05/05/1965 AD founded
The band's first show was at Magoo's Pizza Parlor located at 639 Santa Cruz Avenue in suburban Menlo Park, now a Harvest furniture store. It continued playing bar shows, like Frenchy's Bikini-A-Go-Go in Hayward and, importantly, five sets a night, five nights a week, for six weeks, at the In Room in Belmont as the Warlocks.
They quickly changed the band's name after finding out that a different band known as the Warlocks had put out a record under the same name.
The first show under the name Grateful Dead was in San Jose on December 4, 1965, at one of Ken Kesey's Acid Tests.
The name "Grateful Dead" was chosen from a dictionary. According to Phil Lesh, "[Jerry Garcia] picked up an old Britannica World Language Dictionary ... [and] ... In that silvery elf-voice he said to me, 'Hey, man, how about the Grateful Dead?'" The definition there was "the soul of a dead person, or his angel, showing gratitude to someone who, as an act of charity, arranged their burial".
According to Alan Trist, director of the Grateful Dead's music publisher company Ice Nine, Garcia found the name in the Funk & Wagnalls Folklore Dictionary, when his finger landed on that phrase while playing a game of Fictionary.
Lattitude: 37.4527° N
Longitude: 122.1833° W
Region: North America
Modern Day United States
Subjects Who or What founded?
-
Jerry Garcia (Jerome John) American guitarist, sing... -
Bob Weir (Robert Hall, né Parber) American musician and so... -
Phil Lesh (Philip Chapman) An American musician and...
Objects To Whom or What was founded?
-
Grateful Dead An American rock band k...
Events in 1965 MORE
