The Coma (Or: What Relearning Guitar Revealed About Jerry Garcia's Musicianship)
Jerry Garcia collapsed at his San Rafael home on July 10, 1986.
Newsletter
Read, then listen differently.
The newsletter is the editorial layer for Shakedown Shuffle: essays about Jerry Garcia's side-project universe, each built to send you back into the archive with a sharper ear.
Canonical essays
19
Latest issue
Issue 19
Distribution
Owned + RSS
19 canonical essays
The Vonnegut Screenplay (Or: Garcia, Bill Murray, and the Grateful Dead Movie That Never Happened)
In the early 1980s, Jerry Garcia did something no one expected.
Garcia's Military Record (Or: Eight AWOLs, Two Court-Martials, and a Missile Qualification—In Six Months)
Jerry Garcia joined the United States Army in 1960.
Tiger Guitar Auction (Or: Garcia's Iconic Axe Hits the Block—And What It Reveals About the Music Memorabilia Market)
Doug Irwin spent years building it. Jerry Garcia played it for a decade.
The CSNY Pedal Steel Trade
Garcia's secret harmony lesson — and how a Stratocaster changed the Grateful Dead forever.
Garcia Saved the Reef
300+ dives, Hawaii state testimony, and a 34-year mooring program still protecting Kona's coral.
The Kahn Partnership (Or: 25 Years. The Longest Non-Dead Collaboration. The Man Who Shaped JGB's Entire Identity—And Nobody Knows His Name)
Jerry Garcia's non-Dead musical chronology spans at least 15 distinct projects across five genres. Folk. Bluegrass. Country-rock. Jazz-rock. Acoustic old-time.
The IP Machine
How Jerry Garcia's estate turned $15M into $50M+ — and what it means for your favorite dead artist.
Dan Healy's 1,800 Shows (Or: The Man Who Operationalized Owsley's Philosophy at Scale)
When Owsley Stanley went to prison in 1970, the Grateful Dead lost their sound visionary. When the Wall of Sound collapsed under its own weight in 1974, they lost their sonic monument. But from 1976 through...
Plangent
How a forgotten ultrasonic signal is bringing the 1960s back from the dead.
The Betty Boards
The woman who saved the Grateful Dead's sound — then lost it in a storage auction.
Garcia's Other Bands (The R&D Labs That Built the Grateful Dead)
Deadheads have been asking the wrong question for fifty years.
245 Hyde Street (The Building That Made Jerry Garcia Impossible to Document)
There's a building in San Francisco's Tenderloin district that quietly produced more cross-pollinated rock music than any other structure in American history.
The Freemium (How a Chemist's Gift Economy Became a $53 Million Business Model)
Here's the business plan:
How They Banned the Bear (The Three-Year War on LSD)
The most striking feature of the 1966 Senate hearings on LSD is that the government's own expert witnesses argued against the policy outcome that resulted.
Dark Star: The Empty Node
Dark Star: The Empty Node
How Sweet It Is...
Ba-ba-DAH-da… ba-BAH.
The Garcia Model (Taping -> Creator Economy)
Most bands treat bootlegs like termites.
Inside Jerry's Mac (Not Jerry's Strat)
Everybody knows the mythology: Jerry with a guitar, Jerry with a cigarette, Jerry with a grin that says I'm not driving this bus, I'm just steering it away from the cliff.
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