my wife is a european from the former communist block and while she (born circa 1980) had always thought of the dead as mostly space music and nothing coherent, her pa thinks they are about the coolest thing since sliced bread. on my wife's side, when i first met her and she asked, "who is playing this?" and to her surprise it was the dead. for the most part she actually loves the JGB and has sort of gotten into some of the tighter, more formated dead songs. i think for kids who grew up in communism they just totally missed a good deal of great music purely because the gov't and big brother stamped it out.
as for her dad, the 60's and 70's america is where his dreams lie still and the dead are big on his list. less of a deadhead and more of a fan. i had a really cool conversation with my wife's mathematics teacher from grade school (contemporary to father inlaw) who told me the story of how him and a friend huddled in a basement and listened to free europe(might have gotten this name wrong) radio and learned to play trucking. not to mention that listen to that station was illegal. ha, that's kinda funny elicit dead song learning.
hard for free wheelin' amereekans (at least for me who grew up after a lot of wild socialogical happenings happened in the US)to imagine that level of big bro. as for western europe, i used to live in ireland and there were a few deadheads, but mostly muscians and not really in the general public. similar experience in the netherlands when i was there.
*disclaimer: above is only the observations of a fool, and not intended to be an accurate portrayal of an entire body of people or peoples.
