Phil Lesh Mods

mavuser

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Like Phil Lesh himself has said about the bass, best bet is to just "set it and forget it."

in listening to 1970's recordings of the Grateful Dead, I do believe this SF Bass has a superior sound to any other bass I've ever heard. With that said I also beleive the stock/factory SF bass with Bisonic from the 60s is a comparable second. And a SF Bass w Guild humbuckers, in my opinion, also sounds mighty good when dialed in-70s or 90s
 

Westerly Wood

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Watched the Other One Netflix movie about Bob Weir yesterday. Enjoyed all the Phil Lesh parts, really seems like a real cool guy. Always smiling. Impressed by Weir. Really do not know much about him. He was the glue of that band after all.
 

adorshki

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Watched the Other One Netflix movie about Bob Weir yesterday. Enjoyed all the Phil Lesh parts, really seems like a real cool guy. Always smiling. Impressed by Weir. Really do not know much about him. He was the glue of that band after all.
Haven't seen the flick, but I suspect it was easy to get that impression since it was about him.
But I also suspect you'd get some argument about that from more fanatical Deadheads.
Not sure you could really say any single one of them was "the glue", and actually Bobby was on the bubble for awhile: Phil and Jerry insisted he take lessons to improve his chops around '69 or so, "IIRC", while getting material ready for "American Beauty"
From his Wiki page:
"Weir played rhythm guitar and sang a large portion of the lead vocals through all of the Dead's 30-year career. In the fall of 1968, the Dead played some concerts without Weir and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan. These shows, with the band billed as "Mickey and the Hartbeats", were intermixed with full-lineup Grateful Dead concerts. In his biography of Jerry Garcia, Blair Jackson notes, "Garcia and Lesh determined that Weir and Pigpen were not pulling their weight musically in the band… Most of the band fights at this time were about Bobby's guitar playing."[8] Late in the year, the band relented and took Weir and Pigpen back in full-time.[9][10]

Although that source dates his "probation" to '68, I just recall another source mentioning the insistence on "self-improvement" from Phil and Jerry preceded American Beauty, and on that album I think he does demonstrate a new maturity and competence compared to the first 3.
After that I can't think of 'em as anything but a co-operative, but I'm not a "hard-core" Deadhead.
 

Westerly Wood

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Haven't seen the flick, but I suspect it was easy to get that impression since it was about him.
But I also suspect you'd get some argument about that from more fanatical Deadheads.
Not sure you could really say any single one of them was "the glue", and actually Bobby was on the bubble for awhile: Phil and Jerry insisted he take lessons to improve his chops around '69 or so, "IIRC", while getting material ready for "American Beauty"
From his Wiki page:
"Weir played rhythm guitar and sang a large portion of the lead vocals through all of the Dead's 30-year career. In the fall of 1968, the Dead played some concerts without Weir and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan. These shows, with the band billed as "Mickey and the Hartbeats", were intermixed with full-lineup Grateful Dead concerts. In his biography of Jerry Garcia, Blair Jackson notes, "Garcia and Lesh determined that Weir and Pigpen were not pulling their weight musically in the band… Most of the band fights at this time were about Bobby's guitar playing."[8] Late in the year, the band relented and took Weir and Pigpen back in full-time.[9][10]

Although that source dates his "probation" to '68, I just recall another source mentioning the insistence on "self-improvement" from Phil and Jerry preceded American Beauty, and on that album I think he does demonstrate a new maturity and competence compared to the first 3.
After that I can't think of 'em as anything but a co-operative, but I'm not a "hard-core" Deadhead.

well, I am not very informed about them at large, this is good story here. in the movie, Garcia was quoted in a 1981 interview that no one plays like Bobby, totally original. and some dude from Sonic Youth also echoed Bobby's prowess of playing like 8 different inversions of an E chord during songs...So he must have really practiced intently during 1968 to create what is an original take on rythym guitar playing. I also just liked his energy and at peace with life after all that. I am sure Weir and I would disagree on many stances, but I would sure like to meet him one day. I was surprised at how much I liked his story.
 

walrus

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I'm not a Dead fan, but I saw them live in the early 80's, since it was an "event" that looked fun - and it was, sort of. Anyway, I remember watching Weir and being impressed that he seemed to play chords as if they were single notes, very fluid and very quick changes. And his rhythm playing certainly helped drive some of their long jams, and I do mean "long"!

