Thoughts On The Dead

Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Tag: 1972 (Page 5 of 10)

American, Band

May 24, 2016 / / 1 Comment

If you do not favor whatever’s going on in the Fillmore, then perhaps try this: 9/30/72 from American University in DC. Fall of ’72 had no bad shows, nor did it have any polarizing shows like Fall of ’73. (Some people like the horns shows.) Just straight, yummy scrumptiousness.

Eww.

The mix starts off wobbly, but rights itself within a song or two. A ’72 He’s Gone (which is the best kind of He’s Gone) and a sweet and ragged Brokedown are the highlights. Sammy Hagar does not appear, and whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is up to you.

Second Dark Star To The Left

May 20, 2016 / / 14 Comments

IMG_4373 2

FELICIDAE IV, THRONEWORLD TO THE FELIS EMPIRE

“Jenkins! Get in here!”

“Yes, Space President?”

“Dammit, kid: fix your antenna.”

“Sorry.”

“The other one.”

“Gotcha.”

“The other one.

“Ah. Better?”

“You look like a Sallarian. Listen: what is this signal that Alien NASA picked up?”

“It’s so odd we call our space agency that, sir.”

“Answer the questions, Jenkins.”

“There are competing theories on the signal, sir. The mathematicians think it’s an equation that proves five plus two is seven.”

“Five plus two is seven, Jenkins.”

“Yes, but this proves it.”

“Have math executed.”

“Right away, sir.”

“You said there were other interpretations?”

“Yes, sir. The generals think it’s a threat.”

“The generals think lunch is a threat.”

“The cloners fed the data into the chromosonometer.”

“Monster?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Casualties?”

“Many, sir.”

“Well, have the cloners executed, too.”

“We’ve tried that, sir. They just make more of themselves.”

“Anyone else weighing in?

“The artists think it’s crap.”

“What do the people think?”

“The people think it’s art.”

“Great.”

“There was one interesting idea, sir. Someone ran the data through a soundifier–”

“Is that really the machine’s name?”

“–and, well: it appears to some sort of rock band.”

“Like Space Bon Jovi?”

“Sort of, sir.”

“Are they any good, Jenkins?”

“That’s subjective, sir. In fact, this might be some of the most subjective music I’ve ever heard.”

“Can you dance to it?”

“Kind of.”

“I’ll need a full report.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jenkins?”

“Yes, sir?”

“I wasn’t joking: take math outside and shoot it in the head.”

“I didn’t think you were joking at all, sir.”

“Good man.”

Stranger In A Stranger Land

May 12, 2016 / / 1 Comment

jerry copenhagen bw

Europe in 1972 was not the Europe that exists today; it was still a bunch of little countries that had been trying to kill each other a generation earlier. There was new money every hundred miles, and new cops and officials to give that money to: Europe was a collection of borders with countries separating them.

It was also farther away, and expensive to reach in any medium. Air mail required a whole different set of tools than regular mail: obscure stamps and special envelopes with red-and-blue wainscoting and see-through paper to save on weight. You could not call Europe. I mean, you could if someone else was paying for it, but if the bill was in your name, you could not call Europe.

In 1972, the Grateful Dead didn’t play any shows in Germany.

You Better Head Back To Tennessee, Comrade

March 26, 2016 / / 9 Comments

A commenter named Jason over at Dead.net takes a break from accusing David “24 Hours Of” LeMieuxns of things to post this:

Dead show in Soviet Era Moscow???

I can’t find it in the show list, and want to fact check my story.

In 1977 I took a quarter off from school (Berkeley) and accompanied my father on a State-Department sponsored visit to Dirty-War-era Argentina. Our host was the Cultural Attache, which, he explained, was usually translated in South America as “La Cia.” He winked.

He told me that a previous posting had been in Moscow, and he had been part of a team that got the Dead to do a concert there (or maybe it was in then-Leningrad), and that in terms of subverting the dominant paradigm (my words not his!) it had been a smashing success.

