 All right first question Ben is when did you first meet Jerry Garcia? Oh, that's a good question. All right, I don't really know the first actual meeting with Jerry was I think for the 1976 10th anniversary of what we thought was the summer of love which was in our view 1966 not 67 before the media took it over And so I spoke with him on that occasion for a radio special and for Story about the music scene in San Francisco for Rolling Stone, but I Saw him of course attending concerts at the Avalon and in the park and at the at the Fillmore And I think we might have met him at Rolling Stone around 1970 when the band were so proud of their new sound With working man's dead where they began to do more acoustic and harmony-laden Songs at that Robert Hunter wrote and so they actually bought in tape to our offices and had a Very early listening party though Those are sort of unheard of but a lot of stuff that dead did was unheard of and so We probably saw at least a road manager rock scully probably carted in the tapes But I have a feeling Jerry and maybe Bobby popped in there too and hung out with Rolling Stone because we had a good relationship with them overall Yes, go ahead. What were your impressions of him? I don't do impressions of Jerry I Can do a bill Graham maybe Mr. Phone Taurus get out do not ever try to get into my establishment again, Mr. That's it Anyway, my impressions of him He was a Called captain trips He was considered the leader of the band and he was he was considered a spokesman whether he wanted to be or not for the community And he struck me just as a bright articulate guy Very genial very open with media and with people in general in other words a very attractive person So Well, do you have any evidence of that? Well, God, you're annoying But I did a piece on the grateful dead on their 15th anniversary This would be 1980 from the time of the warlocks into the grateful dead and I went to Boulder to see the dead play and spoke with the the various band members about the 15th and Spoke with Jerry one-on-one at that time and I made a CD of Stippets of Jerry talking and I'm hoping that this will work and that the volume will be okay. Let's try here Asking him. Well, you'll hear the question And and maybe there's like an 18 or 19-year-old kid but they tend to to talk with you one-on-one It's nothing about Uncle Jerry. Oh, no, no, they talk to me one-on-one Which is which is interesting because they are they're really the same kind of people that we were when we were in their age Yeah, I mean and That just means that they're the same kind of people You know, I don't know what it is the thing that they were like about grateful dead music Yes, I need to do with what we like about it. I mean, there's there's it's not a case of mistaken identity or anything All right, and I told him about a particular Fan that I had run across in San Francisco at a certain famous address and this is from What was this? Oh, this is from the 15 years dead article from Rolling Stone and This is just a couple of paragraphs. I think good vibes Jerry Garcia chortled gleefully too much how perfect I just told him about a visit I had recently made to 710 Ashbury and about CJ Felice the 15-year-old boy who lives there with his parents and Sister in his room on one wall are posters of Cheryl Tiggs Farrah Fawcett and a topless woman skier Where am I got lost there? Topless skier on another wall The big one fronting the bed are the grateful dead in posters photos and album cover handbills The kids are dead head and Garcia was delighted to hear it. That makes me feel real good. He said chuckling again The 80s have come to the hate Ashbury the street is dotted with chic boutiques and Restaurants are deco stores and a gay-owned disco But the 60s haven't left yet hippies turned winos litter storefronts the hate Ashbury free medical clinic is still around and needed And at a street fair just a month or so ago you could pick up every artifact you missed out on in its heyday The Felices take their house's place in rock history in stride having bought the first dead album themselves When they lived in Manhattan on the Upper East Side, they are at ease with the occasional visitors They just sit out front and look said Michael a wine importer. They are in awe. It's like a saint had lived here a number of saints really What's your next question? Oh, yeah, what other interactions have you had with Jerry or the dead? All right Early on when I joined Rolling Stone back in 1969 as an editor and writer I would cover their drug busts, so I'd be calling whoever their management was at the time for information and comments Same thing with the problem was with Lenny Hart Mickey's father over finances or With a story about a record label that was putting out demos of early dead music without their okay So basically the great foot dead Was one of my beats other people like Jan Wenner the editor and publisher and founder of Rolling Stone and Charles Perry also known as smoke stack El Ropo would do features like the Rolling Stone interviews with Garcia or a takeout on bears sound system The dead's version of the wall of sound as a freelancer after leaving Rolling Stone I was asked by a magazine to do a piece on dead heads It