![]() How much money has Walton, for example, spent supporting the act over the years? Not enough, according to him. Both cults are eager to shell out money for limited editions and collaborations, collecting trinkets for status. Still, there are parallels between Deadheads and sneakerheads. ![]() ![]() Late lead man Jerry Garcia wore Air Max 90s, but his public appreciation didn't run deeper. Lemieux, who went to his first Grateful Dead show in 1987 and has been to over 100 since, doesn't believe any original members of the brand had a strong affinity for Nike. The sportswear company is going out of its way to cater to people who actually care about the band-there's a surprise planned for longtime patrons. Lemieux says he hasn't seen any complaints from fans about the Nikes. But as a steward of the band's brand, he's also the guy who has to take the brunt of the abuse when its many followers are skeptical about a product tie-in, as with the recent all-natural Grateful Dead deodorant. Granted, he's got a vested interest in selling more and more merchandise. "But it's cool imagery and, to me, anything that kind of gets the Grateful Dead out there and allows people to see it and see how cool the imagery is, you know-there's a small part that might actually make people curious." "I'm sure a lot of these celebrities don't know much about the Grateful Dead," says Lemieux. This is of no great concern to Lemieux, who sees famous people with no apparent connection to the music don the gear all the time. The swelling of their ranks of followers meant a wider dissemination of the associated insignias, colorful marks on merch that didn't necessarily indicate the wearer had listened to the Dead. ![]() They've sold over 35 million albums since. The seminal psychedelic rock group formed in Palo Alto in 1965, tapping into the youth zeitgeist of the decade with records that could expand one's consciousness. After that, the yellow colorway will release via SNKRS and select skate shops on July 24, with the green dropping the same day at skate shops.ĭavid Lemieux, archivist and legacy manager for the Grateful Dead, isn't bothered by the inevitability of people who can't name any of their songs chasing after the shoes. Nike picked that spot to debut the shoes as a reference to the city's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, where the Dead were active early in their career. The orange one will release first, exclusively at legendary San Francisco skate shop FTC, on July 18. They look like a product emerging from an acid dream. Prompting his rhapsody is the Grateful Dead x Nike SB Dunk Low collaboration, a three-shoe set of impossibly furry sneakers inspired by the band's ubiquitous dancing bear logo. They're gonna inspire me to get to ever new heights." "These shoes are so electric and eclectic. "These shoes are so colorful," Walton says. Which brings us to the whole harmonic convergence thing. This passionate hum of the 67-year-old Walton, a two-time NBA champion-turned-sportscaster, is invited by topics as diverse as PAC-12 basketball, his unending love of the Grateful Dead, the majesty of the great outdoors, and sneakers. Wherever he is-at home in San Diego or, as his trippy Zoom background suggests, beaming in from some astral junction-his coordinates have not dimmed the warm and vibrating glow of his universal enthusiasm. "This is a harmonic convergence of the highest order," declares Bill Walton, uncertain in the moment that he is still on planet Earth.
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