Garcia

Jerry Garcia interview with former banjo student Randy Groenke and Mike Cramer
Grateful Dead House
710 Ashbury Street
San Francisco, CA
February or early March 1967

Lots of interesting early 1967 Jerry talk from a low gen. cassette - exact lineage unknown but 2nd or 3rd generation at the most. Very good to excellent sound quality - check the sample to decide for yourself. I looked on the web for information about this interview but could not find any details. The probable date is because their first album was about to be released, but hadn't been yet. (The release date for the first album was March 17, 1967.)

Besides Jerry and the interviewers, there are bits of Mountain Girl, Bob Weir, Pigpen and others in the background.

disc 1 - 42:02
01 [4:05] electric banjo, pedal steel guitar, music equipment talk, etc.
02 [1:44] Jefferson Airplane, Jerry assisting on Surrealistic Pillow LP
03 [2:51] The San Francisco Sound
04 [4:22] hippies, Grateful Dead view of music, etc.
05 [5:06] The Fillmore audience
06 [3:02] talk about Newsweek article, "Dropouts With A Mission" and Jerry seeing himself as a dropout
07 [1:49] Jerry discusses precursors to the S.F. scene and switching from banjo back to guitar
08 [3:47] rock and roll influences (Chuck Berry, The Beatles, etc.), becoming successful while sharing with their friends, etc.
09 [4:55] the Vietnam War
10 [1:21] "the world needs to take care of itself"
11 [1:26] Grateful Dead music not advocating any political message
12 [0:52] looking forward to first trip to New York
13 [1:34] Buffalo Springfield, Moby Grape, Skip Spence, Jorma Kaukonen
14 [0:54] Mathew Katz and other old style band managers
15 [3:16] S.F. radio and the radio business
16 [0:58] Jerry's short review and hopes for the success of their not yet released first album

disc 2 - 41:08
01 [1:02] what might happen to the S.F. scene, etc.
02 [0:55] talk about some band equipment which had just been stolen from their warehouse
03 [4:16] the Haight Ashbury scene
04 [4:34] The Hell's Angels
05 [0:59] the stolen band equipment has been found!
06 [3:51] more Hell's Angels talk
07 [3:30] Jerry's beliefs
08 [1:00] The police
09 [4:53] drugs
10 [3:38] Jerry's tapes - "go get them from Sara"
11 [3:34] possibility of playing banjo with The Grateful Dead > kids talking much louder than Jerry [luckily there's not too much of that]
12 [1:07] existentialism
13 [1:23] "Blow Up" film and Grateful Dead plans to be in a movie
14 [1:52] Look magazine article on Jefferson Airplane with Jim Marshall photos of the S.F. bands
15 [1:12] jazz and other styles mixing with Rock and Roll
16 [1:04] talk about getting the stolen band equipment back
17 [1:27] talk about the old gun that Jerry is playing around with during the interview
18 [0:51] interview conclusion

lineage: master reel @ 3.75 ips speed > (?) > cassette > my TDK MA90 cassette > Nakamichi Dragon > Macintosh with Digidesign AudioMedia III sound card > Pro Tools (minor "nip and tuck" edits, normalization and many clicks and pops manually removed - no noise reduction or equalization) > AIFF > xACT (Flac level 8 files with sector boundaries verified). md5 file created with checkSUM+.

More notes from a comment posted after this was seeded:

Blair Jackson wrote the following about this interview: "This interview was done at 710 Ashbury in February or March of 1967 ... Randy Groenke, the principal interviewer, had been a banjo student of Garcia's in the early 60s when they both lived in the South Bay. He and his friend Mike Cramer simply called Jerry up and arranged to do the interview, friend to friend."

"One Afternoon Long Ago ... An Interview with Jerry Garcia, 1967," by Randy Groenke and Mike Cramer. First published in The Golden Road magazine and reprinted in Herb Greene, <I>Dead Days: A Grateful Dead Illustrated History</I> (Petaluma, CA: Acid Test Productions, 1997).

Enjoy and SHARE!

Grateful Dead & Merry Pranksters
The Acid Test Reels
1965-1967

A chronological compilation of the Acid Test recordings listed in 
The Grateful Dead Tapers Compendium Volume One.


