Can’t sleep.
For my era, it will always be Brent. Thought about it for a while, while lying there petting the dog. Let it grow. I love the old Donna and Keith Godchaux shows, especially the Terrapins, and Hornsby and Vince did fine after him, but I loved Brent. Also, Bird Song:
And if you are just going to tell me I am a loser, or that the music sucks, just DIAF.
What part of insomnia do you not understand?
*** Update ***
At one point, I had over a thousand hours of tapes. They all got stolen when I went to basic training, but this Greek Theatre 1986 (on 22 June, my birthday) was one of my all time favorites. I think it had the best Stella Blue, ever, and it had a funny version of Weir doing Women are Smarter. A lot of the show was recorded bad, the Jack Straw was off beat, but it had a great Cassidy and Mama Tried.
At any rate, how do I download the whole show and dump it in my Itunes?
NutellaonToast
“What part of insomnia do you not understand?”
The Motley Crew part.
Robertdsc-iphone
This is the 4th 16-hour Sunday in a row that I’m working. Just started 2 hours ago.
My musical tastes aren’t nearly as broad as most of the commentariat here, but what does soothe me in insomnia-style times is Spanish Key from Bitches Brew by Miles Davis. That shit rules.
Is Tunch awake? Can we get a shot of our Kitty Overlord, king of all futons?
Rudi
The Motley Crew part.(???)
JC Maybe you could hook up with the Coulter, she’s a Gault for the Dead…
JK
After JGabriel hijacked the previous thread to celebrate Musical Atrocitites of the 1970’s, I think a fumigation of the Balloon Juice server is in order, at some point later this week. This thread is a good interim step towards restoring good karma. The Grateful Dead are my favorite American band and one of my all-time favorites overall.
Eyes of the World – Grateful Dead
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUYcnZPRDWs
Franklin’s Tower – Grateful Dead
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEniyvOtETc
JK
Henry Kissinger gets busted at a Grateful Dead concert
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqIA-ujbWRw
JK
@Robertdsc-iphone:
I have a very vague recollection that the Grateful Dead and Miles Davis were once on the same bill at either the Fillmore East or Fillmore West.
Miles Davis, like the Grateful Dead, is outstanding whether playing acoustic or electric.
OriGuy
On the left side of that page, there’s a link that says 64K MP3 ZIP. Click it and download the ZIP file. On a PC you can just open the ZIP file and save the contents to a folder. But you have a Mac, right? From googling “unzip mac” it looks like OS X does the same thing; earlier versions required StuffIt. Once you have all of the MP3s into a folder, in iTunes choose File/Add Folder to Library and select the folder you unzipped the files to.
Wow, I didn’t know the Internet Archive had all that stuff! I know what I’ll be doing for a while!
John Cole
@OriGuy: I just found the 95 Three Rivers I was at that had Rain, Box of Rain, and Samba in the Rain when a storm broke out…
bago
Black hat attack!
Also known as a half Abramoff.
Shabbazz
I was at that Pittsburgh show as well. Will never forget it. One of the last Birdsongs. Standing on the Moon. Rain set!
It was all down hill from that show. Someone killed by lightning in Michigan (I think is was MI). The riser collapse. The Deer Creek fiasco. And then Jerry was gone.
But that Pittsburgh show was one of the good ones that summer.
wasabi gasp
The flac files will deliver the best quality. Flac is a lossless compression format.
JohnnyC
While I was a big Brent fan, I gotta say the ’90 European tour shows were some of the best I’ve ever seen. Jerry and Hornsby were great together. The Halloween show in London, with Werewolves of London as the encore is a high point in my memory of Dead shows. Only downer was when they failed to play St Stephen on all saints day :(
RedKitten
That 70’s music thread was hysterical — mind you, EVERY decade has its share of really bad music. The bad music of the 70’s was just somehow more earnest about the entire thing, which adds an extra layer to the horror.
Did you ever get back to sleep, John?
JGabriel
Suggestion for Lexicon:
Clusterfuck: 1. Multiple screw-ups in a concentrated period of time; 2. Nickname for George W. Bush
.
JGabriel
Also, for the Lexicon:
Fuckwit: Derogatory nickname for George W. Bush.
.
JGabriel
RedKitten:
True, but in the 70’s bad music, reached a kind of Peak Badness — which is like Peak Wingnut, except it’s real.