was good to be able to paint a portrait of followers of the band beyond the stereotypical Images so here is a bit of I was gonna say a taste, but here's a The lead from that story From a magazine called America it was for young travelers basically a travel magazine for young people All right They look like a pair of marine recruits or maybe a couple of frat brothers who got lost on their way down to Fort Lauderdale Here they are blonde short haired bare-chested dressed in walking shorts and Reeboks smack dab in the middle of a grateful dead country It is four hours before a dead concert in Mountain View, California And already the parking lot at Shoreline Amphitheater is jammed with well-traveled vehicles Vans trailers flatbed trucks and converted school buses painted in rainbow hues The biggest fans the dead heads as they good-naturedly call themselves are Indulging in the ritual be in that precedes every dead show hours before the opening song Concertgoers are perched in around and atop their vehicles chatting writing and journals listening to Tapes of the dead clothing styles range from the 60s to the 60s tie-died shirts and dresses headbands and scarves jeans and sandals galore Amid the din of tape players and the drone of a half dozen vongo drummers jamming nearby Ross McRonald Junior and Dean Noe look more like narks than rockers But no says McRonald 32 a 22 year old business major at Philadelphia Community College in Pennsylvania He and his buddy. No, we are out here to dig the dead. It is McRonald's 31st grateful dead concert He spent weeks at a time following the band from state to state tracking them as far as from Virginia to Connecticut a Few cars away Dylan John Phillips has apparently opted for the latter choice freshman of Arizona State Phillips looks sounds and is even named like the son of the Woodstock generation His mom. He says was a Bob Dylan fan. He's timed about right to he's 18 and Woodstock was what 19 years ago He appears unimposing and bookish, but in his case, it's the book of the dead And the conclusion is after the shoreline shows John Phillips and his friends returned to Arizona State at least in body And you come back from the shows you don't really come back He says the change from the late back care for one another ambiance of the dead to the every student for himself world of the classroom is a jolt in School people are totally beach surfer people and they look at you with their muscle-bound bodies and think you're burned You don't know the sixties are over. Why don't you get into the new sounds? And I'm like why don't you dig that you can listen to your new sounds and I can listen to my old ones The grateful death theory is whatever you are. That's great All right the wisdom of young people Also after Rolling Stone, there was a proposed book project with Peter Simon the gift of photographer That never came to pass although he went ahead with a dead book, but that got us on the road and catching some more Dead shows and dead heads for for future use. Hey, let's hear from Jerry Again a couple of short bits there here. He is about big brother and the holding company You could say like a band like big brother was a good example. They were bad, but they were also great The thing that was great about them had to do with the energy that they had and other stuff that That is one of the one of the nice things about it was that it was a break away from what's good You know, I mean the idea that what's good is what's steady is No more no better up an idea than what's good is what's crazy You know, it's any idea having to do with what's good or what isn't in music is totally a subjective thing I think the the San Francisco bands the San Francisco energy show that music doesn't it isn't the question It isn't a question about music. It's a question about energy And here he is about Robert Hunter first lyric the first thing that we did together. I think it was Dark Star Really, which was original concept of it was each letter And all these crazed, you know, meth free kinds of elaborations Now he was into it, you know in other words, you know into That's what his early his writing is that type of with these amazing Complex glyphs. I always liked his Yeah, they were they were real hard to make songs in fact the first two records that we Wrote together were totally unwieldy. I mean the songs are just Only a couple of them are you are we lovely singable Now is before we start to learn about my cities of songwriting that you should leave room for people to breathe All right learning about songwriting, okay When Jerry died 1995 I got two calls phone calls with Assignments from an editor at people magazine and from my friends at Rolling Stone people I Think they had had me do a tribute issue They would do these now they're almost every month, but they would do these standalone tribute magazines And they were always I think I think maybe maybe Lady Diana was their first I'm not sure but and then they were preparing for Sinatra because he was getting into his 80s and So this this editor called and asked if I knew anybody who could write Sinatra's life story I said I could I know his music and I liked his music and no no standards So I did that issue. So when Jerry died he