The Grateful Dead May 1977 Poll

I know, right?

After Monterey, Townshend said the Dead were "terrible...one of the original ropeys!"

But by 1981 he figured, "eh, these guys have some good coke, might as well sit in with them":

https://youtu.be/20dic8S3cWI

the whole doc series was pretty affecting
i can see why scorcese was a producer, it's got the tragic arc he prefers, a burst of freedom in the 60s and 70s hardens into a gilded prison and ultimately death and betrayal and hard drugs throughout the 80s and 90s

on one hand felt bad for jerry for what the whole thing had become, him trapped in his hotel room as these bud light bros rioted outside of football stadiums, but at the same time his passivity and unwillingess to ever change anything -- or most importantly ever take responsibility for anything-- was frustrating

on the other hand the whole thing was an amazing venture...the only band that really tried to try to live out the ethos of the 1960s for the rest of their lives, even though it turned into a nightmare

the part on the tape trading scene and the sheer volume of improv music they made over the years was stunning

al franken talking about "althea" guitar solos was really cuet <3

some of the people in that doc have a serious case of ray manzarek-itis when they wax philosophical about the band lol

the whole thing so gripping and i'm a very casual fan

their version of "good lovin'" by the rascals is so hideous i want to build a time machine, kill myself just and be reincarnated as a member of wire just so i could participate in the recording of pink flag

john perry barlow seems like quite a character! him and the one roadie w/the new yawk accent were my favs

Barlow probably deserves a doc of his own (though he has some cringe-worthy ideas)
still need to carve out some time to watch this damn thing! i did not marry a deadhead.

the new yawk roadie kinda turned me off, he sounded like the worst of the Jerry acolytes to me

but I liked John Perry Barlow a lot.

loved the tour manager Sam Cutler - seems like he was a no bullshit kinda dude

Barlow probably deserves a doc of his own (though he has some cringe-worthy ideas)
still need to carve out some time to watch this damn thing! i did not marry a deadhead.

― tylerw, Tuesday, June 6, 2017 1:26 PM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i sort of assume all these true kvlt dead insider have some sort of weirdo acid-head post hippie gun-owning libertarian get off my weird ranch vibe?

the new yawk roadie kinda turned me off, he sounded like the worst of the Jerry acolytes to me

yeah def but i guess..you know...i suppose he's been through a lot

it's funny that i remember people from when i was post HS/and in college talk about Dead shows as these big things and now understand this was like the sad, squalid death rattle of a once great band....

xpost - veg - yeah! he was great, can you imagine going from road managing the stones up through altamont then switching immediately to road managing the dead until 74?

the things he's seen....

but yeah he's like a rock lifer right out of a movie, incredible character

also jerry's daughter trixie seems like a very sweet, intelligent and decent person and you could tell she has a lot of sadness about everything....

oh yeah one more the soundtrack is on spotify and seems like a pretty good initiation to trv kvlt deadness for non deadheads, be curious what the experts thought of the tracklist

i'm enjoying it

I think Barlow self-identifies as a "Cyberlibertarian" which makes me feel like throwing up a little, but he isn't all wackadoo.

Definitely recommend Jesse Jarnow's recent book HEADS for loads of fascinating Dead-related scene reports and characters.

i love that thing cutler said, like "the Dead make some of the best music I've ever heard but let me tell you they are DUMB"

yes, almost a thesis if you will ^^^^

like almost everything they describe, the touring, the way they did or didnt make decisions, all the hangers on ... it just sounds like my worst nightmare of ppl to spend any time with

but at the same time his passivity and unwillingess to ever change anything -- or most importantly ever take responsibility for anything-- was frustrating

That part where he refused to put any blame on the Hells Angels for murdering Meredith Hunter (and assaulting many others) at Altamont was fucking infuriating. I get that he's super non-confrontational, and wants to be non-authoritarian, but to react to that disaster with a shrug (and to shrug off his own part in it -- he'd recommended the Angels to the Stones as security) is fucking bullshit.

^^^ totally

like at some point your no rules anti authoritarian hippie ethos becomes "i am an amoral asshole"

the misogyny was alluded to in the film, i'm sure there's a whole nauseating thing happening there too

definitely a misogynist thing happening w/ the dead, though i suppose very few of their contemporaries employed a female sound engineer (Betty Cantor). Does she show up in the doc?

