How could you go wrong with Keith’s first trip to New York, Pig singing Run Run Rudolph and Billy quite literally speedbagging the prehistorically large dong of a police horse (not pictured)? 12/4/71 from the Felt Forum, which is in Madison Square Garden, which is in New York.
A detailed analysis of minutes 11.45-40.30 of The Closing of Winterland (See previous post). We’ll talk about Bobby’s glasses later, I assure you.
11.45 What the fuck, Phil?
12.33 Donna thought it was the Halloween gig and came dressed as a woman ripped to the gills in an awful dress.
13.15 LISTEN TO FUCKING DONNA: SHE HAS THE VOICE OF AN ANGEL.
14.20 …but she should probably knock it off kinda soon.
16.00 What the sweet potato pie is Garcia doing? Oh my god, I’ve seen that before: that’s MOVING. GARCIA IS FUCKING MOVING. He is no longer in precisely the same spot Parrish duct-taped him to an hour earlier.
17.25, Oh, Mickey, why?
18.50 Garcia is two seconds away from twirling the guitar around his body while Angus Younging across the stage to emotionally bully Bobby. There is only one word, fellow Enthusiasts, for what is going on right now: rock star. Shut up.
21.40 Mickey is wearing a Dead shirt because of course he is.
22.26 Mickey is just terrifying.
22.48 Mickey just drum-fucked us all with his eyes and mustache, but mostly mustache.
23.29 We will get to the glasses, Bobby.
24.00 We’re all thinking the same thing, but let’s have some respect, ok.
24.30 Except i cant stop looking at them–oh, thank god, a wide shot.
26.30 Garcia has gone loopy. Now, I know he’s Jerry Fucking Garcia, man…but isn’t anyone else in this band? A certain dickpunching manager of the caddies at Bushwood? Mm, Danny? (You just read that in his voice, didn’t you? Predictable.)
13.05 There he is! Hey, Billy! What’s with the hair, Billy?
32.50 Bill Graham!
33.15 Sometimes i like it when Bobby talks. Sometimes.
37.10 There’s Phil aaaaaand no more Phil.
37.44 Keith exists!
40.30 I’ve decided I don’t want to discuss Bobby’s glasses.
Things that would get you thrown out of the Grateful Dead’s backstage:
As with the last video I posted, embedding is impossible so I will just link to 11/24/78 at the Capitol Theater in beautiful, downtown Passaic, NJ. If you don’t have time to watch, just listen: the sound is spectacular.
Quick question followed by hysterical rantings, accusations of treachery, cries of poverty (abject, moral, financial), and threats of reprisal.
Why not crowd-source the next Dead release? Put the 6 or 8 shows being decided among online and let the Enthusiasts decide. Why wasn’t that part of the Grateful Dead Game, that feculent folly? Someone explain that thing to me or I’m going to have one of my little fits and we can’t have the couch cleaned again: it’s more duct tape than sofa now.
Here’s my vote for the next one, pulled from a well renowned for its sweetness and goblins, but in fact all the more worthy because of its brethren: to listen to any show from Spring ’77 is to demand comparison and 4/22/77 at The Spectrum in Philly more than holds it own against any comers. The Peggy-O is the equal of the vaunted 5/7; the Scarlet>Fire might be better than 5/8.
P.S. The Scarlet>Fire is better, just objectively better. Don’t argue with me and go eat some fiber. And, hey: if you like what I’m doing, then wave the flag, huh?
P.P.S. Listen to Keith during the Dancing jam at 7:45: he hits these beautifully dissonant chords with the Hammond, which he uses quite a bit this show, but then he starts playing like a child, a drunken hairy child prone to smacking people, doing smack, smacking smack, and occasionally shoplifting. EDIT: There is no evidence whatsoever that Keith was a shoplifter. The smack, yes, but we have every reason to believe Keith paid for his candy bars.
Thereafter, Keith goes back to the piano to play some of the most gorgeous lines he’s ever laid down (you jive turkey) as if to reinforce his point.
P.P.P.S. They have, collectively, taken this show out back and beaten the living shit of it. BEST SHOW EVER! You stop that, you big bully.
Found this and thought you’d like it, but before you click on it, know this: you will be going to a desert, a ghost mall of the internet, a junction far, far across the Rio Grand (EeyOoo): MySpace. There exists a MySpace. Still. I wonder if their office still has the half-pipe and yoga studio? Didn’t “Tom” die in an auto-erotic asphyxiation thing last Winter Solstice? (That’s how I mark time, because of my beliefs. TOLERATE ME.)
