After unexpectedly losing his pregnant wife and unborn child, a guitar player from a Grateful Dead cover band finds redemption and a path forward through his musical community. 

Laid low by grief after losing his young wife Chalotte, suddenly a single father and struggling with his lifelong demons, Lonn Calanca must find a way to provide a home for his young son and meaning in their shattered lives. He sees a spiritual path forward and is provided an economic lifeline through the music of the storied jam band the Grateful Dead. But dogged by the shadow of mortality, losing close friends and experiencing a near-death brush with a heart condition himself, he must carry on to find triumph and salvation in the arms of the underground society that makes up the community of Dead followers.

Almost sixty years after the Grateful Dead formed in Palo Alto, Ca.,the diaspora of the band’s legacy has spread to more than 800 cover bands across the US. Each of these bands has created community around the loose template of the Dead’s songs and show format. Lonn Calanca is the leader of Let It Grow, one of these bands quietly providing an alternative to mainstream American life. Why is this community so important to its members? What does the legacy of the Grateful Dead’s catalog and their dedication to an improvisational musical form and tireless pursuit of the “now” have to do with the phenomenon of these cover bands? What role do mind altering substances like marijuana, alcohol and hallucinogens play in the experience and economy of the shows?

“No Simple Highway” follows Lonn, a charismatic bearded and dreadlocked Jerry-like child of 90’s wander culture, through a summer of festivals and home-grown indie shows. Through first-person verite, the film examines what it takes to run an independent band in modern America while raising a young child as a single parent. Lonn tirelessly arrives hours ahead of a gig and single-handedly sets up lights and a PA, carefully preparing his venues. The ensuing shows are raucous bacchanalian festivals where audiences of all ages congregate in improvised spaces to let their hair down and commune. The film culminates with Lonn being presented a custom-built guitar by the Grateful Guitars Foundation, a national nonprofit dedicated to keeping the Dead’s legacy alive. He closes out the summer triumphantly taking the stage at an epic Dead festival in Golden Gate Park.

The film is always on the move, equal parts Don’t Look Back, The Fountain (for the out-of-time love story of Lonn And Chalotte) and Anvil! The Story of Anvil. It takes us on a ride inside the lives of real working American musicians. Interviews with Lonn and his band members and fans populate the film. We’ll also interview the founder of the Grateful Guitars Foundation and film the luthier creating Lonn’s guitar. Psychedelic animations reminiscent of Yellow Submarine and the Wall fill in bits of story from the past. We make extensive use of archival video, social media posts and photos of Challote and Lonn together; while she’s no longer in the physical world, her spirit accompanies Lonn on his journey.  

The film also includes some of the higher profile members of the “Dead” community. We interview members of “Dark Star,” the most prominent Dead cover band in the world and Trey Anastasio of the band Phish, who is widely considered the heir to Jerry’s legacy. Members of bands like Widespread Panic and the newly emerging hot Jam Band Goose make an appearance. We talk to John Mayer who is sitting in for Jerry on the new “Dead & Co. shows.” What is the significance of this music and the legacy? Finally, we catch up with Bob Weir, the baby-faced straight man partner to Jerry Garcia’s Einstein-like musical genius. We talk to Bob about the proliferation of Dead cover bands and what he thinks of these groups and their fiefs in what is basically a non-commercial wink-and-a-nod Dead franchise. In a thrilling turn, Lonn meets Bob and the two sit down together for a discussion. 

Lonn’s grief is a proxy for global sadness and tragedy. Is it a fluke that the Dead emerged from the same geographical area as other profound technological innovations like social media and personal computing? In a deeply polarized world, facing environmental devastation and territorial tribalism, what is the value of these small integrated communities? Is this its own kind of species-shifting innovation? Is there something in these small grass-roots groups that provides a blueprint for that future?