Loud and Clear - by Brian Anderson (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The first book to tell the full story of the Grateful Dead's "Wall of Sound," an unprecedented and since unparalleled speaker system.

Loud and Clear is the first book to tell the full story of the Grateful Dead's "Wall of Sound," an unprecedented and since unparalleled speaker system that was as tall as a school bus is long and more than a hundred feet wide. The band's quest for roaring yet crystal clear sound began after their formation in 1965, colliding with the '60s progressive social climate.

Over the next few years, the Dead's growing crew of sound-obsessed techies and eccentric roadies took their speaker system to new technological heights. But as the Dead's relentless, drug-fueled touring schedule met this increasingly burdensome yet sonically perfect machine, in 1974, the Wall brought the band to its knees. The two years of "Wall shows" are legend among Deadheads, and this character-driven tale about human ambition, achievement, and the limits of both on a larger-than-life scale has the potential to reach a wide range of music fans and readers of cultural history.

Author Brian Anderson interviewed hundreds of people associated with the band and the construction of the Wall itself, including band members, roadies, tech wizards, fans and many more. This fascinating inside story of one of the most legendary rock bands of all time will appeal to Deadheads, music fans, audiophiles and many more.

Review Quotes

"The Grateful Dead's Wall of Sound began with a hallucination. Fortunately for the world, the hallucinator was Owsley Stanley, who had the wherewithal to bring the concept to fruition with the Grateful Dead, who from their inception were committed to delivering clear sound to their audiences and to themselves onstage. Brian Anderson's Loud and Clear is a thorough and warmly-told account of the Grateful Dead's technical history from the Acid Tests (1965) through the Wall of Sound era, which ended at Winterland in October of 1974 but whose technological advances have benefitted musicians and their audiences in every realm to this day." --David Gans, musician, radio host, and author of Conversations With the Dead

"Exhaustively researched and beautifully written, Loud and Clear details the evolution of the Grateful Dead's sound system from their days as a bar band to the creation of the world's greatest sound system, "the Wall." It's an intimate dive into the gear, the lives of the engineers who developed it and the crew members who cared for it, and their mutual relationship to the band. It's first rate." --Dennis McNally, author of A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead

"Much more than just an examination of the most famous sound system in music history--the Wall of Sound-- Brian Anderson's Loud and Clear is a lively, meticulously researched and compelling behind-the-scenes portrait of the Grateful Dead and the unsung heroes (and heroines) who toiled long and hard in service of that "band out on the highway" during the group's formative and fascinating first decade. It's an evolution story populated by an intriguing assortment of cool, driven, brilliant, strange, volatile, visionary, and eccentric characters; and filled with adventures, misadventures, triumphs and disasters all along the way. This book will definitely show you a side of the Grateful Dead scene you've never seen before." --Blair Jackson, author of Garcia: An American Life and Grateful Dead Gear

"A gloriously fun unpacking of the most ambitious and pivotal period in Grateful Dead history, making it one of the most ambitious periods for any artist ever, where they succeeded at rewriting the rules of record distribution, live sound, and even music itself, with no better symbol than the hyperreal Wall of Sound that loomed behind them as they performed, channeling luminous music and generating myths at every tour stop." --Jesse Jarnow, co-host of official Grateful Deadcast & author of Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America

"An industrious reporter and passionate writer with deep ties to the communities he writes about, Brian embodies the sheer joy of being present when 'something new is waiting to be born' creatively, as the Grateful Dead put it. He's a trustworthy guide to experiences that are hard to put into words." --New York Times bestselling author Steve Silberman, co-creator of Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads

About the Author

BRIAN ANDERSON has been a Webby Award-winning senior features editor, writer, and producer at VICE. More recently, he did a stint as science editor at The Atlantic, where he was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team for early pandemic coverage, and was later an editor at Vox. He lives in Chicago with his partner (and a piece of the Wall of Sound). Loud and Clear is his first book.