should i give the grateful dead a chance?

Grateful Dead fans rejoiced at yesterday's news that the National have finally set a May 20th release date for their long-anticipated Dead tribute album, Day of the Dead. Featuring 59 covers from artists ranging from Anohni to Courtney Barnett to Wilco, there’s never been a Dead covers project of this extent before.

http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/1062-10-excellent-grateful-dead-covers-not-by-jam-bands/

I'm just going to not read any more about The (fucking) National's all-star Dead tribute and just listen to the fucking Grateful Dead.

otm

yeah, you'd have to keep people like ryan adams out of it

the ryan adams one is really good. I soft-pedal this because I know people just have a personal dislike of the guy but his last few records have been pretty stunning and his singing has matured into a pretty spectacular thing imo

Gold is a very enjoyable album too

http://pitchfork.com/news/64364-the-national-courtney-barnett-the-war-on-drugs-more-cover-the-grateful-dead-listen/

i've only gotten through the first two (national and bruce hornsby) but they're both great and imo they get it

I'm just going to not read any more about The (fucking) National's all-star Dead tribute and just listen to the fucking Grateful Dead.

― bearded flack trickster god (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Saturday, March 19, 2016 4:02 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I will happily do neither!

good stuff.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/magazine/bill-waltons-long-strange-tale-of-nba-survival.html?hpw&rref=magazine&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

i didn't even realize at first that my friend matt made that pitchfork list. until he posted it on facebook. i didn't get that far...

the world needed another fancy boxed set.
i bet ira kaplan does a good Wharf Rat, and Oneida & friends doing Drums/Space is cool, but I can't say i'm interested in any of the rest, really.
that list was nice because i got to hear krefting's "to lay me down" which is a killer tune.

I really like the War on Drugs version of "touch of grey"

it works and it's fine, like p much everything they put out

highest recommendation for this new book
http://images.perseusbooks.com/image/pbg/week/classic/260x/72/liquid/center/color/ffffff/99/9780306822551.jpg
http://dacapopress.com/book/hardcover/heads/9780306822551
goes much deeper than just the Dead (but it also has plenty about the Dead)

rad

This thread being in SNA a lot has gotten me to revisit Blues for Allah, which I think is my new favorite Dead studio record.

I was telling a friend about how I hated Franklin's Tower in college because it always seemed like some interminable and sloppy live version of it or Fire on the Mountain or Franklin's Tower into Fire on the Mountain was playing through a haze of pot smoke at the end of every single house party that took place in the three years I lived with ag school hippies. Yet now I actually enjoy it partly because of my nostalgia for those smoky wee hours, even my nostalgia for disliking the song.

also studio version is tite

It's Scarlet Begonias>Fire on the Mountain

and Help on the Way>Slipknot>Franklin's Tower

xxp haha totally, kind of the way i feel about bad fan recordings of phish shows bc of how often i heard them w/ a few kids i hung out w/ in college

interminable & sloppy dead shows are better than phish always though

The answer to the thread question is of course yes.

The dead notes series (12 parts up to now with live jams in excellent quality) over at the aquarium drunkard is highly recommended.

It's Scarlet Begonias>Fire on the Mountain

and Help on the Way>Slipknot>Franklin's Tower

― Chicamaw (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, March 30, 2016 10:37 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh, that totally makes sense now. Franklin's Tower and Fire just sound kind of superficially similar to me. And I definitely remember Scarlet Begonias being one of those end of party songs -- that little instrumental line that plays in between every line of the verse makes me instantly picture a certain girl's goofy dancing face and swinging floppy arms.

i love that hippie dance, my wife does it very well

it's funny, i must've gone to college during the lowest ebb of grateful dead college fandom (late 90s/early 00s). no one was into the Dead! not even the on campus communal living situation.

The one where they kind of look like a zombie trying to keep balance on a wobble board? xp

it's funny, i must've gone to college during the lowest ebb of grateful dead college fandom (late 90s/early 00s). no one was into the Dead! not even the on campus communal living situation.

― tylerw, Wednesday, March 30, 2016 10:55 AM (22 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No that's when I went to college too, and fandom was alive and well. Maybe it was an NJ thing, there seemed to be a much bigger hippie/jam band culture in NJ than where I grew up.

The one where they kind of look like a zombie trying to keep balance on a wobble board? xp

― human life won't become a cat (man alive), Wednesday, March 30, 2016 11:56 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha yup

I never had the college Deadhead experience at all, so belatedly those two medleys (Help>Slip>Frank and Scarlet>Fire) are pretty much my favorite Dead music these days. I was looking for a show that contained both of those plus another favorite, Estimated Prophet, and it turns out they only put all of those in a show twice.

highest recommendation for this new book

http://dacapopress.com/book/hardcover/heads/9780306822551
goes much deeper than just the Dead (but it also has plenty about the Dead)

― tylerw, Wednesday, March 30, 2016 3:28 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I just read a review of that Heads book yesterday in the latest Mojo and wondered how good it was. Might just need to grab a copy.

