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Re: Deadheads

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hoip chiggs
Deadheads
June 14, 2009 06:36AM
My senses detect closeted Deadheads on this board. Come out. Show yourselves.

I'll admit liking some of the Dead's hits. However, I hate it when they jam.
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totaji
Re: Deadheads
June 14, 2009 07:44AM
If you cook all there stuff down to 3 minute country rock songs, it ain't too bad. Even some of the early jamming isn't bad in small doses. The key is small quantities. I am by no means a closet deadhead but they can be alright.
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rebelwithoutaclue
Re: Deadheads
June 14, 2009 05:56PM
I guess we all seem to be on the same boat about the dead.
I like their songs a real lot and they dont have to be 4 min. 6 min songs are fine also. their long jams can be tedious to me. its something i appreciate but I am not into. Kind of like my admiration of classical music but dont listen to it or can tell what is good or bad.

Here is a question for all of you loosley based on this post

What artists that have long songs do you not find boring pretensious or tedious not just because you like them.

1. springsteen- I know people are mixed about him but I always found his long songs the intensity builds up and its various diferent solos and lots of lyrics rather than jams.
2. dylan- his 10 min plus songs- sad eyed lady desolation row, highlands,brownsville girl are such rich poetic stories that not only are they not too long but i could listen to them twice in a row to hear something new.
3. neil young- for similar reasons of a combo of springsteen n dylan.
talk about intensity. his guitar work sounds like a switchblade cutting right into your bones.
4. richard thompson- his lyrics and his guitar work just work in any genre of music he tries.
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HollowbodyKay
Re: Deadheads
June 14, 2009 08:04PM
Quote

What artists that have long songs do you not find boring pretensious or tedious not just because you like them.

Most classical ... Coltrane ... Grand Funk Railroad.
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Nephew Ned
No Subject
June 14, 2009 08:26PM




Post Edited (01-14-10 20:07)
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erikalbany
Re: Deadheads
June 14, 2009 10:44AM
I'd see them in a small bar (clean, well-lighted), no cover charge, with darts and conversation standing options...
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Nephew Ned
No Subject
June 14, 2009 03:32PM




Post Edited (01-14-10 20:05)
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Nephew Ned
No Subject
June 14, 2009 07:29PM




Post Edited (01-14-10 20:06)
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hoip chiggs
Re: Deadheads
June 14, 2009 07:32PM
I can't get over the hilarity of the Dead doing Johnny B. Goode for 45 minutes. Now that's funnier than anything Spinal Tap ever did. smiling smiley
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Nephew Ned
No Subject
June 14, 2009 07:50PM




Post Edited (01-14-10 20:06)
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hoip chiggs
Re: Deadheads
June 14, 2009 08:11PM
Yes, ELP, Rush....

Every now and then I pull out Jeff Beck's Blow by Blow. Lotsa long instrumentals, classic.
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HollowbodyKay
Re: Deadheads
June 14, 2009 08:21PM
The Grateful Dead? I have two items:

Odd that almost every adjective that gets routinely dropped into a review of them would not be out of place in a description of Giant Sand, but within those bounds the two groups could hardly sound more different. I maintain that the Dead exemplify all the wrong aspects of whatever adjective you care to run up the flag pole, while Giant Sand are the polar opposite. If you listen to "Bender" off of Purge & Slouch, you can hear Howe Gelb tell the band:

"...you guys sound like the fuckin' Dead!"

...

If you play "Stella Blue" at eardrum-shredding levels, it makes a great shoe-gazer number. In theory, anyway. Great chords. Delay pedal to eleven, please.

Anyway ... The Dead Do Not Improve.
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M. Johnson
What's a "Deadhead?"
June 14, 2009 10:03PM
I'm in the enviable position of having never heard much Grateful Dead. I would recognize their three or four most well-known songs, and maybe one or two others that I know through covers, but that's it.

And if I'm high, the last thing I want to listen to is anything remotely "Psychedelic." Gimme Jonathan Richman or Before And After Science to soothe my addled mind and fill me with "good vibes."

I love many of Dylan's long songs, but I hate "Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands." That song really throws off Blonde On Blonde for me.

I think most of Van Morrison's long songs are wonderful. I've elsewhere compared "Summertime In England" to hearing your favourite actor recite the phonebook (and that's a recommendation!)

RT can really stretch them out well, yeah.



Post Edited (06-15-09 00:04)
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blasmo
Re: What's a "Deadhead?"
June 15, 2009 07:34AM
I don't find Zappa's longer jams boring because of the musicianship and energy. The Dead bore me to tears -- and I've listened to a lot of Dead jams. Two of my friends are true Deadheads who have 100's of live tapes they play all the time. That, and Jimmy Buffet, ye gads.

