should i give the grateful dead a chance?

Do not give the Grateful Dead a chance. I have given the Grateful Dead several chances, and they continue to bore me solid. Friends say "Oh, you're into 60s garage, listen to their first album..." nope, sorry, it's still uninspired hippie stoner jams. Friends say "Oh, you like spacerock, listen to this or that experimental jam album..." nope, sorry, it's still uninspired hippie stoner jam drivel. Friends say "Oh, you have to listen to it on acid to get it." I listened to it on acid. It only stretched the INTERMINABLE boredom to the breaking point where it was a relief to sit and listen to radio static afterwards.

I think that Deadheadism is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. If you have it, you will like them. If you do not have it, then no ammount of "Dude, no, you have to hear this most ultimate jam session that they did on this super-rare collectible live bootleg out-take from 1973..." in the world will ever convince you to find even a modicum of interest.

I know that calling a band "boring" is verboten on this forum. The Dead are not just boring, they are interminable, self indulgent, they noodle, they wibble, they do not drone in a transcendant manner, no they ANNIHILATE any sense of enjoyment of music to the point where I would rather listen to elevator music rather than the Dead. In fact, that is what they are. They are the elevator music of hippie stoner jam psychedelia.

Do not waste your time. Sing along with the hoover instead.

A: God this band are shit.

(Keith Richards tells that gag - which is a bit rich considering that 'Can You Hear Me Knocking' sounds just like the Dead...)

I think they're worth checking out rather than applying some knee jerk reaction. But obviously lots of people don't agree.

Did you even read my fucking post? This is not some knee jerk reaction. This is a carefully thought out aesthetic decision that I have reached after repeated exposure and more consideration that I would give to most bands who repeatedly bombarded me with shit.

Everything about the Grateful Dead is repulsive - the music (yes I *can* judge them on a minute or so), the fans, the mythology.... They're a crystallisation of everything I dislike in music.

The thing is, I love the IDEA of the Dead - the endless noodling jams, those moments of improvisation when they reach the mythical 'zone', the community of fans, all those bootlegs to tick off and collect, the Verlaine-esque sound of Garcia's gtr, the vast quantities of drugs etc etc.

But - their recs just never seem to live up to the rep - before I ever listened to them, I imagined they were like the most mega-cosmic freak out group of all time, but when I finally did spin a few of their albs all I got was wimpy country-lite w/ really terrible singing. They rarely seem to rock out in any meaningful way, their cover versions are just AWFUL (esp. the 'bluesy' Pigpen-led stuff) and Hunter's lyrics are hippy bilge.

Without wishing to sound too alt snooty, Ghost and esp. Acid Mothers Temple do the whole folk-psych rock jam thing w/ so much more passion, imagination and freaky fun.

No, I don't think I recall the Dead ever having extended sax solos in any of their songs.

You obviously never heard Branford Marsalis jam with them, then.

I knew when I saw this thread appear it would be full of the usual "the Dead are the worst band ever" stuff... they seem to be one of a small handful of bands it's ok to heap your worst insults on around here. So I'll do my usual and say yes "American Beauty" and "Workingman's Dead" are full of concise, well-written pop songs, their mid 70's LPs on their own label are amazing ("Blues for Allah" is my pick), and as great a guitarist as Tom Verlaine is, Garcia is better. He's a better vocalist, too. I know that for whatever reason the Dead are a band many people will just never permit themselves to like, so I expect to make no converts.

I think SY owe a lot to the dead in the way that they'd start a song and then they would use that as a basis for a jam and get back to the song.

The singing isn't to everyone's tastes but at a time when ppl are listening to Thom Yorke that isn't such a big problem.

For myself, they don't trouble my interest, and I can't say they will be anytime soon.

You obviously never heard Branford Marsalis jam with them, then.

Nope, and although I'm sure he's, uh, "funkier" than his brother, I can't imagine his jams with the Dead approach the instrumental break of "Can You Hear Me Knocking" (which was, after all, used by many a black "urban" radio station in the 1970s as promo music). Anyway, the point was that the claim that "Can You Hear Me Knocking" sounds like the Dead is way, way off-base.

''I think that Deadheadism is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. If you have it, you will like them. If you do not have it, then no ammount of "Dude, no, you have to hear this most ultimate jam session that they did on this super-rare collectible live bootleg out- take from 1973..." in the world will ever convince you to find even a modicum of interest.''

it's bollocks! any band will have it's fans and haters but to dismiss it as 'chemical imbalance' is bullshit. Plus the 'annihalate' line (see dave q's ans).

Personally, the only song of theirs that I can instantly recognize is "Touch Of Grey". I'm fine with that.

