Yes he did:
He’s still got a little work to do on the economy, but already President Barack Obama has accomplished at least one task that had appeared all but impossible just a year ago: He’s put The Dead back on the road.
As the core surviving members of the Grateful Dead, once the world’s biggest concert draw, barrel across the country for the first time in five years, bass player Phil Lesh says they have Obama, and also Lesh’s youngest son, Brian, to thank.
After Lesh, who had never publicly supported a presidential candidate, threw his lot in with Obama, he was anxious to do a benefit concert for him. But he was all but done with The Dead, so it was going to feature his other band, Phil and Friends.
“My son Brian said, ‘No Daddy, you’ve got to get The Dead together because it will be so much more meaningful and important,'” the musician chuckled during a recent phone interview.
One benefit performance led to another and then an inaugural ball concert. Next thing they knew, Lesh, guitarist Bob Weir and drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann were back together.
Who says he isn’t the Messiah! As a side note, I honestly don’t understand people who don’t like the Dead.
Cris
Until he resurrects Jerry Garcia by executive order, I’m keeping my enthusiasm in check.
NutellaonToast
The dead just aren’t as good for conversations as the living are.
demkat620
Yeah, I guess I’m about to get banned. I don’t like the Dead. Just don’t get it.
Just Some Fuckhead
I’m totally not getting this Dead/Obama nonsense.
asiangrrlMN
That’s OK, John, I don’t get people who like the Dead, either, so we’re even.
Max
http://tinyurl.com/dbofom
Halperin (Drudge-lite) linked to the above and had the Dead’s visit to the Oval on a list of things that Clinton could have never gotten away with.
John H. Farr
I LOVE the Dead. Jerry Garcia died on my birthday.
Thank you for this post.
Media Browski
American Beauty will forever be in my top 10 albums of all time. I’ve convinced multiple "I don’t like the Dead" folks that they’re worth listning to with that one.
BTW, John, re some of your current complaints, have you thought of just turning off the damn tee-vee?
Brandon T.
I think a lot of people don’t like the culture that evolved around the Dead, but nonetheless enjoy their music.
Brachiator
In a Fresh Air interview, keyboard player Ian McLagan (Small Faces) claimed he was offered a gig with The Dead, but turned it down because they were more into noodling than playing music.
Graeme
Put me down as a hater. I hate all that masturbatory jam band noodling.
I like masturbation, bands, and noodles, however. Ditto for the fans and their primitive capitalism, drugs, and touring the country. That’s all also cool.
The music, not so much…
Graeme
Wow. As I was typing, someone else referred to it as noodling.
This is a good comments section. You people are a good bunch.
evinfuilt
Only the true Messiah will deny his divinity.
NobodySpecial
‘Don’t Like’ is strong words – jam bands like the Dead and Phish are just ‘meh’ with me. They’ve got some good songs and probably more I’ve never heard, but it’s not my preferred batch of musical artists.
Cris
I don’t have any real problem with the Grateful Dead, I just don’t have a seat on the bandwagon. As a friend of mine once said, "The Dead are the best garage band ever." They obviously had a great time playing together, but they were really pretty sloppy, musically. Nothing wrong with that, but nothing to genuflect about.
Oh, and American Beauty is a must-own album. Even if you’re a big jerk like me.
beltane
My husband and I are convinced that Obama is a secret Head. He is one of us; we can tell.
Media Browski
Now if Obama gets The Beatles back together, then I’ll believe he’s the Messiah!
Shabbat Shalom!
Cris
Contrariwise, I suspect a lot of people fell in love with the culture that evolved around the Dead, and came to enjoy the music by association.
TenguPhule
And the Dead will rise.
And the rivers and lakes shall overflow their banks and run red with blood.
ksmiami
Uncle John’s Band is my anthem
Just Some Fuckhead
@TenguPhule: Now I get it.
