should i give the grateful dead a chance?

This Cleveland 73 show must be something, per archive.org

"
A funny thing about this Dark Star is it doesn't really start; the tuning after Big River simply dissolves into a series of spacey jams and soon you realize that this is in fact the plan. About 12 minutes in Phil fires the engines and turns the ship out of orbit, until at 17 minutes we have arrived in the deepest, darkest part of the galaxy, a place inhabited by giant, planet-sized beings made of multi-color translucent goo. We wander here for a while, the engines shut down, the ship's sails filled by the cosmic winds. "

my favorite dead archive.org comment, from the barton hall show:

Yes, it is overrated. It is not *THAT* much better than a handful of other shows. It is, however, the absolute #1 work of art that I consider proof of the divine essence of man

haha the comments are so addictive

A funny thing about this Dark Star is it doesn't really start; the tuning after Big River simply dissolves into a series of spacey jams and soon you realize that this is in fact the plan. About 12 minutes in Phil fires the engines and turns the ship out of orbit, until at 17 minutes we have arrived in the deepest, darkest part of the galaxy, a place inhabited by giant, planet-sized beings made of multi-color translucent goo. We wander here for a while, the engines shut down, the ship's sails filled by the cosmic winds. We can make out a massive, swirling dark cloud. The track cuts through this storm with a nice melody on the bridge but it isn't quite what anyone expected. It's one of those tracks that's always got me wondering about the structure of the song. Maybe it's a very deliberate nod to the dark art that was The Darkness? The second half, though, sounds like anything but a nod. It's more a slow song; a tune that has you listening for subtle shifts from one note to the next. But there's more than subtle shifts here. Phil goes into a very subtle "space opera" mode with a melody that is very reminiscent of some of his best songs.

i've read worse hyperbole about "i feel love"

Now imagine that song exactly as is, but with Jerry Garcia noodling constantly just below the surface.

how could I forget the title track of "Terrapin Station" when we're talking about post-75 Dead, that thing is one of my faves and sounds like Jethro Tull

I'm also pretty partial to Go To Heaven!

“help on the way” is my fave 70s thing by them. So many great chords and voicings, I love the composition, and J’s guitar tone is great.

“unbroken chain” is fun too, find the bit that animal collective sampled

Now imagine that song exactly as is, but with Jerry Garcia noodling constantly just below the surface.

― Josh in Chicago

sounds pretty great tbh

i've heard robert fripp doing "i feel love" with blondie, it's good

OK, finally made it through the entirety of the Cleveland Dark Star. Jesus Christ this is god-awful. Sit through twenty minutes of just plain nothing, I mean pure somnolescent nothingness, and it turns out the "meat" of this is Phil Lesh making fart noises for ten minutes. Now, when Phil is actually playing shit he's my favorite member of the Dead. The guttural distorted noise he spits out on the Farrell Hall 1970 tape is some of my favorite Dead jamming. Part of this I think is that whenever Phil does that shit it is always going to come out on tape as distorted and ugly, so I figure if I'm going to listen to it it might as well be on the most distorted, low-quality audience tape possible to really get the full effect. Also Keith's keyboard tone here is almost as god-awful as Constanten's. I guess I don't get to complain because I like Mike Ratledge and his Lowrey, which sounds like a stylophone with a full keyboard, but again, it's the difference between endearingly shitty and obnoxiously shitty. Anyway this Dark Star is a mess. I suspect the only reason people like it is because it's the longest Dark Star ever, which it isn't.

Up On Cripple Creek sounds like Alan Toussaint. Isn’t he R&B?

Dark Turd

God I love the Cleveland dark star so like whatever man

*raises pitchfork, the original “I need to constantly push my musical opinions as annoyingly as possible” mob justice*

Are there really any *bad* Dark Stars, really, man?

