Richard Foreman's Blog, page 3
July 16, 2018
Whatever happened to the Grateful Dead? 4: Bob Weir
The profile that follows was originally published in the weekly online magazine ‘Gonzo’, issue #289. It was the fourth of a series of pieces I wrote for the magazine concerning former core members of the Grateful Dead, taking a look at their musical activities following the demise of the original band with Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995.
I felt that a lot of former ‘Deadheads’, especially here in the UK, had tended to lose interest in these guys’ activities, which seemed a shame as all four of them had, each in their own way, edged into new and worthwhile musical territories. Obviously, those like me who did keep track could use the internet to keep abreast of their activities and access some of the music. But for anyone who hadn’t bothered, I thought a few pointers towards selected highlights might be enough to rekindle interest.
My own interest is not so much on the live performance of the band’s old material, which – understandably in many ways – all four of them tend to fall back on. Not that the reinterpretation of an old song hasn’t on many occasions wowed me, of course. But it’s what they have done that is new and exploratory that excites me and on which I tend mainly to focus.
Weir: Still Here
A look at the work of Bob Weir, post Grateful Dead
An old friend, now deceased, used to fancy himself as a bit of a psychedelic guitarist. He kind of noodled on the guitar in spare moments when he felt so inclined, and over the years we stopped expecting him to progress all that much. But towards the end of his life, he moved to France and somewhere along the line got friendly with some accomplished musicians who lived in Paris. Their tastes were more eclectic than our old friend’s, but they were fond of the Grateful Dead and content to play in that style. They’d travel down to his place, happy to have some space to practice and jam, and they generously took time out to teach him a few licks so he could play along with them. One bucolic weekend I and another member of our old network joined them for a weekend. We could hear that he’d learned a lot, and played his guitar with greater confidence, but it was also clear that our new found Parisian friends were still some considerable way ahead of him. In a break I was talking to one of them and asked him how he felt about our old friend’s contribution to the music. He smiled indulgently and said: “Ah, he is our ‘Bob Weir’.”
It would be utterly inappropriate to compare the actual musicianship of Bob Weir to that of our friend. Bob’s been a serious, practising musician since the early 60s, and has well and truly proved his worth. But in the early days of the Grateful Dead, his musical calibre was sometimes in question – to the point where, for a brief period, he was ‘fired’ from the band. This wasn’t a brilliant decision on the part of the others, they ‘fired’ Pigpen too. What were they thinking? And since then I think it has been recognised that Bob plays in a unique and entirely individual style. What was shaky, perhaps, at the start became his strength. I’d like to think that this was what the French musician was referring to – the way that, not being schooled in the conventional manner of acquiring a skill, a determined learner can find his or her own way to something special, something from within. Or maybe he just figured that that was the politest way to answer my question.
So, Bob… Once, though not with much competition, the prettiest boy in the Grateful Dead, for the last decade or so his face has been shrouded in a fierce shock of white and grey whiskers as he’s worked his way through his share of post-GD ventures. These have included The Other Ones, The Dead, Furthur and Dead and Company – all of which I’ve covered in profiles of other ex-members of the band. If you’ve read those, you might remember that, while I’m ever respectful of skills displayed, the majority of them have failed to impress me very deeply. What interests me has tended to be the ex-members’ new and exploratory activities, and that’s what I’d like to winkle out here.
Bob Weir had a pretty good track record on this front, even before the post-’95 period I’ve been looking at in these pieces. Whilst his first solo album, 1972’s ‘Ace’ was virtually a GD album with Bob as leader, he delved into a lighter, more pop oriented style with Matthew Kelly and Dave Torbert in Kingfish in the mid 70s, and explored both jazz and reggae stylings with his ‘80s band Bobby and the Midnites. Some of this approach found its way into the later Grateful Dead repertoire in songs such as ‘Lost Sailor’, ‘Saint of Circumstance’, ‘Estimated Prophet’ and ‘Hell in a Bucket’. His next venture as leader, the band Ratdog, continued to explore these zones. It grew out of live duet performances with distinguished bassist Rob Wasserman in the late 80s and early 90s. With varying line ups, Ratdog toured fairly regularly (depending on Weir’s other commitments) until early 2014. Some of its key members were guitarist Mark Karan, Jeff Chimenti on keyboards and drummer Jay Lane. It’s repertoire included a good many Grateful Dead songs, both Weir’s own and some of the material formerly sung by Jerry Garcia. It also included material from his solo and former band albums, covers ranging from Bob Dylan to Pink Floyd songs, and as it developed a fair quantity of original material.
