Uploaded August 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
During our 1996 interview for Guitar Player magazine, Bob Weir talked at length about how his chance meeting with Jerry Garcia led to the formation of Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions, the Warlocks, and, ultimately, the Grateful Dead. He details how the Beatles inspired the musicians’ rapid shift from folk music to psychedelia and examines the difference between their earliest live shows and studio recordings. (“We were primarily a dance band. We were there to swing.”) He delves into how the use of LSD accelerated the Dead’s musical improvisations and explains how harder drugs – “bathtub methedrine, particularly” – took a devastating toll on San Francisco’s hippie scene. He also offers insights into the other bands and guitarists on the scene at that time. You can hear the entire interview here: jasobrecht.substack.com/p/bob-weir-psychedelia-and-the-birth#details. #jerrygarcia #bobweir #gratefuldead #jasobrecht #lsd #ratdog
During our 1996 interview for Guitar Player magazine, Bob Weir talked at length about how his chance meeting with Jerry Garcia led to the formation of Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions, the Warlocks, and, ultimately, the Grateful Dead. He details how the Beatles inspired the musicians’ rapid shift from folk music to psychedelia and examines the difference between their earliest live shows and studio recordings. (“We were primarily a dance band. We were there to swing.”) He delves into how the use of LSD accelerated the Dead’s musical improvisations and explains how harder drugs – “bathtub methedrine, particularly” – took a devastating toll on San Francisco’s hippie scene. He also offers insights into the other bands and guitarists on the scene at that time. You can hear the entire interview here: jasobrecht.substack.com/p/bob-weir-psychedelia-and-the-birth#details. #jerrygarcia #bobweir #gratefuldead #jasobrecht #lsd #ratdog
