The Good Old Grateful Dead Blog

Grateful Dead: The Long, Strange Trip

2012-01-19T09:24:00.000-05:00

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is proud to present a major exhibition devoted to a truly unique American rock and roll band, Grateful Dead: The Long, Strange Trip. The exhibit will open on Thursday, April 12, as a part of the 2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Week events...Grateful Dead: The Long, Strange Trip explores the band from a non-linear point of view. Individual sections within the exhibit will be devoted to Grateful Dead as a recording group and a touring band, the fans who devotedly followed them, tapers and fellow travelers (people who were important to the band). It will include finished and working manuscripts for classic songs, handwritten notes from legendary taper Dick Latvala, artifacts from original sound designer Owsley “Bear” Stanley, and promoter Bill Graham’s Father Time robe and Grateful Dead Hotline answering machine...Additional highlights include:

· Five Jerry Garcia guitars, including his Travis Bean TB5
· Mickey Hart’s custom-painted drum kit
· Two Bob Weir guitars, including his first Ibanez “cowboy” custom guitar
· Several original lyric manuscripts, including “Truckin’,” “Box of Rain” and “Sugaree”
· Several original Grateful Dead-related artworks, including images from Workingman’s Dead, Without a Net and Fillmore Auditorium poster art
· Bill Graham’s “Father Time” robe

Click here for the full article.

Grateful Dead Drummer: Jerry Garcia 'Wasn’t Really Happy Playing' at Band's End

2012-01-18T17:20:00.002-05:00

Leaving the Grateful Dead behind in 1995 was as much a defining force in drummer Bill Kreutzmann's life as was forming the band with Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan 30 years earlier. And, in some ways, he's still dealing with the fallout. As Kreutzmann discusses exclusively with Rolling Stone, when the group disbanded following Garcia's untimely death, he took off for Hawaii and disappeared for awhile. Part of the reason for Kreutzmann's reclusive period was to honor his word to his fallen bandmate and partly to get his health – and his head – back together. Surprisingly, he says that he believes the Grateful Dead were at the end of the line, even if Garcia had survived.

Read the full piece here.

Jerry Garcia Back From The Grateful Dead

2012-01-05T10:04:00.005-05:00

Renowned music documentary filmmaker Malcolm Leo and veteran personal manager John Hartmann have secured an agreement to produce a feature length documentary on music icon Jerry Garcia. After a lengthy pursuit of the rights, Leo will direct and also produce with Hartmann. The Leo/Hartmann Productions pic will be built around a 3-hour conversation that Leo conducted with Garcia in 1987. The historic interview was shot on negative film with studio quality sound and lighting. The footage presents a compelling portrait of the cult hero at the height of his success. Leo intends to blend an unprecedented amount of never-before-seen performances, documentary footage, and rare home movies.

Read the full article on Deadline.com

Phil Lesh to Open Restaurant with Performance Space

2012-01-04T17:07:00.001-05:00

"The Grateful Dead's Phil Lesh has found a location for Terrapin Crossroads, a restaurant/performance venue that he's been planning to open for some time. The space is in San Rafael, California – north of San Francisco, the town where the Dead had their headquarters and rehearsal space for more than two decades..."

Grateful Dead - Winterland Arena - 1972-01-02

2012-01-02T16:43:00.000-05:00

Grateful Dead - Here Comes Sunshine (12-19-73)

2011-12-19T15:43:00.000-05:00

Grateful Dead, Long Beach Arena, December 13, 1980

2011-12-13T11:23:00.001-05:00

Source: SBD -> Cassette Master -> Reel -> Dat (48k) D
Lineage: Dat (Sony D8) -> Sound Devices 744T -> Samplitude Professional v10.02 ->
Transferred by: Charlie Miller

Examining links between Judaism and the Grateful Dead

2011-12-09T09:27:00.000-05:00

By Jeremy D. Goodwin in the Boston Globe.

"A tribe of like-minded believers, with nomadic tendencies, who assimilate into the broader culture but then congregate together for ceremonies seeking spiritual fulfillment - it’s a description that might fit, broadly speaking, for the Jewish community.

