Mickey used to play the big drums that produce thunderous lower frequencies. He could make them sound almost like a bass line. I liked to play something that complemented that, so I would go up the sonic ladder and find myself in the higher registers. Together, we created something that sure felt like magic, on a nightly basis.
While none of it was rehearsed and all of it was improvised, before each show, we used to come up with a theme so we could have a common, if vague and elusive, goal in sight. I can’t remember most of the themes now, since they were simply abstract ideas to experiment with, but, for example, one night we might say, “It’s the end of the world.” The next night, it might be the beginning, starting with a big bang. The night after that, it would be totally different. The themes that worked the best or were at least the most amount of fun usually involved the cosmos—going off into space. Some of the other themes were humorous in nature, just to keep ourselves entertained. Like an inside joke where everyone got to hear the punch line. We would go so hard on the drums and just when we—physically—needed a break, the rest of the band would come back onstage and play a segment called “Space,” which was the same idea as “Drums” but with all the melodic instruments instead. Their themes were usually different from ours, but they had theirs too. It often got pretty far out there. If you were in the audience, on psychedelics, it could get pretty heavy and lead you into some intense head spaces. I loved that.
I’m pretty sure the first time we used the Beast was at an outdoor gig in San Jose, California—basically, a hometown gig—on April 22, 1979. That night would be remembered for a different reason and a different first: it was the first time we had a keyboard player by the name of Brent Mydland join our ranks. His first show.
I guess I need to back up and explain: Like Spinal Tap and drummers, the Grateful Dead had a way of going through keyboardists. If they were full-time members, their residency with the band had a tendency to terminate early due to death. Pigpen was the first to go. Keith was the second. But Keith wasn’t playing in the band when he died. He checked out of the band before checking out.
Keith felt a lot of pressure in his role as the band’s keyboardist and I’m not quite sure he was ever able to fully get a handle on road life. At least, not the way we did it. Some people are wired for the lifestyle … but most people aren’t. Oh, sure, it’s exciting at first; it’s like you’re on a giant carousel and everything goes around and around and there’s lights and music and the horses are going up and down and the scenery is all a blur and things come in and out of focus, in and out of focus, but all you have to do is hang on. That’s all you have to do. Hang on. Smile. Let the carousel take you in endless circles. Well, some people get motion sickness from the ride.
Keith’s health, both mental and physical, was deteriorating. He was in a heavy place, had heavy things on his mind, and did heavy things to deal with it all. His drug use was through the roof. It was like that for all of us, I suppose, and that’s one thing that’s always been an unspoken crux of the Grateful Dead family: we all did drugs—some more than others—but we all did them. And we were spokespeople for an ideology of personal freedom. But when someone in our ranks went overboard, we all would start pointing fingers. Especially when it started affecting the music. Our music was the only thing that was sacred and we all wanted to protect it, even though we weren’t always the best at that. We were all guilty of our bad nights and of being responsible for causing them. But when somebody else in the band was doing something to cause them to have one bad night after another, repeatedly, then it became a problem. Spoken or not.
Down the line, Jerry would be the one member who could get the hall pass on this. But Keith did not. In fact, toward the end of Keith’s time with us, Jerry would get pissed at him because he’d get lazy and start mimicking Jerry’s guitar lines during the jams; his own creative spark had been blacked out by then.
Early in the year, as we were touring arenas, coliseums, and big rooms across the country, Keith and Donna appeared to be unraveling as a couple. They had been volatile for a long time and there’s nothing worse than having to be around a married couple when they’re fighting. Like the time they turned the parking lot of Front Street into a Demolition Derby. It’s a drag for them but if they do it around other people, it’s also selfish. And marital fighting, while on the road with a rock ’n’ roll band, meant trouble. It also meant a lot of trashed hotel rooms.
Well, things got so bad that Donna quit the January tour a couple of shows early. That’s the second time that someone in the band left a tour early because of fighting with Keith. We soldiered on without her, but those remaining two shows had a weird air because of it.
