Telluride PhotosPhotos of Telluride Ski Area, Snowboarding, Hiking

A story which ran in the Marin Independent Journal is making it’s rounds on the Grateful Dead related message boards this morning about a quote which has many of us wondering if Phil will be stopping touring altogether or at least significantly:

Part of the reason for Terrapin was to give Lesh a place to play while he gradually winds down his life on the road.

“After 45 years, I’m done with touring,” he sighed. “The music is still compelling, but I can’t handle the buses, the hotels, the airplanes.”

The above rationale for the establishment of Terrapin Crossroads has always been known to some extent or another, but to see the written words published brings home a certain level of realness to this possibility that Phil may in fact stop touring – save for a few one offs here and there or maybe a limited tour schedule compared to his present day frequency.

It’s very difficult to imagine Phil completely storing away his travel bags for good, but I do believe he’s serious about not wanting to continue on the same pace on the road which as he’s described can be a very tiring proposition.

So, if it’s the case that Phil is turning in his frequent flyer miles for good (to some extent or another), then of course we’re left with some lingering questions. While it’s apparent that TXR has been established as a home base for “Phil Lesh & Friends” and I’m sure we’ll see new exciting incarnations in the future, it seems that P&F might now be mostly tethered to it’s friendly confines in Marin County California. With the emergence of Furthur about two and half years ago, Phil and Friends have basically been dormant anyway in terms of touring. The recent Broomfield, CO run was probably the most noteable excursion beyond Terrapin Crossroads. So, it’s not as if the brakes will have been suddenly applied to P&F … rather it’s more of a jumpstart, but in a different mode of being located at a permanent home venue.

While I’m thrilled for Phil & his family regarding TXR, it’s also sad to note that any appearance he makes at another venue may in fact be his last appearance. I’d like to think Phil will make it out to Telluride once again after the 2012 Blues & Brews appearance, but in reality this could be the last time!

The other big question is “What is to become of Furthur?”. While this apparent news regarding Phil’s lack of future touring didn’t directly address the question, it does nonetheless have significant implications … since I suspect Furthur will not be a part of Terrapin Crossroads in any sort of permanent manner. Having said that, I wouldn’t be surprised if Furthur made an appearance(s) at TXR or even made a limited high profile run here or there such as NYE.

This leads to one of the bigger questions of how does Bob Weir fit into this? Bobby has already sat in at TXR, so it appears he’s definitely on the invite list … if not first to be welcomed! Ever since the New Year’s Eve co-billed shows of 2008/09 with Ratdog and Phil & Friends, where Bobby and Phil played mini tweener sets and claimed “this is a work in progress”, I can’t help but think there’s a bond there which can never be broken & as evidenced over the past few years with Furthur that they enjoy playing together. So, hopefully there’s a plan in place to include Bobby and I suspect that he would do the same for Phil when possible.

With Panda and Penguin recently having been unleashed on Google’s index, I’ve had somewhat of a revelation in while trying to keep up with what might be occurring behind the curtain:

While it’s an extremely complex algorhythem which takes into account many variables & considerations, the whole proposition still seems to be very much grounded in a reliance upon a certain “freshness” aspect with support from social cues for returning relevant results which reflect unique quality content.

Yet freshness might not always be what we’re after. George Costanza once remarked something to the effect that “toilet paper will not change in the future & that it’ll always be what it is”. I believe this aspect of reality holds true across many subjects & perhaps it doesn’t receive the proper weighting in the eyes of the search engines unless it “plays the game” of also being a publisher of sorts. It’s interesting when you take a step back and consider this perspective. More later.

Here’s an excellent and quite extensive YouTube clip from when the Grateful Dead played in Telluride for two nights in 1987, uploaded by ElectronicCinema:

The above two-hour clip provides excellent footage of the scene around town during the dead’s visit; including an appearance by “Acrobat Pat” on a unicycle around the 7:00 minute mark! Pat is still in town and is always inventing/creating new things … including some great metal work images of Jerry. You can often find him hanging out on main street.

I don’t think the Phil & Friends appearance at the Telluride Blues & Brews Festival will garner the same level of fan attendance for several reasons:

- Many Blues & Brews regulars (who’ve been visiting year after year) will have already purchased their 3-day pass or VIP tickets long ago prior to the announcement of the lineup. I’m not sure exactly how many fall into this camp, but I’m guessing it’s fairly significant … probably in the neighborhood of a few thousand on the low end is my suspicion.

