Tag Archives: GDTS TOO

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Once again, in Offically Unofficial News, the foundations of the world have shaken as the Dead’s brilliant marketing arm leaked just enough information to stay on top of Internet algorithms like drunk sailors on Japanese hookers. The news came as a festival promoter nobody ever heard of before disguised themselves as Scott Allen and received more attention than a woman at a Rush concert. The hints lead to Santa Clara, California, a location we all have tons of recordings from. When news hit the home office in Stinson Beach, 5 employees moved to Mexico immediately. “Fuck that shit!” they said as they sped towards the border. When asked about the demand for The Dead, Mickey said, “This shit is outta control like Bill’s eyebrows!” When Bill was asked aout this response he said, “That Cro-Magnon Vulcan would have a single eybrow across his head that looked like the scouring side of a sponge if he didn’t get that shit landscaped by Mexicans in his neighborhood every week!” It seems like everybody is getting along just fine… One thing is absolutely certain, it’s either happening or it isn’t!

Dead Fans from the left coast, specializing in passive aggression, stopped complaining for the first time since January 16th. Apparently monthly shows by Phil and his friends right in their back yard aren’t enough as the group of people still pissed off about missing Hampton in ’89 have been crying since day 1. They’ve taken solace in Death Don’t Have No Mercy being busted out at Shoreline for 26 years now. People with names like Jeff and Sam moved West many years ago to continue life with names like Huggie Bear and Tranquil Stream have quickly moved from waiting on long lines for Apple Product Releases to crying about the absence of Bay area shows and getting screwed by ticket releases. They moved out west decades ago to buy a wig and get the crabs and sleep on Owsley’s floor. Those guys have been releasing the pent up and still ingrained east coast aggression they’ve been trying to deny having since 1977. Internet records displaying their inherent hostility have been spewing out since January. They will now begin acting like they were kind all along. As long as they get tickets… At a price close to what they cost 35 years ago…

Somehow, those that thought 3 shows were a cash grab feel better that they’ll be more. Unbridled joy at the developing story was spreading just as fast as the negativity will once details and ticket sales are announced. Some fans are wondering if their money orders will be returned in time to send them back again. Plans are being put into place to keep tickets out of the hands of scalpers which is difficult since many of the scalpers are actually guys like Huggie Bear and Tranquil Stream hiding behind ebay and StubHub profiles, selling their tickets and hoping they won’t be revealed as the fake ass bitches they really are. You can find them outside of their peaceful status diatribes and picture albums filled with photos of Buddha statues, arguing on the Grateful Dead Tour Vets pages.

While people think this will have a dramatic effect on decreasing the cost of Chicago tickets, some scalpers have commissioned professional artists in anticipation of the upcoming mail order. Peter Shapiro is proving once again he’s smarter than you are because he already sold all of the bad seats to Chicago the first day on TicketMaster. He is still holding back on the good seats that people will gladly purchase, even if they already have purchased bad seats, as upgrades a month or two from now. There’s tens of thousands of tickets that haven’t been released yet. When it all it goes down, you’ll remember you heard it from The Official Home Of Unofficial Grateful Dead News!

Paul Abdell and his editor Michelle Cohn will be gathering up volunteers as fast as GDTS TOO as their group, Social Tactics Operating Properly Against Nemesis, Anti Scalping Society (“STOP AN ASS” for short) has made a huge impact on the ability of scalpers to reach their prospective victims utilizing free media sites like Craigslist. Their work has had a tremendous impact on the ability of scalpers to sell their tix. Good work y’all!!!

Michelle and her sister Robbi need tickets for Chicago. If you have extras, please find them on Facebook. Anybody thats been a fan for any length of time has seen countless photos taken by Robbi. They are obviously some ladies who undoubtedly deserve tickets to the event.

Another show honoring the man with the sound we’d all be willing to act kind again in order to hear, sold out faster than Doug Irwin once he got a couple of guitars back. The Dear Jerry Show however sold out in 4 seconds. For one of those seconds I was prepared to write at length how wonderful it was to use ticketfly. Instead, I feel like I was screwed by a neutered animal this time. I got all the fuckin with none of the balls. At least Ticketmaster humored me by spinning the balls around giving me the impression there was some mystical entity that was trying to work on my behalf. With Ticketfly there was no waiting, no line, no balls. There was however a nice little man on a treadmill when I tried to get through on the pre sale. It was nice to feel like I was exercising while spending my second month in a row on the computer pounding some kind of ticket selling website which seems to be as useless as Charles Manson’s parole hearings and yielding the same results… Nothing.

“The last thought… The final thought… the hard thought… The Warrior thought is that We ain’t many!!! In any given situation there’s always gonna be more dumb people than smart people, We ain’t many!”
-Kesey 10/31/91

You know what Jerry would say, he’d say, “STOP FUCKING ASSUMING YOU KNOW WHAT I’D SAY! YOU DON’T KNOW SHIT!”

More will be revealed in the weeks that follow… New York Got the ways and means…

Ladies looking for some gorgeous Guatemalan Hippie Gucci can find some beautiful stuff from my friend Sugar Mags right here.

