Eugene weekly., August 21, 2025, Page 4, Image 4

ACTIVIST ALERT
VINTAGE GRATEFUL DEAD ZINES FROM
PHILIP ZZAZA’S COLLECTION.
Photo by Reed Lucas
PROTESTS, ACTIVISM AND
MORE AROUND LANE COUNTY
BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
“Which side are you on, boy?/
Which side are you on?
My daddy was a freedom fi ghter/ And I’m
my daddy’s son/ And I will fi ght for free-
dom/ Until everybody’s won.”
— Florence Reece, activist
Upcoming Rallies, Marches, Talks,
Trainings and Protests
>> Weekly get-out-the-vote postcarding, 1
pm to 3 pm, Thursday August 21, and ongoing
at Gryff ’s Pub, 2101 Bailey Hill Road, gear up
to turn Virginia, New Jersey and Pennsylva-
nia blue on Nov 4. For more info Pandi96743@
yahoo.com
THE GRATEFUL DEAD
COLLECTION THAT WILL
KEEP ON TRUCKIN’
>> To replace the mainstream parties with
a party of, by, and for the people, We the
People Party Lane County meet August 22
and every other Friday 11:30 am to 1:30 pm
at Tall Firs Cafe & Events, 1488 18th Street,
Springfi eld. wtplane.org and wethepeoplelan-
ecounty@proton.me.
Time Travelers Antique Mall in
Springfield navigates their new
Grateful Dead collection by honoring
the band’s original intentions
>> Fill Your Community Cup Bloc Party,
11 am to 3 pm, Sunday, August 24, Armitage
Park, the fi eld to the left of the bathrooms.
Free plants, snacks, activities and more.
>> Workers Over Billionaires Protest,
10:30 am, Sunday, August 31, Park Blocks, 8th
and Oak. 50501 Eugene. Mobilize.us.
Ongoing
>> Resist! Persist! Repeat! Weekly Protest,
10 am to 11 am, Mondays, corners of 29th and
Willamette Street.
>> Weekly vigils against the genocide in
Gaza, 5 pm, Wednesdays, Planet Versus Penta-
gon, old federal building, corner of 7th & Pearl.
>> Stop the Cuts, noon Fridays, Eugene
Veterans Clinic, 3355 Chad Drive.
>> Signmaking at MECCA, 11 am to 6 pm
Tuesday through Saturday, help with sign-
making 11 am to 1 pm Wednesdays. Paint up to
four signs for a donation of $5 to $10. MECCA,
555 High Street.
>> Stand in solidarity with Food Not Bombs
feeding the community, 4 pm Fridays, Food
Not Bombs, Downtown Park Blocks, 8th and
Oak, Instagram.com/foodnotbombs_eugene.
>> Protest Trump’s attacks on immi-
grants, noon to 5 pm Saturdays, in front of
the Creswell AM/PM on Oregon Avenue.
>> Ongoing information on Avelo: The
Deportation Airline, which fl ies in and out
of Eugene through Dec. 2, visit bit.ly/AveloOut-
OfEUG. The Avelo Out of Eugene coalition is
working on other eff orts to prevent more/
similar fl ights and expand focus to include
other companies that have ties to DHS/ICE.
AveloOutofEUG@gmail.com.
Email Editor@EugeneWeekly.com with “Activist
Alert” in the subject line to add protests to this listing,
and subscribe to the Activist Alert newsletter at
EugeneWeekly.com/newsletter to get this information in
your inbox on Wednesdays!
4
August 21, 2025
BY SAVANNAH BROWN
ime Travelers Antique
Mall in Springfield is
as much an experience
as it is a store. It is a
13,000-square-foot build-
ing, packed wall-to-wall with anything
and everything one can possibly imag-
ine. Reed Lucas, the co-owner of Time
Travelers, says, “We are a collection of
about 53 individual business owners
that are dealers at our antique mall,
and they scour the entire Pacific
Northwest and even into Northern
California for retro vintage antiques.”
One such dealer is Mark Kronquist,
who found and acquired the massive
Grateful Dead vintage collection of
lifelong camp follower and sound
technician, Philip Zzaza. Though he
wasn’t a Deadhead himself, Kronquist
says “it’s cool, and it’s history.” As a
fourth generation Oregonian, he knew
the signifi cance that the Grateful Dead
has to Oregon — performed 10 times
in Eugene — and he knew just where
to take it.
