Life After Dead?

Posts: 4438
Joined: 05/26/07

Posted: June 20, 2007 - 5:17pm

So twice in the last week I've gotten into conversations with folks who were pretty intense Deadheads back in the day, and their general drift was look, the band no longer exists, they haven't played for 12 years. It is so Over. Get on with your life.

Which, of course, is a perfectly reasonable point of view.

And yet, here we are. And "we" includes people who never saw the band in the first place but definitely consider themselves on the bus now.

So what's up with this? Why are we here? Discuss...

Comments

get over it?

On June 23rd, 2007 kovida said:

There's nothing wrong with musical legends, but it was more than that. Live the way you want, follow your bliss, find what you want to do and do it. The Dead showed us the possibilities, along with many others, it's up to you now.

"So what are you saying?"

On June 23rd, 2007 Golden Road said:

"When you get divorced you turn in your library card? You get a new license? You stop being Jewish? Three thousand years of beautiful tradition, from Moses to Sandy Koufax... You're goddamn right I'm living in the fucking past!"

"Fuck it Dude, let's go bowling...."

We are the dreamer's

On June 23rd, 2007 Des said:

Dreaming the dream. The dream can last as long as we like it to. It's all an illusion any way, isn't it? Dream your Dream whatever it may be, as long as it's good for you and who knows hopefully it may be good for other's as well. The Grateful Dead music, makes me feel, happy. The music makes me feel connected with everything around me. That oneness. Now here's the Key, feeling that feeling of happiness, connectedness to all and to everything as much as you can. That's what it is all about right now. What ever brings out your passion, what you love to do, then that's what you should be doing right now. That's the future.

Like attracts like.

it doesn't matter ...

On June 23rd, 2007 needamiracleevryday said:

a relative late-comer to the music and lifestyle, but still a child of the 70's, i ignored the GD's music for the most part until i met my husband who took me to my first show in 1988 in Philly. I'd worked OT all week and promptly fell asleep in my exhaustion and exposure to the drift of the smoke in the air. Then we moved back to the west coast and a year or so later saw them in Eugene OR with Little Feat, etc. i was hooked! We followed them as much as we could and for the rest of the time the band was together, we made them part of our lives. i felt profound sorrow when we heard of the passing of band members. And I had tears in my eyes as we revelled in the band's opening show as "the Dead". Now every possible version of the music is available more than ever and it's something that is timeless to me. I can listen to other classic American music like Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue), or big band music and get the same feeling that the GD music inspires. It's become something i listen to almost daily, and if i don't hear it for a week or so, i realize how much i've missed it and will always love it. So what if the band isn't intact anymore....the music certainly is!

kim

"Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world!"

I can't get over my home

On June 23rd, 2007 Hal R said:

Maybe the folks that say "get over it" are just secretly jealous because they don't smile and dance and have the joy that we do.

The dominant paradigm will always seek to marginalize those on the fringe – the seekers and dreamers, the countercultures.. Has been that way throughout history. I love being on the fringe, an outsider, a Deadhead. It is a great tradition. Better love and happiness to the tunes that touch me than greed and a frown. Better to know the possibilities are out there and try them than the straight and narrow.

Reading all these comments brings joy to my heart that there are all these wise beautiful people that are a part of our community.

Beethoven lives! Miles lives! Coltrane lives! Jerry lives! The Dead live! Deadheads live!

Let your freak flag fly!

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Walt Whitman-Song of Myself

Life After The Dead

On June 23rd, 2007 waterboy said:

I do think that I got stuck listening too exclusively to the Dead for many years. Then in 2001 I saw a live acoustic show of various musicians at the Cactus Club in Austin, Tx. That really blew me away with the power of live acoustic performance and inspired me to take up the guitar to learn folk music. Afterall, that how Jerry & Robert Hunter got started. So it was kind of like going back to the roots of it all. I began to enjoy music as a performer in the camp grounds of a local folk festival. I even learned how to play some favorite Dead songs and they sound great acoustically and people love to hear them. Now I am even writing some of my own songs. I really feel that is how the Dead would want us to live our lives ...in a very creative fashion....just as they have done all these years....they have set the example...the solutions to the Earth's problems will come out of new creative ideas and spiritual experiences....not after going over the same old stuff time after time....that would more be like an addiction that hinders rather than heals....anyway I dig this new web site format.

