should i give the grateful dead a chance?

Fries Down Under The Stars

Maybe it'll be a debauched, lost weekend style take on Phil's Heineken years.

― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Friday, November 19, 2021 10:07 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Europe 74 would be cool: Hauling the Wall of Sound across the Atlantic; the cocaine really starts to take hold; somehow Phil is fatter and more bearded than Jerry (I guess that's the Heineken)

^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab5IhdnDfks

yasss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puMifZvxa5s

good quality video of 4/27/77

12/10/71 Fox Theater show is surprisingly great! Pigpen was on some other level

My 4-yr-old commandeered my headphones for a while y'day, while I was listening to a Dead set... when she finally handed them back, after a few tracks ("I'm done"), I checked and found she was around 4:30 into "Drums." (kind of impressed she gave 'em that much of a chance)

xp - That really was a great show and one of the bigger surprises from the St. Louis box (I mean, I knew the '72 and '73 shows were going to be hot). The last few months of '71 have always been a weak spot for me and I have a tough time getting super excited about them, but 12/10 is great. Helps that Keith is high in the mix and really on fire.

giving the grateful dead movie a chance, as it's on TV right now

brief moment when lesh realises the camera is making a weird feedbacky effect with his bass and plays around with it for not at all long enough

too many ppl smile too much in this film

still feel their logo is just the most misleading thing abt them: their music does not sound like how this looks --->

https://1000logos.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Grateful-Dead-Logo.png

yes im the synaesthesia police

I always had the same problem with Ice Cream Kid from Europe '72
https://www.dead.net/sites/g/files/g2000007851/files/dead_site_files/images/19721105_0648.jpg

Lol x 2

B-b-but what about Mr. Natural?

Ha I always thought the skull lightning bolt thing was the only of their logos that made ANY sense. I fucking hate the dancing bears. My wife bought me a dancing bear belt last Xmas. I gritted my teeth and stuffed it in the bottom of my drawer.

Had you not communicated your distaste beforehand?

You need to drop a tab

https://extrachill.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/owsley-stanley-blotter-art.jpg

in conclusion: i didn't hate when the GD just light off into the endless twinkling improv bits -- sometimes it reminds me of 80s soukous -- but the songs that get them started all sound the same to me and very unspecial

i noped out and went to bed when casey jones wasn't a cover of the TV themetune

On this website, the late Owsley (aka Bear) spent a lot of time making somewhat pedantic and slightly exasperated corrections to common assumptions.

The one on the dancing bears is vmic:

I guess you may have realised by now that the bears on the album cover are not really "dancing". I don't know why people think they are, their positions are quite obviously those of a high-stepping march. You can also see what some people think are "bibs", are actually a sylization of the chest fur of the bear.

(On his website)

mods invite the late owsley (aka bear) to this website

the kind of pedantry our site could really use

Well, yeah.

I am always interested in this thread’s question because I often want to know what prevents people from getting into the Dead, particularly if it seems like the sort of thing they’d be into.

For me, I love jamming out, but the minute that any vocals happen, I want to turn the music off. None of these guys could sing, and so when one of em starts mewling acidically after 15 minutes of lovely psychedelic improvisation, my thoughts immediately turn to a different question. How could a band ruin so much of their own material simply by singing? It’s mind-boggling to me.

For me the endless twinkling improv bits (cf. mark s) are the main draw. Maybe the often insufferable vocals and shabby playing kind of put the twinkly bits into even sharper relief. Merely twinkling would result in less impact, so the pain/pleasure dialectic is key. (Granted, I mostly listen to Europe '72 full concerts, so don't know if this explanation would apply to other eras.)

Jerry’s voice before it went to shit had a lovely timbre imho

I agree about the Jerry timbre! Off-key singing and mistiming though...

The biggest surprise of the recent-ish documentary was the clip of them rehearsing vocal harmonies. Jerry ran Bob and Phil through one line several times, and I thought, “They rehearsed their vocals?!” — all live evidence being to the contrary.

You could put the weakness of the vocals down to not being able to properly hear themselves on stage, but things didn’t improve with their Wall Of Sound PA which supposedly allowed them to hear themselves much more clearly. But they knew their singing wasn’t the greatest; almost all the vocals on Europe ‘72 were overdubbed in the studio. For me, Pigpen’s utterly hapless attempts at “Hard To Handle” and “Hey Jude” are the nadir of Dead vocals, which is saying something.

iirc Crosby claims to have helped the Dead with their three-part harmonies at one point ... but you can only do so much.

