Deadhead Lent and the Days Between

Russell’s Round Room 

Photo Credit: Dave Brickler
Photo Credit: Dave Brickler, All Photos Via www.gdao.org
by Russell S. Glowatz

Take any Grateful Dead song, and one can find countless meanings within. There is no exception with “Days Between,” the last true fusion of the beautiful minds of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter. A few songs have taken up special meaning since the death of Garcia, and with “He’s Gone,” Days Between has become a notable term in the Grateful Dead lexicon. While the ultimate Days Between, a celebration of the life and times of Jerry Garcia, takes place between August 1st and August 9th, the birth-date and death-date of Garcia respectively, I contend that the run-up to the Days Between, from the anniversary of the last Grateful Dead show on July 9th, to Jerry’s birthday on August 1st are special days as well, and compile our symbolic Lent.

While the Days Between came to fruition, first and foremost as a Jerry holiday, as the years go by it seems that this extended month-long observance is evolving into something greater. It has become a celebration of all we’ve lost, and all we still have in our deadhead community as a whole. This is our reflection time, an opportunity to deal with unresolved grief, a moment to look upon the past year, wrestle with the good and the bad, and even atone for any misdeeds we may have done. Truly a time for karmic contemplation, and joyous communion.

If one were to call the Grateful Dead community a religious phenomenon, or at the very least a spiritual one, Deadhead Lent and the Days Between are our High Holy Days. As certain days of significance, for Christians, scatter the path in the lead up to Easter, starting with Ash Wednesday as the symbolic beginning to conventional Lent, observances such as Palm Sunday and Good Friday cap off the Holy Week leading to a final celebration of the biblical anniversary of Jesus’ Resurrection. While I am near certain that neither Jerry Garcia, nor any other deceased members of the Grateful Dead have been resurrected, the handful of anniversaries observed during this month-long high holy period serve as symbolic reminders of various crossroads in Grateful Dead history. Deadhead Lent calls to mind a time when many deadheads found themselves wandering through the metaphorical wilderness in the early post-Jerry days. And while some essential moments fall outside the realm of these days, many use this time as a spiritual recognition of those anniversaries as well.

While Deadhead Lent is very different from conventional Lent, it embodies the lead up to our Holy Week that is the Days Between. It is in essence pertinent to our overall celebration for those that passed on, and a commemoration of those lost days in the immediate aftermath of the final Grateful Dead show and Jerry’s death. No one gives up meat, smoking, or anything else for Deadhead Lent, yet in similar ways, many Deadheads can get contemplative during this time. They often mourn community losses, atone for karmic sins, and ultimately strive to be penitent, cleansing themselves for the year that lies ahead. As Deadhead Lent winds down to a close, our Holy Week begins with Jerry’s birthday. This month of solemn anniversaries and jubilating remembrance has become our holiday of holidays. Since more or less every single show or event we attend is in spirit a holy day, this month provides a time for those that may not or can not actively attend shows to participate in mourning and celebration as well. It remains to be the highest of holy days celebrated by deadheads on an international level.

Yet since nothing is really defined within the deadhead community, no edict or announcement regarding these days was ever put forth in an official sense. Rather the observance emerged organically after Jerry passed on. The hazy denotation of the term Days Between encapsulates the non-dogmatic nature of the band and community’s ideals as reflected through various GD song lyrics. And while Deadhead Lent remains an informal notion, people have been marking this occasion for years without truly designating the space in time. Ask any deadhead why and when the Days Between occur, and what they do and how they feel in the leading weeks, while varying, you will get fairly similar answers. It is a tacitly approved holiday, celebrated on informal, personal, and sometimes community wide levels.

Miner, Stephen Dorian, “Vince Welnick,” Grateful Dead Archive Online, http://www.gdao.org/items/show/833345.
Photo Credit: Stephen Dorian Miner
Photo Credit: Michael A. Conway
Photo Credit: Michael A. Conway

As we mark the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead saga, 20 years since the last Grateful Dead show and Jerry’s passing, Deadhead Lent and the Days Between take on special meaning this year, and are likely being celebrated, in one way or another, by more deadheads than ever in years past. Whether it’s making a tribute post on Facebook for the anniversary of Brent’s last show or his death (25 years ago on 7/23/90 & 7/26/90 respectively), or putting on a show from ’77 in honor of Keith’s passing (35 years ago on 7/23/80), deadheads are making small gestures in remembrance across this great green Earth. It could be a blog post (as this is), heading to a grassroots type festival such as Grateful Fest in Ohio, or hitting up a bigger Dead oriented fest like Gathering of The Vibes in Connecticut (celebrating 20 years!) for Jerry’s birthday weekend. Large and small, deadheads are making gestures and pilgrimages alike in celebration of our unique community, and the boys who started it all, the members of the Grateful Dead.

Photo Credit: Robert
Photo Credit: Robert “Bob” A. Minkin
Keith Playing Guitar

So over this month of contemplation, consideration, and karmic realignment, I am sincerely hoping that all the deadheads out there, near and far, have or will take a moment from their day to celebrate in their own special way. There is no definitive procedure to properly take part in Deadhead Lent and the Days Between; you only need to consider yourself somehow a part of this harmonious circus, and do what you feel is special. If our cosmic energy aligns throughout these days, perhaps Jerry, Pigpen, Keith, Brent, Vince, various crew and GD family members of past time, will feel our collective stream of goodwill beaming towards them, wherever they are.

“There were days
and there were days
and there were days between
Summer flies and August dies
the world grows dark and mean…

Photo Source: Grateful Dead Archive Online All photos via www.gdao.org/
Photo Source: Grateful Dead Archive Online. All Photos Via www.gdao.org

…there were days between
polished like a golden bowl
the finest ever seen
Hearts of Summer held in trust
still tender, young and green…” —Robert Hunter

Stay green my friends, and through the good times and bad, do your best to keep the spirit alive. Happy Days!

