This Is a Serene Place, But Not a Boring One

August 27, 2021 1:27 AM

Dreamy, detailed, and sometimes deranged sentences run on like the riffs they describe. These posts are tender, nostalgic, and frequently celestial. Hipness, a linchpin of music writing, is nowhere in sight. Authority and expertise disappear when each opinion is about as right as the one above. It’s practically the most mellow body of writing I’ve ever found. Max Abelson reads the comments In the Dead Archives
posted by chavenet (5 comments total)

When I was younger, and had more people around me dying to introduce me to the Grateful Dead, whose music didn’t appeal that much to me, I found them irksome.

But as I’ve grown older, I find their existence to be charming. That they meant so much to so many for so long, and indeed still today, decades after they broke up, seems to me like proof, if proof where needed, of the importance of the arts to humanity as a whole, and human beings as individuals.

Long may the Dead and Deadheads keep on truckin.
posted by Kattullus at 4:45 AM on August 27, 2021 [9 favorites]

I went to a few Dead shows in the early '90s... mostly because of friends, the scene and drugs. I had fun. Some of the shows were pretty memorable, but I'd say about half of their music just does nothing for me, and a not-small fraction of it really irritates me. I never need to hear another 38 minute rendition of "Good Lovin'" ever again in my life, for instance.

But what shows they were. The sound system was jaw dropping. The crowd vibe was almost entirely positive (barring some far-gone, sad cases here and there, and some frat-bro stuff). And yes, some of their music was really, really good, too.
posted by SoberHighland at 5:46 AM on August 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

Back in eighties, I was invited to party in Palo Alto by a co-worker. It was in a big old house. I have a habit of looking for books and music to get some idea about the people who live there. I had never met the host until this time. There were tons of Grateful Dead stuff everywhere. I mentioned to my co-worker that this guy must be a real Deadhead. She said, yeah, from six months ago. Somebody had invited him to go to a Dead concert. He wasn’t that interested, but what the hell. He went. Six months later, he was now the editor of a local GD newsletter, and had a huge collection of their music. And goes to all their shows. I‘ve never been interested in this band, but there must have been something about them that they could change somebody’s life that much and that quickly. For the right person, they were the band.
posted by njohnson23 at 8:51 AM on August 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

For the right person, they were the band.

“We're like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.” -- Jerry Garcia
posted by treepour at 9:14 AM on August 27, 2021 [5 favorites]

Oh yeah The Dead, it's a funny thing, hey, I'm not a Deadhead but I liked American Beauty okay.

Last year we bought a new-used car with Sirius-Radio, most of the channels kinda sucked, but we got the chance to listen to hours of various jams on the Dead Channel while driving not-high. Most of the jams were just okay, some were really awful, and some were really brilliant. The good jams seemed like Lesh was making up a series of new song-riffs on the spot and everyone playing along. I like Garcia's singing, he has a sweet high tenor that's not too fancy, his guitar playing is pretty slippery and a big influence on my guitar improv style.

Fate is like I would actually be a Deadhead if I grew up in a slightly different time & place, in that ambiguous sense that they hint at in some of their songs.
posted by ovvl at 5:49 PM on August 27, 2021 [2 favorites]