onemoresatnitestream.com is a Grateful Dead blog with a weekly Saturday night pick for a free streamable Grateful Dead show plus occasional blogs of interests for Deadheads everywhere. It is hosted by A Kentuckian with a Touch of Grey, From the Same State as Owsley Stanley.
BOB WEIR'S GUITAR PLAYING HAS BEEN OBSESSING ME LATELY. I HAVE NEVER BEEN alone in this fascination, of course. Not then nor now.
Making the rounds on the GD matrix is this fascinating document focusing upon the subject. Would you like to hear Weir's rhythm guitar work completely isolated from a live Grateful Dead performance? Well, thanks to modern technology and the hard work of others(apparently the grand maester Charlie Miller) you certainly can.
I wouldn't want to prejudice anyone on my reaction to the clip--which was jarringly unexpected--so I will just provide the link:
As well as two more shorter but still revelatory clips:
I'll conclude with an audio clip from David Rawlings. I doubt he wrote "Guitar Man" about Jerry Garcia--he's always been more of a Neil Young man. But lately the song has begun to strike me as a cousin to "Candy Man," whether intentional or not. It could just be a figment of my imagination. But it certainly seems to draw from the same waters. Anyways the song now reminds me as much of Weir as Garcia. After all Garcia is hopefully playing in a great cosmic band and Weir, who recently turned 72, is still with us. Still on the road. Still the "guitar man."
GRATEFUL DEAD 4/17/72 "TV FROM THE TIVOLI" TIVOLI CONCERT HALL COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
WHEN I FIRST BECAME A DEADHEAD AND STUMBLED UPON THIS FOOTAGE ON YOUTUBE MY EYES ONLY REGISTERED “THE FRONTLINE” OF GUITARISTS PLUS BILLY KREUTZMANN ON DRUMS. The only other Dead footage I had seen were edited snippets of the 1980 Radio City Music Hall shows which PBS stations furthered truncated during their pledge weekend enticement programming. You know: ten minutes of the music followed by thirty minutes of live on-camera begging for more money, then repeat, then repeat...Anyone who has ever watched enough PBS knows the drill. Children’s programming and the daily news shows are sacrosanct, but everything else is fair game.
In the pre-Internet age—hell, in the pre-AOL/Compuserve days, when the VCR ruled households, this was the only footage you were privy too….
But the last time I watched the Tivoli I couldn’t take my eyes off Pigpen. I couldn’t stop being moved by Pigpen, to the point of tears. I had forgotten about his sad plight, that he would be dead by 1973, a victim of hepatitis and alcohol abuse.
I was shaky with the details without consulting a reference. I remembered that his last year or two with the Dead his concert appearance had been sporadic due to his dwindling health. That Europe ‘72 couldn’t even been his full last hurrah because he missed so many shows.
When I first saw this footage years ago I wsn’t aware of any of that. When I last saw the footage I hadn’t immediately remembered. But when I did...it wasn’t quite like Proust dipping a madeleine into a cup of tea, not a full-fledged epiphany of illumination. I saw a man who thoroughly resembled Pigpen, but who couldn’t be Pigpen but of course was Pigpen. A voluminous coat failed to camouflage how thin he had become by then. Looking spent, even angry at times, playing an organ draped with a Grateful Dead flag, no happiness in those eyes.
Those eyes. There’s a photo of Pigpen at a press conference the day after a 1967 Haight-Ashbury drug bust, which centered on possession of LSD. As any Deadhead knows then and now Pen did not trip with the boys or the Merry Pranksters or anyone else. He might have been dosed by them from time to time, but psychedelics was never his thing. Pen; unhappy about busted at home/band headquarters for something he did not do, glares on at the proceedings with murderous intentions.
On celluloid he’s captured frowning, always unsmiling, not his normal effusive self with the audience. Looking up from the organ his dagger-our glances doesn’t seem to be directed at the band—he’s probably seeing through them. Maybe The Grim Reaper was dancing before him, and he was in no mood to be as magnanimous as a “Black Peter.”
There’s much to like about this clipped concert for Danish television(only the first two sets were recorded and then condensed even further to accommodate television restrictions on time): the band’s good humor(and I’m not referring to the silly vaudeville masks broken out for “Big Railroad Blues”); raucous versions of “Truckin’,” “Ramble on Rose,” and “Big Railroad Blues” which all nearly derail but are snapped back like rubber bands; a subdued but groovy “China Cat Sunflower” > “I Know You Rider” which is easily eclipsed by the audio renditions of the medley all over Europe, but is valuable for the visuals alone.
