Grateful Sundays: Celebrating Eight Years of Community

By Ed Levy

Grateful Sundays, a weekly meeting of like-minded music and dance enthusiasts, many of whom have followed the Grateful Dead for generations, got its start on Mother’s Day, 2017 at Michael’s on Main in Soquel. Michael Harrison, the venue’s owner, was himself a Deadhead and had decorated the place with personal memorabilia from being on tour with the band. Unfortunately the venue suffered a kitchen fire in September of 2022, and the building was shuttered. But the musical family didn’t skip a beat, moving the beloved gathering first to the Catalyst Atrium, then to Urbani Cellar, and finally to Felton Music Hall where the community now meets regularly, packing the dancefloor with colorful revelers, friends old and new. Live music played by great musicians can transform a venue into a psychedelic transdimensional portal replete with “golden living dreams of visions and mystic crystal revelation.” Or a place to rock out and “dance like no one (or everyone, if you prefer) is watching.” Or “Church,” as many have come to call it. Grateful Sundays at Felton Music Hall is all of the above and more.

I am a tie-tyed in the wool Deadhead, and a “Spinner” at that. There are many different styles on the dance floor: groovers, bouncers, tweakers by the speakers, contact dancers, divine couples intertwined, but since the 80s I have been a “Spinner,” taking refuge in the hallways of venues with my Spinner comrades. Through reverse engineering we discovered Rumi and the Mevlevi sect of Whirling Dervishes, allow me to share a little lore:

Rumi was a great 13th century Sufi mystic, poet and spiritual leader. As the tale goes, he was walking in the street when news came to him that his Spiritual Master Shams of Tabriz was dead, rumored to have been murdered. He fell to the ground in abject grief, and then heard the rhythmic sound of a hammer making a horseshoe on an anvil. He rose up and began to do the whirling dance in the middle of the street, and through the Dance he found he was reunited with his Spiritual Master. Thus began the “Whirling Dervishes.”

Opening up to this notion as a “Spinner” can quite literally remove the veil between the Material and Spirit realms, and a great personality like Jerry Garcia becomes quite tangibly present through the words and music of his oeuvre, as do other great personalities that have gone beyond the co-creators of this music and scene: Pigpen, Keith Godchaux, Brent Mydland, Robert Hunter, Ken Kesey, Owsley Stanley, Neal Cassidy and on and on — really, the sky is the limit. Sometimes I even commune with friends, relatives, and other heroes who have passed on…

But enough about my predilections and Cosmic Bent, suffice it to say I am Grateful.

An Interview with Grateful Sunday’s Matt Hartle

I had a little Q and A with Matt Hartle, leader of Grateful Sundays, who happens to be my topmost favorite guitarist interpreting and performing the music of The Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia. I am a musician by trade, and over the years have had the good fortune to perform with Matt and I can tell you there’s nothing quite like playing music with him — it is a magical place to be. 

Any thoughts on the 8th Anniversary of Grateful Sunday? 

“What an amazing run this has been. Michael Harrison started a scene that was so sweet. With a lot of help from Melissa Bernstein, we were able to create a special new group of people that loved to get together weekly for this spiritual release. I remember one person who I met on the beach some Sunday and invited. He saw me 6 months later and said he was engaged to a girl he met that night and they come every week. I talked with another couple who found out about Grateful Sunday in an airport in New York. They wound up moving to Santa Cruz to be near the scene. It’s a pretty special thing.”

Your guitar is lovely and very distinctive, tell us more.

“The Guitar I play is made by luthier Scott Walker of Santa Cruz. It is the second electric guitar he ever made. The spotted maple on the front of it was buried underground in downtown Santa Cruz for years and he got his hands on it and made my guitar.”

For the gear-heads out there could you tell us about your pedal board and amp set-up?

“I play through a Two Rock Traditional Clean model. The amp is the prototype for that model that I bought from Bill Krenard who made it by hand. My pedalboard is always changing but I always play through a 90s vintage Qtron made by Electro Harmonix. I also play an Earth Drive distortion, which is made by Brad Sarno out of St. Louis.”

You also give private lessons on guitar and piano. Can you tell us something about your approach to teaching music?

“I love teaching and that is how I am able to afford to live in Santa Cruz. I teach piano and guitar lessons to all ages. I try to meet each student where they are and help them forward on their own path. Everyone learns differently, so I try to be super flexible and make the lessons enjoyable for every student. I get people playing the music that they like as quickly as possible.”

There’s a lot of blissed out people in the audience at Grateful Sundays. Are you able to see/feel that from your point of view, and are you able to experience that bliss yourself when you’re playing? Or does playing the music require you to keep your wits about you in a way, so that you can properly address your instrument and gear?

“I always say, the Santa Cruz Crowd is the most fun crowd to play to of all. We dance way more than other places and generally have more fun! I try my best to go there too, but of course there is an element of concentration going on. I try my best not to judge what is happening and just try to have fun”

I’ve heard you say “Grateful Dead music is the greatest music in the world.” Could you describe what makes it that for you?

“Grateful Dead songs are timeless. They stand up in the face of death and love and heartache and everything else. My friend Jerry Brown used to say, ‘Grateful Dead songs are like magic spells.’ If you know how to do the spell, you get to go to the magic place they have to offer.”

Can you pick your favorite GD studio album? Perhaps your “pick du jour?” Same for your favorite era of GD. I’m sure these can change depending on the time of day, so ‘in this moment’ if you had to choose…

“Mars Hotel,” in this moment, but it can change like the wind. My favorite Grateful Dead era is whenever Donna was in the band, ‘72 to ‘79. Not necessarily because of her singing, but it seems like she had this equalizing effect on the boys that let them be more experimental and more psychedelic.“

How would you describe what it’s like for you playing Grateful Dead music compared to Jerry Garcia Band and Jer’s solo stuff?

“Grateful Dead tends to be weirder and more expansive than JGB stuff.” 

Please tell us a little something about all the projects you are currently playing in. 

“The first successful band I played in out here was Shady Groove. We started in 2001. Most of us have moved out of the area, but we will be playing a reunion show in September. I also have Painted Mandolin which is a string band with Joe Craven, Larry Graff, and Dan Robbins. We released our debut album, which we wrote and recorded during the pandemic. China Cats have been around with the same lineup for 13 years now playing exclusively Grateful Dead. Slingshot is a new project I have with Bret Bailey and Pete Novembre. We pick a genre or group of songs to riff on and then we set out to improvise our way through a couple sets of music using that as our framework. It’s very exciting not knowing what we are going to do and having to make up a show off of the top of our heads. And then there’s Grateful Sundays. Every week I gather together some of the best musicians from around the Bay Area and we make a setlist of Dead and non-Dead related stuff to play.”

Lastly, what are some of the main things you’ve learned and embraced, musically and otherwise, from experiencing and playing the music of Jerry Garcia?

“Well, I keep trying to learn to be happy and to see the positive in everyone I meet, and try to bring out the best in people.”

Contact Matt for music lessons or booking: matthartlemusic.com
Follow Grateful Sundays on Facebook: facebook.com/GratefulSundays

Ed Levy is a Santa Cruz Mountains based singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, poet, actor, and aspiring Hare Krishna Devotee. He plays in two bands, The Jamissaries and Love Creek. He is the proud father of four beautiful children and has an adorable 19 month old granddaughter.

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