So, in February 1979, the Grateful Dead had to ask Keith and Donna to leave. It was a band decision and, ultimately, Jerry was the one to break it to them. It wasn’t like with Mickey when that thankless task fell on me. As a matter of fact, Jerry was a little upset with me because I didn’t go with him for support, as I had promised, but I tried to avoid those kinds of scenes as much as possible. So did he, of course. To a fault. As it turned out, however, Keith and Donna had both had it with the band and were relieved to be relieved of their duties. There was little heartbreak there, although there were mixed emotions for all of us, I’m sure. It was bittersweet. These things always are.
But Keith and Donna were out and then, just like that, a newcomer named Brent Mydland was suddenly the new Grateful Dead keyboardist. And the carousel went around and around.
We auditioned Brent, of course … but only kinda. Bobby brought him in and he really championed him before all of us even had a chance to meet the guy. He played in one of Bobby’s side projects—Bobby and the Midnites—and Jerry saw some of that and took a liking to him, musically. We needed a keyboardist. Bobby had one. Jerry liked him. That’s all it took. When we first played with him—at Front Street—it was more of a test drive than an audition. He passed.
By some counts, Brent was the Dead’s fifth keyboardist. That’s if you count Tom Constanten and a guy named Ned Lagin as former members. I don’t. They were fine players and people, but they didn’t make the final cut.
From his very first note with us, Brent was as much a member of the Grateful Dead as any of us. His piece just fit our puzzle. He brought in a number of songs, sang lead vocals, and really brought something to the table musically. Like all of our full-time keyboardists, Brent really affected and influenced the sound of the band overall. You can really divide Grateful Dead eras by who was on keys—Pigpen represented the ’60s, Keith represented the ’70s, Brent represented the ’80s, and the ’90s, well … we’ll get there. All good things in all good time.
Brent’s B3 playing was really spectacular. I was always energized by watching him play; he was always in motion. He could really play and he could really sing and he was suddenly in the band. He was one of my favorite Grateful Dead keyboard players. Brent and Keith—those are the two for me.
Personality wise, I liked Brent well enough but we didn’t hang out much or do anything wild and crazy like I did with some of the other guys in the band and crew. I mostly just met up with him onstage. He had so much energy and he was one of those players, like Keith in the beginning, that didn’t just copy or follow Jerry’s leads all the time. He had his own ideas that he ran with and they fit right in; he belonged.
Brent’s energy and style was a catalyst for the whole band to discover entire new realms within our material. He really kick-started us as a unit and by bringing in a new element to all of these songs that we had been playing for so long, he really opened up new possibilities for the jams. New sensibilities. Some of his originals sounded like they could be hit songs for commercial bands, like “I Will Take You Home,” or “Just a Little Light.” Brent made them our songs and we made them Grateful Dead songs.
Ever since I knew Brent, he was with his wife, Lisa, who now lives not too far from me in Kauai. On stage, he was really animated—his long, blond hair would blow al
l around him and he wailed on the organ and keys. He moved around a lot and brought a great, physical energy to his performance. Offstage, though, he was really shy. We’d have some beers together and he’d loosen up, but on the day-to-day, he was somewhat reserved.
He did have one peculiarity and I think it is important to remember for later on, toward the end of his tenure with us: he would tell me that he didn’t think Deadheads liked him very much. I might have bought that at first, just because anytime you have a change, people are resistant to it. When you love something, you love it exactly as it is and you don’t want it to change. At first. But once you get over the initial shakeup, you adapt. And you just might find that the remodeling did some good; that your old love is now new and improved. Of course, that’s not always the case—as we shall see when Jerry left us. There was no replacing Jerry. But once people got acquainted with Brent, in terms of the Grateful Dead, he was generally embraced. People loved him. He blew the roof off of certain songs and when he and Bobby sang together, the result was often greater than the sum of its parts.
Still, he would take me aside and say things like, “The fans don’t like me.” I think he just wanted a pat on the back; some reassurance. Like he was fishing for a compliment. I always gave it to him. And I was able to do it honestly. Brent was an integral member of the Grateful Dead, beginning with his first show on April 22, 1979, in San Jose. As I said, that’s the same show that we debuted the Beast. So 1979 was a redefining year for the band in many ways.
