Fractal flame>lazy lightning because fire does actually exhibit fractal qualities, while lightning can’t be lazy. The fact that light can only move at one speed is both kind of important and the sort of thing you learn as a child.
Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Tag: lazy lightning
GODS ABOVE, do I love being wrong and fuckaduck, I should be at least inured to it by now, but sometimes my mistakes and misconceptions decide to destroy me with kindness, like when my long-held prejudice against ’76 was cured–a MIRACLE my brothers and sisters!–by this molasses-slow Peggy-O from Chicago’s Auditorium Theater on 6/29/76. Fist off, it’s listed as Mama Tried on the Archive, and second, Garcia’s a little out-of-tune, but SO WHAT, YOU BOW DOWN AND RUB HIS SWOLLEN ANKLES, PEASANT. He’s just killing it and there are eons–milllllllllennia–between beats. It drips over you like Billy’s lotion; it pools to fill every crevice; it is pristine and then, holy shit, it’s Mission in the Rain.
They only played it three times. Or five times, depending on whether you believe this sentence or the one previous. Garcia and Mrs. Donna Jean sing about whores and loss while the band swings behind them, then she duets with Bobby on a gorgeous Looks Like Rain that finds some astounding work from all of them, most of all Billy playing the thunder implicit in the song’s title. It’s transcendent and resplendent and other words, so many other words I can’t be bothered to type right now.
And then they tune up for, like, seven minutes.
This might be the rarest of all birds: a DONNA SHOW. Listen to her wee-hoo-hoo! during the verses of Lazy Lightning, melding her voice with Garcia’s (who was always a Galaxy-Class backup singer) for the “Myyy liiiight-nin’ tooooo!”
I didn’t see how before how hypnotic the Slow Dead could be–it’s not a dirge, it’s hypnosis.
Check this one out, if not for yourself, then for the Turks.
P.S. Great googly-mooglies, you must listen to the Playin’>Space Jam>The Wheel>Playin’ Reprise. One of these days, you’re gonna be dead, so liste to this right now. IGNORE YOUR CHILDREN AND LISTEN TO THIS IMPROVISATIONAL COUNTRY-ROCK PERFORMANCE.
Your opinion of 5/8/77 (and I know that, if you’re reading this, you probably own the show, but check out the Matrix tape on Archive.org I linked to–it might even be better than the famed BettyBoard) has absolutely nothing to do with 5/8/77’s congenital greatness. It’s like the Sun: you cannot ignore it. (Also, it will give you skin cancer, but since everything gives everyone cancer nowadays, why hold that against the show?)
(What if, instead of culture doing what we wanted it to do, we did what culture wanted us to do? A truly memetic view of the world? And what culture wanted us to do was get cancer. That’s something DeadBase won’t tell you, primarily because it makes no sense.)
Now, the first set is spectacular, especially the Lazy Lightning/Supplication and Deal. But, the second set is obviously where the money is hidden. I always loved the very beginning of it:
All right, now we’re gonna play everybody’s favorite fun game: Move Back. Now, when I tell ya, “Take a step back,” everybody take a step back. Right? Right. Okay, take a step back. And take another step back. And take yet another step back. And another. Take a step back. Doesn’t everybody feel better? Whaddya mean, “No?”
And Keith plays his little snake charmer thing, and Garcia says,
Now, see, uh, all these people in front are getting horribly smashed here. So, uh, that means all you people in the back have to move back…
—or feel real guilty–
…just move back some.
Then all your friends won’t be so bug-eyed.
Garcia tocks away the Scarlet chords, soft and gentle, and then Mickey counts it off with this little triplet: dot dot dot…
AND THEN PHIL COMES IN: BOMP-buhWOOOO bum Bum BUM. That immensely confident bounce that the song enters with!
You know the rest of it. Just listen to the music play.
© 2021 Thoughts On The Dead
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
Recent Comments