cut their call again and said, oh, we need you fast We need a the life story of Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead and you have basically four or five days to crank it out So at the same time on the other line is Rolling Stone saying could you do a basically? Kind of a postcard from San Francisco the mood of the city, you know The city of the dead and how are things there? Where are people gathering? What are they saying? What's going on basically? So that's what I did and I'm gonna read you now the Lead from Rolling Stone and the conclusion from people. Okay See Rolling Stone called it land of the dead. All right When in the mid 60s, San Francisco came to represent nothing left to lose There was a handful of Identifiable pioneers who changed the face the sound and the style of pop culture The changers included the concert promoters Bill Graham and Chet Helms poster and light show artists hosts and alchemists like Ken Keezy and Augustus Owsley Stanley Radio pioneer Tom Donahue jazz critic Ralph J. Gleason and yes, Rolling Stone At the epicenter, of course were the musicians early on the Grateful Dead along with a few others played free concerts as often as paying gigs Extending their songs into jazz like in proposatory jams. They broke down the lines between artist and audience Back then we Rolling Stone and the Grateful Dead were brothers in arms. The dead did it on stage We watched and listened reported ranted and raved for our very first issue published in November 1967 We lucked Journalistically speaking into a story for the ages the Grateful Dead getting busted at their hate Ashbury digs The band and the magazine always had a special relationship Despite the occasional negative album review or report on an unpleasant incident or Rolling Stones moved to New York City in 1977 our common roots transcended trivia our love of great music kept us bonded. That's the beginning Just a show that I wasn't bullshitting here is the People sorry kids people magazine and the conclusion the sea is kind of There it is It is Saturday Three days since his death that evening I go to Sweetwater a rootsy nightclub in Mill Valley in Marin County to hear the Annie Samson band Annie is a longtime friend and the next morning she calls to say that Bob Weir Garcia's bandmate and friend had come to visit backstage during the second set on The day Jerry died Weir seemed composed before the television cameras saying how much the world would miss his friend That Sunday at the memorial in Golden Gate Park his voice indeed his whole body With quiver as he called on the crowd to take some of the joy Jerry Garcia had provided and to reflect it back to him 50,000 arms waved at the sky But on Saturday night Weir slipped into the sweet water and stayed in the basement away from a house packed with people Who would want to embrace him? He was content to hear through the walls the sound of Annie singing an R&B version of an old song by a mutual friend Bob Dylan Leave your stepping stones behind Something calls for you forget the dead you've left. They will not follow you strike another match Go start anew. It's all over now, baby blue. It was the solace of rhythm and blues People magazine how about that? so Yes, so go ahead. So how did you come to write the grateful dead scrapbook? Oh, I wasn't ready for that question, but all right up. It was pretty much the same way that I Have done my 10 or 11 books someone else has the idea and then My agent hears about it and then calls me just get back to work I have an idea for you and that's how I did my first book Hickory win the life and times of Graham Parsons Same thing with my last book willing all about little feet and that big book on the doors too called the doors by the doors I think it was around 2008 that the dead donated a lot of their memorabilia the artifact their archives to University of California in Santa Cruz to create a dead central archive and around then they decided that it might be cool To do a book including copies of some of those materials in a format They haven't created a couple of years before called the scrapbook and the idea there was a usually a large format book in which every couple of pages would fold out to Reproduce a poster or a handbill there might be an envelope pasted on to it from which you could then extract a 45 rpm single or photographs or Fan letters whatever and so the great will dead did one and I'll show it to you here. Once again. No BS This is it. It came out and the dead themselves put out a Deluxe edition. This is the I need a cheapo 40 bucks for this one about the same anyway And the dead one let's see now Marijuana One of the best things about this one was that Inside the cover is a CD of basically Jerry Garcia and the grateful dead at various interviews and press conferences and So that's what I've been playing. I provided the publisher with the tracks you have heard so far And so I thought maybe I could play a bit more. It's kind of fun hearing Jerry's voice, isn't it? Let's see here the CD has 31 different cuts, but they range from 30 seconds to maybe three or four minutes. So Not too daunting and So let's see now Here is a track that has Jerry's perspective on the dead and the concept of Something