I got on the bus in college via the Skull and Roses live album and the American Beauty studio album. Then things went dormant for a few years but one night working the graveyard shift in Santa Cruz, a co-worker showed up an AIWA portable tape player which preceded the Sony Walkman. He let me try it on and a live Dead show was playing. He was a Deadhead and had oodles of reel to reel soundboard recordings of shows. For a while there, after work, we got off at 7 am, I’d go over to his house with a blank cassette tape and he’d fill it up from his reel to reel. That was how I built up my collection. Pretty soon I had an AIWA of my own. What follows are some thoughts of another Deadhead…The Grateful Dead played Alpine Valley 20 times from 1980 to 1989. Fans trucked to the southeastern Wisconsin venue from all over the country. With 40 years of hindsight, Steve Gotcher, a producer for Wisconsin Public Radio who attended all of those shows cept for one, reflected…
When I was 25, I became a Deadhead, a fan of the Grateful Dead. Up until then, I couldn’t understand what the fuss was about. So, my friend Kevin suggested that I come along with him to a show at Alpine Valley near Milwaukee. He claimed that once I saw a concert I would understand. He was right, and so, from July 1981 to July 1989, I made my way to that hillside for 19 shows. What started out as a loopy easy-going crowd who followed the band around over the summer swelled, over the years, into a much larger bunch who came to party. It was the scene in the parking lot before and after that first show that I found the coolest that day. Deadheads started filling up the parking lot early, grilling, drinking beer, and playing hacky sack. They were smoking, making deals and listening to cassette tapes of past Dead shows. Sounds, smells, and colors swirled in a collage that overwhelmed the senses and appealed to my hippie sensibilities. Camping wasn’t allowed, but you wouldn’t have known it with hundreds of tents dotting the horizon as far as the eye could see. People sold watermelon slices, beer, Gatorade, cigarettes, tie-dye tees, stickers, flowers, and other things not found in stores. Some hippies in an old school bus with a makeshift kitchen served questionable falafels to hungry partiers. The smell of middle eastern spices mingled with sweat, patchouli, weed and the surrounding pine woods. It was a psychedelic smorgasbord. Finally, the time would come for the main event and the tranquil vibe would spill onto the hill and flow down to the stage. Eventually, the Grateful Dead scene became a tad too expanded and brought the annual gathering to an end. But, for a decade, Deadheads came from all over the country to camp in the woods and experience the band’s vision of love, sharing and peaceful coexistence. We got to hear them play songs fit for a hippie utopia on a hillside near the rolling farm fields of southeastern Wisconsin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzigR99mcuw
Matthew, I ordered the deck.
Thanks so much for sharing this. I always heard about the legendary Alpine Valley shows. I saw my first in Rochester, New York, in 1988, at a relatively small minor league baseball stadium, the year “In the Dark” came out, along with their first huge hit song “Touch of Grey.” That was when the scene exploded and hundreds of thousands of new fans got on the bus.I was one of them, and that little baseball stadium expanded my universe to wild unknown territories of inner and outer space, and I was in awe of what I had found. I saw about 30 shows between 1988 and 1995, and each one of those shows took my timelines branching further and further outside the matrix of “normal” life. Sometimes I think I saw one too many shows, but mostly I wish I could have seen dozens more. I let myself imagine other parallel selves, who managed to follow the band for the whole summer tour in 1989, and maybe I got to see that last Alpine Valley show. I feel into that parallel reality and dance to those set lists, smiling up at Jerry one more time.
So glad you got the deck, Bill. It’s a beauty! Let us know what you think. Happy shuffling!
I’m so in love with this deck. I think you suggested, Matthew, that one way to introduce oneself to a new deck is to pull cards, one by one, and instead of putting them back in to the deck, set them aside, and that way, you go through the whole deck before getting repeat draws. I’ve run with that idea and am spreading it out, mostly a 5-card spread a day, with the first card being from the Dead deck and the other 4 being from the Deva deck, my old standby. By mid-summer the project will be complete and I’ll be ready to jump in to the deck more deeply and regularly. Here’s a great podcast featuring the two magical creators of the deck… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSUcKN6S8rI&t=759s
Thanks so much for this, Bill. I’m super happy that you are loving the Grateful Dead tarot! I am too! I can’t think of a better combo than Dead and Tarot. I love that you are doing the practice for going through the whole deck. That’s a bit different than I suggested (going through the whole deck in one sitting as a 78 card spread), and I love your twist of pulling one card a day as part of a larger five card spread. This way you can go through a whole deck in about 2 1/2 months, which is a perfect length of time for taking in a new deck.
Thanks for the link…looking forward to checking that out. Blessings!
