As Dead & Co. fire up the machine for their fall outing, a remarkable stash of the early ‘80s Deadhead zine MIKEL provides a DIY window into what life on Grateful Dead tour was (sur)really like in the early ‘80s, before 1987’s In the Dark blew the band into the top 10 and football stadiums…
Category: Grateful Dead
Boots In Transit: An Appreciation of the Dead on Cassette
Author’s note: this article originally appeared in 2012 on a now-defunct website called Dead Journalist. It has been salvaged, edited and updated for Aquarium Drunkard. – j jackson toth
From the Eagle Mall to Terrapin Station: A Skeleton Key to Robert Hunter
Dig this. Jesse Jarnow on “The Giant’s Harp,” Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter’s mysterious novel set in the expanded “Terrapin Station” universe and how it connects to a lost suite of 1968-1969 Dead tunes by Jerry Garcia.
Dead Notes #15 :: The Mickey Hart Interview
In late 1967 at a Count Basie concert at the famed Fillmore Auditorium two brothers in the groove were introduced by a stranger who quickly disappeared into the technicolor ethers forever altering the course of […]
Dead Notes #14 :: The Howard Wales Interview
It’s no secret Jerry Garcia was a freak of nature when it came to juggling his time with the Grateful Dead and multiple side projects. In 1970 alone, he was riding high on the FM […]
Aquarium Drunkard & The Jerry Garcia Family Present: Grateful Shred & Friends, August 1st – The Teragram Ballroom
August 1st – in celebration of Jerry Garcia’s 75th Birthday – Aquarium Drunkard & The Jerry Garcia Family Present: Grateful Shred & Friends, live at the Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles. Tickets: HERE . w/ Delicate Steve ++ King Tuff ++ William Tyler ++ Emmett Kelly ++ Eric Johnson ++ Jenny O ++ […]
Dead Notes #13 :: Cornell, May 8, 1977
If you’ve been lucky, you’ve found yourself in some college dorm, surrounded by DayGlo tapestries, Nag Champa wafting in the air, stinging your eyes. Your singularly nicknamed but gracious hosts and their friends argue. It’s […]
Dead Notes :: The Zine, Issue #2
How many Deadheads does it take to screw in a light bulb? 1000. One to do it and 999 to tape it. There was a time when yellow envelopes stuffed to the gills with Maxell […]
Wax Wonders: Grateful Dead – Anthem Of The Sun (1971 Remix)
A cornerstone of psychedelic music, 1968’s Anthem Of The Sun has long been unfairly brushed off by critics and heads alike. While the group were unhappy with their studio debut (the garage-y, fun, tuneful and […]
Dead Notes #12 :: June 8,1974 — Oakland, CA
1974 is one of the greatest and most transformative years within the Grateful Dead’s history, with two major events setting the tone: the official unveiling of the infamous ‘ Wall of Sound ’ and the band ominously playing […]
Dead Notes #11 :: March 31,1973 – Buffalo, NY
Welcome to Dead Notes #11. Forty-two years ago, in the early days of March of 1973, Pigpen and a photographer friend sauntered into the band’s rehearsal space at Stinson Beach Community Center with the hope to have […]
Dead Notes: The Printed Word – Volume I
Dead Notes: “Where all the print is blood. Where all the pages are my days…” Late last year we compiled all our Dead Notes columns into a print ’zine that heavily nodded to the early original issues […]
Dead Notes #10 :: New Potato Caboose (8/24/68 Los Angeles, CA)
Welcome to Dead Notes #10 where we revisit Two From the Vault , recently released by Light in the Attic Records for the first time on vinyl. 1968 was a deeply exploratory period in the early history of the […]
Dead Notes #9 :: (2/22/69 Vallejo, CA)
Welcome to Dead Notes #9. In early 1969 we find our bohemian freaks spaced out on STP and nitrous oxide, holed up behind a 16-track recording console working on their palindromic 3rd album, Aoxomoxoa. The sessions are […]
Dead Notes #8 :: Alligator (5/18/68 Santa Clara, CA)
Welcome to Dead Notes #8 where we find our steadfast pranksters in the pivotal years of 1967 and 1968. Long gone are the proto-psychedelic fuzzy garage jams, replaced with long, exploratory suites awash in subtle instrumental and […]