Stanley later clarified on his website that while the bears are commonly perceived to be dancing, they are actually doing a high step march. There are five different Grateful Dead bears on the album cover, in colors red, orange, yellow, green, and blue, though bears have since appeared in many different colors in different Grateful Dead related artworks. Thomas used that leaden bear as his basis for the design, which features a more cartoon style bear doing the “dancing” motion. As the name implies, the live recordings that appear on the album were hand-picked from Stanley’s personal archives by Owsley himself, with minimal input from the band.īefore the album and the bears, there existed a 36-point lead slug that was used in printing as a font type. The first appearance of the Grateful Dead bears in the public sphere was on the back cover of the Bear’s Choice album. History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 1 (Bear’s Choice) back cover He also designed the Steal Your Face logo in collaboration with Bob Thomas, and the Grateful Dead bears were inspired by his association with the band. That’s a story another day, but basically, Bear Stanley was an extremely important person to both the Grateful Dead and the countercultural movement of the 1960s. Jerry Garcia and the rest of the band didn’t mind, and later encouraged fans to record their shows, and it spread from there. Stanley always recorded soundboard masters when he ran sound at a show, and inevitably the tapes ended up in the hands of Deadheads. In this way, the entire tape trading culture that surrounded the Grateful Dead can be traced back to him. Owsley “Bear” Stanley both engineered and recorded to tape many of the shows that the Grateful Dead performed in the 60s and 70s. Owsley Stanley with Jerry Garcia, late 1960s. In addition to being the band’s sound engineer in the early days, Stanley was also the chemist behind the creation and distribution of a large portion of the LSD that was being consumed in the United States in the 1960s and beyond. Initially designed by artist Bob Thomas to appear on the back cover of the band’s 1973 release, The History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 1 (Bear’s Choice), the bears have become deeply ingrained in the culture surrounding the Grateful Dead, and have taken on layers of symbolic meaning over the years.īefore you understand the full meaning behind the Grateful Dead bears, you have to look at the man who they were designed for: Owsley “Bear” Stanley. If I choose to include lyrics, I will probably go with them.Whether or not you consider yourself a Deadhead, you’ve certainly seen the iconic Grateful Dead “dancing bears” a time or two. The Skulls and roses are very intricate and do allow for lyrics to be easily incorporated. However, this tattoo doesn’t allow for the incorporation of Lyrics very easily. It’s cool and well known and can come in versions with extreme detail. My favorite Dead related art is the Steal Your Face. The Dancing Terrapins come from one of my least favorite Dead albums so i don’t see myself putting them on my body anytime soon. I like the dancing bears, but they are a lot wider than they are tall which doesn’t fit well on a bicep. The Dancing Bears are probably the most well known dead artwork. The most common include Dancing Bears, Steal Your Face, Skulls and roses, and dancing Terrapins. The Dead have a ton of artwork associated with them. The second issue is a lot harder to solve. The solution is simple, but i did kind of want to put the tattoo on my forearm, but this would be a lot more noticeable and inconvenient to hide in hot weather so bicep it is I guess. If my possible employers don’t know that I have a Grateful Dead tattoo then there is no way that any drug-related association can hurt me. This will allow me to hide my tattoo with a simple t-shirt. In order to remedy the first problem i have decided to put my tattoo on my left bicep. Their are two slight problems with this first the Grateful Dead for better or worse are associated with drugs, an association that would most likely hurt me when applying for certain jobs, and second there are just two many different designs to choose from. Because of this i have wanted to get a Dead related tattoo for awhile now. I have grown and experienced so much through their music that the Dead will always be a part of me.
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