I got on the bus in college via the Skull and Roses live album and the American Beauty studio album. Then things went dormant for a few years but one night working the graveyard shift in Santa Cruz, a co-worker showed up an AIWA portable tape player which preceded the Sony Walkman. He let me try it on and a live Dead show was playing. He was a Deadhead and had oodles of reel to reel soundboard recordings of shows. For a while there, after work, we got off at 7 am, I’d go over to his house with a blank cassette tape and he’d fill it up from his reel to reel. That was how I built up my collection. Pretty soon I had an AIWA of my own. What follows are some thoughts of another Deadhead…The Grateful Dead played Alpine Valley 20 times from 1980 to 1989. Fans trucked to the southeastern Wisconsin venue from all over the country. With 40 years of hindsight, Steve Gotcher, a producer for Wisconsin Public Radio who attended all of those shows cept for one, reflected…
When I was 25, I became a Deadhead, a fan of the Grateful Dead. Up until then, I couldn’t understand what the fuss was about. So, my friend Kevin suggested that I come along with him to a show at Alpine Valley near Milwaukee. He claimed that once I saw a concert I would understand. He was right, and so, from July 1981 to July 1989, I made my way to that hillside for 19 shows. What started out as a loopy easy-going crowd who followed the band around over the summer swelled, over the years, into a much larger bunch who came to party. It was the scene in the parking lot before and after that first show that I found the coolest that day. Deadheads started filling up the parking lot early, grilling, drinking beer, and playing hacky sack. They were smoking, making deals and listening to cassette tapes of past Dead shows. Sounds, smells, and colors swirled in a collage that overwhelmed the senses and appealed to my hippie sensibilities. Camping wasn’t allowed, but you wouldn’t have known it with hundreds of tents dotting the horizon as far as the eye could see. People sold watermelon slices, beer, Gatorade, cigarettes, tie-dye tees, stickers, flowers, and other things not found in stores. Some hippies in an old school bus with a makeshift kitchen served questionable falafels to hungry partiers. The smell of middle eastern spices mingled with sweat, patchouli, weed and the surrounding pine woods. It was a psychedelic smorgasbord. Finally, the time would come for the main event and the tranquil vibe would spill onto the hill and flow down to the stage. Eventually, the Grateful Dead scene became a tad too expanded and brought the annual gathering to an end. But, for a decade, Deadheads came from all over the country to camp in the woods and experience the band’s vision of love, sharing and peaceful coexistence. We got to hear them play songs fit for a hippie utopia on a hillside near the rolling farm fields of southeastern Wisconsin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzigR99mcuw
Matthew, I ordered the deck.
Thanks so much for sharing this. I always heard about the legendary Alpine Valley shows. I saw my first in Rochester, New York, in 1988, at a relatively small minor league baseball stadium, the year “In the Dark” came out, along with their first huge hit song “Touch of Grey.” That was when the scene exploded and hundreds of thousands of new fans got on the bus.I was one of them, and that little baseball stadium expanded my universe to wild unknown territories of inner and outer space, and I was in awe of what I had found. I saw about 30 shows between 1988 and 1995, and each one of those shows took my timelines branching further and further outside the matrix of “normal” life. Sometimes I think I saw one too many shows, but mostly I wish I could have seen dozens more. I let myself imagine other parallel selves, who managed to follow the band for the whole summer tour in 1989, and maybe I got to see that last Alpine Valley show. I feel into that parallel reality and dance to those set lists, smiling up at Jerry one more time.
So glad you got the deck, Bill. It’s a beauty! Let us know what you think. Happy shuffling!
I’m so in love with this deck. I think you suggested, Matthew, that one way to introduce oneself to a new deck is to pull cards, one by one, and instead of putting them back in to the deck, set them aside, and that way, you go through the whole deck before getting repeat draws. I’ve run with that idea and am spreading it out, mostly a 5-card spread a day, with the first card being from the Dead deck and the other 4 being from the Deva deck, my old standby. By mid-summer the project will be complete and I’ll be ready to jump in to the deck more deeply and regularly. Here’s a great podcast featuring the two magical creators of the deck…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSUcKN6S8rI&t=759s
Thanks so much for this, Bill. I’m super happy that you are loving the Grateful Dead tarot! I am too! I can’t think of a better combo than Dead and Tarot. I love that you are doing the practice for going through the whole deck. That’s a bit different than I suggested (going through the whole deck in one sitting as a 78 card spread), and I love your twist of pulling one card a day as part of a larger five card spread. This way you can go through a whole deck in about 2 1/2 months, which is a perfect length of time for taking in a new deck.
Thanks for the link…looking forward to checking that out. Blessings!