walrus
 

Westerly Wood

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I'm not a Dead fan, but I saw them live in the early 80's, since it was an "event" that looked fun - and it was, sort of. Anyway, I remember watching Weir and being impressed that he seemed to play chords as if they were single notes, very fluid and very quick changes. And his rhythm playing certainly helped drive some of their long jams, and I do mean "long"!

walrus

That is what Garcia and the sonic youth dude were talking about. Very creative, and I bet it was more a reaction to the super long song that Weir eventually created his approach to guitar playing. I mean, if you are playing the same 5 or 6 chords for 30 minutes, you got to change it up or go insane! Anyway, he lives up in Marin County with family, in house he bought in 1972. Up in the hills, really beautiful, has got 100 guitars on wall, nearly all electrics. the one he played the most in the film is the Ibanez custom which I thought interesting...looked really cool. his baby is a gibson ES 335, from 1958. didnt see a lot of acoustics, though there is a clip of him playing a small Omega? nah, cant be right, the guitar James Taylor now plays, custom builder, has an O shape branding on top of head stock.
 
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Happy Face

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That is what Garcia and the sonic youth dude were talking about. Very creative, and I bet it was more a reaction to the super long song that Weir eventually created his approach to guitar playing. I mean, if you are playing the same 5 or 6 chords for 30 minutes, you got to change it up or go insane! Anyway, he lives up in Marin County with family, in house he bought in 1972. Up in the hills, really beautiful, has got 100 guitars on wall, nearly all electrics. the one he played the most in the film is the Ibanez custom which I thought interesting...looked really cool. his baby is a gibson ES 335, from 1958. didnt see a lot of acoustics, though there is a clip of him playing a small Omega? nah, cant be right, the guitar James Taylor now plays, custom builder, has an O shape branding on top of head stock.

Like playing bass in a traditional blues band.
 

Westerly Wood

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Like playing bass in a traditional blues band.

yes! and it is quite possible what Jerry and Phil were asking Weir for was "hey man, we want to do all the noodling for hours, can you just provide the bottom end so we can fly?"
 

adorshki

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yes! and it is quite possible what Jerry and Phil were asking Weir for was "hey man, we want to do all the noodling for hours, can you just provide the bottom end so we can fly?"
Y'gotta read his Wiki page:
"The incident apparently led to a period of significant growth in Weir's guitar playing. Phil Lesh said that when drummer Mickey Hart left the band temporarily in early 1971, he was able to hear Weir's playing more clearly than ever and "I found myself astonished, delighted and excited beyond measure at what Bobby was doing." Lesh described Weir's playing as "quirky, whimsical and goofy" and noted his ability to play on the guitar chord voicings (with only four fingers) that one would normally hear from a keyboard (with up to ten fingers)"
Re: Roots of "noodling":
It's pretty commonly agreed the seminal extended psychededlic jam was "East-West" on the Butterfield Blues Band album of the same name released in August '66.
From Wiki page for East-West:
"In 1996, original Butterfield Blues Band member Mark Naftalin (keyboards)...released a CD on his own 'Winner' label entitled East-West Live". Noted music critic and prolific author Dave Marsh contributed a substantial essay in the liner notes regarding the historic importance of the song, both the original 1966 recording and the live versions.[6]
Marsh, interviewing Naftalin, notes that the tune was inspired by an all-night LSD trip that "East-West"'s primary songwriter Mike Bloomfield experienced in the fall of 1965, during which the late guitarist "said he'd had a revelation into the workings of Indian music."
Marsh's expansive liner notes observe that the song "East-West" "was an exploration of music that moved modally, rather than through chord changes. As Naftalin explains, "The song was based, like Indian music, on a drone. In Western musical terms, it 'stayed on the one'. The song was tethered to a four-beat bass pattern and structured as a series of sections, each with a different mood, mode and color, always underscored by the drummer, who contributed not only the rhythmic feel but much in the way of tonal shading, using mallets as well as sticks on the various drums and the different regions of the cymbals. In addition to playing beautiful solos, Paul [Butterfield] played important, unifying things [on harmonica] in the background - chords, melodies, counterpoints, counter-rhythms. This was a group improvisation. In its fullest form it lasted over an hour."
In his summation, Marsh points out that "'East-West' can be heard as part of what sparked the West Coast's rock revolution, in which such song structures with extended improvisatory passages became commonplace."

