Month: January 2026

The cultural and musical phenomenon that is The Grateful Dead is deep, and deeply rooted. The reverberations of the group’s impact ripple through our whole culture’s body; resonating with many. As evidenced by the hundreds, if not thousands, of bands that are dedicated to playing the songs the band immortalized, and Dead-ifying a bunch more. The mystique, intrigue, and openness of the Dead art form lends itself to a freedom of expression that never stops opening. Hence, it often feels new in spite of overlapping familiarity. It’s the music, and it’s alive.

There’s a community that grew up around the music, and the band. The Deadhead community might be a bit of a sleeper in its reach and scale. The community goes far and wide with an organic interconnectedness manifest as a unified group that is very likely to all at once stop at certain moments; like when the first chords of Eyes of the World, Goin’ Down the Road, St. Stephen… get heard. There are always people listening for this sound. A lot of us seek it out, often returning to the people and places where we’ve found it. It’s dance music. It’s rock and roll. It’s rooted in American musical heritage, out of The Beat Generation, opened in a cultural renaissance, and has big staying power. There’s no doubt the music has real value in recorded ways, however, its premium is as a performance art form. Among others, there is a group out there right now that is raising the music terrifically well. They’ve been playing together now for a couple-three years, and they just had a coming out party.

I got tipped off to Shakedown Citi about a year ago, and first saw them at Garcia’s in The Capitol Theatre, Port Chester NY, January 29, 2025. There was a small crowd there. I’m not good with numbers. Maybe there were 50 or 75 people in the club. Either way, they got ready. Without much to do they leaned into The Golden Road. Ironically, the first tune I hear them play also happens to be the first track on the first Grateful Dead album. A little serendipity, and the wheel keeps right on turning. It clicked. I was conscious of not emotionally jumping the gun, however, these guys were not three songs into the set, and they had my attention. The tightness of the group, the choice of songs, the ability of these players, and their “fingers on a hand” cohesion as an ensemble was unmistakable. And did they jam?!?! By the set break I’m pinching myself. These guys are freakin’ great! It happens to have been right space/right time for this music head. It was a little surprising to see people leave. In the head, I’m thinking, “Where are you going?” It was hard to figure. By the time it was all said and done, it was like the band had emptied the tank. It was a great rock and roll performance. It was authentic, rigorous, spontaneous, and excellent. I don’t want to exaggerate but there were like a dozen of us left, maybe 15. It was astonishing how few people were left in Garcia’s. Total head scratcher. I’m thinking people on the sidewalk would hear it and come in, not be in here and split. Whatever…. For what it’s worth, thanks to the ultra small crowd, I had chance to kind of introduce myself to these guys. I let them know how much I thought about what they were doing. They seemed like interesting people, easy to talk to, with a lack of pretense that was quite endearing. Nice guys to meet.

2025 has been an exceptionally good year for performance art. Shakedown Citi is a big part of that. Up and down the Hudson Valley, and into Connecticut the path has wandered. From the groovy Lark Hall in Albany, down through Woodstock and Marlboro, to Beacon, back to Garcia’s with an excursion to Robin’s backyard in rural CT, and to the neat Infiniti Hall in Hartford it’s been a great year. There were no really big crowds or swelling rooms. The Falcon and Colony Theaters, however, later in the year began to have some stronger people pulse. It says something about these guys that they never mailed one in that I saw. They never frowned, and never took their collective foot off the accelerator. That’s really right on.

A couple of weeks ago in Beacon NY, at The Towne Crier, we caught up with them again. There was a pretty damn noticeable anticipatory buzz leading up to the show. You could feel it. Shakedown Citi hit the floor running again with Hell in a Bucket, and didn’t look back. Joy, interest, and moments, if not periods, of bliss happens during these performances. Twice, there was this roaring collective response to climaxes in the jam. One with the soaring Big Railroad Blues crescendo after the tune had slid neatly in out of Looks Like Rain, and again when the music blasted back into Terrapin Station out of the Terrapin Suite . The performance finished up with a buzz. Brooklyn Bowl on the horizon. It turned out to be a let’s go, let’s go week. Some of that touring with The Dead cadence was back. Saturday we made our first trip to the bowling alley/music club in Brooklyn.

