[BlobWeird]

Jon jon jon. Lets not get carried away lol. Im not tryin to bash you at all. And im not bashin psychadelics in particular. Im bashin drugs! I smoke pot and you know what. Ive realized lately its pretty f'in stupid. Its a complete waste of money. I mean I spend at least 50 a week on it and for what? I dont even really get high anymore. Just lazy. And to say the dead used psychadelics religiously throughout all their years is ridiculous lol. After pretty much the 60's maybe 72 at latest everyone but Jerry stopped usin. Now if you wanna say Jerry and no one else in the band used drugs in general religiously that is obvious. But psychadelics no. He even says in interviews he still did it to the day he died but on occasion. I see drugs as one experience and a concert as another. People shouldnt automatically link the two and think thats the way its supposed to be. But hey you wanna get dosed up at your next show thats fine. Just dont come up to me lol.

[HOWEYMAN]

It annoys me when I hear the first word to come to mind is "drugs" when hey hear the name Grateful Dead, or "you have to be on something to enjoy their music." I take a big offense. I'm not directing this at anyone here, this is just what I've expirienced.
They here how "complex" some of their music is and automatically assume since they don't like it, I must be on drugs to enjoy it. Pisses me off!

[JONZILLA]

Blob Blob Blob... Well, I can see that your reading comprehension skills ARE fucked. You are now twisting my words around. Back to Trey...

[BlobWeird]

Jon I never bashed you so why you gotta do it to me? And as for Trey he deserved it! end of discussion.

[tigerstrat]

You heard him, folks: end of discussion!

Let's move along, people, there's nothing to see here...

[PhilDiamond]

Dr*gs are not for everybody. For people to say....they are not for ANYbody is ridiculous. If you can maintain your life on dr*gs then all the power to you. If you are taking care of yourself and those you love...so be it. I'm sure Trey is alright.
Jerry let it get out of hand back in the 70's and was never really able to pull it back together. He was lucky enough to not have money problems like most junkies do. So he was able to pay for maintenance of things most people have to do themselves....In the end he wanted to get clean so badly it cost him his heart...
I am pro-soft dr*gs. Cannab&s and PsycAdelics. For those who don't know...The Dead were built upon Jerry's love for music and Ken Kesey's vision of FUN(PsycAdelics) The Ac&d tests created the dead pretty much. If it werent for the tests...The Dead would've faded by 1970. IMO....anyway.
As for the bunk...sure its nice to know people in The KNow and what not but lots of good heads don't have connections so they must sift through lots of bunk to find their sacrament for that night. I've probably payed 300-400 for bunk to find 100 worth of real. To me its worth it anyway because of the GREATNESS within that chemical. For years it was much cheaper than other dr&gs. Now its sharing a sales tag with X due to scarcity.
To the dude complaining about spending 50 a week on cannab*s....dude...go to canada...get se*ds. Buy a $200 light and a book from a head shop. IN two months you will be happy as a clown getting his salad tossed.

[BlobWeird]

Sorry cant let an argument go unnoticed. First off Jerry was NOT lucky to have money. If he didnt have money he wouldnt have been able to feed himself with so much junkfood and drugs lol. Which in turn would mean he would prolly still be alive today. You call that lucky? and as for the seeds comment. UMm NOO. Sorry i dont wanna go to jail over pot! No thanks buddy.

[Fuzheng]

Phil

Trey is not all right. If you're propelling along in 3000+ pounds of steel and your under the influence and impaired you're NOT taking care of yourself and you're in total disregard for those you love and those other's love. I had a friend, gone now 25 years, a classically trained violinist and a damn fine fiddle player sacrificed to such utter selfishness on the way to a gig in upstate NY. A lot of music the world will never hear.

Fuzheng

[hobo]

If Jerry didn't have any money, and he was an addict, it's not like he would have just stopped buying drugs, because he didn't have money. If you truly are an addict, it's a lot worse to be poor than rich, especially for Heroin addiction. You can maintain yourself for a while on heroin, but if you're running low on funds, you'll lie, steal, cheat, and do pretty much anything for your next fix, and thats when other people start getting hurt.
As for Trey, the guy has a family, kids, friends, everything, and here he is driving around messed up on pharmies, what class...he's a true example of drugs hurting someone. It hurt his music, and now it's affecting his life, and could (hopefully not) hurt an innocent bystander. The only dose Trey needs, is a good ol' dose of reality.

[strumminsix]

I am pro-soft dr*gs. Cannab&s and PsycAdelics.

Interesting that acid & shrooms get thrown into the mix of soft drugs. I can totally see cannibas. But the impact psychadelics have on your mind put them out of the soft camp to me. Non-addictive, true and maybe that is what you use to gauge, don't know. But interestingly enough my experience with coke would put that in a soft camp for me. Used to do it less frequently than I drank, the impact was only a couple hours, never did anything I wouldn't normally do, didn't see things that weren't there, didn't hear things that weren't there, didn't space out to moooosh. Ahh, but that's a whole nother topic

For those who don't know...The Dead were built upon Jerry's love for music and Ken Kesey's vision of FUN(PsycAdelics) The Ac&d tests created the dead pretty much. If it werent for the tests...The Dead would've faded by 1970. IMO....anyway.

Now this one is interesting. I can totally see why you'd say that but at the same time I'll disagree. From all that I've read, the old school heads that I know who were around at the time, from the tapes I have, from the DVDs, CD,etc I see a very different story.......

