Grateful Dead Dose ‘Playboy After Dark’ Crowd in Graphic Novel, Share Unreleased Version of ‘St. Stephen’

Ahead of the release of the graphic novel Grateful Dead Origins on August 4th, Z2 Comics have shared a hilarious excerpt from the band’s early days — as well as a previously unreleased live performance of “St. Stephen.”

This rendition of “St. Stephen” — a track off 1969’s Aoxomoxoa — is from a live performance at the Fillmore West in San Francisco in August 1968, marking the first West Coast live performance of the song. The concert, recorded to 9-track analog tape, also includes the first known performance of “William Tell Bridge.” The unreleased recording accompanies the graphic novel and is available on vinyl as part of the deluxe edition.

Grateful Dead Origins was written by Chris Miskiewicz and illustrated by Noah Van Sciver, and chronicles the band’s early years, specifically their “transformation from a bar band performing as the Warlocks to becoming the creators of their own sound and forefathers for the jam-band culture.”

The excerpt, which you can read below, tells the story of when the band appeared on the Hugh Hefner-hosted television show Playboy After Dark on January 18th, 1969. In typical Dead fashion, the band spikes the coffee with acid shortly before the show. “This is exactly the kind of prank that Neal [Cassady] would have pulled!” Bob Weir tells Ron “Pigpen” McKernan.

“We’ve seen so many photos and videos of the Grateful Dead in the Eighties and beyond, and even quite a bit from the Seventies,” Dead archivist and legacy manager David Lemieux said in a statement. “The Sixties, though, largely remain a visual mystery in terms of the band, especially the earliest days, 1965 and 1966, but also through to 1969. Grateful Dead Origins brings the band’s beginnings to life, artistically, verbally and musically.”

“We’ve all seen some photos of the band onstage in those early days, and heard plenty of music from 1966 through 1969, but everything else, how they became the Grateful Dead, has been obscured from the history books only through lack of documentation,” he continued. “While Origins isn’t a discovery of primary archival documents from this era, it visually, creatively and tastefully fills in the gaps that the historical record’s archive might have missed. We’re thrilled to have worked with such a talented team to write and illustrate this early part of the Dead’s story.”

Lemieux, Miskiewicz and Van Sciver will discuss Grateful Dead Origins at the first-ever virtual Comic Con on July 23rd at 3 pm P.S.T. Z2 Comics Presents: Soundtracks to Fandom will stream on Comic Con’s official YouTube channel.

This summer marks the 50th anniversary of the Dead’s classic album Workingman’s Dead. To commemorate the event, the band will reissue the record on Friday. In addition, the podcast The Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast examines the creation of the record, as well as the extensive Workingman’s Dead: The Angel’s Share — two and a half hours of studio rehearsal tapes on streaming only.

Sacha Baron Cohen crashes right-wing event posing as country singer

Sacha Baron Cohen gatecrashed a right-wing event in Washington while posing as a racist country singer — where he encouraged the crowd to chant along to lyrics about liberals getting “chopped up” or “injected with the Wuhan flu,” viral footage shows.

Dressed as a pot-bellied singer in denim dungarees and a cowboy hat, the “Borat” comedian tricked organizers of Saturday’s event by the “Three Percenters” militia group by producing a last-minute big-money donation, according to reports and organizers.

The professional prankster then took to the stage in Olympia, getting some the audience to chant along with extreme lyrics — with organizers saying a team of armed security guards stopped them from pulling the plug.

Footage shows Cohen singing about former President Barack Obama, coronavirus expert Doctor Anthony Fauci, CNN and “mask wearers” getting injected with the “Wuhan flu.”

He also wished the same for “sushi eaters” — and worse for “Chinese people,” singing that they should “nuke them up like in World War II.”

Turning on the World Health Organization and journalists, he got cheers when suggesting they should “chop them up like the Saudis do,” seemingly a sick reference to murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

“Hillary Clinton, what we gonna do? Lock her up like we used to do,” he sang — while joking that Bill Gates’ manhood was “micro soft.”

Event organizer Matt Marshall said they “tried to pull the plug” in horror at the “incredibly racist song,” but said Cohen’s team included “four armed-security on the generator, so we couldn’t even cut the power.”

When they finally “bum-rushed the stage,” the “Who is America?” prankster and his entourage fled in a waiting ambulance that pretended to be on an emergency call, Marshall said in a video interview.

Other images suggest Cohen then came back, pretending to be a video journalist while wearing a gray wig and beard.

“They spent a lot of money to make us look bad,” Marshall said, later later tweeting, “Thanks for the publicity. Can’t wait for the video of me throwing Cohen off the stage.”

The Three Percenters’ chapter — a group founded by longtime militiaman Michael Brian Vanderboegh — said it was “appalled” with the “clown-face” comedian who sparked “repugnance.”

Some on Twitter were less-then convinced, however.

“If it was so ‘racist’ to them, why were people clapping along until they realized he was trolling? Hmm,” one asked.

The group insisted it has members of “every race, religion, and creed” and Cohen’s “bad taste and behavior represents the antithesis” of the group’s ideals.

The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the Three Percenters as an anti-government militia group, saying the name refers to the “dubious historical claim that only 3 percent of American colonists fought against the British during the War of Independence.”

Cohen has yet to comment on the appearance. Some speculated that it could have been a stunt for a new series of “Who is America?” but Showtime has not commented, said Variety.