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Shopping for your favorite Deadhead this holiday season? Here are seven gifts that should please any big fan of the Grateful Dead. All of these cool items are available at www.dead.net, unless otherwise noted.
“Grateful Dead: Ready or Not”
The 13th and final Grateful Dead studio effort, “Built to Last,” came out 30 years ago — on Halloween 1989. Yet, that hasn’t stopped Deadheads from wondering what the “next” album might have sounded like.
That’s the question that band archivist David Lemieux attempts to answer with “Ready or Not,” a collection of nine songs that the Dead added to its concert repertoire during the last years of its long, strange trip.
Many fans expected that these new tunes — including such gems as “So Many Roads” and “Days Between” — would form the basis of a 14th studio album. Unfortunately, Garcia died in 1995 and there would be no follow up to “Built to Last.”
Instead, fans get these nine previously unreleased live cuts — all of which were recorded between 1992 and 1995 by the band’s final lineup of Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir and Vince Welnick — and a fascinating, tantalizing look at what might’ve have been.
Read our full story on “Ready or Not” here.
Details: $16.98 fir 1 CD, $39.98 2-LP vinyl
Dave’s Picks: Volume 32
Ron “Pigpen” McKernan had only been gone a little over two weeks when the Dead checked into the Spectrum in Philadelphia on March 24, 1973. And the loss seemed to color just about every note the band played during his moving show, which is captured on the latest three-disc set in the phenomenal Dave’s Picks series.
The show drew from both recently debuted material, such as “Wave that Flag” and “Row Jimmy,” and Dead classics like “Dark Star” and “Box of Rain.” Highlights include the poignant takes on “He’s Gone” and “Sing Me Back Home,” both of which took on added poignancy in the wake of Pigpen’s death.
Details: $29.98
Aoxomoxoa: 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
The newest offering from this epic reissue series, commemorating the 50th anniversary of each of the band’s albums, is a great addition to any Deadhead’s library.
The two-disc set includes two fully remastered versions of the album — one from the original 1969 recording and the other from the Dead-produced mix done in 1971 — and features such classic cuts as “St. Stephen,” “Mountains On The Moon,” “China Cat Sunflower” and “Cosmic Charlie.”
There’s also a bonus disc of previously unreleased live material recorded in early 1969 at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco.
Details: $24.98 two-CD set, $21.98 vinyl picture disc (of the remastered 1971 album mix)
Saint of Circumstance
Two new keyboardists, Vince Welnick and Bruce Hornsby, were in tow as the band checked into Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey for a fabled two-night stand in June 1991. The second night (June 17, 1991) is widely considered to be one of the greatest latter-era Dead shows and you’ll hear why as you listen to this three-disc offering, boasting incredible versions of “Dark Star” (which shows up four times in the set), “Eyes of the World” and “Saint of Circumstance” (which serves as the title track).
Details: $19.99-$24.99 digital; $29.99 3-CD, 5-LP $99.98
Dead & Company
Concert tickets always make for fun a gift, so “miracle” your favorite jam band fan with some ducats to see this Grateful Dead offshoot. The band — featuring the Dead’s own Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann as well as John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge and Jeff Chimenti — performs Dec. 30-31 at the Chase Center in San Francisco.
Details: 7 p.m. Dec. 30, 8 p.m. Dec. 31; $50-$199, www.ticketmaster.com
Dave’s Picks 2020
Looking for a gift that will keep right on giving throughout the new year? Give the gift of a Dave’s Picks subscription and the recipient will receive all four of the series’ multi-disc sets to be be released in 2020. (For those keeping track, that would be Dick’s Picks No. 33-36.) Count on these Picks — from band archivist David Lemieux — being nothing short of awesome.
Details: Subscription is $115.92
Jerry Garcia — Secret Space of Dreams
A new 208-page coffee table book featuring images of the Grateful Dead icon taken by one of the Bay Area’s greatest music photographers, Jay Blakesberg, during the years 1978 to 1995. John Mayer wrote the foreword.
Details: $60, www.blakesberg.com
