Relix -The Book Compiled by Toni Brown - Grateful Dead Book Review

This book contains enough material for 10 "average" books about The Grateful Dead. It was released in late 2009 and I am pretty sure it is pretty easy to get a hold of if you do an online search.

The 'old Relix' was a psychedelic music magazine that actually started out as a Grateful Dead tape trading document.  I say the 'old Relix' because I feel that it is different now, even though it has stayed true to the jamband scene (visit the website of the 'modern day Relix').

This compilation of articles and artwork from Relix is so extensive it is a Deadhead's dream.  If you were an anthropologist, I think you would appreciate this book even if you had never heard of The Grateful Dead.

There are over 200 pages of

• articles
• artwork
• cartoons 
• jokes 
• fan mail 
• photos 
• interviews

...and everything else you could imagine. Each "scrapbook style" page can hold  multiple  pages worth of magazine content from old Relix magazines. There is just way too much good stuff in this book. No one could ever read every word - impossible.

All info is taken from the pages of Relix.  There is ample coverage of the Jamband scene through the years (before it really was a scene) and you can read about what was happening with the Allman Brothers or Hot Tuna at random times in their careers.  There's lots of funny "political style" cartoons that make light of the Grateful Dead experience. As an example of the 'fun' nature: there's a Jefferson Airplane word search on one page(!).

I really enjoyed the coverage and activism around the legal problems that Deadheads faced in the 80's and 90's due to gnarly LSD sentencing.

I also enjoyed the foreword by Les Kippel (who started Dead Relix for tape trading).  He also has an article in the Relix compilation called "the History of Taping" (or something like that) from back in the 80's (I think).  I can't actually find it to verify because there's no table of contents (I wouldn't even want one - it's not that kind of book).

To be sure there's tons of Dead content including exclusive interviews.  There's a section about the scene "Post Jerry." Ther'es just about everything you could imagine.


Relix, The Book: The Grateful Dead Experience Book Rating on a Scale of 1-10: 10.0