Bob Weir is throwing a birthday party for his old friend and Grateful Dead bandmate Jerry Garcia. Move Me Brightly, a name drawn from the lyrics to “Terrapin Station,” will be webcast for free tonight in high definition live from Weir’s state of the art TRI Studios located in San Rafael, CA at 9:30 p.m. EST/6:30 p.m. PST.
The evening will feature roughly 25 Garcia songs, from both the Dead and his solo work, interpreted by some of the brightest music stars spanning several generations. Led by Weir, the rotating cast will feature fellow Grateful Dead bandmate Donna Jean Godchaux, Phish’s Mike Gordon, Furthur’s Joe Russo and Jeff Chimenti, Vampire Weekend’s Chris Tomson, Ryan Adams & the Cardinals’ Neal Casal and Jon Graboff, The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn and Tab Kubler, The Black Crowes’ Adam MacDougall, the Yellowbirds’ Sam Cohen and Josh Kaufman, Jim Lauderdale, Cass McCombs, Paul Simon’s son Harper Simon, Jonathan Wilson and a few very special guests. The event will be emceed by actor Luke Wilson ( Old School, The Royal Tenenbaums ) and will also include a video interview with Carlos Santana and a reading of David Crosby’s tribute to Garcia, “Cause I’m Missing Him Tonight.”
Justin Kreutzmann, the son of Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann has created some special video for the event and here is what he has to say: “I think about Jerry more in the last few years probably than I have since he was alive. He crosses my mind a lot when something really cool and significant happens. I think, ‘I can’t wait to tell Jerry about this,’ and then I remember. I learned so much from him on so many levels it’s impossible to fit it all in here. I wish he could have met my daughter Alivia, they would have liked each other. And I know Jerry would have some great ‘Uncley’ advice about kids. At least a few rich stories. As far as his music, I’m inspired by whatever tune of his crosses through my world. The music is still a living thing to me so whatever Jerry music is on right at the moment is what inspires me. Been thinking about him a whole lot these last few days, I miss him. We’ll see each other again and we can have a good chuckle about all this…”
A conversation with Bob Weir about the event has just posted to Relix.com. Here are some thought from other participants in the event.
MIKE GORDON (PHISH)
What makes Garcia so special that we throw an event like this for you him 17 years after his death?
Mike Gordon: It’s hard to know, I think it’s rare that you’d get someone who takes a bigger bite out of life and music than he did, somehow he must have just embraced more. There are few people in history who have reached so far into the well of tradition and at the same time pushed so far into the stratosphere of possibility and to do it with compassion and inspiration. I like Bob Dylan’s quote when he died, he was like, “he’s the very spirit embodied by that which is muddy river country and screams up to the spheres,” I thought, I’m not gonna be able to say it better than that.
Has your appreciation grown for Garcia and Dead music as you’ve grown?
Mike Gordon: Yeah, I’ve been a huge Dead fan for a long time but I’ve never really played a lot of Dead songs, so I’ve gotten inside a whole bunch of the songwriting that I never had before, and there’s a lot of cleverness that I might not have thought about before, even simple technical things like holding on a chord for three times as long as I normally would.
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NEAL CASAL (RYAN ADAMS & THE CARDINALS, CHRIS ROBINSON BROTHERHOOD)
What makes Garcia so special to you?
Neal Casal: It’s the depth of the guys work, the depth of his creativity reaches a lot farther than most people. First you have the guitar playing, no first I would say you have the songwriting which is absolutely brilliant and the further you get into his songwriting as a player, as I’ve been doing these past couple weeks playing with Phil [Lesh] and now with Bob, as you dig into the depth and the complexity and the spiritual quality of the songwriting, the humor in the songwriting, the writing encompasses so much. It’s musically interesting, unpredictable and just so soulful and memorable; and all of the songs are humable and singable and we can all remember them, but if you start to play them you realize they’re really not easy, most of them, there’s a lot going on with the writing.
His guitar playing is another facet, a completely unique voice, like no one has ever been. An absolute original, and that’s just the electric guitar playing. His acoustic guitar playing is another facet of brilliance and originality. His pedal steel playing is instantly recognizable as him; he had a singular voice on that instrument as well. Not to mention the banjo playing, the bluegrass roots, the folk roots, as well as the jazz inflections and rock & roll, and the blues, and ragtime music and everything that he brought. And the real ace is his singing which was also completely original and soulful and funny and filled with pathos and sympathy. There’s something in his voice we could all relate to, something piercing, something penetrating about his imperfect voice; he always sounded like he was half-crying, there was a yearning, just such a humane quality to his singing, something so common yet transcendent and extraordinary and other-worldly. And as he got older and his voice started to break down it became even more powerful in so many ways.
