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Note fra Berlingske Tidende 21. juli 1991 (infomedia)

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Note fra Berlingske Tidende 21. juli 1991 (infomedia)

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"Grateful Dead er igen på en USA-turné hvor gamle, men specielt yngre og nye fans får et stænk af 60'er-tonerne. Grateful Dead spiller for udsolgte huse overalt, hvor de kommer frem, men byder deres store hippie-publikum på en broget forsamling af opvarmningskunstnere. Således kan man i Billbboard konstatere, at Grateful Dead i Chicago havde den tidligere Byrds-guitarist Roger McGuinn til at varme det store publikum op. I Washington tilfaldt æren country-supertstjernen Dwight Yoakam, og for at gøre forvirringen total var det i Los Angeles den sydafrikanske musiker Johnny Clegg."

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'Day of the Dead' is a 59 track tribute to the Grateful Dead curated by Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National. Profits go to Red Hot Organization.

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'Day of The Dead' albummet er udgivet i 2016 og stablet på benene af Aaron og Bryce Dessner fra The National. Albummet er en samling covernumre fra diverse store bands. De mest nævneværdige kunstnere er The National, The War On Drugs, Moses Sumney, Kurt Vile, Perfume Genius, Mumford & Sons, Anohni, Unknown Mortal Orchestra og The Flaming Lips.
Kunstnerne udgør tilsammen et bredt genrespektrum og det viser hvor stor en inspiration Grateful Dead har været for diverse musiker. Det har skabt et sammenhold i form af denne konstellation.

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Hvordan der eksisterer et helt folkefærd omkring bandet, som i visse tilfælde, slet ikke er der for musikken.

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25th Anniversary of "Deadheads" Documentary

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Grateful Dead gendannet til støtte for Obama

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Log ind for at gemme Læs artiklen senere For at kunne gemme artikler til senere læsning skal du logge ind eller oprette en profil. Når du er logget ind, kan du gemme alle de artikler du vil og altid finde en oversigt over dine gemte artikler under dit navn i øverste højre hjørne.

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Fra New York Times!

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Though the core of the band -- Mr. Garcia and Bob Weir on guitars, Phil Lesh on bass, and Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann on percussion -- has been together since 1968, the loss of its pianist, Brent Mydland, to a drug overdose last year and the subsequent inclusion of Vince Welnick and Bruce Hornsby on keyboards have meant that the band has been changing its sound. Though it still does its standard two-set shows, with a long drum interlude, and though it still performs many of its classic songs -- playing without a set list, the band can do six nights without repeating itself -- it is developing a thicker and harder sound. Not that this has changed the audience's experience too much; the shows still feature people dancing in the aisles, performing a particularly arrhythmic dance that's specific to Grateful Dead shows.

"The band is basically a new band with the two new guys," Mr. Garcia said. "Those guys have to catch up with 25 years of stuff, and we have to learn to hear what their unique capabilities are. In the short run, it's a setback, but in the long run it's an advantage. The band is more solid now; it's lost some of its lightness but there's a little more rhythmic precision, which we could always use." Going Out Separately

Mr. Garcia has been busy recently, putting out two albums, including one, "The Jerry Garcia Band," (Arista) culled from a tour he did with his own band, featuring songs like "The Way You Do the Things You Do," "Dear Prudence" and "Tangled Up in Blue." Typically, the songs are completely remade, as much a comment on the tunes' potential as about the original version of the songs. The other album, "Jerry Garcia/David Grisman" (Acoustic Disc), is a series of acoustic pieces by Mr. Garcia and his old mandolinist friend, David Grisman.

"I can afford to be more selective now, and I have the luxury to pick and choose that I haven't always had," Mr. Garcia said. "I worked as a studio musician in the late 1960's and early 70's, without that much concern for who I was recording with. Everything I've done recently is something that I wanted to do."

Mr. Garcia mentioned possible projects with Paul Kantner, the former Jefferson Airplane and Starship guitarist, and with Mr. Hornsby. And he has just appeared in some ads for Levi's jeans: "Me, Hornsby and Branford Marsalis," Mr. Garcia said. "Spike Lee directed, and I figure if Spike can sell out, so can I."

Of all the major rock guitarists to arrive in the 1960's, Mr. Garcia is arguably the most musically literate. He's just as at home talking about Indian improvisation as he is about John Coltrane or about Brazilian mandolin players. Taking bluegrass and jazz as a conceptual framework, his solos, shifting easily from harmonic color to harmonic color, always sidestep cliches. And his improvisations swing and crest the same way a jazz musician's might, with an intensity that isn't predicated on volume. He's one of the few rockers, in fact, who can sustain a lengthy improvisation.

"I'm still learning," he said. "As long as I'm still learning I can keep playing, and it's going to be fun. There's a certain problem-solving aspect to improvisation that I like, it's thinking on your feet. There's an intellectual and emotional side to it, and the emotional side I can't quite articulate. It's one of those things you feel or you don't. The intellectual is easer to grasp, it's the bead game, with infinite ways a solo can go. Freezing the choices in time and choosing, that's the satisfaction. As I get older I'm starting to perceive a greater sense of composition, a sense of contour and development that is missing in my early stuff. The earlier stuff, truthfully, is embarrassing."