Trivia: I've only ever paid for a Grateful Dead anything once, and that was a copy of "Infrared Roses" at the time ('91?), because it sounded cool. The idea of it, that is. In practice ... not so much.

i've heard robert fripp doing "i feel love" with blondie, it's good

I'd never heard this! It's kind of weird but still pretty cool.

Old man yells at “Dark Star”

One thing that surprised me when I first gave a serious listen to the Dead (it was the 8/27/72 “Dark Star” posted on ILM by Scott Seward) was how focused the soloing actually was. There was no marking time or treading water waiting for the next idea to come along; there was absolutely an aim to the soloing, even if that aim seemed to be very far in the distance. Unlike, say, some/most/all live Cream stuff, there were no moments of “shit...um...ok...I guess I’ll just repeat this one Blues Lick until something else occurs to me.”

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Saturday, June 8, 2019 2:20 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

One of the things I've come to appreciate about Jerry's playing is that even the worst parts of it are kind of necessary to/in service of the best parts of it. He's always reaching for something, and sometimes that means sounding awkward or noodly rather than going for the easy layup lick.

Still, I wish he had a little more space in his playing and took a breath more often. I think it's the bluegrass banjo player in him that felt the need to fill every nanosecond with a note.

Also the best guitar moments for me are the interaction between him and Bobby.

One of the things I've come to appreciate about Jerry's playing is that even the worst parts of it are kind of necessary to/in service of the best parts of it. He's always reaching for something, and sometimes that means sounding awkward or noodly rather than going for the easy layup lick.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive)

I think that's what makes me so conflicted about him as a guitar player. His playing is so... ruminative. Often he sounds like he's reaching for something, but he never gets there, because there isn't, really, a "there" to get to. You'll have your occasional resolution, but it's only really a secondary resolution; there's some deep tension in his playing that only rarely dissipates completely.

His playing is so... ruminative. Often he sounds like he's reaching for something, but he never gets there, because there isn't, really, a "there" to get to. You'll have your occasional resolution, but it's only really a secondary resolution; there's some deep tension in his playing that only rarely dissipates completely.

fair, but you could also be describing any number of jazz greats

Often he sounds like he's reaching for something, but he never gets there, because there isn't, really, a "there" to get to. You'll have your occasional resolution, but it's only really a secondary resolution; there's some deep tension in his playing that only rarely dissipates completely.

this is beautifully put - for me, that's entirely a positive; I don't want him to get where he's going. I love the never-resolving nature of what he does - it's something I don't think Weir really gets, Weir is very much looking for the peak, the spike, the apex. Jerry at his best sounds like he'd be content to sort of think about what the summit might be like until he dies in the clouds a couple of hundred feet beneath it. but for you, that's often a negative! which I get. Schencker soloing in UFO for example -- always hits the resolve, always finds a deeply satisfying narrative through-line.

In a way Garcia is an impressionist: not a term you'd generally associate with bluegrass dudes. I do think, though, on the acoustic live sets or in his solo stuff, he demonstrates that he's perfectly capable of more trad approaches to soloing. his role in the Dead is different.

The fact that he's not questing for some summit is congenial to me, it's the thing I like most about his playing. The initial appeal of the Dead to me was recognizing that this was a band who exist in the moment, which is what music tends to boil down to for me these days. The negative part of it, for me, is that my use of the term "ruminative" implies the mental health meaning of the term. I don't think that most jazz greats have that approach, though probably some of them do; that compulsion to dig deeper within oneself is a tendency that I know very well and that has been very dangerous to me. I listen to something like Tiger and it sounds to me like he's cutting - in the mental health sense, not the jazz sense.

yeah that's a deep thing with which I'd generally agree ("generally" because I think several of my favorite jazz greats are in the same restless sort of spot) -- what they're doing is deeply personal, and probably connects to deep stuff: solving their own problems, or engaging them, by playing. that appeals to me where I'm presently at: when I was a young man I hated the whole idea of it! but now I think differently.

that's why it took me the longest to come around to the big improv setpieces (playing in the band/dark star), i spent so much time listening to dark star waiting for the point of it all and it took a mental adjustment to learn to just appreciate the journey (maaaaan....).

i think after you really get a feel for garcia's playing, you can sort of map his intentions and it becomes much more evocative and absorbing, you can hear the swirling heart of the universe where others just hear a noodly mess. it's really difficult to force the dead on people, you kinda have to approach on your own terms.

