Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast - EP 140: Jay Blakesberg

Episode Date: September 14, 2021

Andy is joined this week by local sexpot and tour van sasshole, Nick Gerlach! Updates from the road: what fate will befall the band's van? Tune in now for some titillating tidbits as we solve the riddle of Andy's latest sex dream. More importantly though, on the Interview Hour we welcome LEGENDARY photographer Jay Blakesberg! Jay's shot extensively for bands like the Grateful Dead, Talking Heads, and so many more. Don't skip out on EP 140. It's good for ya. Follow us on Instagram @worldsavingpodcast For more information on Andy Frasco, the band and/or the blog, go to: AndyFrasco.com Check out Andy's new song, "DANCIN' AROUND MY GRAVE" on iTunes, Spotify  Peruse some eye candy at blakesberg.com Produced by Andy Frasco Joe Angelhow Chris Lorentz Audio mix by Chris Lorentz Featuring: Shawn Eckels Andee "Beats" Avila Arno Bakker

Hey, buddy. So I'm trying to get Pauly Shore, you know, the actor-comedian. I'm trying to get his band to open up for your band and the Vegas show here on the 16th. I'm just wondering if you might know Pauly Shore or his management. I've also got a couple of guys that are in his band talking to him. So I'm, like like really close to making this happen but you know i figured i'd see if you got some pole buddy anyway hope you're having fun out on the road man go fucking slay it i'll see you in vegas real soon get back with me late

andy it's nick uh having a good time on tour so far uh but i've been calling you for about six hours i thought we were supposed to leave austin around noon i've been calling you for about six hours. I thought we were supposed to leave Austin around noon. I've been waiting outside the hotel with all my stuff and I've been calling you all day and you're not answering, which is weird because I know you're looking at your phone. Anyways, did you leave me in Austin, Texas? Should I get a flight to Phoenix

or should I just go home or what? All right, and we're back. Andy Frasco's World Saving Podcast. Hi. Nick. Hey, it's Andy again. Hey, it's Nick again. Every time I look to my left, it's Andy Frasco.

Well, get used to it because you're on tour with me. No, it's not bad. I'm just saying that it's happening. You know, three months with me, buddy. Yeah. Hi, I'm Andy Frasco. I wish you guys could hear the face I made when he said that. It's nice to see you in the mornings right when you wake up.

Normally. I'm a morning guy. You are. And a night guy, too. Where are we, Nick? Paint the picture. We are in a nice suburban home. It's And a night guy too. Where are we, Nick? Paint the picture. We are in a nice suburban home. It's actually a very nice house in the greater Houston area. I don't know if we're

still in Houston here. We're a little north of Houston, I think. It's a really nice area. Yeah, it's really nice. It's Ernie's cousin's house. I got a little off on the details. Anyway, we stayed here last night. I slept in a 12-year-old girl's room. She wasn't there, though. She wasn't there. We stayed at his cousin's house. She has a couple kids. We took their rooms.

I just happened to accidentally get the 12-year-old girl's room. I don't know what button that even is. I can't even hear the buttons, guys. Which one was that? That was the dramatic one. Oh, that's pretty good. You did good. And then, you know, so it's weirdly the best I've slept in months.

Yeah? No, I slept pretty good. I think it was just because I was so tired. Dude. Not used to the robe. I like it. I feel good being tired. I like it. Day two.

How are you feeling being on the Frasco tour? Good. It's fun. You guys are fun. We're nice people, right? You're nice. See, the thing is, people think you're going to be a lot more crazy than you are. It's all on stage, guys.

It's all an act. They're really normal. They're old now. No, just kidding. I think we had our, like, most brutal drive of the tour was yesterday. I think I was looking

and it's the longest drive. No. The longest drive is after Austin. Yeah, but there's like two days to do it. That's still 11 hours each drive. No, it's 15 hours total. Oh, so eight and eight. It's not that bad.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I looked it up. That drive last night didn't feel that bad. Yesterday? Yesterday. No, I'm not really. It's whatever. I mean, it's just part of the thing, you know?

I hate it when I'm super hung. Because I drank a lot in Tulsa. Oh, you did? I drank. You didn't seem drunk at all. I went to the bar and just fucking smashed shots. Oh, that's why. Remember I Ubered back to my hotel right after the gig.

I got the hell out of there. Yeah, you're like, that's what I like about you. You don't ask for too much. You're a good host. I'm good on the road. Yeah, you're good on the road. Ask Andrew Frost, Torm Anderson, Squabby. I think I'm his favorite musician to work with.

Shout out to Gerlach here. Way to go. I thought you'd be more of a pain in the ass, to be honest. Oh, I'm like the complete opposite of a pain in the ass. Really? Remember? Yeah, I know. I mean, so far I've done...

I know, but like, I know how you work in Denver and how like, you're like the cream of the crop out there. And I was like, oh, fuck. There's a reason for that. What the fuck?

I'm saying it's because I'm easy to work with. Not because I'm good. Oh, man. Having people, yeah, you know, like to get out of here. I don't need to, you know, I'm easy to work with. Not because I'm good. Oh, man. Having people, yeah, you know, I like to get out of here. I don't need to, you know, I'm old. I don't need, like, your permission to go back to my hotel and go to bed, do I? You know what I mean? No, you don't.

You know what I'm saying? I slept in the van today. Yeah. Because I was like, I don't even want to deal with it. You're just like, fuck it. I'm tired. So I just slept in the van. You still slept, right?

I slept. The rental, that rental van we have. See, in your van, you have those beds. I got beds. Shout out. We get our van back Sunday. Let's go. Thank you for all the good prayers.

Thank you for all the good prayers. We're getting our van back Sunday. Who's in the interview today? Jay Blakesburg. You know Jay? No. Jay, dude, this guy's crazy. I've heard of him, but I don't know.

Photographer of the Grateful Dead. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the head photographers at Rolling Stones. That's awesome. He've heard of him, but I don't know. Photographer of the Grateful Dead. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the head photographers at Rolling Stones. That's awesome. This guy's got stories for days. Finally, a photographer. I know, I got a photographer.

I'm going to get... What the fuck? No, wrong one. I love this. You're waking up early, talking spicy. I come right out of the gate when I wake up. I texted you, yo, come downstairs to this living room. I was already up. You were already up. Yeah, I'm up.

Okay, 30 seconds later, I'm fucking just dealing. No, but Jay has a great story. He got arrested for selling acid on the lot. So you already did the interview. I did it. That's great. It was awesome. So he wasn't a photographer yet when that happened. He was. He just was starting. I won't ruin it, but

let's talk about you. I'm definitely going to be at the top. Let's go back to how I'm easy to work with. I like that top. Yeah, you're on the top today. Of course I am. I might get Plasma Princess and Bumpy Band again. Anyone here that eats their own shit,

maybe they can get on and fucking be put on in front of me. Guys, this guy was so offended. I'm so mad. We put him on the back of Plasma Princess. Princess Princess had information. Yeah, was it the back of Plasma Prentice. Prancis Prentice had information. Yeah. Was it all true?

Yes. I have information. I follow her. I follow her every day. The sky is blue. She's legit. I fuck with her. I'll read up on her.

I'm not drinking my own pee, though. I'm not going to drink my own pee, either. But I respect the hustle. I respect the hustle. And I respect... She really believes in this shit. And it's definitely a hustle. You should sell your sack saliva out of your sacks.

Me and Ernie? Yeah, you put it in the collection. Oh my God, I don't think. That'd be the grossest thing. I think that's grosser than pee, actually. Yeah. Definitely. I've accidentally had Ernie drip on me from his sacks.

God. Just like stale metal. It like absorbs metal. What a great podcast. Good morning, everyone. We woke right up today. Anyway, I'm easy to work with. I'm a great guy. Let's go back to that.

I just keep trying to get you to go back to that. We're in Texas right now. We're going to Dallas tonight. We are going to Dallas. It's pushing sold out. It's almost sold out. I bet it'll sell out. All the shows got canceled. We're like the last of Mohegans. We're not to Dallas. It's pushing sold out. It's almost sold out. I bet it'll sell out. I think so, too. If it doesn't, it'll be packed out.

All the shows got canceled. We're like the last of Mohegans on the road. We're not getting COVID. We haven't. Shout out to us. No COVID. We're being pretty safe, I think. I think so.

Also, a lot of our gigs have been outside. Yeah, I did go out to the bars in Tulsa. Yeah. Kind of drinks, you know, six shots with everybody. Don't say that on the podcast. Chris, go ahead and cut that. Chris, go back to 10 seconds. Snip, snip. This is full transparency. Don't say that on the podcast. Chris, go ahead and cut that. Chris, go back to 10 seconds. Snip, snip.

This is full transparency. Don't look at me then. Dallas tonight. I'm excited. My best friend from childhood's coming out. Really? Yeah, he's cool, dude. I like Dallas.

I got a girl flying in. Oh, yeah. I forgot we talk about that on the podcast. Yeah, she seems cool. I've never met her or seen her. I keep her hidden. She's hidden in plain view. Hiding in plain sight

is the term? Yeah, please don't fuck this up for me. I really like this girl. Me? Yes. Why would I do that? I don't know.

I'm super good people. Women love me. Yeah? I've lived with the same woman for like five years. Do you think that? Okay, because I'm nervous. I don't...

I'm kind of starstruck by this one. I don't say weird shit. This is the same girl we were talking about. You're like, oh. Oh, yeah. No, she's good looking. Yeah. I don't say weird stuff to other people's potential ladies.

No? No, I'm not a douchebag. I'm dumb. I'm not a douchebag either. I like women. I overhype when a band member brings their girlfriend. Oh, my God. You're that guy.

Oh, my God. Ernie's the best, man. His penis is gigantic, dude. He's got the biggest dick ever. He's so good at sex. I like to gas up my friends. No, that's cool, but you can't over-gas. I know.

There's a speed limit. Yeah, you're right. Don't be going 80 in a 60 with your friend. The girls, they sense that way harder than the other way. This guy's amazing. This guy doesn't do blow. I think they sense the giant green flags more than they do the red flags.

You know what I mean? It's like, why are you waving such a green flag for this dude? Like, what are you compensating for? You know what I'm saying? He's the best person that's ever walked the face of the fucking earth. You should fucking have sex with him. Women are smarter than we are. They understand like, they can understand subtle cues way more than men.

Yeah. Why are we so done with that? I don't know. I think it's probably just like an evolution thing. Yeah? Yeah, they're just better than us at it. I want to talk about, this is why I came to put you on the show. We're going to need to figure out your opening set.

Yeah, I think it's fun so far, though. It's good. You're doing good. It's only been two times, guys. He's not mad at me. No, no, no, no. We're going to ham it up a little more, though. Yeah, I think if you're going to, we're going to ham it up a little more though. Yeah.

I think if we're going to do, if you're going to do a cold thing, you need to really dive into the cold thing. And guys, this is like a last second change. So we got, we're kind of working on it

on the road because we had to cancel the talent show. That's the other thing. That's true. I didn't have like six weeks to get a whole thing ready. It was like,

oh yeah, in two days you're going, we're not doing that anymore. We're going to, every show is going to get better. Last show got better. I'm going to make an intro too. i'm gonna make it today do a cold intro like a fucking demonized like welcome i already have an narrator he's actually a british

man you're gonna have a british dude that's actually way creepier than a devil voice if you think about it well explain this because something that's non-threatening but it's also threatening is way more threatening than a threatening voice. You know what I mean? If a weird British butler is talking to you, I think that sounds a lot more creepy than an insane devil voice. We can try both. I'm telling you, though.

It could go in and out of it. I think your show is three-fourths there. That's pretty good for two nights out of 40. You know what else I think you should do? You should try to figure out to do some gab without any music so people can really... Because your jokes are killing and people are getting distracted from it. I'm not playing any music

like that, guys. Don't listen to them. I hired a DJ, guys. This is crazy. I'm adapting. I'm maturing. Yeah, it's good for you. DJs are a good opener, actually. It is a good opener. People get their head bobbing. They're having their drinks. I'm saying my little quips during my songs. Yeah, it's good for you. DJs are a good opener, actually. It is a good opener. People get their head bobbing. They're having their drinks. Yeah. I'm saying my little quips during my songs.

