my Steal Your Space book

Notes – This was the first
official jam. Here is how the story goes:

Larry G. ran into Kevin, with Jonathan and Andrew Cohen at his side, at the Spectrum in September 1990. This was a very infrequent occurrence. Since Kevin left SUNY Albany in 1985 Larry G. saw him maybe once. First at a Garden show, and I don’t mean flowers, then at the Spectrum. The conversation probably went like this:

LARRY – “Kevin, I see you are now a Deadhead for real , excellent. You still play bass don’t you? Why not come down to this studio in NYC and lets
see if we can play a few Deadsongs.”

KEVIN
– “Cool. Yo, veggie burrito, I’ll take four.”

LARRY – “You Freak”

KEVIN – “B-r-r-r-p! I know this great drummer Dave, I’ll bring
him along, he plays the Doobie Brothers really well. Here’s my phone number.”

Before the first jam Larry G. went to Kevin’s New York City
apartment to go over what might be played for the first jam. Going into it, Kevin knew very few Grateful Dead songs.

So that was the Kevin connection. Now comes the Larry M. connection. Larry G. recently had jammed with several members of “Dead Batteries,” which was
his first Grateful Dead band he played in with Larry M. This jam was at 162 Perry Street, the coolest studio. After seeing Kevin and jamming once at 162 Perry Street, Larry G called Larry M.and asked if he wanted to jam and also make arrangements to reserve 162 Perry Street. Larry M. Took care of that.

Now the Larry B. connection. Through tape trading, Larry G. and Larry B. got together a few times in the late 80s. They jammed a little acoustic and found a few opportunities to find a drummers to jam with. Once with Stagger Lee at his house, with Schmell singing and several other times with Bruce the Drummer. We played in his tiny bedroom in an artist’s studio underneath the Williamsburg Bridge (Brooklyn-side, uuch!) We used to play with headphones singing into two Sennheisers with two Nak 300s picking up the amps and the drums. This all went into a four channel mixer. It actually sounded pretty good considering the make shiftness of it
all.

All these connections lead to a 7:00 jam at 162 Perry Street. It
included Larry G., Larry B., Kevin, Larry M., Dave Schwartz, remain as the regular drummer
for several years thereafter, and Craig”Jake” Jacobs on keyboard. We played the
set above. Dennis was of course there and the rest is history, too bad this Internet
ability wasn’t around in 1990 so all of our history could have been recorded. A good deal
of the music is on tape and is available.

The picture is Larry G. in front of 162 Perry Street adorning his
Squire Stratocaster purchased at Drome Sound, Albany, N.Y.

Comments Submitted

• 28 Sep 1996

October 9, 1990! A day that will live forever in the hearts of
all that have enjoyed the ride of the Deadstein Band-Wagon.

• 30 Sep 1996

Hey, where was I for a couple of those early jams (after the
1st One) at 162 Perry? What makes you so sure I wasn’t there? LM

• 30 Sep 1996

The tapes from the early days have a listing of who was at the
Jam. What is listed on the attendance of each individual jam is
what is list (“gold penned”) on the cassette itself. If
anyone can prove to me they were at a jam and I did not include
them correction can be made. Without any additional proof, what
is stated on the cassettes will remain.

• 30 Sep 1996

Very official tournement rules there, Larry. LM