Ned Lagin is just about the same size as one of Billy’s more whiskey-soaked boners. Phil’s beard weighs more than him.
Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Tag: ned lagin (Page 2 of 4)
Obsession recognizes genius first. Those that are good will see great coming from a distance. Salieri is the first to bow to Mozart.
And I must admit to my status as the F. Murray Abraham in the relationship between TotD and NedBase. A work of breathtaking specificity and (seemingly) impeccable research, NedBase is the scholarly home of the Lagin Chair in the Study of Neducation.
Y’know what: fuck my silly jokes. Go find out when Ned’s parents met Garcia. (Hint: Dark Star>Spanish Jam>U.S. Blues.)
Though present for much of the Dead’s ’74 run at Winterland, Ned Lagin’s image appeared in none of the film exposed those nights, nor on any tapes from the evenings.
What sound do you fear?
Is it the door slamming shut behind you? The screech of tires too close in front? The wet, meaty slap of the winged penises as they dive-bombed the last remaining human stronghold in the final battle of the War of the Flying Dicks?
The rumbling romance of the deep part of the water, the part out past the breakers, the dark blue bit. When you go to the beach, you stand in the water and face inland: you heard the call once, sinuous and sonorous in your ear, you were a child and you listened to voices like that; out you swam and you could taste the water get saltier as the continent sheered away beneath you, hundred yards, thousand, mile. You treaded water and laughed and listened for the voice over a mile of water and you felt the presence and swam farther faster and when your father hooked you under the arms and dragged you back–how did you get this far out–you struggled. You fought your father for that voice and now you keep your feet on the ground. Wade out to the sandbar, wade back.
You have no idea what it means to fear a sound.
The Dead experimented with many formats before settling on the Two-Set Solution that finally brough peace to the long-embattled region. Some of them were good ideas, and others the drummers came up with, but since Lost Live Dead refuses to return my phone calls and texts and frowns upon my climbing into his window, I’ll have to illuminate these dark corners of Dead history:
The “All-At-Once” Approach was Phil’s idea, and it wasn’t really his idea so much as it was Charles Ives’ idea, and it was completely awful. Ned Lagin loved it, which should tell you something.
Backwards Day was a spiritual cousin to Opposite Day, I suppose, but instead of just turning their guitars around, the Boys (and Mrs. Donna Jean) turned the whole show around, opening with U.S. Blues, doing the drum solo in the first set, then closing with Promised Land or Bertha, and then just standing there smoking for a while. It was, as you would presume, anti-climactic.
Inside-Out Day might also be considered a spiritual cousin to something, but it was just weird. The band would jam backstage for an hour, then take the stage and smoke, get high, get beejers, get more high, check their gambling losses, poo, and yell at the road crew. Then they would return to their dressing rooms and jam for two hours. This approach angered people.
Karaoke Night with the Dead was a poor attempt to ride a 90’s trend, as was Macarena Night with the Dead. In the former, lucky audience members were allowed to sing with the group until they wandered too close to Garcia and Parish punched them in the head. The latter was exactly what it sounds like and I’m not gonna lie: it caused a suicide or two.
The Wheel of Rock and Roll Fortune is an idea recently dusted off by Elvis Costello, a longtime Deadhead, wherein a large wheel of chance with various song titles is spun and Fata Morgana herself chooses the set list. Except Bear built the Dead’s and he was, you know: utterly mad, so it ran on lukewarm nuclear fusion and the first time it was spun, it generated an EMP burst that took out half of Palo Alto. Also, the Wheel of Fortune, like most things around the Dead, quickly gained sentience and it and the Wall of Sound fucking hated one another.
The Dead in the Round only happened once, and for god reason: Bobby got immediately and violently unwell upon taking the rotating stage. It wasn’t moving that fast, but all those people who got drenched don’t care about details. They got Bobby-juice on ’em.
Bear thought this thing was–and I’m quoting–adorable. It was about the size of his electric shaver.
What’s the TV for? Is that even part of it or did Lord Fancyfingers just have his road crew huck a console television on top of a MaxiMoog?
