball
• 9:18
  answer and I just and I just missed it.
• 9:20
  And then he just like laughed and smiled.
• 9:22
  He's like, man, he goes, keep listening.
• 9:24
  You're going to have a great time with this.
• 9:25
  And like, I thought that was like so nice.
• 9:27
  It was so cool to kind of just see that experience, you know?
• 9:30
  That's right. And for the record, like there's
• 9:32
  no reason to think they're totally going to go into fire on
• 9:34
  the mountain every time out of scarlet, because that's what Jay
• 9:37
  Rad does. I'm not saying, you know, they
• 9:39
  didn't that night. I'm not saying they won't most
• 9:41
  nights, but I honestly that the beauty of them is you, you can't
• 9:44
  necessarily expect that the way you could for better, I think,
• 9:48
  and worse with the good old Grateful Dead.
• 9:51
  I mean, you know, there's there's a majesty to the way the
• 9:53
  dead would build that. And there's some extraordinary
• 9:56
  ones that that that, you know, but but at some point, I think
• 10:00
  some people would feel it became a little ossified.
• 10:03
  I might, I might question that on the edges, but I, you know, I
• 10:07
  get it. On the other hand, who kind of
• 10:09
  doesn't want to hear Scarlet Fire by the Grateful Dead?
• 10:12
  But but you know, but J Rad isn't always going to do that.
• 10:17
  Well, I feel like if I'm, if I'm going to be a musician in the
• 10:20
  spirit of the dead playing their music, I would say, man, that
• 10:23
  doesn't have to be a rule. You know, like, let's see where
• 10:25
  the music takes us and like, and and and they do that and like,
• 10:28
  you know, like it like you say it is.
• 10:30
  There's something incredible about about that build up and
• 10:33
  about the transition songs that they play.
• 10:35
  But there's something also really cool about like a
• 10:38
  totally, you know, just like little twist stone in there that
• 10:40
  you have no idea where it's going to come in.
• 10:42
  As a musician, it's probably a lot more creatively satisfying
• 10:45
  to be able to do something like that, I imagine.
• 10:47
  I do think that the sticking with J Rad right?
• 10:50
  I do think that they're they don't feel obligated in any
• 10:53
  manner, shape or form. You know who else didn't Phil
• 10:55
  Lesch towards the end of his career, towards the end of, you
• 10:58
  know, it's in the PO in the fill and friends era.
• 11:00
  He would take it a lot of Bobby Weir would take it a lot of
• 11:03
  different places. By contrast, and this is not a
• 11:06
  criticism. If you go see Dark Star
• 11:08
  Orchestra, they're going to deliver over something a lot, a
• 11:11
  lot closer. I mean, listen and to some
• 11:13
  degree they're going to actually interpret a specific night.
• 11:15
  They're going to give you the Grateful Dead set list through
• 11:18
  their own lens. It's not note for note, which is
• 11:20
  what I remember when they started.
• 11:22
  I someone told me that's what it was.
• 11:23
  I'm like, well, that seems counter to the idea of the
• 11:25
  Grateful Dead. And that is not what they do at
• 11:27
  all, by the way. But but they're going to say,
• 11:30
  you know, you're probably going to get a scarlet, an amazing
• 11:32
  scarlet fire from that. I I just think there are
• 11:34
  different ways at it and everything, you know, I like to
• 11:38
  say foreign follows function. And so in certain contexts, you
• 11:41
  know, maybe it's going to happen, maybe it's not, you
• 11:44
  know, maybe it'll be a discovery, maybe it won't, but
• 11:46
  it still can be awesome. But there's all all of those
• 11:48
  things entwined or what make for for a quality evenings
• 11:52
  entertainment. Definitely, definitely.
• 11:56
  I wanted to get some of your thoughts because I read your
• 11:59
  article about Take a Step Back with Bob Weir and Bobby Weir,
• 12:04
  and he just passed about a month ago.
• 12:06
  And, you know, it's fine There always.
• 12:13
  It always felt like there's so much depth to him that wasn't
• 12:16
  being said. And there is.
• 12:17
  And, like, talk about, like inside jokes.
• 12:18
  Like, it always felt like he constantly looked like he was
• 12:21
  having an inside joke with the entire world.
• 12:23
  And one of my favorite interviews with him was that I
• 12:27
  saw of him was when he was talking to Jerry and they asked
• 12:29
  if and the interviewer asked if fame had changed them.
• 12:32
  They're like, yeah. And he's like, I'm sure, you
• 12:35
  know, this is like, you know, the pistachios on these three
• 12:37
  really, really hard to open. He goes, we didn't even bother
• 12:40
  with those anymore. We just throw them right in the
• 12:41
  garbage. And like, there's something that
• 12:43
  was so, like, down to earth and real.
• 12:46
  Can you maybe speak about him or you know, I mean you, I'm sure
• 12:50
  you've had a lot of personal interactions with him, right?
• 12:53
  I did listen. The thing about Bobby is he was
• 12:56
  always Bobby, like you would see him in any context and he would
• 13:01
  be, he owned, he owned who he was in a major way.
• 13:05
  And I, you know, and, and I think that's really part of the
• 13:08
  beauty of him as, as a creative person, as someone you'd
• 13:12
  interact with. There are times it could be
• 13:13
  really quiet and then he would just lay in with something
• 13:17
  really, really funny. I, I would, you know, I, I
• 13:20
  interviewed him. I've been with him when he was
• 13:22
  around other artists, like backstage at shows, and he was
• 13:25
  really, really concerned assistant with the way and he
• 13:28
  was like that on stage as well. He always had that, that wry
• 13:31
  sense of humor. I'll tell you this, we haven't
• 13:34
  announced this yet, but I'll announce this right here, right
• 13:36
  now. You know, our next relics cover
• 13:38
  is going to be into a Bob Ware issue, right?
• 13:40
  And as we're as we're thinking about it, we're looking at the
• 13:43
  images that we want to have on on the cover and all of them or
• 13:48
  Bob with just like this, right, Different eras, right.
• 13:53
  He has this just wry little smile on his face.
• 13:56
  Like it's not like he's pulling one over on the world.
• 14:00
  It's like he's pulling one over on people who don't get the
• 14:03
  joke. And there are so many people who
• 14:05
  get the joke with him and everyone else.
• 14:07
  You know, I know for a fact he'd say like a, you know, FM if they
• 14:10
  if they can't take a joke. And he always had that spirit,
• 14:13
  which I think really was pretty, pretty marvelous.
• 14:16
  And I think over time too, after Jerry passed, I think he took on
• 14:21
  new responsibility in that there was a time when, you know, with
• 14:25
  his band Rat Dog, he wouldn't play any of Jerry's songs.
• 14:28
  He would just play his own music, which makes would
• 14:30
  certainly make sense. And then he did that even
• 14:33
  initially after Jerry passed. But at some point he's like, you
• 14:36
  know what? We got to keep this music alive.
• 14:38
  We had this has to be a living breathing thing.
• 14:40
  And then he started playing, you know, some great, some great
• 14:43
  Jerry music. And it was, it was I thought,
• 14:45
  thought, and I just thought it was selfless.
• 14:48
  He didn't write those songs. He's sharing them with the world
• 14:51
  and he just believes in in what they can, in what they can
• 14:54
  offer. And the other thing I'll say,
• 14:56
  because you mentioned that that essay, right?
• 14:59
  Jerry passes on on August 9th, 1995.
• 15:02
  It turns out that I'm at that time, I'm in Cambridge, MA and
• 15:06
  Bobby, we already, I think was playing a show up at the Hampton
• 15:10
  Casino. Not not the venue in Virginia.
• 15:13
  There's a smaller venue called the Hampton Casino up in
• 15:16
  actually, the one in Virginia is not a casino.
• 15:17
  It's Hampton, whatever, Hampton Amphitheater, Hampton Coliseum,
• 15:21
  that's what it is. This one's Hampton.
• 15:23
  I don't know. This one's Hampton Casino in in,
• 15:26
  in up in New Hampshire. And we had no idea.
• 15:29
  Is Bobby going to is he going to is he going to play tonight?
• 15:32
  Is he not going to play tonight? And I think he just thought it
• 15:36
  was his duty. And he said that at the
• 15:38
  beginning. And it, I wouldn't say it was
• 15:42
  musically the best night of the best night that I'd ever heard.
• 15:48
  But emotionally it could have been the deepest.
• 15:50
  And you could see it in his eyes.
• 15:52
  You know, he was working through it and trying to be there for
• 15:56
  everyone in the midst of a lot of heavy thoughts.
• 16:00
  And in that instance, too, right, everyone around you in
• 16:03
  that in that play, it was probably my God, is it's a 2000
• 16:07
  capacity, you know, room. Everyone in there was there for
• 16:11
  the right for that reason, because and they wanted to
• 16:13
  commune together. And Bobby was facilitating that
• 16:17
  and not telling a lot of stories, being a little bit, you
• 16:19
  know, light in that regard, just delivering music, but
• 16:23
  occasionally acknowledging, you know, what everyone must be
• 16:26
  thinking. I don't know.
• 16:27
  It was really, really heavy. And I give him all the credit in
• 16:30
  the world for for for doing that.
• 16:32
  And he canceled the tour after that and then pick it up a
• 16:36
  little bit later. But it was, it was, it was
• 16:38
  extraordinary to me what he was willing to do in that moment and
• 16:42
  what he facilitated in that room.
• 16:44
  Totally. And you know what?
• 16:45
  And and there's something else also, I think, and maybe there's
• 16:49
  just a feeling that I'm getting and I'm I'm just totally making
• 16:52
  it up. But it, but I do feel like,
• 16:54
  especially in the last decade or two, there's a real
• 16:59
  transformation and like wisdom, I think that he seemed to embody
• 17:03
  also like he was, you know, like you watch old videos or concerts
• 17:06
  and he's like, I, I, I, I, I, I think of him as a cosmic cowboy,
• 17:12
  you know, and then, and then like as he gets older, he kind
• 17:16
  of turns into more like a cosmic kind of prophet cowboy, you
• 17:18
  know, and like I and like, it was interesting because when I,
• 17:20
  when I heard knew that he died and like he seemed like he was
• 17:23
  relatively healthy, relatively recent, you know, I think he
• 17:26
  played just a couple of months earlier at was the 60th
• 17:29
  anniversary in Golden Gate. And, you know, and I just
• 17:34
  thought to myself, like, there's no doubt in my mind that that
• 17:38
  like that guy's depth of consciousness is so deep that
• 17:45
  like, I'm sad that he's gone, but like, there's no way he's in
• 17:48
  a worse. Like he, he, he's like, he's
• 17:50
  still laughing. Like he's still, like, he still
• 17:52
  knows. He still looks exactly what's
• 17:54
  going on, you know, And I feel like that's what the case is.
• 17:56
  Well, I, I tell you what, I interviewed him once.
• 17:58
  He was talking about Jerry, and he sort of doesn't believe in
• 18:02
  death in many respects. He thinks that, you know, that
• 18:06
  there's some enduring spirit and he would dream about Jerry and
• 18:11
  very much believed that they were in communication.
• 18:14
  So he had all that, you know, to bring back.
• 18:16
  Plus, think about this, though, in terms of Bobby, right?
• 18:20
  He starts he's a teenager when when they start out and he's
• 18:23
  like. He's.
• 18:25
  Taking a lot of acid, by the way, he's taking a lot of acid
• 18:27
  at at 17. And I, I, you know, everything
• 18:30
  you hear about him and he doesn't talk about this really
• 18:32
  very much later in life. Like there are periods of time
• 18:34
  where he doesn't really talk, you know, he's just like
• 18:38
  processing. He's like dosed and processing
• 18:41
  the world in the middle of this intense psychedelic music and
• 18:46
  experience in the totality of it.
• 18:48
  And so I, I just think that obviously, right, that informed
• 18:52
  his, his worldview. And I think, you know, over
• 18:56
  years, all of those experience sort of a Crete and it it it he
• 19:00
  blossomed into what he became sort of this, I don't want to
• 19:04
  say all, all knowing, although at times he felt like it, but
• 19:08
  you know, just this spirit who really had a handle on the world
• 19:12
  and, and what it meant and his place in it.
• 19:15
  Because I think, you know, you can have a handle in the world,
• 19:17
  but maybe still not maybe not have a handle on your place in
• 19:20
  it. But I feel like Bobby had it,
• 19:21
  just like I said earlier, like Bobby is always Bobby.
• 19:24
  It's really and it's awesome. It's awesome.
• 19:26
  Yeah, that's really, really great.
• 19:28
  It's such a it's such a great way to be remembered, man.
