newcritics - Latest Comments in The Great American Rock and Roll Band

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

Debbie M — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 19:37:12 -0000

I especially liked Donna Godchaux. Whatever happened to her? Bob Weir and The Rat Dogs get an A+ also

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

glomag — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:58:19 -0000

Am I the only one to believe the Grateful Dead's best work was Aoxomoxoa and Anthem of The Sun? After that they just gave in to pot-induced laziness and got "laid back." I felt this right at that moment and never cared for anything they did from that point on, despite being deluged with it by stoner friends throughout high school. Aoxomoxoa is a brilliant record full of really well-crafted songs.

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

Mike — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 10:37:18 -0000

For all writing about the Allmans - yes they were good but after Win Loss or Draw they did nothing.

Of the original band they were very limited.

Everything was Schlock rock after Win Loss or Draw.

In a way they created Southern Rock. Brother Duane would be sad.

Every foolish Southern band that followed them followed their late 70's sound not there cool Blues 60's sound or their Jazzy Lamar/Leavell sound.

The 90's Allman's you could say were rescued by Warren & Woody. It was a different band totally.

Besides that Greg & Dickey were not nice at all screwing Lamar bad to the fact he died on Welfare with no help at all.In it for the green.

And in the end Greg wanted the name for himself just like Axl Rose and tossed out the real leader of the Allmans - Dickey.

Dickey rescued the Allmans when no one could write but him.

Then he finds a guitar prodigy and brings him in to save the Allmans - then eventually (blaming it on Alcohol) Greg oust's Dickey.

I rather see a Dickey show at a Funky theater rather than the Allmans at some lame cement/cookie cutter amphitheater.

With a history like that the Allmans can't be the #1 band in America.

And for all of you guys saying all these other bands (besides the Ramones) those bands had no longevity and were not groundbreaking.

THe sound system you hear today is from Albemic - a company that the Dead's people made to create the ultimate sound. Every group who ever toured including the Stones // the Who - anyone that mattered learned from Albemic in the late 60's and bought from them.

Unlike bands of the day in the 60's the Derad put their money into their sound & instruments not into cars or wardrobe.

They were the ones that made sound what it is today.

Besides that the Dead invented the tour machine that every big act follows now.

The Stones copied there touring ideas - as well as Pink Floyd.

Pink Floyd got the Deads idea of having two stages and sound systems bunny hopping the next venue in order to set up the next one was used by Pink Floyd for their crazy set ups and then by the Stones in 75 (tour of America) and after.

The Dead's fans started the Gypsy camps outside shows that now a lot of fans do.

The Dead were the first band to MAIL ORDER.

The Dead were the only band to play 3 Sets.

The Dead were the first band to have their own t shirt printer - Winterland Products which eventually by the 80's morphed into a major company that sold posters, t -shirts and anything else to do with music for all bands until being sold in the mid nineties.

The Dead were the first band to purposely pull back and play small theaters instead of Arenas just to have a better vibe - MIck would never do that.

And for those of you who don't know the Dead were not hippies.

If you guys were so cool you'd understand that was just the press's way of painting them.

Garcia when younger wore pumas and engineer boots not Birkenstocks. He never wore tie dies.

In his later years he wore a t shirt, jeans or chinos with comfortable sneakers - like Rockports.

Bobby Wier was a playboy with expensive clothes and even more expensive haircuts.

The only band member who wore tie dyes was Phil and that was in the mid to late 80's and he wore it tucked into his pants with a belt and he had short hair.

The besides for one album (Anthem of The Sun), all their LP's were not psychedelic.

But folks who claim to know music and feel they are so UNDERGROOUND listen to the very people they hate - the media - and say oh their just hippies, playing psychedelic tunes.

Listen Europe 72 or Skull & Roses - come back and tell me how the Dead are and if you still say they are Hippies you don't know music.

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

Zaorish — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 15:36:52 -0000

I am a young man, not a hippie, got a job in finance, I have never seen a show. I wasn't sold on them until I hear some of the orchestral glory that is Scarlet > Fire, and I saw that light. There is NO MUSIC better than any given Grateful Dead show.

