Nov 8, 2022
I originally recorded this episode as a dry-run for a forthcoming and entirely separate-from-FCAC limited-run podcast seriesI'm going to be doing in 2023 about Dead & Company's final tour (SPINOFF!), but my conversation with my friend and guest Geoff Weed was so illuminating about so many things: the nature of enduring fandom, the power of music and the skills of its most talented practitioners, funny tales from the road, thoughts on how concert-going has changed, and our humorous on-the-scene reports from our individual movie theater experiences in NYC and Chicago as we queued up to see the Dead's 'Meetup at the Movies' special event...that I had to release it this week.
If you're not a Deadhead, no worries: this episode is really about having a love for music and the personalities that make bands tick and occasionally go boom. For those not familiar, some of the names you might hear are hyperlinked below. Part of the fun of the Grateful Dead is learning the language and the curves in the road. But this brief roadmap will suffice and give you all you need to follow along:
Grateful Dead archivist David Lemieux
Merry Prankster Mountain Girl
Legendary Rock Manager Sam Cutler
Former Grateful Dead keyboardist Pigpen
Former Grateful Dead keyboardist Keith Godchaux
US Army refusenik Jerry Garcia
Geoff and I talk about the cycles of fame the Dead have endured...and spend some time chatting about John Mayer and Dead & Company and it's soon-to-conclude 7 year touring history as one of the music business's highest-grossing tours year in and year out.