I hop a plane to Cleveland for a planned talk at Kent State University. From time to time I go to colleges around the country and talk on various subjects of interest to the students and me. It gives me a chance to air my thoughts and interact with the kids, the students and leaders of tomorrow. I had planned this session many months ago and didn’t feel right in canceling due to the Other Ones tour happening at the same time, so off I go. As many of you know Kent State was the awful scene many years ago of National Guardsman opening fire on the campus dissidents over the war in Vietnam. I remember that morning well as I was having breakfast with Garcia that day. I can remember what we ate for breakfast as we read the news in horror. We wanted to cut the tour short and head straight for Kent State to play and try to ease the pain, but after a few minutes of talking about it, we decided that this might not be such a good idea. The Grateful Dead would only inflame an already volatile situation, and we were just not into that kind of confrontation. The campuses of the country were on fire with hot anti-war rhetoric and the freak flag was flying. The war in Vietnam was dirty and it was like a civil war here in the states. Families were coming apart over this mess. Fathers and sons were fighting over ideology, a war thousands of miles from our shore was tearing this country apart, and now this. Our own troops firing on their brothers and sisters. It broke our hearts that morning and it still seems like yesterday as I enter this great University’s auditorium. They have erected a memorial and have a day of remembrance every year. These kids are so hungry for knowledge. They are warm and friendly. Some are deadheads, but others only know the mythos. They think I will talk about drums and trance and ritual, but I change the topic at the last minute. Tonight I have Songcatchers on my mind. I am at crunch time on my National Geographic book and all I can think of is this. As I prepare my Power Point visuals and audio cues in the auditorium, a tall student comes up
to me and introduces himself as the great-nephew of Bruce and Sheridan Fahnstock. I am shocked. Music for the Gods, the Fahnstock Expedition was one of my Endangered Music Project recordings that I curated and released on the World Series for Rykodisc in the 90’s.The Fahnstocks were recording the Indonesian archipelago in 1939-1940 as spies for President Roosevelt. He was searching for information about his great uncle’s adventures in Indonesia. This is a fantastic story. I found this collection at the Library of Congress and digitized it, not really knowing the far-reaching implications that were to arise from its rediscovery. When I visited Bali about 4 years ago I brought my recording equipment with me. I was on the track of the rarest of gamelon music, the iron gamelon. When I arrived in Bali, I went to the Institute for Music in Denpasar and met with Pak Dibia the leading ethnomusicologist on the peninsula.

He was the most knowledgeable ethno on gamelon and all of its sub-sets. I asked him if he would give me 5 of the most important works or examples of gamelon music that he knew of. He handed me 5 recordings; one of them was Music for the Gods. He was not aware that I curated and produced this CD. So this music had made the round trip; it had worked its way back into their culture and was now considered the finest example of post war gamelon. This music was long forgotten, but was now being played by the many large ensembles scattered across the island. We were all overjoyed by this discovery and I was from then on treated like family wherever I went. They were given back their greatest treasure that the war ripped away from them and they saw it in those terms. It was like a prisoner of war or a long lost relative that had returned from battle.

So, getting back to Kent State, I spoke about the history of recording in the field and many of my favorite stories of my own recording adventures. This lasted for about 1 hour 30 mins. I then open it up for a question and answer on all subjects and I did get some very interesting interplay. Some questions are Grateful Dead related, but most are reasonable and in-depth. I find that many here are curious about what it was about the band that was so magnetic. They are getting ready for their first Grateful Dead ritual, as we will be in Cleveland next week. Many ask the music therapy questions. How and why does music alter consciousness kind of thing. This part of the evening is my favorite because I get to interact with them on a one on one basis. This lasts for 45 mins. I had a great time here and the students were really sharp.

Onward to Hartford…