I’m sorry if I seem preoccupied, if I seem preoccupied, because my ears are turning off - my ears are turning off! It’s making me go a little bit crazy up here…I’m kind of, uh, feeling a little bit like an ape, but I’m hoping that it will pass soon enough…
Dave, 12/23/92 after One Sweet World

DaveSpeak is now at 199 followers

*tears of happiness*

I’m going to update the blog this week, I’m sorry it’s been really back and forth with updating. I just haven’t been reading the So Much to Say book as much as I thought I would because my eyes get tired. Anyway…

keep submitting and especially those stories about your own personal experiences with DMB!

Thanks guys

Chelsea

[DMB] was almost like a secret for me because they were so unknown when I got into them - no one else really knew them. I almost felt like I was letting people in on my music at the Georgie Theatre show. I had reservations… when the band got big; it was bittersweet.

… Before DMB was just this thing I had for me, that was a part of my own little world. Now it was for everybody.

Matt McKibben commenting on the bands new found fame in 1993

p. 57, So Much to Say: 20 Years On The Road

I first heard DMB in the spring of 1994 on a college radio show in Texas. The student DJ, a Virginia transplant, played a cassette he’d gotten from a friend at the UVA. He played ‘Ants Marching,’ and I was hooked. I tried to find an album in my local music store, but the workers there had never even heard of the band.

… A few days later, I had my very own copy of Remember Two Things on CD. I still have it to this day.

Christopher Smith, fan

p. 54-55, So Much to Say: 20 Years On The Road

A lot of people didn’t dig the idea of a fiddle player in a rock band; a lot of people didn’t dig the idea of no electric guitar, just acoustic. I think that’s what I liked about them so much, that it was so different. I felt like it was my own personal little secret.

Nate Vandemark, fan and avid taper

p. 52, So Much to Say: 20 Years On The Road

People in Colorado knew about us [before DMB toured there]. We’d never been to Alabama before. We’d go to this place, and cars would be lined up down the road, and there’d be all these people going to this big club. We’d be sitting in our red van saying, ‘Oh, my God!’

Boyd Tinsley on the growing (and spreading) fandom of DMB in the early years

p. 51, So Much to Say: 20 Years On The Road

You can take a Minarets [Digest] post and basically remove the song and replace it with a song today, and it’s totally the same thing. They were, like, ‘I can’t believe the played “Tripping Billies” again. I’m so sick of that.’ Now it’s the same thing but ‘I can’t believe they played “Cornbread.” I’m so sick of that.’

Jake Vigliotti, co-under of antsmarching.org, commenting on the early DMB internet fanbase

p. 45, So Much to Say: 20 Years On The Road

davematthewsthings:

Dave & Tim acoustic sets