DISC ONE: Fillmore Acid Test/Sound City Acid Test

 The Fillmore Acid Test
 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA
     January 8, 1966
 1.  Stage Chaos/More Power Rap
 2.  King Bee
 3.  I'm A Hog For You Baby
 4.  Caution: Do Not Step On Tracks >
 5.  Death Don't Have No Mercy
 6.  Star Spangled Banner / closing remarks

 The Sound City Acid Test
 363 6th Street, San Francisco, CA
     January 29, 1966
 7.  Ken Kesey interviewed by Frank Fey
 8.  Ken Babbs and harmonica
 9.  Take Two: Ken Kesey
 10. Bull
 11. Peggy The Pistol
 12. One-way Ticket
 13. Bells And Fairies
 14. Levitation
 15. Trip X
 16. The End

 7-16 The Acid Test: A Sound City Production


DISC TWO: Pico Acid Test /S.F. State U Acid Test (pt.1)

 The Pico Acid Test
 Danish Center, Los Angeles, CA
     March 12, 1966
 1.  Viola Lee Blues
 2.  You See A Broken Heart
 3.  In The Midnight Hour

 The San Francisco State Acid Test  
 Whatever It Is Festival
 San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
 Stereo Control Room Master (rec. 4:00AM - 6:00AM)
     October 2, 1966
 4.  The Head Has Become Fat Rap
 5.  A Mexican Story: 25 Bennies
 6.  A Tarnished Galahad
 7.  Get It Off The Ground Rap >
 8.  It's Good To Be God Rap >
 9.  Nirvana Army Rap >
 10. The Butcher Is Back
 11. Acid Test Graduation Announcement
 12. Send Me To The Moon >Closing Rap

 Credits on 10/2/66:
 Voices: Ken Kesey and Hugh Romney
 Guitar: Ken Kesey
 Violin: Dale Kesey
 Organ: Jerry Garcia
 Engineering: Steve Newman, Ken Kesey, Mountain Girl


DISC THREE: S.F. State U Acid Test (pt. 2)/Graduation Jam

 The San Francisco State Acid Test  
 Whatever It Is Festival
 San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
     October 2, 1966
 1.  Ken Kesey's dialogue (isolated remix)

 Merry Prankster Sound Collage Sequences
     October 2, 1966
 2.  Prankster Music/Sound Collage #1(sequence 1)
 3.  Kesey Rap > Prankster Music/Sound Collage #2 (sequence 2)
 4.  Prankster Sound Collage #3 > Prankster Raga(sequence 3)
 Prankster Recordings broadcast over the P.A.

 End of Whatever It Is Festival
     October 2, 1966
 5.  Closing Jam
 6.  Prankster Electronics

 Acid Test Graduation Jam
 Winterland, San Francisco, CA
     October 31, 1966
7.  Jam Session (musicians unknown)
 from The World Of Acid film soundtrack


Disc Four: Related Recordings

 Neal Cassady & The Warlocks 1965
 1.  Speed Limit
     studio recording/Prankster production tape circa late 1965
     Straight Theater, Haight Street, San Francisco, CA   July 23, 1967
 2.  Neal Cassady Raps (backed by The Dead)
     recording released as a flexi-disc in the 1st printing of The Dead Book

 Acid Tests Production Reel
 3.  Jerry Garcia commentary with Acid Test audio
     710 Haight Street House, San Francisco, CA   summer 1967
 4. - 6.  Jerry Garcia  
     one hour interview about music, drugs, politics and social changes circa 
1967


compilation and package by Alan Bershaw
shn discs by TaW
Note 1: I split the 1h Jerry interview on disc 4 into 3 smaller pieces (a-c).
Note 2: The shn-tracks for audio disc 4 are split between shn-discs 2 and 3!




SHNID	Date	Venue	City	State
89961	1967-03-??	710 Ashbury Street	San Francisco	CA
Jerry Garcia interview by Randy Groenke and Mike Cramer; master reel @ 3.75 ips speed > (?) > cassette > my TDK MA90 cassette > Nakamichi Dragon > Macintosh with Digidesign AudioMedia III sound card > Pro Tools (minor "nip and tuck" edits, normalization and many clicks and pops manually removed - no noise reduction or equalization) > AIFF > xACT (Flac level 8 files with sector boundaries verified).
5419	1967-03-??	710 Ashbury Street	San Francisco	CA
Jerry Garcia interviews; part of Acid Test compilation; via Alan Bershaw, Thomas Wulf; md5s and txt shown are for whole set

Live Concert Database