- While there are affordable camping options available in the Town of Telluride and the general region, given that Blues & Brews is now a popular recurring festival, many visitors have gotten into the habit of booking their lodging well in advance. Also, given that the lodging sector knows about this demand, the prices for getting a room anywhere in town or the mountain village are going to be on the very high end. I’ve heard reports on the Phil Zone of rooms being in the neighborhood of $400/night.

- It is true that many fans are still very devoted hardcore followers of the Grateful Dead’s remnant incarnations, but lets face it … most of us who did get a chance to see Jerry play now have a touch of gray and the responsibilities of life which go along with getting older. This is not to say I haven’t seen a great mix of ages at recent Furthur, P&F, Ratdog, 7-Walkers, etc. shows which include many younger college aged kids … but lets face it, 1987 was probably approaching the pinnacle of the Grateful Dead’s “mainstream popularity” with the release of “In The Dark” – and the wave of “in the darkers”.

So if I had to bet, I’d say we’re probably looking at about 2,000 – 4,000 deadheads (of one stripe or another) out of about 10k total festival attendees. It’s certainly plenty enough to make a scene happen around town, but I just don’t think it’s going to be quite to the same level as 1987.

So, I opted to do a very simple and cursory review of the search results when one googles the phrase “Phil Lesh in Telluride” in order to see how things were ranked.  Partly due to my own personal interest in seeing one of the original founding members of the Grateful Dead on stage in Telluride Town Park, but also with an eye to Google’s ranking algorhythim as it relates to one my favorite bass guitar players and the town (area) I call home.

I had written an article about Phil Lesh in Telluride about a week ago and recall the day afterward it ranking somewhere on the fourth or fifth page for these search terms.   However, today it appears there’s only a page 9 ranking on an unrelated interior page.

I find it to be very interesting to see all of the players jockeying for position, some of who aren’t even playing in this game directly such as realtor affiliated sites which have made several appearances on to the top three pages.  Not only are realtors establishing portals to destination resorts for informational purposes, they’re now actively engaged in commenting on current events as a way to boost their visibility in the rankings.

Otherwise, there’s an assortment of music industry event and news sites as well as the some of the official sites such as phillesh.net and the official site of Telluride Blues & Brews and of course Phil’s facebook site.

There’s also a variety of fan blogs & message boards which invariably will cover such topics in great detail.

If I were rating google on it’s effectiveness in so far as parsing out the most “authoritative” information about Phil in Telluride, I’d give them a B-.  I’m not going to say that realtors aren’t necessarily into Phil or the Grateful Dead (I know at least one who’s way into them – Hello Kristen!), but my suspicion is that the thrill is gone for most of this bunch as far as being hard core fans.   I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this, but I make note of it simply to point out how Google is perhaps misapplying what it deems to be authoritative on the subject in question.   For that matter, I would suspect this misapplication of authoritative content runs the gamut across various subject matters & essentially props up whichever entity has been gaming the SEO system the most effectively on this dynamic front for lead ins.

Here’s is a short clip I took Phil & Friends at the 1st Bank Arena in Broomfield, Colorado earlier this year on 2/18/2012:

It’s all very interesting when you consider the history in recent years, starting with the voter’s disapproval of the multi-million dollar ballot measure several years ago of the street / waterline repair … which also had widening of the south sidewalk (which would be heated) wrapped into a much larger package.  This was shot down by the voters.   I believe the street and alley fund was setup not too long afterwards. I’m not sure precisely how the S&A mechanism works, but my suspicion is that it’s a way for the town to redirect tax dollars over time to capital improvement projects – specifically streets repairs and related projects (who knows the extent of the scope of this “alley” wildcard?!?) – which may have otherwise required voter approval.

Maybe I’m off base and there are limits to the expenditures from this fund, but given the significant concern about whether this more limited overlay project would preclude a widening of the south sidewalk at one of the more recent council meetings, it’s apparent it’s clearly on the radar of at least some members of this council.  My impression from their tone is that it’s probably within the current pervue & financial means of council to proceed without voter approval; more to the point, the way some of them talked about it made it seem like a “done deal”.

