Zero to 180 – Three Minute Magic

Discoveries of a Pop Music Archaeologist

Category: The Grateful Dead

"The New Twilight Zone"
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The Dead: In the Twilight Zone

For those keeping count, today’s piece is (gulp) the 666th posted since Zero to 180 began December 12, 2012.  What better way to face down this (meaningless) milestone by paying tribute to a classic television series — and a musical ensemble both — that bravely broke the bounds of conformist

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"Omar Khayyam"
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Toussaint’s Pop Persian Poetry

Browsing 45Cat’s database for 1966 singles associated with Allen Toussaint, my eyes were immediately drawn to an A-side entitled “Omar Khayyam” by The Rubaiyats, issued on Toussaint’s own Sansu label.  As it turns out, the band’s name is inspired by the term for “a collection of Ruba’i”  (as in the

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"Stupid Baby"
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World’s First Dead Heads: Germany?

How freaky that The Grateful Dead‘s played their first show on December 4, 1965 (billed as The Dead, not The Warlocks)  — and then the very next year, a group of young German musicians would form a band called (incredibly) The Dead-Heads: “Stupid-Baby“ The Dead-Heads (1966) This seven-inch is almost

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"South Side Strut"
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“South Side Strut”: Grateful Funk

Today’s piece is a birthday tribute to my college roommate, Gavin Martin, who once rescued me from a very unpleasant housing situation, when he advocated successfully on my behalf for a vacancy that suddenly popped up in his much cooler adjoining dorm suite – and for that, I will be

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"Fire In The City"
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“Fire In The City”: Hendricks & The Dead

Not Jimi, but rather Jon — he of jazz vocal trio, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. In 1967 Jon Hendricks and The Grateful Dead composed music for the soundtrack of a Jerry Stoll documentary entitled, Sons and Daughters, in which students from the University of California at Berkeley march to the

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