Customer Reviews

Growing Up Dead: The Hallucinated Confessions of a Teenage Deadhead

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Pick up just about any history or memoir of the Grateful Dead and you'll hear about bluegrass, the Acid Tests, Live/Dead, Europe in `72, the hiatus, and the Pyramids in excruciating detail. Then the years start to fly by, punctuated by the occasional happening: hit song and tour with Dylan in `87, return to Europe in `90, and then all of a sudden Jerry is dead and we're into that nebulous post-Grateful period that continues to this day. This is understandable, but for Dead fans like my self who got on the bus in the 1980s, this leaves out a big important part of the story.

During the long period between album releases, when perhaps various bandmembers' rebellious proclivities were beginning to catch up with them, the Dead scene experienced something of a third wind. Perhaps it was the advent of the "just say no" years and the growing need for a refuge for the disaffected youth of that era. Garcia famously called the Dead tour the last remaining great American adventure. Certainly my own experience when I stumbled into the parking lot in 1984 was a stiff sense of incredulity: how was this through-the-looking-glass society existing in parallel with the malls and office parks of the Reagan 80s? How were we getting away with this? How could it possibly last?

As we know, it couldn't last. It was a bubble of sorts, but its surface tension held for a crucial stretch of years, long enough to sustain this pocket of the counterculture until reinforcements could arrive, tune up, plug in, and rock out.

Peter Conners is a bit younger than I am, but he got on the bus just before the tidal wave of a "hit song on MTV" crashed into the parking lot scene of 1987 and his memoir, Growing Up Dead, represents the first holographic capture of exactly what it felt like at just that time. He limns the road, the buses, the parking lots, and most importantly the shows, the music, and lyrics of the Grateful Dead in the 1980s. He described growing up in a suburban middle class enclave and falling in with a stoner crowd and eventually finding himself in the world of the Deadheads.

Perhaps most importantly, he finds his muse and toward the end of the tale, when he comes off the road, he finds that he has become a poet. The language of the Dead spoke to him and brought something out of him that his teachers and his day-to-day life did not manage to reach. As Conners said in an interview conducted on the Well's public Inkwell conference:

"When I was growing up, I didn't have any friends who connected to language on that same level. I still remember sharing my first poems with friends. To their credit, they were openly enthusiastic. No one in our group, myself included, knew anything about poetry or literature outside of what we were fed in school. We all bonded over lyrics, singing them, writing them on our notebooks, etc., but that was more about our love of the bands and reinforcing our bonds with each other."

His is not the tawdry tale of excess and destruction and repentance that we've been hearing since the opium eaters but one of enlightenment, joy, self-discovery and, ultimately, graduation into adulthood and self-possession.

Conners is a gifted storyteller and delivers his tale not as a series of banal or hyperbolic generalities but in a well-knit sequence of anecdotes and portraits. The book moves along swiftly and sweeps you up in the life path of this young person questing in search of fun and liberty and friendship and love.

The story of the Grateful Dead from the viewpoint of the musicians and the Peninsula milieu in which the coalesced has been told to death (and I've devoured with pleasure each telling and re-telling of those days) and to some extent the personal stories of the extended community rooted in those early days and into the 1970s has at least begun to be told, but Growing Up Dead crucially fills a gap in the story without which my own experience lacks a literary context, and for this I am, dare I say it? grateful.

This book fills a niche as an accurate and entertaining account of what it was like to follow the Grateful Dead, and what the shows and lifestyle were like as a "deadhead." The problem is, Peter Conners writes well enough that you want more. I wanted him to answer some of his own questions and maybe show some insight into his own observations. But the entire experience is presented without any real insight on the author's part. Without that insight this is just a self-indulgent account of a young man with a protracted adolescence. He never answers the initial question about why middle class white kids want to act poor and scrounge around the country in crappy cars following a band.

