should i give the grateful dead a chance?

lol, poor weir.
yeah, there's good stuff that i've heard from the rehearsals and other live tapes. but that album is terrible.

Indeed it is. And I love pretty much all Dylan - even his bad albums - but Dylan & the Dead is the worst of the lot by a mile.

xp love those moments in Stella Blues or China Dolls where it gets so slow and precious that time stands still and hanging out in the abyss, even if only for a few seconds, feels so good

Tyler, did you ever check out that Nashville Dead show on archive? I'm listening to bits of it again today; it's not start-to-finish great, but Jerry's guitar tone is ripping, and Bobby's playing way more slide than I'm accustomed to.

yeah i think i listened to most of that one, definitely a great jerry show.

Dylan started using heroin again with Garcia, for the first time since the '60s,

?!? where does this come from. never heard of Dylan using heroin ever. Speed, yes, but smack...?

yeah, i think there are just rumors about the 1966 period. nothing very concrete, though.

^^It should also be noted that Dylan's herion use was one of AJ Weberman's big talking points.

which basically means it's not true, right?

Probably, but I imagine Dylan at least tried it once at the time "to see what all the fuss was about".

Weberman's a kook, deeply mentally ill, though I used to buy weed from him. Until his giant delivery service got busted and he went to jail.

He also believes that Dylan has AIDS.

What do you suppose Dylan is on here?:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94yx1VtVHGg

Alcohol, pills, weed, smack? He's definitely more than drunk.

yeah, i'd believe heroin there.

Somepeople in Dylan's most inner circle were junkies: Howard Alk (who lived on his property for years and edited 'Eat the Document' with him); Victor Maymudes, who was his main roadie / bodyguard throughout the '60s. Not to mention some of the alums of his never ending tour backing band, in particular Bucky Baxter. Tony Garnier, who is still in the band, was on it for a long time as well, though he is clean these days.

Oops drifted away from the Dead again, sorry.

Man, that is a great "Senor". JGB better than the Dead for me from 80s on, just got sick of all things Weir for the most part.

Just posted on the "Most Beautiful Songs" thread about the mightiness of "Stella Blue" and even threw out that it was a great converter for those who don't think they can stand the Dead. Just a flat-out gorgeous song.

Drugs, the Dead-same thing.

(x-post)

Agree on JGB, I like them better than the Dead - no Lesh, no Weir = better (for me, personally speaking).

i've been really digging the saunders/garcia live stuff from the 70s too.

And also, Jerry in control of all things=consistently good songs for the most part. Dead sets just included too many duds for at a certain point, but really I am a big 60s early-70s fan, slightly less so with each year of the Dead's existence barring a song here or there. JGB touched on some other things I could really dig and left the spotlight firmly on Jerry. Also I have a very low Mickey Hart tolerance, liked the single-drummer Dead in some ways a lot more as well.

I do like the JGB stuff, but I have a low tolerance for the gospel-style back-up singing. I can deal with it for a song or two, but in this context it doesn't always work for me.

Yeah, I get that. Always a trade-off it seems.

Ah this thread is reminding me of a guy I knew in architectural school that listened exclusively to the Dead and Garcia-related stuff. I mean, 100%, thats it. 85% of his stuff was live tapes, but when he felt he needed "a break" from the Dead, he switched over to like Garcia/Grisman stuff for a few weeks. Nicest dude ever, but I would find that stifling. For the most part, the Dead and/or Phish fans I knew back in school had really wide-ranging tastes.

Hah, the Dead and Phish fans I knew in school had generally limited tastes! There was a small world of "good" music which consisted of select Herbie Hancock and jazz (mostly fusion) records, a smattering of reggae, the Alman Brothers, Zappa, and a few random other things. Mostly stuff that facilitated imbiging something or had lengthy, virtuosic solos.

Yeah, I like them but i think listening to them (or anyone else, really) "exclusively" would be rough.

i really dig this album too! forgot about this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GswPO2eX_VI

I think I want to just live in Scott's store for a week and listen to whatever he does.

Very true about Dead / Phisheads and their limited musical range.

But the same could be said about a lot of kids I knew who were into punk. Punk and punk only, everything else crap.

