Deadhead

A Deadhead or Dead head is a fan of the American rock band the Grateful Dead. The Deadhead subculture originated in the 1970s, when a number of fans began traveling to see the Grateful Dead in as many shows or festival venues as they could. As more people began attending live performances and festivals, a community developed. The Deadhead community has since gone on to create slang and idioms unique to them.
Due to extensive improvisation, eclectic song choice and other variables the Grateful Dead were known for having concerts perceived as each being a unique event. The wide variety of their live concerts, when coupled with the band's permissive attitude on taping performances, has created a plethora of historical material. Such recordings of previous performances are shared widely among the Deadhead community.
Much Deadhead-related historical material received or collected by the band over the years is housed in the Grateful Dead Archive of University of California, Santa Cruz. Archive founding curator Nicholas Meriwether, who has also written extensively about the culture and its impact on society, predicted, "The Grateful Dead archive is going to end up being a critical way for us to approach and understand the 1960s and the counterculture of the era... It's also going to tell us a lot about the growth and development of modern rock theater, and it's helping us understand fan culture." Over the course of their thirty-year career, the Grateful Dead performed over 2,200 live shows.

Overview

The eclectic musical styling of the Grateful Dead was heavily inspired by the Beatnik movement of the 1950s and later the psychedelic counterculture of the 1960s. One group at the forefront of the psychedelic sound was the Merry Pranksters. On the first historic bus trip, on the bus Furthur, a pattern was set for the Deadhead touring lifestyle to come. By the late 1970s, some Deadheads began to sell tie-dye T-shirts, veggie burritos, or other items at Grateful Dead concerts. In the 1980s, the area where Grateful Dead merchandise was sold became popularly referred to as "Shakedown Street", named after the 1978 song. Income from these shops allowed Deadheads a way to follow the band on its tours.
During the early 1980s, the number of Deadheads taping shows increased, and the band created a special section for fans who wished to record the show. These tapes are still shared and circulated today via websites such as the Live Music Archive and bt.etree.org. In the earlier days of the Grateful Dead, there were questions as to whether or not it was in the best interest of the band for fans to tape concerts. In 1982, Garcia himself was asked what he thought about it, and he replied, "When we are done with it , they can have it."
The practice of taping has evolved and expanded in the digital age. The rise of the Internet and peer to peer file sharing networks has made it extremely easy for Deadheads to share concerts through unofficial and official channels. Bob Dylan, who toured with the Grateful Dead during their 1987 summer tour, observed "With most bands the audience participates like in a spectator sport. They just stand there and watch. They keep a distance. With the Dead, the audience is part of the band-they might as well be on stage."

Origins

The term "Deadhead" first appeared in print at the suggestion of Hank Harrison, author of The Dead Trilogy, on the sleeve of Grateful Dead, the band's second live album, released in 1971. It read:
This phenomenon was first touched on in print by Robert Christgau, music critic for Village Voice, at a Felt Forum show in 1971. He noted "how many 'regulars' seemed to be in attendance, and how, from the way they compared notes, they'd obviously made a determined effort to see as many shows as possible."
Eileen Law, a long time friend of the band, was put in charge of the mailing list and maintained the Dead Heads newsletter. It is estimated that by the end of 1971, the band had received about 350 letters, but this number swelled greatly over the next few years to as many as 40,000. In total, 25 mailings/newsletters reached Deadheads between October 1971 and February 1980. After this time, the Grateful Dead Almanac would succeed it, with this eventually being abandoned for Dead.net. Those who did receive the newsletter in the 1970s often found pleasant surprises sent along. One example is from May 1974 when Heads received a sample EP of Robert Hunter's upcoming album Tales of the Great Rum Runners as well as selections from Jerry Garcia's second album, Compliments of Garcia, and some cuts that were from bandmembers Keith and Donna Godchaux's eponymous solo album, Keith & Donna, both on Round Records. This sample was titled Anton Round, which was an alias used by Ron Rakow.

Impact on shows

The Grateful Dead's appeal to fans was supported by the way the band structured their concerts and the use of the jam band format.

From the early 1970s on, the Grateful Dead performed few shows with a predetermined setlist.
At the behest of the band, a section of the audience was walled off to be used exclusively by fans recording the concert.
From the 1980s on, the second set usually contained a prolonged percussion interlude, called "Drums", by Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann followed by an extended improvisational jam, known as "Space", played by the rest of the band.

The band's extensive song catalog enabled them to create a varied "rotation" of setlists, which were never exactly the same for each performance throughout a tour. The use of these unique set rotations created two phenomena: The first had to do with Deadheads wanting to go to more shows in order to get a chance to hear their favorite song – the same song was rarely played the same way twice during any given tour. Also, a great show often inspired many fans to begin following the band for the rest of the tour, as well subsequent tours. The second was that having a large number of traveling fans had empowered the band to perform multiple shows at each venue, since they were assured that their performances would mostly sell out. At this point, it became apparent that Deadheads were a major driving force that encouraged the band to keep going. Along with the large number of people attending several shows, a traveling community developed amongst fans in response to the familiarity of seeing the same people from previous strings of shows. As generations turned from the Acid Tests to the 1970s, tours became a time to revel with friends at concerts, old and new, who never knew the psychedelic age that spawned the band they loved. As with any large community, Deadheads developed their own idioms and slang.