If this is the case, it’s extremely disheartening in terms of the council possibly not just simply ignored the will of the voters, but also by having created a “legal bypass” to do so.  Given the history of the sidewalk proposal, I believe that it at least deserves to be run by the community to see if it’s what it truly wants.  If so, great … that’s how the ball bounces … I can easily live with that and is pretty much I would ever ask on pretty much any issue.  What I have trouble with is when a very narrow group attempts to impose their vision on the town with respect to significant matters – EVEN if they’re “correct” (on some front).

As to the partial recognition that the current resurfacing has anything to do with the bike race:  I believe it’s a sophisticated tightrope dance … since I believe it’s a VERY BIG factor, not just a side note.  Did not Stu mention (at a recent council meeting) that a bike race official during a conversation/visit with him said something to the effect of “you ARE going to do something about this road, right?” (to paraphrase)

I’m curious about the differential in carbon footprint of fixing the waterline & resurfacing (all at once) vs. resurfacing & then fixing the waterline and then having to resurface the trenched section?  My suspicion is that doing it all at once would easily wash out and perhaps dwarf the environmental benefits of the plastic bag ban (a “kissing cousin” at that, both being petroleum based products).

In reality, I think the road is in terrible shape & by most standards is in dire need of repairs.  But you know what, the speed limit is 15mph & I couldn’t think of a better speed mitigation system for another year until the waterline & street can be repaired in unison.  I believe it’s all but certain we’ll start to see vehicles regularly doing 30+ mph on main street again.   As to the widening of the sidewalk:  there’s a reason people hang out on the north side regularly & it’s not because it’s wider … it’s the sun.  Even if Phil Lesh himself opened a venue with sidewalk seating on the south side, you’re not going to be catching me sitting outside there unless we have a record breaking heatwave during the two months of July or August.   What about during the winter?   Are those cold shady benches on the south side going to be worth having to drive through a narrow virtual snow tunnel because the actual street has been narrowed and the temporary center-line snow storage requires you to have avi gear to make a pass through?!?  What if the engineering was calculated with narrow margins & when a big storm hits, that center line storage isn’t sufficient & the plows need to work overtime to keep the street open (more recurrent taxpayer expense on the back end).

In the grand scheme of things, I’m not really so opposed to the resurfacing … but do question the timing and actual efficiency (in light of other town environmental goals), as well as what appears to be possibly pushing this south sidewalk project onto the community via a street and alley fund “endrun” (in light of the historical record).

Phil Lesh and Friends are scheduled to headline the Telluride Blues & Blues Festival on Sunday, September 16, 2012 in Telluride Town Park.  This is excellent news & I believe the first time Phil has performed in Telluride since the Grateful Dead played in 1987 (the dead were brought to town by promoter and part time resident Bill Graham).

Last year in 2011, the 7-Walkers with Bill Kreutzman played at the same festival and put on an excellent show.

Prior to that, Papa Mali & Bill Kreutzman played on main street in Telluride for the Cajun Festival on August 1, 2009. I recall that show as being a great high energy surprise I wasn’t expecting, but was pleasantly surprised.  I also remember spotting Billy wandering around on the empty street by himself in back of the stage once the show was over … just checking things out.

You have to go back to September 15, 2002 (will almost be 10 years to the date of Phil’s appearance), to have seen Ratdog play the Blues and Brews festival – who at the time still had Rob Wasserman on bass.  Very nice Matilda Mother -> Tomorrow Never Knows -> Matilda Mother with Rob W’s signature space lines.  Also noteable what was in my opinion an incredible Corrina.  Now that I start to recollect, I do remember Jay Lane’s legalize it rap somewhere in the mix as well.

If I’m not mistaken, I believe that’s the full history of post Grateful Dead appearances by surviving core members.  I don’t believe Bruce Hornsby counts in the same way that Neil Young counts with CSN (and sometimes “Y”), but he has made several appearances here over the years and is actually scheduled to play at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in a couple of months.

The other headliners are Gov’t Mule (with Warren Haynes), The  B-52s, and Chris Robinson Brotherhood.

