Customer Reviews

A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Believe me, McNally's book is going to be the definitive Dead book from now on. Only Blair Jackson's GARCIA is in the same league. Not only is the whole story of the band told, but it's told well and is a terrific read. McNally is to be commended for concentrating on the band, their world, and their music without getting bogged down in their personal lives. That's not the point here. His decision to break the narrative flow with occasional interludes works, giving details on different aspects of the Dead's world that flesh out the story. My only quibbles (and they're small ones) are these: I wish he had included more about Tom Constanten and Vince Welnick--they were both members of the band (if briefly) and deserve a little more attention. And there is an occasional needless swipe at other artists like Frank Zappa and the Velvet Underground (who did not hate their audience, as McNally claims). But aside from that, a great tale well-told.

This is a troubled book. For one thing, you've read most of it already if you've read the other 4 or 5 important books on the band that have come out since Garcia's death. He quotes liberally from all of them, including the hilarious but scarcely dependable "Living With the Dead" by Rock Scully. In fact, that's probably where you need to start - with Scully's book. For fun, to remind yourself that it was all about fun after all. Then treat yourself to one of the best biographies you'll ever read with "Garcia", then get a look at the dark underbelly with "Dark Star", and you'll begin to get a sense of the big stories from at least 3 perspectives. Then if you still need more read "A Long Strange Trip" to patch in the cracks. McNally's unbalanced but highly detailed work provides loads of names, dates, places, addresses, etc.; enough to keep trivia buffs and collectors busy for years. But the big questions (you know the ones) will still go maddeningly unanswered. I cynically opine in my idle hours that this is because access to The Band is still probably limited to those who don't kick up too much dust, like it always was. The Grateful Dead is still one of the most potent social and musical phenomena of the post war period, and their influence continues to echo (ripple?) throughout countless millions of lives, and will for the next several thousand years. (Stop and think about it. There will be Deadheads 1000 years from now.) This is a good but not great look into the origins of that organism.

I enjoyed this book. I learned about the Dead, and the general environment that their characters, culture, and music developed in. The majority of the book chronicles the early years of the Dead, with less and less time being spent documenting the later years. At first, I was disappointed that not enough time was devoted to developing the 'characters'. Relatively few quotes are attributed directly to band members, and there is not much characterization of the band members in general. Towards the end of the book, more of this happens, and I realize why it was good that the majority of this book didn't concentrate on this. Its petty, and one-dimensional, and (most importantly) doesn't have a lot to do with 'The Grateful Dead' and their music.

I believe there are many more books which do more of the gossip thing, but this book is intentionally not about that. It carefully develops and follows the Dead, their music, and their cultural and musical upbringing. McNally does a great job of putting just the right amount of generic historical information within the story to give it some context and relevance.

The only thing I didn't understand, and wish he would have developed further are some internal conflicts within the band early on. He spends a good amount of time explaining that Jerry and Phil were pretty set on 'firing' pigpen and Weir. He never really explains why, except for a brief mention of Weir's general spaciness, and uninspired guitar playing. Pigpen was co-frontman in the early days, and for good reason. He was a great performer, and gave a side to the dead that was never replaced. McNally mentions they wanted a better keyboardist, but personally I loved Pig's minimalist approach, and organ sound. (Much better than Vince Welnick, who I believe ruined the sound of the Dead with his unchecked synthesizer 'percussion' banging away through all parts of every song)

Also, I was shocked when very little description was given to how Pig's death affected the band, aside from the fact that they held a huge party in his honor. Alternately, McNally describes Brent's death as a huge blow to the band and the individual bandmembers. If there was no great feeling of solidarity during the early days with Pig, why doesn't McNally say so? And if there was, why so little description of it? The abundance of recordings from these days shows that there had to be some serious commitment to the idea of The Grateful Dead, at least musically.

One more complaint I have is the lack of development of the 'management' side of the family. There were a number of sound people, management and organizing elements to the Grateful Dead family, which McNally spends a good amount of time describing. Their involvement in the development and events of the band is unquestionable; but McNally just keeps throwing their names around when we really have no image of who these characters are. Bill Graham is the exception to this, as at least his name is familiar to most Deadheads, and his character is well developed in the book. But, Rock Scully, and some others are often mentioned, but I never get a good image of what type of people they are, and why the Dead really had them around? What did they really do? I found myself mixing them up most of the time.

Otherwise, the pace of the book was perfect, especially for a relatively big book. I enjoyed every minute of it, and would recommend it to anyone who wants to know where this beautiful music and culture came from!

