The Good Old Grateful Dead Blog

"'It's the vibe, and the vibe says we really, really, really want it. We want the magic and we want it badly. And making magic is one of those things where you just don't know how or when you do it. Magic happens when the stars are aligned and the energy flows brightly.'

That's how Phil Lesh describes the wondrous interaction between fans and Furthur, his ensemble with fellow Grateful Dead member Bob Weir and young jam-band stalwarts who make their engines roar..."

Read the full article from the Philadelphia Inquirer

From Kid Charlemagne - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"...Although the lyrics are, at first glance, typically oblique and allusive, writers Walter Becker and Donald Fagen have stated that it was loosely inspired by the exploits of the infamous 1960s San Francisco-based LSD chemist Owsley Stanley[2] — although it conflates the core story with numerous other images of the Sixties. This is evident in the following lines:

On the hill the stuff was laced with kerosene
But yours was kitchen clean
Everyone stopped to stare at your Technicolor motor home

The first two lines draw on the fact that Owsley's acid was famed for its purity, and the third line is likely a reference to the famous psychedelic bus named Further, which was used by the Merry Pranksters, who were supplied their LSD by Owsley himself.

The lyric 'You'd go to LA on a dare and you'd go it alone' alludes to a story in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test about a trip taken by chief Prankster Ken Kesey.

The final verse foreshadows Owsley's eventual bust:

Clean this mess up else we'll all end up in jail
Those test tubes and the scale
Just get it all out of here
Is there gas in the car?
Yes, there's gas in the car
I think the people down the hall know who you are"