Thoughts On The Dead

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

Tag: jefferson airplane

Hell Of A Lineup

August 22, 2018 / / 8 Comments

Everyone’s tenth-favorite Canadian (after the members of Rush, the Kids in the Hall, and Sarah Polley) David Lemieux posted this on Twitter today, possibly to depress all of us into suicide about the current state of music. LOOK AT THIS BULLSHIT. Legend after legend, and also the Jefferson Airplane, playing at what was essentially a high school auditorium.

Obviously, the highlight is the Dead’s four-show run that so often gets overlooked in favor of the more famous (and more documented) Veneta Creamery gig, but barring the band you’ve known for all these years, who’s the King Stud? We begin with subtraction.

John Mayall/Albert King It turns out “John Mayall” is not John Mayer spelled wrong; also, John Mayer does not have access to Time Sheath technology so he almost certainly is not playing any gigs in 1972. Someone’s gonna stick up for Albert King, but they shouldn’t because the Blues are boring. Learn a fourth chord, the Blues.

Joe Cocker I couldn’t have seen Joe Cocker live because I would’ve charged the stage and shoved a wallet in his mouth. Stop twitching, Joey the Spaz.

Cat Stevens Dogshit. Don’t you have a hajj to go to, Yusef? Music is haram, infidel.

Jefferson Airplane The single most interesting thing the Jefferson Airplane ever did was the time a swozzled Grace Slick taunted a Hamburg crowd by chanting “WHO WON THE WAR?” at them until Marty Balin tackled her. That’s living theater, man.

Leon Russell This is a tough gig to throw on the scrap pile, but Leon’s dead so he won’t be insulted. (And even when Leon was alive, he wasn’t really aware of what was going on.) He might have made the cut, but he played piano on Monster Mash* and anyone who played piano on Monster Mash gets eliminated. I don’t make the rules.

The Kinks/Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show Maybe if Stevie or Pink Floyd weren’t on the list. Maybe. Did the Davies brothers get into a fistfight onstage at this show? That would change my mind, but the innertubes has no information about said alleged fisticuffs, so that’s a “No” for me, dog.

You should, however, read this wonderful (and long) exegesis of Dr. Hook’s ’74 appearance on Musikladen by Okkervil River’s frontman Will Sheff. Trust me.

The Faces/Tower of Power The Faces are the most precisely rated band in Rock history. Not overrated, not underrated; precisely as forgotten as they should be.

So: we’ve narrowed our field down to four competitors but not really because even though I (and Valued Commentator JES) love Humble Pie, they’re just not in the same league as the other three, are they? But Steve Marriott and the boys did cover a familiar tune:

Better than Jerry Band’s version? I don’t know, but it is three hours shorter and I don’t have to picture Smokin’ John Kahn while it’s playing.

OUR FINALISTS:

The Pink Floyd Sound, maaaaaaaaaaaan Is the Floyd cool this year or not? They swing back and forth, according to Important Rock Critics, at least. The Floyd are to music criticism what eggs are to nutritional science. I don’t give a fuck; there’s always room for Animals on my turntable.

(And, yes, I see that they were playing at Winterland instead of the BCT. Stop correcting people.)

What were they playing in 1972, anyway?

It was the Dark Side of the Moon tour. Gonna be tough to beat. You’d have to be some sort of super-funky musical genius.

Stevie Wonder Who is a super-funky musical genius, and 1972 was a strapping year from Little Stevie. Music of My Mind had come out the previous year; Talking Book and its big hit Superstition came out in ’72, and Innervisions was due to be released in ’73. On 12/26/72, he filmed an hourlong special called SOUL! in New York with the same band he had for the BCT show. They were all right.

And then a few weeks later, he appeared on the game show What’s My Line? (I know that doesn’t have anything to do with how rockin’ a gig he would have put on, but it’s fun and I wanted to share it with you even though none of you are helping me with my doobie problem.)

GENE SHALIT! SOUPY!

And, hey, check this out:

Don’t tell me the 70’s weren’t awesome.