Much of this found its way onto the band’s only studio album, ‘Evening Moods’. Released in 2000, it featured the then current line up plus a number of other musicians who’d passed through the ranks, including saxophonists Kenny Brooks and Dave Ellis and harmonica player Matthew Kelly (a former Kingfish colleague). As an album it gets off to a cracking start with the song ‘Bury Me Standing’, which I consider to be as powerful and memorable as any piece of work on which Weir has writing credits. Set to a tight funk rhythm it builds in intensity with some superb, almost Middle Eastern sounding riffs and fine guitar by Mark Karan, joined by Bob (I assume) on slide towards the end. Words and music suit his vocal delivery perfectly. The lyrics, by Weir and one of his then-current writing partners, Gerrit Graham, concern the regrets of a character who perceives his life to have been driven by forces beyond his control, hence: ‘Bury me standing, I been too long on my knees.’ Not sure if it was ever performed live – shame if it wasn’t.
Of course, the problem of getting an album off to such a strong start is maintaining the standard, and there ‘Evening Moods’ runs into problems. Next track, Weir and Barlow’s ‘Lucky Enough’ passes muster – a quiet, reflective song about states of depression with a nicely worded chorus that concludes: ‘But you may find grace / If you’re lucky enough.’ We then pass via ‘Odessa’ – one of Weir’s never quite convincing rockers – into the jazzy zone, where the songs meander tastefully, introspectively and without much to latch onto in the way of tune. There’s a bit of a rally towards the end with late Grateful Dead song ‘Corrina’, the well-brassy ‘October Queen’ and thoughtful closer ‘Even So’.
A 2CD live album followed, dominated by the band’s versions of GD songs, plus a few selections from the studio set. Live soundboard CDs were a available for a while, but I’ve no idea where these could be tracked down now. File sharing sites? I scooped up a fair 2004 set (with a lovely segue covering ‘Matilda Mother’ and ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’) and a couple from 2007 when Steve Kimock depped for an ailing Mark Karan. I’m fond of both guitarists, but Kimock, in my opinion, brought a little more finesse to the jams and the band tended to stretch out more interestingly around him.
Ratdog last toured in 2014 and have only reconvened on a one-off basis on a couple of occasions since then. The last of these was a memorial event in August 2016, following the untimely death of Rob Wasserman. There remains talk of further outings, so perhaps we’ve not heard the last of them.
Like all his former GD colleagues, Weir has performed as a guest or in short-lived collaborations with a variety of other musicians over the first two decades of this century. Many of these collaborations have taken place at the ‘virtual venue’ of Weir’s Tamalpais Research Institute (TRI) studio, launched in 2011. To quote some blurb: ‘TRI is a state-of-the-art multimedia performance studio, designed for broadcasting live high definition (HD) video and audio streams directly over the internet.’ It streams shows and posts videos and audio streams on YouTube, Soundcloud etc. Here’s just a few of the artists who’ve done TRI: Jackie Greene, Warren Haynes, Ratdog, Dhani Harrison, WAR, Blackberry Smoke, Lukas Nelson & The Promise of the Real, Father John Misty, Widespread Panic, Primus, Furthur, Slightly Stoopid, The Be Good Tanyas, Jonathan Wilson, Neal Casal, members of The National, and former Black Crowe Chris Robinson. There are videos of Bob, alone and jamming with a good many of the above. Like Phil Lesh’s Terrapin Crossroads it has clearly become something of a creative hub. There’s even been a very musical chat show, running under the name ‘Weir Here’. All in all, a person could lose several days of his/her life just catching up on seven years of TRI material.
