Jerry Garcia & Co. at 710 Ashbury in Spring 1967 Interview. 83min.
from Alligator Whine:
“The interview came to me through FM radio broadcasts in the early-to mid-nineties. The audio quality reflects that, I hope you will bear with it.
This is a highly-entertaining historical document of life at 710. Pigpen, Mountain Girl, Weir (speaking, playing acoustic), and a child named Jason all appear at some point. Weir and someone who sounds like it might be Jon McIntire tell of the exploits of Bear and Laird Grant out on the streets in the Haight. (I thought I also heard Reddy Kilowatt asking a brief sarcastic question in passing early on.)
Most entries on this interview are reluctant to date any more specifically than its year (1967), though internal markers set it in the spring. The February Newsweek article referenced in the conversation (“Drop-Outs with a Mission”) was recent, the Dead were vaguely planning their June trip to NYC, and interviews were underway on the Look Magazine article featuring the Airplane at the end of May (though for some reason, jeffersonairplane.com lists this as appearing in March.) The film Blowup, released late in 1966, was apparently also still in the theaters.
No one knows the identity of the interviewer, though on the tape he refers to his friend operating the tape recorder by name (“Kramer”). He also indicates that he himself was Garcia’s former banjo student, is acquainted with the local bluegrass scene, and was in a band with Bay area guitarist and mandolinist Bert Johnson. He knows the ins and outs of the changes in personnel of Rick Shubb’s band (before the Shubb capo days). Apparently this interviewer had also seen The Warlocks play at Magoo’s Pizza Parlor in 1965! Perhaps his identity can still be discovered.”