Media Browski
@Cris: Exactly. I actually hated all the Dead shows I went to with friends, was totally turned off by the dirty hippie flea market and drug carnival, and the terrible and endless "noodling" (the accepted ballooner term), but (of all things) My So-Called Life turned me on to American Beauty.
Mako
Its not that I dislike them, its just that they are boring, the singing is bad, the guitars are usually off key and the drumming off tempo.
But Dead concerts are a good place to pick up unshaven hippy chicks.
South of I-10
Any Marcia Ball fans? I’m at her show right now!
cleek
i have a lot of Deadhead friends, and i like the Dead arrite, in small doses. dosed, if possible… well, maybe not dosed – who’s got the time anymore? maybe just stoned. well, not necessarily stoned, just …. beautiful.
my buddies and i used to walk around campus singing Bertha at the top of our lungs. well just the chorus, cause that’s all anyone could remember.
anyhoo…
why does Sirus/XM need a "Jam band" channel (which might as well be called the Phish channel) and a Grateful Dead channel ?
Ninerdave
I honestly don’t get people who like the Dead.
On a related note, I thought the Dead were for DFHs and that for conservatives there were only two types of music: Country and Western.
How’d you get into the Dead when you were a conservative? Didn’t it like burn to listen to them?
cleek
i don’t know about JC, but i have some seriously Libertarian serious Deadhead friends. it’s all about "leave me alone and i’ll leave you alone". when we get to talkin politics, policy issues always come down to "man, just let me be"
Jay B.
South of I-10 —
Love Marcia Ball. Saw her in Austin quite a bit (so I know her act, but not a lot of her song titles or recordings). Enjoy!
Dead, though, meh. I’m with most of the haters on this thread in terms of them not moving me/hating the 80s frat boy tie-dyed fan base/liking some of their recorded songs more than any live thing I ever heard or saw from them.
I always thought they’d be good guys, though.
Just Some Fuckhead
Everybody wants to be a hippie, right up until it means voting for something other than yer narrow self-interests.
gbear
I agree with all of that except for one thing. I do dislike them. Forty year case of arrested development.
Reverend_Shabbazz
This is very true for the later years, but there were nights during the late 60s and 70s (hell even into the early 80s) when they were the tightest band around. They shared a group mind and could change on a dime. I recommend a raging Eyes of the World from the 73 – 74 era, for example.
It never bothered me that people don’t like the Dead, but ya gotta respect them as an Institution of American Rock and Roll. Sure, they had their valleys, but their peaks were unparalleled to any of the schlock-rock being mass produced these days.
As for the country and western, that’s one of the reasons why I LOVE the Dead. Listening to Garcia play Merle Haggard songs on a pedal steel makes me a very happy guy.
But that’s why they make chocolate AND vanilla, I suppose…
schrodinger's cat
Don’t know much about the Dead except that I love Cherry Garcia.
gbear
@schrodinger’s cat:
Mmmmm. Cherry Garcia. Yes.
Jamey
And I don’t get people who claim to like music, and, yet, also like The Dead.
Shit, they way they roll, they should be called The Zombies.
LD50
Oh well. I guess I knew there had to be SOME downside to electing Obama.
bayville
Exciting news, maaan.
Time to dust off the VW van, cultivate some natural shrooms and attempt to lose 60 lbs so I can fit into my circa 1986(Easter, Philadelphia) tie dye.
vishnu schizt
God I loved going to shows. Used to dance my ass off and join the drum circle. It was all about freedom man, I’ll look and dance the way I want. That’s why you saw libertarians there, leave me alone man and I promise to be kind. I still bust out the Dead now and then. The thing all the uptight conservative assholes never understood was this was one of the great explosions of freedom. Of course the the ‘merican version of conservatism is just conformity so they wouldn’t understand anyway.
Zzyzx
The Grateful Dead? Sure, I used to travel around the country to see them. Our wedding will be on 8/1 (Jerry’s birthday). "The Dead?" Meh? I hate how Bobby tries to sing Jerry’s lyrics.
