A Deadhead Fights Back (relatively speaking that is, dude)

Back in 2005, I emailed the goober who writes music reviews for our local paper because he had done the unthinkable and disrespected the Grateful Dead in print. I wanted to post this letter, and his response, because the same goober just recently stated that Bob Dylan should retire and I think it’s telling because right after he said this, everybody from Rolling Stone to Power Tool Weekly gave Dylan’s new album five stars and glowing reviews. Not only that, the album debuted at number 1, knocking Jessica Simpson off the top of the Billboard charts. Take that teeny-boppers. Retire indeed. Just goes to show what kind of journalism you get if you live in a medium-sized semi-progressive southern town with a Napoleon complex.


My Letter:
If we were to travel down Conrad's Congo River, or even Coppolla's Huang, and encountered Ed Bum gardener instead of Colonel Kurtz, we would find a leader of the indoctrinated brainwashed. Spouting almost nonsensical philosophy in a prolific amount, this entrenched "authority" is clogging the free will of many a young musical ideologue as to what is good music and what is not. Freewheeling singer-songwriters who write of the angst and pain of an unfinished Papst in the environs of a seedy club in Greenville, (North Carolina or South Carolina, it doesn't matter) need not worry, for Bum gardener is their champion. No, it is the people who believe that the Grateful Dead were good, the Allman Brothers were a classic band, and that "hippies" actually represented a voice that was prepared to vocalize injustices in American culture, more than someone crying about the tatooed hottie that broke your heart, that are the target of Bummy's jibes. The thirty five year period that the Grateful Dead spent trying to voice the "americana" sentiment that this culture has now, trendily, embraced is conveniently overlooked. Yea, Bum gardener may hiss "The Boredom... The Boredom", but don't forget that "boredom" is represented in one of the most well preserved musical archives that was ever created, and will be there for much longer than " the best singer songwriter you never heard of and never will again,"



His(patronizing) Response:
Dude, that is a SPLENDID missive. I love it. And thanks for writing. It shows that you have passion, and passion is what matters most in life. That you took the time to write and defend your beliefs is a great thing.

Yeah, yeah, I know it comes off sometimes that I dislike the Dead. I dislike certain periods of the band, but hardly dislike them wholesale Here's the full reality. I loved The Dead through Mars Hotel; saw them several times between 1971 and 1974 and ever show was fine. Things got problematic for me in the latter part of the band's career, particularly when Jerry was more concerned with sucking on a glass dick than making music. Reading interviews from the post-coma period, he made it clear that he, too, thought the Dead and run out of steam and was only sticking with it because he didn't want to put anyone out of work. To be commended.
And so you will know, I have talked at length with Mickey Hart, Bob Weir and Phil Lesh, all of whom were fine people and all of whom said that at the time Jerry died, they were all considering pulling the plug. They still liked playing, but the spark was missing. Jerry was erratic. And they despised the new generation of Deadheads. To quote Weir, from an interview we did two years ago: "It was more a drugs-in-the-parking-lot thing, not a musical thing, for them. They wore their identity as deadheads like a fraternity pin. Most of them didn't even know why they liked the band, and that was disheartening. It didn't matter if we played well or not. So eventually, it didn't matter to us."

And the two shows I saw in the 90s were excruciatingly dull. Wish they weren't. Made me sad. As for the Allmans - they are Gods. No band, ever, will touch the original lineup, except perhaps for the current lineup. They had some lean times while Gregg was on pharmaceutical vacation, but nothing, nothing, nothing will ever take away from that band when they were hittin' the note.
Time plods on, new talents are born. You don't have to like 'em. But don't put them down wholesale. You'll be missing a lot of great music.

To clarify: I was one of the "hippies" who railed against the unjustices of America. We helped stop an unjust war, so that counted for something. Many of the "ideals" didn't pan out. Some changed the world. Still believe in a lot of it.

I LOVE this line: "the freewheeling songwriters who write of the angst and pain of an unfinished Pabst". Great stuff.

Thanks for writing. One of the best insulting rants I've ever gotten. You can write. Peace.

Okay, before you start going over to this guys side, note that it is a very dubious statement he makes about being one of the hippies. All I know about his past is that before he began hacking away at pop culture he ran a used record store in a middle class neighborhood where he looked down at kids who bought four dollar copies of “Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy.” That crap about passion is the most important thing in life, c’mon, is he trying to be Phillip Seymour Hoffman playing Lester Bangs in “Almost Famous?” Thanks Bumgardner. Also, his “I’ve talked to these guys so I know a little bit about it” shtick bothers me. Name dropping won’t help the fact that if the Dead had quit in the eighties, or whenever, they would have missed some of their best touring years, 1990 in particular, which are represented in hundreds of hours of tapes. I do recognize that the Deadheads could be obnoxiously elitist, and I hated that part too, but these people are in every walk of life and the best thing to do is kick ‘em in the nuts and run. I also hate the idea that the band was killing Jerry Garcia, and I’m okay with the idea that they should have quit if they could have, I just don’t like the fact that out of two or three shows that Bumgardner saw in the nineties, he can expect to know for sure that the band was totally derailed.

So that’s it, my correspondence with Ed Bumgardner, local music gooberu. I stuck it to the man…yea. He said I can write. He said…I can…write!