Jimmy Tebeau

Today, Daniel chats with the iconic pioneer & founder of Schwagstock music festival, Jimmy Tebeau. Jimmy’s also front man for The Schwag, a mega-fun Grateful Dead tribute band, and has also been a member of The Jerry Garcia Band.

Jimmy’s intro into the sacramental & spiritually transformative use of psychedelics goes back to 1989 when he jumped on the leg of a Dead tour in Wisconsin.
He describes a particularly eye-opening LSD experience where he felt deeply connected to the energy of the entire venue and how it brought him to spiritual heights that blew his mind!

Jimmy details the genesis of Schwagstock, the purchase of land in Missouri to stage the event, & the subsequent unjust raid, shut-down, & land-grab by the local authorities & federal govt.

Jimmy’s describes his served 10 month sentence at a low-security prison camp, where he worked in the music department, started a band called the Fed-Heads 😂, & hung with the director of Die Hard!

Quotes:

Daniel: I remember being in the audience (at Dead shows), realizing that I’m not the one moving my body here—instead, my body is being MOVED & DANCED (by the energy (of the scene)

Jimmy: (on improv) we say the song is the excuse for the jam, and the jam can go in any direction any night, and we try to make it different every night, making crazy songs & people are diggin’ it

Jimmy: (on moving on, emotionally, post-land loss & prison) I realized I can’t beat it…so I started accepting it, and I hit a point where I stopped letting it bother me. If I give in to feeling endlessly burned, it’s just gonna make my life harder & more stressful. Now I have cred as an outlaw musician which is great!

Jimmy: (on perspective) You can walk outside & see dog crap on the sidewalk & comment on that OR you can look at the blooming flowerbed next to the crap and comment on that….I’d rather talk about how beautiful the flowers are!