foreign to them hit records. All right Well, suddenly today it seems FM and AM radio are both playing Alabama getaway. Yeah, that's incredible. I can't believe it You've always had this kind of attitude of all the records aren't the most important thing we do Well, nobody's you they saw me that you know our records our fans by And maybe you never can't tell yeah, you've never been the first of the idea of having it Yeah, sure every time you go in and make a record for a very first record we were sure our right first record was going to be You know when you're more sure oh, I'm not sure of anything. No, not about records I'm not convinced of anything. I mean they all start out looking at stuff They're going to be his they enjoy about a two-week life half-life three-week half-life I'll be amazing Do you ascribe more or did you pay more attention out of the recording process or records you always paid attention to it when you're doing it I go in and out of it. I go in and out of my interest In recording you know as a thing to do like sometimes I'm really hungry to record An experiment fool around the studio And then there's other times when I've fooled around experiments so much I'm just so bored the idea of recording things like it must be mode cold sort of thing to do I'm absolutely no interested You know it goes back and forth and I go to sleep between those two poles That's true, but after 15 years is not a new toy in a year, you know, I mean I've played in the studio on awful I've got my own studio fundamentally that and You know now I'm more interested in playing for people. I think by and large that's still the most interesting thing I do I do like to record Live music and I like food with live tapes, you know, that's your great pleasures And here's one of my favorite bits Where's this from this is from When I did that 10th anniversary article about the music scene in San Francisco An interview Jerry along with the char smokestack and Bob Simmons from K-San I Produced a nationally syndicated radio show out of my interviews with various artists and I think it was about a two-hour show anyway Jerry is in it and so is John Cipollina We beloved guitar player from Quicksilver messenger service or I loved a lot and So this is John first and then Jerry explaining their transitions from Erty rock and folk music to Electric guitar we start with John Cipollina I gave up Okay, well since he's Begun to talk about LSD. Let's go ahead and listen to one more track of him talking about the changes Spring out in terms of public audacity at least that's the way I equate it Because before that I might I would never done that probably I would never gone out raving on the streets or anything like that Maybe There was okay Any more questions? Yeah. What do you think with a dead ever die? No, no no man Stupid question. They the music and the spirit will live on Whether it's the guys playing it together or apart and no matter who else is playing it The Grateful Dead scrapbook was done in 2008 and the epilogue at that time addressed the issue. Let's see. Yeah epilogue Okay, it begins. I hope at the right Paragraphs here, but a few months after Jerry Garcia's death the dead called a meeting to determine the band's future if any Bill Kreuzman told his bandmates that he wasn't interested in doing any more touring for him The Grateful Dead were over with and so by majority vote it ended The long strange trip of a uniquely wonderful beast known as the Grateful Dead is over the band said in a statement They quote it from the wheel the wheel is turning and you can't slow down You can't let go and you can't hold on Except for a lash and Kreuzman who stopped playing for a while the surviving dead didn't stand still But they discovered that they couldn't avoid going back. They could not escape their histories Not that they wanted to. In 1998 Lesh joined Weir, Hart, Hornsby, Ruth Hornsby and other musicians in an ensemble called The Other Ones after the song That's It for the Other One from Anthem of the Sun Kreuzman joined that band in 2000 while Lesh played with Phil Lesh and friends. Finally in 2003 The wheel came full circle as the other ones announced a change of name They were inspired to do they were inspired to do so they said in a statement by the response They had received at a concert the previous summer in Wisconsin when they felt quote a connection That none of us had felt since we played with Jerry to us This was the Grateful Dead without Jerry We stopped being the other ones and we're on our way to becoming something new but at the same time very familiar Therefore with the greatest possible respect to our collective history We have decided to keep the name Grateful Dead retired in honor of Jerry's memory and call ourselves the dead But they acknowledge the Grateful Dead name would live on it continues to be a community an approach to life an electrical current a dream the list goes on so That was the status Nine years ago, and of course we know what happened that led to the fair of the well tour and to various iterations of the Grateful Dead spirit At places like Phil's Terrapin crossroads and at Bob Weir's TRI studios and at clubs like the Sweetwater and the Throck and all across the country it lives