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Un no parar de banjos, mandolinas, guitarras, violines y armonías vocales en este monográfico dedicado al bluegrass. Entre otros titanes del género: Bill Monroe, Reno and Smiley, Flatt and Scruggs, Jim and Jesse y Carl Story. A partir de las ocho de la mañana del sábado en la sintonía de Radio 3.Escuchar audio
This week, More Voices. Another collection of contemporary folk singers with unique and authentic voices recorded live at the Ozark Folk Center State Park. Ballad singing is a primary form of expression in folk music. Folk ballads merge melody and story to recount events but also transport the listener to an emotional space. How well a ballad can bring the listener into that space very much depends on the singer. Less important to an effective folk singer are the rudimentary aspects of singing than is the authentic sound of their voice. The timbre and character of the singer's voice in service to the ballad becomes the vehicle, transporting the listener into that emotional space. Ozark original and legendary folk balladeer Aunt Ollie Gilbert for an example. As much as the stories Aunt Ollie relates, it's the sound of her instantly recognizable and authentic voice that moves listeners deep into the hills and hollers of the Ozarks. Featured on this episode are an all-star lineup of contemporary singers including: renowned vocalist, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Amythyst Kiah; Ozark original up and coming folk sensation Willie Carlisle; outlaw country music legends Malcolm Holcomb & Ozark original Billy Don Burns; singer-songwriter and educator Wil Maring; Paul Brock Band singer and multi-instrumentalist Dave Curley; famed folk duo The Secret Sisters; world champion mountain dulcimer player, vocalist and educator Sarah Kate Morgan; vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and musical time traveler Meredith Axelrod; folk blues superstar Taj Mahal; Jake Leg Stompers vocalist Lela Mae Smith; Kentucky Colonel and bluegrass sensation Dave Adkins. In this week's “From the Vault” segment, OHR producer Jeff Glover offers a 1984 archival recording of Ozark original Pam Setser with Mike Gavin performing the Flatt & Scruggs song “Rough & Rocky” from the Ozark Folk Center State Park archives. In his segment “Back in the Hills,” writer, professor, and historian Dr. Brooks Blevins profiles the legendary Ozark original balladeer Oscar Gilbert, husband of famed ballad singer Aunt Ollie Gilbert. Featured is an archival recording of Oscar performing the traditional Ozark ballad “The Ballad of Cole Younger,” courtesy of the Lyon College Wolf Folklore Collection.
Listen in as Brookfield's CEO Bruce Flatt joins Shane Parrish on “The Knowledge Project.” In the episode, titled “The Trillion-Dollar Blueprint (Value, Discipline, Durability),” Shane and Bruce discuss the unwavering investment philosophy behind one of the world's largest investment firms. You can read more about the episode here (https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/bruce-flatt/), or watch the video version here (https://youtu.be/VmcYu_kd7_0). Please read this disclaimer (http://brookfield.com/podcast-disclaimer) before listening.
Brookfield CEO Bruce Flatt reveals the investment philosophy behind building one of the world's largest alternative asset managers with over a trillion dollars under management. At the core of Brookfield's strategy is a disciplined focus on downside protection that has delivered 19% annualized returns over 30 years. Flatt identifies three major trends driving their investments: digitalization (including AI infrastructure), global energy transition, and reindustrialization as supply chains shift. The conversation explores Brookfield's approach to risk management, their expansion into insurance, and their meritocratic culture. When Shane presses for clarity on Brookfield's complex corporate structure, Flatt provides rare insights into how the organization's design creates both operational flexibility and investment opportunities. What separates Brookfield from competitors? Patient capital: the discipline to wait for extraordinary opportunities and the financial strength to act when others can't. If you want to understand how the smartest capital allocators think and what it takes to build something enduring, this episode is essential listening. Thanks to these sponsors for supporting our show: NordVPN: EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ nordvpn.com/KNOWLEDGEPROJECT. Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee Shopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/shane. All lowercase. ShipStation: Get a 60-day free trial at www.shipstation.com/knowledgeproject. The opinions shared on this podcast belong solely to those expressing them. Hosts and guests may hold positions in the securities discussed. This podcast is intended to provide general information only and should not be considered financial advice. (00:02:56) Changes in Investing Over the Past 25 Years (00:04:51) How Private Enterprise Has Built Our Tech Infrastructure (00:07:08) Implications and Opportunities of Passive Investing (00:09:08) Advantages of Private Companies (00:12:36) Three Investment Themes (00:15:11) Winners in Digitalization (00:16:45) Application of Artificial Intelligence in Businesses (00:21:44) Transition to Low-Carbon Energy (00:25:24) Future of Data Centers (00:27:32) De-globalization of Industry (00:29:59) Implications of Manufacturing Repatriation (00:31:11) Long-term Prospects for America (00:36:20) Approach to Risk and Debt (00:37:48) Impact of Interest Rates (00:40:47) Managing Market Dislocations (00:42:30) Long-term Investing Strategy (00:45:06) History and Future of Brookfield (00:47:55) Exploration of Private Markets and Insurance (00:48:48) Investment Decision Process (00:55:18) Understanding Brookfield's Structure (00:59:40) Positioning of Brookfield's Businesses (01:00:21) Talent and People Management at Brookfield (01:02:58) Focus on Downside Protection (01:05:03) Accountability in Investment Decisions (01:06:32) Understanding Investment Cycles (01:08:14) Learning and Training in the Organization (01:09:06) Postmortem Analysis of Investments (01:11:14) Consideration of Geopolitical Risks Newsletter - The Brain Food newsletter delivers actionable insights and thoughtful ideas every Sunday. It takes 5 minutes to read, and it's completely free. Learn more and sign up at fs.blog/newsletter Upgrade — If you want to hear my thoughts and reflections at the end of the episode, join our membership: fs.blog/membership and get your own private feed. Watch on YouTube: @tkppodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Brookfield CEO Bruce Flatt spoke about the impact of tariffs and deal making at the Bloomberg Invest Conference in New York City. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Brookfield Asset Management CEO Bruce Flatt told Bloomberg's Francine Lacqua that DeepSeek means more data center capacity is needed. As the costs of running AI comes down, “more use cases come about and that’s what’s going to happen in the next 10 years,” the investment firm’s chief executive officer told Bloomberg TV in an interview in London.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina
Traditional North Carolina music and Appalachia has deep roots that belong to many family trees. In this episode, we uncover the musical history of the Shuffler Family. Music featured in this episode includes: Doc and Merle Watson, "Going Down This Road Feeling Bad" Earl Scruggs and Flatt and Scruggs, "Nine Pound Hammer" Valdese Quartet, "Just Over The Glory Land" The Stanley Brothers, "The Flood" Jim Shumate and John Shuffler, "Katie Hill" To learn more about the musical families of North Carolina, visit BlueRidgeMusicNC.com.
Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina
Traditional North Carolina music and Appalachia has deep roots that belong to many family trees. In this episode, we uncover the musical history of the Shuffler Family. Music featured in this episode includes: Doc and Merle Watson, "Going Down This Road Feeling Bad" Earl Scruggs and Flatt and Scruggs, "Nine Pound Hammer" Valdese Quartet, "Just Over The Glory Land" The Stanley Brothers, "The Flood" Jim Shumate and John Shuffler, "Katie Hill" To learn more about the musical families of North Carolina, visit BlueRidgeMusicNC.com.
This week we feature fiddler with Johnny Warren. As most listeners will know, Johnny is the son of bluegrass fiddle legend Paul Warren who spent years performing with Flatt & Scruggs and then toured with Lester Flatt and the Nashville Grass after Flatt and Scruggs parted ways. Johnny is the fiddle player for the Earls of Leicester. We talk with Johnny about his father and about playing his father's role as the fiddler in the Earls of Leicester.
Today I chat with Becca Flatt, who is a therapist and advocate specializing in adoption-related trauma, grief, and estrangement. A queer, Black, interracial biracial adoptee, she provides therapy exclusively for adoptees and consultations for both adoptees and adoptive parents. Becca facilitates an estrangement support group for adoptees with Adoption Mosaic and teaches an estrangement course for adoptive parents, helping clients navigate relational challenges with compassion, boundaries, and clarity.We discuss:-How she found the balance between accountability and understanding. - How she defines what “Forced Empathy” looks like-What accountability looks like when you burn it to the ground- How she dealt with self hatred stemming from racism. - Why adoptees forgo their comfort to support their adoptive parents. - Misogynoir--what is it?-And Becca does touch on but does not go into detail how she is a sexual abuse survivor.GUEST: Becca Flatt@mending_the_adopted_heartwww.mendedheart.org Support the showCONNECT WITH HOST:@youngadoptee@lantoineswww.laniseantoineshelley.comWATCH ON YOUTUBE Here!MERCH here "I am my Hero" and "Courage, my love" TeesSPONSORSHIPS: BetterHelp Show Link HERE!DISCOUNT on WeUNIK Cosmetic Hair products15% off Code: WTWY ADOPTEE CONVERSATIONS WITH PARENTS:14 through18, and episode 28, and 29. WATCH PANELS: Here!JAMES BALDWIN'S ESSAY ON "WHITENESS": HISTORY of the word “Colored”:NYC ARTICLE ON THE USE OF "BIPOC":RESOURCES ON ...
In this episode of the Epigenetics Podcast, we talked with Natalia Gromak from the University of Oxford about her work on R-Loop biology in health and disease. In this interview Dr. Gromak delves into her significant research on transcription and RNA biology, particularly focusing on the molecular mechanisms involved at transcriptional pause sites. She describes her early work in understanding transcription termination and how her team investigated the role of specific RNA and DNA structures, including R-loops, that could influence polymerase progression. This exploration into R-loops—complexes formed by RNA and DNA interactions—was a key turning point in her research, as she and her colleagues identified their regulatory functions within the human genome. Discussion transitions into her findings regarding the implications of R-loops in diseases like Friedrich's ataxia and Fragile X syndrome. Dr. Gromak then elucidates how the pathological expansion of repeat sequences in these conditions interferes with normal gene expression, and how R-loops exacerbate transcriptional silencing. Throughout her reflection on these discoveries, she emphasizes the importance of studying R-loops beyond merely being a transcriptional byproduct, but as players in gene regulation and potential contributors to disease pathology. The episode also covers her innovative work in characterizing the R-loop interactome through various experimental techniques. She highlights the complexity of R-loop dynamics, including the discovery of protein factors that interact with R-loops and could influence their stability and regulatory functions. Furthermore, she discusses the exciting intersection of RNA modifications, such as m6A, which plays a role in R-loop regulation and presents new avenues for research, particularly pertaining to how disease-specific modifications might alter R-loop behavior. References Cristini, A., Groh, M., Kristiansen, M. S., & Gromak, N. (2018). RNA/DNA Hybrid Interactome Identifies DXH9 as a Molecular Player in Transcriptional Termination and R-Loop-Associated DNA Damage. Cell reports, 23(6), 1891–1905. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2018.04.025 Abakir, A., Giles, T. C., Cristini, A., Foster, J. M., Dai, N., Starczak, M., Rubio-Roldan, A., Li, M., Eleftheriou, M., Crutchley, J., Flatt, L., Young, L., Gaffney, D. J., Denning, C., Dalhus, B., Emes, R. D., Gackowski, D., Corrêa, I. R., Jr, Garcia-Perez, J. L., Klungland, A., … Ruzov, A. (2020). N6-methyladenosine regulates the stability of RNA:DNA hybrids in human cells. Nature genetics, 52(1), 48–55. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-019-0549-x Related Episodes DNA Replication, Transcription and R-loops (Stephan Hamperl) Contact Epigenetics Podcast on Mastodon Epigenetics Podcast on Bluesky Dr. Stefan Dillinger on LinkedIn Active Motif on LinkedIn Active Motif on Bluesky Email: podcast@activemotif.com
I denne episoden utforsker vi et tema som stadig flere menn kjenner seg igjen i: hvorfor opplever så mange menn at de har "flatt batteri" - at følelsene er borte og tror eneste løsning er at de må ut av forholdet? Hvorfor er det slik at flere og flere menn sliter med å være til stede, både i sine egne liv og i forholdene de er i? Hva er årsakene bak utmattelsen, og hvordan kan dette påvirke både mental helse og nærrelasjoner? Er du en mann som kjenner deg igjen i dette, eller kanskje en partner som ønsker å forstå bedre? Denne episoden gir nyttige verktøy for å kunne lade opp batteriet i parforholdet igjen. Nysgjerrig på Partolking, besøk www.partolken.no eller finn oss i sosiale medier
It's time to crack the final can of our Bluegrass 4-Pack! It contains the history of progressive bluegrass, when younger musicians began to expand and enhance the traditional sounds of Bill Monroe and Flatt and Scruggs. Rockin' the Suburbs on Apple Podcasts/iTunes or other podcast platforms, including audioBoom, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon, iHeart, Stitcher and TuneIn. Or listen at SuburbsPod.com. Please rate/review the show on Apple Podcasts and share it with your friends. Visit our website at SuburbsPod.com Email Jim & Patrick at rock@suburbspod.com Follow us on the Threads, Facebook or Instagram @suburbspod If you're glad or sad or high, call the Suburban Party Line — 612-440-1984. Theme music: "Ascension," originally by Quartjar, covered by Frank Muffin. Visit quartjar.bandcamp.com and frankmuffin.bandcamp.com.
We open another can from the Bluegrass 4-Pack today, as Patrick outlines the remarkable career of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. They left Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys in 1948 and went on to take the music to a whole new audience and level of popularity. Rockin' the Suburbs on Apple Podcasts/iTunes or other podcast platforms, including audioBoom, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon, iHeart, Stitcher and TuneIn. Or listen at SuburbsPod.com. Please rate/review the show on Apple Podcasts and share it with your friends. Visit our website at SuburbsPod.com Email Jim & Patrick at rock@suburbspod.com Follow us on the Threads, Facebook or Instagram @suburbspod If you're glad or sad or high, call the Suburban Party Line — 612-440-1984. Theme music: "Ascension," originally by Quartjar, covered by Frank Muffin. Visit quartjar.bandcamp.com and frankmuffin.bandcamp.com.
In this episode, Joe interviews 4 members of the Penn Psychedelics Collaborative: Co-Founder, Taylor Andrews Flatt, PMHNP; Associate Director, Victor Pablo Acero, Ph.D.; Professor in Fine Arts and Co-Director of the Weitzman School of Design, Jackie Tileston; and Executive Director and Director of the Penn Program for Mindfulness, Michael Baime, MD. Recorded earlier this month at the PhilaDelic conference – one of the primary initiatives of the PPC – they discuss their paths to psychedelics and why this transdisciplinary collection of faculty, researchers, and clinicians at the University of Pennsylvania was so necessary. Viewing psychedelics from different perspectives (Flatt from nursing, Acero from bioengineering, Tileston from the art and mysticism side of things, and Baime from a more mindfulness point of view), their group is a case study in collaboration – a place where connections can be catalyzed and shared goals can be addressed from different angles. How far can we go when different groups start working together? They discuss: The concept of psychedelics not just being used to treat conditions, but to make us healthier Psychedelic art and the idea of the art itself being psychoactive rather than just representations of trips The work of David Glowacki and bringing about non-ordinary states of consciousness through VR Research into salvia being used to alleviate stroke symptoms How a lack of funding can really create focus and more! For links, head to the show notes page.