You've got to add the stuff that you added for summer camp. Yeah, that was good. It's really good. Dave Watts liked it. That's how I know it's good. I didn't go. I apologize. No, but I'm not mad.

Also, I wouldn't be mad anyway, but here's why I'm double not mad. It's because when I was driving back in my golf cart to wherever we had to go to put my shit away, I saw you trying to go to my set, frantically looking at your phone. I was like, all right, he actually gives a shit. I care about you. That's fine. So that's fine. I'd rather have you just care and not go than not care and go.

I know. Is that weird? No, no, no. You had tons of shit going on that day. I don't really expect any of my friends to come to my shit. Why? I don't like to expect things of people. It's just like, then if they come, it's like a bonus.

Yeah, do you get bummed out when your friends don't show up? No. What about when you have a big show in Denver? I've been in this business so long that it's like all my big shows in Denver are someone else's show, so I don't really care. I might care, but you know what I'm saying? Have you ever had a headline show? Yeah. When Cosby Sweater and shit, we would headline

the big room in Cervantes or you know what I mean. We played some good shit, we would headline the big room in Cervantes or you know what I mean? Yeah. We played some good shit, but, but, you know, now when I play a sold out Red Rock show, I'm like in the horn section

with string cheese or something. You did something really funny. Which is still fucking awesome. I'm not complaining. It's actually better in a way. It's weird. It's like almost an honor that like,

wow, they could just do this without me, but they included me and paid me. You know what I mean? Yeah. Oh, it sounds familiar.

Yeah. Who is that? Who else does that for you, Nicky? Like 78 different people. Who else does that for you for a whole time? Hey, let's think about that. Yeah, but they don't need me. I need you.

You need me. I'm good in the van. You are. You're chill. You talk a little too much in the morning times when I'm hungover. Oh, yeah. Well, I don't know about you in the morning yet. I didn't know you were hungover.

You're too good at looking not hungover. Some days when I'm... You got to tell me you're hungover and I just won't talk to you. Just be like, I'm hungover. I do want to talk to you, but sometimes I have to listen to some monotone... Well, I don't know your morning thing. I wake right the fuck up Cause I'm not that

I'm not that drunk At night See I wake up early Even if I'm fucking wasted Yeah I wake up at 8, 9 o'clock Every day Just fucking work it out

You get that motor in you Got the motor That Julie said She's like how does Andy do that And you know Look at us I got the podcast up At 8am

Now we got stuff done We're getting shit done Yeah my girlfriend's like How does Andy do that Cause she knows how like Hard you gom. Now we got stuff done. We're getting shit done. Yeah, my girlfriend's like, how does Andy do that? Because she knows how hard you go. And then you're doing these shows around the org. And she's like, I could never do that. Are we going to have a blackout night?

Or are you just going to have one beer and go to bed, beat off? There'll be some night where I party. What days? Pick a day. Pick a day. I never partied with you. You always say you're going to party. Then you have one vodka soda. And always say you're going to party, then you have like one vodka soda,

and then, you know, judge my alcoholism. I mean, I just don't like to get hammered. No? But I will. Sometimes I'm drunker than you think I am. Really? I don't change at all when I'm drunk. I'm the exact same.

Same? Am I the same way? Yeah, you're pretty close. I don't know. Or you're just drunk all the time. I'm not drunk now. I know. Yeah, you're pretty close. I don't know. Or you're just drunk all the time. I'm not drunk now. I know. Yeah, you're pretty cool.

Your eyes kind of go like... I don't know. You kind of look confused. You're like, look at your phone. You look confused. All right, well, I won't talk to you in the morning anymore. Shut the fuck up, Nick. No, that's good.

I need the feedback. No, I don't... Well, you know, when you're new on tour, you got to learn everybody. I'm just used to seeing you at nine in the morning when we're working on the show and you're like ready to go. I'm ready. You got to remember every other time I see you in the morning, it's like Nick. Yeah.

Because now you're in the quarantine. I wasn't drinking. Yeah. So I don't know how you are on the road yet. You will. But I don't want you to feel like you don't have to talk to me. Oh, I won't feel. Okay.

You don't feel. No, I don't mind it. I know that too like i i wake up pretty good i come out swinging yeah the only thing my lady friend always tells me because she's kind of the other way she's like not a morning person but uh yeah i wake right the fuck up in the morning what do you think of our fans i like your fans they're very like they're just here to i don't know they're not very judgmental at all i don't think what do you think they're happy they're just here to, I don't know. They're not very judgmental at all. I don't think. What do you think? They're happy. They're good people. They're good people. They're happy.

They're, uh, it doesn't take much, you know, to give them a good time, which I don't mean that. I don't mean that as an insult. That could sound like an insult.

I just mean like, you know, they don't, I don't know. I'm so used to Denver where it's like, everyone's so pretentious about their, sort of in a way. I don't know.

But then they also like some really dumb shits. It's like, what are you pretentious about? You know what I mean? They they're more like i don't think it's like as pretentious as much in denver as like sort of like territorial no that's a better word it's not like this band i only like the like pretentious would be like new york city where it's like only like free jazz it's like super you know what i mean? Like Pat Metheny. It's more like territorial where it's like, the guitar player in my favorite band

is the best guitar player in the world because I heard him before I heard the other guitar players. That's the Denver vibe. You got to win them over a lot more in Denver. Northeast too is like that. Northeast too, definitely. I think half the people are like that in Denver are just from New York City anyway.

Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Is anyone from Denver? Have you met anyone that's like, yeah, I grew up here? A that in Denver are just from New York City anyway. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Is anyone from Denver? Have you met anyone that's like, yeah, I grew up here? That's true. A lot of people,

well, Scotty Morrill. Scott Morrill. There's like six of them and they're all cool as shit. They're all the coolest people in Denver. I wonder if they get pissed off on all these dudes

like me and you. I doubt Scott's pissed on all these people moving to Denver. He probably loves it, yeah. Hello. Bang. I don't know which one it is. Shout out to Scott Morrill.

Love Scott. Keeping us all, keeping us the dream life. When I moved to Denver, man, I mean, you know, I didn't really have anything going on. Like I had, you know, I just quit that band. I quit the band and moved to Denver. I was like, I'm moving here in a month. Julie already lived in Denver. Okay. I forgot. I should mention that we were long distance for a while. And I didn't know that. What a romantic story. It's very romantic because we weren't and then we were and then we were again. Oh, wow. Okay, so the plan was to move to Denver anyway. Yeah. But then the other guy quit the band and it was kind of falling apart.

What, Crosby Sweater? Crosby Sweater, yeah. Oh, so you didn't move to Denver until like the month after that band ended. Damn, that sucks. I'm sorry, bud. No, it's cool. It's fine. It all worked out great for me.

It all worked out good for all of us, I think. of us i think we're all doing well in that band now good dave's got like a cool career now that he likes pearson's like he's in denver now playing drum anyway so let's go back to moral i moved here you know i knew scott because we played cervantes and when i come out here to visit her i would like sit with people he was my homie and he helped me out when i moved here like i had nothing i didn't have a band well i was kind of talking to menner and he just like put me on all these gigs really yeah like with eddie roberts on this thing like my first weekend i had two like super jam gigs wow he put me on hard he's the man dude yeah once you put me on i'm on because i'm not gonna fuck it up yeah yeah and you know it's the same thing with the dance party he's like you

need a dj i'm your guy he's's good at it, too. He's good. He's perfect for DJing that, too. He's perfect. Because you don't want some guy that's like, I don't know. He's not going to like... I love Scott. Scott's just going to play the music people want to hear at the dance party. Well, it's like the open arms.

He welcomes everyone. That's what I love about Denver. A lot of people just welcome you with open arms. Yeah. It's great. No, I would say that. I mean, it's weird. It's fun to talk shit about Denver, but people are nice there.

Yeah, they're nice. Kind of. You know, it's like passive aggressive sometimes. No, I would say that. I mean, it's weird. It's like fun to talk shit about Denver, but people are nice there. Yeah, they're nice. Kind of. You know, it's like passive aggressive sometimes. Well, that's West Coast. But you're from the West Coast. It's way worse there. That's all West Coast. I hate that shit.

It gets less and less passive aggressive as you get East. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Denver is the last of the West. And then it's done. And then you get to the Midwest, and it's like, I got work in the morning, bitch.

But is that like passive aggressive being too nice? Maybe they're not that nice. No, I think it is. I don't think anyone can be that nice. Also, they're high as fuck, so maybe that's what it is. What about the South? I love the South. The South is fucking awesome. The South is like the Midwest, just a little less. A little more real.

A little more raw. Not real, because Midwest is real, but raw. Midwest is real, but it's more like, South is more of an honest night. It's like they're so nice in the South. And they don't... They like to go out of their way. Yeah, and they're not ashamed of their alcoholism either.

Shout out to that. South isn't ashamed of anything. I don't know if you've been picking up on that lately. Shut the fuck up, Nick. We're not going there. We're not going there. No, I like the South, actually. I do.

Atlanta is one of my favorite cities in the country. You know what company is from the South? They're from Birmingham, Alabama. Why don't you do the pitch this time? Repsy. How long are they sponsoring you now? Dude, they've been with me for about the whole year almost. I hope it's going good for you guys.

I hope you're getting something back on the sponsorship. They said we're getting a lot of bands to sign up. Oh, that's awesome. They wouldn't say that if it wasn't true because they're from the South. Yeah, they're honest people. You know what I mean? In the South, they go to work every day and they don't lie.

Anyway, if you want to do the pitch, if you want a good Southern booking agency that doesn't take a commission, nice American roots, that does not take a, they don't take a commission at all. If you have a booking agent, they don't take a cut.

Good people. Yeah, so you don't, they don't want the bands to be double dead I didn't know that part of it actually it's fucking tight they're good okay that's insane

that's like 10 cool points for Repsy anyway let's say let's say you're an up and coming singer songwriter let's build a scenario here okay let's say you're Lyle Davinsky

but like Lyle Davinsky like 7 years ago you know when he was just working it out being cool and hot working in the subways being hot just singing

ladies love his voice. He was doing all the fish after parts. He was just like, he's got such swag. He had no shoes on. He just crossed his legs. I'm going to play you a song. That was very swag. Go back to the Repsy rap.

Listen, it's hard to get an agent, especially right now. It's tough out there. It is a war zone out here, people. Anyway, Repsy. So, yeah, they'll help you get gigs, basically, right? I mean, I don't really know the platform, honestly. I don't have an agent. Maybe I should look into it.

Fuck that. I'm your agent. What the fuck? And manager. Oh, yeah, I got to pay you. You can't disrespect me like that. Agent and manager, Andy Frasco. I'm going to take a cut of your opening.

What if I did that? That'd be so awesome. At the end. I'll take you out to dinner or something. All right. Take me somewhere nice. Well, somewhere nice though. Parties. Parties? I don't know. You do the Repsy thing. I don't know the... God damn it, Nick. Repsy. Sign up, boys and girls. I'm not a commercial actor. If you're in a band, sign up for Repsy. Repsy.com. It's a win-win. If you have an agent or not, I'm telling you, it's hard out here. My agent, I'm looking at my dates. My agent now is booking me in November of next year for club dates.

Dude, Bonjoro stays in the emails. I love that guy. He stays in the emails. But if, you know, I got a really amazing agent, and if he's concerned about next November. That's killing. That means that you guys, they're down there at the bottom of the pyramid. No offense, but that's just where you are. It means it's going. That means that you guys that are down there at the bottom of the pyramid,

no offense, but that's just where you are, means it's going to be tough for you guys. So you might as well get an extra hand in there to help you do

your dirty work. So go sign up for Repsy.com. You have zero to lose. Nothing. You have nothing to lose. That's the thing here. It's a win-win situation.

Hell yeah. So go sign up for Repsy.com. We love a good win. We love a good win. Those guys are awesome. They've taken care of me. You know I don't pitch shit. Are they pretty hot? They're hot.

Oh nice. Now I'm in. Tam's hot. You didn't tell me they were hot. Dude, he's hot dude. Well now I know they're hot. I had this dream. Yeah? Where I made out with Bo. Oh my god. You told me this last night. We should probably get into this a little bit. I had a dream. Three hour dream. First of all, you just said I had a dream like Martin Luther King Jr. and you're about to talk about how you made out with your last night. We should probably get into this a little bit. I had a dream. Three hour dream. First of all, you just said I had a dream

like Martin Luther King Jr. and you're about to talk about how you made out with your tour manager. I did. You know like when... I had a dream. I kissed my tour manager. Here's the thing about... I'm going to tell it from my angle when you told it last night because I have some psychoanalysis to do. But they got to know the dream first before you...