It is the improvisational aspect of the Grateful Dead's music that keeps it fresh, even as the band's members reach an age that at one time would have been thought impossible for a functioning rock group. (Mr. Garcia is 49 years old; Mr. Lesh is the oldest at 51.)

"If Benny Goodman and Pablo Casals could do it, so can we," said Mr. Garcia. "I keep playing and touring because I enjoy it. But it can be labor intensive. Rehearsing the Grateful Dead is major work. It's one of the reasons we don't come up with new material every tour. The band is evolutionary, and where everybody learns a new tune right away, deciding what to play goes on for years. Everybody in the band is so amazingly idiosyncratic, nobody plays a formula. From a writer's point of view, there's two years' worth of discomfort performing a new tune. About the second year it starts turning into something.

"But, you know, everything is always subject to change."

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Though the core of the band -- Mr. Garcia and Bob Weir on guitars, Phil Lesh on bass, and Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann on percussion -- has been together since 1968, the loss of its pianist, Brent Mydland, to a drug overdose last year and the subsequent inclusion of Vince Welnick and Bruce Hornsby on keyboards have meant that the band has been changing its sound.

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... og igen noget med The National.

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Last July, an American way of life came to an end when the Grateful Dead closed their 50-year career with one last show. The National 's twin guitarists, Aaron and Bryce Dessner, were not there. In fact, the 40-year-old brothers they never got to experience the ultimate touring band in their element onstage. "That's a big regret," says Aaron, calling from his home in upstate New York. "Which is why we had to make a six-hour tribute to them."

He's not exaggerating. Spearheaded by the Dessners, the forthcoming 59-song compilation is a loving dedication to the music of the legendary California band, featuring a plethora of bold-name admirers as well as contributions from founding Dead guitarist Bob Weir. The project, which doubles as a benefit for AIDS/HIV charity Red Hot, has been a long time coming. Not only did the Dessners first moot the idea years ago, but their love of the Dead lies at the heart of their day jobs in the National-even if that's not immediately apparent from that band's elegiac, brooding music.

Aaron recalls how he and his brother would listen to their dad's copy of the Dead's 1970 classic American Beauty as young kids in Cincinnati, Ohio, and later, learn how to play guitar along with the live album One From the Vault. "There was a certain energy to the Grateful Dead's stuff that was enchanting to us," says Aaron. "There are people that are much deeper into it than we are, but it's been there our whole life and it's a big part of what we liked about rock'n'roll bands and why we wanted to have one ourselves." The very first time they jammed with National drummer Bryan Devendorf, the teenage Dessners threw the Dead's anthem for flower-child consciousness " Eyes of the World " in among a few Velvet Underground covers. "Typically, people think, 'Oh the hippies and the punks hated each other,' or that those things don't go together musically," says Bryce. "Sometimes that is true, but we had equal parts of both in our musical DNA."

As did many of their collaborators on Day of the Dead: For older artists such as Sonic Youth co-founder Lee Ranaldo, Yo La Tengo's Ira Kaplan, and Bill Callahan, the Dead connection was well established. But the Dessners also invited a generation of younger musicians to participate, including some obvious choices-it's not a great leap to hear the Dead in the shaggy sprawl of Courtney Barnett or the War on Drugs-and others who had never listened to the band before, like Perfume Genius and Angel Olsen. Says Bryce, the project is "looking into the future of what this music means in a different way."

They also struck left field with artists who forged alternative histories of the Dead with imaginative compositions that brace the past and future. Tim Hecker, an avowed Dead hater, interpreted Canadian composer and " plunderphonics " pioneer John Oswald's " Grayfolded," an electronic piece from 1994 that samples and layers multiple live recordings of the Dead playing " Dark Star." Elsewhere, minimalist pioneer Terry Riley and his son Gyan distil the guitar solo from the 1977 track " Estimated Prophet " into a burbling piece that shifts from clear tones to harmonica scribble. "[Terry] is from California and actually older than the Dead and somewhat associated with the psychedelic movement in the '60s," explains Bryce. "His records with John Cale and his solo synth albums are amazing improvised compositions, so getting him to cover the Dead felt like a cool connection."

Although most of the songs on Day of the Dead are covers, they're not faithful in the traditional sense. The idea was to embrace the band's "freewheeling collaborative energy," says Bryce, as well as their rejection of the commercialization of '60s rock: "That's part of why artists like them: They didn't really compromise. They just took it further."

"Obviously there are certain kinds of purists that don't want to hear Marijuana Deathsquads do their version of 'Truckin,'" adds Aaron of the Minneapolis band's cover, which turns the original's sweet groove into a manic avant-garde incantation. "But anyone who really loves the Grateful Dead would appreciate that kind of radical interpretation. Too often, attempts to replicate the Dead get lost in people shredding, but this is an interesting document of the influence their music has had, and how open it is to interpretation."

Bryce is quick to point out the Dead's non-musical influences on the current generation of artists and listeners as well: "They were the first great live band touring the way they did, and now that's how bands make money. And the way people traded tapes of live recordings is like an early version of how people listen to music through the internet now."

