RUSH vs. YES vs. THE GRATEFUL DEAD

I'm not sure how much "swing" is relevant to rock and roll aside from like '50s R&B anyway.

Ha, well, it generally is relevant to jazz!

xpost I just mentioned it as someone who has heard Buford's jazz stuff.

Rush definitely once they had an arrangement down, they tend to pretty much try to re-create it live. A rare few might open up in an arranged way live for their show or be edited down - but they don't improv. AT one point, even Peart thought his playing had gotten too uptight at one point and worked on reinventing his playing by working with jazz drummer Freddie Gruber.

Yes was kind of the same way which is why Bill Bruford bailed out at their popular height to go to King Crimson. That Yes Union/history video that Atlantic did back in the 90s is hilarous in that Bruford and Wakeman kind of both infer - yeah this whole 'Union' Yes band thing is pretty much crap, we could have done something good but we are just following through in a very scripted way.

that's a v. strange criticism of early yes.

re: lack of swing

I was a pretty big fan of Union when it came out, especially the tracks that featured the classic line up. Feel like I need to get reacquainted with it to see if it still holds up.

Not a criticism of Yes, just of Buford, who someone posted came from a "jazz" background. Because as I noted, lack of swing is I think a legit jazz criticism.

Bruford.

dick's picks vol. 26 is great & so is vol. 8, harpur college (one of the legendary if-you-have-no-other-dead-shows ones) though harpur I think circulates in various forms

harpur college is my sentimental favorite because it eventually became the humanities college of suny-binghamton, where i went to undergrad.

i'm surprised the dead rated as highly as they did, but i'm happy for yes (my pick, warts and all) for only being behind by four votes.

This is all just so wrong...

re the dead and west coast psych in general: i think i fundamentally dislike music that sounds as though it were played on a lawn, in the swelterning mid-afternoon of a really hot day. a lot of dead stuff sounds as though it were recorded during a bbq, when everybody was feeling all turgid from the food, booze, weed and heat, and the instruments had become these molten, floppy dali blobs suitable only for slow oozing. it's a quality hear in a lot of trancey, jammy psychedelic rock, but also in reggae and mariachi music. i don't like it. it makes me tired and irritable. if it's that fucking hot, just put your shit away for a while. pick up later, in the evening, when it's nice.

I love you contenderizer. Have you ever tripped dicks?

ccr vs allman brothers vs dead (pigpen years)
― thomp, Saturday, August 4, 2012 9:40 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I honestly can't remember if I voted in this or not (if I did, it would have been for the Grateful Dead). The thing is--and I don't mean this as a criticism of whoever started it--putting the Grateful Dead with these other two bands just doesn't make sense to me. CCR/Allmans/Grateful Dead, yes; plug in the Band or Gram Parsons-era Byrds or any number of other bands, yes. But this is apple, orange, orange.

TS: apples vs. oranges vs. oranges.

imo ccr is a psychedelic country response to hawkwind and foundation stone for zz top

but anyway what am i missing about the dead? what if i don't want to drift off like windchimes, or a girl wearing a patchwork dress over jeans in a dusty field?

and more importantly - yes is still good in the 80s

lol Nate between your love of Agalloch and your hatred of the Dead I'm ready to totally write SUCKS next to band names on your notebook when you're not looking in class & then blame it on the other dude next to you when you call me out

― steven fucking tyler (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, August 3, 2012 6:32 PM (Yesterday)

I would say that I "support" Agalloch more than I love them. And the Dead--I just try to pretend that they don't exist. It's not any sort of hatred.

As for YES, this thread caused me to purchase a Relayer LP for $3 today and I'm loving the hell out of it.

