Every culture has right-of-passage rituals. The Amazonean Satere-Mawe tribe requires young boys to wear gloves filled with bullet ants. In Indonesia, there’s a Balinese-Hindu ceremony that involves the filing of the upper canine teeth so their points become blunted. There are innumerable rituals related to initiation and coming of age, such as sweat lodges, intoxications, circumcision, scarification, and other symbolic ordeals signifying the passage from adolescence to adulthood.

I was thirteen when Mom sat me down for the talk. She asked me to await her in the kitchen of our one-story home in Folsom, beside her impressionist landscape paintings on the easel. The gravity of her demeanor outmatched the whole birds-and-bees conversation — which was more or less a library book passed across the kitchen counter when I was in the 2nd grade. The seriousness of her tone was just shy of her divorce announcement from my Dad.  

So, there I was in a Y2K wings haircut, Led Zeppelin t-shirt, and baggy jeans, when she pulled up a chair beside me, sighed, looked into my eyes, and smiled. She then invoked everything I’d gotten into since giving up my carry-a-skateboard-around era: electric guitar, the Allman Brothers, Bob Marley. I listened with pursed lips and a furrowed brow, preparing to defend myself and my juvenile (yet timeless) tastes, before she once more slid across the table a crucible of my development, this time being a CD: GRATEFUL DEAD… the best of… (and most portentously) SKELETONS FROM THE CLOSET. 

We’d listened to the Dead before, for sure, but it was always background music. This was the first time it’d been presented as my birthright to understand, accept, and appreciate. From that moment, grasping the CD case across the table, my world became a hallucinatory kaleidoscope of everything Grateful Dead; I’d skip, gleefully, the five meager blocks to Dimple Records, where’d I’d scour the CD sections for anything Dead-related. I started in chronological order, with The Grateful Dead, Anthem of the Sun, AoxomoxoA, Live/Dead, Workingman's Dead, American Beauty. Meanwhile, Mom borrowed Garcia: An American Life and Dennis McNalley’s A Long Strange Trip from the public library and left them on my desk. She gave me DVDs like The Grateful Dead movie, Festival Express, and Dead Ahead.  I powered through my homework so I could focus on my real studies. 

Meanwhile, my hair grew out down to my shoulders, I would only be seen wearing moccasins, corduroy pants, and denim jackets. I spent hours each day bunkered in my room playing over the tracks with my guitar, working and reworking each of Jerry or Bob’s parts until they were fully integrated into my style. It was my voluntary form of bible study or filing my chompers down. My compulsion was abetted by the mid-aught evolution of the internet, where I discovered Archives.org. On a nicely lit weekend afternoon, I would be found with a guitar in my lap, headphones on, listening to bootlegged concert after concert. As I got deeper into high school, I’d download the recordings and burn them onto CDs before driving hours into the wilderness, just to listen to them on my car stereo as loudly as possible. I could tell you which tour a recording was from, who was on keys, the guitar Jerry was using, and likely the venue of that particular performance. I could tell all of this within the first 20 seconds of a song, on a bad day. In order to understand a Sisyphus reference in “The Wheel,” I picked up Greek mythology. I read about Isis and Osiris, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's “Kubla Khan,” nuclear fears of the Cold War era, ship of fools, Bodhisattva, wharf rats in San Francisco in the 60s, and the Vietnam War and the anti-war movement. I listened to Jerry Garcia’s bluegrass band Old and In the Way and the JGB, which introduced me to bluegrass, R&B, blues, and Motown.

You might think that my obsession impacted my high school experience in a negative way. Luckily, there were about six of us who all mysteriously converged in a jazz band and fell into the same spell. Disciples in the church of Jerry Garcia, we moved about high school with full motility. We got access to any social group we wanted, allowances from the rougher crowds, special privileges from endeared baby boomer teachers and hall monitors, and even propositions from unexpected suitors (toward the end). We’d jam out to “Not Fade Away” in the jazz room before Mr. Gaiser would bust open his office door telling us to get out. 

While all the benefits were welcomed, nothing would err us from our practice, from our devotion. We weaved ourselves into multivalent exposures of this lifeworld through the riffs of “Slipknot” or through the cryptics in “Ripple.” We were the Deadheads, like ripples in still water, with no pebble tossed, or wind to blow.

It took less than a year of my obsession for Mom to decide Steph and I were ready for the real experience. She’d recognized my trajectory from the start, but Steph, my younger sister, had yet to become a true believer. Mom determined it was time to place her thumb on the scales after a friend had taken us to see (what was left of) Lynyrd Skynyrd at the Vacaville County Fair. I’m not sure whether it was the crowd-long confederate flag or the mud wrestling pit on the way out, but she booked our first family Grateful Dead concert — her first since the 1982 passing of Jerry Garcia. Mom couldn’t imagine a Grateful Dead concert without The Talisman, but the opportunity to educate us on the culture, in the flesh, was compelling enough to bring her out of retirement. She appreciated that Phil Lesh brought in a rotating cast of players to renew the songs, instead of trying to recreate the old versions. It was more within the spirit of The Dead, she said. So we went all out. 