He made out with his tour manager. But then he woke up and fell back asleep and they made out again, okay? And it was very loving, right? It was. Shirts were off. Shirts were off. We were just laid on the bed.

It seemed like not sexual at all, which is sort of even more gay than if you were just like... Not that that's bad or anything. It's just something to look into from a psychological standpoint. Maybe I'm testing the cause of gay. Maybe I'm exploring my sexual...

At least subconsciously. I've been kissing Floyd in the mouth every day. That's disgusting. Floyd is disgusting. I told him I'd test out this gay thing with him. See if I like it. Yeah, I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not nothing thing with him. See if I like it. Yeah. I mean,

there's nothing wrong with that. You know, I'm not nothing wrong with it. Whatever makes you feel good. I do think it's funny that you have. This is a weird though. I do think that. Yeah,

I'm not in back hair. No, I'm not into that. I'm men or women to be fair, but here's the thing with you making out with him is that you, the craziest thing to me is that you've woke up and fell asleep. I can never have the same dream again. Me either.

That normally doesn't happen. I hardly ever remember my dreams. This was three consecutive wake-ups trying to get out of the dream. Three? Yeah. I swear. Dude, what's going on up there, buddy? I don't know.

I like Bo, though. He's a good tour manager. I think it's because, you know, if we're analyzing dreams, I think it's because we found a tour manager that just is fucking awesome. He's good. Shout out to Joe, too, our old tour manager. I love Joe.

I don't know him. But this guy's new. Angel how? Joe McDermott. You're going to meet him in Austin. There's so many Joes everywhere. I got a lot of Joes in my life. Shout out to Joe Angel.

I thought Matt was your guy for a little bit. Matt Sanders was our guy. He was temporary. Okay. Yeah, he's great, though. Matt was great, too. But, you know, it's hard to... I could see Bo being a little more type A than him, though. Yeah, and it's hard to hire your friends.

You can't have your friend be your tour manager. Every friend I've had on the podcast, or not on the podcast, as my tour manager, we're not friends anymore. You need to be your tour manager, then your friend. You can become friends after they're tour manager. That actually makes a better friendship. Yeah, exactly.

Because especially the kind of friends you have, they're just not tour manager type people. Back to Bo. I think I just have this, you know, he takes care of our money. He's just on, this van thing has been so fucked up. He's been on the phone constantly. Constantly on the phone, constantly. So I'm going to shout out to Bo.

Nice job, Bo. He runs the merch. He runs the merch and we're killing it on merch. By the way, he sells a shit ton of merch. You guys should probably give him a cut of that. Shut the fuck up. Chill, chill. Hey, man.

Day two. Don't even fucking throw any wrenches. He's just slinging it back there. The bandmates already want their own t-shirts now. They do? Chill, chill, chill. I would buy an Ernie t-shirt. We used to have Ernie t-shirts.

Why not? Because it's just like... Too bad you don't have someone named Bert in the band. You could do Bert and Ernie, like some kind of branding thing. Yeah, I just have too many expenses. Ernie t-shirts. Why not? Because it's just like... Too bad you don't have someone named Bert in the band. You could do Bert and Ernie, like some kind of branding thing. Yeah, I just have too many expenses. Ernie's heard that joke. He's over there.

He's right behind you. When the merch... When we finally make profit, we're not... The merch doesn't cost... Yeah, I get it. With how much the tour costs, then I'll definitely make some...

I think that's going to happen on this tour. The way it's running. I don't know your bottom line, but I know. I know. I thought the van was going to cost us 15 grand. It's only going to cost us like six. Let's go. Let's go.

Let's go. Let's go. Everyone. All your good prayers. That's not that bad. No, there's way worse disasters you can have on the tour. Oh, my God. I was so sad last week.

I'm so glad I wasn't around you and you're sad. I hate when people are all sad. I hate it, too. I don't like other wasn't around you and you're sad. I hate when people are all sad. I hate it too. I don't like other people's emotions being directed at me. And I absorb emotions. Like when other people are sad, I just fucking become sad. It doesn't make me sad or mad.

It just makes me like anxious. I don't like other people's feelings. So you're telling me I'm a closet gay? No. I think you're just exploring. Yeah, I don't know. I just thought it was a funny dream because you didn't like

have sex with him. You just like lovingly kissed him and maybe you were just like thanking him in your mind for doing all this work for you, extra work. And that's all you knew how to do. Like the only way you know how to thank someone is like with physical touch because I've never had real intimacy. Holy shit. I think I just

figured you out. Hold on. Say this again. Okay, so because you're a monster and you don't know how to have real intimacy with a human being, you know what I mean? Like on a emotional level, I think that maybe that extends. And I don't think this is about sex at all with him. I don't think it's about you being gay or straight or anything.

I think the only way you know how to thank someone for helping you is to be intimate with them, kiss them or jerk them off or whatever. You know what I mean? I think you're on. That's a pretty good theory. It's a good theory. Maybe.

Also, those good looking guy. I mean, he's hot, dude. You keep a lot of good looking guys around. I know Floyd scale. Ernie Floyd's getting fat.

I don't know about his body. I'm not here to body shame men. Okay. I'm from Denver. We don't do that. I'm not body shaming him, but he's the hot guy in the band. No, you're the hot guy in the band. We went over this in Tulsa.

I asked the whole crowd who's hotter between me and you, and they all said you, and I agreed. Well, Nick. Because I base it on fame. You're so stupid. We got to get out of here. Catch you on the tail end. Enjoy Jay Blakesburg.

Want to motivate people? What the fuck is wrong with you? I don't know. Catch you on the tail end. Enjoy Jay Blakesburg. What the fuck is wrong with you? I don't know. All right. Next up on the interview hour, we have Jay Blakesburg.

Yeah, my man. Yo, Chris, play some Grateful Dead. I mean, this guy's been a photographer for everyone, but everyone remembers all those legendary photos that Jay took of the dead when those boys were babies. I love Jay. He's got a great story. We did this interview

a year ago and I deleted it by a fucking idiot. We redid the interview when I was at Peach Fest and I just love Jay and his stories. He's just super honest, open book. So I think you're going to love it. So ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy Jay Blakesburg.

Round two, or take two, as I might say. Hey, Jay. What's going on, Andy? I'm good, buddy. How are you doing? You know, it's day four here at the Peach Festival in Scranton, Jake. What's going on, Andy? I'm good, buddy. How you doing? You know, it's day four here at the Peach Festival in Scranton, PA. How do you do this at all these festivals? I think I'm a little out of shape, you know?

I mean, my back hurts a little bit, but otherwise, it's all good. It's been fucking unreal. I know. Does it feel good to be back? We're back. You know, it felt good to hug people. Yeah. You know, like when I saw you, I gave you a really long, awkward hug.

You kept trying to push me away. And I'm like, no, I'm going to keep hugging you until my boner gets bigger. You know, that's what it is, Jay. It's like, it's community. We forgot. We forgot that we needed community. Good? We forgot that we needed community. Yeah. And we're a community. Good? We forgot that we need a community.

And we're back now. And it's been really good to see a lot of people. Some really good hangs with friends, fellow photographers, fans. Yeah, I saw Jeff Kravitz here too. Kravitz is here. How long have you known that guy? The first time I met Kravitz, we were at the

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opening in 1995. And Bruce Hornsby was sound checking in this giant empty stadium. The first time I met Kravitz, we were at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opening in 95. And Bruce Hornsby was sound checking in this giant empty stadium. And he starts playing a Grateful Dead song and Kravitz just starts dancing. I mean, that's where I met Kravitz. Although, it might have been at a Dead show like right around that same time also. But yeah. I feel like it's like you and Kravitz, dude, that really, you know, you have your own niche,

which is fucking tight and I want to talk about it. I mean, you've done everything. Rolling Stone, right? Oh, yeah. I've been, yeah, I've shot for Rolling Stone magazine for 30 years. I did my first assignment back in 87 with U2. How old were you? I guess I was around 26-ish, 25, 26, somewhere in that range. You're a 26-year-old man getting a Rolling Stone gig.

Like, you were pushing to get it, right? Yeah, you got to work hard for that shit. You know, what happened was I had a deadhead friend of mine, a woman named Robin Malice, and she went to high school with a woman named Jodi Peckman. And Jodi was the new photo editor at Rolling Stone. And I started sending Jodi photos, and it was like this weird thing, right?

She'd be like, we really like your photos. They're exactly what we need and exactly what we use, but we can't use you because we've never used you before. Isn't it so weird how that is? Yeah, but then she needed me in San Francisco. She had an assignment. U2 did a free concert in downtown San Francisco in the financial district.

It ended up in the U2 movie, Rattle and Hum. And the phone rang. Actually, they announced it on the radio. We heard it was going to happen because they used the Grateful Dead sound system. And so we kind of heard it through the grapevine. But the phone was ringing as I was walking out the door to just go to the show and take pictures

because I was just trying to take pictures of anything I could that was rock and roll related to figure out, how do I make a living? How do I make a living above the poverty line as an artist? Were you making money shooting for the dead yet? Not really, you know, I mean, I'm making a little bit of money, but you know, magazine, you know, magazine photo here, a hundred bucks there, 200 bucks there. I kind of went out on my own and stopped having a full-time job, I think, in 87. So right when you got the gig. Yeah, right. Yeah, but I'd been working hard.

I mean, taking every single shitty, you know, $200 job that somebody wanted to give me. Hey, can you come to this, you know, can you come to this backstage party and take some pictures of Paula Abdul, you know, shaking hands with some Tower Records and record company executives, you know, shaking hands with some Tower Records and, and, uh,

rate, you know, record company executives, you know, grip and grin shit like, you know, but, but I would do that, you know, like I'd go and hang out with these, um, record company people that were promo people. Cause I was in San Francisco. So in LA and New York is where all the creative departments were, but they'd be like, Hey, can you come and do a backstage thing with Keith Richards? And I'd be, yeah, I'd be like, hey, can you come and do a backstage thing with Keith Richards? And I'd be, yeah, I'd be like, sure, but can I shoot the show also? And that's how I kind of built my archive in the early days. So they'd pay me a couple hundred bucks and, you know, and I'd go in the darkroom and make them 58 by 10s and charge them $10 in 8 by 10. I make more money making 8

by 10s of shitty photos that I took than I did shooting the gig. Isn't that crazy? But that's how I started, and that's how I was able to not have to have some shitty job, like, you know, selling burgers or, you know, flipping insurance. Were you selling photos on the lot of the dead? Yeah, so, you know, when I first started out, when I was a teenager, at first, you know, when I first started shooting the band, I would make eight by ten black and white glossies in the dark room of my mother's basement and, and sell them for a buck a piece in the parking lot and come back with, you know, 80 bucks, a hundred bucks and dollar

bills in my pocket. And get into the show. Yeah. But tickets were 10 bucks, you know, so it was like nothing. Right. Uh, but eventually, you know, I, I met this guy at a dead show, and he dosed me, and then afterwards he asked me if he could overnight me a couple thousand hits of LSD to sell to my friends back in high school and become part of his underground LSD distribution network. Dave, you're a fucking drug dealer. And so when he asked me that, I just thought that was the greatest thing I'd ever heard.

And so I just gave my parents' address and he started sending me. Did they ever find out you're getting, like, why are you getting, Jay, why is there all these packages coming to the house that are little vials? Yeah, I don't think they figured it out. How do you ship LSD?

Well, in blotter form, you put it in an envelope and you ship it flat. So is this in a postcard? Someone gives you like a card, like a happy birthday card? Yeah, or whatever. Just an envelope inside an overnight envelope, whether it's the post office or one of the private carriers that we took advantage of.

Hell yeah. So yeah, and then my parents found out for sure. So then I started traveling everywhere to see the Grateful Dead because we had a lot of money, right? Because we're drug dealers. Was that the first time you had a lot of money? Yeah, for sure. Did you spend it all?

