And here we are, the Goddamn Grateful Dead.
Without the Dead we would have no bootlegs. Without the Dead there would be no Bootleg Country. Without the Dead my musical life would be much, much different, and a lot more boring.
Talking about why I love the Grateful Dead always leaves me twisted and tongue-tied. There are all kinds of reasons why I love the Dead, but in the end I always sound like a yelping dog, howling at the moon.
The old quote goes that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. Well, writing about the Grateful Dead is like doing the hokey pokey for Helen Keller. The Dead’s music is often just something you have to get. Jerry Garcia has been quoted to say:
Grateful Dead Fans are like people who like licorice. Not everyone likes licorice, but the people who like licorice REALLY like licorice.
I don’t like licorice, but I freakin’ love the Dead.
Reasons I love the Dead
The Grateful Dead wrote some sacrilegiously great songs. Jerry Garcia and his lyricist partner, Robert Hunter, are on par with Lennon/McCartney in terms of song craft. And I’d give the upper hand to Hunter for writing insightful, poetic lyrics.
Add to that a dozen or so heart palpitatingly brilliant songs by the rest of the band and you’ve got a collection of songs that rivals just about anything in rock.
Let’s go ahead and admit it, the biggest chunk of the Grateful Dead’s studio albums suck. They are either too experimental or too over-produced, but they almost always are too awful to listen to more than once. But as any Deadhead will tell you, the beauty of the Dead don’t lie in their studio work; it’s the live stuff that counts, man.
Live, the Dead were the kings of experimentation, lords of improvisation. They constantly reinvented themselves and their music. Some nights they failed. Some nights they flew into the outmost reaches of the stratosphere. Every night they laid it on the line unscripted and always interesting.
Truly, there was nothing like a Grateful Dead concert.
Listening to a crispy soundboard recording of the Dead in concert is like Nirvana (and we’re talking about the spiritual state here, not the grunge band). Lives have been changed by less.
It is as if each member is the lead performer, playing music from the heavens. Yet somehow, on some cosmic connective level they weave in and out of each other creating music that is alive and fitted together perfectly.
Grateful Dead
11/22/72
Austin, TX
Source: Soundboard
Stream this show at Archive.org
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Mark Saleski
woa! i did not know that sir brewster was of the Dead family. nice. i definitely agree that their live stuff is the place to listen, though i do think that a few of their studio recordings are worth several passes: American Beauty, Workingman's Dead, Terrapin Station, and (my favorite) Blues For Allah.
2 - DJRadiohead
Terrific column, Sir Brewster. Maybe it's because I admittedly don't 'get' the Dead but there are a lot of artists I do 'get' that I couldn't put ahead of Lennon/McCartney. That's kwazy talk there, Sir.
Seriously, I do love the bootleg culture they are almost entirely responsible for starting and "Hell in a Bucket" is a song I've always liked. I'm really only part heathen. OK- mostly heathen.
3 - Mark Saleski
i dunno...brewster not so kwazy. Hunter wrote some great lyrics that were overlooked by people outside of the Dead community because, c'mon those hippies just couldn't be that good!
4 - DJRadiohead
It's not so much that I am dismissing The Dead because in fairness, like I said, I am not in their camp. It's more that I put Lennon/McCartney on a pretty high plane. Aw, hell. What do I know? I won't even listen to the Dixie Chicks. Right, Mark?
5 - Mark Saleski
yes, mr. chip-on-your-shoulder.
6 - Kevin Davis
Thanks for the article, Mat. I'm a casual Grateful Dead fan, a breed of which I've not met many, but here are a few thoughts on your article:
1. While they are undoubtedly responsible for its boom and perpetuation, the idea that there would be no bootlegs without the Grateful Dead is incorrect. Generally, the first recognized bootleg by a major artist is Bob Dylan's 'Great White Wonder.' If someone knows different, I'm glad to stand corrected.
2. I think my inability to become a full-fledged Dead fan stems from the fact that, while I find Jerry Garcia to be pretty invariably brilliant as a songwriter and instrumentalist, I find the rest of the band to be among the most irritating musical personalities of all-time. I was really excited when I discovered the Jerry Garcia Band simply because there's no reason someone like Garcia should ever have to split mike time with a singer as mediocre as Bob Weir, never mind Phil Lesh.
3. I'm the only person I've ever met who prefers the Dead's studio records to their live recordings. During the live performances, the idea of placing extended solos between the verses to a song like "Eyes of the World" or "Franklin's Tower" seemed a way to break up the continuity of songs that were best heard as cohesive units. And while I admire the Dead's skills as improv players, I'm far more interested in the songs themselves, and the studio records do more to spotlight them.
