Creedence Clearwater Revival vs the Grateful Dead vs the Band

"leave me alone" is great, so's garage piano

Best way in to the Dead I think is Europe '72. Live songs (and the Dead are a live band above all else), and some of their best, but not necessarily laden with endless jams. I think its fantastic.

I've been slowly getting into the Dead over the past couple of years. American Beauty was the first one I heard, on the recommendation of a friend. Since then, I've tracked down everything up to Wake of the Flood and I have to agree that Europe '72 is the best place to start. Bill's description is spot-on: it's the Dead LIVE, but with minimal jamming and maximum emphasis on good songs played extremely well.

Bill is OTM - there aren't many better places to start than Europe '72, the version of "He's Gone" is really good and the long "Truckin'" is sort of a demo reel of how they take something really crude and make it stretch

starting with a triple lp kind of a big ask, but europe 72 is great. i like it cause there are no studio versions of some of those originals. think i posted this elsewhere, but the studio follow up to american beauty could have been:

Bertha
He's Gone
Jack Straw
Brown Eyed Women

Wharf Rat
Ramble on Rose
Tennesse Jed

could've included some of the Garcia numbers too -- sugaree or bird song.
the vol. 2 europe thing that came out last year is pretty awesome too. come on everybody, get into the DEAD.

vol 2 is great!

"Jack Straw" on Europe '72 is great; everybody singing and playing well, plus the live hall vibe is nice. Actually that whole LP side: Jack Straw/You Win Again/China Cat/I Know You Rider.

europe 72 is pretty heavily overdubbed tho, isn't it? at least the vocals?

That's what I've often heard. Makes no difference to me, long as the end result is pleasant.

first Garcia record not a bad place to start

xp oh yeah, i don't really care. did the dead ever do that again -- take live performances and sweeten them in the studio? seems like they got good results with that mix.

Without A Net has overdubs too I think.

Wouldn't overdubs be considered a net, though?

Bastards!

haha!

first Garcia record not a bad place to start

― Euler, Thursday, August 16, 2012 4:52 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

love this record

is there some reason the first Garcia record is so hard to come by on CD? Seems to be out of print.

"Jack Straw" on Europe '72 is great; everybody singing and playing well, plus the live hall vibe is nice. Actually that whole LP side: Jack Straw/You Win Again/China Cat/I Know You Rider.

― Ermahgerd Thomas (Dan Peterson), Thursday, August 16, 2012 4:45 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Amen. This is just an all time side right here.

Damn, I found Europe '72 to be impossibly tedious. I like everything that came before it better (never heard "Skullfuck" tho)

tyler, most of Jerry's stuff is impossible to come by these days, i presumed just due to the vagaries of the Garcia estate. there were a bunch of live garcia band recordings that came out in the early 2000s but I hadn't gotten around to buying. can't find them anywhere.

irritating! maybe the fact that they're putting out that saunders/garcia keystone box this fall bodes well for reissues?

according to garcia.com, you can now "preview" the garcia store. thanks, guys.

gonna go preview a 4 fingered travel mug, brb.

maybe i missed it, but has anyone noted that garcia played on this record? i haven't heard it... ccr meets dead?
http://www.shugarecords.com/images/products/large/5833a31e-a2d8-4059-8c62-502a7258e02c-0.JPG

kinda plodding and meh iirc

yes, youtube samples suggest you rc

as I said upthread Tom played with all those Dead dudes post-CCR

sorry, missed that! cool album cover though right? king arthur ... IN SPACE. WITH A KNIFE.

haha yeah. i saw that at a goodwill for $.49 and thought, boy, i gotta hear that. and i got the record home, and maann it wasn't all that necessary.

I think if im ever going to get into the Dead it'll be on its own terms. I realize it's good to provide a frame of reference but yeah if i want garage rock i'll just listen to garage rock and if i want whatever the Dead does best i'll listen to that!

I feel the same way about the live stuff. I guess I'm alone in thinking that Aoxomoxoa is what the Dead did best and if I want to hear long jams and improvisation I'll just listen to jazz, or Can or something.

I mean to me, what they did best was that transition period from organ-led garagey rock and roll into spacey hippie stuff and "weird old america" style folk and blues influences. I think they explored the intersection between those different areas better than anyone besides maybe the Byrds.

The Dead's entries on the SF Nuggets box don't even deserve to be called nuggets imho.

"Golden Road" is two minutes and nine seconds long! Good energy. Antiphonal singing on the chorus. Organ!

Shouldn't be excluded for sociological rather than musical reasons. If you want to argue musical reasons, I'd point out that Amboy Dukes and Vagrants and Blues Project were on the original Lenny Kaye Nuggets set.

Anyway, I like the idea of genres as expansive things and records like "Golden Road" and the early Big Brother singles are a big nexus point of garage and hippie rock music to me.

I guess I'm alone in thinking that Aoxomoxoa is what the Dead did best and if I want to hear long jams and improvisation I'll just listen to jazz, or Can or something.

oh man but live "St Stephen"s are so much better than the studio version when they get goin

alright, which live St Stephen should I check out? preferably with the vocals at least somewhere in the ballpark of being in tune.

Its the lowpoint of the otherwise stellar Cornell '77 show. Both Donna and Garcia absolutely butcher the vocals on St. Stephen.

I watched the A.J. Weberman documentary last night. (Didn't realize I'd ordered a PAL disc--had to watch it on the computer.) The film keeps circling back to what seems like the same recorded telephone conversation between Weberman and Dylan circa 1970. At one point, Weberman starts needling Dylan about all the people he could name who are better songwriters. Go ahead and name one, Dylan counters. Weberman's first response made me think of these threads: "Creedence Clearwater." Dylan: "Bullshit, man!"

So if anyone decides to do CCR vs. Dylan, start the scoreboard at 1-0 in Dylan's favour. (Or 1-1, if you think Weberman's sincere; 2-0 if you think he's just agitating.)

Bob, how many of YOUR singles charted in the top 10? Certainly not the only yardstick for measuring songwriting, but Fogerty, drawing from the same well of roots music influences as Dylan, certainly knew how to write a hook laden hit.

xposts: I'd be interested in a live St. Stephen recommendation too. I'm listening to the one on Live/Dead right now, and it's okay but I'm sure there are better.

the live st stephen from the playboy/hefner tv show is great, w/ everybody p much tripping their nuts off and the drummers really giving it some

I'm just going to go ahead and anti-recommend the St. Stephen from Dick's Picks 10. I don't know what the hell was going on there, but it's so slow!

how's life, screen names that reference peoples' IRL names on a public message board are not cool, not even banned peoples.

5/24/69, Seminole Indian Village, W. Hollywood FL is pretty intense

xp: got it. it was sort of a thing last night on some thread. I can't even remember.

Hey, I removed it! I removed it! Get that yellow thing offa me.

Sorry, I hit Yellow Card just as you were changing it. Looking to see now how to undo it.

Live/Dead may as well be the only St. Stephen.

tbf song seems like it would be hellish to play in concert

Live/Dead's the best one ive heard. Its not one of their "jam" tunes, so it doesnt go off into any other planet's orbits