should i give the grateful dead a chance?

Do not give the Grateful Dead a chance. I have given the Grateful Dead several chances, and they continue to bore me solid. Friends say "Oh, you're into 60s garage, listen to their first album..." nope, sorry, it's still uninspired hippie stoner jams. Friends say "Oh, you like spacerock, listen to this or that experimental jam album..." nope, sorry, it's still uninspired hippie stoner jam drivel. Friends say "Oh, you have to listen to it on acid to get it." I listened to it on acid. It only stretched the INTERMINABLE boredom to the breaking point where it was a relief to sit and listen to radio static afterwards.

I think that Deadheadism is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. If you have it, you will like them. If you do not have it, then no ammount of "Dude, no, you have to hear this most ultimate jam session that they did on this super-rare collectible live bootleg out-take from 1973..." in the world will ever convince you to find even a modicum of interest.

I know that calling a band "boring" is verboten on this forum. The Dead are not just boring, they are interminable, self indulgent, they noodle, they wibble, they do not drone in a transcendant manner, no they ANNIHILATE any sense of enjoyment of music to the point where I would rather listen to elevator music rather than the Dead. In fact, that is what they are. They are the elevator music of hippie stoner jam psychedelia.

Do not waste your time. Sing along with the hoover instead.

A: God this band are shit.

(Keith Richards tells that gag - which is a bit rich considering that 'Can You Hear Me Knocking' sounds just like the Dead...)

I think they're worth checking out rather than applying some knee jerk reaction. But obviously lots of people don't agree.

Did you even read my fucking post? This is not some knee jerk reaction. This is a carefully thought out aesthetic decision that I have reached after repeated exposure and more consideration that I would give to most bands who repeatedly bombarded me with shit.

Everything about the Grateful Dead is repulsive - the music (yes I *can* judge them on a minute or so), the fans, the mythology.... They're a crystallisation of everything I dislike in music.

The thing is, I love the IDEA of the Dead - the endless noodling jams, those moments of improvisation when they reach the mythical 'zone', the community of fans, all those bootlegs to tick off and collect, the Verlaine-esque sound of Garcia's gtr, the vast quantities of drugs etc etc.

But - their recs just never seem to live up to the rep - before I ever listened to them, I imagined they were like the most mega-cosmic freak out group of all time, but when I finally did spin a few of their albs all I got was wimpy country-lite w/ really terrible singing. They rarely seem to rock out in any meaningful way, their cover versions are just AWFUL (esp. the 'bluesy' Pigpen-led stuff) and Hunter's lyrics are hippy bilge.

Without wishing to sound too alt snooty, Ghost and esp. Acid Mothers Temple do the whole folk-psych rock jam thing w/ so much more passion, imagination and freaky fun.

No, I don't think I recall the Dead ever having extended sax solos in any of their songs.

You obviously never heard Branford Marsalis jam with them, then.

I knew when I saw this thread appear it would be full of the usual "the Dead are the worst band ever" stuff... they seem to be one of a small handful of bands it's ok to heap your worst insults on around here. So I'll do my usual and say yes "American Beauty" and "Workingman's Dead" are full of concise, well-written pop songs, their mid 70's LPs on their own label are amazing ("Blues for Allah" is my pick), and as great a guitarist as Tom Verlaine is, Garcia is better. He's a better vocalist, too. I know that for whatever reason the Dead are a band many people will just never permit themselves to like, so I expect to make no converts.

I think SY owe a lot to the dead in the way that they'd start a song and then they would use that as a basis for a jam and get back to the song.

The singing isn't to everyone's tastes but at a time when ppl are listening to Thom Yorke that isn't such a big problem.

For myself, they don't trouble my interest, and I can't say they will be anytime soon.

You obviously never heard Branford Marsalis jam with them, then.

Nope, and although I'm sure he's, uh, "funkier" than his brother, I can't imagine his jams with the Dead approach the instrumental break of "Can You Hear Me Knocking" (which was, after all, used by many a black "urban" radio station in the 1970s as promo music). Anyway, the point was that the claim that "Can You Hear Me Knocking" sounds like the Dead is way, way off-base.

''I think that Deadheadism is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. If you have it, you will like them. If you do not have it, then no ammount of "Dude, no, you have to hear this most ultimate jam session that they did on this super-rare collectible live bootleg out- take from 1973..." in the world will ever convince you to find even a modicum of interest.''

it's bollocks! any band will have it's fans and haters but to dismiss it as 'chemical imbalance' is bullshit. Plus the 'annihalate' line (see dave q's ans).

Personally, the only song of theirs that I can instantly recognize is "Touch Of Grey". I'm fine with that.

If you're still hell bent on checking out the Dead, I'd start with any of the Dick's Picks live releases from 1972 or earlier. Even then, listening to them are like trying to dig for gold in a mine that's been completely played out. There's a lot of shovelling involved for very little payoff.

How is the Grateful Dead any different?

There must just be a neurotransmitter that makes people like SHIT, that is the explanation.

i so hope this is the guy i had a crush on at school

and how did you carry out yr study? was the sample large enough?

but seriously: yes I agree that by taking drugs you alter experiences to music. But i have never taken drugs and yet i enjoy the dead's music.

Anyway, which drug would make you like the dead? or is it a combination? Can you try it kate and give me some 'feedback'.

i'd also throw in Zappa and the Mothers, but they weren't really hippies

The jams. Yes, you often have to wade through a fair bit of aimless noodling (which still sounds OK, even if the attention does wander a bit). But that's the price you pay for when they're really ON, when the band really kick off, find a great groove or head off in some unexpected direction. It's because they take the risks that they're capable of producing such great stuff when it comes off.

The synthesis they reach of all strands of Amercian music. In a similar way to The Band, but if anything broader, they bring together blues, bluegrass, rock 'n' roll, r&b, country, jazz, folk and avant garde experimentation. They're the closest anyone's come to achieving Gram Parsons' concept of 'cosmic American music'.

The songs. As with the music, they've made a conscious attempt to create/embellish mythic American tales. Whether it's from their own history ('Truckin', 'The Other one'), classic myths ('Casey Jones', 'Staggerlee'), new tales ('Friend of the Devil') or well-chosen covers ('Mama tried').

And yes, they do sound good on drugs as well.

If anyone's not been put off by the 90% slagging they get above, then apart from the recent box set you'd get a good range of what they're about by getting 'Workingman's Dead', 'Live Dead', 'Hundred Year Hall' and the 'Grayfolded' collaboration with John Oswald as mentioned by Chris above.

(i'm usually not this irrational and flat-out dismissive, but if you can't already tell i see no redeeming qualities to the Grateful Dead's music whatsoever)

now you must die, then! ;-)

(me, I've been on a slow conversion for several years from antipathy to grudging appreciation to modest admiration. which I admit started with a crush on a hippy chick.)

biggest change in my life since I stopped posting to ILM regularly = FINALLY getting into the Dead in a BIG way (nothing past 77 tho') - and so I wish to disown/delete my lame post waaay upthread - thee Dead really are THE great kosmic American guitar band, wonky vox and all

just saying.

it's unfortunate that I've not had the chance to explore more of their music since 'live/dead'. in fact the only dead-related thing I've heard was Garcia's playing in ornette's 'virgin beauty'.

hehe....British sigular/plural band-verb agreement issues amuse me.

The Dead are pleasant enough. They don't require - or particularly reward - deep thinking to listen to them. Certainly they don't deserve the amount of vitriole they get, but I don't understand how they (their music?) could change anyone's life.

Really what's happening here is they're just jamming on one chord. Can does this too, but the key difference is they usually use a repetitive bass line, whereas the Dead never do.

I think listening to the Dead looking for Can reference points isn't going to yield anything fruitful, though. I personally listened to the Dead for years before I heard any Can albums, but when I did I immediately was struck by how similar the jams are in style, if not in sound.

The larger point I was trying to make is that the Dead have explored the outer edges of improvised and free music, but they don't really get any credit for it. If they were as commercially unsuccessful and as unknown as Can were, everyone on this board would be a GD freak.

Wherefore I shall shortly purchase Workingman's Dead, Live/Dead and Blues for Allah

I feel like most ILMers should stay far away from studio dead stuff post-Blues for Allah ('76 I think). There are lots of great Dick's Picks stuff to choose from.

The ONLY GD album that I expect ILMers to like is "Grayfolded," just because of John Oswald's name is attached to it (used and spliced over 50 performances of 'Dark Star' to make a 90-minute 'Dark Star'). The sound is amazing, and it's fun to hear an early 70s Lesh bass line mixed in w/ some midi Jerry from the late 80s, etc. Great stuff.

Also, watch the final episode of "Freaks and Geeks" and then see if you feel a little better about them.

For my part, I've tried numerous times to get into them, but have yet to really ever want to listen to them. However, I do hold onto the early records, because I do occasionally feel like giving them another shot, and the band is pretty relaxing (though that lack of edge may account for my relative disinterest).

I guess it boils down to the fact that I like them in small doses (ha ha), which may miss the point of the Grateful Dead.

I heartily recommend Terrapin Station and Shakedown Street for anyone who likes '70s slick Steely Dan-ish production values. TS is a prog album and one of my favorite studio albums (behind Workingman's Dead and American Beauty).

Donna Jean nailing her part, thought, that's up for debate ...

mcd - When you listen to TStation, do you actually listen to the whole album or just the TStation suite at the end? Everything else sounds better live (esp. the Estimated Prophets). I think Shakedown Street is a lot harder to defend. Disco Dead, no thanks.

and more importantly: can someone explain what the draw is w/ dead albums from workingman's dead era onward? i was able to immediately click with the early psych stuff but i still don't get the later stuff no matter how many chances i give it. it still just seems like ho-hum bar band music. does it take awhile to sink in or what?

And like I've said before, I can't vouch for any studio Dead past 1976. The live stuff from the early 80s on is also pretty hit-or-miss, but there is a lot of fabulous stuff from the late 80s/early 90s. There are about 1,000 live SBDs on archive.org, for anyone interested in checking this stuff out for free.

And Two from the Vault is great; Skull and Roses is AOK (I forget what the original name of that album was; something like "Fuck Your Face")

I can't believe that people have let this statement stand for three years...

oh and of course Grateful Dead - Fillmore West 1969 - The Complete Recordings

okay but i'm still looking for a reason to care about workingman's dead, american beauty, etc. up to blues for allah. this period still goes over my head, as far as why people are such fans of it.

do what i did: download it first. i ended up liking it enough to want my own copy of it.

