1. Grateful DeadDick’s Picks Volume 12
In Pori there was a great bookstore, the guy running it was older than me, and whenever I visited, he was listening to Grateful Dead. I went in and I asked, what is this terrible music? And he said, it’s Grateful Dead. Then next time I said, what is this beautiful music? And he said, Grateful Dead.
I realised that Grateful Dead is interesting, but I didn’t like their ‘songs’. He lent me some albums, with jams and different versions of ‘Dark Star’. And I started to love their jams. When I found Dick’s Picks Volume 12, it was amazing. I recorded only the jams to one cassette and listened it a thousand times in my car. When they are jamming, they can be the best band in the world one minute and the next minute they are the worst band in the world. They are just playing music; they are not taking care of their reputation. So, I love them. It’s a very good example of collective jams, how they build up a new language, a collective mind so they can handle bigger things than one person. I didn’t like the singing, but gradually I started to like songs like ‘Eyes Of The World’ and ‘Help On The Way’. Then there were five songs I liked, then 10 and 15 and 20. For two or three years I listened to the Grateful Dead all the time. I feel very happy when I listen to that music.
10 years ago, I was in the States with my family, hanging in Haight-Ashbury. I went to the instrument store to buy some pedals or something, and asked the guy, ‘Why are there so many Deadheads around?’ He said, ‘Are you kidding? We’re in Haight-Ashbury!’ But I said, ‘I think there are an extra amount of hippies.’ He said, ‘Grateful Dead are playing in Santa Clara, two shows.’ The next day I took my rental car and drove to Santa Clara and went to a parking lot because I knew that it was full of Deadheads and it would be possible to find a ticket. I met this great guy, 30 years older than me, a true Deadhead, who started listening to them in 65 and had seen 60 concerts or something. We looked for a ticket for me, and finally found one, and it was my dream come true because I saw Grateful Dead.
None of my friends in in the States liked Grateful Dead, and I couldn’t understand it. So I started to play Grateful Dead for them, trying to change their minds. It has been very, very difficult. I come from Finland, and I try to teach people in the United States that Grateful Dead is a fantastic band.
