Mickey Hart Band - Live At The Englert Theater

Mickey Hart Band

Live at the Englert Theater, Iowa City, Iowa

August 22, 2012

I’ve always liked Mickey Hart. Out of the two Grateful Dead drummers, he’s definitely my favorite. It has nothing to do with his talent or his tenacious desire to spread the power of percussion to the world or his love of World Music and his efforts to bring that music to Western consciousness.

No, my love of Mickey is based on my gut feeling that he was the most unstable member of the Grateful Dead.

This instability was briefly addressed in a documentary about the Grateful Dead’s tenure with Warner Brothers. The Dead’s relationship with their record label was strained, to which Hart compared the band to a ship that neither the band nor Warner Bros could steer.

Joe Smith, an executive at Warner, was less tactful in his comments about the group, targeting Phil Lesh with the most pointed of recollections, but saving the most memorable comments for Mickey.

“I thought [Hart] could be institutionalized.” Smith recalled during the film. “I thought he was crazy. He did not seem to be on the same planet most of the time.”

Knowing this factoid of Grateful Dead lore and considering the large quantity of drugs that Hart was undoubtedly consuming during this period, it’s perfectly natural to view Mickey with a bit of trepidation.

This is exactly how I viewed the prospect of attending a live show of the Mickey Hart Band recently when I discovered they were playing a small local theater in Iowa City.

Iowa City, Iowa is a typical, liberal college town with plenty of jam-band supporters as well as their more tenured counterparts who never quite seemed to move beyond the comforts of their lefty oasis, even when they had reached the end of their collegiate experience.

I only bring this up because I expected more of a showing than the half-filled venue. The seats that were taken were occupied by only the most faithful of fans, the vast majority of which were older than me.

Not that there’s anything wrong with a little bit of gray in your fan base; Hart himself is approaching 70 and as someone who started to become folically challenged after hitting 40, I’m looking forward to attending shows where I will be the oldest person in the crowd.

These geezers were rowdy, hollering and yelling when Hart took his own sweet time bringing his band to the stage. They were also high, or at least a few of them were as I caught a whiff of marijuana from my seat in the balcony at the Englert Theater, something that I hadn’t experienced in many years-at least in an indoor venue-thanks to our country’s zero tolerance of anything requiring a Bic lighter at a show. Oh sure, the incandescent glow of a smart phone or the blackout-inducing $7 beer mixed with Lord knows whatever prescribed narcotic the ticketholder consumed earlier is perfectly fine. But when a bros tries to “spark a doobie” in some bullshit Live Nation venue, then just watch the rent-a-cops come with tiny Maglites, ready to 86 your ass for breaking their fine print rules.

Mickey Hart knows all too well about fighting the establishment, but I wondered if he knew about how to put a band together. More importantly, would he be able to get and retain a band, pushing them to their limits without chasing their tails in endless jams and World Beat excursions that fail to recognize what made the Dead such an iconic band: their roots were firmly planted in American music.

Pulsing, pulsing

It’s hard to tell from my shitty camera phone photo taken from the balcony at the Englert Theater, but behind the band was a very amateur looking banner that featured some kind of space motif. It reminded me that Hart’s last project had something to do with sounds emanating from space or something. It’s hard to recall because the idea and the ridiculous album art was enough for me to scoff at and forget that during the Dead’s brief hiatus (and his own departure), Hart actually managed to release a decent solo album.

“I have a feeling that something special is going to happen here tonight.” Hart announced after making his way on stage, from behind his circle of drums and other bits of equipment that kept the festivities filled with atmospheric sounds and loops. I have no idea what half of the instruments/devices did or were called, but there was a guy with a beard and a wool cap that Hart would turn and yell to whenever things went technically astray. He also came in handy by picking up all of the sticks and mallets that Hart would drop, placing them back into their proper holder for future use.

Hart’s choice in Dead material was pretty eclectic, ranging from some stellar performances (“Samson and Delilah”) to the pretty pedestrian (“West L.A. Fade Away”). But all of them were necessary to sedate the Deadheads in attendance, particularly since the show weaved in and out of the guitar-oriented jams with the “pulse and throb” vibe that Hart is trying to accomplish with his original material.

That material is spearheaded by two of the band’s main focal points: vocalist Christie Monee Hall and keyboardist/vocalist Ben Hockenberry. Hall is a tremendous vibe, having saved the show on more than one occasion with her incredible range and radiant personality. She brings an Earthy quality to the band, especially when Hart keeps trying to take them to places that they might not have enough fuel to get to.