The show was Phil Lesh and Friends, on New Years Eve, at the Bill Graham Theater in San Francisco, December 31, 2004. Fairfield had completely flooded, and shelter in place orders had been sent out, but Mom was committed to getting us there, so we drove the wrong direction, two hours into the Central Valley, and circumvented the deluge. I woke up in Union Square to Jack Sparrow knocking on our car window, asking Mom for a miracle. The miracle that night was Mom getting us to San Francisco before the show started. I remember parking in an underground structure and seeing the hippy pilgrimage for the first time. Out front of the Bill Graham were dozens of makeshift booths and vendors peddling dancing bear trinkets, bootleg cassettes, corn dogs, mushroom chocolates, Stealie swag, and crystals… so many crystals. 

Mom kept tight surveillance on Steph and I as we passed through a bonafide Diagon Alley of trinketry. There were humans draped in all interpretations of outfits, laughing, twirling, laying on the floor, swaying, and peddling wares (“three for $20 my man, no deals”).  

Mom led us up the balcony, which was the unofficial mom-approved section. The air was thick with smoke and rank with smells that could never be recreated in words. A group of professional thirty-year-olds sitting behind us asked us who we were here to see. Steph immediately announced “John Mayer” to vindicate herself. She would soon see the way.  

Being the opening act, John Mayer approached the stage with two other band members to the applause of, at best, a hundred people. In fact, some people deliberately exited the room, preferring the beer line or the pisser. As a fledgling musician, I respected John Mayer’s talents but it seemed that my predictions of his translatability to this crowd were proving true. But then, as he began this slow blues number, wailing on the guitar like some mix between Buddy Guy and the Slowhand himself, I couldn’t help being compelled. He had smartly left his wonderland backstage and came out as a blues artist. How couldn’t he, with the likes of fucking Pino Palladino and Steve Jordan playing beside him! The jazz nerd in me convulsed to this surprisingly dutiful nod to blues. Even still, the audience was more or less unmoved. In fact, the chatter was so loud I’m surprised John Mayer didn’t end the set early. But he continued with grace. It is deeply ironic that a decade later he becomes probably the most celebrated Jerry Garcia replacement with Dead & Company.

Mayer soon left the stage and the hippies descended into the pit. The crowd became so dense that a ruinous earthquake could have wiped out the patchouli populations of The Bay, Sonoma, and Humboldt in one fell swoop. As I mentioned before, the best thing about Phil Lesh and Friends was that he invited a range of extremely talented and unique musicians to interpret Grateful Dead songs. Perhaps the most provoking to Mom and I was the inclusion of Bryan Adams to the roster. Yes, “Summer of ‘69” Bryan Adams. Yes, “Cuts Like a Knife” and “Run to You” Bryan Adams! The dude somehow went from wielding a pocket knife as a model undresses to singing “Scarlet Begonias.”  

Without much delay, Phil Lesh and Friends, consisting of Joan Osborne (Yes… what if god were one of us), Larry Campbell, Barry Sless, Rob Barraco, John Molo, and Bryan Adams, emerged. On stage was a feast of gear with speakers stacked to the ceiling, reminiscent of the Wall of Sound in the famous Winterland concerts. There were pedal steals, dozens of guitars, a grand piano, two drum kits, bass stacks, and dozens of microphones so aesthetically placed out anyone would’ve taken to the shine. I admit, Bryan Adams looked badass up there with his emo haircut and denim suit. The man looked like a rock star, and remarkably limber for what must have been his advancing years. I was impressed.

The members picked up their instruments and started noodling until one-by-one they all connected on this heavy — and I mean heavy — jam on the E-chord, which went on for perhaps five minutes before they kicked off “Not Fade Away.” This was different from the Grateful Dead, for sure. It was heavier and tighter, profoundly powerful but balanced in improvisation within the bounds of the original note choice and stylings. But there was a spirit there that everyone seemed to welcome. The room erupted in movement. 

We finally awoke from this rapturous fugue state to an unexpected soundtrack for the midnight countdown — “Sinfonia Antarctica.” I recall thinking some drugs would have helped contextualize the track for me, but alas, in hindsight I still can’t understand why they played that song, which would be a great score for a Leni Reifenstahl film. And right at the crescendo, from the ceiling dropped a human riding a giant disco ball; an homage to Bill Graham himself, who descended from the rafters, clung to a sphere of mirrors, every New Year’s Eve celebration of the 70s. 

As we welcomed the first seconds of 2005, Phil and his buddies kicked off the second set with “Truckin’” (thank god) and Adams took over on lead vocals. His performance was a mix of brilliance and moments where he appeared lost. Nonetheless, the raw edge he brought to the stage on the vocals seemed to stop time. His voice introduced a range and inflection I’d never before heard in any of the Dead’s music. It felt alive to me, present. We were in it, Steph included. Bryan fucking Adams demonstrated further versatility by leading “Friend of the Devil” and “Dire Wolf” as well, two songs that are at opposite ends of the Grateful Dead's genre spectrum. He effortlessly navigated both styles, earning well-deserved applause from the audience despite dropping guitar picks, forgetting lyrics, and tripping here and there, which seemed like oddly nervous behavior for an old rocker. By 1:30 AM, they were just starting their third set and we weren’t going anywhere. The last thing I recall was Bryan Adams’ spellbinding rendition of the ballad “Stella Blue,” a song I had spent countless nights listening to. And so the night slipped away to the tune:

In the end there's just a song

Comes crying like the night 

Through all the broken dreams

And vanished years

The next day I learned it wasn’t Bryan Adams. It was Ryan Adams, a young up-and-coming alt-country artist. A sense of relief washed over me.