Yeah. Were you getting laid a bunch and giving out? Or did you have a wife or a girlfriend? I had girlfriends. And sometimes you had girlfriends and, you know, and sometimes, you know, you had girlfriends and not girlfriends. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You had, you know, I mean. Full circle.

I mean, essentially, you're at a dead show and you're all fucking tripping and looking at each other and basically, you know, what do they say? Dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire. Uh-huh. Right? Wow. I mean, everybody wanted to fuck everybody. Yeah.

Right? Was that the community? Like, I saw a picture. You were there when there was barely anyone. There was no lot. Yeah, like early in, you know, 80, 81. Really, the whole lot scene didn't really even start until even a year after Touch of Grey, 87, 88. Really?

It started getting bigger. I mean, I look at some of my photos from 86, 87, and there's a significant amount of people selling their wares, t-shirts and beads and grilled cheese sandwiches or whatever, drugs. And, um, and, uh, but in 80, you know, you go

to a show on a show day and there might be 30, 40, 50 people milling around. You know, it wasn't like a thing. It hadn't become a thing yet. Have they ever, you know how they bootleg t-shirts and shit? has anyone ever like bootlegged your prints oh yeah really at well maybe not yeah prints yeah like in the early days somebody would get a print they'd make a copy of it and then they would try and sell it but not so much um but t-shirts for sure i have this one kind of somewhat famous photo of Jerry Garcia holding up a sign

that says Happy New Year and people have kind of bootlegged that over the years and changed what it said to like, you know, go fuck yourself or, you know, happy Passover

or, you know, I want to fuck Andy Frasco. Yeah. Hell yeah. Damn. Something like that. We're back. The hippies, yeah,

the girls are coming to the shows again. Yeah. I'm right. It's amazing what happens when you write sensitive songs. All of a sudden, it's not to shows again. I'm right. It's amazing what happens when you write sensitive songs. It's not a cock fest. Yeah.

And you have young girls that come and see you. Yeah. And older women. And they're all beautiful. It's amazing. And we're at Peach Festival. And they're in bikini tops. And it's amazing.

Yeah. I mean, I got so many questions to ask you. This is insane. Because you started your career, I would call it your career, you started your passion through music. Do you think LSD changed your life? Absolutely.

What, the mind state time? Your mind state before LSD and after? Well, I mean, first of all, it completely rearranges the molecules in your body, right? So my LSD trips starting in high school were all very body, right? So my LSD trips, you know, starting in high school were all very positive, right? So I think a lot of my friends in high school might have wanted to take LSD

because then they could drink a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon and never feel drunk. But like I was taking LSD and I'm like, I want to go to the Haight-Ashbury and like hang out with the Grateful Dead. You know, I want to learn about the acid tests and I'm going to read the electric Kool-Aid acid tests. Is that why you started it? Those Kinsey

tests and stuff? Because of what? The acid tests. Is that why you wanted to get into it? No, I mean you get turned on to LSD and it blows your mind and you're like, this is a really good thing. And all of a sudden it creates these adventures in your mind and your body.

And you realize that the world is so much bigger than your small little hometown in suburban New Jersey. And so it's like, let's get out, let's go do this. Right. There's so much to do. And, you know, some people stick around where they grew up and spend their whole lives there. And maybe that works for them. But for me and, and, and my brain and my ADD and everything else, like I just knew there was a grand adventure out there. I just didn't know how to, hadn't figured out yet how to do it. And then when I discovered The Grateful Dead,

that was the first step, right? It was, you know, just like the pranksters getting on the bus and doing that whole thing in the mid-60s. For us, it was following The Grateful Dead. It was this incredible adventure. There were like-minded people that maybe we didn't see in our own hometowns.

People that thought the way that we thought and danced the way that we danced and loved that music the way that we loved it. And you also have to remember that, you know, in 1978 or 79 or 80, when this is all kind of developing, there are no other bands like this. Yeah.

Right? I mean, you know, they're playing Helen Reddy on the radio, commercial radio, and the Grateful Dead are playing, you know, seven-minute songs on FM radio, Terrapin Station or whatever. Yeah. You know, Shakedown Street, whatever it might be. So this is the only way to be part of that community is to be there. There was no other community.

Yeah, there were hippies and there was, you know, of course, the back-to-the-land movement when people left to hate and got out of the cities and stuff like that. There were always hippies everywhere. There was the Rainbow Gathering. You know, for us, like hate and got out of the cities and stuff like that. There were always hippies everywhere. There was the rainbow gathering. You know, for us, like, those were sort of the holy grails. Like, you know, you go on a dead tour, then all of a sudden you learn about this thing called

the rainbow gathering. You're like, wait, you mean 10,000 hippies camp out in a national forest somewhere and walk around naked and do drugs all week, you know, and have, like, cosmic spiritual... Have you been to those? Yes. Twice. Tell me about those. Like, what's... Is that, like, a cult or is it... No, Tell me about those. Is that like a cult? No, not at all.

It's just like a... The Rainbow family is really our brothers and sisters. I mean, it's been 40 years since I went. I went to the one in Idaho in 82, and I went to the one in California in 84. So it's been a minute. Yeah, give me your experience. What made you want to go there?

Because it was sort of like going to Mecca. It was like you were searching for the Ten Commandments, right? I mean, these were the ultimate highest hippies, right? These were the elders. These were the people that were there in 67 and left and created communities. In my slideshow that I do, which I know you've seen a couple times, I talk about this one slide that's kind of a joke, but it's true. The hippies were right.

We were right about the environment. We were right about the food. We were right about the music. And we were right about the drugs. Then why do they still have such a bad rep? What, hippies? Yeah. Or psychedelics?

Psychedelics. Psychedelics. Psychedelics. Well, nowadays I'm thinking that they have less of a bad rap because of all the microdosing and all the books that are being written that are New York Times bestsellers and renowned psychologists and psychiatrists and therapists that are doing the microdosing thing and it being popular in Silicon Valley to kind of, you know, open up your mind a little bit to clear the cobwebs out

and, you know, new ways of thinking. I mean, I think that people that were doing psychedelics, you know, way back were always forward-thinking individuals because, like I said, it sort of rearranges your molecules and makes you think of things in a different way. And it did that for me. And maybe it doesn't do that to everybody, but it certainly did that to me.

It certainly changed my life. And, of course i went to prison for lsd that's what i was going to ask you know like so funny because like 2021 we finally lose the stigma do you ever overthink like i went to prison for this right well i'm very very fortunate that i actually was only in prison for you know just around eight months right because there were people that got arrested with less LSD than I did. How much did you have on you? 1,800 hits. Oh my God! That's enough to get you

and your band high at one show. Oh my God! What the fuck? So how'd you get out of it? I didn't. I got sentenced to five years in state prison, and the way the system worked at the time, it was the parole board, it was called an indeterminate five-year sentence.

The parole board will give you a time goal based on your previous criminal history, which I had none, and your crime, possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute. And I was given a 12-month time goal, and I could work off three months for good behavior.

And I got out a month before that because of some other extenuating circumstances and some people that pulled some favors for me i don't want to you know sound like i'm white privilege but um i had some friends who had done some political work their parents with the president of the parole board at the time and they let me out in time to go to my to start a fall semester in college because they knew that if i got out four weeks early and started college and got a career, that like in 40 years, I'd get to do a podcast with Andy Frasca.

Hell yeah. I'll clap to that. Yeah, Jay. That's why they let me out. You were saying something to me. Maybe it was your show, but I think you were telling me like you had your friends just come and visit you and stuff. And like girls and stuff would come and visit. Well, yeah, because, you know, when my friends were on dead tour, they just come and visit you and stuff, and, like, girls and stuff would come and visit and, like... Well, yeah, because, you know, when my friends were on dead tour,

they would stop and visit me. So visiting days were on a Saturday and a Sunday, right? But if, like, if there were extenuating circumstances, right? So, like, I had some friends on dead tour, and they had, like, a day off on a Wednesday in between a show in Philly and New York. They'd call me, they'd call my father two weeks before and say, we're going to be in the area on this day.

My father would talk to me on the phone every night. I talked to him. And he'd say, hey, your friends, Betsy and Kristen and Jen and blah, blah, blah, want to come see you on this Wednesday. So I'd have to go to Internal Affairs and put in a special request. And they would look at me and say,

we'll grant your request for these hippie chicks to visit you if you tell us everyone who's smoking dope in your dorm. And I'd be like, I ain't seen nobody smoking dope. And they'd be like, okay. And then they'd sign off on the paperwork and they'd let these people come. And they would bring me like, you know,

green pasta with avocado. And then the people in like the, you know, every weekend I'd have visitors come also and you were allowed to bring food, right? So they'd bring lunch. And they'd bring me all these exotic foods that are common today, like green pasta and avocados. Like most people in prison had never seen an avocado in 1983.

Could they like smuggle you some weed or anything? No. Well, there was definitely, people were smoking pot in jail. And I had one friend who wanted to mail me some blotter acid under a postage stamp, but I told him not to. Just in case. I knew that I was going to get out in nine months. If I, as long as, and I didn't you know, like, if you get a tattoo in jail

and you get caught with, like, fresh scabs, fresh ink, you get, like, three more months in jail because you're defacing government property, right? Because you're part of your property. Yes. Holy fuck! Yeah, so, like, I wasn't getting any tattoo, even though they wanted to give me one.

Did you catch any friends? Were people like, was it scary in there? What was going on? There was a couple of moments. And so basically when you're in prison, if you and me are in prison and I can take care of you better than you can take care of me, I call you my son. Yeah. Hey, Andy, this is my son, Andy. Don't fuck with Andy.

You were having people's sons I had like three or four, like a couple of Latino gangbangers And a couple of like, you know, Muslim brotherhood guys That I was friends with Did anyone try to beat you up? No, one guy was mad at me once And put me into like one of those headlocks Where they cut off the oxygen and I passed out For like, you know, 10, 15 seconds

And you wake up like, I don't know He didn't like me, I was a hippie But you know, like my father I don't know, he was, he didn't like me. I was a hippie, but you know, like, like, uh, my father figured out a way to, to buy alfalfa sprout seeds and like sealed foil packages. And so I started sprouting alfalfa sprouts in my foot locker. And then I started giving them to everybody and they put them on their tuna fish sandwiches and everybody was like, teach me how to do that, man. And so I taught like half the jail cell how to sprout alfalfa sprouts. Fucking hippie. And we had like smuggling operations going on in prison.

Did you ever see the movie The Longest Yard with Burt Reynolds, right? Like there was that one guy there that got Burt Reynolds laid in prison. Like he could get anything. We were like that. We were like fixers, man. The biggest commodity in prison was white sugar because people were addicted to everything. So they put like 40 tablespoons of white sugar in their morning coffee to get that rush, to get that buzz.

How many cups of coffee can you drink? Are you allowed to drink? I don't know. I've never had a cup of coffee in my life. Still? Still. No way. I'm a fucking weirdo, dude.

Oh, my. I want to go back to, you said you talked to your dad every day in prison. What were you guys talking about? Was he disappointed or was he trying to get to know you? Like, that's got to be something. No, I think he just was checking in. You know, we were just sort of checking in, you know, and maybe it was every other day, but I talked to my dad a lot, you know.

Was he important to you? Yeah, for sure. I mean, he put his house up for bail to, you know, get me out of jail. And I was, you know, and when I went to the Rainbow Gathering in the summer of 82, I was out on bail. I was my trial. I was out on appeal at that point. Right. And so I was, you know, I was, I was, his house was my collateral, you know, so I think.

You better come back. You better come back. You better not find some girl named Sunshine. And move to Asia. And move to fucking Asia. Right. Damn, dude. Your dad saved you.

My dad saved me. I love my dad. So was he disappointed when you said, when he found out you had a bunch of ass and you're going to jail for it? Yeah, I think that when, you know, when I got arrested, you know, and the cops grabbed me coming out of the overnight facility picking up a package. It was just like in the fucking movies, dude. They threw me against the car and they said, you're under arrest, motherfucker. How old were you?

I was 19, I guess. I'm just a boy, daddy. I believe my father said that he didn't sleep for a week when he was trying to decide if he could put the house up for bail and wondering what was going on. Was your mom around? My mom was around, too. But she was pissed. They were both pretty was going on. And you know, your mom around, my mom was around too, but she was pissed.