Or the community of Deadheads, those most faithful fans of the granddaddy of jambands, the Grateful Dead.

A link has long been posited between the worlds of Judaism and of the band. One professor presented an academic paper on the perceived connections at a 2007 symposium on the Dead held at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Now it’s the topic of a weekend event commencing tonight at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Falls Village, Conn. Playfully called “Blues for Challah’’ (a pun on the 1975 Dead album “Blues for Allah’’), the confab will feature Grateful Dead-inspired meditation and prayer, an examination of Jewish themes in Dead lyrics, and guest rabbis who will muse on their experiences straddling both worlds. Organizers are expecting 50 or more attendees, mostly (if not exclusively) Jewish, who will bunk down at the compound and make connections between their religious and musical lives in the woodsy setting of the Connecticut Berkshires.

Is there really a connection here?"

Full piece on BostonGlobe.com

This Just In: The Pizza Tapes - Extra Large Edition

2011-12-06T10:35:00.000-05:00

Contact XXXX XXXXXX
(XXX) XXX-XXXXXX
XXXX.XXXXXX.XXXXXX@gmail.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Pizza Tapes - Extra Large Edition
Classic Grisman/Garcia recordings released in expanded format for download.

Long before Napster, bit torrent, and free Wilco albums, David Grisman’s Acoustic Disc label had an interesting window on the strange intersection of stolen music and record promotion.

It began with an informal, once-in-a lifetime jam session that brought guitar icons Jerry Garcia and Tony Rice together with their mandolin-picking host David Grisman at Dawg Studios on two successive evenings in February 1993. But from there the tapes lingered as Rice and Grisman returned to recording the now classic Acoustic Disc project, Tone Poems, and Garcia got back to the Grateful Dead’s hectic touring schedule. It’s hard to say what might have happened next, with the three collaborator’s entrenched in recording and touring behind other projects, if not for a pizza delivery driver with light fingers and good taste in music who, as the legend goes, pocketed Garcia’s copy of the rough mixes while making a delivery.

Almost immediately after the entire tape was mysteriously aired on WBAI in New York City, fans started to approach Garcia asking him to autograph their copies of the unreleased sessions and the Grateful Dead soon confiscated boxes of bootleg CDs at concerts. Perhaps most infuriating to Grisman was the fact that the bootleg contained rough mixes, purloined from his studio archives, that didn't realize the full potential of the tracks. After several years, the “official” Pizza Tapes CD was finally released in 2000 and soon became an acoustic classic and one of Acoustic Disc's most popular releases.

Now Acoustic Oasis, Grisman’s download based label, has released the Extra Large 170-minute edition of this legendary session, including 16 previously unissued alternate takes in addition to the original master takes in their original sequence. This unique collection also features more of the personal repartee, which made the original release so endearing and insightful - the anatomy of this very special jam.

Founded in 2010, www.acousticoasis.com is a download based record label and distributor focused on Grisman’s various collaborations, including other Grisman Garcia releases and a selection of hand picked guest artists.

For review copies, images, and/or additional information, please contact: XXXX.XXXXXX.XXXXXX@gmail.com

Grateful Dead: Lakeland Civic Center, November 28, 1980

2011-11-28T17:03:00.000-05:00

There are soundboard versions of this show floating around but this Charlie Miller audience remaster is incredible. This show is worth it for no other reason than the second set-opening "Feel Like A Stranger"...Damn.

Taking it Furthur – Waking the Dead

2011-11-23T09:42:00.000-05:00

"Who'd have thought that forty-six years after playing their first gig together, Bob Weir and Phil Lesh would still care so much about their music? It would have been forgivable if after so much time, their live show had ground down to a well-rehearsed routine or nothing more than a workmanlike celebration of their greatest hits; there are plenty of classic rock acts on the road that give their audiences just that and still manage to send them home happy.

