

#Phish mixlr download#
And, for fans, the show is only beginning.īeyond purchasing archival albums and recordings of concerts that ended just hours before (though ticket-holders often get a free download these days), Deadheads were almost unquestionably the first fanbase to rush to their computer screens to analyze the event after it was over. Built around an idealistic core of musical improvisation and cosmic synchronicity, each show is different. In the digital economy, members of the Grateful Dead and other jam bands possess a resource that, like sporting events, has special value at the exact moment of its creation. Obsessively networked fans are now so common as to be passé, and they’re all following a path blazed by the Dead and the heads.

#Phish mixlr pro#
The band’s contributions to sound system technology were such that when Garcia died and the group officially disbanded, Pro Sound News declared, " The Ultimate Experimental Lab Closes.” And when the Dead finally did get its sound system in efficient working order in the late '70s, it was by enlisting help of master speaker builder John Meyer, whose work remains the standard and will amplify the band this week. At the Avalon Ballroom, run by the band's comrades in the Family Dog collective, Bob Cohen designed what arguably was the first monitor system in live music and, to go with it, noise-canceling headphone tech he later sold to NASA. (Photo by Ed Perlstein/Redferns/Getty Images) Ed Perlstein/Redferns/Getty ImagesĪnd if the band and its psychedelic contemporaries overshot on occasion-the Wall of Sound was simply too expensive and unwieldy-other experiments blossomed. SANTA BARBARA, CA - MAY 25: The Grateful Dead (L to R: Bill Kreutzmann, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh) perform on at Santa Barbara Stadium in Santa Barbara, California with an early version of their Wall of Sound. NYC Taper has even announced plans to upload at least the first half of Friday's Chicago show before it is even over. Within hours of this weekend's encores, fans will be able to pull high-res recordings from BitTorrent, a technology whose early adoption was driven primarily by Deadheads and their younger cousins, the Phishheads. This network (and modern service-oriented variations like NYC Taper) presaged Napster by a generation, survived the radical remaking of the recording industry and laid the foundation for open online file trading. Even before the band started officially sanctioning the practice in 1984, the tapers built a worldwide music distribution system that sustained the Dead and helped launch bands like Phish, Widespread Panic, and dozens more. Though they may no longer use tape, these devoted obsessives lug pro-level gear into battlefield conditions to make righteous recordings of the band's jams, to be traded and uploaded, but never sold. There at the back of the stadium floor you'll see the symbol of all things Dead and tech: the tapers all but synonymous with the band. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Hulton Archive/Getty Images Left to right, Bill Kreutzmann, Bob Weir, Ron 'Pigpen' McKernan (1946 - 1973), Jerry Garcia (1942 - 1995) and Phil Lesh. The Dead’s obsession with technology was almost inseparable from the band's psychedelic ambition and artistic independence.Ĭirca 1965: American psychedelic rock band The Grateful Dead poses on Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, California, 1960s. Long before it became necessary (or cool) to do so, the band embraced a DIY ethos in everything from manufacturing its own gear to publishing its own music to fostering a decentralized music distribution system. But the Grateful Dead remains one of the most innovative and tech-savvy bands in pop history. The Dead, long stereotyped as hippies stuck in the Summer of Love, surely seemed anachronistic by the time it disbanded in 1995 after the death of guitarist and songwriter Jerry Garcia. What sets the band's "Fare Thee Well" gigs apart isn’t that these options are available, but that they exist in large part because of the Grateful Dead itself: The group and its associates pioneered rock concert broadcasts, making it a regular practice starting with a show at the Carousel Ballroom in 1968. As with any high-profile event these days, fans can tune in to pay-per-view streams and satellite radio feeds, watch theatrical simulcasts, or attend any number of viewing parties. When the musicians once and forever known as the Grateful Dead take the stage in Chicago this weekend to cap a two-city, five-show 50th anniversary run, Deadheads the world over will have myriad ways to join the fun.
