#171994  by Jon S.
 
Chocol8 wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 12:03 pmI ended up looking at this week’s Billboard Artist 100 chart today. The Grateful Dead is at number 14 , just two spots below Taylor Swift and three below Billie Eilish, and ahead of newer generation artists like Megan Thee Stallion, BTS, Post Malone, and Kanye, as well as ALL of the other “classic” bands on the list, including those that are still active or semi-active. They are still very relevant 26+ years after the last show.
Thanks for apprising us of this! I just reposted the info. also on The Gear Page. :musicsmile:
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 #172006  by carlo zakers
 
strumminsix wrote: Wed Nov 10, 2021 8:18 am
carlo zakers wrote: Tue Nov 09, 2021 10:36 pm that is a bad habit you only see in very poor musicians ... they get excited and play faster and louder ...
Very true.
carlo zakers wrote: Tue Nov 09, 2021 10:36 pm Bobby apparently realized what a bunch of hacks he had assembled
I've never heard anyone call Bill, Mickey, Otiel, and Rob hacks before.
carlo zakers wrote: Tue Nov 09, 2021 10:36 pm slowing everything down, at the expense of the music sounding right, was the only way to control it ... like babysitting kindergartners ... this is a sure sign of poor musicianship, and i'm surprised he admitted it ...
it's funny how they never had this problem with Jerry and Phil and Brent playing, eh? ...
I'd argue that keeping great timing in you 30s and 40s is probably a lot harder than in your 70s when for most, energy is a struggle.


My experience seeing older musicians is that it's a struggle keeping their energy even. Further, Bobby said "good performance" which means controlling speeds, not slowing down. You combine those, their ages (Bobby's 74, Mickey 78 and Bill 75 ), and think it's a fair assumption that it's a combination of things with being "hacks" having nothing to do with it...
i agree that older age can make it harder to maintain quicker tempos ... :biggrin: i think everybody thought that was the reason they play so slow, but now Bobby has said that it's easier to keep things under control that way ...

i didn't think they were hacks, either, until i heard them play ... i am not trying to bash them... but, the problem is, there is no leader in D&C ... they are always lost ... with no one to turn to for direction ... which used to come from Jerry and Phil ...

that is how two great musicians... Mickey and Billy ... who definitely aren't hacks ... can PLAY like hacks in this situation ... because the players they are supporting are not accomplished at playing grateful dead music ...

Bobby is awesome, but he was always following Jerry... the Ying to his Yang ... now, no one is in charge ... there is no leader ... Bobby used to be able to just stand there, and allow things to happen all around him ... and with Jerry and Phil on stage, things would always happen ... now, he stands there waiting for something to happen, but it never does ...

Oteil is not accomplished at playing grateful dead music ... he may be ok at allman brothers, or r&b stuff ... but, from a technical stand-point, he is a "root" player ... mainly playing the root notes of the chord changes ... he doesn't really play melodies like Phil did, who often played through chord changes on the 3rd, or 5th notes of the scale ... wherever they fell within the melody he was playing ... this requires a while different level of playing skill than oteil has, who has no clue it even exists, as he plods along playing basic root notes ... song after monotonous song ... love his singing though!

mayer has kind of figured out one tiny style jerry used ... Jerry had lots of cool styles and modes he would play in ... but mayer can only play maybe one of those styles ... one ... he can play clean little licks that sound vaguely like Jerry ... but, he even ruins that by trying to fit the one blues lick he knows into every song, whether it fits or not ... and his jerry singing is atrocious ... the worst i've ever heard ...

so, although none of them are really hacks on their instruments, collectively, they play like hacks on stage ... which is understandable seeing as how no one is in charge ...

so, to keep things under "control", and from everybody getting too loud and lost ... bobby has to consciously slow things down ... at the expense of the music just sounding wrong ... it loses all life and energy ... Mickey and Jeff do their best to bang away and try to put some energy in it, but the tempos are just so slow, and wrong for the songs, that it is usually a lost cause ...

mayer and oteil try to groove along, but, since they have never really grooved to this music before, they really just don't know how ... there is a big difference between "playing" the song... and actually PLAYING the song ... anybody can just play the song ... but it takes a certain skill to actually PLAY it right ... which they don't

all in all, it is like the blind leading the blind ... the drummers try to make the best of it, but it is a flawed foundation they are working with ... i describe it like this ... you can't just replace Jerry Garcia, and Phil Lesh, with ANYBODY, and expect it to be anywhere near as good ... not to mention replacing them with mayer and oteil, who are both clueless about how to play grateful dead music ... plus they have no one to sing Jerry songs right ... and that's kind of a big deal ...

that is not to say that playing grateful dead music differently than the grateful dead is bad, or that you have to play it just like them ... but, D&C misses the mark on so many basic levels it is truly sad ... they ignore all the good things about the music that i love ... there is no energy, or feel, or creativeness ... i think they are a poor representation of the grateful dead music, and a stain on the good name that Jerry worked so hard to achieve ... as much as they wish they are, they aren't the grateful dead ... not even close ... they are so inept as a musical unit, that they have never even come up with a 3 chord song of their own to play yet ...

i was watching the rolling stones concert the other night from 2021, and they have a huge intro to their show remembering charlie watts ... five minutes going on and on, showing multiple videos on the huge screens of him playing and laughing ... dedicating their entire tour to him ...

as far as i know, D&C has never even acknowledged Jerry's existence on stage ... not a single shot on the big screen ... not a single mention of him on the mic ... and yet they constantly butcher his songs on stage, and make money off his songs ...

it's almost like they think they are better the the grateful dead ... and ... in some ways ... maybe they are ... they make 10 times more money than they ever did with Jerry ... at the expense of ripping off grateful dead fans, who spend huge amounts of money traveling to, and attending, their ridiculously high-priced, and musically sub-par "concerts" ...

hopefully this helps clear up my previous comments, and points out some of the problems that i see with their line-up and approach ... let me know what you think :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin:
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 #172008  by bzbz
 
the assumption that this band either is or ought to be a "replacement" of the Grateful Dead, I think, is underlying most of the negativity of the comments here....

