IME the jamband scene (at least pre-pandemic) carried the torch pretty well. Beyond GD's post-Jerry iterations (Dead & Co, Phil and Friends), that welcoming community of taper-friendly bands (esp Phish, but also Moe, SCI...) has even grown in size and reach.
However, their later popularity and touring in the late 1980s turned into a really pathetic spectacle. Some of this was likely related to Jerry Garcia's heroin addiction (which undoubtedly contributed, along with other factors like smoking cigarettes, to his early death at age 53). Dead shows of the period were well known as the place to go to score the best heroin among druggie circles of all kinds. This all predated the opiate marketing game and the rise of the pain pill clinics, whose results can be seen wandering the streets of any major American city today.
It's really a kind of sad tale, but I still like their early music (the vast majority of which wasn't taped with any quality).
By the late 80s they had ended up as a really good cover band playing Grateful Dead material. Though there were flashes of brilliance even then, I had a hard time getting up the energy to hear anything but local shows.
I didn't (and don't like) taking the drugs myself, though there was always a contact high / breathing the atmosphere that would tune me up. But the drugs just got in the way of the music.
You're talking about rock music and the Dead. Drugs were the catalyst, an essential aspect of the musical experience for many of the performancers and the audience. But you're totally right, drugs were the solvent too, dissolving focus, talent, and brilliance to fade away. It's a risk and (sometimes fatal) attraction, I think largely due to the lack of cultural knowledge for responsible and sustainable recreational drug use.
(That was back when the hippies were in charge, before the frat bros took over.)
Q: What did the Deadhead say when he ran out of marijuana?
A: "This music sucks!"
;)
I saw a bunch of Flying Other Brothers concerts, who started at an Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) benefit at The Fillmore Auditorium in 1997, and occasionally backed Bob Weir and Mickey Hart!
Dr. Halsted was one of the "Big Four" founding professors at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, and lived until 1922 - 70 years old. Addicted to morphine for much of his adult life.
Opiates are dangerous and highly addictive and people should stay away from them except for serious pain management. However they aren't going to do the kind of cumulative organ damage that cigarettes and alcohol abuse do.
I believe opiates do mess with your hormones, which could have subtle effects which do affect lifespan, but yeah, I mostly agree. Opiates won't seriously damage your health if you are responsible.
> the Dead is more or less 'boomer music' these days.
I haven’t lived in the U.S. for many years so I don’t know the current scene first-hand, but whenever I watch Grateful Dead videos on YouTube I start getting recommendations for videos of currently performing cover bands [1]. These include not only the groups that include surviving original members, like Dead & Company, but also a lot of younger bands throughout the country. Some stick to the original Dead repertoire fairly closely, while others mix it with their originals and with other covers. While Dead & Company seem to attract a lot of graybeards to their shows, the crowds for the younger bands look a lot younger.
Those videos stir mixed feelings in this graybeard. On the one hand, I’m happy to see young people enjoying the music I was into nearly fifty years ago (I attended my first Grateful Dead concert in 1973). On the other hand, shouldn’t young people be into newer music?
> On the one hand, I’m happy to see young people enjoying the music I was into nearly fifty years ago (I attended my first Grateful Dead concert in 1973). On the other hand, shouldn’t young people be into newer music?
I hear you. I'm overjoyed to see young people listening to classics but wonder when the next Jerry, Zappa or Jimi will emerge. The music world is much more image conscious than it was then, however(video killed the radio star...) and the market is much more fragmented now. That said, there's a ton of great new music. It's hard to tell with my old ears what music now will have the staying power of the music we love.
The progression of radio -> tapes -> CDs -> mp3s -> streaming services slowly but surely dramatically broadened things from the days of there just being a couple main genres. Mainstream radio hasn't kept up - the bandwidth isn't there - but there's a ton more out there beyond it.
They definitely aren't your stereotypical "hippies" though! That whole aesthetic is a relic of the boomer past.
The culture of freely taping and trading live shows is deeply ingrained in my psyche and value system - the idea that a band could give something away "for free", creating so much value in the world yet recovering only a part of that value as concert revenue, was very influential to me. And I believe it was a cultural foundation for open source software in some ways. At least personally, when I started writing software, I was immediately drawn to the value system of open source software with near-RMS levels of enthusiuasm.
Though, maybe DIY is a bit of a misnomer. I had a friend that booked shows. He always insisted on saying "DIT" - do it together. I think this makes it more explicit, whether it's a bunch of people chipping in on setting up a show, a bunch of people sharing their tapes, or a bunch of people committing to an OSS project...
Hey man, there are still a few of us youngin's out here repping the Dead!
I’m heading see Trey in San Diego tonight and tomorrow in Santa Barbra.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0f2FwCxv7k
;)
If you want to hear some of the results, check out the Grateful Dead archive on archive.org:
https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead
The same philosophy behind GD and tapers was adopted by many "Jam Bands" that came after them. Taping improvisational bands like the Dead has a special importance due to the way each show varies and is completely removed from the studio experience. I'd go so far as to say many folks just dislike most studio Dead albums but can rattle off a list of shows with the favorite versions of their favorite songs.
One of the greatest things about the Dead, IMO, was the relationship between the band members. Jerry wasn't the typical lead guitarist and band leader. He was more than happy to share that role and the structure of the band was more or less flat. This jazzier style where anyone was free to lead is something I try to execute in my day to day work life. It's funny though... Just like in playing music, you'll find that there are folks that revel in improvisation, and there are some people who, despite phenomenal talent, can't function without sheet music, rules, a plan, etc.
It's sad to me that the Dead is more or less 'boomer music' these days. There was a time when there was a significant overlap between the tech community and Deadheads. I think the Dead's culture was a geek-friendly form of socialization that was accommodating to non-neurotypical folks and gave many of us weirdo nerds a chance to learn some social skills. The Dead scene was crazy but it was... communal and provided a 'safe space' for all kinds of folks when the world was much less friendly to divergence.