on Grateful Dead radio shows on the air and online and Through satellite I program a station called moon Alice radio for the Jam Band moon Alice and the dead and family are major parts of That musical menu in fact moon Alice just played at the Jerry Garcia with the Grateful Dead tribute night at AT&T Park that you Do you know that you come sure you know the Giants have a Grateful Dead or Jerry Garcia night every year and so for the past two or three now moon Alice has had the honor of doing the Mini set before the game atop a dugout MC by big Steve Parrish, of course Jerry Garcia's former Manager of the Garcia band and a former roadie For the Grateful Dead he now is the road manager and rose scholar for moon Alice so it all just goes around in circles and this is kind of weird but in recent years, I've joined the ranks of Breton Roses as a performer of sorts singing with a guitarist and a keyboard player usually at senior centers but also at events like the broadcast legends holiday luncheons and along with standards and Elvis songs we do ripple and it goes over just as nicely as fly me to the moon. So You want to hear some my memories are made of this. No man ripple. All right And finally I'm working on a project. That's being kept a secret at least for the media those enemies of the people That I can say has some strong connections to what we've been talking about the dead the spirit the music the messages and How all of it helped change the world and how we desperately hope that We can charge it up again, but I can't say any more about that. So That bring what happened my guy. He just Disappeared so if you would like to if you have any questions about this or any other thing So I was sitting there talking with some people they were asking quizzing me about my career at K-San and Rolling Stone and East West and Everything but good Grateful Dead, so That's okay with me and also Ramses and I cooked up a little Contest Ramses, where are you? Oh When he was in high school About when was this though 65 December 8th 73 at Duke. Oh 73 I was in snow, but apparently if you interviewed him in 76 I was I was trying to be Cameron pro, but I was on the East Coast and I couldn't pull it off Haha, I can't believe I interviewed it before you did and I just found the cassette and Oh, yeah, those are treasures. It's really nice to have I just love his not only his voice But this is his whole laid-back attitude and just being so wide open to the world The first question was Can you tell me something I might not have heard about the Grateful Dead or is there something new you're working on or could you give me a He said and this is almost verbatim quote Well, I don't know what haven't you heard? They were just having fun with me It got to the point where he literally said I don't know any facts, but that guy over there how's Lee He has an infinite capacity for that So it wasn't Well, great well congratulations on your your scoop any other thoughts or questions, don't be shy Yeah, I'm not giving a history of the grateful for that you need to talk to that guy, but Yeah, no, obviously we're part of the whole Key-Z acid test run or early on down in the Palo Alto area, but I Didn't I covered it in the book the Grateful Dead scrapbook that I showed you but yeah I just didn't choose to talk further about it. You were a victim. Oh Oh at winter land a few years later or Yeah, right about six years later Well, sorry to hear that have you recovered? Yeah, yeah now I wouldn't have been talking to Jerry at that time and I've never seen anything publicly about any other members of The band maybe I'm just missing out, but I don't know that they've talked that much about fish Vice versa probably is the case. Yes anybody else Well, that's a little complicated, you know, there are people who are addicted there are people who from various pardon me who have ailments and then resort to meds There are people who get Insnared in a lifestyle There are people who are just addictive and so it could be any number of things you if you talk to five or six of his various Fellow band members. He would you'd probably get five or six different theories And they were the ones who were living with him and traveling with him and playing with him So that's a very complicated question. I'm glad my guy didn't ask that Anybody else Yes Is it growing every year what's growing? Oh I'm afraid it isn't I think it's a very strong move not a movement anymore I think there's a strong community worldwide really a people appreciate that kind of openness freedom An eclectic eclecticism of the music that is played in the jam scene and we've heard a one or two names so far there are dozens of them and That's gonna go on But the idea of it is really kind of anti-commercial, you know, it's not there to be a movement and to spread It really is still what Jerry I think one time said about the hate Ashbury community The thing was that it would have been really nice if they could have somehow enjoyed it that what happened But to have kept it a secret and not let the media for example come in and destroy it the way they often do so But I think there will always be a good number of people younger and older who appreciate that kind of a spirit of music and