• 19:30
  Like of all, you know, like of all the things that you can say,
• 19:34
  like to say that someone was really authentic to themselves
• 19:36
  is such a rare and beautiful compliment that, you know, I, I
• 19:40
  think that it's high praise and I think he deserves.
• 19:41
  I think he should be living up to, I'm sorry.
• 19:44
  I think that he lived up to it rather, I think his entire life
• 19:46
  was that what's what do you think of John Mayer and what do
• 19:50
  you think is the future of the band now?
• 19:55
  Complete speculation. I'm not asking you for anything
• 19:57
  that you know. You know what, I will say this,
• 20:00
  I think John Mayer gave a lot of himself to in terms of time and
• 20:05
  energy to to debt and company to keep that going at a time where
• 20:10
  he obviously had his own career. I think he believed in the
• 20:13
  music, he believed in the relationships and wanted to
• 20:16
  facilitate that and look at what it, look at what it became.
• 20:20
  And the thing the thing I really appreciated and respected about
• 20:23
  what John did is he did not try to sound like Jerry all the
• 20:26
  time, right. It was not a Jerry clone in
• 20:28
  front of the band he brought. It was a little more Blues
• 20:31
  based. You know, it harken back a
• 20:32
  little bit to the Pigpen era. Not always, but that was really
• 20:35
  at the heart of John's playing historically before he became,
• 20:39
  you know, the pop icon that I guess he still is.
• 20:42
  But so listen, he did it. He didn't have to.
• 20:45
  He liked the people. He liked the music that was
• 20:47
  happening. What will happen move?
• 20:49
  I'm it's a great question and I could be wrong about this.
• 20:54
  I don't think I don't think they'll be dead in company
• 20:59
  anymore, right? I think that maybe John will do
• 21:02
  some one offs or maybe some festival gigs where he revisits
• 21:06
  the catalog because I think he's passionate about the catalog,
• 21:10
  but I don't believe that he's just going to bring in somebody
• 21:14
  else to play rhythm guitar and sing those songs.
• 21:17
  I, I think he knows that just feels a little bit off.
• 21:20
  But again, I, I think he's passionate about the, the music
• 21:22
  of the good old Grateful Dead. And I think we'll see him do
• 21:25
  more of it, but in a different way.
• 21:28
  I just I also can't get over how well he plays craw genre.
• 21:33
  I can't get over it. Like I mean like the guy, the
• 21:35
  guy loves me. Like you could see he breathes
• 21:40
  it, you know, and, and, and I mean, and I've gone through like
• 21:44
  different phases where I'm trying to learn about different
• 21:46
  types of music. And every single time John
• 21:48
  Mayer's name pops up as like a deep track, like secret gem that
• 21:51
  you wouldn't know is like incredible, that genre.
• 21:53
  And I'm like, this guy's everywhere, man.
• 21:56
  So like, yeah, I mean, you probably gave 10-15 years to the
• 22:00
  dad or to the to the to the dad and company.
• 22:04
  Just about a little overwrite. So that's fairly well was 2015,
• 22:08
  right? Yeah.
• 22:08
  And so dead and company was 2016.
• 22:10
  So a decade, right. It's a decade of his career
• 22:12
  really the peak career. I think a lot of people would
• 22:15
  say in terms of songwriting that he will and all of that stuff.
• 22:18
  I mean, I do think it certainly wasn't mercenary because when he
• 22:23
  started, like that wasn't the move to make.
• 22:25
  He was doing OK financially, right?
• 22:27
  He didn't need to do that to him.
• 22:29
  He did it because creatively it scratched an itch for him.
• 22:32
  And I think he continued to do it because it creatively
• 22:34
  scratched it for him and he liked the people who were part
• 22:37
  of it as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:40
  I, I mean, who doesn't, I guess who does it?
• 22:42
  I want to, I want to talk to you.
• 22:44
  There's actually so many different ways to go.
• 22:46
  Do you want to talk about fish or do you want to talk about
• 22:49
  let's talk about fish? I want to transition.
• 22:51
  So historically, I guess timeline wise, great.
• 22:54
  Jerry Garcia dies 95. You start jam bands right around
• 23:00
  them. I actually meant to ask you it.
• 23:03
  I mean, the Dead had really peaked in the popularities in
• 23:06
  the late 80s, early 90s. Were people writing off other
• 23:10
  forms of jam bands at the time? Because I know that fish which
• 23:13
  had started earlier and it was string cheese around at that at
• 23:15
  that point, at that point already.
• 23:17
  String cheese had just. It's funny because my my my
• 23:21
  sister at the time lived in Telluride when they started.
• 23:25
  And Speaking of fish, I remember going to see a fish show at Red
• 23:28
  Rocks in 95 and there was this dude who was with us who was
• 23:34
  watching. I'm like, oh, that's, you know,
• 23:35
  like that's my friend Mike from Telluride, who really likes
• 23:38
  fishing. It was Michael Kang who was just
• 23:40
  there to to enjoy to enjoy some some fish.
• 23:43
  So you know, string cheese have been going for about two or
• 23:47
  three years at the at that point.
• 23:49
  There were other bands out there.
• 23:50
  Listen, so you know fish I first, I grew up in New England,
• 23:55
  so sort of by luck, I first saw fish in 87, which is pretty
• 23:59
  early in their, in their in their career.
• 24:02
  And at the time, people, for the most part, if I'm stereotyping
• 24:06
  dead heads were not on board with Fish, right?
• 24:09
  They thought that the, I mean the lyrics, they thought the
• 24:12
  lyrics were a little too fluffy and not very.
• 24:15
  They didn't think that the music was as heavy emotionally.
• 24:19
  And but I think Fish would agree with everything that I'm saying
• 24:22
  as well. They were younger.
• 24:23
  They were younger guys at the time.
• 24:25
  Sure, sure. Good to college guys, right?
• 24:27
  Yeah, So people would be very dismissive.
• 24:29
  You know, there'd be a lot of us.
• 24:31
  We'd wear fish out. We wear fish shirts too,
• 24:32
  Grateful Dead shows just to get see what people would have to
• 24:34
  say, you know, why the heck no? And sometimes you get people to
• 24:37
  go right on and sometimes, you know, someone would lecture you
• 24:40
  about, you know, and how terrible they they were.
• 24:44
  But you know, for me, I think my crossover period, and I don't
• 24:49
  love talking about how many shows I did or didn't go to
• 24:53
  because I think it doesn't matter.
• 24:55
  I think people who, you know, get into the Grateful Dead
• 24:59
  today, someone who gets into the can be just as big a fan as
• 25:02
  someone who went to see them in 1967, right?
• 25:05
  So it doesn't matter. But I will say this, that in
• 25:09
  1993 was my crossover year where I finally saw more fish shows
• 25:16
  than dead shows. And I was in grad school at the
• 25:18
  time. I want to say this.
• 25:19
  So I think it was like maybe 31 to 30 or like, you know,
• 25:24
  something, something was close. It was close that year.
• 25:28
  And then I kind of drifted into into, you know, over to fish.
• 25:31
  It was a lot easier again because they were around and you
• 25:35
  know, I thought the, the the Grateful Dead kind of sell off a
• 25:41
  little bit of a precipice. I think you could still still
• 25:43
  they, I think they were, in my opinion, and a lot of people
• 25:45
  disagree with me, I think there was still a lot of cool music
• 25:47
  being made in 92 and 93. But by 94, even a year later, it
• 25:53
  wasn't the same. And 95 was a little bit was a
• 25:56
  little bit rough. Yeah, you can.
• 25:58
  You can hear it. You can hear the, the, the
• 26:01
  frailty. And I mean, it's sad.
• 26:04
  I mean, I have a hard time listening to and I again, call
• 26:07
  me crazy. I have a hard time listening to
• 26:08
  dead concerts after like after the late 80s or you know, I was
• 26:12
  in the late 80s. It's kind of hard.
• 26:14
  I, I kind of stopped listening at like 8586 is really when I,
• 26:19
  when I, I usually hang out close to like the early 70's, the pig
• 26:23
  pen era with a lot of the Blues. And then and then there was the
• 26:27
  90 like golden era with man that that come to Nassau show with
• 26:33
  Brandon Marsalis and that that was just like, and then that
• 26:37
  Boston College 1, I think was 80, maybe 89.
• 26:41
  And that we also had the awesome.
• 26:43
  It started with the Franklin's, with the Franklin's Slipknot.
• 26:46
  And oh gosh, I'm losing my mind. I'm I'm exhausted.
• 26:51
  But the point is that like these, these shows are like you
• 26:55
  have gems within them. But I felt like a lot of them,
• 26:58
  you could detect that like the like, Jerry's kind of falling
• 27:01
  apart and the band is getting tired.
• 27:02
  The one thing I would say though, right is that I would
• 27:04
  vouch 100% for like spring of 90 and they released spring of 90
• 27:10
  as a box that because Bobby loves spring of 90.
• 27:12
  Yeah. I mean, I think that the dynamic
• 27:14
  between Brent and Jerry in particular during that time is
• 27:19
  really, really, really strong. And unfortunately, I was at this
• 27:23
  his last, I was at the last run of shows at Tinley, at Tinley
• 27:26
  Park, you know, July of 90. And then that was that and then
• 27:29
  it changed. And then by the way, you know,
• 27:32
  Vince was OK. I think they didn't give him an
• 27:35
  they didn't want him to play AB3.
• 27:37
  And so his sound was a was a little lighter and some of that
• 27:40
  wasn't his fault. But Hornsby was great in that
• 27:45
  band, right. So there's still some really,
• 27:48
  really good 9091 into 92 and then Bruce moves on to other
• 27:53
  things. But I loved hearing, you know,
• 27:55
  it's sort of like Harkins back to Keith.
• 27:57
  Like I loved hearing Bruce on on a big old grand piano with that
• 28:00
  band. And I think he really energized
• 28:02
  the group for a little while and then and then it was just only
• 28:06
  Vince and Vince was OK, like, you know, and it was fine.
• 28:09
  I remember I used to see him in Todd Rundgren's band and the
• 28:12
  tubes and he was OK. He really was like, I don't want
• 28:14
  to disparage the guy. And I do think part of it is
• 28:17
  they wouldn't give him what some people were looking for from
• 28:21
  this, from a from a sound perspective.
• 28:22
  But back to 90, like there's some cool stuff in 90.
• 28:25
  There's some, there's some cool stuff in 90 and some cool stuff.
• 28:27
  I would say again, 91 when, when Hornsby's really, really
• 28:31
  driving, driving the train. Yeah, yeah.
• 28:34
  And then they introduce a whole new bunch of Dylan songs in that
• 28:37
  in that era too, which was a lot of fun.
• 28:39
  And when I paint my when I paint my masterpiece would turn out,
• 28:42
  you know, would, would, would kind of become a Bobby Weir
• 28:45
  special. But yeah, I so, so viewers, so.
• 28:51
  So how would you kind of try to explain the flavor of fish
• 28:54
  relative to Grateful Dead? Because I think that people try
• 28:57
  to, people tend to lump them together unless you know one of
• 29:00
  their types of music and then and then everyone kind of
• 29:04
  changes their mind. How would you kind of describe
• 29:06
  the difference? And then I'll have a follow up I
• 29:08
  want to hear about after. Well, let me just say this
• 29:10
  though, I think if you abstract them out in a lot, it depends
• 29:14
  how far out you know you're looking from.
• 29:17
  From from 10,000 feet, 10,000 miles.
• 29:20
  Listen, they're both bands that that that improvisation, right?
• 29:25
  Right. But from someone that wouldn't
• 29:27
  know the difference, like if you were to describe the different
• 29:29
  style, you're like hey, if you like XY and Z music, more fit
• 29:31
  for you. If you like XY and Z, the Dead
• 29:33
  is for you. I mean, I think I think the the
• 29:37
  Grateful Dead Harkin more truly, if you think about it, the sort
• 29:41
  of traditional Americana music, right?
• 29:43
  And Jerry was a was a bluegrass banjo player.
• 29:46
  And that's where, I mean, that's what's really, really cool.
• 29:48
  That's what's fun. If you listen to like early
• 29:52
  Warlock Slash, Grateful Dead, like Jerry's like a banjo player
• 29:56
  playing electric guitar. He is and it's it's really,
• 29:58
  really interesting. And in fact, Bill Lash was not a
• 30:01
  bass player when he started. And so they're all right.
• 30:05
  And and again, Bobby is 17 and they're all kind of figuring it
• 30:09
  out as they go along. And that's the cool.
• 30:13
  I think that's why the Grateful Dead became their own Organism
• 30:16
  and sounded like nothing else. But I do think that if I'm
• 30:19
  thinking about where they come from, I do think it's sort of
• 30:22
  like old timey American Music, except then they psyched.
