GD on Playboy After Dark

I just got the DVD set Playboy After Dark, Collection Two, featuring the Dead’s January 18, 1969 appearance.

Everyone is in very colorful clothes – Jerry in a serape! and sans eyeglasses.

First song is “Mountains of the Moon,” with Jerry playing a slotted-head Martin acoustic – with nylon strings, I’m pretty sure. “St. Stephen” appears to have been edited after the fact, in two places. The song fades out during the jam after “Fortune comes a-crawlin'” – frustrating for us, of course, but that’s showbiz.

Before the music, there’s brief chat between Jerry and a tuxedoed Hugh Hefner. “Is the hippie scene changing now?”

“Yeah, well, we’re all big people now.”

Hef asks about the two drummers – “…obviously for a purpose -”

“Mutual annihilation,” Jerry explains. “They… chase each other around. It’s like the serpent that eats its own tail, you know, and if you can stand between ’em, they make big figure-eights on the sides of your head.”

“I don’t think I’m going to stand between them…”

Worth seeing; not sure if it’s worth buying. Guests on this program (in order of the billing in the opening credits): Sid Caesar [legendary comedian], Elias & Shaw [comedy team], Grateful Dead, Brendan Hanlon [pretty generic ’60 lounge singer], Noel Harrison [middling pop star], and Sydney Omarr [astrologer]. Also appearing are Hef’s girlfriend, Barbi Benton, in a minimally-speaking role, and a couple dozen pretty boys and girls as furniture.

The boxed set of three discs includes six episodes of the show, spanning November 1959 to February 1970. Guests include Tony Bennett; Joe Williams; Count Basie; Phyllis Diller; Lambert, Hendricks & Ross; Pete Seeger; Sarah Vaughn; Cal Tjader; Johnny Mathis; MJQ; Tommy Smothers; George Carlin; Don Adams; Deep Purple; Smokey Robinson & the Miracles; and others.

I’ve got a couple of extra copies of this DVD collection, sent over by the producer, who sponsored the GD Hour for a couple of weeks. First two people who email me with the name of the instrument TC plays on “Mountains” get ’em. Include your snailmail address.

UPDATE: First winner is Rob Folger.