Deadhead--Someone who loves, and derives meaning from, the music of the Grateful Dead. The word used in this way is said to have been encouraged by Bill Graham.

The earliest meanings of the word "deadhead" predate the Grateful Dead by four centuries, but have intriguing resonances for its later use. The original Latin term, _caput mortuum,_ was used by alchemists to describe the residue "remaining after the distillation or sublimation of any substance, 'good for nothing but to be flung away, all vertue being extracted'"--i.e., used up. The Oxford English Dictionary notes the first recorded English use of this meaning of "deadhead" in a book called Gesner's New Jewell of Health, translated by George Baker, and published in 1576: "See whether the deadeheade be blacke."

By the mid-1850's, a "deadhead" had become "one who travels free, hence eats free, or, especially, goes free to a place of entertainment," and an 1883 review of Donizetti's opera Lucia Di Lammermoor in the London Daily Telegraph panned it by saying it was so "stale," even "the most confirmed deadhead" wouldn't try to scam in to the Opera House. "Deadheadism" was the practice of letting people into a show for free, and in 1860, Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in Elsie Venner: A Romance of Destiny that one of his characters "had been 'dead-headed' into the world some fifty years ago, and had sat with his hands in his pockets staring at the show ever since." (Spacedancing was still 100 years away.)

The word was also applied to passengers riding trains without paying, with the implication that they were more like "dead head" of cattle than "livestock." The word is still in use in many trades and industries: A train that is being hauled by another train is a "deadhead," and a cabbie returning without passengers from a distant destination is said to be "deadheading back." Pruning flowers past their peak of blooming is also called "deadheading," e.g., "Annie deadheaded the roses."

The Dead-related meaning is beginning to infiltrate standard dictionaries. "A follower of the Grateful Dead rock group" is meaning #3 in the National Textbook Company's 1993 edition of the Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions, with these examples of usage: "What do these deadheads see in that group?" and, "My son is a deadhead and travels all over listening to these guys." (One has to wonder if there's a Deadhead on staff at the National Textbook Company. The use of the word "bong" is illustrated by the cheerful, "Fill up your bong and let's get going," as well as the cautionary, "You can't just bong for the rest of your life!") The word "Deadhead" was trademarked by the Grateful Dead.

(from Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads by David Shenk and Steve Silberman)

The moment that you realize you are a Deadhead is sometimes called "getting on the bus." "I got on the bus after that Fox show in '77, and started touring heavily." (A loss of interest is sometimes described as "getting off the bus.")

Most Deadheads recognize the phrase from Weir's lyric to "The Other One," "The bus came by, and I got on, that's when it all began with Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to Never Ever Land." "The bus" was the Merry Pranksters' "Furthur," a renovated and customized 1939 International Harvester, bought by Kesey in the spring of 1964 for the Pranksters' road trip to the New York World's Fair, driven by "Cowboy" Neal Cassady.

The bus became a countercultural icon after the publication of Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. According to Wolfe, Kesey first uttered the phrase on the way to Houston, Texas, as he struggled for an ironic declaration of policy about what might happen to Pranksters who accidentally got left behind along the way. "There are going to be times when we can't wait for somebody," Kesey announced. "Now, you're either on the bus or off the bus. If you're on the bus, and you get left behind, then you'll find it again. If you're off the bus in the first place then it won't make a damn."

Deadheads have enlarged on Kesey's declaration, so that the words mean more than being on a particular bus, and more than being a Deadhead. The phrase has become a metaphor for having had a particular insight, a knowledge transmitted through the music, the experience of shows, the psychedelics, and the community.

"Getting on the bus," says longtime Head Alan Mande, "means crossing the perceptual threshold, as in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass and Joseph Campbell's Hero With A Thousand Faces. 'The bus came by and I got on' is a freeze frame of the flashpoint where Grateful Dead music triggers a psychic/spiritual awakening 'the kind of awakening the great religions first intended,' as Campbell said."

(from Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads by David Shenk and Steve Silberman)

What We'll Miss...

(This list was put together by my friend Patte from many, many people's posts to rec.music.gdead)

"Beans! Who'll give me beans?"
"Bad jokes for your spare change..."
"Tee shirts, only five quid." "What's a quid?"
"Spam-filled gefilte-fish Twinkies..."

