Thoughts On The Dead

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

Tag: phil lesh (Page 103 of 105)

Trouble Behind

June 9, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Things that would get you thrown out of the Grateful Dead’s backstage:

  • ****ing Phil. I’m using the asterisks to denote the universality: eyeballing, grab-assing, mounting. Just assume anything you do that involves Phil will lead to a thrashing, then a quick exit.
  • Even looking at Garcia’s ice cream.
  • Not splitting Aces and Eights.
  • Any Game of Thrones spoilers whatsoever.
  • Any sort of ninjitsu whatsoever. Not since the last time. Brent dressed in the traditional Japanese racist pajamas and, using “ninja tools” that were almost certainly fashioned from the cutlery on the catering table, climbed halfway across the ceiling, which was quite impressive, until the ceiling fan sucked Brent’s wizard beard into the rotor and he nearly died, mostly ’cause the other guys just left him there for four or five hours. Mickey just couldn’t stop laughing.
  • Demanding to meet Ringo.
  • Introducing what were known internally as “pernicious thoughts” into Bobby’s head. There was no firm definition of such, more of a Potter Stewart vibe to the whole thing, but past concepts deemed inappropriate for Bobby include: spandex, hair dryers, mesh, Garcia is stealing your soul from you when you switch off singing during Jack Straw, platform shoes, platform boots, platform anything-of-any-kind, Last Tuesdayism (Holy shit, the next person who mentions any sort of solipsism-based paradoxical view of reality to him is getting stabbed with a knife), and everyone’s favorite: “monkey gonna getcha.”It took two hours to drag him out from under the trailer that time, shrieking the whole way.
  • Any kind of keening, ululating, glottalizing or hooting.
  • Wearing eyeblack for a game in a domed stadium. You’re just wearing makeup at that point.
  • Saying the letter ‘L’ around Billy. It wasn’t so much that you would be thrown out afterwards, it was that you would probably like to leave, having been punched so thoroughly in the dick. But, you should give it to Billy: the “L” thing did make it sporting. One clever fellow made it a good six minutes into a conversation before Billy got bored and just punched him in the dick anyway.

Saturday Night Dead

June 6, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Found this and thought you’d like it, but before you click on it, know this: you will be going to a desert, a ghost mall of the internet, a junction far, far across the Rio Grand (EeyOoo): MySpace. There exists a MySpace. Still. I wonder if their office still has the half-pipe and yoga studio? Didn’t “Tom” die in an auto-erotic asphyxiation thing last Winter Solstice? (That’s how I mark time, because of my beliefs. TOLERATE ME.)

So, you have to go to MySpace because, well, it’s on MySpace, but mostly because I don’t know how to grab the video, so just aim your clicker over the blue letters–not the blue thing, the blue let–good aaaaaand: there’s your bank account, Grandma.  Love you, Gam. NOMNOMNOM your face Gam. Gonna kill you in your sleep, Gam. NIGHT!

EDIT: I’m not even going pretend to know what went wrong there. It’s beyond just apologizing and moving on: this is High Crime or Misdemeanor time.  Fuck…WHOO, where was he even GOING with that? These are decent folks out there getting high and listening to the Dead while reading about the Dead. Fuckin’ stoner-ass stoner asses. Who am I again? Am I the Reader or the Faithless Narrator? Sometime, he uses italics for one, and sometimes…sometimes, I think this is all just a bunch of obscure lies and silliness, man.

SUPEREDIT: Play the video or I’ll teach you what the word ‘flense’ means.

So: the Grateful Dead playing Saturday Night Live on 11/11/78. (You should open the video in a different window or, you know what?  You’re bright and capable and more than equipped to wrangle the doodads. Just be yourself all over the place.

Casey Jones on SNL

And we start off with everyone’s favorite secret genius, Buck Henry!

And Billy!

.26     It’s called conditioner, Garcia. Plus–and I’m just saying–for a guy who always bitched about being on TV, he certainly does play adorably to the cameras.

.38     Here we see Donna, who for some reason is easy skanking.

.50    Was Phil just yelling at the drummers on live TV? Seriously, can no one get Phillip Lesh to exhibit anything even resembling human behavior?