.
bago
Ok, Iphone isn’t so great at the url thingy.
Black hat attack!
bago
Oh, and if you need a youtube video, may I suggest one that has Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking singing.
Fulcanelli
@JK: Correct – It was at Fillmore East. Phil was a big Miles fan, being a trumpet player himself.
Hey John, I threw in a neat Lowell George link for you in that abysmal 70s thread last night. Feh. Don’t know if you caught it. Check it out. A smoking Sonny Landreth link too, if you like slide guitar, I figured you might enjoy it. Also.
I had to represent with a couple of lamers bleating over their hatred of the Dead the other night, where were you, dude? Having fun with friends and shit or sleeping, right. Sheesh.
John Cole
@Fulcanelli: I missed it. What was the link?
Throwin Stones
@Shabbazz:
I missed that Pittsburgh show, but caught Memphis in the Spring – they had a river theme there, plus a Standing on the Moon that blew me away.
I think the Dead skipped Buckeye in Summer 95, and then I gave away my 1st show tix at Deer Creek and my buddy came back to Glowwood and said there probably wouldn’t be a 2nd show – d’oh! I was able to catch the final two at Soldier which included an Unbroken Chain.
But that 95 Spring / Summer tour was very odd.
Throwin Stones
@John Cole:
John,
I posted this on Friday afternoon: http://www.sugarmegs.org/
and the listing of live show sets: http://tela.sugarmegs.org/_asxtela/
Didn’t know if you’d been there before.
John Cole
@Shabbazz: I was there with about six really good friends. I still remember dancing to the U-Haul with the funk in the parking lot. Afterwards, because it was the Burgh and familiar territory, we hung around for an extra 5-6 hours before heading home. On the way home, my buddy Drew and I were actually planning on setting up a 1-800 grief number and making bank because Jerry looked so bad. He died a month and a half later, I think.
Great show. The family was there, because I saw their bus and hung out with them on one of the outer rings of the upper levels during the rain set.
Fulcanelli
Mr. Cole…
Lowell George explains his playing technique to German TV.
And…
The best ‘effin slide guitar player alive. Period. Sonny Landreth.
For your Sunday morning enjoyment.
Fulcanelli
@John Cole: Got Whippets?
R-Jud
@Robertdsc-iphone:
My condolences. I hope you are at least getting huge overtime or vacation time in lieu for it.
Throwin Stones
@Fulcanelli: Nice. I was previously unaware of Mr. Landreth. That was better than this morning’s first cup of java. I miss SRV.
I don’t understand why ‘others’ don’t realize people have a variety of tastes in almost everything, including music. Just because I may not like something doesn’t mean it sucks…
Throwin Stones
@John Cole:
linkie
Nice to have the buttons back.
jmg
A good place to pick up lossless shows is http//:bt.etree.org. You have to learn some of the more technical aspects of online trading–bittorrent, .flac, .shn, etc. but they have a ton of shows that are always rotating in and out of high volume circulation. You’ll want to click on the seeds column to organize by the most seeds. You can get some really fast downloads on torrents with lots of participants (assuming your torrent client is set up correctly). Good etiquette requires that you host the show for others to download–your conscience can determine for how long.
I used to trade tapes back in the day. Torrents don’t give you the same feeling of community, or the anticipation of getting that packet in the mail, but digital, lossess copies of shows are a blessing.
jmg
Make that http://bt.etree.org. D’oh.
shaun
The Dead and Miles played at the Fillmore West on 4/9/70. Phil was a trombone player.
The Dead had especially bad luck with keyboard players, or perhaps I should say the players had especially bad drug and alcohol habits save for Constantine early on and then Hornsby.
worriedman
@shaun: Phil -Trumpet
ihop
at archive.org you can find zipped sets of mp3’s (vbr means variable bit rate, they are better sounding than the 64Kbps sets are).
i don’t know if they have changed the policy (the archive is having issues at the moment), but back in ’05 they stopped downloading of soundboards (they can only be streamed).
after an outcry from the public, they returned to allowing the downloading of the audience recordings.
most of, if not all of the sets i have gotten from there of other bands are tagged with all the info, and should be ready to go after unzipping.
in addition to bt.etree (a fine, moderated public tracker of trader friendly bands) there are a number of good private trackers that revolve around the dead, and are set up and run to be communities of tapers and traders.
