Latest News

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

Mickey Hart Band summer tour

Mickey Hart Band Featuring Steve Kimock & George Porter Jr. Confirm Summer Run! Grateful Dead drummer and percussionist Mickey Hart will launch a 20 city tour this summer including appearances at many of the nation’s premiere festivals. The outing comes on the heels of the Shout! Factory releases of The Mickey Hart Collection out this spring. The Mickey Hart Band will feature Steve Kimock on guitar, George Porter Jr on bass, Jen Durkin on vocals, and talking drum master Sikiru Adepoju. After headlining appearances at Harmony Festival in Santa Rosa on June 6 and Wakarusa on June 8, the group will head out on an 18 city trek beginning July 3 at the Rothbury Festival and continuing through July 24 at 10K Lakes Festival. The shows will feature the Robert Hunter penned songs debuted by the Rhythm Devils in 2006 including “Fountains of Wood,” “The Center,” and “Your House,” in addition to Grateful Dead staples such as “New Speedway Boogie” and “Fire on the Mountain.” This spring, Shout! Factory will release The Mickey Hart collection which includes the Grammy winning Planet Drum in addition to At the Edge, Diga Rhythm Band, Supralingua, and Mystery Box. Hart’s Planet Drum won the first-ever World Music Grammy and still stands as one of the genre’s benchmark albums. Mickey reunited with some of his Planet Drum band mates including tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, to form Global Drum Project in 2007 and released a record to critical acclaim followed by an extensive tour. Mickey has kept quite busy over the past few years including tours with Hydra, Rhythm Devils, and Global Drum Project in addition to continuing his work with the Library of Congress. He also performed at Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s inauguration in 2007 and more recently appeared at the “Deadheads For Obama” event along with fellow Dead members Bob Weir and Phil Lesh. On April 20, Mickey will headline Golden Gate Park with a mass drum ensemble in celebration of Earth Day as part of the Green Apple Music Festival. Fans will also be treated to a new Rhythm Devils DVD this summer, filmed in Chicago during their fall tour in 2006. The DVD will be available this summer on The Mickey Hart Band Tour and online at various outlets. The summer run will take the band to festivals, theatres, and outdoor events across the east coast and Midwest beginning July 3rd at Rothbury Festival and continuing on to Milwaukee’s Summerfest, Lakeview Music Festival, and Nelson Ledges rounding out July 4th weekend. East Coast stops include Great South Bay Festival on Long Island, Penn’s Peak in PA, and Thursday in the Park in Buffalo . Select tour dates will offer pre-sale and VIP tickets which include a special after-show meet and greet with Mickey. Check out the new mickeyhart.net website for all tour dates and on-sale information. June 6-Santa Rosa , CA-Harmony Festival June 8-Lawrence, KS-Wakarusa Festival July 3-Rothbury, MI-Rothbury Festival July 4-Garretsville, OH-Nelson Ledges July 5-Chicago, IL-Lakeview Music Festival July 6-Milwaukee, WI-Summerfest July 9-Alexandria, VA-Birchmere July 10-Morristown, NJ-Morristown Community Thr. July 11-Jim Thorpe, PA-Penn’s Peak July 12-Patchogue, NY-Great S Bay Music Festival July 15-NY, NY-Fillmore NYC July 17-Buffalo, NY-Thursday in the Park July 18-Binghamton, NY Magic City Music Hall July 19-Pittsburgh, PA-Palace Theatre July 20- Baltimore , MD -Ram’s Head Live July 24-Detroit Lakes, MN-10k Lakes Festval

Dark Star Dan & Co at 12 Galaxies 4/15

From: Dan McGonagle

Subject: Grateful Dead Night – Tuesday 4-15-08
w/GD lyricist John Perry Barlow, Stu & Pat, & Betty Cantor-Jackson – 12 Galaxies – SF, CA

Dead & Taxes

That’s what we’re calling our Grateful Dead Night event, folks. So come on over and share your US Tax Payer Blues with friends and family on Tuesday, April 15 @ 12 Galaxies in the San Francisco Mission District.

We’re especially honored to have Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow come down and spend an hour or so talking, telling stories, discussing current events, and possibly a Q&A session with the audience. John has written lyrics for many of your favorite Grateful Dead/Bob Weir songs such as “Cassidy”, “Let It Grow,” “Estimated Prophet,” “The Music Never Stopped,” “Hell in a Bucket,” “Lost Sailor,” “Saint of Circumstance,” and many, many more. His lyrics from “Throwing Stones” or “We Can Run” are as relevant today as the day they were written.

This night will also feature an awesome acoustic set or two from Stu Allen (JGB/Melvin Seals/Workingman’s Ed) & Pat Nevins (Workingman’s Ed/Ragged Glory) covering Jerry, Neil, Gram Parsons, etc. For those who missed them last time, an “Acoustic Crazy Fingers” basically sums it up. There’s a reason Stu Allen plays guitar for Melvin Seals & JGB. We’re still working out the exact logistics of the night, but it will be posted soon.

