Why Jerry Garcia Never Turned On the Hells Angels
From Grateful Dead Sleep Stories · 00:13:34
Show by GD Sleep Strories
The Grateful Dead built their entire world on a handshake. With the Hells Angels, that trust worked for four years — until Altamont, where it got an 18-year-old killed.On December 6, 1969, a Hells Angel named Alan Passaro stabbed Meredith Hunter to death at the Altamont Free Concert while the Rolling Stones played fifty yards away. The standard story blames the Stones for "hiring bikers as security." But the Grateful Dead were the connective tissue — their manager Rock Scully knew the Oakland Angels, the Dead vouched for them, and Scully warned Mick Jagger directly: "You can't hire Hell's Angels. They're not for hire."This is the deeper story: the Dead and the Angels weren't a business arrangement, they were neighbors. 710 Ashbury and 715 Ashbury. Co-producers of the 1967 New Year's party in the Panhandle. The Angels who babysat lost kids at the Human Be-In were the ones Garcia actually knew — and most of them were across the bay in an Oakland meeting while young prospects, strangers in the same patches, came unglued at Altamont.And here's the part nobody talks about: Jerry Garcia spent the rest of his life refusing to condemn them. He paid roughly $300,000 in 1973 to help finish a Hells Angels documentary. He talked about "cosmic balance" instead of blame. Because admitting the Angels became killers when you scaled the model past personal accountability meant admitting the entire trust-based philosophy the Dead were built on — the same one that let Deadheads tape shows and let Lenny Hart steal the band's money — had a body count. Robert Hunter wrote "New Speedway Boogie" about exactly this. Garcia thought even the song was an overreaction.Featuring Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, Sam Cutler, Ralph J. Gleason, Phil Lesh, Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia, and the making of "Gimme Shelter." CHAPTERS: 0:00 New Year's 1967: The Angels' Thank-You Party 1:18 Kesey, the Acid Tests, Two Outlaw Tribes 2:15 710 Ashbury: The Dead and the Angels Next Door 4:14 Rock Scully and the Road to Altamont 5:41 How 300,000 Strangers Broke the Model 6:50 Altamont: The Violence and Meredith Hunter 9:11 Why Garcia Never Blamed the Angels 11:21 The Price of Trust Without Structure#GratefulDead #HellsAngels #Altamont
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