China Cat Chat

There’s something happening on Sunday evenings. It’s not a concert.It’s not a tour.There’s no parking lot, no ticket line, no lights going down. And still… people are showing up. It's John Mayer's "Grateful Dead Listening Party" on his SiriusXM Channel (that's currently Channel 4 on SiriusXM). In different cities. Different rooms. Different time zones.The same hour unfolding across all of them. A song begins. And somewhere, someone else is listening too. For a long time, the Grateful Dead...

On Listening, Mistakes, and How the Music Continues There’s a moment that keeps returning to us from one of the June 2024 shows at the Sphere. It didn’t involve spectacle — and there was plenty of that in the room. It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t dramatic. It lasted only a few seconds. And yet, it felt like one of the most honest expressions of what this music has always been about. On the night of June 22, the band was transitioning from All Along The Watchtower. The space in the room was...

An Open Editor's Letter In January 2026, after the passing of Bob Weir, we wrote a letter to our community about grief, continuity, and what it means to stay inside the music as it changes. We’re sharing it openly here, for anyone who finds their way to China Cat Chat. Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you. Hey-hey-hey, your rolling river. Editor's Note Staying in the Song Published in the January 16, 2026 China Cat Chat issue We arrived back home from a week in Paris early on New Year’s Day. It...