I’m not listening to space. Definitely not drums. Never. This part of the second set irritates me on a deeply personal level. When I download a show and throw it on the iTunes, the first thing that happens is drums/space gets jettisoned. This is how space sounds to me:
“Ooh, Garcia just went ‘blorp,’ so I’m gonna go “fleep.” For ten more minutes. Man, those people going to the bathroom are missing some good shit! Squizzle glop! Nah-nah-nah WANG! Ba-DOOM fwop fwop gTUNk”
The only reason people didn’t go to the bathroom during space is because they had just gone during drums.
We indulged these men, you and I did, by letting them fuck around for a good half-hour a night. We should have elected an audience captain to tell the band, firmly but politely, that this kind of nonsense must stop. No more MIDI-fueled Ornette Coleman-offs. Play something, anything. One of Bobby’s cowboy songs. One of Brent’s tunes. Fuck, man, play Wave to the Wind. Just stop doing whatever it is you think you’re doing.
And don’t think I’ve forgotten about you two in back. Here’s every single drum solo you two–or any other drummer ever anywhere–have ever played: whacka-whacka-whacka-whack. That’s it. It’s a drum: it only makes one goddamn sound. You do not need to make that sound over and over and over and over while Garcia is doing whatever he does in the bathroom for two hours AGAIN.
this is exactly the stuff i was taught one was not allowed to say when i first started seeing them and listening to them. i actually gasped when i read it. now it is allowed, if the man certified-as-a-genius-by-the-new-yorker says it. and IT IS TRUE!
You take that back
If you can’t enjoy a 20 minute drum solo I have to call into question your rock and roll credentials. If you can’t at least space out to space I question the quality of your marijuana. This whole “I don’t like drums>space” thing is getting all too trendy IMHO