--25--

--50--

--75--

--100--

--125--

--150--

--175--

--200--

--225--

--250--

--275--

--300--

--325--

--350--

--375--

--400--

--425--

--450--

--475--

I posted this to rec.music.gdead the night after Jerry died...

From: MaryMc
Date: 10 Aug 1995 02:18:15 PDT

Got back a little while ago from the vigil at Seattle Center. "Vigil" was how it was billed but the word just doesn't suit--it was more like a celebration. It was almost like a show--balloons, bubbles, kids and dogs underfoot, scents of sage and incense and pot drifting through the air. Up in front was an empty stage, just a sound system, but you had to keep looking up there to remind yourself that the boys weren't there playing.

A radio station started off playing studio recordings, but somebody came up with a tape of the last Seattle show and they played that for almost two hours. People danced, lit candles, left them at shrines under the trees. At one point, we looked up and there was the moon, almost full in a dark sky full of hazy clouds--and a little ways away, where there was a break in the clouds, moonlight shone through...and it made a night rainbow, I swear to god. I heard somebody say "He's letting us know he's happy."

Got home to an answering machine full of messages. I've heard from four people today--some of them I hadn't talked to in months--who called to say thankyou for taking them to their first show. Left a message for my friend who took me to mine. A good night for remembering, connecting...being grateful for all we've shared.

MaryMc

photo of stage at Golden Gate Park memorial

This is a the stage in Golden Gate Park during Jerry's memorial on August 13, 1995 (photo courtesy of Graphisound Productions).

This article appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer shortly after Jerry died (sorry, I don't have the date or the author--if you know, please tell me.)

The Dead recharged our souls with rowdy, love-filled celebrations

(c) Copyright the News & Observer Publishing Co.

SEATTLE -- Commentaries on Jerry Garcia's death Wednesday noted his role as a groundbreaking guitarist and counterculture icon, but most failed to note his band's biggest contribution -- as restorers of celebration in American life.

As a concertgoer since 1971, I never found this easy to describe, either.

When I took a friend or a colleague or a date to a Grateful Dead show, I would never know what to expect. The playing could veer from symphonic to soporific, but to me, the concert was always a welcome reunion of the extended "family" of fans.

This is not to denigrate the Dead as artists. Their musical aspirations were high. In their improvisation, they had less in common with ordinary rock bands than with jazz masters like Ornette Coleman and Branford Marsalis who occasionally joined them on stage.

Percussionists Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzman borrowed beats from Africa and Asia. Bassist Phil Lesh introduced classical harmonics. And Garcia, with his mind-bending finger work, added arguably as much to the electric guitar vocabulary as did Jimi Hendrix.

Still, the Dead phenomenon was as important to me as the songs. Each concert was a mini-vacation. The word "energy" often was used to describe what passed between performers, audience and our surroundings. Thus, a perfect V-formation of geese flying over Seattle's Memorial Stadium last May drew cheers from the crowd and became a memorable part of the show.

This energy would wax and wane over the three or four hours of a Dead concert. The band drew whimsically from a repertoire of hundreds of tunes. For instance, they might suddenly decide to launch "Standing on the Moon" when the orb rose over their left shoulders. They liked to juxtapose songs they had written 30 years apart.

Invariably, the night included epic, character-filled songs that described America's mountains and cities in a way that made them seem thick with legend. Outlaws ran from a Southwestern cantina, while a wino crawled up from the gutter to tell his amazing life story.

The Dead loved to put a sense of the American landscape in their songs: not just their San Francisco homeland, but the muddy rivers of Alabama and the Cumberland mines of Appalachia.

Some of his fans might have seen him as a deity, but Garcia loved the romance of just being a member of a hard-working band that pulled into a new joint every night and played its heart out.

By reveling in American myth, the Dead came across as anarchic, peaceful patriots -- the antithesis of the angry, armed Patriots spreading so much anger recently.

Garcia, the psychedelic Uncle Sam, presided not over a government, but over a world of tragic beauty:

"Leaving Texas, fourth day of July," he sang. "Sun so hot, clouds so low, the eagles filled the sky."

