Thoughts On The Dead

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

Tag: trey anastasio (Page 4 of 9)

And Let’s Hear No More Of It

June 24, 2016 / / 6 Comments

trey phil bobby

As you know, TotD has eyes, ears, and genitals everywhere, especially the Foot Locker. (It’s been a while since I recommended taking your dick out at the Foot Locker, and that’s a sad oversight: you totally should. You feel better afterwards.) Pictures, gossip, popular opinion: all of these flow inwards and flood Fillmore South in a sad, weird, and lonely Grateful Dead juice.

And it is one of these popular opinions that I must refute, this idea that Young John Mayer is more suited to the Dead’s music than Tralfamadore Abilene. I have seen more than one person say that they were “gay for Trey, but gayer for Mayer.” And while all things that rhyme are true, this one is also false, and for one reason.

The last three Dead (Or What’s Left Of ‘Em) shows that TotD attended, Tripoli Ardennes was the guitarist. Therefore, he is better. Now, if Josh Meyers wants to swing down here on the way to Colorado and pick me up (I will not chip in for gas) and make me his tour buddy for the rest of the summer, then he would be better than Tr@y.

I hope that settles things.

(Also: in the background of the photo is longtime Dead photog Jay Blakesberg, and now I can’t get the image of him and Jeff Kravitz doing an Enemy at the Gates thing with each other.)

Ginger, Ruby

June 19, 2016 / / 0 Comments

trey daughters

Happy Father’s Day, Trump.

“Wow, that one’s not funny any more.”

…

Yeah, I apologize.

“It’s just–”

I totally get it. Wrong of me.

“Cool. One other thing.”

Sure. Cute kids, by the way.

“Thanks. Um…why am I included in this?”

Because at 41% of the Dead shows I attended, you were the Garcia. So, you know: you’re in.

“Forever?”

…

I gotta say that John Mayer is a lot easier to work with.

“So go bother him.”

Actually: you wanna see something funny?

“Quickly, but yeah.”

Okay. Trey, have you heard about the new Greubel Forsey Double Tourbillon 30° Technique?

The Double Tourbillon 30°

It’s cut from a single sapphire crystal and contains no metal except for the winding pin, and retails for $1.3 million.

“Why would I care about that ridiculous piece of sh–”

“GIVE IT TO ME.”

john-mayer-guitar-face-3

See?

“John?”

“Oh, hey, Trey.  Cute kids. Tell me more about the watch.”

“Does he always do this?”

Yeah. It’s like saying “Beetlejuice” three times.

Don’t Cross The Revenue Streams

March 31, 2016 / / 2 Comments

You’ll excuse me, Enthusiasts, if I repeat myself, but this question has been fingering my mind’s butthole all evening.

Ew.

Shut up, you. Anyway, to recap:

billboard money

WHAT THE FUCK DOES “FAN DEMAND” MEAN? That phrase refers–and this is the closest I can get to a precise definition–to an assumption based on an aggregate sample of emotions. You send up a publicity trial balloon and then read the response: this gives you an idea of what “fan demand” is. It’s not an actual financial metric.

It’s like McDonald’s reporting their earnings as being higher because of “customer demand” (“Those folks were really hungry, so we figured that was worth a few hundred million dollars.”)

It makes no sense: I thought at first that “fan demand” referred to the projected earnings (the estimated profit) and that the Dead had shattered those projections, but that can’t be right: the Dead knew how much they’d make just as anyone with the ability to do basic math did. (Number of seats x price of ticket) + (Number of seats x average merch purchase) + non-attendee merch + sale of access to the band + webcasts. Hell, I did the math. Peter Shapiro sure as shit did the math.

So: what can it mean? Was there some sort of Kickstarter I wasn’t aware of that raised the initial funds necessary just to get everyone in the same room? A petition written down on $10 million in small, non-sequential bills? I don’t know, and the article does not explain it.

I am genuinely stymied and would like someone to tell me what is happening, please.

