The Grateful Thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by JRM, Apr 11, 2014.

  1. sami

    sami Mono still rules

    Location:
    Down The Shore
    DiP 23, really solid set.

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  2. Archtop

    Archtop Soft Dead Crimson Cow

    Location:
    Greater Boston, MA
    I was just poking around Relisten to find a few AUD tapes from '74 to check out how the WoS came across to the audience as opposed to through the board. I happened to pick a 6/28/74 Boston Garden tape. The jam out of WRS is listed as Jam of Various Themes. An example of being very accurate and yet uninformative at the same time.
     
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  3. My recollection of the late 1970s-1980s era was that the "politics of rock" were all too acrimonious- largely driven by rock journalists insistent on the contrivance of casting it as a contest between Old Entrenched Fossils (few of whose members had reached their 40th birthday- how laughable it seems now, the idea of bum-rushing someone off the stage because they're over 30) and some awe-inspiring Juggernaut Of Youth- Punk/New Wave- that was destined to sweep all before its path. And they acted as if the bands from the 1960s were in some conspiracy to dominate the airwaves, when they had nothing to do with that. The real enemy was the radio, which had been ossifying into narrowcast formatting since the early 1970s. The bands were just doing their thing.

    For me, that got in the way of properly auditioning a lot of new music in the early 1980s, frankly. My initial reaction was defensive- "you think you're going to make us obsolete? No, you won't." Branded as an "aging hippie" at age 22, by some media hype stoked non-playing narcissists? I don't think so. Then after a while that perceived threat level declined, and those obstacles got out of the way of my ears. It also became clear that many of the "punk" and "new wave" musicians didn't really hold with the marketing hype of their era. They actually liked some of their forebears and older brothers and drew inspiration from them, the way most practitioners of the craft of music have pretty much always sought to connect to a perennial tradition.

    It also has to be said that there's a threshold of Aggro in music beyond which it isn't possible for subtler or more melodic styles to get a note in edgewise, so to speak. While I think that there are valid explanations for why there came to be an increased insistence on the virtues of "harder, faster, more aggressive, more transgressive" in the social Zeitgeist of the 1980s and 1990s and into the present era, I think that the emergence of those sounds in radio as featured in radio airplay does pretty much obviate any possibility of obtaining any semblance of the melodic eclecticism and optimism found in the popular music that held sway in the 1960s- an era where Jim Hendrix and the Doors could be played quite comfortably beside Glen Campbell and Dusty Springfield. Some of those problems are also associated with production values- most musical recordings from the 1960s sound awfully subdued next to the bombast of the digital dynamics of 1980s production. So I find that a lot of hard rock music and R&B from the 1980s and 1990s doesn't play well with others. In terms of offering listenable transitions in a broadcast setting, it can only be heard in the company of music that shares its none-too-suble attributes.

    Then hip-hop production values began to assert themselves, with the result that pop music recordings have increasingly found it necessary to exaggerate the bass in absurdly unsubtle ways. That sound can often easily be semi-duplicated in older recordings- punch in the loudness button and turn the bass tone control all the way up on top of that, and there's your "remix." But I don't really want music to sound like that. I love the emphasis that hip-hop brought to the beat; I think it's helped a lot of live drummers learn to play better, deeper into the groove. I also like a full-bodied, bass-driven sound. Up to a point. A point that's by now been exceeded to the extent that it's cartoonish. You know, those old Motown and Stax recordings now sound so wimpy when played next to something like L'il Wayne. James Jamerson sounds like he's playing a ukulele, in comparison. Wow. What progress.

    I realize that this may sound like a hollow complaint, coming from someone whose listening taste includes Hendrix, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, and the Who- not to mention the bozos whose name graces the title page of this discussion, the builders of the Wall Of Sound itself. But all of the aforementioned made use of a lot of other colors and shades in their palette than just white noise turned up to 11, or bass drops that could dent the roof of a passing car. And that's what allows much their music to be played next to a wide range of other genres and artists without steamrolling over them.
     
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2018
  4. tdcrjeff

    tdcrjeff Senior Member

    Location:
    Hermosa Beach, CA
    There aren't any really clear shots in the video, but it certainly appears to be a Rhodes suitcase model (with the speaker) with the top taken off.

