Greetings everyone. Hope you all have had a good fall so far. I’ve taken a mini hiatus from Kempepedia for a few weeks. My mom had successful heart valve surgery at the beginning of September so that took up some time. I’ve haven’t been too happy with some of my composing so I needed a little bit of distance from the weekly deadline of making copy. But now I’m back and gonna try an every other week schedule. And what am I coming back with? Not much, just my first West Coast, Northern Cali, San Fran, Haight Asbury experience. So strap in, ‘cause my long strange trip is about to begin.
Furthur announced they were playing 2 nights at the Monterey County Fairgrounds back in July. Switzer and Josh immediately decided they were going out to visit our friends Delorean and Courtney. Delorean has lived in San Fran for about 5 years. Courtney moved out there this year after living in Burlington, VT. I checked out flights but it was way out of my budget. Plus, my hours at work had been cut so my bottom line was hurting for certain. But then our friend Megan decided to go out with them. She can get a good deal on Standby tickets through Southwest Airlines.
During the last week in August, Switzer and Megan were in town for a funeral. They stopped over to sell me on going out to the show. I now know how potential clients felt when Don Draper sits across from them. They made their pitch and I was sold. Suddenly, it actually seemed possible, I’d finally make it out to the West Coast for a show. I’ve never been to California, let alone San Fran. I’ve visited Seattle back in 1998 for an April celebration, The closest I’ve come to seeing a show out West was Phil at Red Rocks back in 2001. This could actually happen
First, my mom had to have heart valve surgery. She’s had this hacking cough for almost a dozen years. She never smoked and my dad had quit cigs back in 1970. They diagnosed it as asthma but it continued to get worse. In August, she had really long attacks for 3 consecutive days. She went to the ER and they discovered fluid in her lungs. They traced it to blood leaking from her heart valve. Every time her heart pumped, she lost 40% of her blood, most of which was going into her lungs, thus causing the coughing. She was given the option of 9/9 or 9/26. She choose the earlier date to get it out of the way. This also dovetailed nicely with the Furthur show on Oct 8.
The operation was successful and since she isn’t obese, diabetic, or suffering from heart disease, her recovery went pretty smoothly. Switzer and Josh were flying out Thursday. Megan couldn’t get off Friday so she took a half-day. I meet her at her place of employment and we hopped in a cab for a quick ride to the Philly airport for our 3:25 flight. Now our tickets were standby, so we were not guaranteed any seats. We had to hope people wouldn’t show up or there were seats available right as it was ready to leave the gate. We were able to get on an earlier flight with a stopover in Chicago. Then it was on to LA, switch planes and finally make it to San Francisco. We didn’t have to deplane in Chicago and got the seats right in the front of the plane? Why is this a big deal? LEG ROOM. It was like they took out the row of seats in front of us. Almost as good as first class. And why not, I am on Tour.
We land in LA with enough time for Megan to go out and smoke a cig and go through airport security all over again. It was only an hour flight north but by now I was tired of traveling, cramped quarters, and all of the other joys of airplane travel. We landed in San Fran and jumped on the BART (their version of the subway) and come up from the station to grab a bus. We are immediately in an urban setting of any American city. Bunch of “thugs” hanging out, listening to shitty Rick Ross hip-hop
(Side note: Just watched Planet Rock: Hip hop and the Crack Generation. Amazing doc by Ice Mutherfuckin’ T. Rick Ross stole his persona and name from Freeway Ricky Ross, the kingpin of the LA crack trade in the 80’s. Rick Ross the rapper was a corrections officer before he became a poser. Now back to our regularly scheduled blog post)
A bunch of homeless people and the ever present stench of urine, spoiled food and who knows what else. Welcome to the Mission District. We waited for a bus and hopped on. A woman across from me dropped her pill bottle of medicinal pot. She remarked it would have sucked to lose her medicine. Yes, it most certainly would have. Switzer told me the stop for Delorean’s apartment was Haight and Cole St. Did I mention Delorean’s apartment is smack dab in the middle of the Haight Ashbury neighborhood? 2 blocks from the Golden Gate Park and the most famous intersection on the West Coast.
So we were on the bus for a good 30 minutes. Street after street rolled by. Finally crossed Ashbury so I knew we were getting closer. We came to Haight Street and we got off. At this point, I didn’t care how far I had to walk on the Haight, I just wanted to get off the bus. So we get off the bus and I realize I’m at the corner of HAIGHT and ASHBURY. Wow! Getting goosebumps as I type. Finally, I’ve made it. I got off the bus to see where people got on the Bus. Not too many people around, but the funky vibe is unmistakeable. We walk maybe 3 blocks to get to Page Street where Delorean and Courtney’s apartment is located. Josh meets us outside. It’s on the second floor and we go up one of the widest staircases I’ve ever seen in an apartment. It has 4 bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen. What was the living room is now Courtney’s room. Not a lot of space but it is rather centrally located. They had dinner cooking and I finally got to chill out.