株式会社Flatt Securityは10月21日、同社エンジニアが「DEF CON 32」の「AppSec Village」のCTFで優勝したと発表した。
In today's episode, we're bringing you a timely conversation between Brookfield CEO Bruce Flatt and Mark Carney, the Chair of Brookfield Asset Management and Head of Transition Investing. With the global economy poised for big shifts over the next 10 to 15 years, Bruce and Mark will unpack how Brookfield built its business, how its approach has evolved over time, and where it's headed. They'll also touch on the impacts of AI, the green energy transition, and other developments that affect the evolving backbone of the global economy.Please read this disclaimer (https://www.brookfield.com/podcast-disclaimer) before listening.
Dennis is joined via Zoom by television writer Stan Zimmerman to talk about his memoir The Girls: From Golden to Gilmore, which documents his career working on such iconic shows as Roseanne, The Golden Girls and Gilmore Girls as well as The Brady Bunch Movie and A Very Brady Sequel. In this first part of a two-part interview, Stan talks about his midwest upbringing and how his mother bought him the ballet shoes he wanted behind his father's back. He also talks about meeting his longtime writing partner Jim Berg, why they work wll together and how they landed a gig on the first season of The Golden Girls when they were still in their 20's Stan also recalls feeling like he had to stay in the closet on that job but feeling like he had an ally in Estelle Getty. He talks about the culture of fear that was so common in TV writers rooms in those days and expresses hope that things are better today. He also talks fondly about working with director Betty Thomas on the first Brady Bunch Movie as a punch-up writer and feeling like his contribution was finally being properly appreciated...only to end up without a screen credit thanks to an old WGA rule. He also recalls Bea Arthur being concerned that the Golden Girls writing staff was too young, Rue McLanahan being extra funny when she said words ending in E-R, and the eyebrow raising thing Betty White would do when Estelle Getty flubbed her lines. Other topics include: the warm fuzzies Stan gets when he talks with Golden Girls fans, suggesting RuPaul for that cameo in The Brady Bunch Movie, Pia Zadora's giant cell phone and how when it comes to a career in entertainment, it's all about perseverance.
The Dreadful Snakes kick-off this episode of the Back Porch Bluegrass Show, and then we've got Balsam Range, Jeremy Stephens, Dr Pete Wernick (playing some pretty way-out sounding banjo licks), Longview and Ramona Church. I've got Dale Jett & Hello Stranger back this week, and the Trenwiths (previewing their appearance at the Raglan Country & Blues Festival), and a classic from Flatt & Scruggs ( because it IS a bluegrass show!)
Ken went to the Canadian Fan Expo 2024 - he shared some of his experiences with the Toronto based conference that is focused on comics, film, tv and gaming. Plenty of fun!
Text the Blue Grit team now!How do you balance the demands of law enforcement with the principles of integrity and faith? Join us as we host John Wilkerson and Bryan Flatt in a captivating discussion on the legislative landscape impacting law enforcement. They share insights from their work at the Capitol, including testifying on crucial bills like the less lethal bill. Bryan reflects on his journey from the Potter County Sheriff's Office to TMPA, emphasizing perseverance and commitment. He also opens up about maintaining his faith while performing his duties and evolving into a respected chaplain within the law enforcement community. You don't want to miss this one!Support the Show.email us at- bluegrit@tmpa.org
Benjamin Flatt, originally from Sydney, is the CEO of the Noto Earthquake Area Reconstruction Support Association. He has been a resident of Noto Town, Ishikawa Prefecture for 28 years. He and his wife, Chikako Funashita, are busy every day working for what is needed and what they want to continue to protect. - シドニー出身の、ベンジャミン・フラットさんは、一般社団法人能登地震地域復興サポートの代表理事です。石川県能登町の人間になって28年。地元の人間だからこそわかる、必要なもの、守リ続けたいことのために、妻の船下智香子さんと毎日奔走しています。
Eight months have passed since the Noto Peninsula earthquake that occurred on January 1st this year. The first Obon festival is approaching. Benjamin Flatt, Sydney-born and Local of Noto, and his wife Chikako Funashita. - 今年、1月1日に起きた、能登半島地震から8か月が過ぎ、最初のお盆を迎えようとしています。現地の様子を、シドニー出身のベンジャミン・フラットさんと、妻の船下智香子さんに聞きました。
A great tune recorded by many bands, and here performed by Flatt and Scruggs. The track is from a concert at New River Ranch (Rising Sun, MD), in 1958.
A great tune recorded by many bands, and here performed by Flatt and Scruggs. The track is from a concert at New River Ranch (Rising Sun, MD), in 1958.
Becca Flatt is a Mixed Race, Black and white, closed, domestic infant, interracial adoptee. Becca's biological family and adoptive family mirror each other; however, Becca, being mixed race, does not share the racial identity of either set of her parents. Becca Graduated from The University of Southern California with her Master's in social work and a concentration in mental health in 2014. Becca provides mental health treatment to transracial, interracial, and same-race adoptees of color in Oregon. Websites: https://www.mendedheart.org/ https://adoptionmosaic.com/Instagram: @mending_the_adopted_heartAdoptee Consciousness Model: https://intercountryadopteevoices.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/adoptee-consciousness-model.pdfhttps://redthreadbroken.com/2022/06/23/out-of-the-fog-and-into-consciousness-a-model-of-adoptee-awareness/Music by Corey Quinn
On this episode of The Extra Yard, we sit down with Clark Flatt of the Jason Foundation and Dr. Don Arterburn of Baylor Athletics to discuss mental health awareness. May is Mental Health Awareness month, and Mr. Flatt and Dr. Arterburn talk about preparing coaches to recognize warning signs of mental health struggles in their players and staffs, how coaches can help players navigate through mental health struggles, and how to handle crises and emergencies should they arise. Learn more about the Jason Foundation and the NCAA's Mental Health Best Practices here: https://jasonfoundation.com/ & https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2016/5/2/mental-health-best-practices.aspx Show Notes: 0:47 Episode Introduction 2:20 Clark Flatt – President, Jason Foundation 17:32 Dr. Don Arterburn – Director of Mental Health Services, Baylor Athletics 42:01 Episode Conclusion
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Ricardo Larrivée rejoint l'équipe de l'émission Deux hommes en or et Rosalie à Télé-Québec. Entrevue avec Ricardo Larrivée, nouvel animateur à l'émission Deux hommes en or et Rosalie.Pour de l'information concernant l'utilisation de vos données personnelles - https://omnystudio.com/policies/listener/fr
Original Air Date: May 22, 1959Host: Andrew RhynesShow: Grand Ole OpryPhone: (707) 98 OTRDW (6-8739) Exit music from: Roundup on the Prairie by Aaron Kenny https://bit.ly/3kTj0kK
Brookfield is one of the world's largest alternative investment companies. It owns hydroelectric plants, cellphone towers, power lines, wind farms, ports and even city skylines. Bruce Flatt has been in charge for more than two decades, overseeing over $900 billion of assets under management. On the latest episode of Leaders With Lacqua, Francine Lacqua speaks to Flatt about the secrets of his success, the outlook for commercial real estate, and his own future. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
I ran into Dr. Tyler Flatt when he was giving a lecture here at Southern on how to read well. Since that is one of my favorite subjects, I asked if he would be on the pod, and he graciously agreed. We talked about his journey from Ontario Canada, to end up being a professor here, and about engaging with the great tradition. Loved this conversation. If this podcast has ever been impactful for you, I'd be thrilled if you would donate me a coffee or two at buymeacoffee.com/chatsunderthesun I am always on the gram @itsthevalk Love y'all. Jake
(Aired February 15, 2024) The Earth Is Not Flatt - Get into the minds of the Sherpas with this DomainSherpa Review! In this show, The Sherpas play The Domain Game (starting at the 27:03 mark), where they guess what certain domains were bought and sold for by the Sherpas and discuss the reasons behind their evaluations. Today's domains are DefiU.com, HydroTherapy.com, and Perceptive.io. Drew checks in for the last time from the Far East. The Sherpas review a list of domains about to come up for auction on NameJet.com, including Akira.com, FutureTech.com, TopForum.com, and Crit.com. The Sherpas also discuss different domain landers, marketplaces, and more. Also, DomainSherpa is now integrating with Muse.ai for episode transcripts and an AI-driven video player to easily look for topics, words, phrases, etc., and jump to the points in the video where they occur. Let us know your feedback! Plus, all DomainSherpa podcasts are now up on our YouTube channel at DS.tv and much more! JT is joined by Drew, Jen, & special guest Logan Flatt - so be sure to tune in!!
Lydia and Jimmy join the podcast from Moses Coulee Nature Preserve in Washington State to share how they've experienced the outdoors, their hunting journey, and the purpose of Hunters of Color. 4:00 - Introduction of Jimmy Flatt and Lydia Parker of Hunters of Color 6:00 - What everyone listening to or consuming 8:30 - “Outdoor Story”13:30 - First experience and connection to hunting 18:30 - Redefining the ethos and identity of hunting 24:45 - What is a conservationist? 25:30 - HOC Hunting Program 5W's28:00 - Care and appreciation for nature 37:00 - How HOC supports an individuals curiosity 40:00 - Programming purpose and format 45:00 - When do we hit a critical mass with inclusion in the hunting industry? 48:00 - Words of advice for anyone interested in hunting 51:00 - Mentors that are supporting the growth of us as individuals 60:00 - Shout outs61:00 - Legacy you want to leave Books There There - Tommy OrangeThe Only Good Indians - Stephen Graham Jones My Side of the Mountain - Jean Craighead George Listen to Lydia's podcast, Oregon Uncorked Podcast, now on any audio stream platform. Support the showYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@sincerelyyoursoutdoorspodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sincerelyyoursoutdoors/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sincerelyyoursoutdoors Website: https://www.sincerelyyoursoutdoors.com/
Liz Flatt drove to Austin, Texas, mostly out of desperation. She had tried talking with the police. She had tried working with a former F.B.I. profiler who ran a nonprofit dedicated to solving unsolved murders. She had been interviewed by journalists and at least one podcaster. She had been featured on a Netflix documentary series about a man who falsely confessed to hundreds of killings.Although she didn't know it at the time, Flatt was at a crossroads in what she had taken to calling her journey, a path embarked on after a prayer-born decision five years earlier to try to find who killed her sister, Deborah Sue Williamson, or Debbie, in 1975. It was now 2021.She had come to Austin for a conference, CrimeCon, which formed around the same time that Flatt began her quest, at a moment now seen as an inflection point in the long history of true crime, a genre as old as storytelling but one that adapts quickly to new technologies, from the printing press to social media. Flatt met a woman who would later put her in touch with two investigators who presented at the conference that year: George Jared and Jennifer Bucholtz. They were podcasters, but Jared was also a journalist and Bucholtz an adjunct professor of forensics and criminal justice at the for-profit American Military University. Their presentation was on another cold case, the murder of Rebekah Gould in 2004, whose killer they claimed to have helped find using a technique that has quickly become a signature of the changing landscape of true crime: crowdsourcing.This story was recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.
Mostly Motorsports Ep. 294 Tanner Thorson, Ashton Torgerson, Braxton Flatt, Scotty Cook, Trenton Berry Scott Traylor and Kirk Elliott have been the host of "Track Talk" with the RacinBoys on Sports Radio 810 WHB in Kansas City for 24 years. Traylor spent the past 13 years on the road as anchor and producer of the Lucas Oil ASCS National Tour broadcasts. He had many years of experience and success driving and owning race cars before embarking on a broadcasting career covering motorsports.
Holiday listening, with some of my favourite musicians. Skaggs & Rice, Byron Berline (with 3 banjos!) John Reischman & the Jaybirds, Country Gentlemen, Jerry Douglas all get to present their songs and tunes, as do Flatt & Scruggs, Doyle Lawson, the HCBB, Frank Wakefield and Seldom Scene. George Jackson plays a fiddle tune, and I even get to play the end of the last show for 2023.