© Watts Glow Grateful Productions, 2015

~~~ If the mood strikes you and it’s not too personal, share below (or on FacebookTwitter or any other medium) how you will be, or have been, celebrating this year. And please like our Facebook page, Grateful Globotz, or follow us on Twitter @GratefulGlobotz, so you won’t miss any future postings out of our camp. #DaysBetween ~~~

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz_gT0M9q-4&w=420&h=315]

Jam Bands & Politics Rarely Mix (Or Do They? You Decide!): The Survey

The Dead w/ President Obama & First Lady, source: rollingstone.com
The Dead w/ President Obama & First Lady at the Mid-Atlantic Inaugural Ball                            source: rollingstone.com
by Russell S. Glowatz

Like oil and water, politics and jam bands rarely mix. Yet many jam bands support political causes, and occasionally even support or oppose political candidates. When the latter is attempted, it’s often to mixed reaction from fans. I can recall being at a Crosby, Stills & Nash concert at the Beacon Theater in 2005 at the height of George W. Bush’s unpopularity. When David Crosby went off on a rant about the politics of ‘W,’ a fan in the crowd bellowed at him to shut up and play. Crosby told the fan that if he doesn’t like it, then he could get the eff out of the theater. The crowd ruptured in applause to Crosby’s response in dealing with the heckler. While many fans would agree with that disgruntled concert attendee’s sentiment, but would not yell as much in the middle of a performance, many other fans believe that these musicians have given us so much, and paid their dues time and time again, that whatever political crusades performers’ may go on, it is their right to do so.

When The Dead reunited for a concert at Bryce Jordan Center, on the Penn State University campus in October of 2008, many Deadheads expressed disappointment that the godfathers’ of jam would abandon their, for the most part, apolitical stance to support then candidate and Senator Barack Obama. Fans expressed their disapproval (and approval) on forums such as Facebook, MySpace (yes MySpace), and Twitter. Regardless of mixed feelings, the show went off without a hitch, and at the end of the concert, Mickey Hart came to the microphone, and echoed the sentiment expressed in the now famous Hunter S. Thompson quote, that “if every Deadhead in Florida had voted [in 2000] the world would be a different place.” As Mickey’s reading of that quote suggests, the band’s inaction during the 2000 Bush v. Gore presidential campaign spurred The Dead to life in respect to intervening in national politics.

The same Hunter S. Thompson quote is said to have inspired Head Count to set up shop, in 2004, at concerts and music festivals across the country to encourage jam band fans (and now music fans in general) to register to vote. While mixed feelings have certainly been expressed by jam band fans about inserting politics into our community, most have no issue with Head Count’s effort to register voters, as they do not encourage fans how to vote, as long as they ultimately head to the polls and do their civic duty. Perhaps Head Count doesn’t push people to vote for particular candidates or political parties, because it is widely believed that the jam band community consists of mostly liberal-minded people. I can not be certain if that is their intent, because I am in no way affiliated with Head Count, but feel free to check out their website here to read about all they do (and if you have not done so already, register to vote while you’re at it!).

While our community may lean liberal on the surface, I am certain that we do not all identify that way. Ann Coulter, well-known conservative talking head, is a devout Deadhead and jam band fan. She can be seen in the below photo posing in front of a Grateful Dead, Europe 1990 Tour poster. Coulter also once dated a taper, and due to that relationship, has an “excellent collection of tapes, including Mickey Hart rapping Fire on the Mountain.” In a 2006 interview with Jambands.com, Coulter suggested that “true Deadheads are what liberals claim to be but aren’t,” yet she also implied that we are a ‘pull yourself up by the bootstraps’ type of community, and would fit more succinctly in the conservative camp. While Coulter may be drinking a kool-aid all her own, maybe she has a point. In researching, I have not been able to come up with any polling information regarding jam band fans political affiliations, so no one really knows where we all stand (comment below if you know of any studies).

Source: liveforlivemusic.com
Source: liveforlivemusic.com

So what we are going to do here today is ask you nine survey questions to gauge where you fall in the political spectrum, and how you feel about politics being inserted into our community. The poll itself is not scientific, but my hope is that if enough of you participate, we will discover some overriding patterns that define our community in the political sense. The poll will be anonymous, easy, and quick to take. The polling period will end at noon on Monday, August 3rd, which gives us roughly two weeks to get as many jam band fans as possible to participate, so please share far and wide!

You must be of voting age to participate, so those of you that are under eighteen years of age, I am going to ask you to please sit this one out. Don’t worry, there will be more polls, experiments, and quizzes for you to participate in down the road.

Whether you are political or apolitical, please lend a hand with this survey! We value your opinions, and without them, this whole experiment will not work. In the upcoming weeks, stay tuned for the follow-up article on this poll you took part in! So you surely see it when it comes out, please like the Grateful Globotz Facebook page, or follow us on Twitter @GratefulGlobotz. And if you are unsure of where you fall on the political spectrum, definitely take the Political Compass test (a fun and enlightening thing to do if you know where you fall on the spectrum as well!–If you find the results at all confusing, read deeper on their page, it’s absolutely worthwhile and fascinating).

Now sit back, and have fun taking the Jam Bands & American Politics survey!

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© Watts Glow Grateful Productions, 2015

Dead Test: Trey versus Jerry (versus the Other Ones)

WE WANT YOU! To take the DEAD TEST!

Source: pinterest.com Photo Credit: Matt Groenig?
Source: pinterest.com
Photo Credit: Matt Groenig?
by Rich Saltz & Russell S. Glowatz

After Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of Grateful Dead, most of us have been overwhelmingly positive regarding the experience, and the choice the Core Four made in choosing Trey Anastasio as lead guitarist for the five show run. Yet some remain critical of Trey, and even after throwing down, they do not believe he was the right selection. And while much criticism has boiled to the surface over Fare Thee Well, this friction seems to stem from the central question in an ongoing debate that has been happening for the last two decades: can anyone truly fulfill the role of Jerry Garcia in all the various Grateful Dead offshoots and incarnations?

The simple answer is no. There’s no one out there that will truly, 100%, replace the magic that Jerry brought to the stage, time and time again, over a thirty year period. No one can truly mirror Jerry, nor should they. Yet despite this debate, several exemplary musicians have dared to cross the threshold through the years, and bring their own style and cadence into play for our listening pleasure. They’ve created new magic, their own magic, and shared it with the rest of us. These men should be honored; not for emulating Garcia, but for stepping into a situation where, no matter what they do, or how they perform, they will be roasted one way or another. Whether they aim towards replication or reinvention, criticism is often the hallmark of many of these performances. As deadheads, we are a critical bunch, and while it may be unfair to compare the stylings of these men to Garcia himself, we often can not help ourselves.

Nevertheless, each of those that dared are outstanding performers in their own right…the former GD band members would have never chosen them otherwise. For the rumored upcoming tour, the three band members that are allegedly taking John Mayer with them, would not be if it wasn’t for his consummate skills, and his understanding of the Dead canon as a whole. You do not have to be a fan of John Mayer music to appreciate his competence as a guitarist extraordinaire. The band realizes this, and as deadheads we should respect the band’s decisions, and applaud the musicianship of Mayer and the rest these men, even despite our personal opinions.