of life together and of traveling to see favorite bands and interacting with the artists in a way you can't with say Who Who just won that that lawsuit a Taylor Swift? Yeah, that's right people like that I mean she may be a very sweet young woman But the fact is there are barriers now more than ever in the pop music structure and other places That do not exist in the jam band world. So hopefully they'll keep on going. Yes Just just once and didn't do much obviously Yeah, my favorite interviews have been with Ray Charles and Marvin Gaye and that's because In in Mr. Charles's case it was because Back in the day we could actually come up with story ideas because we liked the idea not because they were on the charts Or selling a lot of records or concert tickets and so I just raised my hand one time I knew that Ray was in town for a jazz festival. So I said Ray Charles What's it? What's going on? Nothing, but it's not for him. We probably wouldn't be here So let's do it because he deserves a Story so okay find out what you can find out and it turned out to be one of the best pieces I was a part of and won a national magazine award because he was so angry and proud and candid and It was alright being asked by Aretha Franklin to join him on the stage at Winterland or a film or West or whatever That's cool. He hasn't but he's seeing guys like Joe Cocker Speed by him selling records using His sound so he had a reason to be annoyed and then Marvin Gaye I loved because He had just made the up to that point the greatest album of his career. What's going on and Yet I encountered this fragile Sensitive Certain man who had no idea what might be next here He is being acclaimed as the great soul artist now of our time and he's oh shit. What's next? Bangs and pots in the kitchen and see what happens and he just did not know it took him I think several years to come up with a follow-up So those are two of my favorites and so they tend not to be rock stars and bands although I certainly enjoyed Messing around with Bob Dylan on the road and Crosby still is nationally young and writing with Linda Ronstadt and Bonnie Ray and going to Las Vegas to hang out with Gladys Knight and the Pips and And then when you're in Las Vegas back then in the 70s You could go down a corridor of a big hotel and just whoa look who's playing the lounge And so and in one morning about one o'clock. It was Wilson picket So I just wanted to check him out left him a note saying I'm from high Ben Fontours from Rolling Stone and He called me the next morning And I went went over to your suite did a little piece on him and pow the wicked mr. Pickett was in Rolling Stone just because I was there to Hang out with Olivia Newton John or something, you know, that's how it worked back then And so those were the for me the best days and the best stories accidental or preplanned I think the yeah Reminiscent No Not to me and we probably didn't think to ask about that I think our focus was probably pretty much on the current music and of course Inspirations for the music so you might go back to his first lessons for example or any genealogy in the family that would lead him to Be involved in music and that's about probably as deep as would go We wouldn't probably ask about the neighborhood for example or even sometimes the city so that's where that was What I wanted to ask what I wanted to ask you then was a rolling stone and this gets way from the bus again I'm sorry for that when rolling stone moved away from San Francisco in 77 and you stayed I guess you had deeper roots here Tell us just something about your decision to stay Graham was closing the Yeah To the smaller clubs, which I like Being able to go to small places Well my decision to not the question is about rolling stone moving to New York City in 1977 and I stayed behind and That was because of a family reason I had lost a brother to a homicide a few years before and so in the Chinese culture I was now suddenly the number one son as may sound kind of weird But it's very serious and so I had to take it seriously and Diane my wife And I had bought a house and so we were facing a situation of upsetting my parents and also then letting go of a house We had just purchased or having a sub let it or whatever just complicated So we actually did go to New York and looked at a couple of places in Brooklyn and thought about it heavily So I had nothing to do with yarn offhandedly telling her cane or remarking to somebody that San Francisco was a backwater in terms of the rock scene but So my my thing was that I thought that I could maintain an editor ship Running the West Coast and Jan was fine with that So I set up an LA bureau and ran stuff out of San Francisco Travel to New York once a month or so for meetings and that didn't stay with me too long because I felt like We had become an outpost where I'd been central to Decisions before now I was just kind of catching up on the phone or on the occasional trip and so That's when I thought I would leave and see about Trying out some other magazines or other work and that's that's what happened then now. There's a gentleman right there. Yes Well, that's a book and in fact it's a documentary in fact there are two documentaries being produced right