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List Price: $14.95 | | Publisher: Da Capo Press
Salesrank: 7854
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| Our Price: $5.00 |
| Used Price: $1.99 |
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| Media: Paperback |
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Editorial Review:
Told against the backdrop of the American landscape of the late '80s to the mid-'90s, Growing Up Dead is the story of Peter Conners's journey from straight-laced suburban kid to touring Deadhead. Peter discovered the Grateful Dead in 1985, at the age of 15, through friends who exchanged bootleg tapes of live Grateful Dead concerts. A teenager living in the suburbs of Rochester, New York, he became exposed to an entirely new way of life, and friends who were enjoying more freedom and less parental guidance. At the age of 16, he attended his first Grateful Dead concert on June 30, 1987 - he was hooked. Between 1987 and 1995, Conners would attend Dead 'shows' all over the United States. He traveled with a makeshift 'family' of other Deadheads in a Volkswagen camper, selling drugs and whatever else would provide gas money to the next concert. His hair was a wild, unkempt bush and baths were infrequent. In short, he had progressed from suburban kid, to Grateful Dead fan, to full-blown Deadhead. Chronicling this progression, which culminates with the 1995 death of Jerry Garcia, Conners reveals the truth behind Deadhead culture and history. The result is a riveting insight into the obsessive fandom that made The Grateful Dead the most successful touring band of all time, as well as a cultural phenomenon.
Growing Up Dead: The Hallucinated Confessions of a Teenage Deadhead Reviews:
Brings back the good and strange memories 
2009-09-28 - Easy read and so so great. Would love to sit down with Conner's and trade stories. I totally forgot that every little place to buy shirts and food and other stuff always had a different show playing. It was great to remember that little bit of dead city. New Years 87 was first show, and at the the Oakland show in 1987.
mk
Great book.
2009-09-24 - This book is the perfect grasp on the essence of tour. If tour is your thing, then this book is for you.
I Thought It Was About The Music All These Years! 
2009-08-23 - I came across this book in search of GD referrence books like Deadbase & the Taper's Commpendium, for, believe it or not, for my own book I'm writing on my days 'on the bus'.
Geez, I always thought 'on the bus' meant 'getting it', not ACTUALLY having to drive a VW bus while youy stank & sold acid on tour while trying to offend everybody you came in contact with by pointing out the huge zit between your eyes to goof on them.
We tripped, then we didn't trip most of the time later on. I even went straight at the end. Any way, we enjoyed the shows equally because the music the band was playing got us high. But when my friends and I tripped, we always managed to carry on lucid conversations, even when we did trip our balls off from taking a bit too much. Was the author that wasted or exagerating for dramatic effect?
He seems over-posed by certain dead lyrics (Feel Like A Stranger seems to be mentioned ad nauseum while many, many great songs get no mention). He says Deadheads danced harder when Bob sang about "Cowboy Neal at the wheel of the bus to Never Never Land." during The Other One. Heck, my friends and I always danced harder when Jerry and the boy's instrumentals during TOO peaked and spiraled 'round & round' to higher & more intense places, the music playing us as it did the band.
Even worse, the scene that Mr. Connors seems to think was so great was treated by people like him as a God-given right to trash every venue and town despite the band's pleas to cool it, while (even slighty) older Deadheads like myself and my friends looked on in horror at the growing madness around us. Connors also states how many of these 'Wookies' are now sucessful. Not true. I'm glad he and his friends who didn't commit suicide have found what the world calls 'sucess', but the fact really is, the majority of these folks simply went on to other bands like Phish, String Cheese Incident, Widespread Panic and the Grateful Dead remnents - 'Furthur Tour', then Phil Lesh and Friends, Ratdog & 'The Dead'.
Connors writing comes off as if he and these 'tour rats' (as they were called then) were loving Christians being lead to the lions by the viscious Romans, when the real truth is quite different.
Fabulous Read!
2009-08-13 - If you have ever wanted to know what the true Grateful Dead experience is, this is the book you want to read. All of the elements of a gripping read are included in his account...superb writing, descriptive and engaging experiences, and laugh out loud moments. Peter Conners tells his story as frankly and clearly as he would in person. His memories of his growing up years with the Grateful Dead are told in clear retrospect with great passion about the life lessons he learned. This is a must read, not only for all Grateful Dead fans, but for anyone who loves a classic and entertaining coming of age story.
The power of art does great things in the hands of those who care
2009-08-12 - The stories of growing up in a suburb, in a time when materialism thrived and individuality was hard to come by, the expressions of positive energy and the power it holds (especially at shows), the knowledge of the history of it all... it all hits home, hard. This is a great book filled with inspiration, wisdom, stories that made me both laugh out loud and cry. If you let it, this book reinforces hope for a more understanding world. I will share the book itself and the wise words and loving and hopeful perceptions embedded in its pages, and I strongly suggest others to do the same.
