Grateful Dead Music Forum

Hello friends! I got into The Dead around a year and 1/2 ago when my buddy played me the Cornell Brown-Eyed Women, been hooked ever since. Never saw the Dead, but I did see DSO last year and my local Dead band plenty of times. I really enjoy early 70's Dead, '74 being my favorite year and '69 following close behind. I am graduating high school this year and recording an album with some friends as a senior project which is mostly dead covers, I'll probably post about it here when/if it ever releases. Next year I am going to college for jazz guitar, but I am a sucker for anything Phil related. I hope to see ya'll on here, and god bless the tapers!

Greetings! I'm in VA, too (Fairfax) - where are you? Also, I host Dead jams semiregularly in my basement studio, perhaps you'd like to sit in some time.

I didn't mean to scare him away.

Hopefully he will get over the shock and come back soon.

I would tell him that we are nice perfectly normal people who don't bite, but my :momma taught me not to lie.

Hey there -

Long time lurker, first time poster here. I figured I would piggy-back on this thread, since I'm also kicking around the Old Dominion these days, specifically Sterling and Great Falls.

First off, HUGE thanks to the effort and dedication of those who compiled all the chord changes and riffs on this site -- they have been simply invaluable.

I've been a Deadhead since May of '95, when the friend's older brother who had been feeding me echoey 3rd-gen Phish cassettes for a couple of years let me know there was ANOTHER trade friendly band that existed. It was a sad time to get into the Dead; my first live Dead experience was the '96 Furthur Fest. The heavy touring I did in my heyday was mostly with Phish (over 200 shows), but in 2001-02 and 2005-08 I saw a bunch of Phil shows, Ratdog shows, and quite a few execellent DSO shows in that stellar period before John K. left to join Furthur. My pinnacle live Grateful Dead experience was Fare Thee Well, a transcendent experience if ever there was one.

I picked up a guitar in 2019 after abandoning an accounting career. These songs have quite literally kept me alive these last few years, serving as my primary focus in life as I reconfigure. I have painstakingly taught myself to be ambidextrous, as a lefthander playing a right-handed Martin SC-13E, and will probably never have the best right-hand technique. In general, I'm a humble student of music theory but am sorely lacking in technique. I have spent thousands of hours with a guitar in my hands, memorizing the fretboard in all 12 keys, putting daily practice into scales and arpeggios, and playing and singing almost exclusively Dead songs. I probably don't have much innate talent, but I work really, really hard and honoring these songs in my own weird little way is really important to me. I'll probably always be a better singer than guitar player, but music is life, even if I'll never be the best.

I'm hopeful that I can make some real connections in here and I can play some small role in ensuring that the music never stops.

Jon S. wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2023 11:29 am I didn't mean to scare him away.

This is my bad I somewhat forgot about this website lol. I would definitely be interested in jamming if the offer is still on the table. The D.C area really isn't to bad to trek up to from rva.