Bill Walton seems to dig it…

John Popper is a bit freaked out by it…

That’s right it’s my debut novel, set at a Grateful Dead show in the late 1980’s and told through the voices of 7 characters in attendance.

Here’s what we said at Relix, where you can find an excerpt …

Los Angeles-based publishing house Rare Bird Books has issued Might As Well, the debut novel by Relix editor-in-chiefand Jambands.com founder Dean Budnick. The book revisits the East Coast Grateful Dead scene and, in particular, a show at the Brendan Byrne Arena—later known as the Izod Center—in East Rutherford, N.J., where a Deadhead named Adam Katz was killed in a manner that remains an unsolved murder mystery.

“I was at that show on Oct. 14, 1989, and while I had no personal knowledge of what took place, that evening still resonates with me for many reasons,” Budnick explains. “I also think that, beyond the music, when one considers the scope of people who attended Grateful Dead shows back then, it was a fascinating moment of social and cultural history. I tried to capture all that in Might As Well, which presents the perspectives of seven individual concertgoers over the course of the evening. It’s all fiction, even the hypothetical tour during which the show takes place; although I did create setlists for every show leading up to the night in question. It’s not even supposed to replicate the Katz incident precisely—it was just inspired by it.

“However, as you’ll discover, it’s not as heavy-handed as that might suggest. Like the Dead scene itself, there is more than meets the ear, as the story also encompasses miracles and near misses, the killer and the kind, doses and duds, female Muppets, the Fairy Wing Guild, the stall sisterhood, the merits of Charles Bukowski and Marcel Proust, the connections between Full House and ALF, seat surfing, scurvy, setlist games, Schoolhouse Rock, Shakedown Street, tape trees, the Philsbury Doughboy, Three Bean Monty, crock-pots, counties, custies, dog liberation, DATs, Griffin Dunne films and fire dancing. After all, the circus is in town.”

More to come (including an excerpt) next month.

I’ll also have a Bonnaroo report and much more as well…

later days and peace,
Dean