In the spirit of celebration of 50 years of transcendent music, we present this quiz to test your wits in respect to a handful of these guitar players’ stylings. Rich Saltz, a fellow Deadhead, edited together the below Soundcloud clips, without any labeling, so we deadheads can challenge our preconceived notions about who our favorite deadhead family guitarists have been. With an aim towards open-mindedness, please press play on the below Soundcloud file, and while you’re listening, scroll down and take the quiz. Choose the lead guitarist that you think is playing in each respective clip. Rich chose to take six versions of the first break of Morning Dew, played by six different guitarists, and leave it up to our wits, experience, and overall knowledge to guess who’s who. The original intent was to listen to each clip without the added prejudice of knowing who is playing them, and then decide which one is your favorite…in upping the ante, we’re now asking you to identify each respective player.

While many of you will surely hypothesize correctly, we imagine many of you will not as well. And in making errors in identification, perhaps some folks will drop their preconceived notions relating to who is better than who. If even through doing this, one person develops a new respect for one or more of these impeccable guitarists, then this experiment will be absolutely worthwhile. The most important thing is to be kind through this process, and in any comments thereafter. Criticism is fine, but try to make it constructive and purposeful, and most of all, respectful.

And while only six guitarists were chosen for this test (Jerry Garcia, Trey Anastasio, John Kadlecik, Stu Allen, Jimmy Herring, and Warren Haynes), many more deserve a shout out. Including those mentioned, we’d like to thank the whole bunch of Dead family lead guitarists for continuing to spread the music we hold dear to our hearts. So thank you Steve Kimock, Mark Karan, Jeff Mattson, Larry Campbell, Barry Sless, Jeff Pevar, Al Schnier, Jackie Greene, Robben Ford, Derek Trucks, John Scofield, Stanley Jordan, Keller Williams, and likely a few others as well, for giving us your best over these past couple decades.

Now press play, sit back, and enjoy the Dead Test! And most importantly, have fun!

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© Watts Glow Grateful Productions, 2015

Please like our Facebook page, Grateful Globotz, or follow us on Twitter @GratefulGlobotz, so you don’t miss any future postings out of our camp.

We Are Everywhere: Musings on the International Deadhead Diaspora

stealie-low
Source: forum.phish.net, (If original artist is out there, please contact me for proper credit).
by Russell S. Glowatz

So with my second blog post on this page, Dear Youngins: A Message To Post-Jerry Deadheads, I went viral. Well, as viral as one can go within the online Dead community. Through this unexpected experience, and also through the excellent tracking tools WordPress provides for bloggers, I had a long-held suspicion confirmed. A suspicion that many of you likely have: that we are EVERYWHERE.

Grateful Dead is a uniquely American band. Everything about the members, songwriters, music, lyrics, and past shows, oozes something that is particularly American. Due to this, and the fact that the band only seldom toured outside the States and Canada, most Deadheads are American. Yet a dedicated Deadhead Diaspora has emerged outside of North America as well, intricately connected to the band and the community by an appreciation for the songs, transcendent jams, ideals, and spirituality that the Grateful Dead phenomenon has to offer.

A diaspora is a group of people with a commonly held cultural identity that, for whatever reason, are settled far from their ancestral homeland. The world Jewish population became a diaspora community with their initial expulsion from the Kingdom of Judah (present day Israel) during the Babylonian Captivity. Many people from war-torn countries that have become refugees make up diasporas of their own, such as the Ugandan Diaspora. The Tibetan Diaspora emerged as China occupied Tibet and the 14th and current Dalai Lama made a pilgrimage from his homeland, with many followers, in order to escape the aggression of their occupiers in the late 1950’s. As Deadheads, our circumstance is a little different. We weren’t personally expelled from our homeland, nor were our genetic ancestors (unless you happen to be a part of another diaspora community as well), yet I contend that members of the Grateful Dead and their extended family were expelled from their home when the scene in the Haight District became untenable after the influx of aspiring “hippies” during the “Summer of Love” in 1967. While no longer in existence, the Haight district of the mid-sixties embodied the utopian ideals that many Deadheads hold near and dear. As Deadheads, this is our ancestral homeland.

This deterioration of the Haight-Ashbury scene, and the increased popularity of the band throughout the greater San Francisco area, and the country as a whole, encouraged the first out-of-state touring for the Grateful Dead. Their first East Coast tour was during the summer of 1967, where the Dead found themselves playing a show in New York City, and then at SUNY Stony Brook campus out on eastern Long Island. These shows encouraged enterprising folks who liked what they heard to promote shows for the Dead on Long Island and throughout New York in the years to come. What emerged was the first diaspora community, composed of New York Deadheads. The New York Deadhead community remains an essential part of the Deadhead Diaspora, evidenced by Phil Lesh’s choice to play residencies at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, NY, since he’s retired from touring. I go into greater detail of how this went down in another piece I wrote, which I link here. As the Dead toured North America, what happened in New York transpired for other regions and what I coined as the Grateful Dead Diaspora truly emerged by the end of the seventies, as Deadheads from across the continent identified commonly with the band and their ideals.

Now the emergence of a worldwide Deadhead population couldn’t have only been spurred by touring, since the band toured outside the country merely a few times during their career. Despite that, through taper networks, the selling of studio albums, and Deadheads’ early adoption of the internet, there is a healthy GD community outside the bounds of North America. While many of these are certainly American expatriates, I am certain many of them are not. To use one country as an example…a country that has an inclination towards American music possibly due to the United States post-WWII occupation and continued presence therein, that based on my stats happens to have the largest international Deadhead Diaspora community (outside of Canada), here are three photos involving two Japanese Deadheads…

Exhibit A, a photo of a Japanese Deadhead holding up her sign looking for a miracle ticket at the Fare Thee Well shows in Chicago.

JapanHead
 Source: Anonymous Japanese Deadhead

Exhibit B, a poster made by an enterprising Japanese Deadhead named Miki Saito.

ark--38305-g42b8zdc-is-1

Exhibit C, a letter from Miki Saito to the band.

ark--38305-g42b8zdc-is-3ark--38305-g42b8zdc-is-4

Source: Saito, Miki, “Japan Deadheads poster with letter,” Grateful Dead Archive Online, accessed July 10, 2015, http://www.gdao.org/items/show/825781.

Also emanating the vibrant nature of the Japan Deadhead community is Exhibit D, Japan’s premier Grateful Dead cover band. Here is a link to an article, on Jambands.com, showing Joe Russo performing with Warlocks of Tokyo in 2014. Please click the link for set list information. If I ever venture to Tokyo, I will surely check this group out…they can noodle and jam with the best of ’em, and absolutely capture the vibe in their music.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnqFQqTPj54]

Back to the present day, and my widely dispersed blog post (I don’t mention this to boast, but to show definitive evidence of our presence amongst the people of the world). WordPress allows bloggers to see where their posts are being read, and what I’ve confirmed is that we are on every continent on Earth (excluding Antarctica, although I’d bet a miracle ticket that there is a Deadhead or two amongst the hundreds of folks currently wintering in that frozen tundra). Here is a list of countries and territories confirmed to have Deadheads currently living within their borders (in order, from the most Deadheads reading in each country, to the least):

