should i give the grateful dead a chance?

I never got why people (OK, often Brits) apparently compared (or I guess compare?) Television to the Grateful Dead. While I concede they both have guitars, beyond that I don't hear it. Fairport has a little more in common, at least on the surface, but of course the musicianship and singing in Fairport is superlative. (I don't hear any similarities between Garcia and Thompson either, for that matter.)

Robin Trower > Rory Gallagher.

love to Rory but this is the truth

Irish Tour 74 doc is on Amazon Prime right now
what a fucking cutie love Rory

I'm a Brit who will very happily f/w the Dead.

I love reading about them too, there's been some pretty good documentation over the years and I'm interested in the notion of them as music culture outliers in a lot of ways.

I realised they were kinda mean and snarky when I saw this German TV footage and in-between takes there were acting kinda douchey. Before that though, I've tended to cut them some slack because I imagine that by '70 they were bone tired of explaining their motives (or lack of perhaps) to the squarejohn US media looking to pick a fight or paint them as a threat to society and (possibly) latterly the sniffy, intellectual European arts media.

However, my love for them very definitively stops at whatever point in the 1970s the lame funkiness and envelope filter guitars start to kick in.

mark s i can relate to where you're at right now, part of getting into the dead was going through this process of trying to figure out all of the ways in which they were fucked up as a group

their ability to play in unison is laughable, none of them can particularly sing - people talk about how "trout mask replica" is a bunch of people playing entirely different songs but the dead, particularly dead jams, have a tendency to come off like that for me

and my ultimate conclusion is that the dead, pre-hiatus, were on some fundamental level a drug gang masquerading as a rock group. all of the stuff that motivates other groups seemed to be less important to them. the dead's top priorities were to get themselves really high, to get other people really high (without bothering to ask those people first), and to play music.

on some level then the dead are sui generis, even the other jam bands are basically competent at playing in unison. it's an unreplicable experiment - what happens when you keep a garage band high on the most powerful acid in the world for several years straight and tell them that whatever else happens, to keep playing?

for the record i don't think television sounds a goddamn thing like the dead, "marquee moon" is fucking through-composed as far as i can tell! miles is a much more interesting comparison... i do like to refer to the out-there parts of the '72 dead as "shitty miles davis" - they heard and were clearly inspired by miles' fusion work, but they were limited in their ability to recreate that sound so what came out was this weird but enthralling soupy mess.

for the dead as live outfit, as opposed to songs, the key years for me are first off '72 and secondly '70. '69, '77, these years are acclaimed but very little of it resonates with me personally. my favorite band member is probably lesh, i love his bass tone, but the shit people go on about with "phil bombs" annoys the fuck out of me and ned lagin is far more appealing to me in theory than in practice.

anyway, my gateway into the dead, after many, many attempts, was the dark star from 1972-05-11, though that was probably mostly because i heard it before i heard the "sunshine daydream" show.

THey retire in '74 for various reasons then reemerge over th enext couple of years. Mickey Hart rejoins on i think the 3rd night of the 1974 sets taht make up the Grateful Dead Movie. There's something like 3 main gigs in 1975 including an instrumental run through of the Blues For Allah lp they're recording in the studio at the time. & the gig launching the set complete with vocals taht was released as One From The Vault.
MIckey Hart is back asa full member in 1976 but I've heard complaints about the 2 drummer rhythm section making the rhythms drag. I think they do improve over teh year. But in 1977 they decide that adopting disco rhtythms is somehow a good idea which it really isn't. Still a lot of people see 77-78 asa bit of a peak, I don't really. tend to give up listening to them after the retirement. BUt there are some good bits over the rest of tehir career. 1980 has them back to sounding like something that has progressed linearly from the earlier pre-retirement sound. I think a lot less trippy though.
I love August 68, some bits of 69, May 70. & I'm not sure what over the next few years. Veneta and some bits of Europe in '72, not sure when in 73as long as it hasn't got horns and not sure when in 74 but there are some very good bits. & in '74 they're doing live versions of Ned Lagin's Seastones in the interim between sets.
I think Feedback was an improvisation that changed every time during the years it was a feature of most gigs.

tbf i have come to terms with some of this in UK terms (white 60s blues is a problematically interesting phenom, i am sorta kinda here for rory gallagher if not clapton lol) and possibly can for this ur-version full of unrelated stuff i bridle against for different reasons BUT

― mark s

i mean, green and kirwan's fleetwood mac, what more need be said?

and my ultimate conclusion is that the dead, pre-hiatus, were on some fundamental level a drug gang masquerading as a rock group.

this makes them sound so much cooler than i've ever been able to find them

drugs aren't cool, bg.