1.05   Donna was always dressed like your grade-school art teacher that time you ran into her at the supermarket.

1.15   We need to talk about Bobby’s pants. Young man, are you wearing jodhpurs? Or are they riding pantaloons? Are you playing Young George Washington? Will you golf later? If so, is your caddie Bagger Vance? Are you the renegade scion of the House of Bourbon? How are those socks staying up–is there a garter in play here? EXPLAIN YOUR PANTS.

1.45   Although if we’re going to be honest, they do hug his ‘tocks quite nicely. Bobby’s sexy and he knows it.

2.00  The slide. That’s a choice.

2.22   Hey, there are other people in this band!  (None of whom are attractive enough for a close-up, apparently.) And a great shot of both drummers, um, drumming.

3.00  Donna gives me boners.

3.12   It’s Rowlf the dog!

3.27 Hey, Mickey’s in this band!

Let Phil Cook!

June 4, 2012 / / 4 Comments

Phil’s new hash-house/gin joint, Terrapin Crossroads, looks pretty swanky. I understand that they’re going for a more upscale vibe, but I think there are a few marketing possibilities that have been overlooked:

Eat your Phil!

Phil ‘er up!

Phil my mouth with goodness!

This week’s exotic meat dish: Box of Reindeer!

Our food won’t give you Lesh-maniasis!

Lesh is more, due to rising food prices!

Phil-ling the long afternoons between tours!

Our kitchen is not Phil-thy!

No, sir: Mr. Daley no longer dines here, sir. No, sir: we serve no liver whatsoever at Terrapin Crossroads. It sets Sir off. He kind of Hulks out. Except, you know: it’s Phil, so when he gets like that, we call him the Phulk–oh, totes behind his back, we just text, he doesn’t understand–and he rampages through the place demanding people show him their organ donor cards and then he strips to the waist and challenges men and women to fight and somebody always take him up on it and then it gets sexual and–why am I telling you all this? No reservations!

Y’see this is the kind of thing that I write and then I wait and NO ONE from the Grateful Dead calls me and says that I should be in the family and put on salary with a car. I know back in the day, everyone had BMWs, but I know times are rough, so an Audi would be perfectly fine as long as it’s got leather seats and you pay for my gas.

Got To Find A Number To Use

June 4, 2012 / / 0 Comments

8 – Hallelujah hatracks (Really?)

4 – Dead keyboard players. Not 4 keyboardists for the Dead, 4 dead keyboardists. How is it possible that the mortality rate for musicians in an improvisational country-rock outfit is higher than that of those guys who parachute into forest fires? The family crest of the Dead keyboardist read Pertransiit sine me (Go on without me).

3 – Fancy little shoe racks for TC’s fancy little ankle boots.

210,000 – Number of dollars Lenny Hart stole from the band while “managing” them.

40,000 – Number of dollars Lenny Hart stole during the meeting to try to explain the financial irregularities when someone left the door to the safe open. They were trusting men, at first, our Dead.

88 – Keys on a piano.

176 – How many Keith usually saw.

1 – Number of times a crew member looked Phil directly in the eyes. Just that once.

95 – Live albums released, 110 if you count the Digital Download series (One of which I’m listening to now, the Donna-tacular 4/30/77 at the Palladium in NYC. (Audience copy, if you’re into that sort of thing. Harumph. But, seriously, it’s an AUD: think about whether that’s the person you want to be. AUD guys are to Enthusiasts what fat guys fluent in Klingon are to Trekkies)

13 – Studio albums

2 – That were any good at all.

0 – Number of times the question, “How many fingers does the Grateful Dead have?” can be answered with a whole number.

12,000 – Amount extra versus a standard P.A. it cost to tote the Wall of Sound around. Luckily, it was worth the price because it was “the righteous thing to do, man.” That is an exact quote from Blair Jackson, who was actually talking about something else entirely, but FUCK CONTEXT.

6 – Months it took the righteous thing to do to break the band’s back.

2 – Drummers.

1 – Drummer.

2 – Drummers.

12 – Teenage male hustlers found horribly mutilated throughout the 80’s in a pattern correlating to the Dead’s tour schedule. The culprit was never found, but was described as having luxuriously thick blond hair and singing the high harmony part. The pattern stopped briefly in 1989, but picked up again–far more rapidly now–in 1990, except this time it was females and there’s a weird theory that there were two guys based round this mystery man they call Suburban Lanky. Doesn’t make any sense at all, if you asked me.

