NEMD Grateful Dead Appreciation Thread

Love me some Dead. This band's been there with me since my first memories. If only I could go back in time to see them tour, my life would be complete.

Have to settle for Furthur, String Cheese Incident, and Widespread Panic now though which arn't too shabby of alternatives ;)

Can't wait for Panic's west coast tour this summer! Will be hitting almost all of those shows with a few dead/spread head buddies, a bright green bus, and a ton of Dead bootlegs to pass the drive time =D
 
The Grateful Dead merchandising machine obviously was a whole different animal than the original idea of 5-6 guys playing in a band but watching the video game of some rock star looking guys playing Sugar Mag was kinda gross.

The Dead (Grateful) had a lot of family depending on them, roadies and others need to eat and support families but now the whole video game thing is just a little hard to stomach.

Jerry had his own love of drawing and put it on ties, big deal. I know nothing about golf club covers so I cant speak on that.

But hey, you go on and play your fake plastic guitar.
 
pigpen1968 said:
But hey, you go on and play your fake plastic guitar.
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i don't play it. i have always thought the game was stupid, long before there were grateful dead songs involved. the idea that garcia would have been against anything that put extra cash in his pocket is unsupported by the available evidence. but go ahead and believe in your silly idea if it somehow helps you feel a little bit better about yourself somehow.

picked up my tix for furthur in philly here today. can't wait.
 
Yeah, I kinda do feel good about myself defending Jerry from someone like you Michael who claims he was greed driven. Like I said he had a lot of ppl depending on him, Im sure he had all kinds of offers to merchandise his name, the Grateful Dead were more than just Jerry and more than just six guys making the music and the decisions. I hardly think Jerry was all that concerned about making more money for himself.
 
the GD makes my blood richer

spill further
soak deeper
feed the roses

_______________________________
respect the dead;-p
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"Mountains Of The Moon" Playboy After Dark

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BTW
the dead would gather around $500 million a tour, considering the dollar value over-time as-well but...

he had no need to make ties and golf club hats w/e for,,? easily less the 2-3 mill a year,, thats giving that medium a bit much credit. i assume he made the nick-knacks to express himself and their message further.

he/they all didnt make music like that, which never seemed to catch on, and perform for free until until that was idiocy. then the gatecrashers came, and more drugs, and the phishers/heh and their dilution of the scene which turned into a traveling circus of people wanting money, dealers and exploiters...

we have all done frivolous, or shity awful things, so did he... he just did it in hiding and changed the world doing so.


... the last true lark
 
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pigpen1968 said:
Yeah, I kinda do feel good about myself defending Jerry from someone like you Michael who claims he was greed driven.
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when did i say he was greed driven? what i said was that holding him up as some kind of paragon of virtue is ridiculous. he had no problem licensing any kind of silly shit and thinking he would be against a video game strikes me as you projecting your own feelings about it more than anything else.
 
^heh

no, he wasnt exactly all virtuous,,, he, wasnt good or caring(so it seems) at being a father or husband... but, if i was his kid,, i would have to realize that this was a man that could be noted as the god-father of mythology and music - not just a Dead beat dad...


i cant think of any other 'rock and roll' band as relevant.


i <3 them, and enjoy peacefully explaining why...



though Robert Hunter was the catalyst for a great majority of their lyrics,,, Hunter was maybe one of the greatest song lyric writers that can possibly exist - i say with total confidence, and a library of music in my mind;-)

hehe- the thumb prints they took and made, rippled all around the freaking universe.
only the Beatles would be second in line here, for myself... they are timeless but too many of their songs are just mediocre, their good ones are some of they best music made,, but the consistent infinite creativity isnt there as with the Dead.


i would have to start going into classical composers to start bumping heads, which the GD would not last against, but only compared these other timeless masterpieces and classics.



<3
 
panic in paradise said:
only the Beatles would be second in line here, for myself... they are timeless but too many of their songs are just mediocre, their good ones are some of they best music made,, but the consistent infinite creativity isnt there as with the Dead.
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That's a migh-ty bold statement, and one I can't say I agree with. I find much more mediocrity in the Dead's catalog than I ever did the Beatles.

The Beatles pretty much embody precision-made music. All of their songs are so exactingly crafted that, with the exception of some of the stuff found on the Anthology collections, there's a consistent standard of excellence. I don't think the dead ever had such consistency. Yeah, their lyrics are pretty great, but the songwriting structure isn't there for a lot of their work (especially their early stuff). But really, that's just due to the jam-bandy nature of their music. You'll almost never hear a Dead song played the same way twice. They may have had more spontaneous creativity than the Beatles, but to say that their songwriting is better is a pretty bold claim to make, and not one I think Jerry and friends necessarily live up to.

I'll leave now before people start throwing stones. Or 'good vibes'. Has anyone ever been killed by a massive dose good vibes? Maybe that's how Jerry died. A lifelong exposure to good vibes.

/stoned rambling
 
hehe

yeah, the Beatles are some very technical musicians.

i play the guitar etc, and both the deads and beatles use some strange chords.
but the beatles,, their songs may sound easily done but to then sit and start picking,, is not so easily done. i have 'piano hands' and, holy shit - they were D-manding with their finger positioning, chord changes and 7ths 9ths 13ths;-) etc.

its strange, many of the chords in Beatles songs sound like melancholy on their own, or strummed and left to ring alone, but then accompanied and reasserted back into the 'structure' none other seems fitting...

the GD's guitar tabs are the same often, but most usually for myself they will actually end up being simple 'base' chords (& i have a knack for picking out songs).

- although i still believe what i said, what i enjoy more then saying so, is the thought of comparing such greats -



... has me imagine them playing together ...



brokeDown palace
 
michael said:
that's actually the only post-hiatus saint stephen that i like. the rest of the time that slowed down tempo along with donna singing along just don't do it for me. i wish there was more to the close encounters tease, though.
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Yep, I totally agree.

My all time favorite is def 1970-05-06 though.

It's almost too perfect.

1970-02-02 is amazing as well.
 
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I love the Jack - Jimmy - Music that closed set 1 from 1/22/78

KILLER dueling Jerry/Bobby slide on that Row Jimmy, unimaginably fanning from Jerry during the Straw build up, and the Music is that typical of what you would expect from that era.

The Stephen is sick, but the one from 1/11/78 tops it, trust me ;)
 
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