Comments on: Jerry Garcia – Father of Open Source

By: Grateful Dead: The Original Social Media

Grateful Dead: The Original Social Media — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 14:01:49 +0000

[...] Some great thoughts from Dave Churbuck about the Grateful Dead’s contributions to (inventions of) the cultural phenomenon we now call the open-source / content-sharing community. In the mid-80s I found a BBS called the Brokedown Palace where Dead Heads posted ASCII files of the shows they owned and the shows they wanted. You could download other Dead Heads’ lists, see what they had, and propose a trade. It was strictly honor system. The preferred media were Maxell Gold 90 minute tapes … [...]

By: David Churbuck

David Churbuck — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 01:32:56 +0000

Dunno Tito. Wasn’t aware Jerry didn’t permit taping of his own shows. I’ve got a stack of Maxell’s that say otherwise.

By: Tito

Tito — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 01:09:18 +0000

If Herry Garcia was the “Godfather of open source” thne why the hell were you not allowed to Tape at JGB shows/ You give this man too much moral credit.

By: Soundboards Guru

Soundboards Guru — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 01:35:03 +0000

Jerry is it man. He did so much for this world and changed it for the better.

Best i ever heard from him…

“America is still mostly xenophobic and racist. That’s the nature of America, I think.”

that pretty much sums it up… lol

By: Rockin’ The Openess Of Our Internet » the dotmatrix project

Rockin’ The Openess Of Our Internet » the dotmatrix project — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 00:03:28 +0000

[...] Way before the internet came into play, Garcia was giving his fans the pass to record and distribute his music between themselves, which obviously spilled out to potential fans at parties, cookouts, late night bake sessions, etc. While the RIAA would argue today that such an approach would be taking money out of the artist’s pocket, go ahead name me one artist who wouldn’t kill for the degree of popularity and recognition such a decision helped foster. [...]

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 20:00:16 +0000

An interesting take on the implications of Jerry Garcia's openness. I often think of some of his live and published interviews I have seen/read. He was, by most accounts, an amazing auto-didact who voraciously read fiction and non-fiction of all kinds. He was also a "walking encyclopedia" of music history. I think he probably appreciated the widespread availability of information and would not be one to restrict someone from accessing the body of work created by his own efforts(even though he seemed to be self-deprecating about his own work). Thank God for even streaming Dead on the net-who knows how the corporations will try to market the body of recordings as we go forward.

By: Christopher Murray

Christopher Murray — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 13:42:45 +0000

The day I heard the sad news I was to play that night at the Middle East club in Cambridge with a free jazz band I’d been playing with for a couple years. The guitar player, my best friend from grade school, was everything you would describe as a Deadhead: tapper, traveller, fanatic in a word. Obviously he was very upset. I had been a follower for years but not nearly as involved as he (I’ve seen about 20 or so shows and several of the Jerry Garcia Band–one where I swear Jerry was looking right at me, but that’s another story). I spent the afternoon writing an arrangement of Lucky Old Sun, a tune I’d seen the JGB perform a few times. The horns and the 3/4 time were modelled loosy on the gorgeous 6/8 version of I Only Have Eyes For You as performed by Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy (If you haven’t heard this you got to check it out.) Anyway, the arrangement was beautiful, the horns allowed to ramble a screech, the guitar a long wailing solo, and myself trying to keep soulful organ flowing behind it all.

I have a great collection of tie-dyes that I wear only a couple of times a year to preserve them. It seemed that every year we went on “tour” to see shows I’d run into this same guy selling these beautiful star-burst shirts (an artful combination of silk screen and tye-die). I’ll have to take and post some pics of these. Because the band was somewhat modeled on the great Sun Ra bands, we wore these shirts to give our performances a more other-worldly aura.

Thanks for the post David. You brought back a lot of great memories …

Christopher

By: site admin

site admin — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 22:03:50 +0000

Chris Kobran emailed:

Tried to post this to your blog, but it was having some server
difficulties.

Anyway, loved the jerry post.

Promised Land, Mississippi Half Step, Mama Tried, Deal, Cassidy,
Tennessee Jed, Big River, Brown Eyed Women, Minglewood Blues, They Love
Each Other, Looks Like Rain, Loser, Lazy Lightning-> Supplication Might
As Well, Samson & Delilah, Candyman, Playin’ In The Band-> Wharf Rat->
Drums-> Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad-> Playin’ In The Band-> Around &
Around, E: U.S. Blues, E: Sugar Magnolia

Not a bad first show!

Great Jerry post, I will never forget where I was (Business School in
Monterey CA) when I heard the news.

The dead broke all the rules when it came to their assets (music,
merchandise etc.), and by sharing them, everyone prospered.

I leave you with two links:

1. A download of that first show of yours (if you have problems
downloading, I have it and can shoot it over).

http://www.archive.org/details/gd76-08-02.gatto.aj.245.sbeok.shnf

2. A YouTube stream of Jerry, Bobby and Vince singing the national
anthem at “the stick”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn7UB2FtrIE

“When it seems like the night will last forever
And there’s nothing left to do but count the years
When the strings of my heart start to sever
And stones fall from my eyes instead of tears”

By: Mark Cahill

Mark Cahill — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 17:58:53 +0000

“The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.” Shakespeare…

The sad thing is that as this was posted, the contents of the Dead’s vast archives are being moved to Warner Brother’s vault, one assumes for commercial release under the bands deal new with Rhino Records(see Rolling Stone this month).

Gracia may have created open source, but the fights this has inevitable spawned ante-Garcia have put an end to tours by the remainder of the Dead as a unit. It remains to be seen whether whether Warner is able to sink free trading down into the Ganges to comingle with the great guitarist’s ashes.

Notably, Clear Channel is now getting into live concert recording sales. One of their first two sign ups…Phil Lesh (you must hear him with John Scofeild and Joan Osbourne) and Bob Weir, both of whom have revived the dead repetoir and given it new and notworthy interpretation.

Thus completes the circle, open source creates commercial opportunity then morphs into closed source.

By: dana

dana — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 16:16:37 +0000

Open Source and JG… brilliant analogy! Lucky you to have met the man. OOOh the memories your post brought up; haven’t heard mention of tape trading and Betty Boards in years…(or the W.E.L.L. for that matter). I guess I wasn’t the only one around (here) thinking of JG yesterday… & listening to a stream from dead.net.
Thank you.

“Too much of everything is just enough”

http://www.jgbband.com/listen/jgb_waitingforamiracle.mp3