Over half of the tracks were recorded in one of two church studios with a house band, often comprising the Dessners, the National's bassist and drummer, Scott and Bryan Devendorf, Weir, producer and sideman Josh Kaufman, the Walkmen's Walt Martin, and musician Conrad Doucette. And many of those players contributed to the set's 17-minute centerpiece, "Terrapin Station (Suite)," which also features members of Grizzly Bear and an original four-minute orchestral interlude written by Bryce. "Bob Weir told us that he and Jerry were always interested in going further in the composed orchestrated side of their music, but they didn't get around to it," says the songwriter.

Now that the compilation's recording is complete, a significant group of the participating musicians will perform songs from it this summer at Eaux Claires, the Wisconsin festival Aaron runs with Bon Iver's Justin Vernon. Between now and then, the National will christen the studio that Aaron has just finished building at his upstate home with the recording of their seventh album. They're no longer a New York City band, with frontman Matt Berninger living in Los Angeles, and Bryce splitting his time between the Catskills and Paris. "I designed [the studio] for the band, so everyone has a corner of it," Aaron says. "We need a new home because everybody is scattered." And with the quintet in one place, he can enforce another thing he learned from spending time with Weir while making Day of the Dead. "We worked incredibly hard on this, rehearsing for 12 hours at a time; I can barely get the National to rehearse for three," says Aaron. "And just to think about the things that he's experienced in his life-you have to kick yourself when you're with someone like that. It's been humbling."

Read on for more insights on the Dead from many of the artists featured on this project.

Having cut my teeth with hardcore, punk, and experimental music, the Dead were sort of a no-go zone for a while. I discovered them late in high school, although I was of course aware of their iconography-all the skulls and roses-way before that. Actually, when I first listened to their music, I had to check the tape after the first song to make sure I was listening to the right thing, because all the skeletons had me believing that they were going to sound much more menacing.

At this point, I consider their music among the most important in my life. It's been such a constant companion for so many years now. As someone who started out playing wild music on the fringes and was gradually drawn towards traditional American music, I see my own journey in theirs. Their music from 1972 speaks to me because you feel them growing up and deciding what they can use from the canon of American music in a way that feels genuine and specific to them. The songs are so moving and serious, but not precious. And their devotion to the road, for better or worse, is something that speaks to me, too. They pledged themselves to an existence on the margins. It's amazing that they became as hugely successful as they did.

The Grateful Dead were not about perfection. There was a great article about them a few years back in The New Yorker -an article praising them, mind you-that described their sound in the 1980s as "sneakers in a dryer." And for sure, the Dead can be a pretty obvious punching bag in a lot of ways. But to me, they managed to always keep the kernel of truth intact in their music-the bittersweetness that comes from being an outsider in love with the world and with music. They were totally on their own trip. They created their own magpie universe because they had to.

Over the years various friends tried to get me into the Dead, and I eventually buckled when I saw the TV series " Freaks and Geeks ." There are all sorts of hidden Dead references in the show, and it sold me on them-I had to see what it was all about. I chose to do the song " Attics of My Life " because it wasn't like many others. It was more choir-like and more about the words. I wanted to turn it into a gospel-style song.

There were Deadheads in my high school and they seemed ghostly but content. Which was intriguing because I was looking for a logo to attach myself to as I hadn't yet fully found out who I was. Like, maybe my rite of passage was a logo shirt. The music seemed really dark and really light at the same time. A dungeon with great natural light. Or being hungover but about to go swimming. In contrast to the punk stuff I was hearing at the time-the rebelliousness of which I only had a modicum of use for-the Dead sounded tragic and broken but enduring, ageless.

I didn't know any of the Dead's material beyond my mother playing "Sugar Magnolia" over and over in the car when I was a kid. My perception was that they jammed all the time and the lyrics were goofy; I expected constant blues hammer guitar solos, which I have a deep, deep aversion to. Obviously, I hadn't listened thoroughly. And I still haven't, honestly-their catalog is overwhelming. But in the meantime Aaron suggested "To Lay Me Down," and I didn't need to look any further. It has a very simple but very thoughtful lyric, and the studio version I listened to was very spare and soulful. The song has a hymnal quality to it but isn't specifically spiritual. Those are all qualities I look for in music, but I wouldn't have thought to look to the Grateful Dead for those things.

I don't like the Grateful Dead. There was this polarized time in my life where I choose Autechre and Aphex Twin over my friends who were going to Dead and Phish concerts. It's like "Star Trek"-you're either really into it or you're not. But I was deeply informed by the Canadian composer John Oswald, who pushed sampling really hard in the '80s, before it became a dominant cultural mode of appropriation. He doesn't really like the Dead either, so he edited together all these jams of "Dark Star" and made this weird dream collage that was, for me, way better than just listening to a bootleg. So I did a little tribute to him, sampling his work: I have respect for the creation of the original hippy shred and for John Oswald's shred on that hippy shred. It was an appropriation of the appropriator. It becomes this fourth order thing. I guess you could call it original. It just felt like the honest thing to do.