If you're still hell bent on checking out the Dead, I'd start with any of the Dick's Picks live releases from 1972 or earlier. Even then, listening to them are like trying to dig for gold in a mine that's been completely played out. There's a lot of shovelling involved for very little payoff.

How is the Grateful Dead any different?

There must just be a neurotransmitter that makes people like SHIT, that is the explanation.

The China/Rider that opens Dick's Picks 12 (1974 Providence/Boston) was one of the first GD song(s) that grabbed me – typifies that jazzier loose-but-tight sound that you hear in the best 73/74 shows where everyone is noodling at the same time w/o sounding like a mess. Also nice delivery of the "Wish I was a headlight ..." part, which is really all I'm looking for in Riders.

Yeah actually the Europe 72 China/Rider is pretty good, as are a few in 73. China Cat's feel is tricky, it can get really clunky and awkward when the touch isn't light enough. The lyrics are also on the dippier end of hippy dippy and the vocal melody is awkward. But sometimes they nail it and it sounds really good.

Guy who looks like Garcia era bob weir carrying a huge bag of laundry down the street, what’s on your iPod

He’s not gonna spend one more Saturday night with dirty jorts.

Wake up to find out thatcha fly’s been open all day

Aahh the Truckin’ on Pacific Northwest ‘73/‘74 is so great! It starts like a great songy song and then morphs into this freaky and psychedelic jammy jamm Jammm. Haven’t heard this a version of Truckin’ that rips so hard

Yeah, that's a great one. That entire PNW box is a treasure trove and I'm glad I splurged on it.

As a very casual and selective Dead listener, it's really interesting to see your various takes on the band, what got you into them, and what you dislike, since most of my friends are in the "nah man, they suck" camp. And there are many times I think they're right.

https://preview.redd.it/v40m7ctx5l171.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=f85fa9b66d4c88403a54c98c43a3f05091b9bf52

^^ kinda agree with that poster but I'd narrow the "great years" to 89-90. and of course the first half of the 70s.

I made an attempt with 1990 once. Once. I'd heard good things about the Dozin' at the Knick set, and found a used copy. It started out ok, and they actually rocked out a little harder than I expected in spots. But the "Space" was interminable. It sounded like someone in a music store checking out all the presets on a DX7. "Oh, cool, this one sounds like lasers! Pew pew! That is so cool! Pew pew pew!" There is no worse Dead than MIDI Dead. 1988 is my cutoff (and even there, some dingus put a harmonizer on Bob's vocals, because his vocals weren't quite annoying enough).

Welp, I've pasted from early East Coast Dead Adopter xgau's stash upthread---and here he is re this era:
Crimson White & Indigo [Rhino, 2010]
Old and on their way, they jam in the Fourth on July 7, 1989, with a miraculously or pharmaceutically pepped-up Jerry launching a searing "Iko Iko"-"Little Red Rooster"-"Ramble On Rose"-"Memphis Blues Again" sequence before receding into grotty but engaged desuetude ("Iko Iko," "Knockin' On Heaven's Door") ***
He likes it better than Cornell '77 and some others often preferred to the late shows.

See, Dozin' was one of my gateways. (But I've never heard the whole thing, just the "Playin'/Uncle John/Terrapin" segment.) It's all about segments for me; there are very shows (maybe none?) I can listen to all the way through. Even a lot of individual songs go on too long. But yeah, 1990 is probably my comfort zone. xp

very few shows...

Yeah Hundred Year Hall, Dozin' and the first couple of Dick's Picks were when I really started getting into and collecting the Dead.

I've never heard the whole thing either, but he liked that one even better!

Dozin' at the Knick [Arista, 1996]
...after several concert tapes failed to get over I decided I had more pressing business than finding the good nights that were probably still there. Now, finally, after several half stabs (Hundred Year Hall, Fallout From the Phil Zone), comes this four-hour three-CD document from historic Albany, New York. Solid new Bob Weir opener, coupla excellent! Bob Dylan covers, Brent Mydland more Rod McKernan than Page McConnell, creaky and transcendent "Black Peter," "Walkin' Blues" and "Jack-a-Roe," the nightly "Drums" and "Space" excursions scenic enough. And above all, that mesh of the tight and the shambolic that on their best nights rendered their music responsive and interactive in a way marshmallow-heads will never understand and therefore never hear. A-

(I remember liking Fallout From The Phil Zone, but haven't heard it in a long time.)