Dino
This was the tune that enticed me to the Dead. Thanks for the memories.
wrb
Beautiful version.
I saw almost all the matching month-long run in San Francisco.
It seemed to me the slower songs were especially powerful and beautiful. Heartbreaking even.
Bird Song, To Lay Me Down, Baby it Ain’t no Lie, Peggy-O and the like. seemed to be the highlights every night.
Maybe it was the small formal theater setting (The Warfield when it was still formal, before Bill Graham remodeled it for rock & roll). Maybe where Jerry’s head or heart or drugs were at.
But Brent?
Keith! :)
However, a part of my preference was due the sound of the band. Keith’s Steinway gave the band a very clear, open sound in which it was easy to follow all the instruments.
Brent’s electronic keys filled l the open spaces and I’d lose him, Bobby and sometimes Phil in the general roar.
P. Nitty
love the Dead, hate hate HATE Donna Jean Godchaux. can’t bear to listen to any shows featuring her godawful caterwauling.
currently trying to figure out if school obligations will permit me to see Allman Bros & Panic at Merriweather next week.
Jackass
All the years you were a Republican and towing the line, how many good kids lives were ruined being busted trying to have a good time at Dead shows by asshole cops??? Harming no one except possibly themselves.
God only knows.
And you want to claim to be a deadhead?
Go fuck yourself you hypocritical piece of shit.
Jerry is laughing at you, not supporting you.
Germane Jackson
Jer-Bear is dead, you stupid fucking hippie.
Fulcanelli
@Jackass: People change over time, grasshopper. Jerry Garcia, based on all the interviews I’ve seen on video or in print over the last 40 years, would have had a sublime chuckle knowing a young conservative dug his music. One thing he had no tolerance for was judgemental people with an attitude. You may learn this when you grow up.
Over at Zero Hedge there’s a frequent poster named “deadhead”. He’s very smart, very knowlegable on the whole wall street trading thing, the lingo, what goes on and how fucked this country is financially. I’d bet he’s worth what we’d consider a fortune, and has voted republican many times for financially philosophical reasons. Go fuck with him and watch what happens.
It’s about the music first, then the the counterculture lifestyle and always has been, you fucking weenie.
monad
At least you can hear Phil in this. 95% of the time he’s way way way down in the mix, like a little gravy on a plate that’s just barely leaking out underneath the gigantic scoops of Jerry and Bob and drums piled on top. And the keyboards are also almost entirely irrelevant little sprinkles scattered on top of those heaps of mashed potatoes.
I hardly can stand Phish, but at least they realized that ensemble playing is the key to that sort of music.
wrb
@Fulcanelli: @Fulcanelli:
I recall an account of an interview with Phil, who was digging into a big porterhouse. The interviewer thought this was terribly hypocritical since the Dead represented and possibly were responsible for vegetarianism. He didn’t get much of an interview.
It was always curios what people imagined the Dead represented, other than music and maybe, sometimes, a continuation of American transcendentalism.
ihop
@Jackass: the war on drugs has roared on under both the republicans and the democrats.
jerry was exceptionally apolitical. be careful before you think you speak for him.
Fulcanelli
@monad: I always liked Phil’s earlier stuff where the bass sounded like an actual stringed instrument instead of flat bass tones, or organ bass pedal sound of the late 70s onward. The stereo Alembic and the Guild he used on the earlier stuff was best IMO. More punch.
wrb
@monad:
I wondered if the later mixes were the result of everyone, including Healy, getting a bit deaf, especially to higher frequencies. Too many years of too much volume.
Zzyzx
John – I just got married on 8/1, and our soundtrack was almost all Jerry. Despite my wife’s first show being in the Vince era, it was pretty Brent-centric.
Fulcanelli
@wrb: Touring with the “Big System”, which I saw them use In Providence in 1974, I imagine could do that to ya. Clean and LOUD. The speakers were stacked to with spitting distance of the horizontal girders that supported the roof. I bet the union guys who worked at the Civic Center that had to set that behemoth up shit their britches when they loaded that in.
monad
@wrb: @wrb: I was never a big Dead fan, and all the dozen or so bootlegs I had were from the early 80s on. But I could never hear much of Phil in any of them, which is a shame, since he’s far and away the most talented.
