NPr will not shut up about this, and of course my headphones are sitting on my kitchen table. If I hear "Touch of Gray" on more time i'ma start freaking the fuck out.

I feel your pain, Cotton.

Jerry's dead.


We're grateful.

Neat enough guy, and props for playing pedal steel on CSNY's "Teach Your Children" or whatever, but yeah, one of the most blatantly over-blown deaths ever.

Wow. I remember the day vividly because this dork some friends hungout with wouldn't shutup about it. I had the day off work & was cruising around with some people just hanging out being a 20 year old. I foundout that day the same dork was about to steal my buddies girlfriend. My buddy got revenge the next summer by tagteaming her with another friend when she was still with said dork. I was almost in on that too but I left early. She wanted me too, I could tell something was up the minute I got to my friends house earlier that night by the way she was looking at every guy in the room.

See it doesn't take long to turn any post about the Grateful Dead into a post about group sex.

He may be going to hell in a bucket, but at least he's enjoying the ride. At least he's enjoying the ride.

Of course it confirms some kind of "independent thinker" credentials to dis the death of the Fat Guy, but perhaps it is also a generational thing.

At one point I was on the streets of Haight Ashbury in 1967, 16 years old, believing that the fabric of Being was tearing and anything could happen. The curtain to the Holy of Holies fell away and the earth trembled.

At one point there was a sense that the world could be better than it was, that music and love could alter the status of oppressed and oppressor, and that such change would libererate both.

At one point it seemed that the corrosively acquisitive hunger for products and image might be mitigated by drugs and sex and rock and roll. That there was a brotherhood and sisterhood feeling the same thing about this, and that living was not so fucking lonely after all.

At several points these notions fell apart, the world did not hold. A final point in this entropic mismatch of hope and Capital was ten years ago.

I guess you had to be there....

Did Jerry really stop on the way to rehab to freebase some coke, thus causing his death? That sounds too true to be good.

I'll acknowledge this day in some small way. He meant more to others around me than myself, but he had a sweet voice and a kind character. I hold the music he made in very high esteem.

The rest of you can lick a dick today.

I've never actively hated the Grateful Dead or Jerry on principle, but I'll be damned if I could ever understand the propulsive loyalty this music/ideal inspired in a small generation of people. There are many aspects of this music I should enjoy. I read the album review of American Beauty and by all rights I should like it, but it has just made zero impact. I guess harry's quote sums it up.

I like this post.

Garcia's death should be remembered. All those fools out there greatly (grately?) miss him. To illustrate how much: take the top five bands/musicians you love the most. Now combine the amount you like them into one sum love for a band. Then multiply it by five. That's how much some of those fools love this guy's music. As much as I dislike them (stinky hippies) I have to give them props for liking music (even this kind) that much.

Peace out Jerry. Mourn ya, till I join ya.

i liked it too.
(of course, i'm also a HUGE grateful dead fan. and yes, in honor of jerry....i did listen to the dead and/or the jerry garcia band all day at work today.)

I didn't even fucking say anything earlier, other than that i was sick of his worst song ever recorded, but the fucking snide responses to this have gotten me pretty worked up over this.

Jerry in his prime was an excellent guitarist adept at playing passable blues riffs and unstoppable bluegrass/country. He is also the best example of excess and hero worship DESTROYING something great.

If you were 19 at the prime of Haight-Ashbury, that's awesome. I envy that you got to see the height of a beautiful, meaningful scene in all of its glory and danger. I got to see enough "space" to want my head kicked in and Bob Weir fake guitar for 2 hours.

the dead rule.

I respect and appreciate the music and scene for what it was, but I would have never known it was the anniversary of his death unless someone had told me.

we should all go out to the parking lot and sell pizza bagels to each other in his honor.

I think most of these people couldn't care less about the music. They love the hippy scene that goes along with it - the music is just the excuse.

nah.
most of the big dead fans i've met we're huge music fans and used the dead as a stepping stone to know very large amounts about blue grass and all sorts of americana.

You know higher caliber dead fans than I do, then.

I'm a Deadhead by marriage.
10 years ago was a rough time for my wife.
But yeah, the "scene" that surrounded the band was a bunch o bollocks -- mostly a lot of people who could not function outside of that insular little community. But it was fun to go an be a part of, if only for a day or 2 at a time.

As to the music: They had some truly marvelous songs that they liked to ruin in concert with a whole lot of stoned noodling.

Pick up a copy of American Beauty and any card-carrying music geek should gain at least a modicum of respect for them, if not just outright enjoy that record.

Rest easy, Jerry.

when the dead came through town, my whole high school would have a buzz about it.

double entendre intended.

To Harry:

I want to clarify, because I respect you, and don't want to be taken incorrectly. The Dead is a great example of a band amounting to more than the sum of their parts, in regards to their musical output. They had at the very least a handful of thoughtful, well-written songs, and their work ethic / dedication to their job was admirable (yes, drugs, rambling live performances, od's, etc., but the track record speaks for itself). But the catalog of music, if judged solely on its own merits, is in no way on-par with the hero worship of the band members, particularly Jerry. It's good, but not Superhero good.

So the result is people my age (30ish) who did Not have the benfit(?) of the cultural experience that went along with your generation's exposure to that same music catalog, and who are unable to fathom what in the hell the worship is about sometimes. It's hard to get whimsical about (let's just call it what it is, come what may) "noodling" if you aren't 16 and knee-deep in pseudo-revolution. But I, for one, can imagine such a thing happening, and it gives me pause for consideration. I am quite certain I'll have to defend my highschool soundtrack in much the same fashion in the not too distant future.

Loved the dead, although I didn't get around to seeing them till '94. Kinda like watching Jordan play for the Wizards.

i think everyone's did. marple used to rent buses. But I mean who was turned on to anything more than mescaline at any of their shows in the eighties on? I mean, I saw them in sixth grade (long story) and remember thinking to myself "this isn't nearly as exciting as the (late-60s/early 70s) shows I've heard" and "the spectrum doesn't smell like this during Wings' games"