They were, they were both pretty unhappy with me. Yeah. Fuck. So I got out of jail. I stuck around Jersey for a while while I was the wheels of justice spun. And then, uh,

after I lost my case, I appealed it. I moved to the West coast to get residency in Olympia, Washington at the Evergreen state college. So like I said, I could prove to the judge that I would be this. You know, you're going to college. Yeah. But it didn't work. He was like, he threw the book at me. Really? Yeah. What'd he do? He said, you're going to jail. He said, you're going to jail. Fuck. He goes, I'm sentencing you. We're going to, I'm signing up

for school now. Right. I'm sentencing you to an indeterminate five-year prison sentence. But I do have to say that, you know, I'm very, very fortunate because a couple of a couple things and listen there's a lot of people that got arrested a few years after me with less LSD than I did and they spent 15 20 years in prison because the drug war the the war on drugs from Reagan and that whole thing and it was terrible and if I had not if I had not gotten out in eight months I would really not be Who I am I would not be Jay Blakesburg. Those photos that I took of you yesterday here at Peach Festival that are fucking badass

and are probably on your Instagram already, those wouldn't exist because I would not be me if I was in jail for even maybe five years. I might not have been me. 10 years, 15 years. So what were you thinking about in jail? Getting laid.

Yeah. How hard is it to beat off? Is it hard you thinking about in jail getting laid yeah how hard is it to beat off is it hard to beat off in jail showers showers you beat off quickly like really quick i would if i because you don't want to beat off you know if you got a bunk buddy and all sort of shaking and my frasco stop there were some there were some gay men in there that would take care of you if you wanted i I never went down that road. Like jerk you off? Whatever. I didn't go down that road.

I'm just saying. I did not go down that road. Damn. And, you know, you also got to remember, like, in 1983, you know, we were a fairly homophobic planet. Yeah. So, like, these two gay black men, you know, were heavily taken advantage of

and abused and whatnot. But the other thing is that I was in a minimum security prison, so people weren't there for more than four or five years. There were no lifers there. It wasn't hardcore like that. So you get out of jail, get that gig with Rolling Stones.

No, you have six years, right? Yeah, I got out in September of 83, and I moved back to Washington State, finished college, moved down to the Bay Area in 85, started shooting rock and roll, anything that I could. What was the first show you shot? Probably I shot a dead show right when I got out of prison. I went to the New Year shows in 83.

Straight from prison. At the San Francisco Civic. You know, so 84 and 85, I lived in Olympia, Washington. I was going to school, and I didn't really travel that much. I didn't really go to that many dead shows. I was on parole. I couldn't really leave the state. You know, I had to piss in a cup. You know, all that kind of stuff. But we lived in a community

of people, and I stopped smoking pot when I got arrested, because, you know, you're pissing in a cup also are you on probation? how long were you on probation? for the remainder of your sentence four years of parole and you're fucking putting your dick out there and going to festivals and shit

well there were no festivals back then but you see LSD can't be detected in a piss test so you just didn't hold any yeah I just took we just took LSD can't be detected in a piss test. Oh, cool. So you just didn't hold any? Yeah, we just took LSD for fun. You didn't start selling again? Never. Never?

No, of course not. Once is enough, dude. Once you get in trouble like that. Never. Never, ever, ever. I've never even held on to it except for people said, do you want a dose? And I said yes.

Do you still enjoy taking it? I do. It's been a hot minute since I've blown the cobwebs out. It's been a couple years now since I've blown the cobwebs out. Do you feel like you need a recharge? I think I'm ready for a recharge if the moment is right. I think Kravitz offered me some doses the other day. It's got to be hard.

Wait, did I just out him? It's okay. Kravitz, don't give a fuck. I was on his podcast. We were talking about everything. He's crazy. That motherfucker's crazy. Yeah, so, but, you know, no, I'm a peach festival.

I'm here to work, and, you know, I don't want to be all tripping. That's what I was going to ask you. Like, have you ever, like, gotten dosed while you were working? Yeah, a little bit, you know. And, like, you just can't work, and you, like, you've seen the photos? There's a band that I really love that I've seen a bunch for the last 40 years. And I took some little micro doses with them a couple years ago. Yeah?

And you're like, whoa, bro. Have you ever gotten fired from your photos? Fired? Yeah. Like someone's like, these photos aren't good enough. No. Any pretentious editors. No.

So essentially, my job is to come back with, my goal is to always make brilliant photographs. You can't always make brilliant photographs. But if I come back with mediocre photographs to a photo editor or an art director or nowadays a marketing director or a band or an artist, you know, they might not use you again. They're not going to outright fire you. I mean, I work for myself and I'm sure there's been clients that maybe said that

I didn't meet their expectations and they didn't hire me again. You don't, I don't really know. They never tell you your work sucks. We can't use this. Um, was Rolling Stones, was a lot of pressure when you're at Rolling Stones? Well, of course. I mean, it can't use this. Was Rolling Stones, was there a lot of pressure when you were at Rolling Stones? Well, of course. I mean, it's Rolling Stone magazine. I mean, it's the holy grail of photojournalism and rock and roll. And, you know, so I did my very, very best.

I mean, I did over 300 assignments. Like, you know, not just like, hey, can I shoot this for you? And I'll submit a photo. Like, I mean, you know, them calling me up and saying, hey, we're going to send you to Lollapalooza in Chicago or Kansas City or Vancouver, B.C. Hey, we're going to fly you to L.A. We're going to, hey, can you go to Memphis?

You know, like that kind of stuff. Were you always going stag? Like going solo to all this stuff? Well, an assistant. A lot of times, you know, I would travel with an assistant. Yeah. Is it lonely? Feels like photography could be lonely. No. No? No. Because you're always traveling. assistant a lot of times you know i would travel with an assistant yeah is it lonely feels like

photography could be lonely no no no because you're always traveling yeah i i i never really went like on tour with a band like on a bus like a with a with a band like that happens now bands bring you know like when yeah like another year when you're starting to sell out like arenas you'll hire you'll hire like jay blakesburg you'll hire some kid. But then when you do the big shows, you'll hire Jay Blakesburg. I'll clap to that too. Let's go, Jay. I want to talk about Rolling Stone some more because this is so fascinating.

Have you ever had to like get put into a situation where maybe the band is in turmoil? Yes. Give me some stories. Yes. So not for Rolling Stone magazine, but for BAM magazine, which was a California magazine in the 70s, 80s,

90s. For Bay Area Music came out every two weeks. I shot 59 covers for that magazine. Were you making money? Were you BAM? Like they pay you good? No. You're just doing it for the love. Yeah, I mean they paid me money, but like those photos now are rock and roll

history and sell as fine art through galleries. So, you know, like I shot the Chili Peppers in 89 for the cover of BAM. The people that were 23, 24 years old that were following the Chili Peppers right now, those people are 55 years old. They're empty nesters. Their kids are out of college.

And they want to put a fucking thousand dollar print of the Chili Peppers on their wall. They're want to put a fucking $1,000 print of the chili peppers on their wall, they're buying it from a gallery that sells my work, like the Marsden Hotel Gallery. Can you keep the rights? I own all the rights. So even when someone... Listen, bitch, when I shoot you at Peach Festival,

I own those fucking photos. Fuck yeah, hell yeah, hell yeah, my pimp, dog, let's go. I own those photos, and I own you, Frasco. Oh, yeah? Uh-oh. But yeah, I was always thinking about that. So yeah, so we own those photos and I own you, Frasco. Oh, yeah. Uh-oh. But yeah, I was always thinking about that. So we own those rights. Now, there are some artists that sometimes you shoot, some record

companies, album covers, where you do have to give up some of those certain rights. I feel like magazine... But magazine photography traditionally has always been you on the rights. So anyway, I'm shooting Jane's Addiction right before the very first Lollapalooza, which is in 91. And the band hated each other.

They were on the verge of breaking up, but they just signed, you know, Perry Fowler from Jane's Addiction is who created Lollapalooza. They were the headliners that year. I believe Navarro was, I think they were all drug addicts. I think they were all, you know. That was when they were all drug addicts. I think they were all... Yeah, that was when they were all doing heroin and whatever. And Stephen Perkins, the drummer for the band, who is a deadhead, by the way,

he was sort of the glue that kept them together. He talked to everybody in the band, but the bass player, Avery, and Navarro at the time, the guitar player, wouldn't talk to Perry. And so I'm doing a photo shoot. I got the whole band in front of me, and Dave Navarro's got a chocolate chip cookie in his hand. I asked him to put it down.

He said, fuck you. This is my time, not your time. And, you know, listen, it was a tough, tough time for these guys. And then I did some solo portraits of Perry

that same day and then the magazine put a picture of just Perry on the cover, not the band. You know, it was like, like, you know, the scene in Almost Famous

where they put the T-shirt, the singers up front and everybody else is out of focus in the back I'm only the lead fucking singer Right

and yeah exactly and so you know like that was a tough you know and I'm just kind of putting it in a weird spot you know like I didn't pick the photo

to put on the cover they told me to do solo portraits Did they hit you up? Who? Like the band? No it's different now

nowadays we have each other's phone numbers and we can text and you can be like be like, be like, Blakesburg, you fucking posted that picture of me with my dick hanging out, man. And I got banned from fucking Instagram, you know, you know, that's fucked, you know, like back then it was a different world, you know, the way photographers work with artists, you know, nowadays, every band, every band, big or small has a photographer filmmaker in their

dressing room, warm up backstage on stage. That shit didn't happen, you know, back then. I didn't really start getting onstage access probably until, you know, those Lollapalooza years, 92, 93. So I shot, 91 was the first Lollapalooza, and this is when it was a traveling festival. This is before it became just in Chicago. So 92, 3, 4, 5, maybe 6, I was on assignment for Rolling Stone magazine wherever the tour started. You were there. I was there on assignment for Rolling Stone.

So those years, like, I had all access. I was in, you know, like, I remember walking into the Chili Peppers dressing room in 92, and Flea was asleep on the couch, you know, and I look at the publicist, and I go, can I take, you know, I'm like, she looks at me, she says, okay, nods, and I just took a picture of Flea sleeping on the couch. And I look at the publicist and I go, can I take, I'm like, she looks at me and she says, okay, nods her, and I just took a picture of Flea sleeping on the couch.

And then I did like a backstage portrait, which is kind of a pretty famous photo of all of Pearl Jam and all of Soundgarden together in the dressing room in 92. And Pearl Jam was like the opening act on that Lollapalooza tour in 92. And Soundgarden was like two or three bands up from them, you know? So, you know so you know a lot of great great you know situations with with different

artists and but it was just a different time you know like um a lot of artists just didn't like having photographers around you know and and uh and it became a matter of trust you know like who can you trust and when people started to trust, like I've been working with Neil Young for 30 years. I've been working with Carlos Santana for 30 years. I just shot Carlos Santana's new album cover that's coming out in a couple months. Are you close to these guys besides just their photographers? I'm closer with bands like you and this generation.

Like there's still, you know, like I mean, I started working with Les Claypool and Primus in 1989. I shot them for the first time. Did my first portrait ofpool and Primus in 1989. I shot them for the first time. I did my first portrait of Les and Primus in 1990. That's 31 years ago. I shot Les Claypool's wedding. So yesterday when Les and his wife got here, I did a quick little backstage photo shoot with Oysterhead

because I had done one 20 years ago when they played. That's funny. And Les and I hadn't seen each other since i you know since pre-pandemic i shot his last album project with sean lennon um the lennon clay claypool lennon delirium and uh and you know we just we hung out and talked about our kids and and and projects that we're working on and things that we're doing and we caught up for 20 minutes you know but less is like somebody like that that i've got that long relationship with you know like i saw trey and he gave me a hug and i said hi and

we talked for about a minute yeah you but you've been shooting him forever yeah but it's just a different relationship you know with somebody like that i mean you know i'm more or something the grateful dead guys you know yeah i'm friendly with all of them and you know can sit down and hang out with any of them um but it's, you know, it's different. Like, you know, I'm more apt to get a text from the guys in Pigeons playing ping pong or, you know, Mahali from Twiddle or you or, you know, any of the kind of the jam bands or O'Keele. Because we love you.

You're the GOAT to us. Well, thank you. And I love you too. I mean, I just appreciate you. I mean, shooting your band reminds me of shooting bands like X and punk rock bands like, you know, in the 80s. And there would be like, you know, mosh pits. And I was right in the middle of it.