And if you write "Voivod sucks" on my notebook, I will run you over in the parking lot.

did anybody vote for "grayfolded" btw?

nice you should check out relayer

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/8838-relayer/

I was reading this thread over and thinking about it and something occurred to me: the grateful dead are awesome

the results are heinous, as each tethers themselves to the other's sinking ship ... (the Dead) drown together

And while these two gents were surely trying to transport themselves midstream the primal gurgle of Terry Riley ... finds them wedged inside "Tubular Bells" instead ...
content more to meander about and tape some keys down, and then fiddle with ring-modulators, FX boxes and settings, fading the tapes in and out as it becomes either somewhat of interest or else too tedious to bear any longer ... a saturated sameness that dilutes any possibility of psychedelic build-up or expansive sustenance ... opting for empty-handed snatches ...

http://www.hippieshop.com/mas_assets/thumb/11523.jpg

whereas yes just

i mean

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m86fswIVJe1qjtcd8o1_500.gif

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m26jmjCXvS1r81zvco1_500.jpg

I don't mean this as a criticism of whoever started it--putting the Grateful Dead with these other two bands just doesn't make sense to me

tbf i think it was also equal parts sociology joke and slanted toward pigpen-era or early dead?

Pigpen-era early Dead still have nothing in common with Yes or Rush though

one funny thing about this poll is while Robert Hunter's lyrics are vastly overestimated by faithful deadheads, they completely smoke Anderson's and Peart's in all possible universes. Like, if you put the worst Robert Hunter lyric against the very best Peart or Anderson, you might conceivably hand Hunter the L. If you put up the best of all three Hunter has lapped the competition before he gets to the second verse of "Friend of the Devil."

I guess that might make more sense stylistically...would it?...but it'd lose the one connection I can see, the simple fact that there's a radio format that plays "Truckin'" and "Roundabout" and 2112. (The classic-rock station here doesn't go near early Gratelful Dead). But there I think of groupings like Dead/Airplane/Big Brother, so I don't know.

Anyway, I once started a film poll where halfway through I was basically asking if anyone had any clue what I originally had in mind, so mix-and-match away.

collective improvisation?

ok wait earlnash puts that to rest

bluegrass banjo player/folk singer, teenage jug band guitarist, college modern composition trained musician learning bass on the job, juicehead r&b/blues enthusiast, marching band drummer and rock and roll drummer.

http://www.ravensingstheblues.com/pics/eternal400.jpg

vs

http://www.psychedelicfolk.com/cd/no_neck_blues_band_inner_sleeve.jpg

vs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoXI8k9uh4Q

this is actually more like it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa_orXC2ZCM

The thing is--and I don't mean this as a criticism of whoever started it--putting the Grateful Dead with these other two bands just doesn't make sense to me.

i started it, but i was only quoting the doofus who wrote the questionnaire in that "tripster" article on the hippie thread. i don't think the dead has much in common with rush and yes.

btw: zero of the signified and i are watching the yes: classic artists documentary right now. it's 3 hours, 24 minutes long and we're 2 hours, 23 minutes in. break time!

One thing that Yes, Rush and the Grateful Dead have in common: they all have vocals that are a bit of an acquired taste.

and more importantly - yes is still good in the 80s

Better than good; they put out their far-and-away best single in the 80s.

man i'm listening to dick's picks vol. 8 and i have a beer in my hand and i'm just having a good fucking time

i have never had this good of a time to yes

i have had good times to rush but those good times are sort of softened by how reluctantly i receive neil peart lyrics

I love you contenderizer. Have you ever tripped dicks?

― defriend the undefriendable (how's life), Saturday, August 4, 2012 4:00 PM (3 hours ago)

i love you, too. and yes. the last time, i was listening to six organs of admittance in a darkened room w some friends and became convinced that time had stopped. the more i thought about it, the more certain i became that time had in fact never progressed, and this one single chasny twinkle moment was all that had ever existed. this terrified me, and i fled. wound up walking home five miles in the middle of the night, alone, believing that i was dead, that i was only the memory of my life remembering itself.

so maybe i'm just not psychologically suited to the dead

not sure I hear it yet but many thanks to all folks explaining the appeal of the dead. gonna keep at it.

great thread btw.

"All Good People" kind of swings.

Agreed, kind of a prog shuffle

alright, "sing me back home" is gorgeous

check out the old renaissance faire grounds version - 8/27/72 - if you get a chance

for years i thought "I've Seen All Good People" was, like, CSN or something

I could see that

Sing Me Back Home is a great song, they do an ok job but 99percent of the credit goes to Merle

I will challenge anybody on this board for the title of biggest Merle Haggard stan but c'mon Merle never stretched that song out to ten minutes, again it's about groove. Nobody in the Grateful Dead is even 1/1000 the singer Merle Haggard is, what they do with Sing Me Back Home is ~explore the space~