But, like Highlanders, there can be only one and since it will annoy Mr. Completely I will choose to use the Time Sheath to go back and catch the only person on this list whose hand I got to shake before they died: George Carlin doing material from the legendary Class Clown album.

So, in closing, I leave you with George’s immortal words: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. And tits shouldn’t even be on the list, man.

 

*Absolutely true.

Expo Exposed

May 26, 2018 / / 6 Comments

Hey, it’s the Baby Dead in Montreal! This was at what was called the Montreal Expo (which was really a World’s Fair, but you know Quebecois can’t call anything by its Anglo name) in 1967, and it marked the Dead’s first gig outside the United States*. They played at the Youth Pavilion along with the Jefferson Airplane (seen at the end of the clip), Thelonious Monk, the Supremes (Diana Ross-led version), and Tiny Tim. Sadly, Mr. Tim did not sit in for Dark Star. There’s no recording, but they did play Viola Lee Blues and Alligator; they repeated the two songs at the Monterey Pop Festival a week or so later, so why don’t you just listen to this and pretend that it’s Montreal?

And hey! Here’s another shot of Garcia and Bobby getting waaaaaaay too close to the Airplane’s gear:

Check out Dorkenheimer in the shorts back there.

And here’s one of The Boys playing:

FUN FACT: The set is a direct result of one 50-year-old Montrealer asking another, “Wot do ze children like zese days when zey take ze drugs?”

*The Expo gig was actually the last show in a Canadian mini-tour, but I still stand by the tenets of Without Research.

And The White Jeans Are Talking Backwards

January 12, 2018 / / 8 Comments

Ask as ye shall receive, Enthusiasts, unless you ask Mouthless Jenny for a hummer; then, you will not receive. Might get a tug, but no sloppy.

Where are you going with this?

In 1967, The Jefferson Airplane did a Levi’s commercial, white Levi’s in particular.

Interesting. But how does that logically follow your introductory statement?

A trusted and valued Commentator named Steve B shared this information with us because of the last post featuring Mickey in an eggshell slack.

Still not making the connection.

Then you’re a dunce. Posting a picture of man wearing white jeans is implicitly asking the world, What the fuck is happening here? AND it’s Mickey, so there’s a secondary implicit question: From whom did Mickey yoink these pants? We now know the answer is that the Jefferson Airplane–probably Spencer Dryden–was given a couple boxes full of white Levi’s and Mickey helped himself. Case closed.

What case?

I’m a historian.

No.

I’m an historian.

That wasn’t the problem with that sentence. Let’s end with something everyone can agree upon.

Jefferson Airplane sucked.

There ya go.

Lockn’ Lol

July 31, 2015 / / 0 Comments

This is Saturday's lineup at
I’ll see you there, right? Highlight of my year: pooping in a Virginia field in September. Sleeping in a tent next to humping strangers, eating while I stand up, Warren Haynes: man, this is gonna be great.

TotD is not particularly fancy. I slept on a couch last month, but it should be noted that it was a leather couch in an AirBnB in a rapidly genritfying neighborhood. My living situation is allowed to be scruffy, but it must be permanent; I will not sleep under a nylon roof. Camping is just not for me.

Jews and camps…

Anyway, if you’re there or going or streaming it or whatever: have a blast, but I will be making love to my air conditioner. I do have some random thoughts, though:

