His face scrunched up.Ībsurd was not a word that was used in the Grateful Dead camp. People will think, ‘Why are there two identical organs onstage? Why doesn’t the guy from the Doors play the one that’s already there? Why did he have to bring up a duplicate organ?’ You see, man, it’s absurd.” Wrong word. I play on the same side of the stage, just like you.” “So…?” “Then there’ll be two Vox organs on stage. “If I have to bring my organ up, I’ll have to set it up right in front of yours. Nothing has to be moved.” His head starts to shake back and forth. I’ll just set my piano bass on top of your organ and it’ll all be simple and easy. “What I want to ask is…instead of bringing my organ onstage and placing it in front of yours…I simply use yours.” “You wanna what?” He is slow. “I know that.” I smile, hoping to somehow communicate with this fellow musician. “I play a Vox Continental just like yours.” “I’m the keyboard player with the Doors.” “So?…” He’s slow and unenthusiastic. I opted for the all-purpose, ubiquitous “man.” “Hey, man,” I say, bounding onto the stage before he retreats into the womblike miasma of Dead sycophants.
Pen.” Mister sounds a bit formal between long-hairs and “Pig” sounds like an insult. I don’t know whether to call him “Pig” or “Mr. I take the opportunity to run up to Pig Pen. For our sound check-and performance-John’s drums will have to be set up on the floor, in front of the existing pair of drum risers. Fritz Lang’s wall of Destiny is impossible to move. Everything else has to stay exactly where it is. The musicians begin to leave the stage and the roadies lovingly gather up all the guitars. They finish and, to them, everything seems fine. In other words, it’s a typical Grateful Dead song/jam. Vocals are out of harmony, guitars are tuned to some arcane, eccentric mode that each musician has kept as his own private secret, not telling the fellow next to him what the mode is, and the rhythm section is at cross purposes with each other, laying down what seems to be two separate and distinct rock beats that have no relation to each other. They noodle, they fool around, they play out of tune, they try to tune up…but fail…and finally play a song. They have a sound check in the afternoon and it takes forever. And…a Vox Continental Organ! Just like mine. It dwarfs any human standing in front of it. It’s like the wall in Fritz Lang’s Destiny. The Dead are the headliners (it’s early ’67). The Doors and the Dead are playing together at some outdoor festival–type gig.
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