The Grateful Dead May 1977 Poll

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

I would have also liked to have heard about the time when Garcia and Lesh were going to get rid of Pigpen and Weir. From pigpen's Wikipedia iirc

Lesh's modern interviews betray a very practiced, rehearsed history. I mean how many times has he told this story? I wish he had dropped some acid beforehand just to get some improvisation. Maybe the cameraman could have dosed his coffee.

Kreutzmann looks nothing like himself and wtf at Mickey's electric string drone thing.

Also I wonder if Weir directed the cameraman to capture his lotus pose. "Take it back there a little"

Yeah I wanted a whole hour on Hart's weird music machine thingy

Pretty sure it was that thing that scores the "stranger things" intro to each ep

Weir's Tesla & his 'Yoga Loft'... any more on the nose & he'd have done the interview under a WELCOME TO MARIN sign

Between the GD and little feat, the coke must have been epicly heavenly in 77

Not to mention W Becker

i think you could make a case for an entire doc on Betty/boots/taping culture/Dick, etc

i've always wanted to read a book tracing the history of audience tapes, going from the early jazz days (benedetti etc) through the Dead through whatever else ...

That's a great idea. Did Benedetti distribute/copy his recordings for anyone? I'm kind of curious now who the first artist was that had audience recordings passed around/traded.

Really enjoyed that documentary. Could have done with a bit more e.g. something covering the whole extended family who depended on the Dead.

The modern day Weir looks really vacant, bewildered and spaced out - as if he's shell-shocked by the whole GD experience.

Really like the dark star version they put on the soundtrack. NY Valentine's Day 1070