Nineteen seventy-nine was also the year Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now was released to movie theaters. Mickey and I had a hand in that soundtrack, which is pretty cool to think about nowadays when looking back. At the time, you don’t think like that. You don’t know how anything is going to turn out or how it will be received or anything, really—you just do it. If you believe in it, you do it. That’s a reward in itself and then you get to enjoy your involvement in it, in a whole different way, years after the fact. You gain a different appreciation for it. But it didn’t work out as well as we had hoped.
Francis Ford Coppola sat offstage behind the drums at one of the Winterland shows that closed out 1978 and he said something that would have a pretty big impact on Mickey and me—he called us the “Rhythm Devils.” And from that moment on, it was our joint nickname. Mickey and I became the Rhythm Devils, both in the Grateful Dead and without.
About a decade after the Dead broke up, Mickey and I did some touring under the Rhythm Devils name. We released a live DVD in 2008 and we were active until 2011. After the last time out, in which we had Keller Williams, Steve Kimock, and Reed Mathis with us, we retired the Rhythm Devils. But we sure had our moments while it lasted. During our revival, we had Mike Gordon of Phish, Tim Bluhm of the Mother Hips, Andy Hess formerly of Gov’t Mule and the Black Crowes, Jen Durkin, Davy Knowles, and talking drum legend Sikirou Adepoju all join us, at various times, for tours.
As for Coppola, sitting behind both drummers and watching us slay the dragon really left an impression on him. He was working on Apocalypse Now, and needed a sound track and he was willing to indulge Mickey’s immersive style in the creative process. So Mickey spearheaded the whole thing and, for a while, he staged an Apocalypse takeover at Front Street, assembling all different kinds of drums and percussion stations. He would project scenes from the movie on a large screen while he came up with sounds that mimicked walking through the jungle, napalm explosions, and mood-setting pieces. Mickey and Coppola became so obsessed with their work that they couldn’t escape Front Street. There were nights when they didn’t bother going home, instead crashing on the couches or wherever they could claim space. Front Street didn’t make for the most comfortable hotel, but when you’re locked into something like that, you’re locked into it.
I was into it at first, but I just couldn’t take watching all those gory scenes again and again on a large screen. All that bloodshed really started fucking with my head. It had the same poisonous effect on me as the video game Mortal Kombat might have on an adolescent. So I didn’t stick with it. In the end, neither did Coppola—he only used a fraction of the stuff Mickey presented him with, and then he went down to Hollywood and had studio guys there reproduce the same sounds. Sounds just like Hollywood, doesn’t it? And right as the 1980s were about to begin. How very apropos.
There was one thing Coppola kept from Mickey’s efforts, though. Something that even Hollywood couldn’t copy. The sound of napalm in the morning? That’s the Beam—one of Mickey’s contraptions.
Since this is the chapter where we talk about Keith and Donna leaving the band, I should jump ahead for a minute to the Summer of 1980. About a year and a half after they split from the Grateful Dead. During that period, I played a couple pickup gigs with them—in the Healy Treece Band—but I didn’t really see either of them otherwise. Being in the Dead was a full-time thing. I didn’t have the chance, or very likely the desire, to go and catch up with the Godchauxs.
On July 23, 1980, I was at home in Marin County when I got the phone call. This time, it was about Keith. Nothing is worse than losing somebody, no matter where you left things with them. Keith came in as a pinch hitter for Pigpen and hit Europe ’72 out of the ballpark during his rookie season. He remained on the Grateful Dead roster for almost an entire decade. He was a lifelong member of the family, even if he was no longer in our lineup. So, yes—Keith Godchaux was a member of the Grateful Dead the moment he played his first notes with us, in October 1971.
Keith Godchaux on guitar and me on beer; fucking around backstage at a Healy Treece Band show. May 1979. (Bob Minkin)
But on July 23, 1980, the car that he was riding in collided with a parked construction vehicle. I never learned all the details, but it was out on the west side of Marin County, where all the farms are.
I don’t think I went to Keith’s funeral. The band must have had stuff going on because otherwise I would’ve gone. I went to Brent’s. But that’s way down the line. For now, just know that at the turn of the decade, the 1980s, Brent was our hot new keyboard player and we couldn’t have been happier about that.