United States, Canada, Japan, United Kingdom, Israel, Germany, Brazil, Australia, India, Spain, Italy, Mexico, France, New Zealand, Netherlands, South Korea, Thailand, Sweden, Ireland, Austria, US Virgin Islands, Denmark, Norway, Costa Rica, Philippines, Belgium, Portugal, Russia, Finland, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Slovenia, Taiwan, Singapore, Argentina, Romania, Colombia, Vietnam, Bahamas, Anguilla, United Arab Emirates, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, Cambodia, Jordan, Hungary, Jamaica, Nigeria, Rwanda, Peru, Chile, Ghana, Andorra, Antigua & Barbuda, Indonesia, Uruguay, Nicaragua, Grenada, Fiji, Guam, Qatar, Tanzania, Poland, Aland Islands, Nepal, Malaysia

Now I decided not to list the individual numbers of Deadheads in each country and territory because these stats are not scientific in the least. They do prove Deadheads live in each country listed, but only the ones that read my blog, and more certainly exist. Some of these sectors of the Deadhead Diaspora appear to be extremely small, yet once again their existence proves that we are here, there, and EVERYWHERE.

We are a worldwide scattered community consisting of people who all share a commonly held identity based around the Grateful Dead, and more importantly the Deadhead community as a whole. Within our Deadhead subculture certainly exists diversity; diversity in nationality, religion, and opinion. Show me two Deadheads, and they will give you fifteen differing opinions. We are a very opinionated bunch! Yet our disagreements exist due to our strongly held convictions about the band, community, collective history, spirituality, ideals, and culture we have in part created, advanced, and consistently been a component of throughout our developed lives. Some of us are more dedicated than others, but each of us identifies with our reciprocal symbols, knowing that we are far from alone on this “bright blue ball just spinning, spinning free.”

© Watts Glow Grateful Productions, 2015

For a more detailed look into the emergence of the Grateful Dead Diaspora, and how we resemble a religious community, go check out Unconventional Church: The Emergence of the Grateful Dead Diaspora.

And please like our Facebook page, Grateful Globotz, or follow us on Twitter @GratefulGlobotz, so you don’t miss any future postings out of our camp.

Dear Youngins: A Message To Post-Jerry Deadheads

 

youngins
Source: Charles Shultz
by Russell S. Glowatz

This is a message for all those post-Jerry deadheads out there that came of age after 1995, and on occasion feel like they’re perpetually longing for something that occurred before their time. I was inspired to write this after seeing a young deadhead post a “woe is me for not seeing Jerry” YouTube comment under the video of Grateful Dead performing “So Many Roads” at their last concert on July 9th, 1995. That soulful performance represented an increasingly rare, yet strong showing by Garcia in those later years, and I can not deny sometimes feeling a sense of yearning when scrolling through those now old videos. Yet even as post-Jerry heads, we have A LOT to be grateful for.

As post-Jerry Deadheads we’ve had plenty to be thankful for in the recent past, and plenty to be appreciative for in the future. We’re alive. Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart are still kicking and avidly making music for the masses. We are still basking in a stellar five show run featuring arguably the closest replications of bona fide Grateful Dead shows that we will get to see in our lifetimes. Whether in Chi-town, across the greater USA, or just about anywhere on Earth (sans North Korea), we’ve had the opportunity to take in these shows, LIVE! Pay-per-view, IMAX simulcasts, SiriusXM, cable TV, bootleg video streams, taper audio streams, #taperrob, with up to the minute live social networking. None of us have had much an excuse not to celebrate one way or another this past week regardless of our geographic locale. Technology, man. It’s a trip.

“And the band keeps playing’ on!” Weir, Hart, and Kreutzmann are heavily rumored to be going out on tour together this very fall. Phil Lesh has a residency planned starting in October at Peter Shapiro’s Capitol Theater in Port Chester, NY. Phil is playing Lockn’ this summer, Bobby and Billy are playing The Peach. Mickey, Bill, Phil, and Bobby have various on and off again side projects of their own. They all play Dead music! They all reinvent this music time and time again. Have you heard Mickey Hart Band? Talk about reinvention! And while Phil plays residencies in New York, he also plays them out west at his very own Terrapin Crossroads. Bobby founded TRI Studios, a state of the art live streaming concert facility. He’s part owner of the Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley. Ratdog. Ratdog. Ratdog. We will be seeing lots of Bobby. But yeah, these guys are old, and it’s not the same, and they won’t exactly be around forever, but they’re around now, and its pretty effing good! Take it in.So yeah, one day they’ll all be gone. But guess who will be here? Us post-Jerry deadheads. And Dark Star Orchestra. Joe Russo’s Almost Dead. Umpteen Grateful Dead cover bands. Some of the national variety, some of the local home-brewed camp. Some will entirely reinvent the music, while some will aim for total replication, and those that do will create scenarios where if you close your eyes you’ll feel like you’re at a genuine authentic Dead show. There’ll be lots of gatherings, albeit smaller than the old days, but they’ll be unforgettable and nostalgic.

There will be bigger shakedowns for younger bands like Phish, Widespread Panic, and The String Cheese Incident, and a plethora of face melting jam bands. And if a handful of older jaded deadheads give you crap about liking Phish, go tell ’em to eff themselves (Let Trey Sing). And then think to yourself that when “the band’s all packed and gone,” we’ll still be here dancing and shaking our bones to so much amazing music. And there will be younger deadheads; a new generation. This is gonna happen, because truly the music never does stop.

And those who, from time to time, make you feel that you missed out by not seeing Jerry…those folks?!? They’ll be dead. And the new generation of deadheads will look to us and ask us “what was it like to see the core four play live and together?” “How good were all their solo projects?” “Where were you for Fare Thee Well?” “Did they really manufacture a rainbow?!?” Some of our generation may make them feel bad because really, assholes exist in every subculture, mainstream and otherwise. So the assholes will be assholes, but you my friend don’t have to be one. Remember how you feel now, and down the road remind the youngins of all the great music that is around for them. Regale them with your stories, but don’t belittle them. For you once were them.

In this never-ending story that is the Grateful Dead, we are the lucky ones. Yes, it would’ve been nice to have been born a few decades earlier (could have dodged this climate change business to boot), but we are pretty damn fortunate. We will be the last to hear the Grateful Dead canon first hand. We will be the last to hear the songwriters and musicians play these songs in the flesh. We will be torch carriers, as was the band and the generation before us, to us. We will take the gospel of the Grateful Dead into the first fully post-Dead generation. It will be passed down. “So it shall be written. So it shall be done.” The Deadhead Community will survive. “We will survive.”

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Source: Charles Shultz

“Some rise, some fall, some climb,” and there will always be deadheads.

© Watts Glow Grateful Productions, 2015.

Please like our Facebook page, Grateful Globotz, or follow us on Twitter @GratefulGlobotz, so you don’t miss any future postings out of our camp.

Unconventional Church: The Emergence of the Grateful Dead Diaspora

grateful-dead-fare-thee-well-chicago-09-july-3-2015-billboard-650Photo Credit: Jay Blakesberg, July 3, 2015

As articles and segments are being produced and presented on the band by news organizations across the States in celebration of Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of Grateful Dead, I decided I'd like to contribute to such happenings. In honor of the weekend festivities, and the end of an era that could be coined as Dead 2.0, I am sharing with you my undergraduate senior thesis that I wrote on the Deadhead community, in 2008, for a history class called Streaking Through The Seventies. At the time I was able to convince my professor to let me cut class so I could attend the 2008 Dead reunion at Penn State University to interview fellow Deadheads as subjects for my historical analysis. While my interviews were few and far between (I was really there for the show and gathering), a few anecdotes ultimately ended up in the following piece. 