In terms of capturing a piece of the old magic, D&C have certainly succeeded, with both music and scene, and I have found it often satisfying with that expectation....

I just saw a bunch of D&C shows this summer, then did Phil at the Cap - and those shows, too, captured a piece of the old magic, more than I thought they would.....

I'm sure if I didn't enjoy these bands, I wouldn't attend. but the "bashing" them (which is an overstatement) here seems more based on silly or distorted expectations rather than on musicianship

If folks want (musically) Vegas-style impersonators, there are quite a few cover bands, the biggest is DSO of course.

But Weir (and Lesh) have always brought their own individuality and sensibility to what they do, and that is part of the magic yes? And a lot of the criticism seems to be that they ought to do what the Stones do - play caricatures of their old selves - I'm glad they don't!
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 #172010  by Jon S.
 
I find certain of the posts in this thread fundamentalistic and undeserved (I've previously explained why so no need to repeat).

To those of us who get D&C - see you at the shows. :biggrin:
Last edited by Jon S. on Mon Nov 15, 2021 10:41 am, edited 2 times in total.
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 #172011  by strumminsix
 
carlo zakers wrote: Sun Nov 14, 2021 7:40 pm hopefully this helps clear up my previous comments, and points out some of the problems that i see with their line-up and approach ... let me know what you think :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin:
Hey dude! Grateful for you expanded thought processes. Now I can see what you're getting it. Thanks for sharing all your thoughts. And I too hear band and catalog maturity still young and maturing.

Like you were getting at, I hear that the band seems to have captured the symbiotic relationship between players but not the gumbo. Listen to the Dead at their best shows and you hear everyone playing lead sometimes, accompaniment other times - and all active and in it the whole of it, not just falling line and playing follow the leader... That's the gumbo I miss. Almost like D&C are playing too politely. I also heard it with the GD during some of the worst days of members' addiction and the rest of the band had to follow their troubled performance... But it was the exception for GD, and the regular with D&C.

FTR... I'm not a fan of D&C. It's what I mentioned above but worse, for me, is tempo cognitive dissonance. I have listened for 40 years the songs being around certain BPM, when they vary too far, I find myself rejecting the music :( it's a me problem.

But I'm super psyched it brings others joy and keeps the music alive. My greatest hope is that they sit down and write a new album of original D&C music!!!!
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 #172012  by Jon S.
 
strumminsix wrote: Mon Nov 15, 2021 9:32 amBut I'm super psyched it brings others joy and keeps the music alive.
Perhaps, in the end, this is the sentiment all can coalesce around.
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 #172013  by Jon S.
 
In the immediately above vein, I posted these thoughts last week on another forum. And I would again send Dead and Company my love for their contribution. I bolded a key point:

I've been thinking all day of how to express what I'm thinking. I still am not sure but here's a shot.

Every generation, and within the generation, every diehard group of fans of any musician - guitarist, vocalist, composer, you name it - thinks their faves are the best ever and will be recognized as such forever.

I saw it with my grandparents with Jimmy Durante and Harry Belfonte.

I saw it with my parents with Frank Sinatra and Frankie Lane.

And I see it today with ... well, everyone.

And all of the crooners I've already listed by name are still acknowledged today as greats - in history books and music articles - but who really still listens to them regularly? Do you know people who do? Except perhaps for Sinatra, I don't.

It's incredibly hard to be truly timeless. It happens very, very rarely. Bach is. Mozart, too. The Beatles probably will be, too. But who else?

The Grateful Dead are no lock. But to say even that they have a shot at it - for this to be true, you can't rely on the people who saw you live way back then. You need to renew your fans and listeners every generation.

The Dead have at least made a start.
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 #172015  by lbpesq
 
O.K. Time to take a deep breath and have some cookies.

There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say, but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy

All you need is love

Bill, tgo
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 #172021  by Jon S.
 
What? Bill references cookies again and this time no one storms off in a huff? ;)

This morning, I’m swapping out the E120 in one of my SSP 1X12s for the Copperback that arrived yesterday. These day, -15 lbs. is appreciated.
 #172023  by lbpesq
 
Sometimes we all need cookies. Cookies taste much better than acrimony.

Let us know how you like the Copperback. I’ve used my new Quilter Aviator Mach 3 loaded with the Copperback in a jam and at band rehearsal the past two evenings. Seems to be a nice sounding lightweight speaker. I assume it will develop a bit as it breaks in.

Bill, tgo
 #172225  by carlo zakers
 
strumminsix ... i agree with everything you say ... and, yes, it's like they are being too polite ... nobody wants to step on anybody's toes ... or to be the one who totally screws the song up ... the result is that they never get anywhere ... it's like they are treading water, waiting for something to happen... because not one of them has a clue how to make it happen ... that was always up to Jerry and Phil
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