40 – Milliseconds after Bobby asked, “Tonight, what if we open…wait for it…with the encore?” that his dick got punched.

300,000  – Dollars spent by Mickey in the winter of 1977 to create his most ambitious percussive masterpiece to date. Mickey planned and rehearsed diligently. He spent over a year writing the score and hired musicians from all over the world, building them a brand-new studio. Then he locked them in that brand-new studio, set it ablaze, and recorded their dying screams. Lou Reed is quoted as saying, “Why didn’t I think of that?” The album was never released, except in Norway where it reached #31 on the Billboard-flurgen charts.

14 – Bucks for the Oven-Roasted Shrimp and Sun-Dried Tomatoes at Phil’s new hotspot, Terrapin Crossroads. Come for the food, stay for the Phil!

That’s Who I Am

June 3, 2012 / / 3 Comments

The Dead were not a Prog-Rock band, as that required hours of rehearsal, which was impossible when the phrase, “Let’s try that one again,” led at least three men to start wildly swinging their fists without even looking to see where they were going. The Dead were like Sinatra: one-take. If you allowed them back at the material after the first try, they would fiddle with it endlessly, eventually disappearing up their own asses entirely.

The Dead were not a Boy Band. Boy bands feature young, girlish men who conform to pre-slotted roles as the Cute One or the Shy One. The Dead was made up of men whose appearances might have been put on cans of stew. Yes, Bobby was the Cute One, but there was also the Locked in the Bathroom One, the Punching One, and Phil. Tiger, yes. Tiger Beat, no.

The Dead were not Alternative. I think it might have been the attitude towards guitars. Since Johnny Ramone threw his plastic Mos-Rite in a shopping bag and carried it into CBGB’s, one of the key signifiers of “cool” in the punk/alternative status game is who can find the shittiest, most obscure guitar. Garcia did not like that game, not one bit.  He chased the dragon with those guitars as much as with his habit. Elaborate, expensive and–most of all-heavy things that he could fuss over. And, as we all know, anything fussed with too much is shit and those last guitars, my god, the pomp and circumference!

Wolf! Wolf weighed–I looked this up–211 pounds.

The Dead were not a Country Rock Jam Band with Delusions of Grandeur. No, no: they were. That is what they were. And, damn they were good at it.

The Dead were not Electronic Music, even though they used to let Phil’s retarded cousin Ned Lagin finger his MOOG onstage occasionally. I’m talking the Ibiza stuff, KLF is gonna house you, that thing where the bass stops and then it makes this WUBWUBWUB sound, that sort of thing. First of, all the darkness would lead instantly to a round of stealthy dickpunching the likes of which this party’s never seen! WHOO! Second, the Dead would, upon seeing the other large, bass-heavy sound systems, immediately go nuclear, leading to destruction.

“Chief, what have those Grateful Deads done this time?”

“Mr. Mayor, they’ve wired the sewer lines and turned the very ground beneath us into one giant sub-woofer!”

“And what happens if something goes wrong?

“Mr. Mayor, do you know what a caldera is?”

The Dead is not Hip-Hop, although there are similarities: the guys whose job title is kinda loose, weed.

Easy Answers

June 1, 2012 / / 3 Comments

Okay, Grateful Dead cocktail party games. Annnnnnnnnnnd: go!

Dead as countries Phil is Germany, technical and peevish; Brent is Canada, adorable and drunk; Billy is Mozambique, because Mozambique’s flag has a fist holding an AK-47 on it. No secrets, there.

Dead as Wars, Ancient Phil is most certainly the Punic Wars, all of them: savage, righteous, salted. Mickey is the Warring States Period, just because I like the name. (I was thinking about reading about the history of China, so I looked at the shop and the smallest of the books was so heavy that the Dead lugged it around with them in ’78 “just because.” Plus, I know I should care about the place where a sixth of the world lives, but try reading that wikipedia page. I get three sentences in, tops.) Garcia is the Persian War.

Dead as animals(visual) Garcia is obviously a koala: just picture a koala, now add the glasses. (That image isn’t getting out of your head, sorry.) Brent is a hedgehog. Donna is a squirrel. Phil is halfway between an ostrich and a giraffe.

Dead as animals (metaphorical) Bobby: Springer spaniel. Garcia: silverback gorilla. Phil: halfway between an ostrich and a giraffe.