The Dead never 100% grabbed me as a favorite band in the world, though I do appreciate them and the whole scene around them from a music community standpoint. At the time I was contacted by Aaron, I was heavy into the opening track on American Beauty, " Box of Rain," which is an undeniable heart-wrencher. It's about Phil Lesh's dad, when he was about to pass away, and it's evident that the song comes from a place of bittersweet magic and loss.

The first Dead record I heard was American Beauty. It's nearly perfect. The production, the songwriting, the vocal harmonies, and the lyrics are all top-notch. As a misfit teen, it spoke to me more than punk or hardcore. I got into the whole hippie parking-lot culture, because it provided a sense of family and belonging that was missing in the halls of my high school. As I got older, some of those external aspects took a back seat to my ultimate realization: This is just great music. I think the Dead are the greatest American rock band of all time and should be heralded as such.

My friend Pete first showed me the Grateful Dead when I was working at a bar, closing up one night. Then we went away to a festival that our friends were playing at Mount Buller and listened to "New Speedway Boogie" a lot, spontaneously busting into, " Spent a little time on the mountaaaain." I'd heard about the concept of this project and I thought, Well, I like the National and I like the Grateful Dead-sure. We came up with a pretty non-Dead version of the song. It was a good vibe.

Prior to this project I was admittedly not hyper-familiar with the Grateful Dead's recordings, though I was aware of them and had watched their live performances because I had a roommate in college who was obsessed with them. But I figured my level of familiarity could only serve to make my interpretation more interesting, and improvisation is a huge part of what I do and an important tenet of my live show, so I really connect to that aspect of Grateful Dead.

I don't know much about the Grateful Dead's music, but I lived in San Francisco for about 16 years starting in the late '70s and knew how important they were, and that they represented the spirit of freedom and love. "Cumberland Blues" was the song that [producer] Tom Brenneck got interested in taking on and making our own. It connected with me too as it feels Southern, and I'm from Gainesville, Florida.

I was shielded from the Dead as a child-we regarded it as old man music. But discovering the song " Stella Blue " opened the doorway. There are a lot of cool harmonies, and we went off and added a bunch of harmonies of our own. The vocal arranging was really inspiring.

I've often drawn parallels between the Dead and Sonic Youth-both bands have three singers and three points of view and both were equally comfortable playing songs or doing deep improvisation. Over the years, the Dead were often put down by punk and indie rockers for the jams at the shows, which were seen as long and noodle-y. This was often true, especially in later years when they were more of a machine and less on-point than in their early days. But just as often, their jams were deeply exploratory and intricate. The thing that is often overlooked is what amazing songs they wrote-and how many of them. And hearing all these youngsters on this project covering their music really brought home how great the songbook they created was.

Back to home

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Grateful Dead Live On: Why the Legendary Band Still Matters

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Last July, an American way of life came to an end when the Grateful Dead closed their 50-year career with one last show. The National 's twin guitarists, Aaron and Bryce Dessner, were not there. In fact, the 40-year-old brothers they never got to experience the ultimate touring band in their element onstage.

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Koncertbilleder fra 1972 efterlyses i Århus Stiftstidende

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Koncertbilleder fra 1972 efterlyses i Århus Stiftstidende

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Koncertbilleder fra Grateful Dead i Aarhus i 1972 efterlyses

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Den 16. april 1972 gav rockgruppen The Grateful Dead koncert i Stakladen på Aarhus Universitet. Var du til koncerten, og ligger du inde med fotos fra...

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The Wall of Sound - entreprenører af liveshows

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The Wall of Sound - entreprenører af liveshows

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- nedbrød genre-/stilkonventioner = større appel

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Grateful Dead - Dark Star (Live/Dead) 1969

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Imødekommelse af "tapere" i særligt afskåret område på koncertvenue

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Imødekommelse af "tapere" i særligt afskåret område på koncertvenue

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The National har lavet fem coversange (ep/mini-cd) til hyldest af The Grateful Dead. Her forklarer Bryan Dessner, hvad TGD har betydet for The National.

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Bryce Dessner of The National: 'The Grateful Dead are part of folklore'

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The indie giants have made a five-disc covers compilation in honour of the Dead. Here their guitarist talks about their impact, how Sonic Youth were their natural successors and why they're so much more than a 'jam band'

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Politiken skrev om deres allersidste koncert i 2015

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Politiken skrev om deres allersidste koncert i 2015

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Om Grateful Deads maraton-koncerter, LSD-happenings og kult af medrejsende fans. Portræt af verdens mest turnerende band.

Mere kult og bevægelse end band.

Et eksperimenterende orkester, der flittigt har taget for sig af bevidsthedsudvidende stoffer og dannet lydtapet for 1960'ernes hippiebevægelse.

Og trods få hitlisteplaceringer måske verdens største liveband målt i publikums- og koncertantal.

Politiken-anmelder Henrik Palle kalder dem "det vigtigste af alle hippieorkestre", og præsident Barack Obama kalder dem "ikoniske".

I weekenden spillede The Grateful Dead deres definitivt sidste koncert efter at have eksisteret i mere end et halvt menneskeliv.

Læs også: Scorsese vil lave film om Grateful Dead

Det skete under de tre totalt udsolgte 'Fare Thee Well'-koncerter, som blev afholdt 3.-5. juli i Chicago.

