should i give the grateful dead a chance?

“Shakedown Street” to me is the best Disco Dead tune.

Every once in a while I head the studio version of Feel Like a Stranger and am amazed it was released. It sounds so terrible and amateurish to me but maybe that’s just me.

a lot of the late 70s Help/Slipknot/Franklin performances always sounded under the disco influence to me.

i've been getting into this band!

in reading the early posts on this thread, i think i would offer that the appeal is the deeply registered and irrefutable vibe and feeling as opposed to like specifically the songs (though the tight ones are amazing). but i'm still super ignorant when it comes to the dead so that's just an entry level posit.

for me it's definitely the songs. but i know for others its definitely the vibe.

i like to hear that! i was singing a tune that i came up with recently and i referenced the grateful dead in it which is kinda when i knew they've been making an impression on me. something about this band + the sun on a pretty day is an incomparable experience. same with fleetwood mac in that way.

"i think i would offer that the appeal is the deeply registered and irrefutable vibe"

I definitely think the early Dead pre-Keith/Donna and the country tunes definitely was about surfing the cosmic vibe. Not that they would not go to outer space after that period, but those early live shows are often just one big ole' jam.

https://open.spotify.com/track/0CLex45IpTEpI0bnqdP51H?si=d8JU3jaiTy-n4yy3if5onQ&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A4lIEJBo7dxCQJj4LUtME3X

That time animal collective sampled Phil

I worked a phil lesh concert once! pretty gnarly crowd 😆
made me happy

What kinda work

was doing event/hospitality at a venue. always wanted to be doing artist services though, they had some fun 🙃

I am listening to Three from the Vault right now - the first show of Hart's hiatus. First live Bird Song (and a couple of others), second live Playing in the Band. From a review on archive.org of someone who was there:

Well I am 62 now and it would have been fine if that show never ended and it some ways it has not.

love that energy!

listening to workingman's dead and finding it hard to describe the resonant and palpable salve the sound offers me. never expected to be struck in that way.

I dig the songs as well. I've been into the Dead for about a decade now but I feel like an odd sort of Deadhead because I don't care for the freeform jams, which I know for many (most?) is the central attraction. I love it the kind of jamming in, say, a "Here Comes the Sunshine" or a "China-Rider" transition.

But no matter how I've tried, I can't get into the less "tuneful" stuff in the middle of a "Playing in the Band" or "The Other One", where Phil's playing a flurry of what sounds to me like random notes rather than a bassline, while Jerry is making wah-wah sounds or just picking out notes, etc. There will be pockets of interest but I just get bored.

But I keep trying because, hey, maybe someday it will click. After all, I never thought I'd like the Dead to begin with, and now I have a calendar filled with noteworthy 1974 shows that I plan to listen to on each 50th anniversary.

i've said it on here more than once. i love robert hunter/garcia songs and robert hunter lyrics and i love all of the 1972 euro tour because i feel like this is the one time where i loved bill kreutzman and realized how much i like the dead with just him drumming. sad but true. the jams on that tour are by far my fave. but the late 60s dark stuff is definitely cool. don't get me wrong. i'm also a big studio album fan.

robert hunter should be in the RRHF by himself if he isn't. he's a folk hero imo.

kreutzmanN

Has anyone read Bill's book? Any good?

Bill’s book is okay, it is exactly like sitting next to him on a barstool reminiscing about his career - which is both a plus and a minus. He’s warm and approachable, but it doesn’t really dig too deep and gets a bit repetitive. I found Phil’s book to be the best written by a former member.

Have not read the Billy book but I kinda think reading a few gives on a Roshomon view of the Dead.

I thought Rock Scullys book was the most cinematic and entertaining. Phil’s feels honest. The oral history of Garcias feels very tragic. Parrish’s book fills some other angles but I did not feel it was totally honest. McNallys book is a detailed overview.

well i'm having a realtime realization that part of my difficulty in differentiating between aforementioned songs / vibe theory

is that Spotify has been very confusing to me for several years in weening between studio albums and "live" albums, down to the format of the interface / app i just have not yet been able to craft my dead journey therein

so i'm working with that reality now and gladly getting my mind blown

that makes me wanna listen to all the studio LPs in order <3

I have spent a lot more time with the official live stuff up to Dead Set over the last few years

I'm not ready/worthy for Dick's Picks yet

Oh, sleeve, you just need to hear this one show from . . . .

Also, I recommend relisten.net for your non-official live show needs as they have everything chronologically, usually with multiple versions (it's a helpful UI for what's in archive.org.

A friend of mine listened to every Spring 77 show in order last year.

recently learned of this women’s note-for-note piano arrangement of “eyes of the world” from the louisville 77 show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voLdRQ-19dc

i've never bought a Dead cover CD but i would totally buy a CD of her doing that. so pretty.

good morning, the sun is out and I am playing American Beauty for the first time in forever

Yeah, Holly Bowling is great! One thing to cover a Dead (or Phish) song, another entirely to nail specific live versions like she does.

still playing the studio LPs, I am up to Mars Hotel

this was fascinating, are there really only three studio tracks they never played live?

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-grateful-dead-songs-never-performed-live/

Bear Owsley’s biography from a few years back is a breeze to go through. That man lived 10 lives before he turned 30.

Just here to add a third boost for Holly Bowling.

Sad that Ghost Light have broken up; her departure in December 2022 seemed to be the tipping point.

Despite being a fan of Bowling, Ghost Light never clicked for me.

still playing the studio LPs, I am up to Mars Hotel

this was fascinating, are there really only three studio tracks they never played live?

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-grateful-dead-songs-never-performed-live/

― I painted my teeth (sleeve), Sunday, 25 February 2024 22:13

Funnily enough, I'm listening to Mars Hotel right now. I bought it a few years back and forgot about it. It's not bad.

Wake of the Flood and Blues for Allah are the best (post-1970) 70s studio albums.

turns out my Blues For Allah is trashed, like VG- :(

Sorry to hear that. Side 1 is great. Side 2 is pretty good too.

As a kid the cover scared the shit out of me

Morning listening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI384OjjF1c

Not as pyrotechnic or psychedelic as some versions, but I dig this

@albertmiller3082
3 years ago
The pace of this Dark Star accelerates & decelerates perceptibly AND imperceptibly. Very unique musical expression captured for eternity here.

jerry sounds so pretty.

I found the case for DP2 on a shelf I don't look at much . Looked in it later and no disc. bummer.
Need to find the editions I do have though.

the only single-disc DP.

that's my second fave DS

so in terms of studio albums, I've done american beauty, workingman dead and terrapin station. any thoughts as to what I should tackle next

Blues For Allah is very good.

Bob Weir’s Ace is actually a GD album that is cut from the same cloth as Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, and it’s really good. It was recently remixed and a lot of people don’t like the new version as much.

❤️❤️❤️❤️