Conversations with one of Americarsquo;s funniest filmmakers
#259360 in eBooks 2010-02-23 2010-02-23File Name: B00466HQW4
Review
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. SAMS CLUBBy P. H. MundySams club days remind me of a Rolling Stones album title that shredded my late teens self-esteem like cabbage into cole slaw: "Liver than youll ever be." Turns out it wasnt a statement by the band. but the bootleggers who purloined the goods. When Sam got the boot from the Stones. he caught on with Jerry Garcia. and got hired by the Dead.So Sam in his time. like Ben Hur...rode two chariots. just not quite at once. And he brought the Dead what they didnt have...management spine. Curiously. a Brit soaked in a caste and class structure gets scraped off on the Dead. all sharing in common a near-insolvency. but the Dead being "Family" oriented. drinking the Kool Aid. and Cutler coming from a place where they still believe in royalty. Due to his questing spirit in his teens Cutler had learned the idea you could change your cosmic perspective with 1 tab of Blue Cheer. But was it anarchy. or democracy. with the Deads curious. rudderless. consensus decision-making and not-making. that emboldened Cutler to take charge?As he develops his story you learn The Dead were almost financially flat-lining before Cutler. and with the Parkers he jumped to the Code Blue and got the balance sheet out of the red and into the black with endless (200 gigs a year) touring. Cutlers account also masterfully unrolls a new tapestry in Stones and Dead reminiscences. stitching in details not known before. how the Altamont fiasco came to be...and it wasnt a dead albatross to be hung around his neck. tragic as it was.Cutler gives a humorous account of his knock-down. drag-out. roll-around on stage pre-concent with Mr. Antisocial Personality Disorder himself. Bill "I walked out of Treblinka at 5. still alive. and youre not gonna F me around" Graham. but the truth is? They both seem to have been cut from the same cloth. What Graham did for the Airplane/Starship when he took over their management (bankrupt. which is why they had to change their name). Cutler did for the Dead. He ruefully points out that following the Cutler/Parker regimen. the band turned the corner -- were buying houses and cars. while he could afford neither on his salary of $200 a week -- roadies pay at the time. Sam was gone by 1974. long before the Dead were making the Forbes top 40 year after year. and paying their roadies 100 grand a year.Maybe Sam made one mistake...he seems to have lived in those Aviator sunglasses you on the back of the book...and was inscrutable. and unyielding. doing his deals and rolling the combination on his hard-shell briefcase to lock in a load of dough. and undoubtedly a sizeable stash of drugs. Thats a snapshot of who he was. Hes brave enough to show us who he is now. in a couple of contemporary photos. having dropped the shades. gray-haired. even shirtless. tats and moles (man. youre living in Australia! get those checked out at the Derm doctor!). So Sam changed. evolved. But he wasnt there for the Uncle Scrooge rollin in his bankvault stage of the Deads rise. and of course the Stones had scraped him off in America to deal with the aftermath of Altamont and their train left the station. two lights on behind.Sam writes well. and as far as we can see. he meant and means well. When Meredith Hunter got shot at Altamont. it was Sam who showed the courage to leave the stage and go up to the downed man. to see what was going on. and whether he could help. wading through the Hells Angels and the indiscriminately worse biker wannabes who perpetrated and perpetuated chaos at Altamont. and killed the hippie movement by killing in concert.Sam actually lived with heart. just on a different wavelength from the Dead and Assoc. and in fairness to Sam. they didnt practice what they preached. starting with Ken Kesey and the Pranksters. Owsley and the Dancing Babes. and Dancing Bears...they didnt just let him be. truckin his way. They scraped him off too in a power play. Perhaps if hed had the humility to accept the humiliation? But thats not what General Patton does.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Just exactly perfectBy Tyler Roy-HartI dont usually find rock memoirs interesting at all - most rockers arent that interesting as people. are unwilling to get into anything real. or are unable to convey anything meaningful in a coherent way. This one is fantastic. Cutler is insightful and witty and soulful and his voice comes through clearly in the writing. He conveys both a gleeful sense of fun and a clear-eyed view of how the rock lifestyle destroys some of the best people who come into it. Neither naive nor entirely cynical. Cutler provides a rare balanced view.There is. of course. a tremendous focus on Altamont. and the whole book is in a sense structured around laying out Cutler s view of that day. To a certain extent it feels like he is trying to set the record straight or at least get his word in. Thats fair enough. and certainly he brings some interesting aspects of it to light.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. If you were at Altamonthellip;or were fortunate enough to be a reasonably early follower of the ...By The Amazing FezziwigI was a senior in high school when I went to the Altamont free concert with the Rolling Stones. Jefferson Airplane. Santana and others. (Others being the Grateful Dead. whom I had been following since late 1966hellip;they didnt play of course). I found this book accurate. entertaining and a very memorable read. Ive read virtually every book written on the Grateful Dead and The Rolling Stones and found "You Cant Always Get What You Want." to be very well written. If you were at Altamonthellip;or were fortunate enough to be a reasonably early follower of the Grateful Dead. I highly reccomend this well written memoir. Well done. Sam Cutler!