I was on `the scene' about 10 years before the author. I sang Jerry's songs as lullabies and my son grew up listening to the Garcia/Grisman music for children. My husband is in The Grateful Dead Movie. Does that make us Deadheads? Not by this author's description. I never needed LSD to enjoy a show, I never stopped showering, I never frightened people around me by losing consciousness, I was never a freeloader, and I never put my family or work second to attending a show. Conners doesn't explain why the Dead, for him, came before having a college education or a job. The only thing the Dead seemed to help him focus on was using drugs and avoiding the responsibilities of adulthood.

For young people reading this book, I want you to know that we weren't all high, tripping, dropouts doing illegal things to support ourselves. Some of us, Jerry included, had excellent work ethics. It is an unfortunate stereotype that deadheads are remembered as dirty, drug-using, freeloading and self-serving. Conners' book perpetuates that stereotype, even though as a kindred spirit I know that he recognizes Dead shows as a remarkable slice of American music history.

The author presents no information to refute the image of Deadheads as middle class white kids acting poor. For example, at one point Conners writes, as a way of showing some type of personal growth, that he had come to terms with his body's odors and was OK with them. Well, Peter, it's not all about you. You live in a community and there are other people around you who aren't OK with your poor hygiene. Does being a Deadhead mean you're a narcissist? Doesn't not showering further the stereotype of Deadheads as middle class white kids acting poor?

Conners doesn't talk about the amazing variety of people who were attracted to Dead shows, the very well-educated, talented, creative crowds that often included children and grandparents. For him it was all about the music and I got the impression that he really didn't notice much beyond his drug/music/dancing experience. It's true that there were plenty of guys just like him, but the scene was much bigger and richer than that.

Conners writes, "Deadheads are the last bastion of the old guard American resistance to consumer culture." Is he kidding? He talks about the tie-dyes, the bumpers stickers, the tickets, the Guatemalan clothes and shoes, his reliance on consumers to make his own money to keep following the show. The Grateful Dead is a very deliberately packaged, marketed and copyright-protected commodity. Deadheads were rampant, voracious consumers of the commodity of Dead.

Conners says "the scene" ended and Deadheads got a bad rap when young kids didn't know how to behave at shows. OK then, you tell me, which is worse, selling 90 doses of LSD in the parking lot (author) or breaking a glass door? (young kids today). Isn't this like the pot calling the kettle black? The author complains that the kids lining up for nitrous are going to pass out and draw negative attention, but isn't that sort of exactly what the young author did at his second show? Can't he see that sometimes he was one of those "young kids" giving the scene a bad rap? And since when are cops and EMT's "bad energy" when they will always be the first responders when you, your friends and family, are in crisis? The scene hadn't really changed, it was the author that was changing, but he doesn't see this.

Here are some of the questions that were posed but never answered. Why are kids from broken homes drawn to Dead shows? What was it about the Dead that drew such a diverse audience? Why did drug use go with Dead shows? Was there any other way to learn about the transformative power of art besides dropping acid and dancing? Did you really have to be a Deadhead to learn how to travel and meet strangers? What about the escapism, delaying adulthood, and excuses for noncommitment?

Since the author takes us past the scene and into his adult life there are things I'd like to know besides how many beers it takes for him to be able to dance in public as an adult. I want to know why he finally settled down. Why he finally cut his hair. Why he stopped tripping and started showering. The Dead show portion of his life needs to have some purpose, there needs to be some insight and life lessons learned in order for this to not just be another stereotypical story about middle class white kids acting poor. The real story would be how he finally grew up, what pieces of the Dead show experience contributed to that, and what he now passes along as a father and husband. What did he learn? What's the carry-over to his adult life? How does the author live the lessons of peace and acceptance in his current world? How has he re-created that love? Or was it really all just for kicks?

In the end the author visits a local bar to hear a Dead cover band and has to get drunk to feel the joy. It is so disappointing that whatever he learned couldn't be felt or remembered without the inebriants.

