Grateful Dead

Hot off a recent tour with Furthur, Phil Lesh takes a few minutes to tell the Grateful Dead Channel’s Gary Lambert what’s in store for his upcoming Phil Lesh & Friends tour and beyond. Read the transcript here.

COMING TO YOU FROM THE BEAUTIFUL SAN FRANCISCO, BAY AREA... IT'S PHIL LESH

Hi Phil!

Hi Gary... is that you?

It is indeed.

You don't sound like yourself on this connection so that's why I asked.

By Blair Jackson

Philip Cushway will not hesitate to tell you that he is not a Dead Head — not a fan of the Dead’s music, particularly. But he loves the art that the band has inspired since the mid -’60s, and he also cares deeply about the artists who created those hundreds upon hundreds of posters, album covers and free-standing art pieces.

By Blair Jackson

Much has been made about how, even more than usual, this year’s Gathering of the Vibes in Bridgeport, Connecticut is a Grateful Dead family event, as it features appearances by Phil Lesh & Friends, the duo of Bob Weir and Bruce Hornsby with special guest Branford Marsalis, the Mickey Hart Band and Bill Kreutzmann’s 7 Walkers. Wish I could be there!

The world is a better place with Little Feat in it.

Once you’ve “sonified” the Big Bang, the sun, several planets and other assorted celestial phenomena, capturing the sonic essence of San Francisco’s historic Golden Gate Bridge to celebrate the span’s 75th birthday must seem like a fairly simple task. But you know Mickey Hart—he’s always looking for weird challenges.

What a spring it’s been for Dead Heads! Bob, Phil, Mickey and Bill have all been incredibly busy, making damn fine music coast-to-coast in a variety of settings and band configurations.

The Mickey Hart Band’s just-released album, Mysterium Tremendum, is a musical marvel and a sonic masterpiece. Over the course of 12 songs stretching to about 74 minutes, the eight-piece band, together in this form less than a year, sounds like old pros who have been playing together for ages.

Bruce Hornsby and Bob Weir have logged a lot of time together onstage through the years. There was Bruce’s tenure playing keys for the Grateful Dead from September 1990 through March of 1992 (plus a number of accordion sit-ins spanning ’92-’95).