And the whole conception of the role of keyboards in the band was just lame for the vast majority of its existence. Keith/Brent/Vince hardly contributed anything more than just little tinkly stuff scattered here and there. Pigpen and Bruce Hornsby both stepped up a lot more, but I really don’t like either of their styles. Tom Constanten is the only guy who really brought something to the table.
IMO, of course.
gbear
While everyone was posting bad 70’s music last night, I was listening to Big Star’s new box set anthology. Anyone who thinks that everything sucked in the seventies should really spend some time with their first two records (from 72 and 74). It’s pretty safe to say that The Replacements and REM wouldn’t have existed without Big Star.
They are the anti-Greatful Dead, also. I like that in a band.
wrb
@Fulcanelli:
Yup.
And the stacks were behind them as they played, not to the sides.
Musta been somethin’ to be playing on that stage
picture
http://www.zelkas.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/gratefulsound.jpg
monad
Although, I’m basing my approval of TC entirely on Anthem of the Sun and Aoxomoxoa. This bit from his wikipedia page about the rest of his career doesn’t sound very promising:
Les Kippel, founder of Relix Records, felt that Tom Constanten had a lot to say musically, and worked with him to release a series of his projects over the years — Nightfall of Diamonds (1992), Morning Dew (1993), Embryonic Journey (a 1994 project which was an outgrowth of getting Kaukonen and Constanten together for a recording of “Embryonic Journey” to be used on Morning Dew), and Grateful Dreams (2000). Constanten was a favorite of Relix Records, and can be found on many of their releases, including the Dead Delites series, the Gathering on the Mountain series, and Dead Ringers.
As of 2006, Constanten plays keyboards in the current line-up of Jefferson Starship
Ow.
wrb
@monad:
I heard Phil say once that TC was a great musician but just couldn’t swing.
Fulcanelli
@monad: @monad: You need this show if you don’t have it. Cornell University, May 8th 1977. Trust me. Find the best copy you can get ahold of.
trollhattan
@gbear
I still have my Radio City LP with the Eggleston cover photo. Two iconoclasts for the price of one!
I missed the ’70s thread but I did the college radio thing back then and could probably steer a tour group through the decade without any fatalities. There is an unimaginable trove of good music if you know where to look. There was also waaaay too much money to be made between the record companies and the radio station owners who discovered to their delight that their formerly worthless FM licenses were literally golden, due to the DFHs. All that wealth sent the whole works into the crapper, once folks who couldn’t care less about music were running things.
There was also Captain and Tennille.
gbear
@trollhattan: Did you consider Unicorn to be one of the good 70’s bands? Blue Pine Trees is still a favorite album of mine.
wrb
@monad:
My favorite period is 72-74 and a big reason is Keith’s interplay.
He sort of faded a bit later. Maybe drugs but I thought that part of the reason was those were also the years of just one drummer, which gave him more rhythmic space.
The band was a lot looser & more open sonically before Mickey came back.
I also little-documented period in 77 when Keith played with the JGB was exceptional. It gas a restrained and intricate funkiness that is unique. There is now one official release from the period.
And Donna was actually very enjoyable in the more restrained setting. She sings rather than screeches. Maria Muldaur was also in that band. Their voices would just wind around each other.
When I saw them in Portland Maria was bra-less in a see-through top.
Quite eye-popping for a teenage guy.
monad
@wrb:
I heard Phil say once that TC was a great musician but just couldn’t swing.
The big problem with the Dead is that everyone’s flying off in 18 different directions at once. (Jerry’s caterwauling, and Bobby’s screaming too, but never mind that.) Occasionally they’d all be clicking, and the stars would be aligned, and Jerry wasn’t a mess due to coke and smack, and it would be great. But he was so sloppy so much of the time that it typically would be a big bowl of soggy noodles. They really, really, really needed a lot less swing, and a lot more solid rhythmic center. Big, full piano vamping front and center (even if it was metronomic, or maybe *especially* if it was metronomic) would have made a huge difference.
wrb
@monad:
Sounds like either
1) You have formed a judgement based on too little data. I’d agree with you if your description was limited to the mid 80s and every second or third show in some later years (they were pretty damn tight around 1990) but not the rest of the time.
