The Dead - You really had to be there.

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 26 Feb 2011 4:17 pm

That Baltimore night was a good one ! I am thinking its about my tastes changing in a way. On long drives tour sometimes band guys swap ipods around and find the guilty pleasures in there. One bass player had tons of Rush tucked away in his. He was defending them so we put it on the system. After listening to a few tunes he relented and admitted that, yes, Rush does indeed suck but he still loves it !

Ron Whitfield · Post by **Ron Whitfield** » 26 Feb 2011 6:11 pm

Bob Hoffnar wrote:That Baltimore night was a good one!

I am thinking its about my tastes changing in a way.

Rush does indeed suck!

Whew! I think...

I can certainly appreciate that, we all evolve and sometimes question our past tastes. But yet I still like Grand Funk Railroad...
I'm glad I delayed 95% of my Dead listening so I can enjoy them now, and didn't miss out on the things I chose to focus on, or burn out on them. With almost everything recorded/archived I can select from all the shows what I like the best, and know why, thank you internet!

I say that every day... doh, you mean the band!

Tom Quinn · Post by **Tom Quinn** » 26 Feb 2011 8:27 pm

Well dudes and dudettes ya had to be there. I loaned Jerry my '54 Strat for some cuts on whatever album they recorded at Pacific High Recorders on Brady Street in '69, maybe Working Man's Dead. At the time I was living in a storefront up the street between Chet Helms and Minor Wilson. Always thought the Deadsters were decent folks.

Kreuztmann was our drummer up in Mendocino during the first time Jerry was sick. We played four nights a week for 10 years in the various honky tonks and biker bars between the Bay Area and the Oregon border. He switched off with Johnny Barbata (Turtles, Starship) and Tommy Kendall ("The Best"). Billy and Johnny had the $$ but Tommy had the chops. Gene Parsons played too, he was a very good drummer as well...

I was never a Deadhead being much more interested in Stax-Volt acts and hardcore country.

admin · Post by **b0b** » 27 Feb 2011 7:48 pm

Critics always seem to miss the point. The Grateful Dead were playing for the room, not for musicians or for posterity. They were in the moment. That's why people say things like "you had to be there" and "there is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert."

The recordings and the videos remind us of what it was like, but they're just shadows on the wall. Shadows of freedom.

Bob Blair · Post by **Bob Blair** » 28 Feb 2011 6:19 am

"Shadows of Freedom". Nice one b0b!

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 28 Feb 2011 2:55 pm

Yet at the same time, today's hyper-accurate, pitch & tone & time-corrected music sounds dead as a doornail to me. The first thing producers do with the sterile Pro Tools tracks is add some tube distortion, "re-amping", and chorusing to imitate something that's out-of-tune. And de-quantize things, add some time warbles.

There's an interesting theory that musicians who are struggling to get their ideas out - somewhat struggling - tend to play more passionate and interesting music. I've heard this specifically applied to Garcia - when they came back from their retirement in 1976, Garcia had spent so much time practicing that he didn't have to work on the "Dark Stars", consequently they dropped the tune. I hear the same thing with McLaughlin and a lot of sax players - they're like, too good. (!) (?) What are you supposed to play, after Charlie Parker... fuzak, ack.

Miles Davis use to pay his 2nd quintet (Hancock-Shorter-Carter-Williams) to NOT practice - he didn't want them showing up at gigs with a bunch of already-conceived patterns and smooth moves. Of course, ten million lesser musicians took that on as a mantra - "practicing will ruin your playing!" We're still paying for that one. (Not here tho, I don't much like piano except for this guy and Jarrett)->

http://tela.sugarmegs.org/_asxtela/McCo ... legePA.asx

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 1 Mar 2011 8:11 am

Oh, I get it now...
Yes!
I too went to see the band like 47+ more times... in spite of the 3-strikes "some of those shows kinda sucked" thing.