As for Bertha, it brings back memories of Greensboro 89 with the bail bondsman in the parking lot to try to deal with all of the busts they were planning:
Ah, good times, in their own ways.
LD50
I blame you Deadheads for Wavy Gravy.
gbear
Odessey and Oracle. Now that was a great record.
(/British invasion junkie)
eastriver
It’s funny, I was just having this conversation 3 nights ago. A few of us were all agreeing that we didn’t get the Band or the Dead. Thought both were a waste of time. We didn’t/don’t hate them, just don’t appreciate them.
I grew up in Berkeley in the ’70s, so it’s not a matter of lack of exposure. Maybe over-exposure.
I dunno.
Billy K thinks I’m a dick, so maybe us dicks just don’t get them.
Zzyzx
Wow. I can see not getting the Grateful Dead but not getting The Band? That’s alien to me.
gbear
@eastriver:
The Band’s second album is one of my all time favorite records. It’s very strange in that it’s definitely a product of the time it came out, yet the music is so self-contained and trendlessly constructed that it doesn’t reveal it’s age at all.
Trust me on this…
It sounds like it could have been made in the 40’s.
eastriver
@gbear:
I have an open mind, so I will definitely check it out, gbear. Thanks for the recce.
eastriver
And speaking of unappreciated music, what’t the consensus on the new U2? I’ve always been a big fan, but this one left me empty and wanting.
Am I the only one?
Laura W
@gbear: Did somebody say The Zombies?
I am now obligated to link to one of my Top Ten Favorite Songs of Ever.
John Cole
@schrodinger’s cat: I love cherry garcia, but really, the best ice cream out there are the haagen-dasz five series ice creams. The ginger is just amazing, although I will give a quick shout-out to the reserve pomegranate chip.
Jay
Lesh Filling. Bass Great.
I’ve never understood what Coulter got from them. I see her thinking that Cryptical Envelopement is about neo-con kids burning Bill Clinton’s autobiography.
devilham
I am one who has never really cared for the dead, I am not partial to that type of music, that being said, I am very against (these days, in my youth I was not so flexible) saying one type of music is ‘better’ than another, or somebody ‘sucks’, etc. Music is an artform, and by nature is subjective, even the execution of it, if you don’t like something, then you don’t like it, and no amount of arguing can change that (and vice verca if you like it). Just my two cents (and a little unburdening of past dead bashing in my youth…if you like it, then by all means, enjoy!)
TenguPhule
Green tea and chocolate chocolate fudge brownie with chocolate swirl rule.
gbear
@eastriver:
I’m with you on the new U2. For me, listening to a U2 record is like listening to universal omni-corp. I know the record is getting some great reviews, and I’m an Eno fan, but the listen really left me cold.
gbear
@Laura W:
Ooohh, Laura. I love the song but that video is painful. The tonearm on that puppy must weigh a pound. Poor little 45.
Nancy Darling
I went to a Dead concert in the late ’80’s in Southern California. I was in my mid-forties then and with a friend who was ten years older. We ran into a twenty-something patient of mine who was shocked to see us two old broads there. I had a wonderful time. I still have a Mexican serape and a beautiful shawl that I bought at the flea market—paid for by personal check which shocked my daughter. She said "They don’t take checks." I said "They do if you look like a suburban matron". Anyway it was a fun evening and you people who don’t like all kinds of music should lighten up. I try to take in an opera at Santa Fe every few years, and I love that, too, but no more than I did that night with the Deadheads. I can’t think of many types of music that I don’t like. John, did you know that the mammalian mind is wired for music? You can train a dog to perform a certain behavior at, say, middle C and he/she will also respond to the octave. I would imagine this is true for cats as well.
eemom
Ripple
James Gary
American Beauty will forever be in my top 10 albums of all time. I’ve convinced multiple "I don’t like the Dead" folks that they’re worth listning to with that one.