I get the feeling that this period is going under a reappraisal right now (Jeff Tweedy covers "Ripple"; WOldham covered "Broke-down Palace," etc.), but it's just their pop Americana stuff (WDead and ABeauty). I think the appeal of these albums (these two seem to be the albums that the widest segment of people connect with) is the songwriting - narrative-driven songs, acoustic but not folky, melodic but not symphonic. The unsung hero of these albums is Robert Hunter, GD's main lyricist. I don't remember it perfectly, but Hunter said one of his proudest moments was overhearing a coal-miner talk about the song "Cumberland Blues" and say that the man who wrote it must have been a coal-miner.

Eh, etc. etc., I've always been married to the live performances over the studio output, but those two albums are pretty special. Sure, there is something kind of corny about both album covers (the faux-cowboy affect of Workingman's Dead; the 'Beauty' bleeding into 'Reality' on American Beauty). Sure, well, I don't want to keep going on about this - got shite to do. But yeah, great albums; I'd love if more people agreed.

skullfuck, wasn't it?

Yes, i think you're right. "Fuck Your Face" is song by, er, another band.

When they were making ABeauty, here was Phil Lesh's idea for the album: record the Mojave Desert air for 30 minutes, then record the Fisherman's Wharf in SanFran (I think) for 30 minutes. And that would've been the album. Lesh was non-plussed when the execs didn't go for it.

Workingman's Dead vs. American Beauty: WD always felt like more of an organic whole to me. The production on AB is a little tinny, radio-ready, and is somewhat inconsistent from song to song. The songs are shorter and poppier. While I love individual songs from AB (Box of Rain, Friend of the Devil, Brokedown Palace, Truckin), I don't usually enjoy listening to it from start to finish as much as WD. As for why people care -- for me, it was my first taste of what became country rock / Americana, and in a sense it was way more sophisticated in what it was doing musically than, say, Poco or Gram Parsons. Also, the notion that a hippie/druggie/rock-n-roller didn't have to "drop out" of normal society, but could exist within it and infuse it with a different sort of beauty was very powerful then. (That's Hunter's lyrics and Garcia's appropriation of bluegrass and steel guitars, too).

Other GD albums: I have always really liked the acoustic live album, Reckoning, but it never gets much discussion. A different take on lots of songs, including country covers and early Garcia solo material, and sounds more like what you would expect from the WD/AB band live than their shows around then ever did.

I love Skull and Roses, too, but largely for personal reasons -- the first time I saw them, they opened with "Me and My Uncle", it has the canonical "Bertha", when I was 15 I tried to write a poem about "The Other One", and "Playing in the Band" was really their signature song at the time.

I also really loved Bob Weir's first solo record, Ace. Like the early Garcia solo records, it's really another Grateful Dead studio record (the first of the Godchaux era), with lots of what became band standards (Playing in the Band, Another Saturday Night), but some playing with other ideas, too (the overproduced, straight-countryish Looks Like Rain, the unusual harmonies and instrumentation on Cassidy). The Grateful Dead's heroic period includes Ace and the first two Garcia albums.

Apocrypha from that era worth listening to: The second side of the loopy yippie sci-fi Jefferson Starship record, Blows Against the Empire, has some of Garcia's best guitar work ever on "Have You Seen The Stars Tonight"->"Starship". I also really like Old And In The Way, Garcia's bluegrass project with Vassar Clements, Peter Rowan, and David Grisman.

You know I've never actually listened to the Ace stuff.

And I'm not doubting you about the Euro '72 stuff - the vocals do sound a little too locked-in. They're releasing a bunch of the Euro '72 tour, by the way. Pretty soon, almost all of the GD shows on archive.org will be pulled b/c GD will digitize their whole catalog and offer it for download (at a price). They've already begun pulling shows, so if you care at all, I'd suggest that you head over there and DL some of your favorites.

I like Jones and LaBranche on the backup vocals on that live eponymous double-disc, too,

This thread has inspired me to make a CD with some good live performances of the following songs (and didn't Jerry die about 10 years ago sometime around this week?):

"So Many Roads"
"Standing on the Moon"
"Ripple"
"Broke-down Palace"
"Row Jimmy"
"Morning Dew"
"Wharf Rat"
"Ship of Fools"
"China Doll"

que mas?

Yes, i think you're right. "Fuck Your Face" is song by, er, another band.

..think you're getting Skullfuck conflated with Steal Your Face.

yeah, Reckoning is a big personal fave! OMG the "It Must Have Been the Roses" and "To Lay Me Down"!! It always sounds great, day or night. That, and the acoustic portion of the Harpur College show. Great stuff.

eman, you should totally get Two From the Vault. It's suffuciently psychy to tickle your fancy, I think.

this could've used more replies ----

Taking Sides: Workingman's Dead vs American Beauty

I'm adding a "To Lay Me Down" to my list.

Dumb.

What "bad fans" does Rush have?

If you haven't heard the Grateful Dead, you shouldn't be posting here.

http://www.archive.org/audio/etreelisting-browse.php?collection=etree&mode=mp3&cat=Grateful%20Dead

And, a streaming version of "Dark Star" at the Fillmore East in 1970. Anyone who likes psych/black dice/animal collective, etc. might like this:

http://www.archive.org/download/gd70-01-02.partial-early.sbd.86.sbefail.shnf/gd70-01-02bt01_64kb.mp3

The noise part in this version is actually kind of cool - it also supports my theory that noise bands are just jam bands in disguise.

In general though, I've warmed to the Dead a lot. American Beauty is great. Anthem of the Sun is fantastic -- there's lots of jamming, but they still had fire back then.

I like this "degree of difficulty" multiplier angle!

Maybe we'd all cut Michael Bolton a little more slack if more people knew he had been speaking - and singing - through a voice box since age 14 due to an unfortunate accident involving pop rocks, coca cola, several bottle rockets and a live badger.

Something like what? Listening to their records?

Huh, the only "Drums" that I like are from the mid 80s -> 90s, when they began incorporating dif. technologies and instruments into the drums. The drumming line-up has been either one or two drummers, depending on the era. It was Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann from '77 onwards, Bill Kreutzmann alone from '72-'74 (I think), and Hart and Kreutzmann together from like '68-'72. I believe Hart left the band in the early 70s out of personal shame - his father was involved in the management of GD and apparently stole a lot of money from them. I always preferred the one-drummer line-up b/c it allowed the jams to meander a lot more - that's why Playing in the Bands and Dark Stars from '72-'74 are so spectacular.

I like this "degree of difficulty" multiplier angle!

-- rogermexico (tenthreaso...), August 8th, 2005.

That's a bit of a jump from what I said Roger, which had nothing to do with "degree of difficulty" so much as degree of interest/boredom.

Dark Star can be annoying. Find a show with a good 20-minute "Not Fade Away" or "Scarlet Begonia's/Fire on the Mountain"

I think 1977 was the best year, the Cornell U. Show (May 8th) is certainly their most famous. Geneally speaking you should avoid the studio albums and Explore the "Dick's Picks" series of live shows available on the GD website. And, know the difference between first set playing (Good Old Grateful Dead) and their second set music (Hardcore shit).

You know, a lot of those May '77 shows match that Cornell show, although the Morning Dew and Scarlet->Fire from that show are exemplary.

i'm listening to these from the cornell 77 show mentioned above, and yeah, this band was on fire that night.

You know what I always forget to mention when I'm talking about GD is the astonishing use of dynamic in their volume. I'm listening to a Morning Dew from '71, with 6 musicians on stage, and they get so fucking quite at moments, even while each member is playing, so fucking delicate.

I actively dislike the proper albums though

Man, I didn't even know about that. Nor did I know a new Dick's Picks was out .... from '71! Man it's so crazy how they crank those suckers out; if you don't check back often you wouldn't even know that like 5 Dicks Picks had come out since you last browsed the site.

And one Broke-Down Palace I don't like is Will Oldham's cover of it. I was excited to hear that he was doing it, but I wasn't a big fan of the execution, esp. the second half. Oh well.

http://s57.yousendit.com/d.php?id=1H1UAEBDB90GCBSMTALVHSLK4

that would be great, thanks suzy.

OK, the list forthcoming.

02/14/68
02/28/69
02/18/71
04/29/71
08/06/71
08/27/72
09/21/72
02/09/73
02/15/73
06/10/73
11/11/73
11/17/73
02/24/74
06/18/74
06/28/74
10/19/74
10/20/74
02/26/77
05/07/77
05/08/77
05/09/77
06/09/77
07/08/78
06/30/85
09/18/87
07/17/89
10/09/89
03/29/90
09/10/90
09/10/91

'76 was a strange year, though. Caught between two styles for the most part. Although I know it's from 1975, a lot of '76 stuff reminds me of "One from the Vault" - sounds great but a little cautious.

Actually, it also reminds me of baseball fans.

BEHOLD! NY YANKEE BERNIE WILLIAMS AND ... THE JOURNEY WITHIN!

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00009VGX9.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

But it's not like Dead fans are MORE rapturous than any other really rabid fans, at least the ones I know (including myself).* I guess baseball is the best analogy. It's not that baseball fans love baseball more than basketball fans love basketball, it's just that there is a lot more data produced in a baseball game for the fan to pore over.

"Grateful Dead concerts are like baseball games: no two are ever alike. The plays are always different, and there's always fresh hope. Sometimes the game's an all-timer even though individual performances are sloppy; sometimes everybody plays great but the team loses anyway.

Some people thrive on yesterday's moments, and aren't too keen on the way the game's played today. Some have only been fans since last year and don't care what happened way back when. You can cherish the great victories and triumphant seasons and chart them across decades, or you can go simply for the enjoyment of tonight and to hell with the standings. Like all the great teams, the Dead have their pennant years and bleak innings, perfect games and whippings, hits and foul balls, heroes and goats.

To many they're an institution, to some mere child's play, and to others the Grateful Dead is more or less an indispensable part of life. There are those who say the game's too slow, that the brief moments of action and excitement are too few and far between. Like "America's Favorite Pastime," the Dead are both celebrated and criticized, and some people will never see what's to enjoy.

Like big-league fans, Deadheads are as varied as the game is long. There are scorekeepers who record every detail for statistical analysis and a place in the Hall of Fame; camera buffs and video freaks; armchair umpires, die-hards, groupies. Some are bleacher bums who'd be in the stands no matter who was playing; and there are even spousal fans who go because if they didn't, they'd be left home alone. A lot of people attend because they've always gone and really don't care to stop.

