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GRAMMYs

Terrapin Crossroads

Photo credit: Jay Blakesberg

News
Terrapin Crossroads Revives The Grateful Dead spirit-grateful-dead-lives-terrapin-crossroads

The Spirit Of The Grateful Dead Lives On At Terrapin Crossroads

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The San Rafael venue, opened by bassist Phil Lesh in 2012, continues to be a popular gathering place for music fans, and a mecca for local musicians
Lily O'Brien
GRAMMYs
Nov 13, 2019 - 10:15 am

Back in the day, Marin County was the place to be if you were hip. The sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll culture that characterized and defined the mid-'60s flocked to this gloriously beautiful part of the Bay Area and settled. Among them were members of the Grateful Dead, the Bay Area band that embodied the spirit of peace, love and community. So when Phil Lesh, the Dead's bass player, opened Terrapin Crossroads in San Rafael in 2012, it quickly became a unique and popular gathering place, and a mecca for local musicians.  

Inspired by a visit to Levon Helm's barn in Woodstock, New York, where intimate concerts and rambling jams took place, the Lesh family decided that they wanted to create a similar experience in Marin. "It started as just a place for my dad to play locally," said singer/songwriter and guitar player Grahame Lesh, one of Phil and Jill Lesh's two sons. "He didn't really want to be touring anymore. He can come down on a Tuesday and just play for free with no notice. It's really a cool thing for him to do whenever he wants."

Terrapin soon started attracting notable players like Jackie Greene, Tim and Nicki Bluhm, members of the Mother Hips, Dan "Lebo" Lebowitz, Stu Allen, Danny Click, and many, many more who perform regularly in the lively bar that offers free music every night. The cool, casual vibe attracts an enthusiastic crowd who enjoy the eclectic mix of musicians—you never know who you will find jamming there, including Phil himself, and other members of the Terrapin Family Band.

Grahame credits Terrapin with helping to launch the careers of many local musicians, as well as his own. "It has been incredibly helpful for my band, Midnight North, and all the musicians that weren't part of the community before, or were starting to build their careers seven or eight years ago," said Grahame. He explained that anyone who wants to be part of the family of musicians just needs to reach out. "If you make yourself known, eventually you'll get a response. You might be thrown into the fire, but we'll make some fun music happen."

Formerly a restaurant called the Seafood Peddler, Terrapin is located right on the water, on the San Rafael Canal, giving it a resort-like ambience. There is an outside bar area with comfortable couches where you can lounge, get a drink and a snack, a full-service restaurant where you can dine inside or out, an inside bar area where you can enjoy live music, and the Grate Room, where bigger acts are booked.

GRAMMYs

Phil Lesh performs at Terrapin Crossroads
Photo credit: Jay Blakesberg

One of the most unique features at Terrapin is the large outdoor beach park, which they got permission to use from the city of San Rafael. In addition to a stage that frequently hosts concerts, a huge part of this area is designed for kids to run around and play, and events are planned regularly just for them. A Jack-O-Lantern Jubilee was held there recently for Halloween, with a costume party, candy, and spooky stories read to the kids by Phil Lesh. "The Lesh family really wanted to create a place that was open to every generation," said Tara Patton, Terrapin's executive director. "One of the things I am told all the time is that we really do make children feel welcome, which is so special."  

Other events include the annual Oysterfest, Ramble on Rosé, trivia night and electric, jazz or blues brunches. "We try to do something every weekend and in the nice weather, we have really big events once a month" said Patton. "We have events that are not only fun, but also educational," she added. "We love being able to do all those things for the community."

Patton expressed that both she and the Lesh family are pleased with the way things have been unfolding at Terrapin. "I love that both the deadhead community and our local community, who may not know about the [Grateful Dead] music as much, meld together into one organic group of people who are all enjoying the same thing. Our mission is about making sure there is something to accommodate everyone. So if you are a young family or a music lover or a couple looking for a romantic night—we offer all of those things in one place."

