[4 articles]
Postcard from the road:
The Dead are truckin' again
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2009-04-12-postcard-dead_N.htm
4/12/09
By Jerry Shriver, USA TODAY
The event: Grateful Dead members Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir and
Bill Kreutzmann, now known as The Dead, launch their "An Evening
With" reunion tour, their first in five years.
The venue: The Greensboro (N.C.) Coliseum. A sold-out crowd of more
than 18,000 was on hand .
ROAD WARRIORS: The Dead remain grateful to their fans
Bizarre bazaar: The classic and 21st-century head shop gear included
a $500 sterling-silver, ruby-and-sapphire-studded belt buckle
engraved with Jerry Garcia's image; tie-dyed Bill Blass Jeans-label
smocks, $50; hemp wallets, $14; and packs of Zig-Zag rolling papers, $2.
Dedicated fan base: Babies, grizzled vets and legions of dogs, most
wearing tie-dye gear and/or Dead memorabilia, communed in the parking
lot before show time.
Heady Deadheads: "Leave it to The Dead to start the rebirth of the
band on Easter," said Stuart "Stu Baby" Halbert, 49, of Atlanta, who
paid $500 for a VIP package to attend his 84th Dead show (the first
was in 1973). "It's like being home again, with 20,000 of your
closest friends," says Barry Fogel, 61, of Roanoke, Va., who says
he's seen the band about 100 times.
Un-earthly presence in the arena: The late
guitarist/founder/spiritual leader Jerry Garcia, who died in 1995.
Re-opening the vaults: The band drew from all eras in its seven-song,
85-minute opening set, starting with the oh-so-appropriate The Music
Never Stopped. So many of the songs feature references that now can
be seen as tributes/commentary on the departed founder/guitarist
Garcia and the band itself: the trippy He's Gone, with its "nothin's
going to bring him back" refrain; the "we used to play for silver,
now we play for life" line from Jack Straw; and the set-closing
Truckin', which is about the band's wooly early days. But the most
joyous tribute/affirmation came on the band's last hit, Touch of
Grey, when the arena joined the musicians in proclaiming: "We will
get by. We will survive."
Nod to Bob: The second set showcased the band's patented psychedelic
jamming side. Following a solid All Along the Watchtower nod to '60s
compatriot Bob Dylan came an alternately furious then spacey trip
into the cosmos, led first by Weir and Haynes trading stabbing,
improvisatory guitar licks. Cosmic Charley, from the earliest days,
provided the sweet comedown, thanks to more tuneful than expected
vocals. Perhaps because the band's bluegrass-to-R&B-to-space jazz
repertoire is so incredibly diverse and their songs historically have
seldom been played the same way twice, Sunday's concert avoided the
golden moldies trap. The second-set delving into difficult and
complex jams showed these musicians remain tight and fearless and
are having fun. A long, strange and satisfying trip indeed.
--------
Generations Of 'Dead Heads' Keep The Rock Group Alive
http://www.digtriad.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=122367&catid=57
Posted by: Devetta Blount
4/12/2009
Greensboro, NC-- The Dead concert didn't start until 7:30 Sunday
night but concert goers started their party early Sunday morning.
The Coliseum opened the gate at 10:00 a.m. in anticipation of a large
crowd and major traffic. The Greensboro Police Department had at
least 25 officers working the event.
One man, who was at the Coliseum when the gates opened at 10:00 a.m.
told WFMY that he hitchhiked from California to attend The Dead concert.
The group, now called "The Dead", chose Greensboro to start their
first tour since 2004. The group now consists of the four surviving
members of the Grateful Dead.
WFMY News 2 Shane Apple talked to many of The Dead fans before the
concert to find out why the band is still popular with all
generations. One fan told us out of 210 shows they never seen the
group play the same song the same way. Some fans said the concert is
a break from recession depression.
The Grateful Dead started in 1965.