It was never just about the music--

On June 23rd, 2007 majicjeani said:

It was about coming together and the experience, and the fact that my little kid and my 80 year old dad could all understand what was happening and why.

Changed? Yeah, everything changes--the joy is on fancy, high tech shit now, not live--but its still joy and its still about the feelings and the experience we could all share. How many of these "baby bands" get all pissed off when someone samples their music? And the Dead encouraged us to TAPE their shows--the music was to be shared, they knew it belonged to all of us. Music is our spirit and our celebration and our myth--

And the music I want to celebrate my life with is played by a group of guys, who changed constantly, just as the music changed. Deadhead? Yeah, call me that, its cool. But know that to me that label means that I am always playing in the band, and always will live my life, as best I can, being kind and expecting miracles.

Thank you for a real good time--

We all miss Jerry and Pigpen

On June 23rd, 2007 Llabmiko said:

I was fortunate enough to have met both of them more then once. Pigpen was a nicer guy than I though he'd be and Jerry just wanted to smoke what I had. LOL Yes, there is still a huge base of people that are Deadheads forever. That won't change, we're just getting older , with a touch of Grey :)
Wrinkled Sunshine

MORE....TIME TRIPS

On June 23rd, 2007 CORNSMOKE said:

Hey folks.......TIME TRIPS......no doubt I have gotton on with my life..I'll be furthur along tomorrow and so will you. The misconception people have is that "we" who grew up "with" the Dead and still religiously listen to them are somehow stuck in this time warp and have'nt moved on...they are unaware of the reality that music is timeless. Because we choose to enjoy everything about the Grateful Dead does'nt mean we are anymore stuck in time than someone who worships Elvis Presley's music and movies, John Lennon, Crosby-Stills-Nash and Young, Frank Sinatra or Bach. I've never met a Dead head who hasn't moved on...if there is one he/she is still sitting in the same spot and has'nt eatin changed clothes or showered since. People who have this conception of us older Dead heads as stuck in the past still tripping our brains out are really mental midgets. They don't understand and are clueless yet they do the same thing or will 30 years down the road. Whats hard to grasp about someone taking from the past and enjoying in the present? I enjoy stuff prior to my birth let alone "Dead stuff" yet I wasn't even around to be in that time long ago and far-away. Music is a powerful force. There are but two types of "Dead heads" those of us who grew up "with" the Grateful Dead and those who wish they did. At 55 yrs. old I grew up "with" the Dead, I dont have to dress in tie-dyes to enjoy them now. The newbie Dead heads are trying to capture the past, the 60's 70's whole cultural thing...they can't... because it's not there anymore... it, like us have moved on...so it leaves them empty and frustrated, wishing and hoping. I can't say I blame them, it WAS a magical time, but it's had it's time and it won't come back anymore than the gasoline price's of that time will...it has moved on. The music and the DVD's are timeless pieces left to enjoy. The kid's today will understand it all 30 years from now. Alot of misunderstanding people don't even realize Jerry Garcia was a heck of banjo player besides being "Captain Trips".
........a good way to end is with a quote.
........"There is a road....no simple highway....between the dawn and the dark of night....and if you go...no one may follow...that path is for...your steps alone" -RIPPLE

the road goes on forever

On June 23rd, 2007 papalegba said:

THE THING ABOUT THE WHOLE "DEAD BEING GONE" IS TRUE, THEY ARE INDEED GONE, HOWEVER, PICASSO, ESCHER, DALI, THEY ARE BONES NOW TOO, BUT STILL HAVE A HUGE FAN BASE. I MISS THE GRATEFUL, THERE HASNT BEEN ANYTHING TO MATCH THAT EXPERIENCE, AND I STILL HAVENT "MOVED ON" IN THE SENSE THAT I STILL FIND WISDOM AND ABSOLUTE TRUTH IN THE LYRICS AND MUSIC. LIKE ALL PROPHETS, THEY WILL BE AROUND FOREVER.