Thoughts On The Dead

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

Tag: bobby weir (Page 2 of 8)

Bad Weather At Merriweather

July 17, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Rage on, you cataracts and hurricanoes, rage on. We take a break from our tour in progress to match the show to the day: thick and rainy and hot and weird and that can only mean one thing: the Wharf Rat>Sugar Mags from 6/20/83 at the Merriweather Post Pavilion.

The lightning was hitting the struts and buttresses of the sound system and Phil was answering God right the fuck back with his own thunder and the crowd was swimming in mud and Bobby was dosed out of his head and starts babbling about Aborigines.

So, a Grateful Dead show.

Two Of A Kind

July 16, 2012 / / 0 Comments

I have moved onto 4/11/78, also at the Fox Theater, which is in downtown Atlanta, on Peachtree. There are, apparently, 140 Peachtree streets, boulevards, avenues, lanes, roads, byways, thruways, terraces, ways, places in Atlanta and this joint may or not be located on one of them. It matters not.

There’s a reason this show isn’t on anyone’s top ten list. Still: better than not listening to the Dead AND listen to Terrapin, ten minutes in: something blows up, cutting off Phil and Bobby, so it’s left to Garcia and Keith to slowly wind the show the show into what will be the first of a number of full-band  (or at least more guys than just Billy and Mickey) Drums.

 

On A Spring Roll

July 16, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Now, as you know, Blair Jackson and the rest of Big Dead are keeping things from you, important things: the keys to the Vault, the fact that “Mickey Hart” was played by different actors before and after the hiatus, etc. Why is this? Why does Blair Jackson hate the Dead?

No. You’re not going to do this.

Is it because he’s from Kenya?

Please: not again.

Is it because a mere TEASPOON of his liver, eaten, would produce TREMULOUS LUBICOSITIES OF THE UTMOST in the recipient?

Are you going mad or insane? There is a difference, and I can live with mad for now.

Ah, right: Blair Jackson is Yog Soggoth, the Ancient Anus with many Eyes!

Good, just mad.

Anyway, Blair Jackson is doing this thing over on Dead.net about listening to ten shows in a row so I’m going to beat him by doing the entire Spring ’78 tour because god help me, I need a girlfriend. We join in progress with 4/10/78 from the Fox Theater in Atlanta, GA.

Listen to the way Garcia snaaaaarls Los Angeles? Gimme Norfolk, Virginia. Tidewater 4-10-0-9…

And then stick around for the off-kilter BEW. Both drummers have  been exploding with goodness and syncopation and tomfoolery this tour. And Keith is fucking killing it, but then, on a dime, his playing turns awkward and overpowering and there is a reason they rarely played It’s All Over Now.

And then check back in for Music Never Stopped which is such a train wreck that Harrison Ford is leaping in front of it.

P.S. After full listening, I give this show 3/2 thumbs up and a pat on its ass: “Good job,” I would say to it, were it here, even though it was goofy and sloppy and all over the place–they rocked the Fox with a crackling, coked-up energy. Proud of you!

Thoughts On The Bobby

July 11, 2012 / / 3 Comments

When it comes to the Dead, all opinions and obsessions are acceptable except for the ones that are wrong and weird. Wanna love Brent over Keith? Fine, zay gezunt, but if you have a full-back portrait of Vince, we’re not going to be wiling away the afternoon hours scoping out the fly betties at the Food Court. Your judgement is not to be trusted. AUD guys, spinners, that sort of thing.

Also, when it comes to Bobby, all opinions and obsessions are acceptable, except for one opinion: that Bobby wasn’t a truly deep musician and absolute master of his musical surroundings.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CMgXExAVsQ&w=420&h=315]

Listen to Bobby during Dark Star. He is doing some outlandish, upper-level musician shit. Bobby is a motherfucker, plain and simple, although his contribution to the Dead is often, ahem, overshadowed by certain other things.

Random Thoughts On The Dead

July 11, 2012 / / 4 Comments

The Timi’i people have only five words for colors, which seems odd until you realize that they live in a triple canopied rainforest and the colors are Green, Really Green, Thing That’s About To Kill Me, Sun’s In My Eyes, and Night.

In Phil’s secret language of dreams, his word for “roadie” is the same as his word meaning “one about to be chastised.”

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I sometimes need to hear five or six versions of the same song in a row. Part of that last sentence was a lie: I sometimes need to hear Mississippi Half-Step  five or six versions in a row.

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Bobby was never more than two or three feet away from the note he intended to sing. Sometimes, this was an exciting musical choice–listen to Sugar Magnolia. Sometimes. Garcia’s voice was too fragile and sweet for the rockers, but it was in tune far more often than Bobby’s. Phil’s voice had a weird barbershop quartet thing to it, plus Phil’s larynx had not been informed of the fact that Phil had perfect pitch. At shows in the ’80’s, Enthusiasts hoisted signs reading Let Phil Sing. Note that these signs did not say Let Phil Continue to Sing: it was clearly seen as a one-time thing.

Pig wasn’t so much good at singing notes as he was at singing songs.

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I’ll give the Dead this: they wouldn’t have put up with that My Little Pony shit at all.

The Dead did not subvert gender roles: they rejected your post-modernity and replaced it with a system that encouraged calling your wife “your old lady,” out loud and in public and getting away with it, which if you think about it, is a pretty good trick the guys played on their old ladies.

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Could it be a coincidence that Roe v. Wade occurred in 1973? Is it chance that the landmark reproductive rights decision took place the VERY SAME YEAR that the Dead was just, y’know, killin’ it?

On The Bus

July 6, 2012 / / 1 Comment

I think no more Jerry Band for me. These bloggings started with the express rule: no Jerry Band, which of course encapsulates Ratdog and Seastones and drunkenly narrated slide shows from Billy’s scuba trips. (“Punched that fish in the dick, punched THAT fish RIGHT in the dick. Swimmin’ over here and takin’ our jobs.”)

There is something, a gestalt (a Jungian would say that) that exists between four men and whomever else they let on the stage that creates the Grateful Dead. It’s like Voltron, except it now takes up to three hours to form the Voltron Robot because one of the lions–I’m not going to say which one, but it’s Garcia–has locked himself in the Space Lion Bathroom again and we can’t really force him out of there because he’s in an 800 ton warp-capable lion mech; outright aggression would be counter-productive.

I say four because it was four who were necessary: Garcia, Bobby, Billy, Phil. Mickey came and went; keyboardists plowed under as if stage right was the Somme. It was the four of them that made the sound that was the Dead: that lazy lope, that leonine lurch, that lupine lambada and they checked one another’s bad habits.

The worst thing to happen to Garcia–or any of them, really–was being the guy in charge of the band. Because Garcia wanted to play this next number for 23 minutes. Doesn’t matter what song, but it’s probably Dylan or a reggae tune he has de-reggaefied, and it’s gonna be 23 minutes. So, if Garcia’s the one signing your check, you comp under him for 23 minutes. Also, it’s going to be slow.

Billy wouldn’t put up with that shit, though. Billy was the guy who, when the group needed to buy a new truck in the early days, instead demanded they buy him a Mustang that he promptly wrecked. If Billy wanted a song to be over, it was going to end.

Phil didn’t really do any solo stuff; he could be a bit lazy. And surly. All of the Evil Dwarves. And, of course, when Bobby gets left to his own devices, this happens:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWscxdleZzI&w=420&h=315]

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