May 2, 2009

My goal is to write, and to be open to your comments.  I really hope to spur a dialog and to learn from you. My guess is that more human beings will come to study and enjoy the Grateful Dead in the future than most any other rock band. The sheer volume of the recorded, preserved and annotated legacy allows for self-study and the Internet provides the opportunity for immediate feedback and community in a way unimaginable just two decades ago.

The Dead may be pioneering another social movement through the relative “open sourcing” of their music.

I don’t mind robust debate as long as it’s thought-provoking, and while you can abuse me if you are so inclined, if you abuse others or make people uncomfortable with reading or writing here, I may have to intervene.  I’d rather not, free speech and all that. I’d prefer not to monologue here and hope to leave things open and freewheeling.

On that note, I am not responsible for postings of others and will not undertake to monitor everything posted. My leaving something up is not necessarily a sign of my agreement with it.

As far as me, I have done little reading online about the Grateful Dead so far other than on the big compendium sites (about tape trading, lyric interpretation and discography), as of the start of this blog in May 2009.  I have read McNally’s book on the band.

I do not purport to have any fresh or particularly compelling insights about the Grateful Dead, coming as I do from relative ignorance about them.  I assume everything I am writing and will write has been said many times before, probably more elegantly.

My focus is more on how a long-time rock fan suddenly decides to tackle the 2000+ live shows, dozens and dozens of official studio and live releases in one concentrated period of his life, well after the phenomenon is “over”, at least as far as the Grateful Dead with Jerry Garcia at the lead guitar helm.

One more academic point:  I have decided that until I have developed the kind of grasp I prefer to have over the material of the Grateful Dead proper, I will avoid the music of the post-Jerry reformulations, as well as most of the solo works of the members except where the solo work created major elements of the Grateful Dead canon (I’m thinking of songs like Sugaree by Jerry and Bob Weir’s Ace album with so many songs that became standard live Dead songs).

Finally, as someone who has, as a hobby, dabbled in taping his favorite musicians, some light tape trading, created compendiums of obscure materials for friends, and even developed web sites and created communities around musical artists, I have to tip my hat to the many thousands of Deadheads who have so diligently and lovingly preserved so much of the band’s work for people like me to step in and enjoy in such bounty.

I already know that you are the greatest fans in rock and maybe music history, and that what you created around the band may never be equaled, in our lifetimes, at least.

I hope this process leads me to become one of you and that you will have me.