• https://www.dead.net/features/dead-world-roundup/out-we-jumped-warm-mad-night-neal-jack-and-ratdog
    Out We Jumped In The Warm Mad Night (with Neal, Jack and RatDog)


    "The usually blue windows of the Boott Mills in the night are piercing, heart-breaking with a blue that's never been seen before... terrible how that blue shines like a lost star in the blue city lights of Lowell."

    Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)
    from Doctor Sax

     

    BoottMills

    Boott Cotton Mills Museum, Lowell Photo: Gary Lambert

    No one who was there will soon forget what happened in the shadow of the old cotton mills of Lowell, Massachusetts on the warm mad night of August 12th, when Bob Weir, RatDog and a small but fortunate group of locals and latter-day pilgrims gathered in Jack Kerouac's hometown to participate in a remarkable event.

    The setting was the Lowell National Historical Park, a monument to the city's role in the Industrial Revolution, located on the site of the Boott Mills, the former textile factory that was the heart of Lowell's working life, and which now serves as a museum devoted to the history of the mill and the city.

    The occasion was a commemoration of another kind of revolution: the 50th anniversary of the publication of a book that shook the foundations of American literature, and forever changed the lives of many who read it: On The Road, the magnum opus of the Beat Generation, written by Lowell's most distinguished literary son, Jack Kerouac. The famous scroll on which the book's first draft was written in an astonishing rush of sustained creativity has come home to Lowell for awhile, open to public view in a small gallery in the Boott Mills Museum complex, where it will remain on display until September 14, after which it will continue on a tour of the United States that began in 2004 (for a complete itinerary, go here).

    (Some facts about that scroll: It is not, as has often been said, a single roll of paper, but many individual pieces which Kerouac painstakingly cut to size, taped together and fed through his typewriter so that he could write continuously, uninterrupted by page changes; the scroll is on the road under the auspices of Bob Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts football team and an avid collector of important cultural artifacts, who bought this particular treasure at auction in 2001 after it had passed through various hands over the years; interestingly enough, Irsay also was the winner in the bidding for Jerry Garcia's "Tiger" guitar about a year after he scored On The Road. You've got to give the man credit: he's got great taste in power objects.)

    Adjacent to the Boott Mills Museum is Boarding House Park, a peaceful and lovely landscaped space that takes its name from the old brick building that forms its western boundary, and which provided housing for many of the mill workers. On the north end of the park, on the bank of the Merrimack Canal, is a small stage that is the home to the annual Lowell Summer Concert Series. The director of the series, John Marciano, also serves a National Park Ranger, and the inspired act of bringing RatDog to Lowell to commemorate On The Road was largely the result of his hard work, in close collaboration with our dear friend Dennis McNally.

    Marciano could not have had a more appropriate or avid co-conspirator than Mr. -- no, that's Dr. McNally. Not only is Dennis the longtime publicist and official historian for the Grateful Dead, but he also holds a doctorate in American History from the University of Massachusetts. And his doctoral thesis just happens to have been on the subject of one Jack Kerouac. Said thesis was later adapted into one of the most widely praised Kerouac biographies, Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, The Beat Generation and America. If you haven't read it, do so, now.

    As On The Road depicts members of a restless generation lighting out across America in search of new experience and enlightenment (and FUN!), it would be hard to find a more inspired choice to commemorate the book's anniversary than Bob Weir and RatDog. In carrying on the creative mission of the Grateful Dead, Bobby helps extend a countercultural continuum in which Kerouac and the Beats are seminal figures and inspirations. And for Weir, there is a far more direct connection: Neal Cassady (1926-1968), the irrepressible force of nature who was immortalized (as "Dean Moriarty"), the traveling companion of Kerouac (as "Sal Paradise") in On The Road, and who later drove the famous bus known as "Furthur" for Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, in the wild 60s California cultural milieu that gave birth to the Grateful Dead. Of the many remarkable things about Neal, there may be nothing more so than this: very few people get to be pivotal figures in one of a century's great cultural upheavals; Neal was smack dab in the middle of two.

    Before the RatDog show began, Weir, McNally and John Marciano took the stage for an illuminating (and hugely entertaining) round of stories of Jack, Neal and how we all got here. Bobby summed up quite succinctly the effect that On The Road had on him and countless others of his generation: "I read that book and left home." There were also wild tales of Neal's unique communication skills (he was said to be able to carry on several conversations at once with different people in different rooms, and somehow have it all make sense) and his equally legendary abilities as a driver (it's claimed that he could see around corners).