Without A Net rules!!!

just hit me that the Jack Straw on cornell '77 is great

Listening to 2/15/73 Dane County Coliseum right now, a '73 show that flies under the radar slightly, since it's not a Betty Board and not in the band's vaults. Charlie Miller uploaded a great sounding version last year (start with track 3, first two songs are really rough soundchecks fyi).

https://archive.org/details/gd1973-02-15.134029.sbd.menke-lee-smith.flac16

Flipped over to GD Radio in the car earlier, and a caught a little of Weir singing "Man Smart (Woman Smarter)"... probably not a side of the Dead that I would steer a noobie toward "giving a chance," but it's there.

lol, def not a selling point of latter day Dead, if i'm in the mood for a late run show i haven't heard, the presence of that song on a setlist is often reason enough to pick a different one

It is curious that they felt compelled to add both that and Aiko Aiko into the repertoire

Quality Weir banter, going into the third set (7/18/72):

“What-what-what-what? …Like the man said, you all are gonna hafta e-NUN-CEE-ate… or at least speak all together.
…We don’t play that tune anymore, man. It done faded away.
Anyway, if y’all would shut up for a few minutes, we can tune our instruments faster. Thank you!”

Just some outsider thoughts, I'm feeling like my Dead appreciation has turned a slight corner these days.

I've always been aware of and liked them. I bought (and enjoyed) Live/Dead, AotS, Aox, AB, WmD maybe 25 years ago, but then kinda hit a wall with the live material, occasionally dipping my toe with the odd CD but never quite understanding what the fuss and scholarship was founded upon.

So I read some books and enjoyed the documentaries, you can't argue that they're not a fascinating cultural phenomenon if nothing else.

I've gone through various stages of Dead acknowledgement, from 'this is the great psychedelic ziggurat of American music? Really? It's a frail sounding C&W band, no?' to 'why are they *all* noodling at the same time, can't Phil at least weigh anchor?'

I know about the Phil Zone and have listened to a bunch of 'Space', even some Seastones and the Greyfolded CD, so I get the exploratory side, but everything after their move towards Americana didn't hold as much pull as the earlier, more psychedelic studio and live material.

But I still keep coming back to it and recently started reading the book on Cornell '77, it's not an amazing book but it was super interesting to read a book about a concert, not even a 33 1/3 format book about a whole record, but a *concert* as some sort of touchstone.

So reading the book and listening at the same time I kinda feel more at home with the post '70 material, I'm still having trouble with that envelope-follower guitar sound and the more disco elements, 'Dancing...' is frightful but I am emboldened to try more 70s live stuff, I'm going to go through my CDs/archive.org and loop back to '72 and '74 and see where that gets me.

And, I'm going to this thread a read too.

I'm still having trouble with that envelope-follower guitar sound and the more disco elements, 'Dancing...' is frightful

I only hate the envelope filter when it’s played by any guitarist other than Garcia or Townshend. Jerry uses it in such a way that it’s teetering on the edge of absurdity, and never quite falls over.

When I looked at the tracklist of Cornell before listening, I thought, “‘Dancing In The Street’? That can’t be good. No one’s managed even a middling cover of that.” While the Dead’s isn’t great, it’s far better than I’d expected, largely due to the disco feel/elements. The versions they did in the late ‘60s, though, are abominable.

You're probably aware if you're this far into GD, but you'll find a ton of psychedelic-sounding stuff, similar to pre-1970, in the big jam songs in 73-74 (Dark Star, Playing in the Band, and random long jams that pop up) even if most of is on the jazzier side, and you'll probably hear the Disco Dead sound in most of the stuff from 77-80, if you're trying to avoid the up-tempo, groovier bass stuff.

Thank you! I'm happy for any tips.

Not sure if anyone has ever posted it, but if you've ever found yourself bummed you couldn't download a GD SBD from archive.org and you use Chrome, the Grateful Grabber extension works really well.

“Everything stretched out... it expanded!”
DEAD FREAKS UNITE! 1971 was a momentous year for the GRATEFUL DEAD – involving landmark shows, bizarre ESP experiments, French Acid Tests, hypnosis, new faces and emotional farewells. BOB WEIR, BILL KREUTZMANN and other eyewitnesses share tales from this journey with Rob Hughes: “We were just coming alive.”
Our friends across the pond at Uncut hop in the way-back machine with Bobby, Billy, and more to explore early 70s Dead. READ THE EXCERPT https://www.dead.net/features/general-news-news/uncut-magazine-grateful-dead-road-trips-sneak-preview?eml=2021June17/5370880/6131962&etsubid=33554028
Also, The Jolly Ol' Grateful Deadcast, Over There---The Grateful Dead In England, and much more (incl. Hunter playlist)linked in this Bulletin: http://view.email.dead.net/?qs=6756b1b9c0987b5ea85777a074278ac13bbc2b46dc012850853f1c1589450246b97ba534a1b481ed388bfe654bc25728c25852b0fd355d907d342c0022d49a25298f5632dd0846c61b1a1c3c515880cf

For my birthday – a not-insignificant milestone – my mom & sister sent me a Ripple Junction Grateful Dead Adult Unisex Steal Your Face Vintage Light Weight 100% Cotton Crew T-Shirt Xl White.

