poster by my dad, al jarnow, for #brooklyn public library, fall 1966, when he was briefly their (freshly dropped out of college) art director.
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jesse jarnow
@bourgwick@heads.social
mastodon 4.7.3writer / WFMU DJ / good ol' grateful deadcast co-host / working on a history of music told through grey area recordings (hachette, 2025ish) / "big day coming" (2012), "heads" (2016), "wasn't that a time" (2018) / jessejarnow.com [searchable]
2534 Followers
806 Following
50 Posts
Joined November 21, 2022
somehow not *not* a beach book: made a game of trying to spot the proto-heads among the communards in chris jennings' brilliant, oddly fun, & wonderfully written "paradise now," a history of 19th century american utopians & socialist forerunners. #books
recent-ish reading/rereading. #books
graffiti cover-up as shitty rothko. #nyc
snow day news drop: last week, i turned in a draft of the book i've been working on for the past 6 years! right now, it's called "the invisible hit parade: a taper's history of music" & will be out in 2027 from da capo/hachette. much more to come, obviously!
the good ol’ grateful deadcast is back! we open season 13 with part 1 of our bobby weir tribute, with lots of archival audio, teen letters to john perry barlow, water balloons, the mccoy tyner influence, firing tape & glorious redemption arc. https://www.dead.net/deadcast/bobby-weir-part-1 #gratefulDead #podcast #music
i just realized it's possible to search the elvis setlist database by jumpsuit & that there were so many jumpsuits cataloged that they can't fit into 4 screenshots. bowing to the king freaks! https://www.elvisconcerts.com/concerts/dbsearch.php
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jerry garcia's description of falling into a coma is amazing, though, & at least partly muppet-like: “the vegetable kingdom was speaking to me... in comic dialect in iambic pentameter. so there were these italian accents & german accents & it got to be this vast gabbling. potatoes & radishes & trees were all speaking to me. it finally just reached hysteria & that’s when I passed out and woke up in the hospital.” https://relix.com/articles/detail/jerry-speaks-pranksters-philosophers-portals/
i received a text from our landlord this weekend announcing his intention to kill critics in the backyard, taking me a moment to remember he equally loves to call rats "critters" & use autocorrect. doing his part in the war on journalism, i suppose. haven't spotted any yet!
some pals & i went through all the circulating tapes of the grateful dead sessions at ace's in 1975, fixed dates & track names & tape speeds, & boiled it into a collection of wild music. big ups to @mrcompletely@heads.social, @4CPcomics@heads.social, & @theheatwarps@heads.social. complete file set coming soon. mp3 & FLAC: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11F-mq31VuLoaH-AQ_CS8dG0bOFJyYXWu
these should be absolutely banned from #nyc & any other town/city with sidewalks & pedestrians. another fromt in the war on cars. https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/117031243158587006
transmitting from my headscape to yours via the frow show, 3 hours of new music & perfumed sounds from now 'til midnight on @WFMU@c.im. get in tune: https://wfmu.org/playlists/JJ/260728 #music #radio
holy wow, just realized my book "heads: a biography of psychedelic america" came out 10 years ago this week. available from da capo press through fine independent purveyors of paper, electronic, & audio books! what a baffling time-dilated trip it's been? https://www.dacapopress.com/titles/jesse-jarnow/heads/9780306921988/ #books #psychedelics
of interest to a few certain strains of music heads: huge stash of NME back issues now dropping on @archive.org.details.zines.inbox@rss-parrot.net, 300+ issues, 1969-1983 (so far). https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22NME+-+New+Musical+Express%22&sort=-addeddate
adventures in attic spelunking: confirming blurry childhood memory that our first family VCR did, in fact, resemble a mondrian painting.
properly excited to stay up too late tonight at/on @WFMU@c.im, filling in for dj time traveler from midnight to 3 ET, back in my old overnight slot. #radio #nyc
satellite #radio heads: i'll be co-hosting tales from the golden road this afternoon with the eminent @dgans@ezone.fun from 4-6pm ET on the grateful dead channel. rich mahan will be stopping by, too. #GratefulDead
it's probably because i'm midway through my 4th decadal read of "neuromancer" & they're both from '84, but this is feeling like a soundtrack to the sprawl, the gershwin side for noir turns (& ironic violent slo-mo sequences), the james brown side playing on a jukebox in the chatsubo. @vinylrecords@fedigroups.social
3 very different & nearly equally surprising new books about the grateful dead & surrounding universe in the 1980s, a mini-thread... #books
thursday folk-out at the jalopy gala honoring the legend peter stampfel, capped by stampfel, stephanie coleman, & yo la tengo, including "griselda," "everything must go," m. hurley's "tea song," the rutles' "ouch!," the kinks' "waterloo sunset," the escorts' "the one to cry," & other crossover hits.
found a better place on @WFMU@c.im last night. 3 hours of new #music & survivalist-grade dreaminess. https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/162956 #radio
last night, i resumed picking through an interviewee's slightly muddled anecdote, searched a bunch of ancillary terms, & at 2 am finally landed on this absurd long-lost 1975 image that gave me a solid, sustained giggle: grateful dead hustler-in-chief ron rakow lurking behind jack nicholson.
