Some Rare Hunter-related Tidbits
Forums:
I didn’t want to interfere with the more solemn Hunter memorial post, but here are some obscure Hunter-related tidbits:
***************************************************************
May 15, 1978 Robert Hunter and Comfort
This was a three night run, the 14, 15, 16th at the Cellar Door in Washington DC.
(The 14th we saw the Dead play in Providence, RI. We were just finishing a post spring semester Vermont > Springfield > Providence run, so my memory of this event is extremely fuzzy, but it happened.)
Anyway – towards the end of the Hunter show, Steve Parrish..what was he doing there?... helped roll a doorway sort-of-thing out on stage. It was like a big stage prop with a man-size keyhole shape cut-out. What…A giant keyhole?
Then, I remember smoke machine and a siren howling like an ambulance. Lights flashed. The Cellar Door was a pretty small and dark venue as I recall, so this was kind of jarring.
And then the PA screamed “Emergency…Emergency…Emergency” and gradually slowed to say “Emergggge an Seeeeee,” “Emergggge and See,” “Emerge and See,” Emerge and See!!!”
And a fellow in a bozo mask walked through the keyhole. The fellow was Garcia.
This is where it gets fuzzy....I forget what he played, maybe Boys in the Ballroom? Promontory Rider? Goodnight Irene? It wasn’t a standard Dead tune.
Who’s got the tape?
- Log in to post comments
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Alan R
A cut from a Hunter show I
A cut from a Hunter show I shot with Digital Jeff in 1984, with venue/performer permission.
The single bright spotlight really bleached out most the tape (even with a top of the line consumer video camera).
Not too extraordinary by today’s standards, but in 1984 it was extremely rare to have any Hunter footage at all. Enjoy
Ripley Music Hall in Philadelphia, PA. 3-28-84 Show opener
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGLd5daDpXo
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Alan R
First time I heard Touch of
First time I heard Touch of Grey: Sept-01-1980
Robert Hunter Live at Cellar Door
I believe this is the second public performance of this song. I think it debuted a couple of weeks before at the Other End in NY. We didn't think much of it at the time.
This show also has an Althea with a fun Werewolves of London > Louie Louie opening segment.
Garcia, Weir, and friends were in the audience. But didn’t play.
(The Dead performed “Touch of Grey” live for the first time two years later on September 15, 1982, up the road at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland.)
https://archive.org/details/rh1980-09-01.sbd.late/hunter1980-09-01d1t06.flac
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: fishcane
not to mention the great
not to mention the great Heart of Glass
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: slipnut
Hi Alan, Can you email me at
Hi Alan,
Can you email me at [email protected] concerning the Garcia sit in at the Cellar Door. Thanks.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Alan R
<not to mention the great
<not to mention the great Heart of Glass>
never realized that was the Blondie song (slightly modified that night by Hunter, I think*)
*...so fucked up I'm losing my mind.....I'm gonna get myself a gun and blow a hole right thru your fckn head."
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Joe Buck is Back
An American Adventure
An American Adventure
(“a surreal history of the GD”)
By Robert Hunter
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3LRomAyIyHsS2FZZlkxQ3l2Z2c/view
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Ausonius
"Certain mistakes will not
"Certain mistakes will not
be made again; fresh mistakes
beckon with perfumed eyes."
"It is within the catalogue
of permissible things to be
dead wrong and even to derive
moderate pleasure practicing
intransigence for its own sake."
"The fact is
we no longer fit anywhere
and there's not a great
deal to be said about it that
hasn't been said before though
there's always a chance that
something can be blurted in
a breath that couldn't be
thought out in a thousand years."
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Highnote
Hey Alan! Good to see you
Hey Alan! Good to see you back on here. Hope you are doing well.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: jazfish
buongiorno
buongiorno
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Alan R
Good morning gentlemen. All
Good morning gentlemen. All things Robert Hunter will get me to crawl out of lurk mode. Today's tidbit:
Visions of the Dead by Robert Hunter (seeds of a movie script, 1994).
(it's amusing to see Hunter write in this style... some of the dialogue is quite silly, but I wish it were a movie.)
Here's two links to the same page:
http://www.hunterarchive.com/files/hjx/gdmovie.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20171106094441/http://www.hunterarchive.com/...
"BG: It didn't begin anywhere in particular. One day it was just here all at once --- but if you mean the Dead, in particular, well I guess a band really begins when you select a name for it. These guys used a dictionary.
Dissolve to: Band sitting around while JG opens the Oxford Dictionary.
JG: ...hmm Grapefruit, graph-paper ...that might be nice, Grappling iron...that's got a certain ring...grasshopper, naw, there's enough bands named after insects already, Grateful Dead... now that would be weird ... Graverobber ... yeah, how about the Graverobbers!
Band members: That's it! Yeah! Graverobbers! Too much!
cut to: Managers Danny & Rock, plus JG, Pigpen, Billy K & Phil gathered at Fillmore with BG.
BG: You guys got to be kidding. I ain't gonna put Graverobbers on my marquee!
Danny & Rock: Aw Bill, don't be such an asshole.
BG: You want these boys of yours to work, find a nice name for the band.
Pig: How about: Ice Cream Prophylactic?
BG: Graverobbers I like suddenly.
BK: What was that other weird name in the dictionary?
JG: Grappling Iron?
Phil: That sounds good and hairy. I'd go for that.
BK: No, that other one ...
Pig: Grateful Dead.
BG: Now that's what I mean by a nice name. A nice, cheerful, upbeat image.
JG: I still think Graverobbers ---
BG: Fuck you asshole. You're the Grateful Dead. Now shut up and go practice...."