Grateful Dead

dead.net the official site

It's probably the fastest I've read every page of a reasonably large book (on avg. 100 pp./day). Anyone curious to know what's in it, feel free to PM me. Before I forget... Nice book and well worth the read BTW...

Read it over the course of a few days. Hemingway sense of adventure. I thought my life is wild and wooly but then we are talking about a member of the Grateful Dead. Comparisons are not healthy anyway. So many of the concerts he mentioned were shows I attended. Many great quotes in the book. The two Samoans with the speargun in Hawaii; "Sorry to hear about the kine". Power married with grace. And when Bill called into the Grateful Dead radio show on Kauai and requested Black Muddy River. DJ asks how many Dead shows he attended. OK I better not be a spoiler alert dude. As Keith Richards said to Terri Gross on NPR , "It's all in the book dear, read the book".

Without spoiling it - love the candor and brutal honesty about some things. That was so refreshing. Also very disappointing /lost opportunity to share more about certain things. Like with a lot of books like this one, there's a whole bunch of cliché rock-band-on-the-road stuff that I really didn't find interesting. Who cares? The emotional/spiritual content and the information about what it was like to actually play that music - that's the gold. And there wasn't enough of it for me. But thanks just the same. It WAS a good read, it was well worth the $12 or whatever I paid in iTunes. I just wish he had spent more time on the actual content that matters. Deadheads are people of substance. This is not a group of 15 year olds reading exaggerated nonsense about Led Zeppelin in Hammer of the Gods. Did he even know Bob Weir? Did they ever cross paths? (Sorry....) The other thing about these rock books that really troubles me - as a parent, I would rather not be reminded about how atrocious these people were as parents. Don't tell me they had to be bad parents to be good musicians. That's a crock.

I don't think anybody needs to be a bad parent to be a great musician. But I do think musicians that are completely consumed by their art should not be parents in the first place. There is only room for one priority.

"There is only room for one priority." That's exactly what I'm talking about-- what I disagree with. You can do both. I work a full time job and try my best as a parent. That's what my life centers on. People like Kreutzmann wanted to hang out with the guys and get high and stoned in all their free time. Come on - let's get real. That's a personal choice - it's not part of your job. It was an excuse. I play drums, get high, then after: half-hearted parent. A lot of people are like that. I find it repulsive. So when I hear about it it does bother me a little bit - I want to enjoy the greatness of Kreautzmann's art without thinking about it. That's the downside of reading a book like this. And I'm not picking on Kreutzmann. As a parent he probably did a lot better than many of his peers. He would probably agree with everything I'm saying here. . . One thing I can't relate to is the demands of travel. That is very real. If you're physically not there - you're not there. That part is not an excuse.

"Drummer in the Grateful Dead" is a unique job description. Only BK knows what it took to succeed at that. He says (and he would know) that at least some of the band's indulgences shaped the music. So could he have been the same drummer while also parenting well? We can't know. So it's not necessarily "a crock". The GD were who they were partially because of their failures. I'm glad most people are better parents than Billy was! If they are also unwittingly helping to create a cultural phenomenon that will influence hundreds of thousands of people for decades, then more power to them. But most people don’t have jobs like that.

I was curious if the signature is authentic. Signed copy is a very vague term. Other sites advertise same book for same price, but include details such as personally signed. no autopen etc. There is no such description here and the term they use is very vague and could mean just about anything. Who signed it? Bill himself? Thanks

Alas! I always wondered about the real reason why this show was cancelled. I'm glad you cleared it up for us, Billy; I remember this night well, for it was supposed to be my first show as a 16-yr-old high school freshman who'd been listening to his older brother's albums and hearing strains of dead songs that piqued his curiosity. I somehow got permission to go to this show on the el train with my older brother and his friends. When the train pulled up at the Lawrence Ave. stop, right as we were getting off the train, a dejected deadhead was getting on the train and explained that one of the drummers was "sick." Of course we were bummed, but still had a great night hanging out under a willow tree by the lake with some Rock & Rye and other tasty morsels. (I did finally see my first show at the uptown, 12 5 79, front row balcony/center, which made up for may '78.) So if you are unsure about the real reason why that show didn't happen, you need to read the book. I don't want to spoiler it for you--because you really should invest in this book and enjoy all the tales of hijinks and escapades that Billy describes like he's hanging out at a bar with you--but can say that it wasn't because someone was sick. Thanks for a great read, Billy! Mahalo!

Expected a little more inside information and others appear to remember times better than Bill does. Still you have to read it. I do recommend David Gans and Blair Jackson's new book "This Is All A Dream We Dreamed" as a better record on what went on.

I purchased a copy of the book, and the signature is Bill's.It is authentic.

Highly recommended! Fun read with many hilarious and emotional moments. Only here can you get Bill's early history and personal POV, and the book itself is well written. I read this book rather quickly even though I made sure to only read it under the right conditions haha.

This is really an awesome book, thanks for the great content! from your awesome friend Deck Contractor NJ