Any artists out there? Like good ones, who wanna make a Dead comic book? Any lawyers out there wanna tell me precisely where on the scale from happy ending to prison girlfriend (the ugly one) that action would fall?
Also, if you mix up the letters in the word “dead”, you can make Dade, which is a county in Florida or Edda, which is Old Norse hoolihoo. Perhaps you can make some other words it you’re some sort of Boggle nut, but if that’s the kind of nut you are, I’ll have no truck with you at all. Nut.
And I’ll just tell you upfront that I’m leaving Phish out of this entirely. I have as much interest about arguing Dead v. Phish as I do with getting involved in internet arguments about atheism: none.
Pink Floyd – Quick: what was the Pink Floyd sound? (Yeah, yeah.) Imagine Floyd jamming on, say, Summertime Blues. What would it sound like? Right.
Jefferson Airplane – The whole two singers just kinda standing there annoyed me. If you’re singing on a stage, you either stand tall with thrusted chest holding a libretto or you rock the fuck out and end the show by laying your enormous wang on a PA speaker, allowing the audience to watch it vibrate to the feedback of the guitars. That’s a lead singer. Being curly-haired and singing part of shitty Airplane jams makes you just a guy standing there singing occasionally.
Van Halen – Eddie and Garcia were both virtuosos, I suppose. Eddie could play a lot more notes. Both were known for their custom guitars, although Eddie made his in his garage for $40, and the creation of Garcia’s guitars always included, somewhere along the way, the phrase,”Well, it costs what it costs, man.” These are some of the most dangerous words in the English language, and when you hear them, you should stop letting the person who spoke them have anything to do with your money ever again.
The Sleigh Bells
Where is your drummer? You fuck right off back to Brooklyn and get yourself a drummer. We understand that the Marshalls are ironic, but Leggy Von Bangsinhair, an Ibanez guitar, and an IMac do not a band make.
Queen – And that pains me to say, because I love Queen. When the Wembley ’86 double-CD live album from the legendary–yes, legendary: like Dunkirk–Wembley Stadium Show came out, I ditched school for an hour to go to the mall and pick it up immediately: I wanted to show enthusiasm in my purchasing so perhaps Queen would do another tour in America. Freddie was dead within weeks.
But still, it was a good album.
Freddie did this a lot. No one in the Dead ever did this, except maybe after chimichanga night at Club Front. So, points: Dead.
U2 – Because every band is better than U2. It’s music for people who don’t particularly like music.
The Beatles – You couldn’t dance to the Beatles. Could you make sweet, sweet love to them? You could certainly make drugged-out love to Revolver, but the rest of it? Piffle and bosh. Plus, Revolution #9 was, pound-for-pound, every bit as annoying as Seastones, but y’know what: Seastones wasn’t on the album in the middle of the all the other stuff, the stuff you actually wanted to hear but now you had to sit through these dicks futzing around with their recording desk or, since it was 1970, get up and walk across the room the move the record needle, which is barbaric.
The Who – The Dead and the Who had a friendship/friendly rivalry thing starting at the Day on the Green in ’76. It was only an equipment loan from The Who that turned the Egypt excursion from “economically infeasible” to simply “ruinously expensive.” Also, Daltry, Townshend, and the dead one behaved badly after Keith Moon’s death: they should have retired the name, at least. Instead, they carried on with a drummer so boring he was called Kenny Jones.
A recent comment requested a post on Scientology. Whether it was Scientology vis-a-vis the Dead or just by itself is beyond me at this point and I just don’t have the energy to look it up. The request must be denied, of course. I’m pretty sure just by entering the word Scientology into the bloggings that I have been inscribed on sort some of list that I want no part of. I agree with the Supreme Court (of this country, not Germany) that Scientology is an actual religion and not, for sure, the easiest tea leaf to read in the question of humanity and its evolution. We shall not achieve the stars because it’s 2012 and people are still stupid enough to throw in with Scientology.
As for the Dead AND Scientology, I will also not be investigating any links. I will not comment on the fact that Scientology was made for the Dead: the goofy sub-Blavatsky metaphysics, the misapplied use of scientific terms, the vast cash outlays. Now will I mention that Hubbard and Billy buy their captain’s hats at the same store: The Fash’n Cap’n, down by the docks where the wind blows and so does Wendy.
So, there you go, fine sir: I will NOT sully my precious, virginal (sigh) bloggings with a post based on a REQUEST!
(Seriously: anybody got anymore requests? I’m hitting a wall here.)
Thoughts on the Dead 