-------
Bring Out Your Dead
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/arts/music/12ratl.html
By BEN RATLIFF
Published: April 10, 2009
I WENT to a Phil Lesh concert in New York last fall, on the third
night of a 14-night run. I sat next to a man who looked informed: he
listened with familiarity and good humor and a touch of impatience,
as if he wanted to fast-forward through certain parts.
"Seen any of the other shows?" I asked.
"I've been to every show since 1972," he said. "In the New York area."
His name was Jimmy. By his definition, "every show" meant every
concert by the Grateful Dead, the San Francisco rock band, until the
death of Jerry Garcia, its guitarist and singer in 1995, and then
every subsequent show by Phil Lesh, the band's bassist, who has led
various touring bands with a sound much in the spirit of the Dead. We
got to talking. I asked when he thought the Dead reached its peak,
game to try out a half-formed argument for 1975, or thereabouts.
"Well, I agree with the people who say it was May 8, 1977," he said.
Jimmy was jumping a level on me. There are at least five different
levels to how fans talk about the Dead. The basement level concerns
the band's commercially released albums. This is how a lot of
interested but inexpert people once talked about the Dead myself
included in the early 1980s. I had a couple of skunky-sounding
audience tapes, tinkling out distant brown scurf from Nassau
Coliseum, but I was an unconnected kid. I listened to "Live/Dead,"
"Europe '72," and "Anthem of the Sun" all in the racks at Sam Goody.
The next level is periods or eras, the conversation I was prepared
for. There was the aggressive, noisy, color-saturated improvising
from 1968 to 1970; the gentler and more streamlined songwriting and
arranging of '72 and '73; the spooky harmonies of 1975; the further
mellowing and mild grooves that lay beyond. Next comes the level of
the Dead's best night: Jimmy's level, one based on years of close
listening to noncommercial live recordings, from the band's own
engineers or radio broadcasts or audience tapers. These began
circulating in the early '70s and became commonplace by the
mid-1980s, after I had wandered off the trail.
After that comes particular songs within particular performances.
(Some will say the "Dark Star" from Veneta, Ore., on Aug. 27, 1972,
or the "Dancing in the Street" from Binghamton, N.Y., on May 2, 1970,
encapsulates much of what they like about the Grateful Dead.) Beyond
that is an area with much thinner air: here involving, say, audience
versus soundboard tapes, the mixing biases of different engineers,
techniques of customizing early cardioid microphones, and onward into
the darkness of obsession.
In any case, once you get to Level 3, you have a sufficiently
authoritative understanding of the Dead. Or so I thought.
The Grateful Dead was a 30-year ramble of touring. It continued after
Garcia's death in a kind of post-history: first as the Other Ones,
and later simply as the Dead (no "Grateful"), which is the name it
will tour under this year. (The band now includes the original
members Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, as well
as the guitarist Warren Haynes and the keyboardist Jeff Chimenti; the
tour begins today at the Greensboro Coliseum in North Carolina.)
It was also an intellectual proposition, in how the band brought new
information and states of mind to a century of American music:
bluegrass, folk, blues, Motown, Bakersfield country and so on. For me
it often works best intellectually; I confess I hear shortcomings
even in a lot of good Dead shows intonation problems, weak singing,
calamitous rhythm. I would say I'm more interested in the question of
its best night ever than the answer. But that may not be the right
question anymore.
THE GRATEFUL DEAD'S live recordings represent a special order of
surfeit. Nearly 2,200 Dead shows exist on tape, of the 2,350 or so
that the group played. Most of those are available online either
for free streaming on Web sites like archive.org and nugs.net, or for
download on iTunes, like the "Dick's Picks" series and the more
recent "Road Trips" archival series, which uses master-tape audio
sources. The obvious solution to this terrifying situation, one would
imagine, is to delimit the options: to narrow that number down to a
very small canon of the best.
