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| mac_daddy |
re: phish
with hoist, it all started going downhill...
i will say that california caught on to phish late, so billy breathes was one of the first albums alot of my hometown buds had heard; i got into them after lawnboy was released, before junta was released on cd, and saw them all the time from 89 to 93. but in 94 hoist came out, and the songs changed. of the post rift albums, ghost is the best, but they are all second-class phish albums compared to rift, nectar, junta and lawnboy.
_____
the dead were an entity unto themselves. you were either on the bus, or you were off the bus, but they were absolutely unique, and no other act/live phenomenon will ever touch 'em. ever.
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| Poplar |
funny we're arguing about Phish albums (not live) but i think Farmhouse is a great effort.
and i agree, two vastly different bands. |
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| Poplar |
My take on Phish's live musical production:
pHenomenal Years: 97, 95, 93, 91
Good Years: 99, 94, 03, 90, 92,
"Eh" Years: 89, 96, 98, 2000, (ALL YEARS POST HIATUS) |
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| mac_daddy |
i liked farmhouse, too - i forgot about that one. i liked them all, but i see two distinct periods. i also bring up the albums because that is where the songs came from, and with those weaker tunes filling more and more setlist space, the shows kinda grew tedious. i jus didnt dig the poppy element of their sh*t. they should have stuck to singing about col forbin and possum - that was their bread and buter, and they kind of moved away from it in the end...
jumping back on topic....
i saw vince open a kimock (my favorite guitarist, aside from keef, of course) gig, and he did a solo piano thing, played a few tunes, including a very nice reading of the doors' "crystal ship." i seem to remember "samba in the rain" but i could be wrong...
speaking of sk, he posted this on his website...
quote:
I have good days and bad days. This is not one of my better days. My sense of loss, grief and confusion have been building slowly since Ramrod passed, and now with the news of Vince's utterly tragic departure from this world, I am charged with the personal reflection and comparison of the loss of these two friends and brothers.
I can't say enough good about Ramrod. Never will. Never could. In the brief time I had to work closely with him, his stability, determination, patience, strength, and capability completely changed my view of how a man could relate to his work and life by virtue of his character.
In my heart, I know that my friend Ramrod was at peace with his death,
As he was one with this world in his life.
Scatter the ashes and turn the page.
We will love and miss you forever.
Thanks man.
I don't think Vince moved as easily through this world or into the next as Ramrod did. We had some great times, great gigs, and I learned more about harmony from Vince playing his music than I ever learned anywhere else. But through it all, he was possessed of a nervous, lonely energy that always seemed to be on the verge of teetering out of control.
I loved and respected Vince, and reached out to him when he needed energy I thought I could provide. It wasn't enough. He needed more people to reach out to him. In more meaningful ways. He was important and special and fragile and somehow, I feel we failed him.
Look around you, look at this world. See the beauty in it. Now take responsibility for the darkness that we all feel when we turn our heads from our heroes and our friends, when we turn our backs on injustice and let that pain force us inside ourselves.
We all know people who are as important, special and fragile as Vince. Please reach out, please love, and ask nothing in return.
Lets not lose any more friends behind "too little too late."
Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.
Better days ahead. Keep the faith.
Love, Deeply, S.K.
hamza el-din recently passed, too. |
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| Jaxx |
quote:
Poplar wrote:
very different bands.
The Dead: a folk band. Traditional tunes turned 60's music.
Phish: very progressive stuff. Almost 21st Century.
i wouldn't define the grateful dead as a folk band. i would add bluegrass, r&b, blues and the "bob" show is definately rock n roll. it might interest you to know that when they reemerged apres jerry as the other ones, then simply, the dead, they were classified as "alternative rock"! go figure. i had the privledge of seeing this band--as well as JGB, New Riders of the Purple sage, kingfish many times since 1980 and still look forward to seeing ratdog as well as phil and friends.
phish reminds me of the frank zappa sound--i don't know how else to describe "that". zappa was in a class of his own.
imo, what they do have in common is that they are both JAM bands, mixing up their setlists and not sticking to a program that is set in stone/ both bands generated great dance music which made for a "grate" concert experience.