But, simple crowd-pleasing has never been the forte of anyone associated with the Grateful Dead. From the very beginning, they've asked more than that from their audience. Being a Deadhead has always been more of a back and forth two-way conversation between the artists and fans. It's never been simply about consuming pre-digested entertainment that can be carelessly disposed of and forgotten as easily as a fast food wrapper. There's always been lots of gristle to ruminate over and chew on as the music Bob Weir and Phil Lesh are conjuring these days continues to demand so much of the listener. In the public imagination, The Grateful Dead may always remain as little more than a psychedelic band - a throwback to the summer of love who lull their soft-headed fans with utopian ballads about peace and contentment. Fortunately, that's only the tip of the iceberg as anyone who's followed the music's nearly fifty year history knows..."

Read the full article, by Dale Rangzen, at Cannabis Culture

Grateful Dead, Hofheinz Pavilion, University of Houston, November 18, 1972

2011-11-18T15:30:00.000-05:00

The "Playin' in the Band" from this show ranks #3 on "The Best of the Grateful Dead Project's" list of the ultimate versions of the song. Check out their PITB list here and have a listen below.

Set I: Promised Land, Sugaree, Mexicali Blues, Loser, Black Throated Wind, Tennessee Jed, El Paso, Big Railroad Blues, Box Of Rain, China Cat Sunflower-> I Know You Rider, Beat It On Down The Line, Brown Eyed Women, Around & Around, Casey Jones

Set II: Bertha-> Greatest Story Ever Told, He's Gone, Mississippi Half Step, Sugar Magnolia, One More Saturday Night

Encore: Uncle John's Band

Grateful Dead in the New York Times

2011-11-16T15:17:00.000-05:00

Now this is interesting!

The New York Times website has an archive of all of its Grateful Dead-related content available to read. This includes items like Pigpen's death notice from 1973, an Academy of Music review from 1972, and interesting bits from 1976, 1978, and a whole bunch more.

Well worth some time rooting around.

Grateful Dead Road Trips eBay auction

2011-11-15T11:40:00.000-05:00

Get it here. Auction details:

Opened and played once. Please remember, PAYPAL only. Thanks.

From Dead.net: "

1976 was a pivotal year for the Grateful Dead. After an 18-month hiatus that saw just four Bay Area appearances by the band, but also a phenomenal studio album, Blues for Allah, and a slew of solo projects, the Dead returned to the road at the beginning of June ’76. Mickey Hart was officially back in the fold after a long absence, and the band came back with a batch of new songs and fresh approaches to playing their old ones. It was the summer of America’s much-ballyhooed bicentennial, the country was still going through Watergate withdrawal, and we needed our Grateful Dead back!

This latest edition of our Road Trips series, Vol. 4 No. 5, was drawn from two shows early on what was dubbed by many Heads at the time as the GD’s “comeback” tour. It contains the truly awe-inspiring complete June 9, 1976 Boston Music Hall show (just the third of the tour, but you’d never guess that), and also a handful of hot tracks from the June 12 show at the same venue. For a band that hadn’t played together in eons, the Dead sound remarkably self-assured and on-the-ball throughout.

This release does not contain a bonus disc.

Boston Music Hall concert from June 9, 1976

TRACKLIST
CD 1:
1. Cold Rain and Snow
2. Cassidy
3. Scarlet Begonias
4. The Music Never Stopped
5. Crazy Fingers
6. Big River
7. They Love Each Other
8. Looks Like Rain
9. Ship Of Fools
10. Promised Land

CD 2
1. St. Stephen>
2. Eyes of the World>
3. Let It Grow
4. Brown-Eyed Women
5. Lazy Lightning>
6. Supplication
7. High Time
8. Samson and Delilah
9. It Must Have Been The Roses

CD 3
1. Dancing In The Street>
2. Wharf Rat>
3. Around and Around
4. Franklin's Tower
Bonus tracks from 6/12/76
5. Mission In The Rain
6. The Wheel
7. Comes A Time
8. Sugar Magnolia>
9. U.S. Blues>
10. Sunshine Daydream"

Visit the auction listing here.