• 30:26
  They add that psychedelic side to it because they were
• 30:29
  psychedelicized with the Merry Pranksters and Kesey at the at
• 30:33
  the acid tests and what and what came out of it.
• 30:36
  So, but fish on the other hand, for both bad, no, for for
• 30:41
  better, not for worse. They come at it in the 80s and
• 30:45
  they're very hyper aware of all the music that preceded them.
• 30:49
  And you can hear it, you can hear the teases, you can hear
• 30:52
  all of those aspects. So they come out of much more of
• 30:56
  an arena rock background, even though they liked a lot of other
• 31:00
  things. But but because of that, they're
• 31:03
  a little bit more bombastic. They're a little bit more ironic
• 31:07
  because they're playing against everything that came before them
• 31:10
  and they're aware of that. I think some of the reason why
• 31:14
  people, you know, think their lyrics are a little bit silly
• 31:17
  early on is they're just responding to what was happening
• 31:20
  at the time. And they like Napa and Tom
• 31:23
  Marshall is his own, you know, is a, is a quirky, you know,
• 31:26
  very tall man, you know, but so, I mean, I, I think you know,
• 31:31
  that they're, they're both products of their, of their time
• 31:34
  in, in many, many respects. I think that's the main
• 31:36
  difference. But I think, you know, fish,
• 31:38
  especially early on, they're emerging from like that 70s
• 31:42
  arena rock realm, Grateful Dead. They're coming out of really the
• 31:46
  acoustic music and the and the beginnings of rock'n'roll and
• 31:50
  rockabilly, you know, in the, you know, from the 50s as that
• 31:55
  crossed into the mid 60s. Yeah, that's a great, that's a
• 31:58
  great description. And the other thing I wanted to
• 32:01
  bring up because you've mentioned it in passing, but I
• 32:03
  actually, it's such a fun little tidbit about this community.
• 32:09
  You mentioned that you were like going to these shows while
• 32:11
  you're in Graduate School. There are so many brilliant
• 32:15
  people and across so many industries that just gravitate
• 32:20
  towards this. And like, and I've noticed this
• 32:23
  because even in my own life, people I meet that, you know,
• 32:26
  you could be a mortgage broker, you could be an industrial
• 32:29
  psychologist that deals with lawyers and, and lunatic bankers
• 32:32
  all day. You could be, you could be a PhD
• 32:34
  or a history teacher. And like, you can be a
• 32:37
  basketball player, you know, you can be an NBA player and you
• 32:39
  can, you know, and, and like, and, and it almost feels like it
• 32:43
  like their type of language translates over to a particular
• 32:50
  type of, to people with a particular type of, of thought,
• 32:54
  You know, that, that, that like to play, like to experiment,
• 32:57
  like, to like, to break boundaries and like, break
• 33:00
  things and then see what comes and build up from it.
• 33:02
  And like you said, a lot of times the music wouldn't be the
• 33:05
  best music you ever heard, but would be meaningful or it'd be
• 33:08
  emotional or just be fun and like, and, and, and everyone
• 33:11
  would be OK with that. And I mean, that's what the dad
• 33:13
  would say, often would say like, Hey, man, like the audience is
• 33:16
  as much as this as we are. And you know, some nights it's
• 33:19
  going to be fun and some nights it's not.
• 33:20
  And so it's going to be pretty and sometimes going to be ugly,
• 33:22
  you know, but, but I think though that the fact that the
• 33:25
  that so many different types of individuals across so many
• 33:30
  different industries, but seem to have one thing in common.
• 33:33
  And that's the love of this experimentation.
• 33:37
  Sure. You know what's interesting?
• 33:38
  I was just thinking of this now when when I used to see the
• 33:41
  Grateful Dead as the Grateful Dead.
• 33:42
  Like to me, there's other bands that the Grateful Dead ends in
• 33:45
  95. If I'm doing that semantically,
• 33:46
  like to me, there's no question in my mind, right?
• 33:48
  But in in the Grateful Dead days, no Internet, so you
• 33:53
  couldn't really commune. So I think it drew a lot of
• 33:56
  really bright but idiosyncratic people who would go out and find
• 34:00
  their own tribe. And I found that in Grateful
• 34:03
  Dead, lots in Grateful Dead shows, like people who didn't
• 34:06
  quite, who had, who didn't quite, I don't want to say fit,
• 34:10
  but chose to maybe operate outside.
• 34:14
  And, you know, by the time Fish came around, the way that I met
• 34:16
  a lot of people, I talk about jambands.com, the way I met them
• 34:20
  was through rec dot music dot fish, these Usenet news groups,
• 34:24
  right, that existed before the World Wide Web.
• 34:27
  And so by the time they get to fish, and also there was a
• 34:30
  Grateful Dead 1, though I think it was Grateful Dead, Dylan and
• 34:33
  Fish I think were the first 3. And they were mostly college
• 34:37
  students because who else would have used that account really at
• 34:40
  that time, unless you were there was also the well, which was its
• 34:43
  own thing, basically based out of San Francisco.
• 34:46
  But, you know, over time, the, the, I think the Grateful Dead
• 34:50
  served to foster community of really thoughtful individuals
• 34:55
  who were drawn to, like you were, like you were saying,
• 34:58
  improvisation and things that were not standard and things
• 35:01
  that challenged you intellectually and, and, and,
• 35:06
  or, and emotionally, frankly, you know, who, who were out
• 35:09
  there? And then you could find other
• 35:10
  people that were like that and you could find them at your
• 35:12
  local head shop. You know, to the extent that
• 35:14
  back then there were plenty of head shops, now, not so many.
• 35:17
  And all that was like part and parcel of the experience when
• 35:19
  fish came around. Really, they are a product of
• 35:21
  the Internet. That's how people found, that's
• 35:23
  how fish became popular in many respects.
• 35:25
  Not entirely. I take nothing away from the
• 35:26
  music, right? Ultimately, it's about the
• 35:28
  music. In fact, that's, you know,
• 35:30
  that's our, that's our tagline. It's about the music and relics.
• 35:34
  But you know, but, but you could communicate with people other
• 35:38
  places and you could go out there and say, hey, I'm coming
• 35:41
  down to, you know, Texas for the weekend.
• 35:44
  You know, just can you recommend some restaurants or whatever
• 35:46
  we'll see out there the drink before the show or whatever, or
• 35:49
  this, this or that. Or just you could come in with
• 35:51
  people who you knew had the same, who were approaching
• 35:54
  things the same way and maybe they couldn't find anyone around
• 35:57
  them. Now you find a lot of community
• 35:59
  in a wonderful way online in any number of places.
• 36:03
  But during Grateful Dead years, you couldn't.
• 36:06
  And so you would see all these really, really interesting,
• 36:08
  bright, thoughtful people at the shows.
• 36:10
  But I will say this. So I met a lot of people like
• 36:14
  that and they would, you know, they would just, they wouldn't,
• 36:16
  they wouldn't look like your average, you know, they dress a
• 36:19
  little bit differently and, you know, they just carry themselves
• 36:22
  their own way. And then I saw the Grateful Dead
• 36:25
  at Madison Square Garden in New York and I would see a bunch of
• 36:29
  people coming to the shows in in suits and ties because they were
• 36:32
  working on Wall Street and that. And I would think to myself,
• 36:35
  these guys, you know what's going on here.
• 36:38
  But they were some of the biggest dead heads you could
• 36:40
  see. Of course they were.
• 36:41
  But initially I was sort of thrown by that.
• 36:44
  And I would see them do some amazing things.
• 36:46
  Some of these, some of these dead heads and three piece
• 36:48
  suits, they would bring in their briefcase and I'll be like, oh,
• 36:52
  I guess they're coming from work and they open up the briefcase
• 36:54
  and they'd have they'd have beer in there.
• 36:56
  They'd have like, well, and they'd get through security
• 36:58
  because they would be like, OK, there's some dude from Wall
• 37:01
  Street with his briefcase. And then even they'd be cracking
• 37:04
  beers passing them along. I don't know.
• 37:06
  So maybe there was a time where I came in with a little bit of
• 37:09
  stereotype and then eventually, pretty quickly, I came around to
• 37:12
  everything. You're saying.
• 37:13
  It's there. You know, we are everywhere, as
• 37:15
  they say, as they, as they. And it's true.
• 37:17
  And, you know, people in all walks of life who are doing any
• 37:20
  number of of of of fascinating things are drawn to this music.
• 37:25
  Yeah, yeah, I think it's and I think this actually speaks.
• 37:30
  I, I, I, I've noticed that someone pointed this out to this
• 37:33
  out to me and I've really seen it kind of everywhere that the
• 37:38
  most creative, the most creative periods are when people are a
• 37:44
  particular group is going through a particularly hard time
• 37:46
  and they're trying to, you know, I either work through something
• 37:50
  or work themselves out. And I mean, you know, Blues
• 37:53
  being as it was in the 50s and 60s was for a reason, You know,
• 37:57
  like the whole counterculture existed because of how repressed
• 38:02
  society was at that point. And you could kind of still even
• 38:07
  track. What's really cool is that you
• 38:08
  can kind of track that tradition of of embracing the fact that
• 38:15
  you're kind of minority in your own little world in your own
• 38:18
  little way, not even in a completely apolitical way, just
• 38:21
  like, hey, like, you know, I'm just having a hard time trying
• 38:23
  to make my way through life in in the subsequent music.
• 38:27
  But jamming, see, or improv seems to be a common theme
• 38:32
  throughout all of it because the jam world has really has really
• 38:36
  expanded just beyond what originally it was jazz and then
• 38:40
  the diet and fish. I mean, now, and we've and I
• 38:42
  mentioned this to my e-mail, Billy Strings is the bluegrass
• 38:45
  jam, you know, the jam grass or you have Sturgill Simpson or you
• 38:48
  have Chris Stapleton, like this kind of bluesy or country type
• 38:52
  of style. And I think it's kind of become
• 38:55
  indicative of individuals that feel like they like they just
• 38:58
  have to express themselves. And I think for a while, and
• 39:02
  unless I was just not exposed to it and I missed it, I feel like
• 39:05
  there's a little while or people got comfortable with, you know,
• 39:07
  like, I think for especially like in the jam scene, I can
• 39:11
  come became like pop jam, like jam became a pop cultural
• 39:14
  phenomenon rather than out a consequence of some kind of need
• 39:21
  to express yourself, you know. And So what we think is a is a
• 39:24
  divergent. It's kind of branching off all
• 39:26
  over the place in a really cool way.
• 39:28
  Yeah, I think that's right. I think on some level, right it,
• 39:31
  it both ebbs and flows in terms of, you know, the nature of do
• 39:37
  artists want to explore this? I think that's, you know, again,
• 39:41
  I found a jambands.com 28 years ago.
• 39:44
  So I've seen I've seen a little bit of this here.
• 39:46
  But I do think also it is above all else a reflection of the
• 39:49
  times and where where we are and how people are seeking out
• 39:53
  whatever they're seeking out. And I think Billy Strings I
• 39:56
  think is a product of people wanting something real.
• 40:00
  Well, real, his lyrics, his lyrics just have been like, I
• 40:03
  haven't been blown away by lyrics like this in a very, very
• 40:06
  long time. The renewal album and and Hwy.
• 40:11
  prayers, just a renewal in particular at this moment.
• 40:15
  You know, I'm listening, I've been listening to cover to
• 40:18
  cover, you know, for for months now.
• 40:21
  And there's such, it's such a it's it, it feels someone took,
• 40:27
  someone took a spirit, someone took an old American spirit and
• 40:30
  just like plopped it into this kid from Michigan and, and he's
• 40:35
  just channeling it. It's just, you know, Van
• 40:36
  Morrison used to say, you used to say like he was writing.
• 40:39
  I read an interview when he was writing, writing at when he's
• 40:41
  coming up with astral weeks. He's like, that wasn't me.
• 40:44
  He's like, I'm sitting there and I'm strumming and I'm talking
• 40:46
  into a recorder and I'm making things up.
• 40:48
  And then all of a sudden, like something comes out of me that's
• 40:51
  just a deep channel. And it just, and it just flew.
• 40:53
  And I just, and I just happened to catch.
• 40:55
  I'm just, I'm just a catcher, that's all, you know?
• 40:57
  But give him more credit than that.
• 41:00
  Listen, I I think also he's willing and committed to doing
• 41:04
  that. I think sometimes it can be
• 41:05
  difficult for him. Yeah, I just right.