Here's a good list of nearly 2500 shows to choose from, listed "By Year":
http://www.archive.org/browse.php?colle ... field=year

Kevin Hatton · Post by **Kevin Hatton** » 1 Mar 2011 10:22 am

"In the moment" describes it perfectly. If you were at a show like that and weren't dancing, there's something wrong with you. Like the people I see who are sitting down at a Cambell Brothers show. Tom, that's a great story.

Joel Meginsky · Post by **Joel Meginsky** » 4 Mar 2011 3:44 pm

I think that in spite of their reputation for long jams ("Dark Star" on "Live Dead"),
they were equally if not more effective doing songs short and to the point, like a lot of their material from W.D. and A.B. (they would often string these together with more amorphous transitionary material which would in time morph into the next song). Garcia was capable of telling his story in one or two choruses, although he often chose not to do so. Many of his anthemic songs seemed longer because of his incredibly slow tempos. All in all, I think they were quite significant from a sociological as well as a musical standpoint. In my youth, their vast cover repertoire got me searching out the original source material. I don't feel I'm "stuck" in the '60"s, but something definitely happened at a Grateful Dead show.

Clete Ritta · Post by **Clete Ritta** » 5 Mar 2011 4:25 am

Dancing in the aisle was the norm.
I witnessed quite a few Dead concerts back in the day.
I was not a big fan, but all my friends were.

I recall a show at Hartford Conn. back in the 80s.
Picture 6 couples in a Ford station wagon from NJ on the Turnpike, tripping.
I ended up driving home, because our pilot couldn't steer the wheel anymore.
We all made it home safely.

Kinda like the Jimi Hendrix Experience or Led Zep, these were shows that transcended what you thought about the band at the time.
Seeing a live show is indeed a different experience than listening to an album.
It was a giant sing along if you knew the words.
You just had to be there.

Clete

Lefty · Post by **Lefty** » 9 Mar 2011 4:52 pm

Bob makes a great point. You had to be there at the moment. I only saw them live once, in 1969 I believe.
I know Jerry was still playing the red Gibson SG.
It was right after the Workingman's Dead album.
The highlight was when Duane and Greg Allman came out and sat in for "Will the Cicle be unbroken" and "Turn on your love light".
You had to be there.
Lefty

Larry Tracy · Post by **Larry Tracy** » 9 Mar 2011 10:05 pm

The cool thing with the Dead was it didn't matter what you thought of them or if they were famous or not . They did what they did, take it or leave it. They were searching for something new and in the moment and you could come along for the ride or not. Ended up a whole lot of people went along for the ride. Sometimes, I think, much to their surprise.

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 16 Mar 2011 11:12 am

as with several of us here, i got taken for a ride many times. living and traveling the san jose, santa cruz, and bay area territory in the late sixties was a wonderous experience.

Ron Whitfield · Post by **Ron Whitfield** » 16 Mar 2011 12:41 pm

One of my favorite T-shirts says - Those dirty F'n hippies were right!

Dave Hopping · Post by **Dave Hopping** » 17 Mar 2011 11:24 am

I wasn't there,so I wasn't impressed with the band.Playing stoned makes for as weak a performance as playing drunk.They and their equally intoxicated audiences might have thought they were creating music for the ages,but everything I ever heard from them,studio or live,sounded pretty lame from a performance standpoint,and I doubt if JG got many calls to do country sessions on either of his main instruments.
Credit where it's due,though....Some of their material cleans up pretty nice and isn't half bad when done by professionals.

admin · Post by **b0b** » 17 Mar 2011 11:30 am

Dave Hopping wrote:They and their equally intoxicated audiences might have thought they were creating music for the ages...

Not. You've missed the point entirely. It was never intended to be music for the ages. It was music for the moment. That moment is past.

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 17 Mar 2011 1:07 pm

dave..i get the impression that you may not realize how many famous country artists' most productive and creative periods were also, in retrospect, their period of heaviest drug and alcohol use. then once they clean up their act the material suffers lack of depth and creativity and passion.