"Cosmic Freight Train", from the MST3K episode "The Dead Talk Back" is the best Dead parody I've ever heard. I've tried to find a link, but can't. Crow just weedles and weedles with a wah-wah pedal throughout the sketch, and then past it, and then over the end credits, and then...
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blasmo
Re: What's a "Deadhead?"
June 15, 2009 08:31AM
(everyone dressed like hippie rock musicians)


Mike: Can anyone tell me why we're dressed like this again?


Tom: Mike, remember, the name of the movie is The Dead Talk Back. We're The Dead, get it?


Gypsy: (as a Deadhead, apparently finishing a story she was telling) ...then the moon came out and it was like Jerry willed it!


Crow: Come on Mike, really dude.


Mike: Okay, freak freely.


(they begin playing, singing)


Been ridin' on that cosmic freight train

Feelin' bad.

And don't you come around here anymore.


(to Crow) Take it!


(Crow plays a very long, meandering guitar solo until movie sign)
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Michael Toland
Re: What's a "Deadhead?"
June 15, 2009 08:39AM
One of my favorite MST3K bits, especially since Crow's guitar solo sounds exactly like every Jerry Garcia solo I've ever heard. (Thanks to a Deadhead co-worker at the record store 18 years ago who played live Dead concert disks at every opportunity.)
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Michael Toland
Re: Deadheads
June 15, 2009 07:31AM
My personal belief is that the Grateful Dead is absolutely the worst rock band ever. Period. Bad songs, bad singing, a ridiculous belief that an ability to stretch songs out to epic lengths equates to improvisational genius. No redeeming qualities whatsoever.

I suppose if I'd ever been high on anything but morphine in my life, I might feel differently. But I doubt it.
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breno
Re: Deadheads
June 15, 2009 02:00PM
Quote

My personal belief is that the Grateful Dead is absolutely the worst rock band ever. Period.

I'm no lover of the Dead, but they figured prominently in the last episode of Freaks and Geeks and therefore get a small measure of affection from me. Plus, I actually do like the song "Ripple." It's the only Dead song I like, but it's a nice one.

My vote for the worst band ever is the grisly '90s schmucks Train. They actually found the few good (or at least tolerable) aspects of Counting Crows and Matchbox 20, REMOVED them, and built a career on what was left. I suspect when I die and go to Hell, my punishment will be to spend eternity in a car stuck in traffic behind an old lady with nothing on the radio anywhere except "Meet Virginia."
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Michael Toland
Re: Deadheads
June 15, 2009 03:00PM
I remain blissfully unaware of what Train sounds like, so I can't really say. I find most of that 90s pseudo-alternative rock (which my girlfriend loves) easy to ignore, so I don't count as the worst. (Hell, I can't find enough passion in me to get angry about it.) The Dead's music is like a rash that never quite goes away, flaring up at inopportune times and remaining an eternal irritant.

I think the Dead wrote one good song, "Friend of the Devil," but every cover of it I've ever heard beats the living shit out of the Dead's original. Including the version my brother-in-law and I used to do in our backyard bluegrass band.

I guess Los Lobos do a good version of "Bertha," but that's because they make it sound like they wrote it (which is what I thought for years).
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Delvin
Re: Deadheads
June 15, 2009 08:46AM
An old joke that bears repeating here ...

What does a Deadhead say when he comes down?

"Who is this band? They suck!"

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Jermoe
Re: Deadheads
June 15, 2009 10:18AM
I like it when Deadheads start telling me what great musicians they all are/were. Phish fans do that a lot, too. It's not that I think they're unskilled, it's that I simply do not enjoy their music.

The other great argument? "Oh, but you have to see them live!" Admittedly, I've made this claim myself (The Hold Steady, Wilco, Richman, Springsteen, CV Beethoven, even freaking Adrian Legg, who really is amazing in person), so I can't claim to have the moral high ground, but...I recognize that I am incapable of getting it, and am fairly certain I'd be bored and aggravated throughout the show, so why bother? It is possible I'd enjoy seeing the Dead, but I'm okay with not finding out one way or the other.

I saw Mark Farner play at Atlanta's Music Midtown festival about 6 or 7 years ago. Farner's manager was the ex-boyfriend of one of my friends. He gave us tickets to the festival as long as we promised to give Farner a shot. It was a tense and unpleasant experience. After the set, the ex-boyfriend guy asked us if we wanted to go hang out backstage. Ummm, no.

