Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Billy, because he was inside casually removing a 16-year-old’s bra while drinking a Coors Light. Billy didn’t want to play Cowboys & Indians: Billy wanted to play his drums, punch some dicks, and fuck every high school chick he could.
God bless Billy fucking Kreutzmann.
Pizza guy’s here!
The Dead had so many options after Brent’s all-bullshit-aside tragic death and they went with the worst. They apparently had this weird did-you-call-me/should-we-call thing with Merl that is far too Mean Girls to relate in good conscience and more’s the pity because maybe Merl would’ve kicked Garcia’s ass just a little, being a straight-laced man and proud deacon of the Mt. Holy Oak of Zion First Macadamia Church of the Redeemer in Christ. Plus, the Dead would have had a black guy in it. And as commercials have taught us, people hang out exclusively in carefully diverse groups.
There were others they could have at least auditioned. Elton John was hitting a rough patch at the time, perhaps he could have helped out. Something tells me Bobby would love to play Crocodile Rock. The flaw in the plan is that the first time Sir Elton threw one of his legendary tantrums, Billy would punch him in the dick, because this time I’ve gotta stand up for Billy: grown men throwing tantrums deserve a thorough dickpunching.
Rick Wakeman was also in a bit of a fallow period since wasting all of the money in Britain on an ice show to play arpeggios to. I have a feeling that the first time Rick opened his spangly cape to play two of his army of keyboards at the same time, Garcia would freak out and think he was a dragon and set him on fire. So, that’s a no for Rick Wakeman.
Stevie Wonder wouldn’t have worked because Phil still owes him $60 from a poker game and is ducking him.
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.
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.
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?
There is quite literally nothing that is okay about this. Yes, the pants are the main event, but the connoisseur will appreciate the eternal hideousness of the sweater and the beauty of the fact that Garcia found the one thing in the world that wouldn’t go with the pants.
THIS is how you look cool in an Izod shirt.
I’ll give 5-2 odds that this confab ended with a certain someone asking for everything to be repeated because he wasn’t listening.
Egypt was a problem, a disaster, a lovely vacation, an apparently epic party, the setting for about a hundred pages of Kesey’s late-period hairy-chestedness. The third show was decent; the tapes are readily available. There are even videos:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFYIsvcspmQ&w=420&h=315]
Now, understand that this is not a fan video or something shot on an iPhone, mostly because it was ’78, but also because this is the official film. The best they could do.
So, no triple-album with limited theatrical release film attached, no recouping $650,000. Bupkiss. On the other hand, the Grateful Dead played in front of the Pyramids under a total eclipse.
So, God bless America, huh?
The only reason Garcia is not doing more drugs is because he has run out of hands.
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