CTL Script/ Top Stories of December 19th Publish Date: December 18th Henssler :15 From the Ingles Studio Welcome to the Award-Winning Cherokee Tribune Ledger Podcast Today is Tuesday, December 19th, and Happy heavenly Birthday to Mr. Tiger Al Kaline. ***12.19.23 – BIRTHDAY – AL KALINE*** I'm Keith Ippolito and here are the stories Cherokee is talking about, presented by Credit Union of Georgia. Canton Man Sentenced to 15 Years For Armed Robbery Giuliani Ordered to Pay Georgia Election Workers $148 Million Canton Martial Arts Instructor Charged With Hitting Child in the Face Plus, Bruce Jenkins sits down with Leah McGrath from Ingles Markets to discuss raw milk. We'll have all this and more coming up on the Cherokee Tribune-Ledger Podcast, and if you're looking for Community news, we encourage you to listen and subscribe! Commercial: CU of GA STORY 1: Canton Man Sentenced to 15 Years For Armed Robbery Brayden Nicholas Kirby, a Canton man, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison following a negotiated guilty plea related to an armed robbery at a RaceTrac gas station in 2021. In the incident, Kirby, wearing a Halloween mask, pointed a handgun at two women pumping gas, demanding their phones and vehicle keys. After unsuccessful attempts to steal a truck, he took a backpack and fled on a bicycle. Kirby was apprehended with the victims' possessions and a loaded firearm. Sentenced to 25 years with 15 in confinement, Kirby admitted guilt to 12 counts, including armed robbery, aggravated assault, and firearm possession. STORY 2: Giuliani Ordered to Pay Georgia Election Workers $148 Million A Washington, D.C., jury has ordered former Trump campaign lawyer Rudolph Giuliani to pay $148 million in damages to two former Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, for defamation. Giuliani falsely accused them of manipulating ballots in the 2020 election, leading to violent threats against them. Earlier, a judge found Giuliani liable for defamation in a conspiracy with Donald Trump, the Trump campaign, OAN, and an OAN personality. The jury's sole task was to determine damages, and the awarded amount is $148 million. Giuliani did not testify, and the case is part of broader legal actions related to election subversion efforts. STORY 3: Canton Martial Arts Instructor Charged With Hitting Child in the Face A Canton martial arts instructor, Derrick Lamont Clark, has been arrested and charged with first-degree cruelty to children and battery after allegedly hitting a child with autism in the face at Cherokee Charter Academy on November 15. Clark, who teaches at Canton Warriors BJJ Academy, was released on a $7,500 bond and is no longer permitted on the academy's campus. Cherokee Charter Academy emphasized its commitment to student safety and stated that individuals violating standards are swiftly addressed. The academy offers training for both kids and adults. The Canton Warriors BJJ Academy did not provide a comment in response to the incident. We have opportunities for sponsors to get great engagement on these shows. Call 770.874.3200 for more info. Back in a moment Break: DRAKE – ESOG STORY 4: New Principal Named for Freedom Middle School Cherokee County School Board has appointed Chad Flatt as the new principal of Freedom Middle School, effective January. Flatt, currently an assistant principal at Woodstock Middle School, will succeed Whitney Nolan, who is stepping down at the semester break as she approaches retirement. Flatt, a 23-year educator, was honored as a National Distinguished Principal by the National Association of Elementary School Principals earlier this year. He joined Cherokee County School District at the beginning of this school year and was named the Georgia winner for the national honor in May for his success as principal of Pickens Junior High School. STORY 5: Cherokee County Leaders Asking For Input on Highway 20 Overlay Zoning District Cherokee County is seeking resident input for an overlay zoning district along Highway 20, from Canton to Forsyth County, as part of the Georgia Department of Transportation's Highway 20 Corridor Widening Project. The Planning and Zoning Department will launch a visual preference survey from January 2 to February 16, allowing residents to influence the design vision for the corridor. The overlay will not modify existing zoning districts but establish a unique design standard. In-person public input meetings are scheduled for January 18 and February 7 at Victory Hall of the L.B. “Buzz” Ahrens Recreation Center, with an online survey link provided on the county website. Commercial: HELLER LAW – INGLES 4 STORY 6: INGLES - LEAH And now here is Bruce Jenkins' conversation with Leah McGrath from Ingles Markets on raw milk. STORY 7: LEAH INTERVIEW We'll have closing comments after this. COMMERCIAL: Henssler 60 SIGN OFF – Thanks again for listening to today's Cherokee Tribune Ledger podcast. . If you enjoy these shows, we encourage you to check out our other offerings, like the Marietta Daily Journal Podcast, the Gwinnett Daily Post, the Community Podcast for Rockdale Newton and Morgan Counties, or the Paulding County News Podcast. Get more on these stories and other great content at tribune ledger news.com. Giving you important information about our community and telling great stories are what we do. Did you know over 50% of Americans listen to podcasts weekly? Make sure you join us for our next episode and be sure to share this podcast on social media with your friends and family. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home Briefing and be sure to like, follow, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Produced by the BG Podcast Network Show Sponsors: henssler.com ingles-markets.com jeffhellerlaw.com drakerealty.com esogrepair.com mallofgeorgiachryslerdodgejeep.com cherokeechamber.com #NewsPodcast #CurrentEvents #TopHeadlines #BreakingNews #PodcastDiscussion #PodcastNews #InDepthAnalysis #NewsAnalysis #PodcastTrending #WorldNews #LocalNews #GlobalNews #PodcastInsights #NewsBrief #PodcastUpdate #NewsRoundup #WeeklyNews #DailyNews #PodcastInterviews #HotTopics #PodcastOpinions #InvestigativeJournalism #BehindTheHeadlines #PodcastMedia #NewsStories #PodcastReports #JournalismMatters #PodcastPerspectives #NewsCommentary #PodcastListeners #NewsPodcastCommunity #NewsSource #PodcastCuration #WorldAffairs #PodcastUpdates #AudioNews #PodcastJournalism #EmergingStories #NewsFlash #PodcastConversationsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen in as Brookfield's CEO Bruce Flatt joins Norges Bank Investment Management's CEO, Nicolai Tangen, on the latest episode of NBIM's “In Good Company.” In a wide-ranging conversation, Bruce and Nicolai discuss the benefits of investing in private markets, global megatrends shaping these investments and the qualities that distinguish a good investor.Please read this disclaimer (http://brookfield.com/podcast-disclaimer) before listening.
Tim Flatt is the visionary CEO at the helm of RTVA, Inc., driving innovation in the realm of healthcare technology. Under his leadership, RTVA has introduced a groundbreaking solution to the world's pressing need for efficient and accessible COVID screening. As the mastermind behind the Real Time Voice Analyzer (RTVA), Tim Flatt has ushered in a new era of non-invasive screening, revolutionizing respiratory health management.At the forefront of this pioneering endeavour is a mobile health app that stands as the first-of-its-kind in the realm of COVID-19 screening. Developed in collaboration with Hematico and the esteemed Dr Rita Singh, an internationally recognized voice analysis research expert, RTVA's technology leverages patent-pending advanced AI algorithms. These algorithms, meticulously crafted through Dr Singh's over 25 years of expertise, enable swift and accurate detection of respiratory health variances, transcending language barriers.The Real-Time Voice Analyzer, spearheaded by Tim Flatt, offers a user-friendly experience with a free trial that requires no credit card, making it accessible to everyone. The app provides a fast, reliable, and non-invasive screening for COVID-19 and respiratory illnesses, eliminating the need for uncomfortable nasal swabs or painful tests. Tim Flatt's commitment to privacy is evident, with the assurance that information is secure and 100% HIPAA compliant.Under Tim Flatt's leadership, RTVA's AI algorithms extend beyond COVID-19 detection to include influenza and common cold strains. The technology utilizes the sound of a person's voice, akin to a doctor using a stethoscope to detect irregularities in vital organs. Tim Flatt has ensured that RTVA's data host is a trusted, patented platform hosting over five hundred high-security projects worldwide.Results are delivered with exceptional speed—within 5-10 minutes—and boast a 99% negative predictive rate. Tim Flatt's commitment to inclusivity is reflected in the algorithm's ability to work with a wide range of vocal sounds, with a primary focus on vowel sounds for consistent performance across languages and dialects.RTVA, guided by Tim Flatt's leadership, is not only a technological marvel but also environmentally conscious. The app eliminates the need for plastics, swabs, packaging, or shipping, contributing to a sustainable and eco-friendly approach to healthcare solutions.Tim Flatt's vision for RTVA goes beyond the technology itself; it encompasses a commitment to empowering individuals in managing their respiratory health. As part of the Real-Time Network, founded in 1998, Tim Flatt has played a pivotal role in shaping a portfolio of brands and companies dedicated to providing innovative, cost-efficient health solutions. His dedication to effectiveness, affordability, and accessibility has solidified the Real Time Network as a trusted name in the industry. Tim Flatt's leadership continues to drive RTVA towards new frontiers, making the Real Time Voice Analyzer an invaluable tool in proactive respiratory health management. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
On this episode of Healthcare Market Matrix, host John Farkas sits down with Andy Flatt, Senior Vice President and CIO of National HealthCare Corporation, or NHC, which is the oldest and among the largest publicly traded, long-term healthcare companies in the nation. Andy has 40+ of experience in a combination of public and private healthcare organizations, including more than twenty years as a CIO. Throughout the episode, John and Andy discuss the scope of NHC, Andy's leadership approach working in a high-pressure environment, and the role Andy sees technology playing in the future of NHC. Show Notes (1:25) Introducing Andy Flatt and National HealthCare Corporation (7:32) A Look into Andy's Position at NHC (11:45) Critical Concerns in the Eldercare Space (22:56) Challenges with Implementing New Technology (26:20) Partnering with Solution Providers (34:59) What NHC If Looking For with Solution Providers (44:56) Anticipating NHC's Future Development (51:25) Closing Thoughts Subscribe to Ratio's Insights Squared newsletter: https://goratio.com/newsletter
Welcome to a special Q&A episode of The Balanced Bodies Blueprint, the go-to show for health, wellness, and fitness enthusiasts like you! In today's episode, we're addressing the most pressing questions that have been buzzing in our Private Facebook Group and Instagram stories. Coach Vinny and Dr. Eryn will dive deep into topics that matter most to you like Menopause, Sleep Apnea, Holiday Mindset, and more. Join us as we answer six thought-provoking questions, each offering valuable insights to help you on your journey to better health. Here's a sneak peek at what we'll cover: "Maintaining Results Through the Holidays" – This question kicks off the discussion on staying on track during festive seasons. Discover strategies to balance celebration and your fitness goals, all while enjoying the company of loved ones. It's all about mindfulness and moderation! "The Weight Loss Shot" – This one takes us into the world of diabetes medications for weight loss, with a focus on Ozempic. Learn who the ideal candidates are, its effects, potential side effects, and the importance of obtaining it from reputable sources. "Navigating Unsupportive Friends and Spouses" - For those dealing with loved ones who don't share your fitness journey, we have answers. Discover how to address unsupportive friends and partners and have the crucial conversation you need. "Sleep Apnea and Weight Loss" - This question delves into sleep apnea's impact on weight loss efforts. We explore the risk factors, diagnosis, and the connection between sleep quality and successful weight loss. "Overtraining and Cardio's Role" - We talk about the importance of recovery in the context of overtraining and why less can often be more. Plus, find out how to use cardio effectively as a tool in your fitness routine. "Menopause Myth Debunked" - Finally, we address the common myth of blaming hormones for weight gain during menopause. Learn the truth about hormonal changes and their role in your weight, and the importance of staying active during this phase of life. Throughout the episode, we provide evidence-backed insights, real-life examples, and actionable tips to empower you in your health and fitness journey. Don't miss the chance to take charge of your wellness and find answers to your burning questions. Join us for this insightful and empowering episode. If You're Ready to take the next step? Sign up to work with Balanced Bodies for individual coaching and support. Your health and fitness goals are within reach. Have questions or feedback? Leave a comment, visit our website, or connect with us on social media. We'd love to hear from you. Coach VinnyEmail: vinny@balancedbodies.ioInstagram: vinnyrusso_balancedbodiesFacebook: Vinny Russo Dr. ErynEmail: dr.eryn@balancedbodies.ioInstagram: dr.eryn_balancedbodiesFacebook: Eryn Stansfield LEGION 20% OFF CODEGo to https://legionathletics.com/ and use the code RUSSO for 20% off your order! Sources mentioned in this Podcast: Wilding JPH, Batterham RL, Calanna S, et al. Once-Weekly Semaglutide in Adults with Overweight or Obesity. N Engl J Med 2021; 384:989. Rubino D, Abrahamsson N, Davies M, Hesse D, Greenway FL, Jensen C, Lingvay I, Mosenzon O, Rosenstock J, Rubio MA, Rudofsky G, Tadayon S, Wadden TA, Dicker D; STEP 4 Investigators. Effect of Continued Weekly Subcutaneous Semaglutide vs Placebo on Weight Loss Maintenance in Adults With Overweight or Obesity: The STEP 4 Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. 2021 Apr 13;325(14):1414-1425. doi: 10.1001/jama.2021.3224. PMID: 33755728; PMCID: PMC7988425. Thomson, C.A., Morrow, K.L., Flatt, S.W., Wertheim, B.C., Perfect, M.M., Ravia, J.J., Sherwood, N.E., Karanja, N. and Rock, C.L. (2012), Relationship Between Sleep Quality and Quantity and Weight Loss in Women Participating in a Weight-Loss Intervention Trial. Obesity, 20: 1419-1425. https://doi.org/10.1038/oby.2012.62 Ronaldo D. Piovezan, Julio Abucham, Ronaldo Vagner Thomatieli dos Santos, Marco Tulio Mello, Sergio Tufik, Dalva Poyares, The impact of sleep on age-related sarcopenia: Possible connections and clinical implications, Ageing Research Reviews, Volume 23, Part B, 2015, Pages 210-220, ISSN 1568-1637, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.arr.2015.07.003. Writing Group for the Women's Health Initiative Investigators. Risks and Benefits of Estrogen Plus Progestin in Healthy Postmenopausal Women: Principal Results From the Women's Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Trial. JAMA. 2002;288(3):321–333. doi:10.1001/jama.288.3.321
https://letsgobrandongreen.com/real-time-voice-analyzer-covid-detecting-app/Chapter 1: Introduction [0:00]Introduction to the podcast and guest, Tim Flatt.Chapter 2: The Birth of the App [5:00]Tim Flatt discusses the origins and purpose of the Real Time Voice Analyzer.Chapter 3: Science and Technology [10:00]Delving into the AI algorithms and the role of vocal fold sounds.Mention of Dr. Singh's foundational research.Chapter 4: App Usability and Benefits [15:00]Comparison to rapid tests, cost-effectiveness, and speed.The non-invasive nature of the app and its global availability.Chapter 5: Clinical Studies and Accuracy [20:00]Discussion on the clinical studies conducted in various countries.The app's accuracy and its potential in the future.Chapter 6: Marketing and Future Prospects [25:00]Grassroots promotion approach, including podcasts.The potential for the app to grow and its significance in the current health climate.(Note: The timestamps are just placeholders and would need to be adjusted based on the actual video length and content distribution.)Tim Flatt CEO of Real Time Pain Relief explains his revolutionary new AI Covid Detecting AppSupport the showLETS GO BRANDON GREEN PODCAST - https://letsgobrandongreen.com/
Some real stars of the bluegrass music scene are featuring in today's programme. Ricky Skaggs, Mike Compton, Blue Highway, Lou Reid, Dale Ann Bradley and the Goodbye Girls with Molly Tuttle. There's some songs from Darren Beachley, John Bowman, and some classic bluegrass from the Stanley Brothers and Flatt & Scruggs.
American Drive, the Get Down Boys, Michelle Nixon, Claire Lynch, Hot Rize, John Reischman & the Jaybirds all feature on this episode, along with a tune from Doc Watson with Flatt & Scruggs, a banjo tune from Jim Mills, and the Gibson Brothers to round it all out. What's not to like?
Flatt finally returns from his summer hiatus and we offer our seven keys to a successful season.
