October 28, 2010

The B List: 10 Favorite Grateful Dead Books

[Originally Published March 26, 2009]

I’ll never forget the day late Grateful Dead keyboardist Brent Mydland passed away in 1990. I was playing hockey at Camp Westmont when a bunkmate’s brother came down the hill to tell us Brent had died. Now, I’ll be honest – I didn’t know a thing about the band at the time, but I wanted to find out. One of my Deadhead counselors turned me onto David Gans and Peter Simon’s well-written biography of the band, Playing in the Band, and I was immediately fascinated by the history of the band.

Over the past twenty years, I’ve read a number of books on the Grateful Dead and some are spectacular and some aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. The latest tome on the band – Peter Conners’ Growing Up Dead: The Hallucinated Confessions of a Teenage Deadhead – is available now at Amazon.com and in honor of what looks to be a terrific addition to a Deadhead’s bookshelf, I’ve put together a list of my ten favorite books on the band…

10. Skeleton Key – David Shenk, Steve Silberman

I’ll never forget David & Steve’s book as the first time I ever saw the phrase 4:20. Skeleton Key offers bite-sized tidbits on phrases that are part of the Deadhead vocabulary – such as 4:20 – among its 400 pages of history, lore, and interviews about the band.

READ ON for nine more of Scotty’s favorite books on the Dead…

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Bloggy Goodness: Drive My Car

A few months back we reported that seminal pop-rock band The Cars had taken to their official Facebook page posting a photo of the surviving band members in a recording

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Another One For Woody

Ten years after former ABB/Gov’t Mule bassist Allen Woody’s death – and the One For Woody concert that celebrated his life – Woody’s former band mates are throwing Another One

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A Memory of Music: October 2010

Today we introduce a new column called A Memory of Music put together by HT’s Photo Editor, Jeremy Gordon. Each month, Jeremy will compile a collection of his favorite shots along with the story behind the photos…

[Anders Osborne w/ Stanton Moore Trio, photo by Jeremy Gordon]

The first photo comes from the Brooklyn Bowl, where Anders Osborne shared the bill with the Stanton Moore Trio in front of a packed house.  The band continued down to New Orleans for the Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival where Stanton Moore tabbed the talented Scott Metzger to join up for the rest of the tour.  As Scott explains, “When Stanton calls, no matter how early in the morning, you answer the phone.”

[Lotus w/ Max Weinberg, photo by Matthew Balch]

While some sit-ins require hours of planning to happen, others occur more spontaneously. As Lotus prepared to take the stage at the Westcott Theater in Syracuse, NY, E Street Band – and former Conan O’Brien drummer – Max Weinberg was in town to give a keynote speech at the Music Industry Conference.  Well, Lotus’s tour manager saw him back stage, Max asked about sitting in with the band and voila.  You can check the audio and video from the night here and here.

READ ON for more of the debut installment of AMoMusic…

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Phish Halloween: Are You Excited Yet?

Unlike last year, when word spread far and wide about Sharon Jones and some of the Dap-Kings horn section appearance at Festival 8 days before the event leading some to

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Social Distortion: First Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 10/19/10

Social Distortion worked well together creating a memorable performance as they sounded true to their studio albums and by the crowd's reaction, it was all good. Some bands tend to change their sound from their studio recordings to their live performances, but Social D’s older hits sounded relevant as ever.

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