Also had a review of the new David Hepworth book 1971 though not sure if that has any Dead content and it wasa bad year for them or at least not so good one for the most part. Pigpen getting seriously ill. Mickey Hart retiring on finding out his dad had ripped the band off. Meant the band were less exploratory for the most part and songs that reached 1/2 and hour and upwards in the years either side of that shortened a lot. But otherwise it was a decent year for music I think.

yeah, i really loved Heads (and it's the kinda book that'll be great to just pick up and flip to any random page too)
here's my little write-up http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2016/03/30/heads-a-biography-of-psychedelic-america/

here is a book that mojo told me was good but it sux

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Jthvc8ooL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

yeah... that oral history that came out last year is good though.

conversations w/ the dead is pretty good too

(another gans related book)

Frustrated by Courtney Barnett's semi-performance of "New Speedway Boogie" on Fallon: started okay, added keyboardist and her regulars looked ready to go, but she fumbled the words, finally started to solo, also promising---but then oops out of time. Damn! She's on that charity comp, Day of the Dead, right? Maybe the one yall are muttering about upthread?

It was no 5/14/70, that's for sure... :D Not bad though. Just that it's a pretty straight reading. I like it better than some of her original material. Haven't heard the comp yet.

alright i'm admittedly in a fledgling dead listening stage but what are some good dark stars? my favorites are the one from live/dead and 2/28/1969... the latter one is real good

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

sorry, couldn't help myself. blame it on the stills revive.

so many of the 68-69 dark stars are amazing, my favorite period of the dead

Barnett said she wasn't even familiar with the song before she was approached to add a track to the compilation. Not really sure what she's doing on there anyway. They could have at least approached artists with some knowledge and appreciation, no?

headyversion.com has massive lists of great versions of Dead songs...as has been pointed out on the Dick's Picks thread here

I've got nothing against Barnett, she's fine, but her reading seems uninspired and rote

They could have at least approached artists with some knowledge and appreciation, no?

― calstars, Thursday, June 2, 2016 8:34 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^ My problem with about 90% of that shitty comp

Because when I think "spacey psychedelic mind-melting improvisational jams," I think "Courtney Barnett."

My favorite "Dark Star" is the version from Sunshine Daydream (Veneta Oregon, '72). If that don't convert you, nothing will.

Somehow hearing The UMO version of Shakedown Street now has changed my reading of the song and makes me think the Dead covered an UMO song 40 years ago

Because when I think "spacey psychedelic mind-melting improvisational jams," I think "Courtney Barnett."

But the song she picked isn't a space jam

what a limited interpretive lens to impose on the dead too

I was quite excited about the Courtney prospect. the result was a bit of a letdown against expectations, but it's very her and and very much the song, and isn't that the goal?

Not really sure what she's doing on there anyway. They could have at least approached artists with some knowledge and appreciation, no?

― calstars, Thursday, June 2, 2016 8:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

How do you know she doesn't and why did you pick on a solo female artist (who's one of the best of the group) to complain about?

Barnett said she wasn't even familiar with the song before she was approached to add a track to the compilation. Not really sure what she's doing on there anyway. They could have at least approached artists with some knowledge and appreciation, no?

― calstars, Thursday, June 2, 2016 8:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Same thing happened with Midnight Oil when they were approached for Deadicated. They didn't understand why they were approached for the project, and said they had little-to-no interest in/knowledge of the Dead.

What was frustrating about Barnett's live fumble was that I knew she *could* play it well---and did, as far as she got, which wasn't far----she's got the chops and the sensibility. She's mentioned the "stabby bits" (guitar breaks, partial release from neurotic POV in verses) as based on Television, who always seemed to know their Dead---to the extent that I used to hear muttering from "true," pre-hardcore punks back in the day (and Creem eventually called them "an ill-natured hippie band." Also, if I go back to, say, '67 GD performances of "Cream Puff War," or some of that recent Trad, Gras & Stenar box, I think of some live Television ten years (or less) later.
So I could imagine Barnett absorbing some Deadness indirectly, or something compatible, and I could imagine some of Hunter's lyrics ringing a bell, although by temperment she seems more isolated, a diarist or blogger---a comparitively rare one, conscientious about intelligibility---rather than passing around philosophical raps 'n' doobies, leading a conversation, like Hunter often does, especially in this song.