"The Vibe"

Some Deadheads use the term "X Factor" to describe the intangible element that elevates mere performance into something higher. Publicist and Jerry Garcia biographer Blair Jackson stated that "shows were the sacrament... rich and full of blissful, transcendent musical moments that moved the body and enriched the soul." Phil Lesh himself comments on this phenomenon in his autobiography by saying, "The unique organicity of our music reflects the fact that each of us consciously personalized his playing: to fit with what others were playing and to fit with who each man was as an individual, allowing us to meld our consciousnesses together in the unity of a group mind."
Jackson takes this further, citing drummer Mickey Hart as saying, "The Grateful Dead weren't in the music business, they were in the transportation business." Jackson relates this to the Deadhead phenomenon directly by saying, "for many Deadheads, the band was a medium that facilitated experiencing other planes of consciousness and tapping into deep, spiritual wells that were usually the province of organized religion... got people high whether those people were on drugs or not."
Rock producer Bill Graham summarized much of the band's effect when he created a sign for the Grateful Dead when the group played the closing of the Winterland Ballroom on December 31, 1978. The sign read:

Through the years

1960s – Before the term was invented, The Grateful Dead became one of the first cult acts in music. Although not as mainstream as other psychedelic bands, they were the leaders of the Haight-Ashbury music scene and had an intense following that started in San Francisco and eventually spread. Fans gathered at their jam concerts throughout the sixties.
1970s – essentially known as the "second generation of Deadheads", the new Deadheads of this time can either be traced to "an older sibling who had turned them on by spinning Workingman's Dead or Europe '72" or through college and university dorm rooms.
1980s – The early 1980s brought about what would later become known as "Shakedown Street". Starting during the New Year's Eve shows at the Oakland Auditorium in California from 1979 to 1982, Deadheads began to realize they could sell their wares in order to follow the band around more. Also during the early 1980s, Deadhead tapers grew exponentially, resulting in the band designating a taping section in October 1984. With the success of their album In the Dark, 1988 started the "Mega-Dead" period.
* In the Darkers – also known as "Touchheads", these fans "dissed the fragile ecosystem" of a Grateful Dead show, in the words of Jackson. This led to "wiser" Deadheads, with the backing of the band, to mail SOSs and hand out show flyers telling people to "cool out".
* Minglewood Town Council – this group was a direct result of the Touchheads and were a "tribal council" consisting of Deadheads and the Hog Farmers Calico and Goose. They handed out garbage bags at shows for people to pick up trash afterwards and tried to keep the masses mellow. The iconic lot leader, "Trash Captain" aka Douglas Seaton, was a well known member of this group.
1990s – The Deadheads of this time "tended to be young, white, male, and from middle-class backgrounds – in short, they were drawn from much the same demographic base as most rock fans." The band also tended to attract a large percentage of fans from high-income families. The main draw for these Deadheads to travel to shows seemed to be the sense of community and adventure. During the mid-1990s there were a series of small "Deadhead Riots" peaking with a large scale riot at the Deer Creek Music Center near Indianapolis in July 1995. The riot was triggered by several gate crashing incidents, and resulted in the fence at the venue being torn down by rioting Deadheads and the subsequent cancellation of the next day's show. The riot received national attention and is immortalized by Keller Williams in his song "Gatecrashers Suck", in which he calls the rioters "cock-sucking motherfuckers". Concert promoter Peter Shapiro filmed the iconic and influential Deadhead documentary, "Tie-Died, Rock and Roll's Most Deadicated Fans" about life on Grateful Dead Tour 1994. The film was released through Sony Tri Star in September 1995 in major motion picture theaters across America, shortly after Jerry Garcia's death. At the premiere party of the film's release, Deadheads at the after-party at the Fillmore West met with Jerry Garcia's close friend and musician, David Nelson, to formulate a strategy for continuing Deadhead culture. Thus, the David Nelson Band was formed. Other Dead related jam bands also did their part to continue the culture.
21st century – Many Deadheads of all ages, including fans who were generally too young to have seen the Grateful Dead, continue to passionately follow the many current Grateful Dead cover bands and spin-off bands such as Dead & Company, The David Nelson Band, the Donna Jean Godchaux Band, RatDog, Phil Lesh and Friends, 7 Walkers, The Rhythm Devils, The Dead, Furthur, Dark Star Orchestra, and Joe Russo's Almost Dead.
The Spinners – also known as "The Family" or Church of Unlimited Devotion. These people "used the band's music in worship services and were a constant presence at shows". They were called "spinners" because of their twirling dance style. John Perry Barlow stated at the 'So Many Roads Conference' that the Dead family hadn't realized at the time that the Spinners were a cult. Observers have reported seeing them spinning only to Jerry songs and sitting down at the songs Bobby performed. Allegations of abuse have circulated widely in Deadhead groups.
Wharf Rats – Deadheads who helped each other remain drug and alcohol free while staying in the Dead scene. The Wharf Rats were named from the song of same title. They were allowed to set up a table at every concert to support Deadheads who believed in enjoying the Grateful Dead sober or needed more efforts to remain straight.