They can be found in every aspect of modern life, in your own neighborhood and quite possibly on your family tree. They\u2019re the Deadheads \u2014 and, contrary to the \u201cget a bath\u201d stereotype, they’re the folks who make the trains run on time; the entrepreneurs and visionaries, the doctors and district managers, the IT techs who see the details that somehow elude the rest of us.<\/p>\n
Unlike the Grateful Dead<\/strong><\/a> themselves \u2014 who just kind of improvised their way into one of the most enviable careers in popular music \u2014 the Deadheads are a detail-intensive bunch for sure. Fans in and around the Jersey Shore area have never lacked for access to any number of Dead tribute bands, but if there exists an even more elevated plane of obsession, it\u2019s the exclusive purview of Monmouth University adjunct professor Marc Muller<\/strong> \u2014 master multi-instrumentalist, sought-after session ace, and ringmaster of Dead On Live<\/strong>, a project about which he says, \u201cI don\u2019t know that anyone<\/em> has done this to the extent that I have.\u201d<\/p>\n A flexibly floating lineup composed of Muller and an awesome Rolodex of talented friends, the entity known as Dead On<\/strong> is “deadicated” to the comprehensive transcription \u2014 and note-for-note reproduction \u2014 of the Grateful Dead’s body of officially released recordings. As Muller puts it, that means “every Phil Lesh<\/a> note, every drum, banjo, or mandolin part…even the mistakes.”<\/p>\n \u201cTo me the general public imprint of these songs are the records,\u201d explains the Neptune resident who\u2019s toured and recorded with Elton John, Shania Twain, Dr. John, Van Zant and countless others. \u201cIt’s like what The Fab Faux does with The Beatles, only we upped the game…we look at it like a symphony.\u201d<\/p>\n On Friday, April 13 at 8 p.m., Muller and friends \u2014 a big tent that\u2019s drawn previously from such organizations as Steely Dan, Dixie Dregs, Bela Fleck\u2019s Flecktones and the Late Show with David Letterman band \u2014 take the stage of the Pollak Theatre on Monmouth\u2019s West Long Branch campus for a meticulously and lovingly crafted, note-for-note \u201cDead On\u201d recreation of the albums Workingman\u2019s Dead<\/em> and American Beauty<\/em>.<\/p>\n With those two 1970 releases, the Grateful Dead shifted their focus from psychedelia \u2014 and toward an expansive American music that fused rock, bluegrass, blues, folk, and (especially) country into a sound that would prove to be a game-changer for the Frisco-based band. First presented as a 40th anniversary tribute at Red Bank\u2019s Count Basie Theatre (where Muller conducts the \u201cRock the Basie\u201d adult music camp), the program spotlights such Dead perennials as \u201cUncle John\u2019s Band,\u201d \u201cCasey Jones,\u201d \u201cBox of Rain,\u201d \u201cFriend of the Devil,\u201d \u201cSugar Magnolia,\u201d \u201cRipple,\u201d \u201cBrokedown Palace,\u201d and \u201cTruckin\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n The concert is presented by the Center for the Arts at Monmouth \u2014 and at the center of it all is Muller, a man whose ten-year tenure with country superstar Twain was an experience in which \u201cwe’d try to be perfect, chase that perfection, every night.\u201d<\/p>\n