Very nice piece about me by Chad Berndtson in the online magazine Glide. It’s titled “David Gans: Dialed In.” Two excerpts from a long piece:
It’s safe to say that David Gans knows his Grateful Dead: the radio show he hosts, the beloved “Grateful Dead Hour” – still broadcasted on KPFA 94.1 in Berkeley, California and syndicated nationwide – is twenty years old in 2005.
But what makes Gans especially compelling, even after twenty years charting the thrilling and oft-murky waters of this unique music, is that the show itself is but the tip of the iceberg in his own music-oriented career. Gans acknowledged in a recent interview the ongoing importance and prestige of the Grateful Dead Hour, but made clear that it will, in the end, be only part of his multifarious legacy –a superb musician in his own right, making music will always be his first and truest love, even if he’s lost none for the music of the Dead, which still continues to excite him.
Another excerpt…
Through everything, the format of the “Grateful Dead Hour” hasn’t much changed. The wonders of digital technology and the internet have made it easier than ever to access Dead material (archive.org hosts more than 2500 freely downloadable shows, for example), but don’t seem to affect the future or mission of the show itself.
“I’ve never programmed the show for the hardcore collectors,” Gans says. “That the music is so widely available is a great thing, and I feel like I’m hear to add something. I’m a scholar and a historian of this music, and the choices I make and the value that I add in producing this show is of zero interest to lots of people, but it’s of sufficient interest to sufficient numbers of people.”
One thing Gans has always consciously avoided is the notion that his position in Grateful Dead history – however unique relative to the fan side of things – at all makes him some sort of exalted, end-all-be-all Grateful Dead expert or number one fan.
“One of the things I’ve known for as long as I’ve been doing these shows is that there are a lot of people who could do it. It drives me fucking batty when I read headlines of magazine articles and stuff where they proclaim me, like, the premier Deadhead,” he says. “Obviously, I know what I’m talking about and bring something to the gig that the ‘average’ Deadhead might not have, but by no stretch of the imagination do I see myself as the premier Deadhead.”