I would have thought it was on the 1972 tour, but I don’t see it on the list. Is my story false? Surely no one will accuse me of having been duped by a CIA agent!

Jason, I only wish you had brought this to my attention, rather than squander your energies in the Dead.net comment section, which is like a mall for poor people that is also on fire. Answers will not be found there, unless you are asking the question “Whose first show was also coincidentally the BEST SHOW EVAR?”

TotD knows the truth.

You are no dupe.

The Grateful Dead played Moscow on 6/2,3/72 at the Rossiya Theatre. Setlists were classified, and the entire Taper’s Section was executed during the setbreak, but now–at last–the true story can be told of The Boys behind the Iron Curtain.

The whole adventure can be properly classified as “another one of CIA’s dumbfuck ideas,” but no one got killed on purpose (except the tapers, but they should have known what was going to happen) which makes it palatable. The term “Cold War” tends to elide the fact that America and Russia talked constantly at all levels of government: summits and proxy wars and cultural exchange. The Dead show was part of the last category, although a proxy war did break out just a little; also, Mickey called what he did to Commie chicks “summiting” and you don’t want me to explain it.

The State Department (and the CIA) had sent some college bands over, and classical musicians, but the goal was to foment a little love for America, and you weren’t going to do that with a piccolo player: you needed rock and roll. Our men in Moscow met with their Commie counterparts to sell the show:

“Who is Grateful Dead, Jenkins? Like Beatles?”

“Kinda, Yuri. Kinda like them, sorta.”

“Is nice boys?”

“Boys. They are boys. And Mrs. Donna Jean.”

“Show me picture.”

…

“Yuch.”

“They’re very stylish, Yuri.”

“They’re weird-looking.”

“No. No. No. And they’re a little bit communists.”

“Shto?”

“Well, you know: Cowboy Communism.”

“I do not know what this is.”

“They believe in sharing, but also shoot at people who stop by the house uninvited.”

“This is not Communism. Look at them. Hairy Mexican. Pretty boy. Mess. Mess. Mess. Pretty Lady. That one in hat is dead, I think.”

“Only mostly dead.”

“No! This cannot come into Worker’s Paradise. Will be counter-revolutionary.”

“They have dancing bears.”

“Serious? Why did you not say this first? What dates they have available?”

After the European tour concluded in London, the buses containing the Bozos and the Bolos turned East and made their way across the European continent. They drove through Poland, where Billy told many jokes, and Czechoslovakia, which no one knew how to spell. The road to Moscow (the worst of the Hope/Crosby comedies, by the way) led through Belarus, whcih no one knew anything about, and Albania; when the Dead got to Albania, they asked many questions, such as, “Wha?” and “Are they kidding?” and “Is this entire country wearing their crazypants?” and “Did someone just steal the Bolo bus?”

Limping, crowded, into the Soviet Union, the Dead were taken to their hotel; Phil found it unsatisfactory, and Billy–crazed from the trip–tossed a Lada through the lobby window. It was explained to Phil that there were no good hotels in the entire country; Billy was distracted news of how favorable the exchange rate for tuggers was; further incidents were avoided.

The shows were reportedly good: Sam Cutler dosed the concession stand borscht, and the little Communist children boogied all night long. A young Vladimir Putin was in attendance the second night; he declared the group “decadent filth” and ordered Ned Lagin murdered.

The KGB was notably tolerant towards the group, especially after Bear found all of their hidden microphones and upgrade them for free. After that, instead of bugs, an agent just sat in the hotel room taking notes. The Dead felt that was more upfront, at least, and naturally dosed all the agents.

On the morning of the Fourth, the buses were declared the property of the People, and the Dead were tranquilized like zoo animals and shipped back to America. To this day, none of them are quite sure the whole weekend happened, but Mickey’s still got the t-shirt.

And Left Them Smoke And The Ashes

March 3, 2016 / / 9 Comments

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The easy joke is that Garcia finally found the perfect ashtray, but those things are terrible. Giant communal ashtrays are to personal ashtrays what the stadium piss trough is to your toilet: it’s not even a contest, and quite frankly the floor is preferable.