Hver af de tre aftener var stadionet fyldt med 71.000 publikummer, og ifølge New York Times indtjente koncerterne 40 millioner dollars alene i billetindtægter.

Politiken tegner her et portræt af de eksperimenterende og definerende band, som har markeret sig med nogle maratonlange koncerter, en dedikeret fanskare og en liberal tilgang til stoffer.

Husorkester ved LSD-arrangementer

Bandet opstod i 1965 Californien i de år, hvor byen var kreativt epicenter for hippiebevægelsen og eksperimenterende, psykedelisk musik.

Amerikansk syrerock-orkester grundlagt i 1965 i Californien.
Er blandt andet kendt for deres eksperimenterende musik, lange koncerter, nære forhold til bevidsthedsudvidende stoffer og usandsynligt dedikerede fans 'The Dead Heads'.
Bandet gik mere eller mindre i opløsning i 1995 - efter 30 år - da guitarist og åndelig leder Jerry Garcia døde af et hjerteanfald.
Blev i 1994 optaget i The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Bandet blev 3.-5. juli i år gendannet for at spille de 3 hyldestkoncerter 'Fare Thee Well', som samtidig er bandets definitivt sidste.
Hver aften var 71.000 publikummer til stede under koncerterne på det udsolgte Soldier Field-stadion, som alene i billetindtægter indbragte 40 millioner dollars.

Den primære kunstneriske hovedmand, guitarist Jerry Garcia, kom fra en bluegrass-baggrund, men bandet udviklede sig i en mere blues-præget retning, fortæller Henrik Palle.

Musikken var præget af "meget lange improviserede forløb" med inspiration fra både free jazz og syremusik - og teksterne handlede mest om kærlighed, fortæller han.

De begyndte at spille ved beat-forfatteren Ken Keseys 'Acid Tests' - en række fester, hvor de deltagende udvidede sindet med LSD-saftevand.

Grateful Dead var en central del af hippiemiljøet omkring San Francisco-bydelen Height Ashbury, også blev kaldet 'Hashbury' på grund af dens overflod af bevidsthedsudvidende stoffer.

Og i det hele taget var bandet en "initierende del af hele den her hippie-stof-kultur", forklarer Henrik Palle.

Deres første album 'The Grateful Dead' udgav de i 1967, som også var året, hvor gruppen gav deres første store koncert. Det gjorde de ved et Hare Krishna-støttearrangement, hvor også beatpoet Allen Ginsberg og sanger Janis Joplin optrådte.

En kult af medrejsende fans

Ifølge Grateful Dead-entusiasten Henrik Palle, er en karakteristisk ting ved bandet, at de er blevet nærmest kultisk dyrket af deres fans - The Dead Heads - på trods af, at bandet ikke har markeret sig med hitlistesingler.

"De var ikke et hitlisteorkester på den måde. Til gengæld er de det band, der har spillet flest koncerter overhovedet, og de var som koncertforretning enormt store", siger Henrik Palle.

Ifølge Henrik Palle kom Grateful Deads mest definerende albummer i 1970: 'Workingmans' Dead' og 'American Beauty'.

"Musikalsk sker der et brud med dem i begyndelsen af 70'erne, hvor de laver to meget vigtige albummer, som baner vejen for en helt ny folk-rockbevægelse med bands som The Byrds og The Flying Burrito Brothers. Det er deres vigtigste studieplader, fordi de indvarsler noget helt nyt, slår en ny tone an - og er vanvittigt smukke", siger Henrik Palle.

Læs også: Grateful Dead gendannet til støtte for Obama

På den her tid har Grateful Dead vokset sig store og er begyndt at have et fast følge af fans som rejser med dem fra koncert til koncert.

"Grateful Dead er det eneste orkester, som har fans, der fast rejser med - The Dead Heads. De er professionelle fans, og rigtigt mange sælger t-shirts, vegetar-burritos eller pusher lidt tjald under koncerterne", siger Henrik Palle.

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Verdens vigtigste hippieorkester har spillet sin sidste koncert

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Om Grateful Deads maraton-koncerter, LSD-happenings og kult af medrejsende fans. Portræt af verdens mest turnerende band. Mere kult og bevægelse end band. Et eksperimenterende orkester, der flittigt har taget for sig af bevidsthedsudvidende stoffer og dannet lydtapet for 1960'ernes hippiebevægelse. Og trods få hitlisteplaceringer måske verdens største liveband målt i publikums- og koncertantal.

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Joe Russo laver coverband, der hylder TGD.

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The drummer Joe Russo leads a Grateful Dead tribute band that energetically revisits the band's catalog in inventive ways. Credit Credit Nathan Bajar for The New York Times

Joe Russo was totally stressed when he walked off an Oakland, Calif., stage at set break during the 2009 debut of Furthur, a group built around the former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Phil Lesh. Unversed in the Dead's massive repertoire only weeks earlier, Mr. Russo, a Brooklyn drummer, was relying heavily on a laptop for assistance in front of an audience for whom the material was uncut cultural DNA. Spotting Mr. Weir backstage, he apologized for his high anxiety and requested advice. His new boss obliged: "Maybe take some mushrooms?"