Yet Pigpen’s turns steals the show. His occasional turns stepping forward and leading the band in the blues are highlights--and I hope not just for the contextual reasons previously outlined. Pigpen was never a conventionally great blues singer like Bobby "Blue" Bland or Big Joe Turner, nor a great harpist a la Little Walter. He wasn't a blackface minstrel. He was a great enthusiast of the form, which was the greatest contribution he made to the band. After his death Weir and Garcia always acknowledged this, that his evangelical love of it was contagious and that he taught them how to play and feel it. "It Hurts Me Too" is the summit of this. Summoning all his energy to step forward and, as they say in Black churches, "testify." He does so in an understated way, which still breaks your heart, and that's before his harmonica solo. And matching him is Garcia's exquisite slide work, both accompaniment and solo, which further elevates this selection as one of the finest moments ever of the Pigpen-era of the Grateful Dead. It should give you the shivers. The blues are many things--read Albert Murray and Robert Palmer if you don't believe me. Sometimes the only defiance we have to the inevitability of death. Nietzsche's quote about staring into the abyss is just another form of the blues. That night in Copenhagen Pigpen stared into the abyss. And did not blink nor surrender. Maybe he was "Black Peter" after all. Rest in peace Rod "Pigpen" McKernan.
CAMERON INDOOR STADIUM DUKE UNIVERSITY DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA 4/12/78
SET TWO
Two
Bertha [7:35] > Good Lovin' [6:43] ; It Must Have Been The Roses [7:19]; Estimated Prophet [11:58] > Eyes Of The World [12:11] > Drums [20:17] > Truckin' [8:58] > Wharf Rat [10:34] > Around And Around [8:16]
Encore
U.S. Blues [5:33]
What do they say about second acts? After completing one of the uncharacteristically best first sets I have ever heard, what was next for these "Warlocks" on their 1978 East Coast swing before heading really East--to Egypt?
Almost more of the same. The typical gap between sets dulled the fumes from the first hour, not that all was lost. Yes, the intensity does not completely carry over as the show expands for nearly 2 hours more. So what might have been an EPIC outing on 4/12/78 becomes "merlely" a VERY GOOD show.
The unexpected characteristics displayed in the first set(mainly Garcia's giddiness, which became infectious for his bandmates) is not absent, only reduced in scope. Hia guitar work throughout is to be noted("Bertha" and "Good Lovin'" are fine examples) and his dual execution of "Wharf Rat" should be cited as one of the finest reinditions I have ever heard of this Grateful Dead classic:
There's much more to discover with this incredibly underrated(and maybe undiscovered) gem. Happy adventures await you.
CAMERON INDOOR STADIUM DUKE UNIVERSITY DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA 4/12/78
SET ONE
One
Jack Straw [5:47] ; Dire Wolf [4:02] ; Beat It On Down The Line [3:19]; Peggy-O [8:05] ; Mama Tried [2:31] > Mexicali Blues [3:47] ; Funiculi Funicula [0:49] ; Row Jimmy [10:25] ; New Minglewood Blues [5:12] ; Loser [8:25] ; Lazy Lightnin' [3:55] > Supplication [5:29]
INTRO
OF THE GRATEFUL DEAD VIDEO FOOTAGE I have stumbled upon or sought out, this is by far my favorite. (So far.) It’s a treasure, a must-see for any Deadhead.
It is also so mindboggingly great that not only is it worth devouring in one setting, but also so intensely enjoyable that you the viewer might need a break between the one and the two. Which is how I will handle it.
NOTES FROM THE FIRST SET
The charming crudity of the presentation. Shot in black-and-white and with three cameras presumably by the students, the cinematography is less than expert but “acceptable” upon a pro-am spectrum. More than occasionally it goes out of focus and is marred by other visual blemishes. The camera angles are not particularly mapped out, especially the shots from behind. The lenses appear to be fixed so there are no varieties of the usual shots seen in a concert film. A lack of a wide lens means that all seven members of the band can’t be seen in any given shot, usually only the “front line” of Bob Weir, Donna Jean Godchaux, Jerry Garcia and Keith Godchaux. Occasionally Phil Lesh and Bill Kreutzmann are seen in the background,but poor Mickey Hart is completely absent, not even a cameo shot!