2) The parts I find most interesting are the very ones you don’t like. Which is fine. “The big piano vamping” sounds to me like a recipe for something more simple.
Do you like the instrumental in the Bird Song posted, or do you consider that sloppy or shooting off in different directions?
monad
@wrb:
You have formed a judgement based on too little data. I’d agree with you if your description was limited to the mid 80s and every second or third show in some later years (they were pretty damn tight around 1990) but not the rest of the time.
Yeah, maybe it’s too little data. I was part of the mid-late 80s rediscovery of the Dead, and I never really was enough of a fan to much bother with seeking out earlier stuff, so my frame of reference is almost entirely limited to 86-onward. And albums, all of which (pre-Terrapin) I find fastly preferable to almost all the live stuff I’ve heard.
they were pretty damn tight around 1990
Was that when they toured as the Warlocks? I heard one great tape from that tour.
The parts I find most interesting are the very ones you don’t like. Which is fine. “The big piano vamping” sounds to me like a recipe for something more simple.
I don’t know that it would have made it ‘simple’ so much as grounded into actual coherent rhythms.
Do you like the instrumental in the Bird Song posted, or do you consider that sloppy or shooting off in different directions?
No no no. That’s an example of what happened when the got the formula right.
wrb
@monad:
Check out the second set here (Jam-> China…)
One of my all-time favorites bet it does get a bit out there. Just curious if it represents what you consider sloppy.
And if it doesn’t it is a great listen.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd74-06-26.sbd.oleynick.214.sbeok.shnf
wrb
@monad:
Check out the second set here (Jam-> China…)
One of my all-time favorites bet it does get a bit out there. Just curious if it represents what you consider sloppy.
And if it doesn’t it is a great listen.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd74-06-26.sbd.oleynick.214.sbeok.shnf
wrb
@monad:
Check out the second set here (Jam-> China…)
One of my all-time favorites bet it does get a bit out there. Just curious if it represents what you consider sloppy.
And if it doesn’t it is a great listen.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd74-06-26.sbd.oleynick.214.sbeok.shnf
monad
Thanks for the suggestions, wb & Fulcanelli. China Cat Sunflower is a perfect example of what I mean: it has a good, steady pulse that holds everything together. Help->Slip->Franklin is another one.
Todd Dugdale
wrt Brent,
the big improvement he brought was sustain. The acoustic pianos that Keith used didn’t have the ability to sustain a note or chord for an entire measure. The MIDI keys and organs that Brent used could do that, and thus there was “glue” that held the structure of the song together. This gave the song some kind of solidity to build upon, and the band capitalised on that in a big way. Suddenly, there something to “anchor” to.
Likewise, JGB featured a Hammond rather than a piano, which allows great sustain as a contrast to Jerry’s structure.
It’s all about contrast: soft and loud, fast and slow, long and short, tension and resolution, etc.
Jerry used the contrast of expansion and contraction, which created an organic sound similar to breathing. Notes would be tightly packed together, and then widely spaced apart. But without something to bridge across across measures (sustain from the keys), his structure of contrasts had no counterpoint.
Bobby used a contrast of harmony and melody, and the sustain of the keys gave him immense leverage to serve as a counterpoint to Jerry.
There is a lot going on in the Dead’s music that seems to go completely over most people’s heads. But once you understand the multiple processes taking place on the fly, it is absolutely beautiful.
wrb
@monad:
“I was part of the mid-late 80s rediscovery of the Dead, and I never really was enough of a fan to much bother with seeking out earlier stuff, so my frame of reference is almost entirely limited to 86-onward”
I was working a lot in the 80s I didn’t see them many times. Some shows were good and some were just painful, they were so far from the heights I’d come to expect. There was one JGB show at the Hult at which he could barely play. Excruciating.
“No no no. That’s an example of what happened when the got the formula right.”
Then we probably don’t disagree much then. Some think that kind of drifting, intricate, non-linear stuff sloppy. Such people also tend not to get Arabic, Indian or the other great cannabis-based musics :) Too intricate.
wrb
@Todd Dugdale:
“Likewise, JGB featured a Hammond rather than a piano, which allows great sustain as a contrast to Jerry’s structure.”
And the versions of the JGB I enjoyed most were the ones where there was an acoustic piano instead :). Keith, Nicky Hopkins. Second best was the electric piano around 1980. Tastes vary.