Like many of the reviewers here, I've read most of the books about the dead. Each seems to add a little to a complex story that no single perspective can completely render. If you find this band, the 60s, psychedelia and the San Francisco scene to be of interest, by all means read this entertaining book. McNally is particularly good in exploring psychedelia's emphasis on the "now," and Garcia's embrace of spontaneous performance as a high art form (pun intended).
Again, as other reviewers pointed out, this is not the only story. Read the other dead books, Peter Coyote's book (as someone here suggested), the Bill Graham biography, Charles Perry's "Haight-Ashbury," the books about Janis Joplin, "Storming Heaven" the great book about LSD and its social impact, "Electric Kool Aid Acid Test," and on and on. (One problem in reading these general works, though, is that you'll have to endure some of the same stories over and over, and you'll have authors explaining to you what LSD was, and who Bob Dylan is.)
I find this period endlessly fascinating and overall it's being well served by some really terrific books - this one included.

What this book is not: kiss-and-tell, worshipful, blinded by love, preachy.

What this book is: solid journalism, respectful, sober, carefully researched.

This book stands on its own as a good piece of biography and social history. McNally maintains high jounalistic standards by neither worshiping nor castigating the band members (though they arguably are worthy of both).

This is enjoyable, informative - even "must" - reading for any Grateful Dead or rock music fan. Those of you with a limited interest in rock music will find it's a well written book that will hold your attention, but I doubt you will experience the visceral connection to it that many Dead fans will.

I have just finished reading McNally's "truth be told" novel on the span of the Grateful Dead's 30 year adventure into the world of insanity and chaos.

Told from the point of view of an insider, rather than a biographer outside of the Dead community, McNally's book gives a great deal of insight into the multiple personalities, conflicts, exploits, and adventures that made the Dead Family who they were. His story, coming from someone who was there, is told in a very honest manner, and it is one that any fan of the Dead will doubtless find addictive and entertaining.

He doesn't write from the perspective of a fanatic, and doesn't sugar-coat anything. His stories are honest, yet he doesn't try and pass them off as fact, aknowledging frequently that other versions of the stories exist (honestly, who could actually expect anyone inside the Dead community to remember every little detail?). When times were good, McNally tells the story and takes the reader along on an adventure. When times were rough, he tells it, and while some of the stories, like those from the 90s, are hard for a fan like myself to read, he tells it like it is.

The structure of the book is very well done, using an obvious chronological organization, with occasional chapters acting as interludes that describe a Grateful Dead show from the unloading of the equipment, through the setbreaks, and to the band getting on their flight for the next gig. The organization is well done, and makes for a very interesting read.

The balance of the novel, however, gets off a little bit. He starts off with the very beginnings of each musician, and goes into great detail about how the Grateful Dead was formed, and about how they became the travelling behemoth that they were. The detailed development of the band is very interesting, and very essential to understanding the full scope of the band. However, I came to realize as I was about 2/3 of the way through the book that he was only starting to talk about 1972. This leaves 1/3 of the book to tell about 2/3 of their career.

This is somewhat understandable, because most fans would agree that the peak years for the Dead were their earlier years, and some of the most entertaining stories and anecdotes come from these years. The later years had the Dead more involved in strife, and a generally more jaded attitude by most of the band members. But, I really couldn't help but feel that the later half of the book was rushed, and not nearly as much detail was given to this era. The eighties were summed up in a chapter or two. This just wasn't enough for me, and left me wanting much more. But I suppose if I had to choose, I prefer more detail on the earlier years - maybe he should have just written a longer book.

Also, and I'm being picky here, some of the stories that McNally tells left me a bit confused. Many times he would describe conversations and situations and they just wouldn't make any sense. I'm sure that most of the time you just had to be there to truly understand some of the things that were going on, and it is futile to try and describe them in a book to outsiders.

The only other complaint that I have isn't really McNally's fault. Because of the enourmous scope of the Dead community, there are just too many names to keep up with. With road managers, equipment managers, sound technicians, and the likes, it is very difficult to keep up with who's who. I suppose it would have helped to constantly remind the reader what some of the people did, but when it is written by a person who lived with these people and got to know them personally, it probably didn't even occur to him.

In conclusion, this book is a fantastic read for someone who loves to Dead, but just wants to know more. It is great as a supplement to the essays written in the Golden Road box set. If you have read anything about the Dead before, you probably have heard many of these stories, but McNally has a lot of new and interesting things to say, and it is definatly worth the read.

I have to admit to a certain bias towards the Grateful Dead. Their music has comforted and beguiled me, it has been my joy and my delight, it has been my heaven, my hell and it's spirit lives on. My first written word experience of the band whom I hold so dear was a book by Hank Harrison given to me by one of my closest and best friends, Rib Chile Kyam.

Since Jerry Garcia's early and untimely demise has deprived us of his and the band's musical adventures there have been many books about this most legendary of America's rock bands, some good, some awful and most just plain and mediocre.

