should i give the grateful dead a chance?

^^^^
I know, just avoiding work here.

like, I love the Band and the Burritos and even like the first NRPS record

if you love this and hate the dead then yeah yr posing because you enjoy hating the dead. it's cool I'm the same way w/the Beatles

some of their stuff is pretty good. but there is too much of it, which I think is my problem, so the signal to noise ratio is pretty bad.

the same could be said of the fall, I guess, but I like them more.

fuckin A on Harpur College even like you get to "Dancing in the Streets" and the Weir vocal is just painfully bad and you think, ok you know what, this set has run outta steam, game over, you guys can't make a silk purse out of the hammy shit you pulled in the first five minutes here and then the band gets loose and the solo connects with scorpio or whatever constellation it is it's pulling its energy from and it's like the pretty meh exercise that got you there was a formal necessity, like Homer talking about dawn with its ruby-red fingers and all that who-cares biz that suddenly lands you in the middle of the ocean with a Odysseus and his men and they're all living breathing creatures and you can feel the sun they're waking up in and smell the ocean air and it's just fuckin

just good is what

american beauty sort of is the best album of all time though, in the right mood.

I have a complicated history with the Dead/deadheads that makes it hard for me to enjoy their music at face value, but I was in a bar a couple of weeks ago and they had American Beauty as one of the discs in a CD changer and it was really working for me.

never been able to get past the shitty songwriting, shitty singing, and totally lackluster playing. sorry guys. kate OTM

weird how many songwriters would call you crazy for 1/3 of that opinion

"I don't dig the dead but I like the way Jerry Garcia sings"

Haha, I've sorta said something like this on a thread or two. After years of Dead-dislike, I discovered I really like The Jerry Garcia Band, in large part because I find the singing better than most Grateful Dead stuff (and the gospel singers are a better backup than the less-vocally-gifted Bob Weir.)

Love the Dead; American Beauty is top 10 of all time for me, love Workingman & Europe 72, just recently got into Live Dead which is awesome, I even like Aoxomoxoa which is not the trippy wtf mess per reputation (exception = What's Become of the Baby), but mostly just a space-y Workingman prototype with classic rock singles (St. Stephen, Cosmic Charlie, China Cat Sunflower)...

but I'm with VegemiteGrrr; I'm a little hesitant to start getting into the live shows & boots. There's so many! I'll probably check some of that stuff out, along w/ some later albums, but the stuff I've heard is great...!

What Dead stuff do you like Bill Magill?

apology accepted re the tard comment (if you were apologizing to me-- if you were wishing you'd said "fuckhead" instead then I take it back)

10 seconds of Can, from any record, pisses over any -indeed all - of the Dead's supposed adventures.

Well sure. OTM. Can't argue with that.

I love the Band and the Burritos and even like the first NRPS record, a lot, so W/man's Dead and American Beauty ought to be nailed on for me right? wrong - it may be country rock, but it's not very good country rock and the singing and playing is terrible

This is such silly nonsense. NRPS? Give me a break. The Band only has a few songs that are as good as anything on WD, or AB. "if you love this and hate the dead then yeah yr posing because you enjoy hating the dead" is totally OTM. You're posing or you have cloth ears.

xp: ohhhhhh fuck, I didn't even know you posted here. shit. apologies both to you and to anyone who might have been offended by the language.

never been able to get past the shitty songwriting, shitty singing, and totally lackluster playing. sorry guys. kate OTM

I'm not a huge Dead fan, and I hate to come across as some kind of tedious, nerdy, muso prick, but I can't help but read that as "Hi, I know absolutely nothing about music!"

LOL re: Casey Jones / yt

I'm 42 my wife is 26 every time she hears this song she spreads her sweet pussy its timeless music
kocnn 2 months ago 8

the only reason that the Grateful Dead gets any hate on ILM is because it gets much love on ILM and it's a popular hippie band

but you don't see me going in metal threads just to say "I don't like metal music"

The Band only has a few songs that are as good as anything on WD, or AB

Boo to this. I've always felt the Band captured exceptionally well what I felt the Dead was frequently aiming for.

I've tried so many points of access for the Dead. The early studio albums. The early live albums. The early bootlegs. The middle period bootlegs. The later bootlegs. Sometimes I've liked what I've heard, most times I can't make it through, and like some of the above posters I often wonder what's getting lost in translation. Just not clicking. Always baffled me that a band that stuck around for long, with such renown, with such distinctive players, couldn't even accidentally make a good record on a regular basis. I blame the drugs.

