Thoughts On The Dead

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

Tag: mickey hart (Page 25 of 71)

When I Stack My Masterpiece

May 13, 2016 / / 5 Comments

band onstage red rocks 3

Precarious Lee never won any awards. He came in third in his sixth grade spelling bee, and that was better than he had expected to do, so he was happy. He created no lasting works; Precarious never learned to sculpt, and he didn’t have the patience for novel-writing.  He facilitated art, but never got around to making any. Precarious has lived his life without inflicting much of a scar on the historical record.

But, Precarious? He did that bullshit right there.

And that bullshit right there?  That’s art.

Speak Of The Rhythm Devils

May 13, 2016 / / 1 Comment

mickey billy hey there onstage

How many people have had this as the last thing they saw?

OR

Billy has stolen Mickey’s mallets, and now Mickey has nothing.

OR

After that afternoon’s showing of Magic Mike XXL in 3D, Mickey forgot to take the glasses off, and when someone made fun of him, he pretended like he had done it on purpose, so he’s riding out the lie.

OR

Matt Kelly had this view once.

Give ‘Em The Old Razzle-Dazzle

May 12, 2016 / / 7 Comments

band 80s denver

If you asked the best production designer in the world, “Can you make it look like no one gave a shit?” the stage would still look a million times better than this. Any effort or eye towards aesthetics–even if it’s to deliberately fuck it up–would ruin the perfect middle finger that is this haphazardousness.

(Precarious Lee has a cousin named Harold “Hap” Hazard, but I don’t know if we’ll ever hear about him again.)

Scylla And Charibdes

May 11, 2016 / / 6 Comments

billy mickey kimmel

When did Billy give his last fuck? He did not enter this world overladen with fucks, by nature of temperament, and he distributed them judiciously, but he is now out of fucks and has been for a long time.

There was a last one, there had to be. Fucks are finite, and your supply depletes until you have one left; then, none. Did Billy know that was his last fuck? If so, did he use it wisely? I hope not, because not giving a fuck about your last fuck is a wonderful way to begin not giving a fuck in general.

Mickey still has fucks; he’ll never run out. Look at him back there, giving fucks with all his might.

Also:

that-face-again

Dressed Myself In Green Room

May 10, 2016 / / 0 Comments

CELL PHONE NOISE

CELL PHONE NOISE

“Hello, this is Phil. Phil Lesh. Of the Grateful Dead.”

“Weir here.”

“Hey, Bob. You guys doing Kimmel, huh?”

“Yeah, hold on: sending you a pic.”

DING

“Jesus, Bob: how many pictures of Billy’s dick do you have?”

“No, that’s Mickey.”

“Right. Jewish.”

“I got it in here somewhere.”

DING

IMG_4256

“I’m giving the kid bunny ears.”

“You take this picture with a flip-phone?”

“No, no: that’s Kimmel’s green room. Very few pixels in there. Odd.”

“Huh. What are you gonna play?”

“Some Dead songs.”

“Well, yeah.”

“That’s not why I called. We had an idea: what if we all fight each other?”

…

“Did you see the Captain America movie, Bob?”

“I had it explained to me, and the premise is sound: Dead splits up–”

“We did that.”

“–and fights. We could do it at the Garden, or your restaurant. Whichever.”

“I don’t even understand this one.”

“Me and Mickey vs. You and Billy.”

“Pass.”

“Me and Billy vs. you and Mickey.”

“Pass.”

“Me and Ratdog vs. you and that bunch of beardos you play with.”

“There’s still a Ratdog?”

“Probably.”

“Bob, we’re not Civil Warring.”

“What if we just let the drummers fight?”

“What do you mean ‘let?’ They usually had to be stopped.”

“Still have to be.”

Read, Head, Dead

May 1, 2016 / / 0 Comments

IMG_4169

The guy on the left is Oliver Sacks, the brilliant doctor and writer; you know Mickey. The man in the middle is named Remo Belli; he died recently at age 88 and was far more important to your life than you know. He invented the mylar drum head. (It is apparently Synthetic Materials Day here; I have no earthly reason why.)

Though some readers might be master musicians, others may confine themselves to playing the radio, or with their genitals; let me start with the basics: a drum is made of two parts, the drum and the head. The drum is the hollow, cylindrical part; it is made out of wood, or sometimes an interesting gourd. (John Bonham had clear ones made out of plexiglass, and they sounded okay, but it was John Bonham playing them; anything would have sounded good.)

The drum head is a separate piece, and is the part you hit with the stick, or if you’re Mickey lately, your mallet. For literally all of human history, the head was made of animal skin. Calf was the preferred hide, but people would use any animal they had around, including other people.

But calfskin is sensitive to temperature change, and finicky; you have to tune it constantly, and when the new wave of drummers came of age in the 60’s, they had no patience for it and Remo Belli’s drum heads–made of mylar that didn’t expand and contract if you left a window open around them–became the industry standard. Every drummer you’ve ever heard was hitting one of his drum heads, whether they were playing Pearls or Slingerlands or whatever: in the same way that every brand of jeans has a YKK zipper, every brand of drums has Remo heads.

His creation is one of those hidden foundation posts of music, especially rock and roll: Vic Firth’s drumsticks, and Sidney Shure’s microphones, and Alexander Fleming’s penicillin. Without him, there are no drums, and there is no Drums. Billy and Mickey would be unemployable, and most likely incarcerated. Think of how much more folk music there would be if there were no drums.

Remo Belli was one of the Secret Architects of your life.

Showing Brent The Way

April 29, 2016 / / 15 Comments

band brent first show

This is from Brent’s first show, 4/22/79, at UC San Jose State. (Go Banana Slugs.) It was so nice of the other Grateful Deads to dress up for the occasion.

Assorted thoughts:

  • Two clean-shaven, two full beards, two mustaches: that means something, I’m sure of it.
  • Phil’s monitor was chilly.
  • Speaking of mustaches and Phil: while we do have a firm grasp on Garcia’s mustache timeline, we haven’t quite pinned down the start and end dates for the rarest period in all of Grateful Dead history – the brief moment when Phil was the fattest guy in the band.
  • The only other photo I know of in which Garcia and Phil exchange places on the chubometer is this one:
  • jerry bobby phil fat backstage
  • This must be from ’79, too: Phil got larger than this, peaking in the mid-80’s when he cut back on the Heineken, but from ’80-’82, Garcia put on at least a hundred pounds and was never challenged for his title again.
  • Bobby looks like he is starring in the direct-to-video feature American Gigolo 2: On The Gigolowdown.
  • How involved is Mickey?
  • Actually, there’s two questions nestled within that larger query:
  • How involved does Mickey think he is?
  • How involved is he really?
  • All of us–all us adults–know that the Wall was a ludicrous invention, and it broke the band’s back, but God it looked grand.
  • It was a feast for the senses.
  • The Dead in 1979 was not a feast for the senses.
  • Bunch of mangy dudes and Peter Potato Salad over there.
  • Although in defense of Bobby, he was the only thing to look at, so he felt like he had to put in extra effort.
  • “Drum store? What’s the biggest drum you got?”
  • …
  • “Bigger than that.”
  • …
  • “Bigger than that.”
  • …
  • …
  • …
  • “Bigger than that.”
  • And so on.
  • Look: it’s Brent.
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