This happened more than once; the band would be off on a notable journey only to find band members looking at each other, just waiting for someone to make a move. While not exactly exciting to listen to, it was more painful to watch, particularly when the band’s namesake walked off stage at one point, mid-song, addressing lord knows what off stage. Whatever it was, nearly every band member had their eyes glued to Hart’s whereabouts, which in turn had everyone in the audience looking to see what was taking place.

Hall and Hockenberry would occasionally move to one of their two microphones, one of which was rigged up to some kind of effects unit. As utterly frightening as that may sound, it actually added to some of the material, giving the newer material a trippier vibe than what I expected.

Guitarist Gawain Mathews has some nice chops and may be a force to be reckoned with in a few years in the jam band community. For now, it sounds like he’s trying to figure out his place in the band and in their mix.

Widespread Panic bassist Dave Schools is with this touring edition of the band, and aside from one criminally short solo, was totally underutilized in both presence and sound.

Seriously, initially I worried that I had forgotten my ear protection to the show, but the mix was nowhere near loud. I mentioned something about my concerns on the potential to my neighbors-a couple in their mid 50’s, I’m guessing-at the start of the show. By the start of the second set, they were gone, either a casualty of the workweek (the show was on a Wednesday night, and the second set didn’t get underway until 10) or maybe they just weren’t turned on by Hart’s direction.

And there in-lies the problem: there was little direction present, and I attribute that to Hart’s own leadership skills and his aloofness. Imagine a reasonable facsimile of a Dead show, with the set going from Not Fade Away>Space>Iko Iko>Space>Scarlet Begonias>Space.

The first set clearly showed some potential, but the second set was a shamble, particularly with the aforementioned walk-off noted earlier. The only thing comparable to that in the first set was when Mickey walked out from his drum circle and went around to each band member in front of the stage, banging on a drum and bearing this crazy, wide grin. It was creeping me out, and I was in the safety of the balcony, far from his Manson eyes.

His mood definitely changed during the second set, to which he announced that it may be likened to “strange occurrences in the desert.” There was definitely a “strange occurrences,” but nothing that sounded like any of us were being taken anywhere special.

Hart must have felt it too. With the band-again-looking to their leader for direction, he promptly began blowing kisses to each member, a subtle clue to wrap it up and end the show with “We Bid You Goodnight,” another bit of Dead nostalgia that caused the loyal remaining to scratch their heads when the band failed to return for an encore.

It was a good two-hour show, with the word “good” being the only thing in question, and the second set just barely adding to the total time. There were moments of legitimate levitation, which may make those moments that didn’t achieve orbit so pronounced.

He’s still my favorite Dead drummer; I’d take another Mickey Hart Band show over a Bill Kreutzmann gig any day of the week. And one of the reasons is that unpredictability that Hart brings, that craziness that made Joe Smith so on edge. Besides, it is good to know that not only is Mickey Hart still on his trip, but his still doing his part to make it a strange one. 

Phish and The Dead Announce 09 Tour Dates

I’m counting to ten and keeping my hands away from my privates as some recent news in noodleland has given me a boner. Of course, one of the problems in noodleland is having your hands grope around your penis for constant wanking.
Phish has decided 2009 is a prime opportunity to reform, go back on the road and have thousands of Phisheads fork over $49.50 for tickets.
I would be one of those considering it.
Perhaps you don’t remember Trey Anastasio solo career…I sure don’t. In fact, I remember more about Trey’s run-ins with the cops than I do any of his recorded output.
But I do harbor fond memories of the band that was poised to jump right into the “king of the jam bands” title after Garcia died. They did, for a while, before a few band members figured out that being the king of the jam bands was kind of a buzzkill.
Anyway: “Fuck you!”…Billy Breathes is an awesome album and I’d dig another live shot of “Wilson” any day of the week.
I just finished reading Phil Lesh’s autobiography Searching For The Sound and performed a recent run-through of the Grateful Dead’s mid-70’s output. You know, before they signed to Arista and released their shitty late-70’s output. It (the book) gave me a better understanding of Garcia’s addiction and why he kept singing “Black Muddy River” and “Stella Blue” all the time towards the end.
The spins of Blues For Allah got me missing a live version of “Franklin’s Tower” and, whadya know, The Dead just announced a 09 tour. I’m sure “Franklin’s Tower” wouldn’t be on the set list since it is a Jerry tune, but it would be nice to see the four surviving members again.
I’m totally interested in Rocking The Cradle: Egypt, 1978 when the Dead secured the necessary US and Egyptian approvals to perform a concert in front of the pyramids. This is exactly the kind of pointless hippie idea that makes me love this band. It was a concert that ultimately lost money, created only because someone got high and thought, “You know what would be awesome? To do a show in front of the pyramids, man!”
In Lesh’s book, he talks about how a few nomadic desert dwellers stopped by to listen to the jams, but ultimately, the band wasn’t really firing on all cylinders. That’s another thing I love about the Dead: whenever they were faced with the big shows (Woodstock, Altamont, the Pyramids), they managed to fuck them up somehow. Yet even afterwards, they pushed on, allowing their stoned synapses to forget these failures before moving on to the next harebrained idea.
“You know what would be awesome? To do a show from the moon!”
Here’s a short clip of a silly hippie (actually, one of the original Merry Pranksters, George Walker) desecrating one of the seven wonders of the world with a Steal Your Face flag.

