Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
If he stopped moving at a festival, this would happen. Every time.
“Tell us about politics, Jerry.”
“Hi, Jer!”
“Garcia, I have this screenplay that–”
“Man, I know you;re gonna think I;m crazy, but–”
And he just wants to go hide and get high but Garcia’s polite, you know? So he sits there with soggy balls listening to randos be his best friend at him.
Bobby was wearing his mask before the show, but he caught sight of himself in a mirror and started screeching “MY FACE! MY FACE!” and it took an hour and three Hershey bars to get him out of the utility shed.
Damned kids and their instagram. Filters all over everything to make it look cool.
Also, three songs later, Bobby whipped the scrunchie out and he and Mrs. Donna Jean had a hair-off for 20 minutes until Phil yelled at them.
Only 30 years before this picture was taken, Hitler had the same view.
Who’ll be there 30 years from now?
In the Torah, it is written, “Thou shalt celebrate the New Year with somewhat-dim photos of Garcia and Bobby playing acoustic guitar with the New Riders in St. John of Jerusalem Cathedral in Kent England.”
Admittedly, it’s a weird thing to find in a holy book, but let’s face it: it’s ain’t the goofiest statement in that book by a long shot.
“Oh, Pig’s deathly ill? Let’s schlep him around a decidedly-not-unified Europe on a bus for six weeks. Sold plan, guys!”
I’ve been thinking about the Tahoe Tweezer from that improvisational group, The Phishes, and I want to see it as its own thing, to not compare, to not demand a referent, but it just happens: certain stars are binary. Peanut butter goes with jelly; Yankees with the Sox; toilet activities with shame. The Phishes will always be compared to the Dead, because like the Dead, they’re not special: White guys playing Stones covers in hockey arenas; iconic guitar-god frontman with a penchant for opiates; unpleasant-looking, half-Jewish rhythm section.
Getting back to this immense Tahoe Tweezer: the only thing I could compare it to was a ’72 Dark Star. When they got long, and deep, and mystical. In ’72, sometimes you can’t tell whether they’re going to make it back. Will they paint themselves into a corner while painting their masterpiece? Would they have to cheat and just SLAM another song up against some abstract doodlings? That was the Dead’s way of admitting defeat in a jam, that they had neglected to take a left turn in Albuquerque and each of them had subtly suggested a number of options for songs, but no one could agree, so Bobby (always the most quietly obstinate onstage) would just Leroy Jenkins them all into Sugar Magnolia.
After listening to a few Dark Stars, I realized why I’ll come back to the Dead. Why this music is good and should be shared and kept and treasured.
It was after Dark Star, actually: they had gone into Wharf Rat and I listened to these men (and Mrs. Donna Jean) sing a song about two men on opposite sides of a story, and I have been both of those men and that has been my story and that has not been my story.
It’s the songs, it was always the songs. I grew to love the men who sang them because of the songs that they sang. I’m a first-set guy. Tell me a story.
Tell me the one you told me last night: it’s the only way I’ll sleep.
The Dead wrote about 135 songs, and did probably half again as many covers, except that doesn’t tell the whole story. Mainly because some songs, they wrote three or four times.
Jack-A-Roe and Peggy-O are–thematically–the same song: doomed love, hyphens, Game of Thrones vibe. Ramble On Rose and Tennessee Jed are musically the same song, while Ramble On Rose and U.S. Blues are lyrically the same song. Eyes of the World and Help on the Way could be mistaken for each other in a dark alley.
The Dead are lucky that they premiered Iko, Samson, Throwing Stones,and Women are Smarter after their mind-blowing Europe ’72 warm-up show at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (Dick’s Pick 30). Otherwise, jamming with Mr. Diddley might have been a little more awkward. (And if you haven’t checked out this offering, you’re just a sillypants: the first disc* alone is worth the price of admission, featuring the five song Bo Diddley jam, a version of Are You Lonely For Me, Baby that defines “ragged but right,” and the only GD performance of How Sweet It Is**–which is odd, because they really rock the hell out of it, but perhaps the three chord tune was a bit boring for a certain bass player.)
To Lay Me Down, Must Have Been the Roses, and Ship of Fools are identical cousins; Black-Throated Wind and Looks Like Rain a bit more distantly related, but still clearly available to donate organs to one another. (Don’t tell Phil.) Chinatown Shuffle and U.S. Blues aren’t fooling anyone.
Now, don’t take this as any sort of chastisement, of course. Hell, a lot of really, really popular bands ripped themselves off: for example, AC/DC has only written, like, three songs in their entire career, which puts them two ahead of the Ramones.
*I hadn’t listened all the way through that first amazing disc when I wrote this, but you MUST check out the Smokestack Lightning, which is usually kind of a drag, but cooks right here PLUS the added fun of–about 8 minutes in or so–hearing Bobby try again and again to drag the rest of them into Truckin’, but the rest of them are simply not having it.
**I mistakenly thought that Bobby and Garcia played How Sweet It Is on Letterman, but it was actually Second That Emotion, because, in keeping with the theme of the post, they are also pretty much the same song. Check it out, anyway: Garcia with Tiger, Bobby with Pepto Pink, and the MONSTROUS Will Lee holding down the bass and backup vocals.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOeDEVyUBek&w=420&h=315]
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