I argue something that will likely stir debate and cause some controversy within the Deadhead community; that it is in fact a religious community, a contention of which I know many heads and members of the band would likely disagree with. However, I mean it in the most unconventional and non-deifying way. I also contend that the Deadhead community that emerged by the end of the 1970's resembled a diaspora, a scattered community sharing cultural ideals and spiritual elements. You'll have to check out the below piece to get my drift. Enjoy! 

And enjoy the rest of the Chi-town weekend! Whether you are at Soldier Field, or taking in the shows across the nation and the world at large, this weekend we share communion at the Church of the Dead.

Unconventional Church: The Emergence of the Grateful Dead Diaspora

by Russell S. Glowatz

dead

Out of the remnants of the Haight-Ashbury counterculture evolved a roaming society founded around a musical phenomenon that was held together as a culturally distinct tribe by its collective tenets of morality and spirituality. At the helm of the traveling circus were the Grateful Dead, a harmonious ensemble spurred by a dedication to music, an intellectual inclination to question reality, and a proclivity to psychedelic exploration. Through the course of the late sixties all the way through the seventies, a mythical aura materialized around the Grateful Dead as a community of dedicated disciples emerged as its following. As many Americans sought peace of mind through new age religious institutions, the Deadheads sought to negotiate the constricted political and social realities of the 1970’s through an unconventional church of their own. The church of the Dead did not come without its pitfalls as Deadheads confronted issues of class, gender, race, and drug use as the community came of age during the 1970’s. As the Grateful Dead following initially aimed to disassociate from mainstream America in a sub-community of its own, it ultimately ended up coming to grips with the realities of the American landscape, seeking to live through those realities on its own terms. An analysis of the emerging “Deadhead” community in the 1970’s can tell us much about the progression of the 1960’s counterculture as well as shed light on the cultural veracity of the 1970’s themselves.

A rejuvenation of the religion of old and a discovery of religion anew took place during the early seventies as it seemed certain that the societal and political ideals confronted through social movements at the end of the sixties had seemingly failed. As many deemed it necessary to take the initiative to better their own lives, they sought spiritual guidance through rejuvenated and contemporary religious movements. The evolution of the Evangelicals, the New Right Christians, and the resurgence of Conservative Judaism all developed with the introduction of New Age or personal awareness movements. Perhaps aligning more closely with concepts accepted in many New Age religions that embraced non-western ideologies, the Grateful Dead emerged as the focal point of a church of its own. As the war in Vietnam raged on, the utopian ideals of the counterculture all but gone as far as the dominant society was concerned, and any faith in leadership trounced by the incriminating actions of Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal, Deadheads maintained their zest for life through psychedelic communion at the Church of the Dead.

The church had no boundaries, other than an affinity for the music of the Grateful Dead, a sense of open-mindedness and karmic acceptance. The sacrament of the church may have been smoking a joint, dropping a hit of LSD, to something as benign as listening to the music play. Individuals defined their own level of worship. A correspondent for Time magazine suggested, in 1978, that for the devout Deadheads the “concert was a church they attended, not so much for gospel as for the communion and the community, the hymns and the incense.” In essence, the Church of the Grateful Dead was antithetical to what modern religious institutions usually attain to be. Nowhere do the Dead outline what behavior is good or bad, or right or wrong, as suggested through the Bible in Judaism or Christianity. As no tenets of worship were laid out for the community to inherit, Deadheads developed their own individualized spiritual outlook. In a sense, the band provided a medium, a place, and inspiration for followers to question and develop a religious perspective that remained unique to them. Although commandments or edicts were not presented to the Dead community in an explicit format by the band themselves, a basic gist of what the community attempted to embody presented itself through the lyrics in the songs, and even the band’s name.

Illustrated through the choosing and establishment of the name the Grateful Dead, as the band’s moniker, is the unspoken sentiment that tied intricately into the band and Deadheads’ societal views. When founding member Phil Lesh discovered that another band by the name of the Warlocks recorded an album, the band sat down to ponder a new name. Potential names were thrown back and forth, until one of them decided to pick up a dictionary and leave it up to fate. A young Jerry Garcia picked up a copy of Funk and Wagnall’s New Practical Standard Dictionary, shuffled it open to a random page, and pointed to an arbitrary point. The words “Grateful Dead” peered from below his finger. According to the dictionary, the “grateful dead” referred to a type of ballad coined by Francis Child, a musicologist from the nineteenth-century. The grateful dead folklore entailed a protagonist who came upon someone about to receive an improper burial due to the debt with which he died. The protagonist then paid for the man’s burial in full without any incentive or reward. Later on in his life, someone gave aid to the protagonist in an insurmountable task, and that someone was the gratefully dead man paying his dues to the one who paid for his burial. The ballad of the gratefully dead embodies the spiritual principle of karma and the guiding principle of the Dead community. If it were possible to highlight a succinct ideal that guides the Grateful Dead Church, it would be that ‘If you give when you can, you shall receive when you need.’ In conjunction with “what goes around, comes around” as their primary creed, the Deadhead community emerged out of the San Francisco counterculture in an intricate Diaspora of their own.

To talk about the emergence of a Grateful Dead Diaspora it is necessary to confront the philosophies and beliefs garnered by the members of the band as they navigated their own spiritual journeys. The members of the Grateful Dead tended to stray away from pushing their beliefs upon others, which was reflected in their mutual outlooks. Perhaps their greatest mutual conviction was that of tolerance, which in turn greatly reflected upon the Grateful Dead community. They had a sincere tolerance towards others ideas, as they felt it would be ignorant for them to deduce that they had an understanding of the elemental nature of life. The common belief held amongst band members emanated through the Dead’s improvisational musicianship, and the lyrics evoked in their songs. The lyrics of Robert Hunter, the Dead’s chief lyricist, sometimes equated with modern day prophecy, projected rhetorically to question and encourage audience members to ponder the words deeper on their own spiritual journey. Hunter never intended to provide answers to those who listened, but rather to induce a desire to question the mysteries of life.