This new book, acclaimed to be the real deal as it is written by Dennis McNally the Grateful Dead publicist, is a joy to read and is a gripping account of almost thirty years of adventure and music. McNally is the author of a book on Jack Kerouac a fact which helped him land the job as the band's publicist. He writes here as a professional writer with good prose style and one which is almost pregnant with expectation, almost as if each sentence insists 'and then, and then...'

The structure of the book is relatively straightforward - in a historical progression with little asides along the way. It is very personable and enables the reader to get to know the personalities involved and to gain the strength of the relationships with each other. There is a strong sense to of a wider community indeed several communities, the band and theirclosest friends and other musicians, the bay area community and of course the fans, the DeadHeads. You get the sense to of the musical legacies inherited by the band from all over the United States which find a way to be weaved into the cosmic musical carpet of the Grateful Dead's music. It is the personalities and the larger than life characters who dominate the pages which makes this particular book so interesting to me. It soon becomes clear that the band members are no shrinking violets and that the band operates in a non-traditional environment.

All in all it is one hell of a book and a must have to go alongside the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests among others. In time I believe that it will become one of the most important books on the history of the popular music which has dominated for almost fifty years. There is one criticism which I have heard that I would like to address and that is to do with the cleaned up aspect of the book. To me there is enough of that stuff out there already which is available to anyone who wants to go and find it. This book may be clean but then it presents the band as adventurers in music who brought pleasure to millions. It is a legitimate portrayal and an approch which gives a lot of insight into the worlings of the band. Everyone has problems, everyone has there own demons but what have they to do with what we do with our lives?

A final thought. Someone needs tp persuade Robert Hunter to write his and the band's story. That would be real interesting. Dennis you have done a great job! Thank you.

One one hand it makes perfect sense to have the band's publicist write its biography because he will be privy to lots of cool inside info. On the other hand having someone who worked for the band as its publicist almost certainly guarantees a lack of balance and impartiality. Both of these things are true about A Long Strange Trip. There is also a strange kind of time compression in which the very earliest days of the band and Jerry are dwelled upon at length , even though this predates McNally's personal experience. In contrast, the last 15 or 20 years of the band with which McNally had the most personal knowledge are crammed into a small fraction of the book, and the story of the decline and fall of Jerry is almost not discussed. But this is still by far the best biography of the band and is full of cool anecdotes and, I think, gives a pretty good picture of what the boys were after when the whole thing began in the mid 1960s.

Dennis McNally has written the definitive history of the Grateful Dead, and despite his insider status, does not hesitate to reveal the unsavory aspects of the lead characters. McNally (who refers to himself as "Scrib" throughout this text) joined the Dead's circle in the 80's but focuses on the band's origins and early period. Some early chapters may cover only three months, while later chapters may span four or five years. Inserted throughout are interludes that detail the entire concert format of the modern (late 80s and 90s) period. Though not as compellingly described as Blair Jackson's Garcia biography, McNally confidently delivers the fruits of his obviously comprehensive research. He uses his backstage access to provide insight into to power of the Dead's extended family, especially the irascible road crew, and in the process canonizes "Ram Rod" Shurtliff and, to a lesser extent, Danny Rifkin. Changes in personnel are explored, included an early failed "firing" of Weir and Pigpen, and the dismissals of Tom Constanten, Keith and Donna Godchaux, Sam Cutler, and Dan Healy. Despite his unwillingness to lead and fear of confrontation, Garcia is shown to be the leader of the band, as in Jackson's book. McNally's work will not convert those who are not already fans, but it is a crucial addition to any serious Dead Head's library.

Ok. As the OFFICIAL work, it has moments: a great history of the band as juggernaut, including roadies, and thorough treatment of Band "philosophy." But it is not a personal book and it is oddly proportioned. The book is good on the early years, with details on the members, band formation, early gigs, etc. We get some feel of their personalities. But that's it. They remain suspended, one dimensional, undeveloped. We dont hear them speak or share their thoughts and observations. For example, we repeatedly read that Weir has good manners. Not very informative. More interesting would be Weir on "the Bobby problem," how did he/the band resolve it? did he change his playing? How, When? We never know. Then there is the supporting cast. The crew just isnt that interesting, but if McNally has to write it, at least he could finish the story, as in Candelario's excesses. McNally raises a lot of issues and just drops them, just like he gives little relative attention to the later band. Hey, I would like to hear what Bruce and Vince actually said about being late editions, or the Band members on its evolution, high and low points, etc. McNally also takes the band too seriously. I love the Dead, but I am not that impressed by them as Cosmic Thinkers, or by Robert Hunter as poet laureate. And how do you jibe the Band "philosophy" (which not everybody shared) with the current marketing machine that is the Dead? Finally, altho competent, McNally doesnt win a lot of writing style points. All in all, worth a read for a fan, but disappointing as THE official story.