The Dead Head Thread (OT and Not)

“It’s not really me—I don’t design guitars or any of that kind of stuff, since I don’t have that kind of mind. The guy that made this guitar, Doug Irwin, is a luthier, a guitar-builder. His guitars all have great hands. My hand falls upon one of them and it says ‘play me,’ and it’s one of those things not all guitars do. Some guitars definitely don’t do it, but his guitars do that and it’s just a special thing.

"It’s not entirely a matter of balance, it’s not a matter of dimensions, of measurable stuff, it’s something indefinable, but my hand loves it. There’s almost like a physical attraction. The man’s work is museum quality, the workmanship and the detail—it’s a beautiful instrument. But even the aesthetics of it are not what make me like them, it’s just the way it feels in my hand. I don’t know what it is, he doesn’t even know what it is, but he just builds them the way he thinks I would like them, and it works perfectly.” Garcia found Irwin by the same process of serendipity that he uses to explain a lot of the fortuitous coincidences he’s experienced.

2:47:01
Grateful Dead 7 19 1990 Deer Creek Music Center, Noblesville IN
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13 hours ago

2:57:06
Grateful Dead 7 16 1990 Rich Stadium, Orchard Park NY
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13 hours ago

2:47:26
Grateful Dead 7 14 1990 Foxboro Stadium, Foxboro MA
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14 hours ago

2:56:56
Grateful Dead 7 12 1990 RFK Stadium, Washington DC
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15 hours ago

2:37:04
Grateful Dead 7 10 1990 Cater Finley Stadium, Raleigh NC
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2:44:42
Grateful Dead 7 4 1990 Sandstone Ampitheatre, Bonner Springs KS
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16 hours ago

2:49:43
Grateful Dead 6 23 1990 Autzen Stadium, U of Oregon, Eugene OR SBD
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16 hours ago

2:58:30
Grateful Dead 1990 06 17 SBD Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA
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2 months ago

2:38:29
Grateful Dead 1989 07 13 Robert F Kennedy Stadium, Wa
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2 months ago




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In Selvin's estimation, the group made a crucial error in the immediate aftermath of Garcia's death when they retired the name "The Grateful Dead." They compounded it by not actually touring together for three years, a crucial period where Phish was able take much of their audience and become the new kings of the jam-band scene. The 1998 tour (where they were billed as the Other Ones) was done without Kreutzmann, the first of many times one member was on the outs. "There have been six different versions of the group since Jerry died," says Selvin. "They were always shifting. You could never tell who was gonna turn up the next time they played and you could never tell who was gonna choose sides in the middle of an argument."

A key moment came at the end of a 2009 Dead tour when Phil Lesh and his wife Jill decided they wanted to carry on without the drummers. They recruited Weir into a new project they dubbed Furthur, which featured John Kadlecik – the leader of the premiere Grateful Dead tribute act Dark Star Orchestra – as the frontman. "Given his oft-expressed displeasure with tribute bands, Lesh's pick of Kadlecik to join his new band served two purposes," Selvin writes in Fare Thee Well. "It effectively crippled the top tribute band by taking out their guitarist and it signaled Lesh's intent to tool his new band into the ultimate Grateful Dead tribute band."