17
The 1980s came in like a lamb and out like a lion. I already told you one great tale from 1980, involving John Belushi and a three-day cocaine bender. The start of the decade couldn’t have been better scripted. Unless it was a comedy sketch for SNL.
The first quarter of 1980 saw us release Go to Heaven, our eleventh studio album and first with Brent on keys. It got slammed, shredded, swiped, and shit on by the music press. It’s all right—I never paid much attention to reviews anyway, and in truth, Go to Heaven wasn’t a five-star album. That one was yet to come. But I think, if you go back and (re)listen to it, you’ll find that time has been very kind to Go to Heaven. It plays better now than it did back then. That’s still no excuse for the cover, though—all six of us, dressed all in white disco suits against a white background (because we had been “driving that train…”).
We hired an English gentleman by the name of Gary Lyons to produce the album. Gary had success producing Foreigner’s self-titled debut, which was glossy and slick and had obvious hits. It sold millions. I remember talking to him on the phone, before we met in person, and thinking that he was going to be great.
We decided, for the second album in a row, to record right at Front Street. It gave us the home court advantage and we were more comfortable and relaxed recording there than in a professional studio. But since it wasn’t a professional studio, it made things difficult. There’s a reason most albums are recorded in studios. We hadn’t yet learned our lesson from Shakedown Street.
Once again, we recorded by playing together rather than tracking separately. We tried to get isolation between the instruments and the drums, so Lyons had Mickey and me sit behind curtains, way off to the back of the room, in our own little area. We could hear the rest of the band, but we couldn’t see them. We felt estranged. There wasn’t a separate control room, so the engineers had to list
en on headphones while we played right in front of them in real time. The recording process is hard enough on my patience; having to do shit like that just drove me crazy.
What else about Go to Heaven? Well, “Antwerp’s Placebo”—a drum composition that Mickey and I wrote—is on there. I haven’t heard that in a long time. I don’t think we ever played it live.
We kicked off our 1980 touring season in earnest on April 28—the day Go to Heaven hit stores. Once again, we found ourselves selling out civic centers, coliseums, and arenas across America. We were in search of our own manifest destiny, and since Alaska was one of the few states in the country we hadn’t played yet, we decided to travel all the way up there for our first and only shows in America’s “Last Frontier.” We booked a three-night stand in a high school auditorium in Anchorage. But, for us, those shows were all about the adventures, before, after, and during. It was my first time checking out the Alaskan landscape and I’m pretty sure most, if not all, of the other guys could say the same. So, as the state motto goes, “North to the Future,” we went.
Leading up to the shows, a group of us went on a river-rafting excursion in the Kenai River on the Kenai Peninsula. One of our managers, Danny Rifkin, was with us, maybe a couple of the crew guys, and maybe even another band member, although I don’t recall who. Shelley was with me and we ended up in our own raft—the smallest one—with one of the guides. The three of us brought up the rear. I didn’t know anything about river rafting in those days so I put all my faith in our guide. He seemed like he knew what he was doing.
We started rafting down the river and it was as calm as can be. It was flat water at that point and we needed to paddle to get anywhere. On the back of our inflatable raft was a forty-horsepower motor in case of emergencies, but it was raised up out of the water because we were going over so many rocks. The river was mostly calm and I was starting to get a little bored when suddenly we went over a small little rapid. It should have been no big deal, really, but it formed a pond at the bottom of it where there was a hydraulic. Technically, in rafting terms, it’s called a reversal. It’s a strong, potentially troublesome reverse current that’s caused from the force of the water falling and bouncing back against the rocks below. Ideally, your raft clears it, no problem, but it is possible to get stuck in a reversal and you may find yourself in a dangerous situation. That’s what happened to us. Our boat was shorter than the one in front of us, so after we went over the rapid and landed in the pond, the front end dipped below the waterline and it swung the back end around. Boom! Suddenly we were sideways to the reversal. The water was falling onto us from the rapid above and pouring into the boat and, sure as shit, we started to sink. The boat was taking water at a thousand gallons a minute. I started screaming at the guide, “Get in the back, start the fucking motor, and get us out of here!” Shelley was screaming in my ear, blowing out my eardrums, in hysterics.
Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams, and Drugs with the Grateful Dead Page 28