Decoy

Did not know Jerry pulled the ps back out for the Dylan tour...after all, it's not quite like riding a bicycle. Pray tell...for Lay Lady Lay?
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
Did not know Jerry pulled the ps back out for the Dylan tour...after all, it's not quite like riding a bicycle. Pray tell...for Lay Lady Lay?
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I recall I'll be Your Baby Tonight, although I think there were others.
 
The classic combination of Estimated Prophet and Eyes of the World still grabs me to this day, with all the myriad twists and turns in how they went from one to the other.
 
Yeah, I agree...7/4 beat on EP was weird enough, but they usually glazed the crap outta that song.....Eyes, well what can you say?
 
I like what another Deadhead said about 5/8/77 (because I agree): it's not even the best show they played that week. I'll take 5/9. I went to the 6/7-9 run as well as all of the NYE run.

'77 has some fine shows, but there's one major problem. Lack of Phil. For me, Phil's bass playing was as important as Jerry's guitar playing. You got that from 1968-74. Phil wasn't as up front in the mix after those years. That's the time period I listen to ~90% of the time.

On the Dylan/Dead tour, Jerry only played pedal steel on "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight". I went to the Oakland show.
 
There are pasrts of the 5/9 set list & performance that I really like (Help-Slip-Franklin's, Comes a Time), but I can't ever forget the 5/8 Scarlet-Fire that seals the deal for me.

Besides, Donna Jean sang Sunrise on 5/9 which can ruin a show.
 
Totally agree about the Phil stuff....he went subsonic. When you listen to that almost bell tone he got out of the gibson bass in the early 70's, it's a bit of a mystery why he pulled all the high end out. New gadgets, new basses, boredom, who knows? The subsonic stuff did rattle one's innards when the bass bombs were called for, but the melodic Phil disappeared indeed. Band dynamics are responsible too I bet. In the early years..before even Weir got strong on the side guitar, Phil and Jerry were building towers of notes as a team within the band during the solos/jams...that shit was off the charts.
 
Joel, you nailed it. Phil's notes were like rubber balls of sound. His tone had more high-end overtones with the 4-string bass guitar than any 6-string he had when he switched to that configuration.

And are you ever right about Donna. Can you say "Playing in the Band"?
 
originally posted by Larry Stein:
Joel, you nailed it. Phil's notes were like rubber balls of sound. His tone had more high-end overtones with the 4-string bass guitar than any 6-string he had when he switched to that configuration.

And are you ever right about Donna. Can you say "Playing in the Band"?
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Yeah, at least with Playing, the improvisational mountains climbed were usually so strong that by the time they landed back into the finale, the crowd nicely drowned her out (if you were there live...otherwise, we just have to cringe and bear the sb/matrix recordings...)

As for Phil....I'm not sure what happened. He's maybe too intelligent for his own musical good. Those years where his bass was way upfront and tonally closer to a guitar, were good years. Incidentally, many of those yrs coincide with BK as the sole drummer.....and while I think they somehow gained elements when Hart came back, one only needs to go back to Europe 72 and check out Cumberland Blues to realize how potent and chameleon-like Billy was. Very very underrated drummer...and as a solo drummer, to keep the engine of the Dead running, that's a major task.
 
A friend went to the Berkeley Community Theater shows in Aug. '72. He hadn't seen Donna up to that point. There's a vocal part of "Sing Me Back Home" (towards the end) where in response to Jerry's vocals, Donna blurts out "Come aliiiive" before the two of them sing Sing Me Back Home again. My friend's immediate response was, "What is this? A fuckin' Pepsi commercial?!"
 
Europe '72 is my favorite tour. You got the improvisational flights of that time period with Pigpen's last hurrah. The versions of "Caution" on that tour take my breath away.
 
originally posted by Larry Stein:
Europe '72 is my favorite tour. You got the improvisational flights of that time period with Pigpen's last hurrah. The versions of "Caution" on that tour take my breath away.
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Well the whole 70's is cool to me, cuz the music expanded into jazzier realms, while still keeping the country roots music alive. That range is so impossible to imagine any other band doing. Early 70's had that Dead country crackle and hard rock sound, later in the decade the crunch softened, but other cool doors opened, as mentioned. Whatever genre they worked with, they usually worked it well enough so that the genre itself was practically hidden. Fuckers.
 
originally posted by Larry Stein:
Europe '72 is my favorite tour. You got the improvisational flights of that time period with Pigpen's last hurrah. The versions of "Caution" on that tour take my breath away.
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Excellent choice! It's the apex tour. For many reasons. The only real flaw that's notable is Donna and she's
still very new and marginal. The other is no Mickey Hart but you know how it is with drums... just not
of top level importance compared to other things.

Joel did you mean slide guitar? I have to say BW was worst slide player I've ever seen. His tone
excruciating and his style was artless.

Phil was INCREDIBLE in '69-'70 on that Gibson EB-3. Too bad it was stolen.

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In '76 with the return from hiatus, the bands' sound changed dramatically. I think he felt he needed to be holding down the bottom end more, also I think frankly that the drugs of choice had changed and that style was a little less demanding. It was the era of Bordeaux and blow for him.
 
The importance of drums cannot be underestimated. Perhaps the intricate interplay of guitar, keyboard and bass reduced that for the Dead, but one listen to The Who sans Moon or Peter Gabriel sans Manu Katche and the importance of drums is absolutely clear.
 
originally posted by David M. Bueker:
The importance of drums cannot be underestimated. Perhaps the intricate interplay of guitar, keyboard and bass reduced that for the Dead, but one listen to The Who sans Moon or Peter Gabriel sans Manu Katche and the importance of drums is absolutely clear.
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Definitely. I've played with two drummers before and felt a little slutty afterwards...all this trying to think about what fits where so that it doesn't get in the way of the other one and making sure that nobody's feeling hurt or left out if you focus on just one of them for awhile.

And the comment about Lesh's bass playing changing after his EB-3 was stolen, well that's to be expected. A friend once commented that Gibson basses "sound like trucks" compared to the sound of Fender basses. True that. The Gibson's double-coil humbuckers got the low frequency sounds just fine but without a lot of definition and punch (Jack Bruce used on on the Cream records too) and thus drummers were able to play over the bass lines. Once Phil switched to an Alembic bass, the sound of the hum-cancelling, onboard preamp boosted new instrument (which the Dead financed and helped develop) required the drummer (or drummers) to leave more space for the bass and play around and with it. Texturally-speaking, Lesh's switch to the Alembic was a game changer (and IMO an enhancer) to the band's overall sound and really freed them up to become more creative.

I wonder what the Jefferson Airplane would have sounded like if Jack Casidy had used a better sounding bass than the Guild he played on all of the early records...

-Eden (never owned an Alembic bass bit always kinda wanted one; still banging Fenders and the occasional Tobias and Hagstrom)
 
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