The canon of great Dead shows was built over 20-something years of
the band's existence, and is still developing. It was first created
by word of mouth from the demons who started the cult of Dead tape
trading in the early '70s and later by fanzines and books like "The
Deadhead's Taping Compendium," three volumes of concert-tape reviews
and essays on minutiae. There are also 12 published volumes of
"Deadbase," full notations of Dead performances; much of this
information is available online at deadbase.com.
Because of the culture of taping and collecting around the concerts,
the audience developed a kind of intellectual equity in the band. And
as the fans traded more and more tapes, in the nonmonetary currency
of mind-blow, a kind of Darwinian principle set in: the
most-passed-around tapes were almost quantifiably the best. If a tape
wasn't that good, its momentum sputtered, and it became obscure.
Deadheads have often been polled about their favorite show, through
fanzines and Web sites. The answers have stayed fairly consistent.
May 8, 1977, at Barton Hall, Cornell University. The pairing of Feb.
13 and 14, 1970, at the Fillmore East in New York perhaps the first
widely traded shows. The Veneta and Binghamton shows. You'd think the
canon would have been displaced as more and more information came
along, but it hasn't, really; it has only widened. I have spoken to
young Deadheads who, surprisingly, respect the ancient judgments.
"I'll stick with May 8 because of its historical importance," said
Yona Koch-Feinberg, an 18-year-old from Manhattan. "That's almost as
important as the musical ability of the evening."
DAVID LEMIEUX has been the tape archivist and CD producer for the
Grateful Dead's official archival releases since 1999. Mr. Lemieux
said he has listened to the Cornell concert "virtually weekly" since
the late '80s.
What's so great about that show? I asked him.
The group had just finished making the studio album "Terrapin
Station," which included a long and intricate suite sharing the
album's title; it was well practiced. Garcia had just completed
editing of "The Grateful Dead Movie," a concert documentary of sorts,
and a long and costly ordeal. Perhaps the members felt unburdened and
retrospective: the set list made an even sweep of the band's career
up to that point, from the early-repertory "Morning Dew," with its
cathartic but carefully paced five-minute solo by Garcia, to the
up-to-date "Estimated Prophet." (Much has also been made, by those
who were there, about the Fátima-esque appearance of snow on that May
evening.)
Mr. Lemieux characterizes the recording as the Dead concert one would
likely want to pass on to the most people: it pleases the most
tastes. But the Cornell tape also reached a critical number of people
at a critical moment. Almost 10 years after the concert, a cache of
soundboard tapes made by Betty Cantor-Jackson, the Dead's live
recording engineer, were scattered far and wide when her house in
Nicasio, Calif., went into foreclosure and her possessions were sold
at public auction.
The sound quality of the "Betty Boards," which began circulating in
1987, was exceptional: so good that for the initiates, it nearly
reinvented listening. She made her own stereo mix on a separate feed
from the house P.A. mix, strictly for posterity, and she considered
the mixes from 1977 among her best. ("I want you to be inside the
music," she once said of her audio ideal. "I don't want stereos
playing at you, I want you to be in there, I want it around you.")
The Cornell show was the first widely circulated tape to sound that good.
Also in 1987 the Dead had a hit single, "Touch of Grey." Suddenly the
band was so popular that it could sell out Giants Stadium in July and
return in September for a five-night run at Madison Square Garden. A
new excitement about the band, its present and its past, recharged
its fan base and grew it enormously.
But the standards by which we judge the Grateful Dead have changed
since then. Over the past several years it has become possible to
know entire periods with the same detail and definition with which we
once saw individual concerts. In some sense we're rolling back the
microscope to get a closer view.
In the late '80s information access was limited. You had to work for
your collection. It wasn't all online. In 1987 the ability to point
to a certain show a Cornell '77 or a Fillmore East 1970 indicated
great knowledge. But we can also now say that it indicated a kind of
lack of knowledge. Because more and more of us now know, from better
and better audio evidence, how the band sounded in the weeks and
months around those famous nights.
