Creedence Clearwater Revival vs the Grateful Dead vs the Band

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

The one on Two from the Vault is jauntier than the one on Live/Dead.
But the Eleven, the epic jam the St Stephen segues into, is utter perfection on that set.

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.

Seriously?

Mr. Tambourine Man - Byrds - #1
Like A Rolling Stone - Dylan #2
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 - Dylan - #2
Blowin in the Wind - Peter Paul & Mary - #2
Positively 4th St. - Dylan - #7
Lay Lady Lay - Dylan #7
All I Really Want to Do - Byrds #4 in the UK (Cher version hit #15 in the US)
Don't Think Twice It's Alright - P,P,&M - #9
It Ain't Me Babe - Turtles #8

Fogerty is better at writing 2-minute pop songs, but overall? gtfo

of course the year before dylan said
WENNER: What do you think was the best song, popular song, to come out last year?
DYLAN: Uhh... I like that one... of Creedence Clearwater Revival – “Rolling On the River”?
so he didn't know what it was called. it had a good beat and dylan liked it! i don't think anything from that weberman interview can be taken very seriously, it's one of the most antagonistic interviews dylan's ever given. which is saying something.

I see an era-limited Creedence vs. Dylan poll possibility, potential for some Beneath the Planet of the Apes prison battle sequence stuff

I listened to a few live St. Stephens last night. I don't get the love for the Live / Dead version. It sounds exactly like what I would expect to hear if I heard the album and then went to see them live in 1969: basically the same arrangement and tempo as the album but played quite a bit sloppier and with everybody noodling around more. And the little extra part at the end which was ok.

I found some discussion on another site where people were talking about their favorite live st stephens and I listened to a few of those. They were all slower and more plodding (and as always really sloppy) and the only real difference is that they sometimes do something different in the instrumental section before they go back to the last verse. I guess I never listened to Aoxomoxoa and longed to hear a version of St. Stephen that was slower, sloppier and drenched in echo.

Yeah, point taken re: Dylan wk. I was thinking only of Bob's own recordings and glossing over others who recorded them (I never really think of Peter, Paul and Mary.) Songwriter =/= performer.

But the Eleven, the epic jam the St Stephen segues into, is utter perfection on that set.

^yes, that is fantastic

Never heard Two From The Vault, listening now. This "St. Stephen" sounds tighter to me, odd 'cause it's earlier. Although, any given night with the Dead could be tighter or looser. And yeah, the "Eleven" is ripping on this. I do think it's funny that in their druggiest era they were coming up with very difficult to play pieces with madrigal-like vocal lines and weird time signatures. I'm not a big fan of 60s Dead (which I realize goes against their whole ethos. It's just me.)

listening to the Live/Dead "The Eleven" now. I feel like I'm having to listen to them practice. I'm only 2 minutes in though.

i don't think anything from that weberman interview can be taken very seriously, it's one of the most antagonistic interviews dylan's ever given.

Yes--I just quoted it because it reminded me of these CCR vs. the world threads. Weberman could have said Mozart or the Archies, and I'm sure Dylan's reaction would have been identical. They're both just hell bent on getting under the other guy's skin.

ok, it started to get good about 1/3rd of the way through. they should have recorded like Can. just jammed together in the studio all day for hundreds of hours and then just ruthlessly edited together the best bits.

requires too much discipline

They coulda got Bob 'n' Betty to do it.

It also would have taken too much time and money. Why actually make real records when you can just stay on the road nonstop and get your fans any and all live shit you put out? Pretty smart business.

get your fans to buy...

they should have recorded like Can. just jammed together in the studio all day for hundreds of hours and then just ruthlessly edited together the best bits.
isn't this kind of the approach taken on anthem of the sun? not jamming in the studio, maybe, but pulling together a bunch of live jams?

btw clemenza is that weberman doc any good?

isn't this kind of the approach taken on anthem of the sun?

true. and see, it's some of their best stuff! too expensive though I guess.

It also would have taken too much time and money. Why actually make real records when you can just stay on the road nonstop and get your fans any and all live shit you put out? Pretty smart business.

― wk, Friday, 17 August 2012 16:31 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this seems p unfair on a number of levels -- the glut of live recordings is from after they stopped existing for the most part, their early years didn't really have that many. and also hey a whole bunch of people wanted to hear them play, to have not played would have been a different kind of thing to bother people

is there even as much live miles or live coltrane available as there is live dead?

the glut of live recordings is from after they stopped existing for the most part, their early years didn't really have that many.

I don't know, during the Pigpen era they released 5 discs of studio material, and 5 discs of live material.

Actually I forgot to count Bear's Choice

is there even as much live miles or live coltrane available as there is live dead?

seriously doubt it

Tyler: I found it fascinating, also a little sad in how you see the way some of Weberman's friends, Dave Peel included, are living. Weberman himself is surprisingly engaging--based on what I knew about him I figured he'd be really creepy, but most of the time he's funny and reasonably self-aware. (Except for when he's saying things like how much he inspired Bruce Springsteen.) Also managed to download the Weberman-Dylan record this morning.

is there even as much live miles or live coltrane available as there is live dead?

seriously doubt it

i would think that says something. or are there people who think the dead are better improvisers in general?

jesus, I guess I can't count at all.
9 WB albums, 5 of them studio records and 4 of them live records. And the live records are 8 discs of material.

xps

i would think that says something. or are there people who think the dead are better improvisers in general?

it says the dead allowed people to tape their sets for years. miles and contraine didn't. (as far as i know)