In union with the music, the lyrics of Robert Hunter conduced powerful thought that could be applied to Deadheads’ personal plights throughout their lives. While Hunter’s lyrics sometimes pertained to his personal experiences and those of the band, they were presented in an ambiguous context that allowed listeners to find meanings that directly associated with their own multifaceted voyage. First performed in June of 1975, Franklin’s Tower was literally meant to convey a desire to do away with the atomic dew that bogged down societies since the dawn of the atomic age at the end of World War II. Although the song has specific meanings, certain lines communicate messages uniquely to each listener. In one particular line of Franklin’s Tower, Hunter intoned that “some come to laugh their past away, some come to make it just one more day; whichever way your pleasure tends, if you plant ice you’re gonna harvest wind.” Through the uncertainty expressed in the lyric, one could associate it with the Cold War leaders and the policies they brought forward, which seemingly brought no resolution in the eyes of many. If one takes the lyrics out of the atomic context, then greater meanings could be associated with reasons behind ones pilgrimage to a Grateful Dead show, or the greater quandary of living life to the fullest without falling prey to vices and temptation. Hunter’s lyrical poetry embodied a spiritual essence that rang true to the diverse philosophies held within the Dead community.

The lyrics of Hunter suggested the diffused nature of the Grateful Dead Church, as the band members and followers alike did not stake out clear notions and commandments that set boundaries to the community ideology. The vagueness of the lyrics showed a benevolent respect towards the religious development and freedom of their audience to think for themselves. “Deadheads usually [saw] themselves as searching souls on a journey that’s a little hard to explain, except that it’s definitely with the Dead.” The collective openness conveyed by the band to the community conduced an environment where people felt comfortable to explore their individuality and group mentality to eccentric levels.

Encouragement of eccentricity became a facet of Dead performances at the Acid Tests in the mid-sixties. Although the Dead performed at the Acid Tests, people did not come to watch them play; those who attended were considered to be part of the show as well. The collective identity between the Dead and their audience was thus forged early in their career. Deadheads sensed the feeling of collectivism at shows and gatherings, yet at the same time community objectives went tacitly understood.

Embodied in both the music and the Grateful Dead community, there was a belief in a scattered synchronicity of energy that bound the collective together. It is difficult to identify a singular force behind the communal spirituality, but the closest example would be that of Jerry Garcia, the symbolic and practical figurehead of the Grateful Dead. Garcia may have been the focal point of Dead society, yet he would not coherently lead his flock, which in time spawned the dissociated tenets of the Grateful Dead religious philosophy. Garcia had a strong motivation to do what he wanted to do in life, but that required him to first find out what he wanted to do. In many instances, he would discover a new hobby such as painting or drawing, or pick up a book on a new philosophy, only to find that it was not what he was looking for, and then subsequently drop it altogether. The ambivalence and ambiguity he reflected in his personal ventures would reflect upon the social makeup of the Grateful Dead and its following. With his ambivalent nature, he would not make decisions that largely affected those who were in the band and the extended crew and family. It was not in his character to make executive demands that could be flat wrong, and he recognized that as he always questioned his fundamental beliefs. Although his character defined an ambivalence that ran throughout the hierarchy of the Dead community, he also set the precedent of trusting one’s instinctive disposition.

There were times when Jerry Garcia trusted his intuition enough to set a course for the Grateful Dead’s future enterprises. Garcia appeared a very receptive person, able to sense quickly whether he could work well with someone. Back when the Grateful Dead were still the Warlocks, a young Phil Lesh showed up at a gig at a pizza place in Menlo Park. Lesh recalled enjoying the show to such a level that for the majority of the time the Warlocks played, he danced front and center of the stage. Garcia noticed that the gangly looking dancing man had some rhythm in his steps, and recalled seeing him with a bass guitar in his hand at another time. When the show was over he cornered Lesh and bellowed, “Hey, man—you’re going to be the bass player in this band,” as Lesh remembered. Instances such as Garcia’s encounter with Lesh speak to the general spontaneity and intuitiveness that Garcia’s diffused leadership brought to the Grateful Dead and its community. Spontaneous decisions and outbursts guided the direction the band would take in many instances in their music and their basic outlook. In turn, Deadheads embraced the practice of following their intuition when they faced the challenges of life.

The effect of LSD upon the beliefs of the band and the community should not remain understated. From the mid-sixties into the early seventies, LSD was highly circulated amongst the countercultural communities in Haight-Ashbury, Palo Alto, as well as other hippie enclaves. As LSD was legal until 1966, it was embraced by the counterculture community after members of the subculture experimented with it through government sanctioned research. The members of the Dead embraced LSD not to meagerly get high, but as a tool to expand their greater perception of reality. Improvisation is what the band based their aims in music around, and when LSD was presented to them, psychedelic exploration seemed like a natural progression in confluence with their aim for synchronicity in music and thought. Jerry Garcia loved taking LSD as “a mental exercise, finding it ‘incredibly optimistic.’” To equate LSD as the binding reason for the band’s musical improvisation and the communal dedication of its followers, as many mainstream Americans deemed to be the case, would be foolish. Prior to the introduction of LSD into their lives, the members of the Grateful Dead established the fundamentals of what they believed and practiced. The tenets of their philosophy aimed to accept no specific way of thinking, and with that LSD came along and served as a catalyst or a medium that took the very nature of their improvisation to a higher level.

Through experiments with LSD and other illicit substances, the band desired to discover alternative outlooks in regard to reality. The band came into regular contact with LSD as they lived in communal environments in Olompali and the Haight-District in the late sixties. Their provider, also known as the bands “alchemist” was Owsley “Bear” Stanley. Owsley mirrored the sentiments of the Deadhead community, and Aldous Huxley, widely known as the mystical patriarch of the counterculture, as he believed the psychedelic experience should not be construed as distorting one’s reality, but rather as an alternative course to view the universe as the drug breaks down one’s everyday mind-set to perceive reality as a collection of connected occurrences. He believed LSD truly had the potential to set the mind free of the boundaries and norms instilled upon humanity. The experiences of taking LSD in confluence with experiences in the Dead community are beyond boundaries of concise explanation, and with that, concluding an all-encompassing explanation is counterintuitive to the experience of taking LSD, and the tacit aims of the Grateful Dead community.

For the Grateful Dead and its extended family, the idealism of the 1960’s and the ‘acid culture’ that ensued ended on a summer’s day in August of 1967, when the Diggers organized the “Death of the Hippie” ceremony, formally eulogizing the name “hippie” that mainstream society attached to members of the San Francisco subculture. As the youth of the nation swarmed into the Haight District during that so-called “Summer of Love” in 1967, the once formerly quaint oasis of communalism that the Grateful Dead held as a home had become ensconced with mobs of aspiring “hippies” and the mainstream media. With newfound attention to the area, the police finally saw fit to restore order to the chaotic enclave, and the Grateful Dead moved along on their “long, strange trip.” The crumbling scene in San Francisco spurred the Dead to play elsewhere, and proved to be a catalyst for an East Coast tour.

The band more or less said goodbye to the Haight, with an impromptu free concert in March of 1968. After a nasty skirmish between the police and hippies a few weeks earlier, the city declared a street festival for March 3rd, opening the way for the Dead to play as they seldom passed up an opportunity to play music in the streets. The performance would be the last for the Dead in their mythical stomping grounds, and they were eager to tour onwards to other regions in the United States. Although the collective atmosphere of the Haight District failed to spurn a lasting cooperative community, the Dead and their growing family took their ideals with them wherever they toured. This would not be the first time the Dead left the confines of California to explore abroad, as they spent the prior summer, “The Summer of Love,” on their first East Coast tour. They would find that the shows they played in New York, and the subsequent followers they garnered would be the foundation for the beginnings of a Grateful Dead Diaspora.