“Garcia, unhinged”: If you are a Deadhead of a certain age and were lucky to see Garcia during his glory years maybe this footage doesn’t amaze you or my observations about him. But for those of us who never saw him in concert, or witnessed the sad figure who marked his long decline, the bloated, immobile, sullen statue wracked by addiction, poor health and boredom with the band and his own iconic status, this footage is a revelation. Not only does he look a figure of health,as thin as he ever was, but he’s thoroughly engaged and charming. You don’t doubt he’s having fun that night; his smiling is as luminescent as flares. In fact its brighter than the abysmal lighting being employed here. (A running gag from the audience is a demand for the lights to be turned out so they can see better.) Watching him, mouth agape, I couldn't help thinking that the band's iconic "Dancing Bear" logo may have once symbolized Owsley "Bear" Stanley, but how quickly it came to mark Garcia as the holder of the sigil. The Happy, Dancing Bear was Garcia that night.
Despite all the aesthetic/technical flaws one matter the cinematographer absolutely excelled at was recording the stunning guitar work of Garcia/Weir in lucid clarity. This is one of the reasons why the Duke show is an essential. Especially for guitarists. Not to sound blasphemous but Weir is by far more of the revelation. Despite his missing fretting fingers( a malady he shared with Django Reinhardt), Garcia, though a virtuoso, was never an eccentric visual figure as a musician. Aside from the little flamenco flourishes he added to some of his solos, he remained rooted as a statue. He didnt’ run around the stage like an Eddie Van Halen or an Angus Young. Nor was he a visual spectacle on the order of Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughan. He rarely ventured further away from his microphone; he concentrated upon his passages...Weir on the other hand was not only more theatrical but idiosyncratic, even mysterious. The endless flourishes with his right strumming hand don’t have any other precedents in popular guitar playing—Hendrix and other lead guitarists visibly showed off with their fretting hands, especially after executing a hammer-on or pull-off much to their satisfaction. But Weir is a rhythm guitarist—one of the greatest of all time. So maybe those hypnotic hand motions have been a way to call attention to his occupational gifts, so be it. For nearly all of the 20th century the guitar has been a phallic instrument, a means for mostly young men to draw attention to themselves. But as someone who has been obsessed with the guitar and guitarists for nearly forty years add my voice to the consensus of writers and fans who have been baffled by Weir’s implausible style. How the hell does he play “that way” and generate his trademark angular, slicing, razor-crisp sound? Even all the fascinating close-ups of Weir’s right hand on display during the first set can’t dispel this mystery. Try to imitate him and you’re likely to remain absolutely baffled. The fingerings for his chords and inversions aren’t esoteric with a basic familiarity with the guitar neck. Yet trying to match it up with the right handed jabs he lands upon the strings in order to emulate his sound will leave most players and hobbyists baffled. And even more appreciative of Weir.
Donna Jean Godchaux remains the most polarizing member of the Grateful Dead. By the length of the Golden Gate Bridge, too. One camp, the more passionate and vociferous of the two, wishes any trace of her upon any live recording could digitally be removed so that they could listen without perpetually wincing. An alley cat in heat is a more preferable racket for this lot. The other group will admit to some of Donna Jean’s “pitch” problems as well as affectations for yowling and screaming, which can not be denied across recorded sources by 1978. The double symbolism of Donna Jean triumphs any auditory displeasure for this group more geared to Utopianism. I’ll call this band of Deadheads “progressive.” This second group delighted in a dual representational consideration of Donna Jean. First, they were happy to see a woman, any woman, be a full time member of the band. It didn’t have to be a “feminist” victory and yet it was, a valuable symbol in a decade when Feminism had joined the mainstream in American thought and action. Many could delight in their favorite band having a female member. (Cynics deride her as being there only as a “packaged deal,” only gaining entrance because of her more unassailable husband.) And she was representational, as many women in the audience and community could fantasize it was them up their singing “It Must Have Been the Roses” or “Goinig Down the Road Feeling Bad.” Well, she's in very good form during the first set. While not indispensable, she's an ally in service to the music.
That preamble is sincere but also to allow me an indulgence. Jean-Luc Godard once famously said Cinema is about boys looking at girls. No amount of P.C. dictatorial edicts will ever change that. (Straight)boys will always like to look at girls. Get over it, snowflakes and Mary Janes. Donna Jean had about two dance moves in her repertoire and boy did she know how to use them. In a limited hippie chick sort of way. I've always thought the young DJG was just that, a pin-up for the ultimate hippie or post-hippie chick. Watching her dance around in a bare white dress is probably more than my decadent heart can tolerate for very long. I feel as foolish about her as Herod did for Salome.
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