Driven by their message of "radical love," hear how Doni Zasloff and Eric Lindberg, the husband and wife duo behind the renowned bluegrass band Nefesh Mountain, combat antisemitism within the music industry and beyond. Join us as we delve into their remarkable journey of representing Jewish-American culture, tradition, values, and spirituality through bluegrass and Americana music. The band also treats us to intimate performances from their latest album, "Songs for the Sparrows." *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. ___ Episode Lineup: (0:40) Doni Zasloff and Eric Lindberg ___ Show Notes: Learn more about: Nefesh Mountain Take our quiz: Jewish American Heritage Month Quiz Test your knowledge of the rich culture and heritage of the Jewish people and their many contributions to our nation! Start now. Read: What is Jewish American Heritage Month? Jewish American Heritage Month Resources Faces of American Jewry Amazing Jewish Americans Listen: 8 of the Best Jewish Podcasts Right Now Sen. Jon Ossoff on Jewish Resilience Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've enjoyed this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, tag us on social media with #PeopleofthePod, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review, to help more listeners find us. __ Transcript of Interview with Doni Zasloff and Eric Lindberg: Manya Brachear Pashman: Nefesh Mountain arrived on the bluegrass and American music scene in 2014. The husband and wife duo of Eric Lindbergh and Doni Zasloff have since performed in hundreds of synagogues in the United States and around the world, representing Jewish American culture, tradition, values and spirituality in the world of bluegrass. Bluegrass Today magazine has described the duo as what happens when bluegrass and Jewish traditions meet and fall madly in love. In honor of Jewish American Heritage Month, Doni and Eric are with us now. Or I should say–we are with Doni and Eric now in their home in northern New Jersey, Doni, Eric, thank you for welcoming “People of the Pod.” Doni Zasloff: Thank you for coming. We're so excited to have you. Eric Lindberg: What a treat. Manya Brachear Pashman: So please share with our listeners how the two of you got together. Did you have individual musical pursuits? Or did you not really find your groove until you were together as a duo. Eric Lindberg: We're both pointing at each other. You tell it. Doni Zasloff: You tell it. Eric Lindberg: Well, we both had individual pursuits. We met playing music in the New York kind of North Jersey area. Years ago, we met back in 2010. And we were playing music in various fashions. And the quick story is that our band is a love story. And we fell in love a few years later, and it became apparent to each of us that we were head over heels crazy about each other. And that we also had all of this stuff that needed to come out that we kind of needed the other person to help kind of embolden our feelings of Americana music and of Jewish life and of culture and all this stuff. So I grew up in Brooklyn. And so much of my life as a kid was part of the synagogue, my after school program, and my camp, and of course, synagogue and I had a Bar Mitzvah and I grew up with this big Jewish life in Brooklyn. But at a certain point, I became kind of just a musician, I didn't know where to put this Jewish side of myself. I went to study jazz in college and all this stuff. So when I met Doni, she kind of brought me back to this feeling of, well, you can be proud of this and you can be excited about it. And you can live a fully Jewish life, you don't have to do it, any which way. You don't have to be a quote unquote, good or bad Jew, which, we hate those terms, but people tend to use them. Even Jewish people, of course, to show how religious or observant they're being at a certain time. So she had this completely unbridled kind of cowgirl way of looking at being wild and Jewish and proud and being yourself. And ultimately, I think that is pretty much the core of our message as a band. But I guess we'll get to that a little bit later. But she brought me back to this place of really just being proud of who I was. And that was the little germ that started this band. And then I brought kind of this musical sensibility in Americana music, with the banjo, and fiddle, and all this stuff. Manya Brachear Pashman: And Doni, how about you? What was your journey? Doni Zasloff: I've always loved all different kinds of music. And I've always been very, as Eric was describing, just having a very strong Jewish spirit. And I think what Eric you know, it's exactly right. When Eric and I fell in love and started to really kind of get real with ourselves and we wanted to kind of express ourselves in the most authentic way. And I think my Jewish spirit and his massive knowledge of all kinds of music, and he just kept throwing CDs into my car–listen to this, listen to this, listen to this. And he just kind of opened my mind and my heart to so many styles of music that I--some of which I loved already, some of which I learned. It was just something about the stars aligning for Eric and I that the music that we started to write from our truest selves in that moment, came out in this Nefesh Mountain kind of a way. And it turns out, it's exactly our truth. And it's exactly the thing that we were looking for, this idea of our relationship, our connection. It is our truth and it's become our whole adventure. Manya Brachear Pashman: And are you talking about the genre of music when you say that the Nefesh Mountain sound, or something else you're referring to? Doni Zasloff: It's not, it's like our language. It's the type of music that we play. It's the stories that we tell, it's the perspective that we have. A lot of people say, you know, where is Nefesh Mountain? Is that a place? And we always say it's a place. We made it up. But it's a place that we kind of, it's like a little dream world, that bubble that Eric and I have sort of dreamt up. Where, you know, it is a little like, the free to be you and me vibes of like, just be yourself. And it's infused with this huge range of musical styles. And Eric brings that to the table. Manya Brachear Pashman: Would you describe your genre or style as bluegrass? Or would you describe it as something else? I call it bluegrass. But what do you call it? Eric Lindberg: That's a great question. Because we're right now kind of, you're catching us in the throes of exploring that. And we have been this whole time. I'm a huge fan of bluegrass music. But when I say that, like that means something to me. And it doesn't necessarily mean the same thing to everybody. Of course, it's a word out there that means different things, like being Jewish means something different to everybody. You know, is it a religion? Is it a culture? And bluegrass has the same kind of thing where there's a purest form of bluegrass, which when you're talking about Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, Stanley Brothers, etc, you know. And then you also have the Bluegrass that I grew up with, which was more of a quote, newgrass thing, and also really just ended up being kind of very fancy folk music with the likes of you know, people like Béla Fleck and Nickel Creek, and Punch Brothers and Sarah Jarosz. All these singer songwriters that are starting to write music with bluegrass instruments, and also improvising on a very high level. So bluegrass has become something that is actually more Americana. So these days, we're kind of using Americana. Manya Brachear Pashman: Talk a little bit about the original purpose of your music, or message that you wanted to convey with your music together. Or the one that's evolved over time, perhaps? Eric Lindberg: Well, the original purpose. I'll say, it was all an accident. You know, we fell in love. That's always an accident. A beautifully happy, you know, accident that is ever evolving and beautiful. We, um...sorry. Manya Brachear Pashman: Stop making lovey dovey eyes at each other. Actually, you can continue, I just wanted our listeners to know. Eric Lindberg: No, no. It's a big story. We fell in love. Your question was…say it again. Manya Brachear Pashman: You talked about wanting to be authentic, wanting to express yourselves originally. But has that purpose or intended message of your music evolved over time? Eric Lindberg: Yes, it has evolved and the purpose in the beginning, I noticed something when we first started making this music. As a fan of course, Americana, bluegrass, all this stuff. I noticed that so many artists could go out and sing songs about, about Jesus, about Christianity, about their spirituality. And it's not necessarily called religious or overtly Christian, or anything. It's just Americana. Because they are kind of synonymous. And the fact that gospel music is kind of at the core and like in the bedrock of what has laid the foundation for Americana music, it goes without saying. So any secular artists can go out there and kind of be themselves in all of that. If they want to sing a gospel tune, well, let's do Will the Circle Be Unbroken, everyone will love it, you know, even though it's a gospel song. Or even songs that we've kind of turned on their ear a little bit like Wayfaring Stranger or Down to the River to Pray, I Fly Away, gospel songs that we love. So this was our answer to that– we're gonna bring a sense of Jewish spirituality to the Americana table. And our first records, or really our first record. And then a little bit into the second dealt with some of our liturgy with some of the prayers that we had grown up singing, which, for us, meant a lot. Songs, like Henei Mah Tov, which is a whole song about how great it is to have friends and be together and, you know, celebrate each other's uniqueness and beauty. To songs like, Oseh Shalom, prayer for peace, or something like that. Through the years, we found a new purpose. And we've also, you know, been a band through a very trying time in this country. You know, no matter what side of the political fence you're on, it's been, we're all living in a world where we pretty much don't agree. And it's kind of de facto, now, that we don't agree, and we're gonna fight. And unless you see exactly eye to eye with me, I'm your enemy. And we have now kind of taken a stance, we're not politicians by any stretch. But Doni has kind of created this term that I love, and it's called radical love, which is to, regardless of our backgrounds, regardless of, our opinion on this, that, or the other, we are going to look at people in the eye and embrace them, and to put love out, because that's what the world is clearly lacking. And it's definitely a kind of hippie sentiment, peace and love, man. But we're fighting all the same things now that everyone was in the 60s, that everyone was in the 70s and 80s. And before that, and probably beyond. And we're challenged with the same issues. We're challenged with racism, antisemitism, a lack of empathy and diversity in neighborhoods and school systems and in cities and the world is still, we want to be happy. So we pretend that it's better than it is sometimes, but it's not great for so many people. And it is a Jewish ideal that I grew up with, this idea of Tikkun Olam, to make the world a little bit better. That's what we want to do through our music. Manya Brachear Pashman: Do you feel like you have had opportunities to share and communicate that radical love? Are you getting through to people? Doni Zasloff: I think every time we get on a stage that is, in front of anyone really, whether it's a Jewish crowd in front of us, or whether it's a you know, a secular, diverse crowd of people, we don't know what their backgrounds are, we really are kind of stepping into a space where we are putting out this radical love. And I think that we have been blessed with an amazing response to it. People are skeptical about a lot of things. There are Jewish communities that were very skeptical about the banjo and very skeptical about the bluegrass thing. The amount of people that come up to us at a synagogue and say, I thought I hated bluegrass. I had no interest in bluegrass, I love it. Or I thought I was gonna hate you guys. Like I didn't understand what you guys were all about. But it turns out I really love it. So we're getting a lot of love wherever we go, which is kind of why no matter what's going on, we just keep doing it because, you know, we've also had responses from people of all backgrounds just hugging us, thanking us for sharing this, you know, culture with them. People have come up to me crying like thank you I, I've never met anybody Jewish, I just didn't know, I didn't know. I think that music is so powerful, that it can break down so many walls and just shift people's ideas. And so I do think that the response to our radical love has been great. It's not easy, it's a little scary sometimes. It's not always been embraced. There are a lot of bluegrass festivals that wouldn't put us on their stages, because they don't want a Jewish band up there. They don't know what their crowd's gonna think or how that would affect their bottom line, or I don't know. Manya Brachear Pashman: Do they come right out and say that? Doni Zasloff: Pretty much, yeah, we've definitely gotten that feedback. It's hard to hear, as you can imagine, it's painful. But it's the truth, that there is antisemitism everywhere. Eric Lindberg: Yeah, it used to be–we've been a band since about late 2014. And now, we're knee deep in 2023. And in the beginning stages maybe I was more naive. And I used to kind of think, because, again, the bluegrass world I had in my head was that of progressive music. But I will say that there is a flaw in the bluegrass world and some of the people who want to keep bluegrass being a certain way. And that explains part of our, you know, we will always play bluegrass. So it's not that we won't depart from the genre, but are exploring other areas as well, because we've had clear cut answers of: No, you will never be on this radio station. No, you will not be at this bluegrass festival. We don't have room for people that preach Jewish things. Which is not what we do at all. We have a big show, I think we're a good band. We've done a lot. I'm proud of what we've done. You know, if the answer was no, because we don't believe you're good enough, then that'd be one thing. But the answer is clearly a Jewish issue. It's a tough thing to live with. So a little bit of me is, it's one of those things you hope as a little kid growing up, who loves music, who is crying and dancing and laughing and learning it and loving it. And it's the most exciting thing in your life, you hope that when you grow up, that it's not going to turn around and kind of kick you in the ass. And you're not going to see some of the dark underbelly of the world that you love. And unfortunately, some of that has happened. At the same time, I've gotten to play with my heroes, our heroes, Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas and Bryan Sutton. The people, the people that I've loved as musicians have all been the most beautiful, like creatures on planet Earth. They are very much beloved to us and our family. Manya Brachear Pashman: I'm not totally surprised. We love bluegrass as a family. But my kids do call it Jesus music occasionally. And we make sojourns to bluegrass jam sessions. There's one in Little Silver, New Jersey once a month that we've made the sojourn to at the little Methodist church there in town and I sing along with I Saw the Light. My eight year old wants to play the banjo, that's the musical instrument he has settled on to learn. That's why you guys stand out so much is that you have given to us, a sense of belonging. That like we belong in this world too, we belong in those seats as well. And so I'm not surprised that you have experienced that, but my heart is breaking a little as you talk. Eric Lindberg: And I want to add that there's nothing wrong at all with bluegrass music, with celebrating Christianity and that spirituality, at all. And I just want to be really clear, because that's the music that I love. And I'll sing along with those songs, too. I love those songs. And it's not, as Doni was saying before, it's not like we haven't, we're playing a lot where there are folks that are saying yes, that are embracing us. But there is something about, you know, when you're Jewish, and when you get that kind of feedback, because it speaks more to antisemitism than I think the musical world or the culture that we live around us in, in this country. I hope that I am being clear in that, the music is beautiful, and the heritage is beautiful. And we're not saying we should be like, we love bluegrass culture, bluegrass music, Americana culture, all that stuff. We love our Jewish culture. And we only want to do right by both sides of that equation, you know, make sure that they're balanced and treated with love. Doni Zasloff: But just like the world, there is, a little bit of a, not a little bit. I mean, the antisemitism that we're seeing, right now, in this country, it's everywhere, including what Eric was talking about. It doesn't just go away. We were at a big conference, and somebody came up to me, and I tell this story a lot, this guy came over to me in a big cowboy hat. And he just looked at me and he said, Why do you have to be here? Why do you have to play this music? Eric Lindberg: He actually said, you actually don't belong. Doni Zasloff: Y'all don't belong here. This Jewish thing, just basically, get out. And I remember just like, taking a deep breath, walking outside, I think I cried a little bit. I think I called my dad. You know, I was just like, What am I doing here? Like, this is nuts. You know, but then I walked back in and I'm getting, hugs and like, a lot of love. So, you know, this is part of being outwardly Jewish, I think right now. Like, it's just kind of what happens. Eric Lindberg: And that's the phrase that we haven't, we haven't said yet, because it seems like kind of a strange thing, to be outwardly Jewish. What does that mean? And I didn't grow up in a world where, where people did this, you know, and it kind of boils down to, there's a decision that we have to make that I had to make, and Doni, as musicians that are we going to be a band that is just about the music. And largely we are, actually we want to make good music first and foremost. And we also want to be a band that is, we live in this world, and we are seeing a rise in antisemitism, and we are scared about it. It troubles us and it makes my blood pressure rise and it's terrifying. And if we don't say anything about it, if we're not outwardly Jewish, if we're not openly wearing the star on our chest, you know, so to speak, or on our shoulders. I don't think we're doing ourselves a service. I think we're hiding behind something. For better or worse we're openly going out there and talking about this stuff all the time, because, you know, it won't get better if we don't. Manya Brachear Pashman: You have recorded three albums, you're getting ready to release a fourth. Is that correct? Eric Lindberg: Yeah, we actually have four albums out. One is a live one that we kind of snuck out at the end of 2021. Okay. But yeah, there's four that you can stream or buy or any of that stuff, and we have some new music coming out that we're really excited about. Manya Brachear Pashman: If you could