And, you know, there's this British band called The Godfathers. And they had a big hit song called Birth, School, Work, Death. And, you know, I have some pictures of like, you know, a show from them at this club on Heat Street called the I-Beam doesn't exist anymore. And just, like, the angst and the energy and the stage divers and, you know, and all of that, like, to me is reminiscent of what you guys do. And, you know, I look at what you guys are doing and I'm just like, this to me is, this is entertainment. This is just like an extension of David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust, you know, dressing up like that. Or, you know, Lou Reed

or, you know, the plasmatics. You know, they were, you know, Wendy O. Williams, who would always have her tits hanging out right on stage. You know, the cramps, right? So like, what you guys do, like you guys do this pop, punk rock thing and take it to the extremes. And so visually,

visually it's just off the chart. And I love photographing that stuff. You know, like I can shoot a guy, you know, playing guitar, singing into a microphone all day long, but I want,

I want those peak moments. Yeah. You know, that shot from yesterday where Sean's got his guitar neck through Taz's legs and you're on the ground on your back. And Devin Allman is like, what the fuck am I doing here? And just everybody in your band in that moment

and your new bass player is just off the charts. Yeah, Floyd's great. I met him, talked to him for a little bit yesterday, first time that we really ever hung out. And Sean is just a fucking rock star. He's just reminiscent of like who I,

you know, I want him to be like Mick Ronson or, you know, you know, like 19 fucking 70s. He is. He is.

And he's a fucking badass player and he's badass visually. Yeah. You know, and that's what I love. That's what I love. Looking, you know,

looking at these bands, like the bands who are visually appealing, if you could shoot them well, do you think they'd get more successful? Well, I think that bands that are also visual and put on a visual show, as opposed to just standing there. Remember these bands from Britain, shoegazer bands? You know, My Bloody Valentine, Blur, Pulp.

They were shoegazers. They just stared down at their shoes. I mean, you guys are entertainers, right? You're musicians, but you're entertainers. Entertain us, right? And sometimes the music can just do that and take you to places. Don't get me wrong. But, you know, like last night with the Turquoise guys doing the Talking Heads

with Jerry Harrison and Adrian Ballou, off the fucking charts. It was sick. I mean, you know. It was popping. You know, I put my camera down and was on the side of the stage fucking rocking out because I'm a huge Talking Heads fan. It's a funny story. Jerry Harrison, you know, keyboard player on the Talking Heads,

keyboard guitar, who was sort of leading this thing last night with Adrian Blue. And Adrian Blue is on a record called Remain in Light. It came out in 1980, just before I discovered the Talking Heads. But in the late 80s, I told them this story last night. When I'd go to dead shows in the late 80s and was tripping on acid, I'd bring a Sony Walkman to the dead show. So set break, I'd have some music to listen to with a cassette. Okay, a cassette. Do you know what a cassette is, Andy?

I think so. And I would bring the album Remain in Light by the Talking Heads because it's the most psychedelic fucking record. And I went into the dressing room and I told Jerry and Adrian that story and they were like, far out, man. I mean, Jerry, I think I told that story to you before, but Adrian had never heard it. Did you ever get to shoot them, Talking Heads?

Yes and no. So I saw the Stop Making Sense tour when I was in college right after I got out of jail. Had no money, made counterfeit tickets. Shut the fuck up. On a black and white Xerox machine

that we hand colored with watercolor paints and walked into the Seattle Center in Seattle, Washington. And years later, I'm doing a photo shoot with David Byrne and I showed him the fake ticket stub. I still had it. I said, I think I owe you $12.50 and handed him a $20.

And he said, the statute of limitations is up. You don't have to pay me. So you're a cool guy? David Byrne is fucking unbelievable. Brilliant. So anyway, so I saw the heads but never shot them live. They broke up a few years later.

But for the 15th anniversary of Stop Making Sense, the movie, one of the greatest live concert films I've ever seen, Stop Making Sense. Oh, yeah, it's brilliant. Right? They did a special screening of it in San Francisco at the Castro Theater. And had the director there, Jonathan Demme,

was there for a Q&A. And Rolling Stone Magazine hired me to do a band portrait of them. And so I'm the only person I believe to ever do a band portrait of the Talking Heads post-breakup. And it was for Rolling Stone Magazine. That's insane. I mean, you've also done athletes. I mean, you've done my boys. Shaq. Shaq.

You did Kobe too? I've never done Kobe. Who else have you done? I did Gary Payton. The glove. I did Latrell Sprewell. Oh my god. When he was beating up people and shit. Remember when he choked the coach? So the shot I did of him, I'll send it to you. Dude, send it. The shot I did of Latrell Sprewell is I did it with a fisheye lens with his hand reaching out to me.

So he's got this giant hand like spread out. It was for the Source magazine. Source Sports. It was like a hip hop. Yeah, I remember Source. And so for Shaquille O'Neal, I went to his apartment in L.A. And he pulls up in his like two-seater Mercedes. But they take the front seat out, and he sits on a little

panel on the back, because he's too long. He's so big. Yeah, he's so big. And he's in this giant apartment, but he was filming one of those movies that he did, like Shazam, or what are they called? This is when he was in Orlando, or was he just signed to Lakers? I think he was still a Laker at the time. And he has that giant... Yeah, Shazam.

Or Kazam. You ever see his Superman diamond ring? No. It's this giant ring with the Superman logo, and it fits on one of his fingers. I put it on my hand, and it fit like one over three of my fingers. Oh, my. He's just a huge dude. Huge, huge. So, yeah, so I did this great shoot with Shaq.

What was your favorite? What's your opus? What do you think was your opus? I want to know your opus for press photography and for live photography Well, portraits there are many, you know, my portraits of Neil Young, Jerry Garcia

Carlos Santana, Bob Weir Phil Lesch, all the guys in The Grateful Dead Talking Head I mean, there's so many portraits that mean so much to me Live shots, also just thousands. Thousands. How do you pick?

Yeah, you just keep moving forward. You just think about the moment you had at that show? I've taken millions of photographs. I've taken almost a million photographs just on film. And we've scanned 80 or 90,000 of them that we've scanned already. You still have shots you haven't even seen?

Yes. In your film? Yes. Yes. Jay, this is insane. Yeah. The archive is real. It's insane.

And now we've got to store it all on fucking hard drives. Is that a pain in the ass? It's expensive and it's until the end of time, until the end of eternity. I hope all this data that's being created, all this stuff that's being recorded and filmed and photographed on digital data, I hope it all can survive into the future forever.

What do you give advice, how do you give advice to someone? I don't even want to say like... Who wants to be me? Who wants to be you? Is that idea of photographer, is that dead? Or is there still an idea of that? I think there's still an idea of it. I think that, I think it's fairly easy to make money as a music photographer.

I don't know how easy it is to make a living as a music photographer. I know other people that do do it. I know people that have come up over the last, you know other people that do do it. I know people that have come up over the last 10 years that do it. Josh Timmermans, Dylan Langile, who is Dylan. Yeah, Dylan and Josh, they're killing it. Those are... And there's a bunch of other ones, and I don't mean to just... Hutch. Andrew Hutchinson. Yeah, Hutch. Jesse Fats, who's Billy Strings' guy who's here at Peach and I love those guys

Hutch did your album Did my last two, yeah There's a lot of great shooters out there and all of them can make money Are they buying mansions like Andy Frasco's mansion in Denver, Colorado? Maybe they are, I don't know I mean, I got lucky that I came up at a time

where you could make a lot of money, you know, in the heyday of photography. I feel like Kravitz killed it, too. He makes dough, right? Kravitz, I think, made dough. I think, you know, Kravitz probably was a drug dealer but never got caught like me. He was smarter than me.

What's the difference between doing um music photography versus like doing like um say for like vogue gq well fashion photography the women are way more beautiful than you are is there more pressure uh shooting music or shooting fashion fashion i think it's just there's pressure all the time because you always want to do the best work that you can. I mean, my goal is always to try and make a brilliant photograph. You know, I'm trying to be creative.

So like even back in the olden days when I was up and coming, if there were 20 photographers in the pit and they were all standing on the left side of the pit, I'd go to the right side of the pit because I was trying to be different. You know, I talk about this in my slideshow. You probably remember this as I say,

no risk, no reward, right? It's sort of what you're doing up on stage. You're letting it all fucking hang out, right? You're taking risks up there. You're taking bodily risks, right? You're risking like people thinking you're, you know, a crazy person or all show and no substance, right? Yeah, exactly.

That's why I love jam bands. That's why I love improvisational psychedelic bands is because every fucking night when Pigeons or Twiddle or Eggie or Goose or You or Trey or Fish or The Dead, any one of these bands goes out on stage, they know that if they take some risks, there could be really great reward.

Yeah. Right? And if they don't take that risk, you know, Moe did it here the other night. You know, they fucking did this great rec chem, you know, and it's like, and, you know, it's daylight out and they're doing a 20-minute jam, right?

Yeah. And so, you know, as much as we love the Rolling Stones and Tom Petty and every other band that, you know, as much as we love the Rolling Stones and Tom Petty and every other band that, you know, is in our DNA, you know, if you went to 10 shows in a row on a Tom Petty tour or a Stone story, you're probably going to hear the same set every night. That must be soul crushing for a band in some ways. I don't know, you can talk more about that than I can. But, you know, to me, it's great. and we love those songs, and we want to hear those songs,

and we want to have those experiences. But coming to see a jam band that does it different every time is inspiring to me. It shows passion, and it breeds inspiration, which inspires me, which makes me passionate. To, you know, like even sometimes Bob Weir jokes at me, he's like, don't you have enough photos of me, Jay? And I just

haven't said it back to him yet, but one of these days I'm going to say, haven't you played me and my uncle enough? You know, do we have to hear Sugar Mag one more time? You know, because when Bob Weir plays Sugar Mag, even though he's played it 5,000 times, he still wants it to be the best Sugar Mag he's ever done.

Perfectionist. Is he perfectionist? We all are. But when I'm shooting Dead & Co., I want my pictures from that night to be the best photos that I've ever taken. I'm always looking for the better photo. I'm not stopping. I'm not going to the side of the stage and drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette. Is it competitive? Of course it is.

Like anything else. You know, the biggest problem is that digital photography, the bar to entry has been lowered so far. It's sort of like recording studios. You know, technology is the great disruptor. Film industry, music industry, photo industry. You know, the creative arts.

It's, you know, anybody can go out. Everybody has a phone in their pocket already. But anybody can go out and buy a fairly inexpensive digital camera and take okay photos with it. You know, back when we shot film, you actually needed to have both creative skills and technical skills. You still need to have technical skills shooting digital. But, you know, you can take a picture, look at your back, and say, ooh, too dark.

Okay, if I want to make it lighter, I'd push this button, and I'd push this button, and switch this dial, and it will fix that problem. But when we were shooting film, you couldn't do that. You actually had to understand light, and exposure, and aperture, and shutter speed,

and now you can essentially put a camera on p for program or a for automatic and probably do okay yeah or your fucking phone but we're just trying to you know for me i'm trying to push those limits creatively and using my tools that i have available to me whether it's software tools and post-production or hardware tools you know cameras different lenses. Essentially, we all have the same cameras with the same sensors and the same lenses. Do you think when people just add a filter on it, on... It's cool.

It's cool, but do you think it's like losing the art of shooting? The art is different. You know, a lot of the young photographers these days have their cameras on monopods and hold them in the air. A lot of these young photographers, they hold their cameras up in the air or they hold their cameras above their head. And, you know, I'm one of those guys who wants to look through the viewfinder. I'm old school. You know, but they get cool shots when they have that monopod and put it up 10 feet in the air.

I'm like, wow, that's fucking cool. But it doesn't work for me. Any of these young guys inspiring you? Yeah. Whose guy do you like? I think some of the guys that I name. Like Timmerman? Yeah.