And it's working. Seven years in, Terrapin has become a bustling Marin establishment, welcoming entire generations of families, and visitors from all over the world who want to experience the Grateful Dead vibe. "It's crazy, and it's a really unique thing, said Grahame about the eternal draw of the now-defunct band. "This weird band that never really had any hits is still such a huge cultural force in 2019. People just want to come and experience something like it, even now."

Ultimately, the heartbeat of Terrapin Crossroads is found in the music, and the strong community it has created. "I don't think what has happened at Terrapin happens all that often," said Grahame. "Music is a magical thing and it's a great glue. I think we got lucky with meeting the people we did, and all of these folks wanting to be a part of it."

On 'Blanket The Homeless,' Bay Area Artists Join Together To Raise Money For Those In Need

Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart

Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart

Photo: Peter Simon/Getty Images

News
Grateful Dead's 'Aoxomoxoa' Celebrates 50 Years grateful-deads-aoxomoxoa-reissue-has-remixes-plus-1969-live-recordings

Grateful Dead's 'Aoxomoxoa' Reissue Has Remixes Plus 1969 Live Recordings

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50th anniversary reissue of the breakthrough third album shows their signature psychedelic style's beginnings
Philip Merrill
GRAMMYs
Mar 29, 2019 - 12:21 pm

Aoxomoxoa is the title of the Grateful Dead's 1969 album — a palindrome, it is pronounced the same way backwards as reading the usual way, left to right. That was "far-out" 50 years ago, and on the album's 50th anniversary the Grateful Dead and Rhino Records will reissue Aoxomoxoa including remastered versions of both the album's 1969 mix and 1971 remix by Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh, as well as 1969 live performances of the songs at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco.

The album was a creative breakthrough, as the band broke from label guidance, explored acoustic-only arrangements and self-production, and also welcomed lyricist Robert Hunter. Hunter and Garcia composed all the songs on the album and were joined by Phil Lesh in creating Aoxomoxoa's first track "St. Stephen." 

https://twitter.com/GratefulDead/status/1111330322954608640

Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of AOXOMOXOA with a DELUXE EDITION ft. two versions of the album — one fully remastered from the original 1969 mix and the other remastered from the definitive 1971 band-produced mix. Available on 2CD, 12" Vinyl Picture Disc, and digitally. pic.twitter.com/Pc7l7ti720

— Grateful Dead (@GratefulDead) March 28, 2019

A limited edition of 10,000 vinyl 12" picture discs will be released in addition to the 2-CD set. Both versions are now available for pre-order online.

Dead & Company continue to tour with Grateful Dead members Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann and Bob Weir as well as GRAMMY winner John Mayer. Their latest run of dates begins May 31.

Bob Weir Holds Court At GRAMMY U SoundChecks: "The Passion Is Up To You"

Phil Lesh and Bob Weir

Phil Lesh and Bob Weir

Photo: Patrick McMullen/Getty Images

News
Grateful Dead Founders Plot Duo Tour phil-lesh-bob-weir-grateful-dead-announce-first-ever-duo-tour

Phil Lesh, Bob Weir Of Grateful Dead Announce First-Ever Duo Tour

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The pair has scheduled a six-show tour in March 2018
Brian Haack
GRAMMYs
Dec 11, 2017 - 1:07 pm

Following the success of the Fare Thee Well 50th-anniversary shows in 2016, and subsequent extended tours across 2016–2017 as Dead & Company with guest guitarist John Mayer, Bob Weir and Phil Lesh — — two of the "core four" co-founders of the inexhaustible jam band the Grateful Dead — have announced their first-ever duo tour.

The three-city, six-show Bobby & Phil tour will be produced by Peter Shapiro, the concert and festival promoter best known for his Arrington, Va., Lockn' Festival and who helped put together the Dead's 2015 farewell shows.

