Most of the time, the innertubes are a terrible place full of capital letters and lies, but occasionally you find out that there are–and have been for a while–Japanese Deadheads.
The great (and greatly named) Buzz Poole even attests on Twitter that he saw a Dead tribute band in Osaka back in ’91, and not one made up of ex-pats and Marines and English teachers: the whole band: Japanese guys. Authentic ones; locally sourced. (Something as deeply weird and inspiring as the Dead making it to Japan is more than worthy of a plug: go pre-order Buzz’s new book on Workingman’s Dead. It’s part of the critically-acclaimed 33-and-a-third series and comes out in April and there are no spiders secreted within the books pages, probably.)
The odd thing is that this happened in Osaka. Kyoto? Sure. But, Osaka? Wow.
Anyway, the above picture comes from an old post on Friend of Thoughts on the Dead’s (FoTotD) David Gans’ website. A guy named Nabe threw a festival based around a band that never got within 3,000 miles of his home and 600 people showed up. Also: the bands–at least one of them–were not terrible.
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A Japanese Fake Jerry. God bless America.
ps I had originally intended to post that tape of Majestic Circus–whoever in God’s name they may be–simply as proof that the festival actually happened, but these guys are not bad at all. They are actually killing this Playing, and Fake Jerry-san has really got Garcia’s tone down. Also, they have clearly learned the words to Playing phonetically and that is always good for a laugh.
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