photo courtesy of the AP

I must admit, I don’t use the Wall Street Journal very often as a source for Sound on the Sound posts, but there is a first time for everything! Today the WSJ reported that the surviving members of The Grateful Dead have decided to donate their vast personal archives to the University of California at Santa Cruz.  The archives include 30 years of paraphernalia (both of the legal and illegal variety I’d assume) and will be featured in a library on the UCSC campus. The Journal reports the hope is to turn the University into “a mecca for scholars and the band’s Deadhead fans.” To which I say to the Wall Street Journal….sorry folks y’all are about 20 or 30 years too late. UC Santa Cruz, the home of the proud “fighting banana slugs” and an full-credit under-graduate course called “Music of The Grateful Dead,” already IS a Deadhead mecca.

As a graduate of UC Santa Cruz and earner of an “A” in Music of The Grateful Dead, the news sits well with me. Based on the amount of archival information we already had access to as students of Music of Grateful Dead– including hundreds of hours of live recordings, every album (studio and live) The Dead had ever recorded, and days of class devoted to watching home videos of the San Francisco Acid Tests and the Furthur bus–UCSC seems like the perfect place to donate the archives to. As Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir said about the archives, “Santa Cruz seemed the coziest possible home for it.” A place where the archives and the spirit of The Grateful Dead will continue to be put to good use and be thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated. The exhibit will definitely be the new place to visit when you’re tripping face and wandering around campus, a favorite UCSC past-time…might have to do it myself for old times sake.