Zzaza’s collection, which he had
been building since he was 13 years
old, is now entirely for sale at Time
Travelers. Coincidentally, Time Trav-
elers acquired and staged this collec-
tion August 9, the 30th anniversary of
frontman Jerry Garcia’s death.
Head to the antique mall’s hall of
music, which Lucas (who is a musi-
cian himself ) calls “The Experience.”
There, you’ll fi nd this Grateful Dead
collection featuring many rare and
one-of-a-kind gems from the band’s
history. These include ticket stubs
from many original Grateful Dead
concerts dating as far back as 1971,
T
T-shirts, books, magazines, postcards,
original bootlegged zines about Grate-
ful Dead news and original concert
posters. One of the posters is from
their 1990 Europe tour and never
made it into circulation, making it a
one-of-a-kind, extremely rare piece.
The highlight of this collection is
the over 1,000 cassette tapes recorded
directly from Dead shows from the
late-1960s through the 1990s. Unlike
most music acts, the Dead encour-
aged and supported bootlegging and
sharing their concerts. As a jam band,
their music relied mostly on improvi-
sation and playing where the vibra-
tional grooves took them. Therefore,
no two concerts were ever the same
regardless of the setlist.
Deadheads would record their
concerts and trade them among one
another in order to experience as
much of the music as possible. Zzaza,
however, recorded more than most.
“When most people were going on
their fi rst dates, he was going to his
fi rst Dead concert,” Kronquist says.
According to Lucas and Kronquist,
Zzaza had been a “camp follower”
of the Grateful Dead since he was 13,
which means that he camped around
and followed the band for most every
concert he could until the late 1990s.
Eventually, after spending enough
time with the band and going to
enough concerts, he became an occa-
sional sound guy for their shows.
Lucas says most of these cassettes
came about when Zzaza “would plug
into the decks and get the recording
straight off the soundboard.”
While many of these tapes were his
own recordings, he also had traded
concert sets, marked by the original
hand-drawn designs on the labeling
paper from the fans who had them
fi rst.
When Time Travelers acquired
these items, Lucas says, “We received
feedback from some of the people who
had the biggest knowledge about what
to do with the collection.” He says he
got help from members of Eugene’s
huge Deadhead community on how
to ethically handle a collection with
so much value, while still respecting
the Grateful Dead’s rules and inten-
tions when it comes to bootlegging.
The biggest thing he learned is
that the Dead allowed bootlegging
and sharing, so long as the recordings
were not sold for profi t.
As a result, Lucas is charging only
for the cost it takes to process and
display them. Every single cassette
tape, regardless of the year it was
recorded, is $5. These include several
Eugene shows that were recorded at
Autzen Stadium. He says he’s already
had a customer buy a tape from the
concert where he met his wife.
Lucas says the Deadhead commu-
nity also taught him that “we can’t
record the tapes and release them
online or anything like that, even
though there might be some just
incredible concerts. So what we
decided was, well, let’s make sure
we make it available to the Dead-
head community here in Eugene and
Springfi eld.” He says if you make an
appointment with him, you can pick
one cassette a day to record for free,
so long as you bring your own sound
equipment.
Lucas clarifi es that “Grateful Dead
fans probably aren’t going to fi nd a
ton here that they don’t already have,
because a lot of people who are inter-
ested in listening to the tapes, they’ve
traded until they’ve had all the ones
they want,” he says.
“But for people who have never
experienced the Grateful Dead,
there’s something different about
hearing analog tape.” With this
vintage medium, he says, “You get
that warmth that you maybe wouldn’t
get from a digital recording.”
“The Grateful Dead had two
homes,” Kronquist says. “Eugene
and San Francisco.” Kronquist says
that Zzaza’s family debated donating
this collection to Goodwill, or even
McMenamin’s Portland Barley Mill
Pub (which is known for its Grateful
Dead memorabilia). In the end, he
says they decided they wanted the
collection to go to the people who
would appreciate, understand and
have full access to it.
“I’m a fi nder of interesting things,”
he says. “This stuff just seems to
cross my path, and I bring them to
the places they belong.”
Time Travelers Antique Mall is open 11
am to 6 pm Monday through Saturday,
and noon to 5 pm Sunday, at 2020 Main
Street, Springfi eld. For more information,
visit TimeTravelersAntiqueMall.com. For
questions or to book an appointment with
Reed Lucas to record a cassette tape for free,
call 541-357-5468.
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