Dead as rivers: TC is the Danube; Vince is the CayuhogaCuyahoga; Billy is the Mississippi: mighty, proud, and difficult to spell.

Most appropriate Dead song for the funeral of a FTM transsexual He’s Gone. 

Least appropriate Dead song for the funeral of a MTF transsexual He’s Gone.

While The Boys Sing Round The Fire

May 23, 2012 / / 3 Comments

The best big concert I ever went to was Pink Floyd. They played all of Dark Side and during On the Run, a model airplane zipped along a wire running the length of Giant Stadium, finally crashing in an enormous ball of flame behind the PA stack, whereupon 70,000 peoples’ heads just exploded from the amount of awesome that had just been placed in there. Later in the show, a massive disco ball eructated from the center of the stadium, opening like lotus petals to reveal Gilmour, coincidentally just in time to play the solo from Comfortably Numb.

The Dead did not do things like that. They engaged in virtually none of the tricks and antics that most other bands rely on; two reasons come to mind. Firstly, they were congenitally incapable of most show business bullshit. Of course, being the Dead, they felt the need to take this to its illogical extreme: sucking at big shows, punching record executives, and (depending on the lineup) being made-up of anywhere from 67 to 80 percent really ugly dudes. This is not how Jon Bon Jovi did it.

Second, the Dead’s audience could be counted on to provide at least half of their own entertainment. At any show, most of the crowd would have been just as amused by their own hands as by a flying drum kit, so why spend the money?  While Tommy Lee’s roller-coaster drum solo was immensely cool, it wasn’t for Billy or Mickey. Drums did not fly in the Dead. Thrown? Quite often.

Not that they didn’t have their own little stage moves. Phil would march up three feet, then back three, then up. Garcia unconsciously pushed his glasses up his nose before he took most solos. Keith did this adorable thing where he would pass out in a corner, a pool of hot piss spreading slowly underneath him. They all had their thing, is what I’m saying.

It just wasn’t the usual way to rock. You know that move where the two guitarists stand back-to-back, as if they can no longer remain upright unassisted because of the sheer POWAH! of the rock they were laying down? Imagine Bobby trying to do that to Garcia. Now, in your head, did Garcia gracefully side-step, leaving Bobby to tumble onto the ground? Because he did in mine. I wouldn’t even let the Bobby in my head TRY to do that shit to Phil, because I need the Bobby in my head to keep doing silly things I can tell you nice folks about, and we all know that touching Phil leads to hiring attorneys.

There was never any of that happy horseshit about “how nice it was to be here in (checks note affixed to monitor) THE FINGER LAKES, YEAH!  We been all around this country and nowhere rocks harder than the (double-check) FINGER LAKES!”  No pandering nonsense about the local teams, we were not asked to put “them” up, nor was it demanded of us that we wave “them” in the air. No enquiries were made about our level of interest about waving “them” in the air, whatsoever. Paul Stanley would have been disgusted.

P.S. Credit does have to be given to the entire group for avoiding the most pernicious of rock tics: Guitar Face. I mean, occasionally Garcia would knit is brow in concentration during Slipknot! or something, but none of them ever came down with a full-blown case of Les Palsy.

I Will Not Condemn You

May 21, 2012 / / 2 Comments

There have been new visitors to the bloggings, mostly from the wonderful and masculine-smelling Reddit, which was exciting and sexual. Problem was, I think the last few postings on the bloggings have been kind of weird and insular and not really about the Dead as much as my wrestling with the Creeping Insanity and that fucker just having his way with me. No contest, just taking his sweet time.

Until I yearned for it.

That is the kind of shit we had the meeting about.

Right, right. Sorry. So: who is this for? If you fit any one of the following descriptions, you should dive into the archives.(Actually, physically dive into them. Running start right into the computer: I swear it will work. It is an app.)

