The 500 - #288 - Anthem Of The Sun - Grateful Dead

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #288

Album Title: Anthem Of The Sun

Artist: Grateful Dead

Genre: Acid Rock, Sound Collage

Recorded: 11 location, 5 studios and 6 live shows

Released: July, 1968

My age at release: 3

How familiar was I with it before this week: Not at all

Is it on the 2020 list? No

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: New Potato Caboose

If you are older than 40, you might remember the first time you got the news from the internet. For me, it was on August 9, 1995, at about 11 p.m. when I learned that Jerry Garcia, songwriter, lead guitarist, vocalist and founding member of Grateful Dead had died.

To provide some context, I have always been part of the early majority when it comes to computer technology. This, for the most part, is because my friendship circle included early adopters and high-tech innovators. During the summer of 1995, my connections were through my bartending pals (Tim and Marcelo) and my roommate (Steve). All three were involved in some capacity with the rapidly growing world of personal computers.

A nostalgic reminder of my 1995-era set-up

These chums had internet service in June and, by August, they had helped me install a modem which, by the magic of a telephone line, could download data at the seemingly incredible speed of 24 kilobytes per second (kbps) – the cutting edge of technology at the time. By comparison, my internet access right now is 230,000 kbps. According to tech historian Zachary Robinson, only 0.04% of the world had access back then, so I was chuffed to show it off.

The Windows Modem connection screen

That night of August 9, 1995, after working a bar shift, I invited a co-worker and friend, Kelly, over to see the setup. After a few false starts, we were connected to "The World Wide Web" and I showed her the homepage for America Online (AOL). As I clicked around the screen showing off the features, we noticed a news ticker in the top right corner that read. "Jerry Garcia, Dead at 53".

A typical AOL page in the 90s, News ticker circled in red

"Is that true?" Kelly asked.

"I think so." I answered, hesitantly.

For confirmation, we tuned the television to CNN, the 24-hour news channel. After about a dozen minutes, the news ticker item was verified. That segment from the broadcast is available on YouTube here.

CNN broadcast from August 9, 1995 announcing Garcia's death

We were dumbstruck, both by the early demise of a rock legend and the fact that we had received news through a computer. We had, for more than 20 years of our lives, become accustomed to more conventional news delivery -- radio, television or print. I know we didn't fully grasp that this was the start of a revolutionary shift in the delivery of mass communication.

Jerome John Garcia was born to Jose (Joe) and Ruth (Bobbie) Garcia, bar owners in the Excelsior neighbourhood of San Francisco. The young Garcia took an early interest in music, taking piano lessons for much of his childhood. He lost two-thirds of the middle finger on his right hand when he was four -- the result of a wood splitting accident. A year later while fly-fishing his father slipped wading into the Trinity River in Northern California and drowned.

Garcia and his dad (1947)

Jerry's mother took over the family-owned bar full-time and he lived with his grandparents for five years, which gave him considerable freedom and independence. During that time, he was introduced to the banjo and a Grade 3 teacher encouraged him to continue developing his musical talent.

By 1961, Garcia was entrenched in the burgeoning San Francisco music scene. He connected with four local musicians who became the founding members of Grateful Dead or "The Dead" as the band is known to its fans who are sometimes referred to as The Deadheads.

The band was originally called The Warlocks, but needed to change it after learning that another group was already using that moniker. The term “grateful dead” was spotted in an encyclopedia by Garcia in the context of an Egyptian prayer. In addition to Garcia, other members of the newly minted Grateful Dead were Phil Lesh (bass, vocals), Bob Weir (rhythm guitar, vocals), Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (keyboards, harmonica, vocals) and Bill Kreutzmann (drums/percussion). It wasn’t long before their self-titled debut record was released. In 1967, an additional drummer, Mickey Hart, was recruited to the group.

(l-r) Kreutzmann, McKernan, Garcia, Weir, Hart, Lesh (1970)

Anthem Of The Sun was the sophomore release by The Dead and was the first to feature Hart.

Subsequently, a major addition to the expanding group  was Tom Constanten who played organ pieces and provided innovative and avant-garde studio techniques. He and Garcia developed a "collage" process to editing by which sections of music were spliced together to create a record that is neither a studio recording nor a live recording, but an amalgam of both. The final product is often called "Acid Rock" -- a genre meant to replicate and enhance the hypnotic and psychedelic effect of the hallucinogen LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide).

Drummer Hart has called Anthem Of The Sun the band's "springboard into weirdness" and Dead-aficionados mark it as the start of the "Classic Dead Era".

It's an enjoyable, but weird, record. Whenever I played it before or after my Grade 7 classes my students (who arrive early to drop off their backpacks) and the custodians (who popped in to empty bins and clean-up) reacted with peculiar expressions. They said nothing. I think they have all learned that “Mr. H. in Portable #16 has unusual tastes”.

I can only imagine how unique, interesting and impactful The Dead’s aural soundscapes would be to a late-sixties, LSD-activated hippy. Perhaps they, much like my friend Kelly and me, did not realize they were on the leading edge of a seismic shift in pop culture.