Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Remarkable though it was in a place made primarily out of granite and sand, Garcia still managed to set some shit on fire accidentally. The local Bedouins gave him the honorary name Al-Hakka Makka Makka, which means “The One with Untreated Sleep Apnea.”
Listening to 9/16/78: the last night in Egypt, the total eclipse show, the good one, the high one, the one with the Olin Arageed>FOTM. It is mystical and historical and spiritual and FUCK are they dragging ass on this one.
Garcia’s having a great night, guitar-wise, no matter what physical shape he was in (according to every single book written about him) and Keith’s piano, so famously out-of-tune that it precluded a major-label release of the show, doesn’t sound that bad.
But it doesn’t, except for a few moments, have much spark to it. It’s the sound of six jet-lagged men (and Mrs. Donna Jean) who were in shaky health to begin with.
It is time, ladies and perms, for another installment in Almost Great Shows, but I’m gonna be honest: this one’s special. Like, an aide from the state helps you with lunch special.
5/5/78 from Dartmouth College is our choice tonight. “I’ve never heard of that show, TotD,” you say. Well, there’s a reason: it’s just all over the place. The three singers seem to have invented a new key each (perhaps j minor) for Lazy Lightning, Garcia is so casual with the lyrics in Candyman that it sounds like he’s being sarcastic, and Ship of Fools is an absolute Hall of Fame Trainwreck.
About halfway through the song, someone gets a half-bar off, either Garcia or the rest of them, which sounds easily fixable if you’re not the Grateful Dead, but unfortunately they were, at the time, the Grateful Dead and instead of pausing a little bit or whatever, Garcia and the band play tug of war with the melody and the chords for the rest of the tune. Best part is, the mikes pick up all the sniping and bitching at one another afterwards.
But a valley always leads to a peak, and they burn through a great Estimated>Eyes into a common, yet beloved (by me and only me. it seems) feature of the Spring ’78 season: Full Band Drums!
There’s fuck-ton of caveat emptor on this one. Maybe even a smidge of Abandon all Hope. As usual and as with all shows that I deem to be not up to my snuff (and you all know that my snuff is high as fuck), I instantly stopped listening once I was done, had rewound the really good bits, written around four e-mails discussing it, and rustled up 300 words to tell you what was wrong with it.
So, you know: there.
p.s. Even if you don’t have time for the whole show, even if you don’t like 1978, even if you’re leg’s caught in a bear trap: listen to Garcia sing Stella Blue. And then listen to him play. Listen to him dust off those rusty strings.
…and this bullshit’s about 45 or so of them.
This show is not Hall Of Fame, and it is certainly not TEH GRATEST EVAR, but it beats the famed (but to my ears sluggish) From Egypt With Love shows by a good margin.
It’s a ’78, and moreover, it’s the most ’78 that ’78 ever was. Half-Step>Franklin’s opener? Check. A wobbly but fun Stagger Lee? Yup. Bobby playing slide? You betcha. Tempos jangling and skittering out-of-control? Why not?
But the NFA>GDTRFB is nuts, bursting at the seams with energy, derived from gram-sized baggies or not. Slower than expected (the NFA at least, the Goin’ Down is halfway to speed metal) and pulsing with the rocksteady beat that the rest of the show is only semi-familiar with, the second set ends with a great laid-back Around and Around featuring Bobby with an audible smirk on his face and buttoning a “y’all” to the end of very line.
Caveat Emptor is what I’m saying: this one. For the ’78 fans only: 12/12/78 at the Jai Alai Fronton in Miami.
The Dead weren’t really shirtless guys (and Mrs. Donna Jean). Even Bobby, whom you would expect to barely own a shirt, was modest. (Up torso-way, that is: in terms of leggings, we all know it was anything goes.)
Y’know how You can tell that Bob Weir is a white guy?
Because in the Closing of Winterland extras, he uses the phrase “seminal country-rock band.” That is a bit of a shibboleth.
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.
Today is Inside Day here at Fillmore South: it is approximately 35 billion degrees out. Fahrenheit. Of course, it’s Florida, so it’s sticky as a Tunisian’s ballsack and it feels about 10 degrees hotter than that. It is so hot that immediately outside my door, nuclear fusion is taking place. E is equalling the shit out of M, C, and Squared out there.
It is a good day to stay in, crank the air conditioner until it shudders with effort–damn the electric bill: I want to need a blanket in August!–and listen to the newest Dave’s Pick. Big number 7, from Normal, IL, from my beloved Spring ’78 tour. Perhaps you purchased it; perhaps the show just fell out of a truck onto your hard drive: no matter.
This release is a triumph for everyone involved: the sound superior to many of the Big Ticket Box Sets, and other multi-tracked recordings. For a 35-year-old tape that was made as a simple document of the evening, this thing is as present as if it were recorded yesterday. The drums–THE GODDAM DRUMMERS–are especially clear, each cymbal and tom in its own space.
Garcia is heavy on the Mu-Wah-Funky-Wah-Pedal (I’m not a guitar tech: you know the thing I mean) and Bobby won’t put down the goddam slide for a goodly portion of the show (and makes the otherwise-fun Werewolves of London encore nearly unlistenable) and Keith is (briefly) back to his old ways, a little lighter on the touch than Fall ’77 and he’s listening at this show in particular.
PLUS an all-time version of Passenger, Bobby and Donna ad libbing in Music Never Stopped, and…well, shit, the whole first set is Hall of Fame. Go and listen.
Perfectly innocent.
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