should i give the grateful dead a chance?

and meat puppets! loved them when i was tripping too. total deadheads.

Indeed but we did not know these things in the Midwest in 1984. No internets. Just Maximum Rock 'n' Roll and a couple others. There was a lot more mystique involved. We were excited when 7 Seconds came to town. Not to mention Sloppy Seconds.

― thirdalternative, Thursday, April 21, 2011 4:55 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

oh yeah i'm sure, even me way later never would have guessed that, just always thought it was a cool weird thing about ginn...his new shit is total hippie rock, guitarist i play with got to jam with him at a local show, he said he'd never seen a human being smoke more weed than ginn, which is likely saying something

Tripping and seeing the Grateful Dead Movie at midnight. Also Pink Floyd The Wall. Saw that again recently and wondered why the hell anyone thought it was a good idea to watch a movie full of images of war, drowning in pools of blood, rape, eyebrow shaving, nipple cutting, Nazi shit, etc. etc. whilst on acid, was anyone's idea of a good time.

Didn't the British press used to compare Television to the Grateful Dead
greil marcus has said this a bunch of times and he's totally wrong.

Didn't the British press used to compare Television to the Grateful Dead?

Legend has it that on his first visit to CBGBs, Lester Bangs walked out while Television played "Marquee Moon", remarking loudly about "Punk" & "this Grateful Dead shit".

marcus must've blanked on trying to tie marquee moon into the basement tapes

sst and relix kinda the same thing really.

"the solo on marquee moon was like the gettysburg address of punk, bridging the old weird america with the new wave, and ... oh fuck it."

joe carducci says punk was the nihilistic phase of hippie in enter naomi

xposts galore

never seen that ginn photo before, kool thing

think the dead's drug cycle went - 60s ACID ACID ACID 70s Coke/Booze/Smack>80s. Garcia started smoking heroin hardcore in 76, remained a junkie pretty much the rest of his life, all the while eating hamburgers and ice cream (even going into a diabetic coma that meant he had to relearn how to play the guitar) and smoking bushloads of tobacco and of course WEED WEED WEED, always and forever. In a way, amazing he lasted as long as he did. Remember reading that 72 was the final mainly coke-free Dead tour (and also that my fave end of tour London Lyceum show was one of those comparatively rare gigs were the band were all still tripping their nuts off); by the 74 European jaunt, the snow was everywhere (as Allen Ginsberg once said abt dylan on the rollingthunder tour "his munificence was engorged with snow." Def. remember reading the 'theory' that Dylan's '66 motorcyle crash was cover for HIS kicking junk - can believe that one of the attractions for Bob touring w the Dead in the 80s was the constant availability of p gd drugs.)

I think it was someone in the Allman Bros. camp that remarked on the failure of the big closing jam @ Watkins Glen (paraphrased): "The drugs didn't match, so nobody could communicate. The Dead were tripping, The Allmans were flying on coke, and The Band were all drunk. No greatness occurring."

dude, that's like rule #1 of jam sessions! MAKE SURE THE DRUGS MATCH.

xpost

Part III of Allen Ginsberg's "Rolling Thunder Stones," written while traveling with the Rolling Thunder Revue:

Nobody saves America by sniffing cocaine
Jiggling yr knees blankeyed in the rain
When it snows in yr nose you catch cold in yr brain

Indeed but we did not know these things in the Midwest in 1984. No internets. Just Maximum Rock 'n' Roll and a couple others. There was a lot more mystique involved. We were excited when 7 Seconds came to town. Not to mention Sloppy Seconds.

― thirdalternative, Thursday, 21 April 2011 21:55 (1 hour ago)

you weren't in Bloomington Indiana by any chance were you? That sounds EXACTLY like my autumn of 1984.

never heard this diga rhythm band before. sounds like tortoise!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkubRK-RRUQ

he said he'd never seen a human being smoke more weed than ginn

I forget whether it's in Get In The Van or one of Rollins' other books, but he talks about Ginn traveling with an entire road case full of weed on Black Flag tours.

smoke up jam band man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT_Bf0yTrf0

When I was in high school, I didn't think the title "The Process Of Weeding Out" referred to weed; I had heard the song at the beginning of the Live '84 cassette, so I figured it was a piece Black Flag opened their shows with to "weed out" all but the most hardcore fans, who could withstand 10 minutes of insane Ginn guitar wank to get to the punk rock. As with many things I have been wrong about, I still like my version better.

greil marcus has said this a bunch of times and he's totally wrong.

Hmm, my ears must be wrong too then, because Television do sound a lot like the Dead in some ways. The clean, noodly interweaving guitar lines mostly.

I just listened to Television for the first time (Marquee Moon, the song) and it reminds me more of Phish than the Dead, although of course this would be a case of the other influencing the one rather than the other way around.

@sleever: Heh, pretty close.

Television is more Dead-like in concert where the guitar solos can go on for 7 minutes.

I really hate the kind of insult-the-band via strawmanning-the-fan that the Dead, in particular, seem to attract. Apart from being lazy and dishonest, it often makes no sense outside of the country or time period where the stereotype originated.

i dunno, television, even at their noodliest, seems so much more tightly wound than the dead. if we're going to compare them to any west coat 60s act, i'd say quicksilver messenger service.