I found the sustain to clog the space. In the leaner, more spacious, more percussive piano periods I could follow the interplay better.
monad
Btw, did they /ever/ have an extended piano solo, or even any times where the piano dominated for more than 10-15 seconds? I’ve heard a few jams where everyone is playing at once, and piano more or less shares equal space with guitar, but I can’t remember ever hearing the guitars drop way into the background, and piano taking over for any real length of time. It must have been incredibly frustrating to be keyboard player for that band.
Todd Dugdale
@wrb:
Absolutely, tastes vary. My point was to explain how Brent’s use of sustain changed the innate dynamics and chemistry of the sound, not to advocate for any specific style. Maybe I shouldn’t have used the word “improvement”, but rather, “change”.
There was another kind of contrast that the Dead used in “Cassidy” that was much more suited for the acoustic piano: coherence/dissipation. The song structure would dissipate into a “fog” and gradually “condense” into a coherent structure just prior to the reprise (why do the sea birds…).
This is incredibly hard to pull off in the first place, and with such a relatively large band it’s nearly a superhuman feat. But this is a case where you don’t want the “glue” of the sustain at all.
Throwin Stones
@Fulcanelli: Seconded.
I have this show on CD’s one-off from the soundboard. IMHO 1976-77 was the time you could hear big thumping bass from Phil. YMMV.
ihop
@monad: brent would often have long-ish solos, but usually on a song he was singing.
the thing is, garcia didn’t take the solos he took because he was the lead guitar player. he also liked to step back for others. but phil didn’t care to do so (after ’74), bobby really couldn’t (the early 70’s china>rider transition solo and post ’78 slide work the only true examples).
i’m pretty sure jerry loved having hornsby in the band, but even bruce had at times to be coaxed into the spotlight.
burnspbesq
I hung with a lot of Deadheads in college, but I never really contracted the virus.
I saw them three times. A show at Laguna Seca race track sometime in the 1980s with Bruce Hornsby sitting in was magical. The others were so bad that I have no memories of them at all.
Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty are essential. The rest, not so much.
People who think Jerry Garcia was a guitar god are missing the point. He was the right player for the Dead, but … there is a record that I believe is still in print called “The Pizza Tapes,” of Garcia playing with David Grisman and Tony Rice. Let’s just say that Garcia’s limitations are on display.
But it’s Sunday and I don’t want to ruin anyone’s buzz, so I’ll shut up now.
P.S. to Cole: if you start downloading FLAC files, you’re going to need to transacode them in order to use them in iTunes. I use both Switch and Max for transcoding; they are both good, but have varying strenghts and weaknesses. Try both.
wrb
“there is a record that I believe is still in print called “The Pizza Tapes,” of Garcia playing with David Grisman and Tony Rice. Let’s just say that Garcia’s limitations are on display.”
Rather weal basis for such a conclusion.
He was just about dead by that point. Very soulful but without a hint of the nimbleness he had earlier.
wrb
“there is a record that I believe is still in print called “The Pizza Tapes,” of Garcia playing with David Grisman and Tony Rice. Let’s just say that Garcia’s limitations are on display.”
Rather weal basis for such a conclusion.
He was just about dead by that point. Very soulful but without a hint of the nimbleness he had earlier.
Inncent Bystander
Thanks wrb for the 49 post. My 1st Dead show was in Boston where the Wall of Sound was used. It literally blew me away. I’ve always know that their sound engineers were ahead of their times, but thanks for the details…no one else i saw in that era ever came close to the Dead’s sound show.
I take exception to the comments on how lame they were i the 70’s…I saw the Dead in 70s/80s/90’s….while they may not have been as sophisticated, musically, in the early years, they made up for that with youthful energy and some of the best R&R, R&B stuff I’ve heard. PigPen, with his Hammond B4, gave them R&S (Rhythm and Soul). When he departed the coil, the band found new channels with new players and the music followed along. My all time favorite show is Cornell, 11/08/1970 – that show (down-loadable at Archive.org) had it all….the Dead playing acoustic and electric, the New Riders playing their complete catalog. The best stuff in this set are the really great R&R standards, Not Fade Away” and “Going Down the Road…” and my favorite Garcia acoustic tune, “Rosalie McFall”. None of the tunes were technically perfect, but it has the pure sound energy of an early Dead concert that keeps me coming back for more.
