by seemslikeadream » Thu Apr 28, 2005 4:06 pm
<!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://www.goodbear.com/concert_art/09_02-05_66.jpg" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--><br><br>THE QUICKSILVER/DEAD FEUD <br><br>"We had gone to San Francisco to get the Dead, because they had come and got us real bad. We had this roadie who wasn't too good at carrying equipment, so we turned him into a cook - and every night all of the people living on the ranch, the group and the roadies and the friends and the girls, we'd all gather together to eat. We I lived in six different buildings spread around the ranch, but every evening we'd come together to dine and then smoke ourselves silly until we passed out! Well, the Dead knew we did this, and they figured that the best time to catch us off guard was in our after-dinner relaxation. You see, I'd had this big argument with Jerry Garcia; we spent hours arguing the relative merits of cowboys and Indians ... it was at a Musicians Union meeting, in fact. For a laugh, a lot of us had decided to attend a Union meeting and these old straights who ran the Union almost collapsed; they'd never seen such a bunch of longhaired musicians before ... and there were so many of us; people from the Airplane, the Charlatans, the Dead, Quicksilver, the Mystery Trend, the Great Society, Big Brother ... it was just a whole gang of us, and these guys weren't ready for us at all - it was a really funny evening. <br><br>"Anyway, Garcia was saying things like 'Cowboys are lame, Indians are much hipper, nobody loves cowboys anymore but Indians are groovy because they're into flowers and stuff ... you guys are nowhere'. He was saying it all in fun, but he was giving me a hard time, so I said 'Yeah? Well our band says that the Grateful Dead eats shit'. We got into this slanging match until all these straight musician guys were cowering in the corners ... we were really digging it, but we made out that our tempers were fraying and we started to get really hot under the collar, shouting and stuff. When 1 got home that night, I told the other guys that we ought to go and get the Dead for saying that cowboys aren't as cool as Indians, and they said 'yeah, let's get em', but then we got stoned and forgot all about it. <br><br>"A couple of nights later, we'd just finished eating and we were all swacked out as usual, when suddenly there's all this whooping and hollering ... the dogs were barking like crazy, my wolf was howling, and we didn't know what was going on. Then suddenly the door bursts open and the entire Grateful Dead family crash in on us, whooping and shouting, all in feathers and warpaint, all high on acid, all crazy. Well, they got us real bad; they were all over us before we even realised what was happening - brandishing tomahawks and firing arrows into the walls ... you never saw anything I Ike it in your life. <br><br>"Needless to say, our egos were well and truly crushed and ground into the dirt because the Dead were all going around saying that our band eats shit Dino was with us at the time and being part Indian, he took it rather more personally than was intended - but anyway, we made up our minds that the Dead were not going to be allowed to get away with it ... no chance. <br><br>"Two weeks later, the Dead were due to play the Fillmore, sharing the bill with the Airplane, and that's where we reckoned we'd get them. The plan was for us to wear all our cowboy gear, masks and guns and take over the stage during their set ... we knew it wouldn't be difficult because the Dead were always out of their heads in those days. For those two weeks we rehearsed solidly, harder than we ever had before, until we'd perfected a 15 minute version of 'Kaw Liga was a Wooden Indian', which we intended to play at the Fillmore to humiliate them. Then we went out and bought cap guns, because we wanted to make a bit of noise as well as brandishing real guns ... we were going to frighten the piss out of them; wait till they'd finished their first song and strike, knowing they'd be too spaced out to resist. <br><br>"We called Bill Graham, explained what we were going to do, and he said it was cool and promised not to tell a soul, and we let Gleason in on it too ... but that was it - no-one else would know who these masked men were! We were going to grab them and handcuff them to their speaker cabinets, because they had got these huge things that Owsley had got for them, with big handles ... can you imagine how dramatic it was going to be??? Garcia and his gang being handcuffed and chained at gunpoint and watching us play 'Kaw Liga' on their instruments! Then they'd know that cowboys were cooler than Indians after all! <br><br>"Everything was taken care of ... everything except the X factor. <br><br>"The Fillmore was in a predominantly Black, ghetto area of San Francisco, and earlier that day some young kid had broken a jeweller's window, grabbed something and run - and this cop arrived on the scene, pulled his .357 Magnum and yelled 'halt or I fire' ... well, he fired and hit this kid right in the back of his head. The velocity of the bullet just about took his head off, and the whole neighbour hood went nuts about it ... the tension of the entire area just tightened up to breaking point. And we arrived a few hours later, knowing nothing of what had happened ... maybe you can imagine the effect of half a dozen freaks suddenly appearing outside the Fillmore with masks and guns. <br><br>"The cops were on us before we'd moved ten feet. Our protestations were useless, of course; they didn't want to know it was a joke - they were in no mood for joking. We tried to explain that we were going into the Fillmore to play, and that this was our stage gear, but they wouldn't believe that we were anything less than hippie revolutionaries bent on capitalising on the indignation of the Black population. As soon as we realised that it was no use, we tried to disperse but they got Jim Murray and David Freiberg and threw them in the tank with all these Blacks who were feeling real hostile towards any whites because they'd heard about the shooting of the kid. Everything was explained in the end, but David and Jim weren't released for 3 days - and we never got the Dead after all ... in fact, we eventually did, but I'm not going to talk about that". <br><br><!--EZCODE FONT START--><span style="color:teal;font-family:comic sans ms;font-size:small;"><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em> <br>'Pride of Man'<br>The meek shall cause your tower to fall, make of you a pyre of flame,<br>Oh you who dwell on many waters, rich in treasures, wide in fame.<br>you bow unto your God of gold, your pride of might shall be a shame,<br>For only God can lead His people back unto the Earth again.<br><br>Oh God, Pride of Man, broken in the dust again.<br>A Holy mountain be restored, and mercy on that people, that people</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--></span><!--EZCODE FONT END--> <p></p><i></i>