now about the freeform FM rock radio scene and how it started and Well, then there's one on case and and That will tell the whole story Tom Donahue in brief Tom big daddy Tom Donahue was a prototypical Top 40 disc jockey who happened to weigh 300 pounds 300 pounds of solid sounds on boss radio KYA and He had this incredible presence. He was an entrepreneur or a hustler however you want to do it he He Had tip sheets. He had a nightclub. He had a record label. He had management He's the guy who discovered the very young Sly stones still known as Sylvester Stewart And could hear that this guy had skills and an ear set of ears and made him the staff producer at Autumn Records And so a sly who was pushing the warlocks and the great society around the studio when they were trying to make their demos So Donahue Got tired of the top 40 scene. He said I attended one too many teen fairs Where I'm in a booth and people are teenagers are gawking at me and hoping to win 45 rpm singles enough of that so he just gave it up and Started to smoke and started to do some other stuff and it was simply that he and Rachel his girlfriend at the time Would host friends they would combine smoke and and play music That was the big thing in the living room or whatever room and they would each bring favorite new sides and Play them and laugh about them and talk about them and somebody said, you know, this is what the radio should be just real music real conversation don't worry about the hits and The rules and so Tom said, yeah, that's a good idea, man. So he found an FM station that was Teetering on going out of business. It's a barter station where you had to pay to be on One of the guys who was doing it on the all night thing was Larry Miller out of Detroit So he was already bringing in his Judy Collins and James Cotton and whatever other Records and playing them and talking about them. So Tom Just simply joined that and then turn it into a full-time thing on KMPX And then sure enough management had to screw things up. And so the guys and the gals Left went on strike and that was my first big story for Rolling Stone was helping to cover the KMPX strike And then they made a deal with Metro media who had a classical station called KSFR And that became case and with about maybe a half of the DJ staff Joining in not everybody could be accommodated but Tom and Bob McClay and Dusty Street and a few others made up the core group of the initial KSAN team and it just Exploded with a bigger signal and with corporate backing which became later a problem and on Hawaii, but They had an incredible number of years there atop the ratings here in San Francisco And so watch for the documentary about that. Was there somebody else who was right in their hands around the same time? Yes, sir I was wondering you went to San Francisco State Ability. Yes, and did you Be on a David Carradine kick lately pardon the pun Did you ever meet David Carradine at school there or talk to him about his music David Carradine? Yeah, no because he went to school there about the time you did I think and he was really in the music Well, I've just been learning and hearing some of his music. No, I don't know him But you know as a state one of the best best things about state was that Well, first of all we had free speech while Cal was fighting for it But beyond that when and there were these music fans who staged folk festivals and Blues festivals and in my years there in 1963-64-65 or so they invariably became hyphenated and that is Blues took in gospel and the sound of say Paul Butterfield blues band the Chambers brothers And so you began to hear a rock coming in through both folk and blues and so it was just the beginning of a Generation of mostly kids Learning to be more eclectic in their musical tastes and not just what they're hearing on their a.m. Radio from Big Daddy Tom Donahue or whoever so that was the value of One of the values of SS state for a Chinese American kid like me who had dreamt in the 50s about doing I Wasn't dreaming about doing Rolling Stone But about working for a newspaper or maybe get on the radio and there was no chance at all But at a place like San Francisco State in a city like San Francisco and in an area like the greater Bay Area One could dream as long as they also worked. Yeah, and so that's what that took I Do the Chinese New Year parade every year with the lovely Julie Hainer. Yeah, and we just won our fourth Emmy So we're happy about that. Although four is a bad number in Chinese Better hurry and win that fifth one. Yes Okay, Sam. Yes. Yes, okay, well with these documentaries you never know They're hoping that the PBS will play it and he sometimes they they aim for the big cable networks They hope to land a run at a chain of theaters What will probably happen is that they'll enter it in some festivals and for example the Mill Valley Film Festival They're the San Francisco International Film Festival and if it catches on then Distributors producers Studios whatever whoever have the big bucks can then take it over and and spread it around and or get it onto a Major television network. I haven't seen much of it yet And so I don't know how it's gonna be but boy, oh boy back 50 years ago We did not have a lot of cameras