The mood of a Dead concert was more religious than civic, and more pagan than Judeo-Christian, more about the natural world than any sin-watching deity. Sure, drugs contributed to this mood. But at that Seattle concert in May, I stumbled upon a tie-dyed circle of Deadheads repeating the Narcotics Anonymous 12-Step creed.

Dead concerts had their troubles this summer: a roof that collapsed and fences torn down. It's worth noting that doom and death were factored into the Dead cosmology, in which every card deal and love affair went awry.

Characters in Dead songs wallowed in disaster, and laughed in its face. One of the band's symbols, after all, was a dancing skeleton.

In that last Seattle concert, Garcia's raspy voice sent the plaintive words of "Stella Blue" out of Memorial Stadium and up into the steep tracks of the Seattle Center roller coaster. The gray and tired singer summed up the exhausting life of an artist--indeed, of anyone who has lived hard and long.

"I've stayed in every blue-light, cheap hotel," he sang. "Can't win for trying."

His fans didn't know Garcia would never see Seattle again, but they did know that he wouldn't always be around. In the full knowledge of the human condition, however, thousands that day were able to dance together at a particular place on Earth, and celebrate.

You know you're a deadhead when...

From: zombie@camelot.bradley.edu (Dustin Slater)
Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead
Subject: Re: "You know you're a deadhead when..."--author?
Date: 27 Jan 1994 21:13:55 -0600
Organization: Bradley University

(HEIN) writes:

> Looking for the author of the elegant list, "You know you're a deadhead : when..."
> Anyone with a name and/or e-mail address, please e-mail me: Better yet, repost it!

ok!

"You know you're a deadhead when..." ver. 1.1

  1. You spend more money on blank tapes than you do on rent.
  2. None of your tapes have names on them, just dates.
  3. You recognize "DOSESBUDSHROOMZX" as both a statement and a question.
  4. You furnished your entire apartment with stuff you got with MaxPoints.
  5. You prefix every noun with "Kind", or "Icy cold".
  6. You spend more money at the post office than at the gas station.
  7. You still have the parking tag from NYE 1976 hanging from your rear view mirror.
  8. On forms you list your occupation as "?".
  9. GDTRFB, SSDD, BIODTL, FOTD, SOTM, LTGTR, NFA, and WALSTIB all mean something to you.
  10. At any given moment you can compute how many days, hours, minutes, and seconds it's been since ALLIGATOR has been played.
  11. Someone asks you what you do for fun, and you just smile real wide.
  12. The first entry on your MCI Friends and Family list is (415) 457-6388.
  13. You got #12.
  14. Your car windows look like stained glass from being covered with colored stickers.
  15. You think $1.00 for a grilled cheese sandwich is pretty damn cheap.
  16. You've figured out the correlation between the date and the # of beats to start BIODTL.
  17. Your boss notices members of you're family only become deathly ill when there happens to be a dead show within a 1,000 mile radius.
  18. You know how "the song" goes...
  19. The bus came by, and you got on.
  20. Whenever you walk through a parking lot you instinctively hold your right index finger in the air.
  21. The compass in your car is calibrated so that it always points to the Oakland Coliseum.
  22. You can install a new cylinder head on a '68 VW microbus with your eyes closed.
  23. You have more tie-dyes than neck-ties.
  24. You find it amazing that some people fill balloons with AIR.
  25. You try to convince your grandmother Aoxomoxoa is an acceptable play for a Scrabble triple word score.
  26. Your dog is named Bertha.
  27. Your KID is named Althea.
  28. You spend New Year's Eve with your cassette deck instead of your s.o.
  29. You're license plate spells "HEY NOW".
  30. You've learned to DUCK.
  31. You wonder if Dupree's Diamond News is going to have a swimsuit issue this year.
  32. Your stock portfolio includes fifty shares of the Hanes Black T-Shirt division.
  33. You consider a "miracle" to be a ticket to tonight's show.
  34. You can't leave the house without wondering where the tickets are.
  35. Left unoccupied your hand instinctively taps the beat to Not Fade Away.
  36. You actually are in search of the Eternal Buzz.
  37. You're still waiting for that second verse of the Dark Star that they started back in May of '73.
  38. You swear the guy walking by you at the football game just muttered "doses!"
  39. There are ten people still shacking up at your house from the summer 1990 tour, and you don't know any of them.
  40. You consider veggie burritos gourmet.
  41. You know the words to Truckin' better than Bobby. (OK, I guess this doesn't necessarily mean your a deadHEAD...)
  42. You can remember an Other One that wasn't followed by Wharf Rat, or a Throwing Stones that wasn't followed by Not Fade Away.
  43. You try to claim gas to and from Dead shows as an income tax deduction.
  44. You know the ZIP code for San Rafael, CA by heart.
  45. You have the postal rates memorized.
  46. Your copy of DeadBase has long since broken out of its binding and the ink is beginning to wear off the pages.
  47. You spend all morning looking for this killer Playin' jam that you think is on this tape from '72, probably the Fillmore, and you know it's a Maxell with the label on upside down, but it doesn't have a case, and you know the tape starts with Sugaree but the last time you think you saw it was in '83 and it was under your friend Brian's refrigerator, or maybe it was just a filler on that Alpine Valley '89 show, which you think you probably listened to in that dude's bus on the way to Deer Creek this year, but his phone number is on the back of the ticket stub that you think is stuffed in your soundboard copy of 7/8/78 set II, and you have NO idea where that is, so you pull out DeadBase and start looking for every show since '71 that even had a Playin' but by '77 or so you forgot what you were looking for because you got wrapped up in the nice version of He's Gone where Mickey starts playing the beam with a dead cat, etc. etc. (if this sounds like something that happens to you every day, you KNOW you're a deadhead.)
  48. You're beginning to wonder if Bob's ever going to retire that Tamalpais Chiefs shirt.
  49. Lately, It occurs to you just exactly WHAT A LONG STRANGE TRIP IT'S BEEN.

