Thoughts On The Dead

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

Tag: keith godchaux (Page 7 of 17)

Grateful Dead: After Dark

July 14, 2015 / / 9 Comments

TotD was perfectly happy with no comment section, or one populated strictly by the insane, but now there seems to be a vaguely competent group and I am also okay with that.

However, sometimes the comment section introduces pernicious thoughts into the conversation, and IT IS ALL THEIR FAULT FOR WHAT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN.

Grateful Dead Sex Toy Merch, available on fucktheewellmerch.com, was bound to be a big-seller, but the prudes upstairs shut it down. TotD has the only extant list of products.

  • Grateful Dead Real Dolls. These lifelike, high-quality sex dolls looked eerily like any member of the Dead you specified. If you want to order a bunch of them and make them do stuff to each other, that’s your business and we do discount for volume.
  • Garcia Latex Power Fist. With nub!
  • Brent Latex Greedy Mouth. With beard!
  • Cock Ring With Bruce Hornsby’s Disapproving Glare Printed On It. “Bruce says, “You’re a disgusting animal.'”
  • Lube That Tastes Like Keith.
  • Precarious Lee Brand Condoms. “For when you want a baby, or herpes.”
  • Bonera. Bobby’s preferred prescription-strength boner pill; it’s half-viagara, half-vicodin.
  • Alembic Penis Pump. This quarter-million dollar penis pump requires three mega-joules of power to run and will almost certainly rip your dick off.
  • Alembic Vibrator. It’s the size of a Buick and has at least three dozen knobs on it.
  • Alembic Handcuffs. They seem to be run-of-the-mill cuffs, but they cost $50 grand.
  • Wall Of Pound. It’s a sex pillow, and it’s a quality product: real sturdy and easy to clean.
  • Butt Plug Shaped Like Vince.

Okay, that’s enough.

I haven’t even started on the Ned Lagin section.

Don’t.

That’s the stuff you need a safe-word for, I guess.

Stop talking.

Ein Bild Unter Dem Baum

May 24, 2015 / / 0 Comments

IMG_1609I’m not even making an attempt at going left to right, and shall–just to be contrary–begin with the waif to the easternmost of the pic.

  • That might be Yolandi from Die Antwoord. It’s the same haircut.
  • And let’s just get the other non-Grateful Dead out of the way: that is most likely an astonishing looking woman and the light’s just hitting her weird.
  • Because look how awesome Billy looks. The sneakers and the ‘stache help, but he just looks like a rock star in this shot.
  • Which he objectively doesn’t.
  • Plus, Bobby had real high standards, and she’s wearing a dress only a stone-cold fox would wear.
  • Ipso facto: bad light.
  • Everyone is this photo named Godchaux is upright solely because of pride and muscle memory.
  • Eagle-eyed Enthusiasts will recognize that Pigpen’s sweater was apparently passed around between band members during the tour, with Phil donning it for the Bickershaw show.
  • Also, Pig is no longer “mostly alive.” He is “partly dead.”
  • Bobby’s going to pork Billy’s girl.
  • Look at his face.
  • Disregard the serial killer glasses.
  • That’s Bobby’s sexy-face.
  • He’s gonna tear those quilts and throw rugs off her and kaiser her right in the Wilhem.
  • From ‘1976 to ’78, you could buy a Gremlin with seats upholstered just like Mrs. Donna Jean’s trousers.
  • Did Pig bring that pool cue from California?
  • Garcia’s just happy to be there.

Ocean’s (The) Eleven VI

May 20, 2015 / / 0 Comments

SAN RAFAEL, CALIFORNIA

“Billy, why did we fly from Phil’s house to Front Street?”

“Y’know, Mick: ya bitch about flying the plane, ya bitch about not flying the plane.”

“Jeez, man.”

The Dead’s storage/rehearsal/hangout/pop-up Korean restaurant had been configured in a life-size replica of the Donley Auctions warehouse. Grateful Deads and semi-Grateful Deads wandered around. As always, there were dogs and naked children underfoot. (The Grateful Dead’s children are now mostly middle-aged themselves, but they like to keep to tradition and do the tushee dance three feet away from speakers. Mostly Justin.)

“Harrumph.”

Everyone came to the conference table and sat down except Keith, who was curled up in the corner clutching a bottle of Boone’s Farm (strawberry) that he had attempted to vomit in, but failed miserably and so now was covered in his own sick, which Otis was licking off.

Everyone was fine with Keith not being at the table.

“Gentlemen, Mrs. Donna Jean, Ned Lagin,” Billy said. “This is the plan.”

He told them the plan.

The Grateful Deads at the table erupted into 18 different arguments, questions, ejaculations, interrogatives, accusations, paranoid ramblings, harmonica solos (Pig), racist jokes (Billy), and demands for more money (everyone.)

“How do we get past the dogs?”

“Can I shimmy through the laser defenses in a seductive and buttock-highlighting fashion?”

“I’m assuming there will be a musical number or two, right?”

“Can we all wear tactical gear?”

“Can I just wear a black t-shirt and sweatpants?”

“Can someone separate those two?”

