Originally posted by PonyOne
I listen to lots of non-modern-rock stuff; lots of old blues, classical, "ethnic" music (not Zap Mama, I hate Zap Mama), etc.
The Dead just never did it for me, it's just not my thing. This "depth" everyone speaks of it having in droves seems to elude my ears. I hear it in the Doors, I hear it in Tool, I hear it in BB King's voice... but not in the Dead.
I did see a picture of Jerry's Lear Jet... it was pretty nice... I hope someday I have such a huge fanbase I can afford a Lear Jet, so I can give the money to charity.
Don't forget that Jerry and the dead gave away most of the money they didn't spend on drugs. 250 businesses in the San Fransisco Area are here because of Jerry. Its not like they kept everything for themselves, in the 70's they gave almost all the money they made to help build the wall of sound (which was at the time the most incredible peice of audio equipment in the world), it wasn't until Jerry, Weir, and Mickey hart (i believe it was mickey) went to the United Nations meeting and gave the speech for why we should help save the rainforests, that they took any seriousness to it. Before the Dead spoke at the UN, there was nothing. all of a sudden, the people knew about this serious problem, and although its not solved yet, it got the people aware, which is good. This was in 1990, or thereabouts.
The onstage- in ear audio system thing for onstage was developed in part because the dead offered to be guinea pigs for it while it was still under construction.
Just because he had a lear jet (which i haven't seen yet? i knew he had a helicopter tho) doesn't mean he didn't give money to charity. They had the Rex Foundation, which every year gave away huge sums of money to one of their employees, named after Rex Jackson. One year they gave away a fire truck ($500,000 fire truck) to one of their employees for free, because he wanted to start a volunteer fire fighters thing up on his mountain (i dont know what mountain). What other band just gives away $500,000 to an employee, to help fight fire?