Preparation for The Dead’s Fare Thee Well shows has begun!!!check it out here.

Gratefully Deadicated,
Dean Sottile (pronounced SoTilly)

www.gratefuldean.com
Dean SoTilly on Facebook

#GD50
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#FareTheeWell
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YouMadBro

I’d just like to use this platform a moment to say thank you to the makers of Yoga Pants!

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, the rest is all Phish’s fault. We should know by now, when in doubt, blame Phish. There’s one guy that has to be relieved that everybody has now moved on to being disgusted by someone or something other than him and that’s Trey. When asked about his feelings regarding ticketing Trey said, “2 Words, Big Cypress.” If there’s anything the Dead could’ve learned from Phish this time around, it’s how to put on a show that guarantees admission to everyone. Like them or not, the crew behind Phish know how to throw a huge party that includes every single person that wants to go. With many huge festivals under their belts, all run incredibly well and filled with creative events and surprises throughout the course of a weekend, the Phish camp would’ve been the ideal party planners for this one. Trey must just be relieved the fan base has turned on their own band and staff for the past few weeks and he’s been out of the conversation.

Speaking of out of the conversation, Jeff Chimenti has to be the luckiest guy of the bunch. You know why everybody loves Jeff? Aside from being a long time contributor to numerous Dead related configurations and playing the sweet Hammond sounds we all long for since Brent’s passing, he’s also the most likely to candidate to be seated next to you, flying Southwest airlines, seat 18C. I think the closer a musician is to sharing our status in life, the more we tend to like them. I’m thrilled he’s part of this. If you have anything bad to say about a guy like him, you’re probably a prick.

On the subject of pricks, you’d probably think the Grateful Dead Family Tree was a cactus with the number of pricks that have littered message boards everywhere. Fans in incredibly high numbers are showing their asses all over the internet this week. The comments that adorn the official Grateful Dead Facebook pages would lead you to believe this band has an asshole farm somewhere that has produced a enormous crop over the last 50 years. Fans once known for their kindness have sounded like the world’s largest army of douche bags as they’ve found reasons to complain about nearly everything under the sun. I went undercover into some other popular band’s pages to see if talking shit about your favorite band was widespread or just us. I’ll just say, it isn’t widespread. We’re clearly as good as it gets and as bad as it gets all rolled into one big highly dysfunctional family.

An interview with Peter Shapiro surfaced this week and provided me with a huge amount of respect for him once I got to thinking about it. I was obviously at the same show Peter attended at Rosemont in the early 90s. I know because I didn’t miss any shows at all back then. We both had an amazing night that night. He took the experience and twenty something years later is the promoter of this event. I’m a hack writing this make believe news piece and still hitting the Ticketmaster website 10 times a day. That’s sobering… Peter is really bringing us all the bands we dig at as many venues as he can purchase. It’s impressive if you can detach from your emotions long enough to acknowledge what he’s accomplished. Awe Inspiring really… The potential existed for any one of us to do what he’s done. He did it…

It’s obvious that multiple streaming options will be available for this event and everybody involved sincerely wants all of us to be able to share in it. Once the stream is officially announced, those that will view it for free on somebody else’s U Stream channel will complain about the price of the official stream most often.

Scalpers are being reminded for the first time in 20 years what an enormous pain in the ass we can be. Movements to flag every ticket related post on every ticket selling site in the world have officially begun. Many fans are spending nearly 40 hours a week doing so as well as mobilizing armies to do the same. When I asked her about ticket availability, Marlee Ann from Michigan said, “If tickets were easy, they’d be your mama!” Apparently she’s still holding a grudge because I never made it back to that tent after leaving to get some water in Hampton, 87.

There’s a lot of hustlers cashing in on the desperation of Dead Heads. Nobody will have tickets in their possession until June. Right now you’re buying a promise from somebody you don’t know. Remember, Western Union is how we got paid on Tour many years ago for large mail order purchases from folks back home. We did that because it’s the preferred method of payment for criminals everywhere. DO NOT buy promises from strangers. If you can’t help yourself, DO NOT pay in ways that offer you no protection. If everybody waited until June to search for tickets, they’d be EXTREMELY cheaper on the secondary market by then. If you look at seating chart availability on StubHub, there’s a vast majority of the stadium sections with no available tickets in them. Some are mail order sections I’m sure but what about the others? Are there still large blocks of tickets that will be released in the future? I think so… We’ll see…

I was fortunate enough to score a package from CID. My VIP Package seems like a much better deal now than it did a month ago. My luck with Ticketmaster for big shows has always been awful at best. Was my good fortune the result of my efforts over the years to be a conscious contributor or just by chance? I guess that depends who you ask. I have my own brother and a lot of friends that are still waiting…

I bought a cool dye from Matt Weber, check him out on FB! He makes some great stuff!!!

Gratefully Deadicated,
Dean Sottile (pronounced SoTilly)

www.gratefuldean.com
Grateful Dean on Facebook
The Official Home of Unofficial Grateful Dead and Music News Facebook Group

#GD50
#GratefulDead
#FareTheeWell
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#BobWeir