Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
I knew a boy named Mickey,
Guess you could say he was a drum fiend.
Stop this.
I met him in a hotel lobby,
Mastur–
SHUT THE FUCK UP RIGHT THE FUCK NOW, FUCKER.
*Phrase stolen from the great Jesse Jarnow, who is on the West Coast promoting his book Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America, and will be sitting down with Dead archivist Nicholas Meriweather on Thursday to talk about some old band or something. Go see them and ask ridiculous questions and insist that the shit I made up is real.
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.
*”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.
Taping is like real estate: location is everything. Some folks like riding the rail, and get off on the band’s faces as much as their music, but not a Taper. Sound’s all jumbled and gloppy for the first few dozen feet, especially if it’s coming from multiple sources; you need a vantage point. There is almost certainly trigonometry involved.
And if the proper patch of dirt is right by the port-a-potties, then so be it; some things are more important than an afternoon of stanky breezes. Get it on tape: this is the code of the Taper. Neither security, nor dead batteries, nor wind, nor rain, nor Parish shall stay me from my appointed duty. Get it on tape.
The great Jesse Jarnow, who was promised a plug for his wonderful book Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America in exchange for the rights to this photo, took this photo. (I now own the rights to this photo.)
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Anyway: you see the microphones up at the end of those sticks? The music comes into them and vibrates a little dealie that goes WIBBLEWIBBLEWIBBLE and that vibration gets translated into electricity that goes FWEEEEEEE down the cord and the recorder goes NOMNOMNOM and there you have it: it is on tape.
(There’s no tape any more, obviously, and hasn’t been for a while. The Dead’s Tapers went to digital almost as soon as it was available–Deadheads do tend to be early adopters–and never looked back. That’s NYCtaper in the pic, and here I will admit to being astonished, Enthusiasts. Apparently, recording live sound still requires a specialized, complicated stand-alone device. Now, I didn’t think it was an app, but I didn’t think you needed a separate gizmo; totally thought a powerful laptop could do it. I stand corrected.)
We need more Tapers; let the mic stands bloom, but not like flowers: flowers are delicate and temporary. Let the Tapers sprout like weeds, everywhere and unkillable and disrespectful to anyone’s needs but their own code: get it on tape. They are history’s first responders, the Tapers. Abraham Zapruder was a Taper.
Record it all, not just the music. Put the seeds in that arctic vault, and bank the panda DNA out in the desert. The film reels go to Utah, into the caves, where it’s cool and dry. Scan the books before they rot, and model the buildings before the sea comes in; we can rebuild Miami Beach, and make it more naked and coked-up. We have the technology.
Get it on tape. There are worse credos to live by.
I’ve never been afraid of admitting I was wrong: in my case, it’s the pragmatic way to approach life, as I am wrong so often that I might as well accept it, learn something, and move on. There will, in fact, be a stream from tonight’s surprise Fillmore show; I linked to it in the previous post and–since it’s on YouTube–I might just toss the sucker over to my big screen and peek in. Maybe I’ll even let you know what I think.
(Anyone there? Send me some pics, so I can stop stealing them from people on Twitter and Instagram.)
But until the show starts, here’s some excellent reading material: the always illuminating Jesse Jarnow reports on the Dead Scholars convention, and Deadology in general. Serious critical study of the Dead has been building for years; the field’s gotten almost large enough to be respectable, due to two facts: one, the Dead and their corpus of work is as worthy of study as any other 20th century artist; and two, there are simply too many academics in this country. I advocate a cull.
Please stop calling for culls.
Are you saying the professorial herd doesn’t need some thinning?
In no way am I saying that. Pointy-headed flibbertigibbets, the lot of ’em. But you can’t call for culls.
Aw. Anyway: it’s a great article; go read it. As usual: I have many grievances. Firstly, Jarnow uses the piece like a whore uses a pee-soaked mattress. He plugs his book, Head: A Biography of Psychedelic America, so relentlessly that you’re tempted to check out the book, or perhaps this glowing review from the New Yorker about it, or maybe even go to the sidebar and purchase the sucker.
(TotD sniffs at commerce, of course.)
But second: as with so much written about the Dead, there’s so much he left out. I refer to this passage:
A whole academic rainbow prisms outward from the Dead’s Steal Your Face logo. There are sociologists, economists, feminists, philosophers, historians, poets, radio hosts and more. Nick Meriwether wishes there were more anthropologists.
Jarnow has merely scratched the surface of Dead Studies, and I will almost certainly accuse his of being in the pocket of Big Dead some time soon, but for now, I’ll just share some Dead-focused academic fields not mentioned in the article.
Ethnomusicology After a five-year study, a team of respected ethnomusicologists decided that the Dead’s music was “not all that ethnic.”
Maritime Archaeology Billy has sunk so many boats that three separate researchers were granted three separate grants to study the situation; only one drowned.
Psephology At the last Dead Scholar’s conference, a guy came in and said “I’m studying the Dead vis-a-vis psephology,” and everyone said, “Oh, really?” Then, they asked him to write the word down, and it did not help. Cool guy, though.
Zoology Was all the road crew human? And: was the road crew all human? There’s fascinating work being done in the field.