Yeah. Workingman’s Dead is pretty excellent too—New Speedway Boogie has been my personal anthem for the last eight years or so and looks to remain such for a while longer. Those two records, though, aren’t really representative of the band’s music or accompanying subculture.
cyntax
I know it’s not the noodling thing cause I’ll happily listen to bands like Underworld, which is nothing if not electronic noodling. So I guess I blame it on growing up in NorCal where there was a lot of Dead-ness going down, but I just never got into them much.
But Hotel California I just can’t stand. As pompoous as Bono can be at times, he’s never been able to give Don Henley a run for his money.
And for me Neil Young rocks–go figure.
eastriver
Early U2 was great stuff. WAR is an amazing album. Not big-biz in the slightest. It was truly subversive.
The new album is a digital Hallmark card, without the cleverness. (Ooh, snap)
Memo to U2: if you’re not going to push the envelope, at least give us something to bob our heads to. A beat and a hook, it’s all we ask.
gbear
Almost forgot: Tomorrow is National Record Store Day!
Oh, and yes, U2’s War was a great record.
cleek
i gave up on U2 after Rattle n Hum. not that it was necessarily a bad record (i liked it, and the movie!), i had just had enough.
Shawn in Showme
That could be said for 90% of classic rock bands . The Dead just happened to be the last DFH group left standing after everybody else went pop or croaked.
Shawn in Showme
Nah, the Zombies could actually sing and play on key.
Shawn in Showme
Would you agree that, in relative terms, Quicksilver Messenger Service is grossly underrated?
Woodrowfan
The Dreadful Grate? The most uninteresting band in the history of music… I had a stoner roommate in college and he listened to them ALL THE TIME. Ugh. If you like them, fine, cool, whatever floats your boat. They put me to sleep…
Chris Johnson
Heh, everybody’s all about the American Beauty. Buncha country music people, apparently.
Give me Blues for Allah. Another album where they had to actually work, with a slick, glossy, chromed sound and some of the coolest, plus some of the lamest, songs in the Dead songography. Who else was singing Arabian melodies on a rock record, with unison and octave synthesizers and vocoders? In 1975, mind you!
Or Europe ’72, where they played to a lot of audiences that didn’t speak English- and played their asses off. The versions of China Cat/I Know You Rider on side two are just astonishing, and when he comes in on China Cat Kreutzmann rips off a snare fill that is my favorite drum fill ever.
The Dead did some important stuff over the years.
neddie jingo
@Woodrowfan:
The Dreadful Grate?
Har! And all this time I”ve been calling them the Dateful Bread. Yours is much better, and has been Assimilated.
I can take Gentle Hippie Boogie in small doses, but man do I loathe their self-congratulatory cult. I hung with extreme Deadheads in college in the late Seventies, and I really came to dislike their complacency and self-regard.
This was, of course, the time of Punk, and there was little love lost between the two cultural expressions. Guess which way my sympathies lay.
In that Ian McLagan interview on Fresh Air, where he turned down a chance to tour with the Dead, absolutely cracked my ass up. PBS wants money for the transcript, so I can’t provide, but from memory it was something like, "I started to prepare for the audition by playing along with some of their records. My wife went out, and when she came back she found me abject and miserable. She asked me if the music was too difficult to play along with, and I said, "No, it’s just terrible! I like songs, with sections, and maybe a little guitar solo…"
That’s exactly the way I feel about music, too.
Screamin' Demon
I gotta write that one down.
I don’t understand people who don’t understand people who don’t like the Dead. Or any music they think Other People Should Like. Musical taste is subjective.
I like Miles Davis, in particular his second great quintet (with Hancock, Carter, Williams, Shorter). Maybe you don’t. I couldn’t care less.
Mako
Yes. Of course the number one grossly underrated band of all time – Mountain.
Yeah, those are good songs, especially if you are tripping and cant find your copy of Revolver or Jethro Tull’s Stand Up. And Garcia was okay on the first NRPS album.
k55f
@Mako:
Lets hear how you sound with 4 hits of purple owsley in you.
I bet you couldn’t even find the stage.