4. I've been absorbing bootleg Dead recordings since high school (I'm a ripe old 22 now), and while I've tried as hard as I know how, I can't bring myself to acknowledge the "Drums/Space" thing, as well as any number of improvisational moments that descend into sonic madness, as anything other than instrumental masturbation designed to warp the minds of the acid-trippers. It doesn't sound like Coltrane's "Ascenscion," or other "free" ramblings in which the music is chaotic and turbulent but still with a definitive purpose, but rather like the self-indulgent explorations of amateurs. Garcia was the only musician in the group whose musical tangents were worthwhile (and even they were only so to a point). Phil Lesh plunking incoherently at the high notes on his "G" string while ambient noise buzzes about for ten minutes? No thanks. Give me the studio recording of a great song like "Ripple" or "Ship of Fools" any day of the week.
7 - zingzing
hippies.
8 - Mark Saleski
ha! the only the better than drum/space is a whole cd od Dark Star...i'm speaking of Greyfolded.
hey, you either "get it", or you don't.
as far as bootlegs go, the Dead encouraged taping, so that had a lot to do with it.
9 - El Bicho
I would also suggest "In the Dark" has a very good album of theirs as well. A great album that showcases their songwriting is "Deadicated", featuring the likes of Elvis Costello, Dwight Yoakam, Burning Spear and Dr. John. Everyone makes the song their own. Two persoanl favorites are Friend Of The Devil - Lyle Lovett and Ripple - Jane's Addiction.
There might have been other bootlegs before, but the Dead were the first ones to permit it, no make that encourage it, on such a wide scale.
10 - Dave
Mark: My Grateful Dead CD collection consists of Greyfolded and Infrared Roses.
Kevin: You can't seriously be comparing Garcia favorably to Weir as a singer?
11 - Mark Saleski
Infrafred Roses!! dammit, i just couldn't come with that title...and i own a copy!
12 - Willie Lively
Great article!Thanks for the access to an old Austin show.I didn't get "on the bus"until the Dead were playing Manor Downs right outside of Austin in the early 80's.72 was Phil's major year to shine.Thanks to the heavens Phil is shining on today. Willie
13 - Mat Brewster
Thanks for the comments fellas. Sir Saleski I am most assuredly in the Dead camp. I've got more Dead bootlegs than any other band, and more than I'll ever be able to listen to. Not that this will stop me from downloading more.
And you're right, they have some very good albums. American Beuaty and Workingmans are classic. Terrapin is way over produced, but the suite is brilliant. Theres a few others with good stuff on it, but mostly the albums just don't do it for me.
The Dead come with so much cultural baggage that people are often put off by them before they hear a note. Get a copy of American Beauty Sir DJ and you'll hear some of the magic behind their songs that I'm talking about.
I'll grant you, Kevin, that I overstated the existence of bootlegs in the post. There were boots before the Dead and there would be boots without the dead. But they would be regulated to a much smaller subculture were it not for the Deads acceptance of bootleggers.
Greyfolded is an amazing couple of disks. Someone else did the same format to "The Other One" that floats around in torrent sites from time to time.
Willie, browse around archive.org abit. They have tons of downloadable/streaming concerts, including a ton of Dead.
14 - Mat Brewster
Bicho, I can't stand most of In the Dark, though its the production that drives me crazy not the songs. And Deadicated has some very nice covers. David Gans produced another covers disk a few years back that was pretty intersting. I can't for the life of me remember the name of it now.
Garcia was assuredly the best musician of the bunch but I'd rate the rest of the band, and Lesh in particular quite highly. But yeah, if you're looking for great singers, the Dead aint your band.
15 - El Bicho
Mat, my pals and I got into the Dead late '80s and hit every stand they played in LA and the OC. Then made the road "trip" to Vegas every year when they stopped cming around.
"Dark" was the first new material after we became fans. We had heard most of it live before the album came out, so I am admittedly biased. I wouldn't hold it in the same league as AB/WD, which I use to have as a double tape which Warner Bros used to release, but there was a perverse pleasure in seeing "Touch of Gray" making it's way up the charts and on MTV.
Considering the Dead set up an area in front of the soundboard and even allowed some people to patch in, they did more than just accept tapers.
On David Gans' blog, he has an interview from last year with some tapers.