While he didn't follow the prescription, "All the tension fell out of my body and I knew nobody would die if I screwed up," Mr. Russo recalled recently. "It was a very free place."

And things have only gotten freer since. Sitting in the sunny backyard of the Park Slope apartment he shares with his wife and 2-year-old daughter, the amiable shaggy dog of a musician reflected upon Joe Russo's Almost Dead, the unexpectedly successful powerhouse of a Grateful Dead tribute band he leads. (The group performs Thursday in Prospect Park as part of BRIC's Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival.)

JRAD, as the quintet is more casually known, is a vehicle for Mr. Russo and four musical friends of at least 20 years - the keyboardist Marco Benevento, the bassist Dave Dreiwitz, and the guitarists (and main vocalists) Tom Hamilton and Scott Metzger - to improvise extravagantly around the Dead's emotionally sublime and often quirky songwriting. They eschew the laid-back fidelity of both official offshoots like Dead & Company (which includes three of the so-called "core four" surviving band members) and other tribute acts like the Dark Star Orchestra. Think instead of the Dead on a gleeful amphetamine drip.

JRAD's pumped-up take explores extremes of tempo and dynamics with muscular shredding, eerily quiet eddies and telepathic turn-on-a-dime switchbacks. Subtle and flagrant allusions to non-Dead songs pepper their shows. They play Bob Dylan songs the Dead didn't cover, and long-familiar Dead song pairings are either jettisoned or take unexpected twists - as when Father John Misty's "I'm Writing a Novel," rather than the tried-and-true "I Know You Rider," followed "China Cat Sunflower."

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Most of the JRAD lineup did something similar in the band Bustle in Your Hedgerow, which deconstructed the Led Zeppelin canon instrumentally. As with Bustle, Mr. Russo said, "we're handling a songbook that's cherished by us and a lot of other people while not really caring how it had been done before."

Mr. Russo, 41, was decidedly late to the Deadhead party. Raised in Franklin Lakes, N.J. - where many of the "Real Housewives of New Jersey" reside - the young metalhead quit his high school rock band (fronted by the future "American Idol" finalist Constantine Maroulis) rather than play a Dead tune or two. He relocated to Boulder, Colo., and toured the country from 1996 to 2000 with Fat Mama, which mixed the spirit of electric Miles Davis with late-90s D.J. culture.

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"I swear there was no intention at all to play more than one show," Mr. Russo said. "This was a mother-of-invention moment." Credit Nathan Bajar for The New York Times

Back in New York, he reunited with Mr. Benevento, a friend from middle school, and they eventually hit the road as the Duo, combining fierce extemporaneity with an eclectic approach to instrumental songwriting.

"Joe hated anything tie-dyed," Mr. Benevento recalled. "And he hated that I wore Birkenstocks onstage. In Canada we were called a jam band in a review, and he wrote We are not a jam band on his arm, really big. That being said, we were jamming. But so were Coltrane and Elvin Jones."

JRAD also emerged, one could speculate, from the collective imagination of the NYC-Freaks email list. Launched in 2000 by Aaron Stein, now a Long Island nanoscientist, the list connected the passionate music fans he regularly saw at clubs like Wetlands Preserve, the jam scene's CBGB and the Knitting Factory. ("I just got tired of going to shows alone," Mr. Stein explained.) The list currently boasts nearly 700 opinionated recipients who often generate hundreds of posts in a day. Having grown up on the Dead and Phish, they remain on the prowl for the next great thing in rock, jazz, folk, whatever.

The NYC-Freaks are "some of the most dedicated music fans I've ever witnessed, and I truly owe a lot of my career to them," said Mr. Russo, whose invariably spirited appearances in countless contexts made him a Freaks favorite from the get-go.

The annual "Freaks Ball," held for the past few years at Brooklyn Bowl, brings the flock together. In January 2013, Mr. Russo was supposed to play there in a new group fronted by Mickey Melchiondo a.k.a. Dean Ween, who then changed his mind. After some gentle arm-twisting, Mr. Russo agreed to call on his Bustle buddies for an evening of Dead tunes and JRAD was born. "I swear there was no intention at all to play more than one show," Mr. Russo said. "This was a mother-of-invention moment."

The audience for Grateful Dead music has been a constantly renewing resource, especially since "Touch of Grey" hit the Top 10 in 1987. JRAD likewise hits the sweet spot where both older and younger fans find rapturous common cause. "In a world where everything is changing, it's reassuring to hear the music you grew up with," said the Brooklyn Bowl owner Peter Shapiro, who produced the Dead's 50th anniversary reunion in 2015. "And when you add a new kind of kerosene to the fire - like Joe and the guys do - it goes to the next level and keeps people chasing it."

JRAD has become a fun and lucrative side gig for all concerned. Mr. Russo is finishing up a solo album and also records with the singer-songwriters Cass McCombs and Craig Finn; Mr. Benevento spends most of his time recording and touring his own music; Mr. Metzger leads the instrumental trio Wolf!; Mr. Hamilton debuted his new project Ghost Light earlier this year; and Mr. Dreiwitz plays bass for Ween. "I don't even know I'm in a Grateful Dead tribute band until we start singing the three-part harmonies of 'Uncle John's Band,'" said Mr. Benevento.

