[tigerstrat]

Did the slower eyes return on 6-17-91?

Slower Eyes returned in 1985. Check 7/14 Ventura

[bodiddley]

I don't think the slower "Eyes" returned for good until the begigining of 1990. Compare Alpine '89 (sounds like a runaway freight train) to say 3-29-90, laid back but jazzy. Although I did just stream 2-25-90 and it has that same fast galloping feel that Alpine '89 had.

[tigerstrat]

Obviously one of us will have to go through every single Eyes 73-95 with a digital metronome and create a line graph of the bpm rates... I'll bet you see a lot of peaks and valleys.

After seeing how many cross-decade comparisons I came up with, I think MTTourPro has the best idea: tempo was according to circumstances of the day/mood. They did get slower and slower through the 90's though.

[Chuckles]

Obviously one of us will have to go through every single Eyes 73-95 with a digital metronome and create a line graph of the bpm rates... I'll bet you see a lot of peaks and valleys.

After seeing how many cross-decade comparisons I came up with, I think MTTourPro has the best idea: tempo was according to circumstances of the day/mood. They did get slower and slower through the 90's though.

I think I can live with that...

[bodiddley]

I nominate Tigerstrat. Get back to us on that will ya?

[hogan]

The Eyes tempo change occured late on the spring '90 tour. The Hartford Eyes is still pretty up tempo but the one w/ Branford is looser and lumbering. They pretty much stayed that way. I can't think of one that has that real punchy tempo after. If you've got one, lay it on me.
~MJH

[mttourpro]

Secondly, Vinnie was a professional and is better than ANY current keyboardist in ANY cover or tribute band out there. He was in the Grateful Dead!

I had to read that twice just to be sure I wasn't hallucinating. I'd suggest you take a good hard listen to Jeff Chimenti, Melvin Seals, Mookie Segal and Rob Barraco, (let alone a half a dozen other players more "under the radar") before you crown Vince as "better" than those guys.
I'd say I know 2 local people that are better than Vince on his best days.

[Rusty the Scoob]

Secondly, Vinnie was a professional and is better than ANY current keyboardist in ANY cover or tribute band out there. He was in the Grateful Dead!

I had to read that twice just to be sure I wasn't hallucinating. I'd suggest you take a good hard listen to Jeff Chimenti, Melvin Seals, Mookie Segal and Rob Barraco, (let alone a half a dozen other players more "under the radar") before you crown Vince as "better" than those guys.
I'd say I know 2 local people that are better than Vince on his best days.

I'll second that statement. Who is better than who is subjective but there's clearly no basis for calling Vince way better than anyone else just because he was a member of the band during their worst period.

[jdsmodulus]

Secondly, Vinnie was a professional and is better than ANY current keyboardist in ANY cover or tribute band out there. He was in the Grateful Dead!

I had to read that twice just to be sure I wasn't hallucinating. I'd suggest you take a good hard listen to Jeff Chimenti, Melvin Seals, Mookie Segal and Rob Barraco, (let alone a half a dozen other players more "under the radar") before you crown Vince as "better" than those guys.
I'd say I know 2 local people that are better than Vince on his best days.

I'll second that statement. Who is better than who is subjective but there's clearly no basis for calling Vince way better than anyone else just because he was a member of the band during their worst period.

I have to totally disagree sorry! Flame on!

[strumminsix]

Not to jump into a big hoop-la and defending JD but he made a distinction was to those in cover/tribute bands.
What VW did was original and unique. That's different than what cover keyboardists do when emulating others.

Many folks think that raw talent is instantly greater by those originally composing vs. those emulating others.

Personally, I think Scott from DSO did a fantastic job emulating the GD's many keyboardists and I greatly enjoyed listening to him. Having seen him scores of times as well as VW and TC about a dozen times combined I'd say I enjoyed hearing Scott more than VW and about the same (but very differently) than TC.