JK
Roll Away the Dew
Long Live the Grateful Dead!!
Ed Drone
How many dead-heads does it take to change a light bulb?
None. They just follow the burned-out one for 30 years.
I like some of their music, never saw them "live," thought they were over-rated, but who isn’t, and otherwise ignore them. It’s nice to see senior citizens with a paying hobby, though.
Ed
James Gary
Let’s not forget the other chestnut of a GD joke:
Q: What did the Deadhead say when he ran out of drugs?
A: This music sucks!
sgoode
We attended the G’boro show on Easter Sunday. Being from a conservative part of NC, our friends and neighbors were Shocked! Shocked! that we were attending a dead show on Easter. Warren Haynes did an amazing job. Phil Lesh is pretty remarkable as well, considering he is 69 and played a 3 hour show. He’s a week older than my father-in-law which is really weird. Bobby was the ‘good’ Bobby. The first set was better for me personally, though the encore was ‘Sampson and Delilah.’ When they break into one of the ‘Drums/Space’ numbers, great time to go grab a beer and pretzel. All in all, a great night. We’re already trying to figure out if we can get a sitter for the weekend 7/4 to see them at the Roxbury Festival in MI. Hey, we’d be doing our bit to help the economy…
sgoode
No idea why I’m in moderation – can someone help a newbie out?
Don SinFalta
I was one of those who really didn’t care for the Dead for many years, until I went to one of their concerts in the right frame of mind. That moved me pretty firmly into the other camp, even in the absence of the proper environment.
Why yes, especially QMS while Dino Valenti was in jail.
Yup.
Mako
Govt Mule is a good band.
Shell Goddamnit
Once upon a time, both 8-track tapes and cassette tapes were made to loop. Endlessly. My roommate put Workingman’s Dead in the 8-track player and left it to loop on & on forever & ever amen.
I have since recovered, to some extent, and am able to like the Dead; at least, the snappier, more accessible Dead. But I will never love them, no, no never.
Panurge
I understand the disgust with the "self-congratulatory cult". But I would’ve tried to rescue the whole enterprise from itself, not try to destroy it (the Right’s dream, after all). Maybe it’s not too late…
LD50
A bumper sticker I saw in Berkeley of all places:
"JERRY’S DEAD — PHISH SUCKS — GET A JOB!"
Mr. Svinlesha
Little known fact…
Ann Coulter — motherfuckin’ Ann Coulter! — is a deadhead.
malixe
Well, I don’t *dislike* the Dead. They’ve always seemed like nice people, and I’ve always had plenty of friends who were Deadheads.
In fact a couple of them took me with them to a Dead concert once. I found it so dull that I dozed off and didn’t wake up until they started playing some Buddy Holly for their encore.
I don’t dislike them, I just never heard anything to inspire me to be interested in their music.
Different strokes for different folks.
olfatherwilliam
Two reasons you don’t like the Grateful Dead, others are possible but unlikely. You are an actual musician, and/or you are square beyond redemption, and have been since at least high school, and your drug of choice was everclear. Sorry if that’s maybe three.
Thlayli
When I was in college, I had a job selling T-shirts at arena shows. I did one Dead show, which was … interesting. Ever try getting money from a stoned person? "Keep going … keep going … OK, that’s enough … OK, let go, now."
On the plus side, I got a pretty good buzz off the secondhand smoke ;)
(Pigpen was the only one who could sing worth a damn, BTW.)
geg6
Gawd, the Dead. Shudder. I’d rather be waterboarded. I, too, am an old punk underneath it all. I had Deadhead friends who were always trying to convince me I’d love them if I gave them a chance. Went to three shows in the late ’70s-early ’80s. Ugh. And I even took a couple hits of Windowpane at one, thinking that might help. It didn’t. The Ramones show I saw at CBGB’s early in their career displayed more musicianship and vocal ability than anything I saw at a Dead concert.
oldnintheway
I came to the dead late, early 80’s. this is after a long haul seeing the dead kennedy’s, black flag, fear, ramones etc etc…I found it liberating and occaisionally transcendant. No hate, no fear, no angst.
