Chris MiskiewiczGrateful Dead Origins

Love The Grateful Dead,good stuff

The story and content of the book are great, but when delivered the corners of the book were bent and it had white paint and pen marks on the cover. Either damaged in transit (and had pen and paint smeared on it??) or maybe it’s second hand?

Even though I’ve scanned this, I can’t get it to work 😢

"That's what I want to do, man. I want to be a part of that new conversation--whatever it is." Jerry Garcia."We're trying to make music in such a way that it doesn't have a message." Jerry Garcia."Well, Haight Ashbury is just a place. You know? It's just a street. It's not really the thing. It never was the thing that was going on." Jerry Garcia.This approximately traditional comic book size graphic novel, with a matte finish paper takes in the very beginnings of what would become the Grateful Dead, up through their Woodstock performance--about five years time. There's also a one page introduction by David Lemieux about this graphic novel. The coloring has the look of more traditional comic books/graphic novels while keeping close to the era's feel which is important. The accompanying music tracks are down loadable by accessing them through one of the first pages of the book which is very obvious.The story begins with The Warlocks playing at Magoo's Pizza Parlor, Garcia teaching guitar at Morgan's Music shop when he and Weir jammed a bit on New Years Eve, and the formation of Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions. The death of Garcia's father is here, the band going electric, an early acid trip (as depicted by the use of an eye-dropper), a gig at The In-Room ("lots of divorcees and stewardesses"), and recording at Golden Gate Recorders (this is where the inclusion of a number of well known Dead lyrics start to appear throughout the book).The band's new name is also delved into with an explanation of the band's newly chosen name, the Acid Tests with the Merry Pranksters, the Pranksters cross country bus trip ("You're either on the bus or you're off the bus".), playing the Fillmore (Bill Graham saying he doesn't like their name), signing with Warner Bros. Records and the release of the first album, the Monterey Pop Festival, the introduction of Mickey Hart to the band, the communal house at 710 Ashbury Street and the "bust", recording in '67 with the "thick air" incident, and a nice two spread graphic of a well known poster of the band playing in the Haight.The band's second album and that period is depicted ("It's so completely unlike anything you ever heard before that it's practically a new concept in music".), the ouster of Pigpen and Weir, the short live band Mickey Hart and his (or "the") Heartbeats, appearing on the Playboy After Dark TV show (with a few folks getting dosed--look for Hefner's scorched eyeballs), and ends with the Woodstock performance (Garcia: "It's nice to know that you can blow the most important gig of your career and it doesn't really matter."), and with Owsley painting a new band logo on the equipment cases (the skull and lightening bolt we all know).While the band's early history is widely known by Deadheads, what's really important here is the underlying vibe of the times that runs through this novel. Yeah the pictures are pretty cool, and the dialog flows along nicely, but it's that certain feel of that era that you can come away with. But I have to admit I went to college in Palo Alto in the late '60s'70s, and heard the Dead many times both for free outdoors (wow!) and at various venues, so I can easily relate to this novel's story line. And even it there's nothing new here in the way of information, the book is still a nifty time trip back to those great early days.

For new Deadheads, a cute overview of how the band formed.For more seasoned Deadheads like myself who know how the band formed, the illustrations help make clear how some of those well-reported scenes actually looked (like, for instance, Billy and Mickey meeting for the first time at a Count Basie jazz concert in Sept. ‘67).Minor complaints: a factual inaccuracy or two; the font is hard to read at times; illustration-wise, sometimes you can’t tell which member of the band or the Dead family you’re looking at; and I wonder exactly how accurately verbatim some of the dialog is - hey I’m a Deadhead perfectionist.)But all in all, something for every Deadhead.