Deadheading the Permaculturalist

Anyone alive can attest to how time flies and how the older we get the faster it appears to fly by.  It was the summer of 1990 in Tinley Park, Illinois that I went to my first Grateful Dead concert (show) and I actually remember most of it.  

This is my call out to all my fellow Dead Heads and friends.  If your out there and I know that you are what was your first show, how did it go, and how has it linked your life to find this website and permaculture in general?

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As I already mentioned, Tinley Park, IL was my first show.  I was drug along as a last minute decision with as many people as we could fit into the car.  No plan, very little money, no expectations, and blammo when we got to the stadium there were VW micro-buses and psychedelia everywhere.  Cars were backuped for miles like I have never seen before.  They were on the expressways, highways, byways and everywhere.  People were hanging out of cars walking the highway selling food and whatever else.  There was music blaring and flags a flying.

I grew up on a small ten acre homestead in western Illinois. In 1991 I endeavored to study horticulture.  I found many people similar, like minded folks that lived a simple life and believed in organic foods, homesteading, community living and good music with Bobby and Jerry.  Many years later I found living and growing practices that make good logical sense in permaculture.  So therefore just recently I found this site.  

Listening to the Tinley Park show as I write.  

haha...my  older sister always insisted that I went to a Dead concert and I just didn't remember it...doubtful  I couldn't afford concerts back then (late sixties and early seventies) so if I was there I would have slipped in, sure would like to remember that  
I too grew up in Illinois and left for the woods down here early seventies.  We were way off grid then and no cash flow for concerts... a good friend played most of their songs on his guitar though and we did the campfire sing a long thing......many I heard from him before I heard the Dead version
I love the 'Playing for Change' version of Ripple......wonderful world music.

I never went to a Dead show, but I am fairly sure I own every album they have ever done (don't listen to most of them often these days, I have to admit)...
Ripple is one of my all time favorite songs by ANY band, and I was rereading Mollison's big Permaculture book after buying land, looking at what kind of patterning would work well on the odd curves of the land, and ripples caught my eye. I put on the song, thought on it. May be naming this property something about Ripples in my Mind, or Ripples in the Earth, not sure exactly yet...
And I was sheet mulching the other day with dumpster kill cardboard, it started to rain (yay! Hold that cardboard down!!) and I realized I was singing the last song I had heard on the CD player that morning "Box of Rain"   Yup. Lots of boxes. In the rain... And it's just a box of rain, I don't know who put it there... Wait!! *I* put it there!!

I tripped back over this thread this morning, not sure why I never looked up the 'Playing for Change' version of Ripple that Judith Browning mentioned. I just did. Lovely! I'm keeping that one! Thank you Judith!!

I love the Grateful Dead, have listened to hundreds of shows and all their albums. They have been the soundtrack to many transcendent experiences. Unfortunately I missed the boat, graduating high school in 2001 and never seeing them with Jerry. Having his "replacement," (John Mayer's) unlistenable caterwauling beaten into my brain by every woman I worked with in high school and college for hundreds of hours has made paying to see their current iteration unfathomable. I think they let him in to bring in younger women, as he is a decent guitarist (a shameful replacement for  the greatest guitarist of all time in my opinion), but should have a sock surgically installed in his mouth. That said, Thank You Jerry!

Folsom field Colorado 1980.
Was a fan for a few years prior but the live experience completely change my views and taste in music.

I am sure they contributed to my crunchy factor that made me enjoy this site so much. How ever it was my DIY and think out side the box attitude that led me here. I was doing a web search on earth tubes while in the planing stage for my tiny house. About 10 years ago.

Thanks for posting that version of Ripple Pearl!   I haven't listened to that for a while. Really a great video.

Marty Mac wrote:
Thanks for posting that version of Ripple Pearl!   I haven't listened to that for a while. Really a great video.

Thank Judith for that one, I had missed it before.
Welcome to Permies! Glad you found your way here :) It's a fun place!

Pearl Sutton wrote:And I was sheet mulching the other day with dumpster kill cardboard, it started to rain (yay! Hold that cardboard down!!) and I realized I was singing the last song I had heard on the CD player that morning "Box of Rain"   Yup. Lots of boxes.

I sheet mulched with cardboard on two future beds, I ended up chasing down run away cardboard a few times, until I think I nailed it all down with dug up chunks of soil, wood mulch, a long 4x4, and 50# compost bags may finally open in Spring.

Michael Moreken wrote:
I sheet mulched with cardboard on two future beds, I ended up chasing down run away cardboard a few times, until I think I nailed it all down with dug up chunks of soil, wood mulch, a long 4x4, and 50# compost bags may finally open in Spring.

Yup, I learned early on how to hold it down, my property has a lot of wind. I'm more amused that the Grateful Dead didn't even know they were singing about sheet mulching It entertains me when I turn songs to my own end

While I never went inside to a Grateful Dead concert, I did love the festival-like gatherings that happened outside. I grew up in Palo Alto, so the Grateful Dead came often. Pigpen's parents lived down the street, that was the house that we weren't allowed to go to on Halloween.

I think that the way that it links me to permaculture is the hippie, albeit intellectual culture, I grew up in.

Stacy Witscher wrote:I think that the way that it links me to permaculture is the hippie, albeit intellectual culture, I grew up in.

This.

A 'hippie, albeit intellectual culture' is my new favorite phrase. Dead Heads have often been my favorite people though somehow, I never was much of a fan myself.

The play on words "deadheading the permaculturalist" drew me to this thread. Nice one!

Well, I'm not a deadhead except for this book, which was a favorite to read to the kids (and play the song - I think it came with a cassette back then!): Teddy Bears Picnic by Jerry Garcia, et al.