Grateful Dead's Lesh postpones discussion of Fairfax project after signs posted near his Ross home

2011-08-18T08:55:00.001-04:00

A proposed Fairfax music venue was dropped from a Town Council agenda Wednesday at the request of Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, who was unnerved by signs opposing the project posted in his Ross neighborhood.

The council had been set Wednesday night to discuss Lesh's proposed 8,250-square-foot Terrapin Crossroads "music barn" at 2000 Sir Francis Drake Blvd. in Fairfax. The plan calls for a two-story wood and glass barn-like building on the site of a former gas station and auto repair shop, next to the Good Earth Organic & Natural Foods store.

Lesh, 71, asked that the item be pulled from the agenda due to actions taken by opponents, said Lesh's wife, Jill. She said someone posted signs reading "No Terrapin, Please," along her husband's normal morning walking route near their home in Ross.

"They must have done it in the middle of the night after watching where he walks," she said Wednesday. "It felt a little weird and creepy."

Officials didn't know who had posted the signs.

Fairfax Town Manager Michael Rock said, "Nobody put their name on it. It's a cowardly act."

Jill Lesh said she and her husband were also disturbed that opponents put negative fliers on cars that were parked at St. Rita's Church in Fairfax during a child's funeral. Lesh has proposed paying St. Rita's to use some of its parking during performances at Terrapin Crossroads...

Full story in the Marin Independent Journal

Jerry Garcia: American Beauty

2011-08-02T14:19:00.000-04:00

"At the helm of the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia was a magnetic guitarist, singer and songwriter—one of the most beloved, enigmatic figures of the American 1960s. Yet Garcia’s life was as complex as one of his many-layered solos: a strange, psychedelic journey through highs and lows. This is our trip through his beautiful brokedown palace..."

Dig it on The FADER

Grateful Dead - Live in France, 06-21-1971

2011-06-13T20:33:00.001-04:00

"Grateful Dead
Chateau d'HerouvilIe
Herouville, FR
06/21/1971
SBD
Transfered by Charlie Miller

Here's yet another jaw dropping mind f***er for you mates delivered in pure raw energy by Grateful Dead. Not to be missed, not to be ignored but to be savoured slowly.

Tracks
01 Truckin'
02 Loser
03 Me and Bobby McGee
04Next Time You See Me
Morning Dew
Hard To Handle
China Cat Sunflower ->
I know You Rider
The Promised Land
Deal
Playing In The Band
Big Boss Man
Black Peter
Bertha
Casey Jones
Cryptical Envelopment ->
Drums ->
The Other One ->
Wharf Rat
Sugar Magnolia
Sing Me Back Home
Johnny B. Goode"

Download here

Grateful Dead Archivist David Lemieux Talks Massive ‘Europe ’72′ Box Set, Possible Future Releases

2011-06-13T10:01:00.001-04:00

"For 12 years, Grateful Dead archivist David Lemieux has had the dream job of overseeing the massive audio and video archives for the Grateful Dead. Although there have been many archival releases over the past couple of decades from the band, the upcoming ‘Europe ’72′ box set release marks the largest collection of live recordings that has been released to date.

With 72 CDs of music representing 22 complete concerts, the exhaustive expansion of the original ‘Europe ’72′ release is a treasure trove of riches for Deadheads, who snapped up all 7200 copies of the box set within four days of the pre-order announcement for the release.

Due to the unexpected demand and quick sellout, the band decided to sell additional “music only” copies of the set, so that all fans would have the chance to get a copy of the music from this historic release. Ultimate Classic Rock recently spoke with Lemieux to dissect the contents of the set, plus we also wanted to find out what future releases might be on the horizon after this set is released in the fall..."

Read the interview here

Grateful Dead's Bob Weir 'Replaces' Jerry Garcia With Marin Symphony

2011-05-09T10:12:00.001-04:00

"Saturday night's Grateful Dead program for the Marin Symphony in San Rafael, Calif. -- featuring founding Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir and billed as 'First Fusion' -- was more than a year in the making. In fact, so much went into the one-night-only performance that an entire book was written about it (and sold in the venue's lobby). Fortunately, it has a happy ending..."