 

*** You know you're a NetHead when... ****

  1. Your account receives over 50,000 lines of e-mail received every month.
  2. You're up at 3:20 am writing some stupid "You know you're a deadhead when..." list instead of studying for finals.
  3. Your Windows 3.0 background is a picture of Jerry Garcia, your cursor is a Steal Your Face skull, and sometimes you swear it's leaving "trails" (note: 3.1 users, the mouse may actually leave trails...)
  4. The mainframe sysop wants to know how the 400 page file entitled "Lyrics to 300 Grateful Dead Songs" that you sent to the new laser printer relates to the CS 465 project you've been working on.
  5. You still wonder what the lyrics to "The Night They Drove Ole Dixie Down" are.
  6. You consider ;-) a new form of punctuation.
  7. You sign up for the 12/31/90 tree and offer to make 2,500 copies, and then completely forget your on it.
  8. You're still waiting for the 9/26/91 tapes.
  9. Your .sig file is a full size rendition of the Blues for Allah Cover, as well as your name, address, 14 different paths to reach your account, your shoe size, and all the lyrics from Working Man's Dead in quotation. Oh yeah, and a 15 page notarized legal disclaimer.
  10. You remember the Porsche guy.
  11. Your post for lyrics to Sugar Magnolia starts up the yearly 200,000 line sexism flamewar.
  12. You actually know where to find the FAQ, and what it is.
  13. Your terminal program runs on startup and automatically logs you in, strips the excess info out of dead-flames, scrolls it by like a teletype, and automatically sends copies of your list to 200 of your trading friends.
  14. An alarm goes off on your PC when it's time to tape the Grateful Dead Hour.
  15. Your e-mail address is something like <China_Rider@Shakedown_Street.FillmoreWest.GDTRFB.FatmanRocks.OnTour.lsd>
  16. Right now your arm is resting on a two foot stack of scratch paper with the names of everybody on every tree you're on, 113 miscellaneous trades, the location and file names of ALL of the 10/31/91 digitized into .au files, every summer tour date that's ever been rumored, ticket master numbers to all fifty states (on no less than 80 sheets of paper of course), the release date of Without A Net (why would you have that still?--oh yeah, on the back is the location of the nethead gathering for Landover '91 which will probably be the same next year so you can't possible get rid of that), no less that 20 e-mail and U.S. mail addresses that have ABSOLUTELY no meaning to you, and finally a note from 1988 that says DON'T forget to pick up the kids at school...OOOPS.

