Creedence Clearwater Revival vs the Grateful Dead vs the Band

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)

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?

― j., Friday, August 17, 2012 12:05 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol @ these theoretical ppl so hard

i can't imagine miles ever being cool with people doing something with his music that didn't involve miles getting paid for it

^^^

and 'Trane only had, what, a decade of live playing or so? so much less source material there, even given how much he played.

what exactly are we arguing about re: the dead and miles/coltrane?

haha i don't know, i mean i don't even think the deadheads on this thread are insane enough to put them in miles/trane's league right?

i don't think so, i mean, it's a whole 'nother ball of something. it is kind of interesting to see coltrane's influence on the 60s psych scene, though. like all these garage rock/folk dudes who aren't really schooled in jazz whatsoever grappling with the pure energy/sound of trane.

kinda feel like you can attribute the whole idea that you can have long solos in rock songs to 'Trane's influence

i think it's true -- i know mcguinn, neil young, garcia, reed etc all were heavy into that stuff.

the dead are nowhere near miles/trane/probably any major jazz musician in improvisation, although I think at one point in the 80s jerry made a remark where he put himself in the same league with miles?

I may be wrong about that. I thought he said it somewhere in the same interview as this:

Q: What about outside of the band?

A: No, I don’t. There’s not a situation around that has both a loose enough structure and good-enough-quality musicians where I can get into it and enjoy it. The level of musicianship that I exist at right now, it’s not much fun to play unless the people play really well. You know what I mean? There aren’t too many situations where you can just jam with somebody.

coltrane is considerably less popular than the dead. also than britney spears. he plays jazz it's not really even the 5th most popular music in the world you guys.

kinda feel like you can attribute the whole idea that you can have long solos in rock songs to 'Trane's influence

lol, you wanna draw this out a little maybe?

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

Also I didn't mean that a dis so much, although it may have come across that way. Can were a small band who could hole away in their studio and do their thing. I don't think they toured extensively did they? The Dead on the other hand had a huge organization to support with tons of gear, engineers and techs, road crew, etc. A lot of that was probably a fixed cost. So on the road they're spending x amount per day but earning a profit over that. But then if the band takes two weeks to go into the studio, they're still spending that same amount but not earning anything. So from a strictly business point of view, live albums look very attractive.

Anthem of the Sun was a big fiasco with the label and then Aoxomoxoa cost even more. After that they released a double live album which sold well. Then they quickly did two simpler, more stripped-down studio albums, followed by 6 discs in a row of live material. If fewer people buy your live album but it's three discs so you make more money and it charts higher than your most popular studio album, that's a pretty appealing route to take. I guess they eased off of the live material after that though.

I don't get why Coltrane is being used as a stand-in for the entire form of jazz here. Or why rock musicians were supposed to be not schooled in jazz.

lol, you wanna draw this out a little maybe?

feel free to school me on chronology but yeah as tyler pointed out a lot of dudes who started doing this in rock (Reed, McGuinn, the Doors, dunno about Hendrix) all cited the precedent for this practice in jazz and in many cases specifically Coltrane (granted Reed was more into Ornette, there's room for quibbling here)

like "Eight Miles High" and "Light My Fire" solos were both homages/directly inspired by Coltrane, no....? dunno if we can trace long-form improvisation in rock back much further than 1965, really.

yeah i feel like all those guys were heavy into jazz, and the exploratory solo thing came from that.....

shakes i think aero hates to admit his precious dead are just a bunch of shambling chumps in shorts compared to trane so he's being pedantic

the dead explicitly listened to coltrane to learn how to stretch their performances out, the byrds said eight miles high came out of africa/brass i think. and neil young has said that things like "cowgirl in the sand" came directly out of listening to coltrane. still not sure what we're arguing about exactly -- just that coltrane had a big influence on late 60s experimental rock? he did!

I like how the phrase "you guys" in an aero post is a marker: "warning, post contains world's gentlest scolding."

xps god damn it, aero loves john coltrane,

Eight Miles High isn't long! I mean sure, longform improvisation in rock obviously grew out jazz. But it's not like Coltrane was the only jazz musician guitar players were familiar with.

Guitar solos were already well established within rock well before that. So then the question is just how they got stretched out. But the main influence in rock music getting longer was arguably Like A Rolling Stone which really launched the to the trend of longer pop music.

And jazz doesn't even have a monopoly on long improvisation. Blues, indian music, or even bluegrass were also big influences on '60s rock.

joe perry has some pretty trane influenced moments on the new aerosmith record, it's true. dude cops a bit from kulu se mama reportedly!