"We're going to play everything we can think of," Lesh said in a statement to Billboard. "We're going to do [Bob Weir's] stuff, we're going to do my stuff, we're going to play [Jerry Garcia's] stuff, we'll do Grateful Dead stuff and we'll do covers. We're going to try and play everything we've ever played together and maybe some new stuff too."

GRAMMYs

The tour kicks off on March 2 at New York City's historic Radio City Music Hall, and wraps up in Chicago at the Chicago Theater on March 11.

"Verified Fan" presale opened today via Ticketmaster, and tickets for the general public will go on sale on Dec. 15 at 10 a.m. local time. More information is available at BobbyAndPhil.com.

New Photo Book Chronicles Grateful Dead's 30-Year Tour Run

Jerry Garcia performs with the Grateful Dead in 1981

Jerry Garcia performs with the Grateful Dead in 1981

Photo: Ed Perlstein/Redferns/Getty Images

News
Grateful Dead Announce New Online Concert Series grateful-dead-announce-new-shakedown-stream-online-concert-series-donations

Grateful Dead Announce New 'Shakedown Stream' Online Concert Series, Donations Benefitting MusiCares' COVID-19 Relief Fund

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Every Friday, the series will feature archived live performances and concert films and will include interviews with members of the Dead community
John Ochoa
MusiCares
Apr 8, 2020 - 3:09 pm

Legendary psychedelic rock group Grateful Dead have announced a brand-new weekly online concert series: Shakedown Stream, premiering Friday, April 10, at 8 p.m. EST on the act's YouTube channel. The pioneering jam band will contribute donations from the series to MusiCares' COVID-19 Relief Fund. 

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A post shared by Grateful Dead (@gratefuldead)

The series, which will stream archived live performances and concert films every Friday, will launch with a live screening of Truckin' Up To Buffalo, a live album and concert film documenting the group's legendary Fourth Of July show in 1989 at Rich Stadium in Buffalo, N.Y. The kickoff event will include a live on-camera interview session with Grateful Dead archivist David Lemieux and historian Gary Lambert at 5 p.m. PST/8 p.m. EST before the screening. 

Read: Recording Academy And MusiCares Establish COVID-19 Relief Fund

"We've decided to start the streaming video series with the Buffalo '89 show for a couple of primary reasons," Lemieux said in a statement, according to Rolling Stone. "Its excellence is indisputable and is something that we think pretty much everyone will enjoy in the absence of actually being able to see live concerts; and, as a tribute to the many rabid, loyal Dead Heads from the hard-hit tri-state area, which has been affected more than anywhere else in the country. To all of the Dead Heads in New York State and beyond, this one's for you."

As well, the Shakedown Stream sessions will include live interviews with members of the Dead community before or after the show, according to the band's social media channels. Fans can submit questions for the live Q&A session.

In other Dead news, Dead & Company, the Grateful Dead offshoot led by founding member and former guitarist Bob Weir and seven-time GRAMMY winner John Mayer, recently launched One More Saturday Night, their new free weekly "couch tour" series in which they stream past live performances; the band is helping to raise funds for MusiCares' COVID-19 Relief Fund via the series. 

Dead & Company's previously announced U.S. tour is still scheduled to proceed this summer. 

MusiCares COVID-19 Fund: MCR's Frank Iero, Rita Wilson & Naughty By Nature, Ellie & Drew Holcomb & More Support With Livestreams & Beyond

GRAMMYs

Scott Mickelson, producer on Blanket The Homeless

News
SF Artists Join Together On 'Blanket The Homeless' blanket-homeless-bay-area-artists-join-together-raise-money-those-need

On 'Blanket The Homeless,' Bay Area Artists Join Together To Raise Money For Those In Need

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The new album of original songs, produced by Scott Mickelson and featuring contributions from Fantastic Negrito, The Stone Foxes, Con Brio, Rainbow Girls and more, is out on Nov. 8
Adrian Spinelli
GRAMMYs
Nov 6, 2019 - 11:44 am

Beneath the Highway 101 overpass, the scene is bleak. Scattered rows of tents create multiple encampments that continue for several blocks from one neighborhood to the other. On some sidewalks, barricades have been placed against the walls to prevent tents from being laid up against them, but it doesn’t stop people from putting them up closer to the street instead. Some suffer from substance abuse issues or mental illness, though others don't. Regardless of backstory, they all just want somewhere to rest or simply have privacy from the world outside of the zipped-up nylon. 