"Apart from being lazy and dishonest, it often makes no sense outside of the country or time period where the stereotype originated."

aren't there deadheads in every country and every time zone? and the time period is seemingly endless. i also think that people bring up the fans so much because they are a very real part of the band experience. the dead always stressed that deadheads were an integral part of their show. and when people pick on the dead's fans it's often because the fans love things about the dead that detractors kinda hate. the long seemingly formless slow-motion jams, etc. and this is partially drug-related too.

but yeah obviously you can just listen to the music and judge it on its own merits and never bring up or think of deadheads. its just that deadheads actually had some ability to change the music itself using their third eye pyramid mind power at live shows. and the dead reacted to their audience in weird ways. and they were perverse with their audience. they played them like a violin.

um, but if you just stick to the studio stuff then that's fine. that's mostly what i listen to when i listen. unlike the dead, i like the studio stuff. never had a problem with the sound or whatever. i like that they actually had to get straight takes of songs that they had played a zillion times. i never understood why they just didn't record live one-take tracks in the studio though. if they thought the studio rigamarole was so stifling or not conducive to their collective "thing".

the dead always stressed that deadheads were an integral part of their show.

Although to be fair to the band, they liked their fans a lot less as time went on.

i dunno, television, even at their noodliest, seems so much more tightly wound than the dead. if we're going to compare them to any west coat 60s act, i'd say quicksilver messenger service.

― tylerw, Friday, April 22, 2011 9:40 AM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^this

also the dead never really seem to be aggressive even at their jammiest it's gentle

i never understood why they just didn't record live one-take tracks in the studio though. if they thought the studio rigamarole was so stifling or not conducive to their collective "thing".

― scott seward, Friday, April 22, 2011 10:58 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

they finally had this idea for in the dark, only took em 12 albums to get there. i too listen to the studio stuff mostly.

still listening to this old renaissance fair show quite a bit.

i like it. some of the jams are pretty magical.

you know what though? is bob weir like kind of annoying in general?

that's part of his charm

you may be on to something

Speaking as someone who backed into liking some Dead via JGB, yes I'm of the opinion that Weir is mostly annoying. Really do not care for his voice.

The yellow dog story!

i dunno, television, even at their noodliest, seems so much more tightly wound than the dead. if we're going to compare them to any west coat 60s act, i'd say quicksilver messenger service.

― tylerw, Friday, April 22, 2011 9:40 AM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^this

^^^

There's a loose element of psych-rock to Television, and of course some jazz, but any comparison ends there, to my ears. Apples to oranges, but Television is a great example of an intrinsically indulgent band that captures a kind of sharp edge and standing on the edge drama that I wish the Dead captured (or at least conveyed to me) more regularly. Did the Dead ever collaborate with any free jazz sorts? Their later year guests always seemed to be Branford Marsalis or Bruce Hornsby, which to my sums up my (personal) problems right there.

I'm not really sure what you mean by edge---"The Other One" suites through the early 70s can be pretty fraught.

garcia played on ornette coleman's virgin beauty record xp

Like, the Dead is too ... smooth to my ears? Not enough discord, not enough dissonance? The improv doesn't bite. But again, that could be limited exposure on my part. Then again, given the Dead, my exposure will always be limited, considering their thorough/excessive documentation.

You guys need to check out Dicks Picks Volume 16 for some freaky feedback jams. Sonic Youth comparisons pretty apt imo.

And this is definitely my favorite Weir GD song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfQ1xGKihOA

http://www.archive.org/details/gd93-02-23.sbd.hall.1611.sbeok.shnf
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1993-12-09.schoeps.wklitz.94325.flac16

re: Ornette!

Hey, Upper Mississippi Sh@kedown, Bob Weir did drive me away from the Dead in his later years, but early on he was a much less annoying part of the band. I truly believe that, for a while at least, he was one of the greatest (or at least most unique) rhythm guitarists of all time. He does some super-cool stuff, and early on he really focused on the music and less on being a front-man. He has his moments here and there as a singer, but I fing that these days I rarely listen to a single Weir song.

In this vein, listen to some 60's Dead to hear a much nervier, more "garage" version of the band. It is my favorite era of theirs, but really I am no authority or completist at all, I just like some but not all Dead, and the 60s/early 70s stuff has the most staying power with me (they were a little more direct and raw then, and when they did go "out" it was still a pretty fresh thing to do and seems consistently more vital to me then some of the later period Dead does).

Good place to start is the Filmore East shows form around that time, but again I can't recommend a specific show/set of dates, perhaps someone else on the thread can.

"Death Don't Have No Mercy" from Live/Dead has enormous heft imo.

Yeah, love Live/Dead, and especially that song.

i'm surprised that more people don't criticize jerry's electric guitar sound/tone when they think of reasons why they don't like the dead. especially live. or maybe i missed the posts on here where people had a problem with it. its certainly perfect for acid trips, but sometimes even i'm not in the mood for it. especially live. not so much on the studio records. i'm usually fine with it on those. he sure liked that sound he got. i really like when he sounds different. or when he's playing other instruments! or acoustic. where are the high-pitched weedle-deedle haters?

(and speaking of quicksilver, i'm a bigger cipollina fan when it comes to west coast guitar godz)

Jerry's tone is a big part of why I have a hard time with post 72 Dead anymore.

yeah i guess it's more his singing that drives me nuts. he seems like he's trying to be all rock n' roll boogie and he sucks at it and they don't really hit hard enuff to be choogling to me (IMO at least)

keep in mind i've heard anthem of the sun like three times, this bootleg, and skeletons in the closet. so i could be all sorts of wrong.

listening to the bootleg, i'm pretty consistently blown away by Phil Lesh. i play bass and i'm frankly kind of in awe of him, really amazing player, he seems like the best technical musician in the band by a mile.

I love Jerry's tone for the most part (there are a lot of different tones over the years, actually, depending on the guitar he was using and the venue they played. Some are really slippery and thin, others are more distorted and gnarly.) Bigger problem for me was self-editing; sometimes I think he had played everything he needed to in a song and still went on for another 10 or 20 minutes. But that's part of the Dead ethos, and hard to criticize as such.

One of the better criticism of Garcia's tone I've seen (staff writer Paul Chaplin was an admitted Deadhead):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhcEXk_pJ9c