Out of the hub have sprung new creative partnerships, such as that between Steve Kimock and Leslie Mendelson that I covered in Gonzo 261. Weir certainly seems to have brought out the inner Deadheads in young American band The National. These guys went on to co-ordinate the three CD set ‘Day of the Dead’, on which an astonishing variety of bands and individual musicians – from Kurt Vile to Orchestra Baobab – cover songs from (or create music in the style of) the Grateful Dead catalogue. Bob himself turns up on the final track, a live version of ‘I Know You Rider’ with the National.
The same link up was a contributory factor in Weir’s most recent solo venture – a sortie into what are described as ‘cowboy songs’ on the 2016 album ‘Blue Mountain’. Bob, as any fan will know, has been a purveyor of cowboy songs from the early days of the Dead. His version of John Phillips’ ‘Me and My Uncle’ is close to definitive, and his Marty Robbins covers – ‘El Paso’ and ‘Big Iron’ - have been long enduring. Inspired, so the publicity material runs, by his time working as a ranch hand in Wyoming when he was fifteen years old, ‘Blue Mountain’ blends the cowboy vibe with the perspective of an ageing man looking back on life. The majority of the songs were co-written with singer-songwriter Josh Ritter – though we are not told whether he too put in time as a ranch hand in his youth.
At its best and most resonant, on songs such as ‘Gonesville’ and ‘Lay My Lilly Down’ Weir and his supporting musicians (including members of the National and various Ratdog-ers) nail this wistful and timeless atmosphere beautifully. They have that sense of songs that have always existed, just waiting to be plucked out of the ether by the writers. The same goes for Bob’s almost entirely solo rendition of ‘Ki Yi Bossie’, one of those ‘Wharf Rat’ style songs that take a sympathetic and well-informed look at folk who are down on their uppers. The eerily arranged ‘Ghost Towns’ too works particularly well, but some of the rest of the material doesn’t hit the spot for me. Maybe there’s a limit to how many cowboy songs I can take at one sitting. Americana has its charm, but does tend to run to excess a lot these days. ‘Blue Mountain’ is a respectable contribution to the pantheon, just not a stand-out. Weir has played some of the material live with some of the other contributors, but don’t go expecting to hear these songs at Dead and Company shows.
So, along with Hart, Lesh and Kreutzmann, Weir’s still here. It may seem that I have a tendency to damn him with faint praise somewhat, and it’s true that my affection for him has its limits. But there’s no shortage of respect on my part for his restless vitality, his politics (see online for more on that) and his service to the music that I love. Weir’s musical history is dotted with gems and I’d like to leave you with one that’s accessible on the web, if you’d care to check it out. It’s Bob performing solo with acoustic guitar. The song is ‘Big Bad Blues’ – with a brilliant late Robert Hunter lyric and which was performed too few times in the Furthur era. I can’t retrace the original video I came across of Bob singing it, but here’s a link to another TRI video that gives some idea of how powerful a performer Weir can be with a first rate song to sing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nry2...
I felt that a lot of former ‘Deadheads’, especially here in the UK, had tended to lose interest in these guys’ activities, which seemed a shame as all four of them had, each in their own way, edged into new and worthwhile musical territories. Obviously, those like me who did keep track could use the internet to keep abreast of their activities and access some of the music. But for anyone who hadn’t bothered, I thought a few pointers towards selected highlights might be enough to rekindle interest.
My own interest is not so much on the live performance of the band’s old material, which – understandably in many ways – all four of them tend to fall back on. Not that the reinterpretation of an old song hasn’t on many occasions wowed me, of course. But it’s what they have done that is new and exploratory that excites me and on which I tend mainly to focus.
