Zappa.com

Please listen to the "Live Dead" version (23 minutes) and let me know what you think of Jerry's guitar playing.




Thanks

No. Leave!!

_________________
Make your checks payable to QUENTIN ROBERT DeNAMELAND, Greatest Living Philostopher Known to Mankind.

Good idea!

It's not Garcia at his best but it's good.


It's way better than the pathetic butt-rock to be found on the myspace page that you advertise. That Johnny Tuscadero shit is obviously parody music but it still sucks rubber donkey balls. It's poser music at it's lamest. Makes Garcia look like a musical genius.

Garcia had a close relationship with the perfect note.

_________________
Music > Everything
CLETUS must now, regretfully, dispose of the ones who refuse to alter their unmusical ways.
http://www.vulturesawait.com

noodling.

I tried to get into the grateful dead already some 40 years ago (and over the next ten years, I really gave them a chance...).

to this day, I can only say that the best grateful dead-album I've ever heard was 'blues for allah.'
(but, I haven't heard that one either in quite some time).

nope. grateful dead never did it for me.

_________________
"bit of nostalgia for the old folks."

I followed the Dead off and on and off for a few years but had pretty much lost interest with the concert scene by the time that Jerry kicked. A good show was a complete and full-on out-of-body experience, especially if you were running with the right kind of people, but it seemed that it was becoming more common for the shows, although still enjoyable musically, to lack that 'Deadhead' atmosphere. And without that 'atmosphere' the shows just got way too long. These were the shows that it seemed that everyone that you ran into was trying to run some kind of deal, scheme or scam at you, the raging drunk frat kids outnumbered you and several levels of security paid way too much attention to you. Whatever happened to all the fun in the world?

If you want something a little more extreme check out the album, 'Grayfolded'.

I'm sure the 'Live Dead' version is in there somewhere...

_________________
When the going gets weird the weird turn pro - HST

Miasma!

I spent far too much money on Zappa albums and glue to get into Grateful Dead when they were still alive, but I have been curious about Dark Star for a while, although I've never had a real impetus to check it out. But this Grayfolded thing sounds so much like the right thing for me, because I love expansive, tentative music. So thanks for the recommendation, Sam I Am - I ordered it from Amazon Germany yesterday and really look forward to hearing it

_________________
We make a special art in an environment hostile to dreamers. Frank Zappa, 1971

I personally couldn't stand all the dirty hippies that always tried to bum stuff off of you, like smokes, or a garlic bologna sammich, or a healthy swig of my Sunny D. Always spouting off about how we all need to share. Which is high-larious as most of them had nothing to share. They just wanna share YOUR stuff.
That, and I can't stand the smell of patchouli oil, which they use like deoderant. That is the most foul smelling crap in the world.
Anyhoo...

_________________
You might think my hats funny, but I don't...
Shitty blog./Shitty youtube.

I listened to disc one of Grayfolded yesterday - it sounds pretty good, although not as satisfying as a good Zappa workout like Zoot Allures live 1976, for sure. No foul smell from the CD, fortunately

_________________
We make a special art in an environment hostile to dreamers. Frank Zappa, 1971

Tomorrow's assignment: listen to Let Your Love Light Shine from the Woodstock DVD.

"Yeah!" "Yeah!" "Ooooh!" "Yeah!" "Yeah!" "Yeah!" "Yeah!"

_________________
You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

I most likely would not be into this band at all if I didnt have a lot of friends in high school who became deadheads. I never liked the music when I first heard it and when I did go to shows (which they played alot in the Bay Area in the mid to late 80s) I stayed in the parking lot and got high and tripped out on the freaks. Surprisingly there are alot of Deadheads also into Zappa. The first show I saw was at Monterey in 85 and driving in it felt to me like Woodstock. There were hippie buses and vws everywhere. I fealt like I was transported back in time. It was a 3 day show and everyone I saw was tripping. Still the music didnt grab me. I remember when the Dead actually played Darks Star again after something like 15 years of not playing it. Everyone made a big deal because before that everyone would always say "damn they didnt play Darkstar" like it was the best song ever, then after they played it no one ever mentioned it again. I still dont like the song and would skip it on a playlist. It was really the Dead's first vehicle tune for experimentation and general trippout sessions that became known as Space along with Drums in Space. On a good night with your head in the right place Space was like a conversation amongst Alien lifeforms. Near the end they incorporated midi into this and phil could be playing an Oboe while bob was playing a viola while jerry was pretending he was miles davis. Then Micky would bring out the I beam which was a huge 7 foot long beam with piano strings wired to it and pickups to capture the subtones. He would play the instrument with a huge piece of metal like a giant slide and sometimes hit it with full force to get sounds like godzilla taking down powerlines. The album "Infrared Roses" shows where the Dead went with this and is a better example then Greyfolded IMO of what they were trying to do with the song Darkstar to begin with. Plus there are no actual songs on "Infrared Roses" and parts are strangely remeniscent of SUAPYG in that these are air sculptures.