I mean, I think that a lot of these guys, when they come back, like I'm looking at stuff the Peach Festival is posting that Jesse and Hutch are shooting here. And I'm like, damn, that's a fucking killer shot. I wish I took that. So of course it's inspiring you because I want to fucking do better than that

because I'm the elder statesman. I'm supposed to be smoking these guys. They're not supposed to be smoking me. Is that the hardest thing about getting older? No. What's your job? I think the hardest thing about getting older is my back hurts more holding the gear dog you know we need to get you an assistant again you know i think i'm a pretty nice person and i'm open to talking to anybody and you know the first year i came to peach and

i walked into the to the office you know i was sort of like the the special guest villain you know like in batman special guest villain, you know, like in Batman, special guest villain. Here he comes. Right. And nobody would, nobody would look at me. Nobody wanted to talk to me except for one photographer, Andrew Blackstein. But then, you know, then the next guy started talking to me and the next guy and like, they didn't know what to expect. They thought that I was going to be all snooty and stuck up and not want to. And I'm like, you guys are my fucking friends. Like I Like, I became best friends with those kids in fucking an hour, you know? And I'm still friends with all of them and they're all fucking great.

I love them, you know? I want to inspire them and I want them to inspire me. I want them to do good work. I want them to be successful. You know, like, I'm not trying to, you know, keep secrets from them so I could have all the success. because there's nothing to compete

for anymore. There's no money out there to compete for. Now you're doing it for love. I've been successful, knock on wood. I've continued success. I've been successful creatively and financially

in my career. I can be 59 years old and not really sweat it. You know, like, you know, I know. I mean, you still look hot, Jay. It's the hair, man. Yeah, I'm telling you. I still got the fucking hair.

That's what I'm talking about. If you're fucking 59 years old and you got hair, fucking grow it long, you know. See, you're just making love for hours, Jay. Right now, Kama Sutra, Jay. Love my wife. I love it. Love my wife.

I want to talk about, I know we got to go soon, I know you got to shoot. Did you film Garcia in his last years? Well, photographed him, yeah. Oh, yeah. So, I mean, I didn't do my first formal portrait with Garcia.

I mean, I was one-on-one with him a couple of times in 87, but 91, I got hired to do my first portrait of Garcia. And I did, I did a portrait of him in 91. When did he die? 95. I did portraits of him in 91, 92, 93, 94, and 95. And he didn't look so good towards the end there, but I did like, you know, one-on-one me and Jerry face-to-face, eye-to-eye me directing him like did you ever have any conversations with him short conversations i mean you know here's this guy that

means a lot to me and his music so you can't really be fanboy yeah and i was also still pretty young so i might not have had the the skills to just be like how's your family or you know yeah let's talk about you know john coltrane or you know what i mean like yeah i didn't i didn't have that ability that then as a you know 28 year old 29 30 year old kid whatever you know but like was it like hard for you to see your hero one of your heroes just like lose the battle with addiction yeah but none of us really knew what to do about it or how to do anything about it. I mean, even the band didn't know

what to do about it or how to fix it or change it. If you watch that documentary Long Strange Trip on Amazon, the four-part, 122-hour documentary, you kind of see Garcia disintegrating before our eyes. And we, as deadheads in some way, we were enablers documentary, you kind of see Garcia disintegrating before our eyes. As Deadheads,

in some way, we were enablers because they needed a play to make the money to feed their whole big army of staff and family. We wanted to go to shows and it was back and forth. It all fed into each other. Sadly, he was a drug addict and he died.

It was terrible and it was sad and we don't wish that on anybody. But we were kids and we were kids, we were fans and we just didn't know how to change that. Do you remember your last shot you took? I do. It was taken,

so my last portrait one-on-one was in April of 95. He was making an MTV music video. It was a promo music video for a film. Do you know who the director Wayne Wang is? Do you know the movie The Joy Luck Club? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He directed that.

And he directed a movie called Smoke with Harvey Keitel and Ashley Judd. So they were making a little promo video because he had a, the Jerry Garcia band had a song on the soundtrack to that record. Wow. Or to that record and for that movie. And then in June of 95, they played at Shoreline, and it was the last West Coast concert ever. And then he did the East Coast stuff in July,

and then died in August of 1995. What's that photo look like? Terrible. He looks very unhealthy. His chin is glued to his chest. He can't really lift his chin up. He's looking down. I mean, Jerry was, I think, 53 when he died?

If I remember correctly. I mean, he looks 25 years older than I look right now at 59. Man, it's got to be heavy. You better stop doing all those drugs, Andy Frasca, because I don't want you looking like that. I know. I don't really do that many drugs as everyone thinks I do.

I don't do Coke. I did try acid for the... It's only my third time taking acid. Well, maybe we should go in the woods and we should dose together. Yeah, maybe me and you. I think I need to go with the king, the king over here. But, you know, full circle real quick before we wrap up. I got a couple of cool projects going on.

I'm working on a book on the history of blotter acid art. Whoa, that sounds cool. Long story, but that'll come out in about a year. I'm also doing another book called Psychedelic Icons that people I have photographed. The blotter art book is with a guy who owns a large collection of blotter art. How big are these acid sheets? They're hundreds, hundred sheets?

Thousand sheets? So you're doing close-up shots? A thousand sheets? How big are those? A thousand sheets is pretty small. So you're doing really zoomed in shots? Yeah, actually he provided all the digital files. He's already had them all shot. It's his collection.

Oh, my God. That's a great idea, Jay. Working on a documentary film with my son who lives in Denver. Yeah. Oh, I haven't hanged out with him. Yeah, yeah. I'll hook you guys up. You'll hook me up.

And so my son Sam is, we're doing a documentary film about the Grateful Dead and deadheads and, and the war on drugs with Reagan in the eighties and how, how, how in the, in the, in the late seventies, the eighties, there was none of this jam band thing, but there was this huge community of deadheads that were completely different than the yuppies. You know that word, the yuppies, right? Young urban professional, Wall Street greed, disco, Reagan and how it still was able to thrive and survive. And then my daughter,

she curates a second Instagram page for me called Retro Blakesburg. Have you seen that one? Yeah, I've seen that one. That's tight. Yeah, and so my daughter does that, and that Instagram page is only photographs that I shot on film, no digital photographs. So it's all archival stuff on film.

And she is curating and creative directing a book called Retro Blakesburg based on that Instagram. And that'll come out in the fall. So I got a bunch of stuff to do with my kids, which is amazing. Isn't it cool to pass the torch to the kids, too? I mean, your daughter's killing it, too. Yeah, she's crushing it. And so Ricky and they both love this music. And, you know,

they're in the scene and doing cool shit and, so yeah. The legacy continues. The legacy, the Blakesburg dynasty continues. The Blakesburg dynasty.

Right. Yeah, I love that. But it's, isn't it beautiful to like, you inspired so many people because I know a lot of photographers

who, you are their goat and to, for you to be so fucking appreciative about it and then seeing how much your kids love what you do and how you guys are working together it is you're a good dude jay thank you i appreciate people don't tell you that enough they fucking should right well thank you and i you know i just i'm just happy to be here and happy to get to hang out and happy to see great music and document pop culture history. You know, this is our weird little fucking sliver of pop culture history.

Like, who fucking knew? And you know what? Another thing that I talk about in my slideshow is that, you know, when I was a kid, right, we subscribed to adolescent stupidity. Like, we did as many stupid things as we possibly could to either try and kill ourselves or go to jail, And I was successful at the going to jail part, but, but, you know, we didn't have the internet to tell us how to act or what to do. And, uh, and, and, uh, because we live in this world, this weird little rock and roll world that, um, we throw this word around a

lot, magic, magical, what a magical show and a magical day. What a magical experience. But the bottom line is what I learned coming back from the pandemic is that all this live rock and roll stuff really is magical. And it really does save our soul. I went and saw Dark Star Orchestra in Santa Cruz back in May

and it was the first show back where it was a pod show but it was all the Santa Cruz hippies and everybody was dancing, nobody was wearing masks, it was outdoors, it was 70 first show back where it was a pod show, but it was all the Santa Cruz hippies. And everybody was dancing. Nobody was wearing masks. It was outdoors. It was 70 degrees. There was golden sunlight dappling through the trees. There were beautiful hippie chicks.

And I'm just like, this is emotional salvation. This is rock and roll saving our souls. And we're fucking back. We're back, baby. Let's get it, dog. Jay, we're back. It makes me happy. I got one last question.

I'll let you go. What do you want to be remembered by, Jay Blakesburg? I want to be remembered as being a good, fair, honest person who created a good and honest and fair to the people that I encounter, no matter who you are, whether you're a music

fan or a fan of me and my work or another photographer. I don't want people to look at my name or my work and be like, oh, that guy's an asshole. I've told my kids from day one, mean people suck. And you don't want to be that mean person.

You go through life treating people well, smiling at people, even if it's just for a split second, and you will have a better life. You put your heart and soul into what you're doing, you will have a better life. You connect with people on any level, you will have a better life. You sit in front of the TV and watch Netflix and bad television your whole life, you're not going to have such a great life. Get out there, interact with people. So I'm going to be remembered

as one of the people who did that, who, who perpetuated that, that feeling, that vibe of mean people suck and just be nice. I want to be remembered for my work also. I want to, I want my work to, I want people to look at my work many decades from now and be like, you know, the way people look at Jim Marshall work many decades from now and be like, you know, the way people look at Jim Marshall, who's another famous photographer from the 60s who's been dead for 11 or 12 years, pictures of Janis Joplin and Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead and Monterey Pop and Hendrix burning his guitar. And people who know his work, you know, revere him as they should. And I do as well. I revere him as well. I want people to look at my work and be like, my work is a continuation of Jim's work. You know, Jim did the 60s,

late 50s, 60s, 70s, and a little bit after, but, you know, and then Blakesburg picked it up in the late 70s and 80s and 90s and 2000s. I mean, you know, I'm 40 years into documenting this shit. That's a pretty healthy body of work. I mean, there's some people that get 10 years at it, five years at it, can't make a living, can't get through, drug casualties, whatever it might be. I've been doing this pretty fucking consistently

for 40 years. Yeah. Let's fucking go, Jay. That's what I'm talking about. Never giving up, being good to people, and finding a way to just keep being the best at what you do. Believe in yourself. Believe in yourself.

You have to. Don't strive for fucking mediocrity. There's enough mediocrity. You know what mediocrity does? It breeds more mediocrity. If you were on stage and you were a mediocre band, your audience would be mediocre.

And so would the next band that's coming on after you that watched you. Yeah. Because it was like, oh, they just phoned it in. They're mediocre. Right? Right. And when it comes to art, music, photography, painting, when you strive for brilliance, it inspires

other people to be brilliant. And when other people areiance, it inspires other people to be brilliant. And when other people are brilliant, it inspires you back, okay? Yeah. All of that shit, music, art, dance, film, photography, graphic arts, drawing, painting, all of it, when it's really good... It's really good.

It's really good, and it inspires us, and it makes us better people as a whole, as a planet. Yeah. Right? You're right. Thanks for being on the show. Love you, man. You're the best. All right. Jay Blakesburg, everybody. Fuck yes. Kick it, boys. Yeah. Fucking two hippies rubbing some ruts.

Fucking they're on a whole lot of drugs. Together, yeah, they're having some fun. Just keep fucking on. Fucking don't want wanna come too fast Maybe He'll put it in her ass Hoping She doesn't pass no gas

Just keep fucking On Third day at the festival He's feeling frisky She's in the corner, two hula hoops round her neck Her titties are swinging, her armpits are looking hairy He's hoping he's sick, will you wait? Fuckin' two hippies rubbin' some rugs

Fuckin' they're on a whole lot of drugs together All right, there we have it. Jay Blakesburg, wasn't that a great interview? Yeah, I'm assuming. You didn't listen. I always listen. Days later. Yeah. Are you going to listen to the podcast now that you're hanging out with me?

I would say I listen to the podcast. I listen to about half the podcast. It depends on the guest, honestly. Kanika, I listened. That was amazing. If it's like a singer-songwriter guy I've never heard of before, generally. Unless you're like, this interview was crazy.

You know, I'm just not into those. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're homies. I think, yeah, so. We're famous people. I listen to those. Shout out to Kanika's interview. That was amazing.

Vulnerable. Vulnerable. Vulnerable. That was one of the biggest, that was the most biggest downloads on the first day we've ever had. Really? More than like Tony Hawk? More than Tony, more than Billy Strings.

Congratulations, Kanika. You are more famous than Tony Hawk. Let's go, Kanika. Let's go. My girl. I love her. William Strings. All right.