So with Warren in Town Park,  I’m guessing he’s going to be a part of Phil’s yet to be named lineup for this show.  Speculators might wonder if perhaps the infamous “Q” (Phil, Warren, Jimmy Herring, Rob Barraco, John Molo) might be planned for this show …. especially given Warren’s known presence for the festival & the Q’s extremely recent return to Phil’s new venue “Terrapin Crossroads” – located in San Rafael, California.  Who knows, but it’s a card in the deck.  I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Chris Robinson either sit in or actually be a full time friend for the show … since he’s played frequently with a few incarnations of post GD formations.   I most recently saw him sit in for a few songs at the beginning of a Furthur show at Red Rocks this past summer and have plans to see him, Bob Weir, and Jackie Greene trio at the Boulder Theatre and The Mishawaka Amphitheatre in early June.

In any case, it’ll be great see Phil back in Telluride and I know everyone around town is very much looking forward to it!  It’s also great to see Steve put this together … adding it up over the years, Blues & Brews had pretty much been the only solid link to post GD shows in town.   Goes triple for anything Warren related.    To be perfectly honest, while I always really liked and appreciated Warren’s abilities all the way around, I wasn’t ever a HUGE HUGE fan … it probably more to do with his tone and apparent gravitation to a more southern fried / Allman’s sound …. which I love in it’s own right, but probably isn’t my thing 100% of the time.    In any case, now he’s at least notch below just a single HUGE – as of seeing him play two shows during “the dead” 2009 tour & moreso even moreso re: the most recent Phil & Friends shows in Broomfield (Feb 2012).    It’s al

Maybe the new KOTO – yet to be announced – big two day concert in late August might have another nice surprise.   Furthur would be at the top of my list, but I’ve have heard a credible rumor about Neil Young & Crazy Horse playing two nights at Red Rocks this summer.  If this rumor is true, I wouldn’t be surprised if the powers that be @ KOTO will try to court an appearance …. especially in light of last year’s Buffalo Springfield show which never materialized (nor did the tour).

I don’t trust to nothin, but I know it come out right.

Goes to show I probably shouldn’t get so worked up about things, unless there’s something which can be done … although sometimes it’s difficult to see the forest through the trees.

Apparently at the request by the Telski, the National Forest Service has closed access to all public National Forest Service lands contained within the Telluride Ski Area boundary to the public for a period of three weeks after the official closing date of the ski resort (April 8th, 2012)  as well as three weeks prior to the start of the 2012-13 ski season.

The closure pertains to all motorizes as well as uphill foot traffic.

I’ve been living in the area since 1994 and have hiked up the ski area pre and post season many a time, and have never ever come even close to encountering any sort of dangerous situation with ski area operations nor have I heard of others.  For that matter, I don’t believe there are any documented accidents with ski area equipment, etc.   So, if the ostensible rationale of “safety” was the impetus for this closure of access to public lands, where is the supporting documentation on yet another decision which lacked any public scrutiny and was enacted based solely by administrative review?

Personally, I find it very disturbing to possibly have a private entity who is essentially a “glorified renter” of public lands request that citizens be denied access to public lands without any immediate public oversight.

Scheduled for the weekend of August 25th and 26th, 2012 to be held in Telluride Town Park.  The two day concert event has yet to be announced as to which musical act will be performing on the town park stage.  Speculation is still running wild as to who might it might be; Pearl Jam, Furthur, Phil Lesh & Friends are all floating around.  I’ve heard rumors of Neil Young and Crazy Horse playing at Red Rocks this summer, so I wouldn’t be surprised if somehow he’s landed here … especially given the fallout of the near miss of Buffalo Springfield playing here last year.  Time will tell & all will be revealed soon enough.

The concert is scheduled to occur the weekend after the big pro cycling event lands in Telluride.

Whatever the heck it was which made Jerry, Jerry … there’s a bit of that flowing in all of us. It’s there to see if you want to, but it often only appears in fleeting glimpses for most people (if they care to look). I think what was special with Jerry is that he was able to consistantly tap into and make this energy flow and materialize into something on a daily basis (back in the day) … although some days were better than others.

I agree that Jerry brought something out of everyone in the GD which can’t be replicated; HOWEVER, it has already been done enough times to in effect have seared this conduit in place for others to help re-ignite this “flow” in the future. When Bobby talks of “hearing Jerry” (while he’s playing), this is an example of the extent to which this gift was passed along … at least in my estimation. All of the core four are blessed with their past experiences and carry them forward – always with the potential to tap into this hidden reservoire of sorts.

