Dean Budnick is the editor-in-chief of Relix. He is the co-author of Blues Traveler frontman John Popper’s memoir Suck and Blow: And Other Stories I’m Not Supposed To Tell as well as Ticket Masters: The Rise of the Concert Industry and How the Public Got Scalped, which chronicles the previously untold story of the modern concert industry, revealing the origins, development and ongoing strategies of companies such as Ticketmaster, Live Nation, StubHub and the efforts of numerous independent competitors. He continues to report on the concert industry for Billboard. 

Budnick, who holds a Ph.D. from Harvard’s History of American Civilization program and a J.D. from Columbia Law School has written three prior books on improvisational music and the novel Might As Well, which explores the culture of Grateful Dead tour in the late 1980’s. He also directed the documentary Wetlands Preserved: The Story of An Activist Rock Club, which earned film festival laurels, opened nationally via First Run Features and then aired on the Sundance Channel. Budnick is the founder of Jambands.com and the co-creator of the Jammy Awards. For many years he co-hosted “Jam Nation” on XM Satellite Radio and starting in the fall of 2019, he will co-host a podcast for Cadence13 on the surprising cross-pollination of various musical acts and genres. Budnick has taught at a variety of institutions including: Harvard University, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Roger Williams University and the University of Rhode Island.