So I’m watching CNN this afternoon and they are showing the protestors peacefully sitting in front of the Lincoln Memorial with the Reflecting Pool and the Washington Monument in the background. Right in the middle and at the front is a guy with a big Stealie* shirt! It was a brief moment of normalcy in these crazy times. Stay safe and healthy out there!
Bill, tgo
* for our few Grateful Dead impaired members, a “Stealie” is the Dead’s Skull with a Lightening Bolt logo from the Steal Your Face album.
As a severely Grateful Dead impaired Member I wondered why so many alembics have that inlay or sticker applied. Is there a story or symbolism about it like there is for the alembic logo.
Last night on my way home from doing my radio programme a drummer friend called me to ask about aternatives to this huge mackie powered speaker box he uses as his on stage monitor and for powering his octopad etc. As the conversation progressed we got talking about speaker size and quality and PA's and I suggested to him to check out the Grateful Dead Wall of sound and proceeded to enlighten him about what bits I knew about it and the connection to Bear and Alembic and types of speaker he should look at. Whilst talking he had been doing a search about Grateful Dead and stopped me saying.... " Is it safe to look at Grateful Dead stuff, it's not all that occult and devil worship stuff is it?"
I told him I don't know much about what the reason for the name is and what their music is about but that I had listened to a bit of it and not found that kind of lyricism.
The reason for so many Alembics having Dead iconography applied is that Alembic - while always an independent entity - was very closely tied to the Dead in their early years, recording, doing (and at the same time inventing) sound reinforcement, and first modifying then building instruments. The "Stealie", if I recall correctly, was a joint design effort between Dead sound guru/financial angel/supporting chemist Owsley "Bear" Stanley and artist Bob Thomas, the latter of whom also painted the cover for
Live/Dead and designed the Alembic logo; as to deeper meanings for it
a la the Alembic logo, I have no idea.
As to "devil worship" - well, over the years I have heard just about every lyric they did, whether by John Barlow, Bobby Peterson, Robert Hunter, or anyone else, and the closest thing I can see to devil worship is the feeling that at least Hunter must have met Papa Legba down at the crossroads to be that good.......
The reason for the name is that they were originally the Warlocks, but Phil Lesh supposedly saw a 45 by a band with that name (no record of what "Warlocks" it was by, though early versions of both Velvet Underground & ZZ Topp, as well as many others, used the name). While searching for a new moniker, they did a recording session as The Emergency Crew, and considered Vanilla Plumbago, Mythical Ethical Icicle Tricycle, Cruel Potato, Lovelorn Cowboys, and The Hobbits, until (fortunately) one day Garcia (stoned, believe it or not) opened a dictionary and "Grateful Dead" jump off the page. Before becoming forever entwined with the Greatest Rock'N'Roll Band In The History Of The Universe, it referred to a common gene of folksong/folktale wherein a living person allows a disturbed spirit to rest by completing a task said spirit left undone in life.
Peter
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