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From: cdh@ptsfc.UUCP (Chris Harvey)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: Their Music: Grateful or Dead?
Message-ID: <375@ptsfc.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 6-Apr-85 22:20:26 EST
Article-I.D.: ptsfc.375
Posted: Sat Apr  6 22:20:26 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Apr-85 07:36:19 EST
References: <284@mhuxr.UUCP>
Reply-To: cdh@ptsfc.UUCP (Chris Harvey)
Organization: Pacific Bell, San Francisco
Lines: 40

>The band members are all superior musicians, and the Dead's continued
>vitality is a tribute to their skill. The examples are legion: the smooth
>transition from "St Stephen"'s 8/8 to "The Eleven"'s 11/4 on LIVE DEAD;
>the delicate interaction between the two guitars and the congas on RECKONING's
>"Cassidy"; the red-hot 12 bar blues solo of "Little Red Rooster" on DEAD SET;

You are obviously missing the whole idea of the Dead. No one ever claimed that
their albums were even worth listening to. As a matter of fact, the Little Red
Rooster that you refer to was cut considerably for that album.
>
>But those jams! In a word, SLOPPY!!! There is nothing wrong with collective
>improvisation, but too often they just mark time while waiting for someone
>to have a decent idea that the jam can coalesce around.

Once again, you are speaking of something you know nothing about. You do not
hear me talking about mental retardation, because I don't know as much about it as you obviously do. GET A CLUE!.
>
>The other problem with the Dead is their, uh, singing. Tomcats in heat is
>more like it. That is far less serious a problem in rock, a medium
>famous for insisting that musicality is not a necessary condition for success.

Even a deadhead knows there is no such word as musicality. Once again, a
CLUELESS remark.
>
>Finally, the Dead have been together some 20 years, and their current style
>(blues and boogie with a dash of country) solidified around 1970. They have
>thus been playing the same things, and sounding the same for 15 years.
>There is merit to finding a suitable style and perfecting it, but as discussed
>above, they have stayed with their sloppy, imperfect, lengthy jams.
>It has now gotten to the point of ossification.

We'll be a little more rational here. If you would listen to a tape from 1972
and one from 1984, you (or instead, someone with intelligence) would easily
see that the band HAS progressed and changed. Listening only to albums 
is just not a good evaluation of the Grateful Dead.

-- 
Chris Harvey,Pac Bell,SF
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