Edited to add that the video to accompany Jerry and friends for that song is rather lame. Though IMHO, his voice, that song, the muscianship are all still a delight despite the visuals in that one.

Edited a second time because I meant to add a nod for Playing for Change, too! That was an awesome version of Ripple and they do more versions that are just stellar - Stand by Me is one I can play over and over!

Well I guess it's about time I addressed this. I am sorry that this is a long reply but this is the story. I have a very regretful past as concerns Frisco Bay area Grateful Dead shows of the late 80s. I have always been a fan of music and still to this day search out musics in hope of finding something new and exciting. These are things that I sought out pretty much everywhere but top 40 radio. I was aware of the Grateful Dead from hearing things like Trucking , Friend of the Devil and Uncle John's Band on psychedelic radio programs and then around the time I was getting out of the army it must have been 1987 and after hearing touch of grey and Hell in a bucket about a thousand times on the radio I came upon a cassette tape of " In the dark." My brother and I hooked up and started hitchhiking around this country and we landed out in San Francisco. I quickly became acquainted with the dead head culture and the idea that when the Dead comes to town that there is a nonstop parking lot situation that happens for up to several days at a time. As I remember my musical tastes had long past psychedelia and I was more into New York and some UK Punk. Sorry I never liked the Sex Pistols. At this time in my life I was trying hard to figure out who I was and what I actually thought and believed and having just come out of the army and not feeling exactly patriotic. I had some very good friends that were dead heads & would tour with the dead wherever they went. I will be real honest with you. I was very annoyed by a lot of the people that I was coming across probably because I felt I had already worked through that hippie thing and me having been born in 67 , The Summer of Love, realize that this was something that had its day. In my search for myself I had developed a heroin addiction so I was always open to a new hustle and the dead was coming to Oakland for 2 or 3 days and a friend of mine brought me along to work the parking lot. And if all went well and we could get a "miracle" we would even go inside. Well to be honest with you I was having so much fun in the parking lot and making quite a large amount of money in a very short period Of time. I in no means intend on promoting anything bad but I wasn't selling falafels or t-shirts. The show came and went and I was slightly bewildered for a little while. I had been around a lot of these folks on a daily basis but wow! I had never seen anything like this. Well, I told myself I didn't see the dead this time and I wasn't really a huge fan but I appreciated the talent, so I'll catch them next time. Well the dead came and went playing Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco and Mountain View over the two years plus that I lived in the Bay Area. What a place to see The Grateful Dead I thought, yet every time I would go I couldn't get past the parking lot. I could always hear the show coming out of some psychedelic bus in the parking lot or just coming out the top of the stadium and to be honest with you the situation in the parking lot was  sufficient and besides one of these times will be my time for a " miracle." I was able to get clean from heroin (a definite miracle !!!)and get my life somewhat back on track , then a friend of mine handed me a CD of Grisman Garcia  "Not for kids only." I was absolutely blown away when I heard this and went straight out and bought that Garcia Grisman record. I had started to learn to play mandolin by this time and decided I would go see the Dead next time they came to town. I would finally have my chance. That  was June of 95. I looked into it and I'll be damned , they had just played Tampa so It would have to be next year. Well as we all know next year came but Jerry wasn't there there. Jerry Garcia's music has been so important to me since he has passed. More so his acoustic based records. But I love it all. Yet for me, It's kind of like listening to a Billie Holiday record and knowing that you will never have the chance to see her and wonder what it must have been like . And you were in the parking lot!!! So I guess I just did this big long post to say ..... I NEVER SAW THE GRATEFUL DEAD!!! I am such an idiot on a computer I was just told that I just yelled by putting it in all caps. I just put my newfound knowledge to use and yes I yelled. If you got to see this wonderful band you are indeed among an elite who can consider themselves blessed and lucky and I for one envy you my friend.
Cheers!

6-9-1990 Cal Expo, Sacramento CA was my first Dead concert (going past the parking lot/street bazaar/market... cus I went to several shows, without tickets for the actual concert. I went just for the parking lot scene, not for drugs, but for the fun people, arts and crafts, entertainment value of the Dead caravan).

My parents were hippies, so I grew up in it. That led and evolved into other interesting places, like an organic farm in Washington in the 70s where we had solar and a composting toilet, and we were doing Permaculture long before it was named as such. So the Dead never led me to anything, they were just a niche, off to the side, and they leaned more towards drug culture/hippie music scene.

I actually know more non hippie permaculture people than deadhead/hippie leaning types (so I don’t see a direct correlation there). I think you find just as many, possibly more, who grew up country western, or 80s pop, or whatever, and one weird guy in the corner who loves John Denver... LOL!!! (Just kidding, John Denver is alright in my book too).

I see permaculture as just being part of the continuing evolution of agricultural science. The chemical (toxic and destructive) modern ag was invented by the Germans at the end of WWI (because people were starving and couldn’t grow enough food). Unfortunately that was embraced by the world and it went mainstream. It was dead wrong from the start, but it put food on plates in the short term, so it seemed good (too good to be true). It also made it easier to farm lazy and human nature loves lazy.

It requires a lot of cognitive dissonance for farmers to knowingly poison food and for people to knowingly eat poisoned food. I think that due to the rise in epidemic levels of sickness and diseases (as a result of this ignorant toxic lifestyle), that more and more people are looking to reject toxic agriculture and go organic. Permaculture has a definite role in advancing that science, thus helping to make it easier and better.

And yes, a few of us happen to listen to music and some of us have even seen the Grateful Dead stand pretty close to perfectly still on stage while playing some groovy tunes (it was fun, but there was way more show in the audience than on the stage).


-Peace, Love, and Hippie Thoughts-