for those who prefer their #podcasts as text: season 11 transcripts of the good ol' #GratefulDead cast are finally up, including our phil lesh tributes, robert hunter's "tiger rose," & the potpourri of "enjoying the ride" tour stories that yielded the below correction, as spoken by @mrcompletely@heads.social. https://www.dead.net/deadcast-index #podcast
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some cal expo scene photos by bob beyn [2/7]
just had a total magic-ear moment with this docteur nico album i've owned for like 10 years & enjoyed, but finally clicked with the gravity-free #guitar lattices & perfect airy delay. looking forward to a spring/summer of congolese jams. @vinylrecords@fedigroups.social
recent-ish reading/rereading. #books
PSA: there's a (paid benefit) livestream tonight by bill frisell + ron carter + vijay iyer, early & late sets. tickets were a bit pricey for me but will definitely be availing myself of one of these sets. #jazz https://jazzgallery.org/calendar/carter-frisell-iyer-apr10-2026
40 years ago tonight, the last full grateful dead gig at the berkeley community theater, though almost all the band members will return for other benefits. pretty boss 2nd set jam. spring ’86, show #19.
soundboard: https://archive.org/details/gd1986-04-22.sbd.miller.34767.flac16
oade bros’ audience tape: https://archive.org/details/gd1986-04-22.140245.fob.schoeps.cmc4.mk41.oade.wise.miller.clugston.flac1644 [1/3]
glad i snagged a spot with a view at public records to see/hear gregory uhlmann make loops/delays/ambience at close range with his extra stars dream #jazz trio feat. sublingual beats by SML bandmate booker stardrum & will miller on wistful EVI. slightly more human than the album, equally aglow. #brooklyn
happy to see fanzine hemmorhage out of retirement & even happier to see them covering freak out, usa #1, published in fall 1967. https://fanzinehemorrhage.com/2026/04/16/freakout-usa-1/
surprise! i'm on @WFMU@c.im from now 'til 6pm ET, filling in for scott williams & feeding new music to live human brains! joiiiiiiin us. https://wfmu.org/playlists/JJ/260504 #music #radio
opening wednesday of william parker's weekly gig at loove annex in williamsburg. trio with violinist gabby fluke-mogul & drummer tcheser holmes, shapes coming together like wind. and the 13-piece pocketwatch doing "the chant" for an hour, clockwork pulse opening to slow funk & ecstatic blowing/themes/duos/trios. #brooklyn #nyc #jazz
the new killed by junk shop glam zine by @scottythered@code4lib.social is stacked with weird music history & grotty fuzzy summer jams. maybe my fave discovery is the danish country pop single "boom boom" by mabel. much fun!
60 years ago tonight, the grateful dead at a non-prankster trips festival knockoff at san francisco’s longshoreman’s hall, their 1st gig since returning from LA. 23 minutes worth from a nice-sounding owsley tape, tracks 4 & 5: https://archive.org/details/gd1966-XX-XX.sbd.GEMS.81254.flac16 [1/2]
when i think about #research as being fun & rewarding & something that can't be automated, it's that 2 am giggle fit as much as it is finding the image itself, getting to the realization that a batshit anecdote was at least partially true (& requires even further research). @bourgwick@heads.social
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late-set gear issues, garcia’s guitar disappearing during SUNSHINE DAYDREAM, which weir tries to explain but healy drowns him out in echo, so lesh translates: “what bob meant say was that jerry’s speakers are totally frozen, his guitar is broken, & my mind is blown, so i don’t think we’re gonna do an encore tonight but we’ll see you tomorrow.” several scene reports suggest show ended early due to a rather, uh, active naked nude in the front row. [4/7]
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@aburtch @QuirkyFilms @OddJob wonder when that's actually from & when the movie made it there. definitely post-'79, given mydland's inclusion on the poster.
navigate your late night with the frow show, 3 hours of new music & interstellar dreamways, from now 'til 3am ET on @WFMU@c.im #radio @bourgwick@heads.social
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@teledyn@mstdn.ca there's definitely more than one. all of gillian welch's recent acony LPs have been AAA mastering (& i believe they bought a mastering studio &=pressing plant in nashville to do so). went down a hole looking up others a few years back, and the hoffman forum used to do an annual thread.
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5/3/86 sacramento: drizzly COLD RAIN & SNOW opener. 1st RACE IS ON since ’81, returning for derby day. rare-ish 19-minute SCARLET BEGONIAS > FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN with dyna-rhodes transition sparkle. 53-minute GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > DRUMZ > SPACE > THE OTHER ONE > COMES A TIME > SUGAR MAGNOLIA. weir dedicates GDTRB to “larry.” fast metronomic click DRUMZ bed makes glorious weirding, gong ripples extended into full-swirl; feels like an electronic break-through. less wild SPACE. [3/7]
the next bardo bath is coming up on saturday 4/25 at judson church in #nyc, an evening of participatory improv weirdness, including william parker (!), anne waldman (!), garcia peoples, @kendraplex@mstdn.social, & more, with me on zones/collages/exorcisms. https://withfriends.events/event/zdhLyxOT/bardo-bath-dharma-art-empowerment/
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@QuirkyFilms @aburtch @OddJob and not trying to "gotcha!" you, legit interested in when/how the film made it to ghana.
@mrcompletely@heads.social haven't read this in full yet, but looks relevant to what you've been pondering @ntnsndr@social.coop
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@shibacomputer this did not disappoint! thanks for writing it. the thread that i'd now love to see someone trace in more granular detail is how policies favored (or ignored) by the very pro-privacy barlow/EFF resulted in the exact opposite.