What A Long Strange Trip It's Been

Thu, 04/24/2008 - 18:40 — birdie

Attention DeadHeads: It was announced today that the University of California Santa Cruz will house the archives of one of America's best-loved rock groups, The Grateful Dead.

Three decades worth of archival materials - from business records to stage backdrops - has been donated by the band to the school's McHenry Library , where a room called Dead Central is being dedicated to a beloved band dubbed "the largest unofficial religion in the world."

UC Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal joined Dead drummer Mickey Hart and guitarist and singer Bob Weir in a buoyant press conference this morning at San Francisco's aging Fillmore Auditorium, the Geary Street birthplace of the San Francisco's psychedelic scene and the site of 51 Dead concerts. In honor of the event, Blumenthal was given a tie-dyed T shirt.

"All of this stuff doesn't belong to us - it belongs to the culture that spawned us," said the graying Weir, dressed in a sports jacket, T shirt and Birkenstocks. "It seemed like getting it into a campus archive, with access to the people in the community that gave rise to this, was the right thing to do."