The show starts in a few hours, but Mickey started Drums last night.
Billy is due to arrive at the arena at 8:15.
Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Tag: dead & company (Page 25 of 38)
“If I gotta watch this motherfucker play Candy Crush one more time…”
OR
“Josh showed this to me. It’s called Snapchat. I have no idea what the hell it is, but I have 30,000 followers.”
OR
“Selfie?”
“I don’t wanna selfie, Bob.”
“Selfie?”
“No, Bob.”
CLICK
…
“Selfie.”
“Jesus, Bob.”
OR
“Hey, fucker.”
Excuse me?
“Dickfooted asseater.”
Me?
“Only two of us here, and you’re the asshole, so you must be the asshole, asshole.”
…
Red Metal Stool?
“THOUGHT I WAS DEAD, DID YA?”
Oh, settle down.
“I’m in the system, jackass. I got tenure. They get rid of Chimenti before they get rid of me.”
Shush.
“They can’t fire me. I know things. Thiiiiings.”
Yeah, yeah. Congratulations on making it to the tour.
“I’M THE HEADLINER, FATHERSUCKER.”
Ew. You’re awful.
“You dropped me, man! Where have I been?”
You never really caught on. Someone in the Comment Section called you Scrappy-Doo.
“Which one? I want a name.”
Absolutely not.
“Was it one of the Canadians?
I’m not saying.
“Let me back in.”
What? Where?
“Your little fan-fiction.”
IT IS NOT–
…
–fan fiction.
“Sure, right. Lemme back in. I could be a recurring character.”
Dude, you’re a red metal stool and your name is Red Metal Stool. There’s not much to work with.
“You could flesh me out.”
You have no flesh. There’s just not much to you.
“Precarious Lee started as a pun!”
I started in my father’s balls. From lowly origins, etc.
“What about the Wall of Sound? That’s a pile of speakers, for fuck’s sake, and it’s on t-shirts!”
LEAVE ME OUT OF YOUR WHINING.
…
“Can he hear us?”
He can hear everything. Stop bothering me, or I’ll take away your name. You’ll just be the red metal stool.
“You wouldn’t do that.”
And delete all the posts with you in it.
“What? Jesus, man.”
I’ll wish you away to the cornfield.
“You’re fucked. Y’know that, man? You’re fucked.”
…
Ah, I’m sorry. I’m cranky.
“Well, still: that was a terrible thing to say.”
Yeah, but you’re a stool that doesn’t exist and I’m just working some shit out here, y’know?
“I can understand that.”
You can?
“No. Fuck you.”
Better answer.
Much like a Armenian woman an hour into a bikini waxing, the bush remains. The Dead’s league shouldn’t still be this bush: the Dead (Or What’s Left Of ‘Em) are now managed by Irving Azoff, who pretty much runs the music industry, and Young John Mayer must have publicists on 24-hour call.
And yet: the launch of Livedead.co–the .co address belongs to Colombia, by the way nudge nudge sniff sniff–just kinda slithered out today. There was a single article about it, and the article was on Jambase, and I don’t know if that counts.
(Although here is where my Facebook-blindness comes in. I have an accounts over there, personal and for the site, but I don’t get involved; I check it once a week, if that, and never interact with anyone. I did just check, though, and D&C have 120,000 followers; maybe it’s just as effective to announce things on that site as it is to announce them everywhere else combined.)
To sum up the offerings: as of now, the SPAC show is being webcasted (Webcast? Can I get a ruling on the past tense of the word webcast, please?) and the rest of the tour will not be officially streamed, but instead offered in a multitude of audio formats of varying qualities and levels of bullshit for download a day or two later.
Shows may be purchased in the mp3 format, which is pretty good; or as FLAC files, which are what TotD endorses; or in HD Audio, which is probably bullshit; or DSD, which is certainly bullshit. I’ll let you figure out which order they go in, price-wise. (The order I wrote them in.) You can get clever and jam as much information into a signal as you want, but the human ear is only capable of processing so much.
Sadly, the article and the subdued launch of this new venture leaves quite a bit out: there is so much more available to enjoy, and share, and purchase from Dead & Bro.* Luckily for you, my spies on the inside have procured the full list of offerings from this summer’s hottest tour.