It may take a few visits to grasp the subtleties, but if you let yourself into the flow of things, there's something to enjoy from the very first moment you're there. As the old saying goes, the mind believes what the mind believes: Grateful Dead is cerebral if you choose to analyze it, but it's basic and instinctive too. Like the game of baseball."

And this just occured to me - I can't think of any other rock musicians (besides blues guitarists) that are still playing music after six decades.

http://www.rockstar.it/img/Phil_Lesh.jpg

Godspeed, weirdo.

(Result 3: Xgau)

Jack Straw - about rebellion in the sense of escape? or revolution? both?

Wow. It does live up to the legend. Freakin amazing, some of their best playing.

And to think, I thought I hated them live post-73!

Pretty much all of May '77 is worth listening to. That 5/8/77 show though ... just has everything you'd want. Even the band banter telling the crowd to TAKE A STEP BACK is classic.

No one is gonna blame you for taking so long to leave the pre-hiatus '70s comfort zone, though. When I first started listening to GD I loved all that early '70s stuff, heard a bootleg from '87 and stayed away from post-hiatus double-drum line-up for years.

5/8/77 - fiercest Scarlet -> Fire, best Morning Dew climax, REALLY solid 1st set, etc. etc. It's pretty easy to find, too; plus the sound quality is A+.

I think I sent this track to like Chaki and Ian before we all got all YSI'd out, but for all my fellow brethren and sistren here's an insane "Cream Puff War" from '67 -- nine minutes of amphetamine-fueled Jerry blowing his brains out, total punk rock--

stormy i want this again!!!

oooh i want that

The problem with the defenses of American Beauty and Workingman's Dead as "concise" is that the conciseness still doesn't come close to solving their main problems: a lazy-ass sluggish rhythm section, and lazy-ass sluggish singers.

How about "relaxed" and "loping" rather than "sluggish"? Plenty of great bands aren't speed demons.

I still haven't gotten the Cornell '77 thing, even though it seems to be a piece of cake to find.

yea, the relaxed thing is one of the things i like most about the dead. it makes me feel relaxed and happy.

they're over-praised, obv, which lends itself to intense criticism.

I'm no fanatic, trust me, but in a certain time, place and mood they are perfect.

when casey jones came on the radio the other night i nearly cried. it was perfect.

lololololol @ calling bill and phil "lazy" motherfuckers are work horses.

Seriously. Bill is the fucking MVP of the Dead.

How about "relaxed" and "loping" rather than "sluggish"? Plenty of great bands aren't speed demons.

It has nothing to do with speed. Al Jackson and Jerome Brailey are relaxed and loping as fuck. Kreutzmann and Hart always struck me as just plain uninterested and unfocused. I swear, it's like they're high or something...

i like the dead - theyre kinda a downr tho

It has nothing to do with speed. Al Jackson and Jerome Brailey are relaxed and loping as fuck. Kreutzmann and Hart always struck me as just plain uninterested and unfocused. I swear, it's like they're high or something...

1) has you listened to country music b4?

2) yes they are high or something

but listening to studio dead albums while high = major dud

except terrapin station of course

1) has you listened to country music b4?

Yes. The relationship of the Dead's drummers to, say, Merle Haggard's drummer (especially on the mid-60s stuff) or Ronnie Tutt is tenuous at best. Focus is what's missing from Bill & Mickey.

I love the Dead, but I have never found the drumming to be particularly memorable.

they could be good. they could be bad. i think this is pretty well known. and i do think that they sometimes confused each other in a stoned way. almost every other rock band on the planet in the 60's and 70's had better drummers, but that's what makes the dead the dead for better or worse. "they might not have been the best at what they did..." etc, etc.

i duno those early 70s shows after mickey left and bill holds the shit down ... he sounds pretty amazing on those.

i do love the dead too. for better or worse. but i'm more in it for hunter/garcia than anything else. they wrote a lot of wonderful songs that i love.

"he sounds pretty amazing on those."

they could be great! but they could also be terrible. or asleep. or something. but so could everyone else in the dead from time to time. it's no big deal. they played four million shows. plenty of highlights.

not every band has every bad gig immortalized on tape for a 30 year period. that's one thing you have to remember. there is a whole lot more bad to hear.

It's funny, people complain about the drumming, but it's 1968 versions of "That's It For The Other One" that first got me into the Dead. I think the drumming there tends to be awesome, and just what the song needs: not swinging, but just tribal pounding.

"but listening to studio dead albums while high = major dud"

this isn't true! but i've always loved studio dead albums. most of them anyway. i actually like all of their non-bootleg studio/live albums/recordings up to in the dark. and i even tried to like in the dark but i gave up after a while.

American Beauty and Workingman's Dead are both snappy acoustic albums full of fine songs rather than rambling instrumental stuff.

I think they're worth checking out rather than applying some knee jerk reaction. But obviously lots of people don't agree.

-- Winkelmann, Monday, July 22, 2002 7:00 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Link
rather than applying some knee jerk reaction

Did you even read my fucking post? This is not some knee jerk reaction. This is a carefully thought out aesthetic decision that I have reached after repeated exposure and more consideration that I would give to most bands who repeatedly bombarded me with shit.

-- kate, Monday, July 22, 2002 7:00 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Link

hahaha, I know Winkelmann -- I didn't know he ever posted to ILM. I should tell him it's safe to come back now. (on 2nd thought, it's not really)

i think everyone should forget about the dead and give don ellis a chance. his 1966 line-up had two drummers, a percussionist, and THREE bass players!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MFf_190Vnr4

scott, i loove the dead's studio albums up to go to heaven but they're just too flat and grassy sounding for my stoned brain

The relationship of the Dead's drummers to, say, Merle Haggard's drummer (especially on the mid-60s stuff) or Ronnie Tutt is tenuous at best. Focus is what's missing from Bill & Mickey.

sara, i should have clarified that i was referring to the drumming specifically on american beauty/workingman's dead, which is non-relevant (not in a bad way, just as a contrast to say don ellis' drummers). i've never been really impressed with the dead's drumming in general, for me it's all about the songs + jerry's guitar

They have made lots of pretty much OK albums I would say. I am sure no fanatical Deadhead, but they have made their share of great music, both the freaked out stuff on "Anthem Of The Sun" and the more straightforward country-pop of "American Beauty" and "Workingman's Dead". But most of all, "Aoxomoxoa", which was a little of both, mixed together in a brilliant way.

"i duno those early 70s shows after mickey left and bill holds the shit down ... he sounds pretty amazing on those."

For the win.

And I recommend anybody ragging on the rythm section to listen to "The Eleven" from Live/Dead. It will be an eye opener.

man kate is such a bitch up thread

No shit, if you don't like them don't listen to them

I can sort of see flat-out rejecting the endless live Dead noodle shit &/or deadhead hippy culture in general, but the first few studio albums gots a bunch of solid tunes. Catchy singalong shit, well suited to summertime inactivity periods. If you look at the Dead as a singles band who didn't have many hits, there really isn't much to hate.

Or even the first couple sides of Europe '72. Lots of great songs on there, very little noodling even though live. The Pigpen stuff grates, however.

<i>Focus is what's missing from Bill & Mickey.</i>

IT'S THE GRATEFUL DEAD!

man if liking the dead is wrong i dont wanna be right

I can sort of see flat-out rejecting the endless live Dead noodle shit &/or deadhead hippy culture in general, but the first few studio albums gots a bunch of solid tunes. Catchy singalong shit, well suited to summertime inactivity periods. If you look at the Dead as a singles band who didn't have many hits, there really isn't much to hate.

It's funny, I actually a serious attempts to get into that area of their music, but Moby Grape had pretty much pre-empted it all for me. Except for "Box Of Rain." The use of that in Freaks & Geeks sold me on that song.

It's too bad that you don't see value in their other songs, too. They've got a lot of great tunes. Maybe try Jerry's first solo album, Garcia, the one with the naked breast in the montage on the cover.

I think I misused the word "montage" in that sentence.

The versions of "The Eleven" from the Fillmore shows that wound up on Live/Dead (which were later collected on the box) are completely amazing. I guess that is in 11/4 time, right? It makes me so happy when I hear it, and agreed that the rhythm in general is out of this world on that track. However - I still wind up paying more attention to Jerry's guitar for some reason, even there. Not saying the playing is at fault, it's just where my ear gravitates w/ the Dead.

My ear gravitates there too.On that whole album his guitar sounds almost like a trumpet. What a master of tone and feel.

"The Eleven" has a definite Allman Bros. feel, and I don't even know if the Allmans were around by that point.

Chaki I will try to re-up when I get home

man if liking the dead is wrong i dont wanna be right

totally. i don't even try to convince the folks who don't like 'em. As Jerry said: the Dead are like black liquorice -- some love it, some hate it.

Sara Sara Sara - have you heard a version of "The Eleven" from 1969? Huge amounts of energy there.

It's funny, Kreutzmann always looked SO DAMN BORED, but I love his drumming during the '72-'74 period w/ Hart gone. He and Godchaux had way more room to work with, and I think that's what makes those years the best. The '80s/'90s rhythm section w/ Kreutzmann & Hart could def. sound sluggish and plodding at times though. The flipside is that they sounded STRONG, too, but they never sounded as lively as they did in the '60s/early '70s.

I wish the SBDs were still up at archive.org.

I got the Cornell '77, the version a buddy downloaded for me sounds like it was recorded last night. A+ performance and songlist, the Scarlet/Fire is amazing.

My feeling on the Dead is that Jerry Garcia was extremely talented and it's too bad his band sucked.

Thanks for sharing that. Much appreciated.

My feeling on the Dead is that Jerry Garcia was extremely talented and it's too bad his band sucked.

-- dally

:D

"Leave 'the bombs' to Phil"

I had something similar when I tried to get a friend into the Velvet Underground.

"yeah, Lou Reed is OK, but the rest are pretentious wankers"

Well the opposite is true in the case of the VU.

Re: Phil...personally, I just really do not like his style of playing 'around' the song rather than giving it a good foundation--he noodles around in a very self-indulgent manner, as if he's just listening to himself rather than the song. He thinks he's playing a counterpart, but it's really just out of tune. Check out all the bum notes in the otherwise beautiful studio version of Brokedown Palace for a classic example of a song ruined by Phil. And let's not even talk about the vocals. Bob Weir is an awful, awful singer. And Phil, somehow, managers to be even worse on that score. Garcia's voice had character. And also: how does a band have two drummers and yet to driving backbeat?

