The reason Garcia looks so surprised is that his guitar is appearing out of some fat guy’s asshole.
Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Tag: jerry garcia (Page 124 of 139)
Here’s a weirdo show for a weirdo day: the Rambler Room on 11/17/78. I can barely figure this one out, and the internet is no help: some folks say this was a Bob Weir Band show, but the Dead are on tour (they play great shows at the Uptown Theater the nights before and after this.) Bobby wouldn’t have a solo tour co-booked with the Dead, so they probably just called themselves “The Bob Weir Band” because promoters get cranky when you play a surprise show in the same city where they’ve engaged you for the weekend.
Was this a favor? Was Bobby trying to get laid? He was Bobby, for fuck’s sake: surely this was too much effort, even for a college girl–he was a rock star, after all, and there were so many young women who wanted to sleep with rock stars that a special name had to be thought up for them.
Billy’s not there, but that doesn’t really matter: Acoustic Dead was always only Garcia and Bobby and Phil standing in the back with the treble on his bass turned all the way down.
It’s a fun show: Garcia sings Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, even imploring the small, but friendly, crowd to sing along. Great high harmonies from Bobby, who acquits himself with his slide when not permitted by the design of the guitar to place the thing all the way up the neck to make screechy noises.
It’s a homey show: you know they sent Parrish to steal the stools from the student union cafe ten minutes before the set.
PLUS a great Big Boy Pete, complete with goofy back-and-forth between Bobby and Garcia and you can hear the smiles on their faces.
Listening to the another gem from the Year of the Wall: July 31st, 1974, Dave’s Pick 2. (Which, for some reason, is still available on the Archive. Here it is.)
Tremendous Eyes, tremendously funny China Doll with Garcia and Billy musically bickering about the tempo, tremendous work on the Rhodes piano from Keith throughout the show.
but, as I said, this show has been released as a Dave’s Pick, so I cruised over to Amazon to read some reviews and came upon this offering:
Like most archival releases from 1974, this release omits “Phil and Ned”, aka “Seastones,” the electronic jams involving Phil, synthesist Ned Lagin and sometimes Garcia and Kreutzmann, which regularly took place between the 1st and 2nd set during the period June 1974 to October 1974. “Phil and Ned” was an integral part of the “Wall of Sound” show.
Why is it not included? One main reason: “Deadheads” for all their self-proclaimed openness, are just not that open to experimental electronic music that doesn’t have a “spacey” vibe, and actually they would often boo Phil and Ned’s experiments in concert. For some reason they never seem to complain about “feedback” from side 4 of live dead, which really is kind of boring.
If everyone who appreciates Seastones gives this release one star, maybe the troglodytes at Rhino will get the message for future 1974 releases.
The only reason–not an excuse, a reason–for writing this sort of thing is that one has contracted rabies. Also, scabies. ONLY SOMEONE WITH RABIES/SCABIES COULD BELIEVE THIS.
This is like going to a summer action movie and getting upset because there were no chest-pooping scenes: it’s fine to have weird, creepy fetishes (and Seastones qualifies), but realize you’re in the minority.
And, yes: Seastones was an integral part of the Wall of Sound show in the same way that Zyklon B was an integral part of Dachau’s hygiene program.
DUDE!
WHAT THE FUCK, BRO?
We JUST had the meeting about this.
You KNOW how offensive that is to me!
…
Please don’t–
What? Dude, I’m proud of my heritage.
—start with this again. Four hours in the car with this.
Germans can’t be proud?
Within the timeframe of the 1940’s, no: not really.
Y’know, it’s all about tolerance with you up to a point. “When they came for the Jews, I said nothing–“
The ‘they’ that poem refers to are the Germans, you do understand that?
…
We all have equal claims to our victimhood.
“Touchdown!”
After the 8th or 9th hotel room burned down, Hal Kant crunched the numbers and decided it was far cheaper to construct an underwater habitat that Garcia could be kept in between shows.
I feel like I need to reiterate this: do not make Hologram Garcia and take it on tour. No one wants to see translucent Garcia glitching and shimmering and 18 feet high, backed up by live musicians with dreams that did not include accompanying a film strip.
Every bad decision in history was, in the end, made by one person. Invading Russia, New Coke, the Maginot Line–all these things were subject to one man’s say-so, and so is this choice: to Hologram Garcia or not to Hologram Garcia. Would the buck stop with the Estate? The band? Could Hunter have a veto? (And if he does, then the point is moot: I think we can all safely assume this shit would be the definition of ‘not okay’ with him.)
What I’m getting to is this: the person that is ultimately responsible for allowing Hologram Garcia to exist will be beaten with a shoe, by me, no mercy, and not so much a shoe as boots.
As long as no one makes Hologram Garcia, everything’s gonna be cool.
When Billy started telling dickpunching stories, it was best to listen politely.
You know my feelings on the Dave’s Pick series: it’s kicking ass on all cylinders, partly because of base-level good decisions being made concerning the first and most important choice–which show shall it be?
Aside from DaP 6, which I thought had more historical significance than musical merit, there’s not a Pick you can second-guess: perhaps the show you want hasn’t come around yet, but there haven’t been any shows of less than A+ caliber.
For example, Dave could have picked any of these shows, but didn’t. Good work, you apology-offering syrupsucker.
- That show in ’83 when Bobby put slides on every finger and realized he couldn’t play like that so he got really frustrated and started windmilling his arms around and whomping people on the heads and screaming bloody murder and, you know: this was in front of fans, like twelve goddam thousand of them–it looks bad for the organization, so eventually Billy came around from behind his drums and mercy-punched Bobby in his dick and Brent got scared and started crying because the grown-ups were fighting and in the confusion, Garcia snuck into the bathroom and that was the end of the first set.
- The marching band show. The things that happened to the flautists…
- That time Vince got “hysterical blindness”, to which everyone responded by telling him that if he knew it was hysterical blindness, then he should be able to see, to which Vince then claimed to have “hysterical deafness, as well” and tumbled over a few things rather theatrically and the night got worse from there, to be honest.
- All those benefits when Phil would yell at the sick people.
- Any of those shows in the ’80’s when they would play brilliantly one at a time, or perhaps in small groups, but almost never everybody at once.
- The show the day after the famous ’78 mescaline show, when they just sat there pushing the eggs around the plate for a bit, then tried to go back to bed, but everything hurt.
- The Pants-off Dance-off. No one needed to see that shit, Billy.
- Any of the shows they played at Summerland or Autumnland.
- The lost May ’76 performance of Jesus Christ: Superstar that not one of them was off book for.
- Those shows in late ’81, when instead of Drums/Space, Werner Herzog would just come out and rap with the crowd about man’s compulsion to defy his own mortality through art.
- Any of the shows they did on that mall tour with Tiffany.
Officially, it was listed as a grease fire, but we know what happened.
As always, Garcia was real sorry for accidentally burning the place down, but what was the alternative? To not pass out with a cigarette in your hand over and over? That’s crazy talk is what that is.
“We need more speakers.”
“I haven’t even told you how many you’re going to have yet.”
“We’re gonna need more that that.”
“You have an unbelievably large number of speakers.”
“You’re not listening: however many speakers we have, we need more than that. MAKE IT SO.”
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