Thoughts On The Dead

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

Tag: phil lesh (Page 105 of 105)

White Lovelight, White Heat

February 7, 2012 / / 2 Comments

The Velvet Underground thought the Dead were sexist and homophobic and probably imperialist and definitely goofy. Most of the thing can be understood nearly instantly by realizing that the VU was made up of over-educated New Yorkers, with all the connotation that “over-educated New Yorker” entails.  Yeah, I went there.

Were the Dead homophobic? I’ve never read any stories about them acting untoward. Although–and I always thought it was odd for a band from San Francisco–there were never any stories about the Dead vis-a-vis gaiety at all.

Now, sexist?

From September of ’79 to March of ’83, Billy invoked the ancient rite of Prima Nocte over the backstage area, but luckily for all involved, Billy usually just wanted a rubdown and a tugger. And he would always share his coke: Billy was good like that.

The Dead were kind of hairy and macho. Sure, they had Donna in the group, but she was really just Keith’s old lady that Bobby was banging. She was incidental. No one ever made a mix tape called Donna Jams, nor has anyone ever sold a bumper sticker with a clever Donna-inspired pun.

“Who’s your favorite member of the Dead? Garcia? Phil?”

“No, man, it’s the chick who looks like Sacheen Littlefeather who caterwauls nine or ten times a show. She’s all the Dead I need!”

They did employ more women than most rock outfits of the time, and in creative positions: Candace Brightman and Betty Canter come to mind.

Apparently, the Dead had appeared on the same bill as the Velvet Underground and, of course, both bands brought their entire scenes with them and it turned into a full-fledged hip-off. The VU sat there in their leathers and sniffed condescendingly at the hairy baboons from San Francisco. (It was probably condescending: there was an enormous amount of sniffing going on.) Instant utter hatred.

Which is not surprising: a good hate requires a bit of reflection. Who can hate something alien properly? To truly hate, we need to recognize ourself in the person, place, or thing that has so struck our ire. Both bands played songs for 45 minutes while deliberately declining to make eye contact with anyone in the room. Both had a weird rich benefactor, a pretentious bass player, and a drummer with a vagina.

(That’s right: Mickey has a vagina. In the womb, he ate his twin sister and the ‘gina just showed up on his shoulder. It is fully-functioning and Mickey introduces it into love-making by asking if his partners would like to go to “ninth base.”)

The story also might be colored by the fact that, at the time, both bands were made up of raging drug addicts. The VU, notably, preferred to intravenously self-administer amphetamines constantly. Literally constantly: if they were not actively shooting up, they were helping you look for the money that they had stolen from you. The Velvet Underground liked to stay up for six days straight turning tricks and accusing each other of things. The Velvet Underground were just the worst fucking people in the world.

So, I’m not taking their word for it.


ADDENDUM: Rereading this post, I am ashamed to see that I have not linked to the essay that inspired it. My apologies to the author and to people in general and also ducks.

Can You Pass The Test?

January 25, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Grateful Dead imbibing game. Pick a show at random. Not from 1995: have more respect for yourself, would you please?

The rules:

  • If Phil plays an unaccompanied bass solo, drink a Heineken. If, somewhere in the solo he hits a note that makes no sense whatsoever, drink another Heineken. If you rationalize it by telling yourself that Phil is a musical genius and means every single note, so therefore you just didn’t understand what Phil was laying down, then drink the rest of the case and imagine Phil playing in Puerto Rico and giving the donor rap in halting, old white guy Spanish.

“Me llamo Philipe. Tiene oído absoluto. Dame tus hepáticas. DAME TU HEPATICAS!”

  • If Billy’s the only drummer, bet $50 that the Smails kid will pick his nose. If Mickey’s there, give your horse one hit of acid every time you can name the thing that Mickey’s hitting during drums. If he is hitting Ramrod, two hits. If he hits an executive from the record company, take the horse outside and free that majestic steed, who won’t survive two or three hours wandering through a town, especially after you fed it all that acid, you MONSTER.
  • They play Might as Well and you think about watching Festival Express again–take a shot and demand your local diner give away their food “to the people, maaaaaaaaaan.”
  • They play New Speedway Boogie and you feel like watching Gimme Shelter again–take a fistful of LSD and seconal, put on a bear hat, and beat Marty Balin half to death with a pool cue.  (Who brings a pool-cue to a concert?  Shouldn’t that have been, you know: a clue? “Sorry, guys, you can’t come in: I think you might be looking to cause trouble.  Just a guess.”)
  • If they play Dire Wolf–drink red whiskey for dinner. Then realize there’s no such thing as red whiskey so how did my whiskey get redOMIGOD SOMEONE BLED IN MY FUCKING WHISKEY.
  • If Bobby screws up a lyric–do nothing. Mentioning that Bobby screwed up a lyric is like mentioning that Billy played drums: it’s not a bug, it’s a feature.  If Bobby gets every single word to Truckin’ right, go buy yourself the tightest, Izod-iest shirt you can find and pop that collar, baby.
  • If they tune for one minute–hit of Persian. If they tune in the middle of the song–burn yourself with a cigarette while you sleep. If the play a song in the middle of tuning–burn someone else with a cigarette while they sleep.
  • If Pig’s in the band and they play Lovelight and you still can’t figure out what the hell “Box back nitties, great bigging on the vine,” means–get drunk off a pint of cheap whiskey you keep in the back pocket of greasy Levi’s, have shouty drunken sex with Janis Joplin, and then wear a series of ridiculous hats, but actually look really cool in them.

