‘Touch of Grey’-tness: The Grateful Dead’s music still Truckin’ through many NYC tribute acts

The bands converge: The Disco Dead and The Many Sides of Bob Dylan, clockwise from top left ( green hat ) :
Ben Uniacke (Dylan) , Jane Choi (Dylan) , James Denatale (Dylan) , Phil Radiotes ( Dylan), Satoko Mori (Dead) , Josh Santiago (Dead), Chris Mackin (Dead), Brian Reynolds (Dead) , Steve Remp (Dylan) , Will Corona (Dead), Ben Pinnola (Dylan)

The Grateful Dead, it seems, are having a moment. Long after the demise of the great Jerry Garcia and not long since the band’s successor Dead & Co called it quits, the Dead live on on a variety of guises.

From the long running tribute band Dark Star Orchestra to variations on the themes by Grateful Dub (Reggae), Afro Dead (Afrobeat) and an up-and-coming group who call themselves Bertha — a combo from Nashville who perform in full drag — there is no shortage of musicians working to keep the music alive.

Walk down the streets of New York in the summertime and you can’t help but notice Grateful Dead t-shirts on bodies everywhere — frequently on folks who hadn’t been born when Garcia took his leave. 

“Yeah, it’s a thing,” a twentysomething New Yorker informs us. “Sometimes it’s because they like the music and sometimes it’s just for the cool designs.”

If you’re one of those people who are in it for the tunes, you’re in luck. At least four previously unreleased concert discs are released every year (they managed to record almost 2,200 of their 2,350 shows) and an occasional box set that doesn’t skimp on the packaging or quality. And those live Dead tributes are definitely a thing, especially with the “Bushwick’s Dead” monthly series going on at the Brooklyn Bowl on the first Sunday of every month.  

Chris Mackin and Josh Santiago were just toddlers when Garcia headed for places unknown in 1995, but they developed a love for the jam band aesthetic and especially for the Dead, who arguably did it better than anyone (actually, don’t bother arguing – they did it better than…