There are also many missing revenue sources in this graph, some more legitimate than others. Spies in the Dead’s accountant’s office have slipped me the full story; TotD can now present Additional Incomes From The Farewell Shoes:

  • Since around ’89, Billy has employed a team of orphans as pickpockets; they made a bundle in Chicago.
  • Kickbacks from the taco truck.
  • Ad deal with DirecTV for the blimp.
  • Bribes from Creepy Ernie to wear his clothes.
  • Several thoroughly-insured guitars got “stolen.”
  • Mickey’s mallet endorsement.
  • Payment from artificial rainbow company to advertise their product (Santa Clara only).
  • 20% cut of all sanctioned Three Card Monty games in the stadium. (There were a suspicious amount of Three card Monty games going on in Chicago. Ask anyone who was there. Martin and I had figured out the game and were about to win us some money when Chris–whose brilliant book Paradise Now can be purchased by clicking here–stopped us, as he was raised in New York City, and is therefore street-smart. A very nice street, but still: very smart.)
  • If you gave Peter Shapiro five grand in cash, he would let you watch the spy cams he had installed in the band’s dressing room for a couple minutes.
  • Jeff Chimenti and Bruce Hornsby broke into the 49ers locker room and stole a bunch of shit.
  • Jeff Chimenti and Bruce Hornsby broke into the Field Museum and stole the T-Rex skull and sold it on Ebay.
  • Trey made Mike Gordon pay for his ticket.

Little Red Harry Hood

August 22, 2015 / / 0 Comments

https-insdtagram.com-p-6s_
My, Tristramshandy Anorexianervosa, what big jams you have.

“All the better to rock you, my man.”

And, Tropicana Anaconda, what red hair you have.

“All the better to grey gracefully along my manly jawline, my dude.”

And, Trustafarian Anabaptist, what long solos you take.

…

“You going anywhere with this, or did you just want to make up silly names for me?”

The second thing.

“Great. Can I get back to my job, please?”

Soloing?

“I do other things.”

Everything that you do that isn’t a solo is just killing time until the next solo.

“Not true.”

Gonna call you Hope.

…

Know why your new name’s Hope?

…

Wanna know why?

…

“Why am I–”

HOPE SOLO.

“–named Hope? Okay, we’re done.”

Bruce Hornsby & The Ginge: Aftermath

July 23, 2015 / / 0 Comments

trey-bruce-big
“I was looking at that website of yours, Treyvon, and I noticed something about your schedule with your side-band.”

“Phish is not my side-band, and: okay?”

“Got a weekend open at the end of August.”

“Not really. Magnaball is the weekend before that, and then Dick’s is the weekend after, so we’re gonna kick up our heels for a bit, recharge, hang out with the families.”

…

“You don’t maybe wanna make another thirty million?”

“How many times are we going to have this conversation?”

“Until everyone agrees with me and the wheels have been set in motion for us to earn another thirty million dollars.”

“We’re going to Disney.”

“Stop talking right now. You know I love you, but I don’t like you right now.”

“Aw. Anyway, Phil’s out. Done. If he could have, he would have tossed a match over his shoulder as he left, setting off a massive explosion that he would walk away from in a badass fashion.”

“Eleven million from the webcast. Not the PPV or the movie theaters, and certainly not counting the DVD and CD and Commemorative Book with the Glossy Pictures. Just the webcast.”

…

“World’s gone mad, Bruce.”

“No argument here.”

“I really don’t think Phil wants to do it.”

“Then you stop by Frankie Fashion’s house on the way to the gig and pick him up.”

“Phish is not the Dead’s bench, man.”

…

“Why won’t you let the nice people give us their money?”

“Maybe.”

…

“What the fuck’s a magnaball?”

“It’s a hoot, is what it is.”

“Fine, don’t tell me.”

Bil Walton: Eugenicist

July 15, 2015 / / 12 Comments

trey walton garcia daughter
“Trey, you’re the Garcia now.”

“Um, not really.”

“Garcia’s daughter: you are Garcia’s rightful heir.”

“Lawyers have opinions on that, but: yeah, I guess.”

…

“I want to mate the two of you.”

“Bill.”

“I’ll need rum drinks, but I have a thing for gingers.”

…

“Yeah?”

“Why not?”

…

“Let’s do this.”

“AND THE REBIRTH COMMENCES!”

“You can’t be in the room, Bill.”

“Yeah, no.”