So, you have to go to MySpace because, well, it’s on MySpace, but mostly because I don’t know how to grab the video, so just aim your clicker over the blue letters–not the blue thing, the blue let–good aaaaaand: there’s your bank account, Grandma. Love you, Gam. NOMNOMNOM your face Gam. Gonna kill you in your sleep, Gam. NIGHT!
EDIT: I’m not even going pretend to know what went wrong there. It’s beyond just apologizing and moving on: this is High Crime or Misdemeanor time. Fuck…WHOO, where was he even GOING with that? These are decent folks out there getting high and listening to the Dead while reading about the Dead. Fuckin’ stoner-ass stoner asses. Who am I again? Am I the Reader or the Faithless Narrator? Sometime, he uses italics for one, and sometimes…sometimes, I think this is all just a bunch of obscure lies and silliness, man.
SUPEREDIT: Play the video or I’ll teach you what the word ‘flense’ means.
So: the Grateful Dead playing Saturday Night Live on 11/11/78. (You should open the video in a different window or, you know what? You’re bright and capable and more than equipped to wrangle the doodads. Just be yourself all over the place.
And we start off with everyone’s favorite secret genius, Buck Henry!
And Billy!
.26 It’s called conditioner, Garcia. Plus–and I’m just saying–for a guy who always bitched about being on TV, he certainly does play adorably to the cameras.
.38 Here we see Donna, who for some reason is easy skanking.
.50 Was Phil just yelling at the drummers on live TV? Seriously, can no one get Phillip Lesh to exhibit anything even resembling human behavior?
1.05 Donna was always dressed like your grade-school art teacher that time you ran into her at the supermarket.
1.15 We need to talk about Bobby’s pants. Young man, are you wearing jodhpurs? Or are they riding pantaloons? Are you playing Young George Washington? Will you golf later? If so, is your caddie Bagger Vance? Are you the renegade scion of the House of Bourbon? How are those socks staying up–is there a garter in play here? EXPLAIN YOUR PANTS.
1.45 Although if we’re going to be honest, they do hug his ‘tocks quite nicely. Bobby’s sexy and he knows it.
2.00 The slide. That’s a choice.
2.22 Hey, there are other people in this band! (None of whom are attractive enough for a close-up, apparently.) And a great shot of both drummers, um, drumming.
3.00 Donna gives me boners.
3.12 It’s Rowlf the dog!
3.27 Hey, Mickey’s in this band!
The Dead made everything more difficult than it had to be. Other bands brought a quarter of the equipment, played for half as long, and made twice as much.
Perhaps the Wall of Sound is a testament to the resilience of the band, to their bond. Pink Floyd built a wall once, and now every time David Gilmour and Roger Waters are in the same room, they start making these ungodly hissing noises, like feral cats with unwanted fingers in their asses. Well, like pretty much anything with an unwanted finger in its ass, honestly. I digress…
Phil’s new hash-house/gin joint, Terrapin Crossroads, looks pretty swanky. I understand that they’re going for a more upscale vibe, but I think there are a few marketing possibilities that have been overlooked:
Eat your Phil!
Phil ‘er up!
Phil my mouth with goodness!
This week’s exotic meat dish: Box of Reindeer!
Our food won’t give you Lesh-maniasis!
Lesh is more, due to rising food prices!
Phil-ling the long afternoons between tours!
Our kitchen is not Phil-thy!
No, sir: Mr. Daley no longer dines here, sir. No, sir: we serve no liver whatsoever at Terrapin Crossroads. It sets Sir off. He kind of Hulks out. Except, you know: it’s Phil, so when he gets like that, we call him the Phulk–oh, totes behind his back, we just text, he doesn’t understand–and he rampages through the place demanding people show him their organ donor cards and then he strips to the waist and challenges men and women to fight and somebody always take him up on it and then it gets sexual and–why am I telling you all this? No reservations!
Y’see this is the kind of thing that I write and then I wait and NO ONE from the Grateful Dead calls me and says that I should be in the family and put on salary with a car. I know back in the day, everyone had BMWs, but I know times are rough, so an Audi would be perfectly fine as long as it’s got leather seats and you pay for my gas.
Thoughts on the Dead 