Goodbye Old Friend: It was so good to see you once again

A few brief words about Phil Lesh.

Beloved: This may have escaped your attention yesterday, but founding member of the Grateful Dead, arguably one of the top bassist in Rock and Roll history, and the only father figure in the world who gave me peace as a teen, Phil Lesh died yesterday. 

With the death of Phil Lesh marks the end of a musical experiment that started at an Acid Test at Ken Babbs place on Nov 27th,1965 or : as half the original prankster crew swear a week later, with one outlier, Ken Babbs who could have sworn it all started that Halloween. 

A band billed as “The Warlocks” that a week later named themselves “The Grateful Dead,” no band in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s,  and even all the way until the year of our lord 1993 when I showed up on the scene, exemplified the day-glo orange dream of the true catalyst for the entire psychedelic movement of the United States, Ken Keasy and his band of Merry Pranksters. The idea that one good experience, be it with or without psychedelics, could have this communal experiential transmutation of the soul and mind with music, dance, and power of a band tuned into people, and those same people reflecting that incredible connection right back at a group of musicians who would use a familiar vehicle and songbook to  tackle each experience from a new, weird, and often awkward place the band and the crowd had never been. 

Many of you know this well trodden history, and many people have incredibly calcified opinions on the subject. Many of you know in 1995 Jerry Garcia passed away while getting sober. 

What me and the rest of us who loved this scene never told the rest of the country after the “Touch of Grey” era of the Grateful Dead, and the often maligned years of the late 90’s,  was that it all  started again. We didn’t want you at the show anymore. 

Or at least I didn’t. So when the popular media, or a co-worker would say something incredibly hurtful and shitty like “isn’t Jerry dead?” after 1995 when inviting them to a “Phil and Friends” show I was like: fuck em. Fuck em all. 

 I, and the collective “us” of shakedown st, the “main street”of the temporary circus that set up in a parking lot that you have walked down at any Grateful Dead and now Phish related show ever decided we were better off without you. 

The 20k or so extra fans who heard their were drugs and loose hippie fems, the bro’s who showed up just to try buy a pound of mushrooms and be kings of their small forgettable towns and talk shit, the gawker drunken NFL season ticket holder who owns the “rights” to these seats and wants you not to smoke weed, the swinger couple trying to save their marriage via me, or just the local highschools and college pouring out into the show. The chaos, the men in shiny black shoes, the long term federal investigations like operation “Dead End”, and operation “Jerry’s Kids,” the terrible sounds in the stadiums to house all these maniacs. 

Grateful Dead Tour was an unwieldy monster towards the end careening into small communities and stealing the faces, and pulling the wool from the eyes of hundreds of thousands of us, the young america, when I was on tour. 

You see what we didn’t tell you was that since 1998 after almost dying from Hep C, and thanks to an organ donor named Cody, Phil Lesh received a new liver, and a new lease on life. 

Since that day Phil and his “friends” refused to be a nostalgia act. Staying true to the original experiment, he invited groups of musicians younger, less experienced, or just playing incredibly different music, to play with him on one tour or a few shows, and play the Grateful Dead’s songbook for the first time. The shows were wild, experimental, and started to reimagine a still living story that has been told all over this country. In this way Phil Lesh saved my life. 

I found the Grateful Dead 5 years earlier while houseless, 11 going on 12. I was doing sex work, sleeping in an abando, and a group of kind kids from tour, many of whom I stayed friends with to this day or until they day they died “took me in.” 

They showed this little black queer trans kid a safe anti-capitalist lifestyle where I could live, thrive, even grow into a loving and fairly productive member of this american society, in ways that made sense to me. Through the Grateful Dead I saw almost all 50 states of Union before I turned 16. I went to, or was stuck by the side of the road trying to get to 136 Grateful Dead shows and got inside over 100. 

After Jerry died in 1995 I was 17, and the only thing I knew in my world as a community was gone. In 1998 I went to see Phil Lesh celebrate being alive. He brought his two sons on stage and they sang “hello old friends” and I wept. He even re-introduced me to Trey Anastasio of Phish by playing with him a bit that Phish tour, and then inviting him up in the “missing man formation” or Jerry Garcia lead guitarist position. 

I did half of that 1998 Phish tour and didn't understand what all the fuss was about until that night when I watched Trey rip apart on a molecular level every Dead song I love with Phil’s familiar smile and eyebrow wiggle as the shit heated up as encouragement. 

136 shows of the Grateful Dead, something today I hear old timers and young newer heads  wistfully speak about, but as someone who was there,  I am still unsure if any of those experiences come close to comparing to the hundreds upon hundreds of Phil and Friends, Phil Lesh Quintet, Phil Lesh and the Terrapin Family band shows I have seen since. 

Phil Lesh introduced me personally on stage, from 1998 until his death yesterday, almost every musician I love to this day. He made me love rock and roll, its history, and the lineages of musicians I spend a good half of my life with and any disposable income I have to go see. Thanks to dancing to these songs of love, revolution, and freedom in a space where I felt free enough to move my body, I have met, solidified, or mourned every friendship, family member, and relationship I have ever had. 

When I was a houseless queer sex worker hiding it from my cool new friends on south st in philly, in 1993 Phil was there. 

When I lost my soul on Haight St in 1998 and  I was really on the edge of society and I needed a landing place, Phil was there. 

When I came back to the United States after trying the Ex-Pat thing in 2001, Phil was there. 

When I got sober from booze 15 years ago Phil was there. 

When I repaired the relationship with my family and became a son again, Phil was there. 

When I married the mother of my child, and attempted to be a family Phil was there. 

When I went to seminary, every summer Phil was there. 

When I wrote my first best seller, Phil was there. 

When I moved back to the west coast, ended up in the uprisings, and almost died several times, Phil was there. 

When my wife and I divorced, Phil was there. 

When I came out as trans, Phil was there. 

When I faced fascist, they made several attempts on my life due to defending Black Lives, the first show I went to was the last at Phil’s club and danced to a hot version of “Ohio” with Phil’s knowing look that some of us out there were taking heat.

Because after COVID I had to go see for myself that Phil was there. 

I started my PhD and Phil was there. 

I fell in love again, and Phil was there. 

This morning the only bassist, bard, and merry prankster I personally knew still left alive is not here, and this world is lesser for it. 

The American dream seems a little more impossible, and I worry that the spaces that birthed someone like me might be gone from the American landscape forever unless you can afford a few weeks in Vegas or Cabo. 

Phil, goodbye old friend. It was good to see you once again. 

Written in love and liberation 

lenny duncan

I Know You Rider with Phil and Friends