[Edited by Jaxx] |
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| lotsajizz |
I'm a veteran Head and am interested if others share my opinion that Ratdog usually gives a better show than Phil and Friends...'cept maybe when Warren is around
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| mac_daddy |
From Barlow:
**************************************************
VINCE WELNICK SUCCUMBS TO THE CURSE OF THE KEYBOARDS
The Dreadful Great, among our other bad habits, had a reliable
propensity for killing off keyboard players. It was a kind of ritual
sacrifice, I suppose, but the really terrible aspect of these
departures was the bottomless sorrow that drove out of the physical
world Ron "Pigpen" Mckernen, Keith Godshaux, Brent Midland, and now, on
June 2, Vince Welnick.
Like all of his previously mentioned colleagues, Vince killed himself.
But unlike them, he did it very explicitly, using means too appalling
for even me to relate.
The Coroner's Reports for his predecessors were somewhat more ambiguous
when it came to conscious involvement in their deaths. Pigpen very
clearly drank himself to death, though, given the nature of alcoholism,
I suspect that even in his last moments, he was surprised to find
himself at Death's Driveway. Keith was a passenger in the car wreck
that killed him. Brent did his best to tread on the slimy serpent of
Thanatos coiled in inside him. And I did my best to argue it back with
songs that, as it ironically happened, only amplified the love he could
not stand, the approval he was not psychologically equipped to
reconcile with his own lousy self-image.
I remember the time when Brent died better than I wish I did. Time
magazine, ever the supercilious snot-nose, honored me with the "George
Orwell Doublespeak Award," as the result of an interview with me in
Rolling Stone, conducted the day after the event, in which I declared
that he had "died of rock 'n' roll," when it was plainly obvious that
he succumbed to a drug overdose. (Upon winning this dubious
distinction, I wrote a letter to the editor of Time in which I said,
among other things, that "anybody who can't tell the difference between
metaphor and euphemism probably can't tell the difference between
poetry and lies." They didn't publish it, of course.
Like the rest of his doomed and gifted predecessors, Vince was a
strangely sweet man, apparently too empathetic to endure the cruelties
of this world. He had a passion he brought to his music that was
electric, a quality that, like his personal shyness, he also shared
with them. Writing songs with Vince was - as I've said of the same
marvelous process with Brent - the most intimate thing I ever did with
a man.
When Jerry Garcia died, Vince was alone among us in his wretched sense
of utter loss. He attempted suicide about six months later, thereby
86ing himself from any further creative interaction with what was left
of the Grateful Dead.
As a culture, we were never big on emotional vulnerability. Like a
caribou herd, we had learned, over a long period of time, to leave our
cripples behind on the tundra rather than risk the entire local genome.
That's life, Dude. Devil take the hindmost.
At one point, shortly following his suicide attempt and consequent
exile, I went up to Forestville, California to encourage him. He was
still in a heart-rendingly desolate state. We wrote a song the lyrics
of which went like this:
WAITING FOR THE SONG TO COME
Forestville, California , Thursday, January 11, 1996
What do you want from me?
Whatever it is, I am fresh out of it.
Ain't nothing here to see,
Best move along,
There ain't no doubt of it.
I get up in the morning, I go to bed at night
The hours in between seem to pass without a sight
No sight of mystery, no magic round the bend
No expectations 'cept a few I don't intend at all...
Look out on the sea
Big as it is, that's only the top of it.
Down at the bottom of the sea
You can sink forever
Cause there's no stop to it.
No end of trouble, no end of pain
No end of people to tell you you're to blame
No end to this world
And nowhere to go,
Except the music must have ended a long time ago.
Chorus:
So I am waiting for...