What transpired next was something perhaps only a Bryan Adams song could depict. All the obsession and intellectual investment I had put into the Grateful Dead over the years would soon be converted into a stranger, more libidinal drive to become Ryan Adams. What I first learned and experienced was his incredible ability to write a ballad. His songwriting was more compelling and raw than anything I had heard before, unlike the Grateful Dead in so many ways though clearly influenced by them. His albums were well-crafted and his lyrics were more self-referential and articulately beautiful. They were love letters. I understood why Phil Lesh was compelled. Also, besides his music, Ryan was, in many ways, a heart-throb. As a pubescent musician, yet to have sewn oats beyond my palm, I liked the sound of that. 

So gone went the curly hair, which I inherited. I took my sister’s straightener and spent endless daily sessions trying to replicate my do into Ryan Adams’ Anglo fuck-boy styling (something I hadn’t experimented with since my bleached-tip days in the late 90s). I kept the jean jacket but ditched the corduroy for the full denim suit. I ditched the moccasins for the boots. Ray Bans replaced aviators and acoustic guitars stood in for electric. And I also got moodier during performances, which were starting to become a more regular experience for me. 

Jerry Garcia had his serious addictions and womanizing ways that made him a difficult character to embrace at times, but he was also brilliant, innovative, and ultimately humble. In many ways, Ryan Adams' bratty attitude resonated in ways the Grateful Dead had grown out of. By eighteen years old, I could disarm a room with an improvised snottiness between tracks, feeding on negativity for empowerment. I liked the idea of using my precious feelings as utility for songwriting, and perhaps to gain attention. 

 All this followed me into college, where unchecked personality developments culminated into a deeply confused identity my freshman year in Santa Cruz, where I was greeted by a Grateful Dead exhibit every time I waltzed into the McHenry Library. In the spirit of the Dead, Ryan Adams uploaded live shows onto Archive.org as well. Night after night I’d listen, studying the songs and the way that Ryan Adams conducted himself on stage. I learned his entire catalog, including his plethora of half-baked songs. His interviews became scripts for my personality. His reputation in the media became my permission to be a pessimist, and to expect to be loved for it. It was obviously okay to be rough and mean, on occasion, if I were both smart and sweet at the same time, right? This was a winning combination. It became mine.

Like the Grateful Dead, Ryan Adams went through many eras. This was his Cardinals era, which admittedly modeled the Grateful Dead’s practice and philosophy. And damn, the music really was impressive. Even my jazz friends, who are easily put off by much of the pop music world, admitted its appeal. 

Meanwhile, Mom took me to all the Ryan Adams concerts; whenever he was in Northern California, we were there. Like the old Deadhead days, we traveled far and wide to see him. And his shows were always incredible. His ability to chat with anyone in the crowd, to remove that barrier between the performer and audience, was a special skill. It really felt like he was becoming a family friend, if not a familial member. When Mom checked in on me in college, we’d have a whole conversation just on “Ryan.” He was in many ways the older brother I was desperate to be, but also was, and also could never be. 

What I hadn’t realized was how self-absorbed, self-referential, and closed I had become. I was possessive, dramatic, and stubborn. In many ways, I really was Ryan Adams. I pushed away people who had shown a lot of care and patience towards me. But I didn’t care, because they didn’t appreciate the charm of my winning combination.

Around this time Ryan Adams abandoned his Cardinals to take a break from music entirely. Reports of his drug habits resurfaced in the media. Meanwhile, I drank. I yelled at people. I used my growing notoriety as a musician as leverage in social settings. But, like Ryan, I was upset; I still felt I was owed more. 

On February 13, 2019, Mom sent me an article with the headline: “Ryan Adams Dangled Success. Women Say They Paid a Price.” By this point, I was hardly surprised. After his divorce from Mandy Moore, he started awkwardly boosting Phoebe Bridgers, a teenager, on social media. He covered an entire Taylor Swift album, and joined Jenny Lewis on a string of shows. All of it was off-putting, but using his stardom to manipulate young girls was another matter entirely. 

I recently tried putting on one of Ryan Adams’ older albums, but I found it difficult to hear past him being an asshole, or maybe it was me. Unfortunately, many of my formative memories are tied up in his bullshit, and for that I needed to atone.

Recently, I put on “Heaven” by Bryan Adams. I leaned back, atop my paisley bed cover, in my room full of plants, crystals, Ray Ban glasses, mushroom prints, and anthro-ecology books, and I listened:  

Oh thinkin' about all our younger years

There was only you and me

We were young and wild and free

Now nothing can take you away from me

We've been down that road before

But that's over now

You keep me comin' back for more