Fletch
arflesza@mtus5.cts.mtu.edu
(aka dwrymano@mtus5)

--
zombie@camelot.bradley.edu
I'm on the bus.

Heartless powers try to tell us what to think.

You just might be a Redneck Deadhead...

From: Sun <sunlion@cinci.net>
Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead
Subject: Redneck Deadheads (Humor)
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 18:44:55 -0700

Here's a few lines I made up; hope it makes somebody grin.

You just might be a Redneck Deadhead...

Peace.

Favorite Grateful Dead Stickers

Who are the Grateful Dead and why do they keep following me?

If I had to explain, you wouldn't understand (with a Stealie in the corner)

...and on the eighth day, God created Jerry Garcia !

Driver carries no Grateful Dead tapes

WARNING! Driver may be experiencing an awesome China==>Rider!

Bass great....Lesh Philling.

Bass Grate! More Philling!

Everything I needed to know about life I learned from reading the back of a Volkswagen van

Lesh Is More

I Take Acid And I Vote

Is it LIVE or is it DEAD?

Don't Worry, Be Hippie!

Jerry's Kids

Grateful Express--When you absolutely have to be there every night

Drop 'till you Dance

WEIR conVINCEd JERRY'S PHILin' groovy

Have a Jerry Christmas and a Happy Bob Weir

D.E.A.D. To Keep Kids On Tour

If he plays we will come

You've been selected for Jerry Duty

If the drummers don't get ya, then the fatman will

If the tapers don't get ya, then the spinners will

I've tripped and I can't get down!

Bo Knows Jerry

Just Dew It !!

Yo! It's a Dead thing...you wouldn't understand.

What do you do when you see a BEAR in the woods?...Play Dead!

It's a Dead world after all

Boy, I could use a good Jerry right now

Some are Grateful, Summer Dead

I'm A Lesh Lush And I Can't Get My Phil!

Garseeya Later...

Give Us This Day Our Daily Dead

Still DEAD after all these years!

Follow Me to Terrapin Station

Bob spit on me!

Who are the spinners and why do they keep spilling my beer?

Same Happiness...Different Tour

Don't need dope to dance

DEADicated

On the eighth day, God created Phil

Visualize World Phil

The Only Good Head Is A Deadhead

I'd rather be... IN THE PHIL ZONE

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Deadheads don't fall down, they just keep tripping

Goin' Where The Wind Don't Blow So Strange

As You Travel the Golden Road...Remember the Golden Rule

Warning: I brake for hallucinations

My other car is a tour bus

Deadheads do it for four hours with only one break

For a good time call (415) 457-6388

It's a lovely view of heaven but I'd rather be with you.

(Like the Ben & Jerry's) Bob & Jerry's California's Finest Homespun Psychedelia

Let Phil sing!

Who let Phil Sing?

"Our audience is like people who like licorice. Not everyone likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice."---J. Garcia

Don't blame me, I voted for JERRY!!!

A bad DEAD SHOW is better than a good day at work

I rather be...with YOU

Life is what happens between Dead shows

The Grateful Dead melts in your mind, not in your hands

Peaceful place... Or so it looks from space...

Weir Everywhere

THANK YOU JERRY

Happy Happy, Tour Tour

Jerry Wobbles But He Don't Fall Down

Don't abuse drugs -- Treat them kyndly

One man gathers what another man spills...RECYCLE

Jerry Me

Ain't no time to hate

TOURS ' R ' US!

Happiness is being at a Dead show

This isn't even the fun part, yet

Official Grateful Dead Sticker Test Vehicle

Mickey in '96

Nothing for my head but the Grateful Dead!

If you not a head.....You're behind!

It Must Have Been The Doses

PHILasophical

Eat, Drink, and see Jerry

Jerry Spit On Me I Spit On Bob

The Phil Zone.

Sit, Roll Over, Play Dead!

I've Been Victim==>Eyes'd

Another Dopeless Hope Fiend

Great to be Alive, Grateful to be Dead

Label Tapes, Not People

You're Behind a Kind Mind

Peace: @}--}--------- and roses

Space Is For Deadheads, Not Warheads!

Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile

Nothin' left to do but :-) :-) :-)

Jerry made me do it

Hug Me, Love Me, Take Me On Tour

Garcia's Travel Agency--I play, you go!