I've always wondered why TC doesn't play with any new-dead projects....

[jdsmodulus]

Not to jump into a big hoop-la and defending JD but he made a distinction was to those in cover/tribute bands.
What VW did was original and unique. That's different than what cover keyboardists do when emulating others.

Many folks think that raw talent is instantly greater by those originally composing vs. those emulating others.

Personally, I think Scott from DSO did a fantastic job emulating the GD's many keyboardists and I greatly enjoyed listening to him. Having seen him scores of times as well as VW and TC about a dozen times combined I'd say I enjoyed hearing Scott more than VW and about the same (but very differently) than TC.

I've always wondered why TC doesn't play with any new-dead projects....

+1 now lets all not get upset at JD. He has feelings too.

[bodiddley]

Who the hell is JD? Jack Daniels? Ya...he's a good friend of mine. Vince was average, that's about it. They selected him because he could keep up on the improv and sing high harmonies, but mostly because by that point the band had a European tour to do and didn't feel like auditioning a thousand people.

[Rusty the Scoob]

First, I take issue with the idea that just because we heard Vince playing his own style, he's necessarily better than people who we haven't necessarily heard get turned loose. Personally if I got hired to play my own style I would play my own style. If I'm hired to play somebody else's style than I do my best to emulate them but still end up sounding mostly like me. To me, squeezing out that last bit of my own style is a much bigger challenge than just playing however I want, even though I can play faster, louder, with more polyrhythms, etc when I'm being myself.

Second - I saw Vince up close and personal just a few years ago (maybe 6 months before he died) playing mostly Dead tunes at a regular bar gig... the kind of place any one of our bands could play, the Matterhorn in Stowe, VT. I could walk right up to him while he was playing, talked to him for quite a while and even bought him a Scotch and Soda. I had fun, but was NOT blown away by any stretch of the imagination.

[Chuckles]

It's well-documented in the GD Gear book that Vince wasn't even necessarily responsible for many of his sounds, but rather Bralove provided a lot of his MIDI patches and switched them on the fly during every live performance.

Just sayin'...

Which actually does speak to a major part of their sound/equipment from this era... Bralove played a HUGE role is sculpting the sound, as he also provided MIDI samples for an electronic drum pad for Mickey that he switched in and out from a huge library of sounds recorded from Mickey's huge collection of percussion instruments, which led to him also playing the role of "virtual performer" in drums/space. I also wonder how much ditching Healey for Cutler affected the change in sound...

[mttourpro]

As for the distinction b/w cover/tribute bands and "original" bands, I for one would say the Dead, Ratdog and P and F are basically cover bands for the most part in that they don't play much non GD material. Beyond that, Vince wrote 2 songs---on the rest, he was "covering" parts already established for the most part (mostly poorly I might add). True I think VW's sounds were mostly pretty lame, especially compared to Brent's, and also to what was available in any music store at the time....but, I'm not talking about his sounds as much as his playing....Comparing VW's and Brent's playing is a joke. It's like the Steeler's against a HighSchool team---that's a no-brainer if there ever was one.

Jeff Chimenti played so well on this last tour that it's become even more apparent how lacking VW really was. BTW---despite someone else having control over sounds, I'd like to think VW had a major says-so in the banks/patches being used. Funny thing about going from Healey to Cutler...I've heard a big reason for axing Healey was he wasn't transparent enough and interferred/took too many liberties for the band's liking (Weir maybe inparticular IIRC)...meanwhile, Cutler/Bralove did essentially the same thing---maybe moreso on sounds than on effects??

FWIW, I complained a lot after Healey's dismissal that the volume was not loud enough at shows. It always seemed like it could have been turned up at least a notch or two.


Bottom line--If someone thinks VW was a better player than ANY of the guys I mentioned in the previous post (and I did leave out a lot of other guys), than we're just gonna have to agree to disagree. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, even if it's wrong.

Peace---MT