The Other One

January 22, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Who was the most useless member? Musically speaking, obviously. In a serious crisis, like a fire or a cruise boat disaster, you would want precisely none of them around. Garcia might keep a cool head, but that’s it. Bobby’s presence would result in a vast increase in casualties due to the time expended by having to explain over and over, in increasingly simpler language, what was happening and why it was a bad thing. Brent would lose the will to live immediately and just walk into the flames.

Which brings us to Tom Constanten. TC is no one’s favorite Dead member, but he is also not anyone’s least-favorite. No one puts on a tape of 1969 and admonishes his friends, “Dudes, listen to the Bach-flavored calliope noises way in the background. LISTEN TO TC TRILL FANCIFULLY!” TC seems to have been included in the group for three reasons: to make Lesh seem like less of a pretentious dick, his clothes, and mustache. Let us examine these things:

Phil Lesh is unbearable, we all know this. If you can read an interview with the man where your hand does not involuntarily start making the jerk-off gesture, then you’re a more tolerant man than I. If Phil were a modern-day hipster, he would work the fact that he didn’t own a television into the first 30 seconds of every conversation he ever had. Phil’s one of those New Atheists that likes to start internet arguments. TC demanded that the group buy him a harpsichord. We have a winner.

As for attire, the only thing to be said is that TC thought he was dressing to play Hippie at a Dinner Party #2 in the flashback scene of a random ThirtySomething episode. TC owns a cape. It is not his first cape. In fact, TC has a “cape guy.”

But the Fu Manchu was pretty sweet.

MexiBobby Blues

January 22, 2012 / / 0 Comments

“How long are you going to play Eyes tonight, guys?”

“From immediately after drums until the heat death of the Universe.”

“So, the same as last night, then?”

“Yes.”

I once heard a ’74 Playin’ that is still being played at this moment.  It has been going on for nigh-on-40 years now because Phil is, and I am quoting a man who belongs to several tough-guy unions and yet still allows other people to call him Ramrod, “really feeling it.”

The only reason to play a song for as long as the Grateful Dead played several of their’s is if the lack of music will trigger a bomb. Like the Grateful Dead were in Speed, and Bobby is Keanu so he is pretending to be a Cop On The Edge instead a Cowboy With A Broken Heart this time.

As we’ve discussed, Bobby actually thought he was a fucking cowboy. Now, each of the Dead’s singers had a certain persona they delivered their songs through: Jerry was the Gambler, Bobby was the Cowboy, and Phil was The Guy Who Couldn’t Sing. Now, when Jerry did Deal or Loser or whatever, he was delivering these songs from a uniquely American perspective, one that he and Hunter had crafted to serve as an avatar for the Dead’s sheer Americanness.

For the Dead were the most American band there ever was: far too loud, prone to ridiculous, money-losing foreign entanglements, drugged out of its mind, and dying of diabetes. But also capable of the most astonishing grace–American. And what’s more that than the Gambler, armed with his six-shooter and his wits? Garcia and Hunter recognized this metaphor and wrung all they could out of it.

Except Bobby actually thought he was a fucking cowboy. He apparently spent part of one teenaged summer a’ropin’ and a’rasslin and a’rompin’ and a’ridin’ and whatever the fuck else gentiles do in the summer. You can imagine Bobby traipsing through the fields, shirtless, asking the farmhands if they thought he was pretty.

Thereafter, Bobby was a fucking cowboy and we had to sit through Mexicali Blues every other night

Spinal Dead

January 22, 2012 / / 0 Comments

One of Nigel Tufnel’s guitars–a sunburst Les Paul Custom–reportedly produced the greatest sustain of any guitar in the world. The Dead fired Keith and hired Brent in order to–among many other reasons, most notably the booze, heroin, and protracted “I know the chords!” comping–bring more sustain into the band. Nigel just took care of an object in his search for this almighty, mysterious sustain, but the Grateful Dead threw an entire goddamn family off of their payroll to hear certain notes decay slower.