And just as a creative soul, putting the Grateful Dead movie together he had a filmmaker’s heart, such a complex, such a deep, soulful musician with a great sense of humor on top of it all. With all of that it was always a laugh at the end of it and just wanting people to dance and have a good time. That’s why we’re still here and 100 years from now it’s still gonna be happening.
LUKE WILSON (ACTOR – The Royal Tenenbaums et. al.)
So you are a Dead and Garcia fan?
Luke Wilson: Yeah, both, longtime Dead fan and of course Jerry Garcia.
So you went to some shows?
Luke Wilson: I actually only went to two, me and my brother Andrew went two years in a row to the Sam Boyd Silver Bowl in Las Vegas, but it’s one of those things you kick yourself for not going more.
Why do you think Garcia’s legacy is still so strong?
Luke Wilson: It’s been interesting talking to his family today, I think he’s just one of those people that’s incredibly genuine and for some reason it comes across. There are some people that you can’t quite figure them out, they’re still great like Dylan or somebody, but you don’t have a sense of him as a person, and not that you know what Jerry Garcia was like, but that is one of the draws, you feel like this guy is a great guy, he’s not only a great musician but I feel like we’d really get along, so I think he has that quality where he draws you in.
What made you want to be a part of this?
Luke Wilson: I had met Justin [Kreutzmann, producer of the event and Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann’s son] a couple years ago and had kept in touch with him and when he said he was doing this I jumped at the chance. It’s one of those things where you feel like, I shouldn’t be here, but I am here, and it’s been really fun and really interesting talking to Mountain Girl, who he [Garcia] was married to, and his daughters and getting to meet Bob. It’s one of those things where people say, “You don’t want to meet your heroes because you can get disappointed,” but just always reading about the Dead and their organization, I always thought they were probably great, really cool guys, turns out that they are.
Favorite Garcia song?
Luke Wilson: Lately it’s been “Standing on the Moon.”
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CRAIG FINN (THE HOLD STEADY)
I don’t know that many people would think of The Hold Steady guy as a Dead fan, are you one?
Craig Finn: I came up through punk rock but I graduated high school in ’89 and that was a huge part of high school life, and college, all of my friends were into the Dead so by osmosis it was something I came to really love. I went to a handful of shows and as I’ve gotten older and in a band, really come to appreciate the improvisational nature of it and what they built, so I’ve always had a steady fascination with the Dead. In fact, the main guitar I play in The Hold Steady has a dancing bear on it.
How has being in a band added to your appreciation of the Dead?
Craig Finn: The way of making a show different every night and also playing for themselves rather than just playing the same songs to an audience. It’s very admirable and you realize how cool it was to put their efforts towards that.
Why does Garcia’s light continue to shine so bright so long after his death?
Craig Finn: I think there’s a really unique part of America that his music gives to people that gets a reaction, maybe the depth of it all, you can listen to his songs your whole life. Dylan would be the other guy, someone that it’s not like “oh I liked that band when I was 15,” I can keep putting on these songs and these records and they might mean something new to me every time I hear them.
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JASON ROBERTS (NORAH JONES)
Why is Garcia special to you and to the world at large?
Jason Roberts: How many people he influenced for so many years, and it’s such its own thing nobody can redo it, and he was at the helm of it. Plus, he’s one of those guys, there’s a couple guys who are like that, that are just on another planet or something, but only a couple, maybe Garcia, Dylan and Young.
Most folks might not think of Norah Jones and the Grateful Dead together, what’s your history with the Dead?
Jason Roberts: I wasn’t born until ’82, so I kind of missed that, but I started seeing Phish shows when I was 12. Our cousin is John Fishman and when I was like 11 his mom was at a Bar Mitzvah and she was like “you gotta hear my son’s band,” and we went to a show, I was like 12 and my brother was 10, and we’ve been totally hooked on them ever since and that kind of led us down the path to everything else.
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TRIXIE GARCIA (ONE OF JERRY GARCIA’S DAUGHTERS)
Why do you think Jerry’s light continues to shine so bright?
Trixie Garcia: There was something about his personality that was endearing and deeply soulful that people relate to, they find guidance in his lyrics and his songs and when they’re having hard times and I think his music is uplifting to a lot of people.
Favorite Jerry song?
Trixie Garcia: It sounds really cheesy, but “Touch of Grey” really means a lot to me. It was a memorable time in our life, I was there when we filmed the music video at Shoreline, it’s an inspirational song; it’s about being okay and surviving.
Why is now the right time and TRI the right place for this?
Trixie Garcia: He was born in San Francisco, the band spent all they’re years in the Bay, great runs at the Oakland Coliseum, they’re hideout was always Marin; Front Street is just down the road. Time wise I think a lot of people are ready to stop being hurt and sad that Jerry is gone and start to really celebrate, that’s the theme of this event, all about Jerry’s brightness and brilliance and the light he brought to the world.
