Northshire Bookstore Event: Mike Ayers on “Sharing in the Groove: The Untold Story of the ‘90s Jam Band Explosion and the Scene That Followed” with Jeff from EQX

(Manchester Center, VT) On Tuesday, July 29, Northshire will host celebrated music journalist Mike Ayers to celebrate his latest book “Sharing in the Groove: The Untold Story of the ‘90s Jam Band Explosion and the Scene That Followed” in conversation with Jeff, the host of the popular EQX jam band show Jam n’ Toast. 

Sharing in the Groove is a rich examination of an underdog genre that helped define the 1990s musical landscape—a scene that paved the way for modern-day cultural institutions such as the Bonnaroo Music Festival and kept the Grateful Dead ethos alive. It was also a world with its own values and its own unique interactions with fame, record labels, MTV, drugs, and success.

As a veteran music journalist, Mike Ayers has been to more than 130 Phish shows, 20 Grateful Dead shows, and countless others by the bands profiled in this book. In the mid-90s, he stumbled upon a job working backstage for Phish as a prep cook in exchange for all-access passes for the night’s show, and ended up doing this for years. Later in the decade, he dabbled in the taping scene and recorded numerous shows that are still circulated online today. 

Filled with anecdotes and stories directly from the musicians, promoters, managers, roadies, producers, label executives, and fans that lived this scene, Sharing in the Groove is a fun, fast-paced oral history that will appeal to music lovers everywhere.

“Sharing in the Groove offers a captivating look at the ways in which this cohort of creatives navigated the music industry during its final wave of major-label-signing sprees—before the digital revolution reshaped the landscape.” —Booklist (Starred Review)

“Mike Ayers has done the work of shining some light on a woefully under-covered corner of modern music. In the process, he finds the kinds of stories that even the most ardent tape collectors haven’t heard before.” —Steven Hyden, author of There Was Nothing You Could Do, Long Road, and This Isn’t Happening

Mike Ayers is a seasoned music and culture journalist, with work published in Billboard, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, TIME Magazine, Reuters, Uproxx, and Relix. His first book, One Last Song: Conversations on Life, Death and Music, was published in 2020 and picked as one of Variety‘s Best Music Books of the year.

For more information on this or other events, email events@northshire.com, or visit the Northshire Bookstore, originally founded in 1976, has locations in Manchester, Vermont and Saratoga Springs, NY as well as at Northshire.com. Our large but intimate general bookstores carry the largest selection of categories and genres including new & used fiction, history, cooking, arts and rare author-signed editions. We also have entire floors devoted to Children’s Books and toys, a full line of stationery, magazines, music, cards, calendars, locally-sourced foods and many fine gifts from clothing to jewelry. Open to the public daily from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM and 24/7 online with free shipping at www.northshire.com