There is a segment of my family for whom the Grateful Dead
is nearly a religion. Being a Deadhead is one of the main pillars on which
their musical identities rest. In spite of the frequent exposure to the band
that their devotion has caused as well as several attempts to immerse myself in
their catalog (studio and live albums as well as bootleg show tapes), I’ve
always struggled with the Dead. This is due I think primarily to two reasons.[1]
The sheer amount of their output is the first and primary reason. I’ve heard
all of their studio albums from their debut through to 1977’s Terrapin Station, and only four (their
self-titled debut, American Beauty, From the Mars Hotel and Blues for Allah) have really made much
of an impression, and even still, I rarely listen to them. The Dead were always
at their best live (well not always, I’m sure they had their off nights), and I’ve
enjoyed both Live/Dead and Europe ’72, though not enough to return
to them frequently. At the center of the cult of the Dead is the thousands of
bootleg live tapes have been completely overwhelming due to their sheer
quantity. My understanding is that the changes in their live show over the
years were so distinct that the most dedicated of Deadheads will know within
the first song what year or tour a particular tape is from, but I haven’t
immersed myself enough to even know which years of their career would be most
in line with my tastes.
This brings me to my second major hurdle with the Dead:
their style of songwriting and jamming is not one that appeals to me that much.
If I’m going to listen to live jams from the Dead’s first decade or so of
activity (1965-1977), I much prefer the heroin-indebted noise of the Velvet
Underground’s 1969: The Velvet
Underground Live or the space rock drones of Hawkwind’s Space Ritual. Outside of this twelve
year period, I turn to the psychedelic chaos of Acid Mothers Temple and the
drone metal of Boris, among others, or eschew rock altogether in favor of
exploratory or abrasive free jazz. By contrast, the Grateful Dead’s music is
rooted primarily in bluegrass, country, folk, and other sounds that don’t grab
me as immediately as the aforementioned styles do. Moreover, even with all of
the noodling and endless jams and ridiculous amounts of drugs, pretty much
everything I’ve heard from them sounds like the band is completely in control
of their music. I can really only think of one time in the hours of Grateful
Dead music I’ve heard where they sound like they give in to chaos: “Viola Lee
Blues,” the final track from their self-titled debut album.
“Viola Lee Blues,” a cover of a Noah Lewis standard, is
nearly twice as long as any other song on The
Grateful Dead, and has a much liver feel than anything else on this record
or any other studio album they put out in the sixties. During the song’s first
third it is a fairly standard, if slightly heavier than normal, early period Dead
song, with Jerry Garcia’s singing through much of it. A little more than a
third of the way in, however, Jerry steps away from the microphone and the band
gets into a really excellent jam. After a few minutes, at about the eight
minute mark, it starts to sound like the acid that they were probably on was
taking a bad turn, and the tight jamming begins coming apart at the seams. Jerry’s
guitar line starts tripping over itself and then descends into feedback, and
Pigpen’s keyboard follows suit, burying the drums, bass, and rhythm guitar in
noise. And then suddenly, with 70 seconds to go, the Grateful Dead ship
abruptly rights itself and the band returns to the original song, vocals and
all. It’s an exhilarating mess, abandoning logical transitions in favor of
letting chaos take over for a while.
Does “Viola Lee Blues” point toward a potential missed
opportunity for the band? Could they have explored noise and chaos a bit more
than they ultimately did? I haven’t heard any live tapes from this era so I
have no idea if they’re more noisy and chaotic than the tapes from 5-10 years
later that I’m more familiar with. My difficulty with the rest of their catalog
and my lack of knowledge of where to start tapes-wise has deterred me from
pursuing this era of Grateful Dead concerts, but returning to “Viola Lee Blues”
over the last few days has reignited my interest. If my favorite minute from
any Grateful Dead studio album is not reflective of anything the band was
pursuing live around this time, then I’ll be sorely disappointed. Ten years
later, the band released Terrapin Station,
a studio album with a mix that buffs off all of the rough edges the band might
have had left in their music. It’s my least favorite studio record I’ve ever
heard of theirs (although admittedly I’ve never ventured into the wasteland
that I’ve heard their eighties records supposedly are). I think the mix on Terrapin Station is indicative of the
direction the band’s music ultimately took, and that direction is why they’ve
never appealed to me as much as some of their contemporaries have. An alternate
trajectory for the band could have had them pursuing this noisier direction in some
of their music without fully abandoning their primary jammy folk/bluegrass
sound. Had they really embraced the darkness and the unknown that is so much a
part of death and really lived up to the second half of their name, I’d
probably be a Deadhead.
[1]
Well three, actually, with the third reason being that I’ve never been crazy
about Jerry Garcia or any other member of the band’s vocals. When it comes to
their live shows, however, the instrumental portions generally outweigh the
vocal portions in both length and importance, so I try not to let my indifference to their singing get too
much in the way of the listening experience.
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