Phil Lesh, SOB’s
April 11th, 2007
Once upon a time, I was a young grad student with a nascent love for the Grateful Dead and a head full of semiotics; one result was “Fractals of Familiarty and Innovation,” a bit of academic malarkey that was saved from complete embarrassment only by the fact that the great Robert Hunter deemed it worthy of a witty and gracious response. Over a decade later, what stayed with me aren’t the Fischer-Lichte quotes but the basic creative truth at the core of the essay: how do you keep the music playing? By combining just the right amounts of nostalgia and novelty. The tension between what’s familiar and what isn’t lies at the heart of all narrative, including musical narrative.
