Purply Grotto

Dead Symphony No. 6

“There are a lot of spaces and advances between the Carter Family, Buddy Holly and, say, Ornette Coleman, a lot of universes…”

I was reminded of these words from Bob Dylan’s eulogy of Jerry Garcia while listening recently to Lee Johnson and the Russian National Orchestra’s recording of Johnson’s Dead Symphony No. 6 (JAM-0635 CD). The twelve movements (songs) of the 50 minute original symphony touch upon a multitude of the musical universes that comprised Grateful Dead music. The Baltimore Symphony will be performing the World Premiere of the piece this Friday, August 1 in Baltimore. (fittingly on Jerry Garcia’s 66th birthday).

Crazy Fingers - Chapters 19 & 20
Popeye looked distorted and cold in the light of the moon, lying inert on the bed in the back of the van.
“What should we do bro?” Monkey asked Skippy as they finally realized what had happened. Skippy was in no mood or condition to deal with himself, much less the inert body of his old buddy Popeye. He sat back and finished tying off.

Photographer Profile

The grotto is celebrating the work of Asheville photographer David Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer is a music photographer who's been shooting jam bands ranging from Ratdog to Phil & Friends to the Warren Haynes Xmas Jam, The Police and much much more.

Check out our interview with him by clicking "read more" below.

Crazy Fingers - Chapter Eighteen
Mooney stared up at the ceiling of the van as it swirled into patterns and shapes of various different calico colored visions. He was really starting to lose it now and he could barely hold on to reality. He was so high he could barely talk. The red headed girl he’d just been fondling an hour ago was now sitting on her hands staring at a stick of incense as it burned. To Mooney she looked like a baby werewolf with a flowing red mane. It was damn good acid, that’s all he had to say. The van was real quiet and all the outside commotion was hidden by the inside commotion of their silent trip. Things were really moving around and Mooney could barely tell where he was when suddenly the door slid back and Julie stuck her head in to scare everybody.

Crazy Fingers - Chapter Seventeen
Popeye wiped the sweat off his brow as he hunkered down next to the tire of the big station wagon and counted out a fat stack of ones and fives with Tineteen. Neither of them had been to bed and Pop decided that now that the clean needles were gone it was time for a pick me up.

Purply Grotto Camping Trip June 13-15
A weekend of camping and whitewater rafting in Relaince, TN! Join us!

http://www.hiwasseeoutfitters.com/welcome.htm

Crazy Fingers - Chapter Sixteen
“I’ll give you 8 G’s and a quarter of this Humbolt blueberry.” Big reached into the jar and pulled out a fat little blueberry nugget and handed it toward Rob.
“Hold up.” Rob watched as six or seven DEA agents materialized out of the crowd to grab a Mexican looking guy with a mullet. He could only see pieces of action from this side of shakedown street, but as the crowd parted he could see them slam the guy into a vehicle and then take him to the ground. One of the agents with a black trucker hat and dark glasses stood back up and looked around as if he knew he was being watched. Rob let the curtain fall back in place and turned back toward Big, reaching out for the bud.

Crazy Fingers - Chapter 15
The Orlando coliseum on one hand could be likened to a nice looking office building in some modern day corporate park with a pleasant cream color, rounded smooth shape, and glass fronted doors. On the other hand it looked like a big white Mentos Freshmaker candy almost good enough to eat.

Crazy Fingers - Chapter 14a
Rob was beginning to see why everybody in the parking lot had a van with curtains as he peaked out at the crowd through the side window of a nice luxury conversion van. They were in complete privacy in the back of the plush ride with a big 26inch tv set in the raised ceiling playing ‘reservoir dogs’, the scene where the dude cuts off the cops ear. Rob loved that old song they played in that scene, even if he could never remember the name of it or who had sung it.

An Interview with The Grunz Master himself
Grunzy Channel is the latest and greatest music video sharing site to hit the net. www.GrunzyChannel.net is home to original videos of jam bands produced, shot and edited by Grunzy who you can get to know thru his video work and his writings on his site. The videos are all clean with good quality sound and are about as high quality as you can find on the internet in a streaming format...most of the videos are also available for download so that you can burn them to disc and watch on your home entertainment system.

In spending a lot of time on www.GrunzyChannel.net and being a vidiot myself i decided to ask the Grunz Master a few questions about his motivation and the tech side of what he does...which I see as an important part of our scene...it's really the modern day equivalent of what taping shows was to the Grateful Dead.

Click "Read More" to see the rest of this interview!