Weir: Still Here
A look at the work of Bob Weir, post Grateful Dead
An old friend, now deceased, used to fancy himself as a bit of a psychedelic guitarist. He kind of noodled on the guitar in spare moments when he felt so inclined, and over the years we stopped expecting him to progress all that much. But towards the end of his life, he moved to France and somewhere along the line got friendly with some accomplished musicians who lived in Paris. Their tastes were more eclectic than our old friend’s, but they were fond of the Grateful Dead and content to play in that style. They’d travel down to his place, happy to have some space to practice and jam, and they generously took time out to teach him a few licks so he could play along with them. One bucolic weekend I and another member of our old network joined them for a weekend. We could hear that he’d learned a lot, and played his guitar with greater confidence, but it was also clear that our new found Parisian friends were still some considerable way ahead of him. In a break I was talking to one of them and asked him how he felt about our old friend’s contribution to the music. He smiled indulgently and said: “Ah, he is our ‘Bob Weir’.”
It would be utterly inappropriate to compare the actual musicianship of Bob Weir to that of our friend. Bob’s been a serious, practising musician since the early 60s, and has well and truly proved his worth. But in the early days of the Grateful Dead, his musical calibre was sometimes in question – to the point where, for a brief period, he was ‘fired’ from the band. This wasn’t a brilliant decision on the part of the others, they ‘fired’ Pigpen too. What were they thinking? And since then I think it has been recognised that Bob plays in a unique and entirely individual style. What was shaky, perhaps, at the start became his strength. I’d like to think that this was what the French musician was referring to – the way that, not being schooled in the conventional manner of acquiring a skill, a determined learner can find his or her own way to something special, something from within. Or maybe he just figured that that was the politest way to answer my question.
So, Bob… Once, though not with much competition, the prettiest boy in the Grateful Dead, for the last decade or so his face has been shrouded in a fierce shock of white and grey whiskers as he’s worked his way through his share of post-GD ventures. These have included The Other Ones, The Dead, Furthur and Dead and Company – all of which I’ve covered in profiles of other ex-members of the band. If you’ve read those, you might remember that, while I’m ever respectful of skills displayed, the majority of them have failed to impress me very deeply. What interests me has tended to be the ex-members’ new and exploratory activities, and that’s what I’d like to winkle out here.
Bob Weir had a pretty good track record on this front, even before the post-’95 period I’ve been looking at in these pieces. Whilst his first solo album, 1972’s ‘Ace’ was virtually a GD album with Bob as leader, he delved into a lighter, more pop oriented style with Matthew Kelly and Dave Torbert in Kingfish in the mid 70s, and explored both jazz and reggae stylings with his ‘80s band Bobby and the Midnites. Some of this approach found its way into the later Grateful Dead repertoire in songs such as ‘Lost Sailor’, ‘Saint of Circumstance’, ‘Estimated Prophet’ and ‘Hell in a Bucket’. His next venture as leader, the band Ratdog, continued to explore these zones. It grew out of live duet performances with distinguished bassist Rob Wasserman in the late 80s and early 90s. With varying line ups, Ratdog toured fairly regularly (depending on Weir’s other commitments) until early 2014. Some of its key members were guitarist Mark Karan, Jeff Chimenti on keyboards and drummer Jay Lane. It’s repertoire included a good many Grateful Dead songs, both Weir’s own and some of the material formerly sung by Jerry Garcia. It also included material from his solo and former band albums, covers ranging from Bob Dylan to Pink Floyd songs, and as it developed a fair quantity of original material.
Much of this found its way onto the band’s only studio album, ‘Evening Moods’. Released in 2000, it featured the then current line up plus a number of other musicians who’d passed through the ranks, including saxophonists Kenny Brooks and Dave Ellis and harmonica player Matthew Kelly (a former Kingfish colleague). As an album it gets off to a cracking start with the song ‘Bury Me Standing’, which I consider to be as powerful and memorable as any piece of work on which Weir has writing credits. Set to a tight funk rhythm it builds in intensity with some superb, almost Middle Eastern sounding riffs and fine guitar by Mark Karan, joined by Bob (I assume) on slide towards the end. Words and music suit his vocal delivery perfectly. The lyrics, by Weir and one of his then-current writing partners, Gerrit Graham, concern the regrets of a character who perceives his life to have been driven by forces beyond his control, hence: ‘Bury me standing, I been too long on my knees.’ Not sure if it was ever performed live – shame if it wasn’t.
