VOTE JAMMERS

With only two months remaining until the November 3rd presidential election, it's crunch time for voter registration. So even though the summer concert season is winding down, the folks at Headcount are making one last push to get live music fans registered in time to make a difference at the ballot box. High Times asked Andy Bernstein, author of Phish bible The Pharmer's Almanac and co-founder of Headcount (with Disco Biscuits bassist Marc Brownstein), about his group's efforts on tour with The Dead, Dave Matthews and Phish, plus dozens of smaller acts.

HT: What is Headcount?

AB: Headcount is a voter registration organization that is built around improvisational music. We send people to register voters at shows. We have street teams in pretty much every major market in the US. We send a crew of volunteers with them on tour, and they register voters in huge numbers. Mostly we're affiliated with jam bands, but it does go beyond that.

HT: What was the genesis of Headcount?

AB: I think, like a lot of people, that I was feeling helpless. I saw things happening in the world that hurt to think about. There was a moment when I said, "I'm going to stop being angry, and I'm going to do something. The idea came fairly quickly to start a voter registration drive within the jam scene. The audience is very change-oriented, but they are also disaffected. These are people, who, if they vote, they're likely to vote for change, and right now they may not be voting. That was the genesis of the idea, but that's not necessarily how the organization functions. We are completely non-partisan. We're not trying to find people to vote for change, we're just trying to find people to vote.

HT: Why do you think the combination of music and politics works?

AB: There's a lot of history there. One thing about the jam scene is that the aesthetic comes right from the sixties counterculture. People look the same and have similar tastes in music as the crowd at Woodstock, yet at that time, it was very political. The one thing that has been lost is politics. It's not a core part of music for a lot of people anymore, but I believe that there's latent activism within this community. It went away - politics weren't cool, chic, or whatever, but I think that right now people are alarmed. It's always been a progressive audience. If this organization helps bring that out in people, then that's something we're really proud of. We're giving people, in many cases, their first taste of activism. These are people who have always cared, but never gotten involved. Headcount makes it easy to get involved because it's your favorite bands. You go on a website, give your email address, answer a few questions, and then you get a call saying, "Hey, do you want to come work a table at a show?" It's the scene you like, your friends are there, and you get to attend the concert for free while you're working. That's their taste of activism, and they're making a difference. They're interacting with strangers and getting them involved. I think these people are going to stay in activism.

HT: Who were some early supporters of Head Count?

AB: Marc Brownstein and I started it in January, and the first thing we did was make a board of directors. Mark knew a few people from working in and being around the music scene, including Al Schnier from moe. I knew a few people, and then Al brought in Bob Weir. Once we had Bob Weir, everybody else wanted to be on the board.

The first day of Bonnaroo, Dave Matthews agreed to be in a commercial for us. The next day, we got The Dead, then we got Trey (Anastasio), and then we were really excited. We get on stage to tell the Bonnaroo crowd about Headcount, tell them that they are going to be the money shot for our commercial, and 50,000 people go fucking crazy... The guys from Superfly, the guys from Bonnaroo, Bob Weir, they've all been great. Bob talked about us on stage every night, and it's the first time he's talked about politics on stage in 35 years. It's not that the organization is so great; it's the cause that is so important to him. All these people believe in the cause so much that the'?re willing to do things they normally wouldn't do. Mike Gordon, Moe, and The Disco Biscuits all played for free.

Another really important part of our story is that Mark Brownstein, a famous musician with an enormous following in the scene, is personally doing this. It doesn't just have his name on it. He had his first baby a week ago, and he and I talk about Headcount every day. He's in charge. All of the musicians and volunteers have such important and demanding lives, and they're coming up big for us. The Dead and Dave Matthews are paying for a lot of the costs for us to be on tour, and it's the band members themselves who are paying out of their wallets. This is something that really matters to them.

HT: You have this very effective infastructure in place. What becomes of it after November 3rd?

AB: On November 3rd, I'm going to sleep. Nobody who is involved in Headcount realized how much work it was going to be. Imagine all these people giving all that they have to give, working 40 hour unpaid weeks. We're almost high on what we're accomplishing, but when you're sprinting to the finish, you're not thinking about how you're going to walk to the locker room.