    Talk Photo: Susana Millman

    Instead of the usual house music before the show and during intermission, the audience was treated to recordings of Kerouac himself, reading poetry and passages from his novels. His voice, unencumbered in the open-air venue, floated through the streets of Lowell and echoed off the walls of the old cotton mill, off the high school where Jack was a football hero, and the library where he devoured the works of Whitman and Thoreau and Thomas Wolfe. Maybe if the wind was right it even drifted the two or so miles to Edson Cemetery, where Jack was carried to his final rest in 1969.

    Memorial Opening passage of On The Road, with Lowell sky reflected in the marble of Kerouac Memorial, Jack Kerouac Park, Lowell. Photo: Gary Lambert

    Kerouac's words gave way seamlessly to RatDog's music, the improvisational impulse that informed On The Road made manifest in the inspired playing of the band, who on this night added a special guest to the mix: Dennis McNally, who took the microphone just after intermission and delivered a splendid reading of the opening passages of On The Road, accompanied on piano (just as the Beat poets were often accompanied by great jazz musicians) by Jeff Chimenti, who with perfect empathy underscored Kerouac's words with bits of standards and bebop classics.

    And then, deep into the second set, Dennis returned, during a ferocious jam in the middle of "The Other One," to read the novel's great closing segment. As with the earlier sequence, he read from Kerouac's original and uncensored autobiographical draft*, in which the characters still had their real names, so that the immortal final sequence, which in published form read this way...

    "I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty"

    ... instead ended with "I think of Neal Cassady." which made for a stunning transition to the closing verse of "The Other One," in which Weir depicts one of his great life-altering moments:

    Escapin' through the lily fields
    I came across an empty space
    It trembled and exploded
    Left a bus stop in its place
    The bus came by and I got on
    That's when it all began
    There was cowboy Neal
    At the wheel
    Of a bus to never-ever land

    otherone

    Photo: Susana Millman

    Every song in Bob's beautifully crafted setlist alluded, either explicitly or obliquely, to the event's thematic thread, and the spirited abandon of the musicians did full honor to the wild legacy of Neal and Jack.

    Thanks to John Marciano, Dennis, Bobby, RatDog and all involved for this amazing, inspiring event. It was one for the ages.


    "I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center-light pop and everybody goes, 'Awww!'"

    Jack Kerouac (aka "Sal Paradise")
    from On The Road

     

    *For those interested in reading the original 1951 draft as contained on that fabled scroll: it has just been published by Viking Books.

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  • RUSCO
    16 years 3 months ago
    Great Story
    I was born in Lowell so it was cool for me to read, thnx!
  • Default Avatar
    sinaloaverde
    16 years 4 months ago
    lowell
    I made a pilgrimage to Lowell back in about 84 and the place was vacant and the folks had no idea who Kerouac was...seriously, man, it was bizarre to see all the blank stares as we asked where Crackerjack was buried...people had never heard of him...so we finally found his grave and drank some sunrise beer and whatnot and left some bad poetry for him, etc....
  • direwolf02
    16 years 5 months ago
    What A Show
    The Venue was Perfect and the band Played with a Drive that I had not heard from them before
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16 years 9 months


"The usually blue windows of the Boott Mills in the night are piercing, heart-breaking with a blue that's never been seen before... terrible how that blue shines like a lost star in the blue city lights of Lowell."

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)
from Doctor Sax

 

BoottMills

Boott Cotton Mills Museum, Lowell Photo: Gary Lambert

No one who was there will soon forget what happened in the shadow of the old cotton mills of Lowell, Massachusetts on the warm mad night of August 12th, when Bob Weir, RatDog and a small but fortunate group of locals and latter-day pilgrims gathered in Jack Kerouac's hometown to participate in a remarkable event.

The setting was the Lowell National Historical Park, a monument to the city's role in the Industrial Revolution, located on the site of the Boott Mills, the former textile factory that was the heart of Lowell's working life, and which now serves as a museum devoted to the history of the mill and the city.

The occasion was a commemoration of another kind of revolution: the 50th anniversary of the publication of a book that shook the foundations of American literature, and forever changed the lives of many who read it: On The Road, the magnum opus of the Beat Generation, written by Lowell's most distinguished literary son, Jack Kerouac. The famous scroll on which the book's first draft was written in an astonishing rush of sustained creativity has come home to Lowell for awhile, open to public view in a small gallery in the Boott Mills Museum complex, where it will remain on display until September 14, after which it will continue on a tour of the United States that began in 2004 (for a complete itinerary, go here).

(Some facts about that scroll: It is not, as has often been said, a single roll of paper, but many individual pieces which Kerouac painstakingly cut to size, taped together and fed through his typewriter so that he could write continuously, uninterrupted by page changes; the scroll is on the road under the auspices of Bob Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts football team and an avid collector of important cultural artifacts, who bought this particular treasure at auction in 2001 after it had passed through various hands over the years; interestingly enough, Irsay also was the winner in the bidding for Jerry Garcia's "Tiger" guitar about a year after he scored On The Road. You've got to give the man credit: he's got great taste in power objects.)

