Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

1. Correct
2. Rex Radio and later Eyes of Chaos/Veil of Order were monthly. First
as free-standing show, later, after David got a weekly two-hour show on
KPFA called Dead to the World, Eyes of Chaos occupied one hour of that
timeslot once a month.
3. Tales From the Golden Road started monthly, quickly promoted to
weekly.
4. "Dead To the World Marathon" is actually a conflation of two
different things. David gave up his weekly spot on KPFA, but "Dead To
The World" has continued in the able hands of Tim Lynch (with DG
referred to as "host emeritus," welcome to drop back in every now and
again. The annual KPFA Grateful Dead fundraising marathon is not branded
"Dead To The World," AFAIK. David has regularly returned to cohost the
marathons with Tim.
  

    

THe Grateful Dead Hour started as the KFOG Deadhead Hour in November 1984. I
appeared in February 1985 to promote my book. The host of the show, the late
M Dung, was seriously overworked: he was the morning drive DJ five days a
week and he had the Sunday Night Idiot Show, too. So he was very happy to
have help from me and some other fans with tape collections. I contributed
music to the show for a few months and then was invited to take over as the
producer and host. I was happy to do that, just for the fun of it - but then
other stations started to ask if they could carry our show.

That is how I became the producer/host of a nationally syndicated radio show!
Just another lucky break in my improvised life.
  

    
"M Dung" was quite a guy. I miss him.
  

    
Yeah, he was a sweetheart.
  

    
I loved KFOG in the '80s. Lee "Baby" Simms in the morning, handing it off
to Dave Morey after the brilliant "10 at 10" feature. Then Morey moved to
the morning and Dung started taking the next shift? eventually moving to
the mornings. Also, Acoustic Sunrise with Rosalie Howarth was a favorite.

Dung's Deadhead show was really my first awareness of the Dead both
as a different kind of band (beyond "Truckin'" and "Sugar Magnolia")
and as a social phenomenon, these Deadheads I kept hearing about. But I
seldom listened to the radio during that time slot (same with the Idiot
Show) and GD didn't stick with me then. I seem to remember a late-night
prog-rock show there, too.

Dung was a bit of a throwback as a DJ, talking over intros and outros
and sometimes middles, like Wolfman Jack, maybe? But his enthusiasm for
the music was infectious.
  

    
His Idiot Show, oldies all the way back, was an education for my household.
  

    

> I seem to remember a late-night prog-rock show there, too.

The Deadhead Hour was part of a strip of shows at 10pm on weeknights. They
had reggae, "new age," and I forget what the other two were.
  

    
They were Midnight Dread with Doug Wendt (reggae), Musical Starstream with
Frank Forest (new age/space), and Blues Power Hour with Mark Naftalin
(blues) according to the third press clipping at Wendt's site
midnightdread.com. Wendt's show were also formative and fondly remembered.
  

    
Doug is in Montana now. I think he does online radio.
  

    
Back to your on-air collaborations -- what's that process like?

I suspect that, unlike the days of M. Dung when you were looking for tapes
from other fans to play, you both must have access to an overwhelming
amount of material to choose from. Do you share a mind-meld where one
suggests X song from Y date and that's all that's needed to be said,
or is there more pre-air shaping required?

Beyond that communication, what is the collection like these days?  There
must be very little that is undigitized and available.  Given thirty years
of GD material, pre-GD material from Jerry, plus solo and side projects,
post-Jerry GD tours, and all of the music from Dead-adjacent musicians
-- how do you manage to whittle down a set within the constraints of a
radio show?
  

    
I am the solo host/producer of the GD Hour, so I don't have to consult with
anybody. I have a pretty huge collection of recordings I retrieved from the
GD vault back in the day, and there are lots of other excellent recordings
available through other channels. And - more importantly - these guys keep
making new music for me to play on the radio!!

The GD Hour mission is to "put the dead's best musical foot forward" every
week. I feature complete concerts from the GD archive (spread out over
several weeks), interspersed with highlights from new releases (new and
archival), new works from band members, original version of songs the Dead
cov ered, covers of Dead originals by others, and occsionall interviews from
my archive.
  

    
The whole genre of other groups covering Dead music is an under-appreciated
vein, I think.

I remember when "Deadicated" album came out in what 1990?
  

    
I enjoyed that! I also liked the more recent and large "Day of the
Dead" compilation that The National compiled and played on, though it
occasionally gets weird!
  

    
Detroit Saxophonist Dave McMurray has releaesd two volumes of Dead music, and
the Joch SCofield Trio just released a double album that includes "Uncle
John's Band" (the title track).

And lots more!
  

