The Dead Live On and On

Ben Ratliff in an amazing three page color, illustrated article appearing in the April 12th Sunday issue of the NY Times entitled "Bring Out Your Dead" discusses the five different levels of how fans talk about the Grateful Dead. There are those who discuss the band's commercially released albums, those that get into the period or eras, and those that focus on the band's best night, or on particular songs from particular performances. Ratliff then gets to "thinner air" where he says discussion goes to audience vs. soundboard tapes, the mixing bias of engineers, and onward into what he calls "the darkness of obsession." But truly mesmerizing are the online comments from fans that, in response to the article, have voted for their greatest shows and submitted their photos. It's an extraordinary outpouring; find it at "The Dead Live On." nytimes.com/music.

On the bus

Periodically the San Francisco Chronicle re-runs some of Herb Caen's old columns. A really good one appeared in the April 2nd, 2009 issue. (Catch it at SFGate.com.) Originally from February 5, 1967, Caen retells lounging at the corner of Fifth and Mish when Further pulls up and Ken Kesey flashing his American flagged front tooth, invites him to climb aboard. (BTW rumor has it that Santa Cruz dentist Dr. Richard J. Smith dentally did the tooth decoration.)

Cabrillo Music Festival: Sugar Magnolia

This season's Cabrillo Music Festival of Contemporary Music -- American's preeminent contemporary music festival, which makes its home right here in Santa Cruz, CA.-- opens with the theme of One World. And one extraordinary highlight will be a special benefit concert "Sugar Magnolia: An Orchestral Tribute to the Grateful Dead" featuring Lee Johnson's Dead Symphony No.6. The concert along with a post concert Q & A with the composer and authors Dennis McNally and David Gans, is on the special day of August 9th. The festival is conducted and directed by Maestra Marin Alsop and runs from August 2nd to the 16th. UCSC will be offering Grateful Dead Archive events during the same week so stay tuned for more information.

The Dead Endures

For anyone who likes statistics (and we know Deadheads do!!) the article "A Grateful Dead Analysis: The Relationship Between Concert and Listening Behavior" will be like numerical manna. Written by Marko A. Rodriquez, Vadas Gintautas and Alberto Pepe, the article appears in First Monday: the Peer Reviewed Journal of the Internet Vol. 14, No. 1 January 5, 2009. It presents an analysis of the Grateful Dead's concert behavior and exposes a relationship between the concert song patterns from 1972 to 1995 and the last.fm listening statistics of the band's songs from August 2005 to October 2007. It's a scientific inquiry with technical evidence that will have enduring appeal for nerdheads.

Ancient Practice, Modern Sound

Mickey's long involvement with the Gyuto Monks was featured this morning (March 24th) as part of a story on NRP's Morning Edition. Mickey, as producer has used modern techniques to recreate the oldest chants of the monks. For the full story Gyuto Monks: Ancient Practice, Modern Sound go to: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102234687

Ebook of the Dead

Touch of Grey, the newest creation by Jay Blakesberg featuring more than 400 of his photographs has just been released by Mosaic Legends as an interactive e-book. Find it on the App section of the iTunes store. It also includes an introduction by Blakesberg and an essay by Jambase.com editor Aaron Kayce. For more about the visual mosaic production see: http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Mosaic-Legends-957070.html

Free for the taking or giving

Some of you might remember the Free Frame of Reference, the Free Bakery, and the Trip Without a Ticket, the free stores set up by the Diggers during the challenging times of the late 1960s. There in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhoods of San Francisco free exchange of material goods would be made, meals shared, and often the Grateful Dead provided free entertainment. Well, in these new economic hard times free stores are starting up again. Some are close by Wall Street. (Maybe some one might even stage a revival of the happening "Death of Money Parade"???)
The March 16th issue of the London Guardian carries an article on Manhattan's Free Store. The two artists who launched it say, "It's a certain time in history in this country when people really need to help each other out."