Introduction on the Grateful Dead and Thesis

 

The Grateful Dead is a psychedelic rock band born out of the counterculture movement of the 1960s, and the Deadheads are the subculture associated with them. Deadheads are not just fans of the Grateful Dead but are highly loyal to the group and are infatuated with their music. While people may think that Deadheads are a group of washed-out hippies, as the stereotypes about them say, they are a vibrant subculture with rituals, behaviors, and a religious aspect.

 

Context For the Subculture

 

  In the mid-1960s, the Grateful Dead went to parties called Acid Tests, involving a drug called LSD, a symbol of the counterculture. In Roth (2003), the author quotes a Deadhead named Blair Jackson’s work, Goin’ Down The Road: A Grateful Dead Traveling Companion. In this quote, Jackson quotes Jerry Garcia, who said of the Acid Tests, “‘Anything was okay … The Acid Tests were thousands of people, all hopelessly stoned, all finding themselves in a roomful of other thousands of people, none of whom any of them were afraid of'” (p. 270). As Garcia said, these Acid Tests helped cement the value of freedom within the Grateful Dead community. Moreover, they helped with the band’s approachability, created the Deadhead community, started its drug culture, and set up the inclusive nature of the subculture. Finally, with all these values, people would think that Deadheads would all be hippies, but, according to Barbieri(1991), although hippies make up much of the community, many have professions as diverse as computer programmers, lawyers, and accountants, showing a more refined side to the subculture in contrast to the hippie stereotype. 

 

Types of Deadheads

 

Within the Deadhead subculture, multiple groups exist. For example, despite the proliferation of drugs at Dead shows, a group called the Wharf Rats is sober. Many of the deadheads I know are Wharf Rats. During a Dead concert, they meet up at an arc of yellow balloons and have a 12-step program to avoid drugs. The task of stopping drug usage at a Dead show requires monumental effort, but the Wharf Rats’ teamwork facilitates its undertaking. Other groups within the Deadhead subculture stand on a hierarchy. There are the Touchheads who are younger than the rest. Touchheads derive their name from the song “Touch of Grey,” the only Grateful Dead song to be a mainstream hit. The community perceives Touchheads as not being “real fans” because of their recent entrance into the subculture. Due to the stigma against them, few Deadheads I know identify as one. The “Stable Deadhead” participates in the subculture rarely but consistently, whether by going to local shows, occasionally going to distant shows to meet friends or scheduling vacations around tour dates. Stable Deadheads have responsibilities like a family or a job, for example, a stockbroker or a doctor. Most of the Deadheads I have met fall into this category. There is also a group called “tourheads” who goes to every concert and lives off profits made from vending at Dead Shows (Barbieri, 1991). This group is most like the Deadhead stereotype of a washed-out hippie. Finally, there is a group called the Tapers, who tape shows and holds a critical part in the Deadhead subculture.

 

Taping the Music

 

Although the Grateful Dead released plenty of live albums, their legacy mainly derives from Deadheads recording their live shows. Even though shows often discourage taping, the Grateful Dead either turns a blind eye to it or encourages it (Barbieri, 1991). From my experience, the Deadhead subculture is full of Tapers, and they talk about collecting, listening, and analyzing the shows they have recorded. They talk about favorite shows rather than favorite albums, using specific nuances in recordings to explain why, and they discuss with each other how they store their tapes. Sometimes, these Deadheads could acquire the official mix from the Grateful Dead, which in the Taper subculture were called “board recordings,” as shown in Figure 1. The taping community desired these recordings, as they were of higher quality and considered more authentic than their bootleg recordings. After Jerry Garcia died in 1995, and the band broke up, the tapes that the Tapers collected helped to document the Grateful Dead’s vast body of work and helped thousands of Deadheads experience a bygone era of concerts.

 

The Religious Aspect

 

