Loud and Clear: The Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound and the Quest for Audio Perfection
Brian Anderson
Jun 2025 · Sold by St. Martin's Press
Ebook
352
Pages
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Eligible
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infoThis book will become available on June 17, 2025. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this ebook
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.
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.
About the author
BRIAN ANDERSON has been a Webby Award-winning senior features editor, writer, and producer at VICE in New York City (2011-2019). More recently, Anderson did a stint running the Science desk at The Atlantic (2020), where he was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team for early pandemic coverage, and was later a senior editor at Vox (2021-2022).
His 2015 VICE feature on "The Wall of Sound” served as the jumping off point for his first book Loud and Clear.
He currently lives and works in Chicago, where a piece of the Wall of Sound sits in his living room.
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