Phil Lesh Mods

Westerly Wood said:

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.

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You were young and it was the '80's...you can be forgiven.

adorshki said:

You were young and it was the '80's...you can be forgiven.

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i just wish i was old enough to appreciate his wardrobe

Happy Face said:

..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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Thanks! I'm realizing it must have been about '79, it was the Shakedown Street tour and it was the first Dead album I actually really liked almost all of instead of only a couple of tunes, and the first one I bought within a couple of months of release.
"Shakedown Street" later became the nickname for the vendors' area at concerts, inspired by the song..Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakedown_Street_(vending_area)
The Dead also pioneered the practice of letting fans tape shows, and the "taper's area" at the Oakland gig was right behind Healy's board(s).
It was literally roped off with limited access/exit, and although I didn't realize it at the time, several of the folks with him at the board must have been favored tapers.
This was Oakland Civic auditorium, only about 5000 seats and he had it tuned perfectly, with speakers on short towers scattered strategically even on the floor. No booming, no feedback, and no painful excess volume.

adorshki said:

The Dead also pioneered the practice of letting fans tape shows, and the "taper's area" at the Oakland gig was right behind Healy's board(s).
It was literally roped off with limited access/exit, and although I didn't realize it at the time, several of the folks with him at the board must have been favored tapers.

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And on special nights (like this one in Chapel Hill in March of '93) tapers got a feed from the sound board.

And so it was. It's interesting to hear how the Dead seduced younger people and especially musicians on this forum.

I still have the first Grateful Dead LP my sister gave me for Christmas. It's still my favorite.

But the fast move to "Americana" in lyrics and country style lost me really quickly after that.

But over the last ten years I've amassed a small collection of Dick's Picks and such live show CDs that I listen to and enjoy. Almost exclusively when Pig Pen was still a major factor in the band.

I still have no clue why the band felt compelled to outsource their lyric writing to someone who was a wanna be cowboy. NO RELEVANCE to my life.

The lyrics from the other Bay Area bands may have be semi-weird when you listen now, but they were a whole lot more relevant to our lives than the tale of some cowboy trying to ride ahead of a posse.

Happy Face said:

And so it was. It's interesting to hear how the Dead seduced younger people and especially musicians on this forum.

I still have the first Grateful Dead LP my sister gave me for Christmas. It's still my favorite.

But the fast move to "Americana" in lyrics and country style lost me really quickly after that.

But over the last ten years I've amassed a small collection of Dick's Picks and such live show CDs that I listen to and enjoy. Almost exclusively when Pig Pen was still a major factor in the band.

I still have no clue why the band felt compelled to outsource their lyric writing to someone who was a wanna be cowboy. NO RELEVANCE to my life.

The lyrics from the other Bay Area bands may have be semi-weird when you listen now, but they were a whole lot more relevant to our lives than the tale of some cowboy trying to ride ahead of a posse.

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Yeah i'm with you on liking the pre-country-vibe Dead a lot more. Anthem is my favorite hands down, but I love the self-titled and Aoxomoxoa as well. After that the studio stuff lost my interest. Though I will say that I dig some of the cowboy theme lyrical content... probably due to my obsession with American history pre-1900 and also my childhood obsession with cowboy stuff. Still, probably my favorite cowboy Dead tunes were covers (El Paso especially!)
But without trying to veer too far away from Phil's Starfire, I have to post this link while we're on the topic of early Dead -- and while tomorrow is the 48th anniversary of one of my favorite live Dead shows of all time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfpqWN1PA_s

Great choice, Mellow One!

Nice version! What guitars were the boys playing on this performance?

I could be wrong, but I think Jerry was using the Les Paul with P-90's a lot in 68... Bobby was using an ES-345 I think?
But this was early in the year too, so I could be way off point

Watching "The a Grateful Dead Movie", and there's a sequence of them working (pre-show) on the Alembic he was playing at that time ('77). The "solid body" is just a shell for all of the electronics. Phil gives a little demo of some of the possibilities.