Which is why I'd rather listen to the JGB any time over the Dead. No Weir, no Lesh.

to=no driving backbeat

Please don't get me wrong: I really love slow Garcia/Hunter ballads: Wharf Rat, Row Jimmy, even the later Standing on the Moon is beautiful. But those Weir/Barlow bits just do not do it for me.

No arguments about Weir or Lesh on the mic.

Lesh didn't sing all that much, I enjoyed the few songs he wrote (esp. Box of Rain, the Eleven). I enjoy his bass playing, and it's really nice on this Cornell thing I cited to restart the thread. I like Weir's voice, but I'm definitely a Jerry guy.

I really can't stand the Velvet Underground.

i agree with bill about everything

I've never heard those words spoken in my life.

I'm too lazy to read the whole thread, but I have a bunch of friends who dig the dead for very few reasons. This being one of them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVqArOogY-c

Even if you hate them, you have to admit, Hugh Heffner + Jerry = WTF???!

That's great stuff

Re: Phil...personally, I just really do not like his style of playing 'around' the song rather than giving it a good foundation--he noodles around in a very self-indulgent manner, as if he's just listening to himself rather than the song.

FWIW, you can hear him playing "inside" the song from '66 - '72. He didn't pick up the bass until he started w/ GD (came from a trumpet / comp / etc. background). There's a great interview out there where Lesh talks about taking 6-8 years to learn how to play "inside" the song, just to learn how to play "outside" the song. It's funny that you hear it as "self-indulgent" and "listening to himself" -- you have to listen very, VERY closely to play around the rest of the band like that. One reason I love '73/'74 stuff so much is that Godchaux and Lesh do a ton of "outside" playing, which is what gives the music that meandering quality that I love. If you're listening for patterns/grooves, you probably won't be a fan. I always thought that was one of the big draws to '77-'79 GD-- Lesh stays "inside" the songs/jams pretty regularly.

Plus, the more closely you listen, the more you hear each player reacting to another's part.

What's a better description of "inside" and "outside"? Does "inside" have something to do w/ bass players sticking to the root + fifths? Never learneded this.

Another fact that sometimes goes unnoticed is that a majority of the fans are super-familiar w/ the backbone of each song. They come to hear how the band plays off that backbone, and the band lost interest in straight-forward R&B jamming after '70 for the most part.

A couple of nice posts there, Jamesey..

it's still shit. i'm a dead hater, so sue me.

Does Dead-hating include the New Riders? Surely you can't dislike the New Riders s/t.

Dead-hating does not include The New Riders Of The Purple Sage, no.

Then there shall be a peace.

Top 5 songs sung primarily be Bob:

1) "Looks Like Rain"
2) "Jack Straw"
3) "Weather Report Suite"
4) "Estimated Prophet"
5) "Cassidy"

"Re: Phil...personally, I just really do not like his style of playing 'around' the song rather than giving it a good foundation--he noodles around in a very self-indulgent manner, as if he's just listening to himself rather than the song."

I think the thing with Lesh's bass lines is to listen how they interact with Garcia's lead guitar. The Dead was a band with some heavy harmony, as you also have a rhythm guitarist and always one keyboard player, so I don't think there was a great need for him to hang in the back on bass and hold down the root. I think Lesh's lines seem to be weaving in with Garcia and I think they did quite a bit of interplay between them. How the bass worked was one of the more unique things in the bands sound.

If you would have put Duck Dunn in the Dead, it would have worked, grooved and probably sounded good, but then again it wouldn't quite sound like 'the dead'. I think Lesh's style is as unique as say how Peter Hook's playing is in New Order, it isn't really how most bass players play but that is one of the reasons the band sounds a bit different.

otm, xp

grateful dead 4 real

mb/n

undersampled

richest textures in th 70s

i heard anyways. maybe like 1/50 pink floyd tracks

uh yeah hold down tha root

what were the intervals of jerzy garcia would YOU PREFER

were all the lyrics about. what are some good lyrics of theirs if any aren't i don't think

ban mkcaine.

otm

mkciane takin the heat off

ban sturdy banton.

i mean what are some good gd songs

sorry

were they emo or something

what's wrong

http://www.webwhispers.org/newspics/apr06/loopy.jpg

Another great Resonant Frequency from Mark Richardson, this one on the Dead. Any Deadheads have any critiques?

nope! i don't know if his choices, especially in the second list (which i think emphasizes jams more than 'psych', whatever people like to think that is), are precisely-tailored to his audience, but i don't care, either.

Gah, that harmonized guitar lick from Fire on the Mountain just popped into my head for the first time in years, and with it an image of this one stupid hippie girl with her stupid hippie facial expression and smelly dreads doing the wavey arm dance.

i mean the girl is doing the wavey arm dance, not her dreads. Well actually kind of both.

I liked the article. I would have gone with different records, and I don't think the Dead were miserable in the studio in general. But it was nice to read an enthusiastic young person on the Dead.

and the 1972 shows were by no means *just* rootsy affairs; there are some spaced-out "Dark Star"s and so on that year; that's why those shows ought to be such a gateway for people looking for those two sides of the Dead (the country-folk-blues side and the space jam side).

The Wall of SOund was a technical marvel.

st. stevens, cumberland blues, sage and spirit (flutes), box of rain, friend of the devil (slow version from Dead Set) - I can see these songs being enjoyed by people who say they don't like the grateful dead... agree, disagree, other suggestions? I like grateful dead so it's hard to choose songs. Maybe cosmic charlie?

Here's a funny little experiment to try on Grateful Dead fans:

Ask them to name more than 1 Grateful Dead song. Hardly anyone can do it.

Truckin & Dark Star?

An average show might find Jerry Garcia, about 50 lbs. overweight, wearing an XXXXL tiedye, barely moving as he played;

Garcia never wore tie-dyes. Hanes black Ts you tard.

Also:
I would have gone with different records, and I don't think the Dead were miserable in the studio in general.

Euler is on the money here. I think the Grateful Dead's rep for bad studio work comes mostly from fans who are disappointed to hear versions of the songs that are shortened/not jammed out/played in tune. While the ones he mentions are classics, I wouldn't let that steer you away from Wake of the Flood, Blues for Allah, Go to Heaven, or the others.

I'm pretty surprised that he doesn't mention Anthem of the Sun at all, since the whole live music c&p'd with Stockhausen-influenced sound-collage thing would probably go over well with Pitchforkers.

this new band the Donkeys, hyped out on Pitchfork this morning, sounds a lot like the Dead. Which is cool with me, because I like that sound. The drummer could maybe use a kick in the ass but I am digging them generally.

also yeah there's lots of good studio Dead as I've learned over the past couple of years - I think post-American Beauty, many of their albums would have made better EPs, but they would have been great EP's. "Help Is On the Way/Slipknot"/"Franklin's Tower"/"Sage & Spirit" = a 12" I would buy twice

An average show might find Jerry Garcia, about 50 lbs. overweight, wearing an XXXXL tiedye, barely moving as he played;

Garcia never wore tie-dyes. Hanes black Ts you tard.

Acutally he wore many between '70 and '72. The bio Garcia has a photo of him wearing one.

Here's a funny little experiment to try on Grateful Dead fans:

Ask them to name more than 1 Grateful Dead song. Hardly anyone can do it.

This simply isn't true, especially considering the archival nature of so many Deadheads.

this new band the Donkeys, hyped out on Pitchfork this morning, sounds a lot like the Dead. Which is cool with me, because I like that sound. The drummer could maybe use a kick in the ass but I am digging them generally.

They're pretty cool, but I agree about the rhythm section. Bands that try to get all West Coast often confuse spacey/dreamy and sleepy. I'm more impressed by the new Warmer Milks album, Soft Walks, on Animal Disguise. It's more rooted in Neil Young by way of Palace, yet it taps a similar brand of early '70s Americana. Plus, WM goes for the Dead's expansive aesthetic. There's everything from country-rock pop tunes to jammy, free-form exploration. Good stuff.

Here's a funny little experiment to try on Grateful Dead fans:
Ask them to name more than 1 Grateful Dead song. Hardly anyone can do it.
This is what the Dead Heads do to the noobs/posers to out them! Duh!

It's more rooted in Neil Young by way of Palace,

Does this mean they do the cracky-voice thing? I can't deal with that.

fwiw will oldham doesn't really do that cracky voice thing anymore and hasn't for quite awhile. he's improvdd considerably in range and polish as a singer over the years.

noted

Does this mean they do the cracky-voice thing? I can't deal with that.

They kinda do, but their voices also flail out of tune like the Dead's (when they weren't in the studio)!

"flail" should probably be "wander" or "stumble" or "float" or...

Excellent article. You could nit-pick some of his choices, but that seems to be the point.

for some reason Kevin Ayers - 'whatevershebringswesing' (the song) reminds of grateful dead a hell of a lot. The guitar solo, or the beautiful, colorful, melancholy and happiness... I just can't figure what song it reminds me of. God I love this song

http://www.wikiupload.com/download_page.php?id=51647
Here's the song I'm talking about.

yes to the original question. beware though you get sick of them fast since they're the quintessential live proposition, the poster children for dude you had to be there. howlin' rain's magnificent fiend is satisfying my dead jones these days. not that they don't sound more like skynyrd. but they've got down the cosmic americana thing i would've liked that the dead nailed more on vinyl

You fall in with some heavy pot smokers when you're in college and all they play is old tapes, and you're at a time when you're lonely and not feeling very social and eventually those tapes start sounding pretty good.

substitute "recently divorced" for "in college" in that sentence and it's pretty much true for me. i was a sort of casual dead fan by that point (having evolved from typical punky dismissiveness), but in that post-divorce wtf-maybe-everything-i-know-is-wrong state i ended up hanging out a lot more than previous with some hippie-jam types and they pretty well opened my ears. (i even listened to a bunch of phish live tapes, although i never got quite sold there.)

glad that the article also mentions that after midnight set, because dead dilettante that i am, that's one i stumbled into and really love.

everything you know is wrong
http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/4293/everythinwrongmx3.jpg

How could anyone be right about everything.. they would be a cocky mofo and I'd have to kill them.

http://m.assetbar.com/achewood/autaux?b=M%5ea11f09b8576e606bcb5038dfdb92fb821&u=http%3A%2F%2Fachewood.com%2Fcomic.php%3Fdate%3D02282008

should i give achewood a chance?

