should i give the grateful dead a chance?

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

Don't know where to start with this......

There is nothing the Dead ever did that matches four bars of Levon Helm's drumming, never mind the songs, or the singing, or the rest of the playing.

Someone said up there that the like of me hadn't heard enough Dead and were posing - I reckon it's the opposite prob with deadheads: they haven't heard enough other music - or listened properly - and imagine the tepid 'ideas' of the Dead amount to some kind of something. Like Ayn Rand fans who think she's a philosopher, because they've never read any proper philosophy.

There is nothing the Dead ever did that matches four bars of Levon Helm's drumming

Yeah, he's a killer drummer and has a great voice too.

But I was focusing on the songs because the main criticism of the Dead is that their music was nothing but a bunch of stoned aimless noodling. And there's certainly a lot of that stuff. Personally I don't care for it and don't listen to it. As I said upthread 5 years ago, I think the conventional wisdom about the band is backwards. The live stuff is pretty tedious but they had a good run of 4 or 5 classic albums with some really great songs. I just don't get how people can ignore that. Sure some live bootleg from 1978 is going to be boring as hell. Yeah, they're a bunch of smelly beardo hippies with annoying fans. But if you like any similar music at all (west coast psych, country rock) and can't recognize that the Dead recorded some great stuff that easily stands up to their contemporaries, then I think you're blinded by a prejudice against their fans, or you simply haven't heard the good stuff. As I'm sure I've said elsewhere here before, I ignored the Dead for ages and bought tons of lame third rate psych and garage reissues before realizing that super obvious stuff like the Dead was actually great.

I reckon it's the opposite prob with deadheads: they haven't heard enough other music - or listened properly - and imagine the tepid 'ideas' of the Dead amount to some kind of something.

Also, I think that's probably true in the general population, with any random deadhead you might meet. But I think the opposite is probably true among ILMers. The default stance is to dislike and avoid the Dead, so it actually might be the people who have already gone through everything else who eventually make their way to the Dead. That seems to be borne out by some of the accounts in this thread of people who gradually got around to liking them.

Anthem of the Sun and Aoxomoxoa aren't my favorite psych albums but they're probably in my top 50 or maybe top 100. And I like that kind of music enough to have an appetite for the stuff that's way down the list. Workingman's Dead and American Beauty on the other hand are probably in my top 10 for country rock. Or at least one of the two. But I'll admit that's an area where I haven't dug too deep.

Europe 72 def sounds like the Band but better. Album that American Beauty most reminds me of is After the Gold Rush, esp its second side...

The Band, like the Dead, dropped off fast after a couple albums, as a studio entity at least. Live, it kept kicking for a while. I guess I just like the musical personality of the Band and its players better than the Dead, Garcia aside, whom I've always liked as a guitarist.

ppl seem ready to rep for everything up to and including 'terrapin station', i think. on the other hand, i'm not really convinced it's true of the band, either ...

i think i like the idea of levon helm or of garth hudson more than i do pigpen or phil lesh. but i like the three-percussionists-paying-various-levels-of-attention-plus-bassist-refuses-play-a-bassline thing that's the backbone of '68-'71 dead a lot; the band's live setup being, let's say, less well documented, i'm not sure i can say anything about them as an ensemble outside of the (fairly worked-over) studio settings

otoh i think i like the idea of garcia a lot more than that of robbie robertson, but robertson's concise statements on 'king harvest' or whatever are kind of jaw-dropping for me in a way that garcia doesn't do. or have a focus that garcia playing around 'dark star' or 'morning dew' for 15 minutes doesn't. but, i mean, that's kind of an obvious thing to say.

the dead are one of those acts that when you listen to them you can easily listen to them for a week and snap into the mindset of people who listen to nothing but, i think. like the fall.

http://youtu.be/gvv970ocLaM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvv970ocLaM

What Dead stuff do you like Bill Magill?

― music loves drugs (Drugs A. Money), Tuesday, April 19, 2011 8:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Sorry Drugs, i cut out of this discussion. I love a lot of the '69/'70 stuff, Live Dead, Harpur, though Ive never been a big Pigpen guy (except Lovelight). My other favorite years are '72 (like many others, Europe'72 was an initial favorite), '74 (esp. the Boston show) and '77 (it's to the point of cliche, but the Cornell thing is fucking awesome, it's recorded so well too). After that, i kind of lose the plot.

There is nothing the Dead ever did that matches four bars of Levon Helm's drumming

hey can people participating in interesting music discussions stop saying stupid shit like "Bach's nose hairs wrote better music than Mick Jagger's entire family"? trope has been played out for at least 30 years.

The Band, like the Dead, dropped off fast after a couple albums, as a studio entity at least.
probably would've agreed with you until recently, but I've been digging into some of the post-classic eras of both of these bands, and there is plenty of good stuff. that might be low expectations talking, to some extent.

Someone said up there that the like of me hadn't heard enough Dead and were posing - I reckon it's the opposite prob with deadheads: they haven't heard enough other music - or listened properly - and imagine the tepid 'ideas' of the Dead amount to some kind of something. Like Ayn Rand fans who think she's a philosopher, because they've never read any proper philosophy.

lol I see the rest of your post is riddled with I-don't-actually-have-an-argument-so-I-condescend garbage, never mind - when you want to actually talk about music with people who've doubtless heard & understood as much of it as you have, come back to this thread, til then I think everybody gets it - you don't dig the Grateful Dead and you think people who have don't have your penetrating insight into music - cool, gotcha - now fuck off

hey can people participating in interesting music discussions stop saying stupid shit like "Bach's nose hairs wrote better music than Mick Jagger's entire family"? trope has been played out for at least 30 years.