Part of the problem, or the problem with my perception, is that I just don't hear any edge to it, something to grab hold of beyond its general ... optimism, I guess? I like my improv and jamming dark, discordant and mysterious. At the opposite end, I do enjoy "American Beauty."

Part of the problem, or the problem with my perception, is that I just don't hear any edge to it, something to grab hold of beyond its general ... optimism, I guess? I like my improv and jamming dark, discordant and mysterious.

I consider this a valid & useful criticism - the jamming aims most often for a sort of middle ecstasy, a groove that's about wonder in my opinion - it is seldom about darknesses. Aoxomoxoa on the other hand I consider a pretty dark thing, and AB is loaded with darkness. But "edge" is not what this band is into.

I'm with Josh. I have tried American Beauty & Workingman's Dead and just didn't like 'em at all. I have Live/Dead, Europe '72, and the full 10CD version of the Fillmore East 1969 box in my iPod, though, and I like those. I don't like the vocals at all, especially on Europe '72, but when they become an instrumental act on the Fillmore discs they have their moments.

Josh in Chicago, you probably like VU and I think that band sucks balls. I actually own Loaded and like a couple tracks on that one though.

I mean it's just a bunch of "different strokes for different folks". For instance, I think chamber pop can have lots of awesome music but most folks are all about some crappy upbeat punk rock etc.

I think a deadhead hurt Kate somehow when she was young.

I like Garcia, can't abide Weir singing or his songs. Also: two drummers, no backbeat, no driving bass either - Lesh talks a lot about theory and counter melody, but to me his playing sounds clumsy, with a lot of bum notes.

man, i love the dead, but if there was ever a band that was born to make you wince, it was them. soooooooooooo much goodness and so much...erghhhhhhhhhhhh too. but that's their thing. the whole "they're not the best at what they do..." those live moments when they seem utterly incapable of getting a groove going. the ultimate bummer. but there is so much beauty too. and robert hunter and jerry garcia were responsible for the bulk of it. can't help but think what if...jerry had hooked up with some of the umpteen zillion other amazing musicians in california back then instead of the dudes he ended up with. but then they wouldn't be who they were. for better and worse.

(like...what if the dead had been jorma and jerry and the god-like jack casady and, i dunno, the drummer from mad river and dallas taylor or who knows...so many possiblities...)

xpost It's not a competition, dude (in terms if influence and impact, I don't think I'd rate the VU, for example, over the Dead). I love music. All sorts of music. Like the forum says. Which is why I find it odd that a particular music many, many people love, with many qualities that I generally love, has never clicked with me. That's why I've given it so many chances. I can listen for hours to indulgent Fairport Convention spinoffs. I can listen for hours to certain acts in the Kompakt stable. I can listen for hours to krautrock wankery. I've just always wondered, personally, what it is about the Dead, of all bands, that's failed to connect with me.

Again, must be the drugs!

One of the larger barriers to enjoying the Dead are bad memories of sketchy Deadheads. Or losing a friend to that world. I had a couple buddies who fell into heavy touring and never really came back, like they'd become moonies or something.

xp: ohhhhhh fuck, I didn't even know you posted here. shit. apologies both to you and to anyone who might have been offended by the language.

― cia never wore tie-dyes (kkvgz),

xpp
are you blaming the drugs that you yourself are on?

my one wish is for garcia/hunter songs to someday be as widely covered as dylan songs. or cole porter songs! cuz you can play them in a myriad of styles and there are so many good/great/beautiful tunes there. i know there are probably a zillion dead cover albums, but i'd kill for one or two great ones. country people. bluegrass people. jazz singers. i'm leery of alt-rock cover projects...but jeez i just have so much respect for the work they did. even if you don't like the band itself, the songs really do speak for themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj6EMLgJjts

If I remember right, you dislike Nina Simone, but might have been interesting if she covered the Dead, she did so well with L. Cohen, Dylan, George Harrison.

i swear i am turning the corner on nina. i'm older!

i just think those songs have been ill-served. they should be known by lots more people! they should be standards! and not just jam band standards. or shaggy bar band standards. i mean, that's fine too. it is truly "folk" music. but they work in so many ways.