There is absoluteley no reason not to enjoy the collected works of garcia and friends and be deeply moved by punk, classical, country et al…open minds and all that.
as an old dude now with a business and employees it is fn to torture the youngins with a nice ’72 dark star and follow it up with gogol bordello and then maybe some willie nelson.
"aint no ime to hate"
tballou
Saw The Dead’s kick-off show in Greensboro NC last Sunday! The atmosphere was quite electric and they put on a good show. They started on time, played for 4 hours with one 30 min break, and played a whole bunch of Grateful Dead standards. For a bunch of old guys they still rock and a good time was had by all!
Todd Dugdale
I have loved the Dead since the first moment I heard a live recording of them. But, then, I’m a musician.
It’s improv, folks. It’s more like a thought process than a traditional "song". The songs have a basic structure and the rest is made up as they go along, like jazz. Sometimes things don’t fit. Sometimes things mesh beautifully. It’s actually pretty hard to make that sort of thing work.
To compare them against a band that has every note planned out in advance and rehearsed down to the damn choreography is just not fair. That’s not what they do.
They played around 300 shows a year, so yeah, some of the shows were marginal. How many other bands that you like let people record the shows? Set up a pair of mikes at a U2 show and see how quick you get thrown out on your ear with your equipment confiscated.
Mark Gisleson
I didn’t object to the Dead until I had some Deadheads move in next door. Nice kids but their music suffered horribly after being filtered through fake wood paneling. Living with an anacardic beat aggravated the hell out of my arrythmia, but at least I finally found out why Dead concerts made me feel woozy.
Besides, that was then, this is now. If you can’t find new bands to like, you’re just a stick in the mud.
wrb
Oh well. Takes all types.
I’ve heard claims that there are people who like punk, or rap or metal. I have trouble crediting them, but it is a big strange world.
There was a guy in my freshman dorm who liked Styx and Journey!
There are even people who consider the Velvet Underground significant.
Another guy I knew at Stanford said, "I’ve become convinced that there is something important going on in the Dead’s music, but I haven’t found the two years to learn how to listen to it," I thought that perceptive.
I used to work on the university stage crew and so saw everyone, including bands artists I’d never pay to see. The only band besides the Dead and JGB to crack the top ten best concerts was Neil Young and Crazy Horse when they showed up unannounced at the Keystone Palo Alto and Jammed all night. Joe Pass came close.
To those those of us who have learned how to listen to them, the Dead are simply less boring than most rock & pop. I was raised with my father’s jazz always in my ear, which probably has something to do with my difficulty in finding interest in music w/o improvisation. With the Dead, the action is in the conversation between the instruments and the drama between the proposition and resolution. When that is what you listen for most rock is boring. I saw Springstein in ’78 and superficially it was exciting but is felt like half my brain was turned off. There was just no action inside the music. I knew that if I went again most of the notes would be the same and by the third night I’d be snoozing.
The so called "noodling" is by comparison fascinating if you know how to listen to the conversation. I saw Robin Ford (Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell) playing the Garcia role with Phil and Friends. He played a solo in Morning Dew that was true noodling. He though he was doing Garcia but didn’t get it. Garcia’s solos on that song were architectural and heartbreaking.
Few people people raised on rock have learned to listen to structures that are 10 minutes long. The concentration hasn’t been developed.
wrb
"Or Europe ‘72… The versions of China Cat/I Know You Rider on side two are just astonishing…"
Get the Dick’s Picks from Providence 74 (it is something like #12) The China/Rider is on a whole astonishing level higher.
Europe 72 was my favorite of their albums. I must have gone to hundreds of concerts (not hard when you lived in the Bay Area) but I never bothered to buy half of their studio albums. Live was always more interesting
omen
i’m allergic to tie dye.
omen
@Thlayli:
too funny.
wrb
How central that seems to you might be a factor of age. When I’d see them in the 70s the people would seem just like normal people of the time. Not much different than those at a Zeppelin, Stones, Allman Brothers or Springstein concert. You’d see the occasional tie-dye, concert shirt or painted face at any of them.