1978-02-05 changed my life for the better. Mind-blowing, beautiful, unbelieveable.
1974-7-31 is unbelieveably beautiful, holy Lord... rock song segues into jazz breakdown into bouncy melodic mournful jam into hardcore, devilish Flamenco jam segues into redemption ballad. 40 minutes of seamless, operatic glory.

1978-04-24 set my soul on FIRE. Mickey Hart rocks the "Fire on the Mountain" hard. Jerry and Bobby duel each other for supremacy.

1978-11-17 is a classic, all-acoustic folk show of classic songs.

1984-12-31 is just one hardcore rendition of all the Dead songs after the other. A brutal "Shakedown Street". Excellent stuff.

GOD BLESS THE GOOD OLD GRATEFUL DEAD!!!!!!

Re: Tom Watson
Tom, I read your comment and I just imagined you being so bored with the Dead's transcendental rollicking musical peaks that you crapped your pants, and then ran red-faced from the room. Hilarious picture.

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

Stone Malone — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 19:51:19 -0000

You are so right on the money with that call. The Doors & Hendrix maybe but there run was so short lived. The Greatful Dead where around for 30 years name a band that comes close to that (2,300 Shows). And with all the people slamming Jerry Garcia your fools. He has influenced bands like Janes Addication, Tool, Black Crows the list is endless....and name another band that created a culture as large as Jerry or a band that can sell out soldier field (65,000) 3 nights in a row...nobody!!! Allmans is a good call but when dwane died to me the band died with him. Thats not there fault but can they fill football statiums now? How about Aerosmith a great band but when they got clean name me one great song???

Anyway you ROCK!!
Stone Malone

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

htj — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 03:30:25 -0000

Mitchell Wilson knows the Dead. His time periods show me that.

Tom Watson, alas, doesn't know the Dead. His references to Casey Jones and the Summer of Love, blah, blah, show me that.

Why is anyone arguing about good rock 'n' roll and separating it by national borders? (Except for the fact that rock 'n' roll is as American as jazz. Bo Diddley. Say no more.)

And who was that who ranked on someone for "using too many words" in a 400-plus word post?

Original post by Jason was very good. Comments varied, from just plain silly to just plain silly and clueless.

How many words is that? Oh, I suppose I should stop. Oh, wait, I'm American so I get extra, right?

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

Mitchell WIlson — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 19:10:56 -0000

Type your comment here.
Fascinating thread. There is no doubt the Dead could be deadly, and they were increasingly so as the years wore on. With the exception of a resurgence from 1989 through 1990, they were often terrible from 1979 on, which was around the time Garcia was fully into opiates.

But, when he was fully present, Gracia was often astounding in his guitar playing. Unlike the vaste majority of rock players, he heard all 12 tones in the scale, and when he soloed, you can see/hear/feel him thinking his way through each muscial figure and phrase as he clearly articulates every note. He was expecially brilliant in 1971-72 and 1977. Check out: Hollywood Palladium August 6, 1971; the Steppin' Out with the Grateful Dead CD's from Europe in '72; or Dick's Picks #10 from WInterland 12-29-77. No one on the planet could play as intensely, ferociously, and creatively as Jerry Garcia at his best.

As far as singing goes, Garcia was often great not because of his voice, but because he fully inhabited the character or landscape he was singing about. He was a dramatic character on stage, and he moved people emotionally because of the way in which he put himself in(to) the song he was singing.

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

mike cullinan — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 19:51:10 -0000

and Tom Watson, stick to golf will ya

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

mike cullinan — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 19:48:34 -0000

Tom Watson, you are a fool and a philistine, the Dead were the best band that ever has played music---stop it now with your ignorant nonsense

by the way, garcia was not just a 'good" guitarist, he was a genius guitarist--lets just make that real f.... clear shall we?