• 41:07
  I just spoke with him for our last issue and he talks about
• 41:11
  like, listen, he has stage fright, you know, before he goes
• 41:14
  on think he has a lot of self doubt about what he does.
• 41:18
  But I think pretty much everything you get from him is
• 41:21
  pure. Like he's, he's willing to to
• 41:24
  share that in any, you know, in in some manner, shape or form.
• 41:27
  I think he conveyed that even when he's not talking to the
• 41:31
  audience or directly, or you could know nothing about him
• 41:34
  really. You don't have to read an
• 41:35
  article about Billy Strings to get that something special is
• 41:39
  going on. And he is presenting himself in
• 41:43
  a very honest and real way. And so was I.
• 41:46
  Listen, I was shocked as hell that that, you know, that it's a
• 41:50
  bluegrass. There's no, it's a bluegrass
• 41:52
  band. It truly is.
• 41:53
  It's not a new grass. You know what I mean?
• 41:54
  Like it's dead on. But you know, they're taking it
• 41:57
  out there and that they, you are so popular.
• 41:59
  Like there were so many people who were drawn to it.
• 42:02
  And all I could think of is that they were responding to what you
• 42:05
  just described. The fact that he's laying it out
• 42:09
  there, he's putting his body out on the tracks and he's being
• 42:11
  real at a time where that's lacking to some degree in in
• 42:17
  human discourse. And I it's such a lovely thing.
• 42:20
  And it's hard. It's hard.
• 42:21
  It's it's, it's, I think that people appreciate it because
• 42:23
  it's really, really hard for everyday people, day-to-day
• 42:27
  people like myself or maybe yourself to like, if you have
• 42:31
  something weighing you down to just like be vulnerable and just
• 42:35
  ex and, and, and completely express it with your being, you
• 42:38
  know, with your voice, with your hands, with your body language.
• 42:41
  It's a very, it's a very uncommon thing to do for most
• 42:44
  people. And I think it's incredibly
• 42:45
  cathartic when we all gather together and experience that.
• 42:48
  And that's one of the view that, that's why I, I encourage
• 42:52
  everyone just get out, go to a freaking brewery and hear a
• 42:56
  cover band for an hour or for half an hour, Go do something
• 42:59
  with other people around. Because like we need that, you
• 43:02
  know, it's, it's something that, that, that's so fundamental and
• 43:07
  we have so many easy ways of getting away from it.
• 43:09
  You could stream every concert on nugs.
• 43:11
  You could go to, you know, like you could, you could go to a
• 43:14
  million different websites and not and sit in your backyard and
• 43:16
  not talk to anyone and listen to all this music.
• 43:19
  Then what are you? But then what are you doing?
• 43:20
  You know, like you're missing out on that.
• 43:22
  Well, I mean, listen, that's still lovely, you know, and
• 43:25
  maybe you're somewhere where you can't, you know, you're
• 43:26
  somewhere that geographically speaking, I want to I'll defend
• 43:31
  that. I'll defend the heck out of just
• 43:32
  that print. But but having said that,
• 43:34
  there's nothing like being there.
• 43:36
  And in fact, I'm later this week, right.
• 43:39
  Again, not that this is tied to I just interviewed right Rob
• 43:42
  Barocco, who was in Phil Lesh and friends and a lot he was in
• 43:46
  the dead for a period of time and he has a span skeleton crew
• 43:49
  and skeleton crew has a big beefy organ, which he plays.
• 43:54
  It has Barry Slash, who was in Bobby's band at the end on pedal
• 43:57
  steel. And it has this Hawaiian slack
• 44:01
  slack key guitar player. And I was just saying to someone
• 44:03
  who this morning like they're they're somewhere near me later
• 44:07
  this week and I'm like, well, that I can go see because that
• 44:11
  scratches a lot of itches for me.
• 44:12
  And it's well and good to watch something They've done a really
• 44:15
  cool thing on on on YouTube where they go from this this
• 44:21
  this Hawaiian slacky song into the Grateful Dead Slipknot, into
• 44:25
  a Dave Brubeck cover, into a Rob Derocco song.
• 44:29
  And it all flows and it's really amazing and it's great.
• 44:31
  And I've listened to it a couple times, watched and listened to
• 44:33
  it a couple times over. But there's nothing like being
• 44:36
  there with the band, with the people around you, giving
• 44:38
  something to the band, getting something back and just having
• 44:41
  the waves of sound, you know? You know, I think it's both
• 44:48
  mental, it's a most it's mental emotional.
• 44:51
  I think it's also physiological in some way with the the nature
• 44:54
  of the sound waves. So it's good.
• 44:56
  It's you know, that's good eating.
• 44:58
  Do what you can get out there, see some live.
• 44:59
  Music and the lights, man, I'm telling you when you're, when
• 45:02
  you're listening to a great jam and the light and, and, and the
• 45:06
  lights seem to reflect the tone of the music and like, I don't
• 45:10
  even know that that music even had a color tip, but it does,
• 45:13
  you know, it's, it's, it's so cool.
• 45:14
  It's so much fun. I wanted to ask you now, oh man,
• 45:20
  do you want to talk about relics, relics or do you want to
• 45:23
  talk about about the actual, I guess, ticket market?
• 45:28
  First, well, how about this? I'll just say this real quickly
• 45:30
  about relics and then we can move back.
• 45:31
  You know, not that I love relics.
• 45:32
  I've been here for a while. But listen, you know, we, we've
• 45:35
  been a print magazine. We started in 1974 by, you know,
• 45:40
  Les Capel and Jerry Moore, they were Grateful Dead fans.
• 45:42
  They wanted, they started it as a means to facilitate tape
• 45:47
  trading at a time when it actually wasn't entirely kosher.
• 45:50
  The Grateful Dead had not fully given it their that not fully
• 45:53
  signed off on it. And so that's how it began.
• 45:56
  And then over time it has evolved.
• 45:59
  And now we certainly, we love the Grateful Dead.
• 46:02
  You know, we just put out this, you know, this 60 year hold on,
• 46:08
  I have one on my coffee table, right.
• 46:10
  We put out this, this, you know, 60 years of the Grateful Dead
• 46:12
  experience, which is a stand alone.
• 46:15
  It's 160 pages about the good old Grateful Dead.
• 46:18
  And it's all, you know, it's, it's have there's a lot of
• 46:22
  wonderful images and articles for the record, but it really
• 46:27
  reflects, you know, sort of the, the heart of what we've been
• 46:30
  over the years. And in fact, on the back cover,
• 46:33
  inside back cover, that's our our first, that's our first, the
• 46:35
  first relics cover from 7:00 when it was dead relics.
• 46:40
  But so this is very much a part of who we are.
• 46:43
  But hold on one second. You know, it was great.
• 46:48
  Like, this is our our last issue is this is my cover story,
• 46:52
  right? It's Billy Strings who does
• 46:53
  this, you know, just a great image.
• 46:56
  You know, Billy. Yeah.
• 46:58
  So I think we we honor the tradition and we've tried to
• 47:02
  bring it forward with the music. I'm really, really proud of what
• 47:05
  we've been an amazing team of people who are all in on it.
• 47:08
  It's a challenge to keep a print magazine going in in 2026.
• 47:13
  I'll say that. You really have to want to do it
• 47:16
  and you have to believe in it. And of course, we still have all
• 47:18
  sorts of things happening online, but it's been it's been
• 47:21
  great. Listen, I, like I said, I
• 47:22
  started jambands.com in 98. I start there was AI created
• 47:28
  with my friend Peter Shapiro, an event called the Jammies when he
• 47:33
  was the owner of wetlands preserve.
• 47:36
  And through that, it was during that time that I merged into
• 47:40
  into relics world. And I've been there for, you
• 47:43
  know, 25 years or something. And it's doing a bunch of other
• 47:45
  things too, by the way. Yes, picking up stuff the
• 47:50
  people. This is my book with Peter Music
• 47:53
  Never Stops, which is which is just.
• 47:54
  I highly, highly recommend it for people who are.
• 47:59
  Where to put the link up for sure you know.
• 48:02
  For for people who are into the scene but also want to learn
• 48:06
  more about concert promotion and the like.
• 48:09
  I mean, it's really he's I pushed him.
• 48:12
  I pushed him to to write this. I'm the I'm the width on there,
• 48:16
  you know, video with Dean because just from hearing him,
• 48:19
  I've heard him talk about his business a few times a day since
• 48:25
  1997. And he just has, he just has so
• 48:29
  much wisdom and he's really done things for the right reasons.
• 48:32
  I'll say this. I don't know anyone who works
• 48:35
  harder, any promoter who works harder when he has a sold out
• 48:40
  show. Most promoters would be like,
• 48:42
  OK, my work's done. The show's sold out.
• 48:44
  Peter's like, well, who can we get?
• 48:46
  Who, who wants to be a guest? Who can we bring on?
• 48:48
  What kind of sit insurance can we do to surprise people?
• 48:51
  And he does time and time and time again and he really, you
• 48:55
  know, he just takes a really righteous approach.
• 48:58
  And I think in that book he talks about every grateful dad.
• 49:01
  He has a lot of relationships there, how he came about all the
• 49:04
  things that he did. And I'm really super, super
• 49:06
  proud of it. But that's sort of maybe, you
• 49:08
  know, and Peter's our publisher, Ed Rehlicks.
• 49:10
  He was a part of the team with myself and some of the people
• 49:12
  who came in in 2009 when the, the, the person who had bought
• 49:17
  it around 2000 decided to move on.
• 49:20
  But anyhow, if we're going to talk about ticketing, that's
• 49:23
  even though it didn't happen in this order, I think that's sort
• 49:25
  of transitional in that at least from the content standpoint,
• 49:30
  that book talks both about music and about the the concert
• 49:33
  industry and how it how it came about.
• 49:35
  But but yeah, also I did write this other book which I'll pick
• 49:38
  up please here. Please do.
• 49:44
  Oh, by the way, I'm sorry, I don't mean none of them.
• 49:46
  We're not just looking behind me because they're on my shelf.
• 49:48
  This is a book that that that I wrote.
• 49:51
  Might as well. Might as well.
• 49:53
  It's a novel basically about what it was like to be in the
• 49:56
  Grateful Dead, the Grateful Dead lot scene, let's say in 1989.
• 50:02
  Can you just that is in case anyone doesn't know what that
• 50:04
  is, because I know what that is, but that's I know a lot of fun.
• 50:08
  Sure. I mean, I think there were, you
• 50:10
  know, it, it takes the perspective or of seven or 8
• 50:12
  characters who are the types of people you would meet outside
• 50:16
  and inside a Grateful Dead show. And there's one other part of
• 50:19
  it, which is this on on October 14th, 1989 at the Meadowlands.
• 50:27
  I think it would Brendan Byrne Arena in New Jersey, right,
• 50:30
  right across, right across the line from from, from New York,
• 50:34
  you know, right outside New York City.
• 50:37
  There was a guy named Adam Katz who mysteriously died outside a
• 50:42
  show outside there. And I was there that night.
• 50:46
  And I can say definitively that that night was one of the
• 50:49
  weirdest. There was a vibe like I've never
• 50:52
  ever experienced like, and not in a good way at a grateful
• 50:56
  ditch. I can't even I you know, I don't
• 51:00
  not someone who like feels a lot of vibe and thinks that there's
• 51:03
  something in the air. But there was that night and
• 51:06
  that's always stuck with me. And then around 2016, right
• 51:11
  around the time actually a fare thee well.
• 51:14
  I'm like this. I got to do something with this
• 51:17
  and I was thinking about the 50 years of the Grateful Dead.
• 51:20
  And so I wrote this novel, which, you know, which, which
• 51:22
  talks, which I'm pretty happy with it.
• 51:24
  I don't know. I'm not even trying to sell it
• 51:26
  now. It's been, it's 10 years old,
• 51:27
  but I don't know. But, but, but it does, you know,
• 51:30
  it was next to what I was going to show you next.
• 51:32
  But you know, I think it captures the the spirit of the
• 51:36
  of the things. By the way, Oh, sorry, God.
• 51:38
  Please, I want you to take me into the I want you to take me
• 51:41
  into or describe the parking lot scene before and after the
• 51:45
  concert a little bit. For anyone that wouldn't know,
• 51:46
  can you kind of paint like a word picture of like what a
• 51:48
  typical scene would look like? Well, what I would say is this,
• 51:50
  right? This So there's like a character
• 51:52
  in the in the book called Bagel Bob.
• 51:54
  And there'd be a Bagel Bob everywhere, some dude who'd been
• 51:56
  on tour since the late, you know, early 70s or late 60s.
• 52:00
  And he have a ton of wisdom, was a little bit loopy, you know,
• 52:03
  because he'd been at it for a real long time.
