Grateful Deadhead Webpage... Fan tribute ART and Stories... page #1 of 2 Link to second page...click here 
Grateful Dead 
sugar cube... like the cover of "The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test" by Tom Wolfe.
~~~~~~~~~~my story~~~~~~~~~ I first noticed the Grateful Dead in 1968 in english class at junior high school. Our teacher had put up posters on the wall of the classroom and we wrote essays about them.
He was attempting to stimulate creative WRITING but more importantly, creative THINKING.
One was an American flag made out of swastikas and another was a solarized/negative photo of 5 hairy men standing in front of "LITTLE BOXES" type suburban tract homes. Our english teacher
stopped working for the school system that year and has never been heard of since. That has happened often to people that go to see the Dead... They change their lifestyle and start associating
with a different set of people... Photo of those "Little Boxes" Homes being invaded by Alien Spaceship.
The first time I went to a concert was 1972. It was a double date with friends. There were three bands playing that night. The Sons of Champlin, The New Riders of the Purple Sage and the Grateful Dead. We all smoked marijuana during the first act and the other couple fell asleep in each others arms on
the floor of the Winterland Arena (San Francisco).
We let them sleep until the last song of the night. Casey Jones.
All that I really remember about that show was that the last song kept on getting louder and more intense and I felt that it was impossible for it to get any more powerful, and then it did...
The next year I went to Chico State College. At That Time...my opinion was that the people who were fans of the Dead were too obsessive. I tried to keep out of that scene because the people were just fanatic... I was more into Johnny Winter...
However,
In 1974 a group of us kids got into a Van and went to see the Dead at the University of Reno. I was in the back playing harmonica with my friend Jimmy on guitar. We spent the night at a cabin at Lake Tahoe. We all bought some 4-way windowpane acid. This turned out to be a mistake. The quality was
frighteningly bad. The next morning we went to the football stadium at 10 AM. We took the LSD and it made us feel anxious and upset all day. Lucky for me, I gave away 3/4 of the geletin square to some ladies. I apologise to them for their own nightmare experiences... Hey, I just didn't know... sorry...
The Dead were using a sound system called "The Albatross" or "The Wall Of Sound". They NEVER got it to work right. It was a huge sound system that was so complex that it turned out to be impractical to use on the road. They would play half a song and then something would go wrong and
they would stop. At 8 that night they finally gave up and we left. By then, the fear caused by the acid had gone away and I had a good time looking at the flashing lights in downtown RENO. There were some sculptures of Showgirls that were 40 feet tall. They were very impressive. I took some photographs at that show. I also had borrowed a halloween mask from my roomate. I lost the mask when some kid borrowed it to wear and then ran away thru the crowd...
During my trip I realized that it was way too much stuff to have to keep track of.
From then on I carried very little with me on trips... Intentionally dressing for an adventure, with carefully selected supplies...
Eventually, I went to 37 Dead Concerts. What a blessing...
 The Wall of Sound did function wonderfully at San Francisco's Winterland... The shows documented in "The Grateful Dead Movie" were spectacular... During the song "Truckin" I realized that "if the roof blew off the building and I could see the stars, I would not really be amazed because what was happening on stage was already the most unbelieveable event possible... another unbelievable event would just be trivial"
I was amused by one peculiar action... often, the cameramen would film a lightbulb on a stand... this seemed like odd behavior but eventually I grasped the idea that they were filming a chalkboard with a NUMBER written on it lit up by the lightbulb to be used to index the reels of film... for editing... I was told what they were doing about 10 years later...
They had live fire on stage and
ladies with silk ribbons dancing in front of the band...
and the LSD that night was of excellent quality... THANKS! 
It became apparent that there was something ELSE going on in addition to "rock and roll/show business". Some times I would not bother to buy a ticket to the concert at all but was happy to play music in the parking lot. Many people DID NOT attend the concerts. They went to experience the scene that surrounded the DEAD. There was a philosophy that the band was not the center of attention.
The Rainbow Gathering is the logical outgrowth of this feeling. The people from the audience (and other like minded individuals) meet in a National Forest and have a wonderful camping trip. At this level, the band does not even attend at all. REBUS PICTURE PUZZLE: What do the webdings spell? 
answer at bottom of the page...
During the late 1970s the band had become unpopular with the general public and I got to see them in smaller places... like the boys gym at the University of Maryland. The baby boomer generation seemed to be embarrased by their hippie behavior during their youth and those were lean years for the band. Bad for them, but good for me because it was easy to get a ticket...