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

Nick Polak — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 23:41:37 -0000

Top of my head ;

The Byrds
The Doors
The Band [ok - mostly Canadian, but c'mon]
The Decemberists
American Music Club
Soundgarden
Nirvana [grudgingly, as they are SO overrated]
Love
Ben Folds Five
Blood Sweat & Tears [mach 1- the Kooper band]
Husker Du
The Replacements
The Minutemen
Buffalo Springfield
Chicago [until Kath's death]
Edgar Winter's White Trash
Grant Lee Buffalo
The James Gang
Jefferson Airplane
Moby Grape
Jellyfish
Live
Loggins & Messina
Living Colour
P-Funk
PE
Trip Shakespeare
Mountain
Pere Ubu
Slint
Sly & The Family Stone
Spirit
Steely Dan
The Talking Heads
Television
The Pixies
The Mars Volta
The Shins
The Tubes
Tortoise
X
Minor Threat
Pearl Jam
The Beastie Boys
Fishbone
King's X
Crack The Sky
My MorningJacket
CCR
The NY Dolls
The MC5
Aerosmith
Mission of Burma
The E-Street Band
The Patti Smith Group

Yeah - not too many good American bands, I guess.

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

john kane — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 19:06:20 -0000

You either "get it" with regard to the dead, or you don't. You Don't.Sure, loved the Allmans, Dylan, etc., but if you didn't experience the feeling of a true live dead show (or 10-20), you can't actually comment on this letter with any credibility..From the 70's until now, I've heard a lot of bands, a ton. The dead was different, a different feeling, music, experience. Like I said, I love a lot of the bands mentioned, and others, and have been to the Capitol theatre in NEW JERSEY( I think passaic), but if you tripped at a dead show, you'd KNOW..

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

Jason Chervokas — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 20:55:15 -0000

WW-

I don't think the Tempts;Beach Boys analogy holds up.

The idea of the Boys as a singing group, session musicians, and studio-only guru producer really only applies to the last two of their glory years.

Carl Wilson's 12-string parts, Brian's bass parts, were crucial to the influential sound of songs like "I Get Around," which--like a lot of the great early songs (Fun, Fun, Fun; Be True to Your School)--was co-written by Brian and Mike Love.

By contrast I'm not sure a single Tempt has a single songwriting credit and we know the Funk Bros were responsible for the influential music of the records.

As great as they were the Tempts really were a singing group in the hands of writer/producers. The Beach Boys really were something else.

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

wwolfe — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 13:45:17 -0000

Jason, could you mention a few Dead songs where they only have one drummer? I'd like to compare how the band sounds, with two and with one.

I was thinking about this long thread of comments this morning driving in to work and one thought struck me: take a group of exceptional harmony singers, put them in the hands of a very special songwriter/producer, and back them with the cream of their city's session musicians, and you've got the Beach Boys, who've been mentioned here several times. You've also got the Temptations, who haven't been. It seems to me there are more similarities than differences between the two groups. Brian Wilson was ostensibly a member of the Beach Boys, while Smokey Robinson (and later Norman Whitfield) wasn't a Temptation. But the difference seems more one of semantics, as opposed to the actual role that each man played in their respective group's success.

Having considered all that, why not the Temptations as America's greatest group? Not only do they have a list of great songs as long or longer than anyone's, they're one of the few who managed the transition from romance to social commentary over the course of the Sixties. If the Beach Boys, with their non-[erforming writer/producer and their sessionmen, can be a legitimate candidate, why not the Temptations, with pretty much the same approach?

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

Jason Chervokas — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 21:00:45 -0000

WW...

I've heard all the arguments about the Byrds but I don't hear the greatness in the albums. The first two are special, the one w/ Gram Parsons is good and interesting but kinda anamolous.

You may be right about The Who, but you're wrong about the Dead's drumming. I used to think the same thing, and certainly the two drummer back end didn't serve them as well as it did the Allmans. But the Dead w/ just Krutzeman rocked and swung and w/ two drummers they could really groove. Good drumming.

