Meep-Meep
дворянин
About 4 yrs ago I answered an ad on CL for a cheap Yamaha guitar. Just something to take camping or kick around in the shop and spare my Taylor 714 and 615 cutaway from unnecessary abuse.
I arrive at the place and have a nice chat with the seller, who is about my age, and we start talking about music. He asks if I knew Jerry Garcia’s first band. I of course replied the commonly known Warlocks and prior to that it was Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions. He was impressed with the not so well known Jug Champions name but said that was not it. I became curious where this was going and he said his dad and uncle were in Jerry’s first band. That band was called The Thunder Mountain Tub Thumpers from Palo Alto and included Jerry, Ken Frankel and I think Joe and Jim Edmiston. The guy I was talking to was John Edmiston.
After a few more interesting stories and conversation, John dug out a CD with a home movie of the band playing a gig around 1962 in Monterey County for a Sheriff Election campaign. Jerry helping support a sheriff get elected? That’s funny! I guess Hugh Bagley felt he needed the Tub Thumpers to get people’s attention. The band pretty much set up on the back of a flat bed truck with a crappy 6V PA system. Unfortunately there was no sound tied to this video – not for the quality - but for the historical significance. The short video shows the guys riding in the back of the truck; holding a campaign sign - up side down initially until someone tells them to flip it over; some downtown Monterey shots and of course the band playing.
After John and I watched the video he pulled up a document that had the story of the gig as told by his dad. One comment made was ‘ol Hugh didn’t get one vote but the gig was fun. Then a Jerry story told from his mom’s perspective about how she saw him doing something in her bathroom with some girl. That stunt (John suspected drugs mainly) got him kicked out of the house for good and the band pretty much broke up after that. John made the comment something to the effect of “it would be interesting to know what would have happened if mom hadn’t thrown Jerry out.” I am somewhat of a deadhead and thought all this was a really cool piece of dead history and asked if I could get a copy of the video and story. He was reluctant because of the historic significance and for fear that I’d put it on youtube, sell it, whatever. At some point I must have earned his trust because he gave me a copy along with the short story. I also gave him my word this was for me and one buddy of mine who is a major deadhead and no one else. I left with the guitar and video and now the really cool part of the story begins.
Fast forward to the end of 2013. Some of you know I have a shop in a remote country location with some small ranches or houses near by on no less than a couple of acres. One old guy across the compound, who’s wife’s family owned the entire back half of the canyon from probably the 30’s up until they sold most of it, came up to bug Tom the auto repair shop owner in our compound, and since I was there using the rack to rebuild a Durnago rear end, he got a two for one deal.
Jim Hessler is an interesting guy and has all kinds of stories about the area, so I enjoy seeing him and got to know him pretty well over the last year. I made a smart *** comment to Jim about Tom’s choice of music (loudly so Tom could hear) but apparently some Michael Bolton station is all Tom can get. Sad. Jim agreed there were much better choices out there. I commented that we should be listening to the blues show and out of the blue Jim mentions that he took guitar lessons from Jerry Garcia. I stopped what I was doing and asked him to explain. Tom was in the background listening to this with one ear (and crappy music with the other I suppose) and Jim went on how he was friends with these guys that played in one of Jerry’s bands, which is how he met Jerry and got lessons. When he started describing an event that involved a sheriff campaign in Monterey County I said stop right there! I began to tell him about a video I had involving something about a sheriff, but at that point it’s been a while since I seen it and would need a refresher. I was saying the location was Palo Alto but wasn’t sure. Jim said that he was driving a truck and supplied a PA for a gig the band had in Monterey. This was adding up really fast. All the while Tom was getting more and more interested in this and realized something really cool was happening. I told Jim that I’m going to find this video and bring it over to see if this is that gig he knew about. I went home, found the CD and read the description of the gig. At the very end of the description there was written: Camera man was Jim Hessler.
While I was getting a refresher on the video and proving I was wrong about the Palo Alto location, I began searching for the guy that gave it to me so I could tell him this amazing story. I found John's number, called it and he answered. I was really surprised once I explained to him who I was that he still had our CL email correspondence. I then told him I knew Hessler, who he calls Uncle Jim. He replies that Jim called him an hour ago! I told John that I kept my word about keeping the video in my possession but asked permission if I could make a copy for Hessler. He said please do! When I finally showed Hessler the video it wasn’t three seconds into it before he said “that’s it.” “I drove the truck.” “and you shot the video” I replied. “yep.” Answered Hessler. For some reason he never got a copy of that video and was absolutely thrilled when I gave it to him some 50 yrs after he made it.
So, answering a simple Craig’s List ad to buy a cheap guitar, I end up with a Grateful Dead historic video that no one outside the family has, and four years later get involved with reuniting the camera man Jim Hessler with some great memories. I just thought this was too cool to keep to myself and hopefully no one fell asleep reading it!
