Just curious:). Here is a video from '69 at the airport w/ the GD and the Stones and you come walking out and someone say's "hey, it's reddy kilowatt". Obviously, it stuck since you are using the name here. So, how did that come about? Also, a gigantic thank you to you, Bob, Furthur, family, and crew for continuing to share the magic w/ us. Long may you run.

Thanks for that ...I MISS HIM ALOT!!!!!!!!!!

'Cause he's ELECTRIC -- boogie oogie oogie!

just listen to that viola lee from asbury park. you will understand. =)

Its from the Merry Prankster days of haight ashbury. Jerry was Captain Trips, Phi was Reddy Kilowatt.

Fantastic video, and Kilowatt is a perfect name for Phil. We know it was the prankster name for him but I also wonder if there is a story behind it...

The following was written by Phil:

"True to traditional practice, some of our apprentice shamans took or were given Acid Test names: "Chief" (Kesey), "Speed Limit" (Neal), "Gretchen Fetchin the Slime Queen" (a cool blonde lady who became Mrs. Babbs); when we started coming around, Jerry became "Captain Trips" because he was continually marveling "What a trip!" or shouting "More trips!" I became "Reddy Kilowatt" or sometimes "Flash," as Jerry named me after a particularly wild gig. Pig already had his name; Billy became (lucky man!) "Bill the Drummer."

From: Lesh, Phil. Searching For The Sound: My Life With The Grateful Dead. Little, Brown. 2005

The following was written by Dennis McNally:

"Obeying an unspoken protocol, Scrib had left the front seats to the band and retreated to the back of the van - limousines are thought too conspicuous - to consider the band's personalities in archetypal terms. Garcia is a powerful bohemian visionary, a shaman of a sort, and his personal style has largely defined the band's social and musical structure. Yet his role is nothing like that suggested by the automatic attention paid to a virtuoso rock guitarist or the guru figure the media have fabricated in his name. The band's candidate for Handsome Rock Star is Weir, the eternal Younger Brother. But on a day-to-day basis, the psychic pivot to the Dead is Phil Lesh, the most aggressive purist, the anti-philistine Artist. It is he who most often and most loudly demands that they dance as closely as possible to the edge of the nearest available precipice. Intellectual, kinetic, intense, he was once nicknamed Reddy Kilowatt in recognition of his high mental and physical velocity. Twenty years later his mind is still exceedingly agile, although on this day he was content to let Garcia dominate the rap."

From: McNally, Dennis. A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History Of The Grateful Dead. Broadway Books. 2002.

Yup, I've read "Searching for the sound". Great book. I highly reccomend it. : )