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

wwolfe — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 19:24:23 -0000

The Byrds are a lot more than their first two albums. Even before their first official album, they'd recorded about two albums-worth of good material as demos. With the original line-up (or at least four-fifths of it, after Gene Clark left) they recorded three more good-to-great albums after the first two, plus about another full album-worth of unreleased or B-side-only material. The influence of the original line-up's sound can still be heard all over rock music. (This doesn't even take into account all the country rock they recorded, beginning with "Sweetheart of the Rodeo." That's not the Byrds music that appeals to me, but it was certainly influential, as "Workingman's Dead," among others, attests.)

There's a bootleg DVD of Creedence playing live in Oakland around 1970/71 that provides pretty convincing evidence that they could match up with anybody anywhere any time, kick-ass quotient-wise. For my money, the greatest American rock band. I can't see how the Who qualifies as a two-headed "band," while CCR is merely "great man with back-up band," given that Townsend wrote all of the Who's material, with only a handful of exceptions (and those were by Entwistle, not Daltry). Daltry wrote exactly one song for the Who, and that was a B-side. (Stu Cook and Doug Clifford each wrote more than that for CCCR, not that that proves much, one way or the other.)

I like some Grateful Dead music. Not being a fan of jams, I prefer the relatively short, tight songs from the "Workingman's Dead"/"American Beauty" period. My problem with rating them very high as a rock band is that their drumming was lousy, and I don't see how a great rock band can have a lousy drummer, much less two of them.

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

Tom Watson — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 11:55:07 -0000

Bill - you play any hoops back in the day?

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

Bill Walton — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 21:52:04 -0000

The Grateful Dead are the best band of all time.

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

Kit Stolz — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 14:38:31 -0000

The comment about "unqualified adoration" reminds me of an appropriate Emerson quote:

"I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies."

From "Compensation"

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

Jason Chervokas — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 23:44:46 -0000

Kit, don't be surprised, Watson always argued like a little girl. ;)

Interestingly, I think it was Bob Weir who make some comment about the negative impact when the fans stopped pushing the band in one of Dennis McNally's books.

Rare is the artist who is able to push him or herself in the face of such unqualified adoration and financial success. Although there were a small handful of shining moments, the group's final 20 years did nothing to add to its legacy.

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

Kit Stolz — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 21:09:23 -0000

Enjoying the argumentation, though I'm a little shocked that a fine critic like Tom Watson would resort to a "they have more hits" kinda argument for Creedence. In the context of bands more influential with other bands than the public, who cares? ABBA probably has more "hits" than all these groups put together.

But Chervokas raises a good point when it comes to the Dead and their fans, who would accept the weakest kind of noodling from them in performance -- for hours. A big reason why I wearied of the Dead. It's true, maybe if their fans hadn't been so adoring, the band would have continued to grow, instead of peaking in the 70's, before entering a long decline.

Or maybe Garcia's drug consumption, which apparently turned to heroin in the late 70's or early 80's, would have made that kind of growth impossible.

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

Jason Chervokas — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:04:57 -0000

Kevin,

I never found the Dead forced at all. They were an improvising band, they were pre-hippies really, taking cues more from the Ginsburg (and thro him Whitman) school of excess and lack of self-editing, sponteneity as the primary virtue. When it came together, great, when it didn't, well, it was a lot of fun trying to get there. But they never tried to force it, perhaps to their detriment.

But Garcia's, and more especially Hunter's songwriting circa 1971 definitely was intended to mine the vein of Americana. I don't hear it as self-conscious in a negative way, just self-conscious in that they had a clear intention which is usually a good thing for an artist. Lucking into good work happens, and certainly that's the romantic notion of creativity, but more often the best stuff is the result of a clear intention and inspired execution. That's what I hear in the material I'm talking about.

In any event, no point trying to get someone to like or dislike some particular art or artist, just laying out what I adore about the Dead and why I think they reflect America, for better or worse, better than any other rock band.

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

jackson — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 12:40:46 -0000

Kevin,

When I walked into the room.

