Nice Alex Chilton reference in the other thread...we're more folksy over here and can stop and smell the flowers. On-Topic: 11/13/72 Dark Star is freaking AWESOME!!!!! BUD WHITE!!!! HEEEEED!!!!
Love that thread and that someone actually started another one about VU being more of a hype than actual music because of it. Enev if I think that one was supposed to be a joke. I also wrote some bad stuff about the Beatles and everybody was pleased as usual. Putting on that horrid version of "Hey Jude" from 2/11/69 to celebrate the fact and also to be slightly on topic again. Caution, do not listen to this track.
That's funny--if you recall my post I said he was playing one flat three natural three (not knowing the note, and specifying by "one" I just meant the note he started on because I didn't think it was A). But it was a coincidence he did that sequence at 9:30-ish there as well...
Wow, in the 4/24/72 DS (just can't stop listening to it, there's so much meat on that bone), when Jerry sings Searchlight Casting... you can hear a clear hall echo that just lends the perfect touch to the proceedings.
Oo, I'm going to check out the VU thread! If you want to have fun go over there and start talking about the Beatles...who am I kidding, that's probably what the thread is mostly about, like every other one...
No, you're completely right, I'm pretty sure the dude dies right after the song ends. Hunter knew if he killed him off in the third verse it'd be histrionic, but it's almost implied.
This reminds me that when I first started going to shows, people would tell me that song selection was influenced by certain messages the band wanted to convey to the audience. For example if they played Shakedown Street that meant to be careful because the police were cracking down in the lot. I always thought this seemed somewhere between implausible and absurd (not as bad as considering Jerry to be a profit, but in that vein). But I'd be curious to know if anyone had similar experiences, or for that matter has information that this was sometimes the case. I should clarify that I'm talking about "secret" messages as opposed to more apparent ones like playing New Speedway Boogie on 7/2/95 after lots of people jumped the wall at Deer Creek. Or playing Bertha > Greatest Story > Peggy-O on 10/28/91, the day of Bill Graham's funeral.
Sometimes they did sort of cheesy weather- or location-related themes or whatever (which thankfully I never noticed until the tape came out), but "messages" is a bit much. EDIT: I mean not that cheesy, harmless stuff....I am starting to post too much cynicism, I will turn you all off the Dead if I'm not careful
But of course. Man, do I hate those limey bastards from time to time... "The only band that matters". "They were the best thing ever". "The proof is in how many records they sold". "George Martin didn't at all give them an overly dry production". "Ringo invented the iPhone in 1946". "His nose wasn't really that big". "John was the most intelligent man that ever lived and his beard was indeed sexy"etc etc etc. I think all of you should listen to that Pig Pen-led "Hey Jude" after all. It makes Yoko sound, eh, if not exactly good then at least much better.
Don't say those mean things about my dad! Spoiler Just kidding. He's not my dad, and he still haunts my nightmares.
I laughed out loud (literally, I promise) at "His nose wasn't really that big." Also I take exception to this: 60. Grateful Dead - Live/Dead (1969) No. Just, no. For a far better psych jam experience, either Amon Düül II, who's Phallus Dei they list at #191 or: High Tide – Sea Shanties (1969) I dig ADII as much as the next guy (everything is going to be bold now? Computers). But as an improv unit they are not even in the same league as 1972 Dead, and 1969 Dead still beats them (which is more to the point). Not that it's a competition, and they were really good. I don't know the High Tide album, to be fair.
While the verse part of the song is indeed rough sailing, if you can make it to the 3-minute mark - at that point they start jamming on the "Na..na na...nananana" part - and it's as groovy as anything else the GD did in '69, IMO.
Finally! Are you listening, world?! IN YER FACE!! But yeah, that is really what I like about the lyric. That it can sound comforting and that there still is no hope at all. We're all going to die and all that. You know, the funny stuff
Yup. I kinda like it when it gets going (particulary on the few odd days that I really hate the Liverpudlian Monkees) and musically it is much more appealing than the Brent version. But that must be the worst singing ever. By anyone.
As far as I know, Rockin' the Rhein was the first posthumous official release where they got adventurous in the mixing like that.
An ironic corny line that conveys desperation is still a corny line, though...so there is more than one countenance upon which coup has been counted.
I am listening to Pigpen's "Hey Jude" for the first time ever (probably not actually the first but I don't remember it). My goodness.
Ah, the old 'lol'. Finally I am one of the kidz. Who wrote this? The Pitchforkers? I really think that Yeti is a much better record than Phallus Dei, but neither of 'em are really that trippy in the Live/Dead 'jamming the lysergic bolero into every earhole in attendance for dear life' sense, are they? Much more songbased and teutonic. Dark, dense and with none of the joy of life that the Dead always manage to make a part of even the doomiest dirge. Because the Dead spoke for both the living and the (sooner or later to be) departed and the Düül and the other Krauters had angst and existential crisis a gogo to tend to.
Actually, when the kids say "lol" they are not really laughing audibly. Everyone eventually realized this so people started saying they "spit their coffee" but, you guessed it, nobody really spits their coffee...that's why I hew to the literal in these matters.
IMO, Jeff Norman got a little too adventurous in his use of post-production at that time. I mean, on the Fillmore West 1969 set, the 2/28/69 Dark Star has a segment where Jerry's guitar has a repeating "delay" effect. Yeah, kinda trippy and all that, but certainly not how it went down live. I'm pretty sure that Jerry wasn't using an Echorec or Echoplex in his rig at the time (if ever).