16 - Kevin Davis
Garcia owned Weir as a singer. Garcia had a charismatic voice and sang with a great deal of passion, while Weir sounds a displaced bar-band singer. In my opinion, Weir doesn't even rate.
17 - Mat Brewster
Bicho, I can certainly understand the sentimental love for Dark. Again there are some great songs there too. Heck, I love all but two of the songs on the album, live anyway. It's just the cheesy studio production that irritates. Like the crazy demonic sounds at the end of Hell in a Bucket.
Live though, that song rocked.
18 - Joey
Too bad Garcia drained a lot of his life chasing the dragon.
Great band, great stamina, anyone who has witnessed a concert or several has a story. I saw them 7 or 8 times, all by accident, all spur of the moment, half of them were free tickets (don't ask me how). My favorite Dead moment in time... a show with the Allman Brother's in 72 or 73 at RFK in DC. The encore was a jam on "One Way Out" and it flat out ripped the place apart. Truely a great moment for me.
Favorite all around show... Baltimore Civic in the fall of 72 or 73... I can't really remember, Dick's Picks has a release on it. I streamed it once and it sounded pretty rough... but the night inside that Civic Center was golden.
Now. I break out a CD occasionally, and I still enjoy them rattling away in the background. About Phil's bass playing. I always found unique. McCartney was unique, Prestia, Clinton, Clarke, Wooten, all of them are unique... but Phil is as unmistakable as the rest of the heavy hitters. It works.
19 - Mat Brewster
Too bad Garcia drained a lot of his life chasing the dragon.
Indeed. It's interesting to me that in the early days drugs helped shape the band into greatness, and in the end completely destroyed them.
The other day I was listening to some local radio station and a version of "Franklin's Tower" came on. It was obviously not the Dead playing and I couldn't recognize the singer's voice, but I immediately recognized Phils bass. It is very distinct.
20 - MOON BABY
MAT I LOVE YOUR WRITING...
I love the sort of romantic, wistful sort of feeling you have for the classic films, that more ...oh i can't eXactly call it an 'innocent' time, yet it feels so far removed from this fast paced, throw-away world.....I'm there.....if only in my dreamzzzz.....I love to read you...you evoke.....yes.....that's it
21 - Deadhead
Cool article. Long live the goddamn Grateful Dead and thank god we have boots to get us through the void.
Don't see this being reported here, so here's a link to some sad news: Vince Welnick Dead.
22 - Mat Brewster
Moon Baby, what can I say? Thanks. Thanks a lot.
Deadhead, I hadn't heard that news, and now I'm deeply saddened. I was no Vincehead, but geez, that's really awful.
23 - Joey
The release that everyone regards as "American Beauty" is probably attributed to the Rose on the cover... i.e. an American Beauty. But if you give the script a second look you can also see it as an anagram which reads "American Reality."
24 - noselice
not there to witness the genius of acid testing? when space / drums played you watched peaked minds open up to near freakouts caused by dark chords only to be calmed by happier rythems . Captain Trips with his band would watch the audience and guide them through their opened doors of perception. MIT now teaches a class on how sound reacts in parts of your mind .Bear and Scully soaked the new neo heads with the Steal Your Face and the Dead kept newcomers in tune .The music would grow on you like a fungus. for most it was secondary .the party was first and after the trips are no longer taken then it becomes about the music and then they can blame the next wave of newcomers for letting the secret out and screwing it up. Dea, secret warrants ,interstate drug trafficking ,10 to 15 year sentences and the biggets bust was a secret lab ran by a vegaetarian marathon running berkley professor of "how money travels through russia's mafia" in a missle silo in the desert at about the same time that Phish broke up .Never did like Phish sounds like the dead in every riff . love the Dead but most of the Dead's core music is classic americana. taking lines from all sorts of classic folk bluegrass blues jazz songs.if i continued to follow the acid wagons after Jerry's death onto the Phish Jam band era maybe they would have grown on me like a fungus of rye erogot too but trips are for kids as the old bootleg parking lot vendor shirts said.most don't want to be an acid casualty so they stop trippin after a short time .that,s why in my opinion some people prefer the short studio songs that sound more like classic american tunes and some prefer the long acid jazz jams that send you to the moon on a flshback . i can touch every sense in my mind when i put a copy of a dead show that i had been to . how hot or cold it was how smelly or sweet smelling who i was with .how i got there .what i bought what i sold . how shakedown street worked .diffrences of east coast shows and west coast shows . politicians kids. cops .mailorder.
25 - El Bicho
I googled "grateful dead acceptance of bootlegs" looking for info and lookee what pooped up number #1