Deep Shouts chronicles my aural collaborations with various musicians along with some interviews, readings, and other goodies.
This short book trailer gives a great taste for what Growing Up Dead is all about. The scenes from the parking lot are from a home movie taken at Hartford '88. A Rochester Deadhead shot them and they've been sitting in a drawer in his house... until now. Thanks to the talented Steve Smock of Prime8Media for his amazing work putting this trailer together.
[Growing Up Dead Book Trailer]
This is a complete reading I gave for Growing Up Dead at Books Inc. in San Francisco, California. The event was held on June 4, 2009. The reading includes three sections from the book and a question and answer period at the end.
[Growing Up Dead Reading at Books Inc]
Here's a link to an interview on KPFA radio out of Berkeley, California. The interview is conducted by David Gans and includes me reading excerpts from GUD and cuts from the Dead shows that I'm reading about. A lovely stew.
http://cloudsurfing.gdhour.com/peter-conners-interviews
On June 5th, 2009, I read passages from Growing Up Dead while Dave Stein (far left), Garrin Benfield (above), Shoshana Zisk, Steve Cohn, and Chris DeJohn played their Acoustic Grateful Dead Night at Giordano Brothers in San Francisco, CA. This was taped on a small digital recorder in a loud bar with no previous rehearsal for the collaboration. All things considered, it's a fun listen!
[Bird Song]
Listen to the whole show, including another collaborative reading jam on He's Gone at:
[Peter Conners with Acoustic Grateful Dead Night]
There's a podcast audio interview was conducted July 2009 for Dim Lights Thick Smoke. Here's the intro:
"Avid Grateful Dead fan, opening the promo package from our good friends at Da Capo Press I was immediately drawn toward Peter Conners current release ” Growing Up Dead: The Hallucinated Confessions Of A Teenage Deadhead”. The majority o'f books I’ve read on the Grateful Dead always seem to be written from a 1960’s viewpoint. However, just a few pages into “Growing Up Dead” I was blown away at the similarities between Peter Conners and myself. Here was a guy my age from an upper middle class family who should have been into the current groups of the 1980’s. Instead ( like myself ) he decides to jump into a green Volkswagen bus filled with his friends and follow a band that was around long before he was born. I knew I had to speak him."
Listen to the interview at [GUD Dim Lights Thick Smoke Interview]
"As the surviving members of the Grateful Dead reunite for concerts in New York this weekend, Soundcheck’s occasional series on superfans continues with a look at Deadheads. Music critic Ben Ratliff of the New York Times; Peter Conners, author of the memoir "Growing Up Dead;" and sociologist Rebecca Adams of the University of North Carolina-Greensboro join us for a look at how these loyal disciples have maintained a vast subculture (and nearly 2,200 concert recordings)."
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/soundcheck/episodes/2009/04/22
On August, 20, 2009 Growing Up Dead was reviewed on-air NPR's "All Things Considered."
No music fan is more invested than a follower of the Grateful Dead. Peter Conners' new memoir, Growing Up Dead, chronicles the exhilaration of falling in love with music as if nothing else in life even remotely matters. Conners was an aimless 16 year old when he first heard the whirling, improvised rock of his heroes. He describes guitar runs that send "sparkler streams across the arena" and writes that the sound of a keyboard "swirls down your cochlea, expanding into warm chocolate behind your eyes." Music fans will understand: That's not LSD imagery but just the way music sounds when your surrender has no limit.
Listen to the review at [GUD on All Things Considered]
This is a February 2009 interview about Growing Up Dead. The interview was conducted in a hotel room in Chicago by Sam Ligon for Keyhole Magazine.
[Peter Conners interview for Keyhole Magazine]
The Marick Press Mini-Literary Festival was held on May 2- 4, 2008 in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. The concluding event was a reading by Marick's spring 2008 authors that was held at the Tompkins Center in Grosse Pointe Park. I read from my new Marick Press novella, [Emily Ate the Wind], and shared the stage with Sean Thomas Dougherty, Derick Burleson, and Susan Kelly-Dewitt, among others. Click [Here] to watch a 10 minute section of my reading.
Marick Authors with Publisher Mariela Griffor (center in blue sweater)
On Friday, September 21, 2007 I gave a launch reading for Of Whiskey & Winter at the Barnes & Noble in Rochester, NY. Patrick Bayer of Bayer Videos was on-hand recording the whole event. Follow this link [POETRY READING] to check out the event from start to finish. You need a Flash Player to view this, so if you don't have one just follow the link to the right of the video screen for a quick and free download.
My Myspace page contains video samples of readings from my books Of Whiskey and Winter and Emily Ate the Wind. I will be posting new video readings there periodically. Check out the video readings here: [Video Readings]
The Directions That We Move (music & playing by Todd Weiner, words & talking by Peter Conners)
Todd Weiner and I have been collaborating on music and writing for more than 15 years (the picture to the right proves it: that's us circa 1990-ish at Allen's Falls in Potsdam, NY). I visited Todd at his home in Nederland, Colorado during June, 2006. Nederland is a mountain town twenty miles away from Boulder, Colorado via the breathtaking Boulder Canyon. We recorded The Directions That We Move during that visit. The song was recorded on one take, no mixing, straight to mp3: two guys, a guitar, a poem, two microphones, and a drum machine. For that reason, the track is better to imagine as a "live" track than a proper recording, but still fun!
Here are readings of three of my poems by Rebby Ott. She is the last resident of Macoupin, Illinois, a small farming hamlet that existed between Carlinville and Plainview.
Bite the Pomegranate
The Wonderment We Bypassed
A Letter to My Love
Creeping Sun
1000 Storms, One Horizon
These two Deep Shouts tracks are part of the CD, Weather or Not, which was written, performed, and produced by Patrick Kavenney (far left) at [Boxcar Music Studios]. Todd Weiner (3rd from left) of Nederland, Colorado performs percussion on both tracks. I read from a spontaneously arranged collage of three poems on Creeping Sun, and read an arrangement of my poem The Autobiographical Struggle of Trader Riley on 1000 Storms, One Horizon. Patrick Kavenney lives in Eugene, Oregon where he performs regularly. He can be emailed at: parrotgravy3@yahoo.com.
CDs can be ordered through Boxcar Music Studios or directly through Patrick Kavanney.
Click [Here] to read more about these recordings.
The Autobiographical Struggle of Trader Riley
Advice On Getting Started
Poets w/alarm clocks in their foreheads
Mike Shimshack and I recorded these tracks together at two different recording sessions in Syracuse, NY and New York City. Mike created all of the music, and I wrote and read the poems. Mike started his career as a songwriter and guitarist for the band Johny Vegas. He now lives in Austin, Texas where he works as a record producer and songwriter.
Headlines 
Headlines is a collaboration between myself and Blue Tulip frontman Jason Garrison. This song is also the lead track on the band's debut album, Raise Your Glass. Based out of San Francisco, Blue Tulip have been making a name for themselves spreading their warm guitar-driven rock sound up and down the West Coast.
