KPFA Grateful Dead Marathon Sat 2/20/10

David Gans celebrates his 25th anniversary in broadcasting with the annual 16-hour KPFA Grateful Dead fund-raising marathon Saturday, February 20, 9 am to 1 am Pacific time.

Broadcast live in northern California and webcast globally via nugs.net, gdradio.net, and kpfa.org, this year’s event will include visits from Peter Rowan and David Nelson. David will also offer sneak previews of two new Grateful Dead releases: Road Trips vol. 3 no. 2, a concert from 1971, and Crimson, White, and Indigo, a video and audio package featuring the complete Grateful Dead concert of July 7, 1989. The rest of the day will be filled with several complete unreleased Grateful Dead concerts and rarities from David’s quarter-century of exploring the wide musical world of the Grateful Dead.

“It’s been a great privilege and great fun to serve the music all these years,” says Gans, host of the nationally-syndicated Grateful Dead Hour and, on KPFA, a two-hour program called Dead to the World that airs Wednesdays at 8pm PT. “And KPFA is a treasure that must be nurtured.” Gans has hosted live performances in the KPFA studios by dozens of artist including Ratdog, Railroad Earth, Keller Williams, Hot Buttered Rum, Donna the Buffalo, Peter Rowan, Bill Kirchen, Wake the Dead, Dan Hicks, and countless others.

“If you love live music,” says Gans, “then you must support KPFA.” One of the many thank-you gifts to be offered to donors on Saturday is Live from Berkeley: Performances from KPFA’s Dead to the World, a compilation of tracks from shows that have originated in the KPFA studios.

The phone numbers to call with your pledge of support for KPFA are 510-848-5732 and 1-800-439-5732, or you can pledge online at kpfa.org. The playlist and program notes will be updated as the day progresses, right here on the Cloud Surfing blog.