Roth(2003), discussing the experience at Grateful Dead concerts, says that “there was … profound transformative experience … at Dead shows that kept many followers coming back” (pp.263-264). Through this experience, Deadheads ritualized finding meaning in the Grateful Dead’s music. They constructed this meaning found in the music through art, such as the dancing bears, shown in Figure 2, and the Steal Your Face, shown in Figure 3, and communal and ritualistic dancing. The Deadhead lingo also indicates a degree of religiosity. For example, according to Roth(2003), “terms like ‘ritual,’ ‘church,’ ‘vision,’ ‘sacred,’ ‘sacrament,’ and ‘myth’ are used … by Deadheads to describe their behavior and the community experience” (p.266). Organized religions also use the terms to describe their behavior and community experience, suggesting a link between them. Also present in the Deadhead subculture is mythology and oral tradition. An example of this mythology is that, when the band was trying to find a new name, according to Deadhead oral tradition, the phrase ‘Grateful Dead’ was given to Jerry Garcia mystically, when he opened a dictionary, shut his eyes, and pointed at the words “Grateful Dead.” The story is shown on a bumper sticker in Figure 4. This oral tradition shows a creation myth. The creation myth is an integral part of religions, demonstrating that the Deadhead subculture is religious. Deadheads blend other cultures to form artifacts. For example, Due to their favorite band being named Grateful Dead, Deadheads have subverted death by borrowing from the Egyptian and Tibetan cultures. The Deadhead subculture wanted to link the name of the ‘Grateful Dead’ to these cultures. This blending of cultures resulted in various cultural artifacts, such as the art of the dancing skeletons, as shown in Figure 5, from Tibetan mythology(Roth, 2003). Taken together, the Deadheads have constructed a religion through adapting cultures, interpreting art and music, and making myths to understand the world around them.

 

Final Thoughts

 

The Deadhead subculture is a vibrant subculture with rituals, behaviors, and a religious aspect, not a group of washed-out hippies, as stereotypes about them say. The Deadhead subculture inspires other fandoms to improve their social life by making a Deadhead-like subculture. Artists also use this subculture as inspiration to create a Deadhead-Esque subculture, though few have succeeded as of yet. 

 

References:

Barbieri, S. M. (1991, April 8). LIVING FOR THE DEAD THE GRATEFUL DEAD’S FOLLOWERS AREN’T JUST FANS ANYMORE–DEADHEADS QUALIFY AS A SUBCULTURE. Orlando Sentinel. https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1991-04-08-9104070150-story.html

Budnick, D. & Relix Media Group LLC. (2017, February 16). The Betty Boards Are Now in the Grateful Dead Vault [Image]. relix. https://relix.com/news/detail/the_betty_boards_are_now_in_the_grateful_dead_vault/

 

Grateful Dead. (n.d.). Grateful Dead Dancing Bears Magnet [Image]. Hippie Shop. https://www.hippieshop.com/products/grateful-dead-dancing-bears-magnet

 

Grateful Dead. (n.d.). Grateful Dead – Dancing Skeletons Bumper Sticker [Image]. Sunshine Daydream. http://www.sunshinedaydream.biz/Grateful-Dead–Dancing-Skeletons-Bumper-Sticker_p_3573.html

Grateful Dead. (n.d.-b). Steal Your Face Lightning Skull Enamel Pin [Image]. Newbury Comics. https://www.newburycomics.com/products/grateful_dead-steal_your_face_lightning_skull_enamel_pin?variant=21251814129769

Roth, L. K. (2003). DANCING SKELETONS: The Subversion of Death Among Deadheads. In P. Narvaez, Of Corpse: Death and Humor in Folkore and Popular Culture (pp. 263–293). Utah State University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt46nsgh.14

Roth, L. K. (2003b). Figure 2 [Image]. In DANCING SKELETONS: The Subversion of Death Among Deadheads (pp. 263–293).

 

Appendix: Figures

Figure 1

Board Recordings

Note : Some “Board Recordings,” which were official mixes of the show made by the Grateful Dead. Retrieved from the relix.com article “The Betty Boards Are Now in the Grateful Dead Vault”  by Dean Budnick. Link for image: https://relix.com/news/detail/the_betty_boards_are_now_in_the_grateful_dead_vault/

 

Figure 2

Dancing Bears

Note: Retrieved from the Hippie Shop Website. Link for image:

https://www.hippieshop.com/products/grateful-dead-dancing-bears-magnet

 

Figure 3

Steal Your Face

Note: Retrieved from the Newbury Comics Website. Link for image:

https://www.newburycomics.com/products/grateful_dead-steal_your_face_lightning_skull_enamel_pin?variant=21251814129769

Figure 4

Bumper Sticker of Jerry Garcia’s Revelation

Note: See Description Above. Retrieved from page 274 in the Chapter the Chapter: “Subversion of Death Among Deadheads” by L. Roth in P. Narvaez’s 2003 book, Of Corpse: Death and Humor in Folkore and Popular Culture. Note the Egyptian mythology, Steal Your Face, as shown in Figure 3, and eye in hand present, which are all part of esoteric mythology. Also note Jerry Garcia’s face, associating the whole bumper sticker with the Grateful Dead.

 

Figure 5

Dancing Skeletons

Note: Retrieved from the Sunshine Daydream website. Link: http://www.sunshinedaydream.biz/Grateful-Dead–Dancing-Skeletons-Bumper-Sticker_p_3573.html