Posts tagged A.T. Furthur

After completing what seems all around to have been a rather successful tour of their new band Furthur, Phil Lesh and Bob Weir took the occasion of Phil Lesh’s 70th birthday party to announce that the band will be hosting “The Furthur Festival”, a three day festival in the Seirras.

I’m definitely looking forward to it, but also a bit bummed that it seems to me a clear indicator that I won’t be going South for the Do Lab’s more Burner-centric Lightning In A Bottle event. I guess I can’t be everywhere doing everything at once, though I do my best

Furthur The Band gets its name from Furthur The Bus, as the Grateful Dead lyrics to the song “That’s It For The Other One” clearly indicate:

“The Bus came by
and I got on
That’s when it all began.
There was Cowboy Neal
at the Wheel
of a bus to Never Never Land.”

In high school I did a term paper on Ken Kesey for an English class. That expanded to a Master’s Thesis, a sold interview with Ken Kesey, a writing class with Ken Kesey, an opportunity to be Ken’s Faculty Assistant, and eventually a slot selling Kesey’s stuff on the Furthur Festival tours back in ’98 and ’00.

By 2000, the Furthur Booth evolved into the Merlin’s Wheel Gallery, which I’ve since mutated into the Shakedown Gallery, a traveling festival gallery selling blotter art, signed ephemera and weird psychedelic artifacts.

In 2005, Zane offered me the opportunity to organize the Acid Test 40th Anniversary Party. The result was A.T. 40, a sprawling psychedelic smorgasboard of talent from the Deadhead, Burning Man and twisted cabaret tribes of all flavors on Halloween Night in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The follow-up event was A.T. Furthur: Daze Between, hosted between the two Dead dates at the Shoreline Ampitheater back in May of 2009. A.T. Furthur could be viewed as both taking the Acid Test model Furthur and as the Always Traveling Furthur Circus…

Well, the bus rolled out for the Portland Furthur show and I was able to spend a little time with Zane Kesey. It remains to be seen if the bus is going to make it to Angels Camp for the Furthur Festival, but if it does, expect the Shakedown Gallery and the Key-Z Productions booth to merge. And, who knows, maybe Zane and I will get another A.T. afterparty together. If you’re booking travel and reading these words, planning on staying West an extra day or two just in case. Afterparties can be fun!