Features

Phil Lesh Talks Terrapin Crossroads

Photo by Jay Blakesberg

The December issue of Relix hits newsstands next week but heading into Thanksgiving weekend which will feature a free performance by Phil Lesh at Terrapin Crossroads with the Terrapin Family Band (followed by a series of Phil and Friends gigs over the ensuing two weeks), we preview this conversation with Lesh in which he discusses the decision to open the restaurant and music venue.

Rambling with Levon Helm

We had the idea for Terrapin Crossroads when my sons and I played Levon’s Ramble up in Woodstock, N.Y., [in 2010]. It was such a magical day and we came away with a strong desire to do something like that at home. At first, we thought we’d do it at an established venue and take it over for one night a month. The Grateful Dead had been trying to do something like this for years—as far back as 1968, we were talking about having a satellite and beaming it to everybody. So the idea evolved into a place where we would have our own location where we would play and people would come to see us. It also evolved because we didn’t just want to have a nightclub. We wanted to have a place with food, music, art, dance, community outreach and nonprofit events—basically a cultural center.

We went to The Independent in San Francisco when Levon played there and I said, “We would really like to do something similar out here and would it be OK if we used the name Ramble?” He loved the idea and we have a portrait of Levon hanging in Terrapin Crossroads’ Family Room. He’s watching over us.

X Marks the Spot

We discovered this place [in San Rafael, Calif.] which was the Seafood Peddler restaurant. I had eaten there a few years ago and Furthur had done some shows there since they had a ballroom attached to the restaurant. Jill [my wife] and I were driving around and we drove in there just to look at it because we remembered playing there. There are these warehouse-like buildings behind the restaurant and someone had put graffiti of the Steal Your Face logo with “buckle up kids written over it” on one of those buildings. We both thought of it as a sign.

Grate Ideas

We are redoing the our main Grate Room to have windows and be more like a gathering place where we can have weddings, bar mitzvahs, dance events and even weekly salsa nights. The district we’re in the middle of is heavily populated with Latino immigrants and I want to learn to salsa dance.