Latest News

Here is the latest news from David Gans, producer and host of the Grateful Dead Hour.

Sycamore Slough String Band and Kathy Kallick Band in San Rafael Fri 10/19

The Sycamore Slough String Band is delighted to be sharing the stage with the Kathy Kallick Band this Friday, October 19 at Studio 55 Marin in San Rafael, California. Advance tickets are available via Brown Paper Tickets. Showtime is 8:00 pm. Studio 55 Marin is located at 1455-A East Francisco Blvd., San Rafael CA 94901 Kathy Kallick has been leading bluegrass bands since co-founding the internationally-acclaimed band, Good Ol’ Persons, in 1975. She continues to evolve as one of the music’s extraordinary composers and vocalists, releasing 15 albums, which include over 100 of her original songs. Her latest CD, Between the Hollow and the High-Rise, and the song “Where Is My Little Cabin Home”, were fixtures on the national bluegrass charts for two years. The song had more chart time than any other 2010-11 release! Along the way, Kathy has: *Won a Grammy and two IBMA Awards for her part on True Life Blues: The Songs Of Bill Monroe. *Had three title tracks and three albums (Call Me A Taxi, Walkin’ In My Shoes, and Warmer Kind of Blue) each spend a year in the upper echelon of the bluegrass charts. *Appeared on three high-profile Rounder collections of bluegrass songs by women, as well as many other noteworthy collections of songs. *Toured throughout North America, Europe, and Japan. The Sycamore Slough String Band was founded January 2012 by David Gans. Mandolinist David Thom worked for 2 years as a guitarist with the David Grisman Bluegrass Experience, has lead the David Thom Band since 1996, and plays in Grandpa Banana’s Band. Fiddle Dave was a co-founder of Cornmeal, has toured with Lynyrd Skynyrd’s drummer the Artimus Pyle Band, and recently spent a year playing in The Fall Risk, a band led by Furthur’s Jeff Pehrson. Bassist Roger Sideman has performed with Michael Kang (String Cheese Incident) and bluegrass legend Frank Wakefield, and currently performs with The China Cats. David Gans performs “solo electric” and also does a lot of Grateful Dead-related stuff on the radio, online, and in books. These musicians share an affinity for the music of the Grateful Dead, and came together in an Oakland recording studio in January 2012 to see what they could conjure.
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Review of DG 3/26/11

Chris Jones posted a kind review of my 3/26/11 show at the Stage Stop in in Rollinsville CO, available via download and on CD from festivalink.net.

I’ve been on a bit of a Gans thing lately and am presently listening to this rather beautiful CD.

Now I’ve been friends with David for quite a while (his GD Hour list was the first web forum I joined) so I’m unashamedly biased, but he is actually quite a remarkable guy. Not only does he still produce and present the GD Hour every week (over 24 years and still going strong), but he’s also a prolific writer (books, liner notes, articles and blogs), and he’s a pretty nifty photographer with a back catalogue of most of the people who have featured on his radio programmes and many more besides – in fact, just about everyone of musical note in the Bay Area.

But I would guess that David’s real love is performing music, and in this performance that love shines through.

The setlist for this album includes some old favourites along with ‘classic’ Gans originals such as ‘Echolalia’ and ‘An American Family,’ but also includes several excellent covers (‘Norwegian Wood’ and ‘Terrapin Station’).

David is in fine voice on this album, but to me the outstanding elements are the strength of the compositions and – above all – his guitar playing, which is magnificent throughout. The opening track ‘Dawn’s Early Light’ is a gentle and beautiful piece which is just so redolent of that peaceful moment at the start of the day. ‘Terrapin’ is altogether different – strong and muscular and it really swings into gear during the instrumental section where David uses a looping technique to accompany himself.

The whole album is a gem and highly recommended.

If you’re tempted by the above, you can buy the CD or an MP3 or FLAC download of the album from festivalink.

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Grateful Dead Hour no. 1256

Week of October 15, 2012

Part 1 31:22
Grateful Dead June 25, 1993 RFK Stadium, Washington DC
MISSISSIPPI HALFSTEP
LITTLE RED ROOSTER
JUST LIKE TOM THUMB’S BLUES
ALTHEA

Part 2 23:57
Grateful Dead June 25, 1993 RFK Stadium, Washington DC
CASSIDY
CUMBERLAND BLUES
PROMISED LAND
Grateful Dead, Workingman’s Dead (remix)
DIRE WOLF

This new mix of Workingman’s Dead was made by Mickey Hart in 2001 and released on DVD-A in both stereo and 5.1 surround. HDTracks has now released the stereo mix in high-res (96/24).

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Matt Taibbi on last night’s VP debate

Matt Taibbi nails last night’s VP debate in a brilliant tirade, one money quite after another.

The Vice Presidential Debate: Joe Biden Was Right to Laugh

A few favorite passages (but you really need to read the whole thing):

The load of balls that both Romney and Ryan have been pushing out there for this whole election season is simply not intellectually serious. Most of their platform isn’t even a real platform, it’s a fourth-rate parlor trick designed to paper over the real agenda – cutting taxes even more for super-rich dickheads like Mitt Romney, and getting everyone else to pay the bill.

“We want to have bipartisan agreements?” This coming from a Republican congressman? These guys would stall a bill to name a post office after Shirley Temple. Biden, absolutely properly, chuckled and said, “That’d be a first for a Republican congress.” Then Raddatz did exactly what any self-respecting journalist should do in that situation: she objected to being lied to, and yanked on the leash, forcing Ryan back to the question.

If you’re going to offer an across-the-board 20 percent tax cut without explaining how it’s getting paid for, hell, why stop there? Why not just offer everyone over 18 a 1965 Mustang? Why not promise every child a Zagnut and an Xbox, or compatible mates for every lonely single person?

Sometimes in journalism I think we take the objectivity thing too far. We think being fair means giving equal weight to both sides of every argument. But sometimes in the zeal to be objective, reporters get confused. You can’t report the Obama tax plan and the Romney tax plan in the same way, because only one of them is really a plan, while the other is actually not a plan at all, but an electoral gambit.

Paul Ryan, a leader in the most aggressively and mindlessly partisan Congress in history, preaching bipartisanship? A private-equity parasite, Mitt Romney, who wants to enact a massive tax cut and pay for it without touching his own personal fortune-guaranteeing deduction, the carried-interest tax break – which keeps his own taxes below 15 percent despite incomes above $20 million?

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