should i give the grateful dead a chance?

i'm surprised that more people don't criticize jerry's electric guitar sound/tone when they think of reasons why they don't like the dead. especially live. or maybe i missed the posts on here where people had a problem with it. its certainly perfect for acid trips, but sometimes even i'm not in the mood for it. especially live. not so much on the studio records. i'm usually fine with it on those. he sure liked that sound he got. i really like when he sounds different. or when he's playing other instruments! or acoustic. where are the high-pitched weedle-deedle haters?

(and speaking of quicksilver, i'm a bigger cipollina fan when it comes to west coast guitar godz)

Jerry's tone is a big part of why I have a hard time with post 72 Dead anymore.

yeah i guess it's more his singing that drives me nuts. he seems like he's trying to be all rock n' roll boogie and he sucks at it and they don't really hit hard enuff to be choogling to me (IMO at least)

keep in mind i've heard anthem of the sun like three times, this bootleg, and skeletons in the closet. so i could be all sorts of wrong.

listening to the bootleg, i'm pretty consistently blown away by Phil Lesh. i play bass and i'm frankly kind of in awe of him, really amazing player, he seems like the best technical musician in the band by a mile.

I love Jerry's tone for the most part (there are a lot of different tones over the years, actually, depending on the guitar he was using and the venue they played. Some are really slippery and thin, others are more distorted and gnarly.) Bigger problem for me was self-editing; sometimes I think he had played everything he needed to in a song and still went on for another 10 or 20 minutes. But that's part of the Dead ethos, and hard to criticize as such.

One of the better criticism of Garcia's tone I've seen (staff writer Paul Chaplin was an admitted Deadhead):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhcEXk_pJ9c

"they did sugaree into dark star into sugaree into dark star into sugaree"

"And then the MOON came out...and it was like Jerry willed it!"

Pretty much exactly my complaint above: too smooth, too much envelope filter.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!! Thanks for that, Ned!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDl3bdE3YQA

Jerry solo at ... 2:10?

Hah, yeah. I also hate that effect. Lots of bad "technology" aimed at guitarists, some of whom bit hard. Garcia and Fripp are two guys I really like at times but I cannot hang with midi or making your guitar sound like a flute.

Fripp has a bad habit lately of making his guitar sound like a marimba. But it's like the saying goes: why would a first rate guitarist want to sound like a third rate saxophonist?

Other One is amazing and yes can be quite aggressive, there is tons o dead stuff that does not fir the gentle, noodly jamming depiction

and have defended bobby on another dead thread years ago, live his voice and he has some of my favorite dead songs too - estimated prophet (which burning spear did a great version of on deadicated), looks like rain and the cowboy songs were great fun

@ Josh in Chicago, with you on teh Bruce Hornsby thing but having seen Branford with the Dead a cple times, the first show he ever played with 'em at Nassau Coliseum and again for New Years Eve show it was amzing both times, switching from adapting to dead styles on estimated and eyes to on lovelight going into old soul style sax

If television or the meat puppets are the punk dead, who is the metal dead? I vote kyuss

Witch

Clutch

Clutch is the ZZ Top of metal

Dream Theater

the correct answer is Enslaved, though they don't tour a whole lot, but their vibe is similarly cruise-control-awesome-at-what-we-do with bouts of wait-fuck-best-music-ever

def. check out Enslaved, but I was gonna say Down maybe...Kyuss is a good answer too.

Lol EZ listening to 'Binge and Purge' right now. Metal's 'La Grange'.

I'm not a huge black metal guy, but enslaved has some lengthy jams that are seriously righteous. That's a good call.

Shout out to Skull and Roses, though like Europe '72 I think there is some studio touch up. Which is cool.

skull and roses is the one where they got some other guy to play organ in the studio over pigpen's parts, right?

Not sure, but its pretty polished for a live alb. "Bertha" is a great fucking song. As is "Wharf Rat". Don't think those were on any studio record. I like how the Dead did that

Big Railroad Blues

listening to the dead tonight. sounds great. wake of the flood. blues for allah. aoxomoxoa. man, i dunno, if you don't like aoxomoxoa...you don't like great rock records or something.

and sorry if i badmouthed phil anywhere on here cuz he really does sound great on those albums. great sounding bass. i don't think i really did badmouth him. just said that i love the god-like jack casady. ain't nothing wrong with that. jack rules.