Conners does a very good job of revealing what it was like to be a Deadhead in the late '80's. He has an eye for detail and the book doesn't drag at all. I read the book because I was also a deadhead and I wanted to see what kind of job he would do and was pleasantly surprised. The book is well written and the flow is good. His writing is focused and he chooses to concentrate on a few key moments. If you were into the Dead, you'll probably enjoy the book.
The one drawback is that I don't know if someone who wasn't into the scene and didn't know anything about it would enjoy the book? I read it looking for friends that might crop up, things I would remember, etc. but not sure if someone from the outside who is interested in learning about The Dead and Deadheads would be satisfied and find it entertaining. I would hope so.

Peter Conners book Growing up Dead is a fantastic snapshot of what it was like to submerse into late 80's early 90's life on the road with the Dead.
If you were a hardcore tour rat or just a casual fan you will find this book very intriguing on a number of levels...Conners does an excellent meld between scholarly Dead history and his own personal accounts of his travels and travails from show to show. Having been to many of the shows he described, it puts me smack dab back in a place that lives long and strong in my heart....there just ain't nothing like it out there anymore!
I highly recommend this book for anyone Dead or un-Dead to get a sense of what it was like to tour with the Dead.

I am surprised that a book like this hasnt been written about deadheads before. Anyone who enjoyed the dead will immediately connect with this book. It was as much about experiencing great music and a great music scene as it was about being goofy kids having fun. And it sure was a lot of fun.

I heard about this book on the Sirius/XM show "Tales of the Golden Road" when Peter was a guest. I decided to give it a shot although Gary Lambert (unfairly) ripped the title, specifically the "tales of a...". I knew I would like the story having an affinity for the Dead. I wasn't old enough to catch the Dead but their music, while in high school, lead me to other national touring acts that embodied similar experiences. The stories were excellent mixing personal experiences with well researched cultural and historical nuggets dispersed throughout. What was a pleasant surprise was how much I enjoyed Peter's writing style and the strange organization of the book. I highly highly recommend everyone read this book if you have even a casual interest in live music and the live music experience.

This is a must read for anyone that is a fan of the Grateful Dead or wants to learn about the world as seen from a new perspective. I highly recommend it.

As I read Peter Conners' book, 'Growing Up Dead' I couldn't help but relate much of what he was writing about to my own life. Being a year older than Conners I too hopped on "the bus" almost exactly one year before him. We no doubt crossed paths, danced next to each other or hung out in parking lots across America. The Dead for me were a welcome retreat from the cold, gritty industrial midwest city of Cleveland to a much warmer world where life seemed to begin. At least at the age of 16/17 it seemed that way. Afterall, at that age one has few responsibilities leaning heavy on their shoulders. However, the time that I spent on the road is still very much part of who I am today. One senses all of the above with Conners' tale and it is hard not to instantly warm to your guide and want to take that trip down the golden road again.

I highly recommend this book to anybody who saw or travelled with the Grateful Dead. There is much here that one can relate to. That said, the book is a valuable read for anybody interested in subcultures or a curiousity into the uniquely American phenomenon that is/was The Grateful Dead!

Thanks for sharing your story with us, brother Peter!

Because I think of myself as a generationally misplaced deadhead, this book was a joy. I was able to ride in the VW bus and hear accounts of the grateful dead show's I wish i'd been at. I was also able to see parallels between the scene going on then, and the scene that continues now with Phish, String Cheese, and music festivals across the country.

Not only were the anecdotes fantastic and detailed, but their was also a surplus of information about the grateful dead themselves- great for an amateur deadhead, like myself. This book was a quick read, it flows so well and invites you to continue reading the whole thing through.

The book recaptures the experience of being at a show during the late 80's, same time I was going to shows. Conner's also succeeds in describing the deadheads as what they are and what they are not. They are not stereotypical cartoon characters. They are people who are funny, smart, crazy, troubled, successful, f-ups...you name it! The long strange trip is shared but different for everyone who shared it. If you liked "On the Road" you will like this book.