  • Fishbone’s still around? Didn’t half of them get thrown in jail for kidnapping the other half?
  • Will Robert Plant be not playing Zep songs at the crowd again? Those fuckers at the Grammys rewarded him one time for not playing Zep songs and now all he does is not play Zep songs. Fuck that guy: play Zep songs.
  • Did anyone ever answer Robert Plant about the remembering laughter thing?
  • No Umphries? What the fuck, man.
  • Once again: fucked by Peter Shapiro.
  • I think Peter Shapiro’s in love with me the amount he fucks me.
  • I mean, the String Cheese Incident is gonna be there, so that’s awesome.
  • But, no Umphries.
  • Was Billy’s departure and Phil’s arrival worked out between the two camps as to not have them in the same place at the same time?
  • Just asking questions, man.
  • But, if so: you know Billy put Benjy on the phone to handle it just to be a dick.
  • Can you see Jill and Peter Shapiro pushing the phone back and forth at one another?
  • “You do it.”
  • “This is what you get paid for.”
  • “I don’t get paid enough for this.”
  • And so on.
  • Again: just asking questions.
  • Man.
  • Steve Earle is the musical version of The Wire.
  • Decipher that how you will.
  • WAIT: Billy is playing with Jefferson Airplane on Friday right after Phil!
  • Fun.
  • Also: Jefferson Airplane sucked. In every incarnation and in every way, and they are celebrating their 50th anniversary in a pasture in Virginia instead of a football stadium.
  • They’re not even headlining.
  • (Although, this group of musician is so far way from being the actual Jefferson Airplane that it includes G.E. Smith, who is still performing despite having the worst case of Les Palsy known to man.)
  • Hey! You got your String Cheese in my Doobie!
  • Hey! You got your Doobie in my String Cheese!
  • Well, you should probably just throw the results out, as it will surely be terrible.
  • Is Michael McDonald even going to be there, or just the guy who looked like he was the lead on WKRP?
  • The Oh Hellos, you go to your room and don’t come out until you’ve thought up a good band name.
  • You, too, Slightly Stoopid.
  • In fact, Slightly Stoopid: go fuck yourself with your deliberately shit band name.
  • Put some effort into life.
  • Mickey just announced that he would be playing with Bobby on Saturday night, and if Bobby doesn’t play Lost Sailor, I will lose all respect for him

Hulk vs. Superman

January 22, 2012 / / 0 Comments

1977 is something that must be dealt with; its little brother is ’73. Speak to me not of 1974, when Billy decided that they were gonna be a damn jazz band if he had anything to do with it. Leave ’76 in your pocket, when tempos dragged and everything was a dirge. Yes, the Beacon shows were outstanding, but they were still figuring out what to do now that they were less of a fighter jet and more of a bomber.

You’re going to bring up the Old Shit, the Primal Dead Shit. The before-they-learned-how-to-write-songs Dead. The Dead that had, like, four riffs that went with three different sets of lyrics, each more ridiculous than the last, and would just trip their balls off while holding instruments in front of audiences really loud? We all love that Dead. You can’t not love that Dead. It’s like the Baby Jesus. We love the Baby Jesus simply because he’s gonna be Jesus, but right now: he’s a baby! Yay, we love babies! And that’s what the Pigpen era was: Baby Jesus.

If the Dead hadn’t learned how to write songs, they would have ben the Quicksilver Messenger Whatever. Or Jefferson Airplane. Just endlessly jamming with some nonsense lyrics about The Man, or the Shire.

So we must leave Primal Dead, to refocus on 1977 and 1973.  1977 and 1973. They are the Batman and Robin of the Grateful Dead’s output.

Some will say it is the historic availability of the high-quality Betty Boards that bias the long-time Grateful Dead listener: these shows were taped so well that they were invariably the best sounding thing in anyone’s collection. Huge bass, crisp separation–these tapes were a joy to listen to, as opposed to the murky 4th and 5th gen Maxell’s cluttering up your basement. No matter how “warts and all” your stance, you couldn’t help appreciate the sound that rivaled some of the Dead’s official releases. (I’m looking at you, Skull & Roses.)

Perhaps ’77 is so esteemed simply because listening to it doesn’t give you a headache? This would have been a valid argument years ago, but after 32 Dick’s Picks, two dozen Road Trips and Digital Downloads, we have fearful amounts of Dead available, all at a sound quality that any one of us would have once killed for. Yes, you can quibble over the “punchiness” of this release versus that, but these are, when it comes to using the Dead to feed the hunger of your burgeoning OCD, light years beyond what we used to deem acceptable

We have not mentioned any year past 1977. There is a reason for that. (We’ll get to Brent later, you can be assured.)

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