As the mainstream media demonized the happenings in the Haight District, the Grateful Dead moved along on their first tour to the East Coast of the United States. First stop was on June 1st in Tompkins Square Park in New York City, where band members and crew cited that the vibe between the Dead and the audience was of an odd nature. To add to the peculiar environment at the first New York show, someone threw a framed lithograph of Jesus into Bill Kreutzman’s base drum. Whether or not the incident was taken as an omen, the band members found themselves in a comfortable environment at the second East Coast show. On June 3rd, the Dead and their crew traveled fifty miles out onto Long Island to play in the gymnasium of a fledgling university. “Consequently, the Dead’s first paying East Coast gig was at Stony Brook, widely considered to be the stonedest campus in the East.” Whether or not the relatively liberal use of drugs had anything to do with the hospitable nature of the Stony Brook campus, the Dead immediately accrued dedicated fans from the college community.

When a college freshman arrived on the Stony Brook campus for his first semester in the 1970’s, one of his first encounters was with a dorm mate that played him some bona fide Grateful Dead music. The student recalled arriving at the Stony Brook Campus listening to his “little old Grateful Dead tape” and when he settled down in his dorm room a lanky looking fellow from across the hall invited him over to “listen to some real Grateful Dead.” Once he discovered that a genuine Deadhead lived across the hall, he realized that he had finally arrived at college. While he came to college to acquire an academic education on the exterior, he sought a higher form of education in self-discovery and spirituality through new-fangled life experiences and newfound acquaintances. With an aim towards enlightenment, students on college campuses across the nation found solace and illumination through the music and the community of the Grateful Dead. As a community of college aged people sought contemporary and offbeat experiences of their own, ambitious minds on the Stony Brook campus paved the way for the Grateful Dead to play on campus and connect with the innovative young minds on the precipice of adulthood.

The chairman of the Student Activities Board at Stony Brook was Howie Klein, who booked the Dead and brought their Long Island following to fruition. Klein also served to be a disc jockey at the campus radio station, and with his close friend Sandy Pearlman, the student body president and the editor of Crawdaddy, a flagship rock publication, Klein was able to book the Dead on college campuses all across Long Island. As Pearlman garnered connections in the music business through his position at Crawdaddy, he often received prerelease albums from record companies. When Pearlman came upon a copy of the Dead’s first album, he shared it with Klein, who immediately was taken by the music. Klein’s appreciation for the music motivated him to promote the Grateful Dead throughout the Long Island area. Due to the aspirations and motivations of a few progressive Stony Brook students, the first facet of the Grateful Dead Diaspora developed on Long Island. The area would remain an essential Grateful Dead territory into the next decade.

The Dead replicated their experience at Stony Brook and the greater Long Island area all over the country. From 1967 and out through the 1970’s they toured from east to west, north and south, to Canada and back, in the process. Dead communities developed throughout North America. By 1980, a Rolling Stone columnist expressed the sense that “in all, it looks like a village gathering, except that these people who greet each other as old friends [at concerts] so familiarly are from all over the country.” The great nomadic tribe found its roots in the late sixties into the seventies, to the extent that by 1980, networks of Deadheads from geographically distant locations fermented friendships with their fellow brethren.

It became clear that by the early 1980’s an established Deadhead community existed throughout the United States, and within the larger community there existed Deadheads that committed to the church at different levels of devotion. A religious spectrum developed amongst the Deadhead community, as certain people tended to see a show whenever their daily lives would permit the excursion, while more orthodox Deadheads committed to building their lives and ultimate sustainability around the band’s touring schedule. Large numbers of followers tended to track the Dead throughout the country on their various show stops. Orthodox Deadheads intended on seeing as many shows as humanly and financially possible in their travels. The people that followed the Dead in this nature tended to financially support their endeavors by selling crafts, food, drugs, and various other items to fellow Deadheads in parking lots outside of venues on strips that became known as “shakedown streets.” The orthodox members of the Dead community attempted to reflect the communal atmosphere of a traveling Haight-Ashbury as best they could.

On the other end of the religious spectrum lay the secular Deadheads. Secular Deadheads tended to recognize the value of the communal atmosphere a Grateful Dead concert provided, yet they did not insert themselves as deeply into the environment as their orthodox counterparts did. They may have indulged in community vices, or just appreciated the intricacies of the Dead’s improvisational repertoire. A secular Deadhead, who attended as many concerts as he could in the early 1970’s, reflected that he envied the lifestyle of the orthodox Deadheads, yet had personal responsibilities that required his attention at home. Sometimes obstacles of life provided to be too encompassing for one to drop everything and follow a musical group around, yet even the secular Deadheads embraced a certain mentality and spiritual outlook that was conveyed at the concerts. When a secular Deadhead was confronted with the question: If you could define your experiences with the Grateful Dead in a few words, what would you say? He replied, “Be Kind.” Although secular Deadheads did not embrace the Church of the Dead as a total lifestyle, they tended to take the spiritual essence of what defined the community and applied it to their life as best as they could.

Another sector in the religious spectrum included the scribes of the sacred community. Those who devoutly taped the shows of the Grateful Dead created an oral bible of sorts that allowed the community to reflect upon the music even if they could not attend a particular show. The tapers avidly procured the best sound equipment possible, and staked out the best areas to record at a show, to bring the live music of the Dead to anyone who chose to listen to it. The band appreciated the work that the tapers did and in turn allowed them to openly record shows, even providing a reserved section behind the sound mixer for their use only. Other musical groups usually frowned upon the practice of recording their live music, otherwise known as “bootlegging.” In allowing the taping and subsequent trading of their live shows, the members of the Grateful Dead set the stage for their melodious bible to flourish in all ends of the Diaspora.

As tapes of Dead shows popped up throughout the Grateful Dead Diaspora, a trading circuit followed that allowed the musical canon to be transferred to all ends of the community. The phenomenon of the tapers provided Deadheads, who were unable or unwilling to traverse the greater United States to follow the band on tour, an ability to keep up with the events of the nomadic community. The tapers provided invaluable connections to immobile members of the Diaspora who intended to embrace the message and music of the Grateful Dead, yet could not take communion first hand. The recorded shows also provided an opportunity for those who experienced the shows to hold onto an inkling of their experience. Lastly, the taper circuits created a conduit for non-Deadheads to experience and embrace the music of the Dead. As the taping and transfer of Dead shows persevered throughout the 1970’s, the Diaspora community garnered new members as people novice to the Dead came in contact with their music and philosophy.

