I was born in 1973. The Grateful Dead had already been an entity for 8 years, having travelled thousands of literal, and millions of psychic, miles by the time Id breathed my first.By the time I first saw Jerry Garcia he'd already faced down a diabetic coma, written just about all of his most impressive...

The Bob Weir documentary debuted on Netflix in May.  In lieu of a full review, I did a review in five tweets from @thebarnpresents twitter account.  I am collecting them here for website readers, but be sure to give us a follow on social media so you don't miss anything! There is...

Netflix is releasing The Other One: The Long Strange Trip of Bob Weir on May 22, a documentary following the story of Bob Weir and his unlikely career with the Grateful Dead.Based on the trailer, the film appears to be a promising investigation of Weirs California roots and the bands exploratory nature, the guitarist joining...

One of the remarkable things about Bob Weir's long career has been his physical transformation. Once, he could be the only member of the Grateful Dead that could be considered the "cute" one. The one-time short-shorts wearing, pink-polo sporting, whisper-thin spitting machine has slowly morphed to affected a style resembling the frazzled, unkempt Garcia look...

With David Letterman's retirement announcement yesterday, I thought it'd be nice to check in with some of the inspired lunacy created during the Late Night years with our musical heroes.Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir made three notable appearances on the show dating back to 1982, where they played acoustic on an off night between Nassau...

Rock coupled with the symphony has always made for a curious marriage. This is particularly true for improvisational music, which doesn't lend itself to arrangements for dozens of musicians.For jam fans in Chicago (and really most of the Midwest) we haven't had too much evidence to sway us either way. We've had to sit...

Photos: Mike Kaiz PhotojournalismAs both Bob and Phil have conspired to avoid Chicago for nearly two years, it was great to see Grateful Dead family rally around Bobby at Friday night's sold out Ratdog gig.But Steve Kimock was the pope of this gig -- stealing the spotlight again and again, a considerable task, as...

Update [3/19] Phase Two is announced. See how I did on speculation and read some healthy skepticism HERE.Update [6/9] Phase Three is announced. More Info about the final headliner and the mysterious Lunar Landing Conspiracy.Here's something I never would have thought last summer the Midwest is getting another jamband camping megafest. While Summer Camp owns...

Only once in my memory have Grateful Dead alumnus played at the Chicago Theater: when Rhythmn Devils brought an all-star band including Phish's Mike Gordon and Steve Kimock in 2006 to the venerable landmark. It looks like Kimock will make a return, this time playing lead guitar role for Bob Weir's Ratdog on Friday, March 7th, 2014....

In my recent essay reviewing the Chicago stop on the AmericanaramA tour, one of the things I was most impressed with was how Wilco is becoming more like the Dead. No, they're not much in the way of improvisational jamming, but they are beginning to craft setlists like them. It seems the band is pulling...