bptoo - Good eye, beep! You must be from the left coast to pick up on that. Yeah, I'm a deadhead from way back, although I didn't follow them and sell grilled cheese sandwiches in the parking lot. I own approximately 70 live concerts on tape and do collect the live concert CDs still being released by . My home page is <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.gratefuldead.com>http://www.gratefuldead.com .

About the dancing bears; I'm not sure where they originated, but one story I had heard was: Q - "What do you do when you meet a bear in the woods?"... A - "Play Dead."

I like their attitude towards helping the environment, setting up soup kitchens and shelters, funding classical musicians who push the limits searching for new types of music, and many other projects. They do this through the Rex Foundation, which was originally set up to help save the culture of the Rex Indians in California.

In 1992, they were on tour and were watching the Olympics on t.v. and noticed that the Lithuanian basketball team did not have matching uniforms. The Grateful Dead sent them matching tie-dye uniforms and warm-up suits. This was the year that the American Dream Team won the gold in basketball, but the Lithuanians won bronze. The same year the Dead sold tie-dye t-shirts honoring this Lithuanian basketball team and the entire proceeds went to the Lithuanian Children's Fund.

The Dead also sold tie-dye t-shirts whose proceeds went to help save portions of the Amazon Rainforest.

I own both of these t-shirts.

Also, one of the drummers (they have two, who play at the same time), Mickey Hart is collecting endangered ethnic music from around the world for the Smithsonian Institute. I have several different CDs of this music including African cafe music, South Seas and Polynesian traditional music, Nubian traditional music, traditional Jewish Wedding music, upper and lower Egyptian music, Sudanese music, etc.

The other drummer, Bill Kreutzmann, an accomplished scuba diver, is active in saving coral reefs around the world.

I think that you have to admire a group who "keeps it real", and gives to legitimate causes. They were also human, as evidenced by their problems with drugs. People say that they were a psychedelic band. This is not true; they were actually a band who played Southern California country rock, traditional blues, and folk music while stoned. The crowd at a Dead show where not passive observers, they were part of the experience. Together, the band and the audience would cause some special experiences to occur. About 2/3 the way through a concert the music would begin to disintegrate and something magical seemed to happen. Music turned to atonal sound, which tuned into the feel of the audience and seemed to flow with a sort of oneness. It is hard to explain, but the band, the music, and the audience became a single entity; much like the entire earth being seen as an organism.

The weird thing about this all is that one didn't need to be stoned to pick this up. The music is very complex, with each musician doing his own thing, but somehow it still sounds cohesive. I think a couple quotes are in order, because what the Dead did is really hard to describe.

"The Grateful Dead aren't the best at what they do, they are the only band who do what they do."

and

"If I have to explain, you wouldn't understand."

Anyway, I've rambled on way too long. Cam

'Sometimes you can see the light, in the strangest of places, if you look at it right.' - Robert Hunter (GD lyricist)