Alan Dearling shares some words and images
Some years ago I saw the rather good Cosmic Charlies down in London a couple of times – a Grateful Dead tribute band. And back in 1990 I saw the actual Dead at Wembley. Last night at the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge I saw a jam-packed gig with the Grateful Dudes, who also create some authentic Dead vibes. I was a ‘newbie’ to the Grateful Dudes, but many of my mates down in London have been following them for years. It was my first time. I think it was their sixth time playing the Trades Club.
As is my usual practice when photographing at music events I was carrying three Sony camera bodies and four lenses. Annoyingly, I experienced a camera SD card crash, so lost one set of pics, but there are still a few tasty ones of the gig, I hope!
Meanwhile, throughout the evening with Grateful Dudes there was one heck of lot of good natured Dead-dancing, a swirling, bobbing, twisting, twirling mass of Live Dead fans. An extended family of fans crammed in front of the stage. Smiling faces. Indeed, right bang in front of me, my camera space was invaded by a Dancing Dead-Head, a veritable Whirling Dervish, who spun in circles waving his hands in the air for the whole set! Certainly on my way home via the bus to Todmorden, I met some wobbling fans, just about Walking Dead! Deep fried. Marginally roasted and toasted. A bit wild, brains somewhat modified!
Here are some comments posted on-line after the Trades’ gig:
Grateful Dudes: “What a great time we all had at the Hebden Bridge Trades Club! After the last two weeks of quick succession gigs for us it felt very much like a tour ending show. Good rocking sets, a wonderful audience who picked up on every nuance and turn and you all really helped us play better.”
Ron Gückel: “I loved every minute. When I looked around EVERYONE was smiling. Everyone was happy. That’s the effect of the music you delivered for us. Thank you.”
And here are links to two videos of the Grateful Dudes:
Grateful Dudes 20220702 Part 1 ‘Playing on the Farm’, Cirencester, UK – 4k multi-cam, 32 track mix
Andrew Scoffin from the Grateful Dudes provided me with their set list and had a nice chat with me about the band, the Dead and music, life and the universe et al.
Set list: Mississippi Half Step; Greatest Story Ever Told; Tennessee Jed; El Paso; Bird Song; Minglewood Blues; China Cat Sunflower; I Know You Rider BREAK Shakedown St; Samson & Delilah; Ship Of Fools; Estimated Prophet; Uncle John’s Band; Drums; All Along The Watchtower; Wharf Rat; One More Saturday Night, and encore: Box Of Rain.
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Alan: Good to meet you. So, tell me what a Long, Strange Trip it has been for you before your time with the Grateful Dudes?
Andrew: Hi Alan. I grew up on the East Coast of the UK and first got into the Dead into my mid- teens. I used to trade live tapes of various bands (not the Dead) with a guy who was a Deadhead, and if there was space on the end of the tapes he would fill them with choice Dead nuggets. I began to enjoy these fillers more and more, so I got him to do me a couple of complete Dead shows and basically never looked back! This was about 1984, but I had to wait until 1990 until I could actually see the band on their European tour of that year. After that I saw a bunch of shows on the West Coast of the US in 1992 which was an amazing experience right in their homeland. Post-Dead I also saw some great Phil Lesh & Friends shows in New York in 2001 and 2003.
Living in the UK in the 80s I was also exposed to the home grown space rock/psychedelic festival scene and spent much time at gigs by Hawkwind, Gong, Ozric Tentacles etc. I got to know the Ozrics quite well and used to jam with Ed and others at that time. I actually play a few chords on one of the tracks that ended up on Sliding Gliding Worlds.
Alan: I read on the Dudes’ web site that your biggest guitar influences have been Jerry Garcia, Frank Zappa and Steve Hillage…probably more…
Andrew: Yes it’s fair to say they would probably be the main ones. As a teenage guitar player in the 1980s I inevitably went through the obligatory Heavy Rock phase. To be honest I still think Michael Schenker is an amazing player! Steve Hillage was my first real guitar hero though. I love his playing and compositions, and his use of rhythmic echo repeats really impacted on me. I also took influence from Hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore, Robin Trower, John Scofield, Peter Wolbrandt (from Kraan) and others, but something about Jerry Garcia’s playing immediately just spoke to my heart very purely and directly. Once I made that connection it never left me. To quote some Dead lyrics: “I had the mark just as plain as day, it could not be denied”. Zappa’s guitar playing came from a totally different and unique space. I think the Zappa influence is much more apparent in the music I create with my own Head Spin project. There are occasions when I’m putting together a Head Spin track and I’ll think “what this section needs right here is utter FILTH” – and then the Zappa influence comes out! The common connection between all my guitar influences is that they are/were all great improvisers.
