Dear Dogheads:  Unfortunately, the one-time only Dead reunion - see below - sold out in a few minutes.  But you can see it on the internet - again, see below.  And whoever you back - vote!

Deadheads for Obama

Grateful Dead Members to Reunite for Barack Obama

(San Francisco) Members of the Grateful Dead will host a get out the vote concert in support of Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama on Monday, February 4th at The Warfield Theatre in San Francisco.

Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh, and Bob Weir, joined by Jackie Greene, John Molo, and Steve Molitz, will play a show together in support of Barack Obama.

The video website Iclips will be producing a live simulcast streamed via the Internet onhttp://www.iclips.net at approximately 7:30pm PST.

This will mark the first time that the members of the legendary band have performed together since 2004. They have agreed to reunite for this one-time-only event in order to lend support to Senator Obama leading into the crucial “Super- Tuesday” series of primaries held on Tuesday, February 5th.

Hey now:  Sorry for the delay - and we know you have to make arrangements (and so do we!) - but yes, the Dog will trot out around mid-March for the usual spring tour, and dates will be announced quite soon.  We'll be hitting the Midwest, Northeast, and Southeast...see ya!

Hey, vacation's are supposed to be fun - so our fearless leader keeps it that way with the occasional fun benefit like this one, with the band Jelly, for Friends of the Fields, a Marin County group that renovates and maintains playing fields.  Since our Chief still risks life or at least limb playing football on those fields, he has what you might call a personal interest.

As promised, we’re going to be introducing new features to our website as the year goes along. The first will be a recurring series of special photo galleries focusing on the work of one shooter, “Photographer:”. RatDog’s been blessed with a lot of very good picture takers, so sit back and enjoy…

Our first master of the lens is Alan Hess, from San Diego. He tells us:

I went to my first Grateful Dead show at Irvine Meadows in 1985 and have been on the bus ever since.  I managed to see a couple of hundred shows before the death of Jerry and the end of the Grateful Dead era. Luckily for all of us Bob Weir and company picked up the pieces.

I saw my first RatDog show in San Diego on 12.10.1995 at 4th and B. I photographed my first Ratdog show at 4th and B on 3/27/1997 and I have photographed them ever since.

I am a freelance photographer by trade and feel blessed that I have been able to turn my passion for photography into my career. I still get excited when I get to shoot a concert.

My wife and I live in San Diego, where we share a house with Kaila the cat and Odessa, a 5-year-old Boxer rescued from the Humane Society.

I shoot with a variety of Nikon gear, the D2X and D200 camera bodies and a full range of Nikkor lenses.  I use Lexar Professional CompactFlash cards exclusively. I am currently also shooting with a Sony A700 DSLR for a upcoming project.

My website is www.shotlivephoto.com.

As most of you have probably noticed, there's an election this year.  HeadCount - a nonpartisan group trying to register voters at jamband shows - has become one of the integral parts of RatDog's extended family over the last few years.  They're shooting for 200,000 new voters this year, and they need volunteers to staff tables at gigs all over the place from April to election time.  This is a great way to do your part - because if we don't fight for democracy, it might not stay around.  Go to www.headcount.org for more information.

Joined by the Waybacks and Little Feat, the Dog put on a first-class Rex Foundation benefit this Saturday (12/15) at the Warfield Theatre, San Francisco.  The sweetest news, of course, was the appearance – back where he belonged – of Mark Karan, not so furry as he once was, but full of energy and the joy of playing.  Still recovering from the last round of treatments, he joined sub Barry Sless on about half the tunes.

The night opened with the Waybacks, who’ve added some electric guitars and a harder sound.  Our fearless leader Senor Weir joined them for the close of their set, including “St. Stephen” (you’ve never heard it with a wailing violin before!).

Next up, Little Feat rocked the house, and the audience was boogieing madly to “Dixie Chicken” – “Tennessee Jed” (with Brother Weir sitting in), among other Feat classics.

The Dog held up its own just fine, thank you, and introduced Hank Williams’ “You Win Again” and also “Catfish John” to the West Coast.  The show closed with an all star jam on “Franklin’s Tower” (completing the “Help On the Way” that opened the show)…picture a stage that reads, pretty much right to left, James Nash (Waybacks guitarist), Warren Hood (Waybacks violin), Barry Sless, Fred Tackett (Feat), Robin Sylvester, Jay Lane, rappers Zachariah Mose and Chris “CB” Burger, Feat’s Paul Barrere, Weir, Kenny Brooks, Jeff Chimenti and Feat’s Bill Payne.

And it worked!

Vacation time.  May your choice of end-of-year holiday bring you peace – light a candle against the winter’s dark – and we’ll see you in the spring.  Stay in touch! – this website will Not be hibernating.

And remember, In Dog We Trust.

  Sorry it's taken so long to get back to this.  Your faithful scribe had to leave what was a ripping RatDog tour two days early to take part in a symposium on the GD at UMass Amherst, and then Thanksgiving, and then a good cold…you get the idea.

We hope this end-of-the-year season will be good to all.  For more details, go to www.markkaran.com, but the news is good from Karan-ville, and we anticipate his return in the very near future.

A very few tickets remain for the December 15th Rex show at the Warfield, but they won't last long.  Many potential surprises - be there or be square.

In the new year, we're going to be starting a bunch of new features with the website, so stay in touch on that stuff.  Meantime, you might want to poke around a little with the Jukebox feature - some hot music there, and once you get it started, you can just hear all the Dog you want…

Finally, Bob signed a guitar (along with Warren Haynes, G. Love, Martin Sexton, Widespread Panic, and John Prine), which is being raffled off (only $10!) for a charity to prevent domestic violence.  Good stuff.  If you want in, go to www.1067thepenguin.com 


Remember:  In Dog we Trust

God knows there are a million tragedies a minute ripping through our lovely planet, and you can only do so much.  Some are bigger than others, and that certainly applies to what's going on in Darfur.  On November 10th, MySpace is doing something about it, and RatDog will be participating in the project at our show that night.  We invite you to find out more - http://myspace.com/rockfordarfur  - and consider helping out in some way.

Burlington was great - exactly like a tiny high school gym - but our esteemed master of sound Mr. McGinn made it sound fine.  Albany was hopping, a sold-out Saturday night with quite a few fingers in the air searching for miracles.  But the real action was inside, an inspired show, including the introduction of Hunter and Garcia's last masterpiece, "Days Between." - A great song gets its due, richly.  

Fall in New England has been kind to the Dog. After two lovely nights in one of our favorite stops, Hampton Beach Casino - our production manager, Chris Charucki, got to tell 2,000 Red Sox fans their team was up 6-0, which brought some serious cheers - we stopped by a neat small theater in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Then down to Long Island, where we enjoyed the hospitality at the North Fork Theatre with our favorite caterers, Wendy and Mary Beth, and then celebrated Halloween, Dog style. See what that's all about in the Fall Tour Gallery. Charucki got up early to carve pumpkins, and the set looked great. And when you watch Bob Weir channel Elvis, you know you've come to the right party!