The pot dealer on my floor at college had one–it was an old hubcab, but same principle–and it was filled with his Basic menthol 100’s and at any one time, there were at least three separate smolders going on. The only thing that smells worse than a cigarette is the quietly burning filter of a cigarette at the bottom of a pile of week-old cigarettes.

Garcia liked a glass ashtray with a decent heft and the right size grooves to lay your cigarette in while you practice scales. I’m not basing this on any facts except Garcia was a serious smoker, and serious smokers figure out the most efficient way to smoke after a while. Small, heavy-ish glass ashtray; emptied every three or four stub-outs.

(Fun fact: the indentation where you rest your smoke? Doesn’t have a name. I looked. We could name it, I suppose. Here’s mine: “butt rut.” You could also call it a “glass pass” but that wouldn’t work for plastic or ceramic ‘trays. See if you can come up with one.)

A Ranking Of Ashtrays:

(And, by the way: don’t smoke. You know that already; I am not the first one to tell you.)

  1. Single-user glass ashtray. This is the king. Look at this beautiful fucker:

[PDF] Glass Ashtray - All

A circle within a square. Ramparts, battlements, a well. Nothing more than necessary.  Also: if you do not smoke cigarettes, you can put your weed in there.

And tough. Glass has interesting properties, one of them being that making it a little bit thicker makes it a lot stronger; there is almost certainly a mathematical formula for it. If you held this over your head and dropped it onto the sidewalk, it would most likely shatter, but these ashtrays will survive innumerable topples onto carpet or hardwood.

Could you defend yourself with it? Hell, yeah. Flat part against a skull might kill somebody. (Probably not, though, but if you hit a Zika baby with it, then the baby would die. You could definitely defend yourself from one or even a swarm of Zika babies.

  1. Plastic Ashtray. Better than the alternatives but nowhere near optimal. Far rarer nowadays.

[PDF] Gessner 4-in Black Round

Older Enthusiasts will recall these as ubiquitous, especially in pizza parlors for some reason. Any bar would have this (or one with beer branding on it) every three feet along the bar, and at every table. They were in the same family as fire extinguishers and water fountains: you only noticed when they weren’t there.

They are no longer there. which is fine, because plastic ashtrays were such a shitty substitute for glass, although you can understand their existence: glass ashtrays are expensive, and people will steal anything not nailed down. The problem was their skimpiness: you could send the thing flying across the barroom with one drunken gesture.

Could you defend yourself with it? Not really. If there were ashes and butts in it, you could fling that into the eyes of your attacker, but the item itself is of no use. Maybe you could break it and hope one of the pieces was sharp? Not a great weapon.

  1. Communal ashtray of any sort. Almost unfair to include as the communal ashtray has a different purpose than the individual ashtray: its loyalties are to the park, or street, and not to you. It is the ashtray of the people, comrade.

[PDF] Outdoor Ashtrays & Smoking

It’s a port-a-pottie, but for cigarettes. Better than smokers flicking their used cancer all over the ground, but just.

Could you defend yourself with it? It is a melee weapon. You could do some damage with one these things, plus they’re just enclosed garbage cans, so when you hit someone with it, the sound would be “PWUMPF” and that would be funny.

If you were forced to use violence to keep your family and possessions safe, you would want it to be the 70’s, because if you were limited to using a communal ashtray to defend yourself, you want this bad boy:

[PDF] Outdoor Ashtray - Event

Imagine Jackie Chan getting hold of this sumbitch. Or Billy. You could easily kill a room full of people with this beast, plus sometimes there was sand in the top.

Now they’re fighting blind.

  1. Clay ashtray, homemade. The feel–the tactile sensation of putting my fingers on this substance–makes me retch: I cannot explain it, but I don’t feel like fighting it. My phobias are mostly limited to deep water and spiders (which makes sense), and touching certain things. I think that’s the right amount of irrational fears: everybody gets a couple.

Image result for clay ashtray

Oh, no. I can feel it. Dry and grumbly and full of hate and smocks. GO BACK TO YOUR KILN.