I was wondering if Acid Mothers Temple might be the modern-day Grateful Dead...?

I'm sure people will take great offence in both directions.

st. stevens, cumberland blues, sage and spirit (flutes), box of rain, friend of the devil (slow version from Dead Set) - I can see these songs being enjoyed by people who say they don't like the grateful dead

Here's the awesome slow version of Friend of the Devil on dead set.
So if you only like Touch of Gay and haven't heard any other good Dead, I would give this song a chance because well, it's better.

http://www.wikiupload.com/download_page.php?id=51763

Search: studio Dead from s/t up through Live from the Mars Hotel definitely, or maybe even Blues for Allah. I really can't remember it very well. "Franklin's Tower" is on it, though, and I kind of always like that one. After that, there's an odd track here and there that's A-ok by me. I mean, "Shakedown Street" (the song, not the whole record) is pretty sweet, fuck the haters. I like "Alabama Getaway" they did on SNL.

Live: you are on your own. I like some of Dead Set, and that first live record, simply titled Grateful Dead (has excellent version of "Wharf Rat". was there ever a studio version of this??), um, some of Europe '72. it's really a crap shoot, imo.

i love "shakedown street" (the song, not the whole record, which i haven't heard). "uncle john's band" should go in the dead-4-nondeadheads file too.

acid mothers temple seems like a different experience to me. i mean obviously they're in the psych-improv lineage but there's a lot of metal and sheer sonic wallop in there too.

"and that first live record, simply titled Grateful Dead "
First live record is Live/Dead! Sorry to be pedant.

Here's a funny little experiment to try on Grateful Dead fans:

Ask them to name more than 1 Grateful Dead song. Hardly anyone can do it.

-- res, Monday, August 4, 2008 12:53 AM

does not compute

"as excellent version of "Wharf Rat". was there ever a studio version of this??"

It first got put on wax on Skull and Roses in '71 which is a live album. I've never heard it in studio

"and that first live record, simply titled Grateful Dead "
First live record is Live/Dead! Sorry to be pedant.

oops, yep, you're right. pedantry appreciated.

The only Dead albums I have time for are:

Anthem of the Sun, some good sound collage things on there, interesting use of live recordings combined with studio tracks and lots of audio trickery; and,

American Beauty and Workingman's Dead, which were the only times that they had great batches of songs across the board and were focused enough to put them together as coherent albums.

There's some good songs here and there on their later albums, but they've all got more than their fair share of crap and filler.

Despite the hype to the contrary though, I think their live recordings are for the converted only.

"Skull and Roses" was officially just The Grateful Dead, right? I think that's the same version I'm talking about. "Wharf Rat" and "Bertha" are two of my favorites that don't seem to reside on any studio effort. IOW, Grateful Dead/ Skull & Roses is crucial.

Yeah, you're right, Will. It is a crucial record.
I made a convert with "Bertha" once before.
Two From the Vault is the one that made me a believer.

I should get my Oneida "Heads Ain't Ready" 7 inch in the mail today or tomorrow. Tts got a cover of "Cream Puff War" b/w a cover of "Cold Rain and Snow." They totally ruled "Cream Puff War" when I saw them play it a few years ago.

"Skull and Roses" was officially just The Grateful Dead, right? I think that's the same version I'm talking about. "Wharf Rat" and "Bertha" are two of my favorites that don't seem to reside on any studio effort. IOW, Grateful Dead/ Skull & Roses is crucial.

We touched on this period in another thread: Taking Sides: Workingman's Dead vs American Beauty

Between '70 and '72, the band wrote a clutch of awesome tunes that were never recorded in the studio by the band. This includes stuff sprinkled over "Skull & Roses," Europe '72, Garcia's first solo album, as well as Weir's. This stuff has come to be known as the Dead's mythical lost album. Had the album been recorded it would've easily matched American Beauty. Thanks to Ward Fowler for posting this on the other thread:

Found my notes for the mythical 'lost' Dead album:

- Bertha (100 YEAR HALL)
- Playing in the Band (ACE - tho my preference is for one of the long jammy versions, really - the one from the last Lyceum show in 72 is pretty special)
- Wharf Rat (ROCKIN' THE RHEIN)
- Deal (GARCIA)
- Bird Song (LADIES AND GENTLEMEN...THE GRATEFUL DEAD)
- Sugaree (DICK'S PICKS 3)
- Greatest Story Ever Told (ACE)
- Mexicali Blues (STEPPIN' OUT WITH THE GRATEFUL DEAD)
- Loser (GARCIA)
- To Lay Me Down (GARCIA)
- The Wheel (GARCIA - man, Jer's first solo rec is just full of great songs AND some well wiggy 'experimental' stuff)
- He's Gone (EUROPE '72)
- Jack Straw (EUROPE '72)
- Brown-Eyed Women (EUROPE '72)
- Ramble On Rose (EUROPE '72)
- Tennessee Jed (EUROPE '72)
- Comes a Time (STEPPIN' OUT - the Garcia solo version from a few years later really doesn't do the song justice)

damn... i had no idea that many "classics" were live versions only.

thanks for the list QuantumNoise & Ward Fowler!

but those aren't all live versions. The Garcia album is awesome; I may like it more than any Grateful Dead record.

True. As I said above, the lost album was split over solo albums and the Dead's live albums. In fact, Weir's first solo album, Ace, has most of the Dead on it!

I LOVE Garcia, but I also think this would've been a classical record had it been produced like A.B. and Workingman's Dead.

oh yeah. Garcia, duh. I think I may actually have that around somewhere. Or used to. Never heard Ace.

Also, the reason why Ward put only live versions on that list is because those are by the Dead. The studio version of, say, "Sugaree," isn't the Dead.

In fact, if you scour Dead tape-trading circles you'll be able to find that actual song list as a tape/stream/whatever.

when i was 16 (and basically only listening to new wave and punk and hardcore - this was 1984) the thing that turned me on to the dead was the *what a long strange trip it's been* double album. and i still think this is an inspired collection if you want to turn someone on to the band. the great europe 72 stuff and good early stuff, etc. it does such a great job of showcasing all the dead's strengths as a band and completely omits the weaknesses.

Side one

Track four was recorded live in concert.

1. "New Minglewood Blues" (traditional, credited to McGannahan Skjellyfetti) – 2:34
2. "Cosmic Charlie" (Garcia, Hunter) – 5:30
3. "Truckin'" (Garcia, Hunter, Lesh, Weir) – 5:03
4. "Black Peter" (Garcia, Hunter) – 7:27
5. "Born Cross-Eyed" (The Grateful Dead) – 2:55

Side two

1. "Ripple" (Hunter, Garcia) – 4:10
2. "Doin' That Rag" (Garcia, Hunter) – 4:40
3. "Dark Star" (Garcia, Hunter) – 2:41
4. "High Time" (Garcia, Hunter) – 5:12
5. "New Speedway Boogie" (Garcia, Hunter) – 4:05

Side three

All songs on side three were recorded live in concert.

1. "St. Stephen" (Garcia, Lesh, Hunter) – 5:22
2. "Jack Straw" (Weir, Hunter) – 4:48
3. "Me and My Uncle" (Phillips) – 3:03
4. "Tennessee Jed" (Garcia, Hunter) – 7:11

Side four

All songs on side four were recorded live in concert.

1. "Cumberland Blues" (Garcia, Lesh, Hunter) – 5:41
2. "Playing in the Band" (Weir, Hart, Hunter) – 4:38
3. "Brown-Eyed Woman" (Garcia, Hunter) – 4:37
4. "Ramble On Rose" (Garcia, Hunter) – 6:01

That is a great best of. I've got a whole bunch of Dead stuff but only just picked that one up. Someone here at ILM pointed out that it has the studio (single) version of "Darkstar" after I said I'd never heard it. It's great, too.

Hadn't read this thread for a few days, and I figured I'd ask about that solo Garcia LP, and lo! behold! Recommendations aplenty!

Thank you ILM third eye!

Also, I've been enjoying that Mickey Hart Rolling Thunder LP a bunch. Percussion-heavy (surprise) ethnic jams, with John Cipollina, Paul Kantner, Stephen Stills and a bunch of other dudes. Zakir Hussain plays 'rain'.

Gnarly, if you dig Miles-era hippie fusion, might I suggest this:

http://vox2.cdn.amiestreet.com/band-picture/Jerry-Garcia-&-Howard-Wales_10231_page.jpg

Also for those who think the dudes in the Dead didn't get very weird, try this:

http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/2007/04/phil-lesh-ned-lagin-seastoneslpcd197519.html

That's some cool synth freakery from the mid 70s featuring keyboardist Ned Lagin and Phil Lesh.

There is also a tape floating about the Dead world that features Lagin, Garcia, Hart and Lesh doing some pretty out there synth stuff.

a lot of the 74 shows have a 'Seastones' interlude between sets, sometimes w/ all of the dead joining in on the jam - i think the only legit release of this stuff so far is on the dicks picks culled from the alexandra palace shows they played that year

pleased that ppl are finding that list i posted useful - it's not definitive, by any means (never been much of a fan of 'looks like rain', for example, but i remember mark richardson picking it as his favourite bob weir song, and it's def. another ACE track that the dead played a lot in concert - it's ALL of the dead on ACE, btw, whereas i think only Kreutzmann plays on the first Garcia solo rec)

Is that Mati Klarwein artwork on Hooteroll? I stumbled across a copy of that album the other week, actually, but didn't know anything about it.

I just checked the credits. It is M.K., but he's credited as Abdul Mati.

if you've even considered going to any of these shows, you want to get on that

tonight's setlist:

I: U.S. Blues, Scarlet Begonias > Fire on the Mountain*, Bird Song*, Feel Like a Stranger*, High Time, Turn On Your Lovelight*
II: New Potato Caboose > Estimated Prophet* > Milestones* > Drums > Space > Dear Mr. Fantasy* > Dark Star* > Eyes of the World*
E: Franklin's Tower
*-with Branford Marsalis (Saxophone); "Dark Star" was 2nd verse on

well, the setlist certainly looks amazing, BUT ... 3 hours of Bob singing those songs ... ? ( i'm not even overly concerned about the Warren Haynes quotient ... I assume he's "OK" in the role; but, is Bob on all those vox ? heaven forfend )

"Dear Mr. Fantasy* > Dark Star* > Eyes of the World"

Awesome.