I still really can't get into Dark Star or some of the longer improvs - I feel like they didn't quite have the facility to go as out as they were trying to go in a successful way

the "dark star" on live/dead confirmed me as a deadhead. i like to put it on when i'm writing (i've probably written this exact post upthread)

I'll give that one a shot. I tried a couple others recently.

Oh, I guess we talked about the one from filmore east 1970 upthread, 14 years ago.

smoke yourself out a little bit beforehand (if you're into that) and take the ride

it's a little atypical but the 2/18/71 dark star -> wharf rat -> "beautiful jam" dark star is imo the dead's finest moment

I'm partial to Paris 5/4/72

https://www.discogs.com/Grateful-Dead-Dark-Star/release/3549571

I think this thread has moved into the kind of talk that discourages people from “giving the grateful dead a chance”! 😂😂

I watched a clip from one of the more recent Dead & Co. shows and it was...actually pretty good? John Mayer's playing was more Jerry-like and less one-dimensional than I expected tbh. I almost wished he was being a little less reverent and freaking out a little more, but I enjoyed the interaction between him and the keyboard player, and Bill and Mickey were tighter than I was expecting, if a hair sluggish.

I recently learned that dudes who dig the new Dead & Co thing are referred to as "CoBros"

looool

is that pejorative?

I didn't get that sense, no

that 2/14/70 DS is fantastic, the other one on that dicks picks also rips if you skip the 9 minute drum into

i'm actually listening to Dick's Picks Vol 4 right now, this might be the best Dead I've heard

I was listening to the Portland Memorial 5/19/74 started great but they butchered the fuck out of Box of Rain to such a degree I quit, so weird how they killed China Cat and Rider then sounded like a substandard bar band that half learned their own song

Phil's live vocals are always horrendous

their inability to play "box of rain" well in a live setting is pretty baffling — probably Lesh's fault.
lol xp

so weird how they killed {x song] then sounded like a substandard bar band that half learned their own song

"in every Grateful Dead show ever"

I recently learned that dudes who dig the new Dead & Co thing are referred to as "CoBros"

I'll be going to my fourth and fifth Dead & Co. shows this weekend and I have never heard this before. If it's a thing, I'm guessing it was coined by the Dead & Co. deniers.

While they are definitely no Dead and the slow tempos absolutely kill me sometimes, the vibe of the shows are incredibly fun. Oteil and Jeff are the (not so) secret MVPs of this configuration and Josh fits in way better than I could have ever imagined. I don't ever spend time listening to Dead & Co. shows at home, but I've had a lot of fun each time I've seen them.

I saw it in a slang-drenched wook meme that I can't bring myself to post but you should see it if you GIS for "primally puddled"

Ha, I don't spend a lot of time in wook meme world, so that may explain it. I wouldn't doubt it's a thing in some circles though.

I've been really high on Morning Dew from Europe 72 lately. I just went and listened to the Cornell 77 version and it's amazing how much less magical it sounds, almost like a cover band playing the same song.

Yeah, "Morning Dew" is one of the few songs that I don't think translated very well to their '77 style.

studio box of rain is a gorgeous, wistful meditation on life and loss that sounds like the universe itself telling you everything will be ok. live box of rain is an out of tune trainwreck w/ grandpa simpson on vocals.

ha that is a great description but not ALWAYS true! they tightened Box of Rain up considerably in 89/90 I think

this is some excellent dead conversation btw, keep it coming

agreed!