When I started seeing them again in the late 80 the strange crowd of repro-hippy kids had grafted themselves on. Often they seemed to not even come in for the show, they were there for the party in the parking lot. They were far stranger than the originals. Almost parodies of hippies. But being newcomer kids they were never central to my conception of the band or my relationship with the music. They were an odd carbuncle that had attached itself in my absence.
But I can see how someone coming to a show for the first time during those years could see them as the Dead culture
Shawn in Showme
Fixed.
Heather
@AlmostEveryone: If I may blend hippie-speak with rap lingo, I must say, y’all are trippin’. The Dead are outstanding.
Shell Goddamnit
@geg6:
Fuck, I almost agree. I don’t dislike the Dead, and having lived through the 60s I understand them; but the punk scene had reasons for being, and one of those reasons was the Dead.
That said, give me the fuckin Ramones any goddamn day! The Dead, well, they will wait.
Shell Goddamnit
@oldnintheway:
See, this is what I like: a WIDE range and an understanding of the music of all these eras and why it can be great and where it is weak. I love it that we can be Miles Davis and Dizzie Gillespie and Woodie Guthrie and Lionel Hampton and whoever did “Yakety Yak” and Dead and Santana and Procul Harem and Ramones and Sex Pistols and Clash and REM and etc etc fans. All at the same goddamn time.
wrb
I figure the punks became the torturers
Gus
Exactly. And for all the talk about Deadheads who only listen to the Dead, just about every Deadhead I ever met had really good and really broad taste in music. And what wrb said.
Daro
DeadHead
http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/DoTheStrand/JapanAndTokyoAtmospheric#5240139321027212258
Panurge
Of course the Velvet Underground is significant. That’s not the same as saying they’re any good. Don’t like that? Prog-rock fans have had to put up with crap from punks for thirty years–now it’s your turn. (I mean, how long is TEN FUCKING MINUTES, anyway?)
OK, time to calm down…
The thing all the uptight conservative assholes never understood was this was one of the great explosions of freedom.
Heh indeed. I’m sure they understood it very, very well. Nothing could please them more than a movement in its wake that was all about getting a haircut and beating up hippies (in the name of youthful rebellion, no less).
jugular
whatever. my response is “meh” until he brings back the Fugees
Todd Dugdale
The smugness behind some of these comments is unbelievable.
If someone went to a ballet recital and came out saying “That was the worst pole dance I ever saw”, would you think that person was being extraordinarily insightful or that they completely missed the point?
If someone looked at an exhibit of impressionist paintings and said, “This guy needs to clean off his glasses. Everything’s all blurred. My camera can take better pictures than this guy can paint”, would you consider that to be an informed opinion?
But when you compare an improvisational band like the Dead to a traditional rock act, you are doing exactly what the clueless person in my two examples did: applying irrelevant criteria.
And when you compare studio performances to live performances, then it’s not even apples and oranges.
Nobody knows how a Dead song is going turn out before they play it – not even the band. That’s the beauty of it. It’s being created before your very eyes (or ears). It’s not CCR, or Phil Collins, or Springsteen – it’s art. That is what people are going there to see, not to watch some musicians going through a routine like robots.
You don’t “get it”, you don’t like it…fine. That’s your opinion, and you are entitled to it. But please don’t pretend that there is nothing more going on in improvisational music than what appears on the surface. Those people that you snicker at have grasped the artistic context that the Dead play in, while the smug ones here just chuckle that the band doesn’t seem to know how the song goes.
Panurge
“Irrelevant criteria”?? But EVERYBODY KNOWS that the only legitimate criteria are those of the three-minute pop or rock’n’roll tune! :-P
Phoenix Woman
Haters, three words for you: New. Speedway. Boogie.
That is all.