Then tastes changed and they started playing
huge football stadiums.
One fine show was at Pittsburg's Three Rivers Stadium... 80,000 seats... The Dead played with Crosby, Stills and Nash. They played "Wooden Ships" and "Teach Your Children" which featured a pedal steel guitar solo by Jerry Garcia... such a sweet introduction to that song on the CSN record... The people came from Canada, NY city and Washington DC... an interesting group of people to meet... there was a great violin based gypsy jazz band playing by a bus after the show... then the police made everyone leave the parking lot and drive on down the road. I ended up stopping at a McDonalds restaurant with a playland that was just PACKED with other deadheads... Big fun playing on the toys.
 I never went "on tour" with the Dead but it took very little effort to drive one day to see a show... So, when I lived in Maryland, I went to many shows in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Columbia MD, DC, Norfolk
VA and NY City... Like, why NOT?
Madison Square Garden is built directly above Pennsylvania Station... it's quite convenient to ride the train to and from the show...
The 6 shows I saw at Columbia Maryland's Merriweather Post Pavillion were a high point for all... The venue is in an ideal location. It is located in "Symphony Woods", a forested park in downtown Columbia. Across the street is a giant shopping mall. Convenient access to supplies (groceries,
batteries, liquor etc.).
The shows were outdoors in the summer and one night there was a thunderstorm. Lucky US! Many people left and that relieved the overcrowding on the lawn area... Thanks for going away!
The band kept on playing and the lightning flashes seemed to be timed to the music... During the drum/space part of the show, Mickey Hart timed drum rolls to have the thunder play the last note... on a tom-tom fill it would go... from high to low... da da da, du du du, de de de, kaboom!
Sadly, the town of Columbia requested that the Dead play somewhere ELSE... The rumor is that there were too many fireworks in the parking lot and the fans were a danger to the forest... I believe this to be true because there WERE a lot of explosives flying into the air... flying explosives are legal "south of the border" in the Carolina states... a VERY short drive on highway 95... so the DC area always has had a lot of fireworks... and M80 firecrackers. The next year the Dead moved to a basketball arena... and then eventually ended up at RFK Stadium in Washington DC.
A concert at RFK had Another fantastic thunderstorm...
the football field turned to mud with people sliding...
In the summer, the weather often gets to 99.99999% humidity and 100 degrees Farenheit... It's just miserable... they, when the rain comes at nightfall, it is a relief... a blessing... the people started to cheer when the thunderstorm started...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- original poetry inspited by shows at the Spectrum Arena in Philadelphia.
1
ceremony and ritual: a story...
OUR MINDS HAVE BEEN FUSED INTO ONE SHIMMERING
COLONIAL ANIMAL...
FLOWING IN THE
CURRENTS OF THE MUSIC...
adrenaline, seratonin,synapses on fire !
IN THE SHADOWS,TORCHES FLICKER IN THE BREEZE.
THE ORACLE BEGINS TO SPEAK,
FEEL THE HEAT...
adrenaline,serotonin,synapses on fire!
WE DANCE OUTSIDE OF THE TRADITIONAL
REALM OF TIME AND SPACE.
THE CROWD ERUPTS IN OUTBURSTS OF FREE-FORM MOTION
AS THE INTENSITY OF THE JAM PEAKS
adrenaline,serotonin,synapses on fire!
MY BODY IS TRANSFORMED INTO A PINBALL AND
I RICCOCHET AROUND THE SPECTRUM
ARENA BOUNCING OFF THE FLASHING LIGHTS.
A CROWD OF DEADHEADS
SURROUND ME INTENT ON TELLING ME STUPID JOKES...
THEY JUST...know... THAT I WILL LAUGH...
adrenaline,serotonin,synapses on fire!
GOD...THE 'BIG G' WALKS RIGHT UP TO ME AND SHAKES MY HAND.
HE ANSWERS ALL THE
REALLY BIG QUESTIONS...
OF COURSE, BY THE NEXT MORNING I FORGOT THEM ALL!
NO PROBLEM ....
THEY WERE PROGRAMMED DIRECTLY INTO MY DNA
AND I'LL KNOW THEM UNTIL
THE END OF TIME........
THANK YOU DR. ALBERT HOFFMAN
***************************************
 Self Hypnosis story. written to entrance the reader.