Adjacent to the Boott Mills Museum is Boarding House Park, a peaceful and lovely landscaped space that takes its name from the old brick building that forms its western boundary, and which provided housing for many of the mill workers. On the north end of the park, on the bank of the Merrimack Canal, is a small stage that is the home to the annual Lowell Summer Concert Series. The director of the series, John Marciano, also serves a National Park Ranger, and the inspired act of bringing RatDog to Lowell to commemorate On The Road was largely the result of his hard work, in close collaboration with our dear friend Dennis McNally.

Marciano could not have had a more appropriate or avid co-conspirator than Mr. -- no, that's Dr. McNally. Not only is Dennis the longtime publicist and official historian for the Grateful Dead, but he also holds a doctorate in American History from the University of Massachusetts. And his doctoral thesis just happens to have been on the subject of one Jack Kerouac. Said thesis was later adapted into one of the most widely praised Kerouac biographies, Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, The Beat Generation and America. If you haven't read it, do so, now.

As On The Road depicts members of a restless generation lighting out across America in search of new experience and enlightenment (and FUN!), it would be hard to find a more inspired choice to commemorate the book's anniversary than Bob Weir and RatDog. In carrying on the creative mission of the Grateful Dead, Bobby helps extend a countercultural continuum in which Kerouac and the Beats are seminal figures and inspirations. And for Weir, there is a far more direct connection: Neal Cassady (1926-1968), the irrepressible force of nature who was immortalized (as "Dean Moriarty"), the traveling companion of Kerouac (as "Sal Paradise") in On The Road, and who later drove the famous bus known as "Furthur" for Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, in the wild 60s California cultural milieu that gave birth to the Grateful Dead. Of the many remarkable things about Neal, there may be nothing more so than this: very few people get to be pivotal figures in one of a century's great cultural upheavals; Neal was smack dab in the middle of two.

Before the RatDog show began, Weir, McNally and John Marciano took the stage for an illuminating (and hugely entertaining) round of stories of Jack, Neal and how we all got here. Bobby summed up quite succinctly the effect that On The Road had on him and countless others of his generation: "I read that book and left home." There were also wild tales of Neal's unique communication skills (he was said to be able to carry on several conversations at once with different people in different rooms, and somehow have it all make sense) and his equally legendary abilities as a driver (it's claimed that he could see around corners).

Talk Photo: Susana Millman

Instead of the usual house music before the show and during intermission, the audience was treated to recordings of Kerouac himself, reading poetry and passages from his novels. His voice, unencumbered in the open-air venue, floated through the streets of Lowell and echoed off the walls of the old cotton mill, off the high school where Jack was a football hero, and the library where he devoured the works of Whitman and Thoreau and Thomas Wolfe. Maybe if the wind was right it even drifted the two or so miles to Edson Cemetery, where Jack was carried to his final rest in 1969.

Memorial Opening passage of On The Road, with Lowell sky reflected in the marble of Kerouac Memorial, Jack Kerouac Park, Lowell. Photo: Gary Lambert

Kerouac's words gave way seamlessly to RatDog's music, the improvisational impulse that informed On The Road made manifest in the inspired playing of the band, who on this night added a special guest to the mix: Dennis McNally, who took the microphone just after intermission and delivered a splendid reading of the opening passages of On The Road, accompanied on piano (just as the Beat poets were often accompanied by great jazz musicians) by Jeff Chimenti, who with perfect empathy underscored Kerouac's words with bits of standards and bebop classics.

And then, deep into the second set, Dennis returned, during a ferocious jam in the middle of "The Other One," to read the novel's great closing segment. As with the earlier sequence, he read from Kerouac's original and uncensored autobiographical draft*, in which the characters still had their real names, so that the immortal final sequence, which in published form read this way...

"I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty"

... instead ended with "I think of Neal Cassady." which made for a stunning transition to the closing verse of "The Other One," in which Weir depicts one of his great life-altering moments:

Escapin' through the lily fields
I came across an empty space
It trembled and exploded
Left a bus stop in its place
The bus came by and I got on
That's when it all began
There was cowboy Neal
At the wheel
Of a bus to never-ever land

otherone

Photo: Susana Millman

Every song in Bob's beautifully crafted setlist alluded, either explicitly or obliquely, to the event's thematic thread, and the spirited abandon of the musicians did full honor to the wild legacy of Neal and Jack.

Thanks to John Marciano, Dennis, Bobby, RatDog and all involved for this amazing, inspiring event. It was one for the ages.


