When I was at WOMAD a few years ago I was wearing my Steal Your Base tie die and was accosted by a Deadhead. He informed me that there were five Deadheads in Adelaide. That can't be true. Can it?

Happy Trails

There's not many in New Zealand I can attest to that. At least not ones who actually made it to shows. I was born there and spent quite a few years there at different points in time. I'm the only actual tourhead from there that I've ever met and I've traveled throughout that land many a time mixing it up with the alternative folks of the various towns and scenes. There are a dozen or so that hit up a few shows though that I've run into here and there. There must be at least that many again that I didn't run into.
I guess that makes me the King of the New Zealand Deadheads... ha, ha! ;)

Are you kind?

Melbourne? Deadhead? Hey that's me. Been on the bus since, um, early '70s, saw the band only once (Winterland, June, '77) and then went off on a whole grunge>New Orleans>jazz thing until a few years back when I started acquiring a whole bunch of live stuff.

Thankfully, the timeslot of my PBS (106.7 FM) show The Pearls has shifted from high-profile, jazz-only Sunday arvos to a much more relaxing 11am-1pm. At the moment most shows are going like this: about 1/3 jazz, mostly pre-WWII; about 1/3 live GD; about 1/3 western swing and country; plus whatever else I feel like playing.

I'm getting good feedback on the GD stuff. Some from geriatrics like myself. But some, too, from younger folks. Melbourne's a very hip music city, but AKAIK there's never been regular Dead on public radio. So while various generations here are more than familiar with, say, the Velvets and even the 13th Floor Elevators, the Dead could be a bit of a blind spot.

I'd love to get together with any melbourne Deadheads. Send a PM here or go to weirk@heraldsun.com.au

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It's simple: Go Socceroos, Go Victory, Go All Blacks, Go Storm. And turn up the volume. And then some more.

Deadheads in Melbourne breakin' out all over!

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It's simple: Go Socceroos, Go Victory, Go All Blacks, Go Storm. And turn up the volume. And then some more.

Yep that was me. The music biz has changed so much in recent years that I've become well used to paying for the stuff I review. The stuff we get sent to the paper is uniformly dire. And with the internet, it's cool to review stuff not available in Oz, although I do get calls from older readers frustrated that they can't by some weird old jazz or country CD I've reviewed at their local Sanity! I'd love to do the new From The vault, but I think there's too much Pigpen on there for me. The Cow Plalace set is holding up real well and has become one of my favourites. I get the odd thing from Greville Records. Although today in the office I have with me 100 Year Hall and Steppin Out.

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It's simple: Go Socceroos, Go Victory, Go All Blacks, Go Storm. And turn up the volume. And then some more.