In the mid-1960s a new twist on contemporary rock music
emerged out of San Francisco. Known as 'psychedelia', it was pioneered by a
close-knit community of local bands who merged traditional American forms such
as folk, country, blues and rock & roll with new sounds often developed
under the influence of
psychedelic drugs. Bound up with the social and cultural
changes for which San Francisco was also the focal point, it was a combination
that made for a radical re-imaging of youth culture.
This film traces the movements, events and sounds of those
heady days, and traces the story of the definitive band of the psychedelic age,
The Grateful Dead. Giving time too for the involvement of Frisco's other lead
players such as Big Brother & The Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane, The
Charlatans and Quicksilver Messenger Service, the program explores what it was
that, for a while, turned San Francisco into a 1960s Shangri-La.
Featuring brand new interviews with Grateful Dread manager
Rock Scully; the Dead's experimental professor, Tom 'T.C.' Constanten; Big
Brother's Peter Albin; Mike Willlhelm from The Charlatans; publicist and
official Dead biographer, Dennis McNally; Counter-Culture and Dead author and
journalist (and host of 'The Grateful Dead Hour'), David Gans; Merry Prankster
and best friend of the late Ken Kesey, Ken Babbs, plus comment, criticism and
review from Rolling Stone's Anthony De Curtis, Village Voice's Robert Christgau
and Mojo's Ritchie Unterberger.
Also including the rarest archive in existence, live and
studio footage of Grateful Dead and the other Frisco bands, vintage interviews,
location shoots, news reports plus the music that soundtracked the entire
movement, which all together make for the most detailed overview yet of the
social upheaval on America's West Coast which ultimately changed the world
forever.
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