Nope, not mentioned at all. They interview another Europe '72 engineer, but she doesn't even get name-checked.

bummer -- i know betty's relationship w/ the dead world these days is a little fraught (due in part to aforementioned misogynist attitudes)

Steve Parish mentions all the road crew by name (iirc, Stinky, Zippy, RedBong, Beardo), and there's [SPOILER ALERT] approximately 25 minutes of footage of the roadies doing nitrous.

So yeah, mentioning Betty would have meant cutting valuable minutes of nitrous-huffing.

no betty but hardly any dick either

plenty of dick just no Dick

lol

Yeah if you wanna see hippie dongs this is yr documentary

there's a tan blonde gnarly iggy pop looking dude crouched on the stack in one of the early 70's shows, and the next time they cut to him he is standing up & oh hi completely naked

i loled so hard it was just so funny to me

another part i thought was funny was phil pointing out that after 74 and the hiatus something was just missing, there was a hole there. and like five minutes later bob is like 'we just kept getting better and better... and when brent joined we had *three* good singers!!'

xp in dead circles that guy is legendary as "naked pole guy"

lol

Up to the break in 74 it was quite good. Then as mentioned upthread we get Phil saying there was a hole with no exposition. Then the a few seconds of some late 70s footage and then the episode ends and we get to look at interviews of dead heads from the 80s ? Wanted more 70s

Great hearing about Hunter tho

is barlow's role in the eff not really known very well? i knew him as "that eff guy" like several decades before i realized he had anything to do with the dead. i mean "lol cyberlibertarian" or whatever but the eff has done and continues to do good work.

what is the eff

...and what's his prolem?

EFF is gonna rock ya

they're kinda like the ACLU of the internet

https://www.eff.org/about

Veneta 72 : Dark Star -> El Paso -> Sing Me Back Home

if that doesn't bring you in, then move on, because this is the essence of the Dead imo. from the transcendent to the kinda dumb to a totally different kind of transcendent that they couldn't have reached except through the dumb

nb I call it dumb bc Weir sounds dumb on it, the music is fine o/w

Up to the break in 74 it was quite good. Then as mentioned upthread we get Phil saying there was a hole with no exposition. Then the a few seconds of some late 70s footage and then the episode ends and we get to look at interviews of dead heads from the 80s ? Wanted more 70s

― calstars, Tuesday, June 6, 2017 8:06 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, since the late '70s were a high point, you'd think there'd be more than just the minute of Egypt footage (and the band themselves don't even rate that show highly). That would've been the perfect opportunity to segue into talking about Betty and how the Cornell tape became a thing, and how a bootleg Dead tape made the US National Recording Registry.

With so many docs it's easy to say, "Welp, you can only do so much in 2 hours." This was four, and the most inexplicable omissions would've added 10-20 minutes, tops.

I've tried that "Sing Me Back Home" from Veneta. I like super-slow Jerry ballads, I love "Must Have Been the Roses," but I dunno. Maybe I just revere Merle's original too much, but that affects me way more in 3 minutes than the Dead do in 10+.

Also enjoyed in the doc Weir and his wife driving to Hunter's gig in his Tesla (huge iPad thing dash gives it away)

*in the dash

was wondering what kind of car that was

The lack of late '70s was especially odd considering how big a deal the May 1977 box set has been! I too was disappointed by the absence of Betty, especially considering how long she'd been with the band. I certainly would have rather heard more about her than Barbara Meier. Not knowing much of Jerry's personal life, the documentary gave me the impression he and Meier were long lost soul mates, but wikipedia tells me their reunion lasted just 45 days! Seems odd she got so much screen time and only passing mentions of Mountain Girl or his other wives, much less Betty, but perhaps there were access reasons.

What do you guys think Hunter's greatest lyric is? A lot of his stuff is so playful (dire wolf) or tries too hard to be psychedelic (china cat) so I can't decide where the middle ground is

Xp
Meier probably got the time because she was willing to talk.

I mean I do think Hunter is "great" but I think Jerry's delivery was even better on its own terms and lent a lot to the overall impression of Hunter.

I should probably take this discussion to a listserve from '84

What do you guys think Hunter's greatest lyric is? A lot of his stuff is so playful (dire wolf) or tries too hard to be psychedelic (china cat) so I can't decide where the middle ground is

― calstars, Wednesday, June 7, 2017 4:29 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

box of rain is beautiful

IIRC, Betty pops up in that PBS Soundbreaking thing.

yes Mississippi - always forget that one

Incidentally Leah in his beard phase looks just like Brendan canning from broken social scene