Sometimes things are just right on. There was a very good feel to the scene down there. The logistical wrinkles of finding our way into the bowling ally, in the busy borough, seemed to iron themselves out. Most everything about the setting seemed like a ready welcome. The juxtaposition of numbers in attendance was fun to see. There was a real party atmosphere. High vibes of interest, curiosity, and some wonder created a real event feel. We know some people in the band and community. It was cool to see who we did. DJ Cheetatah was a smiling, sparkly, happy, groove spinner, mixing souinds along the way. Mitch and Snake warmed up with Readicculus. That group was Phishing, and didn’t hold anything back. Ready, ready, and more ready energy, excitement. Shakedown Citi full in the moment. Those guys seemed right in their element, and if they didn’t deliver?! Great rock and roll show! This is why we do it, have done it, and, God willing, will continue too. It’s alive! The music truly has never stopped. You never know who’s going to be feeling it. Right now The Grateful Dead musical catalogue is being tapped by some seriously excellent musicians that clearly love music, get off on the vibe, find creative ways to jam through the groove, and do some of the best music ever serious justice by playing the hell right out of it. Fare the very well. That was as crafty as a 7-10 split and as righteous as a strike. Strike! Strike!

Word… Rest In Peace Bobby Weir

Like an angel standing in a shaft of light / Rising up to paradise, we know you’re gonna shine! -Estimated Prophet. Bob Weir / John Barlow

For discussion sake, let’s say there is a perceptible world about us. It has many features, some organic and some man made, ranging from the immediate first hand stuff to stuff that is separate by degree (things we’ve learned and heard about). It’s all in this spectacle of what might be called reality. Some things happen, some things are, and events of the spectacle stream through, what is commonly referred to as, time. At any point in life, an existential amalgam founds points from which all this is perceived, as well as, considered. All points of view change and the reconsideration of things is always taking place in a type of existential flux. It turns out that the reality being perceived is a function of those involved with it. Control the perceiver and reality is under control. The magnitude of this math is immense.

For eons there have been manipulators in the midst of the living here in the realm of earth. There is always, it seems, those that want more than their fair share. A classic means of securing this indulgence is to manipulate situations. Species, including human, may live, and have lived, in a preeminently harmonious balance with nature, but there are agents, and agencies, within those species that are animated by an end justifies the means spirit that is self serving, and can be vicious. It’s a good question as to whether or not human beings are actually capable of the brutal acts of inhumanity that are so casually described in the history books, and news, however, most of the characters that show up in pictures, films, and reports of stuff like medicine, politics, religion, and war, appear to be humans. Either way, there is dynamic control programming and manipulation that’s hard to miss. Control agents have no shame; zero. Minus zero if that’s possible. The nearly irreconcilable incoherence for the descriptions, explanations, instructions, and orders that are provided through legislation, news reports, and official doctrine is breath taking. It serves, however, as an intense series of examples of how effective the control of perception can be with controlling what seems to be real. War stories are rife with examples of this.

If it were possible to parachute in on any time in human history, war and conflict among people would be happening somewhere. Perhaps there is a progression of war intensity in human history. That’s a subject for another time. Right now, the galactic level collective mind manipulation overhaul event of September 11, 2001 will serve as a case in point. As the imperialistic disaster of invasion unfolded after 9-11, there was a catch phrase hit the lexicon; Support the Troops. This cheap attempt divert attention away from the agents that were ordering the tragic advance of ‘the troops’ to the fate of these same soldiers with yellow ribbon stickers and magnets that were FOR SALE at every dollar store and convenience mart all over the U.S.A. was happening at the same time these same troops were given depleted uranium ammunition to use during the battles of the occupation in Iraq. The troops themselves were exposed to the radioactive contamination that the ammo produced. So, exactly what kind of support are we talking about? Of course it doesn’t stop here. Pat Tillman is regarded as nothing short of a national hero. There’s no encouragement to drill into the story of his demise though. Tillman responded to the call of his conscience. He basically retires from the NFL to join the army. After deployment he recognizes the discrepancy between why he’s there, and what is actually happening. His inability to reconcile this difference is now affecting that same conscience to blow the whistle. Next thing you know, he’s killed by ‘friendly fire’. The super sketchy reports about the incident that left him dead won’t quit. There’s just as much reason to believe that Tillman was assassinated as not. Either way it was not so friendly ‘friendly fire’. This guy played football in Arizona. What happens the next time the Super Bowl is played there? By the way, Tillman’s image is memorialized in a bronze statue right at the stadium. The broadcast of the game uses a tribute video of the vanquished hero to further promote the nobility of the ‘defense of freedom’. This is strong story of twist, propaganda, and mind bending control. Thinking this through is a metaphysical proposition.

