Grateful Dead

Sunshine Daydream: Veneta, 8/27/72, part 1 supplementary text

by Jesse Jarnow

The Grateful Dead’s August 27th, 1972 benefit for the Springfield Creamery remains one of the most extraordinary events they were involved with during their long career, held almost completely outside of consensus American reality. Organized by the mild-mannered but radical Springfield Creamery, the show existed at the crossroads of a number of alternative Americas with, for one sweltering Oregon summer afternoon, the Dead at the center.

Joshua Clark Davis is the author of From Head Shops To Whole Foods: The Rise and Fall of Activist Entrepreneurs. The story of the Springfield Creamery and Nancy’s Yogurt isn’t told in the book, but it could be.

The Oregon Renaissance Faire, now the Oregon Country Fair, is a most peculiar Oregon institution all its own. Rachel Lee Rubin’s Well Met: Renaissance Faires and the American Counterculture traces the hippie roots of the Ren faires. She chronicles the story of the Golden Toad, featuring musicians Bob Thomas and Will Spires, both with close ties to Owsley Stanley. They never released any official music, but some live recordings are starting to surface.

The Rainbow Family and the history of the Rainbow Gathering is a long, complicated, and worthwhile history outside the scope of the Deadcast. The original Rainbow Oracle from summer ‘72 can be read online.

Our guest Camille Cole is the author of the forthcoming memoir, The Midnight Show: Bohemians, Byways & Bonfires, available from GladEye Press.

And our guest Laurence Roberts is the author of Mayday 1971: A White House at War, a Revolt in the Streets, and the Untold History of America's Biggest Mass Arrest.

Adrian Marin’s mini-documentary, Grateful Days.