In the past couple years I keep noticing Dave Matthews Band bumper stickers spawing everyplace! What’s so special about this band that they spawned a bumper sticker craze? I’ve never heard their music so I have no idea if they’re any good or not.
I don’t know why the Dave Matthews Band bumper stickers but: [slight hi-jack]: Long years ago we arrived in Maimi at the same time that Pope John Paul was visiting the city. On the drive into town, it seemed like every other car had a bumper sticker proclaiming: “I heart (for love) John Paul”. I told my wife that when we got to my sister’s house, there would be something about this, I just didn’t know what. We arrived, and my sister’s bumper sticker? “I love John, Paul, George and Ringo”. WTG, Sis! [/slight hi-jack]
Now, maybe a Dave Matthews Band fan will chip in here…
Dave Matthews Band has somewhat assumed the Grateful Dead’s old role, so for some latter day hippies DMB is a “way of life” so to speak. It also doesn’t hurt that their music is fairly accessible and that the musicians in the band are quite good.
Some other bands I’ve noticed also wind up appearing on lots of bumper stickers, Tool being the first one to pop into my head.
Lots of people like the band, they have a wide, albeit not so diverse fan base. That is, they’re essentially the epitome of the suburban white boy’s rock band, even though now they’re thought of, for whatever reasons, as more of an adult alternative kinda deal, being overshadowed by nu-metal and such. I suppose I’m rambling. So it goes.
As for the Grateful Dead bit, I dont really agree. Most fans of the DMB are high-school through college aged kids (myself only being 13, and still a big fan), and dont really have the means to tour with the band like hippies of the late 60s - early 70s could, and did. If you really did want to classify a band to the bearers of the Dead’s torch you could and I emphasize could, say that it’s Phish, due to the devout fan base (many Phish fans do tour with the band, and being a Phish “phan” is for many people a lifestyle. And even then, it’s stupid and a bit naive to say Phish are the Dead of today, as their music is quite different, the only similarity being they both jam songs out.
But, if anyone has anything to say about the Dave Matthews Band, discuss it here, because they’re a damn fun band.
Um, no offense but what cave have you been living in for the past 8 years that you haven’t heard their music? Do you not own or know anyone who owns a radio or cable TV or anything? I suspect you must have heard them on the radio and not realized it cause they get enough airplay. “The Space Between” (the song from the Black Hawk Down trailer, oddly enough)? “Everyday”? “Ant’s Marching”? “Crash”? These aren’t some obscure rambling Dead tune that goes on for hours, these are songs that people who like the band get sick of because they are overplayed.
I mean no offense, I just find your comment as surpring as if you said you never heard a “Madonna” or “Puff Daddy” song.
Anyhow, you asked what the deal with DMB is?
Basically, their music is a staple of the CD collection of any white, preppy kid who went to college or high school in the late 90s. If you were a frat guy who wore plaid J Crew Oxfords, a dirty white baseball cap (perhaps one that said “Cocks”) and baggy jeans you probably had Dave Mathews in your collection (along with Pearl Jams 10 and Nirvanas big album). They are considered “adult contemporary” now because most of those kids have “grown up” and are now in their mid to late twenties.