talk a little bit about the inspiration behind those albums, because I know that they tell stories. And I'm curious if you could, you could share with our listeners. Eric Lindberg: “Songs for the Sparrows” is the most personal and adventurous recording that we've done, it was a huge undertaking. But maybe Doni, you want to tell them a little bit about the inspiration behind that record. Doni Zasloff: That record was inspired by a trip that Eric and I took with our older kids and my mother. My mom did all of this research about our family history, in Eastern Europe, and found all of this information and was able to locate the town that our families we're from. And so we did this big roots trip. It turns out I'm from Ukraine, I thought I was from Poland, but now it's Ukraine. And so we went on this trip, and we saw the town that my family was from and then we saw the forest outside of this town where some of my ancestors, we believe, were shot. We saw so many things, this trip really kind of just rocked us. I mean, it's everything that we've learned about. But to go there and to see it, it's not in a book, it's not in black and white. It's there and to see that the history was kind of almost trying to be erased, in modern times. It was hiding, we had to dig it up to even know that it had happened. Eric Lindberg: Literally hiding like we'd get there, we were in Lviv, this is of course before current day, this is back in 2018. And we were in this kind of great shopping area and parking lot and our tour guide had to say, you know, this was a cemetery. This was one of our flea markets. It was like a flea market and it was like what's going on? And there's vibrant life happening but at the same time, no one was… Doni Zasloff: Everything was destroyed, everything, you know, everything hundreds and hundreds of synagogues. I mean almost all of our ancestors, you know, this is where it all was at. But anyway, so we were on this trip. And while we were there I posted a picture on Facebook saying you know I'm on this roots trip. And then one of Eric's cousins like a distant cousin Reuvain, who had also done a lot of research on his family history, started sending email after email to Eric saying, Eric Eric, you are from six hours south of Lviv, you are from the Carpathian Mountains, that's where our family is from, you should go. So we turn the bus around, we ended up going six hours south to the Carpathian Mountains, so that we could see where Eric's family was from the next day. Eric Lindberg: And just like you thought your family was from Poland, I thought my family's from Austria-Hungary. But in '91, the borders all shifted. And so my grandma grew up, you know, grandma, where we from, she spoke a little Hungarian and, and Yiddish too. It was always Austria-Hungary. That's where we were from. And now of course, it's present day Ukraine. Doni Zasloff: Right, so we take this six hour drive south, and through the help of Reuvain, were able to find the cemetery where Eric's great grandfather was buried. Hours of looking, and we finally get there, and it had been destroyed. But somebody actually was trying to restore it. But it was little bits and pieces of stones everywhere. But at least it was kind of marked as something. So we went in there and looked for hours, we spent hours trying to find a little evidence of something with his great-grandfather's name on it. We never found anything. But there was a moment when we were walking around the cemetery that we looked up and saw all of these little birds flying above us, these tiny little sparrows. And there was just something that kind of was very breathtaking about the whole experience and kind of weird. We went through this whole trip, kind of taking it all in. It was a very emotional as you can imagine, like, just very intense trip. We got home and we're trying to like process it six weeks after we returned home was the tree of life shooting in Pittsburgh. So it was like, you know, part of our brains would like you know, that was the past that when it happened over there, this was a terrible thing. It happened over there. Then suddenly we come home and it's happening here. And there's this hate and there's this violence and so it was just like all swirling in our heads and we just kept thinking we have to do something we have to like we just felt compelled to make Now we'll basically or to do something, we didn't know what it was gonna be, we just had to write. But then we kept coming back to that moment with the bird with the sparrows, when we were walking around the cemetery. And Eric and I had this thought, well, maybe those sparrows were our ancestors. And maybe the and then the sparrow, maybe the sparrow. And we learned that sparrows live all over the world. They're small and mighty, and they live and their sparrows everywhere, there's sparrows outside of this house, there are sparrows in Ukraine, there's sparrows everywhere. So the sparrow has become, you know, became a symbol or a totem for anyone who has been discriminated against and hated for just being themselves. You know, whether it's our ancestors, or anyone, right now who's just not being accepted for the person that they were born to be. Manya Brachear Pashman: Unbelievable. I want to ask you about your upbringing. And I know Eric grew up in Brooklyn, but where did you grow up? Did you have a bat mitzvah? What's your spiritual journey? Doni Zasloff: I was born in New York. And then I lived a little bit in Boston and then I grew up in DC in the DC area and then Philadelphia and then I moved to New York so it's been you know, East Coasty. So I grew up going to Jewish camps and Jewish schools and I had this very intense connection to my Jewish spirituality. Like, I hated it, I loved it, I challenged it. It was like, I needed it. I didn't want it, you know, it was but I was in it. You know, I had this relationship with my Jewish identity. Even as a little kid, like a little girl, I remember, I wrapped to fill in when I you know, in a Jewish Day School setting, and like the rabbis were like, you know, angry at me, you know, things like that. Like, I was just like, really rebellious in my relationship with my Jewish self and going to Jewish schools and things like that. So I don't know, I felt like a Jewish cowgirl really my whole life. Manya Brachear Pashman: You have a film crew that has been shadowing you for quite a while now. Six months. And tell us a little bit about “We Sing Nonetheless.” Which is the title of an upcoming documentary. Eric Lindberg: Yeah, it's really exciting. We met this awesome gentleman, Adam, up in Boston, we were playing a show, I believe that was at his synagogue. But we were, you know, it was just after the show, and I'm like, kind of sweaty, over by the merch or something, and I just start talking to this guy. And he's like, I'm a documentary filmmaker. Little did I know, he's an Emmy award winning documentary filmmaker, and his last project, Dawnland with the--Upstander Project is the name of the organization. And we became really kind of fast friends, so much in common. And we just kind of started texting a little and throwing around some, could this work.I'm kinda like, there's gonna be a documentary about us? I mean, what we do is really important, but I kind of forget that we're the ones that do it sometimes. And I'm like, You're gonna follow us around and, and do this thing. And he was serious about it. And it's turned into, it's happening. It's a project. It's gonna be a movie. And the working title is We Sing Nonetheless, which is borrowed from one of our lyrics. It's from this song called Tree of Life. It's a bigger story, because we wrote it the day of the Pittsburgh shooting. But the refrain in that song is this lyric, but we sing nonetheless. Despite this pain that we've gone through with everything we've talked about with the sparrows and all this stuff, we sing nonetheless. And it's a lyric that we of course, we love, we wrote it. But when Adam came to us and said, that could be a theme. I was kind of blown away, because that's kind of one of the core messages of the band, which is that, despite history, and what history tells us and what we've learned, we are here, so we have to sing, we have to make that choice to sing. Doni Zasloff: And it's so Jewish. I mean, it's just such a Jewish like, that's what we do. So it just feels –actually he came up with the title. And I just burst out crying. I was just like, oh, yeah, that's kind of, that's just how my life has been. It's just always that, you know. Manya Brachear Pashman: I want to talk about one of my favorite songs of yours, and one of the most calming: tell us about the inspiration behind Evermore (Hashkiveinu), which is another song off your album Song For the Sparrows. Doni Zasloff: Oh, yeah. I love the gosh, every song's like another one of our babies but the song that we wrote called, Hashkiveinu, the Hashkiveinu prayer that was inspired. Eric started writing that, I think because I was having a hard time sleeping. And I think you wrote that one to try to help me get through the night. Eric Lindberg: Yeah. Doni Zasloff: When I was like, I just have a hard, sometimes I just can't, not sometimes, most times. Eric Lindberg: Still some days you're just like, I didn't sleep. That's actually a great one to bring up because it's based on this ancient prayer, Hashkiveinu. It's based on this ancient idea. And then when really reading the text and we looked through a lot of different translations and it's just beautiful that we would you know, that moment at night before sleep, first of all, we all have it's universal. And the idea that these angels come and like take us to this land and like golden shores and all this kind of like cool imagery. Doni Zasloff: [singing, acapella] Shelter, oh shelter as night... Doni Zasloff and Eric Lindberg: [singing, acapella] Shelter, oh shelter as night settles in Lay us down beside tranquil shores So we can dream of the wings That'll bring us home again For now, and evеrmore Eric Lindberg: Something like that. Manya Brachear Pashman: Beautiful. Eric Lindberg: Yeah, I mean, but that's our task. You know, sometimes if we are looking at a song from a prayer, I'm glad you brought it up because, while we're not like, the word religious can mean something different to everybody, but these prayers are based in also our culture and our heritage. And it's all one if you're living a Jewish life, and I think that this is one of these beautiful, poetic, whimsical, magical prayers, that is, that is a part of our culture that we're super proud of. And we kind of wrote this folk song around it, about being able to get yourself to sleep, despite the day you've had. Manya Brachear Pashman: Beautiful. Would you mind closing us out with another song? Doni Zasloff: [guitar playing] This song's called Where Oh Where, it was intended to be a song of hope, inspired by nature. And it's a response to all of the not so great things that we're seeing around us, to try to comfort ourselves really. But it's called Where Oh Where. Doni Zasloff and Eric Lindberg: [singing, with guitar] Where oh where are the sweetest songs Of Miriam and her daughters? They were sung beside the seas and tides So still must be out on the waters Still on the waters Where oh where is the wisdom Sung by the many before us? She was there inside the tree of life So still must reside in the forest Still in the forest Yai da dai da dai dum dai dai Dum dai ya da dum dai Ya da dai da dai dum dai dai Dum dai ya da dum dai Where oh where is the innocence From our first days in Eden? They used to rest their heads on the flowerbeds So still must be there in the gardens Still in the gardens Yai da dai da dai dum dai dai Dum dai ya da dum dai Ya da dai da dai dum dai dai Dum dai ya da dum dai Where oh where's the forgiveness From the age of the flood so long ago? Under all the rain the earth remained So it's still in the fields and the meadows In the fields and the meadows Yai da dai da dai dum dai dai Dum dai ya da dum dai Ya da dai da dai dum dai dai Dum dai ya da dum dai Where oh where's our compassion Is it somewhere we can discover? It's never too far, it's right where you are It's always been in the arms of each other Manya Brachear Pashman: Thank you so much. Eric Lindberg: Sure thing. Manya Brachear Pashman: It's been a jam-packed Jewish American Heritage Month here on People of the Pod: we kicked off with AJC CEO Ted Deutch, popped into the kitchen with Busy in Brooklyn food blogger and cookbook author Chanie Apfelbaum, and last week, we heard from from Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff. Thank you for joining us to close out the month with Nefesh Mountain. Tune in later this week for our sit-down with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Episode 165 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Dark Stat” and the career of the Grateful Dead. This is a long one, even longer than the previous episode, but don't worry, that won't be the norm. There's a reason these two were much longer than average. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-minute bonus episode available, on "Codine" by the Charlatans. Errata I mispronounce Brent Mydland's name as Myland a couple of times, and in the introduction I say "Touch of Grey" came out in 1988 -- I later, correctly, say 1987. (I seem to have had a real problem with dates in the intro -- I also originally talked about "Blue Suede Shoes" being in 1954 before fixing it in the edit to be 1956) Resources No Mixcloud this week, as there are too many songs by the Grateful Dead, and Grayfolded runs to two hours. I referred to a lot of books for this episode, partly because almost everything about the Grateful Dead is written from a fannish perspective that already assumes background knowledge, rather than to provide that background knowledge. Of the various books I used, Dennis McNally's biography of the band and This Is All a Dream We Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead by Blair Jackson and David Gans are probably most useful for the casually interested. Other books on the Dead I used included McNally's Jerry on Jerry, a collection of interviews with Garcia; Deal, Bill Kreutzmann's autobiography; The Grateful Dead FAQ by Tony Sclafani; So Many Roads by David Browne; Deadology by Howard F. Weiner; Fare Thee Well by Joel Selvin and Pamela Turley; and Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads by David Shenk and Steve Silberman. Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is the classic account of the Pranksters, though not always reliable. I reference Slaughterhouse Five a lot. As well as the novel itself, which everyone should read, I also read this rather excellent graphic novel adaptation, and The Writer's Crusade, a book about the writing of the novel. I also reference Ted Sturgeon's More Than Human. For background on the scene around Astounding Science Fiction which included Sturgeon, John W. Campbell, L. Ron Hubbard, and many other science fiction writers, I recommend Alec Nevala-Lee's Astounding. 1,000 True Fans can be read online, as can the essay on the Californian ideology, and John Perry Barlow's "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace". The best collection of Grateful Dead material is the box set The Golden Road, which contains all the albums released in Pigpen's lifetime along with a lot of bonus material, but which appears currently out of print. Live/Dead contains both the live version of "Dark Star" which made it well known and, as a CD bonus track, the original single version. And archive.org has more live recordings of the group than you can possibly ever listen to. Grayfolded can be bought from John Oswald's Bandcamp Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript [Excerpt: Tuning from "Grayfolded", under the warnings Before we begin -- as we're tuning up, as it were, I should mention that this episode contains discussions of alcoholism, drug addiction, racism, nonconsensual drugging of other people, and deaths from drug abuse, suicide, and car accidents. As always, I try to deal with these subjects as carefully as possible, but if you find any of those things upsetting you may wish to read the transcript rather than listen to this episode, or skip it altogether. Also, I should note that the members of the Grateful Dead were much freer with their use of swearing in interviews than any other band we've covered so far, and that makes using quotes from them rather more difficult than with other bands, given the limitations of the rules imposed to stop the podcast being marked as adult. If I quote anything with a word I can't use here, I'll give a brief pause in the audio, and in the transcript I'll have the word in square brackets. [tuning ends] All this happened, more or less. In 1910, T. S. Eliot started work on "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", which at the time was deemed barely poetry, with one reviewer imagining Eliot saying "I'll just put down the first thing that comes into my head, and call it 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.'" It is now considered one of the great classics of modernist literature. In 1969, Kurt Vonnegut wrote "Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death", a book in which the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, comes unstuck in time, and starts living a nonlinear life, hopping around between times reliving his experiences in the Second World War, and future experiences up to 1976 after being kidnapped by beings from the planet Tralfamadore. Or perhaps he has flashbacks and hallucinations after having a breakdown from PTSD. It is now considered one of the great classics of modernist literature or of science fiction, depending on how you look at it. In 1953, Theodore Sturgeon wrote More Than Human. It is now considered one of the great classics of science fiction. In 1950, L. Ron Hubbard wrote Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. It is now considered either a bad piece of science fiction or one of the great revelatory works of religious history, depending on how you look at it. In 1994, 1995, and 1996 the composer John Oswald released, first as two individual CDs and then as a double-CD, an album called Grayfolded, which the composer says in the liner notes he thinks of as existing in Tralfamadorian time. The Tralfamadorians in Vonnegut's novels don't see time as a linear thing with a beginning and end, but as a continuum that they can move between at will. When someone dies, they just think that at this particular point in time they're not doing so good, but at other points in time they're fine, so why focus on the bad time? In the book, when told of someone dying, the Tralfamadorians just say "so it goes". In between the first CD's release and the release of the double-CD version, Jerry Garcia died. From August 1942 through August 1995, Jerry Garcia was alive. So it goes. Shall we go, you and I? [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, "Dark Star (Omni 3/30/94)"] "One principle has become clear. Since motives are so frequently found in combination, it is essential that the complex types be analyzed and arranged, with an eye kept single nevertheless to the master-theme under discussion. Collectors, both primary and subsidiary, have done such valiant service that the treasures at our command are amply sufficient for such studies, so extensive, indeed, that the task of going through them thoroughly has become too great for the unassisted student. It cannot be too strongly urged that a single theme in its various types and compounds must be made predominant in any useful comparative study. This is true when the sources and analogues of any literary work are treated; it is even truer when the bare motive is discussed. The Grateful Dead furnishes an apt illustration of the necessity of such handling. It appears in a variety of different combinations, almost never alone. Indeed, it is so widespread a tale, and its combinations are so various, that there is the utmost difficulty in determining just what may properly be regarded the original kernel of it, the simple theme to which other motives were joined. Various opinions, as we shall see, have been held with reference to this matter, most of them justified perhaps by the materials in the hands of the scholars holding them, but none quite adequate in view of later evidence." That's a quote from The Grateful Dead: The History of a Folk Story, by Gordon Hall Gerould, published in 1908. Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five opens with a chapter about the process of writing the novel itself, and how difficult it was. He says "I would hate to tell you what this lousy little book cost me in money and anxiety and time. When I got home from the Second World War twenty-three years ago, I thought it would be easy for me to write about the destruction of Dresden, since all I would have to do would be to report what I had seen. And I thought, too, that it would be a masterpiece or at least make me a lot of money, since the subject was so big." This is an episode several of my listeners have been looking forward to, but it's one I've been dreading writing, because this is an episode -- I think the only one in the series -- where the format of the podcast simply *will not* work. Were the Grateful Dead not such an important band, I would skip this episode altogether, but they're a band that simply can't be ignored, and that's a real problem here. Because my intent, always, with this podcast, is to present the recordings of the artists in question, put them in context, and explain why they were important, what their music meant to its listeners. To put, as far as is possible, the positive case for why the music mattered *in the context of its time*. Not why it matters now, or why it matters to me, but why it matters *in its historical context*. Whether I like the music or not isn't the point. Whether it stands up now isn't the point. I play the music, explain what it was they were doing, why they were doing it, what people saw in it. If I do my job well, you come away listening to "Blue Suede Shoes" the way people heard it in 1956, or "Good Vibrations" the way people heard it in 1966, and understanding why people were so impressed by those records. That is simply *not possible* for the Grateful Dead. I can present a case for them as musicians, and hope to do so. I can explain the appeal as best I understand it, and talk about things I like in their music, and things I've noticed. But what I can't do is present their recordings the way they were received in the sixties and explain why they were popular. Because every other act I have covered or will cover in this podcast has been a *recording* act, and their success was based on records. They may also have been exceptional live performers, but James Brown or Ike and Tina Turner are remembered for great *records*, like "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" or "River Deep, Mountain High". Their great moments were captured on vinyl, to be listened back to, and susceptible of analysis. That is not the case for the Grateful Dead, and what is worse *they explicitly said, publicly, on multiple occasions* that it is not possible for me to understand their art, and thus that it is not possible for me to explain it. The Grateful Dead did make studio records, some of them very good. But they always said, consistently, over a thirty year period, that their records didn't capture what they did, and that the only way -- the *only* way, they were very clear about this -- that one could actually understand and appreciate their music, was to see them live, and furthermore to see them live while on psychedelic drugs. [Excerpt: Grateful Dead crowd noise] I never saw the Grateful Dead live -- their last UK performance was a couple of years before I went to my first ever gig -- and I have never taken a psychedelic substance. So by the Grateful Dead's own criteria, it is literally impossible for me to understand or explain their music the way that it should be understood or explained. In a way I'm in a similar position to the one I was in with La Monte Young in the last episode, whose music it's mostly impossible to experience without being in his presence. This is one reason of several why I placed these two episodes back to back. Of course, there is a difference between Young and the Grateful Dead. The Grateful Dead allowed -- even encouraged -- the recording of their live performances. There are literally thousands of concert recordings in circulation, many of them of professional quality. I have listened to many of those, and I can hear what they were doing. I can tell you what *I* think is interesting about their music, and about their musicianship. And I think I can build up a good case for why they were important, and why they're interesting, and why those recordings are worth listening to. And I can certainly explain the cultural phenomenon that was the Grateful Dead. But just know that while I may have found *a* point, *an* explanation for why the Grateful Dead were important, by the band's own lights and those of their fans, no matter how good a job I do in this episode, I *cannot* get it right. And that is, in itself, enough of a reason for this episode to exist, and for me to try, even harder than I normally do, to get it right *anyway*. Because no matter how well I do my job this episode will stand as an example of why this series is called "*A* History", not *the* history. Because parts of the past are ephemeral. There are things about which it's true to say "You had to be there". I cannot know what it was like to have been an American the day Kennedy was shot, I cannot know what it was like to be alive when a man walked on the Moon. Those are things nobody my age or younger can ever experience. And since August the ninth, 1995, the experience of hearing the Grateful Dead's music the way they wanted it heard has been in that category. And that is by design. Jerry Garcia once said "if you work really hard as an artist, you may be able to build something they can't tear down, you know, after you're gone... What I want to do is I want it here. I want it now, in this lifetime. I want what I enjoy to last as long as I do and not last any longer. You know, I don't want something that ends up being as much a nuisance as it is a work of art, you know?" And there's another difficulty. There are only two points in time where it makes sense to do a podcast episode on the Grateful Dead -- late 1967 and early 1968, when the San Francisco scene they were part of was at its most culturally relevant, and 1988 when they had their only top ten hit and gained their largest audience. I can't realistically leave them out of the story until 1988, so it has to be 1968. But the songs they are most remembered for are those they wrote between 1970 and 1972, and those songs are influenced by artists and events we haven't yet covered in the podcast, who will be getting their own episodes in the future. I can't explain those things in this episode, because they need whole episodes of their own. I can't not explain them without leaving out important context for the Grateful Dead. So the best I can do is treat the story I'm telling as if it were in Tralfamadorian time. All of it's happening all at once, and some of it is happening in different episodes that haven't been recorded yet. The podcast as a whole travels linearly from 1938 through to 1999, but this episode is happening in 1968 and 1972 and 1988 and 1995 and other times, all at once. Sometimes I'll talk about things as if you're already familiar with them, but they haven't happened yet in the story. Feel free to come unstuck in time and revisit this time after episode 167, and 172, and 176, and 192, and experience it again. So this has to be an experimental episode. It may well be an experiment that you think fails. If so, the next episode is likely to be far more to your taste, and much shorter than this or the last episode, two episodes that between them have to create a scaffolding on which will hang much of the rest of this podcast's narrative. I've finished my Grateful Dead script now. The next one I write is going to be fun: [Excerpt: Grateful Dead, "Dark Star"] Infrastructure means everything. How we get from place to place, how we transport goods, information, and ourselves, makes a big difference in how society is structured, and in the music we hear. For many centuries, the prime means of long-distance transport was by water -- sailing ships on the ocean, canal boats and steamboats for inland navigation -- and so folk songs talked about the ship as both means of escape, means of making a living, and in some senses as a trap. You'd go out to sea for adventure, or to escape your problems, but you'd find that the sea itself brought its own problems. Because of this we have a long, long tradition of sea shanties which are known throughout the world: [Excerpt: A. L. Lloyd, "Off to Sea Once More"] But in the nineteenth century, the railway was invented and, at least as far as travel within a landmass goes, it replaced the steamboat in the popular imaginary. Now the railway was how you got from place to place, and how you moved freight from one place to another. The railway brought freedom, and was an opportunity for outlaws, whether train robbers or a romanticised version of the hobo hopping onto a freight train and making his way to new lands and new opportunity. It was the train that brought soldiers home from wars, and the train that allowed the Great Migration of Black people from the South to the industrial North. There would still be songs about the riverboats, about how ol' man river keeps rolling along and about the big river Johnny Cash sang about, but increasingly they would be songs of the past, not the present. The train quickly replaced the steamboat in the iconography of what we now think of as roots music -- blues, country, folk, and early jazz music. Sometimes this was very literal. Furry Lewis' "Kassie Jones" -- about a legendary train driver who would break the rules to make sure his train made the station on time, but who ended up sacrificing his own life to save his passengers in a train crash -- is based on "Alabamy Bound", which as we heard in the episode on "Stagger Lee", was about steamboats: [Excerpt: Furry Lewis, "Kassie Jones"] In the early episodes of this podcast we heard many, many, songs about the railway. Louis Jordan saying "take me right back to the track, Jack", Rosetta Tharpe singing about how "this train don't carry no gamblers", the trickster freight train driver driving on the "Rock Island Line", the mystery train sixteen coaches long, the train that kept-a-rollin' all night long, the Midnight Special which the prisoners wished would shine its ever-loving light on them, and the train coming past Folsom Prison whose whistle makes Johnny Cash hang his head and cry. But by the 1960s, that kind of song had started to dry up. It would happen on occasion -- "People Get Ready" by the Impressions is the most obvious example of the train metaphor in an important sixties record -- but by the late sixties the train was no longer a symbol of freedom but of the past. In 1969 Harry Nilsson sang about how "Nobody Cares About the Railroads Any More", and in 1968 the Kinks sang about "The Last of the Steam-Powered Trains". When in 1968 Merle Haggard sang about a freight train, it was as a memory, of a child with hopes that ended up thwarted by reality and his own nature: [Excerpt: Merle Haggard, "Mama Tried"] And the reason for this was that there had been another shift, a shift that had started in the forties and accelerated in the late fifties but had taken a little time to ripple through the culture. Now the train had been replaced in the popular imaginary by motorised transport. Instead of hopping on a train without paying, if you had no money in your pocket you'd have to hitch-hike all the way. Freedom now meant individuality. The ultimate in freedom was the biker -- the Hell's Angels who could go anywhere, unburdened by anything -- and instead of goods being moved by freight train, increasingly they were being moved by truck drivers. By the mid-seventies, truck drivers took a central place in American life, and the most romantic way to live life was to live it on the road. On The Road was also the title of a 1957 novel by Jack Kerouac, which was one of the first major signs of this cultural shift in America. Kerouac was writing about events in the late forties and early fifties, but his book was also a precursor of the sixties counterculture. He wrote the book on one continuous sheet of paper, as a stream of consciousness. Kerouac died in 1969 of an internal haemmorage brought on by too much alcohol consumption. So it goes. But the big key to this cultural shift was caused by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, a massive infrastructure spending bill that led to the construction of the modern American Interstate Highway system. This accelerated a program that had already started, of building much bigger, safer, faster roads. It also, as anyone who has read Robert Caro's The Power Broker knows, reinforced segregation and white flight. It did this both by making commuting into major cities from the suburbs easier -- thus allowing white people with more money to move further away from the cities and still work there -- and by bulldozing community spaces where Black people lived. More than a million people lost their homes and were forcibly moved, and orders of magnitude more lost their communities' parks and green spaces. And both as a result of deliberate actions and unconscious bigotry, the bulk of those affected were Black people -- who often found themselves, if they weren't forced to move, on one side of a ten-lane highway where the park used to be, with white people on the other side of the highway. The Federal-Aid Highway Act gave even more power to the unaccountable central planners like Robert Moses, the urban planner in New York who managed to become arguably the most powerful man in the city without ever getting elected, partly by slowly compromising away his early progressive ideals in the service of gaining more power. Of course, not every new highway was built through areas where poor Black people lived. Some were planned to go through richer areas for white people, just because you can't completely do away with geographical realities. For example one was planned to be built through part of San Francisco, a rich, white part. But the people who owned properties in that area had enough political power and clout to fight the development, and after nearly a decade of fighting it, the development was called off in late 1966. But over that time, many of the owners of the impressive buildings in the area had moved out, and they had no incentive to improve or maintain their properties while they were under threat of demolition, so many of them were rented out very cheaply. And when the beat community that Kerouac wrote about, many of whom had settled in San Francisco, grew too large and notorious for the area of the city they were in, North Beach, many of them moved to these cheap homes in a previously-exclusive area. The area known as Haight-Ashbury. [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, "Grayfolded"] Stories all have their starts, even stories told in Tralfamadorian time, although sometimes those starts are shrouded in legend. For example, the story of Scientology's start has been told many times, with different people claiming to have heard L. Ron Hubbard talk about how writing was a mug's game, and if you wanted to make real money, you needed to get followers, start a religion. Either he said this over and over and over again, to many different science fiction writers, or most science fiction writers of his generation were liars. Of course, the definition of a writer is someone who tells lies for money, so who knows? One of the more plausible accounts of him saying that is given by Theodore Sturgeon. Sturgeon's account is more believable than most, because Sturgeon went on to be a supporter of Dianetics, the "new science" that Hubbard turned into his religion, for decades, even while telling the story. The story of the Grateful Dead probably starts as it ends, with Jerry Garcia. There are three things that everyone writing about the Dead says about Garcia's childhood, so we might as well say them here too. The first is that he was named by a music-loving father after Jerome Kern, the songwriter responsible for songs like "Ol' Man River" (though as Oscar Hammerstein's widow liked to point out, "Jerome Kern wrote dum-dum-dum-dum, *my husband* wrote 'Ol' Man River'" -- an important distinction we need to bear in mind when talking about songwriters who write music but not lyrics). The second is that when he was five years old that music-loving father drowned -- and Garcia would always say he had seen his father dying, though some sources claim this was a false memory. So it goes. And the third fact, which for some reason is always told after the second even though it comes before it chronologically, is that when he was four he lost two joints from his right middle finger. Garcia grew up a troubled teen, and in turn caused trouble for other people, but he also developed a few interests that would follow him through his life. He loved the fantastical, especially the fantastical macabre, and became an avid fan of horror and science fiction -- and through his love of old monster films he became enamoured with cinema more generally. Indeed, in 1983 he bought the film rights to Kurt Vonnegut's science fiction novel The Sirens of Titan, the first story in which the Tralfamadorians appear, and wrote a script based on it. He wanted to produce the film himself, with Francis Ford Coppola directing and Bill Murray starring, but most importantly for him he wanted to prevent anyone who didn't care about it from doing it badly. And in that he succeeded. As of 2023 there is no film of The Sirens of Titan. He loved to paint, and would continue that for the rest of his life, with one of his favourite subjects being Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein monster. And when he was eleven or twelve, he heard for the first time a record that was hugely influential to a whole generation of Californian musicians, even though it was a New York record -- "Gee" by the Crows: [Excerpt: The Crows, "Gee"] Garcia would say later "That was an important song. That was the first kind of, like where the voices had that kind of not-trained-singer voices, but tough-guy-on-the-street voice." That record introduced him to R&B, and soon he was listening to Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, to Ray Charles, and