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

Kevin Wolf — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 12:03:19 -0000

Jason, it's precisely that "deliberate, self-conscious Americana" that turns me off, I think. I find the GD almost completely uninteresting musically (they're far more interesting as a cultural phenomena). Their rep was always as this free-floating band/fan "happening" but I found the whole deal ridiculous and, again, self-conscious. Even Deadheads would tell me of the many times this forced musical be-in wouldn't coalesce but it never mattered to them because they'd just go see the Dead over and over again until it came together. The whole thing struck me as false somehow. (As stated in my first comment, I am perhaps less enamored of Dead fans than of the Dead.)

Who knows? Maybe there's some "hook" that'll get me into them, but so far I've not found it. I'm not one-quarter as impressed with their originals as you are, which presents a real problem.

And when did Tom Petty take over this thread?

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

Jason Chervokas — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 08:23:00 -0000

Jackson, believe it or not, you're not the first person to call me verbose :)

I understand what you're saying about Sonic Youth, but I also know I never really gave them a second chance esp. after they went a little more hooky, and we all change. Believe it or not, I too eschewed the Dead when I was a snot nosed teen...so I'll give a listen.

At the top of my criteria for the purposes of this post was American-ness..whatever that means, and the process of defining that was my interest. Like I said in the post I could certainly make the case that the Ramones or the Velvets are the greatest rock band that's American...but just as w/ searching for the great American novel, the American-ness was the thing I was after more than the greatness. If you had finished reading the original post you'd know that my topic was the deliberate, self-conscious Americana of the songs Garcia & Hunter wrote from 1970-1972. Commenter Peter D got it.

My interest in writing about culture is almost always more the nature of America, American culture, and the American national identity than it is anything else.

But wherever the coversation goes the coversation goes. And I always have the biggest tent definition of "rock" I can have.

Also, I explicited exempted bands that were back-up groups for a single creative dynamo leader. I'm talking about bands that ARE the act, not bands that support the act. That's what the Brits create (tho we could probably exempt the Kinks on that score). That's why no Heartbreakers, E Street Band, Mothers, etc....If there's a single guy generating all or nearly all the material, singing the songs, with his name out front, his band was off my list.

I know you and Tom and other folks whose ears I respect dig Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers...and I don't think Tom Petty is a bad songwriter or anything of the sort, I have respect for Tom Petty like I have respect for Billy Joel, but I still change the radio station almost every time any of Petty's records come on and I don't buy his records. Unlike Aerosmith or Sonic Youth, who I can honestly say I haven't listened to all that much, I've heard a LOT of Tom Petty. I've also seen Tom Petty. I'm bored by Tom Petty and I find myself especially bored by his band. I'm never going to think all that much of Tom Petty. There's that famous story about Tom Petty backstage at No Nukes set to go on in front of Springsteen and one of the producers said to him "If you hear something, it's not booing, they're just yelling 'Bruce.'" And Petty said "What's the difference?" I'd be one of those guys yelling "Bruce" or taking a leak during Petty's set.

I'm not surprised to hear a cross over of Petty fans and REM fans. They sound pretty similar to me--the kind of midtempo AOR that generally goes in my left ear and out my right one. Hell, I like Buckingham-Nicks era Fleetwood Mac better.

BTW, "bespoke" means custom made, it's a British word associated w/ menswear, as in "bespoke suits." Taxonomy means a system of classification, it's a scientific word. Neither is terribly obscure. You know, nowadays, when you don't know a word, you don't even need to open a book, you can just Google it. ;)

Re: The Great American Rock and Roll Band

Steve Bowbrick — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 07:17:49 -0000

This is all very interesting. As you know, rock music was invented in Britain (as distinct from rock n roll, which was invented in Ghana) so I feel I can help you out here. The best American Rock band ever is Iggy & The Stooges. The second best The Band. The third best The Velvets (and, having listened to Icky Thump way too loud on the way to work this morning, I reckon The White Stripes might make it onto that list at some point). Do let me know if you need any more help in this area.