Not fade away

The wrecking ball takes out East Rutherford, New Jersey's Giant's Stadium this March. In its 38 years the Giants, the Jets, the Boss, the Pope, and the Grateful Dead all played the field. September 2nd, 1978 started it off for the band, and by their 12th show in August 1994 more than a million fans had seen them in the stadium. (Well, maybe some were repeat attendees.)

Smith and Smith in the Old Wierd America

Getty Publications is announcing the release this coming January of "Harry Smith: The Avant Garde in the American Vernacular." Ethnomusicological archivist, filmmaker, painter, and alchemist Harry Smith's compilation "Anthology of American Folk Music" is considered the Rosetta Stone of American musical history. This new publication on Smith, his work, and his legacy, includes a collection of essays from authors such as Robert Cantwell and Griel Marcus, and contains "numerous illustrations of Smith's works and a selection of his letters and other primary sources." The book is edited by Andrew Perchuk and Rani Singh, both from the Getty Institute, where in 2001 the Institute sponsored the symposium of the same title. Singh is also director of the Harry Smith Archive in New York. (see http://www.harrysmitharchives.com).

And it gets even better. In celebration of her friendship with Harry Smith and the publication of this book, singer and poet Patti Smith will be speaking and performing at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles on January 28th.

Grateful Dead Caucus

The thirteenth meeting of the Grateful Dead Caucus at the Southwest/Texas Popular & American Culture Association conference is planned for February 10-13th, 2010 in Albuquerque's Hyatt Regency Hotel.

The call for papers has already gone out, but with the final submission deadline set for December 15th. Expect exciting papers and panels on all aspects -- comparative, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary -- of the Grateful Dead Phenomenon to be presented. For more information on this upcoming gathering and to register for the conference see: http://www.swtxpca.org/

PAS Hall of Fame

The Percussive Arts Society (www.pas.org) is the largest network of percussionists around the world. The Society publishes Percussive Notes, Percussion News, and the PAS Online Research Journal. Headquartered in Indianapolis, IN., the Society fosters growth in the art of drumming through workshops, concerts, and festivals. Its new museum "Rhythm! Discovery Center"will open this month on November 21st. Each year PAS inducts new members into its Hall of Fame. Induction is the highest honor given to individuals whose careers have had a significant impact on percussion performance, education and research. This month French percussionist Jacques Delecluse and Mickey Hart were celebrated as the newest PAS Hall of Fame inductees.

Who Shot Rock & Roll

Henry Diltz's 1985 close up shot of a laughing Tina Turner just lights up the Brooklyn Museum's new show Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History 1955 to the Present. Touting this as the first major exhibit on rock & roll "to put photographers in the foreground" the Museum also proclaims that these "images communicate the social and cultural transformations that rock fostered since the 1950s." The exhibition runs through January 31st, and there is an excellent companion catalog written by Gail Buckland and published by Knopf that illustrates over 200 photographs from the show.

Best junk ever

So you think we've found some odd items in the Grateful Dead Archive? Well, as marvelous as some of our realia is, we really cannot compete with the posters of Jackie O in the buff found in the archive of Andy Warhol. We were recently reading about what archivists in the Andy Warhol Museum have uncovered: shopping bags stuffed with well... stuff, thirty silver-white wigs, 4,000 audio recordings, and then there are the "Time Capsules" filled with the detritus of Andy's daily events and adventures. To find out more it's really fun to visit: http://www.warhol.org/collections/archives.html

A Kleinrock/ Barlow connection

UCLA Professor Leonard Kleinrock is known as one of the "fathers" of the Internet. Now his original computer the "Interface Message Processor" along with other artifacts will be part of UCLA's Kleinrock Internet Museum and Reading Room. The museum commemorates the first computer message sent out 40 years ago in October 1969. To mark the event Kleinrock was interviewed by Patt Morrison of the Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-oe-morrison-use24-2009oct24,0,3095224.story
Kleinrock talks about that first message, e-mail, and what the Internet has begotten. As regards privacy concerns in cyberspace, Kleinrock says he is relaxed about it because none is left. He takes the advice of John Perry Barlow ..."the only way to have privacy is to expose it all and then you have nothing to hide."