Days Between

[Drunk Monk]

HBD Jerry!

Today we shall celebrate you like never before.

[King Bob]

Christina heard that the concert tickets start at $600. Can that be right?

[thatguy]

I think that's for a 3-day pass. (Somebody at work was selling a 3-day for that and said it was "at cost")

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

About $200 per day, $600 for the weekend for GA. The VIP is like double that.

[King Bob]

That's a long way from a flatbed truck in the street

[Drunk Monk]

A long strange trip

So cliche

[Drunk Monk]

The last day of the Days Between 2025
My dad’s birthday
The full moon
OSL25 day 2

[Drunk Monk]

On NPR

How to love the Grateful Dead
JULY 28, 20265:00 AM ET
By 
Robin Hilton
, 
Isabella Gomez Sarmiento
, 
Felix Contreras
45-Minute Listen

The Grateful Dead
Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS/VCG via Getty Images

Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest places, if you look at it right. And if you get confused, just listen to the music play. This week, resident Deadheads Isabella Gomez Sarmiento and Felix Contreras help host Robin Hilton hear what he’s been missing in the music of the Grateful Dead.
Are you a Deadhead? Share your memories of the Grateful Dead and we may include them in a big series we're launching about the band on Aug. 1.
Support the show with a review on Apple or Spotify wherever you listen to podcasts. 
Questions, comments, suggestions or feedback of any kind always welcome: allsongs@npr.org
Featured songs:
(00:00) Intro and “King Solomon’s Marbles”
(08:54) “China Cat Sunflower / I Know You Rider” Alpine Valley, WI 7.17.89
(11:03) “Help On the Way / Slipknot / Franklin’s Tower”
(16:39) “Ripple”
(23:34) “Morning Dew (Europe ‘72)”
(26:17) “I Shall Be Released (Live)” 
(30:05) “Black Muddy River”
(31:34) “One More Saturday Night”
(32:09) “Sunrise”
(33:21) “Shady Grove”
(39:14) “Birdsong”
(41:45) “Uncle John’s Band”

[Drunk Monk]

At DArk Star Orchstra at the Greek. Jgb opened - luv that Hammond
It’s a gorgeous day here

[Drunk Monk]

August 1, 2026

by Isabella Gomez Sarmiento

---

This week, NPR Music reporter Isabella Gomez Sarmiento takes over the newsletter to help launch a special look at the legacy — and future — of a band and its followers who collectively rewrote the rules of music fandom. 
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Deanne Fitzmaurice for NPR