In the IMDB page for "Riot on Sunset Strip", a user describes the tune's influence on Garcia:
"The party music is "East-West" which appears on the 1966 Paul Butterfield Blues Band album titled "East-West." The 13 plus minute jam is acknowledged by most to be the first psychedelic jam song. The band's guitar virtuoso Michael Bloomfield adjust the tone of his guitar to sound like a sitar on parts of the song. The version used on the soundtrack is slightly different from the take used on the Butterfield Blues Band album". (Actually it's a lot different and I suspect it may actually be from early Electric Flag audition/rehearsal sessions, but the point is made)

"When the Butterfield Blues Band toured San Francisco Bay area early in 1966, an aspiring rock guitarist, Jerry Garcia heard them play "East-West", and he loved the tripped-out sound of the song so much he decided to use the psychedelic jam format used on "East-West" as the musical foundation for his newly formed band, the Grateful Dead"
That comment about "newly formed band" isn't quite correct, but it's true that in 1965 as the Warlocks they were basically a pop(Beatles)/Folk-rock(Dylan, Byrds) and blues/soul (Pigpen's influence: "Lovelight") cover band playing pizza parlor gigs.
They were even still the Warlocks for their first gigs at Kesey's acid test parties on his property in the La Honda redwood forests on the SF Peninsula in '65.
Where they met Augustus Owsley Stanley commonly known as "Owsley", or "Bear".
And the rock music world was forever changed.
This concludes today's lesson of "Music of the '60s".
:friendly_wink:
 
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Westerly Wood

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Wow! Al, incredible find and research. So Jerry and the GD directly influenced by Butterfield. Wasn't Steve Stills involved with Butterfield too? Anyway, the GD and Crosby were living together at the time...All recording at that same SF studio. So Weir was already playing great, but I bet the kick in butt from Garcia and Lesh, whether warranted or not, must have made quite the impression on the much younger, impressionable lad. "Ok, I will just keep doing what I am doing but more of it...I don't know what the hell they want, but worth a shot"?
 

adorshki

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Wow! Al, incredible find and research. So Jerry and the GD directly influenced by Butterfield. Wasn't Steve Stills involved with Butterfield too?
I think you're thinking of Buffalo Springfield. I mentioned their song "For What it's Worth", the tune about the Sunset Strip "riots" the film exploits, a few months back.
Anyway, the GD and Crosby were living together at the time
Actually that was about 3 years after Jerry's "East-West" epiphany.
...All recording at that same SF studio. So Weir was already playing great, but I bet the kick in butt from Garcia and Lesh, whether warranted or not, must have made quite the impression on the much younger, impressionable lad. "Ok, I will just keep doing what I am doing but more of it...I don't know what the hell they want, but worth a shot"?
I think that could only be answered by Bobby himself. I think it might talk about it a bit in Hank Harrison's "The Dead" which was where I think I saw the original "backstory".
 

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I think you're thinking of Buffalo Springfield. I mentioned their song "For What it's Worth", the tune about the Sunset Strip "riots" the film exploits, a few months back.

Actually that was about 3 years after Jerry's "East-West" epiphany.

I think that could only be answered by Bobby himself. I think it might talk about it a bit in Hank Harrison's "The Dead" which was where I think I saw the original "backstory".

thanks for all the corrections Al. No wonder no one really takes me seriously on the LTG, I am usually not accurate. Well, maybe there is some humor...
 

adorshki

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Stills/Kooper/Bloomfield Super Sessions. Bloomfield and Stills both play with Al Kooper, but not together and on different sides. Mike Bloomfield was, of course, Paul Butterfield's guitarist.
Ah, forgot about that, and Clay may not have realized they didn't actually play together if he only ever saw the title..
 

adorshki

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thanks for all the corrections Al. No wonder no one really takes me seriously on the LTG, I am usually not accurate. Well, maybe there is some humor...
Ah, you're not so bad, and it is pretty obscure stuff except for hardcore '60's rock music fans... and remember, I'm not even a hardcore Deadhead !!
Most of them are scattered around the country now, stranded wherever their Volvo wagon or VW microbus finally gave up the ghost (so to speak) while they followed the band around on tour....
:biggrin-new:
 

