Ready Or Not, Grateful Dead's unfinished studio album

Oh dear God!!

 

It’s better to be prepared

 

Color me honestly confused.

Did you not think "Way to Go Home" was going to be on the album?

Or did you not think it was going to sound like it did virtually every time they played it?

 

I was thinking that after 30 years it might be better.

you know...back in the day these tunes were a bit of a bummer because we were trophy hunting. They played them in heavy rotation and each time they took the place of something I was hunting for, St. Steven for example would have been a big deal but you can put any number of songs or sequences on that list. Very few people ever said,”This is my 50th show and I’d really like to hear (any song on this album).

I have high hopes a few of these tunes play a little differently for me without that context. Way to go Home was always a long shot but now it didn’t get out of the gate.

 

That all makes sense, but it really is what it is, right? For me, anyway, I always thought "Way to Go Home" was one of the best of the new songs at the time. Did I mention that I'm not going to be buying this album?

 

My interpretation of the lyrics is that it was a heavy commentary on the Dead scene at the time. And pretty damn accurate, too.

 

From highresaudio.com

“Please Note: We offer this album in its native sampling rate of 48 kHz, 24-bit. The provided 96 kHz version was up-sampled and offers no audible value! Hence the reason why we also do not offer the MQA.”

they will probably be the cheapest place to buy it as they have a 15% sale on everything from tomorrow with coupon code ‘Black’

 

Hmm. So "If the Shoe Fits" wasn't the only negative GD commentary on their scene in the 90's.

 

I appreciate this release for what it is, and if Jerry hadn't died maybe they would have recorded an album with some or even most of these songs.
The main problem with is that most of the songs are played at a very slow tempo and are simply not that exciting.
Some of the ballads are good, however, but would also need some more uptempo songs in between the ballads to balance things out on an album.
Considering that Jerry died in a treatment center, presumably the idea was to get clean and healthy and then make some good music again.
Maybe it's somewhat fitting that this album exists only in live recordings, considering the Dead are revered mainly as a live band anyway.

 

That's why they should have included both of the missing Phil songs, "Wave To The Wind" and "If The Shoe Fits." Both are upbeat.

I like these songs, despite the negative feelings about them I've seen some Deadheads express. I especially enjoy the jazzy chords of "Wave To The Wind" and wish they'd developed it into a jam so that they could go "Wave To The Wind">"Eyes Of The World." Seemed a natural fit to me.

Another one of my opinions is that the post-1990 new songs got the short shrift because the band had piled up so many old songs we wanted to hear live that the newer stuff tried our patience before they got to our favorite. Had the band as we knew it gone on another 20 years, IMO a few of these songs would have developed into standards for the group.

 

+1

And... Looking at Unbroken Chain in particular, the band and certainly its leader, were not able to bring out the finesse and performance chops necessary to bring complex songs to a state of grace. I also love Wave To The Wind and it never became what it could have been. Phil has stated he regrets not playing Unbroken Chain in 1974- opportunity lost.

 

IMO the problem with the later Phil stuff is that his voice is extraordinarily rough. This likely also accounts for "Wave To The Wind" and "If The Shoe Fits" missing from this set.

The Dead were never exactly the Beach Boys when it came to pitch accuracy, but Phil's singing on occasion is so off-key it's uncomfortable. People seem real quick to criticize Donna Godchaux when it comes to this, but Phil is guilty of it too.

In retrospect, the band might have been able to finesse this if they had done what the Clash used to occasionally do when their bass player, Paul Simenon, sang lead. Paul and rhythm guitarist Joe Strummer would swap instruments so Paul could concentrate more fully on his singing, which often wandered off-key like Phil's. Not everyone is Paul McCartney, a guy who can pull of complex bass lines with pitch-perfect singing.

 

BTW, has anyone received a shipping notice? ( not that it necessarily matters in Dead/Rhino land).

 

I have not had a shipping notice. And I would not be surprised if it landed tomorrow. Or on January 16th.

 

That was a decent show for its era, and this is actually a good version of this song. I’d like to see this quality video for the entire show. Pretty decent Cassidy iirc. Jerry played tea in the Sahara with Sting earlier in the day

 

Excellent points across the board, although I will point out that while the Dead were never the Beach Boys, they were trying to sing like Crosby Stills and Nash on their 1970 albums and for the most part, they succeeded.

And yeah, it was in the studio, not live, yadda yadda yadda, but lots of bands sing three-part harmony in tune while playing complicated music. The Dead could have done it if they had practiced. It's not even a question of the complexity of the music because they were, literally, playing the songs and singing three part harmony (in the early 70s, with Phil taking the high parts), but they were just out of tune a lot of the time. They could have fixed that if they had practiced, and, yeah, what were the odds that that was ever going to happen, but it's still a bit of a shame, I think, when a killer version of a particular song is marred by a real horror show vocally.

 

Goto 21:35 for a great latter day lesh vocal

 

To me, the worst part of his singing in this era isn't even pitch, but phrasing and dynamics...

There's the old ethics question, if you had a time machine should you go back and kill Hitler?

Probably, but more vexed is the question, should you go back to the 80s, wait until Phil is passed out on Heineken, and then give him a tracheotomy? When he wakes up, you can tell him you saved his life...

 

I think a lot of the time they (Phil and all) did a pretty good job with live harmonies. They were kind of rough at times but not usually horrible...even in the 90s I don't think they were usually horrible...

 

No

 

Funny. I was at the Buffalo show in June 93. That was the summer that I saw most of my shows and I remember Buffalo as being particularly weak. The PA was not loud enough in my section, which may have contributed.

 

That was always a huge factor. I can only think of a couple shows where I thought "I can tell this is great, but it's not loud enough!" vs. shows I just thought were weak, it can be hard to appreciate it when you can't experience it properly. 1990-07-12 was one I thought was magnificent, even as I pined for more volume...that was an exception, though, although there are a handful I want to go back and check...1989-10-14 is one...

 

I think LRR may be the most underrated of the newer stuff, I always thought it was a beautiful song and would have been more loved I think if it were in an era when the band was more committed to nailing new material...that's an excellent version, though...

 

I confess I enjoyed listening more than I probably should have.