When Bob or Phil play with “an outsider” (JK, Warren, MK, etc.), they’re basically passing this “reflection” (of what was imprinted by playing with Jerry) to them in a positive feedback loop … if they care to listen and tap in. Since JK is very adept at technically sounding a lot like Jerry in both tone selection and phrasing, I think it has been overlooked regarding his ability to join this dynamic flow of energy when things do “click” beyond just the motions.

I have been a long time follower of Steve Clemons’ political blog at TheWashingtonnote.com.  I have often found his take on many important national & world issues to be progressive, moderate, and often pragmatic … all of which seem to be increasingly rare these days in a hyper-partisan climate which seems to dominate our collective psyche.

I consider myself to be politically moderate in most instances; however, I generally lean toward the liberal end of the spectrum on social issues, but am financially conservative.   I suppose could even go so far as to say I have been a moderate Libertarian on many fronts prior to the so-called Tea Party movement, yet I recognize the need for sufficiency of governmental infrastructure.  In other words, I am not a proponent of fundamental Libertarianism … as I believe the logical end game is anarchy and lack of a “core safety-net foundation” (i.e. fire, police, hospitals) if practiced in the extreme/purist form.

In any case, I believe I started following Steve Clemons’ blog after the recess appointment of John Bolton as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations … since Mr. Clemons seemed to really be a force to reckon with in so far as uncovering some of more blatant as well as the more nuanced consequences of Bolton’s appointment and how it affected the United States’ credibility in the court of world opinion.    I owe a great deal of credit to Steve for truly captivating my attention to that particular issue as well as many others which he explored over the course of blogging at   TheWashingtonnote.com — which has since been a “regular stop” for me in so far as news/op-ed sources I frequent to keep abreast of political news/events.

While I’m sure there are plenty issues I might disagree with Steve, one of the “biggies” is with respect to “Net Neutrality”.  I don’t want to put words into his mouth, but I believe he was at one point officially on the fence regarding this issue; however, I believe he may have given some consideration to the support of some form of an abolishment of the current status quo of net neutrality in favor of a “pay to serve faster (content)” paradigm in effort to ramp up our national IT/internet infrastructure via privatization (to paraphrase).

I believe net neutrality is a critical leveling mechanism with respect to how “the news” affects political discourse in so far as opening up the number of potential “channels” which the world’s population is able to viably select to garner meaningful and often times diverse perspectives on a wide range of issues.  Net neutrality represents the polar opposite of the consolidation of news sources which tend to homogenize perspective and discourse.   Moreover, it is a lot easier for political players to “steer the masses” with fewer news sources.  This is one of the more significant pitfalls I am concerned about … especially since a neutral internet allows for independent writers to gain immediate equality with what has traditionally been a high barrier of entry, a good ole boys club if you will, to mass dispersal of information without the contamination of the particular agendas of special interests which seems to currently enjoy an institutional bias on this front.  The potential of the independent writer must not be curtailed if we are to advance and evolve to allow each of our voices to be potentially heard by the world’s ear.

OK, back to the point of this post:  I had not seen a post by Steve on thewashingtonnote.com in over two weeks (July 14, 2011) … so I opted to visit his relatively new home at theatlantic.com and found there to be about 18 posts which had never appeared on thewashingtonnote.com.  There are truly a gazillion possibilities why this is the case … many of which might be very good reasons.   I realize it’s obviously not up to me to dictate where Steve publishes his writings, and maybe there are many significant “upsides” to joining forces with a larger entity; however, the one  downside I can’t help but consider to be a trump card is the apparent shift away from what appeared to be a more independent platform.   This is certainly not to say theatlantic.com is not a great venue in it’s own right.

Again, I’m not privy to the details behind the scenes and whether this is a temporary phase, transitional, or more permanent move?   Personally, I hope Steve keeps his bet hedged and realizes the enormous impact he’s had on the political blogging sphere as well as the example thewashingtonnote.com has provided in so far as illustrating what IS POSSIBLE for any person to potentially emulate to some degree.  Granted Steve has been involved in politics for a while & presumably has many “inside connections” – which might give him a leg up over an “average American” – but he has still provided a working example of how one person’s voice can be heard on the national/world stage and have an impact.