Imagine that you are floating in a tub of warm water...
every muscle in your body is completely relaxed...
your mind drifts and contentment blooms like
a time lapse film of a rose...
you leave your body and rise up to the ceiling...
you look back and see your body...
it is resting with a cup of tea in it's hand...ahh...mint...
as you watch your body,
your mind seeps thru the ceiling and you see the world.
there is a forest...it is for...rest...
on the shore of a lake a spiral of deadheads dance around a fire.
the flickering light seems to be perfectly synchronized to the rhythm of the drums... alas...the reversal
of entropy is mearly an illusion.
one of the deadheads reaches into the shadows and lifts
a five gallon can of gasoline.
it is tightly sealed.he places it on the fire...
they all move back...
it will take time for the gas to expand enough to burst the can...
a slender woman with strawberry blond hair raises a conch shell
to her lips and draws a deep breath.
she blows a long note signaling
the beginning of a new era of mankind.
everything is dripping with meaning.
significance saturates every leaf of every tree ...
then a tiny hole appears in the gas can and
a cone of fire reaches for the sky...
you contemplate metalurgy,welding and strength of materials...
then the gas can resigns itself to fate
and a ball of fire searches for oxygen and of course finds it.
the spiral of deadheads emit a massive yeah! and you drift on...
| http://www.zazzle.com/gregvan 
Magic Mushroom artwork printed on a button... for amusement porpoises only.
pencil sketch done with a drawing template of a bear
golden bear-the mascot of UC Berkeley... just co-incidence? 
Mom Says: Eat your Mushrooms! 
a silly bumpersticker for sale at http://www.zazzle.com/gregvan bear paw prints.. 
Bob Weir's song Lost Sailor... quite the masterpiece with a great dissonant chord structure... 
Lost Sailor: John Barlow Lyrics http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/ Founding member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 
One fine thing about the Grateful Dead:
They often played three nights in a row at the same location,
without repeating any songs. It is truly amazing that they
were able to remember that much material.
Most performers practice one show and then when they have
learned it, they go on the road...
It makes me wonder if there is a song memorization
enhancing property to the chemical LSD.
How ELSE can we explain what happened?
Each night had a different texture to it.
The first night had more extreme improvization and more
dissonant chord structure.
The second night was mellow and the third night
was straight ahead rock and roll.
I believe that this was intentional.
Many of us would buy tickets to all three nights and spend
the daytime as tourists exploring whatever town we were in.
On the first night, we would take LSD
and enjoy the spaciness of the jams.
The second night we would be tired out from the previous
night's adventure and were in the mood for those sad old ballads...
By the time the third night rolled
around, we just wanted to party with our new found friends.
The ART below is based on the fine graphic design of Bob Thomas... and a supurb redwood sculpture by an unknown Humboldt County artist... It is easy to see far when you stand on the shoulders of giants! 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Thomas Bob also did the Lightning Bolt Skull with artist, sound engineer and LSD manufacturer Owsley Stanley... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owsley_Stanley nicknamed "Bear" The back cover of History of the Grateful Dead, vol 1 (Bear's Choice) showed multi-colored marching bears. Bob's inspiration for the bear came from a 36 point lead slug of a generic bear that was a standardised figure from a printer's font box.
The desire to document the LSD experience is strong... witness this man trying to photograph an Hallucination... MLULTRA... WHERE IT ALL BEGAN Both Ken Kesey and Robert Hunter were paid research subjects... and Stewart Brand of the Whole Earth Catalog...
New record just published by the band... http://dead.net The ultimate winners of this voyage... Kid dancing with dad as a Grateful Dead Cover band plays... Let it Grow... in beautiful Arcata, California... we can have fun forever... Tribute Bands may be playing Dead songs for thousands of years... after all, people still perform Mozart, Beethoven, Mussorgsky... FYI... Arcata, California is an entire TOWN of people that GRASP the concept... Like the students pictured above... Come and VISIT anytime... Take Highway 101 North from San Francisco or 101 South from Oregon... Highway 299 leads to us from Redding and the central valley... Plenty of Guitar pickers and artists here... "The Miracle Show" concert. A Dead Tribute band that re-incarnates themselves as "The Fickle Hillbillies" to play original tunes. Playing for free in Arcata. No cover charge, we are all just friends that love to play and dance... SAMBA! at the all species parade... 
Dancing at the Rainbow Gathering in California... Dun Dun Village... |