• 52:06
  And he was pure and he was true, but he wasn't always there.
• 52:10
  And that's OK, you know, But he was just part of the, he was
• 52:14
  just, you know, part of the whole experience.
• 52:16
  And there were bagel bobs there. You know, there's a taper in the
• 52:19
  show because tapers. You know, I was a taper for a
• 52:22
  period of time for fish, not really for the Grateful Dead.
• 52:25
  I started during during fish times.
• 52:27
  And they they think of the shows differently.
• 52:28
  They conceptualize them and they need to be in earlier so they
• 52:32
  can set up and they deal with people around them in a slightly
• 52:35
  different way. And then there was a young
• 52:37
  person who was coming to his first show and we talked about
• 52:41
  like a like a someone in his late teens who was in a, you
• 52:44
  know, in a prep school in which I was not for the record.
• 52:47
  And so it's not about me, you know, a prep school in, in, in,
• 52:51
  in the New York area around that time and what that experience
• 52:55
  was like for people. There's a mother with a young
• 52:57
  daughter. There are a lot of different
• 52:59
  people. And they were just part of the,
• 53:01
  you know, part of the whole carnival, the, the fabric of
• 53:04
  the, of the experience in I don't know.
• 53:08
  I again, I haven't picked it up for a while, but the, it was
• 53:11
  very cathartic writing it. I think it's pretty good in the
• 53:14
  sense that it captures, I think those people and that time which
• 53:18
  it which is long gone. And it does, in my opinion at
• 53:24
  least, hint out what I think happened to Aaron Katz, which I
• 53:27
  think he was killed by a security guard.
• 53:30
  Although in my book it doesn't exactly happen.
• 53:32
  That's not exactly the way that it ends.
• 53:34
  Because, you know, Quentin Tarantino can, can save Sharon
• 53:37
  Tate. So I can save, I could save Adam
• 53:40
  Katz. Yeah, yeah, I mean I I though
• 53:43
  the only other like big community, you know, the big
• 53:46
  kind of fest, festival type disaster is that famous Stones
• 53:50
  concert at the at the Raceway Ultima Ultima yes, thank you.
• 53:56
  And under my thumb is it was at the date of the documentary
• 53:59
  about that. That was, that was also like a
• 54:01
  heebie jeebie, kind of like people call that like the end of
• 54:04
  the end of the 60s, end of summer of love, like, you know,
• 54:08
  and, and everyone kind of just, and like there's a wait.
• 54:11
  I don't know if you ever saw the footage of like the Grateful
• 54:14
  Dead. They're like getting arriving
• 54:15
  via helicopter. Jerry's wearing this like
• 54:17
  ridiculous, like drug rug, like kind of like purple like rug
• 54:20
  thing smock. And they're like, and someone
• 54:23
  like tells him, Hey, Hell's Angel just killed the guy.
• 54:26
  And they're like, that doesn't sound right.
• 54:29
  We're not going to play. And they just turn around and
• 54:31
  get back in the airplane and go home and helicopter and go home.
• 54:33
  But like, I, I, I as far as heebie jeebie goes, I hear, I, I
• 54:37
  think, what was the other thing you would have showed me?
• 54:39
  Before I got to now they get to think about it, right.
• 54:43
  So yeah, because this is whatever show and tell time,
• 54:45
  because we happen to be there in my office.
• 54:47
  I mean, I have a couple of my own Jam Man books.
• 54:49
  I don't really care about those right now.
• 54:50
  They're there and I'm not proud of them, but whatever.
• 54:52
  You know, this is the book I did with John Popper, which I think
• 54:55
  captures like, you know, Blues Traveler and like the Horde era
• 54:59
  and Wetlands called Second Blow. It's gonna blow and other
• 55:04
  stories I'm not supposed to tell.
• 55:06
  OK, So that's out of, I mean, again, that's ten that came out
• 55:11
  around the same time. I bring it up for people who
• 55:13
  want to who really into sort of the Horde scene.
• 55:16
  John Hopper founded Horde from, you know, with Blues Traveler.
• 55:19
  He was the owner of Horde and it talks about again, Wetlands, the
• 55:23
  coming together of the jam band scene in the 1989 and onward.
• 55:28
  And it's really he's a really sharp, bright, bright guy.
• 55:31
  But we're talking about Ticketmasters is the one that
• 55:34
  you were getting at earlier, right?
• 55:35
  Yes. You know, again, I tell you what
• 55:39
  I wrote this with my friend Josh Baron, who at the time we were
• 55:43
  both we were part of both part of the team that resuscitated
• 55:46
  relics in 2009. And truly I wanted to answer one
• 55:52
  question at the beginning, why are ticket prices so high?
• 55:56
  That was really it. How did we get here?
• 55:58
  And to answer it, that that answer is a, you know, is a, is
• 56:01
  a 400 page book. And it talks about the rise of
• 56:06
  computerized ticketing before Ticketmaster, how Ticketmaster
• 56:10
  came to be the rise of the, you know, how independent promoters,
• 56:14
  how they drifted and became, you know, what eventually was Live
• 56:20
  Nation and where that leads. And it talks about the rise of
• 56:24
  StubHub and the impact of that on the market.
• 56:28
  And the, and truly, because you know the band that did more,
• 56:32
  there's no question about this, the band that did more for the
• 56:36
  for its fans than any other band without question when it comes
• 56:41
  to ticketing is the Grateful Dead, right?
• 56:43
  They had their own ticket office.
• 56:44
  They fought for 1/2 of the inventory to the tickets for all
• 56:50
  their shows and they sold them themselves so that they could
• 56:54
  connect directly and ensure that their fans, not scalpers, would
• 56:58
  go to the shows. And by the way, the people who
• 57:00
  worked for the Grateful Dead ticketing were so committed to
• 57:04
  it that if they thought that somebody was trying to game the
• 57:08
  system by submitting a second order under another name, they
• 57:12
  put the envelopes. You got to get self addressed
• 57:14
  stamped envelopes. They put them on the floor and
• 57:17
  look at them. And if the handwriting match,
• 57:20
  they'd shut them out. I want to make, I want to
• 57:24
  emphasize, by the way, how it, how extraordinary the grateful
• 57:27
  to how this was for the Grateful Dead, because the way ticketing
• 57:29
  works and it, it's work now truly ever since the rise of
• 57:35
  Ticketmaster, you know, in the, in the early 80s is Ticketmaster
• 57:39
  enters into a contract with the venue.
• 57:43
  And as part of the contract, Ticketmaster has the right to
• 57:47
  sell 100% of the tickets to the venue to, to, to the shows at,
• 57:51
  at the venue. Essentially, you know, they're
• 57:52
  the little thing carve out. So let's call it, let's call it
• 57:55
  98%, but it's, and all of a sudden there's this other band,
• 57:59
  the Grateful Dead, who said, there's this band, the Grateful
• 58:02
  Dead who said, well, we want to sell 50% to our fans.
• 58:05
  We don't care about, we don't care about you, Ticketmaster.
• 58:07
  We've been here longer than you. We're going to do what we want.
• 58:10
  We believe in this. And they pushed back and they
• 58:13
  fought and they won. No other band really did that.
• 58:17
  The only other band that came close, you mentioned String
• 58:19
  Cheese. String Cheese also had an issue
• 58:22
  with Ticketmaster about about 10 years later where they wanted to
• 58:27
  sell 50% of their tickets to their fans.
• 58:30
  And what happened? What happened eventually is that
• 58:34
  Ticketmaster sort of quietly let them in a settlement that wasn't
• 58:38
  that wasn't revealed at the at the time.
• 58:41
  I have a friend that's in the ticket business and he, I forgot
• 58:45
  which company. He said it was either StubHub or
• 58:48
  Ticketmaster. But apparently he said like you
• 58:51
  would be shocked how many tickets they by themselves as
• 58:55
  resellers and just hang on and then and then and then charge a
• 58:59
  top dollar. He was like, you know, he goes,
• 59:01
  I have so many stories from people that I've worked with and
• 59:04
  you know, over the years and he's like, the ticket industry
• 59:07
  is and you know what I mean? Unfortunately, you get into any,
• 59:10
  a deep enough into any big enough industry that has any
• 59:12
  kind of regulation, you're always going to have corruption.
• 59:15
  So like, you know, it's not nothing new under the sun, but
• 59:19
  but you got to leave it up to fancy able and listen.
• 59:22
  One of the one of the interesting comparisons is
• 59:25
  someone like Taylor Swift, who is like has been on like this
• 59:28
  enormous juggernaut of a of a tour the last couple of years
• 59:32
  and the multibillion dollar tour.
• 59:35
  And one of the biggest complaints was about was from
• 59:37
  her fans. You know about about the ticket
• 59:39
  pricing and it's interesting. It's, it's really, really,
• 59:43
  really tricky and it's not always easy to solve, you know,
• 59:48
  that particular, that particular problem in terms of what is the
• 59:53
  best way, How do you value, how should you value your fans?
• 59:57
  And, you know, should we let people who are going to wait in
• 59:59
  line physically outside of venue?
• 1:00:02
  Should we privilege them? Should we privilege people in a
• 1:00:05
  fan club? If you know your tickets are
• 1:00:06
  going to sell out, It's it's, it's, it's it's.
• 1:00:10
  Harder, I think, than than it might seem.
• 1:00:12
  Although Taylor Swift initially, she should not have put all her
• 1:00:16
  tickets to all those stadiums on sale at the same time that the
• 1:00:20
  system was going to crash. That was destined for failure.
• 1:00:23
  And she could have had a lottery the way she eventually did to a
• 1:00:26
  degree later. There are other ways to go about
• 1:00:28
  it. I mean, you know what, I don't
• 1:00:32
  want to, I'm not here to disparage Taylor Swift.
• 1:00:35
  I think she wanted to, I think she wanted to break some records
• 1:00:38
  when she put when she put those tickets on sale initially for
• 1:00:41
  the Eras tour in all those stadiums at the say, the 32
• 1:00:44
  stadiums and the like. And it's fine, right?
• 1:00:46
  That's that's, you know, that's part of her story, I think.
• 1:00:48
  And I think she takes pride in the fact that she's able to do
• 1:00:51
  it. But yeah, that wasn't very fan
• 1:00:54
  friendly, but we can leave it. At that Yeah, no, not
• 1:00:56
  particularly but but also Speaking of fan friendly.
• 1:00:58
  But yeah, I know that fish is fish is famous for their lot
• 1:01:01
  fish and Broadway shows famous are famous for their lotteries.
• 1:01:06
  Maybe you can kind of explain how that worked and maybe and
• 1:01:08
  and and how they created this festival world because the the
• 1:01:12
  dead shows became a scene. You pop up the day before, maybe
• 1:01:15
  hang out the day after you go to the next town over there going
• 1:01:18
  and fish kind of introduced this idea of like a week in Manhattan
• 1:01:23
  or a week and you know where and that's the famous that's the
• 1:01:26
  famous example. But if you can maybe elaborate
• 1:01:29
  on that little bit? Sure.
• 1:01:30
  Well, listen, I mean there, there is no question.
• 1:01:33
  I mean, they, they used to, I will say this about fish.
• 1:01:34
  There was a period of time in the 90s when like the Grateful
• 1:01:38
  Dead, they did have their own ticketing office and it was
• 1:01:41
  handled by a woman named Shelby Shelley Culbertson.
• 1:01:44
  I remember I went there once once because that she was kind
• 1:01:47
  enough to let me and I I had a problem.
• 1:01:49
  I think I was going on my honeymoon actually.
• 1:01:51
  And so she like I knew her OK through the Internet and she let
• 1:01:55
  me go and then physically pick some up because I otherwise was
• 1:01:57
  going to be a problem. But so the the fish in the same
• 1:02:01
  way maybe that their fans grew up in the Internet era, unlike
• 1:02:06
  the fans of the Grateful Dead, fish fans did they connected
• 1:02:10
  that way. So fish advanced that in that,
• 1:02:13
  you know, fish does have a lottery that you can sign up for
• 1:02:17
  a few days in advance. Like I think maybe Taylor Swift
• 1:02:21
  could have, but whatever. That's why I'm not here to, you
• 1:02:23
  know, you know, whatever it is, what it is.
• 1:02:26
  But so, so fish really sort of brought that, that, that, that
• 1:02:30
  you know, the, that sort of democratize that in the sense
• 1:02:35
  that anyone, if you knew about it, could be, could be, could be
• 1:02:39
  part of it and allowed it to be randomized in a way that their
• 1:02:43
  fans wouldn't be shut out. I mean, if you know when the the
• 1:02:47
  beyond sale is, you know, you can be, you can, you can be part
• 1:02:50
  of that lottery. But they also did that again,
• 1:02:53
  they started out, I think it was 93.