Sunshine Daydream

I listened to “Sugar Magnolia” for the first time in forever. That song, along with a plethora of other Grateful Dead material, used to be a signal and then occasional soundtrack to summertime activities. And since it hasn’t really felt like summer for the obvious reasons, I haven’t brought out the Dead.
Reggae is another familiar summertime favorite, although I’m more apt to spin that genre when the mood hits. It’s great during the winter. It makes you long for the summer, or at least an isolated beach, a joint, and a bottle of Red Stripe.
The Dead were simply entrenched in summertime tradition: the never ending tours and the chance, even for just one show, to immerse yourself in this stinky, quasi-Utopia society where everyone sold enough grill cheese sandwiches to get to the next town. I understand that they carried a ton of baggage with them.
Later on, the vast majority of fans seemed to be living in this make-believe bubble that looked the part on the surface, but underneath, you knew that their trust fund would bail them out of any dire straits should their ride get searched for drugs on the way to the Hartford show.
It was also a glutton for scam artists, selling the paper tops of cigarette packs as blotter acid, baking soda as cocaine, and ditch weed as high-priced Afghani sativa. It was fuckers like this that eventually brought the pigs around, snatching up drug users like fish in a barrel, putting relatively innocent people behind bars for merely shaking their bones. These opportunists brought somewhat of a dark cloud to the festivities, a reoccurring reminder like Altamont that the sixties were over, and you needed to watch your back at a Grateful Dead show.
But who could resist the temptation of tens of thousands like-minded people traveling into a city with one common purpose? I remember the traffic jams and remember not being too upset about the delays, mainly because I was one of those journeying to the show. I can’t speak to those impacted by the traffic otherwise, but I can certainly understand their frustration.
I can also understand why people, including many of my own friends, didn’t “get” the appeal. The Dead could be pretty awful on occasion and if you weren’t wired for extremely long forays into improvisational jamming, then you would certainly be unimpressed at a Grateful Dead show. But if you could allow yourself to acknowledge the incredible impact that this band, seemingly isolated from anything modern, had on literally hundreds of thousands of people and the fact that they did it in their own, skewed solo way, and then you may have been able to count yourself as a fan.
You may have even been able to tolerate the nightly jaunts into “Drums/Space.”
I was one of those. And at the moment I started to schedule part of my summer plans to include a Dead show or two, the band disintegrated. The photo you see was purchased from a bootleg vendor after the last show in Soldier Field back in ’95. I bartered with the guy to get two shirts for $20. After some resistance, he agreed, probably to get me away from him. It was the least I could do, as the band gave a completely lackluster performance; they got my ticket money (the band had one of the best mail-order programs ever) but I would be damned if they got anything extra in their merchandising, considering how poor the performance was. Garcia kept fucking up solos and forgetting words; you knew something was wrong with him. But Jerry was a resilient dude, and you figured that he would address his issues and be well in time for the next summer.
A month later he died, apparently from trying to get a handle on his demons and failing in the process. It wasn’t until the next season when his passing really hit; the endless tour had ended and the search for a replacement began.
That band, Phish, provide me with a few years of suitable facsimile, but there was stylistic differences and, more importantly, huge reefs in the community compared to the Terrapin crowd. At nearly every Phish show, I saw a heavy police presence, I saw fans younger than me under, dismantled under the influence of illicit drugs, and I saw very little in terms of actual camaraderie outside of the small cliques of concertgoers.
Not only did Garcia appear to be the de-facto leader of the Dead, he also appeared to be the figurehead for the followers own morality tale.
And on occasion, particularly during a summertime spinning of American Beauty or some other Dead album, I reminisce about that brief Utopian encounter and wish others could experience it too. This year, it was during a spin of a Hartford, CT show from 1983 where the band goes from the obligatory “Drums/Space”>”The Other One”>”Stella Blue”>”Sugar Mag.” While trying to repair some leaking plumbing, hearing that set made me think at how great it would be at that show instead of under that sink.

