Days of the Dead, Part 3: Bears, Bertha and the Return of Scramblevision
Dead & Company return to Sphere for a mid-June weekend of fine-tuned guitars, out-of-this-world visuals and "Good Lovin'"
I first met painter Keith “Scramble” Campbell in 1992 at the second Lollapalooza. It was the grunge edition, with Soundgarden and Pearl Jam as the main draws. I had taken LSD the year before and had an amazing experience, with headliners Jane’s Addiction playing “Summertime Rolls” while a sunsetting sky tinted cumulous clouds in pink, purple and orange.
The next year I went with Pearl Jam’s No. 1 Florida fan and opted for a less psychedelic experience. While wandering toward the read of the fairgrounds between sets I saw this black triptych, about 10-feet high if I remember correctly, illustrated with cartoonish frolicking figures painted in florescent colors. Anthropomorphic eyeballs with green limbs caught in the act of running and crying out “Aieeeee!” My attention was drawn to the people sitting in the vicinity watching it like it was a movie screen. They were all tripping and the three-panel painting was coming to life for them.
I wound up writing a story about it for an alternative publication headquartered in Melbourne called Ink19, the vision of the great Ian Koss, which is still around and active online, and apparently resumed publishing in print form last year and has a podcast companion staffed by Koss with founding INK19ers Frank Dreyer and Rose Petralia. Ian was a force of nature to me and an idealistic rock. Ink19 started as a passion project and Ian never sold out. He’d work round the clock until fatigue forced him out of his chair to the floor for a 30-minute repose before getting back to work.
It was inspiring to work for him and the publication, and the best journalism experience I’ve ever had. Instead of taking an unpaid internship at a newspaper, I took an unpaid editorial position with Ink19 and built my clip file with stories I assigned to myself. When I saw Lollapaloozers mesmerized by Scramble’s glowing eyeballs I knew I was witnessing the opening scene of a story. I introduced myself, interviewed him after securing contact for an upcoming Ink19 issue, then met up with him for an interview and wrote about Scramblevision. “A world of pure expression” is the phrase I remember most from that story, and “Eyeballs, always eyeballs,” which was an homage to Tom Wolfe’s experiential style in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
That crossing of paths became noteworthy for both of us. Keith went on to make a name for himself painting “live” during concerts, drawing on signature techniques and a small cadre of characters, and spontaneity to create large canvasses that visually interpreted music. I wrote a story that enabled me to take writing skills I had developed to the next level, an experiential approach that immersed the reader in the scene and enabled them see, hear and feel what I had observed and processed with minimal obstruction.
We both left Florida, with Keith settling in Denver and creating a relationship with Red Rocks Amphitheatre, giving he and his soulmate Shay security that will likely keep them afloat during in his era in which style duplication easy for AI hustlers. I met up with him and Shay in 2014 when he painted at the annual Big Blues Bender at the now-demolished Riviera. (The BBB subsequently moved downtown to the Plaza and is taking place at Westgate Las Vegas.)
I took it as a good sign yesterday when I saw social media photos of him at Sphere. I had been off social media for three years on what turned out to be a fruitful creative development sabbatical and lost track, but he had an email publicly posted and I still had his number. I reached out and looked forward to running into one of my oldest and most revered friends, who had painted for the jam band community countless times and would know the Sphere scene like the back of his paintbrush.
I had two Dead Forever tickets and had invited one friend for Friday who had a friend that she thought would like to go Saturday. Finding plus-ones can be difficult when you’re not in a relationship. You’re just looking for someone to come along who might dig the event because they always give you two tickets. It took years before I realized I was trying to please the publicist who gave me two passes or didn’t want the talent to be offended by seeing an empty seat next to me. Weirdly enough I felt that way about the Sphere. When we got there an empty seat would be next to me all night, occasionally occupied by different people. It’s usually better to go by myself, for the story’s sake, but I figured the Sphere was enough of a draw to where I didn't have to be concerned with how familiar they were with the talent.
Friday was at the previous week’s Thursday show, and offered to arrange an Uber in appreciation for the ticket. I’ve been purposely stranded on the Strip before without cash for a cab, and prefer to drive myself at all time. It was hot again though, reaching at least 107 degrees, and the hike from parking at the Venetian to the Sphere would be happening before the evening could cool down temperatures. I got a tip on where to get dropped off, sent out an invite to another friend for Saturday when Friday’s contact didn’t get back to her, and let myself relax during the hours leading up to the show.
Keith, it turns out, was posting pictures from last’s week shows and was back home in Denver. I wound up catching up with him by phone, which was better than looking out for him all night while trying to take in the show. He’d be there with me, kind of. My dad, who was having surgery the next day and would be unreachable for Father’s Day, would be with me too in my consciousness.
The signs of Deadheadedness met us as we approached the plaza in front of will call and the entrance. Hippies held up single fingers, the “I need a miracle” sign that indicated they were looking for a ticket, preferably free. More than a few folks took the chance that there would be tickets obtainable independently. It wasn’t an over-the-top carnival atmosphere but there were some granola fashion plates. When we got our tickets I had my first inkling of what tickets cost. We must have been assigned amazing seats.
