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Event
Blair Jackson & David Gans: This is All a Dream We Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead
KPFA Radio 94.1 FM Presents
Blair Jackson & David Gans
Saturday, November 19, 2016 7:30 PM
St. John's Presbyterian Church, 2727 Channing Way, Berkeley
advance tickets: $15 (1 admit), $30 (1 admit + 1 book at door), $40 (2 admits + 1 book at door) :: T: 800-838-3006 or Books Inc, Pegasus (3 sites), Moes, Walden Pond Bookstore, Diesel a Bookstore, Mrs. Dalloways S.F. - Modern Times. KPFA benefit www.kpfa.org/events
The definitive fifty-year history of this seminal band, as told by the band members and their family, friends and followers.
The Grateful Dead are unquestionably one of the most iconic and mythical bands in America. Even today, twenty years after the groups final concert and the death of leader Jerry Garcia that same summer, the former band members and legions of fans continue to celebrate their rich musical and cultural legacy. In THIS IS ALL A DREAM WE DREAMED: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead Blair Jackson and David Gans have tapped into their four decades of Grateful Dead journalism to create a wholly unique oral history of this remarkable band that helped shape three generations.
THIS IS ALL A DREAM traces the bands evolution from its folk/bluegrass beginnings through the jug band craze, an early incarnation as Rolling Stones wannabes, feral psychedelic warriors, the Americana jam band that blazed through the 70s, to the shockingly popular but still iconoclastic stadium-filling band of later years. The Dead broke every rule of the music business along the way, taking risks and venturing into new territory as they fused inspired ideas and techniques with intuition and fearlessness to create a sound and a business model unlike anything heard and seen before.
Blair Jackson and David Gans, two of the most respected chroniclers of the Dead, reveal the bands story through the words of its members and their creative collaborators, as well as a number of diverse fans, stitching together a multitude of voices into a seamless tapestry. Woven into this musical saga is an examination of the subculture that developed into its own economy, touching fans from all walks of life, from penniless hippies to celebrities, and at least one U.S. Vice President.
THIS IS ALL A DREAM deftly weaves together the voices of the Dead in a way that will leave readers feeling like a fly on the wall of some of the greatest moments in the bands history.
"...high-demand backstory lively oral history." -- Booklist
"Gans and Jackson have orchestrated a shrewd, essential account of the band members lives and times, a tale as polyphonic as the electronic Dixieland they unperfected through the years,
to our (and their) enduring delight and awe."
-- Nick Paumgarten, staff writer, The New Yorker
"Despite its title, what makes this book different from all other books on the Grateful Dead is that it is anything but dreamlike. It is down-to-earth, plainspoken, without special pleading or arguments for differing levels of awareness. You didn't have to be there. On many pages, this could be the story of any band-the story as it emerges here carries no pretensions-and elsewhere it is the story of people doing their work. And it is so full of the intensity and repetitions of ordinary life that it throws the work that was done into a new light."
-- Greil Marcus
Blair Jackson penned Grateful Dead: The Music Never Stopped and wrote and published twenty-seven issues of the acclaimed fanzine The Golden Road. He is also the author of the definitive biography Garcia: An American Life.
David Gans has published three books on the Dead. He is the producer and host of the nationally syndicated Grateful Dead Hour, is cohost of Sirius XMs Tales from the Golden Road, and is a working musician who has incorporated Grateful Dead songs and improvisation into his own work.
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LocationSt. John's Presbyterian Church (View)
2727 College Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94705
United States
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