Remembering Phil Lesh and the Terrapin Crossroads Community Spirit – Marin Independent Journal

I felt a pain in the heart of the Marin music scene following the passing of Phil Lesh, bassist for the Grateful Dead, who died last week at the age of 84.

Looking back at some of the interviews I did with him and the stories I wrote about him over the years, I came to realize how responsible he was for cultivating a spirit of community among Marin musicians and music lovers, especially those who Grateful Dead universe.

For almost a decade, until it closed in 2021Lesha’s Turtle Crossing, a restaurant, bar and music venue that he opened in San Rafael in 2012.was the catalyst for this community spirit.

A friend of band member Levon Helm, Lesh came up with the idea for an informal music venue near his Marin home after a Midnight Rambles show Helm held in his barn in Woodstock, New York. After visiting one of the Rambles with his two sons, Lesh left determined to have a place just like his own.

“It was pure magic,” he told me one day, recalling that night. “Everyone was there to experience the music, and that’s what we’re trying to achieve here: to create a place where people can lose themselves in the music, where all they want to do is be there with the music and with their community. »

Tired of decades of touring with the Dead and their various spinoff bands following the death of Jerry Garcia in 1995, Lesh, who was in his 70s when Terrapin opened, could now play when he wanted, with whomever he wanted, without having to be on the road. all the time.

“After 45 years, I’m done touring,” he said at the time. “The music is still mesmerizing, but I can’t cope with buses, hotels and planes.”

Lesh also suffered from serious health problems for a long time, which became another reason to stay close to home. After a liver transplant in 1998, he survived bouts of prostate and bladder cancer.

He first envisioned a “music barn” in Fairfax, the city where he once lived, which prides itself on its hippie heritage and jokingly calls itself “Mayberry on acid.” But when plans for the location were derailed by NIMBY neighbors, he and his wife Jill, who lived nearby in Ross, had to look for another location, eventually taking over the Peddler Seafood restaurant and adjacent Palm Ballroom in San Rafael.

After what Lesh called the “debacle in Fairfax,” this time the Leshes felt nothing but good spirits. Not only was the place already built and settled, it was in the San Rafael Canal area, where the Grateful Dead had a rich history. At the time, he was re-reading Bob Dylan’s autobiography, Chronicles, and driving around with his wife, reminiscing about the rehearsals the Dead held with Dylan at Club Front, the band’s longtime rehearsal space and hangout nearby. corner on nearby Front Street.

It seemed like a good omen when they stopped by for lunch one afternoon and noticed graffiti with the Dead’s “Steal Your Face” skull and lightning bolt logo, also known as “The Stealie,” and the words “Buckle up, kids” in black spray paint. on the wall at the edge of the parking lot.

“When we saw it, Jill and I looked at each other and said, ‘Why not this place?’ – he recalls. “The owner had no intention of leaving, but he was in the mood to do something different. It just so happened that our neighbors in Fairfax did us a favor.

Harkening back to The Dead’s 1977 album Terrapin Station, Lesh called the place Terrapin Crossroads. The company’s logo was a pair of dancing turtles, one playing a banjo and the other playing a tambourine.

For years, top national and local bands performed sold-out concerts in the 300-person ballroom, renamed the Grate Room. But the real action took place in the bar. On any given night you could walk in and see Bob Weir, Jackie Greene or John Mayer playing free impromptu jams. Lesh formed the family band Terrapin, which included many local musicians who can now proudly say they once shared the stage with the great Phil Lesh, a Grateful Dead icon.

I once wrote a column about the younger generation of Deadheads migrating to Marin, drawn by the magnet of Terrapin Crossroads and the history of the Grateful Dead in the area. But even casual rock fans appreciated the cool that Lesh created in his home country.

“In addition to being a meeting place for regulars and locals, Terrapin has become a must-see destination for music lovers from all over the country,” I wrote in one more piecethis time about rumors of Terrapin’s imminent closure. “With Grateful Dead photos and memorabilia on the walls, it was a place where you came to visit friends from out of town. You showed them Tam and Terrapin.

This was when the pandemic made it nearly impossible to carry out an operation as complex as Terrapin Crossing.

“As magical as Terrapin is, there were some challenges running a conventional location this size,” Lesh told me in an email interview in June.

After the bar, restaurant and music venue closed, Terrapin remained afloat for a time, hosting carefully-documented concerts and dinners at nearby Beach Park, a three-quarter-acre open space along the San Rafael Canal that had previously been a bit of a… used thorn. in sight before Lesh leased it and renovated it, investing more than $200,000 in improvements.

But when Terrapin’s lease expired, Loesch and his wife announced Terrapin was closing. However, they left the door open so that it could return “in one form or another somewhere in the future.”

Somewhere down the road was McNear’s Beach Park in San Rafael, where Lesh’s sons Graham, 37, and Brian, 34, stepped in to fill the void, reigniting the Terrapin’s collective spirit with a day of it. Sunday Dream festivals over the past two summers. Lesh performed at the first concert of this year in July. I was hoping to see him at the second tournament in August, but he got sick with COVID and had to pull out. This was a bad sign.

When I heard he died, I remembered what he told me about the death of Levon Helm, who was the inspiration for Terrapin Crossroads. Helm was 71 when he died of cancer at a Manhattan hospital in 2012, the year Terrapin opened. Lesh was unable to visit him before his death, but he spoke with his daughter Amy, who assured him that her father died peacefully, surrounded by family and friends.

“The best thing was that they all came and sang to him,” he said. “They swear they saw him smiling, even while sedated. If I’m not mistaken, they sang as he passed, and I hope that’s true. I couldn’t have asked for a better farewell.”

Contact Paul Liberatore at [email protected].

Originally published: October 31, 2024 12:00 pm PT