And the set list overall is great.

It's so hard for me to imagine these songs without Jerry. I'm sure it'd be lots of fun, but, uh, "Scarlett->Fire" and "Frankin's Tower"?

I love that setlist, but I could seriously die happy if I never had to hear a "Scarlet->Fire" again in my life.

Funny article

http://www.slate.com/id/2217149/

"Dark Star" was 2nd verse on

onLY

as against expectation, Bob actually sounded *great*. sure, there was a bit of his Dylanesque choose-any-note-and-tempo-here vocals, and some slow/flubbed lines, but the dude was full of voice, especially on stuff he owns like Stranger and Estimated, mostly eschewing the depressive Ratdog style (their keyb player is a not-bad fill-in, btw). it helped that vocals were traded around throughout the show, including within songs. Warren was, yes, "OK" in the role (perhaps more than ok by the 2nd set), lending a bit of an Allmanesque tone and rushing some vox here and there, and of course it's not the same animal without Jerry, but for a lot of the show what you did get was a lot more than good enough. and yeah that setlist (which may not be that far below par for this run) - people were wondering what's left for Branford (whose soloing helped make the Lovelight, among others) when he comes back tonight. it would be nice if this is a test run for some outdoor venues next summer.

So I stumble upon this Deadcast on iTunes, and I've never owned anything by this band and never listened to any of my friends' tapes, and, yes, this is boring compared to something like the Allman Brothers, but it's pretty good late-night wallpaper when I don't want to really listen to something but I don't want to be in a dead-silent room either. This is really high-end wallpaper, for free.

How had I always skipped over "Fire in the City" before with hardly a second glance??? The song is fierce. I would have loved a full album collaboration between primal Dead and Jon Hendricks.

http://www.pnla.org/jobs/j76.htm

That has to be somebody's dream job.

http://pitchfork.com/news/42256-the-national-plan-grateful-dead-tribute-comp/

It looks like the National was talking about putting out a tribute comp, but then their label backpedalled on that statement? I would anticipate this, if it were to come to fruition.

The start of this thread was pretty funny. I wonder if Kate ever ended up actually listening to any Dead because she clearly hadn't 8 years ago.

cia never wore tie-dyes. Hanes black Ts you tard.

I want to come out and just apologize for using the word "tard" two years ago. I don't do this now and think it was horrible of me to do so. Sorry.

lol at my "garcia" truncation.

he did wear tie dyes, I distincly remember him in the gatefold of Europe '72 or something like that in tie die. Plus he tie died ties.

I could have sworn I've seen pics of him wearing tie dyed shirts too, but now I can't find one online to back up my claims. I found pics of him wearing paisley, lots of flannel, and even a t-shirt with dolphins, but no tie dye.

He wore a hockey jersey every now and again.

guys i found a photo of jerry wearing tie-dye
http://www.bayareaonthecheap.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Jerry_Garcia_Dead-300x230.gif

no, no! It was clarified upthread that he did wear tie-dies for some period in the 70s? I was just apologizing for using bigotted language.

Weir hates tie-dye fyi

the garcia in my mind isn't tie-die though. that guy is black as death.

Black Jerry

two posts after apologizing for using bigoted language!!!!

that's not even funny as far as willful misinterpretation goes.

He wasnt black, I( think he was of Spanish descent.

woah, settle down, just a bit of fun.

he was talking to me TM; I'm sorry

Black Peter

I clicked on this just to read Kate's post at the top again. Still OTM

It's possibly one of the worsts posts ive seen on ILM.

yeah, pretty bad. i like this one though
A: "Hey, what are you listening to?"
B: "Oh, it's, uh, Kremlin Tiger Flower, uh, 2506. Have you heard them before?"
A: "Hmmm, it sounds familiar."
B: "They're a Japanese noise band from the '70s. Original LPs are like $500 on Ebay, but, uh, this label out of Amsterdam just reissued their album and I got it from Forced Exposure."
A: "Oh, yeah, I've heard of that...wow, this is awesome. It sounds like Sonic Youth or the Dead C or something."
B: "Yeah, I can hear that, I guess."
A: (listens) "Totally. Sonic Youth is totally ripping these guys off."
(pause)
B: "Actually, I'm just fucking with you. It's a Dead bootleg, they're doing 'Feedback'."
A: "It's a Dead C bootleg? Wow, this is, like, the best stuff I've ever heard from them. How'd you get -- "
B: "No, no, it's the Grateful Dead."
A: (runs screaming from the room, snarky hipster credibility permanently ruined)

^I remember that! That was great!

Bertha (Skull and Roses)
He's Gone (EUROPE '72)
Jack Straw (EUROPE '72)
Brown-Eyed Women (EUROPE '72)

Wharf Rat (Skull and Roses)
Ramble On Rose (EUROPE '72)
Tennessee Jed (EUROPE '72)

i listen to this playlist and pretend it's the greatest dead studio album

^^^^

So what? SY and the Dead C are nearly as bad as the Dead (not as interminable tho') -You'd never mistake the Dead for someone, you know, good. Like when they try to play 'Jazz' or R n'B or Country, it never sounds like anything halfway acceptable in those fields: it just sounds like the Dead: out of tune, out of time, terrible singing and it goes on, and on,and on......

might just have to agree to disagree? (about the dead and the dead c)

(& sonic youth)

That is a good playlist, Mizzell.

holy shit someone on a message board doesn't like the Grateful Dead, this is ~important~ & will ~make a difference~

Dude, no, you have to hear this most ultimate jam session that they did on this super-rare collectible live bootleg out-take from 1973...

I'm gonna let you guys in on a big secret: the Dead were just a bunch of dirty hippies

YES, I SAID IT

Mods plz change thread title to: Dr. Suggestban, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dead

"Without wishing to sound too alt snooty, Ghost and esp. Acid Mothers Temple do the whole folk-psych rock jam thing w/ so much more passion, imagination and freaky fun."

I like Ghost but still, lol

"You'd never mistake the Dead for someone, you know, good."-I'm Street but I Know my Roots (sonofstan), Tuesday, April 19, 2011 5:25 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

You'd never mistake your opinion for anything other than, you know, shitty.

Dead fans, eh, don't like it up 'em.....

one man gathers what another man spills

Lol otm!

I clicked on this just to read Kate's post at the top again. Still OTM

If you claim to like garage rock, and you think that the first Dead album consists of uninspired hippie stoner jams, then I call bullshit on you ever having listened to it.

B: "Oh, it's, uh, Kremlin Tiger Flower, uh, 2506. Have you heard them before?"

Haha, probably works the other way around too. "Hey have you heard this Dead bootleg?" "Ugh, this sucks, I hate the Grateful Dead. This is so boring." "jk, this is that rare japanese psych reissue you were raving about last week"

most dead haters in my experience are kinda like yr dad saying how bad vegetarian food tastes i.e. they haven't really got much of an idea about what they're talking about but they like the pose they strike when they say it

i'm not big on the dead but i think jerry is such a great singer, his voice always sounds sad and tired and wise and lonely to me

tbh, the episode where lindsay weir listens to american beauty on freaks and geeks really made me want to become a deadhead

!

I am pretty sure I have never, in God knows how many years of talking about music w/ppl, run across "I don't dig the dead but I like the way Jerry Garcia sings" - this is a really novel take for real!!

my friend said to me, "man you love the Band, check out Europe 72" & that's what it took for me. I can see that if you're really hot on what's ~Outttt There~ in the 21st century that the Dead are gonna seem kinda stodgy---I get that pose, is what I'm saying (even if it means great things are closed off to you on account of that pose)

american beauty sort of is the best album of all time though, in the right mood.

I'm rocking disc 2 of Harpur College 5/2/70 & the back door's open 'cause it's warm out & the neighbors got the bbq goin and life is fucking awesome

I didn't know anything about the Dead except for what I had heard from ex-Bill Graham staffers about how annoying the fans and hangers on and everything that *goes* with the Dead was, so I had this image that I would hate their godawful hippie stylings.

But after I sought out Workingman's Dead and American Beauty a couple of years ago, I was glad I'd taken the time to prove myself wrong. Really, really, truly love the studio albums.

have a few Deadhead friends who insist "live bootlegs are where it's at" but I think I need recommendations from non-Deadheads or, I dunno, non-koolaid drinkers to send me down that path...because it seems like that way leads to madness, and there's SO many!!

I mean it's saying something that I'm a PJ fan and I'm mortified by the amount of Dead bootlegs and live shit around :D

also as a footnote to that, I learned that the BGP staffers I knew all actually did *like* Dead music, and could sing along to just about anything you threw at them with a faint smile on their face...but it was all the Deadhead baggage that had screwed them up

we had a thread about this I think. Get Harpur College, Europe '72, & Cornell, and go from there if you get addicted, I think.

ya, this thread has some good suggestions: Grateful Dead live, Dick's Picks etc - S&D

def check out Veneta Fairground, 8/27/72 too...there's a lot of classics in 1972 but that August 27th show is just stellar, both sides of the band in full bloom.

vegemitegrrl, this thread gets bumped regularly, there's plenty of live material there.

Grateful Dead live, Dick's Picks etc - S&D

elsewhere on ilx though, a bunch of people have discredited the "only live albums plus american beauty/workingman's dead" listening axis and pretty much acknowledged that the later studio albums have a lot of merit.

multiple xps

re. Jerry's singing & later Dead studio stuff, I've been bumping this a bunch recently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw96J8_HC8I

most dead haters in my experience are kinda like yr dad saying how bad vegetarian food tastes i.e. they haven't really got much of an idea about what they're talking about but they like the pose they strike when they say it

FWIW it's worth, I'm pretty sure I've heard every legit Dead release up to about Blues for Allah, and have owned a few of them, hoodwinked by the you like X, therefore... line of argument, and because I can't resist cheap vinyl, and every once in a while I think, just maybe, there's something there...... like, I love the Band and the Burritos and even like the first NRPS record, a lot, so W/man's Dead and American Beauty ought to be nailed on for me right? wrong - it may be country rock, but it's not very good country rock and the singing and playing is terrible - or the 'you like all that Miles live stuff from the early seventies, well you'll love Live Dead, or whatever' well no: 10 seconds of Can, from any record, pisses over any -indeed all - of the Dead's supposed adventures.

