Thoughts On The Dead

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

Tag: peggy-o

Fall In Your Direction

February 24, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Here’s a spectacular spectacle and bodacious creation from that magical year of 1977: 10/30 in Nap City. Overshadowed by the night before’s manic roar and stomp, as well as the first week of November’s streak of genius, this one deserves a listen.

Second set’s the juicy goodness here: Vice-Admiral of the Northern Fleet Mr. Completely pimps the weirdly placed Peggy-O for enbronzifcation, and he might be right: Check out Keith on the clavichord and LEAVE IT ON for the rest, a big Playing sandwich with a HoF Wharf Rat that threatens to tear the roof off the dump; then the downshift in the Reprise fading away to barely articulated string scrapings from Garcia until it wells up in no time at all and you remember just why they had two drummers, especially this year.

And then it’s Chuck Berry time: you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

Slow Down, You Move Too Fast

June 1, 2013 / / 0 Comments

GODS ABOVE, do I love being wrong and fuckaduck, I should be at least inured to it by now, but sometimes my mistakes and misconceptions decide to destroy me with kindness, like when my long-held prejudice against ’76 was cured–a MIRACLE my brothers and sisters!–by this molasses-slow Peggy-O from Chicago’s Auditorium Theater on 6/29/76. Fist off, it’s listed as Mama Tried on the Archive, and second, Garcia’s a little out-of-tune, but SO WHAT, YOU BOW DOWN AND RUB HIS SWOLLEN ANKLES, PEASANT. He’s just killing it and there are eons–milllllllllennia–between beats. It drips over you like Billy’s lotion; it pools to fill every crevice; it is pristine and then, holy shit, it’s Mission in the Rain.

They only played it three times. Or five times, depending on whether you believe this sentence or the one previous. Garcia and Mrs. Donna Jean sing about whores and loss while the band swings behind them, then she duets with Bobby on a gorgeous Looks Like Rain that finds some astounding work from all of them, most of all Billy playing the thunder implicit in the song’s title. It’s transcendent and resplendent and other words, so many other words I can’t be bothered to type right now.

And then they tune up for, like, seven minutes.

This might be the rarest of all birds: a DONNA SHOW. Listen to her wee-hoo-hoo! during the verses of Lazy Lightning, melding her voice with Garcia’s (who was always a Galaxy-Class backup singer) for the “Myyy liiiight-nin’ tooooo!”

I didn’t see how before how hypnotic the Slow Dead could be–it’s not a dirge, it’s hypnosis.

Check this one out, if not for yourself, then for the Turks.

P.S. Great googly-mooglies, you must listen to the Playin’>Space Jam>The Wheel>Playin’ Reprise. One of these days, you’re gonna be dead, so liste to this right now. IGNORE YOUR CHILDREN AND LISTEN TO THIS IMPROVISATIONAL COUNTRY-ROCK PERFORMANCE.

Holler

July 17, 2012 / / 4 Comments

4/16/78, West Virginia. Holy shit, they must have been broke, although it seems like WV would be pretty in the spring. Check out Garcia’s solo in Peggy-O, the way he leads the chord changes. Just listen to Peggy-O: this version is astonishing.

In fact, Garcia has been on fire the entire show and for most of the tour, but sweet Sally in the alley, would someone take that slide from Bobby. For the children, if nothing else.

And then listen real careful to Ship of Fools, where Garcia implores us to “Looky here,” before he tells us how late it was when he got around to believing.

P.S. in the New Orleans tradition, when the body is brought to the church, the Second Line follows, playing traditional funeral dirges. IKO IKO IS NOT ONE OF THEM, GENTLEMEN. Hop to it, guys: you’re killing me.

Dead Freaks Unite

June 7, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Quick question followed by hysterical rantings, accusations of treachery, cries of poverty (abject, moral, financial), and threats of reprisal.

Why not crowd-source the next Dead release? Put the 6 or 8 shows being decided among online and let the Enthusiasts decide. Why wasn’t that part of the Grateful Dead Game, that feculent folly? Someone explain that thing to me or I’m going to have one of my little fits and we can’t have the couch cleaned again: it’s more duct tape than sofa now.

Here’s my vote for the next one, pulled from a well renowned for its sweetness and goblins, but in fact all the more worthy because of its brethren: to listen to any show from Spring ’77 is to demand comparison and 4/22/77 at The Spectrum in Philly more than holds it own against any comers. The Peggy-O is the equal of the vaunted 5/7; the Scarlet>Fire might be better than 5/8.

P.S. The Scarlet>Fire is better, just objectively better. Don’t argue with me and go eat some fiber. And, hey: if you like what I’m doing, then wave the flag, huh?

P.P.S. Listen to Keith during the Dancing jam at 7:45: he hits these beautifully dissonant chords with the Hammond, which he uses quite a bit this show, but then he starts playing like a child, a drunken hairy child prone to smacking people, doing smack, smacking smack, and occasionally shoplifting. EDIT: There is no evidence whatsoever that Keith was a shoplifter. The smack, yes, but we have every reason to believe Keith paid for his candy bars.

Thereafter, Keith goes back to the piano to play some of the most gorgeous lines he’s ever laid down (you jive turkey) as if to reinforce his point.

P.P.P.S. They have, collectively, taken this show out back and beaten the living shit of it. BEST SHOW EVER! You stop that, you big bully.

Just Like Jack & Jill

May 10, 2012 / / 2 Comments

The Dead wrote about 135 songs, and did probably half again as many covers, except that doesn’t tell the whole story. Mainly because some songs, they wrote three or four times.

Jack-A-Roe and Peggy-O are–thematically–the same song: doomed love, hyphens, Game of Thrones vibe. Ramble On Rose and  Tennessee Jed are musically the same song, while Ramble On Rose and U.S. Blues are lyrically the same song. Eyes of the World and Help on the Way could be mistaken for each other in a dark alley.

The Dead are lucky that they premiered Iko, Samson, Throwing Stones,and Women are Smarter after their mind-blowing Europe ’72 warm-up show at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (Dick’s Pick 30). Otherwise, jamming with Mr. Diddley might have been a little more awkward. (And if you haven’t checked out this offering, you’re just a sillypants: the first disc* alone is worth the price of admission, featuring the five song Bo Diddley jam, a version of Are You Lonely For Me, Baby that defines “ragged but right,” and the only GD performance of How Sweet It Is**–which is odd, because they really rock the hell out of it, but perhaps the three chord tune was a bit boring for a certain bass player.)

To Lay Me Down, Must Have Been the Roses, and Ship of Fools are identical cousins; Black-Throated Wind and Looks Like Rain a bit more distantly related, but still clearly available to donate organs to one another. (Don’t tell Phil.) Chinatown Shuffle and U.S. Blues aren’t fooling anyone.

Now, don’t take this as any sort of chastisement, of course. Hell, a lot of really, really popular bands ripped themselves off: for example, AC/DC has only written, like, three songs in their entire career, which puts them two ahead of the Ramones.

*I hadn’t listened all the way through that first amazing disc when I wrote this, but you MUST check out the Smokestack Lightning, which is usually kind of a drag, but cooks right here PLUS the added fun of–about 8 minutes in or so–hearing Bobby try again and again to drag the rest of them into Truckin’, but the rest of them are simply not having it.

**I mistakenly thought that Bobby and Garcia played How Sweet It Is on Letterman, but it was actually Second That Emotion, because, in keeping with the theme of the post, they are also pretty much the same song. Check it out, anyway: Garcia with Tiger, Bobby with Pepto Pink, and the MONSTROUS Will Lee holding down the bass and backup vocals.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOeDEVyUBek&w=420&h=315]

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