10/6/2023 0 Comments Grateful dead space albumThe Grateful Dead always had a very strong visual identity. Indeed, a whole industry became based around The Grateful Dead, who are perhaps now more famous for their ice-cream – which seems a long way from acid-drenched psychedelic rock. Despite all of that they became the most successful US band in history while Jerry Garcia was still alive. Onstage, band members were more likely to wear bootleg t-shirts than the official versions. The band even had a history of being extremely lenient about the right to use their image, artwork, and logos. Now those fan recordings have become commercially available as part of the band’s back catalogue ‘ reissues’ for all intents and purposes. A whole bootleg industry grew up around them. They were famously blasé about fans recording their live sets, and even actively encouraged it and built a whole a community around themselves.įans could even directly plug into the band’s equipment to make sure that their recordings were of the very best quality. The Grateful Dead seemed to have such a lax attitude to the business that it probably defies logic that they made any money at all. Yet the catch is that there is now an entire business-model based on their career and managers in the music business employ it to lucrative effect. This is a band whose reputation was based primarily on live performance they jammed relentlessly and improvised freely with a profound unwillingness to show any compliance to the demands of ‘ the man’, lest they become ‘ some kinda sell out’. The Grateful Dead have always been paradoxical though. Their status is on an almost mythological level, which can make it difficult to separate fact from legend, from reality, from hallucination. If there is any one band that seemingly captures the whole hippy, counter-cultural aesthetic it has to be The Grateful Dead. The Grateful Dead became the biggest American band in history while remaining part of the counterculture, Getintthis’ Andy Holland attempts to discover why. The Grateful Dead – Not the best looking bunch of lads.
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