07/03/2026
I’ve been feeling the loss of Dead and Company hard this week. I know I’m not alone in this. It’s like a gestalt of grief connecting so many of us.
A couple nights ago, I was closing up our Brooklyn shop with the speaker still playing music. Throwing Stones came on randomly, and it stopped me in my tracks. I was hit by a wave of emotion and memories, and that feeling of wanting to go home, when you know home doesn’t exist anymore. I went through the ritual motions, locked up, and left in a daze.
I biked to a friend’s house from there, tears making a mess of my glasses on the way. I felt silly, it was just a song. It was just a band. Except, c’mon, we’re talking about the Band Beyond Description here.
I have such a vivid memory of hearing Throwing Stones played at Fare Thee Well, a weekend that I had, at the time, thought was going to be the end of my years as an itinerant Deadhead. By then, I’d spent over a decade wandering the country in search of the sound, in a post-Jerry landscape. In fact, it was only the beginning of another decade, eleven as yet unexplored years that would take me through massive chapters of personal and professional growth, on a path that ultimately led me to the shop I had just left.
Since opening a brick-and-mortar five years ago, I’ve constantly struggled with knowing where I should be - in the shop or at the shows. There was so much about vending on tour that I always cursed. The driving was brutal, but even worse was the absurd competition to get a spot in every lot. As the years of Dead & Co went on, it escalated, to the point where we were all showing up the night before to get in line, and self care was a thought you were better off not thinking. On top of that, we often had extreme weather, lack of sanitation, fights and frustrations, and never ever enough sleep. It was a rough way to live, and an even rougher way to age, but there was a thrill to it that no other experience in my life has even closely rivaled. The rewards were in the songs, and redemption came when you closed your eyes and danced.