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  5. sami

    sami Mono still rules

    Location:
    Down The Shore
    Living in and around NYC during that time, I was affected the same way by the exciting stuff happening starting in 1977. That was kind of my wake up call, as I had never really been a huge music fan, not moved by anything really, before that. It all changed during those years.

    When I wonder how in hell I missed the Dead up until recently, it's pretty easy. Like you said, they had basically been moved to the back burner by the late '70's, and up until the 90's and the coming of the 'jam bands', they weren't even on the radar. By then I was neck deep in classic jazz, reggae, and classical.

    It was searching for something 'new' in the last couple of years that drew me to the Dead, never knowing what an endless rabbit hole it would be. Now, I'm trapped in this damn hole with no seeming escape route. As Maxwell Smart would have said, "and loving it".
     
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  6. Rne

    Rne weltschmerz

    Location:
    Malaver
    Only solid? Prime Dead!
     
  7. sami

    sami Mono still rules

    Location:
    Down The Shore
    Just being understated. It's hard to find shows that aren't prime Dead between '70-'74.
     
    US Blues, Crispy Rob, Rne and 2 others like this.
  8. wavethatflag

    wavethatflag God is love, but get it in writing.

    Location:
    SF Bay Area
    Boy, this 6/26/73 Playing is something else. From about 7:45 onward were getting into some incredible territory, and Phil is right there with Jerry doing gymnastical stuff. I noted the space around the 8:50 mark to be fertile ground for wild music-ness. I just don't have adequate words for this stuff.
     
  9. The Dead put themselves into the shady slow lane in those years, to a great extent; nobody else put them there.

    The band released a total of two records of new material between 1978 and 1980; none after that until In The Dark in 1987; one more in 1989, and that was it. Getting mired in hard drugs really cost them, especially Mydland and Garcia. And I think they found more troubles than benefits from post-1987 megastardom; they cashed in, but the logistics demanded that they put themselves in harness to do it, along with carrying an enormous amount of cultural baggage. Three arena/stadium tours a year didn't leave a lot of breathing room for the creative process of songwriting. The band still played many hours of good music, but without a revitalized book of newly written songs, there were too many repeats. I know that by 1995 they had a handful of new songs that could have matured into worthy additions to their oeuvre, but they needed more like 20 or 30. And the songs that they did write didn't carry the sort of anthemic sweep that arena shows demand; they were Americana and bar-band tunes, meant for a more intimate scale. (Including one spooky, elegaic all-timer of a ballad, "Days Between", that almost caused me to drive off the road the first time I heard it, as a recording played on David Gans' radio show.) Like most of their previous output, truth to be told.

    I saw a total of 5 Grateful Dead shows between November of 1978 and November of 1985. I didn't see a single show in 1979 and 1984. But at their best, they were still doing what no one else could, and my interest in their continuing existence definitely influenced my decision to return to Northern California in late 1985. Where the band promptly obliged me, by lighting up 11-21-1985...
     
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2018
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  10. bzfgt

    bzfgt The Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler

    Listened to Other One 5/24/72 again. It's Weir and Lesh playing the major chords before it goes over the cliff at 3:52. Pigpen is tearing it up at the end.
     
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  11. you cats. i'm going to have to go on a GD listening jag soon
     
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  12. RockRoom

    RockRoom I Love My Dog

    Location:
    Upstate
    Enjoying 2-25-66's pulsing King Bee -> Caution featuring the Quintessential Quintet.
     
  13. notesofachord

    notesofachord Riding down the river in an old canoe

    Location:
    Mojave Desert
    My favorite show of the box so far. I haven't heard Vancouver '73 yet though.
     
    ianuaditis likes this.
  14. notesofachord

    notesofachord Riding down the river in an old canoe

    Location:
    Mojave Desert
    [​IMG]
     
    US Blues, Crispy Rob, Gary C and 8 others like this.
  15. Archtop

    Archtop Soft Dead Crimson Cow

    Location:
    Greater Boston, MA
    I've come to the conclusion that it should be illegal to use the word transmogrify (and its related derivatives) in any other context than to describe an otherwordly live improv by GoGD. It certainly applies in this context. Or you could opt to use one of my idiotic fabrications, such as fanfreakintasticophied (see the 9/21/72 Dark Star).
     