We were. There was a writer from The New Yorker a few seats over, so I thought this was some kind of media row. We had great people all around us. A lot of them were tripping and smoking herb, but we were stone sober. Friday had remarked to our driver than she had shrooms and left them at home, and I playfully chided her but I wanted to preserve recall more than derangement of the senses. If she had realized she brought them in her purse, who knows?
Apparently they have restrictions on the size of purses, and Friday wore a clingy revealing dress that looked like it was fashioned with black rope and drew a lot of attention throughout the night, so she asked me to hold this small gold compact for her. When I pocketed it I realized I forgot to bring Clif Bars for us as I had intended. When attending the Dead and Company at Sphere, don’t forget to carry Clif Bars in your pockets and choose the smallest purse possible.
Later when we were leaving two tall, skinny duded wearing trucker hats started following us while she was trying to tell me about a woman that had yelled at the New Yorker writer in our row for some reason. I was half listening to her and responding, half paying attention with my peripheral vision to these d-bags who were now grinning and being completely conspicuous in checking her out. I’d been with her before and in situations like this before, and knew it wouldn’t end well if I let her know what they were doing or confronted them. We made a detour and shook them off. Figured it was best not to mention it until we got an Uber.
The show started shortly after we got to our seats. The previous night they kicked things off with boogie number “Alabama Getaway” from 1980’s Go to Heaven, the same album that contains the song John Mayer heard on Pandora in 2011 that led him to the Dead. They followed it up with “Truckin’” and “Ramble on Rose,” but tonight the opening track is a cover of “Good Lovin’.”
I thought that was a Rascals song but it turns out that band covered it too. The original was by a doo-wop band called The Olympics, but Dead & Company Deadify it and get the audience up on its feet to the mid-tempo beat. Bob Weir, looking like a miner 49er with his bushy white beard and swept-back hair offset by capri-cut pants and sandals more appropriate for a Key West pirate. He’s more wild-eyed now than the young Adonis who led the band through “One More Saturday Night” back in the day, looking like he’s possessed by the music.
He's playing a Stratocaster with “32” emblazoned on the body. It’s the jersey number of the most famous Deadhead Bill Walton, who passed May 27 after a battle with colorectal cancer. Mayer has a “32” on his Strat-style guitar as well. The bird-in-flight inlays in the maple neck betray its origin as a Paul Reed Smith design. In the morning I’ll find out it’s inspired by Jerry Garcia’s Alligator Stratocaster. The Dead Spec Silver Sky was built specifically for Dead & Company shows, with an ash body replacing the formative 2018 model’s alder body (the go-to Strat wood). It has a hardtail design for the bridge, so it looks like there should be a tremolo arm but there’s not.
That means the Dead Spec Silver Sky is unlikely to go out of tune as Mayer soulfully bends beautiful notes unmarred by effects, his pickup switch in its middle position. He clearly loves that guitar, which is captured pristinely through the Sphere’s sound system and really grabs me during the second set when he fronts the band for “Bertha.” I close my eyes sometimes during the first set and just listen as the band unravels “The Music Never Stopped,” “Row Jimmy,” “Black-Throated Wind,” “New Speedway Boogie” and “Deal.”
Not for too long though, because the visuals are out-of-this-world in more ways than one. Seeing a show at Sphere is like being at a next-level Dark Side of the Moon Cosmic Concert at a planetarium with Pink Floyd playing. Sphere is half audience, half stage and screen. Throughout the course of the evening we’re taken back to Haight Ashbury, to the original Grateful Dead house. We travel across the surface of bodies of water at great speeds, and into the cosmos. We are made to feel like the room is moving. We see hallucination-inspired imagery; U.S. Blues-type animation; the famous Wall of Sound assembled; the Steal Your Face skull crowned with a lightning bolt and the iconic red-white-and-blue top-hatted skeleton riding a motorcycle through the center of the audience then around Sphere’s walls; stupid-cute bears dancing behind the band then encircling a projection of Weir’s face.
The Wall and the skull were both designed by Owsley “Bear” Stanley, the acid guru and genius sound designer who was killed in a 2011 car accident. Stanley began producing what may have been the purest LSD in history before it became illegal and he was entangled in a legal mess after the government categorized it as a Schedule I drug. Stanley’s Wall of Sound was only used briefly in the early ’70s but was a great leap forward in the evolution of live audio.
He wore a bear claw around his neck for a time. I thought the bears had to be a tribute to Stanley. When the lights went up for the 30-minute intermission a couple two rows in front of us who had rocked out through the first set turned around, the woman joking about risking neck pain from head banging. The guy had on a black t-shirt with the same dancing bears on it. We could hear each other so I called out to him and asked him it the bears represented Owsley.
“Yep!” came the gregarious reply. “Owsley Augustus Stanley III! The man who made the Wall of Sound and the best acid ever!”
Owsley was here with us too. Scramble, my dad, my dear departed dog were all part of me in this moment and we were mesmerized by the sights.
Eyeballs, always eyeballs.
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