Some fantastic veering here. Garcia would approve! Big dead head as some of u know. Carry on

Happy Face said:

Almost exclusively when Pig Pen was still a major factor in the band.

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Even though I had a couple of albums in my youth including "Europe '72" I didn't really wake up to the Dead until a buddy turned me on to a version of "DarkStar/Wharf Rat/the Other One" medley'd, on a tape that was circulating in the early '80's from around '69, I think, when Pigpen was still alive.
That also leads me to an update of my memory of Bobby & Pigpen's "probation", when I remembered what my source was, and pulled it down and refreshed this weekend:
According to Joel Selvin's "The Summer of Love" they were actually fired in a band meeting in '68 while recording "Aoxomoxoa".
Jerry and Phil were beginning to compose much more complex music with time and key changes, and becoming especially frustrated with Pigpen's lack of desire to learn or play anything more than the 3 or 4 progressions/tunes he knew.
Bobby was having a hard time rising above his own folk guitar roots.
This was the period when the Dead played a few shows minus Bobby and Pigpen as "Micky and the Hartbeats", but within only a couple of months Bobby and Pigpen were back in the band.
That book by the way is essential for anybody interested in what was happening on the SF scene with tons of background about how the bands were founded and evolved, like this one:
Bobby wound up taking lessons from John Cippolina's (Quicksilver Messenger Service) mother, a concert pianist who gave lessons.

Happy Face said:

I still have no clue why the band felt compelled to outsource their lyric writing to someone who was a wanna be cowboy. NO RELEVANCE to my life.

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If you mean Robert Hunter, he was a buddy of Jerry's going all the way back to Jerry's bluegrass days at Stanford.
Rock and psychedelia was actually fostered when Bobby met Jerry and they decided Beatles was where it was at.
Coming back to "country" was actually coming full circle, and Hunter was by far a better lyricist than anybody else in the band at the time.
Also by '68 a nascent movement to "get back to the roots of Americana" was already blossoming in, for example, Buffalo Springfield("I Am A Child", "Kind Woman", later covered by Messina's band Poco) and the Byrds, "Sweetheart of the Rodeo".

Happy Face said:

The lyrics from the other Bay Area bands may have be semi-weird when you listen now, but they were a whole lot more relevant to our lives than the tale of some cowboy trying to ride ahead of a posse.

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In a sense I'm with ya, "country" was always kind of low on my "like" list, but "Friend of the Devil" woke me up to a whole other side of the Dead experience, let's call it the "recovery phase":
"If I get home before daylight, I just might get some sleep tonight...",
That lyric has special meaning for thousands of Deadheads yearning for a "peaceful easy feeling" after several hours or more on a psychedelic roller coaster ride...
Now couple that with the idea of feeling like you're always just a step ahead of the cops and in love with more than one girl, and all of a sudden one gets why it resonated so strongly with Deadheads.
Those lyrics are the ones the have turned out to have stood the test of time and remain relevant still.
It's magnificent in its metaphor.
And when that hit me it became the 3rd Dead tune I ever learned, to my own surprise!
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Love @both of you. Understood. I'm friends with guys who have attended over 300 Dead shows.

And who attended many of them in similar "mindsets".

Still, as someone who did both to a more limited degree, I never found tripping to be a good way to hear music (visuals, yes! audio, no.)

That said, as I noted on top, I have a nice stash of Dick's Picks and other live CDs I throw on pretty regularly. Mostly when I am doing work I've brought home.

But If I am in a listen/party mood, it's Airplane or Butterfield in this house.

Happy Face said:

Love @both of you. Understood. I'm friends with guys who have attended over 300 Dead shows.

And who attended many of them in similar "mindsets".

Still, as someone who did both to a more limited degree, I never found tripping to be a good way to hear music (visuals, yes! audio, no.)

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Yeah sorry if i came off a bit heavy there, it was more for the sake of "preaching to the unconverted".
It struck me as funny that for me tripping was the opposite, loved listening to music but couldn't look at visual stuff because of all the interference, LOL!!

