Your Favorite Books of 2025: What the Relix Community Read This Year
From backstage to the tapers section: your most-loved music books of the year
Relix Daily
December 31, 2025
December 31, 2025
From rec.music.phish to the Wetlands crowd, this is how a scene coalesced before the internet fit in your pocket.
“A Dead show wasn't the opposite of a Reagan rally by accident—it was the antithesis by design, even if Jerry never ran for office.”
“I went to the US Festival in 1982 when I was a freshman in college. I’d grown up in Palo Alto and I’d seen the Dead a couple of times at that point, but they never really made that big of an impression on me. Then that morning, when it was Breakfast with the Dead, I was really struck by what I experienced,” reflects journalist Jim Newton, author of the new book Here Beside the Rising Tide: Jerry Garcia, The Grateful Dead, and An American Awakening.
Anthony Kiedis, Red Hot Chili Peppers—Lollapalooza, July 18, 1992, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, Calif. Photo: Jay Blakesberg
“A lot of stuff comes to me in dreams. That’s a huge influence on me. I take a lot of direction from dreams. I process all the stuff that I do in my dreams—my playing, my writing, whatever.”
Before the Dead, before the Acid Tests, there were four teenagers at a Palo Alto bookstore waiting for something they couldn't name. Hunter took the notes.
10,000+ shows, one lesson: Peter Shapiro's been swinging for the fences since Wetlands, and the music never stopped.
From operating Tribecca’s legendary Wetlands club to reopening the fabled Capitol Theatre and later multiple Brooklyn Bowl venues, Peter Shapiro has ultimately earned his title as “the most notable independent concert promoter since Bill Graham,” as stated in the press release and echoed in Variety. The Music Never Stops digs into these experiences through the lens of Shapiro’s 50 most iconic shows.
On rotation in our office and broadcasting to readers worldwide on Spotify. Stay tuned for updates every Friday, and send anything you think we have to hear to [email protected].
Coffee table books, rare zines, signed editions, and tracking journals—the community voted with their shelves, not just their hearts.
A visual chapter in the band's effervescent career: 352 pages proving the spirit of the Grateful Dead never left the building.
Dead & Company: Rainbow Full of Sound presents a historical log regarding the concerts and live experiences that Blakesberg has witnessed. While the book meditates on the last decade, the photographer’s history of capturing stills of the original San Francisco jamband extends 46 years back to his late 70s-era entrance onto the counterculture scene.
For fans of the Dead, Kesey, and the era that changed everything—Foster's memoir is the visual, visceral document of how the Pranksters really rolled.
Step into the world of the Merry Pranksters with Paul Foster’s rare memoir, The Answer Is Always Yes. First published in 1995 by Kalapuya Books / Hulogosi Communications, this 199-page paperback blends Foster’s own illustrations with a lifetime of stories from the psychedelic underground.
Only 2,745 copies were printed, and only 945 were distributed, making the book nearly impossible to track down for years. We uncovered a stash of these rare books, sealed and stored in their original boxes from 1995, and have made a limited number available once again, offering collectors and fans of the era a rare chance to own this underground classic.
Deadicated: Mark A. Rodriguez on Art Installations, Archives and After All Is Said and Done: Taping the Grateful Dead, 1965-1995
Rodriguez was the first person to approach Trixie Garcia about Jerry's digital art from his Apple IIe experiments. The curiosity paid off.
“My relationship to the Grateful Dead was fairly limited until I started getting tapes of their music when I was about 17,” acknowledges artist and author Mark A. Rodriguez. “I only had three Grateful Dead albums, so I wasn’t a completist in terms of their studio discography. I had Anthem of the Sun, Wake of the Flood and Blues for Allah, which are still some of my favorite albums. But I developed a relationship with the Dead through their live recordings.”
