Grateful Dead and Technology

I started this blog as both a musician and a teacher.  At North Carolina A&T I teach a course called Technology and Society.  The idea for the assignment is that everybody in the class (teacher included) uses their blog to write about a technology that's transforming the world.

The Grateful Dead couldn't have happened without cutting edge tech.  Without LSD, the entire psychedelic artistic movement would've been impossible, or, rather, inconceivable.  Without the evolution of handheld recorders (and the band's willingness to allow recording in shows), there wouldn't have been the bootlegger subculture that spawned the Dead's massive popularity--and the viral spread of their music.  According to Barry Barnes, the Grateful Dead was a business model well ahead of its time, using technology and social networking to give its fans something for nothing (free music), just as so many bands and corporations do now through the free intellectual content offered all over the web.  Here's Barry's article:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/03/management-secrets-of-the-grateful-dead/7918/

But if you really want to see the Grateful Dead's relationship with technology, look no further than:

http://www.archive.org

Here, my students, you may listen for free, to nearly every Grateful Dead concert ever performed...or to other emerging bands who have followed their lead...