Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
In Bobby’s defense, he has for years been warning others that stealing women from their men is not just a pursuit to while away the long hours, but his vocation and livelihood. Bobby doesn’t want to steal all these women, but it’s his job, man, and in this economy, a man’s gotta put bacon on the table.
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.
3/31/73 at War Memorial Arena in Buffalo, NY.
Holy fuck, how broke were they that Buffalo in March was the remedy?
P.S. Except, HOLY SHIT Greatest Story is rampaging through Buffalo! The only thing more destructive was the shifting global economy. Ha-cha-cha-cha. The weather might have been cold, but the band was HOT.
Okay, that’s your warning. That’s your warning right there.
What? What did I–
You know what you did. I know you know you know what you did. Acknowledge the warning.
I will not ack–
You will acknowledge the warning.
NO.
YOU WILL ACKNOWLEDGE THE–
GENTLEMEN, THAT’LL BE THE END OF THAT.
Sorry.
Sorry, boss.
Life is short: listen to ’73.
Kiss-ass.
P.P.S. I’ll come clean, I just picked this show to make the joke, but it’s really good. Someone–I’m not going to say who, but it was Bobby–remembered ALL of the words to Truckin’. Like a boss.
P.P.P.S. And then a China-less Rider? Just jammed straight into it? Dipping briefly into the beautiful descending 1973 chords that connected the two songs, harmonically, rhythmically, perfectly. BEST SHOW EVER
Good evening, pretty lady: I heard it through the grapevine that looks aren’t a big thing with you. May I have this dance?
“Garcia! Garcia! GARCIA!”
Garcia walks over.
“What, man?”
“They look like boobies.”
“Billy!”
Listen to the drummers–the two of them back there–from a perfectly recorded show when they HAD IT: when they do those long fills down every tom-tom they own and the beat starts all the way on the left and just whips around your skull at 90 mph, that’s just the best thing in the world, isn’t it? Those duk-a-duhs and when they got those rolling, the band sounds as if someone rolled a Medieval army down a cliff and recorded the clangor. (Bear did that once in 1971, to test out the specs on a new harmonica mike he was thinking about using if and when Slim Harpo showed up. Bear was nothing if not thorough.)
I’ve posted this show before, but it deserves a revival: 5/13/77 at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. Chicago! Badger City, Home of Shufflin’ George, those brusque but lovable Chicagoniacs! (I an not a geography buff and I made that clear when I applied for this job.)
Just keep typing, buddy.
The two of them are just monsters on this crisply recorded show and, quite frankly, it is best for the world that these two took up drumming. If Billy and Mickey ever got in a competition to see who could start the most fights, World War III would ensue within days. These coked-up conga hobbits were possessed of a rage that, were it e’er loosed, could bring us the brink of doom.
An intern* once suggested that perhaps the strategy of shooting speed into one’s eyeball while being shuttled between Des Moines, IA, and Normal, Il, like a piece of hairy luggage in some way exacerbated certain tendencies and then Billy burst into the room drunk and naked and accidentally shot the kid in the face, like 8 or maybe 9 times. Billy didn’t even know what the kid was talking about, it was just, you know, “time to kil the intern.” Like it is every full moon.
*The Dead had interns: college kids from UCSC, Hal Kant’s niece, at least three baby-faced drifters, S.E. Cupp, and Planchette. Don’t mention Planchette around the guys: his skill set was almost entirely concentrated in the field of looming ominously. Planchette was good at finding out addresses and he always dressed in very dark green, with nothing shiny or jingly on him. You know how in the vast majority of pictures of Keith, he looks like he just saw a ghost? Planchette. They should have gotten rid of him years before the incident, but he was the only one who ever got the coffee order right consistently.Don’t mention Planchette.
After two or three stadium shows in a row, Bobby’s shorts could find their own way to the stage.
Mr. Welnick, we haven’t been introduced. I am Rutherford, butler to the Grateful Dead. Allow me to show you to your rooms.
…
It is not common knowledge, Mr. Welnick. Most of the fans are unaware of the masters’ devotion to keeping a properly staffed and liveried house. I am the Head of House, under me is the Brigadoon plus two Manjacks, an Argie-Bargie, four Fops, an armorer, the individual valets, and a falconer.
…
No, sir, you have nothing to fear. The falcon died immediately upon being introduced into daily life with the masters. It wasn’t legally a suicide, but that’s only because there’s no box on the form to check off ‘Bird killed itself.’
…
So: Dinner is served promptly at 8:00 PM. We dress for Dinner here, sir. I do not know what retirement village-adjacent Goodwill’s dumpsters you’ve been shopping in, but it shall not suffice.
…
Before dinner, there is Drinks. For the sake of brevity, sir, just assume it is always Drinks. The appellation seems rather redundant at this pont, but tradition reigns, tradition reigns.
…
You’ll find much to do here, sir. There is the garden with the hedge maze and when you go in there, please bring Mr. Weir back with you. There’s archery down at the–I beg your pardon, sir, I…misspoke. There is no archery. No archery whatsoever Sir will find that the cable package is exhaustive and we do have a jacuzzi, but House rules insist upon a buddy system. No triples.
…
Yes, there are stables. Full stables. Mr. Hart has been dosing the beasts with LSD and they’re having the time of–I cannot lie, sir: it’s like horse Guernica down there. Under no circumstances go anywhere near the stables. If you see a horse, shoot it, because it’s going to eat you. Ah! Your rooms!
…
Well. It seems like Mr. Garcia has burned down another suite. Apologies. You will have to go back to your houseboat for the evening.
How did you know about my houseboat?
So, like, it’s a hobby or whatever, right? It’s just like any other hobby or geek thing. If you think about it: what’s, like, the difference between a Deadhead and a Brony?
Boy, you shut your whore mouth.
It’s sequel time here in Fillmore South:
Things I love about the Dead, Part the II
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