(Something "Touch of Grey"–related may have been more appropriate, but I'll take it)

Got to say Billy Strings sounds pretty good with Billy & the Kids.

Seriously. I’d see them over Dead and Co

Who knew that my gateway to bluegrass would be found in my search for post-Dead jam bands who didn't leave me cold. I've much love for the extended explorations of Greensky Bluegrass and Yonder Mountain but yeah, Billy Strings has recently become my first choice for this kinda music.

Got to say Billy Strings sounds pretty good with Billy & the Kids.

Thanks for the tip! I'm digging these Youtube clips of the Red Rocks shows from earlier this week.

Yeah, I'd love to see Billy Strings playing with Billy & the Kids in person someday. I'm surprised by how rapidly that kid took off, he's immensely talented but it always seems like the real bluegrass players are held at an arm's length, even within the jam band scene. They get love, but never quite breakthrough to the next level.

Speaking of meteoric rises and post-Dead jam bands, I've started checking out some Goose after the last few years of insane hype by phans and heads on Twitter. I'm not sold yet and they too often sound like a mish-mash of other jam bands (not to mention the guitarist's tone is way to close to Trey's at times), but I have been struck by a few of their jams - there was a great jam that started with Radiohead's "Weird Fishes" before segueing into their own "Wysteria Lane" (from 6/11/21) that worked for me.

Everyone in that Billy & the Kids lineup seems pretty talented.

This came out today:

https://store.bluenote.com/products/dave-mcmurray-grateful-deadication

Looks cool!!

I agree that the bluegrass background seems to really help him get the jerry feel right (with his own spin on it of course). A lot of guys do the jam band thing with a kind of exaggerated whiteboy funk swing, whereas there's something a little more understated about bluegrass phrasing, more flat and fluid (if those adjectives make any sense together).

xpost - digging it so far!

i guess he's played with weir?

i think a lot of the tendencies i hate about modern jam bands have their origins in the allmans over the dead

I thought I had heard everything but I just came across the single version of dark star on the long strange trip compilation. So good. Sitar and is that banjo at the very end?

Jerry's Before The Dead is a very good folk-to-bluegrass 4-disc set (Amazon's got the CDs for $35.16, MP3 $31.96, ltd. ed. vinyl $299.49). He seems like a low-key folkie at first, but quickly takes off. I posted about it over on Jerry Garcia Solo/JGB/Grisman/etc. - S/D Sure would like to hear his pre-Dead performances w Grisman.

I thought I had heard everything but I just came across the single version of dark star on the long strange trip compilation. So good. Sitar and is that banjo at the very end?

I think Paul Williams listed that as one of his 100 Greatest Rock Singles of All-Time.

I'm still not a huge Dead fan, but what helped me kind of like them was the Amazon documentary, which I was able to see at a limited screening in NYC. The director was there and he was definitely a very knowledgeable Deadhead, addressing every esoteric question every fan had. (The biggest and not-so-esoteric one was "Where's Mountain Girl?" and he said they REALLY tried, but she said she was saving everything for a book or film of her own that she was already doing and refused to participate.) I don't doubt there's lots of holes in it - it's tough to cram a whole band's long history into four hours - but it was surprisingly engaging from start-to-finish and the music came off really well. I now have Live/Dead, the two classic country-rock LP's, the famous Ithaca bootleg from 1977 and the Dick's Picks volumes Greg Kot recommended (I think in the 2004 edition of the Rolling Stone Album Guide) and enjoy them quite a bit.

Good stash. Also in the country-folk vein, Reckoning is a soulful acoustic set-down set (2 CDs for price of one, as Ah recall).

I had reckoning as a young lad and was always annoyed with the production. Something about acoustic guitars in a live setting, they never sound good …

“Searchlight casting for faults in the clouds of delusion” 😊

Something about acoustic guitars in a live setting, they never sound good …

The acoustic guitars on some late '60s/early '70s Dead shows sound ok, probably because they're externally miked rather than having a pickup. Once acoustics got fancy internal pickups in the late '70s/early '80, they were much easier to manage from an EQ/feedback standpoint when going through a PA, but almost always sounded tinny.

On the Europe 72 version of “jack straw” at the beginning, Bobbys vocal is on the right, and there’s a high harmony on the left. Who is this? I thought Phil’s voice was deeper and jerry’s vocals doesn’t come til later. Maybe a Bobby overdub In the studio?