"Rosemary" off Aoxomoxoa is an underrated tune imo

pulled out the triple lp glastonbury thing and forgot there was a 24 minute dark star on there. listening now.

http://www.popsike.com/pix/20090808/130323564183.jpg

make that 26 minutes.

wait, no, that's a 4. my eyes aren't so good anymore.

is it any good?

on the cd version apparently it's followed immediately by a brinsley schwartz track, which has got to be some kind of step down

it seems like the entire dick's picks series is on spotify, by the way, which is not great news for my coworkers

the brinsley schwartz track is on side 2 of the first lp (the dead is side one) but its relatively short and the rest of side two is a great mighty baby jam.

o but that dark star is okay. definitely nothing you would want to play for someone who has a grudge against the dead.

its funny that right around when this thread got revived someone on my facebook posted about that national dead covers thing- which is just a gag or something? - and the guy who posted it is a 40-something indie rock lifer and he just gagged at the idea of the dead and so did all his 40-something indie friends. they just hated the whole idea of the dead.

Clutch is the ZZ Top of metal

This is a disgusting insult to both ZZ Top and metal.

clutch more zappa-esque or something. they're way better than primus anyway. if primus still exist. i kinda don't have a need for clutch as long as harvey milk are around. i did like pure rock fury by clutch though. after that i couldn't really hang.

but anyway for once i actually agree with crazy phil! one song from zz top pretty much beats most people's entire catalogs.

and clutch were never really metal.

that's the other part i agree with.

"the rest of side two is a great mighty baby jam."

Intriguing. The song "Egyptian Tomb" rules.

I like Clutch, theyre really good live. Robot Hive-Exodus and the one before that (Blast Tyrant?) I like a lot. Of course, they are not as good as ZZ Top, but few are.

that glastonbury thing is worth the money just for the pink fairies and the edgar broughton epic and the mighty baby. and the gong. and hawkwind of course. one of the better festival comps.

Side A
The Grateful Dead: "Dark Star....bury" – 24:12
Side B
Brinsley Schwarz: "Love Song" – 4:10
Mighty Baby: "A Blanket In My Muesli" – 16:00
Side C
Marc Bolan: "Sunken Rags" – 2:29
Pete Townshend: "Classified" – 3:53
David Bowie: '"Supermen" – 2:44
Hawkwind: "Silver Machine and Welcome to the Future medley" (recorded at The Roundhouse, London on 13 February 1972 ) – 7:27
Skin Alley: "Sun Music" – 4:50
Side D
Daevid Allen and Gong: "Glad Stoned Buried Fielding Flash And Fresh Fest Footprint In My Memory" – 23:10
Side E
Pink Fairies: "Do It" – 4:09
Pink Fairies: "Uncle Harry's Last Freak-Out" – 19:47
Side F
Edgar Broughton Band: "Out Demons Out" – 20:24

That looks pretty awesome. The song names are fucking outrageous.

That looks/sounds amazing.xpost

kyuss/down/witch are not as good as the dead. i still hang with the first clutch album "transnational speedway league" & there was a decent song or two on "the elephant riders" but I mean, I wouldn't call that a good album...

i kinda look at clutch like i look at a band like cake or something. i've got nothing against them and i even enjoy some of their stuff and i know they have devoted fans who love their stuff and they seem like decent dudes, but i just don't feel the need to listen to them. although, like i said, i played pure rock fury by clutch a bunch of times after it came out. i kept reading great reviews for it and i gave it a chance. but nothing after that really did it for me. i tried a couple after that. i think i said nice things about them on a clutch thread.

i mean, i think its kinda cool that there is a cake cult! who would have guessed?

like all the people on ilm who love spoon. the cult of spoon!

Clutch are good on my Ipod at the gym. Some of their songs are serious workout enhancers. 1000111011 or whatever the fuck its called came up on shuffle today and helped out big.