Eat, Drink And See Jerry

65 years ago today, Jerry Garcia was born. A musician of incomparable talent, Garcia also became the seemingly de-facto poster boy of the hippie idealism, even while his wealth placed him alongside more materialistic ilk, particularly considering his later-in-life Marin Country residence.
At the same time, Garcia was also known as being generous to a fault; filling the Grateful Dead payroll with loyal employees who would have had difficulty in finding jobs in the private sector.
And regardless of how his personal wealth increased, Garcia never seemed to be able to shake the demons that prompted him to use narcotics.
I had a chance to see Garcia at the final Grateful Dead show he performed at. The crowd in Chicago that night seemed oblivious at what was a less-than-stellar set and an obviously encumbered Garcia. Throughout the performance, Garcia missed lyrics, flubbed guitar parts, and struggled to appear even remotely interested in performing in front of a sold out Soldier Field. I would pretend to know that Garcia would end up dying a few short weeks later, but I will admit to feeling a little unease at his appearance.
Because of this, it wasn’t a huge surprise to learn of his passing, and it wasn’t until the following summer (when at least the possibility of catching one more Dead show) that the reality of Garcia death really hit home.
It’s beyond me to suggest that I should be considered a full-fledged Deadhead or that I even attended that many Grateful Dead shows (the total Dead concerts for me stands at a mere five performances). However, I have more cds by the Grateful Dead in my own collection than any other artist and every one of those concerts provided me with an experience that I never had at with other bands. It was a complete escape from the realities of modern life and it involved a community that shared an unachievable utopian ideal under the banner of one band’s music.
And at the helm of that band was Garcia, a gifted yet flawed musician who couldn’t seem to find the peace that seemingly came so easy when he played guitar.

Brett Mydland 1952-1990

Brent Mydland, keyboardist for the Grateful Dead throughout the 80’s, died on this day in 1990. His death is memorable to me because of the complete lack of sympathy it stirred among most of my Deadhead friends that summer. To quote one such contact, a white, dreadlocked fan known by most as “Slick” instead of his proper Christian name: “I’m glad that motherfucker’s dead.” Adding to his strong opinion, he claimed that any self proclaimed Deadhead would agree with his assessment and he privately called those family members who literally cried after learning the news of Mydland’s death “a bunch of posing pussies.”
I liked Slick. His main form of transportation was a Cannondale mountain bike and his wardrobe always consisted of a tie-dyed t-shirt. He was generous with his endless cassettes of live Dead shows from almost every era of the band’s career and would occasionally dub me a copy or two.
His favorite period would probably have been the Ron “Pigpen” McKernan era, even though he laughed at the older hippies who lived by the mantra that the Dead were never the same after Pigpen died.
Following the Dead for a week or so was a regular summer ritual for Slick, and he also made special trips to notable shows like the band’s New Year’s Eve performances in San Francisco. The details of those trips were usually repeated for weeks afterwards during stoned conversation, with convincing arguments on how we should tag along with him during the next roadtrip.
Brent Mydland wasn’t my favorite member of the Grateful Dead, but I certainly didn’t dislike him as much as Slick. His voice irritated me, and his choice in keyboard equipment was also questionable at times. Compared to the organic keys of Ron McKernan and Keith Godchaux, Mydland seemed to rely heavily on state-of-the-art keyboards and synthesizers.
The other thing that bothered me about him was how he died. Knowing that Garcia struggled with addiction during the 80’s, Mydland’s death signaled to me that perhaps Jerry had found a junkie peer and, as a result, tolerated some of the keyboardists more unethical tones and sappy vocal moments (“I Will Take You Home” from Built To Last immediately comes to mind).
So forgive me if I still chuckle at Slick’s gallows humor concerning Mydland’s speedball grave-maker, and excuse me if I find much of his material bordering on adult contemporary territory. The Grateful Dead I like to recognize is the band that had their feet in a jugband tradition even when their heads drifted around the atmosphere. Brent Mydland always seemed to be the guy that stuck a cork in the jug and steered the band towards MIDI-aided laziness.