― Eisbär (llamasfur), Sunday, 1 May 2005 17:31 (nineteen years ago) link
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Sunday, 1 May 2005 22:08 (nineteen years ago) link
― Amon (eman), Sunday, 1 May 2005 22:17 (nineteen years ago) link
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.
― stephen morris (stephen morris), Monday, 2 May 2005 01:12 (nineteen years ago) link
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.
― Keith C (kcraw916), Monday, 2 May 2005 01:45 (nineteen years ago) link
Wherefore I shall shortly purchase Workingman's Dead, Live/Dead and Blues for Allah
― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Monday, 1 August 2005 11:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― Keith C (kcraw916), Monday, 1 August 2005 11:46 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Monday, 1 August 2005 12:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Monday, 1 August 2005 12:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― Mark (MarkR), Monday, 1 August 2005 12:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― Vornado, Monday, 1 August 2005 13:34 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Monday, 1 August 2005 14:00 (eighteen years ago) link
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).
― mcd (mcd), Monday, 1 August 2005 14:07 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Monday, 1 August 2005 14:50 (eighteen years ago) link
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?
― ghetty green (eman), Monday, 1 August 2005 23:03 (eighteen years ago) link
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")
― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Monday, 1 August 2005 23:53 (eighteen years ago) link
I can't believe that people have let this statement stand for three years...
― Edward Bax (EdBax), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 00:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― pdf (Phil Freeman), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 00:46 (eighteen years ago) link
oh and of course Grateful Dead - Fillmore West 1969 - The Complete Recordings
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 00:54 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― ghetty green (eman), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 01:06 (eighteen years ago) link
do what i did: download it first. i ended up liking it enough to want my own copy of it.
― ghetty green (eman), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 01:08 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 01:51 (eighteen years ago) link
skullfuck, wasn't it?
― el sabor de gene (yournullfame), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― Masked Gazza, Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:07 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 02:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― avery keen-gardner (avery keen-gardner), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 09:04 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― Vornado, Tuesday, 2 August 2005 14:39 (eighteen years ago) link
You know I've never actually listened to the Ace stuff.
― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 14:50 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 15:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Daniel Peterson (polkaholic), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 15:15 (eighteen years ago) link
I like Jones and LaBranche on the backup vocals on that live eponymous double-disc, too,
― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 15:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 16:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― carly (carly), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 17:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 17:08 (eighteen years ago) link
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?
― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 17:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Tuesday, 2 August 2005 17:45 (eighteen years ago) link
..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
― Stormy Davis (diamond), Wednesday, 3 August 2005 04:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― Stormy Davis (diamond), Wednesday, 3 August 2005 04:17 (eighteen years ago) link
I'm adding a "To Lay Me Down" to my list.
― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Wednesday, 3 August 2005 05:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― jonviachicago, Wednesday, 3 August 2005 13:05 (eighteen years ago) link
Dumb.
What "bad fans" does Rush have?
― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 3 August 2005 15:35 (eighteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 3 August 2005 17:14 (eighteen years ago) link
If you haven't heard the Grateful Dead, you shouldn't be posting here.
― Reggie, Thursday, 4 August 2005 13:54 (eighteen years ago) link
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
― mcd (mcd), Friday, 5 August 2005 14:03 (eighteen years ago) link
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.
― Hurting (Hurting), Friday, 5 August 2005 14:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― mcd (mcd), Friday, 5 August 2005 14:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― Hurting (Hurting), Friday, 5 August 2005 14:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― mcd (mcd), Friday, 5 August 2005 14:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― Hurting (Hurting), Friday, 5 August 2005 14:25 (eighteen years ago) link