to a record we've not talked about in the podcast but which was one of the great early doo-wop records, "WPLJ" by the Four Deuces: [Excerpt: The Four Deuces, "WPLJ"] Garcia said of that record "That was one of my anthem songs when I was in junior high school and high school and around there. That was one of those songs everybody knew. And that everybody sang. Everybody sang that street-corner favorite." Garcia moved around a lot as a child, and didn't have much time for school by his own account, but one of the few teachers he did respect was an art teacher when he was in North Beach, Walter Hedrick. Hedrick was also one of the earliest of the conceptual artists, and one of the most important figures in the San Francisco arts scene that would become known as the Beat Generation (or the Beatniks, which was originally a disparaging term). Hedrick was a painter and sculptor, but also organised happenings, and he had also been one of the prime movers in starting a series of poetry readings in San Francisco, the first one of which had involved Allen Ginsberg giving the first ever reading of "Howl" -- one of a small number of poems, along with Eliot's "Prufrock" and "The Waste Land" and possibly Pound's Cantos, which can be said to have changed twentieth-century literature. Garcia was fifteen when he got to know Hedrick, in 1957, and by then the Beat scene had already become almost a parody of itself, having become known to the public because of the publication of works like On the Road, and the major artists in the scene were already rejecting the label. By this point tourists were flocking to North Beach to see these beatniks they'd heard about on TV, and Hedrick was actually employed by one cafe to sit in the window wearing a beret, turtleneck, sandals, and beard, and draw and paint, to attract the tourists who flocked by the busload because they could see that there was a "genuine beatnik" in the cafe. Hedrick was, as well as a visual artist, a guitarist and banjo player who played in traditional jazz bands, and he would bring records in to class for his students to listen to, and Garcia particularly remembered him bringing in records by Big Bill Broonzy: [Excerpt: Big Bill Broonzy, "When Things Go Wrong (It Hurts Me Too)"] Garcia was already an avid fan of rock and roll music, but it was being inspired by Hedrick that led him to get his first guitar. Like his contemporary Paul McCartney around the same time, he was initially given the wrong instrument as a birthday present -- in Garcia's case his mother gave him an accordion -- but he soon persuaded her to swap it for an electric guitar he saw in a pawn shop. And like his other contemporary, John Lennon, Garcia initially tuned his instrument incorrectly. He said later "When I started playing the guitar, believe me, I didn't know anybody that played. I mean, I didn't know anybody that played the guitar. Nobody. They weren't around. There were no guitar teachers. You couldn't take lessons. There was nothing like that, you know? When I was a kid and I had my first electric guitar, I had it tuned wrong and learned how to play on it with it tuned wrong for about a year. And I was getting somewhere on it, you know… Finally, I met a guy that knew how to tune it right and showed me three chords, and it was like a revelation. You know what I mean? It was like somebody gave me the key to heaven." He joined a band, the Chords, which mostly played big band music, and his friend Gary Foster taught him some of the rudiments of playing the guitar -- things like how to use a capo to change keys. But he was always a rebellious kid, and soon found himself faced with a choice between joining the military or going to prison. He chose the former, and it was during his time in the Army that a friend, Ron Stevenson, introduced him to the music of Merle Travis, and to Travis-style guitar picking: [Excerpt: Merle Travis, "Nine-Pound Hammer"] Garcia had never encountered playing like that before, but he instantly recognised that Travis, and Chet Atkins who Stevenson also played for him, had been an influence on Scotty Moore. He started to realise that the music he'd listened to as a teenager was influenced by music that went further back. But Stevenson, as well as teaching Garcia some of the rudiments of Travis-picking, also indirectly led to Garcia getting discharged from the Army. Stevenson was not a well man, and became suicidal. Garcia decided it was more important to keep his friend company and make sure he didn't kill himself than it was to turn up for roll call, and as a result he got discharged himself on psychiatric grounds -- according to Garcia he told the Army psychiatrist "I was involved in stuff that was more important to me in the moment than the army was and that was the reason I was late" and the psychiatrist thought it was neurotic of Garcia to have his own set of values separate from that of the Army. After discharge, Garcia did various jobs, including working as a transcriptionist for Lenny Bruce, the comedian who was a huge influence on the counterculture. In one of the various attacks over the years by authoritarians on language, Bruce was repeatedly arrested for obscenity, and in 1961 he was arrested at a jazz club in North Beach. Sixty years ago, the parts of speech that were being criminalised weren't pronouns, but prepositions and verbs: [Excerpt: Lenny Bruce, "To is a Preposition, Come is a Verb"] That piece, indeed, was so controversial that when Frank Zappa quoted part of it in a song in 1968, the record label insisted on the relevant passage being played backwards so people couldn't hear such disgusting filth: [Excerpt: The Mothers of Invention, "Harry You're a Beast"] (Anyone familiar with that song will understand that the censored portion is possibly the least offensive part of the whole thing). Bruce was facing trial, and he needed transcripts of what he had said in his recordings to present in court. Incidentally, there seems to be some confusion over exactly which of Bruce's many obscenity trials Garcia became a transcriptionist for. Dennis McNally says in his biography of the band, published in 2002, that it was the most famous of them, in autumn 1964, but in a later book, Jerry on Jerry, a book of interviews of Garcia edited by McNally, McNally talks about it being when Garcia was nineteen, which would mean it was Bruce's first trial, in 1961. We can put this down to the fact that many of the people involved, not least Garcia, lived in Tralfamadorian time, and were rather hazy on dates, but I'm placing the story here rather than in 1964 because it seems to make more sense that Garcia would be involved in a trial based on an incident in San Francisco than one in New York. Garcia got the job, even though he couldn't type, because by this point he'd spent so long listening to recordings of old folk and country music that he was used to transcribing indecipherable accents, and often, as Garcia would tell it, Bruce would mumble very fast and condense multiple syllables into one. Garcia was particularly impressed by Bruce's ability to improvise but talk in entire paragraphs, and he compared his use of language to bebop. Another thing that was starting to impress Garcia, and which he also compared to bebop, was bluegrass: [Excerpt: Bill Monroe, "Fire on the Mountain"] Bluegrass is a music that is often considered very traditional, because it's based on traditional songs and uses acoustic instruments, but in fact it was a terribly *modern* music, and largely a postwar creation of a single band -- Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys. And Garcia was right when he said it was "white bebop" -- though he did say "The only thing it doesn't have is the harmonic richness of bebop. You know what I mean? That's what it's missing, but it has everything else." Both bebop and bluegrass evolved after the second world war, though they were informed by music from before it, and both prized the ability to improvise, and technical excellence. Both are musics that involved playing *fast*, in an ensemble, and being able to respond quickly to the other musicians. Both musics were also intensely rhythmic, a response to a faster paced, more stressful world. They were both part of the general change in the arts towards immediacy that we looked at in the last episode with the creation first of expressionism and then of pop art. Bluegrass didn't go into the harmonic explorations that modern jazz did, but it was absolutely as modern as anything Charlie Parker was doing, and came from the same impulses. It was tradition and innovation, the past and the future simultaneously. Bill Monroe, Jackson Pollock, Charlie Parker, Jack Kerouac, and Lenny Bruce were all in their own ways responding to the same cultural moment, and it was that which Garcia was responding to. But he didn't become able to play bluegrass until after a tragedy which shaped his life even more than his father's death had. Garcia had been to a party and was in a car with his friends Lee Adams, Paul Speegle, and Alan Trist. Adams was driving at ninety miles an hour when they hit a tight curve and crashed. Garcia, Adams, and Trist were all severely injured but survived. Speegle died. So it goes. This tragedy changed Garcia's attitudes totally. Of all his friends, Speegle was the one who was most serious about his art, and who treated it as something to work on. Garcia had always been someone who fundamentally didn't want to work or take any responsibility for anything. And he remained that way -- except for his music. Speegle's death changed Garcia's attitude to that, totally. If his friend wasn't going to be able to practice his own art any more, Garcia would practice his, in tribute to him. He resolved to become a virtuoso on guitar and banjo. His girlfriend of the time later said “I don't know if you've spent time with someone rehearsing ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown' on a banjo for eight hours, but Jerry practiced endlessly. He really wanted to excel and be the best. He had tremendous personal ambition in the musical arena, and he wanted to master whatever he set out to explore. Then he would set another sight for himself. And practice another eight hours a day of new licks.” But of course, you can't make ensemble music on your own: [Excerpt: Jerry Garcia and Bob Hunter, "Oh Mary Don't You Weep" (including end)] "Evelyn said, “What is it called when a person needs a … person … when you want to be touched and the … two are like one thing and there isn't anything else at all anywhere?” Alicia, who had read books, thought about it. “Love,” she said at length." That's from More Than Human, by Theodore Sturgeon, a book I'll be quoting a few more times as the story goes on. Robert Hunter, like Garcia, was just out of the military -- in his case, the National Guard -- and he came into Garcia's life just after Paul Speegle had left it. Garcia and Alan Trist met Hunter ten days after the accident, and the three men started hanging out together, Trist and Hunter writing while Garcia played music. Garcia and Hunter both bonded over their shared love for the beats, and for traditional music, and the two formed a duo, Bob and Jerry, which performed together a handful of times. They started playing together, in fact, after Hunter picked up a guitar and started playing a song and halfway through Garcia took it off him and finished the song himself. The two of them learned songs from the Harry Smith Anthology -- Garcia was completely apolitical, and only once voted in his life, for Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to keep Goldwater out, and regretted even doing that, and so he didn't learn any of the more political material people like Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, and Bob Dylan were doing at the time -- but their duo only lasted a short time because Hunter wasn't an especially good guitarist. Hunter would, though, continue to jam with Garcia and other friends, sometimes playing mandolin, while Garcia played solo gigs and with other musicians as well, playing and moving round the Bay Area and performing with whoever he could: [Excerpt: Jerry Garcia, "Railroad Bill"] "Bleshing, that was Janie's word. She said Baby told it to her. She said it meant everyone all together being something, even if they all did different things. Two arms, two legs, one body, one head, all working together, although a head can't walk and arms can't think. Lone said maybe it was a mixture of “blending” and “meshing,” but I don't think he believed that himself. It was a lot more than that." That's from More Than Human In 1961, Garcia and Hunter met another young musician, but one who was interested in a very different type of music. Phil Lesh was a serious student of modern classical music, a classically-trained violinist and trumpeter whose interest was solidly in the experimental and whose attitude can be summed up by a story that's always told about him meeting his close friend Tom Constanten for the first time. Lesh had been talking with someone about serialism, and Constanten had interrupted, saying "Music stopped being created in 1750 but it started again in 1950". Lesh just stuck out his hand, recognising a kindred spirit. Lesh and Constanten were both students of Luciano Berio, the experimental composer who created compositions for magnetic tape: [Excerpt: Luciano Berio, "Momenti"] Berio had been one of the founders of the Studio di fonologia musicale di Radio Milano, a studio for producing contemporary electronic music where John Cage had worked for a time, and he had also worked with the electronic music pioneer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Lesh would later remember being very impressed when Berio brought a tape into the classroom -- the actual multitrack tape for Stockhausen's revolutionary piece Gesang Der Juenglinge: [Excerpt: Karlheinz Stockhausen, "Gesang Der Juenglinge"] Lesh at first had been distrustful of Garcia -- Garcia was charismatic and had followers, and Lesh never liked people like that. But he was impressed by Garcia's playing, and soon realised that the two men, despite their very different musical interests, had a lot in common. Lesh was interested in the technology of music as well as in performing and composing it, and so when he wasn't studying he helped out by engineering at the university's radio station. Lesh was impressed by Garcia's playing, and suggested to the presenter of the station's folk show, the Midnight Special, that Garcia be a guest. Garcia was so good that he ended up getting an entire solo show to himself, where normally the show would feature multiple acts. Lesh and Constanten soon moved away from the Bay Area to Las Vegas, but both would be back -- in Constanten's case he would form an experimental group in San Francisco with their fellow student Steve Reich, and that group (though not with Constanten performing) would later premiere Terry Riley's In C, a piece influenced by La Monte Young and often considered one of the great masterpieces of minimalist music. By early 1962 Garcia and Hunter had formed a bluegrass band, with Garcia on guitar and banjo and Hunter on mandolin, and a rotating cast of other musicians including Ken Frankel, who played banjo and fiddle. They performed under different names, including the Tub Thumpers, the Hart Valley Drifters, and the Sleepy Valley Hog Stompers, and played a mixture of bluegrass and old-time music -- and were very careful about the distinction: [Excerpt: The Hart Valley Drifters, "Cripple Creek"] In 1993, the Republican political activist John Perry Barlow was invited to talk to the CIA about the possibilities open to them with what was then called the Information Superhighway. He later wrote, in part "They told me they'd brought Steve Jobs in a few weeks before to indoctrinate them in modern information management. And they were delighted when I returned later, bringing with me a platoon of Internet gurus, including Esther Dyson, Mitch Kapor, Tony Rutkowski, and Vint Cerf. They sealed us into an electronically impenetrable room to discuss the radical possibility that a good first step in lifting their blackout would be for the CIA to put up a Web site... We told them that information exchange was a barter system, and that to receive, one must also be willing to share. This was an alien notion to them. They weren't even willing to share information among themselves, much less the world." 1962 brought a new experience for Robert Hunter. Hunter had been recruited into taking part in psychological tests at Stanford University, which in the sixties and seventies was one of the preeminent universities for psychological experiments. As part of this, Hunter was given $140 to attend the VA hospital (where a janitor named Ken Kesey, who had himself taken part in a similar set of experiments a couple of years earlier, worked a day job while he was working on his first novel) for four weeks on the run, and take different psychedelic drugs each time, starting with LSD, so his reactions could be observed. (It was later revealed that these experiments were part of a CIA project called MKUltra, designed to investigate the possibility of using psychedelic drugs for mind control, blackmail, and torture. Hunter was quite lucky in that he was told what was going to happen to him and paid for his time. Other subjects included the unlucky customers of brothels the CIA set up as fronts -- they dosed the customers' drinks and observed them through two-way mirrors. Some of their experimental subjects died by suicide as a result of their experiences. So it goes. ) Hunter was interested in taking LSD after reading Aldous Huxley's writings about psychedelic substances, and he brought his typewriter along to the experiment. During the first test, he wrote a six-page text, a short excerpt from which is now widely quoted, reading in part "Sit back picture yourself swooping up a shell of purple with foam crests of crystal drops soft nigh they fall unto the sea of morning creep-very-softly mist ... and then sort of cascade tinkley-bell-like (must I take you by the hand, ever so slowly type) and then conglomerate suddenly into a peal of silver vibrant uncomprehendingly, blood singingly, joyously resounding bells" Hunter's experience led to everyone in their social circle wanting to try LSD, and soon they'd all come to the same conclusion -- this was something special. But Garcia needed money -- he'd got his girlfriend pregnant, and they'd married (this would be the first of several marriages in Garcia's life, and I won't be covering them all -- at Garcia's funeral, his second wife, Carolyn, said Garcia always called her the love of his life, and his first wife and his early-sixties girlfriend who he proposed to again in the nineties both simultaneously said "He said that to me!"). So he started teaching guitar at a music shop in Palo Alto. Hunter had no time for Garcia's incipient domesticity and thought that his wife was trying to make him live a conventional life, and the two drifted apart somewhat, though they'd still play together occasionally. Through working at the music store, Garcia got to know the manager, Troy Weidenheimer, who had a rock and roll band called the Zodiacs. Garcia joined the band on bass, despite that not being his instrument. He later said "Troy was a lot of fun, but I wasn't good enough a musician then to have been able to deal with