“A wildly original, audaciously funny tour of the Grateful Dead and the mythical world they built . . . Alexander Pappademas and Joan LeMay brilliantly explore the Dead’s genius.”—Rob Sheffield, author of Love Is a Mix Tape
Friends of the Devil invites you to plunge headfirst into the dreamworld of the Grateful Dead, where music and myth intertwine and history dissolves like a tab on your tongue. This captivating exploration brings to life not only the songs that have enchanted Deadheads for generations but the stranger-than-fiction stories behind them.
The gang’s all here: An anonymous female convict in America’s notorious prison and Playboy bunnies on acid. Joseph Campbell and the Zodiac Killer. College revolutionaries lost in the desert and Bob Dylan wandering in out of the cold. In these pages, the abstract epic “Dark Star” gives shape to a movie gone mad, and “Terrapin Station” winds its way to Robert Hunter’s brain from sixteenth-century France via the hollers of Kentucky.
With Joan LeMay’s original paintings breathing fresh new life into the ramshackle, blacklight-ready aesthetic of the Grateful Dead, Friends of the Devil is a rich and rollicking journey—a gift for longtime fans and a delightful, informative, and often moving treat for anyone new to the band’s wild magic. Join us in revisiting the past, where every page is a step back in time and a ripple in still water, and every story shines like a glimmering stone on the golden road.
Author
Alex Pappademas
Alex Pappademas is the Senior Culture Editor of GQ. He has been writing about music, film, television and other forms of popular culture for over 20 years. He is the author of Keanu Reeves and co-author, with Joan LeMay, of Quantum Criminals. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and Grantland. He is based in Los Angeles.Joan LeMay‘s fine art has been exhibited internationally in galleries, museums, alternative venues, and public spaces in New York City; Los Angeles and Pomona, California; Seattle and Anacortes, Washington; Portland, Oregon, Provincetown, Massachusetts, London, England and Koln, Germany. Her work has been published in dozens of publications and multiple books, and she has collaborated extensively with independent filmmakers and creative agencies. A lifelong music universe person, her artwork appears on several album covers, and in her previous book with Alex Pappademas, Quantum Criminals, about the songs of Steely Dan. She is based in New York City.
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Joan LeMay
Joan LeMay’s fine art has been shown internationally in galleries, alternative and institutional venues, and public spaces since the late 1990s. Her paintings have appeared in dozens of publications, books, and music videos and on album covers, band fliers, and posters for independent film. She is the co-author, with Alex Pappademas, of Quantum Criminals. LeMay plays bass in the bands Bull Thieves and Viennetta. She is based in New York City.
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