• 1:02:56
  They started out just with taper tickets because I know that back
• 1:02:58
  then I was taping shows. They started out just with mail
• 1:03:01
  order taper tickets and that worked out pretty well.
• 1:03:04
  And from there they slowly expanded into just like the
• 1:03:08
  Grateful Dead, physical mail order tickets and then 95 right
• 1:03:13
  Grateful Dead, they wrap up their their ticketing office
• 1:03:16
  somewhat folds. It evolves into something else,
• 1:03:18
  but fish then focused online. And so that's where you that's
• 1:03:21
  to this day, that's there. They they've been, you know, I
• 1:03:24
  think they, again, they're pretty committed to that, to be
• 1:03:27
  kind to their fans. And listen, you know, they've
• 1:03:30
  tried to do what they can. I think if you look at the price
• 1:03:33
  of other tickets out there in the market, I think they've done
• 1:03:37
  what they can to make, you know, to be not unreasonable in the
• 1:03:41
  face value of their tickets. You know, things have gone up
• 1:03:44
  over. Time.
• 1:03:45
  Things are crazy. Things are crazy.
• 1:03:46
  I mean, I, there's so many shows I want to see and it's, it
• 1:03:52
  really is difficult for me to, you know, to at this point, you
• 1:03:54
  know, in particular at this point of my life to justify it.
• 1:03:57
  And even though, and even though I love it and I've been settling
• 1:04:02
  for a premium nugs membership and just watching a bunch of
• 1:04:04
  live shows, you know, as they happen.
• 1:04:06
  And I have a great, and I'll show you after off air.
• 1:04:10
  But you know, I got a great set of my backyard with a projector
• 1:04:12
  and a screen and my, and a couple of speakers and I have my
• 1:04:15
  buddies come by and we'll just hang out and listen to some
• 1:04:17
  music. But you know, I mean, I would, I
• 1:04:20
  would love to go, but it tickets, tickets have gone are
• 1:04:24
  just nothing. I'm not sure if it's, if it's
• 1:04:26
  just inflation, if it's demand, if it's just a new world of
• 1:04:30
  venues and a new and there's so many new middle, middle men that
• 1:04:33
  are taking money from the, from the from the, from the companies
• 1:04:40
  that I'm sorry about that. Again, that that that maybe
• 1:04:44
  that's just why tickets just prices are up in general, But
• 1:04:47
  either way it's it's almost impossible to maintain.
• 1:04:49
  Sure, I mean I would say this. There's something pretty cool
• 1:04:53
  though about being able to why? I have a friend of mine in New
• 1:04:54
  Mexico and he just can't see a lot of, yeah, not a lot of live
• 1:04:58
  shows that come out anywhere near where he is.
• 1:05:00
  So he will get, he'll get, you know, he'll have the nug
• 1:05:03
  subscription and he'll project him in his backyard onto the,
• 1:05:06
  onto the side of his house and they'll all sit there, you know,
• 1:05:09
  have a lovely beverage and enjoy some.
• 1:05:11
  It's got great speakers, got a nice setup and, you know, like,
• 1:05:14
  listen, you can't go every night.
• 1:05:16
  It's, it's a, it's a lovely thing.
• 1:05:18
  It's a lovely thing, you. Know Tell me about brewing.
• 1:05:20
  How did you get into brewing? No, I, I don't, you know what,
• 1:05:24
  I, I will say this that when I was younger, growing up, there
• 1:05:28
  was mostly just pretty crappy corn beer.
• 1:05:31
  You know what I mean? I, no disrespect to, to good old
• 1:05:33
  American heartland corn infused beer.
• 1:05:36
  There was nothing very, very tasty, you know, that one could
• 1:05:40
  have. And then as, as the opportunity
• 1:05:44
  presented itself, I'm like, OK, I can make something kind of
• 1:05:47
  cool myself. I remember I went to fishes
• 1:05:51
  festival, the great went and I made a case of great went wheat
• 1:05:56
  that I gave out and I and it's in the it's in the there's this
• 1:05:59
  fish book, the fish compendium, and there's a picture to my
• 1:06:01
  beer. You know that like that people,
• 1:06:04
  you know that people were into OK, so to that end, let me get
• 1:06:07
  you, let me grab a relics beer. I'll crack it.
• 1:06:09
  I'll crack it. Definitely.
• 1:06:11
  Hang on. Yes, that's my that's my
• 1:06:15
  predilection. So I'll tell you the story.
• 1:06:17
  So here's the beer here. You're there.
• 1:06:21
  So water. We're in Florida.
• 1:06:23
  No. What'd you say?
• 1:06:24
  3 waters in Florida, aren't they?
• 1:06:26
  They're based in Atlanta. Atlanta, right, All right.
• 1:06:29
  I'm sure they reach, I'm sure they reach Florida.
• 1:06:31
  Yeah. So the idea was I wanted, we
• 1:06:34
  wanted to make a beer. The, the, the the biggest beer
• 1:06:36
  enthusiast, jam musician I know is Kyle Hollingsworth.
• 1:06:40
  And I've known Kyle for a while. And so we wanted string cheese.
• 1:06:43
  Yeah. And so we wanted to, we wanted
• 1:06:46
  to make a beer together. And Wheatwater agreed.
• 1:06:50
  This was an amazing story. I actually wrote about it in
• 1:06:53
  three parts and relics. And they flew us out to, to to
• 1:06:58
  Northern California where no, no, to Oregon, to Oregon, sorry
• 1:07:03
  to Oregon, where we sampled the hops.
• 1:07:05
  We went to the hop farm. This is the beginning of the
• 1:07:07
  process. And then we went to the hop farm
• 1:07:10
  and then we sat around the table.
• 1:07:11
  None of us, we none of us had to drive and we would.
• 1:07:14
  We would just drink a lot of beers that had a strong flavor
• 1:07:17
  of each of the kinds of hops. Sure.
• 1:07:20
  So amazing. I've never done.
• 1:07:21
  I'd love to do this again. Kyle and I talk about this so.
• 1:07:25
  Near you, You have a ton near you.
• 1:07:26
  That's. Fair.
• 1:07:27
  No, no, that's fair. What there's a There's a million
• 1:07:30
  hop farms you can go to in that area and they're delicious.
• 1:07:32
  Northeastern beer is awesome. All right, now, that's fair.
• 1:07:35
  That's fair. Listen.
• 1:07:36
  So I, I was like, yes, so we do that.
• 1:07:41
  That was the first step. Then we went down.
• 1:07:44
  Then we came up with the recipe. We, we obviously worked with the
• 1:07:47
  person who was the head, you know, the, the head of of at was
• 1:07:51
  in charge of that at Sweetwater. And we went down there and we,
• 1:07:55
  we made some samples and then we went down again and we drank the
• 1:07:59
  samples and then we threw a party and it was awesome.
• 1:08:02
  And the one thing I said was, if we're going to do this, I don't
• 1:08:04
  just want this to be something you can have on tap anywhere.
• 1:08:07
  I mean, that's great, but let's make this special.
• 1:08:09
  And so you could get this, I know up and down the East Coast
• 1:08:13
  it was called Ground Score and love it.
• 1:08:17
  I have a few of them left. I haven't, I haven't.
• 1:08:20
  It's an IPA. I, you know, I know for a while
• 1:08:22
  they were in fashion, but for me, I just love Ipas because I
• 1:08:26
  just love that hoppy. When I was growing up, truly
• 1:08:29
  when I was starting to drink beer, there was nothing very
• 1:08:31
  flavorful. And to me like this, the the the
• 1:08:34
  flavor of hops is what really what what does it for me.
• 1:08:38
  If you ever come down to South Florida or else I could ship you
• 1:08:41
  some some local brews here, We have like within within 2025
• 1:08:47
  minutes of the Fort Lauderdale airport.
• 1:08:49
  There's probably a half a dozen, 8, 8 plus out of 10 breweries
• 1:08:54
  that are just out of this world. And I did a couple of podcasts
• 1:08:57
  with the with, with the owners and there's so much that's also
• 1:09:01
  such a fun world. The people are so authentic and
• 1:09:04
  nice and, and whoever's there is there because they want craft
• 1:09:09
  beer, you know, like it's the same reason, like it's a similar
• 1:09:11
  thing to the music world. Like you're there because you're
• 1:09:14
  there for a particular type of thing that you like.
• 1:09:16
  And man, if you, if you, if you're coming down, great.
• 1:09:20
  If not, I'm happy to send you a customized, you know, so 4 to 10
• 1:09:24
  pack of different types of Florida Ipas that I think will
• 1:09:29
  blow you away because we make great beer down here.
• 1:09:32
  Fair enough. Listen, I buy it.
• 1:09:35
  So here we go. Cheers.
• 1:09:37
  Cheers, cheers. I haven't.
• 1:09:40
  Like I said, it's a little bit so you know, right.
• 1:09:42
  So Ipas were created so that people could drink, you know,
• 1:09:45
  when they were when they were at sea, so that you know, like when
• 1:09:49
  they were at sea to support themselves when they couldn't
• 1:09:51
  drink the water. So you know an IPA is going to
• 1:09:53
  last longer than others people like.
• 1:09:56
  So this, this beer at this point is.
• 1:10:00
  Oh boy, don't check the canning date.
• 1:10:03
  Salt, it's three years old, but but it's I'm sure it'll just be
• 1:10:07
  mild. It won't be.
• 1:10:08
  Yeah, definitely, definitely. I'm curious how much how much
• 1:10:11
  the how much the hop flavor has has changed or not though.
• 1:10:17
  You know what you can taste? It actually tastes pretty good.
• 1:10:20
  Like it's not, there's not a kick to it.
• 1:10:22
  It's like it's, it's close to a Dippa, right?
• 1:10:24
  It's close to a double IPA. Yeah.
• 1:10:27
  What's it close to 7 percent, 8%?
• 1:10:29
  Actually it's 7.1. 7.1 There you go.
• 1:10:32
  Beautiful. It's not quite as strong, but it
• 1:10:33
  smells good, you know, not my plan, no way.
• 1:10:37
  When I woke up this morning, this is not I, I had no, no
• 1:10:40
  thought that I'd be doing this. I have a couple left, but you
• 1:10:43
  know. Happy.
• 1:10:44
  I'm so happy. I'm honored.
• 1:10:46
  Do you remember the hops that you liked?
• 1:10:51
  I have the recipe. It's Citra.
• 1:10:52
  It was Citra. It was Citra is the one that I
• 1:10:56
  know that's in it. I also found out later that they
• 1:11:02
  never could have. It was not very, it's not very
• 1:11:05
  cost effective to make this beer because it was so hoppy that the
• 1:11:10
  hop farm donated the hops because they knew because we,
• 1:11:13
  we, we wanted something that really had something to it.
• 1:11:18
  And it Crosby Hop Farm is the name of the hop farm.
• 1:11:23
  And no, it was great. And Kyle is really, really cool,
• 1:11:26
  loves beer. He does, you know, he does beer
• 1:11:28
  events out in Colorado sometimes he'll do beer events before and
• 1:11:32
  after a string cheese show. We nearly maybe one day, we
• 1:11:37
  still talk again about doing one more beer together.
• 1:11:39
  We came pretty, pretty close. But he's a great guy to hang out
• 1:11:43
  with and he's fun and he's, you know, that a great sense of
• 1:11:45
  humor. And eventually they'll get him
• 1:11:47
  to people, get him to play. There'll be a piano in the thing
• 1:11:50
  or he'll do a show around the event.
• 1:11:51
  But we did this together again. It's legitimately still still
• 1:11:55
  pretty good. And that's that.
• 1:11:58
  So that's, yeah, that's. I love it.
• 1:12:01
  I think it's great. Are there any other styles that
• 1:12:04
  you've adventured into? Because I I've gone from Ipas to
• 1:12:07
  sours to stouts, and then I've gone back to loggers now and I'm
• 1:12:11
  back into like the light logger game after I probably lost, I
• 1:12:15
  quit drinking Ipas about a year and a half ago and I probably
• 1:12:18
  lost 25 lbs since then. Look at that.
• 1:12:20
  I do get that big difference. I do get that I'll be honest and
• 1:12:24
  people will I'll set myself up for criticism here.
• 1:12:27
  To me, sometimes like sours just felt like, and I know that that
• 1:12:32
  the amount of thought and effort and that went into them and it's
• 1:12:36
  like a science experiment a bit, but I, I just didn't really care
• 1:12:41
  for those personally. You know, I, I don't, you know,
• 1:12:44
  I, I don't, I don't mind something a little bit heavier.