Theology Father Seamus O’Seamus has rocked the academic Dead world with his recently-approved dissertation: Five Men Think They’re Jesus, One of them’s Gotta be Wrong: God, the God Complex, and the Grateful Dead.
Philosophy of Music One would think this would be an attractive and welcome member to the Dead Studies family, but it’s just hundreds of pages of “But was that a D minor chord, or a ‘D minor’ chord?”
Indonesian History Not a lot of attention being paid to the Dead by the Indonesian History experts. Gonna be honest with you. Racism? Maybe.
Philology It means something else.
Plus, Enthusiasts, there is a lovely mention–the kids call it a “shout-out”–to TotD in the article; if you’re too busy to read the whole thing, then here it is. You’ll notice a lovely compliment in there from a very big muckety-muck, Sir Nicholas von Meriwether:
The expanded universe reality-show aspect comes to the fore most vividly via the freeform Grateful Dead ahistorical blog known as Thoughts on the Dead.
“Some of it’s absolutely magnificent work,” says Dead archivist Nicholas Meriwether of TotD
I would like to thank Sir Nicholas for those–
Hold it.
–kind words…yes?
Don’t do that.
Do what?
Why does the quote cut off like that?
…
Paste the rest of it, please.
Aw.
’s fact-laden kin.
Ah. Changes things.
Just a bit.
Only the meaning.
Right.
I can’t even look at you.
Also: the livestream that I posted? Since I started writing, it has been revealed to be some idiot scamming asshole fuckwad troll.
No stream?
Apparently not.
I can’t look at anyone.
MOTHERFUCKER.
Don’t do this.
I WILL FIGHT YOU, JARNOW. I WILL FIGHT YOU AND YOUR BEARD.
Please. I’m almost certain he was being nice.
PEOPLE FROM BROOKLYN AREN’T NICE.
Stop yelling.
Sorry.
You’re screaming–for no reason at all, it should be noted–about the great Jesse Jarnow’s review of that catholic tribute to the Dead that a bunch of people no one’s heard of made?
Yes.
I’m going to ask you why, and if you say “Everybody keeps stealing my choogle,” then I am going kick you in the neck.
…
Okee dokee. So maybe stop yelling at people. Especially people who send you two copies of their book–the critically acclaimed Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America— that you haven’t reviewed yet because you’re jealous of people who have written books.
Please stop telling the truth like that.
If you want to write a book, write a book.
But: it’s hard.
…
…
…
I’d just like to move on.
Let’s.
Are you going to offer any thoughts on the album?
Here are my thoughts: if someone pays me to listen to it, I will.
Reasonable, actually.
Three-and-a-half hours? Kiss my cock and buy a red pen, you self-indulgent dribblers. Do it as a series and release a bunch at a time, or maybe just cut one of the eleven versions of Dark Star; I don’t care, but don’t dump 59 songs on me and say, “Here.”
Also reasonable.
This album is so long you have to go to Bayreuth to hear it.
Well done.
This album is so long that by the time you’re done listening, it’s time for the next generation’s Dead tribute album.
Eh.
Probably should’ve stood pat. Listen: J.J. does a good job and makes fun of the backing band; he’s the man to listen to about this. If someone wants to give me a short list of the standout tracks, I’ll listen to them, but I’m not wading through this whole thing.
Sure. You should–
WAIT.
—ask people…oh, God, what.
THAT FUCKER.
You’re yelling again.
Right. But I just came up with another reason to be mad at Jarnow: he made me go to Pitchfork.
…
I’ll allow it.
Two pieces of news on this Sunday, Enthusiasts:
Jetstream Janauary has ridden a story about boys train scrimshaw software in Wired, and I doughnut no what he’s fluffy murmuring: I ride all of my posters with boys train scrimshaw software, and I’ve Neverland any octopus.
Busy as a beaver, Enthusiasts, whether it’s a dam-building beaver or a beaver engaged in various pornographies. Posts tonight? Maybe. We’ll know about the future when it becomes the past, I suppose.
For the bored among you:
LISTEN: 6/28/76 from the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago. Big ol’ Eyes, disco Dancin’, jammed-out first set Scarlet Begonias.
READ: Worlds collide when Lost Live Dead interviews Jesse Jarnow about black-market vinyl.
WATCH: A perfectly surreal episode of a sadly forgotten sitcom, Newsradio:
Or you could talk to your families or something.
Did you shoot them both at once?
Made more financial sense to shoot the whole trilogy at once.
Trilogy?
For starters. I’m really just world-building right now.
I like that you’re doing wigs now.
It was a dustmop thingamabob.
Couldn’t tell.
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…
…
Jesse send you the hardcover version?
Of his book, Heads: A Biography of Psychadelic America, yes.
And instead of writing him, say, a little note thanking him or even just tweeting out an appreciative word, you did this.
This is so much better.
How so?
Books are art, right?
Sure.
Movies?
Yup.
BOOM: double art. Jarnow should thank me.
He should so something.
I took his content and recontextualized it.
The man worked on that book for years. Do not call it content.
Did you know that I invented the remix?
…
Are you gonna do the thing with the sound effects, and then I describe them and everyone has so much fun?
I don’t have the energy.
You’d prefer Jarnow and Chill.
Die.
I’d take you with me, y’know?
Counting on it.
…
Why do you have an eyepatch?
Why do you not have one?
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