Shakedown Street, a longstanding tradition among Deadheads, is equal parts renegade flea market, art fair, and cultural exchange. At its best, it feels like a psychedelic souk run by tie-dye visionaries. At its worst, well permits have become mandatory, and this year’s restriction to just 100 vendors has caused grumbling among longtime participants. But in San Francisco, you need a permit to do just about anything.
So on Saturday, I made my way through a cold San Francisco morning to JFK Promenade with a crisp $100 bill and a mission: See what I could buy — and barter for — on Shakedown Street, the legendary vending free-for-all that blooms around every Dead show.
The strip is lined with tie-dye T-shirts, drug rugs, pins, glass pipes, crystals, stickers, and other knickknacks. At least one stand sold Grateful Dead-themed AI art.
From the outset, I knew I wanted to find unique items I couldn’t get anywhere else. (In brainstorming for this story with my editors, it was decided that buying illicit drugs would probably be one of the more boring and commonplace items to score on the Lot — though I did buy a beer for $5 and yes, I will be submitting it on my expense report.)
The first stop was a stand I’ve seen on other Shakedowns in my past experiences seeing Dead & Co. A green tent adorned with designs of bigfoot on clothing, bags, and stickers. As we spoke about the vendor’s art, I came to find out he was a well-known figure in the graffiti world who goes by the moniker Bigfoot.
A former San Francisco Art Institute student in the early 1990s, Scott, who didn’t give his last name given his history with illegal graffiti, recalled his days at SFAI with Barry McGee and Trixie Garcia, Jerry Garcia’s daughter and the rest of the Mission School.
“Ever since Jerry passed, I have just been focusing on my art hardcore,” he said with a long drawl, his eyes glazed over and looking into the distance.
His stories were worth the price alone. I dropped $20 for the blotter art and continued on with $80 in hand.
A few tents down, I encountered the most unique vendor of the day: a small stand called Dude Inn, squeezed between two massive setups. Run by Japanese Deadheads from Tokyo’s Kanagawa Prefecture, the shop offered T-shirts, stickers, and their signature item: a glow-in-the-dark Maneki Bear — an adorable, hand-painted vinyl riff on Japan’s lucky cat. Masayuki Shinha, who goes by Calmy, is the artist behind the piece.
The crew, dressed in a mix of Japanese denim and unique Deadhead gear, barely spoke English, but their love for the Dead is undying and a testament to the reach of culture. Replete with T-shirts, hats, stickers, and bandanas with Grateful Dead art and Japanese characters, the shop’s signature item was too good to pass up, so I gave up $100 for the bear, which my photographer promptly purchased from me, so I was still on track budget-wise.
As the crowd swelled and the fog thickened, I defected across the street toward the more spontaneous side-market forming across the grass. There, I grabbed a $10 “Steal Your Face” pin from a vendor named Ian Oller, who had traveled from Illinois for the show. Unfortunately, Ian forgot the pinbacks.
“Yeah, I kind of fucked up,” he shrugged.
Luckily, a neighboring seller gifted me a couple for free. As I strolled down to continue my hunt, I grabbed a $5 Tecate from a crew of clowns that traveled from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of them, who identified themself as Squeaky, said the trio had only booked a flight. They had no place to stay, no tickets, and no mode of transportation.
Having done my business, the clowns offered me some “orange sunshine acid,” that they assured me “came from very good people.” Though my bosses had not said anything about getting gifted drugs, I declined, gave them a handshake, wished them luck, and kept onward. Just then, a group of cops and park rangers came to clear out all the non-permitted vendors, hauling massive cans of nitrous oxide they had confiscated.
My favorite moment came at a beeswax candle stand run by a mom and daughter from Santa Barbara. Adorned with dancing bears and floral scents, their $30 yellow jasmine candle felt like the most wholesome purchase of the day. They’ve followed Dead & Co. since the beginning of the Sphere residency and this wasn’t their first rodeo.
Across the way were the pros: Online Ceramics, the Los Angeles clothing company that has taken Deadhead clothing to such heights that even John Mayer has sung their praises, showed up with a new line of clothing and was the clear star of the show, with a line that stretched down the street for the entire day. Unfortunately, their merch was out of my price range, so I ventured onward again.
Toward the end of my walk, I passed two cops joking while carrying away a three-liter nitrous canister; soon after, rangers began clearing out the unpermitted stalls. But before I dipped into the venue, I stopped by a glassblower from Florida named Jeremy Why, who embeds sterling silver inside his pipes. His latest featured a $40, 13-point lightning bolt. I bought it, then promptly gifted it to a nearby fan. After all, it’s all about the karma, man.