When I was getting the final details about the trip earlier in the week, Megan mentioned that there is a dress code for flying on standby tickets. She said it was business casual which might have been Chinese for all my fashion sense. She said slacks, nice shirt, maybe a tie and dress shoes. She found out Thursday night that dress shoes were not required but I still decided I was going to blow minds when I got to San Fran. So I wore one of my 2 Jerry Garcia ties with patterns on them from his paintings. Megan wore jeans with a top that highlighted her cleavage. Still not sure if the dress code thing was a joke but I do clean up nicely. Josh joked that Megan wanted it to look like I was her bodyguard.
We just hung out at the apartment Friday night. Delorean and Rachael (from my Tower Theatre and Hampton Furthur shows in the spring) had already gone down to the shows. So Friday night was just about recharging the batteries. I had woken up at 3:45 AM EST and never got back to sleep. It was 12:30 AM PST, so I had been up something like 23 hours, flown 3000 miles on 3 planes, and ready to sleep the sleep of the Dead. Because tomorrow it was all about going FURTHUR!
We got up to be greeted by fog rolling in from the Bay. Josh and myself headed out to go across town to get the rental car. And what kind of rental did we get? A VW Bettle? A VW Bus since you are in San Fran? Nope. How about a 2011 Mitsubishi Spyder convertible. Talk about a sweet ride. We got in, put the top down and headed out. The radio was on and Lady Gaga was playing. We were just 2 guys cruising around SF with the top down and Lady Gaga playing. Could anything be more San Franciscan that that?
Driving out of the city, up and down the hills and making crazy turns left and right, all accompanied by some breath taking views of the city. Switzer had brought a copy of Phish covering Exile on Main Street because that’s what she wanted to hear rolling down the Coast. Not aware of her plans, I had put the same set but an 8-channel matrix recording on my Ipod. Cameron Crowe can suck it. Josh with his cougar slaying eyes, Switzer’s dreads and flat brim, my beard going on 6 weeks range free, and Meg looking like Jackie O crossed with Thelma from Thelma and Louise, we hit the road like escapees from an insane asylum.
We were so set. The drive down the Pacific Coast highway was mindblowingly beautiful. The Pacific to my right and amazing mountains to my left. When we went through some fog it was freezing. Then we would hit sun and be basking in the California sunshine. Megan said my description of the fog “That fog on the twisty part of the highway was fucking cold” was the academic statement of the weekend; I concur.
We stopped by a beach to chill out. Incredible view of the ocean. Got moving again on our way down to Santa Cruz and the Staff of Life Co-op. Fantastic food. Heady local brews and post show food was procured. I highly recommend the Shepherd’s Pie. They had veggie bacon. I ate some of it but the sandwich had overwhelmed my over processed taste buds. Back on the road and to the show.
The show was held at the Monterey County Fairgrounds. Monterey is about 2.5 hours south of San Francisco, the hotel Delorean got was like a 6-minute walk. Mad props to her. I had my doubts but we all survived.
The Lot was actually on the street. There was a parking field but they wouldn’t let anyone on it. How East Coast of them. But in all seriousness, it was a great scene. Lots of older, wiser Heads. I recognized one guy vending from the East Coast. He was at Camden this year and I asked to buy one wrap. He made it up and said, ”You wanted 2 right?” Nice try but this ain’t my first show.
Nice vibes in the Lot until much later. Met some guy named Bear. Met a kid named James, only 22 but playing the Warlock’s demo from 11/65. I commented on it and we shot the shit for 15 minutes. A bluegrass band got set up in one lot. The poses were similar to my amazing Old and in the Way hoodie, which didn’t even get remarked upon. That hoodie’s awesomeness is the NORM out there. Get inside and TCB. Delorean ran into some heady parents of a girl she used to train for swimming. Real homey vibe. West Coast Furthur is where it’s at!