Dylan’s Ballad of a Thin Man has never seemed so poignant. “You know something is happening, but you don’t know what it is…” Thanks to generations of manipulation, by graduated agents of domination and control, what’s apparently real in the world is un-critically allowed to swirl as incoherent chaos. Many are walking around with the idea that humanity is the pinnacle of evolution while the environment all around caves in. Report after report after report comes in describing post peak resource necessities from pollution free power alternatives, to clean water shortage, and societal and environmental instability everywhere. The message has been out there for a while now that artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence. (Seems like kind of a low bar in ways.) Yet, with all the conservation rhetoric regarding shrinking resources, what is the AI case? Not only does AI’s mainframe demand more power than most any other existing systems, AI has more power demands than can be provided. It doesn’t require a brain surgeon to see that an artificial system conjuring up a detailed virtual reality is a grand perception manipulation/reality device. A bit of potential advice; stop, step back, try to clear the sense, and take another look.

You raise up your head and you ask, “Is this where it is?” / And somebody points to you and says, “It’s his” / And you say, “What’s mine?” and somebody else says, “Well, what is?” / And you say, “Oh my God, am I here all alone?” / But you know something is happening and you don’t know what it is / Do you Mr. Jones?

-Bob Dylan Ballad of a Thin Man

Often he would wonder. Is this really happening? Is Earth an isolated planetary terrarium rotationally rotating and translating through an enigmatically packed vacuum of hostile radiation? How much loss of life is there with the Sixth Mass Extinction? Can it be that we’re in a terminal condition, and in an isolated cosmological spot; lost in space? It seems so unlikely that this would be happening, however, there are so many inhumane elements of world history, so many reports of toxicity, terrifically awful stewardship, and so much evidence of anti social foul play that going dead in the barren cosmic radiation field of space seems like it could actually happen. This is a desolate mind place to be. He had to at least look for some hope, healing, reconciliation, adaptation, accuracy, bliss, and growth. Some alternatives to the apparent overwhelming madness. What, he continued to wonder, is really going on?

In lieu of an extended metaphysical breakdown he decided to try to keep the memories and reflections brief. It was a sense of dread that was prompting the effort to find alternatives to demise. All the research into alternative versions of history, astrology, spirituality, quantum reality, and existence settled into a current body of awareness. Try to stop the mind, clear the senses, and tune in to the immediate. What is? What really is?

Presently he sought out his spirit guide. It had been reasonably short amount of time that he had been getting guidance from the Dee. It had been a riveting calm that had drawn him to solicit help from this guy. With subtle and seemingly unpretentious alacrity the Dee shared insight, wisdom, and what seemed to be prayers in response to inquiry and discussion. The sensitivity of the Dee’s mood alerted him to the idea that this man had been through some heavy stuff. As their time together grew it became apparent there had been some kind of psych anxiety had happened. Had the Dee been psychologically disabled? Maybe. The present conversation paused. He looked into his new guides eyes. He saw it in his guides eyes. He’s a survivor.

Ironically the present search for hope had hit home even before he consciously started it. Deep in the twinkling eye of this older gentleman there was promise. He sensed that the Dee had seen to the limits of tolerance; some irreconcilable witness that can crack people. Whether from within, or without, a gory reality had foisted itself on the Dee. You could see it in his eyes. This guy had made a comeback. When he made eye contact with his guide, it was a calm steady spirit looking back at him with a gaze of enlightened survival. Back from the brink of cataclysmic destruction, and sharing a very blissful soft serene grin. It shows in the pools of another’s soul. Back from the edge of who knows how close to over.

Not every bit of modern world news is dire. Plenty is though. When the hard stuff hits home he starts bumming out, pessimistically burdened, sad, mad, and down. With a look into the eyes one that surely seems to have absorbed, processed, and endured a worst his heart grows again with revival that is supported by much of the his more esoteric study. Lest one forget, every end is a new beginning. The path to wellness won’t always obvious, but it is there. He saw it in the eyes another.