Mr. Russo is cautious about overexposing JRAD's special blend of orthodoxy and disruption. While festival appearances and bookings at venues such as Colorado's Red Rocks Amphitheater attest to JRAD's ascending popularity, he runs his band like an econo indie outfit, eschewing fancy lights and managing it with Peter Costello, who also handles the band's sound. For the time being, demand exceeds supply.

"Right now we're living at about 40 shows a year," Mr. Russo said. "I think we'd like to see that go down to about 30, and then do that for a really long time."

Correction:

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of Grateful Dead members in the band Dead & Company. There are three, not four. An earlier version of this article also misstated the title of a Father John Misty song. It's "I'm Writing a Novel," not "I Wrote a Novel."

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page C2 of the New York edition with the headline: Truckin' Along, but at a Somewhat Faster Speed. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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He Gleefully Inhabits the Grateful Dead. No Tie-Dye, Please.

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Joe Russo was totally stressed when he walked off an Oakland, Calif., stage at set break during the 2009 debut of Furthur, a group built around the former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Phil Lesh.

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...skriver også om fænomenet The Grateful Dead

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Ørevoks lancerer som noget helt nyt Månedens Gæstevoks, hvor vi hver måned giver ordet til en gæst .

I denne første måned er det musikskribent ved GAFFA og lejlighedsvis hos Fyens Stiftstidende, Christoffer Henneberg. Han har skrevet en tekst om Grateful Dead, som her bringes for første gang i anledning af Jerry Garcias 71 års fødselsdag. Desuden medvirker han til september i en antologi redigeret af Anne-Marie Mai: "Hvor skønne havfruer flyder. Om Bob Dylans digtning". Udkommer på Syddansk Universitetsforlag.

af Christoffer Henneberg

Grateful Dead var én af de der grupper, der altid delte vandene. For nogle var de det fedeste flip - for andre en flok overvintrede hippier, der ikke kunne spille og da slet ikke synge . Uanset hvad slog gruppen aldrig rigtigt igennem herhjemme, selvom de havde en stor fortaler i Dan Turèll. Nu var Turèll som bekendt fortaler for mange ting, men Grateful Dead havde en særstatus hos digteren, idet de efter alt at dømme var hans yndlingsbeatgruppe, og de dukker således ofte op som reference i flere af hans skønlitterære tekster. Turèll søgte endvidere i en række artikler og anmeldelser at introducere gruppen for et dansk publikum, ligesom han stod for et interview med Jerry Garcia i anledning af den legendariske københavnerkoncert i 1972.

Grateful Dead havde rødder i San Franciscos folk- og beatmiljøer, der omkring 1965 udviklede sig til en psykedelisk hippiescene med slumkvarteret Haight-Ashbury som centrum. Egentlig var de et jugband kaldet "Mother McCrees Uptown Jug Champions", men under påvirkning af The Beatles satte de strøm til og skiftede navn til The Warlocks, siden Grateful Dead.

Navnet stammede ifølge Garcia fra et tilfældigt opslag i en ordbog, men kan spores tilbage til et tysk folkeeventyr. Hovedpersonen møder et ligfølge, der ikke kan få deres lig begravet, med mindre han dækker udgifterne. Hvad han så også gør. Senere møder han en venlig mand, som han går i kompagni med. Denne mand gør ham mange tjenester, redder hans liv og viser sig til sidst at være: den taknemlige døde. Mange i miljøet fandt navnet for morbidt, men det hang fast og var, om ikke andet, en passende overskrift for gruppens pionerarbejde inden for det psykedeliske felt.

I betragtning af Grateful Deads tilknytning til hippiescenen er det bemærkelsesværdigt få af deres sange, der direkte adresserer samtiden, ligesom f.eks. Jefferson Airplanes gjorde det. Der er ikke megen revolutionær bragesnak hos Grateful Dead. De tilhørte snarere den del af ungdomsoprøret, der med stoffernes hjælp tog på en indre rejse i sindet i den tro, at friheden først og fremmest var noget, der skulle realiseres i den enkeltes bevidsthed. De var som William Burroughs engang sagde: "astronauter i det indre rum".

Den eneste sang i Grateful Dead-kataloget med dagsaktuel karakter er "New Speedway Boogie" , der omhandler Altamont-affæren. Grateful Dead havde været involveret i planlægningen af den katastrofale koncert, og der er ingen tvivl om, at begivenheden rystede Grateful Dead-lejren. Man forlod det efterhånden betændte miljø i Haight-Ashbury og bosatte sig i Marin County, nord for San Francisco. Musikalsk orienterede man sig mod countryen, som Bob Dylan havde gjort respektabel (for ikke at sige kommerciel) med Nashville Skyline året forinden. De følgende udgivelser Workingman's Dead og American Beauty beviste, at Grateful Dead ikke bare var det psykedeliske live-band par excellence, men også kunne præstere selvskrevne sange af overraskende høj kvalitet.

