The Dead Letter #1

Why America Needs the Grateful Dead! The Dead Letter digs deep into the Grateful Dead phenomenon, with thoughtful, in-depth articles about the history, culture, and spirit of the band beyond description! Handmade in San Francisco, CA by Charles Lighthouse.

The first issue includes:

Colorado Sunrise: The Birth of Electric Americana on 7/3/69

"The cowboys came to kick some hippie ass on the night before the fireworks in 1969. The Grateful Dead were headlining the bill atop Alice Cooper and The Holden Caulfield Blues Band in a Colorado Springs barn on Reed’s Ranch. The organizers gave up on collecting money when the doors were rushed shortly after the first band went on. Fearing a riot, they let everyone in and just prayed that the rednecks who came to gawp at the freaks wouldn’t hurt anyone."

Why America Needs the Grateful Dead

"The Grateful Dead is more than a band: it’s an ethos, a tradition, a model nomadic nation state, a force for innovation, and a spiritual technology rooted in the American values of pluralism, community, interdependence, craft mastery, egalitarianism, free expression and personal liberty. The study of the Grateful Dead invites multiple angles of approach and offers a broad range of lessons for the benefit of the arts, community, spirituality, citizenship, and commerce."

“They Can’t Revoke Your Soul” Truckin’ Into the New Decade on 1/31

"But the sixties were over. The Dead were still shaken from the debacle at Altamont just a month earlier, and no doubt the association spooked the cops into an aggressive posture at the Warehouse show. As Garcia bantered the next night, 'Everybody go home, the revolution’s over.'"

Overheard Between Sets

"This culture is a PSYOPS experiment to see how much stress and hysteria people and nations can handle. (Dark Star Orchestra, 2/7/20, Portland)"

Blessings For The Darkness: Dead & Company At The Gorge on 6/7/19

"'China Doll' was originally titled 'The Suicide Song,' but rather than a specific act, I think the song describes the emotional atmosphere of suicidality. The guitars and organ articulate deep pain that seeks release, where the urgent desire is the annihilation of the conditions of self that are trapped in pain. Oteil channels Jerry at his most soulful, and seemed to be speaking directly to the part of listener that wants to die when he says, 'I will not condemn you, nor yet would I deny...' Here through the crescendo and gentle vocal intonations that close the song, anguish is seen and soothed."

Well-Read Deadhead: Wisdom & Weirdness from the Dead Library

"THIS IS THE LIZARD GOD, CHONGA-BONGA. DON’T LET HIM DIE."

28 pages, black and white.