But hey, someone is going to come on and say....

Dude, no, you have to hear this most ultimate jam session that they did on this super-rare collectible live bootleg out-take from 1973...

Dude, no, you have to hear this most ultimate jam session that they did on this super-rare collectible live bootleg out-take from 1973...

(but for real, it's ok if you don't like the dead! IT'S OK)

^^^^
I know, just avoiding work here.

like, I love the Band and the Burritos and even like the first NRPS record

if you love this and hate the dead then yeah yr posing because you enjoy hating the dead. it's cool I'm the same way w/the Beatles

some of their stuff is pretty good. but there is too much of it, which I think is my problem, so the signal to noise ratio is pretty bad.

the same could be said of the fall, I guess, but I like them more.

fuckin A on Harpur College even like you get to "Dancing in the Streets" and the Weir vocal is just painfully bad and you think, ok you know what, this set has run outta steam, game over, you guys can't make a silk purse out of the hammy shit you pulled in the first five minutes here and then the band gets loose and the solo connects with scorpio or whatever constellation it is it's pulling its energy from and it's like the pretty meh exercise that got you there was a formal necessity, like Homer talking about dawn with its ruby-red fingers and all that who-cares biz that suddenly lands you in the middle of the ocean with a Odysseus and his men and they're all living breathing creatures and you can feel the sun they're waking up in and smell the ocean air and it's just fuckin

just good is what

american beauty sort of is the best album of all time though, in the right mood.

I have a complicated history with the Dead/deadheads that makes it hard for me to enjoy their music at face value, but I was in a bar a couple of weeks ago and they had American Beauty as one of the discs in a CD changer and it was really working for me.

never been able to get past the shitty songwriting, shitty singing, and totally lackluster playing. sorry guys. kate OTM

weird how many songwriters would call you crazy for 1/3 of that opinion

"I don't dig the dead but I like the way Jerry Garcia sings"

Haha, I've sorta said something like this on a thread or two. After years of Dead-dislike, I discovered I really like The Jerry Garcia Band, in large part because I find the singing better than most Grateful Dead stuff (and the gospel singers are a better backup than the less-vocally-gifted Bob Weir.)

Love the Dead; American Beauty is top 10 of all time for me, love Workingman & Europe 72, just recently got into Live Dead which is awesome, I even like Aoxomoxoa which is not the trippy wtf mess per reputation (exception = What's Become of the Baby), but mostly just a space-y Workingman prototype with classic rock singles (St. Stephen, Cosmic Charlie, China Cat Sunflower)...

but I'm with VegemiteGrrr; I'm a little hesitant to start getting into the live shows & boots. There's so many! I'll probably check some of that stuff out, along w/ some later albums, but the stuff I've heard is great...!

What Dead stuff do you like Bill Magill?

apology accepted re the tard comment (if you were apologizing to me-- if you were wishing you'd said "fuckhead" instead then I take it back)

10 seconds of Can, from any record, pisses over any -indeed all - of the Dead's supposed adventures.

Well sure. OTM. Can't argue with that.

I love the Band and the Burritos and even like the first NRPS record, a lot, so W/man's Dead and American Beauty ought to be nailed on for me right? wrong - it may be country rock, but it's not very good country rock and the singing and playing is terrible

This is such silly nonsense. NRPS? Give me a break. The Band only has a few songs that are as good as anything on WD, or AB. "if you love this and hate the dead then yeah yr posing because you enjoy hating the dead" is totally OTM. You're posing or you have cloth ears.

xp: ohhhhhh fuck, I didn't even know you posted here. shit. apologies both to you and to anyone who might have been offended by the language.

never been able to get past the shitty songwriting, shitty singing, and totally lackluster playing. sorry guys. kate OTM

I'm not a huge Dead fan, and I hate to come across as some kind of tedious, nerdy, muso prick, but I can't help but read that as "Hi, I know absolutely nothing about music!"

LOL re: Casey Jones / yt

I'm 42 my wife is 26 every time she hears this song she spreads her sweet pussy its timeless music
kocnn 2 months ago 8

the only reason that the Grateful Dead gets any hate on ILM is because it gets much love on ILM and it's a popular hippie band

but you don't see me going in metal threads just to say "I don't like metal music"

The Band only has a few songs that are as good as anything on WD, or AB

Boo to this. I've always felt the Band captured exceptionally well what I felt the Dead was frequently aiming for.

I've tried so many points of access for the Dead. The early studio albums. The early live albums. The early bootlegs. The middle period bootlegs. The later bootlegs. Sometimes I've liked what I've heard, most times I can't make it through, and like some of the above posters I often wonder what's getting lost in translation. Just not clicking. Always baffled me that a band that stuck around for long, with such renown, with such distinctive players, couldn't even accidentally make a good record on a regular basis. I blame the drugs.

Part of the problem, or the problem with my perception, is that I just don't hear any edge to it, something to grab hold of beyond its general ... optimism, I guess? I like my improv and jamming dark, discordant and mysterious. At the opposite end, I do enjoy "American Beauty."

Part of the problem, or the problem with my perception, is that I just don't hear any edge to it, something to grab hold of beyond its general ... optimism, I guess? I like my improv and jamming dark, discordant and mysterious.

I consider this a valid & useful criticism - the jamming aims most often for a sort of middle ecstasy, a groove that's about wonder in my opinion - it is seldom about darknesses. Aoxomoxoa on the other hand I consider a pretty dark thing, and AB is loaded with darkness. But "edge" is not what this band is into.

I'm with Josh. I have tried American Beauty & Workingman's Dead and just didn't like 'em at all. I have Live/Dead, Europe '72, and the full 10CD version of the Fillmore East 1969 box in my iPod, though, and I like those. I don't like the vocals at all, especially on Europe '72, but when they become an instrumental act on the Fillmore discs they have their moments.

Josh in Chicago, you probably like VU and I think that band sucks balls. I actually own Loaded and like a couple tracks on that one though.

I mean it's just a bunch of "different strokes for different folks". For instance, I think chamber pop can have lots of awesome music but most folks are all about some crappy upbeat punk rock etc.

I think a deadhead hurt Kate somehow when she was young.

I like Garcia, can't abide Weir singing or his songs. Also: two drummers, no backbeat, no driving bass either - Lesh talks a lot about theory and counter melody, but to me his playing sounds clumsy, with a lot of bum notes.

man, i love the dead, but if there was ever a band that was born to make you wince, it was them. soooooooooooo much goodness and so much...erghhhhhhhhhhhh too. but that's their thing. the whole "they're not the best at what they do..." those live moments when they seem utterly incapable of getting a groove going. the ultimate bummer. but there is so much beauty too. and robert hunter and jerry garcia were responsible for the bulk of it. can't help but think what if...jerry had hooked up with some of the umpteen zillion other amazing musicians in california back then instead of the dudes he ended up with. but then they wouldn't be who they were. for better and worse.

(like...what if the dead had been jorma and jerry and the god-like jack casady and, i dunno, the drummer from mad river and dallas taylor or who knows...so many possiblities...)

xpost It's not a competition, dude (in terms if influence and impact, I don't think I'd rate the VU, for example, over the Dead). I love music. All sorts of music. Like the forum says. Which is why I find it odd that a particular music many, many people love, with many qualities that I generally love, has never clicked with me. That's why I've given it so many chances. I can listen for hours to indulgent Fairport Convention spinoffs. I can listen for hours to certain acts in the Kompakt stable. I can listen for hours to krautrock wankery. I've just always wondered, personally, what it is about the Dead, of all bands, that's failed to connect with me.

Again, must be the drugs!

One of the larger barriers to enjoying the Dead are bad memories of sketchy Deadheads. Or losing a friend to that world. I had a couple buddies who fell into heavy touring and never really came back, like they'd become moonies or something.

xp: ohhhhhh fuck, I didn't even know you posted here. shit. apologies both to you and to anyone who might have been offended by the language.

― cia never wore tie-dyes (kkvgz),

xpp
are you blaming the drugs that you yourself are on?

my one wish is for garcia/hunter songs to someday be as widely covered as dylan songs. or cole porter songs! cuz you can play them in a myriad of styles and there are so many good/great/beautiful tunes there. i know there are probably a zillion dead cover albums, but i'd kill for one or two great ones. country people. bluegrass people. jazz singers. i'm leery of alt-rock cover projects...but jeez i just have so much respect for the work they did. even if you don't like the band itself, the songs really do speak for themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj6EMLgJjts

If I remember right, you dislike Nina Simone, but might have been interesting if she covered the Dead, she did so well with L. Cohen, Dylan, George Harrison.

i swear i am turning the corner on nina. i'm older!

i just think those songs have been ill-served. they should be known by lots more people! they should be standards! and not just jam band standards. or shaggy bar band standards. i mean, that's fine too. it is truly "folk" music. but they work in so many ways.

Yeah, I hear you. Which Dead song is closest to being a standard, do you think? Seems like "Friend of the Devil".

yeah, and sometimes you get that perfect marriage. tom dylan petty doing friend of the dylan for instance.

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

(petty live box thing one of the best live things i've heard in a zillion years. he should just do an album of dead covers. that would kick ass.)

ripple has been covered a lot too. bluegrass/alt-country/etc covers of it have been pretty popular for years.

then of course there is this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGwMmwppLh4

Lyle Lovett's "Friend of the Devil" on that Deadicated disc in the early 90s was amazing. Actually, lots of good stuf on that comp.

scott otm in locating much of the Dead's awesomeness with Robert Hunter; he was a great lyricist...

Speaking still as someone not really compelled much at all by the band -- or, as I know I've beaten into the ground enough times, not primarily concerned by lyrics in general -- but nonetheless: Hunter's an interesting character from what I can tell -- if anything it seems that whatever edge Josh mentions he wants out of the band might best be found in his words. Probably a stretch, I don't know, but something about the jaundiced view of a number of his lyrics (or most of them?) might place him more in alliance with Steely Dan or Zevon, perhaps. Strip everything else aside and something like this is pretty frickin' bleak:

Sitting and staring out of the hotel window
Got a tip they're gonna kick the door in again
Like to get some sleep before I travel
But if you got a warrant I guess you're gonna come in

So as Scott notes, the idea that the songs themselves have been ill-served rings true for me.

also: lol Sublime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cg2O4SsHQw

(I actually like ^this a lot)

Ned OTM for bringing Truckin in; that & Ripple are probably Dead's songs closest to achieveing 'popular standard' status...