• 1:12:47
  If we're going to make something like a, you know, like a stout,
• 1:12:50
  that's cool. I respect everything that goes
• 1:12:51
  into it. And you know, there have been
• 1:12:53
  times, not recently where you can, you can have a stout for
• 1:12:55
  like a lunch that's like a meal. You know it done, right?
• 1:12:58
  Yeah, 5 days. But you know, but but I get I
• 1:13:02
  bet a lager is light and refreshing on a nice warm day.
• 1:13:05
  Why? Why not?
• 1:13:06
  I mean to me at this point, if I'm having a stout next.
• 1:13:09
  You guys should do a stout next for sure.
• 1:13:11
  Don't do another IPA. There's too many Ipas in the
• 1:13:13
  market. Do it.
• 1:13:14
  Do a stout, do a seasonal 1 where like you could stick in a
• 1:13:17
  barrel for a couple of months and then you could throw some
• 1:13:20
  like nice winter flavors like chocolate or coffee or, you
• 1:13:23
  know, vanilla beans or something into it.
• 1:13:25
  Man. Do you have some great breweries
• 1:13:27
  near you? I mean, you're, you're, you're
• 1:13:28
  if you're in Rhode Island, I mean, you're in Massachusetts.
• 1:13:31
  I mean that. Have you been to a tree house?
• 1:13:33
  You know they are. Listen, it's great.
• 1:13:35
  They're awful. No.
• 1:13:36
  Yeah, and I saw the Dark Star was playing there.
• 1:13:39
  I almost bought tickets because Dark Star was playing in one of
• 1:13:42
  their locations. And then and Derek Trucks is
• 1:13:46
  playing that the night before in Bethel Woods.
• 1:13:49
  And I was going to take it, make it, make a little road trip out
• 1:13:52
  of it. And I bought the Derek Truck
• 1:13:54
  tickets to convince myself to go.
• 1:13:58
  And then my wife said no. And then I gave the tickets to
• 1:14:03
  my dad. So now my dad, I bought tickets.
• 1:14:07
  My dad has been to String Cheese, Springsteen on Broadway
• 1:14:12
  and and Derek Trucks now and they're all my tickets that I
• 1:14:18
  had to give him. Well, that's very generous of
• 1:14:20
  you. Does your dad, does your dad
• 1:14:22
  come out like in terms of his music?
• 1:14:23
  Is that it, is he when he goes to those things, is he
• 1:14:25
  discovering something or is that sort of reflecting some of the
• 1:14:28
  stuff that he listened to at some point in his in his life?
• 1:14:31
  He's. With so with String Cheese and
• 1:14:35
  with and with Eric Trucks is totally new to him.
• 1:14:38
  I mean, the Allman, The Allman Brothers vibe and that sound is
• 1:14:41
  more familiar to him. He grew up more of like a pop
• 1:14:43
  80's rock kind of guy in Miami Beach.
• 1:14:45
  So a lot of Springsteen out of Billy Joel, a lot of Fleetwood
• 1:14:48
  Mac, a lot of like the pop rock at the time.
• 1:14:50
  But great listen, great, awesome music and music I grew up on.
• 1:14:55
  Yeah, I tried to, you know what? I'm trying.
• 1:14:57
  I'm trying to, I'm trying to teach him.
• 1:14:58
  I'm teaching one bit at a time. He has a house and here's a
• 1:15:01
  little log cabin in the in the mountains of North Carolina.
• 1:15:05
  So he's by Asheville quite a bit.
• 1:15:07
  And I'm like, there is a lot of great music.
• 1:15:09
  There's always great beer and a lot of great music in Asheville.
• 1:15:12
  And you should and you and and and it's a shame that he doesn't
• 1:15:14
  go to more, but I'll get him. I'll get him there.
• 1:15:17
  I meant to ask you also along the way as as my podcast has
• 1:15:22
  been kind of coming along, what are some of your experiences
• 1:15:27
  dealing with some of, you know, it's interviewing, meeting and
• 1:15:29
  becoming friends with some of these like, you know, incredible
• 1:15:32
  musicians and people that you, I don't know if you'd consider
• 1:15:35
  them that way, but that people would often consider heroes of
• 1:15:38
  theirs, you know, what's that like?
• 1:15:40
  What I would say is this the the most interesting part of that
• 1:15:44
  has been watching people who were young when I first met them
• 1:15:50
  and maybe were not very well known, and then seeing them in
• 1:15:54
  contexts and fully appreciating what other people think of them.
• 1:15:58
  And whenever I tell this for the first one that comes to mind is
• 1:16:00
  like Eric Krasnow right from Sola, people come crazy.
• 1:16:04
  There's a lot of things he's done stuff with Bill Lash and
• 1:16:05
  this and that over the time he came up to me.
• 1:16:09
  I was at, I think a Grey Boy All Stars show in Cambridge at the
• 1:16:13
  very, very first House of Blues. And the very, very first House
• 1:16:16
  of Blues was like a House of Blues.
• 1:16:18
  It was like a Juke joint legitimately.
• 1:16:20
  And then it became something different.
• 1:16:22
  That's fair. So you know, then then seeing
• 1:16:25
  when you know, when I know him, he was Eric and he gave me said
• 1:16:27
  and he handed me this cassette from his band that would
• 1:16:31
  lettuce. But still today, although he's
• 1:16:34
  not really in it. And they were just, you know,
• 1:16:36
  Berkeley College of Music kids they'd met actually as high
• 1:16:39
  school students at the Berkeley College of Music.
• 1:16:41
  And I'm like, oh, hey, that's Eric.
• 1:16:43
  Cool. And then eventually then he was
• 1:16:45
  in the band Soul Live and he was playing with John Scofield and,
• 1:16:48
  you know, then they were doing these bowl live things and now
• 1:16:51
  he's out in he's a big time producer.
• 1:16:53
  And so it's been fun to see that.
• 1:16:55
  The other person, quite honestly, who I met when he was
• 1:16:57
  a pre teenager is Derek Trucks. I think the first time I
• 1:17:01
  interviewed him, he was 19 and it's been amazing.
• 1:17:05
  I mean, just, and he was extraordinary back then.
• 1:17:09
  And when he was in the Derek Trucks Band, he would play at
• 1:17:12
  this little casino, this free gig at the Mohegan Sun Casino in
• 1:17:17
  this little free room and that we would sit at these little
• 1:17:19
  cocktail. I can remember this very
• 1:17:21
  distinctly 2 years. We were sitting at these little
• 1:17:23
  cocktail tables and it was myself, my friend and Derek at
• 1:17:28
  the time. It was his girlfriend, it was
• 1:17:30
  Susan Tedeschi. It was like the four of us were
• 1:17:32
  just there just up to see Derek. And then both years we were just
• 1:17:35
  there having, you know, it's like they're bringing you drinks
• 1:17:38
  and this and that. And then she's whispers
• 1:17:40
  something and she apologizes. She has to get up because she
• 1:17:42
  has to go on stage and sing a couple songs and then she comes
• 1:17:45
  back out and she says, so it's been fun.
• 1:17:47
  I mean, to me, that's always exciting.
• 1:17:50
  And it takes me by surprise sometimes when I'm like, oh,
• 1:17:52
  wow. And think about Tedeschi Trucks
• 1:17:55
  Band like they believe, but when they went out there, they
• 1:18:00
  believed that they could take a 12 piece band, super expensive
• 1:18:04
  on the road and makes and everyone said that's a bad idea.
• 1:18:08
  Derek's management said, I don't know, Susan's management, I
• 1:18:12
  don't know. But that's what they heard in
• 1:18:14
  their heads. And, you know, they're, they're
• 1:18:17
  pretty aggressively going to follow their muse and they
• 1:18:22
  always have. And now they're out there and
• 1:18:25
  it's and it's awesome and they've been able to succeed at
• 1:18:27
  doing their thing and it's really, really fun.
• 1:18:29
  I have a lot of respect for Derek.
• 1:18:31
  And anyway, and all of those people who sort of came out of
• 1:18:34
  the the Colonel Bruce Hampton, well, you know, like Jimmy
• 1:18:38
  Herring from Widespread Panic, like Otil from Dead and
• 1:18:41
  Burbridge from Dead and Company, a lot of places.
• 1:18:44
  And even some of the younger people, some of the younger
• 1:18:46
  players like Derek's brother Dwayne, now in widespread
• 1:18:49
  panicked, you know, Jimmy Herring's son-in-law.
• 1:18:52
  And there are a lot of, you know, this guy, Nick Johnson,
• 1:18:54
  who's playing with Widespread Panic now that Jimmy Herring has
• 1:18:57
  to sit out while he's getting some treatment for, you know,
• 1:19:00
  for for throat cancer. He's from the the Colonel Bruce
• 1:19:04
  Hampton school. And it's just, it's just been
• 1:19:07
  wild. I remember seeing them and the
• 1:19:10
  amazing thing about about Bruce, Bruce Hampton is he it's for
• 1:19:14
  him, it was all about intent, right?
• 1:19:16
  And it wasn't even about if the intent was right, the execution
• 1:19:19
  will be. And he was pretty famous for
• 1:19:22
  clearing a room of of an audience and then waiting to see
• 1:19:26
  who was who was who was left who that you believe And I was at a
• 1:19:30
  show. It is damn it.
• 1:19:31
  I'd heard this and then it happened to me at this this
• 1:19:33
  place called night stage in Cambridge in 89.
• 1:19:36
  And they got up there in the middle of the first set.
• 1:19:38
  They played some of the most A and I thought this was great for
• 1:19:41
  the record. They played all of this a tonal
• 1:19:45
  just squawking strange and I was totally riveted.
• 1:19:48
  I want to be clear like that in and itself was great.
• 1:19:51
  But he cleared the room and there were maybe, I don't know,
• 1:19:54
  15 or 20 of us left 1/2 hour later.
• 1:19:57
  And then they played some of the most beautiful, sublime music
• 1:20:00
  you could have expected. And I know that was his whole,
• 1:20:03
  that was his whole thing. And I don't know, I'm drifting a
• 1:20:07
  little bit from from your question about what it's like.
• 1:20:10
  But I will say this, I remember when Otil joined the Almond.
• 1:20:14
  Brothers Band. And on that first tour, I, I was
• 1:20:17
  writing at that time for a magazine called Hit in the Note,
• 1:20:20
  which was run by The Allman Brothers Band tour manager Kirk
• 1:20:23
  West. And so I remember I had AI had
• 1:20:25
  like 3 or 4 hours with Otil in a hotel room right outside
• 1:20:29
  Mansfield, Mass, because The Allman Brothers Band was playing
• 1:20:32
  at Great Woods. And we just hung out and we were
• 1:20:34
  shooting the shit. And then a few years after that
• 1:20:38
  I had a book release, which I'm not going to get this book for
• 1:20:40
  my jam bands book. And Otil played it and it was
• 1:20:43
  just, you know, with his band, the Peacemakers.
• 1:20:45
  And these things all come around.
• 1:20:47
  I don't know. The one thing that I would say
• 1:20:49
  is, you know, people are imperfect.
• 1:20:52
  You were talking about what it's like.
• 1:20:54
  I would say for the most part, what you see is what you get.
• 1:20:57
  What you feel is what you get. I think a lot of these musicians
• 1:21:01
  who you think they seem pretty righteous and selfless in their
• 1:21:06
  approach and egoless maybe more than selfless in their approach.
• 1:21:11
  Then when you meet them, they're, they're like that in
• 1:21:14
  many, in many respects. And you know, and you know,
• 1:21:17
  don't really always want to want to talk about any other thing
• 1:21:21
  other than the music, because that's just not where their
• 1:21:24
  heads are. Heads are.
• 1:21:26
  On the other hand, I can remember talking to someone like
• 1:21:27
  Warren Haynes who could be in the middle of a converse.
• 1:21:29
  I, this always stunned me. We'd be in the middle of a
• 1:21:32
  conversation like at the Beacon Theater at the Allman where The
• 1:21:35
  Allman Brothers Band were playing.
• 1:21:36
  He'd be like, oh, someone say up, Warren got to go.
• 1:21:38
  We go, OK. And on a turn on a dime, go on
• 1:21:41
  stage and just boom, he'd deliver.
• 1:21:43
  Like he didn't need, he didn't need, you know, any sort of
• 1:21:45
  meditation time or anything. You could just step up and start
• 1:21:49
  cranking from the, from the gecko.
• 1:21:51
  One other thing quickly about Warren, because we're going,
• 1:21:54
  we're going, it's fine. We're going on and on.