It makes them sound like the 13th Floor Elevators, which would be a good idea.

ward's point re television was surely less "omg they sound alike" than "omg actually in both cases the live jams are where it's at not the non-live LPs" (hence marquee moon being through-composed is not really a data point)

(viz "strong similarity between verlaine/lloyd and garcia/lesh/weir interactions" is more abt in-band telepathy and mutual response than soundalike)

(ok "moments when garcia and richard thompson sound very similar" lol ward can pick this claim up and defend it, but even so one player sounding like another doesn't at all mean the bands sound alike)

too easy to cream off the topline white uk blues voices -- the mac lads, trower -- and still consider the broader vulgar form as really not worth bothering with: but i was saying ok i turned around on this from age 17 and a year-zero dick and made my peace with the form at large, problems and all (inc.such good-not-bad half-gortten mid-level representatives as rory) (but not clapton who is never not extremely boring to me as well as being a terrible person)

i was going to inject some arcane joke abt using the phrase "cream off" there but (a) forgot and (b) fuck you

I agree the Dead are sui generis; and I certainly doubt it “helps” to come in expecting them to sound like anyone other than the Dead.

Or even expecting them to be good, imo.

KInd of interesting to listen to the progressive chinese whisper element as bands move further away from the original source material that Cream or the Yardbirds or whoever pick up on and learn from the influenced bands as the source.

xp, kind of! I actually wonder how many people ever loved the Dead on first listen, as opposed to having something “click” after repeated exposure.

Do really wonder what it was I was expecting the Dead to sound like before I heard them. Cos I heard tehm about 35 years ago.
BUt the idea of a band beloved of the Hell's Angels would never have wound up with one sounding much like tehm I don't think or at least not after about 1970.
THink I might have imagined something sounding a lot closer to Buffalo or something. A lot heavier and stoned. Sludge rock type maybe.

After reading an "Altamont" book, I'm pretty confident 99% of the connection between the Angels and Dead was drugs.

Re: the Dead & Television - the answer Mark S gave is better than the one I wrote (but yes, I was trying to get at the ENTWINED nature of the Dead and Television's group playing - I think Verlaine always insisted that Coltrane was his main early influence).

It's bullshit that only Britishes make the Dead/Television comparison tho - here"s Christgau on Television just for starters:

This is a strange kind of guitar band. The obvious forerunners are the Byrds and the Grateful Dead, even to Tom Verlaine's long lead lines, which recall McGuinn and (especially) Garcia, although Verlaine's attack is a lot rawer.

In the old Rolling Stone Record Guide, Dave Marsh calls Verlaine “an interesting Jerry Garcia–influenced guitarist who lacked melodic ideas or any emotional sensibility.”

lol waht

I remember when I first heard Television way back when learning that they got Dead comparisons overseas. But Xgau aside, I'd never heard that comparison here. I guess others made it, too? Or it's possible it was just critical butt sniffing. Anyway, def. weird that any critic would compare Verlaine to Garcia then say he "lacked melodic ideas or any emotional sensibility," which are two hallmarks (imo) of Garcia's playing, like him or not. Verlaine could indeed be cold, though.

Television guitars remind me more of Quicksilver Messenger Service

Yes, that's there too, though QMS are probably even more disappointing to my ears that the Dead.

happy to tweak xgau all kinds of ways but he's not a lazy critic in that particular way. marsh does not get this indulgence from me lol

Marsh is the absolute worst

No, Xgau I can totally believe making the comparison (even if, or especially if, he was being confrontational with it). Marsh I can totally believe fronting.