These were deeply, almost frighteningly passive-aggressive men. This is the a transcription of the final conversation between Keith, one of the various criminals “managing” the band, and Phil, who is the only band member there. Garcia is hiding in the closet, having accidentally burned down both his hotel room and, against all reason, a Burger King he hadn’t even been to. Weir is at a local tailor’s shop, screaming at the poor immigrant, “I’ll tell you when they’re short enough, Giuseppe!” Mickey has found a new percussion instrument in Mongolia called the Ggggggggggggg and he is now spending $1.5 million of the band’s money to create a drum-opera around it. This album will never be released. Billy’s down at Old Salty’s Tavern; look for him at the corner of the bar, his captain’s hat pulled low and throwing back Tequila Sunrises.

This exchange  was recorded by Betty Canter and only recently made available to the public when she couldn’t make the rent on her bus terminal locker. Things have not been just exactly perfect for Betty in quite some time.

“Keith, there’s something we need to talk about.”

“Glorfabooble makka makka,”

This was pretty much all you could get out of Keith at this point. It didn’t matter all that much because even fucking Bobby told Keith what to do. They didn’t treat Keith right: they got him hooked on drugs, slept with his wife, and pretended like he didn’t look like a hairy Eric Stoltz from Mask. Every time Keith started feeling his oats, Mickey would throw his drumsticks down and  scream, “You’re not my REAL keyboard player!  I hate you!” Then he would run upstairs and slam his bedroom door and cry.

(Honestly, you can see Mickey doing that, can’t you?)

“Keith it’s about the playing. We really need to hear more sustain, so…”

“You’re gonna buy me a Hammond B-3?”

“No, we’re going to fire you and your wife. And within the year, we’re going to sabotage your car so you die in a fiery car crash that everyone will think is an accident, but WE’LL KNOW! Because you KNOW TOO MUCH, Keith Godchaux! Mwah-ha-ha!”

There are two things you should have gotten from the above exchange: 1: Phil Lesh is a diabolical mastermind who once launched the Baxter Building into space; and, 2: That is the only instance on the internet of the phrases “Keith Godchaux” and “knows too much” getting that close together.

Dead In Your Lap

January 21, 2012 / / 0 Comments

The Dead are not sexy, neither collectively nor individually. In fact, the thought of them humping is enough to make you consider gouging your brain out of your skull with a broken wine bottle.

I can see Billy owning a lot of robes. He does not own any of the belts to these robes: he allows the breeze to do as it will. Billy owns oils,candles, uses the word ‘sensual’ a lot. His constant refrain in the bedroom is, “Just relax.”

Phil’s very picky about the young ladies he spends 3-6 minutes atop. Bobby, however, would go home with anyone who caught his attention and said, “Follow me, Bobby,” in a stern and commanding voice. Because through all these years, Bobby has secretly been a Chesapeake Bay Retriever. That’s something the liberal elites won’t print in their DeadBases, will they?

Brent could only be wooed by approaching him slowly with your eyes averted, making a double-grunt vocalization, and then sitting behind him to pick nits and lice out of his hair and beard. (Here’s another little known fact that Big Dead would rather you not hear: Brent Mydland provided a high, keening harmony line to his own orgasmic cries.)

Mickey was a spanker and enjoyed capturing hi sessions on audio tape. He spent half-a-million bucks in 1979 putting together a ballet based entirely on buttock-percussion. This project never saw the light of day after Mickey’s cousin stole the master tape’s, the band’s money and Bobby’s car keys.

Garcia liked his women to be on top. After that, he was giving and game, but let’s be honest: he did a lot of laying there.

Vince did exactly what he had paid for and nothing else because Vince Welnick Was Considerate To Hookers.

Lesh Is More

January 21, 2012 / / 2 Comments

Mr. Lesh, are you allergic to playing the song? Is there some political or maybe ideological belief that is creating this imposition against just playing the goddam song? Instead of getting bored every three beats and wandering all over your fretboard as if someone told you there were drugs hidden there? I know how smart you are, Phil: it’s a major component of everything you’ve ever said in any every interview you’ve ever done ever. Perfect pitch, yes. We know, Mr. Lesh: Weber, Berlioz, once cancelled a concert to see Wagner’s Ring Cycle. We are aware.

Which would lead one to believe that you must be smart enough to understand that the option of joining the rhythm section and holding the song down exists. You choose not to go that route, instead following a strict policy of “playing far many more notes than you would have imagined.” Halfway through your career in the Grateful Dead, you went from playing a four-string bass to a six-string. Phil: you demanded–and received–50% more guitar because you believed that the guitar you were playing didn’t have enough notes in it. There were more notes, dammit, and you were going to play every single one of them, or so help you God, you were going to call Ned Lagin and start that Seastones shit again, and NOBODY wants any part of that, do they?

An aside about the six-string electric bass guitar. You shouldn’t have. That massive ebony fretboard the size of the runway at Laguardia?  It’s just so Dream Theater. A lot of Jazz Odyssey in that bass.

And why, Mr. Lesh, are you wearing those glasses? The enormous Aunt Sheila glasses that you wear at the end of your nose so you have to look down at people through which really emphasizes the part where you have absolutely no chin. The wattling helps now, but overall, it was just a mess.

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