I arrive at the place and have a nice chat with the seller, who is about my age, and we start talking about music. He asks if I knew Jerry Garcia’s first band. I of course replied the commonly known Warlocks and prior to that it was Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions. He was impressed with the not so well known Jug Champions name but said that was not it. I became curious where this was going and he said his dad and uncle were in Jerry’s first band. That band was called The Thunder Mountain Tub Thumpers from Palo Alto and included Jerry, Ken Frankel and I think Joe and Jim Edmiston. The guy I was talking to was John Edmiston.
After a few more interesting stories and conversation, John dug out a CD with a home movie of the band playing a gig around 1962 in Monterey County for a Sheriff Election campaign. Jerry helping support a sheriff get elected? That’s funny! I guess Hugh Bagley felt he needed the Tub Thumpers to get people’s attention. The band pretty much set up on the back of a flat bed truck with a crappy 6V PA system. Unfortunately there was no sound tied to this video – not for the quality - but for the historical significance. The short video shows the guys riding in the back of the truck; holding a campaign sign - up side down initially until someone tells them to flip it over; some downtown Monterey shots and of course the band playing.
After John and I watched the video he pulled up a document that had the story of the gig as told by his dad. One comment made was ‘ol Hugh didn’t get one vote but the gig was fun. Then a Jerry story told from his mom’s perspective about how she saw him doing something in her bathroom with some girl. That stunt (John suspected drugs mainly) got him kicked out of the house for good and the band pretty much broke up after that. John made the comment something to the effect of “it would be interesting to know what would have happened if mom hadn’t thrown Jerry out.” I am somewhat of a deadhead and thought all this was a really cool piece of dead history and asked if I could get a copy of the video and story. He was reluctant because of the historic significance and for fear that I’d put it on youtube, sell it, whatever. At some point I must have earned his trust because he gave me a copy along with the short story. I also gave him my word this was for me and one buddy of mine who is a major deadhead and no one else. I left with the guitar and video and now the really cool part of the story begins.
Fast forward to the end of 2013. Some of you know I have a shop in a remote country location with some small ranches or houses near by on no less than a couple of acres. One old guy across the compound, who’s wife’s family owned the entire back half of the canyon from probably the 30’s up until they sold most of it, came up to bug Tom the auto repair shop owner in our compound, and since I was there using the rack to rebuild a Durnago rear end, he got a two for one deal.
Jim Hessler is an interesting guy and has all kinds of stories about the area, so I enjoy seeing him and got to know him pretty well over the last year. I made a smart *** comment to Jim about Tom’s choice of music (loudly so Tom could hear) but apparently some Michael Bolton station is all Tom can get. Sad. Jim agreed there were much better choices out there. I commented that we should be listening to the blues show and out of the blue Jim mentions that he took guitar lessons from Jerry Garcia. I stopped what I was doing and asked him to explain. Tom was in the background listening to this with one ear (and crappy music with the other I suppose) and Jim went on how he was friends with these guys that played in one of Jerry’s bands, which is how he met Jerry and got lessons. When he started describing an event that involved a sheriff campaign in Monterey County I said stop right there! I began to tell him about a video I had involving something about a sheriff, but at that point it’s been a while since I seen it and would need a refresher. I was saying the location was Palo Alto but wasn’t sure. Jim said that he was driving a truck and supplied a PA for a gig the band had in Monterey. This was adding up really fast. All the while Tom was getting more and more interested in this and realized something really cool was happening. I told Jim that I’m going to find this video and bring it over to see if this is that gig he knew about. I went home, found the CD and read the description of the gig. At the very end of the description there was written: Camera man was Jim Hessler.
While I was getting a refresher on the video and proving I was wrong about the Palo Alto location, I began searching for the guy that gave it to me so I could tell him this amazing story. I found John's number, called it and he answered. I was really surprised once I explained to him who I was that he still had our CL email correspondence. I then told him I knew Hessler, who he calls Uncle Jim. He replies that Jim called him an hour ago! I told John that I kept my word about keeping the video in my possession but asked permission if I could make a copy for Hessler. He said please do! When I finally showed Hessler the video it wasn’t three seconds into it before he said “that’s it.” “I drove the truck.” “and you shot the video” I replied. “yep.” Answered Hessler. For some reason he never got a copy of that video and was absolutely thrilled when I gave it to him some 50 yrs after he made it.
So, answering a simple Craig’s List ad to buy a cheap guitar, I end up with a Grateful Dead historic video that no one outside the family has, and four years later get involved with reuniting the camera man Jim Hessler with some great memories. I just thought this was too cool to keep to myself and hopefully no one fell asleep reading it!