I did forget. We need to promote some of these shows. Yeah. Okay. L.A. We're not in L.A. Tuesday. Today?

We start in Phoenix. We start in Phoenix. It's already sold out. Totally almost sold out. Shout out to Phoenix. I don't know what to tell you. 15th, Solana Beach, San Diego. Oh, I love going there.

Because I have a theory that San Diego doesn't actually exist. What? You ever meet anybody from San Diego? Oh, you're from L.A.? My family lives there. They don't, they never, they're not born there. No one is, I don't think San Diego doesn't actually exist. What? You ever meet anybody from San Diego? Oh, you're from LA. My family lives there. They're not born there. I don't think San Diego exists. I'm not going to believe it until I see it.

Solana Beach isn't San Diego. I just never have met anyone from San Diego. I've never seen any San Diego things. There's no... That town's pretty cult-y. Oh yeah, that town's a total cult. I heard it's amazing though. We can't wait to play San Diego. No, I heard it's like a great cult. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I heard it's amazing, though. We can't wait to play San Diego.

No, I heard it's like a great place. Yeah, it's a good place. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying it doesn't exist. All right. And then we're playing in Vegas. We're zigzagging. And then we're going to Vegas on the 16th.

That'll be fun. Yeah. We're playing in the back of a tie-dye shop. What? It's like a festival kind of thing. No, it's just us in the back of a tie-dye shop. Am I doing it? I'm on that one.

Yeah, you are. And then we're in LA, thing. No, it's just us in the back with tie-dye shots. Am I doing it? I'm on that one. Yeah, you are. And then we're in L.A., dude. L.A., your hometown. My fucking Westbrook jersey didn't come in still, which is bullshit. It's Ernie's hometown, too, to be fair. It is, both of ours. And Andy Avila.

Oh, yeah. It's L.A. You guys are kind of an L.A. band. We are an L.A. band. Yeah. We just all moved to different places because we don't like la floyd is definitely not an la guy uh floyd is the east coast yeah he's like the

opposite of la he's he hate well like that's the thing floyd pretends like he hates la and like silver lake but he would die to live in silver lake i would love to live there if i can afford it um so come on out to Los Angeles on the set. Hell yeah. And Kyle's going to be doing that one. Yeah. Kyle. So I'm giving half my opening set to Kyle cause he's just such a good comedian and I want to hear him. Yeah. And it's, that's really nice of you too. Well, I just think it'll be good for the show. I think so. It'll be good. It'll be a little break for me in the middle. Yeah. I'll just warm it up for him and introduce him and he'll be hilarious. Yeah. And then the 18th we're in San Francisco.

Hell yeah. At the chapel. we're in San Francisco hell yeah at the chapel I'm trying to get my sister to come out she lives up there it's great yeah I love the chapel

it's like an old church or something it's an old church I've never played in San Francisco actually San Francisco I went to college there

you know that I went for a semester what do you mean by you went to college I was in a dorm you were old I was in a dorm did you go to classes

yeah I can't believe you went to classes did I tell you this story no you know Holly Bowling yeah the piano player her fucking she was the first person to give me a piano lesson what but you didn't know her i didn't know her her husband was my philosophy teacher what at san francisco state you took philosophy yeah i was majoring i was majoring in philosophy

philosophy now you are the philosopher man hey yeah bro. Yeah, bro. But Jeff's like, hey, go get a lesson from Holly. Really? Gave me a lesson. Holly and Jeff said quit school and go do it. That's the only lesson you ever took. It was legit. Legit. And I'm just doing the math, you know?

Legit, legit. Okay, so maybe they live in San Francisco, so maybe. We go to Nevada City after that. Then we go to Nevada. That's sold out. Lake Tahoe area. Lake taco, Tahoe, Lake Tahoe. It's where they grow all the weed of California.

Hell yeah. We tied. They're really fun. Maybe we have three days off before that. So maybe we'll go spend one day after that. I think it's Nevada city. 19th, 2021st.

Then Nevada city. And then we have Nevada city and then we'll go to Oregon. We're going to try to get into the Nike. Oh, I want to go so bad. I've been saving up. We should, I'm going to try to have my homie who's an employer

to get us into the fucking vault. Tell him I'll spend money, you know? Yeah, I told him. And then we're going to Portland on the 24th and then Seattle on the 25th. And then we got a little break till Denver. A little break and then we got to play the Ogden. I actually never

weirdly never played Portland. Portland's a great city too. I've been a musician and touring. I've never played Portland. Isn't that impossible? Portland's a great city, too. I've been a musician and touring. I've never played Portland. It's just weird. John Craig, he's going to be in town. He should come out and play some. Oh, my God.

I hope. He probably won't. I fucking love John. He's a little too famous for that. No, I think he would. Why don't you ask him? I'm afraid to ask. Why?

He's so nice. I know, but... I only met him that one time. I'm just afraid to talk to John. Too good looking. He's really good looking. You're intimidated by good looking men. I am. I've noticed that. That time. I'm just afraid to talk to John. Too good looking. He's really good looking. You're intimidated by good looking men. I am.

I've noticed that. That's why you keep me around. Shut the fuck up. All right. We got to feel intimidated. This episode's dragging on. That's okay. It's a podcast.

That's what they do. I know. I can't forget. You know, like I hate. We don't have to like rush a podcast. People can just like hit the skip ahead button or like listen. People like it.

Yeah. I get nervous when I put out at like a two hour episode. No, people love that shit. Really? You're killing time. Okay. Well,

it's either that or do nothing. Okay. I get a lot of good feedback on the podcast. Probably the most good feedback I get from people right now is from this. Really? Yeah. Summer camp. Oh yeah.

We kill. By the way, we haven't talked since our summer camp session. Let's fucking go. Oh good. We did the live pod. If you have a festival and you have like a lot of money and you want something cooler in the day, we haven't talked since our summer camp session. Let's fucking go. That was good. We did the live pod. If you have a festival and you have a lot of money and you want something cooler in the day, just hire us.

Especially if you have a lot of money. If you want us to just talk in your living room. You just want to hire us to talk. Make sure you have other cool people there so we don't have to get our own guests. What we're looking for here is for a high profit, low work scenario. I thought that went great though.

Yeah. Yeah. I think so too. All right, guys. I love you. Be safe. Okay. Bye.

We're just stay strong out there. COVID's running rapid like a bad STD. This dog's making me miss my dogs. It's a cute, that's a mellow dog. The other three dogs. She's 14, they said. This dog's 14? Yeah.

That's why it's making me, I have two old dogs yeah yesterday was his birthday one of them shout out charlie 15 years old still killing it every day yeah shout out to charlie greatest dog on earth charlie biggs everybody all right i love you be safe we'll see you next week goodbye i like you too uh oh we're doing round two with r Momplu and the dude from La Special, Luke. You know La Special? He's funny as shit. He was good. What's he doing? I did an interview with him.

Oh, okay, cool. And I did an interview with Ryan Momplu. You know Momplu? Yeah, we hung out. We met at summer camp. We did that. Everyone on Crestro together. Awesome.

And then we got a couple interviews up. We're going to do Wayne Coyne. Wayne Coyne. Yeah, he's from Oklahoma, by the way. We were in Oklahoma yesterday. I forgot. We're going to do Wayne Coyne. Wayne Coyne. From Flaming Lips. Yeah, he's from Oklahoma, by the way. We were in Oklahoma yesterday. I forgot. We're not in Texas.

I'm dealing with that guy, Ike. What's his name? Baron Holtz. Baron Holtz. Very funny actor. Yeah. You should learn his name before the interview. I will, I will.

What? I will. He's been in a lot of stuff. He was in Neighbor. I mean, he was in... He's funny. I know. He's found him down.

He's like the Russian pitcher. Remember that? He's like really good. He's really good at playing like a dick, like a sort of just like a bad guy. Awesome. Well, we got a lot of, I think he's like third cousins with Jake Barinholtz.

Isn't this crazy that it's already. The drummer from Manic Focus. September. It's like halfway through September. Yeah. It's September. What is it? It's September 14th.

No. Oh yeah. This is. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's September 10th today.? It's September 14th. No. Oh, yeah, this is, yeah. Yeah. Well, it's September 10th today. Yeah. It's only four days away.

Tomorrow's September 11th. Wow. I watched that doc. Which one? There's like nine million. Yeah, but the one, it kind of just made me frustrated. Like the one on Netflix that just came out. Oh, I didn't watch that.

That's heavy, dude. I'm kind of out on 9-11 docs. Heavy. I mean, I haven't out on 9-11 docs. Heavy. I mean, I haven't thought about 9-11 for like years. It's been a long time. I can't believe it's been 20 years. Where were you? Like in middle school? Middle school. I was in college already. Really? Yeah, I was a freshman. Old. Yeah.

I hate telling people like, where were you on 9-11 like college? God damn it. Everybody else is like, I was in fourth grade. It was weird though. My friend burst into my door. For is like, I was in fourth grade. It was weird though. My friend burst into my door. For some reason, I left my door unlocked that morning. Let's tell our 9-11

where we were stories. People like these stories. I had my door. For some reason, I had my own dorm room and I had it unlocked and this, my friend burst in.

Yeah. And he turns on the TV and I thought like Michael Jordan died or something and I look and the World Trade Center town. One of them was down. Yeah. It's fucking insane. I was too young to even understand it. Yeah. And he turns on the TV, and I thought, like, Michael Jordan died or something. And I look, and the World Trade Center tower. One of them was down. Yeah.

It's fucking insane. I was too young to even understand it. Yeah. And then my dad, like, it was, like, 6 a.m. in L.A. because it was New York time. And my dad's like, yeah. Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was, like, someone hit one of these towers.

They thought it was just an accident. And then I went to school in the first period, and then I saw the second one hit in eighth grade. And we're like, oh, that's scary. That makes more more sense you're not that much younger than me yeah yeah five years yeah something like that how old are you 40 i just turned 40 i'm seven years older than young okay yeah that makes sense then you were probably in like damn you were in college yeah holy i'm old dude i'm not that old i don't look you look hot i feel young for my age you look hot it's because i don't ever do anything that makes you old, like have kids or go to work at a regular job.

I think having kids ages the fuck out of people, man. No offense. It just does. I think they'd agree with me more than anybody. All right. We got to go. Bye. God damn it.

Guys, I love you. Nick is on tour with me for three months. Join my cult, nickgerlockscult.org. I'll have a new blog up this week. And what's your Instagram so people could follow you? Gridlock27. Why? What's Gridlock?

It's like a nickname I've had since I was a kid. My friend's dad, my last name's Gerlock. He just couldn't remember it ever, so he just started calling me Gridlock. Well, follow Nick. I love you. Be safe out there. Don't. Just be safe.

We got this. Our music community, all the bands are dropping like flies. I safe out there. Don't, um, just be safe. We got this. Our music community, uh, all the bands are dropping like flies. I know guys. Stop getting COVID. Well, there's nothing you could do.

Some people just get it. I can't believe it's a fucking miracle. I have a theory that everyone's getting it from their kids. Now that school's starting. That makes sense. You notice that more people have been getting it and then they're all dads. Yeah. Oh fuck.

I didn't think about that. All right. Well, we love you. We're thinking about you. And, uh think about that. All right. Well, we love you. We're thinking about you. And to all the homies out there, we love you. What are you doing?

Nothing. Okay, we got to go. We got to get to Dallas. Bye. Goodbye, goodbye. You tuned in to the World's Health Podcast with Andy Fresco, now in its fourth season.

Thank you for listening to this episode produced by Andy Fresco, Joe Angelo, and Chris Lawrence. We need you to help us save the world and spread the word. Please subscribe, rate the show, give us those crazy stars, iTunes, Spotify, wherever you're picking this shit up.

Follow us on Instagram at worldsavingpodcast for more info and updates. Fresco's blogs and tour dates you'll find at andyfresco.com. And check our socials to see what's up next. Might be a video dance party, a showcase concert, that crazy shit show, or whatever springs to Andy's wicked brain. And after a year of keeping clean and playing safe, the band is back on tour.

We thank our brand new talent booker, Mara Davis. We thank this week's guest, our co-host and all the fringy frenzies that helped make this show great. Thank you all. And thank you for listening. Be your best, be safe and we will be back next week. No animals were harmed in the making of this podcast as far as we know. Any similarities,

facts or fake is purely coincidental.