Thoughts On The Dead

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

Tag: brent mydland (Page 13 of 14)

New Year’s Abel

July 26, 2013 / / 0 Comments

I won’t be bound by reason, nor shackled by logic. When you think I’m going to zig, I collapse in a heap crying, then hie away to dark and obscure corners of the interweb to play Smackytush. (It’s a game I don’t want to talk about, CAPTAIN BRINGDOWN.) So today, when Brent is on my mind, I should link to a spectacular and high-energy Brent show, maybe a Fall from ’87 or ’89.

But people who make assumptions have gumption making asses out of umps. Umps don’t need help with that; they do it quite well on their own. How is it possible that Baseball doesn’t have instant replay yet? It’s 2009 and–

What? It’s…are you kidding? It’s 2013.

–we’re just supposed to ACCEPT human error when there are cameras available?

…

2013, you say?

Yes. Coming up on August, 2013.

IT WORKED! WHO’S THE PRESIDENT?

Bring me the anal pear.

Getting back to business…

The pear was for me; it brings me an exquisite pleasure. I was actually enjoying the crazy make-em-ups.

…

So, instead of a Brent we have a double-dose of Not-Brent: Keith and Pig from 1/2/72 at Winterland.

HOLY GOD, Good Lovin, ladies and other ladies wearing trousers! Listen to 9:00 in, the ECSTATIC peak they hit transitioning into the most dramatic tone settable while someone’s singing about a pony.

AND THEN LISTEN TO 12:15! Y’know what: just listen to the whole show. Hall of Fame.

Let’s think about them all today: Brent and Keith, Vince and Pig. Garcia, too. They’re gone. The shows can’t bring them back, but it’s all we’ve got.

A Little Less Light

July 26, 2013 / / 0 Comments

People that walk with their feet pointed sloppily outwards (like myself) are duck-footed. Others (and this is the category that athletes all seem to fall into) that point their feet in are called pigeon-toed.

brent seated keyboardsBrent was pigeon-kneed.

He died today (well, not today: you know what I’m talking about; context clues, people.) Went down swinging on a speedball, high and inside. Reminds us of the second and third of Thoughts on the Dead’s Drug Rules: don’t mix your substances, and don’t do your drugs all at once.

(The first Drug Rule is that everything I say about anything illegal is purely historical in nature, while simultaneously being entirely farcical and really happening to some guy I know that isn’t me.)

 

Frost: The Show, Man

June 3, 2013 / / 3 Comments

Digressions and distractions, they buzz around me and lick me like the patch of carpet that Keith thought “smelled like dope.” I intended–honestly, with no agenda–to make a full and sweeping, perhaps even academic overview of the Dead’s various visits to Chicago. It was to be multi-paragraphed and sourced and impartial: it was gonna be my Lost Live Dead: I was gonna hit the big time, Pop!

And barely 36 hours (or maybe three days–I have been binging on Storage Wars and time and space seem to have, I don’t know, maybe switched places a little bit?) after undertaking this feat of literary endurance that would make Samuel Johnson soil his trousers, I get sidetracked.

By the way, Samuel Johnson soiled his trousers a lot. More than you would accept in most men, but fuck it–it was Samuel Johnson: if you write a dictionary all by yourself, you get to shit yourself. The fucked-up thing was that every time it happened (and remember: it happened quite a bit), he would–even before attending to his pressing hygienic needs–white-knuckle his walking stick and start whaling the daylights out of Boswell, who hadn’t done anything: fucking Johnson was the one who made the doody in his pants, HE should be the one getting hit! But, no: Johnson would sock the poor fucker, like, six or seven times, hard, and start screeching, “Not for the book!” SHWAKATHOOM “Not for the book!” HAGGADAH “Not for the book!”…

Stop it. Stop it now. You are a mutant who will never know love and you need to stop it and get back to the point.

Fine.

So: I’m fully immersed in The Chicago Project. I was gonna put it on Kickstarter just as soon as I figure out what that means. And then a certain Mr. Completely (yes, Enthusiasts, the same Siren who lured me onto the rocks of Fucking Jerry Band for a while) mentions a bunch of ’80’s shows on Reddit and everything’s gone pear-shaped.

So check out this exquisite ’82 from Frost Amphitheater: not the more famous 10/10, but the day before. Brent is playing scads of piano–real piano, not the Fender–in this one and it just might be the show to fully convince me of his Motherfucker status. He’s clearly listening to Garcia and is fast and responsive and dynamic: everything Keith wasn’t at the end. PLUS, early Touch and Throwing Stones AND a rare On The Road Again! Listen to this, or I’m getting the Time Sheath, loading Samuel Johnson up with Mexican food, and coming to your house.

Smooth Like A Rhapsody

June 3, 2013 / / 2 Comments

Check out Masterpiece from MSG, 9/18/87. Not Bobby killing it, which he always did on the Dylan tune. (Not so much in the blues number. Bobby’s blues number didn’t give you the blues, it made you genuinely sad.) Not even Phil winding and wending his way through the tale of a Grand Snarl through the  Old Country.

No, check out Garcia on the backup vocals. He’s yelpin’ and-a hollerin’, only to shut right up ‘n play this here GI-tar and play it right, boy. Garcia’s singing the high harmony line, almost up where Brent normally is. It’s just at the top of his range: notes you have to make an effort for, and he does, verse after verse. He’s in time with Bobby (kind of) and he’s in tune with Bobby (for a vast majority of the song) and it’s not just exactly perfect, because it’s better than perfect…

It’s human.

