The Grateful Dead Thread - Page 3

algernon · 06-08-2005, 06:58 PM

Saw them many timeswhen I was in college. "Workingman's Dead" and "American Beauty" are undenibly good albums. I know it's unseemly to speak ill of the dead,but my love of the Dead is dead and I am grateful. I find them quite depressing now. So much of their appeal was tangled up in hippie mystique & the connection to Ken Kesey & when you subtract all that trippy stuff there's not much left. Jerry Garcia was over-rated as a guitarist,..uninspired.. returning to the same tired riffs over and over.

Psychedelic Syd · 06-08-2005, 10:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by algernon

Saw them many timeswhen I was in college. "Workingman's Dead" and "American Beauty" are undenibly good albums. I know it's unseemly to speak ill of the dead,but my love of the Dead is dead and I am grateful. I find them quite depressing now. So much of their appeal was tangled up in hippie mystique & the connection to Ken Kesey & when you subtract all that trippy stuff there's not much left. Jerry Garcia was over-rated as a guitarist,..uninspired.. returning to the same tired riffs over and over.

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Funny, at times I find myself defending the Dead and at other times I am putting them down when someone has overrated them in my opinion... But I agree with Alg in that a HUGE chunk of their fan base were into them for the hippie vibe and the music was secondary...

My interest in them has remained about the same for about 25+ years (when I first heard them)... I saw them live once (that seemed to be a must if you ever wanted to talk serious about them) and overall I think they were good but far from great... They don't even rank in my top four of S.F. psychedelic bands and may not even be in the top five (with the Airplane. Quicksilver and Moby Grape ahead and maybe even early Steve Miller as well as Big Brother)...

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Seerix · 06-08-2005, 11:44 PM

I do remember working in a supermarket that was close to Pine Knob in Michigan. Whenever the Grateful Dead came to town, a million hippies followed them and flooded our store. This would actually have been fine with me (I thought it was pretty neat to have them all visiting our small town), but we actually spent a great deal of time making sure they didn't steal anything. I am not sure how successful we were in that regard, because there were always so many, but I do know that they certainly didn't BUY a whole lot.

anotherbrick · 06-09-2005, 01:34 PM

I somehow missed out on the Dead in their prime - taking the path less trodden, I suppose - but I've caught up on them by way of live recordings floating round the net. They sound pretty great now, I think they would have been amazing 30 years ago.

panbient · 06-09-2005, 01:47 PM

i never really got into the dead. then again all i've ever heard was the later-era country-ish stuff. which was still being hyped as 'totally psychedelic' when i was in highschool (in the 90s). i'll have to check into those earlier discs mentionned to see what the real psychedelic hubbub was about.

it's also kind of funny to see some of the members of the dead sticking up for the business end of things in the face of some counter-culture 'hippy' types on the festival express (1970) dvd

czgibson · 08-13-2007, 02:59 PM

I'm undecided about the Dead. I like some aspects of their work and dislike others. Some of their jams are excellent and the instrumental work on something like the first side of 'Blues For Allah' is sensational, but sometimes they just don't pull it off, and everything starts to sound the same, chugging along at a moderate pace and not really going anywhere. Still, I'll always respect musicians who take the risk of going for total improvisation.

Their country songs are OK, by and large, but the weakness of the band's singing voices is often distracting. There's a huge difference in the vocals live and in the studio. If they had Crosby, Stills and Nash on vocals they'd be great!

slumph · 09-21-2007, 11:25 AM

amazing band with a knack for improvisation unparalleled before or since

slumph · 09-21-2007, 11:26 AM

^^ducks and backs out of thread slowly^^

Team-Rancho · 09-21-2007, 01:48 PM

I cannot say I remember anything about that band. I've heard a song or two once, but didn't get hooked. In terms of their music, no comment from the Ranchow one. Cool name though.

EDIT: I wasn't wearing shoes while typing this message.

mattitude10293 · 09-26-2007, 11:45 PM

I've just recently getting into the Dead and I think thay are great. They are very smart musicians, they way they write and improvise. They are most always playing in modes which makes their improvised sessions almost always sound good. It takes a talented and well learned guitarists to play like this. So i dissagree with an ealier post that Garcia was overrated, he was a great guitar player.