If there was an interesting music discussion on ILM we could find out. #jokes bruv

lol

But your point is otm, this "your team sucks, my team will make the playoffs" shit is useless.

the Dead suck
ILM sucks
you suck

^^^ multiple choice

they haven't heard enough other music - or listened properly - and imagine the tepid 'ideas' of the Dead amount to some kind of something.

this does describe my relationship with Phish between 1993 and 1999 though. not to disparage phish as much as to disparage the lack of breadth in my listening habits at the time.

i've said it before, but a really good overview of everything good about the dead can be found on the what a long strange trip its been double lp. it definitely worked for me when i was 16. i had never listened to them and i bought that and dead set and was immediately a fan of the songs on there.

That's what sold me too at around the same age! Was years before I went further into the catalog, but it did get me to a show.

okay i checked this thread and i've basically repeated my same party line over and over again over a period of years. i really am a deadhead.

beardo beach house neu-age people should check out this album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uenrMQnEIU8

and this one too:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7St4jD20p0o/RifaY_SKRfI/AAAAAAAADZo/lYN_Ri2wkxo/s400/seastones.jpg

"a really good overview of everything good about the dead can be found on the what a long strange trip its been double lp"

it worked in the same way for me: and albums like Blues for Allah are pretty much untouchable.

seastones cd comes with an alternate take of the piece that is great too.

seastones is rad

love those 74 shows where phil and ned performed Seastones between the first and second sets

I returned to Blues for Allah recently for the first time in a long while and I'd rank it with their best five or so studio albums; it's also when they were most like a jazz fusion band. There's something slightly cold and electronic about the production on it that works well with the tricky playing.

i only really like the garcia hunter songs on blues for allah but they are some of my favorites. i was thinking it would be a good example of an edge or darkness that people said was missing from the dead.

x-post
Seastones is very good indeed; I should check Yamantaka, I like Henry Wolff.

this is cheating but this is my kinda noodling. hey, maybe can weren't, but amon duul were huge dead fans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dNxpsW0DMM

what if the dead had been jorma and jerry and the god-like jack casady

If I Could Only Remember My Name, plus the associated demos, rehearsals, and outtakes.

This thread got me imagining what it would have sounded like if The Band and The Dead had swapped songbooks circa 1970.

Pigpen destroying (in a good way) "Up on Cripple Creek," Jerry on "When You Awake"...I think Weir could do a credible "Stage Fright".

"Mountains of the Moon" as a duo of Manuel and Hudson...maybe a little mandolin played by Levon. Keep Robertson and Danko away from that one. All of Workingman's Dead would be pretty neat played by the Band, but I have a hard time imagining their approach to "Dark Star."

darkness that people said was missing from the dead.

Ahhhhhhh-ha-hah-ha-hah-ha-ha-ha-ha. This band is at least 80% darkness.

i don't really get that complaint either, unless those people just have 14 versions of dancing in the street or something.

i. can someone explain 'seastones' to me
ii. can anyone recommend a live thing post gaining godchaux where you can really HEAR godchaux? he seems to make so little difference to what they're doing in the jams, whereas on the records he's a massive component of the sound
iii. i have been listening to nothing but the grateful dead for the last week

"goin home, goin home, by the riverside i will rest my bones, listen to river sing sweet songs to rock my soul"

The Dead's fatalism was so large and all-enveloping that oftentimes people couldn't see it...

black peter hit me so hard when i was 16. but i was a huge joy division fan, so it makes sense.

i think im over hating for the dead. i remember watching a classic albums episode for workingmans dead and it was like bad country rock but ive heard a few things that i like such as dark star and china cat sunflower. theyre not the acid rock freakout i was expecting but i like those songs enough to investigate. i like the allman brothers "eat a peach" so these guys were a big influence on that sound, right? now wheres my pachouli oil....

There is nothing the Dead ever did that matches four bars of Levon Helm's drumming

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZaU3VtMfoM

one of my fave lyrics of all time:

I ran into Charlie Phogg
Blacked my eye and he kicked my dog
My doggie turned to me and he said
Let's head back to Tennessee Jed

Yah dude, the country rock greats were not all hating on each other in opposing internet music boards or nothing.

Ugh Band vs Dead is such a reductive, boring way to talk about either band. It's so Beatles v Stones.
Liking one doesnt magically negate the talent of the other. May Levon shove hotdrumsticks in yr ears

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_dkavLVcN0

fuckin' danko : )

you forget the great dickey betts/phil lesh flame war of 88. xp

hmmm now if dickey had died instead of duane and jerry said fuggit come on hunter let's head south and join those peach-eatin' good ol' boys... (i'm always dreaming, sorry.)

lol I see the rest of your post is riddled with I-don't-actually-have-an-argument-so-I-condescend garbage, never mind - when you want to actually talk about music with people who've doubtless heard & understood as much of it as you have, come back to this thread, til then I think everybody gets it - you don't dig the Grateful Dead and you think people who have don't have your penetrating insight into music - cool, gotcha - now fuck off

Dear me.

would rather talk about Band vs. CCR but this is a Dead thread so I adjust

ccr!

i don't have any time for the band. maybe when i'm 80.