P.S. Here’s my favorite thing about When I Paint My Masterpiece: Dylan gave it away.  Other writers have made their reputations–their careers!–on far less, and he gave it to Robbie fucking Robertson. Robbie Robertson’s such a prick that three of his former band members preferred to die rather than spend anymore time on the same planet as him. Only Garth Hudson remains, and he is clearly some sort of immortal wood elemental.

Hell Brent For Leather

June 27, 2012 / / 1 Comment

Douglas Adams had his Infinite Improbability Drive, but he didn’t go far enough: I introduce the Infinite Infinity Drive.

Assume infinity.

Assume the multiverse.

Therefore, if where you are is not where you want to be, then in one of the infinite universes where you are is where it is at. One can figure which is which by building a computer large enough to calculate infinity. Since such a computer would necessarily have to be larger than infinity, it might seem impossible, until one remembers that infinity must by definition contain, say, infinity+24.

It’s bigger on the inside.

You are teetering on the brink, my friend. 

9/5/79 at MSG (Do I favor East Coast show over West Coast? Am I a Coastist? Do I believe that the West Coast is fine and all, just as long as it stays over there? Yeah. Sue me.)

I am hissing at you. Hissing. Hssss.

It is, obviously, a Brent. Much like strangers at airport bars, I’ve always had an iffy relationship with Brent, but I’m going to give him a concentrated listening, at least until I can staunch this bleeding head wound. I woke up to vomit last night, like you do, and I THWACKED my head into the samurai swords I keep loose in the bathroom, the one room you’re almost guaranteed to roam around in like a piano tuner nightly. (I’m sure blind people must have gone to Dead shows, but did they bring the dog in with them? It seems mean to the dog, what with the dog-hearing and a Dead show had to be, like, the most INTERESTING SMELLING PLACE IN THE WORLD to a dog, but a guide dog has to be like those guards outside Buckingham Palace.)

(BUT, if you were blind, would you ever go to a concert or put on headphones without your dog, or the biggest, strongest, most loyal buddy in the world with you? Like, your brother just happens to be The Big Show. And I’d rather have the dog: some drunk asshole will have a go at The Big Show just because, but nobody messes with dogs. Music would cut off all your connection to the outside world; you wouldn’t be able to hear anyone sneaking up on you and people sneak up on blind people all the time)

My equivocation towards Brent lies with his playing and his voice. His playing is tremendous: he fit in with the band instantly and added new layers with his adroit B3. His playing stepped up everyone’s game and though his Rhodes could sound tinkly, it was still a welcome relief from the constant piano block-chords of the later Keith years.

I just never warmed to Brent’s voice. It always sounded like a hack comic doing a Michael McDonald impression. I’m sure there are those of you who disagree. I am sorry for your wrongness.

Perhaps They’re Better Left Unsung

May 11, 2012 / / 2 Comments

It wasn’t like roulette, you see. The casinos have made fortunes since they installed those immaculately legible tote boards listing the numbers that have landed previously in red with big ol’ tempting empty spaces in between and they’ve been raking cash in because your dumb ass has evolved to think 15 is gonna hit because it’s due. It makes sense to believe that present events are based upon past observation: that’s why people instinctively shielded their crotches whenever Billy came around, for al the good it would do them. Billy was like Gretzky: he could always find your five-hole.

But just as it is a logical fallacy to think that the rules of real life apply in the casino, it is also a mistake to think that Hoyle has any say over the world. (It’s called the Ludic fallacy, which I know because it is one of those facts that gets lodged in my brain instead of, say, how to find love.)  So, why do we forget that about the Dead? Why do we lionize certain shows only to ignore the rest of the week? These men were, appearances to the contrary, human. They had good runs. But the forest is invisible but for the trees, especially when some trees are, y’know, Barton Hall or Red Rocks. They suck up all the light.

Talking about the Dead is to talk about overshadowing. Garcia overshadowed the rest of the band, Mickey’s overkill overshadowed Billy’s light touch, ’77 and ’73 overshadowed all the other years, and Vince’s playing overshadowed the charitable work he did as a participant in the saddest Make-A-Wish event ever. Even Vince knew enough to be embarrassed.

We let ourselves think the greatness appeared as weird happening, crepuscular beams from a murky sea. Not so. 5/19/74 is rightfully well-regarded, especially the raging Truckin’>Mind Left Body jam. but listen to the very next show, 5/21/74 at UCLA the University of Washington* where they proceed to pull out a GODDAM 45 MINUTE PLAYIN’. Give the kids some Robotussin, shoot the dog and LISTEN to this thing, to the peaks and valleys that spring like Zeus out of inchoate spaciness one after another. (And, since it’s a GREAT matrix mix, listen to the appreciative audience cheer every twist and turn. Listen to ’em ROAR for Donna in Playin’. hell, listen to Donna!

Yeah, 2/14/70 is historic, but 2/11 is better. Yes, 1977 was THE year, but y’know: ’78 kicks more ass than an avowed lover of kicking ass who had spent his last dime to enter an ass-kicking contest in an attempt to win enough money to open his own business, a high-end Ass-Kickery.

 

*Thanks to a comment by an Esteemed Enthusiast, the location of the 5/21 show has been amended to note the actual location. For his Sherlockian abilities, he will receive a lifetime supply of Bobby Weir’s Shorts Shorteners. Shorts too long? Shorten ’em with Shorts Shortener!

« Older posts Newer posts »

The Stacks

Follow Us

Google Verification

Follow Us

Follow me on Twitter

© 2026 Thoughts On The Dead

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