In other parts of San Francisco, the scenes are similar: the city's homeless population counts over 8,000 people in 2019, a nearly 20% increase from two years ago. It’s a miserable sight, one that dehumanizes people who can't afford housing among the city's growing real estate prices.

Local politicians campaign on solutions for the growing homeless population in S.F., but the political will to find a long-term solution to the problem seems flimsy at best. It's in stark contrast to the amount of money flowing into the city's thriving tech companies. The rich are getting richer and the unfathomably poor are growing in numbers. And when political activity is lacking in dire times, it takes independent philanthropists and other local community activists to make a visible difference—anything to help rally a city. 

Enter artists: the ones who made San Francisco a haven for free-spirited creatives 50 years ago have also risen to the occasion over the years by any means necessary when faced with how to help the city’s homeless population. Comedian and S.F. resident Robin Williams led the charge over two decades through the Comic Relief series of events, raising over $50 million for homeless services in the process. After his death in 2014, comedian and S.F. native Margaret Cho coped with her grief by staging a series of busking performances throughout the city to raise money for the homeless population, coining the hashtag #BeRobin.

"It was a way for us to be charitable, but also bring a sense of comic relief and performance. Very Robin Williams," Cho tells the Recording Academy. "And calling attention to it, really ignites people’s humanity. It shows that we’re not going to ignore this problem."

https://twitter.com/margaretcho/status/647819683295461376

And of course I am the force and fire behind #berobin #endhomelessness #wealldeservehomes #thisbitchisbizzy

— Margaret Cho (@margaretcho) September 26, 2015

A co-founder of the #BeRobin movement, Ken Newman is a San Francisco singer/songwriter and philanthropist, who has kept the efforts of Cho and others going. In 2016, Newman founded Blanket The Homeless, a local charity that has partnered with the St. Vincent DePaul Society Of San Francisco (SVDP-SF) by seeking to improve the day-to-day lives of people living on the streets. In short, they raise money and donate packages that include blankets, socks, toiletries and any other day-to-day supplies that the homeless population might need. 

To call further attention to the issue and continue to raise money, Newman's latest effort sees him partnering with producer Scott Mickelson to put out a compilation benefit album entitled Blanket The Homeless. Out Nov. 8, Blanket The Homeless features music from 15 Bay Area artists, each of whom contributed an original song to the album, including two-time GRAMMY winner Fantastic Negrito, Tim Bluhm of The Mother Hips, Con Brio, Rainbow Girls, The Brothers Comatose, The Stone Foxes, The Coffis Brothers, Seattle's Tobias The Owl (who lived on the streets as a teenager himself), Goodnight, Texas, King Dream, Whiskerman, John Craigie, The Old Soul Orchestra and tracks by Newman and Mickelson as well. The day before the album's release, many of the artists involved will be playing a benefit show for the project at San Francisco venue The Independent. All proceeds from the show and album sales will go directly to Blanket The Homeless. 

"Regardless of the title, I wanted this to be a strong musical statement that stood on it’s own," Mickelson says of the album. While most of the songs do touch on the album's titular theme, Mickelson (who also produced 2017’s After The Fire Vol. 1, a benefit album for victims of Northern California's devastating fires) let the artists know that the songs didn't necessarily need to be directly about being homeless. It just had to be a song they’d be excited to release. 