Dance With Reckless Abandon

My child was DEADHEAD of the class.

Weir High '92

D is for Darkstar

Life Is A Bowl Full Of Jerries

They're a Band Beyond Description

Smile Jerry Loves You

We got an empty cup only Jerry can fill!!

Happiness is Wishing Upon A Dark Star

I'm not a criminal. I'm a Deadhead.

D.A.R.E. Dead Are Real Entertainment

So go ahead and dose me when I'm not lookin', I don't care : )

Where are the flashbacks you promised me?!

The Fat Man Rocks

Terrapin Bound

Deadopoly...A Game Of Dance

My other car is on tour!

(Stealie with a big blue Cookie Monster in the middle) Steal Your Cookies

Jerry ain't God.... but close to it

Die, Scalper Scum!!

I Brake For Phil

Deadagonia

Keep Club Med......I'm With Club Dead

If they play it we will come

Jerryatrics Ward Visiting Hours:

From: When they come to call on you
Till: We all fall down

Bob Phils Jerry's Space

Bad Bobby, No Corina

I've Been to Jerryland

Official Grateful Dead Sticker Test Vehicle

Fukengruven

DARKSTARVERGNUGEN - the pleasure of the experience!

Philvergnugen

(on a VW bus at the Mardi Gras shows) Fukenbroken

What a long strange trip it still is!!!

The future's here. We are it. We are on our own!

Bob fans are people too

Surgeon Generals Warning: Exposure to Grateful Dead music may cause changes in lifestyles and attitudes

If you get confused listen to the music play

Wish I was a headlight on a north bound train!

My kids think I'm at work!

Phil Me Up!!!

Good things happen to Dead people

We Will Get By

May the four winds blow you safely home

Hug A Designated Driver...We Bring You Back From the Dead!

How to Tie Die

From: wagnecz@cc1.pica.army.mil (Glen A. Wagnecz, X6616)
Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead
Subject: Tie Dying (semi-long)
Date: 28 Jun 90 12:15:09 GMT
Reply-To: wagnecz@cc1.pica.army.mil
Lines: 186

HOW TO TIE DYE IN 185 LINES (11602 characters) OR LESS...

Disclaimer #1: Most of this info was arrived @ randomly.

Disclaimer #2: Not responsible for kitchens/bathrooms that look different after this!

Obtain your dyes/chemicals. Brooks and Flynn is a good place, their number is (800) 822-2372, or (707)584-7715. They will send you a catalog, along with a color chart (this chart has sample of fabric colored with the dyes so you can get an idea what the colors will look like). A little dye will go a long way: last batch we made, we bought about 7 colors X 2 oz.'s per color and made something like 2 dozen multi-color (understatement!) shirts, w/leftover dye! Use the Procion MX Fiber Reactive Dyes, they're potent! You can also get the auxiliary chemicals from B/F.

Shirts to dye. Probably one of the most important things with dying is to use 100% cotton (avoid material with finishes: stay-pressed, etc.). I dyed two shirts with the same dye once, one that was a 100% cotton, the other a 50/50 (it was a shirt from MSG that was undyed, but I couldn't resist the screen!). The 100% cotton came out brilliant, the other one looked like a completely different dye was used (it was pale, like when you use that crap (RIT) from the supermarket!). Another example is when you by shirts on tour that are stitched with poly thread in the seams, the syn-fibers just don't take the dye well at all! (the stitches stay white). Also, try sweats, socks, underwear, towels too! (Just as long as its cotton...)

Patterns. This is where you have to use your imagination! Some of the more common designs:

There's probably dozens of other ways to apply the dyes, these are the ones that come to mind. Please let me know if there's something good I missed...

How to apply the dye. There are two ways to apply the dye: one is to create a dye bath and soak the fabric in it, the other is to apply the dye (in a much more concentrated form) directly to the fabric (this is the way to truly achieve deep, rich colors). The reason for this is that the dye that you would send down the drain is instead applied directly to the fabric rather than being thrown out with the remnants of the bath.