Ron Whitfield · Post by **Ron Whitfield** » 17 Mar 2011 1:15 pm

"It was music for the moment. That moment is past."

That may be the saddest thing I've ever heard. Time to write a song!

Marc Jenkins · Post by **Marc Jenkins** » 17 Mar 2011 1:34 pm

Ron Whitfield wrote:"It was music for the moment. That moment is past."

That may be the saddest thing I've ever heard. Time to write a song!

Huh, I don't find that sad at all. Much like Buddhist mandela sand art.

Ron Whitfield · Post by **Ron Whitfield** » 17 Mar 2011 7:48 pm

Marc Jenkins wrote:I don't find that sad at all. Much like Buddhist mandela sand art.

Even if they never did another one again?

Playing for the moment has almost become a lost art.

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 17 Mar 2011 7:58 pm

b0b wrote: It was music for the moment. That moment is past.

Bob, Thank you for putting it so well.

Dave Hopping · Post by **Dave Hopping** » 17 Mar 2011 8:41 pm

chris ivey wrote:dave..i get the impression that you may not realize how many famous country artists' most productive and creative periods were also, in retrospect, their period of heaviest drug and alcohol use. then once they clean up their act the material suffers lack of depth and creativity and passion.

Indeed so,Chris.Creative people,especially performers,often do have difficulty managing recreational substance use,but I think that the artistry is created in spite of rather than because of the indulgence.Again,you're right to say that the later part of those artists' careers is characterized by a comparative lack of creative passion and groundbreaking innovation.
One could argue that diminished creativity tends to go along with growing older,and one could also argue that getting and staying clean takes up a great deal of the kind of energy that would otherwise drive new artistic creation.

Kevin Hatton · Post by **Kevin Hatton** » 18 Mar 2011 10:05 am

It's because they wind up burned out, brain fried, and in poor physical health for the rest of their short lives. Most greats never equal their early days. Brian Wilson freely admitted this in interviews.

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 18 Mar 2011 4:18 pm

I find it odd and spooky that it's apparently a "fact" that about 4% to 7% of adult males are "alcoholics" - but look at jazz musicians from the 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's etc., rock guitarists from the 60's onward, blues musicians! Country singers.... One might well wonder what the hell? because it's more like 50% to 80% or so. I mean some of it is obvious - working late nights, you get off work wound up and hey! You're in a bar! But there's still something more about the "take it to the limit" type of personality, I guess.

One way in which both Garcia and Jimmy Page really injured themselves was the expansion of "natural" highs from mere marijuana to both cocaine and heroin. I never had enough money to become a cokehead (and I don't need anything to make me wound up), but I do remember how "High Times" magazine was enthusiastic about legalizing cocaine, too. Then came freebase, then crack - some of the NORML people deeply wish they'd had the sense not to include cocaine in their wish list, as they feel that's kept marijuana illegal longer.

I've known so many old smokers who've come down with a variety of cancers, I wish it had been off the "schedule one" list just because more testing would have been done.

Mickey Adams · Post by **Mickey Adams** » 26 Mar 2011 7:37 am

Bob, I find your posts very interesting reading...I agree with you completely..Some players strive all their lives to progress...and hone the craft that is essentially tied to their livelihood..In the Deads case, drugs were obviously the reason they began to digress musically. Garcia was at one time, like you said, a driving force....But he wrecked the car, and didn't bother to take it to the "body shop" so to speak.
Some of the Dead bands Ive played with also seem to share this "gift" of extreme musical noisemaking...I love playing some of the old Dead stuff, but cant stand the lack of structure most cover bands find easy to mimic...But, its authentic sounding. I finally gave up trying to get 1 band to listen to reason..The songs could have been arranged, and recreated with some discipline very easily, and in my opinion improved upon...But, you lose that "Dead thing" .Brokedown Palace...Thats one of my favorites...Great song for steel too.. I seem to recall a picture of Clapton onstage with them....The look on his face was priceless....Completely lost, and had NO idea what they were playing