"I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center-light pop and everybody goes, 'Awww!'"

Jack Kerouac (aka "Sal Paradise")
from On The Road

 

*For those interested in reading the original 1951 draft as contained on that fabled scroll: it has just been published by Viking Books.

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No one who was there will soon forget what happened in the shadow of the old cotton mills of Lowell, Massachusetts on the warm mad night of August 12th, when Bob Weir, RatDog and a small but fortunate group of locals and latter-day pilgrims gathered in Jack Kerouac's hometown to participate in a remarkable event.
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next best thing to being there
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or at least the spoken part, very quiet Bob - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Spanish Jam
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Man, it was a night to remember! I can't wait for the live CD set to be available online. Gary's right, the setlist was both clever and touching. The music, readings and reminiscences transcended a night of rock 'n' roll to a more theatrical karmic collective connection to Neal, Jack and the networks then, now and yet to happen. What a blast it was to be part of it! Dennis, great job reading the text, too! As a lifelong Lowellian (the building to the left of the stage, The Mogan Cultural Center, is named after my uncle Pat), these were the signature moments of the scroll visiting Lowell. Wow! What a night! Thanks to all involved in putting it on! And everyone there for the vibe! Jimmy Pollard Lowell, MA USA
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An illuminating account of what must have been a most ignitable evening of cavalcading stars!
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I first read Keroauc right after high school,about the same time I started seeing the Dead,around '82.My life took a sharp turn, and I've been enjoying the ride ever since. I would like to thank Bob for sharing some precious memories of Neal behind the wheel, and it was an inspiring show from Bob and Ratdog...Thanks guys!!
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"I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center-light pop and everybody goes, 'Awww!'"Jack Kerouac (aka "Sal Paradise") from On The Road Mad To Be Saved by Eric Abrahamson Russell Street Berkeley Library 2 PM, Tuesday, 8/21/07 Fuck me There ain't no fuckin' way I can't see The day Why me I can't pay Fiddle dee-dee Let us pray The hell with me I can't say Why I'm not free Today
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Great songwriter!
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Ties holdin ghost rails under Mexican sun Another one, the last. Ramon together again we ride The Furthur roar of chaos blazes At last, someone to talk to! Go Team!
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thanks to all involved. This is probably something everybody knew but me, but there's a spoken-word Kerouac tribute album out there with all kinds of people reading segments of, presumably, their choosing. As I discovered when I did a search for Robert Hunter on iTunes (which I don't have open right now so I don't have the title handy). But all kinds of cool people. Patti Smith. Michael Stipe. Steven Tyler. Johnny Depp! Inexplicably (to me) nobody read the Shearing bit, or more exactly, the bit about the musicians who had to follow Old God Shearing, which is my favorite part of the book.
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When I look back & think of shows I attended, I see more and more the context they were in, and I see how lucky I've been to have been invited to participate even if only as a member of the audience, but then again, the best audience. Git Back Truckin' on!
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It was a beautiful venue, fantastic weather, good friends, not a bad seat to be had and Ratdog played like I personally have never heard them play before. The opening Cassidy immediately took you away with it's seamless beauty, and Bird Song (a personal favorite) had me dancing under the trees like I was 16 again. I had an absolute blast and really felt the intimate beauty that they intended, to honor Jack Kerouac's life. Thank You Ratdog! It is a memory I will always look upon and smile.
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Thats a beautiful piece. I got to hear "The Other One" this summer in Charlottsville, and man does Ratdog do the most amazing job with it. From the first hints of it in whatever jam they're engrossed in (Dum-da, dudda Dum-da) to that last verse! Ooooooh, I wish I'd heard this one!!
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I was just emailing McNally about another matter entirely, and mentioned that I was bummed at having missed this and wondered if there was video. No video, he says, but there's audio of this (and other Ratdog shows) at: https://www.munckmusic.com/wms/ratdog/index.html CD or download, the whole show. On the Road is at the beginning of the second set. August 12, Lowell. This may be old news to some, but for what it's worth!
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This proves there are no coincidences as around this time in August that I ordered another copy of 'On The Road' to replace a lost copy! Outstanding remembrance of Kerouac and great that he's honored in his home town! And Great article...huzzar!!! Bill aka Magickal Childe walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread. "The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner" S.T. Coleridge 1798
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The Venue was Perfect and the band Played with a Drive that I had not heard from them before
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I made a pilgrimage to Lowell back in about 84 and the place was vacant and the folks had no idea who Kerouac was...seriously, man, it was bizarre to see all the blank stares as we asked where Crackerjack was buried...people had never heard of him...so we finally found his grave and drank some sunrise beer and whatnot and left some bad poetry for him, etc....
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I was born in Lowell so it was cool for me to read, thnx!