video cameras capturing every Thing that everybody does or says the way we do now with our phones even yeah The case and one is No case and is still I think about two-thirds of the way the one about me should be out within two months and The one from the guys up in the Sacramento area. I haven't heard from them in Ohio. And so I don't know I'm such a self-promoter. I don't bring I don't bring books. I just give away stuff Yeah, I think Rollingstone.com has them all they're also DVDs of every issue of Rollingstone every page and You can find my stuff there and just go online and you'll you'll find me You did oh, I'm sorry to hear that, okay Yeah, it was started by Barney Hoskins In London and he has accumulated a database of thousands of articles from various rock writers and other writers who happen to address a Subject of interest to in pop culture. So there was one more over here. Yes What's on the horizon for radio it's already here that is that people are sort of like the way they're beginning to desert print media and television For radio people are finding other platforms the the way Commercial media works is that they want young Customers they don't want people who are baby boomers who are no longer babies or booming and so and So you see the lots of jazz classic country oldies smooth jazz all these as as a population ages and you don't have a young Generation appreciating that kind of music then they're gonna go hip-hop and go top 40 gonna go dance They're gonna what you know, whatever and so for radio for our generation and younger and older They have to find their radio elsewhere and so they have to go online They have to maybe subscribe to Sirius XM, which I love they create their own stations on Amazon or Pandora or Spotify or Whatever I think they're you know more and more as a streaming companies jumping in and That's pretty much the way you have to do it There isn't that much in terms of local community based radio unless you go to the low lower powered FM stations up in West Marin or capu in San Francisco or the Pacifica Foundation station or of course NPR And so you can find quality programming and you can go online to find out and of course There's also the alternate podcasts, which you can control so that you have a favorite feature Performer you can just type in her name and then pow there are all the podcasts That she does and you can just click them on when you want to hear like appointment Listening so any that bad is just much more of a search. Yes Yeah, yeah, I know David I supported his shows on various media, but I don't know that I've ever been on his thing I think I may have done in one time. I remember going over to KPFA a Few times and one of them may have been for him may have been for one of his fundraising marathons, I think we're just about out of time, but yes Oh, yeah that again About five years ago this woman Suzanne Joe Kai who was a pioneer female reporter and television anchor here in the Bay Area Suzanne Joe Who has been had done a Documentary about I think Star Trek fans and it was successful And so she said now I want to make a documentary and I want to make it about you And that was partly because we knew each other and I had been writing a column for free for her Asian Connections portal or site for a number of years and she just had Sort of heard my story through the columns and so she said I think you'd be an incredible subject for a documentary And I argued fiercely and because I didn't really want to do this because you're spilling a lot of stuff Or you're having a lot of intrusion in your life. You're being followed by a camera She's contacting all your friends and family to get the dope on you There's a lot of dope on me so So I've been some kind of a reluctant Peavish person about this yet. She has gone ahead and done it And so now she's editing and adding a few more things. She's going after Annie Leibovitz She just got Cameron Crow. She got young winner at Rolling Stone. She got Quincy Jones. She got Carlos Santana She got I don't know Paul Cantner Bob Weir Ray Manzeric None of whom know me, but she got her So so it's mostly I can't help you lady Don't know I saw that name around somewhere I'm still pissed at him for that review But no, they've all been very generous with her And she does have friends and family in there and it's sort of a twin story about the 60s and Rolling Stone But also about an Asian American kid Escaping the mainstream dreams of his parents and they're still pissed off So I guess on that note as said that should be out. I don't know You'll probably be right after the K-San documentary. It'll be the opening act for K-San probably Sometime in November and I'm sure I'll write about it when the time comes and let people know I'll be on a Facebook about it Also, yes Joining Ben Didn't he do that some years ago? He was playing with them sort of the way Bruce Hornsby did and Jackie Green does and Great, I have no problem with that unless he's a you know more of a showboat than he should be I know he has a pretty mercurial temper and temperament But if he is able to get along with the guys then that's fine He's a stunning artist when he's serious about it So that's it. Thank you so much for showing up appreciate it