Get the full story on Spinner

Grateful Dead Archive Receives Vital Dick Latvala Materials

2011-04-27T16:53:00.000-04:00

"The Grateful Dead Archive is honored to announce the final accrual for the Dick Latvala Collection, a vital affiliated collection in the larger Grateful Dead Archive. Personally delivered to UC Santa Cruz’s McHenry Library by Latvala’s son Rich, this generous gift completes the Latvala Collection with a number of important recordings, many in Dick’s inimitably hand-decorated boxes, along with a cache of files..."

Full story here.

Previously Unseen Jerry Garcia Interview Footage Revealed

2011-04-13T12:59:00.001-04:00

"...In this previously unseen interview Garcia talks about how he learned to play guitar at a relatively late age and what inspires him to keep moving forward..."

Video on RollingStone.com

Owsley "Bear" Stanley 2-hour excerpt from interview by David Gans 1991-Jan-13

2011-04-07T18:14:00.001-04:00

"Jan 13, 1991 Owsley 'Bear' Stanley
lengthy excerpt from 6-hour interview by David Gans

played by David Gans on his Dead To The World show
broadcast by KPFA on March 30, 2011

transferred by Monte Barry on April 7, 2011

source:
kpfa archives > internet stream > Audacity > 44.1 / 16

lineage:
Samplitude > Trader's Little Helper

d1 - 58:06
d2 - 60:27"

Download here

Jerry Garcia - Jefferson Airplane House: San Francisco 10.28.1969

2011-04-07T09:35:00.000-04:00

"Jerry Garcia
Jefferson Airplane House
10/28/69
2400 Fulton Street
San Francisco, CA

01. Been All Around This World [04:00]
02. Big Boss Man [06:28]
03. Jam (Stormy Monday Theme)[13:57]
04. Slow Blues [07:19]
05. Jam [05:28]
06. Jam [19:19]
Total:[56:34]

The lineup is reportedly the following:
Jerry Garcia - Guitar
Jorma Kaukonen - Guitar
Jack Cassady - Bass
Mickey Hart - Percussion
Spencer Dryden - Percussion"

Download here

Furthur keeps the spirit of the Dead alive

2011-03-18T09:21:00.001-04:00

"'It's the vibe, and the vibe says we really, really, really want it. We want the magic and we want it badly. And making magic is one of those things where you just don't know how or when you do it. Magic happens when the stars are aligned and the energy flows brightly.'

That's how Phil Lesh describes the wondrous interaction between fans and Furthur, his ensemble with fellow Grateful Dead member Bob Weir and young jam-band stalwarts who make their engines roar..."

Read the full article from the Philadelphia Inquirer

For Bear: Kid Charlemagne on Wikipedia

2011-03-14T12:01:00.000-04:00

From Kid Charlemagne - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"...Although the lyrics are, at first glance, typically oblique and allusive, writers Walter Becker and Donald Fagen have stated that it was loosely inspired by the exploits of the infamous 1960s San Francisco-based LSD chemist Owsley Stanley[2] — although it conflates the core story with numerous other images of the Sixties. This is evident in the following lines:

On the hill the stuff was laced with kerosene
But yours was kitchen clean
Everyone stopped to stare at your Technicolor motor home

The first two lines draw on the fact that Owsley's acid was famed for its purity, and the third line is likely a reference to the famous psychedelic bus named Further, which was used by the Merry Pranksters, who were supplied their LSD by Owsley himself.

The lyric 'You'd go to LA on a dare and you'd go it alone' alludes to a story in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test about a trip taken by chief Prankster Ken Kesey.

The final verse foreshadows Owsley's eventual bust:

Clean this mess up else we'll all end up in jail
Those test tubes and the scale
Just get it all out of here
Is there gas in the car?
Yes, there's gas in the car
I think the people down the hall know who you are"