Thoughts On The Dead

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

Tag: drums->space

Can't Live With 'Em…

September 3, 2013 / / 0 Comments

drums 1978

I don’t know if any of you have known any drummers but this shit right here is why every band that has ever existed (except for our protagonists and one other) doesn’t let the drummer vote.  If you don’t keep a sharp eye on percussionists, the amount of timbales, congas, and other hollowed out fruit/skull/animal skin combinations in your life will multiply like Tribbles on Molly.

And, obviously, the other drummer allowed a vote is Neil Peart. Which has–INEXORABLY–led to this:

peart-kit-overhead-660-80

Drummers cannot be reasoned with. They exist solely to play when you don’t want them to, disappear when you need them, collect noisy things, and have too much sex. They understand only the lash, and in most cases, request the lash, please and thank you.

IF YOU SEE A DRUMMER: Do not under any circumstances let him or her name the drum solo. Once a drum solo gets a name, it immediately accesses the Dungeon Dimensions and becomes NIGH-UPON UNSTOPPABLE and goes for thirty fucking minutes and it’s unbearable.

The Drummer (if male) will almost certainly remove his shirt. Do not be alarmed: DRUMMERS HATE SHIRTS. Almost as much as they hate books, but let’s be reasonable: no one hates anything as much as a drummer hates a book. If you see a drummer reading, just run. Something awful is happening.

Good Lovin’

February 14, 2012 / / 1 Comment

The Dead used to masturbate together. Not just in the old days, when Pig would whip out his thick, greasy hog and announce, “Let’s put our hands IN our pockets!” No, it was a constant throughout the years. Lineup changes, health problems, financial chaos? The music got them through, along with regular sessions of group masturbation. It was men being men together and, occasionally, all over each other. And what could be wrong with that?

Oh, hell, I can’t hold on to this horrible knowledge any longer: the Dead were gay. Very, very gay. And much like metal fans with Rob Halford and Ronnie James Dio, we had absolutely no idea. This the kind of thing that Dead.net won’t tell you, my friends! LOOK AT THE EVIDENCES!

Do I even have to make the joke about Garcia being a bear and Bobby being a twink and Phil being the guy at the orgy still wearing socks?

Ramrod. His name was Ramrod. No matter where on the planet you are, if you get into a taxi and say “Ramrod,” you will be taken to a gay bar.

Mustaches, mustaches, mustaches.

(Okay, this has to stop: I’m just taking out some frustration on you, Fellow Enthusiast. Sitting here listening to 2/23/93–Ornette Coleman sits in for the last half of the second set and they open up with a Mardi Gras-infused Iko Iko and IT’S AWESOME except I’m breaking rules all over the place: a Vince? Listening to a Vince, even with Ornette Coleman? PLUS, I’m listening to drums->space and IT’S AWESOME, TOO and now I’m worried that I’m turning into one of those drums->space people and the only step after that is quibbling about different recordings of the same show. That’s no life at all.)

(Oh, right: the Dead are, of course, not actually practicing homosexuals, which, of course, would be perfectly fine and would probably be real good for Mickey. He needs some masculine energy around. Not Billy, though. Let’s face it, Billy was gonna be punching anyone you placed in front of him. Also, I don’t think Dio’s gay: like always, I will be sticking to my ban on research of any sort. If Dio were gay, though, he’d be roaming around the fantasy world of Homoslavia with his giant penis sword, riding on top of a penis dragon, and penising everything around him with his penis. Penis.)

Play It Slow

February 11, 2012 / / 0 Comments

This game thing…this goddamn game thing. I would rather have Billy speedbag my nuts while tie-dyed ninjas force me to watch them delete all the beautiful Shows from my computer and replace them with audience tapes of 1995 than have anything to do with this goddamn game thing.

First off, the site looks like CompuServe’s Brazilian-raised clone, flashy and zitty and with music that starts playing when the page opens. Genocides have been started for lesser insults than playing music I didn’t ask for when the page opens and then HIDING THE FUCKING MUTE BUTTON IN YOUR PASTEL NIGHTMARE OF A WEBSITE.

Plus: it’s SHIT music. There’s a drums>space vibe to it, but there are two problems there: 1. That’s what you want to open up with, Grateful Dead Game? The thing that even hard-core fans of the band only barely tolerated? Not, say, an upbeat catchy number? And, 2. IT’S NOT EVEN THE DEAD PLAYING. It sounds like a guy with a Korg M-1.

Okay, fine, the site looks awful. Hell, this site looks awful. But we get to play a game! Except the game doesn’t exist. Not yet. So far, we’ve just voted on the Top Ten Dead Shows Of All Time In The Universe. Guess which show won.

Or-Not Coleman

January 30, 2012 / / 0 Comments

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrzOzgYL1-o]

Sometimes the Dead would try to sound like this record, Free Jazz. It was by Ornette Coleman and also featured Eric Dolphy and a bunch of other guys who wore clothes you could never in your wildest dreams pull off. Lots of chocolate-brown trousers with immaculate creases and cigarette ashes caught in the cuffs.

This music was to the Grateful Dead what the Grateful Dead was to keyboardists: a bad influence. Go back and listen to that nonsense again. It is skreeking and skronking and the odd thing is: they’re sure that they’re killing it. At least when Lou Reed made Metal Machine Music, you knew it was the simple combination of Being the World’s Biggest Junkie and Being the World’s Biggest Asshole.

When I hear this, I hear space, and when I hear space, I just want to go around slapping people. My hand would chafe until the skin just sloughed right off, like a snake’s–that’s how many slaps I want to give out when the Noodle Monster shows its mangy face.

My Second Sets Are Shorter Than Yours

January 22, 2012 / / 3 Comments

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.

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