Well, I know what I’m doing today…
Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Tag: the other one
- The bait popcorn has failed. I repeat, the bait popcorn has failed. Billy has now laid his dick in a paying customer’s popcorn.
- No, Bobby: we can’t show Star Wars. I can’t even begin to go into the reasons why not.
- Hey, it’s TC! Hi, TC: I’ll have a large soda and a nachos, please.
- I understand that Brent wants to see the movie, but Time Sheath technology is supposed to be a fucking secret and it’s hard to keep things under wraps when a guy who died 25 years ago is wandering around.
- Why did Mickey bring a duffel bag full of raccoons?
- What do you mean you;ve lost Billy? I need a 20 on Billy STAT, people.
- Somebody is smoking clove cigarettes up in here.
- I don’t know, my boss had the tickets. It’s about Bobby Garcia from the Rolling Stones.
- Seriously: someone tell Brent to knock it off: he’s wandering around making ghost noises and people are beginning to ask questions.
- No, Phil: Adrienne Barbeau is not in the movie. No, not even a cameo.
- No, Mickey: it’s not a sequel to Cannonball Run. I can’t even imagine where you came up with that. Also, I need you to show me the bag with the raccoons still in it; your assurances are not good enough.
- I’ve got a protectionist’s dick confirmed punched: Billy is in the area. Go to infrared.
- Well, it’s a documentary about a 70-year-old guitarist, so there probably won’t be any cartoons before the feature, but you never know.
- You dosed the ushers? I dosed the ushers! Jesus, how many people dosed the ushers? We should check on them.
- All attempts to put Billy down have failed. Make ready Gipsy Danger.
How about a sammich in which The Other One was the bread, fresh-baked and straight from Big Momma’s oven of love, and Sittin’ on Top of the world was the meatiest meat you’d ever tasted? Would that be something you’d be interested in?
And what about a 20-minute Good Lovin’ wherein Pig completely forgets what song he’s singing and cues the band back in with his legendary cry of “SHE GOT BOX BACK NITTIES, CRAYFISH AND MORMON MICE!” and then, a little sheepishly, trails off as he realizes it’s not Lovelight, and if you start screaming about Nitties (box back or otherwise) in every single song, large men in uniforms come and get you
What if there were an early Playin’ without the great swaths of Doom Jam that song came to lovingly contain? (And, no Donna wail, be that for good or ill.) A Brokedown with a Garcia solo that will denude your bush, no matter your ethnicity?
PLUS, in a welcome repeat from the spectacular Felt Forum run the previous week, Pig wishes everyone in the house (and out there in Radioland) a rockin’ Xmas with Chuck Berry’s Run, Run Rudolph.
12/10/71 at the Fox Theater on St. Louis. Leave it on.
P.S. And I neglected to mention (because you and I both know that I post these recommendations while I’m not even halfway through the show, so I hadn’t heard it yet) that during GDTRFB, Bobby plays China Cat, like fourteen times and it’s just wonderfully wonderful.
If you don’t like the Other One>Cosmic Charlie>Uncle John’s>High Time, then you don’t like the Grateful Dead. It’s that simple.
It’s a Bear recording, which means all the vocals are slammed hard to one side, but what vocals they are! The boys had recently been taking vocal lessons from The Crosby, Stills, and Nashes and recording Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty out at Wally Heider’s and they were having a glorious time with their new instruments, shouting and squealing and swoozling and swozzling Hunter’s California prayers at the TOP of their lungs.
And it didn’t always work, no. But when they got their harmonies juiced and oiled down, it was magic.
P.S. If I had a Time Sheath, then the first thing I would do would be to go back to this show and have sex with the Dark Star. That’s how good it is: it would supersede killing Hitler or betting on things in the past to be a billionaire. First: sex with a song played during the second Nixon administration, second and third (reaaaaaaally close) would be the money thing and then Hitler. And let’s be completely honest, I probably wouldn’t kill Hitler: it seems like a lot of work doing things that are well outside my skill set. Plus, I don’t want to kill anybody, even Hitler. Who kills people? Hitler kills people, that’s who! I’m no Hitler!
STOP SAYING HITLER!
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How do you have sex with a song, anyway? Especially en epic, half-hour Dark Star such as this?
I don’t know, but I know this–and I’m gonna say this looking dead in your eyes, Mister, right in front of God and Jesus and my mother: I’m going to make the technology work. The Sheath will work: it’s all in my father’s journals! It’s gonna work and I’m going to access the Space Between and time–time herself–will be mine. And then?
And then, I’m gonna fuck that song until it loves me.
…
Are you crying?
As is my wont (and my tont and my soupt), this begins with a plea, an urgent command from the Library to listen to something, something you’ve almost definitely heard before, but listen to Keith here on 5/7/77 playing Mississippi Half-Step on THE ORGAN FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE THE TOUR STARTED, THANK YOU. Forget the sheer tonnage of beatdown Garcia is bringing: listen to the B3!
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Okay: I can tell how many people are clicking on what links and the cold, hard fact is that not nearly enough of you are going on to listen to 8/24/72 even though I keep telling you and breaking your toys in front of you and making you wear Dead Mom’s lipstick every Wednesday night. Humpday? Huh. You got no idea.
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In the early days, they all had different relationships with the concept of being in tune. Phil agreed whole-heartedly when it came to his bass and his voice in the early days, but after his vocal sabbatical, he was just all over the place. Bobby played in tune and sang out of it, Garcia sang in tune, and played out of it. Keith was just plain out of it.
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Tupac keeps making popping up, Morrison went to Africa like Rimbaud, and people will be seeing Elvis along the highway for as long as the Republic stands. Garcia? He’s gone.
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39:07 for The Other One on 9/17/72? Why? Why, Grateful Dead: why would you let this happen? Forget the sheer tonnage of notes; instead, note the date: September 17, 1972. It’s been released, officially, as Dick’s Picks 23. This is not just a show they played, this is something they offered for sale in the market with their imprimatur. In other words. the Dead are telling us that this is behavior that they are proud of. “Most bands could play a song for maybe 20 minutes and then it would get weird and sad. It took us 40 minutes. GRATEFUL DEAD RULES, EVERYBODY ELSE DROOLS”
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