Sometimes at night,
I think I understand.Late, late at night;
More feel than understand.
Hunter gets all the accolades, but John Perry Barlow could scribble a real decent line, too.
Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Tag: my brother esau
Speaking of which, there are two kinds of people in the world: those who welcome the existence of a half-hour long My Brother Esau, and numbnuts. You’re not a numbnuts, are you?
I didn’t think so.
- The moment the AUD patch transitions back into a SBD; that’s like the audio version of when Wizard of Oz switches to color.
- Billy’s drumming faces.
- The measure before Phil does his BUH-WODDA-DUH-WODDA-DUH-WHAM! in the The Other One.
- When Bobby tells the crowd what to do, and Garcia immediately undermines him.
- The end of ’72 Dark Stars when they keep suggesting songs to each other.
- My Brother Esau. (Fight me if you don’t like that song.)
- Band broke up before they could begin selling fidget spinners with Stealies on them at the merch stand.
- When Garcia completely ignores the rest of the band and just solos through the cowboy tunes.
- Phil’s gargantuan fleece-lined guitar strap from the Grateful Dead Movie.
- Phil’s gargantuan beard from the Grateful Dead Movie.
- The band fucking up the ending to Samson & Delilah on purpose to make Bobby look silly, and then the mics picking up his yelling at them afterwards.
I’m working on something about the Dylan and the Dead tour, but here’s the show that started me down this dark and out-of-tune path: 7/10/87 at JFK in Philadelphia.
TotD is in favor of the show; Psychic Bodyguard and enjoyer of drizzle and Volvos Mr. Completely has reasonably disagreed.
My arguments include, but are not limited to, the following:
- A nifty truncated show–a highlights version that manages, because it’s the Dead, to be longer than the actual thing–with a great “first set” full of little-played 80’s faves: Iko, Brother Esau, and When Push Comes to Shove: all played snappily and with the crisp energy that permeates this entire show.
- A short-but-sweet Drums (with copious Beam-banging by Mickey) is topped by a retro Garcia-solo Space, ’78-style.
- The Dylan set is just that: a Dylan set, just with a slightly-less deferential backing band than he’d ever worked with before (except The Band, of course.) Dylan had a lot in common with the Dead (for example, they both played a lot of Dylan tunes) but one massive discrepancy was the intent: while Dylan and, say, Phil were both capable of playing a song in a new key he’d just invented, Dylan was doing it on purpose to bother people.
- And there’s some great shit in the Dylan set! It roars out of the gate with a zippy Tangled Up in Blue and steams through Stuck Inside of Mobile>Chimes of Freedom, into an aborted stab at Queen Jane, then on to a truly killer Gotta Serve Somebody.
- Admittedly, Joey is longer than the actual gang war that inspired the song.
- Watchtower: all killer, no filler. MY POINT RHYMES.
His arguments include, and are limited to, the following:
- It sucks.
One might say we’re both right…from a certain point of view.
Oh my god, you’re the worst.
Listening to too much Dead? (As if that were a possibility.) here are some helpful signs that you might want to load up some other bands on your iTunes.
- You can’t look at your watch without relating the time to show dates: e.g. “It’s 2:18. BEAUTIFUL JAM.”
- Your first thought upon hearing of Russia’s invasion of the Crimea is, “Billy could stop this in 15 minutes.”
- You get a cat, name it John Kahn, and it immediately starts enabling your heroin habit.
- The only reason you do leg day at the gym is because Halloween is coming and you’re going as 80’s Bobby. Again.
- You wonder how John Travolta would pronounce Phil’s name. (Paul Loing.)
- You’ve listened to the entire 30-minute rehearsal version of My Brother Esau from 3/14/83.
- You’re 1500 posts in to a maddeningly obscure blog about the Dead.
- You refer to fat people as Wall of Pounds.
- You’re already camped out in front of Barnes & Noble waiting for Billy’s book.
- And you’re in costume.
- And you’ve punched three booksellers, seven random pedestrians, and a dachshund named Colin in the dick.
- Someone asks you what you want for your birthday and you automatically answer, “The security alarm code to Bobby’s house.”
- At international customs they ask you if you have anything to declare and you say, “1979 was really underrated.”
- You throw a tantrum when Words With Friends won’t accept “Godchaux.”
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