Westerly Wood

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Most of them are scattered around the country now, stranded wherever their Volvo wagon or VW microbus finally gave up the ghost (so to speak) while they followed the band around on tour....
:biggrin-new:

part of me wishes I had been one of them, but most of me understands it was well with I was not :). "I just got a job and started raising a family when the bus finally broke down..." that is hysterical. I would have loved that life...maybe. but that life would have been so lame in the late 80s vs the late 60 or even 70s. it would have long since passed its cool or originality. in the Weir movie, Garcia chimes in on what he called the "new Lame america", meaning the US in 1980. no doubt the early 80s was a quite a shock for many a late 60s and 70s travelling musician. time must have flown and then Lennon gets killed, Reagan is pres and you wake out of your decade fog and go, where am I?
 
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adorshki

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part of me wishes I had been one of them, but most of me understands it was well with I was not :). "I just got a job and started raising a family when the bus finally broke down..." that is hysterical. I would have loved that life...maybe. but that life would have been so lame in the late 80s vs the late 60 or even 70s. it would have long since passed its cool or originality. in the Weir movie, Garcia chimes in on what he called the "new Lame america", meaning the US in 1980. no doubt the early 80s was a quite a shock for many a late 60s and 70s travelling musician. time must have flown and then Lennon gets killed, Reagan is pres and you wake out of your decade fog and go, where am I?
Actually I wasn't aware of the whole "village following the band around" thing until the mid-eighties when I actually saw my first shows.**
Instead of tailgating parties like at football games, there was a whole contingent of handicraftsmen selling their wares in the parking lots and surroundings of venues, which were often played for several days. "IIRC", the Dead were the world's top-grossing tour band for several years on the heels of "Touch of Grey"in the late '80's and into the '90's.
What was an eye-opener was the demographic extremes shown by vehicles in the parking: Audis, BMW's and Acuras of the 40+ year-old-professionals who one suspects were in university in the late '60's, and the microbuses and other heavier-duty type buses used by, surprisingly, what appeared to be a "second generation" of Deadheads who comprised the "Handicrafters", not a few of whom looked like they were barely in diapers at the time of Woodstock.
** Actually I did see one show in '77 or '78 I think it was, at a local concert hall in Oakland, and at that time didn't see "the village", or the "professionals", but there was no parking lot at that venue and the Dead were still largely a "cult" band compared to the real headliners of the era..I actually got put on the guest list by Dan Healy their sound man at the time, because I had their account while I was working in my first electronics sales job.
Nobody else wanted 'em, because for one thing they had permanent credit problems..and the business was "small potatoes" to boot..
:biggrin-new:
 
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Happy Face

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..I actually got put on the guest list by Dan Healy their sound man at the time, because I had their account while I was working in my first electronics sales job.
Nobody else wanted 'em, because for one thing they had permanent credit problems..and the business was "small potatoes" to boot..

Great story!
 

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Actually I wasn't aware of the whole "village following the band around" thing until the mid-eighties when I actually saw my first shows.**
Instead of tailgating parties like at football games, there was a whole contingent of handicraftsmen selling their wares in the parking lots and surroundings of venues, which were often played for several days. "IIRC", the Dead were the world's top-grossing tour band for several years on the heels of "Touch of Grey"in the late '80's and into the '90's.
What was an eye-opener was the demographic extremes shown by vehicles in the parking: Audis, BMW's and Acuras of the 40+ year-old-professionals who one suspects were in university in the late '60's, and the microbuses and other heavier-duty type buses used by, surprisingly, what appeared to be a "second generation" of Deadheads who comprised the "Handicrafters", not a few of whom looked like they were barely in diapers at the time of Woodstock.
** Actually I did see one show in '77 or '78 I think it was, at a local concert hall in Oakland, and at that time didn't see "the village", or the "professionals", but there was no parking lot at that venue and the Dead were still largely a "cult" band compared to the real headliners of the era..I actually got put on the guest list by Dan Healy their sound man at the time, because I had their account while I was working in my first electronics sales job.
Nobody else wanted 'em, because for one thing they had permanent credit problems..and the business was "small potatoes" to boot..
:biggrin-new:

I would have been 11 at the time, living in a suburb of Boston. all i cared about were the Red Sox...and I think I was listening heavily to Barry Manilow. The next year my uncle bought me Boston's first album and it was rock and roll for a long time after that...and the red sox.
 
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