burnspbesq
@trollhattan:
Agreed. Some good 70s artists were criminally underappreciated at the time (Big Star is the obvious example, but see also Grin, the Dwight Twilley Band, the Meters, and Karla Bonoff). Some got a bad rap because of a few moments of madness (forget “Danny’s Song” and “Your Momma Don’t Dance,” and really dig into Loggins & Messina – there was some serious craft there, and they were a smokin’ hot live band). Some have been treated unfairly be revisionist history (Bob Seger). Some are justly slagged for making bad music in the 80s, and their good stuff from the 70s is forgotten (REO Speedwagon, Greg Kihn).
It is fashionable now to slag the whole 70s singer-songwriter and country-rock genre, but there was some music of lasting quality that came from Browne, Ronstadt, Raitt, Zevon, Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, Rodney Crowell, Bruce Cockburn, Tom Rush, Eric Andersen, Jesse Winchester, the Eagles, Poco – even Dan Fogelberg made three really good records before he lost the plot.
The whole genre of progressive acoustic music evolved in the 1970s. “The David Grisman Quintet” should be on everyone’s iPod.
A new generation of bluegrass musicians emerged in the 70s who took the genre to places it had never been before. Ricky Skaggs, Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, the late Keith Whitley.
And let’s not forget Steely Dan.
Finally, the crux of the biscuit is STILL the apostrophe.
monad
@burnspbesq:
there is a record that I believe is still in print called “The Pizza Tapes,” of Garcia playing with David Grisman and Tony Rice. Let’s just say that Garcia’s limitations are on display.
He definitely was a very mediocre bluegrass guitarist. But he was actually a pretty good banjo player, with a more or less unique sound (presumably since he couldn’t use his middle right finger). He and Vasser Clements save the otherwise excruciatingly lame first Old and in the Way album (the second one that came out years later, weirdly, is tons better. Why they didn’t release that to begin with?). I don’t claim exhaustive knowledge of banjo styles, but there was a time for a few years when I used to listen to and play nothing but banjo-driven music, and I can’t think of anyone who really quite sounds like him.
burnspbesq
@monad:
Point taken. He sure didn’t sound like Earl Scruggs or J.D. Crowe, but what he did on banjo was right for the context.
And in fairness to Garcia, there are only a handful of guitarists on this earth whose limitations wouldn’t be exposed playing in a small-group setting with Tony Rice.
wrb
@monad:
And as he admitted, by the time Old and in the Way came along, he had been away from the banjo so long he really didn’t have his chops.
The surviving recordings from when he was a full-time banjo player are impressive.
monad
And as he admitted, by the time Old and in the Way came along, he had been away from the banjo so long he really didn’t have his chops.
I think he did a fine job there — he was sloppy, but that’s not such a huge deal on the banjo as long as the rest of the band is relatively loose and the tempo isn’t super fast. The actual note choices and the quirky syncopation of his rolls were really quite nice.
Sloppy bluegrass guitar solos, though, are horribly painful (especially when you’re playing with f’in Tony Rice).
monad
The actual note choices and the quirky syncopation of his rolls were really quite nice.
And cliche-free.
Q: How many banjo players does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: 11. One to screw it in, and 10 to complain that that’s not how Earl would have done it.
wrb
@monad:
Paraphrasing Phil Lesh: “His time had banjo-like precision. But in the final years he lost that”
A problem with arguments about which soloist is greater is that criteria vary. For some it is manual dexterity. For some it is the perfection of the solo, even if that solo is repeated night after night.
Garcia argued that what was most important was one’s abilities as a composer. That a solo was a real-time composition.
I suspect that emphasis was why people would pay to see him 20 nights in a row, and why they collect recordings– and why he so often seemed to move crowds more, and more deeply, than people who were wiggling their fingers faster.
I recall a Guitar Player interview in the 70s in which he said that under his current practice regime he would play nothing smaller than a whole note.
Because his focus was on playing no note that did not have meaning.
YMMV
Screamin' Demon
Another thread dedicated to the Dreadful Grate….
Steeplejack
@trollhattan, @burnspbesq:
Don’t let my gleeful participation in last night’s atrocity give the impression that I’m writing off the ’70s. Just as with the ’80s–or any decade–there was a lot of great music in the air along with all the dreck. Even in that thread I had to stand up for Kenny Loggins; I hadn’t listened to “Angry Eyes” in a long time, but it still rocks with all due hardness.
