I enjoy the Grateful Dead’s music but I was never a “Dead Head”. For three nights in September,1979 we immersed ourselves in the Grateful Dead experience. For me, the music being played was merely a soundtrack to a psychedelic field trip with the gyrations of a wild variety of participants and true believers exploding all around us. It was interesting to be sure, but ultimately this scene was not my bag. It was fun but we were truly spectators at somebody else’s happening.

I worked with a guy who used to follow the Grateful Dead around as a teenager, selling posters in the parking lots to support his road trips. He exhibits bipolar tendencies now and I have always believed that his brain is misfiring because of all the acid he took during these formative years.

I just saw Bruce Hornsby play at City Winery in New York on Friday. While his albums do not really do it for me for the most part, Mr. Hornsby and his band are extraordinary musicians who played the Grateful Dead’s “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Tooddloo” as a nod to Bruce’s years playing with the Dead after keyboardist Brett Mydland died in 1990.

I love the Grateful Dead, and they certainly have created the blueprint for just about every jam band to come down the pike since they invented the 45 minute drum solo, but they just have never been my preference for extensive musical exploration.

Feel free to discuss.

The Other One

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GQ

Greg Kihn is probably best remembered for his hit “Jeopardy” and for being parodied by Wierd Al Yankovic with “I Lost on Jeopardy”. 

The Dr. Pepper Concert Series in Central Park was such a great place to see and experience live music in a communal setting in the heart of New York City during such an extraordinary period of time in the history of rock and roll.

Hot Time Summer in the City

RocKihnRoll

GQ

Bruce Hornsby has been around quite awhile now and I first became aware of him in 1086 when he had his iconic hit “The Way It Is”. I bought that CD. and maybe one of two others over the years, however I have never really paid a lot of attention to his long diverse career and seeing him at City Winery tonight seemed to be the perfect venue to catch up with him. 

Mr. Hornsby got his Dead cred playing with the Grateful Dead periodically through the years and he is obviously an enormously talented musician in his own right who has played with some of the greatest musical acts of the 80’s and 90’s. He is no longer with the Range but the Noisemakers will be along on this beautiful Friday evening in New York City.

Scenes from the Southside

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GQ

The Cars had an incredible amount of radio play for their first few albums and the New Wave stars took the stage at Wollman Rink this Friday night in August.

Yet another of those Central Park Concerts that I have no particular recollection of but I have a brief story that likely did not happen on this particular evening.

There was a morning talk show host named Stanley Siegel who was quite popular in the New York metropolitan area in the 1970’s and was most known for having his psychologist sessions on the air. Mr. Siegel left everything on the table to create interesting television and the show was quite entertaining as he was obviously a bit of a character. It was as if Woody Allen was given a talk show and his real life was an open book to the viewers. Well there was one particular evening as I was hustling down 5th Avenue to get to Wollman Rink for what I think was s blues concert that I never got in to, when I saw Stanley Siegel walking toward me. Stanley was a suit and tie sort of guy and I would have had my shoulder length hair swaying as we passed. I loved his show and shouted “Hey Stanley love the show”. He asked where I was headed to and I told him to Central Park for the concert. We made a connection albeit brief as neither one of us ever broke stride. A New York Coty moment in time to be sure with many more to come. 

Moving in Stereo

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GQ

Dr Hook & the Medicine show had quite a few hits including the classic “Sylvia’s Mother”,  and the band did eventually make it to the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, but unfortunately this is one of those shows I have absolutely no recollection of.

I Got Stoned and I Missed It 

That was a Dr Hook song and not an admission of course.

The Dixie Dregs guitarist Steve Morse has performed and toured with Deep Purple since 1994 taking the place of the reclusive Ritchie Blackmore who declined to show up for his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction last year.

Night of the Living Dregs

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GQ

The Talking Heads with opener B52’s played the Wollman Rink venue and as I recall it was a night spent on the boulders outside the Dr Pepper Concert in Central Park. While we never did actually see the bands perform, this evening is especially memorable as it was the first of three nights that we went to The Paladium to see Neil Young and Crazy Horse in the Rust Nevee Sleeps movie. In addition to receiving an official movie poster, we were given our 3D-like Rust-O-Vision glasses so that the audience could watch the band rust on screen. Rust Never Sleeps ranks up there with The Band’s Last Waltz as one of the greatest rock and roll movies of all time.

The Rust Never Sleeps movie poster has followed me to every residence I have lived in since 1979 and is currently framed and hanging on my basement wall.

There’s More to the Picture than Meets the Eye.

Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World

GQ

It was during this time in 1979 my friends and I would travel from Queens to attend any and every Dr. Pepper Concert at Wollman Rink in Centrsl Park that we could make. I know that festivals are a huge part of the concert scene these days and the Dr Pepper Concert Series felt like a summer long festival where if you did not buy a ticket to get in you could hang out on the large boulders outside the fences and hear the shows pretty well. I have no particular recollection from the McGuinn, Clark and Hillman concert as it was likely just another summer night in the big city.

