Un-Grateful Thread - What Are You Listening to Instead of the Dead?

James Brown

 

Yesterday, I had Daves Picks 12D3 cranked on the home system when I walked out the door , but in the car to and from Wilkes-Barre, it was:

• Grant Green - Solid
• Porcupine Tree - Warzawa
• Richard Thompson - Electric
• Ultralounge Volume 5: Wild, Cool & Swingin' (Finger Snappin' Vocals & Cocktails After Dark)
• And some Telemann Ocoe concerti on Harmonia Mundi

 

Love the GD. Almost never listen to them anymore. Lots of Funk most recently.

 

I've just got King Crimson's Starless box set, so I'm exploring it. Endless River is getting a lot a attention too.

 

This evening is Joni Mitchell- For The Roses. Needing a bit of HEPCAT- push'n shove. Moving into The Genius- The Genius of Ray Charles. Even in the cold Curved Air- Airconditioning has a warm spot in my heart.Finishing my musical meal off with Mingus Dynasty- The Next Generation Preforms, doing a nice job of keeping it in the family.

 

Taking a Dead break the last two days . Listened to the new Marianne Faithful a few times yesterday.

Today, I have been listening to live Jefferson Airplane albums (currently: Return to the Matrix, recorded in Feb 68; it has a lovely hissy bootleggy sound in places, which is just enough to be charming but not enough to be distracting).

Oh, and this morning I had a hit of Country Joe & the Fish Live! Fillmore West 1969.

 

Been watching the Rolling Stones Hampton '81 DVD over the course of the past couple evenings. I'd never seen it before or heard this show (or Still Life, which has portions of it, other than having seen the Going to A Go-Go music video at some point). Some pretty hilarious Jagger outfits and stage moves (never saw the full body roll across the entire stage before!), and the band in general is in fine form. I've seen a lot of live Stones performances on video, but never one from this period, and it's been very fun viewing/listening. So much pastel. Bill Graham makes an appearance playing ping pong and haranguing the cameraman in the intro section.

The Stones vault series is off to a great start.

 

On Sunday, I listened to Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi and Crossings for the first time (bought the 3-disc WB set with Fat Albert Rotunda recently). Great stuff. Gave Phish 10/27/14 second set a first listen since attending, then finished the last 2 discs of the Complete Basement Tapes. Last night made it partway through the Stones LA Forum '75 DVD. Six years earlier than Hampton and very different. Taking a bit of a break from the Dead until the Hofheinz '72 arrives. Wilco's Alpha Mike Foxtrot box is in the queue, but have not gotten to it yet. I probably had about 20% of its contents already, but a lot of it is new to me.

 

I finally got Miles Davis' Bootleg Series V.3: Fillmore East, June 1970 in the mail this week. I had already owned the At Fillmore album, but these unedited concerts are mind-bending-ly good. The previously edited Steve Grossman solos are good, but not great. However, it's great to hear what the band came up with while he was groovin' on his sax.

Oh, and Crispy Rob, those Herbie Hancock albums are the bomb!

 

I got a lot of entertainment value out of this high octane Zappa disc on a long drive yesterday. Wall to wall shredding.

 

Ty Segall "Manipultor" (Drag City) 2014

 

Been listening to a lot of Genesis while still absorbing Dave's 12.

Glad to see so many CRB endorsements. Chris and the band really explore that melodic psychedelic territory that so few bands can pull off.

 

Last day or two ...
- One of the Allman Bros. shows with Clapton guesting (3/20/09), just acquired and sounded good.
- A bunch of the Songs From The Big Chair box.
- And right now is one of those maybe 3 times a year when I feel like putting "Spanish Key" in the headphones really loud. I'm thankful for those times.

 

How many points do you get if you knock the opponent's bag into their cornhole?

*cough* Anyway, I've been listening repeatedly to the 4/8/72 Dark Star (to be fair, sometimes just the last 11 minutes) to see if I could get sick of it. After about 30 listens over the past 7-8 days, I have reached a statistically significant conclusion of "no." However, tonight I've been listening to:



and

 

Today I listened to Simon & Garfunkel, The Concert In Central Park and Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Americana. Man, I'm sorry, if you don't like Americana, how can you say you like Neil and the Horse? Yup, them's fightin' words. Next up is a Phish archival release from several years back, Colorado '88, and Trey Anastasio's latest studio album (I believe it is, I keep sort of loose tabs (no pun intended TAB fans)), Traveler.

 

Tonight it was Ariel Pink and Oasis.

 

Also:

 

Agree on americana - hi flying bird and gallows pole especially. Speaking of neil young, johnny's garden from the CSNY 1974 release has a distinctly grateful dead vibe to my ear. Never heard Neil sound quite so Jerry like.

 

I liked Americana a lot, been a bit surprised that so many people don't like it much. It is now my go to 4th of July BBQ album.

 

It's not like it's all straight renditions of those songs, they re-work them a bit so that they're Horse ready, and, i've kind of said this here before, those guys have been playing together so long they could groove heavy on Neil's shopping list and it still might be worth releasing.

I read some pretty lukewarm reviews of it so I avoided it for awhile, but my new mantra is don't rely too much at all on music criticism. It turned me off the latest Pixies album which, upon actually listening to it, I really like.

Next up, or fairly soon, A Letter Home.

 

I don't know if you listen to Wilco, I know Crispy Rob does, but listen to Wilco's "Forget The Flowers" off of Being There--very Jerry-like in my opinion.

 

Dan Mangan, Nice, nice, very nice (2010) (streaming).

 

You can't be a music fan over 40 in the Bay Area and not own this album. Besides, when you move here from out of state it comes in the mail with the USPS change of address kit. I'm pretty sure it's required listening in local public schools that still have music programs.

 

Interesting. I only know one other person here on the east coast that owns this album, and I haven't seen them for over 20 years. Most certainly not a Jefferson Starship album, despite the moniker.

 

Well, I'm sort of joking of course, but a guy I worked with at my first job in the Bay Area loved Blows Against The Empire, and that's part of the reason why I bought it. When I lived on the East Coast a guy I worked with who might be a bigger music freak than me introduced me to it, but I wasn't really interested at the time. He's the only other person I know who likes it.

In my opinion, everyone in SF should be a Kantner/Airplane/Hot Tuna/Grateful Dead fan, but it isn't that way at all. Shocking!