Plus, all that doodaddery and someone couldn’t jerry-rig a monitor for him to see the rest of the band? Why does he have to turn around like that? His chiropractic bills alone are gonna make this tour a money-losing experience. Why doesn’t he just use the damn TV?
This was Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, a band that got its name when their original guitarist, Izzy Yiskowitz, left the group and they were able to go with the “last names” concept. It works rhythmically, plus: if you got Greg Lake in the band, you’re gonna tell the world, brother!
This isn’t another KISS thing, is it? Please, god, tell me you’re not doing 2,000 words on ELP.
…
I was done.
Ah.
…
Carry on.
Oh, blow me.
Everyone’s eyeballs stunk that day. “What’s that smell,” in a dozen, a hundred, a thousand different languages rang out and it was eyeball, the people discovered, after they smelled everything else. You never think of eyeballs having any smell at all, let alone a powerful ragout of an alcoholic moose’s turds wafting out of people’s’ orbital sockets.
No one’s dick worked right that day. Wana bang? Floppy. Gotta piss? Hard as Chinese algebra. Fix the dicks, the cry went out. No one could. No one could fix the dicks on that day.
Kansas City, MO and Kansas City, KS switched places that day and absolutely no one gave two shits one way or the other.
That day, haircuts didn’t take. Which led to a lot of really unprecedented conversations with barbers the next day, but we’re only talking about that day.
That day, the ocean grew angry and started winging porpoises at cruise ships. The wet, meaty thuds as the magnificent cetaceans hit the bulkheads were disconcerting.
That was the day that Matt Morris got blown by a radioactive gay guy and became…HOMO-MAN! with all the spending power of a gay man and the scheduling abilities of a gay woman.
What?
That was the day that Ned Lagin came, children.
A groupie was with Ned Lagin once, just once.
The next morning when the other groupies came downstairs for their complimentary breakfast (the Dead always offered their groupies complimentary breakfast and tote bags), Ned’s girl was sitting there already and she had not taken any bacon, nor was she drinking coffee, both of which were–need I remind anyone–complimentary.
The other groupies warmed bagels and read the paper and got into catfights and copied their AP Euro homework from one another. Not Ned’s girl: she just sat there.
The lass who had been with Garcia the night before (trying to be Mountain Girl calling herself “Lady of the Lake” like she doesn’t have a weird neck and is named Shelley like a basic bitch) sat next to Ned’s girl.
“How was it,” she asked.
And the groupie who had been with Ned answered, “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh N’dlag’n R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!” and then her face split open and a million bumblehitlers* swarmed out.
Ned Lagin is not an Eldritch horror. The man’s probably got grandchildren at this point.
You can’t prove he’s not an Eldritch horror.
Only because of the immutable laws of logic. I also can’t prove you’re not mentally retarded.
…
You can’t prove I am.
What’s a bumblehitler?
It’s like a bumblebee, but its honey is poisonous to Jewish people.
…
SOUND OF WALKING, DOOR OPENING, SLAMMING, CAR STARTING, SCREECHING AWAY.
…
You can just leave?
Well, sure: if you want to break up the band.
Ned Lagin made a children’s album once and the nation remembers it every year with a moment of silence.
And the seas turned black as sack, black as night, black as pitch, black as the coffee on the morning your side of bed was unused.
And the sky shrieked, loud as a bomb, loud as a failure, loud as a Tennessee prostate exam, loud as dad’s voice in every young man’s story.
And the wind howled like a summer’s morning at the sex dentist.
A two-head lamb was born today. Two-headed lambs, you say, are naturally occurring phenomena: it’s creepy but it happens. Yes, I say, but this two-headed lamb was born to Mrs. Claudia Dalrymple of 11 Cherokee Street and she’s had three kids already and none of them were lambs at all, let alone two-headed, so why don’t you take your questions and kiss my balls with them?
Really?
There were tsunamis in Idaho, twisters in Vladivostok, blizzards in the Maldives. Madagascar was shut down immediately.
Do you hear his cries? Bleeep. Flizzmsctrch. JZHoooooooWAHWAH. EEEEEEEeeeeeEEEEEeeeee. Bloop.
Ned Lagin is here.
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