Happy August, music enjoyers!
It’s Jerry Garcia’s birthday today, which is a big deal for the two Deadheads on the team here at NPR Music. Today kicks off the unofficial, week-long Grateful Dead holiday known as the [url=https://click.nl.npr.org/?qs=ABB7InYiOjEsImQiOjQ5NTV9AAYAAAAAA52-9avKr5K9vSKKyrzxnnKpBiYG0IvvFAoz9Yz1zIdKRV1xbHBkWxQZTJ8gCSCXyM3tPMh6J4y4F6mJ9ThCkWOgT1vF9pd_5h5HP-Q]Days Between: It spans from the date of Jerry’s birth (Aug. 1) to the anniversary of the day he died (Aug. 9). 
This year’s Days Between is a little different — it’s the first one without Bob Weir, who spent the three decades since Jerry’s death passing the Grateful Dead tradition down to younger fans and musicians. It’s also the first summer in a very long time without an official Grateful Dead live experience. 
But “official” has never been the limit of the Grateful Dead experience, whether you’re talking live recordings or t-shirts. As fans and as journalists, Felix Contreras and I knew that people would still be looking for ways to get together and listen to the Dead this summer, but also that there would be a lot of questions to answer. What does this moment mean for a community that has somehow managed to rebuild and reinvent itself again and again for 60-plus years? Who takes on the mantle now? If anyone does?
We decided to go out on the road and find out. (For journalism, of course!) The result is a series that launches today called Dead After Death: podcast episodes, digital features, photos and more chronicling this moment in the Grateful Dead’s history — and looking ahead to what comes next. 
Our summer adventure took us to a bunch of different places. We took a Waymo to the house of a Grateful Dead historian (talk about a changing San Francisco), we drove down the Pacific Coast highway to a university library in Santa Cruz, where we visited the band’s official archive (OK, “official” in this case was pretty cool — that's us in the photo above, with the marionettes from the "Touch of Grey" video). I made friends at a Deadhead documentary screening in a Brooklyn bowling alley; Felix checked out a jam band festival in Maryland. 
We also spent an afternoon in the middle of the redwood forest in Northern California, at a grassroots festival put on by the family of Phil Lesh. It was a musical celebration of the Grateful Dead’s songbook, with a performance by Phil’s son Grahame. The entire thing felt very DIY. There was a grassy field, a sea of picnic blankets and hundreds of Deadheads hanging out in the sun. The backstage area was a circle of blue Adirondack chairs under the trees and a cooler full of tie-dye popsicles. Felix and I were in heaven. 
When the band went onstage, it sounded different than the original, of course. That’s kind of the beauty of the Grateful Dead: You can know every word and every note of a song, but when you’re hearing it live, you don’t know where it’s going to take you. Surrendering to that experience is incredibly humbling, but also euphoric — you have to be willing to be present in a totally different way. And the people in Monte Rio were up to the task. 
I watched a 25-year-old who never saw an original member of the Dead perform, dancing her heart out next to an older woman who told me she saw Jerry live too many times to count. They were unintentionally in sync with one another. Without saying a single word, they smiled and twirled and clapped as one song transitioned into the next. 
That was the first of many Grateful Dead tribute performances Felix and I witnessed over the summer. There are musicians playing the songs in every corner of the country, and there are people of all generations showing up to listen. The Grateful Dead’s songs were often long metaphors about the cycles of life and death, about making peace with this world before you head into the next one. But somehow, over the course of our summer reporting road trip, we realized maybe the one thing that will not die is the spirit of this music and the devotion it instills in anyone willing to lend their ears to it. 
You can listen to that story, a travelogue of our summer tour, here.
If you’re not a Deadhead, worry not! Earlier this week, we talked to our colleague Robin Hilton, host of All Songs Considered and Dead skeptic, about how to learn to love the Grateful Dead. (He admitted afterwards that some of the songs we played during our conversation did move the needle for him.) 
And if the only song you know is “Touch of Grey” (for better or worse), I did a deep dive with Ann Powers and Daoud Tyler-Ameen on NPR Music's subscription-only podcast about the history of that song … and the many meanings it’s taken on within the Dead community.
We’re going to keep publishing Dead After Death stories all week, so bookmark this page to follow along.

[thatguy]

https://mailchi.mp/ee2645f7211e/mshpa-in...03ca22cc68

Grateful Dead “Touch of Grey” Talk at First Theatre

History is alive at Monterey State Historic Park. 

Here's what's happening this August.

 

A free multimedia presentation with author and music historian John Brackett

Grateful Dead “Touch of Grey” 

RSVP BUTTON
Grateful Dead “Touch of Grey” Talk at First Theatre
WHEN: Wednesday, August 26 at 6 p.m.

WHERE: California’s First Theatre, corner of Pacific Street and Scott Street, Monterey

COST: FREE — all are welcome

After two decades of being a countercultural music force, San Francisco’s the Grateful Dead reached a new level of fame with the release of their song “A Touch of Grey” in 1987. The band’s accompanying music video included live footage from a 1987 concert at Laguna Seca Raceway and received major airplay on MTV, resulting in a new generation of fans.

Music writer and historian John Brackett, author of the newly released book Touch of Grey, or How the Grateful Dead Became Pop Stars, will describe the development of the groundbreaking hit and the video’s connection to Monterey. Join us at this free multimedia presentation on August 26th (6pm) in California’s First Theatre(Pacific Street and Scott Street, Monterey). His book tells the story of how one song transformed the legacy of one of rock’s most iconic musical groups.

Following the talk, Brackett will be available to answer questions and to sign copies of his book. Touch of Grey,or How the Grateful Dead Became Pop Stars will be available for purchase in First Theatre.

Touch of Grey Book Cover

John Brackett, author

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

The last day of the Days Between 2026
It was KB who gave me the news with a morning phone call. That was followed by several calls by others but I remain grateful that the call came from someone that I saw Jerry with.

I am grateful for my dad’s tireless work. He came from a poor family and built a nest egg that has allowed me to keep my mom in a care center for three years now without financial worry.

This year is particularly poignant as it marks then end of OSL, a 6 festival run for me and Tara from her apartment - the rabbit hutch (she & Bri are both born in the year of the rabbit). It’s been a wonderful vantage point for the OSL festivities. No idea what we might do next year. But that’s a long way from today. 

Today we celebrate us, my dad, & Jerry.

[King Bob]

I was also born in the year of the rabbit. A water year.

[Drunk Monk]

I was also born in the year of the rabbit. A water year.

Year of the Wet Hare