For example the Dead played a concert 20 days after Cornell, in
Hartford, that some, including Gary Lambert, a host of the Grateful
Dead Radio show "Tales From the Golden Road" on Sirius XM, consider
just as good. (That show, taken from the master tapes engineered by
Ms. Cantor-Jackson, has just been released by Rhino in heretofore
unbeatable audio as "To Terrapin: Hartford '77.") And it played a
show in Buffalo one night later, on May 9, which Mr. Lemieux prefers.
"To me the question is: Does Cornell stand up to the rest of the
tour?" said Dan Levy, a longtime fan of the band. (He wrote the liner
notes for "Road Trips Vol. 2, No. 1," a recent archival release of
some 1990 performances.) "And then, since you can listen to a dozen
shows from April and May of '77, you realize that the next question
is: How does one tour compare to another? This is where there's some
new motion in how the band is considered. The kinds of e-mails I'm
getting now are saying things like, 'We really should reconsider 1980.' "
IF you ask the elder members of the Grateful Dead's touring retinue,
the best-show question becomes quickly irrelevant. Owsley Stanley,
known as Bear, the early LSD chemist and sound engineer for the Dead
in the '60s and '70s, reacted with a kind of combative pluralism.
"All the shows of my era were good," he said in an e-mail message. "
'Best' is a value judgment reserved for each person." Then he moved
on to received wisdom about shows that he knew intimately, having
recorded them himself: "The Fillmore East shows in February of 1970
are seen by many as very special."
Ms. Cantor-Jackson answered with similar indirectness. "Rumor has
it," she said by e-mail, "the fans' favorite is a '77 Cornell gig."
But she also wrote of a performance from July 16, 1970, at the
Euphoria Ballroom in San Rafael, Calif., when the Dead was joined by
Janis Joplin for the song "Turn On Your Lovelight."
That show receives a dismal rating in the "Compendium." But: Ms.
Cantor-Jackson was there; San Rafael is her hometown; and Joplin had
become important, and would be dead a few months later. Why shouldn't
her memory attach special value to that concert? This is an example
of valuing the experience over the artifact: a way of appreciating
the Dead that's slipping away from us, gradually being replaced by a
way that's far less sentimental, far more critical, but curiously,
inclusive rather than narrow.
Original members of the band seem interested by the best-show
question, but aren't inclined to think that simplistically. Having
lived the 5,000 or 6,000 onstage hours in real time, they tend
naturally toward the wide-view mode that the rest of us are only
starting to know. I asked Mickey Hart, the drummer, what he thought
about Veneta '72, a winner in a best-show poll on the
concert-recording site Lossless Legs, at shnflac.net. (It's also
ahem one of my favorites.)
"I don't remember it," he said. (To be fair, he was on a hiatus at
the time.) He remembers periods, he explained. And bad gigs
Woodstock, for instance. A few free shows in the '60s and '70s, when
playing felt like an act of generosity. And the band's all-consuming,
six- to eight-hour practice sessions of the mid-'60s, when it was
pushing beyond blues and pop.
Since Mr. Hart obviously sees his time with the Dead as a journey,
what does he say when someone starts asking him about the specifics
of a single night, brandishing dates and concert-hall names?
"I say 'Yes,' " he said. "I always say 'Yes.' "
Mr. Lesh said he thinks along remarkably similar lines. He remembers
the free shows, the early years, '75 to '77, parts of the late '80s.
He doesn't remember Cornell '77. "I haven't listened to Cornell for a
long time," he said in a telephone interview. Was there any sense of
immediate recognition, I asked, right after the band finished a great show?
"We may have walked off and looked at each other and said, 'Whoa,' "
he said. "But generally there wasn't a lot of that. Performing takes
a lot out of you. Physical and mental energy. When it's been a good
show, you're kind of drained. "
And what does he say to the pinpointers, the best-show-ever-ists?
"I appreciate it, and honor it, and, you know, wail on," he said.