As San Francisco and Bay Area artists themselves continue to grapple with the ever-inflating cost of living, coming into Mickelson's Marin studio ready to record a song that speaks to the larger issue at hand came naturally. On "American Dream," a spiritual folk number by Rainbow Girls, the band reflects on the concept of self-worth when compassion might not be present. 

"When you listen to it deeply, it's for obvious reasons that this was our song,” singer Vanessa May says. "It's musing on this ideal that we're all seeking 'Americanness.' That we’re all just trying to find ourselves and exist as healthy selves and family. It talks about how easy it is for your carefully laid plans to be blown by the wind."

When May sings, "Everyone is worth something and it's not their weight in gold," one can't help but think about how invisible San Francisco's homeless population has become to many, let alone to themselves. This speaks to the heart of Blanket The Homeless: displaying compassion for human beings who are suffering every day without a place to call home. 

"It takes greater creativity to get people to care again," May says. "It's a different age, where we live in an attention economy and most of our attention is very much occupied." 

Meanwhile, "Working Poor," Fantastic Negrito's impeccable Delta blues track (and the only non-original song on Blanket The Homeless, having appeared on his 2016 The Last Days Of Oakland album), tells the tale of people being pushed out of the city and into the heartland; their home has new tenants as they’re forced to the sidelines. Similarly, on "Odd Man Out," Mickelson, who wrote the song during the process of producing the album, sings of the feeling of becoming invisible, like you don't fit in anymore, a relatable perspective whether you have a roof or a rainfly over your head at night. 

"I find it difficult to understand that in a city where we lead the world to believe that we're so liberal, diverse and the most conscious of the environment and rights, that we literally and figuratively step over the homeless," Mickelson says. "They’ve become such a fabric of the city that they won't be acknowledged."

True to his word, Mickelson has put together an album of songs that can indeed stand alone. While the message is clear throughout the journey of Blanket The Homeless, the mighty talent on the album is just as evident. The stripped-down bluegrass vibe of "Angeline" by The Brothers Comatose and the sultry groove of "Body Language" by Con Brio are two love songs that shine especially bright. For Con Brio lead singer Ziek McCarter, who lives in San Francisco’s Fillmore district, being a part of Blanket The Homeless is in line with his and the band’s ethos. They recently put out a single, "Living In The City," that sent all proceeds to San Francisco's Coalition on Homelessness, and have worked with Bread & Roses, an organization that brings music to institutionalized people. 

"We love to give back to the community," McCarter says. "But the condition within the city itself is tough. It's treacherous to walk through the heart of downtown and the Tenderloin. So any way we can contribute and have a positive influence, we’re there. We’re not just in it for the music."

It can be frustrating to think about how a lack of a concrete solutions from city officials is not only not solving San Francisco's homeless problem, it's making it worse. It can be even more frustrating to think that artists, who are becoming increasingly pushed out of the city because of similar economic mechanisms, are the ones left staging effective ways to help. But their efforts are inspiring nonetheless: The money raised will go directly to help S.F.'s homeless population, effectively continuing the great philanthropic work Williams did when he was still alive.

"He was endlessly generous with his time and his comedy," Cho says of Williams. "You know...the original spirit that the city used to stand for something, a great spirit of independence and DIY...it doesn't have to go away."

And for some, like the 15 artists involved in Blanket The Homeless, it hasn't. 

"To be an artist and to make a living in San Francisco...it's a grind," McCarter says. "But it’s a great honor to say that we're part of the legacy and history of artists that have thrived in the Bay and stood up for just cause and stood up for the people." 

For more info on Blanket The Homeless, and to purchase the album, click here.

Purchase tickets to the November 7th Release show at The Independent here.

Historic Berkeley Folk Venue Freight & Salvage Welcomes A New Generation Of Music Fans

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Some of the content on this site expresses viewpoints and opinions that are not those of the Recording Academy. Responsibility for the accuracy of information provided in stories not written by or specifically prepared for the Academy lies with the story's original source or writer. Content on this site does not reflect an endorsement or recommendation of any artist or music by the Recording Academy.