Can you defend yourself with it. Holy fuck, I have the shkeeves. I don’t want to do this anymore.

…

…

…

Potato salad.

Space Is The Place

February 22, 2016 / / 9 Comments

 

jerry weirdo guitar 72

Continuing the general topic of weirdo guitars, there’s Garcia playing this sucker: the body looks like a Gibson 335, but the headstock looks like one of those Vox teardrop guitars. Also, the best I can make out: the words on the headstock say “Micro Frets.”

(A very tiny amount of research shows that Micro Frets is a fully-defunct guitar company that made many bitchin’ guitars, including the Spacetone Garcia’s trying out. Hell, you can buy one right now if you got two grand.)

Social Climbing

January 7, 2016 / / 0 Comments

A New York City kinda afternoon for you, Enthusiasts: upward mobility of all sorts; treats for your eyes and your ears.

The ’72 Academy of Music run is underrated, and under-represented in the Vault. The 3/28 show, plus the best of a Bo Diddley sit-in set that goes on far too long, was released as a Dick’s Pick, but several other nights are missing or partials. The Dead played seven shows in eight nights, putting their noses to the mirror in order to fill their coffers for the Europe tour. (Don’t forget that the Boys were still scraping by in 1972, and actually lost money on their tour of the Continent, only recouping later with the live album.)

The 23rd is the only Dark Star show, though. Sure, it’s a short one (only 23 minutes) and it’s a rare stand-alone DS: they just kinda start, and then they just kinda stop.

“Hey, fellows: you wanna do that thing where we magically flow into another song?”

…

“No.”

“Not really.”

“Kiss my ass, Weir.”

“Is it time for Drums?”

“Mickey? You shouldn’t be here.”

And so on.

There’s also a passel of snappy and authoritative versions of the short songs: if you didn’t know better, you might think they actually practiced. The Looks Like Rain (with Phil on the high, throaty harmony) is a killer. Plus a China>Rider opener. There’s nothing you were planning on listening to that’s better than this show; go and listen to it right now. There will be a quiz.

But, you ask, what should I do with my eyeballs?

Good question, I say, but that’s an odd way to phrase it and now I fear you.

Go read the latest from FoTotD (Friend of Thoughts on the Dead) Nick Paumgarten in the New Yorker, where I have been called a genius. He tells us about the best boulder-climber in the world, which is a thing. She’s a 14-year-old girl, Tavi Gevinson with chalky hands, and she climbs up and away from her father faster and better than anyone’s ever seen.

Boulder climbing is unlike the other climbing sports in minor details, but it’s a status game of the bored and privileged played because humans have no feathers to pluck out or fur to chew at. Once the problems of food and shelter have been solved, everything else is a defense mechanism against long afternoons.

It is, however, the minor details that count. Bouldering isn’t mountain-climbing (which is mostly punctuated walking) or rock-climbing (which is 90% hideous conversations about chafing and pitons and carabiners): it’s dashing up a bumpy rock.

To me, this is even more pointless than climbing mountains. Get to the top of a mountain and you have a rare view; there’s nothing on top of a boulder except maybe a used condom and some stubbed-out Marlboro Reds. Plus, this young climbing woman lives in New York City and climbs the rocks in Central Park. If Law & Order has taught us anything, there will be a dead body up there once or twice a year.

Read the story. It’s sadder than it seems, but most things are.

There Is Another

December 19, 2015 / / 8 Comments

Yes, there is a Cleveland Dark Star, and that is the massive and Proustian Dark Star that the Dead played at the Public Hall in December of ’73, but there is another Dark Star from the Land of Cleve that you should be aware of: 10/28/72, also at Public Hall.

This version is almost perfect in its 72-ness: modular and composed of several notable sections, rather than the flowing and dynamic weirdness of the 44-minute ’73. Plus, it goes into Sugar Magnolia, which is the most ’72 thing a Dark Star can do.

The whole show’s great: spend your Saturday in Cleveland.

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