So you watched and listened to a bit too much Phish and you’re trying to rekindle that special thing with the Dead?
An ’85 with a boomy mix ain’t the way to do it.
Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Tag: 1985 (Page 3 of 3)
All hands are on deck of this ship of fools, fellow Enthusiasts: ideas, hosannas, and nifty artifacts streaming in over the digital transom from Friends of TotD.
This one comes from Mr Completely, head of the Interdimensional Affairs Desk operating out of the satellite office in Fillmore Northwest, where a Gore-Tex fetish is a helpful acquisition and soccer is openly tolerated.
It’s a decent show, for an ’85 right before Garcia went night-night. But the fun is watching Bobby stop merely comprehending gravity: finally he would understand it.
Watch, starts around 53:30:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5qjwcMJnqc&t=53m47s]
So, Bobby goes to do The Lunge, which–and, being a Bobby Man as I am, this pains me to say–Bobby is the only one in the room not getting the joke on. Bobby, the cheering you heard for The Lunge was sarcastic: I am sorry to have to be the one to break this to you. Everyone forgave you immediately after it happened, but if it had not have happened at all, people would have been cool with that, if you’re reading me on this one.
Anyhoo, the best part isn’t watching Bobby fall (which is , obviously, hilarious in and of itself), no; it’s the direct aftermath, when by means of body language and general rocking, Bobby attempts to convince the crowd that he intended to fly ass-over-teakettle to celebrate Estimated changing keys.
Who goofed on Bobby the longest for this? You’d think Mickey, right? Seems like some Mickey shit to do, but in reality: Phil still brings this up to this day; it was part of a horrific fight on the last Furthur tour. They were drinking green tea in their hotel suite. (Bobby and Phil share a room on the road; in fact, they share bunk beds.)
“This is delicious honey,” said Bobby.
“Why did you call me honey?” said Phil.
“I didn’t. I said that the honey was delicious, not that–”
“It makes me uncomfortable when you call me honey,” said Phil.
“–you were my…what’s happening here?”
…
“Hey,” Phil said. “Who am I: ‘My time coming, any day. Don’tWHAUUUUGH!’ I’m down! Bobby down, repeat: Bobby down!”
“Why do you always go there? You’re not my Garcia! YOU’RE NOT MY GARCIA!”
The Dead could end songs. And by that I mean they had the requisite musical knowledge to properly end a tune, not that they knew when to do it. Also, rock songs only end one of two ways: sudden stop or big loud noise.
Starting songs was a little more difficult. That first riff, the one that most bands labor over to get your attention immediately, that says that this band is a professional band made up of professional people? The Dead weren’t good at that. They figured they had at least four or five bars to get the tempo together, and eight to ten bars for the key. They had, however, all been playing the same song at the same time since the “someone just walk over and tell Keith what we’re playing” policy was implemented.
For good or for ill, the songs were precisely as long as they wanted to be (which means, until Billy got bored). The tempos wandered all over the place, from the glacial ’72 Sing Me Back Home to the skittering, out-of-control ’85. ’85 was like the first ten minutes after you slam crystal, right? And you’re just like UHHHHHHH and then you’re like YEEEEEESSHfuck and–
I’m gonna step in here turn down his volume just a touch and say to everyone out there that Thoughts on the Dead supports living clean, waking up early, and smoothies of all sort. Under no circumstances should any of you shoot crystal meth. Let’s check back in.
–and your cock’s like–
Oh, for Christ’s…
I just started in on today’s Listening, beginning with 7/2/85 in Pittsburgh. Check it out for nothing but the Jack Straw, where they basically dare themselves to play it that fast, and then mostly pull it off.
Plus, Healy is already being a giant creep–weirding Bobby’s voice all over the place and pulling his usual bullshit.
You know the first of The Rules, don’t you? Life is short: listen to 1973. Now, you might substitute in 1977 or 1974 or certainly the hidden gem year of 1971. But you’d never throw in ’88, would you?
But then there’s this! (How am I treating this show like I discovered it? It’s fucking famous.) 6/28/85 at Hershey Park Stadium. Check it out, starting at the Brobdingnagian Music Never Stopped and it just gets better from there.
