The Cult and Impact on Americans
Some of the Dead's first concerts were known as Acid Tests of the San Francisco Bay Area. Hallucinating music, visuals, and hippies come together as announcers and the raves of the 1990s and the Dead's concerts between the 1970's and 1990's.
Spawned bands like Phish, recreated the Dead's randomness in improvisation. It's permanent fans and epic tours that extended across America and sometimes Europe.
The cult started after a call to fans, "Dead Freaks Unite- Who Are You? Where Are You?" was published in the 1971 album 'Grateful Dead(Skull and Roses)'. Fans that answered received concert updates and news, which would eventually result in the bands formation the Grateful Dead Ticket Sales, which successfully by passed music company and corporate control by selling up to half the tickets to concert venues by mail.
Garcia occasionally commented that a whole group of people, not just the "traveling circus" of the Dead Heads and the unauthorized vendors, but the Grateful Dead ticketing and merchandise industry, controlled by the band, was dependent on the Dead.
The release of 'In the Dark' in 1987 came problems with unruly fans whom crashed concert gates and participated in uncontrolled vending, even of controlled substances.
The Dead's Cult was almost religious in its intensity. 'Dead Heads', as they were known, showed their loyalty or perhaps obsession by watching Dead-TV, a televised program, that first aired in 1988. Hitting Grateful Dead related online computer groups like Dead-Flames and Dead.net. Reading Dead-themed magazines like Relix and Golden Road, and the collection of Dead stats, known as DeadBase. Tuning into the nationally broadcasted Grateful Dead radio hour aired twice a week from the San Fransisco Bay Area's KFOG radio station run by long-time fan and Dead historian David Gans; buying the recordings that continued to be aired even after Garcia's death.
Garcia didn't make the same mistake John Lennon did, comparing his bands popularity to that of Jesus Christ. Also unlike the Beatles, fans were allowed this great road adventure , because the band preferred making its money by touring, rather than than by recording studio albums.
"They get something. It's their version of the Acid Tests, so to speak. It's kind of like war-stories metaphor. Drug stories are war stories, and the Grateful Dead stories are their drug stories, or war stories. It's an adventure you can still have in America, just like Neal Cassady on the road. You can't hop the freights anymore, but you can chase the Grateful Dead around..... You can have something that lasts throughout your life as adventures, the times you took chances. I think that's essential in anybody's life, and it's harder and harder to do in America. If I were providing some margin of that possibility, then that's great. That's a nice thing to do." ~Jerry Garcia, Asked why fans keep coming back, in a 1989 interview with Rolling Stone.
Spawned bands like Phish, recreated the Dead's randomness in improvisation. It's permanent fans and epic tours that extended across America and sometimes Europe.
The cult started after a call to fans, "Dead Freaks Unite- Who Are You? Where Are You?" was published in the 1971 album 'Grateful Dead(Skull and Roses)'. Fans that answered received concert updates and news, which would eventually result in the bands formation the Grateful Dead Ticket Sales, which successfully by passed music company and corporate control by selling up to half the tickets to concert venues by mail.
Garcia occasionally commented that a whole group of people, not just the "traveling circus" of the Dead Heads and the unauthorized vendors, but the Grateful Dead ticketing and merchandise industry, controlled by the band, was dependent on the Dead.
The release of 'In the Dark' in 1987 came problems with unruly fans whom crashed concert gates and participated in uncontrolled vending, even of controlled substances.
The Dead's Cult was almost religious in its intensity. 'Dead Heads', as they were known, showed their loyalty or perhaps obsession by watching Dead-TV, a televised program, that first aired in 1988. Hitting Grateful Dead related online computer groups like Dead-Flames and Dead.net. Reading Dead-themed magazines like Relix and Golden Road, and the collection of Dead stats, known as DeadBase. Tuning into the nationally broadcasted Grateful Dead radio hour aired twice a week from the San Fransisco Bay Area's KFOG radio station run by long-time fan and Dead historian David Gans; buying the recordings that continued to be aired even after Garcia's death.
Garcia didn't make the same mistake John Lennon did, comparing his bands popularity to that of Jesus Christ. Also unlike the Beatles, fans were allowed this great road adventure , because the band preferred making its money by touring, rather than than by recording studio albums.
"They get something. It's their version of the Acid Tests, so to speak. It's kind of like war-stories metaphor. Drug stories are war stories, and the Grateful Dead stories are their drug stories, or war stories. It's an adventure you can still have in America, just like Neal Cassady on the road. You can't hop the freights anymore, but you can chase the Grateful Dead around..... You can have something that lasts throughout your life as adventures, the times you took chances. I think that's essential in anybody's life, and it's harder and harder to do in America. If I were providing some margin of that possibility, then that's great. That's a nice thing to do." ~Jerry Garcia, Asked why fans keep coming back, in a 1989 interview with Rolling Stone.