First Set

July 15, 2015 / / 50 Comments
  • I missed the first two or three songs of the July 3rd show.
  • Stadiums are built so they can fill up or empty in ten minutes, but not the field.
  • The field is deliberately designed to be tricky to get to.
  • There are only two points of access, and one of them is being taken up by a temporarily-funct choogly-type band.
  • You’ve created a nice little choke point for yourself, plus the folks on the floor need wristbands.
  • Which they ran out of just as I got to the gate.
  • Back-up began immediately, and then people started helping.
  • Helping is to be pronounced sarcastically.
  • Couple of fuckers literally tried to start a riot.
  • There were no cops, and no security: just volunteer ushers trying to do the best job they could.
  • If you didn’t have a wristband, you wouldn’t be able to leave the floor, which seems reasonable, but the stronger the waves of pressure on my back, the less I cared.
  • Years ago, WBCN hired Green Day to play a free concert in the Hatch Shell in Boston.
  • Someone punched the bass player, or something or other, and the band left the stage after four songs.
  • Riot.
  • Crowds are stupid beasts, but they turn quickly.
  • The assholes kept helping, and yelling for the crowd to do what crowds will do.
  • The volunteer usher I was standing with was in law school and wanted to see the Dead for free; I figured I would throw her under a table and hunker down in there.
  • Trey played the opening chords to Bertha a little too slowly, and a small brown guy and a large white guy sprinted up with the missing wrist bands.
  • Welcome back, my friends.
  • It looked like this:
  • rosebucassidy3rd
  • But with more people, and with more Trellis Abdominizer.
  • He began the weekend like a motherfucker, motherfucked his way through the holiday, and then deliberately got a non-direct flight home so he could fuck mothers all the way back.
  • Which brings us to the first of problems.
  • Not problems, really.
  • Problems have solutions: this is intractable.
  • Not only is there nothing like a Grateful Dead concert, but there’s nothing like any kind of concert.
  • Sitting on your couch with headphones on, listening to a crisp Charlie Miller SBD has so little in common with the actual event that it makes more sense to judge them as separate events than even as facets of the same diamond.
  • Tripp sounds great on Bertha instrumentally, but the tape reveals his voice as weaker than I remember.
  • Mostly because when he sang about getting tested and arrested, 65,000 people were screaming along with him.
  • I don’t know about the rules regarding the SBD’s of the Chicago shows, but they are available; I won’t post them, but if they get posted in the comment section, they won’t be taken down.
  • They just finished up Passenger and Bobby asked the crowd if they were “ramping up for a sane Fourth?”
  • They didn’t play Passenger for all that long: ’78 to ’80 or ’81, and the song never felt the need to be ten minutes long.
  • There really isn’t ten minutes worth of song in Passenger, if we’re honest.
  • The sun is now setting on Soldier Field and the closest thing there is to a Grateful Dead is going into The Wheel, and the Deadheads are taking off their sunglasses and swaying and davening and asking each other if this isn’t really more of a second set song.
  • It totally is.wpid-wp-1435974553355
  • I did not notice that Bobby was wearing what had been sold to him as a lengthy short but were in fact jeans.
  • I only had a direct view of the band on the second night: on the 3rd, I was on the floor and am not Bill Walton; on the 5th, there was a speaker bank in between our seats and the stage.
  • Transom is doing quite a bit of Phishy bullshit in this The Wheel, but then he nails the transition into Crazy Fingers, which may be our first honest-to-gosh “>” of the night.
  • The Grateful Dead may have played Crazy Fingers at an acceptably professional level, like, four times in the history of the song.
  • Although, Garcia was the one who always fucked it up, so maybe his death was a good thing for Crazy Fingers.
  • OHMIGOD, CRAZY FINGERS HAD GARCIA KILLED.
  • Stop it.
  • Fine.
  • It was almost dark now, and Candace Brightman started doing this sort of thing:
  • blimp view2
  • And as she does this in the soft and magic last light, Trey sings the line “I try” over and over, too many times, and it is a mantra and you cheer with him and for him.
  • We will all try, Treyvon, and we will do our parts as the spotlights pick out love and point out kindness and pin joy down like a butterfly in the perfect Chicago dusk.
  • The acid has kicked in.
  • So has The Music Never Stopped, which is too damn slow, and the tape reveals a frustrated Billy trying to goose the thing up to no avail, but it doesn’t matter when Bobby proclaims that everybody’s dancing and all of us rush to prove him no liar.
  • And then he asked us if they were ever here at all, and a stadium got a catch in its throat and knew it would be the first of many.
  • Mickey is audible for the first time during the jam, and Bruce is whanging on the bottom octaves of his Steinway as his right hand bounces down the top notes.
  • And now Bobby is ranting about Never Stopping and you know no one’s phoning this sucker in: Bobby’s gonna Bobby as hard as he can and then Trey starts fanning the guitar like the old man.
  • THE THING WITH THE NOTES.
  • THAT THE OTHER GUY DID
  • …
  • I LOVE THAT FUCKING THINGYAAAAAAAAAY.
  • It is dark now and all the people are a crowd and we are there to see the Grateful Dead and against all odds, they might have shown up.
  • Set break.
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