Waiting for...
Waiting for something strong.
Waiting for something to sing about
Waiting for the song to come.
When it does, there will light again
There will be colors in the world and birds across the sun
And everything that's been going down so hard
Will be coming right again...
But I'm still waiting...
I'm still waiting...
I'm still waiting for the song to come.
Verse:
Meanwhile, I got you,
Your tender words and all the little good they do.
Meanwhile, you got me
Ain't no great prize, but at least it comes for free.
It's an act of conviction, baby, simply holding on
Keeping forward motion, pretending to be strong,
Listening with all my heart for voices in the wind
That will be singing for us, Baby, when the song begins again.
Chorus:
Till then I'm waiting...
I'm still waiting...
Waiting for something strong
Waiting for something to sing about
Waiting for the song to come.
When it does, there will light again
There will be colors in the world and birds across the sun
And everything that's been going down so hard
Will be coming right again...
But I'm still waiting...
I'm still waiting...
I'm still waiting for the song to come.
As I recall it, this song had a stark and yet occasionally soaring
melody. Vince orchestrated it on his beautiful Bösendorfer piano as
though he were Beethovan writing a requiem. And now I can't remember a
single note of it. It was all in his lovely head and has died there.
Several weeks ago, he called me. He sounded upbeat. He was talking
about getting together with me and writing some songs. He told me that
he was working on reuniting The Tubes, his original - and marvelously
peculiar - band. I was into the idea of writing some new stuff with
him, just for the fun of it. And it had been fun, even in our darkest
moments. (Perhaps it was fun precisely because of the surrounding
bleakness.)
I told him I'd make of point of riding my motorcycle up to Forestville
the next time I was on the Left Coast.
I wish I'd done that. But then I wish a lot of things.
When my friend Spalding Grey committed suicide, I wrote this about
clinical depression, a nightmare I've experienced myself:
Fighting clinical depression is inevitably a lonely struggle. What
could be less conducive to compassion than a disease that make you
whine? Laymen and loved ones tell you to get a grip. They make you feel
ashamed to be sick. Even if they're more enlightened about the disease,
they can't help but harbor a secret, naturally human, belief that you
are suffering a failure of will rather than biochemistry.
Meanwhile, the doctors consider little but the neuro-soup and turn you
into a shambling medical experiment, testing pharmaceutical nostrums on
you that are as blunt as the mind is subtle, though just as
unpredictable. But, for you, life just trudges on. It remains, despite
whatever visible signs of well-being - wonderful spouse, great kids,
well-located house, etc. - a purgatory of uselessness, barren of joy
and meaning. Love, incoming or out-going, becomes something you think,
not feel.
How can we ask of anyone that they insist on living in such a world as
this? How can we be so arrogant as judge anyone harshly for taking a
pass on such demanding material manifestation?
I loved Vince Welnick. I wish, of course, that I'd been able to show
him that love in a manner that would sustained him. But, once one has
been pitched down that hole, it strikes me that he ought to enter a
condition of general amnesty. He took something from me that I
cherished, but I certainly won't hold it against him. |
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| Saint Sway |
quote:
lotsajizz wrote:
I'm a veteran Head and am interested if others share my opinion that Ratdog usually gives a better show than Phil and Friends...'cept maybe when Warren is around
Phil's better. Better band. Jimmy Herring was dope but Larry Campbell is a great guitarist. His rotation of "friends" are also stellar - Warren Haynes, Chris Robinson, Ryan Adams...
plus theres just no rational excuse for Bobby's short shorts. |
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| lotsajizz |
nope...not anymore
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| Left Shoe Shuffle |
quote:
lotsajizz wrote:
I'm a veteran Head and am interested if others share my opinion that Ratdog usually gives a better show than Phil and Friends...'cept maybe when Warren is around
Nah.