We’ll also have legendary Grateful Dead/Legion of Mary/Jerry Garcia Band/Reconstruction engineer-producer Betty Cantor-Jackson (“Betty Boards”) here this evening to help mix sound and just be there in support of Dead Night…

We’ll end the last portion of the night with a rockin’ set from my personal archive of music.

We’d like to think this event kicks-off the official “Dead-Head Season” of Spring and Summer shows featuring DSO, Phil, RatDog, JGB/Melvin, Donna Jean, etc., etc., and we’re charging $7 for this event. For over 10 years we kept Nickie’s Dead Night less than other events at $5, but with all the extra things we now offer, it is no longer possible. This was a tough decision for us, but we still feel we’re offering an excellent night of De[a]dicated entertainment at a great value. And we’re still cheaper than sitting on your arse at a movie theater.

Dead Night can only happen if people show up. We only do this periodically so please come out, shake yer bones, burn some calories, meet some rock & roll legends and, most importantly…

Support your local Dead Night!

Doors at 8PM. Events start around 8:35 or so.
Many blessing to all!

-Dark Star Dan

PS: Please forward this to a friend. We rely heavily on community word-of-mouth to support these events…

KUNV fund drive a big success

Email from George Lyons in Las Vegas:

Just wanted to extend a

HUGE THANK YOU

to everyone that donated to the KUNV SPRING 2008 FUND DRIVE!

tonight on The Lyons Den, we raised $5700.00, A NEW RECORD FOR A SUNDAY NIGHT!!!!!
The Grateful Dead Hour brought in $1345.00 on Saturday Night!

I THINK WE GOT VERY CLOSE TO OUR $50,000.00 GOAL FOR SPRING 2008!

your continued support helps KUNV TO STAY ALIVE ON THE FM AIRWAVES!
THANK YOU!!!!
WOW!!!!
THE SUPPORT OF OUR RESOURCES ARE CRUCIAL, ALL OF THEM!
MUSIC IS THE HEALING FORCE!

And my thanks, as well, for supporting the Grateful Dead Hour on KUNV!

Grateful Dead Hour #1020

Week of April 7, 2008

Part 1 27:55
Grateful Dead, Winterland 1973: The Complete Recordings
BIG RIVER
THEY LOVE EACH OTHER
WEATHER REPORT SUITE

Part 2 29:00
Grateful Dead, Winterland 1973: The Complete Recordings
LOOSE LUCY
LOOKS LIKE RAIN
HERE COMES SUNSHINE

See this earlier post for my comments on this wonderful new boxed set.

Support for the Grateful Dead Hour comes this week from:

Grateful Dead Productions, announcing the release of Winterland 1973: The Complete Recordings, a 9-disc set containing every note recorded at the legendary San Francisco venue on November 9, 10, and 11, 1973. Mastered in HDCD from the original 2-track reels using a state-of-the-art restoration technique, Winterland 1973 captures the post-Pigpen Dead at a creative peak on their home turf. Audio samples, historical documents, message board, and details of a limited-edition bonus disc are available now at dead.net.

The 10,000 Lakes Festival, July 23 through 26 in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. 10KLF features Phil Lesh & Friends, Mickey Hart Band, Dark Star Orchestra, The Flaming Lips, George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic, Michael Franti & Spearhead, and over fifty additional acts. More information and tickets for the 10,000 Lakes Festival are available at 10klf.com

Woodstock Trading Company, a brick-and-mortar as well as an online store offering clothing, posters, incense, tye dyes, and gifts from the Grateful Dead and numerous other bands. The store is located in Cherry Hill, New Jersey and online at woodstocktradeco.com.

Correction: not a Strat!

It’s been pointed out by several astute observers that, contrary to what I wrote (since corrected) in a previous post, Jerry Garcia was playing his “Wolf” guitar and not a Stratocaster at Winterland in 1973.

My point is unaffected, though: the pickups in the Wolf were similar in design and wiring to the Fender Stratocaster Jerry had played previously, and my characterization of his sound as “crystal-clear” is still very much the point.

Here’s what Jerry told Blair Jackson and me about his guitar sound in 1981:

Gans: How come you gave up Les Pauls?

Garcia: I got bored with them. I felt that I really didn’t have any place else to go on them.

Gans: So you switched to a Strat?

Gacia: Yeah. It was more of a challenge. It wasn’t that I wanted to lose the SG part of my playing, but my reasoning was something along the lines of “I think that no matter what guitar I play I won’t have any trouble getting a sweet sound,” you know, even though the most difficult thing to produce on a Strat is a sweet sound. What I really wanted was to be able to get some of the metallic clang that strats have. I like that first position, the clankiness–

Gans: You can fingerpick Fenders betters too.

Garcia: Yeah. Well, they have better string-to-string separation because–they don’t mush up on you the way Gibsons do, and it was that clarity that I was looking for, too–that crispness that you associate with country-and-western guitar players. I was wanting to have something in between those two worlds.

Blair’s excellent book Dead Gear is a good place to look for more info on this and other technical matters.

Thanks to Jerry Moore and the others who noted my error. I stand corrected!