Relix: The Book - Music for the Mind has just been released in paperback from Backbeat. Compiled by Toni Brown with Lee Abraham, it's a compilation and commentary on the first 27 years of Relix Magazine. It's got a foreword by Jorma Kaukonen and an afterword by Dennis McNally. The publisher is saying the book is "much more than an anthology, it is an event." Find more about it at www.ToniBrownBand.com.
Relix founder Toni Brown gives a great interview on deadheadland.com. She talks about the history of the magazine, interviewing band members, and coming to write the Relix story.
October 7, 2009
Grateful Dead Scrapbook
Ben Fong-Torres speaks tonight at 7:30 pm about the Grateful Dead Scrapbook at one of our favorite places:
Booksmith (http://www.booksmith.com/)
1644 Haight St.
San Francisco
Here's the info:
Grateful Dead fans are legendary for their Dead-ication to the band and its enduring legacy of freewheeling musical exploration. Grateful Dead Scrapbook collects rare removable memorabilia and evocative images culled from the Grateful Dead Archives at the University of California, Santa Cruz, including never-before-published photos, flyers, fan letters, and other ephemera. To accompany the eye-popping visuals, renowned journalist Ben Fong-Torres draws on his personal knowledge of the San Francisco music scene in a rich text that conveys the Grateful Dead's story in a fresh way, centering each chapter on a pivotal song that encapsulates a certain era of the group's songwriting, performance, and community. An attractive slipcase and an audio CD round out the book's beautiful design, delivering a richly illustrated volume as colorful as the band itself.
Ben Fong-Torres is the author of Becoming Almost Famous: My Back Pages in Music, Writing, and Life, The Doors, Not Fade Away: A Backstage Pass to Twenty Years of Rock and Roll, and Hickory Wind: The Life and Times of Graham Parsons, among other books. He began writing for Rolling Stone with its 8th issue in 1968, and his writing has been published in numerous other magazines. He contributed the main biography of Jerry Garcia for People Magazine's tribute issue on the occasion of the singer's death in 1995. Ben lives in San Francisco.
Booksmith (http://www.booksmith.com/)
1644 Haight St.
San Francisco
Here's the info:
Grateful Dead fans are legendary for their Dead-ication to the band and its enduring legacy of freewheeling musical exploration. Grateful Dead Scrapbook collects rare removable memorabilia and evocative images culled from the Grateful Dead Archives at the University of California, Santa Cruz, including never-before-published photos, flyers, fan letters, and other ephemera. To accompany the eye-popping visuals, renowned journalist Ben Fong-Torres draws on his personal knowledge of the San Francisco music scene in a rich text that conveys the Grateful Dead's story in a fresh way, centering each chapter on a pivotal song that encapsulates a certain era of the group's songwriting, performance, and community. An attractive slipcase and an audio CD round out the book's beautiful design, delivering a richly illustrated volume as colorful as the band itself.
Ben Fong-Torres is the author of Becoming Almost Famous: My Back Pages in Music, Writing, and Life, The Doors, Not Fade Away: A Backstage Pass to Twenty Years of Rock and Roll, and Hickory Wind: The Life and Times of Graham Parsons, among other books. He began writing for Rolling Stone with its 8th issue in 1968, and his writing has been published in numerous other magazines. He contributed the main biography of Jerry Garcia for People Magazine's tribute issue on the occasion of the singer's death in 1995. Ben lives in San Francisco.
October 6, 2009
So Grateful
Culture wars? Yes, they are still going on. Just examine the criticism being directed at our receipt of a federal grant given to support the Grateful Dead Archive. It's not surprising that those at FutureOfCapitalism and Club for Growth can't understand the value of anything beyond "their canon." But editors blogging in the Chronicle of Higher Education? Come on.
Past, present and future, the Grateful Dead continues to be a dynamic presence and a lightning rod for significant shifts in culture. We're excited by (and so grateful for) opportunities the IMLS grant gives us to create and blaze the trail for popular archives that provide virtual accessibility and incorporate the power of the Internet and social networking tools.
And don't forget, the 2008 winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics said: "It won’t all happen immediately. But in the long run, we are all the Grateful Dead."
Past, present and future, the Grateful Dead continues to be a dynamic presence and a lightning rod for significant shifts in culture. We're excited by (and so grateful for) opportunities the IMLS grant gives us to create and blaze the trail for popular archives that provide virtual accessibility and incorporate the power of the Internet and social networking tools.
And don't forget, the 2008 winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics said: "It won’t all happen immediately. But in the long run, we are all the Grateful Dead."
September 14, 2009
Stuff of Life
Every archivist has a bit of the archeologist in her. As we delve through the Grateful Dead Archive coming across important artifacts so apparently are California State Archeologists at the Olompali State Historical Park. Located north of San Francisco the park was originally settled by the Miwok Indians, but in the mid to late 60s it was the site of a hippie commune. And it was home to the Grateful Dead in 1966. The stuff that is being excavated and cataloged by archeologists in the historic park includes sneakers and red plastic Monopoly hotel pieces (and what about macramé and roach clips and beads???) The July-August issue (Vol. 62, No.4) of Archaeology Magazine is running the article "Digging in the Age of Aquarius" about the site. It quotes state archaeologist E. Breck Parkman saying that these artifacts will enable the interpretation of "a period of political turbulence, generational conflicts, and cultural experimentation that shaped modern America."
September 10, 2009
Channeling the Dead
Two great Dead tribute bands can be seen and heard locally. Coming on Saturday Sept. 12 are The China Cats playing at Don Quixote's International Music Hall in Felton. And the Dark Star Orchestra will be at Santa Cruz's Rio Theatre on Thursday October 8th. For more info see: http://www.myspace.com/thechinacats and http://www.darkstarorchestra.net/NEWSITE/HTML/dso.php
Game Play
Gameing is big business, and the aesthetics and theory of games is now firmly footed in academia. At UCSC a class "Video Games As Visual Culture" is being offered and a student can major in Computer Game Design. Two new board games are appealing to us bookish types here in the Library's Grateful Dead Archive. Coming soon will be GRATEFUL DEAD-OLOPY, a creation from Discovery Bay Games, the Washington State company that produced "Garage Band: The Game." According to Craig Olson, Discovery Bay Games' CEO, Bob Weir has been directly involved with developing the game's content. Beyond DEAD-OLOPY there is also "Liebrary" a bluff game surrounding the opening lines in books. ..."A screaming comes across the sky."
August 21, 2009
BFF
We know that the Grateful Dead circle encompasses a great variety of close attachments and fond acquaintances (think Al and Tipper Gore, Bill Walton and Phil Jackson, Patrick Leahy and Nancy Pelosi.) But somehow one of the sweetest friendships seems to have been between Mickey Hart and Walter Cronkite. Since Cronkite's death several very intimate stories have been told about their 22 years of being "dear, dear friends." Mickey tells the story in Leah Garchik's San Francisco Chronicle column of July 31 about Walter playing drums at his place. "And I invited him to see the Grateful Dead, and we kind of fell in love around all those exciting things. It was such a trust; he was such a treasure." Cronkite apparently "loved marching bands, Sousa and Dixieland, and he loved the Grateful Dead."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