It's definitely part of Dead lore that whatever film, CD, song, bootleg etc of theirs is under discussion, it's never the right 'intro' for non-believers. But that really is true of the Grateful Dead Movie imho

I thought that was Phish lore!

tbf as an outsider, the grateful dead movie is a better intro than the three or four canonic LPs I have a long try a couple of years ago upthread

it's not good as a movie (jampacked with fvck-awful animation and vox pops with their more annoying fans) but it points you towards the endless twinkling improv bits™️ rather than away from them -- i definitely now get it more than i did

I quoted this in some other dead thread but mention of the grateful dead movie caused me to search for it - I've used "get my space together" for like 30 years now because of this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZPJ_VN3Iis

Jerry’s voice before it went to shit had a lovely timbre imho

This is true, but also his later voice added some levity to performances of, say, "Black Muddy River" and "Wharf Rat" after it went to shit.

apparently I can't like to a specific time - add &t=2210s to that URL

Jerry’s voice before it went to shit had a lovely timbre

the minute that any vocals happen, I want to turn the music off.

lol the fact that both of these are commonly held opinions is one of the great paradoxes of the Dead.

The vocals are fine on the albums. No one’s required to listen to live shows.

My controversial Dead opinion is that they were very significant album band, and you could exclusively listen to the albums (studio plus major/official “live” ones), and be very fulfilled.

As a moderate fan, I feel an outsider as I have probably only listened to about 15 - 20 % of their live catalogue.

The sheer size of the catalogue, and number of versions of songs, is intimidating - and then there’s other irritations such as the more annoying cult-like fans, and distaste for the corporate bloat that the whole money-making GD enterprise became (and still is).

Great band overall though.

Two summers ago I listened to approximately ~25 versions of "Dark Star" as an exercise, and it allowed me— who really only knew a few major studio records and Europe '72— to understand why people go gaga over this stuff. Alas, the singing keeps me from really taking a deeper dive than that experiment allowed me, but I don't mind it if people put the Dead on or whatever. I just find the phenomenon really funny in an almost confusing way!

Haven't seen The Grateful Dead Movie, but The Closing of Winterland-1978) used to get broadcast as as local PBS fundraiser, and certainly had the twinkly bits minus crap animation x fanz (lots more music on 4-CD soundtrack, and DVD incl. a whole sep. New Years show at Winterland, but I've never seen it); also, I'm told that Downhill From Here(1989) is a good concert doc. Also have only seen bits of the Sunshine Daydream concert show, although album is good. Excerpts incl. ugly dancing and sweat, glaring radiation ov Sun.

xpost Then, like me, this might probably be your favorite GD release.

https://plunderphonic.bandcamp.com/album/grayfolded

The vox just murder this band for me, and I can actually take some Jerry without running screaming for the hills (I will rep for Shady Grove with David Grisman as one of the alltime great albums of renditions of folksongs).

I just tried to imagine what singer would make the Dead appealing to me, and after some soul-searching it turns out it’s Perry Farrell (circa Ritual), triple-tracked vocals and treatments and all. I think I could listen to that all day. (Not sure how it would fare on chuggers like “Casey Jones” or whatevs, but I’d listen to a lot of “Dark Star” in that mode.)

But then who am I kidding? I could listen to a lot of “Dark Star” in any mode. I put together a playlist of every version I could find on Spotify in chronological order — about 20 hours’ worth. AND I’VE LISTENED TO IT

Also have only seen bits of the Sunshine Daydream concert show, although album is good. Excerpts incl. ugly dancing and sweat, glaring radiation ov Sun.

Naked pole guy! Honestly, the "Dark Star" from that show is essential Dead viewing imo. It's a killer version, probably my favorite ever, by itself, but paired with the encroaching dusk as they played makes it a little harder (provided of course you get past the crap animations they dropped in between the footage).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG2lkIRoCqc

the "Dark Star" from that show is essential Dead viewing imo.

That "Dark Star" was what made me do a complete (and completely unexpected) 180 on the Dead. Despised them for decades, then suddenly, "...hm...this is...good...?"

And therein lies my contradictory Dead opinion: I have yet to be transported by a "Dark Star." I like the earliest ones best, when they're 5 or 6 minutes. After that became one of their lengthy exploratory vehicles I just lose patience. One person's lovely twinkly bits are another's self-indulgent nonsense, I guess.

Even though I've already been a big fan of "Dark Star", I've been enjoying this blog, Every Dark Star, that does what the title says and has some folks going through every "Dark Star" in chronological order, noting the developments of the various themes and modular jams over the years. Paired with specific timing notations, I've found it to be a really great supplement while I'm listening.