it. I was out of my idiom, really, 'cause when I played with Troy I was playing electric bass, you know. I never was a good bass player. Sometimes I was playing in the wrong key and didn't even [fuckin'] know it. I couldn't hear that low, after playing banjo, you know, and going to electric...But Troy taught me the principle of, hey, you know, just stomp your foot and get on it. He was great. A great one for the instant arrangement, you know. And he was also fearless for that thing of get your friends to do it." Garcia's tenure in the Zodiacs didn't last long, nor did this experiment with rock and roll, but two other members of the Zodiacs will be notable later in the story -- the harmonica player, an old friend of Garcia's named Ron McKernan, who would soon gain the nickname Pig Pen after the Peanuts character, and the drummer, Bill Kreutzmann: [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, "Drums/Space (Skull & Bones version)"] Kreutzmann said of the Zodiacs "Jerry was the hired bass player and I was the hired drummer. I only remember playing that one gig with them, but I was in way over my head. I always did that. I always played things that were really hard and it didn't matter. I just went for it." Garcia and Kreutzmann didn't really get to know each other then, but Garcia did get to know someone else who would soon be very important in his life. Bob Weir was from a very different background than Garcia, though both had the shared experience of long bouts of chronic illness as children. He had grown up in a very wealthy family, and had always been well-liked, but he was what we would now call neurodivergent -- reading books about the band he talks about being dyslexic but clearly has other undiagnosed neurodivergences, which often go along with dyslexia -- and as a result he was deemed to have behavioural problems which led to him getting expelled from pre-school and kicked out of the cub scouts. He was never academically gifted, thanks to his dyslexia, but he was always enthusiastic about music -- to a fault. He learned to play boogie piano but played so loudly and so often his parents sold the piano. He had a trumpet, but the neighbours complained about him playing it outside. Finally he switched to the guitar, an instrument with which it is of course impossible to make too loud a noise. The first song he learned was the Kingston Trio's version of an old sea shanty, "The Wreck of the John B": [Excerpt: The Kingston Trio, "The Wreck of the John B"] He was sent off to a private school in Colorado for teenagers with behavioural issues, and there he met the boy who would become his lifelong friend, John Perry Barlow. Unfortunately the two troublemakers got on with each other *so* well that after their first year they were told that it was too disruptive having both of them at the school, and only one could stay there the next year. Barlow stayed and Weir moved back to the Bay Area. By this point, Weir was getting more interested in folk music that went beyond the commercial folk of the Kingston Trio. As he said later "There was something in there that was ringing my bells. What I had grown up thinking of as hillbilly music, it started to have some depth for me, and I could start to hear the music in it. Suddenly, it wasn't just a bunch of ignorant hillbillies playing what they could. There was some depth and expertise and stuff like that to aspire to.” He moved from school to school but one thing that stayed with him was his love of playing guitar, and he started taking lessons from Troy Weidenheimer, but he got most of his education going to folk clubs and hootenannies. He regularly went to the Tangent, a club where Garcia played, but Garcia's bluegrass banjo playing was far too rigorous for a free spirit like Weir to emulate, and instead he started trying to copy one of the guitarists who was a regular there, Jorma Kaukonnen. On New Year's Eve 1963 Weir was out walking with his friends Bob Matthews and Rich Macauley, and they passed the music shop where Garcia was a teacher, and heard him playing his banjo. They knocked and asked if they could come in -- they all knew Garcia a little, and Bob Matthews was one of his students, having become interested in playing banjo after hearing the theme tune to the Beverly Hillbillies, played by the bluegrass greats Flatt and Scruggs: [Excerpt: Flatt and Scruggs, "The Beverly Hillbillies"] Garcia at first told these kids, several years younger than him, that they couldn't come in -- he was waiting for his students to show up. But Weir said “Jerry, listen, it's seven-thirty on New Year's Eve, and I don't think you're going to be seeing your students tonight.” Garcia realised the wisdom of this, and invited the teenagers in to jam with him. At the time, there was a bit of a renaissance in jug bands, as we talked about back in the episode on the Lovin' Spoonful. This was a form of music that had grown up in the 1920s, and was similar and related to skiffle and coffee-pot bands -- jug bands would tend to have a mixture of portable string instruments like guitars and banjos, harmonicas, and people using improvised instruments, particularly blowing into a jug. The most popular of these bands had been Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers, led by banjo player Gus Cannon and with harmonica player Noah Lewis: [Excerpt: Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers, "Viola Lee Blues"] With the folk revival, Cannon's work had become well-known again. The Rooftop Singers, a Kingston Trio style folk group, had had a hit with his song "Walk Right In" in 1963, and as a result of that success Cannon had even signed a record contract with Stax -- Stax's first album ever, a month before Booker T and the MGs' first album, was in fact the eighty-year-old Cannon playing his banjo and singing his old songs. The rediscovery of Cannon had started a craze for jug bands, and the most popular of the new jug bands was Jim Kweskin's Jug Band, which did a mixture of old songs like "You're a Viper" and more recent material redone in the old style. Weir, Matthews, and Macauley had been to see the Kweskin band the night before, and had been very impressed, especially by their singer Maria D'Amato -- who would later marry her bandmate Geoff Muldaur and take his name -- and her performance of Leiber and Stoller's "I'm a Woman": [Excerpt: Jim Kweskin's Jug Band, "I'm a Woman"] Matthews suggested that they form their own jug band, and Garcia eagerly agreed -- though Matthews found himself rapidly moving from banjo to washboard to kazoo to second kazoo before realising he was surplus to requirements. Robert Hunter was similarly an early member but claimed he "didn't have the embouchure" to play the jug, and was soon also out. He moved to LA and started studying Scientology -- later claiming that he wanted science-fictional magic powers, which L. Ron Hubbard's new religion certainly offered. The group took the name Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Champions -- apparently they varied the spelling every time they played -- and had a rotating membership that at one time or another included about twenty different people, but tended always to have Garcia on banjo, Weir on jug and later guitar, and Garcia's friend Pig Pen on harmonica: [Excerpt: Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Champions, "On the Road Again"] The group played quite regularly in early 1964, but Garcia's first love was still bluegrass, and he was trying to build an audience with his bluegrass band, The Black Mountain Boys. But bluegrass was very unpopular in the Bay Area, where it was simultaneously thought of as unsophisticated -- as "hillbilly music" -- and as elitist, because it required actual instrumental ability, which wasn't in any great supply in the amateur folk scene. But instrumental ability was something Garcia definitely had, as at this point he was still practising eight hours a day, every day, and it shows on the recordings of the Black Mountain Boys: [Excerpt: The Black Mountain Boys, "Rosa Lee McFall"] By the summer, Bob Weir was also working at the music shop, and so Garcia let Weir take over his students while he and the Black Mountain Boys' guitarist Sandy Rothman went on a road trip to see as many bluegrass musicians as they could and to audition for Bill Monroe himself. As it happened, Garcia found himself too shy to audition for Monroe, but Rothman later ended up playing with Monroe's Blue Grass Boys. On his return to the Bay Area, Garcia resumed playing with the Uptown Jug Champions, but Pig Pen started pestering him to do something different. While both men had overlapping tastes in music and a love for the blues, Garcia's tastes had always been towards the country end of the spectrum while Pig Pen's were towards R&B. And while the Uptown Jug Champions were all a bit disdainful of the Beatles at first -- apart from Bob Weir, the youngest of the group, who thought they were interesting -- Pig Pen had become enamoured of another British band who were just starting to make it big: [Excerpt: The Rolling Stones, "Not Fade Away"] 29) Garcia liked the first Rolling Stones album too, and he eventually took Pig Pen's point -- the stuff that the Rolling Stones were doing, covers of Slim Harpo and Buddy Holly, was not a million miles away from the material they were doing as Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Champions. Pig Pen could play a little electric organ, Bob had been fooling around with the electric guitars in the music shop. Why not give it a go? The stuff bands like the Rolling Stones were doing wasn't that different from the electric blues that Pig Pen liked, and they'd all seen A Hard Day's Night -- they could carry on playing with banjos, jugs, and kazoos and have the respect of a handful of folkies, or they could get electric instruments and potentially have screaming girls and millions of dollars, while playing the same songs. This was a convincing argument, especially when Dana Morgan Jr, the son of the owner of the music shop, told them they could have free electric instruments if they let him join on bass. Morgan wasn't that great on bass, but what the hell, free instruments. Pig Pen had the best voice and stage presence, so he became the frontman of the new group, singing most of the leads, though Jerry and Bob would both sing a few songs, and playing harmonica and organ. Weir was on rhythm guitar, and Garcia was the lead guitarist and obvious leader of the group. They just needed a drummer, and handily Bill Kreutzmann, who had played with Garcia and Pig Pen in the Zodiacs, was also now teaching music at the music shop. Not only that, but about three weeks before they decided to go electric, Kreutzmann had seen the Uptown Jug Champions performing and been astonished by Garcia's musicianship and charisma, and said to himself "Man, I'm gonna follow that guy forever!" The new group named themselves the Warlocks, and started rehearsing in earnest. Around this time, Garcia also finally managed to get some of the LSD that his friend Robert Hunter had been so enthusiastic about three years earlier, and it was a life-changing experience for him. In particular, he credited LSD with making him comfortable being a less disciplined player -- as a bluegrass player he'd had to be frighteningly precise, but now he was playing rock and needed to loosen up. A few days after taking LSD for the first time, Garcia also heard some of Bob Dylan's new material, and realised that the folk singer he'd had little time for with his preachy politics was now making electric music that owed a lot more to the Beat culture Garcia considered himself part of: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Subterranean Homesick Blues"] Another person who was hugely affected by hearing that was Phil Lesh, who later said "I couldn't believe that was Bob Dylan on AM radio, with an electric band. It changed my whole consciousness: if something like that could happen, the sky was the limit." Up to that point, Lesh had been focused entirely on his avant-garde music, working with friends like Steve Reich to push music forward, inspired by people like John Cage and La Monte Young, but now he realised there was music of value in the rock world. He'd quickly started going to rock gigs, seeing the Rolling Stones and the Byrds, and then he took acid and went to see his friend Garcia's new electric band play their third ever gig. He was blown away, and very quickly it was decided that Lesh would be the group's new bass player -- though everyone involved tells a different story as to who made the decision and how it came about, and accounts also vary as to whether Dana Morgan took his sacking gracefully and let his erstwhile bandmates keep their instruments, or whether they had to scrounge up some new ones. Lesh had never played bass before, but he was a talented multi-instrumentalist with a deep understanding of music and an ability to compose and improvise, and the repertoire the Warlocks were playing in the early days was mostly three-chord material that doesn't take much rehearsal -- though it was apparently beyond the abilities of poor Dana Morgan, who apparently had to be told note-by-note what to play by Garcia, and learn it by rote. Garcia told Lesh what notes the strings of a bass were tuned to, told him to borrow a guitar and practice, and within two weeks he was on stage with the Warlocks: [Excerpt: The Grateful Dead, “Grayfolded"] In September 1995, just weeks after Jerry Garcia's death, an article was published in Mute magazine identifying a cultural trend that had shaped the nineties, and would as it turned out shape at least the next thirty years. It's titled "The Californian Ideology", though it may be better titled "The Bay Area Ideology", and it identifies a worldview that had grown up in Silicon Valley, based around the ideas of the hippie movement, of right-wing libertarianism, of science fiction authors, and of Marshall McLuhan. It starts "There is an emerging global orthodoxy concerning the relation between society, technology and politics. We have called this orthodoxy `the Californian Ideology' in honour of the state where it originated. By naturalising and giving a technological proof to a libertarian political philosophy, and therefore foreclosing on alternative futures, the Californian Ideologues are able to assert that social and political debates about the future have now become meaningless. The California Ideology is a mix of cybernetics, free market economics, and counter-culture libertarianism and is promulgated by magazines such as WIRED and MONDO 2000 and preached in the books of Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly and others. The new faith has been embraced by computer nerds, slacker students, 30-something capitalists, hip academics, futurist bureaucrats and even the President of the USA himself. As usual, Europeans have not been slow to copy the latest fashion from America. While a recent EU report recommended adopting the Californian free enterprise model to build the 'infobahn', cutting-edge artists and academics have been championing the 'post-human' philosophy developed by the West Coast's Extropian cult. With no obvious opponents, the global dominance of the Californian ideology appears to be complete." [Excerpt: Grayfolded] The Warlocks' first gig with Phil Lesh on bass was on June the 18th 1965, at a club called Frenchy's with a teenage clientele. Lesh thought his playing had been wooden and it wasn't a good gig, and apparently the management of Frenchy's agreed -- they were meant to play a second night there, but turned up to be told they'd been replaced by a band with an accordion and clarinet. But by September the group had managed to get themselves a residency at a small bar named the In Room, and playing there every night made them cohere. They were at this point playing the kind of sets that bar bands everywhere play to this day, though at the time the songs they were playing, like "Gloria" by Them and "In the Midnight Hour", were the most contemporary of hits. Another song that they introduced into their repertoire was "Do You Believe in Magic" by the Lovin' Spoonful, another band which had grown up out of former jug band musicians. As well as playing their own sets, they were also the house band at The In Room and as such had to back various touring artists who were the headline acts. The first act they had to back up was Cornell Gunter's version of the Coasters. Gunter had brought his own guitarist along as musical director, and for the first show Weir sat in the audience watching the show and learning the parts, staring intently at this musical director's playing. After seeing that, Weir's playing was changed, because he also picked up how the guitarist was guiding the band while playing, the small cues that a musical director will use to steer the musicians in the right direction. Weir started doing these things himself when he was singing lead -- Pig Pen was the frontman but everyone except Bill sang sometimes -- and the group soon found that rather than Garcia being the sole leader, now whoever was the lead singer for the song was the de facto conductor as well. By this point, the Bay Area was getting almost overrun with people forming electric guitar bands, as every major urban area in America was. Some of the bands were even having hits already -- We Five had had a number three hit with "You Were On My Mind", a song which had originally been performed by the folk duo Ian and Sylvia: [Excerpt: We Five, "You Were On My Mind"] Although the band that was most highly regarded on the scene, the Charlatans, was having problems with the various record companies they tried to get signed to, and didn't end up making a record until 1969. If tracks like "Number One" had been released in 1965 when they were recorded, the history of the San Francisco music scene may have taken a very different turn: [Excerpt: The Charlatans, "Number One"] Bands like Jefferson Airplane, the Great Society, and Big Brother and the Holding Company were also forming, and Autumn Records was having a run of success with records by the Beau Brummels, whose records were produced by Autumn's in-house A&R man, Sly Stone: [Excerpt: The Beau Brummels, "Laugh Laugh"] The Warlocks were somewhat cut off from this, playing in a dive bar whose clientele was mostly depressed alcoholics. But the fact that they were playing every night for an audience that didn't care much gave them freedom, and they used that freedom to improvise. Both Lesh and Garcia were big fans of John Coltrane, and they started to take lessons from his style of playing. When the group played "Gloria" or "Midnight Hour" or whatever, they started to extend the songs and give themselves long instrumental passages for soloing. Garcia's playing wasn't influenced *harmonically* by Coltrane -- in fact Garcia was always a rather harmonically simple player. He'd tend to play lead lines either in Mixolydian mode, which is one of the most standard modes in rock, pop, blues, and jazz, or he'd play the notes of the chord that was being played, so if the band were playing a G chord his lead would emphasise the notes G, B, and D. But what he was influenced by was Coltrane's tendency to improvise in long, complex, phrases that made up a single thought -- Coltrane was thinking musically in paragraphs, rather than sentences, and Garcia started to try the same kind of th