Wow, just learned about this (remastered versions of their GDR stuff) -- love these albums: https://store.dead.net/grateful-dead-records-collection-digital-box.html

It's also on vinyl, but not CD (sadly)... I would buy if it were :(

After reading an "Altamont" book, I'm pretty confident 99% of the connection between the Angels and Dead was drugs.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, February 20, 2020 7:51 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

the HA seem to have an enduring love of jam bands as they were big supporters of my gf's dad's jam band in the 80s/early 90s in the vancouver area

I never knew about this, but maybe you did?

In the 1980s and 1990s, there was a major expansion of the club into Canada. The Quebec Biker war was a violent turf war that began in 1994 and continued until late 2002 in Montreal. The war began as the Hells Angels in Quebec began to make a push to establish a monopoly on street-level drug sales in the province. A number of drug dealers and crime families resisted and established groups such as the "Alliance to fight the Angels". The war resulted in the bombings of many establishments and murders on both sides. It has claimed more than 150 lives and led to the incarceration of over 100 bikers.

And anyway:

an enduring love of jam bands

Jam bands=drugs=Hells Angels.

truly it is a mystery

I never knew about this, but maybe you did?

In the 1980s and 1990s, there was a major expansion of the club into Canada. The Quebec Biker war was a violent turf war that began in 1994 and continued until late 2002 in Montreal. The war began as the Hells Angels in Quebec began to make a push to establish a monopoly on street-level drug sales in the province. A number of drug dealers and crime families resisted and established groups such as the "Alliance to fight the Angels". The war resulted in the bombings of many establishments and murders on both sides. It has claimed more than 150 lives and led to the incarceration of over 100 bikers.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, February 20, 2020 11:00 AM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

canadian organized crime is very weird. multi-ethnic gangs called like "united nations" and shit allying with, or against the hells angels, to control meth sales or whatever. sketchy as hell

Man would it suck to be in a band and have the Hells Angels into you.

Always worth posting this:

https://www.beatlesbible.com/wp/media/681204_george-harrison-hells-angels-memo-apple-580x386.jpg

The story goes that the UK had sort of a fake HA club, and that George et al. were not prepared for the real deal, and had to hustle to get them out of there.

And speaking of the HA and Canada:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccyu44rsaZo

"straighten out" Czechoslovakia?

the Thompson book is essential imo

The story goes that the UK had sort of a fake HA club, and that George et al. were not prepared for the real deal, and had to hustle to get them out of there.

There's some footage of the UK HA in the 1969 The Stones in the Park movie. Literally just pimply teens in leather jackets and Nazi medals, for the most part.

You make them sound like the Bromley Contingent!

I think there was a bit more to British HA than pimply teens tbf - in fact they're still around and occasionally causing mayhem, though only with each other.

more discussion re the "fake uk hells angels" from upthread: should i give the grateful dead a chance?

(i still basically think the apple incident is overstated, greatly amped up in retrospect to make a funnier story)

we were all pimply teens once! plus the UKHA must have had a start-point when it wasn't very daunting, however hard they later became

Do the UKHA turn up at Cropready? I know it's a big magnet for bikers in general (my sister used to live in Cropready). If so - another Fairport/Dead connec!

xpost Yeah, I had a hunch I posted about it already.

I dunno, I get the impression the Hell's Angels as they are today are nowhere near the bad hombres that they were back then.

really?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hells_Angels_MC_criminal_allegations_and_incidents#United_States

I mean in terms of national menace. I have no doubt that almost every Hell's Angel member is bad news, but their prominence has declined, or at least has been fully absorbed into other bad organizations.

it's a good question, though. Bike gangs used to be go to boogeyman in pop culture, but not so much anymore.

we've had a lot of go-to boogeymen - communists, islamic terrorists, teenage hoodlums, biker gangs, black people, brown people, techbros, hippies

I'm Irish and I like the Dead.

the branch in my city was just a meth trafficking ring fwiw

Here in Berlin the Hells Angels and their rivals the Bandidos are involved in organised crime and kill each other now and again