Jerrys playing on songs like "Cumberland Blues" or Viola Lee Blues are more what I get into. He was a hell of a bluegrass player and had all those licks down by the time he got into the Dead. The entire band could improvise as a unit and usually my favorite parts of the shows were the segues between songs (lasting 20 minutes sometimes while they figured out what song they were going to play) and space. Glad I got to see some good shows, at the end the entire scene was so cliche it made me wanna puke...really it started to suck after the MTV videos.

_________________
Music > Everything
CLETUS must now, regretfully, dispose of the ones who refuse to alter their unmusical ways.
http://www.vulturesawait.com

I think it was Jerry himself who once said that the the Grateful Dead was a lot like licorice.....not everybody likes licorice, but the people that like it.........really like it.

I was always more into the music than the scene, as I agree with some of the previous sentiments about Dead-Heads made here....."they only want to share your stuff"......yeah, that made me laugh. I would be in amazement at people that would be endlessly searching for a ticket when there were still tickets available at the box office......they didn't want a ticket.....they wanted a free ticket. Or the person you saw in the parking lot searching so hard for a ticket only to see them (went you went to pee) hanging out in the hall in a "circle" with firends instead of inside listening to the show.......they'd only come in for a Morning Dew.....

The comments about them bringing Dark Star back after a number of years.......that was the quandary, right......the Dead was about doing something new every night......not re-hashing old tunes.....but there were so many that placed the value on the set list. A show with the most mundane of setlists could be the most outstanding show on tour, while the one that had all the "great" or unexpected songs could have been really flat. The songs themselves were just a tool. And personally, I feel like the jams between Scarlet Begonias and Fire On The Mountain (for example) were the "Dark Stars" of the 80s.

The current greatest hits tour going around as Furthur is a prime example of "wowing with setlist". 1968, they released an album called Aoxomoxoa, which was great, save for one extreme waste of vinyl called "What's Become Of The Baby". I can't even explain how bad this is. Furthur has been playing anything and everything from the Grateful Dead catelog, so it was really no surprise to me when last year they "performed" this. Again, why? I can only imagine because they are trying to impress crowds with setlist (see comments above). I know one guy who said it "blew him away". Why?....it's a piece of shit, and it really wasn't even a part of their history that you'd want to hear them break out....like a Dark Star. But I digress.

Anyway, now yesterday, 8/1, would have been Jer's 69th. So here's to ya my brother! Peace out!

_________________
"Why do people say "Grow some balls"? Balls are weak and sensitive! If you really wanna get tough, grow a vagina! Those things take a pounding"! -- Betty White

I have been a fan of the Grateful Dead almost as long as I've been a Zappa fan. Workingman's Dead and the double Live album are two of my favourites. American Beauty has some great tunes, and of course one song that we've all heard way too often and can't stand listening to anymore. A guy who sells records via the internet emailed me this week to say he had a copy of Blues for Allah in good condition. I'm buying it from him next week. Like most artists, some Dead music is better than others. The only real clunker I have is Go To Heaven. Sorry I bought that one. Very lame.

_________________
A succulent fat one. A mod little flat one. Maybe a hot one, to give me the clap.

The 23 minute version of Dark Star on Live/Dead is pretty good (taken from Filmore East in 1971), but in my opinion there are other better (and even longer) versions of Dark Star on other 70s live collections that came out after Garcia's death. You might want to try Rockin' The Rhein from their '72 Europe tour. And the Dicks Picks series also has some excellent versions of Dark Star.

I'm partial to China Cat Sunflower and Weather Report Suite from the same time period (Grateful Dead at their performing peak from '68 to '73).