"But it's an individual thing. Maybe they were there. A lot of people
gravitate to the shows that they had seen. Since Jerry's death I get
the feeling that a lot of the Heads need to confirm for themselves
that it was as good as they thought it was."
Maybe that's the best one can do at the highest level of engagement.
Not to try to listen for the best night ever; not even to listen for
the best period ever. But to try to figure out why we're listening at all.
--------
The Grateful Dead's been raised
http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/1480350.html
Drummer Bill Kreutzmann says the band's ready to jam
By J. Peder Zane - Staff writer
Apr. 10, 2009
The Grateful Dead was not just a band, it was a community.
Starting with their communal home in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury
neighborhood during the 1960s, the band members, their managers,
roadies, families and friends formed a tight-knit unit that worked,
played and often lived together.
For the next three decades, the Dead and their entourage crisscrossed
America about six months out of the year. As they became the most
popular touring band in the land, the extended family grew to include
legions of fans, the Deadheads.
When the group's first among equals, Jerry Garcia, died in 1995, the
bonds between the four surviving band of brothers frayed. Differences
large and small emerged, and they have played together only sporadically since.
Proving that you can never really kill the Dead, the group is
reuniting once more. They and supporting musicians will launch a
sold-out, 22-show spring tour in Greensboro on Sunday. We spoke with
one of the group's drummers, Bill Kreutzmann, about keeping the Dead alive.
Q: How hard is it to keep a band together? It was harder before when
we had the pressure of keeping the band going year after year for 100
to 150 gigs. It was very intense and all-consuming. After Jerry died,
I think we needed some time away from each other to play with
different musicians, get fresh ideas, appreciate one another.
Q: So the relationship among the band members hasn't always been
filled with peace, love and understanding? It wouldn't be a real
relationship if it didn't have room for a whole range of emotions.
But the love has always been there.
Q: How would you describe your relationship to Phil Lesh [bass], Bob
Weir [rhythm guitar], Mickey Hart [drums]? We're brothers. For me, I
couldn't play in a band where the musicians didn't really care about
or love each other and the music. It's hard for me to leave the
studio now after rehearsal. I just want to hang out, have fun. We've
rediscovered a whole lot of positive energy. ... And it would be hard
to play our music without that. We're an improvisatory ensemble,
which means we have to rise or fall based on how well we listen to
one another, how well we interact, accent and complete each other.
Q: Your songs are almost as old as you are [Kreutzmann is 62]. How do
you keep them fresh? The real spirit of the Grateful Dead is freedom
-- freedom to experiment, to improvise, so the same song is never the
same song. This tour is not an exercise in nostalgia, but the birth
of a new band that will be creating new music through those old
songs. I'm really a jammer. The songs are really heads for those jams
that we'll stretch out in new ways every night. We'll play Dead, but
not the same old Dead.
Q: Planning any other surprises? We'll play acoustic sets some nights
but not others, and we've dusted off some rare old songs like "King
Solomon's Marbles." And we've changed a lot of things around,
extending jams here and there, a million things. But you can only
plan so much. We've been rehearsing a lot, but the key is to play as
we're feeling that night. Like John Coltrane said, "Damn the rules,
it's the feeling that counts."
Q: How did this tour come about? It was my idea. We were asked to
play an Obama gig at Penn State during the campaign. I said, if we're
going to take the trouble to play, let's go on tour. We were ready.
It was that simple.
Q: How has your understanding of music changed over the years? Since
I got my first drum kit as a kid, it's always about joy. When you're
playing -- or listening -- to music, you get on a train, you drift
into a journey. You stop thinking and just become mental. There are
no limits -- except for your imagination.
Q: How do you physically stay in shape? I drum a lot. I work out in
the gym, weight training, I eat right, lay off alcohol and any other
substance and my ears still work. Most of the others have had some
pretty severe trouble but, like, I can still hear you on the phone.
I'm 62 years old and I'm happy as I've ever been. I'm a lucky man,
still doing what I love with people I love.
--
[email protected] or 919-829-4773
.
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