One of my major eureka momenst as a teenager was realizing that it's possible to like the Dead AND punk. Wow! Negative capability! Sounds dumb but a big lightbulb went off in my head.

In the '80s and especially the '90s, there was nothing less cool than liking the Dead. By the '90s it was for frat boys, even. Interesting to see things come around again.

Uh, lightbulb went "on", I mean.

now playing:

http://www.vinylnet.co.uk/gallery/robert%20hunter%20-%20liberty.JPG

Which Hunter album has him doing Terrapin Station with a whole other section (Ivory wheels on a rosewood track or something) that the dead didn't use?

One thing about Garcia is that he played slow better than anyone, like his cover of Dylan's "Senor," "Stella Blue," "Row Jimmy," "Must Have Been the Roses." And the aforementioned "Standing on the Moon," one of their last, great songs. Lovely lyric too ("I hear the cries of children") aside.

― thirdalternative, Thursday, April 21, 2011 2:02 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

china doll and ship of fools too. mars hotel is pretty great.

The version of "Loser" from the Cornell '77 show is almost unbelievably slow. It's great too.

One of my major eureka momenst as a teenager was realizing that it's possible to like the Dead AND punk
ha, yeah, it was nice when my weird musical prejudices just started to fall away. after being a pretty serious classic rock kid, ages 11-14, i spent the remainder of high school rejecting a lot that stuff. until i realized i realllly wanted to listen to pink floyd. and the dead.

Funny coincidence apropos of all the love for Europe '72:

"Grateful Dead's 'Europe '72' Gets a Massive Re-do":

http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2011-04-20-deadeurope20_st_N.htm#

One of my major eureka momenst as a teenager was realizing that it's possible to like the Dead AND punk. Wow! Negative capability! Sounds dumb but a big lightbulb went off in my head.

funny cuz arguably the most important american punk, greg ginn was a huge deadhead

http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lfympbUtWM1qzezj5o1_500.jpg

xp 72 CDs!?!?

When wrapped up this summer, Europe '72: The Complete Recordings will span 72 CDs on Rhino Records. Fans literally can't wait: Although the music won't be available until fall, all 7,200 copies of the $450 box set are sold out. Individual shows will be available through the band's site, dead.net.

!!

lee ranaldo was a deadhead too
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/2841262/Lee+Ranaldo.jpg

if you can believe it

Steve-O from Jackass is a Deadhead, lol

Yeah, they pretty much sold out instantly. Works out to $6.25 a disc which, compared to how much some of their live stuff goes, isn't so bad. Of course, now they'll probably charge like $30 for each individual show.

sonic youth are kind of the grateful dead of punk

sonic youth were acid rock!

once upon a time...

Didn't the British press used to compare Television to the Grateful Dead?

i loved listening to sonic youth and live skull on acid. and the jefferson airplane.

funny cuz arguably the most important american punk, greg ginn was a huge deadhead

Indeed but we did not know these things in the Midwest in 1984. No internets. Just Maximum Rock 'n' Roll and a couple others. There was a lot more mystique involved. We were excited when 7 Seconds came to town. Not to mention Sloppy Seconds.

and meat puppets! loved them when i was tripping too. total deadheads.

Indeed but we did not know these things in the Midwest in 1984. No internets. Just Maximum Rock 'n' Roll and a couple others. There was a lot more mystique involved. We were excited when 7 Seconds came to town. Not to mention Sloppy Seconds.

― thirdalternative, Thursday, April 21, 2011 4:55 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

oh yeah i'm sure, even me way later never would have guessed that, just always thought it was a cool weird thing about ginn...his new shit is total hippie rock, guitarist i play with got to jam with him at a local show, he said he'd never seen a human being smoke more weed than ginn, which is likely saying something

Tripping and seeing the Grateful Dead Movie at midnight. Also Pink Floyd The Wall. Saw that again recently and wondered why the hell anyone thought it was a good idea to watch a movie full of images of war, drowning in pools of blood, rape, eyebrow shaving, nipple cutting, Nazi shit, etc. etc. whilst on acid, was anyone's idea of a good time.

Didn't the British press used to compare Television to the Grateful Dead
greil marcus has said this a bunch of times and he's totally wrong.