The strange trip of starting a Grateful Dead phase
"Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right."
The past couple months have been strange in terms of new musical obsessions. First there was a stretch when I was listening to a lot more country music prompted in large part by the Ken Burns’ documentary that I finally caught up with.
Now I find myself in the midst of another strange phase and in a lot of ways Steven Hyden is to thank/to blame.
One of my favorite music critics/writers, I’ve been catching up with his 36 From the Vault podcast series with Rob Mitchum in which they go through and talk about all the releases in the Dick’s Picks series of Grateful Dead live releases.
Yes, I’ve been hitting a Grateful Dead phase.
I’d listened to the Dead before, but only in a passive way. I knew the big songs and that they had the reputation/image that they do. But beyond that, they weren’t really a bad I allowed myself to connect with.
Hyden has a really interesting idea in a piece on the recent resurgence in popularity in the Dead, especially amongst the kinds of people who might have found the band anathema in the past. I feel like it gets into where this newfound interest comes from.
But what explains the “Mid-Life Dead Phase”? After dabbling a bit in the Dead in my 20s, I turned the corner and became a devotee in my early 30s, which coincided with so many Dead shows being available for download on Live Archive. So technology certainly had a lot to with it. But I had also grown disillusioned with the persistent taste politics endemic to conversations about contemporary pop and indie music. So much of the talk then centered on whether you were a “hipster” for liking certain artists, or hopelessly lame and passé for favoring others. It was all about turning what you like into what you’re like, and it was frankly exhausting. I might have also been a little insecure. As a music critic in a youth-obsessed industry, I was no longer young. But in the Dead world, that didn’t seem to matter, either.
Beyond the idea of the “mid-life Dead phase” (which I both and enjoy and as someone in his mid-life who is having this phase… something I understand), the way in which Hyden identifies some of that baggage of pretense and what is “cool” falling away as one gets a little older struck a nerve.
What I really like about Hyden as a music writer is his musical omnivore tendencies. He will say or write interesting things about the Dead or Phish but then do a great piece on an indie garage rock-y band, or on an alternative stalwart like Pavement or Guided By Voices. It’s a mindset I’m really glomming onto and trying to bring into my own listening habits.
I’ve also been thinking about why I’m perhaps particularly susceptible to getting into the Dead. My love of Jack Kerouac and interesting in the Beat Generation certainly helps with that. I mean, Bob Weir wrote a song about Neal Cassidy. Also the fact that they’re very much a Northern California band and I’m someone who was born and raised in Northern California has to factor in. I mean, I have a distinct memory of the day Jerry Garcia died and how prevalent it was on the local news.
But I also think, as someone who likes to have new things to read or listen to or think about, the Dead are just a natural fit. Between their being so many live releases (and that those live shows are really, more so than the studio records, where the legacy of that band was formed) and the volume of publications on them, you can dig and dig into the Dead for what seems like eternity. A band that offers that and plays music that I enjoy (which the Dead certainly do, in their unique combo of country/folk/psychedelia/rock/funk/blues/R&B) is bound to be right up my alley.
Phish have a similar appeal in terms of the voluminousness of their live catalogue though they don’t carry with them the connections to those cultural touchstones that the Dead have.
I am getting into Phish a little bit. Not as much as the Dead but I’m definitely dipping my toes into that pool.
My favorite musician of all time is Bruce Springsteen and he’s someone, especially in recent years, who’s been good about releasing recordings of many of his live shows throughout his career. It’s been wonderful for me as I’ve been able to go back and relive some of the eras of his music that I missed because, well because for a lot of them I wasn’t even alive. But it’s still not at the level of the Dead in terms of what he’s putting out there regarding archival live recordings and I definitely wish he was a little bit closer to that model. I wish there was a way I could listen to an entire tour of Springsteen shows, not just those highlight shows that have been put out there.
So perhaps I’m a cliche. The bearded guy in his late 30s who starts getting really into the Grateful Dead. It might not be for everyone. But in the spirit of breaking down barriers when it comes to the music one likes and allows themselves to like, I’m going to enjoy and revel my time in Dead-dom.
At my high school, there was a dividing line; you either loved the Dead, or couldn’t stand them. I think reality was probably a lot more muddled, but to your quote, a lot of people let music define them. Plus, it was the early 90s, and there were already enough weird orthodoxies as it was. A kid that liked hardcore also listened to “American Beauty?” Perish the thought!
It all seems so silly in hindsight, doesn’t it? Anymore, if something moves me (or makes me move), it counts as “good music.” And there’s a deadhead sticker on my car (not a Cadillac).