A feature of the Diaspora community tended to rely around the common identity held with the music and philosophies of the Grateful Dead. When one displayed his or her “freak flag,” which entailed a Grateful Dead T-shirt modeled after an album cover, a dead bear sticker gracing the side of a Volkswagen Beatle, or a lyric such as “I Need A Miracle” on the bumper of an automobile, they sent out a signal of affability to any Deadheads who viewed it. Displaying a signal to fellow Deadheads when intermingling in the greater society reaffirmed their individual connections to the Dead community, while simultaneously presenting a signal to other Deadheads. Similar to someone of the Jewish faith wearing a Star of David, or a person of the Christian religion wearing a cross, the various symbols embodied in the Dead community conveyed the Deadheads’ identity as unique to that specific community.

Sometimes this process of identification could develop on more than one level, and that is seen through the emergence of a subculture of Jewish Deadheads. Although not explicitly defined, there is a large minority of Jewish Deadheads within the greater Diaspora. A past Deadhead found a new friend in someone that crossed their path with a “steal your face” logo on their shirt, and “Grateful Dead” etched below it in phonetic Hebrew. That Deadhead identified immediately with their fellow tribe member, not only as a Deadhead, but also as a Jewish Deadhead. A Jewish subculture does exist amongst the greater population of Deadheads. Perhaps Jewish people identify with the scattered dynamic that makes up the Dead community, as it is structured similarly to the international Jewish Diaspora. The history of the Jewish people in the United States, and their tendencies to lean towards progressive ideals may also contribute to the appeal of the Grateful Dead amongst Jews.

While the Deadhead community appeared totally inclusive, the base of the community tended to be generally middle class and Caucasian. Within the seemingly stratified community, there existed a large cross section of Deadheads, which spanned across all spectrums of age and intellectual development. From the young and naïve to Owen Chamberlain, a Nobel laureate physicist who appreciated the unique nature of having two drummers in the band, Deadheads may have been predominately white and middle class, yet they lived very different lives as individuals. A working class Deadhead by the name of Tony attended as many shows as he could throughout the seventies, while holding down a blue-collar job to put food on the table for his family. Tony loved the environment of the shakedown street, the energy of the music, and the good nature of the Deadheads. He considered himself a secular Deadhead of sorts, and envied those who could live life on the road traveling to the beat of the band. He acknowledged the ethnic and social stratified nature of the Dead community, yet he also attested that the community tended to be generally open-minded and tolerant towards people of other ethnicities and classes. It goes against the fundamental nature of tolerance instilled within the Dead culture to malign those of other races and classes from entering the community. Perhaps there is a greater appeal in the music and art of the Dead that appeals to the middle class in particular, but further analysis is necessary to make conclusions of that nature.

Throughout the seventies gender tended to be an issue of contention amongst the community as well. Even with advances in women’s rights through feminist movements of the sixties and seventies that the Dead community greatly embraced as well, some gender stratification that commonly existed in mainstream society trickled into the Dead Diaspora as well. Jerry Garcia’s wife, and a member of the Merry Pranksters, Mountain Girl Garcia, recalled her desire to drive the Merry Prankster bus that they trolled around in on their escapades out and about from the Haight District. Never was her dream realized, as she believed she was maligned due to her gender, and perhaps the stereotype that women could not drive as well as men. Regardless of her position as the spouse of the leader of the Grateful Dead community, and one who had lived through the ups and downs of all those years, she never felt as if she was a fully equal member of the society. Mountain Girl Garcia’s convictions speak to the Dead community’s inability to take all of the negative norms of mainstream society out of their environment. Some of the harmful stereotypes that continued on in the dominant culture tended to parallel the level of progressiveness with the Church of the Dead. Although members may have not explicitly stated sentiments of women inferior to men, the feelings may have existed deep within the collective psyche of the community.

While the Deadhead community embodied progressive ideals with an eye towards complete equality amongst the people, it fell prey to some of the stereotypes and generalizations that mainstream America embraced. With that, it is fair to say that religious communities throughout times gone by have fell victim to prejudices, vices, and hostilities. Regardless of the pitfalls confronted involving issues of class, gender, race, and drug use, the Grateful Dead and its disciples emerged as a religious community during the 1970’s, with a system of beliefs that were held with passion and conviction. As the future of mainstream society seemed bleak during the seventies, Americans turned to religion of old and new in large numbers as they sought to negotiate the dreary political, social, and economic realities they faced. The Deadhead community emerged out of the same sociopolitical context, seeking to disassociate from the gloom and doom of modern society, yet ultimately navigating the American actuality in its own distinct way. After the disintegration of the Haight-Ashbury countercultural community, the Grateful Dead toured throughout the United States and beyond, conveying their philosophies and spiritual inclinations to a materializing group of devoted believers. As the 1970’s came to a close the formerly fledging Deadhead community emerged as the Grateful Dead Diaspora.

© Watts Glow Grateful Productions, 2008.

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Sources:

[1]  Bruce J. Schulman, The Seventies (New York: The Free Press, 2001), 96.

[2] Brent Wood, “Robert Hunter’s Oral Poetry: Mind, Metaphor, and Community,” Poetics Today 24, no. 1 (2003), http://z3950.muse.jhu.edu.libproxy.cc.stonybrook.edu/journals/ poetics_today/v024/24.1wood.html.

[3] David Hajdu, “How the Dead Came to Life,” Rolling Stone, no. 982 (2005), http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.libproxy.cc.stonybrook.edu/hww/jumpstart.jhtml?recid=0bc05f7a67b1790e7a3b10a3113e85a225f5176c58a77351585e9c45a5664e2f1d115544a398174c&fmt=C.

[4] Paul Basken, “Learning from the Dead,” Chronicle of Higher Education54, no. 16 (2007), http://web.ebscohost.com.libproxy.cc.stonybrook.edu/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=15&sid=ca71f91c-b018-4f7a-9a5a-9eba748cc2e8%40sessionmgr2&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl 2ZQ%3d%3d#db=ehh&AN=28105283.

[5] Alan Trist and David Dodd, eds., The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics (New York: Free Press, 2005), 189.

[6] Trist, Dead Lyrics, 189.

[7]  Holly George-Warren, ed., Garcia: By the Editors of Rolling Stone (New York: Rolling Stone Press, 1995), 148.

[8] George-Warren, Garcia, 148.

[9] Hajdu, “Dead Came to Life.”

[10] Hajdu, “Dead Came to Life.”

[11] Dennis McNally, A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead (New York: Broadway Books, 2002), 103.

[12] McNally, Long Strange Trip, 105.

[13] Wood, “Hunter’s Oral Poetry.”

[14] Trist, Dead Lyrics, 135.

[15] Jake Woodward, ed., Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip (New York: DK Publishing, 2003), 67.

[16] Woodward, Illustrated Trip, 70.

[17] McNally, Long Strange Trip, 198.

[18] Kerri Tinucci, et. al., interview by authors, Stony Brook, New York, October 18, 2008.

[19] McNally, Long Strange Trip, 198.

[20] McNally, Long Strange Trip, 198.

[21] George-Warren, Garcia, 148.

[22] Trist, Dead Lyrics, 290.

[23] Russell Glowatz, interview by author, State College, Pennsylvania, October 13, 2008.

[24] Glowatz, interview.

[25] Trist, Dead Lyrics, 102.

[26] Glowatz, interview.

[27] McNally, Long Strange Trip, 387.

[28] Glowatz, interview.

[29] Basken, “Learning from the Dead.”