You know you are getting old when
You are watching television and here them mention Jerry Garcia. You then turn to your daughter and say, “You know who Jerry Garcia is?”
She says, “Yes”
Oh thank God, you say to yourself.
Just to clarify though, you ask, “Who is he?”
“He’s that actor guy”
sigh
Dude. You’re just not playing enough dead tunes around the house. Her response should have been something like, “Yeah, his guitar tone suffered when he started playing with Midi effects in the early 90s, but I still love that old Wall of Sound sound they had back in the day.”
I was waiting for someone to say that….
I have Sirius Radio and when I used to have crappy regular radio I would offer them $50 if they could tell me a Zeppelin, Who, and the classic Rockers songs.
I stopped offering when they got better. But there isn’t enough Dead on the regular radio.
thank god for Sirius.
I thought his tone went down from all the opiates (sp?)
If you want your young’uns to get into classic rock get “guitar hero” for Play station.
The downside is KISS.
I thought Jerry Garcia was an icecream flavor…
The Dead sucked. Never could figure out how anyone not completely stoned could listen to that shit when Bonnie Raitt was around and no one would give her the time of day.
Uhhh, who cares about Jerry Garcia? If you’re looking for old-time musicians, look to Hank Williams and Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs and Johnny Cash.
What kind of music do you like, Dana?
Both kinds: country AND western.
oh ok Dana.
Country is just a southern version of bands like the Spice Girls….
get a clue.
grrrr
The Grateful Dead are the ultimate American band. They brought all the influences together and managed to still be musically coherent (if at times less than coherent as individuals). They were emblematic of spontaneous, improvisational creativity around both music AND sound.
They weathered the storm from the wacked out hippy 60’s to the corporate 90’s. Their audience often sucked and I really did not suffer the stinky, grubby “headier than thou” urchins gladly (namely the ones there for the party more than the music).
But the band is unlike any other that will ever exist.
(And yes, Mahaff, Garcia at times overdid the MIDI in the 90’s, but nowhere near as much as Weir beginning mid-80’s. If you are looking for nice Garcia tone from the 90’s check out 6-15-1992 at Giants Stadium – So Many Roads. I was there while on leave from the Army overseas. Great times!)
Timely lyrics, considering they were written almost 25 years ago (interesting the random line about a mysterious person named “Rudy” :
Throwing Stones
——Grateful Dead
(Bob Weir, John Perry Barlow)
Picture a bright blue ball
Just spinning, spinning free
Dizzy with eternity
Paint it with a skin of sky
Brush in some clouds and sea
Call it home for you and me
A peaceful place or so it looks from space
A closer look reveals the human race
Full of hope, full of grace as the human face
But afraid, we may lay our home to waste
There’s a fear down here we can’t forget
Hasn’t got a name just yet
Always awake, always around
Singing ashes to ashes all fall down
Ashes to ashes all fall down
Now watch as the ball revolves and the nighttime falls
And again the hunt begins and again the bloodwind calls
By and by again, the morning sun will rise
But the darkness never goes from some men’s eyes
It strolls the sidewalks and it rolls the streets
Staking turf, dividing up meat
Nightmare spook, piece of heat
It’s you and me, you and me
Click, flashblade in ghetto night
Rudy’s looking for a fight
Rat cat alley roll them bones
Need that cash to feed that jones
And the politician’s throwing stones
Singing ashes to ashes all fall down
Ashes to ashes all fall down
Commissars and pin-striped bosses role the dice
Any way they fall guess who gets to pay the price
Money green, proletarian gray
Selling guns instead of food today
So the kids they dance, and shake their bones
And the politician’s throwing stones
Singing ashes to ashes all fall down
Ashes to ashes all fall down
Heartless powers try to tell us what to think
If the spirit’s sleeping, then the flesh is ink
History’s page will be neatly carved in stone
The future’s here, we are it, we are on our own
We are on our own. On our own. On our own.
If the game is lost then we’re all the same
No one left to place or take the blame
We will leave this place an empty stone
Or that shining ball of blue we can call our home
So the kids they dance, they shake their bones
And the politicians, throwing stones
Singing ashes to ashes all fall down
Ashes to ashes, all fall down
Shipping powders back and forth
Singing “black goes south and white comes north”
And the whole world full of petty wars
Singing “I got mine and you got yours”
And the current fashions set the pace
Lose your step, fall out of grace
And the radical he rants with rage
Singing “someone’s got to turn the page”
And the rich man in his summer home,
Singing “just leave well enough alone”
But his pants are down, his cover’s blown
And the politicians throwing stones
So the kids they dance they shake their bones
Cause its all too clear we’re on our own
Singing ashes to ashes, all fall down
Ashes to ashes, all fall down
Picture a bright blue ball just spinning, spinning free
It’s dizzying, the possibilities….
Ashes to Ashes, all fall down
Ashes to Ashes, all fall down
Ashes to Ashes, all fall down
Ashes to Ashes, all fall down
I could never get into the music. Partly becuase it seemed antique to me but mainly because of the the stinky, grubby urchins.
It’s definitely an acquired taste, not for all. It took me years. I stumbled across it totally by accident, by way of a love for the blues, a la Howlin’ Wolf. I never fit into the tie-dye hippie aspect of it…gee, I wonder why?
This is going to make Dana laugh coming from me but I always thought that the high level of “in-group conformity” among the outwardly non-conformist Dead Heads was off putting.
Ann Coulter’s a Dead-head.
Screw the extraneous BS of the “scene.” The music could, at times, be simply astounding.
And thank goodness for Sirius’ Grateful Dead channel; in particular the “This day in dead history” segments. These are portions of shows chosen from the Dead archives by a deadicated archivist.
That bit runs each morning at 7, right in the heart of my commute. Lately I’ve been starting my day with a dopey grin and remarkable music still buzzing in my head.
“Ann Coulter’s a Dead-head.”
So she claims, to the unending shame of those who would like to think they don’t share musical taste with nazi wenches.
Mahaff, ever heard Dark Star Orchestra?
I was speaking in the literal sense, as well.
Long live Led Zepplin!!!! Sorry guys…………
Long live Led Zepplin?
I don’t disagree. Good stuff. And the Zep guys are still making interesting music.
That bit runs each morning at 7, right in the heart of my commute. Lately I’ve been starting my day with a dopey grin and remarkable music still buzzing in my head.
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Sirius, the new contact high.
The Dead sucked. Never could figure out how anyone not completely stoned could listen to that shit when Bonnie Raitt was around and no one would give her the time of day.
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I saw Bonnie Raitt at Mount Pleasant HS’s auditorium in 1978.
I say that she definately benefitted along with so many others from the continuing community that the Dead provided/supported with their tours through the eighties when NOTHING old was new.
Tyler, “nazi wenches”…Ann? Or Michelle Malkin? Is it fair and balanced, you decide….
Best Garcia tune?
Loser!
Everybody’s breakin, and drinkin that wine,
I can tell the queen of diamonds
By the way she shines
Come to daddy, on inside strait
Well I got no chance of losin, this time
Well I got no chance of losin, this time
Well I’ve got no chance of losin this time