The Golden Road Tour

The “cinema novel” (a movie they dubbed “Intrepid Traveler and His Merry Band of Pranksters Search For A Kool Place”) never made a Hollywood debut and only found its home in VHS and DVD format thirty years after it was recorded. But the influence of the bus trip endured far beyond the life of the recording, largely as a result of Tom Wolfe’s successful “New Journalism” bestseller, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

The Golden Road Gallery, a traveling rock and roll art show that has been featured at many festivals in the United States from 1999 to the present, has a special collection of Ken Kesey artifacts amassed largely as a result on an ongoing working relationship with Ken Kesey’s son, Zane Kesey.

The collection covers the expanse of Ken Kesey’s career, starting with designs culled from Kesey’s mental institution sketches created for One For Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, includes rare promotional flyers for Kesey’s literary journal “Spit In The Ocean”, and carries all the way through to his final novel, “Last Go Round”…

When Kesey took his 1964 bus trip there was no archetype for the ’60s psychedelic school bus. Kesey created the Magic Bus explosion that led The Who to record the song “Magic Bus” and The Beatles to create their “Magical Mystery Tour” movie. Kesey was “too young to be a beatnik and too old to be a hippie” but his life and work spread considerable influence on art and culture, largely as a result of his celebrated writing career.

The 50 Years Furthur Exhibit hopes to educate and entertain in equal parts, celebrating the talents of this seminal author as both writer and cultural avatar.

Our first stop on the tour will be Garcia's at The Capitol Theatre, who will be hosting a free concert with the band Cabinet for the official Furthur East Coast welcome party. 

Then we'll move on to The Gathering of the Vibes, the venue where The Golden Road Gallery got its start fifteen years ago. 

After Vibes we'll be making various Bus Stops with Furthur, eventually taking us to The Peach Music Festival, Lockn, Phases of the Moon and The Great North Festival.

Our friends at Jammin On Haight and Happy Life Productions will be collaborating with The Golden Road Gallery on much of this tour. 

(ShakedownGallery.com will remain the online source for some of the best blotter art designs in the world, but future Gallery exhibits and special shows will begin to be promoted as The Golden Road Gallery.)