Sangene var skrevet af Garcia i samarbejde med lyrikeren Robert Hunter, og størstedelen af dem blev senere koncertstandarder. Der var f.eks. signatursangen "Truckin'" og "Uncle John's Band" med dens velturnerede vokalharmonier a la Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Der var desperado-fortællingen "Friend of The Devil", som Dylan senere tog op i koncertsammenhæng - og mange andre. Både Workingman's Dead og American Beauty sneg ind på den amerikanske albumhitlistes top 40.

I 1971 fulgte det dobbelte live-set Grateful Dead , der egentlig skulle have heddet Skullfuck , men det var pladeselskabet Warner Brothers ikke så meget for. Albummet er imidlertid mest kendt for den invitation, der stod på bagsiden:

DEAD FREAKS UNITE: Who are you? Where are you? How are you?

Send us your name and address and we'll keep you informed

Dead Heads, P.O. Box 1065, San Rafael, California 94901

Den voksende base af deadheads betød, at Grateful Dead omsider blev en overskudsforretning. De havde altid været lige så meget et socialt eksperiment som en musikgruppe, men nu havde de pludselig råd til at etablere et helt parallelsamfund i Marin County med eget pladeselskab, pr-organisation, pushere osv.

Om selve koncerten fortælles det i øvrigt, at én blandt publikum på et tidspunkt råbte: "Mere kul på!", hvortil Garcia svarede: "Easy, easy, we got all night". Grateful Dead var kendt for at spille i op mod 4 timer og havde bestemt ikke travlt. Eller som Garcia sagde: "Nu hvor vi alligevel er her, kan vi lige så godt spille."

I løbet af halvfjerdserne blev Grateful Dead i stigende grad et kult-band. De figurerede ikke på hitlisterne, og kritikerne brød sig ikke synderligt om dem. Det var nu heller ikke nødvendigt, for det stigende antal deadheads betød, at de kunne afsætte koncertbilleter i stor stil. Ved indgangen til firserne var Grateful Dead blandt de mest indbringende koncertnavne i USA.

Grateful Dead fremstod i det hele taget revitaliserede og kunne nu fylde de største stadions landet over med en helt ny generation af deadheads . Undervjes var der beskyldninger om, at de solgte nostalgi til en historieløs ungdom, men det var egentlig paradoksalt, at en musik, der i så høj grad grad voksede ud af nu'et, samtidig skulle kunne være nostalgisk.

To år senere, i 1995, døde Jerry Garcia af et hjerteslag på en afvænningsklinik i Marin County, 53 år gammel. En væsentlig repræsentant for dét, som Turèll havde kaldt "det Andet Amerika" var gået bort, for ikke at tale om et helt parallelsamfund af deadheads , der nu havde mistet sin patriark. Informations Lars Movin kunne fra San Francisco berette, hvordan byens borgmester beordrede rådhusets flag på halv og fik rejst et batiktrykt Grateful Dead-flag på toppen af bygningen. Desuden var der i medierne den forventelige snak om, at tresserne omsider var forbi og alt det der. Men allermest rørende var den hyldest, som Bob Dylan gav Garcia som en musiker, der filtrerede en lang række amerikanske stilarter:

There's no way of measuring his greatness or magnitude as a person or as a player. I don't think any eulogizing will do him justice. He was that great, much more than a superb musician with an uncanny ear and dexterity. He's the very spirit of whatever is Muddy River country at its core and screams up into thespheres. He really had no equal. To me he wasn't only a musician and friend, he was more like a big brother who taught and showed me more than he'll ever know. There's a lot of spaces and advances between The Carter Family, Buddy Holly and, say, Ornette Coleman, a lot of universes, but he filled them all without being a member of any school. His playing was moody, sophisticated, hypnotic and subtle. There's no way to convey the loss. It just digs down really deep.

De resterende medlemmer fortsatte for en tid under navnet The Dead, men uden Garcia som musikalsk indpisker og fikspunkt var de mere eller mindre dødsdømte. Det lange, mærkelige trip var forbi, men de døde lever videre i den strøm af live-udgivelser fra arkiverne, der er kommet siden Garcias død. At Grateful Dead på et tidligt tidspunkt etablerede et eget arkiv med koncerter-optagelser betyder, at der er nok til et langt liv efter døden. I dagens anledning udkommer således den tre-dobbelte Dave´s Picks Volume 7 , der indeholder en komplet koncert fra Illinois i 1977.

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Gæstevoks: "Et langt, mærkeligt trip: Grateful Dead Revisited"

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Ørevoks lancerer som noget helt nyt Månedens Gæstevoks, hvor vi hver måned giver ordet til en gæst . I denne første måned er det musikskribent ved GAFFA og lejlighedsvis hos Fyens Stiftstidende, Christoffer Henneberg. Han har skrevet en tekst om Grateful Dead, som her bringes for første gang i anledning af Jerry Garcias 71 års fødselsdag.

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Et outline af bandets signifikans og påvirkning af en hel generation

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As the band prepares for its final round of concerts, take a look back at its very special culture of supporters

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Martin Scorsese har lavet en rockdokumentar i 6 afsnit à 40 minutter om bandet og deres indflydelse på verden.

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Long Strange Trip review - the story of the Grateful Dead, in acid-bright colour

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Reluctant frontman Jerry Garcia and his army of devoted Deadheads are the focus of this rich rock doc produced by Martin Scorsese