Farner was followed by a local Neil Diamond tribute band called Hot August Knights, doing hard rock versions of Diamond songs. Their act was not well-received by the Farner partisans.



Post Edited (06-15-09 12:18)
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Michael Toland
Re: Deadheads
June 15, 2009 10:30AM
Farner became an aggressive born-again Christian some years ago. Is he doing GFR stuff now, or sticking with the gospel?

Not that I'd go see him either way (I have a fondness for a lot of 70s hard rockers, but GRF ain't one of 'em). I'm just curious.



Post Edited (06-15-09 12:30)
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Jermoe
Re: Deadheads
June 15, 2009 12:15PM
I had heard the same thing about Farner. When I saw him (in 2002), he talked about being born again in between Grand Funk Railroad hits. When the band performed "We're an American Band," one of his band members handled the vocal duties. Afterwards, Farner said something like he would no longer sing those sinful words. But he obviously had no problem playing gee-tar while someone else trafficked in the Devil's work.

During one of the lulls in "I'm Your Captain/Closer to Home" he tried to explain how the song presaged his eventual embrace of Christianity(?), before delivering a lengthy riff on how there were still POWs in Vietnam, but the US government didn't want us to know about it. A large portion of the crowd got worked up, cried and wailed at this point–I've never been to a Pentecostal church, but that was sort of the vibe (plus lots of weed).
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Heff
Re: Deadheads
June 15, 2009 10:38AM
Never listened to much Grateful Dead but some time ago I saw a documentary on rock-n-roll that had an interview with Jerry Garcia about the seminal events they played at (Woodstock, Altamont, etc...) and for each event Garcia went on about how bad they played. He wasn't complaining just more like cheerfully admitting that he was just glad to be playing.
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dj45rpm
Re: Deadheads
June 15, 2009 07:33PM
45 minutes of fugging 'Johnny B Goode'?!?
Granted the Velvet Underground (who KNEW how to 'draw out' a song without going into wankdom) probably hit that a few times with 'Sister Ray' but that was a 17-minute song to begin with, not like the less-than=3-minutes 'JBG'.
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Jay
Re: Deadheads
June 15, 2009 08:05PM
Say what you will about Grand Funk Railroad, but their song "Bad Time" is a killer pop song. Really.

Jay

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Michael Toland
Re: Deadheads
June 16, 2009 08:19AM
True, as the Jayhawks' cover proves.
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Aitch
Re: Deadheads
June 15, 2009 09:09PM
I want a The Dead Do Not Improve T-shirt.
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michael baker
Re: Deadheads
June 16, 2009 06:30AM
dead have 4 really good lp's

the fact that they were all recorded by 1970 is a bad thing as is the fact they have 132 bad lps

but 4 good lp's is more than jesus lizard and big black combined

GFRR is ok, but compared to detroit powerhouses of their time, they kind of sound watery, lame to me, trying too hard to be "hard"

i'll take SRC over Farner
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nosepail
Re: Deadheads
June 16, 2009 06:34AM
Give me Goat, Liar, Down, and Songs About Cuddling any day....
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michael baker
Re: Deadheads
June 16, 2009 06:38AM
goat maybe...
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HollowbodyKay
Re: Deadheads
June 16, 2009 03:12PM
Quote

but 4 good lp's is more than jesus lizard and big black combined

It's all just music ...but I must take issue with the dubious opinion concerning the Jesus Lizard. You're so wrong about them. I puke in my white leather glove and slap it across the kisser of anyone who happens to not share my opinion! Goat and Liar are the best of the bunch, but all of their albums have good "tunes" on them. I should root around for my one-CD collection ("Comp") and post the track listing. Killer riffage, tight rhythm section, and the suavest frontman ever. Great promo photos! The one of Yow butt-nekkid atop the piano is priceless. What's not to love?
...
And I'd rather listen to NOTHING BUT Big Black for the rest of my life than endure even a few more hours of crap-soundin'-Nth-generation-Dead-bootleg-listening HELL! I was under the impression that the subculture had been dealt it's (long overdue) death blow when Jerry G. "stopped touring," but it looks like it might still be alive ( ... little, patchouli-reekin' cockroach of a scene. Damned hard to kill). Perhaps it's just that I stopped hanging around with dopers?

Dunno. Anyway, here's the T-shirt I'm suggesting:

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hoip chiggs
Re: Deadheads
June 16, 2009 07:02AM
Yeah. The talking goat in Drag Me to Hell rulezz...!!

