I haven’t posted in a while as I’ve been heavily involved with The Deadly String Band, a group I formed in early 2025 and is described thusly:
The Deadly String Band is Michigan’s premier acoustic old time Grateful Dead tribute band; playing Grateful Dead and Dead-adjacent tunes in the style of an old time acoustic string band. The Deadly String Band strives to cover the whole of the Grateful Dead’s song catalog, as well as their influences, including tunes from the old time blues, folk and bluegrass songbook.
Apparently, this concept was something that there was an appetite for as it really took off beyond what we thought was even possible in the Mid-Michigan/Lansing area. Having never been part of a cover band, I thought it might be fun to take some of the Grateful Dead songbook and their respective Americana influences and approach it in the style of a 19th century string band; being a Grateful Dead cover band also seemed like the perfect opportunity to inject the music with a lot of improvisation and exploratory jams. We’re slowly bringing all of this together.
I’ve managed to keep producing ambient recordings at a rate of about one per month which seems just about right; a good break from practicing guitar and learning songs to get back in the drone state.
