Phil Lesh asked fan site Philzone.com to remove its forum after members began badmouthing him and other Grateful Dead band members. His lawyers are on the case. Phil’s handling his own p.r. Poorly. But that’s nothing new. Ever since he started writing warnings that “the band” would stop touring if we didn’t behave ourselves–that came included with our mail order tickets, no less–I’ve had a hard time with his paternalistic attitude.
Here’s a question from the Philzone forum Phil chooses to address:
Subwoofer: “I will say this…. it’s all very odd. Herring leaves under “interesting” circumstances…. so does Sipe…. Molo bows out for a bit but triumphantly returns….Ryan Adams is the most talked about “poor decision” that he’s made, and yet he backs this RA like he’s the second coming…. and he finally finds a gem with Barry Sless(too bad he couldn’t keep David Nelson around a bit more!). But it’s all very mysterious to me….and I’d think that Phil’s fans would be questioning his motives.”
Phil: Jimmy Herring and I had been growing apart musically since the December 04 shows. It seems we worked better together in the context of the Q. We discussed this after the December shows, after Mardi Gras, after the Colorado shows and we both still felt that it wasn’t right after Vegas. Clearly, it would be a mistake to head off on a month long tour together, so rather than forcing the relationship we agreed to go our separate ways sooner than planned. At that point I decided to ask John Molo to do NYE instead of Jeff Sipe as he had more experience with the material- although Jeff will be joining me again in February.
No Jimmy Herring in the band, no mo’. That blows. I’ll say this, I’ve been around both men, and one of them is really cool.