A weekly audio postcard from the wide musical world of America’s best-loved band!
Happy Holy Daze, friends and fans and family! The first bit of big news is that Blair Jackson and I met our deadline! Our manuscript, This Is All A Dream We Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead, was turned in on time and we are now in the process of editing. It will … Read more
We really need rain in northern California. It’s raining in Oakland right now, and I hope it goes on for a few days. Here’s a little “rain” montage…
My pal Ari Fink asked me (and my Tales from the Golden Road cohost, Gary Lambert) to pick some seminal tracks to play on the Jam_On Channel‘s “Roots of the Jam Weekend,” airing now through Sunday (11/30/14). Here are the four pieces I contributed: Dark Star – Live Dead, recorded 2/27/69 The Grateful Dead didn’t … Read more
Joanna Manqueros hosted Dead to the World on July 30, 2014, and interviewed Peter Albin (Big Brother and the Holding Company). Listener Damien Palermo was kind enough to transcbie the talk. Enjoy! Joanna Manqueros (host): Jerry Garcia was born in 1942. What was he doing in 1962? You brought some stuff in that’s really cool … Read more
Two very interesting articles I’ve read this week offer glimpses of the state of the music business. A while back, Peter Case posted on Facebook that he was starting a label. I wrote to him: “Pretty soon it’s going to be ‘one man, one label.’” And he replied: “Yeah, it’s like the fall of the … Read more
(The David Nelson Band has an amazing new studio CD, Once In a Blue Moon. Check it out!) David Nelson, July 2007: In the late ’50-early ’60s, there were factions, camps. “I like folk music” usually meant Kingston Trio, the Brothers Four, Limeliters. That was a surfacey kind of folk music. There were those of … Read more
This week I visited Alembic Inc. for the first time in more than 30 years. This is a link to a set of photos from this visit, plus a few shots I took in September 1978 when I was there to write a story for BAM Magazine. Alembic – photos by David Gans (1978 and … Read more
Wednesday, November 12, 9pm: DG and Stevie Coyle join Teja Gerken‘s Guitar Showcase at the Sleeping Lady, Fairfax CA Thursday, November 13, 7:30-10pm: The Known Unknown at the Monkey House Theater in Berkeley: DG, Phil Savell, Zach Partain, Neil Hampton, and guests. $10-20 sliding scale. Email reservations@monkeyhousetheater for info/reservations. Saturday, November 15, 9:30 am to … Read more
I fucked up. In the liner notes for GarciaLive vol 5, just released, I stated that “God Save the Queen” is known Stateside as “America the Beautiful.” I am getting notes from all over the place, calling attention to this blunder. I regret the error.
The improvisational ensemble that began when Phil Savell and I jammed at a holiday party last December has been developing nicely. We now have a name – The Known Unknown (web site and all that are coming soon) – and a stable quartet at the core: Phil Savell and David Gans on guitars, Zach Partain … Read more