This is the least Grateful Deads that there have ever been.
Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Tag: 1971 (Page 5 of 6)
One of the revelations in the new film about Bobby, The Other One, opening in New York now-ish and coming to platforms near you presently, is that he used to carry Garcia’s stash for him. Bobby didn’t like Persian, so the stash would remain un-dipped-into, and he would parcel out a little bit to Garcia at a time.
There is no level on which that is not dysfunctional, but love is love and loyalty is loyalty. Bobby chose sides a long time ago; so did Garcia.
Thy loved each other.
Hey guys. Where’s your facepaint and fireworks and stage moves?
“We don’t need that shit.”
“Bobby’s wearing a little eyeliner.”
“SHUT UP, GARCIA!”
Listening to ’71 tonight, that rough-hewn and frenetic whipsaw of a year. Everything was changing and, for the only time in its history, there weren’t enough people in the band.
They closed down the Fillmore, starting on 4/25/71 with the legendary Dollar-and-a-quarter routine from Pig in the middle of a Good Lovin that defies you to believe that the song started its existence as a bubble-gum song.
This is what Phil looked like:
And then they closed down the Sacred Store.
Being blind has to be worse than being deaf. Deaf people said (well, not said…) fuck it and just hang out with each other and they seem not to especially want to hear.
If you invented robot eyes, there’d be a vague and shapeless line out the door to get them immediately, and that line would inevitably snake into traffic and OH, THE HUMANITY.
Also, here is a picture of Pigpen somehow making the jumpsuit/cowboy hat combo work for him. In the background, you will notice that Phil has the sexy.
How about a sammich in which The Other One was the bread, fresh-baked and straight from Big Momma’s oven of love, and Sittin’ on Top of the world was the meatiest meat you’d ever tasted? Would that be something you’d be interested in?
And what about a 20-minute Good Lovin’ wherein Pig completely forgets what song he’s singing and cues the band back in with his legendary cry of “SHE GOT BOX BACK NITTIES, CRAYFISH AND MORMON MICE!” and then, a little sheepishly, trails off as he realizes it’s not Lovelight, and if you start screaming about Nitties (box back or otherwise) in every single song, large men in uniforms come and get you
What if there were an early Playin’ without the great swaths of Doom Jam that song came to lovingly contain? (And, no Donna wail, be that for good or ill.) A Brokedown with a Garcia solo that will denude your bush, no matter your ethnicity?
PLUS, in a welcome repeat from the spectacular Felt Forum run the previous week, Pig wishes everyone in the house (and out there in Radioland) a rockin’ Xmas with Chuck Berry’s Run, Run Rudolph.
12/10/71 at the Fox Theater on St. Louis. Leave it on.
P.S. And I neglected to mention (because you and I both know that I post these recommendations while I’m not even halfway through the show, so I hadn’t heard it yet) that during GDTRFB, Bobby plays China Cat, like fourteen times and it’s just wonderfully wonderful.
Always give in to peer pressure, just choose your peers with care.
So, the new Dave’s Pick going to be 10/22/71 from the Auditorium Theater in Chicago, IL and it’s a hell of a show. They announced it, like, hours ago and the whining has commenced. Here is how you do not get me on your side of the argument: “Why haven’t we seen more releases from ’84?” Because of the amount of awfulness. There was, good sir, too much awfulness in 1984 and all the grown-ups knew this years ago. There is no groundswell; no one clamors.
It’s a good choice: go check out the powerful Comes a Time and then LISTEN TO 3;05 WHEN GARCIA GOES INTO HIS FALSETTO! In fact, listen to every single thing Garcia sings and plays on this all-time performance.
Then hit the (half-hour) Other One where Keith whips out his piano dong and shows everyone the sheer magnitude of it and everybody’s like: nice piano dong, meaty; and Keith doesn’t say anything, just keeps donging away and then remember that it’s his THIRD SHOW. Kneel before Zod.
Just a few of my favorite pics, starting with the all-time great: the first five. The only ones you need. The Grateful Goddamn Dead and just LOOK at that picture! It’s from the spring or summer of ’71, after Mickey left, but before Keith and the music they were playing at the time sounded just like this photo looked, mean and stripped down, looking for a fight.
LOOK AT BILLY’S FACE. Guess what happened to the photographer mere seconds after this shot was taken?
And look at Pigpen. 25 year old kid with Obama ears. Dead in less than two years.
The Jerry Ballad is one of a number of sacrosanct moment of the show, along with the Dylan Slot, the Closing Raver, and the Brent Bathroom Break. (Or the second set Estimated in ’77; on two separate occasions, they set up their gear so they could play Estimated on an off-day.) Unlike the other categories, the Jerry Ballad has been there since the very beginning, along with the part of the show where the drummers get high while the rest of them irritate the audience and then the reverse.
The songs that work in the Jerry Ballad slot are perfect examples of what I call The Lope, that uniquely Dead stop-and-start stumble. Ramble On Rose, Sugaree. Slow it down a little and you’ve got Row Jimmy (or the later versions of They Love Each Other). Speed it up and it’s Brown-Eyed Women (or the early versions of They Love Each Other). It is the sound of a small barefoot boy in overalls ambling along with his donkey in the South that only exists in the first 20 minutes of rock star bio-pics. The donkey may be wearing a hat. Bum-BA-Bum-BA-Bum: the beat toodles to and fro.
Black Peter does that. So did Standing on the Moon and Ship of Fools and Wharf Rat. Sing Me Back Home never did that: it might be the worst of all Jerry Ballads. It is a perfect exemplar of the maxim Keep it snappy, boys! They’re DYING out there! Plus, SMBH was always a victim of the Dead’s most pernicious trait: the tempo drift. Songs have a certain tempo they sound right in. A 10 bpm deviation either way leads to the rushed, coked-out clatter od ’85, or the sludgy miasma of the Fall ’76 shows. They never got the tempo for Sing Me right, which might not have been such a problem but not for the fact that they were incapable of playing the song for anything less than a dozen minutes at a time.
(Bobby also had interests in a late show weeper. In fact, that’s what he called it: the Bobby Weeper. When he told Garcia about this, Garcia said nothing, just walked away and found Billy and the crotchpunching began.)
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