The whole genre of progressive acoustic music evolved in the 1970s. The David Grisman Quintet should be on everyone’s iPod.
Amen to that. That was a revelatory album for me.
Some got a bad rap because of a few moments of madness [. . .]
Cf. Firefall and “You Are the Woman.” Their other stuff is pretty good–“Cinderella,” “Livin’ Ain’t Livin’,” “Strange Way,” their version of Stills’s “It Doesn’t Matter.”
Now I’ve got to go listen to Twilley’s “I’m on Fire.”
Steeplejack
@monad:
I don’t claim exhaustive knowledge of banjo styles, but there was a time for a few years when I used to listen to and play nothing but banjo-driven music, and I can’t think of anyone who really quite sounds like him.
What did you think of Steve Martin’s The Crow ? A couple of the jokey vocal songs made me want to punch him in the neck, but a few were good, and there was one instrumental–can’t remember the name now–that I thought was really good.
monad
What did you think of Steve Martin’s The Crow ?
Never heard (or heard of) it. But from the little bit that I’ve seen him play, he’s pretty good.
burnspbesq
@Steeplejack:
I actually like “You Are the Woman.” For what it is – a bouncy piece of disposable ear candy – it’s fine. “Just Remember I Love You,” on the other hand, is a war crime against the ears of the civilized world.
Steeplejack
@burnspbesq:
“Just Remember I Love You,” on the other hand, is a war crime against the ears of the civilized world.
No argument there. I just got tired of “You Are the Woman” because it got played so much and it seemed not of a piece with their other stuff. (“Cinderella” is like the anti-“You Are the Woman.”)
Further thoughts on the ’70s: Robert Palmer’s first three or four (excellent) albums came out in the ’70s, and he had the Meters and Lowell George backing him on at least one of those. Hell, Lowell George and Little Feat were mostly ’70s artists. Ditto Santana and the Allman Brothers Band, though they had their roots in the ’60s.
Steeplejack
@monad:
Link: The Crow, Steve Martin.
Think “Tin Roof” is the one I really liked.
Phoenix Woman
Group hug!
The Fool
1985 was the year. Especially the Richmond shows. Especially the second night.
Far out fucking magic.
Where’d it go?
EscapeVelocity
Something we can agree on.
The Grateful Dead rock!
Allman Brothers and Widespread Panic double bill, 2 Nights in Charlotte next weekend.
:)
EscapeVelocity
Widespread Panic
Charter One Pavilion
Chicago, Illinois
9/1/2009
With Greg, Warren, and Derek
http://panicstream.com/streams/wsp/2009_09_01/player.html
David VanHooser
i had the pleasure of seeing the dead just once,in october
of ’72.perhaps for this reason,i regard ’72 as their peak,
though i can see very good arguments for the whole ’68-72
period.still,i can find pleasures in other eras-& appreciate
anyone who appreciates the dead.
xian
that second richmond show in ’85 was a peak of sorts for sure.
once in a while…
BombIranForChrist
Man, I am just glad to hear that someone appreciates Stella Blue as much as I do. That song is just crazy good. My wife says it is too depressing.
tim
@John Cole:
similar to cal expo, summer 91. rain during intermission, second set started:
Cold Rain & Snow, Box Of Rain, Looks Like Rain
jim
2/24/71- first set… Pig talks the band into doing the Bird, plays about the first 30 seconds, and then disappears for the next six minutes (maybe he really didn’t know the tune?)… Phil thumping the bassline for Bertha and saying, “Yeah, let’s get this one,” something about the energy and innocence of those Capitol Theater gigs back then (I never went, but have heard a few) that have endeared the Dead to my heart. Just a good ole rock and roll, rhythm and blues, country, and jazz band sans horns… good times. Imagine listening to it on a beach in the South Pacific watching Venus cast a shadow across the Milky Way; Dark Star indeed. Oh, to be on the Bus…
EscapeVelocity
And while you were riding around on a bus following the Dead, the Sandinistas were down in South America, torturing and murdering people to impose a Stalinist military regime with Soviet backing.
And just where did you come down on this issue?
Inquiring minds want to know.