Alan: As you know, I’m older, and grew up passionately going to gigs and helping to organise them from the mid-sixties onwards. And I was at the University of Kent at Canterbury – same time as the so-called Canterbury Scene was exploding – I started the same year, 1969, as did Steve Hillage! What does that conjure up for you?
Andrew: That must have been an amazing experience to have been that age at that place and at that time. I have a lot of fondness for the Canterbury bands. Obviously Gong and Hillage were deeply intertwined with that scene. I have always loved Soft Machine from their early stuff right through to the Allan Holdsworth period. Soft Machine Third remains one of my favourite albums to this day. I’ve often wondered if folk had any sense at that time that they were experiencing musical history in the making?
Alan: I was actually especially passionate about the American bands, and particularly, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, The Byrds, Mothers of Invention, Captain Beefheart and many more…I was lucky to see them all live and Jimi Hendrix.
Andrew: You were very lucky to see all those bands in their heyday. To be honest with you I’ve never really connected with The Doors or Jefferson Airplane for various reasons, but I do love all the Zappa stuff. Hendrix was also a big guitar influence on me. I cannot imagine the seismic impact of hearing (and SEEING) Hendrix’s music in the late 60s. In 2025 it is very difficult to conceive of a world before outrageous fuzztone wah-wah guitar, but to hear all that for the first time………wow. Not only was he using (at that time at least) unheard of techniques and tones, but he displayed an absolute mastery of that musical vocabulary. I actually feel a similar thing can be said about Eddie Van Halen, but I digress…
Alan: Time for you to tell me about the creation of, and evolution of, the Grateful Dudes. I think you were also a member of the Cosmic Charlies…what about your fellow musical conspirators?
Andrew: Yes I played in the Cosmic Charlies for several years.…in fact half of the Dudes did at some point or other. I knew most of the Dudes anyway: The 90s UK Dead scene was so small that I think most musicians playing that body of music in the UK knew of each other to some extent.
Bob, Richard and Bill were already informally playing together in 2015 when they invited me along for a jam at Quad Studios in Leicester (where we still rehearse). At some point a loose plan was hatched to do a couple of performances at Quad during that Summer. The following year our drummer Paul came aboard, and we got our first big break a few months later when our good friend Peter Williams used his connections with promoter Peter Shapiro to put us on at a London venue called the Brooklyn Bowl. That really helped to get the band a foothold in the UK Dead scene.
Then in 2019 Sean joined the band and we got our bi-monthly London residency at The Fiddlers Elbow in Chalk Farm. This was when we started to gain some traction. Having that opportunity to play to a crowd of Deadheads every two months has been a priceless opportunity for us to regularly stretch our musical muscles and collectively hone our craft. In many ways the Fiddlers’ residency has been the making of the band you see on stage now. We regard the Fiddlers Elbow as our very own Fillmore/Winterland etc. It’s ‘home’ to us and our crowd.
In both 2019 and 2022 we were honoured to play multiple nights at parties/festivals organised by the German GD community, who really know how to put on some great events. In the last couple of years we have spread our wings somewhat, and now play regularly across England with gigs in Hebden Bridge, Sheffield, Birmingham, Cambridge, Liverpool and others. The premiere US Dead band Dark Star Orchestra came to see us play at a London show last year and their drummer Rob sat in with us, which was both quite a treat and an endorsement of how far we’ve come. Currently we find ourselves selling more tickets than ever. There seems to be ‘something in the air’ – a community forming itself around the band’s shows. Increasingly we are seeing more and more folks following us from gig to gig.
Alan: Which of the enormous canon of the Dead songs/tunes do you especially enjoy playing? What about your fellow Dudes?