- PONO downloads Shows will be made available in the super-hi-fi format of PONO; each purchase comes with a free lecture from Neil Young about how compressing music robs it of its soul. $59.99.
- Cam4Billy Whoever Billy’s current Benjy is follows him around with a GoPro, and you can tip Billy to make him do stuff. He has already declared “nothing is off-limits, and there are no safe words.” $9.99 (SD) or $14.99 (HD) a day, plus tokens.
- Pirated Simulcasts of Phil’s Webcasts The drummers thought it was funny, and they insisted. FREE.
- John Mayer’s In The Closet Young John Mayer plans on doing some shopping during the tour, and JMITC will be his subscription-only podcast about his latest acquisitions. $9.99 a show, streaming only.
- Music and Yoga Retreat to Iceland With Oteil and a Rando This one’s an actual thing. $5555.00.
- VRD&C This is the big one, Enthusiasts: a Dead & Company show in full virtual reality immersion, and they promise that what happened when they Beta-tested it won’t happen again. (Billy paid a computer nerd to insert a tiger charging at the viewer into the feed; it didn’t show up until an hour in, when the test subjects had gotten really into the VR, and more than several had heart attacks. Many more than several.) $99.99
- Limited-Edition Cassettes Sure, there’s going to be vinyl, but there will also be cassette releases of all the show. They will not be available online, but will instead be sold from a pop-up food truck in Bushwick that will not tell anyone where it is. J-card art by Tony Millionaire. $49.99.
- The Official Periscope Experience Everything you’ve grown to love from Periscope: a static view from the extreme side of the stage, semi-acceptable sound, yammering idiots, and the battery dying three-quarters of the way through the second set. It will also be shot in portrait mode, and participation in the chat room is mandatory. Plus, you have to pay for it. (A small note: in defense of D&C’s intellectual property rights, non-official Periscopers will be struck with collapsible riot batons. $14.99.
*”Dead & Bro” courtesy of FoTotD Jesse Jarnow, who is now getting on my nerves. First, he writes the outstanding Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America, then he has a beard that qualifies as a face-pelt, and THEN the motherfucker comes up with Dead & Bro. I might have to start accusing that guy of more things.
What is it?
It is a thing.
Oh.
Yeah.
Is it a good thing?
Perhaps.
Could it be a bad thing?
You never know.
Should I fear it?
Yes.
Is it my enemy?
Yes.
And shall I destroy it before it destroys me?
YES.
On a hot summer’s night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?
…
I’m sorry, what?
I thought we were doing the Meatloaf bit.
No.
Oh.
Love that song, though.
A classic.
Are we done?
I don’t know if we ever got started.
Yeah.
This was unfocused. Let’s do better.
Okay.
There are kittens and puppies and even baby pandas, and they’re all cute, but nothing in this world is cuter than a dad and his kid dressed alike.
Also: How long before we see Mickey toting one of those ‘packs around? A week?
Also also: Someone at the airport oversaw Oteil writing that last hashtag. Long story short: he is in Guantanamo now.
“How many lightning bolts should we put on it?”
“How many will fit?”
(I’m not going to lie: this is a nice-looking guitar, and the sparkly blue part is pretty. Also: VOTE. It used to be “Vote Or Die,” but we’re just yelling verbs at people now, I suppose.)
Hey, Mickey. Whatcha doing?
“Drumming.”
You love drumming.
“So much!”
Do you ever get tired of it?
“Of drumming? Do you get tired of breathing, or eating, or pooping?”
Yes. I am completely over all of those things.
“Do normal people?”
No, they don’t
“Right, it’s like that.”
Okay. Y’know, I just read this thing by Bear about his audio theories.
“He had a lot of theories.”
About so many things. Anyway: he thought the a drum set should have two mics. One for the bass drum, and an overhead.
“Yeah, we don’t do that anymore.”
I’ve noticed.
“I actually had a drum kit made of microphones created for me. Cut out the middle man.”
The drums were mics?
“Yes.”
How did it sound?
“Terrible. And then it broke very quickly; you can’t drum on microphones.”
No. You getting ready for the tour?
“Full force. High levels of excitement There is a magic in preparation. So many ideas and concepts. Plus, I bought a sampler.”
Welcome to 1985
“Right, it’s vintage. Old technology is the new thing.”