• 1:21:56
  And you were talking earlier about sort of the nature of, of,
• 1:22:00
  of music and sort of happy music and sad music.
• 1:22:03
  And I remember I've talked to Warren about this a couple
• 1:22:06
  times. People ask him why he doesn't
• 1:22:08
  have more happy songs and what his answer is, is when I'm
• 1:22:11
  happy, I don't want to write songs.
• 1:22:13
  I just want to live life. And so it goes back to the
• 1:22:16
  Blues, right? When you're writing the Blues
• 1:22:18
  because you're feeling the Blues, right?
• 1:22:20
  When you're not feeling the Blues, he wants to sit around by
• 1:22:22
  yourself writing a song. And I think you can hear that in
• 1:22:25
  a lot of not all of them, right? Something like soul Shine or
• 1:22:28
  other, you know, other things. But, you know, and I think
• 1:22:31
  that's true and I respect that. I respect that, right?
• 1:22:34
  Because he he, he asked you what he's feeling in the moment and
• 1:22:36
  when he doesn't want it, when he's feeling good, I don't want
• 1:22:38
  to write a song. OK, So you don't get, you know,
• 1:22:41
  not a bunch of happy songs. Yeah, yeah, I'm OK with that.
• 1:22:44
  Also, by the way, it happens to be like most of the songs that
• 1:22:47
  are happy are great because the tunes are happy.
• 1:22:50
  Not, not because of happy and not because of incredible happy
• 1:22:53
  lyrics. You know, like, I don't know, it
• 1:22:55
  does. We, we, we, we shift into a
• 1:22:57
  different kind of state of mind, I think at that point.
• 1:23:00
  Can I ask out of curiosity what Derek Trucks is like because
• 1:23:04
  he's he seems so expressionless on his music is so is so
• 1:23:10
  expressive and like and he seems so quiet and so expressed.
• 1:23:16
  I just want to can I? I'm just let.
• 1:23:17
  Me say yes this is a great 1. He is one of the funniest
• 1:23:21
  people. I'm stunned by this because he
• 1:23:25
  is very taciturn. He's very focused.
• 1:23:28
  He does not crack a smile on stage.
• 1:23:31
  I think it's because he's like, I got a job to do here, man.
• 1:23:33
  You know, I'm leading this 12 piece band.
• 1:23:35
  I'm focused on music. But he is, he's got a great
• 1:23:38
  sense of humor. He loves to laugh.
• 1:23:41
  He, you know, like he's he's he's super fun to have the
• 1:23:46
  opportunity to hang out with him because he's always, he's
• 1:23:49
  honestly smiling all the time cracking.
• 1:23:52
  He's got a great spirit about him, I guess is what I would
• 1:23:55
  say. So subdued on stage it's crazy.
• 1:23:59
  I can't think of anyone that I know that's such a stark
• 1:24:02
  contrast. Between between the way that
• 1:24:06
  they are on stage and. Yeah, I can't think of anyone
• 1:24:09
  that's such a stark contrast between their stage persona and
• 1:24:12
  what they're like off stage. Derek is my is my best example
• 1:24:15
  because he is not like how you would think he would be just
• 1:24:18
  from watching him. You know, tight lipped on stage,
• 1:24:21
  focused on the music. His Layla Revisited album Lock
• 1:24:26
  In is one of my all time favorite albums with Trey
• 1:24:31
  sitting in and they're keep on growing and was just out of
• 1:24:36
  control was just I, I and I didn't know that was one of the
• 1:24:40
  first time I was listening to to to to dusky trucks.
• 1:24:43
  Like period. You know, I just I found the
• 1:24:44
  album. I just put it on and I I
• 1:24:46
  remember I was I was going on a jog and I'm listening.
• 1:24:49
  I'm thinking song after song. This is just out of control.
• 1:24:53
  And then I realized it's a cover album.
• 1:24:55
  And I'm like, it's a cover album.
• 1:24:57
  This is something like what the heck is going on over here?
• 1:25:00
  But it's it's it's out of control.
• 1:25:03
  Good. I to close out.
• 1:25:06
  What are some things that we're looking forward to in the future
• 1:25:08
  and what are some things that we're hopeful and and excited
• 1:25:11
  about? Well, you mentioned you
• 1:25:14
  mentioned you mentioned Derek, right?
• 1:25:16
  They have a new record that's that's on the way.
• 1:25:20
  They have their big their big summer tour that's coming up.
• 1:25:23
  They're doing a bunch of shows. They're, they're at the they're
• 1:25:27
  going to be at the Beacon Theatre in New York for most of
• 1:25:30
  March, which is always fun. For most.
• 1:25:33
  Of March. So like, you know, they've sort
• 1:25:35
  of taken up the mantle of The Allman Brothers Band and that
• 1:25:37
  was always a tradition. It was really, really fun to
• 1:25:40
  see, you know, March Madness with the ABP.
• 1:25:42
  I'm also a college basketball fan.
• 1:25:44
  So you can and you could walk outside there so you could walk
• 1:25:47
  out during set break, go catch some games at a bar, like catch
• 1:25:50
  the end of some of the early games and then walk back in for
• 1:25:53
  the second set. That was always great.
• 1:25:54
  I'm not sure. Well, I don't think they let
• 1:25:56
  people do that anymore, but it was you could do that back then
• 1:25:59
  during the ABP years. So he now that they're basically
• 1:26:02
  taking up most of most of March, which which I think is quite,
• 1:26:06
  quite awesome. Listen, fish is they since they
• 1:26:10
  just announced their tour, that's on my mind.
• 1:26:13
  They're they're playing at Fenway Park, my home baseball
• 1:26:16
  stadium, which I first went to as a as a kid and I'm like ever
• 1:26:19
  since. So for the record, anyone who
• 1:26:21
  cares, don't the sound, the sound in the stands is not
• 1:26:23
  great. You got to hopefully be on the
• 1:26:25
  field because that place is not designed really for music, but a
• 1:26:28
  fun place to see them. And, you know, they're going to
• 1:26:30
  play five nights at Madison Square Garden, which they don't
• 1:26:33
  normally do during the summer, just so they can set themselves
• 1:26:36
  up to play their 100th show on New Year's Eve, which, you know,
• 1:26:40
  so that's going to be a cool little run akin to, right.
• 1:26:42
  I think you were, you were referencing this sort of
• 1:26:44
  indirectly earlier, like the Baker's dozen when they play in
• 1:26:47
  all those shows. And that was actually during the
• 1:26:49
  summer at Madison Square Garden. It's tough by the way, to to to
• 1:26:54
  find slots to play it at MSG because the Rangers are playing,
• 1:26:58
  because the Knicks are playing, because there's any number of
• 1:27:00
  the and the summer tends to be. It's one of the biggest venues
• 1:27:03
  in the world. Yeah, but but during the summer
• 1:27:05
  there's not as much competition, right?
• 1:27:07
  There's not as many thing, you know, you don't have the ice
• 1:27:09
  Capade, you know the two teams, you don't have this or that.
• 1:27:11
  And so, you know, they're the New York Liberty, I'm pretty
• 1:27:15
  sure. So, you know, so it's fun when
• 1:27:18
  you know it'll be, it'll be a cool contrast to see fish
• 1:27:23
  outdoors and then indoors. I like that, you know, sometimes
• 1:27:26
  I think like indoors, I think it can be a little bit more
• 1:27:29
  intense. I think some people like
• 1:27:31
  outdoors in terms of the way the sound sort of flies.
• 1:27:35
  I always thought that was one of the big differences between
• 1:27:38
  seeing the Grateful Dead on the West Coast and seeing the
• 1:27:40
  Grateful Dead on the East Coast in that a lot of the West Coast
• 1:27:44
  shows were Amphitheatre shows, at least 80s and not all of
• 1:27:47
  them, but a lot of them, you know, shoreline and the like.
• 1:27:51
  And then a lot of the shows, at least that I would see would be
• 1:27:54
  indoors where this would be a little bit more.
• 1:27:56
  It'll be a little, it was a little more intense all the way,
• 1:27:59
  all the way around anyhow, right.
• 1:28:02
  I imagine aside from that, I'm excited for, you know, I think
• 1:28:05
  in the near term, right? Graham Lesch is doing some shows
• 1:28:09
  at the Capitol Theatre, lovely Peter Shapiro's venue, going to
• 1:28:12
  do 4 nights with any number of guests honoring his father.
• 1:28:16
  And I thought he did a did a wonderful job last year, right?
• 1:28:21
  Including the last night in which he played with his
• 1:28:24
  father's old band, like the quintet, the classic Phil Lesch
• 1:28:27
  quintet with Warren Haynes and Jimmy Herring and John Molo and
• 1:28:32
  Rob Barocco. And for some of the show he
• 1:28:35
  played guitar, but for the second set he played bass.
• 1:28:37
  And I was just talking to, again, this is on relics.com.
• 1:28:42
  It's so moved. I was talking to Warren about
• 1:28:44
  that Warren's, like, I had no idea what he was going to be
• 1:28:47
  like as a bass player. And he was really, really,
• 1:28:48
  really good. And he, you know, encapsulated
• 1:28:51
  all those ideas that his dad had.
• 1:28:52
  And it's easy to say, well, yeah, of course he did.
• 1:28:55
  But you still have to execute on them.
• 1:28:56
  Even if you know the ideas, even if you have them in your head,
• 1:28:59
  you still have to deliver. And I think he really put a lot
• 1:29:02
  of time and effort into that. So it'll be fun to see.
• 1:29:05
  Now this will be the second time around where he's going to going
• 1:29:07
  to play with a bunch of different players in March at
• 1:29:10
  the the cap. And I love the cap.
• 1:29:11
  Sounds good, looks good visually.
• 1:29:13
  That's what I was talking about earlier.
• 1:29:14
  Such a great venue. Yeah, I, I went for the first
• 1:29:17
  time there and I, I absolutely loved that.
• 1:29:20
  I went to my, I actually went to 1 fish show in my life too.
• 1:29:22
  I went to New Year's. I went to New Year's concert in
• 1:29:24
  20, I think 16 or 7, I think is 16 to 17.
• 1:29:30
  And my girlfriend at the time, her, she and her whole family
• 1:29:33
  were super into it. I don't even know what I don't
• 1:29:36
  even know what I was getting into.
• 1:29:37
  And they're like, you don't even have to know.
• 1:29:38
  Just have a good just like, and I was stone cold sober.
• 1:29:41
  I, I didn't drink, I didn't smoke at the time.
• 1:29:44
  I, I, I, I always, we took a train from Jersey and just got
• 1:29:48
  in along. The train was just packed of
• 1:29:50
  people going from Jersey to the concert.
• 1:29:52
  And it was just, it was just a wild 3 hours of just the
• 1:29:57
  funkiest, you know, music that like I've ever heard and the
• 1:30:00
  balloons everywhere and the balls everywhere and, and the
• 1:30:03
  lights and, and they're telling me the light is the, is the, is
• 1:30:05
  the, is the last member of the band.
• 1:30:07
  And I'm like, I don't even know what world I'm in, but like,
• 1:30:10
  this is crazy. It's so cool.
• 1:30:12
  So a straight normie like me was able to appreciate that long
• 1:30:16
  before my taste had developed, I guess.
• 1:30:18
  Listen, I I think that's what they would they would aspire to
• 1:30:20
  that, right? They want to they want to
• 1:30:22
  welcome everyone in under the tent who maybe doesn't entirely
• 1:30:26
  yet it they want to bring everyone on the on the bus.
• 1:30:29
  But yeah, listen, Chris Corona, right, fifth member of the band.
• 1:30:31
  He does his thing. I think, you know, he's been
• 1:30:33
  there forever and he certainly knows what he's doing and he
• 1:30:37
  knows the music so exceptionally well and can anticipate it in
• 1:30:41
  ways that are stunning. True.
• 1:30:43
  Yeah, Dean, this is so much fun. So you got to finally connect
• 1:30:48
  and maybe I hope to do this again at some point.
• 1:30:50
  But it was so nice meeting, getting to talk to you and
• 1:30:52
  hearing some of your thoughts and experiences.
• 1:30:54
  And this is this is really really from the bottom of my
• 1:30:57
  heart is real treat. And I really am so happy that
• 1:30:59
  we're able to record and connect and do this.
• 1:31:01
  Cheers, man. Let me know if you end up doing
• 1:31:04
  a another collaboration and and if you want that South Florida
• 1:31:09
  beer, I'm more than happy. I'm more than happy to hook you
• 1:31:12
  up. Julie Nolan, appreciate it, Sir.
• 1:31:15
  Nice talking to you. Thanks so much.
• 1:31:16
  Have a great night. Take care.
• 1:31:17
  Take care.