Andrew: You could ask me that question every few months and get a different answer every time! As you rightly say, it’s an enormous body of work – the gift that just keeps on giving. I think I probably always have a soft spot for Scarlet Begonias, Bird Song, China Cat Sunflower, the jams that happen in Playing In The Band and various others. Sometimes I can feel ambivalent about a tune for several years, and then it just starts speaking to me. I honestly never cared for To Lay Me Down that much for a long time, but since we started performing it the beauty and emotion of the song can sometimes find me blinking back the tears. The Dead’s repertoire can mean many things to many people at different times. Even a simple one chord jam vehicle like Not Fade Away can turn into a meditation on life, a funky dancefest or an epic rock-out depending on the vibe of the evening. The lyrics to Stella Blue seem to get more significant every year I get older. Recently I have been really enjoying all the twists, turns and musical adventures that can happen when we dive head first into The Other One.
Alan: And which Dead numbers really get the fans dancing and singing the most loudly?
Andrew: Shakedown Street, China Cat Sunflower, Sugar Magnolia, Bertha, Deal, Truckin’……I could go on! Whilst Dark Star is not really a loud singing/dancing piece, it is one which is always received rapturously whenever we take that journey.
The audience is such a big part of what we do – it’s like they are the 7th member of the band. It’s a bit of a cliché to say it, but there truly is an energy feedback loop between the band and the audience at shows. I’ve lost count of all the times where the crowd and band have taken each other higher and higher throughout a performance. When that happens it’s the best feeling in the world. Truly special. It’s such a privilege to play for audiences who actively want the band to explore the music and take off on the adventure with us.
Alan: What about Dead albums – what are your personal favourites?
Andrew: My perspective on this is probably quite a peculiar one: I don’t like their studio albums. Any of them. They sound like ‘blueprints’ or ‘test versions’ to me. In my opinion they just don’t realise the possibilities inherent in the music or achieve ‘lift off’ like the live performances. I guess this is because of the way I was introduced to the band (live tapes). Because I have always preferred their live work, I would say any of the official Dicks Picks series of live albums give a much better sense of what they were all about and why so many people are still so passionate about them to this day.
Alan: From the live Trades show, I saw that you share a lot of the vocal duties out between the different band members. How do you decide who sings on what songs?
Andrew: Sean (rhythm guitar) takes lead vocals on nearly all the Bob Weir material – that’s his speciality. The Jerry Garcia songs tend to be split between Paul (drums) and myself. I am probably more of a guitar player than a singer at the end of the day, so I am happy for Paul to take the lead vocal on much of that material so that I can concentrate more on the guitar role where needed. We all sing backing vocals on each other’s songs as required.
Alan: I picked up from the Dudes’ website that you actually have three drummers…does that mean that two play and you keep the third as a spare?
Andrew: Pretty much yes! It’s like a variation on the common joke ‘you wait ages for a bus, and then 2 turn up at once’, except with us it’s drummers! Paul Brown and Bob Bryars tend to do the lion’s share of the shows, and Greg Myles plays with us as his schedule permits. We once did a couple of shows in Dorset with all 3 of them!
Alan: Future plans for the Grateful Dudes? And, I guess, your own musical plans?
Andrew: Hopefully onwards and upwards for the Dudes. We have more gigs booked for 2026 than ever before. Our audience – and the community feeling within that audience – continues to swell. We’ll keep on Truckin’ and continue to bring this wonderful body of music to audiences as much as we can. Every show is a different set list and a fresh adventure for both band and crowd.
Outside of the Grateful Dudes I write and record my original psychedelic/proggy/space rock music under the name Head Spin. This project is where you will hear much more of my Hillage/Gong/Zappa/Kraan influences. I’ve just released the third Head Spin album High Orbit, which has been very well received so far. All of the Head Spin releases can be found here. https://headspin.bandcamp.com/
Alan: What other bands and music are you keen on in 2025?
Andrew: There’s a young Midlands based band called Big Sky Orchestra who are kind of like a modern UK jam band and are well worth checking out.
Most of the other recent music I’ve been enjoying comes from a VERY different space! I really like the electronic psychedelic sounds of artistes like Symbolico and Mantis Mash, who make what I think is some of the best produced and most ‘out there’ music of modern times. I’m also a fan of some drum & bass.
Alan: Enjoyed chatting…many thanks…hopefully catch up ‘Furthur’ along… (which, for readers of this exchange was the name of the Grateful Dead bus with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, and Captain Trips! Aka Jerry Garcia). I’m certainly still ‘On the Bus’!
Andrew: It’s been a pleasure Alan. Come back and see us anytime J
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