Long strange trip

  Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. Longtime friends and
musicians Jerry Garcia and David
Grisman are seen jamming in the new documentary film
"Grateful Dawg," which features clips of old home movies set to
music. The film, directed by Grisman’s daughter Gillian, will
premiere tonight in New York.

By David Holmberg
Daily Bruin Staff

Deadheads of the world, music lovers and anyone who has ever
appreciated a friendship all have a reason to be grateful.

Released last Friday in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and
celebrating its world premiere tonight in New York, is the new film
“Grateful Dawg,” a documentary chronicling the personal
and musical friendship of legendary musicians David Grisman and the
late Jerry Garcia.

Directed by Grisman’s daughter Gillian, the film is an
assemblage of old home videos, concert footage and various
interviews that creates a uniquely personal voyage into their
friendship.

After having met by chance at a bluegrass concert in 1964,
Grisman and Garcia would both go on to have stunningly impressive
careers, together and separately. Jerry Garcia is best known as the
beloved co-founder and lead singer/guitarist of prominent folk-rock
jam band the Grateful Dead. He also played with a variety of other
bands, however, including Old and In the Way with Grisman, and
recorded a number of solo albums. Garcia continued playing actively
until his death in 1995.

David Grisman is a world-renowned mandolinist, who has actually
invented his own style of music, called “dawg.” It is
an incomparable style that incorporates bluegrass, swing, jazz and
more. Grisman has been playing for almost 40 years, and has even
started his own music label, Acoustic Disc, which is devoted to
producing acoustic music.

  Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. "Grateful Dawg," now
playing in Los Angeles, documents the friendship between
David Grisman (left) and Jerry
Garcia (right). In a recent Los Angeles interview, David
and Gillian Grisman talked about the production of what proved to
be an intense yet rewarding documentary.

“It was a very organic and evolutionary process from the
get-go,” Gillian explained. “We were privy to a lot of
the jam sessions and recording sessions that were taking place at
the house, as well as some of the early concerts. We were just
shooting for the sake of shooting and never with the intention of
making it into a movie.”

But a movie is what they made, despite a number of obstacles.
One problem was that most of the private footage from the early
1990s was not filmed professionally.

“I realized very quickly that this was not going to be a
concert film,” Gillian said. “Initially we had about 20
to 30 hours, but we’re talking about home movies, and I had
to pull what I call the tastiest morsels out of that to create a
scene within the song. What was there was a lot more interesting
than a concert film. There were all these snippets and different
facets of their relationship, and if I could find a way to cut all
that together, it might make a great movie.”

Added to the already arduous task of assembling the footage was
what would prove to be a rather challenging stipulation imposed by
her father.

“The one thing my dad laid down was that we use complete
versions of songs,” Gillian said.

While a seemingly simple enough request, this created huge
drawbacks, given the incomplete nature of many of the scenes.

Gillian Grisman said, “It’s a film of cut-aways and
cover-ups. I cut out of necessity. It was like weaving a fabric; (I
had to) find the right pieces to go with each other.”

Added David, “She did such a good job of matching the
images and we did such a good job of playing the same notes, most
of the time, that it’s pretty seamless.”

But ultimately, the rewards were greater than the setbacks, and
both Grismans were pleased with the result.

“It created a nice bridge between the musical and film
worlds because historically the role of music in movies is one of
background or its secondary,” continued Gillian. “And I
think in a lot of ways with this film, the image is there to
enhance the music.”

In essence, the end result became a sort of “movie
record,” a sight-oriented peek into a world that typically
remains only auditory.

According to Gillian Grisman, one of the most crucial sequences
in the documentary is the 17-minute musical odyssey,
“Arabia.”

“It was a real challenge because of the length of the
song, and what I was trying to do with the song,” explained
Gillian. “I really feel that it was the meat of the movie
right there because you get an in-depth look at the creative
process of song-writing and the studio environment, both from the
challenging point and the comic point of view versus the live.
I’m asking the audience to watch and listen and absorb a song
that’s largely musical and that’s asking a lot. But I
think that particular segment moves people, that they get
it.”

The audience response is vital to a film such as “Grateful
Dawg,” just as it would be in a concert. But despite the
pre-existing fan base for the Grateful Dead and bluegrass music,
the Grismans sought something more.

“I didn’t want to create a film that enticed just
Deadhead or just music fans,” Gillian concluded. “I
didn’t want it to be exclusionary toward a broader audience
that didn’t necessarily know about music … but you
don’t need to know anything music to appreciate this film or
see a film about friendship.”

“Grateful Dawg” is not the only recent release of
recordings done by David Grisman and Garcia.

Most fans of the Grateful Dead have at one time or another heard
of the “Pizza Tapes,” a rare collection of Garcia,
Grisman and equally-talented bluegrass guitarist Tony Rice playing
together in 1993 at Grisman’s home studio. They were sessions
never meant to be released, but instead just a casual gathering of
musical masters having a good time doing what they love to do: play
music.

But somehow, the tapes started showing up on the bootleg
circuit, much to the surprise of the artists. The stories abound,
with the most popularly believed story being that their pizza
delivery boy stole the tapes when he arrived with their food. David
talked about the mystery of the “Pizza Tapes.”

“Nobody knows the real story,” he explained.
“I’ve never been able to find the actual culprit. But
that story seemed more colorful and leant itself to creative
packaging, more than say the “˜Scuba Tapes.’ The other
story is was that Jerry gave the tape to his scuba diving
instructor in Hawaii. But somehow, those are the only session tapes
that have ever been bootlegged from my studio.”

Eventually in April 2000, David Grisman made the decision to
release the recordings.

“The quality of it was so bad, and I finally decided I
should put it out just because it would sound a lot better,”
he said. “It turned out to be a good thing it was bootlegged
because then there was this whole audience that was ready for it.
So it really wasn’t all that bad.”

Gillian believes the new movie is similar in many ways to the
recently released “Pizza Tapes.”

“This is kind of like the visual version of the
“˜Pizza Tapes,'” she said. “It has the same
casual spontaneity with all the banter in between.”

The Oct. 8 New York premiere of “Grateful Dawg” will
also feature a benefit concert by David Grisman and his band, with
all of the proceeds being donated to the victims and families of
those involved in the Sept. 11 tragedy.