I wore my tie dye Allman Brothrrs Band last run at the Beacon Theatre t- shirt while grocery shopping with my wife in Massapequa on Sunday the day after Gregg Allman passed. I’m not usually big on such somewhat corny tributes to a departed legend but it felt good throwing it on for a trip around the neighborhood as my tip of the hat to Mr. Allman.

While in the grocery store a man working there slightly older than me acknowledged to me that it was a sad day. While talking about Gregg’s passing it somehow came up that we were both at the Dickey Betts & Great Southern show at Central Park where Gregg Allman sat in and that ultimately turned out to be the beginnings of an Allman Brothrrs Band reunion. It is truly a small world sometimes.

Enlightened Rogues

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GQ

Even though Gregg Allman had been off the road for a couple of years now, reports of his poor health have been frequent, news of his passing still felt like a shock and almost as if unexpected. Some artists are like touchstones, intertwining with your life as you  grow, evolve and accumulate experiences throughout time. Even with Mr. Allman’s somewhat checkered past and reckless  lifestyle, it felt like he would always be around, touring, performing the great Allman Brothers Band catalogue in some form or another, and bringing joy to a community of rock and roll fans.

The Fillmore East live concert album brought the band to the forefront of all of our consciousness at a time when the double live album flourished, and performing live in concert was where Gregg Allman thrived.

I’ve seen Gregg Allman so many times since the late 1970’s and there were so many memorable moments with the Allman Brothers Band and as a solo artist creating new songs and reinventing the classics.

I was at Central Park when Gregg joined Dickey Betts & Great Southern after the Allman Brothers had been broken up for awhile and New Years Eve at Nassau Coliseum with Molly Hatchet around the time Enlightened Rogues was released. Gregg performed as a solo act at My Father’s Place in Roslyn, more recently at an album release show at the Bowery Ballroom, and shows at the intimate City Winery in New York City. There was the appearance with Warren Haynes at the Love for Levon concert in New Jersey and The Speaking Clock Revue with Elton John, Leon Russell, T-Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello at the Beacon Theatre where the Allman Brothers Band played so many great concerts through the years.

The last time I saw Mr. Allman in concert was a couple of years ago at his Laid Back festival at Jones Beach. Surpringly, although frail, Gregg looked and sounded great and I expected that his health may have rebounded to the point that he would be around for some years to come. When City Winery postponed a string of shows, and then eventually canceled them altogether, you had the inkling his health had gone south. Rumors of his entering hospice apparently proved to be true.

There have been so many great recording artists who have passed on, particularly in the past few years, but this one stung deep. Gregg Allman was a one of a kind artist with an incredible soulful voice but also with demons and addictions that ultimately proved to be too much to overcome. Gregg Allman was a talent and a legend who will be missed but his incredible music will live on.

The Road Goes On Forever

Rest In Peace 

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GQ

Amazingly Guns N Roses are still touring together and will come to Madison Square Garden this fall following a worldwide jaunt that includes Europe.

I skipped the MetLife Stadium shows but after seeing Axl Rose with AC/DC I had wished I had gone. I’ve seen Axl perform with his Guns N Roses sans any other original members. I’ve seen Slash with his own band and with parts of the original band performing with the late Scott Weilamd in Velvet Revolver. I grabbed four tickets tonight by joining their fan club through Ticketmaster so I am set for their return to the states.

Welcome to the Jungle

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GQ

I don’t quite remember when I discovered the Patti Smith Group. Patti and the band was different than anyone else around at the time. They were edgy, heavy, and had a punk rock tenacity that were mesmerizing. 

The “Easter”, and particularly the “Wave” albums, were my favorites of theirs and I only discovered the “Horses” and “Radio Ethiopia” albums later on.

We traveled from Queens to Hempstead, Long Island to see the Patti Smith Group at the Calderone Concert Hall. The Calderone was a bit off the beaten track, particularly for us, and was located in what used to be not a great neighborhood. At some point during our travels I bought  long stemmed carnation in the unlikely event I got close enough to hand it off to her for dramatic effect. We sat in the orchestra on the aisle and at some point during the show (I think it was at the start) Ms. Smith walked down our aisle and I held out the white carnation in her direction. Patti whipped her hand around, aggressively grabbed the flower without breaking stride while heading toward the stage. There was a big video screen in the front and I was sure that this moment would somehow make it into a rock and roll movie and Immortilize the moment for all time. In retrospect, it was likely an in house video screen but at the time it felt like a big deal. Details of both the Calderone and Central Park Concerts are unclear but the thoughts of this brief interaction with a rock and roll great are emblazoned in my memory and on my rock show resume forever. 

The former Calderone Concert Hall location is now home to a church.

Because the Night

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GQ