That was in reference to Otis and Keith. Keith had puked up a semi-intact pill up–a little gooey, but good–and Otis started to eat it. Keith tried to grab the sucker out of Otis’ mouth, but Siberian Huskies generally don’t but up with that sort of thing from people they like, so Otis bit Keith and Keith sloppily swung at Otis; it was getting stupid.

“This is the plan, folks. You don’t like it? You can walk, but if you’re in, then you’re in. There might be danger. People may die, but I guarantee one thing: you–

HHGBNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR

The loading bay’s big garage door opened and a dirty van backed in. Ramrod and Parish got out.

“Hey, guys: terrible timing.”

The roadies opened the van doors and removed a large painting, some smaller prints; about $75 grand worth of memorabilia.

“We got that shit for you.”

“What the fuck, assholes?”

“What? You said you wanted this shit.”

“I said,” Billy said, “that I wanted to heist it. I had a plan, and we were all back together, and Mickey had some purpose.”

“I fly the plane.”

“You guys ruined it.”

“Billy, you’re a pain-in-the-ass. What if we put it all back, and you could steal it then?”

“No. It’s ruined. It was gonna be fun and now it sucks.”

“I’m still having fun.”

“Mickey, I am this close with you, buddy.”

Park Life

May 12, 2015 / / 0 Comments

IMG_1585
I could make some sort of half-hearted attempt at going left to right, or concocting some sort of ludicrous rubric, but let’s just agree that there will be skipping all over the place and the drummers will be discussed at length.

  • As with all of the other pictures from this photo shoot, Mickey will be playing the part of “Cocaine Jones.”
  • Dammit, Mrs. Donna Jean: stop beguiling me.
  • Some people will say you shouldn’t advertise another brand in your own publicity. Those people probably also think you shouldn’t wear a sweatband so high up on your head that you look like a pineapple, so fuck ’em and their opinions.
  • “Just keep walking, Dwayne. Don’t make eye contact with the crazy honkies. Just keep walking.”
  • Is Billy holding a beer? There’s no can there, it seems. Does Billy unconsciously carry a tall boy of Coors around?
  • What did Keith know and when did he know it?
  • Mrs. Donna Jean’s hair is longer than Mickey is tall.
  • I mean, they’re all equidistant from the camera, so it’s not perspective doing that to him. (They are on a slight slope, but Mickey’s clearly one of the Wee Folk.)
  • He is the day’s potato salad champion, though.
  • Actually a photo-realistic painting, this piece entitled The Last Days of Garcia’s Fuckability is on exhibit at the Museum of Modern Terrible Dead Art (MoMTDA).
  • The motorcycle boots with the slightly flared jeans, the dark aviators, the complete lack of accessories: Garcia brought his sexy to the park this day in 1977 and, judging by the historical record, left it there.
  • Did they have to do that with Keith literally in between them? Was the pole-climbing the climax of this exchange:
  • “Bet I can climb that pole all the way to the top.”
  • “Why you always braggin’ on yourself, Bobert Weir. So unattractive.”
  • “I’m gonna climb that pole, Mrs. Donna Jean.”
  • “Yeah? And’ I’m gonna watch you climb.”
  • “You gonna watch?”
  • “Yeah.”
  • “You like to watch me climb poles in the park?”
  • “Climb any pole you want, sugar.”
  • Were Keith conscious, he would be crying.
  • Sticking with the two of them, it is odd how–even in daylight–Bobby and Mrs. Donna Jean’s lighting seems to be better than everyone else’s.
  • “Take a walk through the park, Dwayne. It’s a nice day, Dwayne. There won’t be a gang of hippie CHUDs there, Dwayne.”
  • Two things you shouldn’t do in white jeans: climb light poles in parks, and wear white jeans at all.

BONUS LIST!

Acceptable Reasons for Mickey’s Appearance:

  • Bit part on Starsky and Hutch.
  • Cocaine.

Piano Man

April 4, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Here’s your fact for the day, Enthusiasts: who was the first piano player to amplify his piano with a pickup instead of the old and leaky way, which was to point a bunch of microphones towards the thing?

Was it Elton John, Billy Joel, or Leon Russell: any of those seventies showman? Perhaps a technically minded man, an Emerson or a Wakeman or some other caped gentleman farmer?

Of course not: it was our very own Keith Godchaux, pictured below:

jojoThe phase-cancelling microphones necessitated by the Wall of Sound were terrible-sounding on the piano (and the vocals, but that’s a different argument) and required a better and, of course, far more expensive and complicated solution.

As I said: no one had ever built a pickup for a grand piano before, partly because it was unasked for, but mostly because no one had found a sucker to pay for it. You can’t just scale up from a Strat single-coil, apparently. I did the briefest of digging, got to the part about “turning the piano’s string’s into their own capacitors,” and blacked out for twenty minutes.

And the man who built this device? His name was Carl Countryman and before he learned the first thing about microphones, he went from diner to diner in the dusty back roads of the West. He would approach strangers, waitresses, traveling salesmen.

“Hi,” he would say. “My name’s Carl Countryman.” And then Carl Countryman would shake their hand and his handshake was full of America and his eyes were full of America and while everyone was patriotically distracted, Carl’s partner Vic the Saladfucker would break into cars in the parking lot.

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