“LOOK AT PHIL’S UVULA!”
Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Tag: phil lesh (Page 80 of 105)
Phil tried to market a cling film called Donor Wrap.
“What are you looking at back there? Is it my sexy? I brought every bit of it, so you must be looking at my sexy.”
One of Garcia’s most recognizable musical gestures was fanning, that quick, high atomic strum that was so often the peak of his Sugaree solo(s) or, especially, the climax of Morning Dew. It’s not that difficult to do, actually: as far a sheer manual technique is involved, all it requires is a wrist movement all men over the age of 15 have mastered. but like the old joke about the plumber, it’s knowing when to do it that made him Garcia.
Garica’s playing was, for all its brilliance, as reliant on context as the rest of the band’s: none of his solo stuff sounds as good as he when he played with those three other guys. Is Mickey here? Who’s on keys? Doesn’t matter: the core four made that sound.
He was famously attached to his guitars, not only playing the same one for the whole show, but also taking it home with him and grabbing it before his morning coffee and first unfiltered Camel. It showed up in the sharp technical runs and those little triplets all the way up the neck where angels fear to tread, but Bobby’s slide seems to need to be.
His solos (and there were one or two of them) weren’t flashy, which might explain his absence from the Pantheon of Motherfuckin’ Guitar Gods, Man that Jeff Beck and Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen have been confined (consigned?) to. None of his guitars had a whammy bar, which is the ultimate symbol of six-string silliness. Garcia didn’t do dive-bombs or sound effects; he didn’t own a goddamn talk box, mostly because any plastic tubing left around backstage was immediately plugged into a nitrous tank.
Bobby tried doing that two-handed tapping thing that Eddie Van Halen does once in ’81 and Phil chucked a mic stand at him.
The reason the Dead didn’t use a lot of car metaphors is because every time they got anywhere near an automobile, they looked like complete muppets.
So many things unexplained, hinted at, alluded to, COVERED UP by the dread Machiavellian forces of Big Dead. TotD counts at lest three MAJOR-LEAGUE CONSPIRACIES represented in the above picture.
Why, David Lesiouxsieandthebanshees?* Why do you make me cyber-and-then-actually-stalk you to find out these secrets that are my INALIENABLE RIGHTS. By the way: your name, while a never-ending source of fun and whimsy, is relatively common in Montreal and I think I might have broken into the wrong house. Funny story: that thing about Canadian politeness? Not at three in the morning for looming strangers in ski masks. In my defense: it was cold out and I had a pimple, so the ski mask was necessary, in my eyes at least.
First off, that’s not Mickey: it’s Doug Henning, and second off: it’s not even Doug Henning; it’s a Doug Henning impersonator and the only trick he knows is pulling out his dick and going, “Ta-da.” Billy could be overheard giggling and you knew he was going to be doing it for the rest of the tour.
Also, Phil’s not just friendly, or drunk (frunk, Phil used to call the mood): he’s leaving his scent through specially evolved pheromone glands in his cheeks. Phil shares this trait with all of the Cat People of Felicidae IV, his home planet.
(Honestly, though: that’s obviously Mickey, and Phil’s just plastered; he closed his eyes for a bit and Mickey played tabla rhythms on his head for two hours. The album was never released.)
* Looking up that woman’s ridiculous fake name might honestly be the most research TotD has ever engaged in.
Preparations for the 50th anniversary shows are in full swing; TotD brings you there!
- Sammy Hagar never sang for us, Bobby.
- So just to be clear, Phil: Ned Lagin doesn’t need to be there.
- I agree with Mickey: there should be cheese fries backstage.
- Billy, please stop doing your magic trick.
- Who brought a lynx to a fucking business meeting? What the hell is wrong with you people?
- Let’s aim for no collapsing onstage, guys. Like, none at all. Sure, you’re right: one is the smallest number of times you can collapse onstage…unless you don’t do it at all. And that’s what we’re shooting for here.
- Phil, you’re gonna do the Donor Rap when?
- Billy, you’re not going to do the Boner Rap at all. It is not funny and it is insulting and it causes miscarriages and that’ll be the last we mention it.
- Yes, we will be announcing this on “the Facebook.” No, we cannot do the whole tour on “the Skype.”
Phil started a secret society called the Philluminati, but then Billy found out and started the Billuminati; in the end, it didn’t matter because Bobby still wouldn’t take them to Bohemian Grove with him.
Ain’t no Tuesday like a T-Shirt Tuesday, cuz a T-Shirt Tuesday don’t stop.
It seems that we’re all in agreement that these upcoming Sochi games will end in blood. Slightly less disastrous was the time the Dead attended the Winter Olympiad…
Keith was assigned the bobsled and immediately drove the thing through the front window of a bank, which isn’t even possible. he was fine, but then he ate all of the pain pills the doctor had given him and then he wasn’t fine anymore. The other bobsledders ended up kind of bowling him down the track and, wouldn’t you know: that son of a bitch won the bronze.
They tried playing Garcia in goal at ice hockey because fat guy, but a strange thing happened when they put him on the ice: Garcia sprawled out like a starfish. “SAD PANDA. SAD PANDA,” he pleaded with tears in his eyes, and then he started making this unholy noise.
Bah-rooOOOOOOOOO. Bah-roooOOOOOOOOO. Over and over and, you know: if it were Bobby was doing it, there would be procedures to follow, but this was Garcia and it was making people nervous, so Billy hopped in the Zamboni and ran over three Canadians as a distraction while Parish fireman-carried Garcia out of there.
Pig declined the invitation entirely, correctly deducing that, and I am quoting, “my type a’ pussy ain’t gonna be there.”
Bobby was a pretty good skier, but when it was time for his race, he was in the chalet working on a drink and a fox and didn’t much care to compete.
Phil was told there was nothing but snow everywhere, and when he got there and found out that, while technically not a lie, that description was more than a bit disingenuous, Phil was ripshit for, like, five minutes before some dirty hippie wandered by and recognized him and gave him some drugs. Then he was better, but from then on, if you said ‘winter Olympics’ around Phil, he would retort ‘winter suck MY dicks’ and it wasn’t funny the first time, so people excluded him from figure-skating related conversations after a while.
Punched in the dick by Billy: Torvill, Dean, Peggy Fleming, Peggy Fleming’s haircut, six separate teenagers who were wearing the mascot costume, Brent while he was wearing the mascot costume, Brent in his street clothes, a reindeer, Bob Costas, an interdimensional trickster being named the Spirit of Winter Promises, and the inventor of the ski jump, Johann von Skijump.
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