How's that for a sequitur?
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blasmo
Re: Deadheads
June 16, 2009 07:06AM
What are their 4 really good LP's? (actual question, not snark)
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michael baker
Re: Deadheads
June 16, 2009 07:11AM
In descending order

Workingman’s dead
Anthem of the sun
s/t debut
American beauty
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michael baker
Re: Deadheads
June 16, 2009 07:09AM
i never "got" JL, though i liked them live and i also like a lot of big black songs

hate albini's production values but drums on JL were/are killer

go figure

cubs' ed reulbach in 1908 threw a pair of shutouts in doubleheader in midst of heated pennant race

he was so blind the cubs' catchers painted their mitts white when he was hurling

now that's a non sequitor!
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ncg
Re: Deadheads
June 23, 2009 07:48PM
This is a funny thread. I remember when saying that you liked the Dead was akin to saying you were gay in Hollywood in the 40's. They were always overrated by their fans, but underrated by everyone else. I do a version of Dark Star on my new album - I love the jams. Here's a Youtube clip of an excerpt. [www.youtube.com]
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michael baker
Re: Deadheads
June 23, 2009 07:56PM
kay

you miss my point:

goat and liar and atomizer are good lp's.

that's three. which is fewer than 4.

having some good songs on an lp does not make that LP really good.

and there are few jams on those dead lp's that i like/love/admire/respect.
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satchmykels
Re: Deadheads
June 23, 2009 09:17PM
Quote

goat and liar and atomizer are good lp's.

that's three. which is fewer than 4.

songs about fucking is a great lp

that makes 4. 4 is equal to 4.
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michael baker
Re: Deadheads
June 24, 2009 08:48AM
4 minus 4 is the same number as a million minus million.


songs about fucking is better than goat and liar put together but less great than atomizer which makes it sit in the penalty box for 2 minutes.

here's equation


ζ (z) = 1 / Π (1- pk-z) =1 + 1/2z + 1/3z + 1/4z + 1/5z + 1/6z +:
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blasmo
Re: Deadheads
June 24, 2009 04:21AM
I would buy such a shirt.
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Delvin
Re: Deadheads
June 24, 2009 07:40AM
Getting back to Rebel's question, about artists whose long songs are worthwhile ...

Five years ago, a friend took me to see a double bill at Red Rocks: The String Cheese Incident, and the Allman Brothers. The Allmans played first that night.

They played a 2-hour-45-minute set that kept me riveted from start to finish. Every note they played had weight and force. They could play long, drawn-out improvisational sections without ever forgetting that they were playing a song. And Gregg Allman sang with a sense of world-weary sorrow that made me believe every word. A truly great band.

After two hours of The String Cheese Incident, I was ready to go home. Maybe the Allmans simply had gotten there first with the most, but "the Cheese" just didn't do it for me. Compared to the Allmans, this band seemed just cute. They did some well-chosen covers, such as Talking Heads' "This Must Be the Place," but the way they drew even the best songs out made me lose interest. Great musicians, and great sound quality, but I simply was bored by them.

We did call it a night after two hours. I heard the following week that, by the time we made the 90-minute drive home, The String Cheese Incident was just about wrapping it up at Red Rocks.

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blasmo
Re: Deadheads
June 24, 2009 08:48AM
It's all about structure. A lot of jam bands think they can just throw song structure away once they start going, but the really good jam bands understand that you need a tether to keep people interested. Good jam bands also understand dynamics, which keeps stuff interesting. String Cheese, Phish, Dave Matthews -- they all think that technique is everything, and forget that technique is what got you there. Now, you have to convince us to stay. Too many of these people forget the audience and concentrate on solipsism. I mean, this isn't Ornette Coleman, where you take the melody and subvert everything about it, turning it into a pattern for improv as opposed to simply being the song's melody, which you might never get back to. Anything by these bands that I actually like are studio-bound, structured songs, as opposed to obsessive, yet boring, noodling. There was a great jam band out of Denton called the Mushroom Groovy that I used to love to go see, but they poured in some legitimate funk rhythms into their jams to keep things energetic and listenable. Miss those guys. Great cover of Prince's "Sexy M.F." You never knew it was coming.
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STEVE
Re: Deadheads
June 25, 2009 02:44PM
I thought i heard jerry garcia today while listening to nuggets #1.

no?
well now, that is definitely kinda lame but i still have fond memories of them (or was it canned heat?) via me mums yie dyed days anyway. pirates cove cir '69-'70 west palm bch anyone?
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Delvin
Re: Deadheads
June 24, 2009 09:58AM
Is this turning into a math rock thread?
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