  • You love the Weather Report Suite, yet realize the lyrics are so dumb they ought to be quarantined. Black dirt live again, my ass. (But here’s an awesome WRS from the Curtis Hixon Convention Center in Tampa on 12/18/73. This is one of my favorite names for a 70’s arena. I just wish it had merged with the nearby building in Pembroke Pines to become the Curtis Hixon Sportatorium, which is the most 70’s you can get in three words. You can almost picture the enormous tie knots and boxing still being relevant.
  • You’ve ever idly wondered whether, after building the Wall of Sound, they considered building a Wall of Sight. Or maybe a Wall of Taste. (Warning: do not taste the Wall of Taste.)
  • You like the parts that are in between the songs better than the songs.
  • Occasionally–not always, but certainly not never–Jack Straw gets on your last nerve.
  • You have forgiven Vince, but still choose not to listen to his dinky tinklings.
  • Your ongoing argument with yourself regarding The Greatest ___ Ever! has resorted to factionalism, dirty-fighting, and–since Billy is involved–crotchpunching.In my head, it feels as though each year has achieved sentience and is now throwing evidence around when I’m trying to do other things like eat or cry or eat while I’m crying. It’s like the Italian parliament up there, but with nary a spicy meatball.
  • You want Sugaree to be longer. No matter how long it is, you believe it could stand to gain another 8 minutes or so.
  • You’ll put up with Bobby’s cowboy bullshit, but not his first set turn as Silly Dixon.
  • You got here by googling “rule 34 grateful dead.” You are sick, though constantly recurring, blips on my analytics and I welcome you to a place where you’ll be accepted. (Warning: there will be NONE of that “slash” fan fiction stuff where you take other people’s characters and hump them together like they were your childhood toys. However, we may dip our toes into that shiver-inducing pond by figuring out the most horrifying match-up: my money’s on Phil/Billy, because in the whisper of time before Billy started punching dicks, it would be awkward.)
  • Now you’re thinking about it, aren’t you? Even if you don’t want to, your brain’s just going “Brent/Mickey? Hornsby/Phil?” Tell me what the worst of the terrible, terrible images your brain is rifling through right now against your will in the comments. Best one wins a lifetime supply of Beard! for men with beards. Have a beard? Use Beard!

Perhaps They’re Better Left Unsung

May 11, 2012 / / 2 Comments

It wasn’t like roulette, you see. The casinos have made fortunes since they installed those immaculately legible tote boards listing the numbers that have landed previously in red with big ol’ tempting empty spaces in between and they’ve been raking cash in because your dumb ass has evolved to think 15 is gonna hit because it’s due. It makes sense to believe that present events are based upon past observation: that’s why people instinctively shielded their crotches whenever Billy came around, for al the good it would do them. Billy was like Gretzky: he could always find your five-hole.

But just as it is a logical fallacy to think that the rules of real life apply in the casino, it is also a mistake to think that Hoyle has any say over the world. (It’s called the Ludic fallacy, which I know because it is one of those facts that gets lodged in my brain instead of, say, how to find love.)  So, why do we forget that about the Dead? Why do we lionize certain shows only to ignore the rest of the week? These men were, appearances to the contrary, human. They had good runs. But the forest is invisible but for the trees, especially when some trees are, y’know, Barton Hall or Red Rocks. They suck up all the light.

Talking about the Dead is to talk about overshadowing. Garcia overshadowed the rest of the band, Mickey’s overkill overshadowed Billy’s light touch, ’77 and ’73 overshadowed all the other years, and Vince’s playing overshadowed the charitable work he did as a participant in the saddest Make-A-Wish event ever. Even Vince knew enough to be embarrassed.

We let ourselves think the greatness appeared as weird happening, crepuscular beams from a murky sea. Not so. 5/19/74 is rightfully well-regarded, especially the raging Truckin’>Mind Left Body jam. but listen to the very next show, 5/21/74 at UCLA the University of Washington* where they proceed to pull out a GODDAM 45 MINUTE PLAYIN’. Give the kids some Robotussin, shoot the dog and LISTEN to this thing, to the peaks and valleys that spring like Zeus out of inchoate spaciness one after another. (And, since it’s a GREAT matrix mix, listen to the appreciative audience cheer every twist and turn. Listen to ’em ROAR for Donna in Playin’. hell, listen to Donna!

Yeah, 2/14/70 is historic, but 2/11 is better. Yes, 1977 was THE year, but y’know: ’78 kicks more ass than an avowed lover of kicking ass who had spent his last dime to enter an ass-kicking contest in an attempt to win enough money to open his own business, a high-end Ass-Kickery.

 

*Thanks to a comment by an Esteemed Enthusiast, the location of the 5/21 show has been amended to note the actual location. For his Sherlockian abilities, he will receive a lifetime supply of Bobby Weir’s Shorts Shorteners. Shorts too long? Shorten ’em with Shorts Shortener!

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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