Fine. So, you’re gonna trigger voices and sounds and stuff with your drum pads?
“Oh, no. Just gonna hit the thing with my mallets. Got a great sound.”
Always good to check in with you, Mick.
Goddammit, stop making those faces.
“Oh, hey. We haven’t talked in a while.”
Don’t distract me with your Connecticut pleasantries. Quit it with the face-face.
“But, these are my best faces.”
Define “best,” please.
“Awesomest.”
Wow.
“Here’s the thing: the Grateful Dead has many hearing impaired fans.”
Deafheads, yeah. They’re the shit.
“Right. They can’t hear that I’m soloing, so I like to show them. Facially.”
No.
“Being racist against my face is being racist against the Deaf.”
I can’t be racist against your face. Your face is a country.
“Listen, man: I don’t tell my face what to do. Quite frankly, my face has been very good to me. If my face wants to make faces, then so be it.
Billy is rolling his eyes at you.
“Billy has been rolling his eyes at existence for quite a while now. Besides, Billy loves me.”
You, specifically?
“Might have something to do with the size of the checks he’s been receiving since meeting me.”
That’ll do it.
“This will actually interest you, seeing as how you’re an obsessive shut-in–”
Thank you.
“–I have been doing a lot of reading up on the Dead. There’s a ton of books, man. My reader’s been working overtime.”
Reader?
“Girl from USC does the coverage and sends me a two-page synopsis.”
That sounds efficient
“How do you read books?”
I read them.
“There you go: I’m way busier and richer than you. Hence: reader.”
Okay, whatever. What have you learned about the Dead?
“Did you know they had a guitarist before me?”
You don’t say.
“Fat Mexican guy.”
Harry Mendoza.
“What a guitarist! You know he was missing an arm?”
Partially. What else?
“The Summer of Love was a cookout that took place in the Grateful Dead’s backyard when they all lived together at 420 Haight Street. There was a guy in the band named Mister Pigpants, but he died on Side Six of Europe ’72. And then they built a sound system that came to life and, many years later, briefly held me hostage while various living and deceased Grateful Deads donned sim-suits to put the moves on Katy Perry. Then the band broke up, and then they weren’t broken up and Mickey was back. And then they broke up again. I think a lot of people may have died.”
Yeah, that’s pretty much the story.
“There was something called a Ned Lagin at one point.”
There was. You’re pretty much a Dead scholar.
“Yeah, I just signed a book contract to write about my time with the Dead.”
…
You did?
“Yeah. Lotta money.”
Huh.
…
…
…
“You okay?”
No.
This March, when North Carolina lawmakers passed HB2 and Governor Pat McCrory signed it into law, we categorically objected to it. We had hoped that by now this abhorrent law would have been repealed. Sadly, it has not.
After much thought, consideration and conversation, we feel the most effective way to move forward is to perform as scheduled in Charlotte, North Carolina on June 10 and to donate $100,000.00 to organizations engaged in this battle for justice – the Human Rights Campaign and Equality North Carolina.
Additionally, we will assemble a “Participation Row” social action area, where we’ll host local organizations fighting discrimination and national organizations dedicated to voter registration and protecting the planet. Every fan in attendance will have an opportunity to learn about the true ramifications of the HB2 law, and take meaningful action by registering to vote; to that end we are working on an online community registration site that will assist the HeadCount organization in promoting and simplifying voter registration.
Dead shows have always been a safe place for all of our audience to come together through music no matter how they appear or self-identify. History shows these values of openness and inclusiveness have served us – and the world around us – well.
We’ve never been a band that’s spoken many words when we’re on stage. But we hope that our actions, and the actions of our fans, will ring louder than ever before.
With Love and Respect,
Dead & Company
Presented without comment.
The Sixties: a time of possibility and wonder, of magic and luck, of revolution and rage. There was dancing in the streets and fighting in–
No.
–the boulevards…what?
This is from the Fillmore show.
Right: Fillmore West. The first great Rock Palace. Where–
No. The new one. This picture is from Monday night.
Can’t be.
Brown shoes.
Hm.
Misfits patch.
Huh.
Pretty sure that’s a Bernie pin on the guy’s hat.
Yeah, maybe.
No maybe about it. This picture was taken in 2016.
…
We’re still doing this?
Apparently.
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