“[Hasan] Minhaj, with his boyish handsomeness and his California bro’s swagger (the special is filmed in Minhaj’s hometown of Davis) comes out of the gate dropping a clutter of pop cultural signposts (Drake, YOLO, comic books, #blessed, and the like) that belie the tightly written, startlingly heartfelt nature of his…
Some of the most surprisingly gripping passages in Dennis McNally’s 2001 book A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History Of The Grateful Dead have to do with amplifiers. The band’s longtime publicist spent decades with the Dead, and watched them shrug off major details of their business—like getting their songs just…
These days, America knows and loves Steve Bannon as one of the most inexplicably powerful men in the White House, the leprechaun who tells Donald Trump to burn things, and the grim-faced specter of death who haunts the backgrounds of photographs like a slightly scarier Slenderman, but according to a Daily Beast report…
Four-hours might seem like a long running time for documentary about a rock band, unless that band is the Grateful Dead—unnecessarily drawn-out is kind of its brand. Jerry Garcia & Co. logged performances of “Darkstar” back in the early ‘70s that went on practically that long. With that in mind, Amazon Studios…
Welcome back to AVQ&A, where we throw out a question for discussion among the staff and readers. Consider this a prompt to compare notes on your interface with pop culture, to reveal your embarrassing tastes and experiences, and to ponder how our diverse lives all led us to convene here together. Got a question you’d…
Considering that the Grateful Dead played its final shows ever earlier this summer, this past month has had a surprising amount of news about the band playing more concerts. First, we reported that some members of the Dead would be teaming up with John Mayer for a spooky Halloween show at Madison Square Garden in New…
Apparently enamored of the idea that they could support their favorite band/religion/way of life from the comfort of their homes, instead of living in their vans for months on end with a bunch of strangers and a cross-eyed acid dealer named “Skunky Jim,” Grateful Dead fans came out in virtual droves for the band’s…
Though the band was, like, totally just in it for the music, man, The Grateful Dead managed to gross about $55 million dollars for its five recent reunion shows. According to Billboard, the Dead sold about 212,000 tickets for its three final Chicago shows which, at about $120 a ticket, netted the group a cool $24.5…
