Grateful Dead

Have you ever suffered scorn, derision and abuse from your self-styled hipster friends for your proud Dead Head ways? Of course you have! Well, we're here to say: "Vindication, move me brightly!" On the next edition of "Tales From The Golden Road," airing Sunday, July 27th on Sirius Satellite Radio's Grateful Dead Channel, we'll be examining the ways in which the world is finally coming around to realizing what we've known all along: that loving the Grateful Dead is -- dare we say it? -- cool!

With David Gans taking the week off, joining Gary Lambert in the Sirius studio will be an expert witness: music journalist Jesse Jarnow, author of a terrific article on this very subject, just published in the August issue of RELIX. Jarnow will tell us about some of the key figures in a new breed of cutting-edge musicians who are citing the Dead as a primary influence and inspiration. Among those discussed will be bands like Akron/Family, Animal Collective, Of Montreal, Ween and numerous others (we'll play some musical examples as well).

Participating in the conversation via telephone from the West Coast will be multi-faceted musician/broadcaster/educator Barry Smolin, host of the long-running, Dead-friendly radio program The Music Never Stops on KPFK in Los Angeles. As one of those Dead Heads who sometime felt stigmatized by his punk-rock pals, Barry will tell about the Dead's newly acknowledged acceptance in the punk, noise-rock and freak-folk scenes, and how a wide and surprising range of iconically hip musicians such as Patti Smith, Sonic Youth, Vernon Reid and Ornette Coleman have embraced the band; and finally, we'll be joined by writer Denise Sullivan, who last year wrote an excellent article on the neo-Dead Head movement for the online version of the pioneering rock mag CRAWDADDY! Sullivan's piece touched on similar subject matter to Jarnow's, but from the opposite perspective: Denise, a dyed-in-the-wool punk fan who once felt almost honor-bound to hate the Dead, finally came around, and now honors the GD as the iconoclastic (one might even say proto-punk) godfathers to the indie-rock scene that we've always known them to be.

If you're a Dead Head who was mocked, only to have the mockers see the light; if you were one of the reluctant ones who got turned on to the Dead later on and much to your own surprise; if you've still got friends you'd like to convert -- we want to hear from you. Listeners are encouraged to join the conversation by calling 1-888-89-SIRIUS

"Tales From The Golden Road" airs live on Sunday afternoons from 4 to 6 pm ET on Sirius 32, the Grateful Dead Channel, with repeat broadcasts every Monday at 9 am ET