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Mid-Month Virtual Series: John Curl and the history of the Grateful Dead's "Wall of Sound"
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About this event
Mid-Month Virtual Series: John Curl and the history of the Grateful Dead's "Wall of Sound"
John Curl will be interviewed by Brian Anderson about the development of the Grateful Dead's concert sound system. Moderated by David Gans.
John Curl is a distinguished electronics engineer and audio designer known for his innovative contributions to high-end audio equipment. His career began at Ampex, where he played a pivotal role in designing tape recorders and later ventured into the rock music scene, creating sound systems for iconic bands like The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. Curl's expertise in audio engineering led him to collaborate with Mark Levinson, resulting in the groundbreaking JC-2 stereo preamplifier in 1974, which set new standards in the industry for sound quality and performance. In 1989, Curl joined Parasound, where he has since designed a range of high-power amplifiers and consulted on various components.
Brian Anderson is a Webby Award-winning senior features editor, writer, and producer, during his time at VICE magazine. More recently, Anderson did a stint running the Science desk at The Atlantic, where he was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team for early pandemic coverage, and was later a senior editor at Vox. His 2015 VICE feature on the Wall of Sound served as the jumping off point for his first book Loud and Clear: The Grateful Dead's Wall of Sound and the Quest for Audio Perfection (available 6/17/25 on St. Martin’s Press). He lives and works in Chicago, where he teaches journalism at Northwestern University and a piece of the Wall of Sound sits in his living room.
David Gans is a California-born musician, author, and radio host. He spent ten years (1976-1986) as a mainstream music journalist; following the publication of his first book, Playing in the Band: An Oral and Visual Portrait of the Grateful Dead (with Peter Simon), he began hosting San Francisco radio station KFOG’s Deadhead Hour, which by the summer of 1987 was syndicated across the country (and continues to this day as The Grateful Dead Hour). He consulted on the creation of Sirius Satellite Radio's Grateful Dead Channel, and since January 2008 has been a co-host of Tales from the Golden Road, a weekly talk show on the Channel. He has published five books about the Grateful Dead and produced boxed sets, compilations, and tribute albums for the Dead and for the Jerry Garcia estate.
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1) Please arrive a few minutes before the meeting so we can start on time
2) Mute yourself at all times unless speaking
3) Ask questions in the chat area unless otherwise agreed to at the start of the meeting
4) Be polite and don't talk over others
5) Stay on topic
6) Avoid political and other controversial topics that do not relate to the topic at hand
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