P.S. Except of course for Garcia losing his way through Terrapin, lyrically speaking. but aside from that, it gets better. For little gay kids and for a handful (at most) of weirdos listening to a specific musical performance given 18 billion years ago.
P.P.S. Holy shit, listen to Morning Dew and then realize that, had you been at this show, you would have been listening to this face-boiling Dew and not, like, 100 yards away is a rolly-coaster. God bless America and all her ships at sea.
P.P.P.S. So, of course, after 6/28 ends, I throw on 6/30 and there are some audacious moments: the Shakedown is outstanding, parts of the Stella are great, but my overall opinion is not swayed–Life is short: listen to ’73.
We forget how long ago it was, what a different world it was. To understand my point, you must listen to Pig absolutely fucking KILLING IT on It’s A Man’s World. That was April 15th, 1970. Listen to how crisp and present the recording is, how clean and separate the instruments sound: I would wager most lay-listeners wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between this recording and an official release from the era. Marvel at how such a recording got made in the same world where there is absolutely no record of a show from that same month: no tape, no poster, certainly no film but there is a contract and cancelled check, so it must have happened. There are shows as late as 1973 just…gone. Compare that to today’s DeLillo Barn of a culture, all of us pointing our iThings at each other the second anything notable happens. Holding our phones vertically, all of us.
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Everybody’s new favorite fun game: Play in One Key, Sing in Another!
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Is the most terrifying moment of your day the Silence that comes before the Fretting that comes before the Waffling that comes before the Choosing? An ’89? Surely, a Summer ’71! The wrong choice–it’s like throwing the i Ching, only to lodge the coins in your cousin Kevin’s throat and Kevin dies right in front of you and you just LOSE IT and decide that you can’t get in trouble if EVERYONE ELSE IS DEAD, TOO, so you kill your way halfway down the street before they take you down. No matter which Ching translation you use, that’s an unhealthy omen.
I almost had one of those rolls today. I chose an ’85 (4/27/85 Frost Amphitheater, Palo Alto, CA) to start off the morning. The 80’s are a giant tushee: fun around the edges, but dangerous in the middle. (I apologize for that.)
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I’ve written before about Garcia’s guitar tone being friendly, but the entire band had an ethos of friendlyness-ship. (Of course that’s a word. And if not a word proper, at least wordish.) All those references to following and leading and sharing (women, wine (Not Persian, though. Persian was not a share-y kind of substance.).) There was very little aggression in the music: no one will ever enter the Octagon with Brokedown Palace blaring. This made them a different band then–say–Slayer, who once wrote a song about Josef Mengele from Mengele’s point of view. While many Dead songs featured unreliable narrators, none of them were so unreliable as to have committed war crimes. Committing war crimes is the very definition of being unreliable: you need to be watched, apparently. The second everyone turns their back, BOOM: you’re sewing twins together.
Slayer’s always been a bit of a mystery to me. Not the “why are they popular” part: there will always be ugly 15-year-old boys and money to be made catering to them being all evil and shit. I’m referring to the actual music. A friend burned me the Compact Disc. My good friend, Inter-Natalie. You should see her record collection. I like to listen to the hard-charging angry stuff when I am up in the gym working on my fitness, Sabbath and Titus Andronicus and the Boom Boom Satellites, so I tried a little Slayer and halfway through the third verse describing what can only be classified as “atrocities,” I quietly bowed out. I prefer to keep my tunes free of graphic descriptions of torture labs. Cartman was right: hippies hate Slayer.
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Who was it, precisely, that was clamoring for the return of Dupree’s Diamond Blues?
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In May of 1969, the Dead jammed with legendary conga player Mongo Santamaria. Also legendary was the lecture given to Bobby afterwards concerning his giggles upon hearing the name.
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Merl should have been the keyboardist after Keith. They would have looked like the Celtics in the 80’s, racially. Also, Walton.
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I don’t care if Putin has turned the place in to a Latveria-of-the-mind: THEY’RE THE BAD GUYS, FUCK THEM. They were THE BEST bad guys: evil enough (gulags, proxy wars), but not, you know, too evil (that thing that made the 40’s such an inherent downer.) They had an ideology and an aesthetic, none of this “at night, it is my bed; during the day, my clothes” bullshit these Al Qaeda fuckmuppets smell up the room with.
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