Gimme P&F any day. |
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| lotsajizz |
Phil bores me
he did not used to
he has over the last decade though
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| mac_daddy |
quote:
lotsajizz wrote:
Phil bores me
he did not used to
he has over the last decade though
i am with you on this one...
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| full moon |
I just "got " into The Dead the last year or so. I never really cared , but then something clicked and I think they are a great band...... |
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| Jaxx |
quote:
lotsajizz wrote:
I'm a veteran Head and am interested if others share my opinion that Ratdog usually gives a better show than Phil and Friends...'cept maybe when Warren is around
i'm totally biased because i'm a bob weir affectionado. he is clearly one of the most understated rhythm guitar players in music. his vocals are probably better than ever and i think the general consensus is that RATDOG is probably the best sideband he's been associated with.
i almost fell asleep at a phil and friends show last time i saw them at red rocks. they can get too "lost in space". Ratdog puts on a helluva show.dance, dance dance. kenny brooks the sax player is fabulous. jeff chimenti, the keyboard player is hot. the lead guitar player rob karan can hold his own, but it is clear he does not possess the talent of jerry garcia (few do)but they somehow they get around it. i think that jimmy herring of phil and friends does a better job.
i would agree that warren haynes should stay out of the mix. he slides his guitar too much and his vocals are too gritty. |
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| lotsajizz |
no one plays rhthym guitar like Weir...downright unusual
and Phil is original too....but, solo, he's too jazzy
Weir is rock n'roll
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| Gazza |
quote:
Jaxx wrote:
i'm totally biased because i'm a bob weir affectionado.
is that like 'aficionado' except that youre very very fond of him?  |
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| Jaxx |
quote:
lotsajizz wrote:
no one plays rhthym guitar like Weir...downright unusual
and Phil is original too....but, solo, he's too jazzy
Weir is rock n'roll
the other thing i like about ratdog is that they play requests. i was at a show a the boulder theatre march'04 when a guy loudly shouted "play THE WHEEL bobby". and he DID. when i caught them at the fillmore in denver on december 2nd from the third row (right in front of "him"--what a night!!) i requested silvio/tequila--AND they played it for me second set! then-- he looked right at me for acknowledgement. i was hyperventilating at that point (among other things). can't wait to see ratdog july 1,2 at redrocks. the 2nd is my birthday. what a treat.
i have to admit tho, the story about putting vince into a cab when he o.d(ed) before a ratdog show and sending him to the hospital is heartless and has me a bit unnerved. the only justification i can come up with is the aggitation over yet another band member O.D(ing) before a show and having no patience for it. its my understanding that bob is clean and living a healthfood life.
[Edited by Jaxx] |
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| lotsajizz |
yeah--Bobby's back on the brown rice and macrobiotics
it works for him
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| Jaxx |
quote:
Gazza wrote:
is that like 'aficionado' except that youre very very fond of him?
LMAO (now that i've been to babelfish--i have a hard time spelling the nongringo words, ignorant american that i am), more like FANatic!! :-D
quote]Saint Sway wrote:
plus theres just no rational excuse for Bobby's short shorts.
[/quote]
um, he has GREAT legs????
[Edited by Jaxx] |
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| Poplar |
Bobby and Jerry did their own weaving, for sure.
and yes, Bobby's style was very unique, added to Phil's sound the Dead had it going on. Whenever I listen to them, I turn Phil way up. Not many bands i do that with. |
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| mac_daddy |
quote:
its my understanding that bob is clean and living a healthfood life.
this is a joke, right..?
maybe the health food part is accurate - i mean, he always looked like he ate properly...
you also gotta remember that bobby is the youngin of the group...
as for the hospital/cab bit - that sh*t is LOW!!! the only thing that is worse is the crap that greg a pulled; i STILL cant listen to the allman bros. anymore because of that sh*t - such an absolute let down; that f*cking guy (greg) has absolutely ZERO character.
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| lotsajizz |
Gregg Allman is the biggest asshole in rock history....
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