10/2/66 - San Francisco State Acid Test

Handbill from the Whatever It Is Festival, 1966

The next stop on my Grateful Dead audio trip isn't very much of a Grateful Dead show. In fact it isn't a Dead show at all. Its a collection of clips of the Merry Pranksters from the San Francisco State Acid Test, known as the Whatever It Is Festival. Taking place in the SF State gymnasium, the event lasted for parts of three days. The Dead played the last two, though there was a rumor that the bands tried to have a midnight concert on the Friday night kickoff of the event which was shut down by the police.

In The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe gives an excellent description of this test from the eyes of the Pranksters. Says Wolfe:

"The festival is in the gymnasium - full of scaffolding and people filling the ceilings with movies and light projections - Control Towers - and the Grateful Dead on the bandstand, all careful homage to the original Acid Tests, and then suddenly - Kesey - will be there, broadcasting into the gymnasium from a campus radio station.. ... Except that by the time they get all the wiring hooked up, and start rapping, Cassady with a microphone inside the hall... it is about 4 am. Kesey is hidden in the studio talking over the hugest Prankster hookup of wires... but there were no millions, or even hundreds left in the gymnasium because it was so late it was down to a group of hard-core heads" (313-14).

This all seemed so exciting within the Prankster world because it marked Kesey's return from his fugitive stay in Mexico, after being busted for marijuana use earlier in '66. He had planned this Test to be his coming out party to mark that he had returned to the San Francisco scene. Too bad the Pranksters were the Pranksters, missing their mark by several hours.

Now, one may wonder why I've included this audio as a mention when listening to the Grateful Dead. It only tangentially involves the Dead. We know they were there that night, but know little about their set. We do know from McNally that during the two nights that the Dead performed, they were forced to play one without their showman, Pigpen, who was inadvertently (or not) dosed. He was forced to go home as he was unable to perform.

Blair Jackson adds in Garcia, that, "The Dead dutifully supplied some of the music portion of the evening, and a few members of the group hung around to hear Kesey's ramblings in the wee hours of the morning" (113). The fact that the band was in the house during these recordings, part of the party, and were experiencing the Prankster weirdness in real time, probably high, is of significance to me. In moving linearly through the Dead's recording history, those events and music that influenced them along the way is of interest. For myself and my interests, that was enough.

If you are interested in seeing what the festival was like, a news report was was given on the Friday night of the event by station KRON Channel 4. You can view that archived report here: https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/bundles/209388

As is true with much of the Dead from 1966 and 1967, that was not the end of the story. If you take a look at the notes of the file on archive, it includes an interesting name as the organ player: Jerry Garcia. Hmmm. My first thought was, "cool." At the same time I thought it hard to believe that Jerry was playing organ during these ramblings, not to mention that there was absolutely no way to verify this fact. Well, just in case it is Jerry playing the organ, this recording instantly becomes more significant to me. But again, there's no way to verify it. That is, until you find this event in Long Strange Trip. At the end of a nicely detailed paragraph, McNally drops, "the show finally began around midnight, and given Pig's absence, the music lacked energy and focus, although the audience was treated to Garcia playing organ behind Kesey" (McNally 166).

I'll let that sit for a second

"... Although the audience was treated to Garcia playing organ behind Kesey."

There's the verification that a random liner note lacks. McNally confirms that the random organ player behind Kesey is in fact Jerry Garcia. That tidbit is significant if only for the fact that we get the opportunity to hear him perform something on a night where all Grateful Dead material is lost to the ages. In fact the speaker mentions Jerry on Track 4 at 6:12: "I've even got Jerry Garcia coming that way, he'll try to (distorted)." There is a good jumble of music after this is mentioned, some of which must be coming at Jerry's hands.

If you are a true completist, this is one you might consider listening to. If you're only in this trip for the music, move on past.

https://archive.org/details/gd1966-10-02.sbd.bershaw.5413.shnf

The audio presented here is very odd. I mean, VERY odd. You have to be dedicated and supremely interested in the times to take this on. Although Jerry is mentioned twice, I found it difficult to discern his organ playing throughout the entire "show." Whatever the choice, here is the tracklist:

The Head Has Become Fat Rap
A Mexican Story: 25 Bennies
A Tarnished Galahad
Get It Off The Ground Rap >
It's Good To Be God Rap >
Nirvana Army Rap >
The Butcher Is Back
Acid Test Graduation Announcement
Send Me To The Moon >Closing Rap
Ken Kesey's dialogue (isolated remix)
Prankster Music/Sound Collage #1(sequence 1)
Kesey Rap > Prankster Music/Sound Collage #2 (sequence 2)
Sound Collage #3 > Prankster Raga(sequence 3)
Closing Jam
Prankster Electronics

Notes:

• Jerry mentioned @ 6:12 on Track 4 "Get it Off the Ground Rap"
• Jerry mentioned @10:38 on Track 10. Either, "It sounds like Jerry Garcia's made it," or "It's not like Jerry Garcia's made it."