I'll talk just about the second method. For direct dye application, there's two ways to prepare the dye/reactant system. One is to apply the dye to fabric that has been pre-treated with a base solution, while the second is to add the base directly to the dye before applying to the fabric. The advantages to the second is that you eliminate the pre-soak step. However, the dye must be used within 4 hours of base addition or it's shot. Personally, I think the two-step process produces richer colors, and the dye keeps for about two weeks w/o the base in it.

To do the two-step process, first prepare a pre-soak solution by adding 1 cup of soda ash to each gallon of water (lukewarm). Soak the shirts for about 5 minutes, then wring out excess solution. This is also an important factor in how much the dye will penetrate. If you really wring the sh*t out of the shirt, then when you go to apply the dye, it will really soak in. Conversely, if you leave it relatively soaked with the soda ash solution, the dye won't be able to penetrate as deeply (into the underlying fabric), sort of like a full sponge that can't pick up anymore. Again, T&E (trial and error). After the pre-treat, apply the dye to the exterior. The best way to do this is to use dish soap/hair dye bottles, which give good control of the dye. B/F gives mixing instructions for the right concentration for each dye, so I won't talk to that here. After dye application, put the shirt in a plastic bag (don't wring it out!) and seal it. Put it in a warm place (at least room temp.) for about 24 hours. Twenty four hours is OK, I wouldn't go less; and if you go a lot longer than that (upwards of two days), you'll get excessive penetration into the underlying fabric. (Just use 24, trust me!). It's also important to keep the shirt with the dye moist during the 24 hour set, again, seal the bag.

To do the direct application method (with the base added to the dye directly), mix the dye per instructions to the right concentration, and then add about one teaspoon of soda ash to each 8 oz. of concentrated dye solution. Before dye application, wet the shirt with warm water instead of soda ash solution. All else applies. B/F sells this stuff called "calsolene", which is a water-prep. chemical. I've used it sometimes and other times not, I'm not sure if the water in my area is that bad ("bad" meaning the particular mineral content). Some might require this, so it's probably not a bad idea to get it.

Two tips at this point: One--wear disposable rubber gloves, the base is harsh to your hands, and it takes about a week for the dye to wear off your skin (don't ask why I know that). Secondly, a persistent problem is cross-color contamination. You just get done making a nice red shirt. The next one is going to be pure yellow (or so you thought). Problem is it picked up red! Always change the gloves between colors, and clean whatever work surface of the previous color or its gonna be on the next shirt! Disclaimer: one of my friends made a nice shirt by wiping a shirt across a trash bag that he was using as a work surface...

The rinse. After the shirts have sat in a bag for 24 hours, it's time to rinse the excess dye off (don't be alarmed, a lot comes out but there's enough left behind for a good color). Before you even untie/cut the rubber bands or string, wash the outside of the bundle with cold water. This helps to eliminate unwanted "backstaining" (dye where it's not supposed to be). Then start to take the strings off, again, keeping it under plenty of cold, running water. Finally, I put the shirts into my bath tub, which I have filled with cold water and added a little laundry detergent (use just enough to get a hint of bubbles, no more). Let them sit in it for about a half hour, occasionally stirring. Then wash cold in the wash machine per normal way.

Misc. poop: Any spills can be wiped with a mild bleach solution (1 cup per wash bucket), but keep this solution away from your dyed shirts! Wipe spills quickly, before they have a chance to take! The pre-rinsed shirts won't stain your bathtub after the initial rinse under running water. The initial rinse should be for at least 5 minutes or until the water running off the shirt starts to clear, which ever happens last. Then go to the bathtub portion of the rinse...

Final word. I'm sure that there's gonna be some people out there that get bent that I posted this info (they would rather sell you the shirts). I hope that whoever reads this info uses it to make all their friends happy (some of the best gifts I've given). If your intent is to go out and make big bucks milking the scene for what its worth, may you get stuck with a 100 shirts you can't sell. I'm not going to try to control this info. as its fairly accessible anyway (besides, info. usually isn't the problem, underlying attitude as to it's use is...). With that in mind, have a blast! You can now have a good supply of tie-dyes for yourself/family and friends (yeah, I even got Dad to wear a nice sunburst pattern when he does his gardening!). The only reason I buy shirts anymore is for the screen patterns (I'm clueless as to how to screen!) Again, please feel free to add to/correct these instructions...

Glen

 

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