10/8/11 Monterey County Fairgrounds, Monterey, CA
Set 1 Stranger, Althea, Good Morning Little School Girl, No More Do I > FOTD, Viola Lee Blues> Comes A Time>Throwing Stones
Set 2 Golden Road>Shakedown St>Truckin’>Let It Grow>All Along the Watchtower>Morning Dew>Help On the Way>Slipknot> The Eleven> Franklin’s Tower
Donor Rap, One More Sat Night
You can stream the show here
http://www.archive.org/details/Further2011-10-08.Further-Monterey-10-08-11
Always get a Stranger opener in an area you’ve never seen a show before. The Friend of the Devil was really good with the extra harmonies. Viola Lee, The Golden Road, Morning Dew, and Schoolgirl were all from the era of 1965-67, when they lived on 710 Asbury St. Nice touch boys. Comes a Time was EPIC. The whole second set was mind blowing. Just what I needed. While representing the Steelers on the West Coast with my hat, ran into 2 fans. And one guy from Green Bay who was busting my balls in a good way.
After meeting a lot of different Heads before and during the show, it finally wound down and we headed out to the Lot. As I’ve noted before, I always find the vibe post show a little darker. The anticipation of the show is gone. The addicts are looking for their next fix. We were hanging out near Nitrous Central. There were at least 3 different tanks going and overall a chill scene. The cops were nowhere to be found. Then out of the constant din of tanks hissing and the occasional popped balloon, all hell broke loose. Two guys were throwing punches at each other. The one guy started choking the other and fell into a few of the tanks as they struggled. Wow, how East Coast of them. But then again, California did give us Altamont. Honestly, it looked like something off the Camden lot during the Phish 2.0 era. We announced we were getting the fuck out of there and someone remarked in all nitrous seriousness, “Why would you want to get out of here?” That almost doesn’t even deserve a comment.
We hung out at the hotel and chilled with our neighbors. Meet some chick named Jessica who busted her ass to amass some cash and now was just traveling around the country. Really reminded me of some of the Heads I used to meet on Tour. A lot tougher to do that with the prices and economy in 2011 than it was in 1993. We managed to get a few hours of sleep. Then breakfast at Denny’s and we hit the road to go back to San Fran.
Our last day in the City by the Bay was all about the touristy stuff. We went down to Fisherman’s Wharf after waiting for 3 different buses and finally hopping on the BART train. We had an amazing view of the Bay as the sunset. We had the Bay Bridge on our right and the Golden Gate Bridge on our left, with the hills of Marin County directly in front of us. What a vivid visual to cap off an incredible weekend.
We got up at 3:45 AM to get a cab at 4:15 AM to get us to the airport by 4:45 AM. I reserved a cab the day before but was very paranoid if it was going to show up. While waiting for it, a cab from another company showed up. I grabbed him and then waited for Megan to come down. Of course, a minute later the cab I called for showed up. He was rather pissed and I pointed out he was not there at 4:15 so I grabbed the first available cab I found. Had to get a little East Coast on his ass and he did likewise, said a few things and left.
We made it to the airport with time to spare. We got to the gate for our flight and Megan asked how it looked for the Standby tickets. The woman behind the counter remarked, “It could happen.” They had one seat for Megan and maybe one for me. The owner of the seat had checked in but hadn’t made it through security yet. Or he was in the bathroom with some explosive diarrhea. Or he was getting shit faced at a bar that is open at 5:55 in the AM. But when the clock said 6:04, and the plane was ready to leave at 6:05, they looked down the hallway for any runners. When no one was galloping down the hall, I jumped on board, the door shut and we were rolling away from the gate. I hope his checked bag wasn’t on the flight.
Our original “schedule” had us getting into Chicago and then a 4-hour layover for a flight to Philly. We ended up deplaning at Gate 8. Megan walked to the employee working Gate 9 and asked how it looked for us to get on the flight that was leaving in 4 hours. She then noticed the plane at Gate 9 was going to Philly and leaving in 5 minutes. When asked, the employee replied there were plenty of seats. We hopped on and got to Philly at 3:35 EST. Much better than getting in at 7:30. I could not but keep laughing at our tremendous fortune. Megan remarked that it isn’t usually this smooth and she has spent many a time crying at some out of the way airport, as she had to wait hours for a flight with space for her. I remarked we were on Tour and that’s how things fall into place for me.
Got back into an East Coast state of mind and hit the Turnpike to get back home. Just got through before the normal bullshit of rush hour and got home at a decent time. Took a couple of days to punch this out but am really happy with the result. Thanks again to Courtney and Delorean for their unlimited hospitality. Until we meet again San Fran, thank you for the memories and I’ll see the rest of you on the Road.
Dave Kemp
BA in American Studies
Ph.D. in Rock and Roll
...and just think, this is all pre-Jim Harbaugh hand-shake controversy.
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