# 1
San Francisco, December 31, 2019
Grateful Dead @ Cow Palace, December 31, 1976
The first time I heard the Grateful Dead play live was on New Year's Eve 1976. I was not at the Cow Palace in Daly City that night, rather, I listened to the radio broadcast on KSAN FM ("The Jive 95") from the relative comfort of my little corner room at the Top of the Hill, Martinez.
The Grateful Dead had already been following me around for a few years. My brother
and I hung out quite a bit with JJ Howard at his family ranch out in the Alhambra
Valley. His mother, Vivian, was more than a little bit "counter-
When I moved on from Pinel to Maybeck High School that put me a lot deeper into the
Berkeley life and The Dead became harder and harder to avoid. I was introduced to
many new learning experiences, like cannabis and books including The Electric Kool
Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, which is where I learned the mythologized history of
the Grateful Dead and surrounding scene. They had a new live album out, Steal Your
Face which was advertised heavily on my beloved KSAN, and my Grandma got me that
double album for Christmas! Meanwhile, in the fifty-
A few weeks after that I attended my first official rock concert which was The Tubes
at Concord Pavilion on Halloween, but that's a different review.
By the time we rolled into the holiday season of 1976, I along with much of my peer group were “partying” quite a lot. I had a big hit of blotter acid that I had gotten in trade with Bill Saha for a joint, in the back of those trees by the Cal Berkeley entrance where we boys used to go to get high. I already had taken some LSD trips (That’s a different review). It was only many years later that I heard the advice that probably it would be best for immature people to hold off on recreational use of heavy psychedelics. Oh well. 43 years later I am here to tell the tale.
So, I lived at the Top of the Hill in Martinez with my parents and younger brother, dog and cats. My corner room had my bed and desk and stereo and KSAN FM radio was my usual live soundtrack. I was excited when they announced they would broadcast The Grateful Dead’s New Year’s Eve concert live from the Cow Palace in Daly City.
On New Year’s Eve I split the big blotter hit in half, took half and gave the other half to my friend Dan James who lived down the street off Alpine Court. There was quite a scene of debaucherous youth going on down the hill in the Appalachian neighborhood and there was going to be a New Year’s Eve party in the apartment of “Hamburger Klown,” and Dan wanted to attend. I said I was going to stay home and listen to the Grateful Dead concert on the radio. Dan said that he would stop by later, but I didn’t see him again. Apparently, he had a very melty night.
I settled in at my desk with my sketch book listening to the anticipatory buzz from the live radio feed. Then the band were introduced and began to play. I went totally into the music. I was part of the stories, myths and legends being told in the music and words. It was eternities until I came back to my desk, and the mournful sounds of Jerry singing Morning Dew at the Cow Palace and in my room. I'LL GET UP AND FLY AWAY! … I… was… still… ME!... but transformed and had joined a great cosmic society.
It was still another six months until Fred Faloona said to me one Berkeley afternoon, “No more excuses you are going to the show,” and lead the way across the Bay to Winterland on 06/09/1977. From then on, I was a fully initiated Dead Head.
It was the early 1980s and we were waiting overnight in line outside of Record Factory
in Pleasant Hill, when I heard the Morning Dew coming out of some guy’s boom box.
I confirmed it was that NYE show then got him to take my address and say he would
send me a copy of the cassette, which was one of the first live cassettes in my collection.
It was only part of the second set too. In those days it was a big deal getting cassette
copies of shows, and more than a few people who had them had certain attitudes about
whether-
My gateway New Year’s Eve show was eventually released officially on CDs, but it can be streamed freely here on our beloved Internet Archive.
https://archive.org/details/gd76-
# 0
San Francisco, December 24, 2019
Introduction
I greet you with great excitement on this Tuesday, December 24, 2019 for the premier
of a new literary project, ROARSHOCK REVIEWS by D. A. Wilson. The range of subject
matter, brevity or length of each individual piece, and schedule of publication are
all wide open. It will be an expansive space for me to work with my words. My job
being to make sure I write content interesting enough to draw in my audience and
keep them coming back for more. That shall be the ongoing recurring challenge.
Your reader feedback will be welcome, and suggestions of content and topics to explore.
Also, guest reviews are possible, and those so inspired are encouraged to submit
their material for consideration.
Anticipate reviews of everything in every direction from records to restaurants,
plus much more. Picturesque sketches, tips and information both vintage and timely,
perhaps including an occasional political posturing, but mostly hopeful advice and
useful information. Will there be any pictures? There might be. Drawings, photographs,
video and many other multimedia forms are likely to appear.
ROARSHOCK REVIEWS debuts on the 21st anniversary of another and ongoing project of
mine, ROARSHOCK PAGE, which first appeared with Volume 0, Number 0 on December 24,
1998. While RP has always been confined within its physical limitations (a single
double sided 8 1/2” x 11” piece of paper) and has evolved into a consistent format,
no such constricted space or set presentation exists for RR.
Thanks for your attention to this Introduction. As always, voluntary donations are
gratefully accepted. The first review will be along soon. Please stay tuned.
P.S. Happy 109th Birthday to Fritz Leiber, friend and ancestor. Born in Chicago on
December 24, 1910.
Comments to roarshock@gmail.com