Yeah, I hear you. Which Dead song is closest to being a standard, do you think? Seems like "Friend of the Devil".

yeah, and sometimes you get that perfect marriage. tom dylan petty doing friend of the dylan for instance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT_HwzlroeM

(petty live box thing one of the best live things i've heard in a zillion years. he should just do an album of dead covers. that would kick ass.)

ripple has been covered a lot too. bluegrass/alt-country/etc covers of it have been pretty popular for years.

then of course there is this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGwMmwppLh4

Lyle Lovett's "Friend of the Devil" on that Deadicated disc in the early 90s was amazing. Actually, lots of good stuf on that comp.

scott otm in locating much of the Dead's awesomeness with Robert Hunter; he was a great lyricist...

Speaking still as someone not really compelled much at all by the band -- or, as I know I've beaten into the ground enough times, not primarily concerned by lyrics in general -- but nonetheless: Hunter's an interesting character from what I can tell -- if anything it seems that whatever edge Josh mentions he wants out of the band might best be found in his words. Probably a stretch, I don't know, but something about the jaundiced view of a number of his lyrics (or most of them?) might place him more in alliance with Steely Dan or Zevon, perhaps. Strip everything else aside and something like this is pretty frickin' bleak:

Sitting and staring out of the hotel window
Got a tip they're gonna kick the door in again
Like to get some sleep before I travel
But if you got a warrant I guess you're gonna come in

So as Scott notes, the idea that the songs themselves have been ill-served rings true for me.

also: lol Sublime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cg2O4SsHQw

(I actually like ^this a lot)

Ned OTM for bringing Truckin in; that & Ripple are probably Dead's songs closest to achieveing 'popular standard' status...

(then i have those moments where i think - damn why couldn't the new riders have been jerry's band!?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJdq0OcRK3o

if you don't like the dead at least give the new riders a chance! so great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAuh6HjiiaM

"Ripple" as a lyric almost makes me think of "Rubber Ring" by the Smiths -- same sense of an uneasy relationship between obsessive fanbase and suspicious creator already looking on down the line, though a bit more generous in Hunter's case, if not by too much more. (Mott the Hoople's "I Wish I Was Your Mother" might also slot in here...or maybe I'm thinking of "The Moon Upstairs.")

there's gotta be a good goth cover of "it must have been the roses", no, ned?

Annie laid her head down in the roses
She had ribbons, ribbons, ribbons in her long brown hair
I don't know, maybe it was the roses
All I know, I could not leave her there

I don't know, it must have been the roses
The roses or the ribbons in her long brown hair
I don't know, maybe it was the roses
All I know, I could not leave her there

Ten years the waves rolled the ships home from the sea
Thinking well how it may blow in all good company
If I tell another what your own lips told to me
Let me lay 'neath the roses and my eyes no longer see

One pane of glass in the window
No one is complaining, though, come in and shut the door
Faded is the crimson from the ribbons that she wore
And it's strange how no one comes round any more

Will a hippie/demi-goth type on ukelele with a cat do?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTS9PvKMWIg

cat definitely trying to get to the knives on the counter...

Boo to this. I've always felt the Band captured exceptionally well what I felt the Dead was frequently aiming for.

To me The Band seem to indulge so much more in the shapeless countrified jamming that the Dead are accused of (talking albums here, I don't give a shit about live stuff). They didn't really have the songs to back it up. And their attempts at old-timey folkiness in the lyrics "I work for the union 'cause she's so good to me" etc. come across as way more forced than the Dead. But as far as great poppy songs, I would give them The Weight, Cripple Creek, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down... what else? vs. well, to me, nearly every song on AB & WD is better and more catchy than any of those Band songs, so I can't really make a list. I mean, at the very most conservative list, you have to give them Cream Puff War, Friend of the Devil, Truckin, St. Stephen, Casey Jones, but if you like sort of country rock Americana, I don't know how you couldn't get behind Dupree's Diamond Blues, Doin' That Rag, Dire Wolf, shit I dunno, again, basically every song on Workingman's Dead and American Beauty.

^^OTM I just picked up American Beauty used and I've one of those "Canonical album blowing you away experiences". And I've been thinking back to The Band, who've been a frequently cited influence on this era of the Dead. I'm really starting to believe that both the Dead and Little Feat did an amzing job picking up the reigns as it were. They were doing The Band's schtick way better than The Band did from there on out, and arguably bettering their peak.

That said, I'm also wondering about Doug Sahm (and the Sir Douglas Quintet)'s influence on this era of the Dead. They were tight at the time and Dan Healy engineered much of the SDQ stuff of the era. It's a bit lighter fare, but that "back to roots" approach fels the same. It's just that Doug never gets cited.