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2018
  16. tdcrjeff

    tdcrjeff Senior Member

    Location:
    Hermosa Beach, CA
    I (seriously) thought it was a Bill Watterson creation. I'd never seen it in any other context until today.
     
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  17. footlooseman

    footlooseman Forum Resident

    Location:
    Joyzee
    vancouver 73 is the heavy in the box and if we could have had only one i probably would have picked it also. but this is a contender. favorite cover fins down
     
  18. Archtop

    Archtop Soft Dead Crimson Cow

    Location:
    Greater Boston, MA
    Oh, he certainly used it in Calvin and Hobbs, but it's been around much longer than that: transmogrify | Origin and meaning of transmogrify by Online Etymology Dictionary.

    Here's a more modern context: Definition of TRANSMOGRIFY .

    I'd like to think that we could agree that a sublime Dark Star or Playing in the Band is better than even the most humorous of comic strips. :D
     
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  19. jamiehowarth

    jamiehowarth Senior Member

    The pitch and tempo are as recorded, it's not auto-tune or beat detective.
     
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  20. ianuaditis

    ianuaditis Matthew 21:17

    Location:
    Long River Place
    I had this 'Unbroken Chain' t-shirt:
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    I got a spot on it that I couldn't get out, so I sent it with my Dad. He ran a big commercial laundry. I got a note back with the shirt from Clifton, one of his workers who was an immigrant from Jamaica: 'In the Bible, Matthew tells the meaning of the life of Jesus. One day you must tell me the meaning of this shirt.'

    (unfortunately, shortly thereafter, the area around the spot basically fell apart, and I cut up the shirt and made a poster out of it, which I had on the wall right next to 6-10-73 with Phil in his pot T-shirt until my parents got divorced and it got lost. But I may still have the note among other scraps and knicknacks.)

    I never did get a chance to tell him what the shirt was about...
     
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2018
  21. JasW

    JasW Forum non conveniens

    Location:
    Miami
    Being a Deadhead is a seemingly endless rabbit hole today, but back in that mid-70s time period it wasn't. I had everything they put out from Live Dead on. By the time I let the bus leave without me at the end of '78, that was 7 studio LPs and 4 1/2 live LPs (Bear's Choice counting for 1/2). Tape trading wasn't a thing for the vast majority of Deadheads yet. So it was easy to escape, or at least just not get back on the bus. Particularly after Shakedown Street. That was a total letdown. Having been listening to Little Feat's Waiting for Columbus for a good part of the year -- still one of my favorite live LPs of all time -- I was excited to hear a Lowell George produced Dead album. Imagine my disappointment...
     
  22. Rne

    Rne weltschmerz

    Location:
    Malaver
    [​IMG]
     
  23. sami

    sami Mono still rules

    Location:
    Down The Shore
    Yeah, Shakedown is pretty dreadful, as is Terrapin Station outside of the bookends of Estimated and the title suite, which save it from oblivion. Excellent point that there was really nothing after '75 aside from some live stuff that if you weren't already a fan wasn't even on your radar, as was the case with me.

    Unfortunately, Lowell probably wasn't in the greatest condition by '77-'78 to be counted on to produce a great Dead record, although the idea on paper sounds incredibly promising.
     
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  24. Six Bachelors

    Six Bachelors Troublemaking enthusiast

    Oh no - I have been unable to rip track one (Bertha) and track ten (GSET) from disc two of Dave's Picks Vol. 2 without getting a horrible static throughout much of both tracks. I have previously ripped this disc with no problem. I couldn't get it to work with two different disc drives (one a DVD drive, one a Blu-Ray drive) and with multiple programs.

    This disc has remained safely stored in a dry, protected environment since purchase. Is this a sign of disc rot setting in...? I wonder.
     
  25. wlove2372

    wlove2372 Forum Resident

    Location:
    KC
    best show in the whole wide world!
     

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