    

Just for context, I should note that what Scott was asking about in #60
doesn't apply much to our collaborative effort on "Tales From The Golden
Road." Being a weekly two-hour talk and listener-participation show, we
generally only have room for two music tracks of relatively short
duration in each episode. Sometimes those choices will related to the
subject matter of the week's conversation, as when we are interviewing
someone from the Dead-adjacent world with a new album or upcoming gig to
promote, or if we want to call attention to a recent release from the
GD vault. Other times, the selections might just be there as a brief
respite from the chatter, or because the phone calls are tapering off
and we want some time to fill up the lines. One nice benefit of being on
a channel that has the official blessing of the Dead organization, or
the management of the various band members' individual and collaborative
endeavors, is that we can access our music choices freely and easily -
so if, for example, during the recent final Dead & Company tour, the
band played some rarity, or a particularly fine version of a standby in
the repertoire, we can download a great-sounding audio file of the
performance and have it on the air while it's still fresh news.
  

    
> the recent final Dead & Company tour

Hey, I saw a number of those shows! David was kind enough to invite
Susan and me over and we enjoyed a ringside seat as suddenly you two were
doing a little live commentary during halftime, and you introduced the
prerecorded interviews. We enjoyed it enough that got our own subscription
to <nugs.net> to see the rest of the run. In fact, I've seen much more
of Dead & Co than I've seen of original GD videos, though I have seen
a couple of show-length movies as well.

The interviews with some of the D&Co players were outstanding. I'm
especially thinking of John Mayer and Oteil Burbridge, though the ones
with, Jay Lane, Bob Weir, and Mickey Hart had their moments as well. Mayer
in particular was articulate and even passionate about his experiences
playing in the band, and discussed a kind of revelation he'd had about
adapting his role within the gestalt of this beast of a project. They
all seemed entirely comfortable talking to you two and you have the
observational skills to let them know you really did see what was going
on onstage.

Caller, do you have a question? Oh, uh, not really, no. Keep it up!
  

    
That Dead Air thing was such a wonderful experience! And - again, testifying
to the magnificence of my partner: of the 50+ interviews we did in three
years, we edited only two pieces, and those edits were for technical issues
rather than content.

Moreover, we never once made a list of questions nor discussed how to
proceed. We just did 'em.

(BTW we are discussig the possibility of publishing a book of the
interviews.)
  

    
True improvisation on y’all’s part
Good on ya, both!
  

    
Oh - I like that book idea!
  

    
This conversation was set for two weeks, which means it formally
ended yesterday, though it can informally continue as long as
there's conversation. Many thanks to <esau> (Scott Underwood) for
leading the conversation, and to <tnf> (David Gans) and <almanac>
(Gary Lambert) for taking us down the golden road (to unlimited
devotion)!

Well everybody's dancin' in a ring around the sun
Nobody's finished, we ain't even begun.
So take off your shoes, child, and take off your hat.
Try on your wings and find our where it's at.
Hey hey, hey, come (party every day)
Hey hey, hey, come (party every day)...
  

    
Thanks for a fun and fascinating conversation. As something of an
outsider to the subculture, it was great to learn more about the
broadcasting side of things. Radio seems like such a fitting medium
for the Dead-- there's liveness, improvisation, participation from
callers, unpredictable reach into people's homes and cars and
workplaces. 
  

    
Thanks to David and Gary for the glimpse backstage and showing how you
embody the ethos of the Grateful Dead. Improvisation isn't just about
making it up as you go along but about creating something with others,
being open to opportunities and listening to the people playing with
you. You've both been selflessly generous with your knowledge and passion
for the Dead, just to help people get on the bus!

I want to note that David announced he'll be teaching a six-week class
on the Grateful Dead for Stanford University's Continuing Studies,
which seems like a perfect new channel for this effort.
  

    

Yes! I'll post the info once it's announced and registration opens.

I would also like to post a link to my online store, where I have three books
and a pile of CDs (original, improvised, and otherwise) plus mugs and t-
shirts:

<https://perfectible.net>
  

    

From a member of the class I just taught for Stanford Continuing Studies:

> As long as I am emailing, I wanted to tell you about how much your XM show
> has meant to my wife and me.  For the first years of our marriage, we were
> urban dwellers without a need for a car.  Then, when we bought one, we took
> roadtrips nearly every weekend.**  When we discovered "Tales from the
> Golden Road," we started trying to time our Sunday drives home to be able
> to hear it.  Yours and Gary Lambert's show became associated in our minds
> with freedom, our honeymoon stage, and all those good things.  (This sounds
> very saccharine, and it is, but it's also true!)  Then later, we moved to
> Denver and became parents.  And, in Mountain Time, TFTGR comes on during
> kid naptime.  So, TFTGR became associated not just with all the good things
> I just mentioned but also with a job well done in getting the children to
> sleep!
  

    
Awww :-)
A cool cultural legacy.