Happy Face said:

That said, as I noted on top, I have a nice stash of Dick's Picks and other live CDs I throw on pretty regularly. Mostly when I am doing work I've brought home.
But If I am in a listen/party mood, it's Airplane or Butterfield in this house.

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Yeah "Dick's" has some of the best stuff, I have a couple.
But I put on Quicksilver Messenger Service this weekend and came back round full circle to thinking they were the absolute premier definitive psychedelic band: "The Fool".
And "Calvary" and "Maiden of the Cancer Moon" on Happy Trails.
Why is it a band's first 2 albums are usually their best?
But that's a question for another thread....
Funny you should mention Butterfield because there's a connection to QMS through Nick Gravenites and Harvey Brooks having produced the first album, which, according to Selvin, they actually hated initially because it sounded too much like Electric Flag and so they engaged in extensive re-recording and engineering until they were satisfied with the end results.
And I just noticed Wiki quotes Jerry Garcia as saying Happy Trails is "the most psychedelic album ever recorded", although there's no source cited for the quote.

Having been to over 100 dead shows you didn't need psychedelics to enjoy the visuals. Not that I was an innocent bystander either. I was lucky to have seen the wall of sound and see both Phil and Jack play their Guilds. Still got my "Phil Zone" hat too.
Thanks John

wish i could have experienced that old SF scene. i feel lucky to have seen Hot Tuna a few times, Rat Dog, New Riders, etc. but would have loved to caught all of them in the early years.
i will say, though i've always valued the alternate perspective psychedelics have given me on music, i don't like tripping in public (concerts included). i prefer taking a light dose with a couple of close friends and staying at home where i have access to my instruments, my music library, my couch, my blankets, and my kitchen. just makes for a more of a relaxed experience for me. there is nothing quite like listening to my Crown of Creation album on a nice system and sipping a nice belgian tripel ale, in the middle of a mellow trip.

"Tennessee, Tennessee, aint no place that I'd rather be"

Really? Seriously? Especially back then. The only place the Dead would have been welcomed into was into the penal system.

Sorry, those are weak lyrics.

Happy Face said:

"Tennessee, Tennessee, aint no place that I'd rather be"

Really? Seriously? Especially back then. The only place the Dead would have been welcomed into was into the penal system.

Sorry, those are weak lyrics.

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Somewhat related, but Robert Hunter said that the best comment he ever got on his lyrics was hanging out in a bar in the early/mid 70s somewhere in Appalachia and Cumberland Blues came on the radio and an old miner dude turned to him and said, "If the guy who wrote that song knew some hippie rock band was playing it, he'd turn over in his grave". Or something to that effect.

I don't think they had much desire to be in Tennessee (although Memphis and Nashville probably would have had some allure back in the day), but that's why you write a song! So you don't have to do it in real life.

edwin said:

Somewhat related, but Robert Hunter said that the best comment he ever got on his lyrics was hanging out in a bar in the early/mid 70s somewhere in Appalachia and Cumberland Blues came on the radio and an old miner dude turned to him and said, "If the guy who wrote that song knew some hippie rock band was playing it, he'd turn over in his grave". Or something to that effect.

I don't think they had much desire to be in Tennessee (although Memphis and Nashville probably would have had some allure back in the day), but that's why you write a song! So you don't have to do it in real life.

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Now that's a fun story!

And before you get the impression that I am ant-Dead, the only reason I got aggro'd by those lyrics was because I was listening to the Grateful Dead channel on Sirius.

Happy Face said:

Now that's a fun story!

And before you get the impression that I am ant-Dead, the only reason I got aggro'd by those lyrics was because I was listening to the Grateful Dead channel on Sirius.

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Oh, don't worry, I have my own problems with that song. Mostly that the vocal melody is so limited and repetitive, and latter day versions were so lackluster.

Also, now that I think about it, both Minglewood Blues (original version) and Viola Lee Blues referenced Tennessee.