(then i have those moments where i think - damn why couldn't the new riders have been jerry's band!?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJdq0OcRK3o

if you don't like the dead at least give the new riders a chance! so great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAuh6HjiiaM

"Ripple" as a lyric almost makes me think of "Rubber Ring" by the Smiths -- same sense of an uneasy relationship between obsessive fanbase and suspicious creator already looking on down the line, though a bit more generous in Hunter's case, if not by too much more. (Mott the Hoople's "I Wish I Was Your Mother" might also slot in here...or maybe I'm thinking of "The Moon Upstairs.")

there's gotta be a good goth cover of "it must have been the roses", no, ned?

Annie laid her head down in the roses
She had ribbons, ribbons, ribbons in her long brown hair
I don't know, maybe it was the roses
All I know, I could not leave her there

I don't know, it must have been the roses
The roses or the ribbons in her long brown hair
I don't know, maybe it was the roses
All I know, I could not leave her there

Ten years the waves rolled the ships home from the sea
Thinking well how it may blow in all good company
If I tell another what your own lips told to me
Let me lay 'neath the roses and my eyes no longer see

One pane of glass in the window
No one is complaining, though, come in and shut the door
Faded is the crimson from the ribbons that she wore
And it's strange how no one comes round any more

Will a hippie/demi-goth type on ukelele with a cat do?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTS9PvKMWIg

cat definitely trying to get to the knives on the counter...

Boo to this. I've always felt the Band captured exceptionally well what I felt the Dead was frequently aiming for.

To me The Band seem to indulge so much more in the shapeless countrified jamming that the Dead are accused of (talking albums here, I don't give a shit about live stuff). They didn't really have the songs to back it up. And their attempts at old-timey folkiness in the lyrics "I work for the union 'cause she's so good to me" etc. come across as way more forced than the Dead. But as far as great poppy songs, I would give them The Weight, Cripple Creek, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down... what else? vs. well, to me, nearly every song on AB & WD is better and more catchy than any of those Band songs, so I can't really make a list. I mean, at the very most conservative list, you have to give them Cream Puff War, Friend of the Devil, Truckin, St. Stephen, Casey Jones, but if you like sort of country rock Americana, I don't know how you couldn't get behind Dupree's Diamond Blues, Doin' That Rag, Dire Wolf, shit I dunno, again, basically every song on Workingman's Dead and American Beauty.

^^OTM I just picked up American Beauty used and I've one of those "Canonical album blowing you away experiences". And I've been thinking back to The Band, who've been a frequently cited influence on this era of the Dead. I'm really starting to believe that both the Dead and Little Feat did an amzing job picking up the reigns as it were. They were doing The Band's schtick way better than The Band did from there on out, and arguably bettering their peak.

That said, I'm also wondering about Doug Sahm (and the Sir Douglas Quintet)'s influence on this era of the Dead. They were tight at the time and Dan Healy engineered much of the SDQ stuff of the era. It's a bit lighter fare, but that "back to roots" approach fels the same. It's just that Doug never gets cited.

Sir Douglas Quintet was cool, but also the Charlatans were a pretty major influence on all of the SF bands, doing not only the jangly folk rock thing, but often a more country sound. Not to mention the full victorian cowboy getup. Also, the Bradley's Barn album by the Beau Brummels.

Lyle Lovett's "Friend of the Devil" on that Deadicated disc in the early 90s was amazing. Actually, lots of good stuf on that comp.

― EZ Snappin, Tuesday, April 19, 2011

otm. los lobos, suzanne vega, cowboy junkies and jane's addiction all kill it on that one too iirc.

that comp and some of ryan adams' dead-inspired stuff ("magnolia mountain" in particular) occasionally makes me think i might come around on, y'know, the dead. but then no.

oh here it is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDgPZScj5Ak

will rep for Ministry's "Friend of the Devil" from Bridge Benefit 1994

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGwMmwppLh4&sns=em

Al's voice is a nice surprise on this

The Band only has a few songs that are as good as anything on WD

Don't know where to start with this......

There is nothing the Dead ever did that matches four bars of Levon Helm's drumming, never mind the songs, or the singing, or the rest of the playing.

Someone said up there that the like of me hadn't heard enough Dead and were posing - I reckon it's the opposite prob with deadheads: they haven't heard enough other music - or listened properly - and imagine the tepid 'ideas' of the Dead amount to some kind of something. Like Ayn Rand fans who think she's a philosopher, because they've never read any proper philosophy.

There is nothing the Dead ever did that matches four bars of Levon Helm's drumming

Yeah, he's a killer drummer and has a great voice too.

But I was focusing on the songs because the main criticism of the Dead is that their music was nothing but a bunch of stoned aimless noodling. And there's certainly a lot of that stuff. Personally I don't care for it and don't listen to it. As I said upthread 5 years ago, I think the conventional wisdom about the band is backwards. The live stuff is pretty tedious but they had a good run of 4 or 5 classic albums with some really great songs. I just don't get how people can ignore that. Sure some live bootleg from 1978 is going to be boring as hell. Yeah, they're a bunch of smelly beardo hippies with annoying fans. But if you like any similar music at all (west coast psych, country rock) and can't recognize that the Dead recorded some great stuff that easily stands up to their contemporaries, then I think you're blinded by a prejudice against their fans, or you simply haven't heard the good stuff. As I'm sure I've said elsewhere here before, I ignored the Dead for ages and bought tons of lame third rate psych and garage reissues before realizing that super obvious stuff like the Dead was actually great.

I reckon it's the opposite prob with deadheads: they haven't heard enough other music - or listened properly - and imagine the tepid 'ideas' of the Dead amount to some kind of something.

Also, I think that's probably true in the general population, with any random deadhead you might meet. But I think the opposite is probably true among ILMers. The default stance is to dislike and avoid the Dead, so it actually might be the people who have already gone through everything else who eventually make their way to the Dead. That seems to be borne out by some of the accounts in this thread of people who gradually got around to liking them.

Anthem of the Sun and Aoxomoxoa aren't my favorite psych albums but they're probably in my top 50 or maybe top 100. And I like that kind of music enough to have an appetite for the stuff that's way down the list. Workingman's Dead and American Beauty on the other hand are probably in my top 10 for country rock. Or at least one of the two. But I'll admit that's an area where I haven't dug too deep.

Europe 72 def sounds like the Band but better. Album that American Beauty most reminds me of is After the Gold Rush, esp its second side...

The Band, like the Dead, dropped off fast after a couple albums, as a studio entity at least. Live, it kept kicking for a while. I guess I just like the musical personality of the Band and its players better than the Dead, Garcia aside, whom I've always liked as a guitarist.

ppl seem ready to rep for everything up to and including 'terrapin station', i think. on the other hand, i'm not really convinced it's true of the band, either ...

i think i like the idea of levon helm or of garth hudson more than i do pigpen or phil lesh. but i like the three-percussionists-paying-various-levels-of-attention-plus-bassist-refuses-play-a-bassline thing that's the backbone of '68-'71 dead a lot; the band's live setup being, let's say, less well documented, i'm not sure i can say anything about them as an ensemble outside of the (fairly worked-over) studio settings

otoh i think i like the idea of garcia a lot more than that of robbie robertson, but robertson's concise statements on 'king harvest' or whatever are kind of jaw-dropping for me in a way that garcia doesn't do. or have a focus that garcia playing around 'dark star' or 'morning dew' for 15 minutes doesn't. but, i mean, that's kind of an obvious thing to say.

the dead are one of those acts that when you listen to them you can easily listen to them for a week and snap into the mindset of people who listen to nothing but, i think. like the fall.

http://youtu.be/gvv970ocLaM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvv970ocLaM

What Dead stuff do you like Bill Magill?

― music loves drugs (Drugs A. Money), Tuesday, April 19, 2011 8:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Sorry Drugs, i cut out of this discussion. I love a lot of the '69/'70 stuff, Live Dead, Harpur, though Ive never been a big Pigpen guy (except Lovelight). My other favorite years are '72 (like many others, Europe'72 was an initial favorite), '74 (esp. the Boston show) and '77 (it's to the point of cliche, but the Cornell thing is fucking awesome, it's recorded so well too). After that, i kind of lose the plot.

There is nothing the Dead ever did that matches four bars of Levon Helm's drumming

hey can people participating in interesting music discussions stop saying stupid shit like "Bach's nose hairs wrote better music than Mick Jagger's entire family"? trope has been played out for at least 30 years.

The Band, like the Dead, dropped off fast after a couple albums, as a studio entity at least.
probably would've agreed with you until recently, but I've been digging into some of the post-classic eras of both of these bands, and there is plenty of good stuff. that might be low expectations talking, to some extent.

Someone said up there that the like of me hadn't heard enough Dead and were posing - I reckon it's the opposite prob with deadheads: they haven't heard enough other music - or listened properly - and imagine the tepid 'ideas' of the Dead amount to some kind of something. Like Ayn Rand fans who think she's a philosopher, because they've never read any proper philosophy.

lol I see the rest of your post is riddled with I-don't-actually-have-an-argument-so-I-condescend garbage, never mind - when you want to actually talk about music with people who've doubtless heard & understood as much of it as you have, come back to this thread, til then I think everybody gets it - you don't dig the Grateful Dead and you think people who have don't have your penetrating insight into music - cool, gotcha - now fuck off

hey can people participating in interesting music discussions stop saying stupid shit like "Bach's nose hairs wrote better music than Mick Jagger's entire family"? trope has been played out for at least 30 years.

If there was an interesting music discussion on ILM we could find out. #jokes bruv

lol

But your point is otm, this "your team sucks, my team will make the playoffs" shit is useless.

the Dead suck
ILM sucks
you suck

^^^ multiple choice

they haven't heard enough other music - or listened properly - and imagine the tepid 'ideas' of the Dead amount to some kind of something.

this does describe my relationship with Phish between 1993 and 1999 though. not to disparage phish as much as to disparage the lack of breadth in my listening habits at the time.

i've said it before, but a really good overview of everything good about the dead can be found on the what a long strange trip its been double lp. it definitely worked for me when i was 16. i had never listened to them and i bought that and dead set and was immediately a fan of the songs on there.

That's what sold me too at around the same age! Was years before I went further into the catalog, but it did get me to a show.

okay i checked this thread and i've basically repeated my same party line over and over again over a period of years. i really am a deadhead.