Sure the GD received alot of popularity from the acid test and evolving into their house band but you say the GD were "built" by that and I counter by saying they were already built.

As far as Jerry being the reason again I'd say I can see why you'd say it but again disagree. Pig was the leader both on and off stage for much of the early days. He was a true front-man with charisma, he had contacts, he had experience. He sang a good portion of tunes and had the band playing a tone of R&B and blues that the GD became popular for back then...

Now flash-forward a bit and think of the later 60s. Here we see a Mr. Tom Constanten come into the picture and take the GD from a rockin' R&B/blues/folk band with some trippy shit to a full out psychedlic band who rocked and r&b'd.

Jerry was a fabulous player and played a HUGE role in the success of the GD but let's not re-write history here. Pig was the original band lead and got them off the ground and TC brought them into musical psychedlia.

Now, here's the rub. Neither Pig nor TC were into acid. From all I've read and conversations I've had Pig dabbled a few times but preferred liquor and drugs were against TC's spiritual beliefs and he felt like an outsider by the band for not doing it.

So to say that acid had this huge roll I'd respectfully disagree. The man that really fronted the GD in the early years wasn't all that down with it and the one who took them into the direction we all came to love was against it.

[strumminsix]

RE: Rich Junky vs. Poor Junky

From what I've seen a junky only quits for the following reasons:
1. The junky does it on their own free will
2. The junky cannot afford it and cannot steal enough and they sober up in prison which may lead them to #1 or they may start using again as soon as they get out
3. The junky dies

Sadly, I don't see Jerry as falling into camp #1. There is a huge difference between wanting to quit and making and agreement with yourself to quit. I want to quit smoking cigarettes and I've even tried the aids but I don't want to quit yet since I enjoy it. I think that's how JG was.

Actually, maybe if he was poor it would have been easier. Most famous people appear to turn to drugs because despite having everything worldly they are missing something inside and fill it with drugs. Maybe if he didn't have those "things" he would have focused on a wife and children and found internal peace.

Either way you cut it it's a sad and terrible situation.

[tigerstrat]

Pig didn't "dabble" in psychedelics- he was dosed a few times without his knowledge or consent. An ultra-uncool thing to do to a person, especially one as sweet he. One of the episodes was VERY bad according to ... I believe it was Scully's bio.

And he may have gotten them into electric music and led them thru the very early phase into local popularity, but clearly it was the instrumental prowess of Garcia, Lesh and the twin drummers that catapulted them onto the big stages and had the later hordes of followers hopping on the delightfully El-S-Dee-influenced bus. Not to diss Pig at all- when the GD set the stage for him, he became THE man and he brought the high-flying instrumental antics into firm contact with Mother Earth... right down in the mud rolling with the pigs!! But without Garcia, the GD would have been a minor footnote in Bay area music history. Hell without ANY of them it would have never been what it was... would it have. And what a great thing it was.

Happy solstice, all- here comes sunshine!

[BlobWeird]

Ok as for the Rich Junkie vs. Poor Junkie. I still dont see how bein able to buy as much as you want is better than not bein able to afford as much as you want lol. BEing able to poison myself more and without as much hassle is no where near as good as poisoning myself less and having to go through alot of work to do it. Sooo yeah im not buyin into that one. And as for Pig bein the one who started it all and psychadelics startin it. They were goin before pyschadelics hit the scene. and for pig startin it all this is true BUT what if pig didnt die all those years back and lived to now. I hate to say, as much as I love pig, I dont think they would have developed in such a unique way and I think they would have dropped off alot sooner.

[JONZILLA]

I agree with what blobweird has to say, here. But as someone else said, there comes the point when the addict stops simply trying to find more money and starts to turn to other more destructive ways to get their fix. I've seen this in so many old friends I've lost to the "devil drug": meth. The town I live in has had more methlabs busted than any other town in the country. Due to the popularity of it in small southern towns such as mine, I've had many old "friends" (turned mindless fiends) turn to stealing, lying, there's even been people murdered over the stuff. If the drugs had been available, they wouldn't be out committing all these crimes, but instead they would be just hiding in a corner somewhere getting high and peeking through blinds and the like. I'd rather the junkie be busy using than for me to have to wake up to find a "friend" trying to twist my back-doorknob off with vice grips because he thought I'd be at work (this happened to me). It would be so much better if these drugs were just wiped out altogether, but we all know that'll never happen. And they'll always be good folks like Jerry and Trey who end up losing big time. It's a cruel world. Alway has been, always will be.

[dead ed 65]

Not to completely change direction here, but I always felt that the Phish scene was never as socially conscious as the Dead. And one of the major factors (IMHO) was the music itself. Here you have the Dead playing Wharf Rat, Loser, etc., you know, songs about the human condition. Songs that create empathy for your fellow man. But it seems that Phish was all about just having fun without ever mentioning any of the bringdowns of the society they helped mold. It was a microcosm of the youth of the era.
Not that the Dead weren't about having fun, too, but I think the fans were a little older (and I hope wiser) and were a little bit more aware of the ramifications of irresponsible behavior.
The parking lot scene at the last Phish show I ever saw (Hampton circa '95 or so) was absolute chaos. People passed out, people throwing bottles, etc. So I never went back. Of course, I saw similar things at Dead shows, but not to the same extent.
I just think the Dead and/or it's fans were more about the collective scene (strangers stopping strangers, just to shake their hand) than about I/Me/Mine and how f*cked up can I get.