Legendary Grateful Dead bassist, Phil Lesh got one more reminder of what a long strange trip it’s been just before a special 78th birthday concert at Portchester New York’s Capitol Theatre featuring Lesh, the Terrapin Family Band, Steve Winwood of Traffic and other famed rock bands on March 19 of this year.
Fire Captain Larry Miano of the “Harry Howard Hook and Ladder Fire company #1” in Port Chester wracked his brains last January for something special to give Lesh before the upcoming performance, but needed lightning to strike
He surfed the net looking for Grateful Dead related notions, came across renowned Alameda, California artist John Frankel’s Facebook page
Just like that of a deadhead who ‘needed a miracle every day’ and got his magic ticket by happenstance or divine good fortune outside a dead show back in the day, Miano’s search paid off.
The Captain beheld a photo of a San Francisco Giants/Grateful Dead themed fire helmet Frankel painted and wears to games now and then and the rest was history in the making.
In a burst of revelation, Miano shouted, “AWWHHH! That’s It! Why didn’t I think of this before?” he said in a telephone interview from New York state.
“It’s Phil’s birthday and we gotta get him a helmet ,” he proclaimed, dead set on the mission.
Lesh would soon become the grateful beneficiary of a Grateful Dead themed, tie-dyed Happy Birthday firefighter’s one of a kind helmet.
He phoned Frankel, a world class specialist in gold leaf, acid etched glass art and pin striping master who has a penchant for the Grateful Dead. “We gotta make it a little personal,” he told Frankel
Miano spelled out a few guidelines, including a helmet fronts-piece shield with the name Phil Lesh and the names of his wife, Jill, sons Grahame and Bryan, and grandson Levon.
“He knew right from the get what to do,” said Miano.
The rest was up to Frankel, who said “ he gave me free rein,” putting the artist in the challenging position of how to adorn the plain, black leather headgear and make it a fitting tribute. No small task, given the limited space, rounded contours and ovular support struts that make for an uneven surface on a medium that is not the typical template for three d art.
“The fix was in,” said Miano, referring to the cross-continent conspiracy that had just hatched.
He shipped the blank helmet to Frankel in the first leg of what would be its own, 7,000 mile, long, strange trip.
Frankel took his first step in the journey by sketching the top of a domed shaped helmet, which divides into eight, ribbed, pizza slice like segments.
He envisioned a tie-dye paint surface across the whole helmet and then had to decide which iconic dead logos to place and balance across the psychedelic hemisphere.
Frankel selected a variety of Dead album cover images including the “lightning skull, Steely” dancing bears and crow , the iconic skeleton with roses, a Terrapin Station turtle playing Lesh’s bass, and an Uncle Sam skeleton tipping his hat.
Then began the painstaking, weeks- long task of getting each dead element and names in proportion and continuity, despite the multiple, rounded ribs on the helmet’s top surface.
Numerous media and materials and techniques went into the art piece.
“I used sign paint, car enamel and sign enamel paint, airbrush and multiple, fine point hand brushes, along with gold leaf for the shield,” said Frankel describing the meticulous, weeks-long, 30+ hour project
He wrapped the project up in early March, shipped it back to Miano and his fellow Deadhead fire crew and Miano burst into amazement upon opening the package. “Are you kidding me? This is for real?”
The members of his company, whose fire rigs and station house are adorned with Dead logos and song lyrics were equally blown away.
The guys at the firehouse all chipped in to make the piece happen.
Being a Deadhead at the station “pretty much follows. You pretty much have no choice one you are in the door,” said Miano, a retired police officer and something of a neophyte in band fandom with only 12 years of immersion .
Frankel –himself a retired firefighter of decades in Berkeley California, is no stranger to the Dead and Phil shows, and knew that there was one more dose to drop in to the evolving trip.
He had to add one last touch to the tribute: the name “Cody.”
Cody is dead, and because of that Phil is alive, and grateful, a perfect homage to the many ironies existential to the band and the lyrics that underpin so many of its songs.
The Dead’s music is fraught with flirtations with death and life, dark and light, doom and resurrection, and the Cody, Phil phenomenon added a new, crystalline note to the saga.
In December of 1998 , Cody, an organ donor, fatefully intersected with Lesh to bestow upon him a longer, strange trip and lease on life when Cody’s liver was successfully transplanted into Lesh at the Mayo Clinic. This sort of cosmic connection, a sort of guided coincidence, involves synchronicity, a phenomenon often experienced by the band in its myriad journeys.
“It’s the smallest thing in the helmet, but it’s the biggest thing,” said Miano.
“If it wasn’t for that, Lesh wouldn’t be here.”
“I knew that had to be part of the spirit of the helmet,” said Frankel. “Cody is part of Phil, literally.”
And another birthday for the veteran musician brought more life, love, ,legend and lore to the Dead, thanks to Frankel and Miano.
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