Of course, the problem of getting an album off to such a strong start is maintaining the standard, and there ‘Evening Moods’ runs into problems. Next track, Weir and Barlow’s ‘Lucky Enough’ passes muster – a quiet, reflective song about states of depression with a nicely worded chorus that concludes: ‘But you may find grace / If you’re lucky enough.’ We then pass via ‘Odessa’ – one of Weir’s never quite convincing rockers – into the jazzy zone, where the songs meander tastefully, introspectively and without much to latch onto in the way of tune. There’s a bit of a rally towards the end with late Grateful Dead song ‘Corrina’, the well-brassy ‘October Queen’ and thoughtful closer ‘Even So’.
A 2CD live album followed, dominated by the band’s versions of GD songs, plus a few selections from the studio set. Live soundboard CDs were a available for a while, but I’ve no idea where these could be tracked down now. File sharing sites? I scooped up a fair 2004 set (with a lovely segue covering ‘Matilda Mother’ and ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’) and a couple from 2007 when Steve Kimock depped for an ailing Mark Karan. I’m fond of both guitarists, but Kimock, in my opinion, brought a little more finesse to the jams and the band tended to stretch out more interestingly around him.
Ratdog last toured in 2014 and have only reconvened on a one-off basis on a couple of occasions since then. The last of these was a memorial event in August 2016, following the untimely death of Rob Wasserman. There remains talk of further outings, so perhaps we’ve not heard the last of them.
Like all his former GD colleagues, Weir has performed as a guest or in short-lived collaborations with a variety of other musicians over the first two decades of this century. Many of these collaborations have taken place at the ‘virtual venue’ of Weir’s Tamalpais Research Institute (TRI) studio, launched in 2011. To quote some blurb: ‘TRI is a state-of-the-art multimedia performance studio, designed for broadcasting live high definition (HD) video and audio streams directly over the internet.’ It streams shows and posts videos and audio streams on YouTube, Soundcloud etc. Here’s just a few of the artists who’ve done TRI: Jackie Greene, Warren Haynes, Ratdog, Dhani Harrison, WAR, Blackberry Smoke, Lukas Nelson & The Promise of the Real, Father John Misty, Widespread Panic, Primus, Furthur, Slightly Stoopid, The Be Good Tanyas, Jonathan Wilson, Neal Casal, members of The National, and former Black Crowe Chris Robinson. There are videos of Bob, alone and jamming with a good many of the above. Like Phil Lesh’s Terrapin Crossroads it has clearly become something of a creative hub. There’s even been a very musical chat show, running under the name ‘Weir Here’. All in all, a person could lose several days of his/her life just catching up on seven years of TRI material.
Out of the hub have sprung new creative partnerships, such as that between Steve Kimock and Leslie Mendelson that I covered in Gonzo 261. Weir certainly seems to have brought out the inner Deadheads in young American band The National. These guys went on to co-ordinate the three CD set ‘Day of the Dead’, on which an astonishing variety of bands and individual musicians – from Kurt Vile to Orchestra Baobab – cover songs from (or create music in the style of) the Grateful Dead catalogue. Bob himself turns up on the final track, a live version of ‘I Know You Rider’ with the National.
The same link up was a contributory factor in Weir’s most recent solo venture – a sortie into what are described as ‘cowboy songs’ on the 2016 album ‘Blue Mountain’. Bob, as any fan will know, has been a purveyor of cowboy songs from the early days of the Dead. His version of John Phillips’ ‘Me and My Uncle’ is close to definitive, and his Marty Robbins covers – ‘El Paso’ and ‘Big Iron’ - have been long enduring. Inspired, so the publicity material runs, by his time working as a ranch hand in Wyoming when he was fifteen years old, ‘Blue Mountain’ blends the cowboy vibe with the perspective of an ageing man looking back on life. The majority of the songs were co-written with singer-songwriter Josh Ritter – though we are not told whether he too put in time as a ranch hand in his youth.
At its best and most resonant, on songs such as ‘Gonesville’ and ‘Lay My Lilly Down’ Weir and his supporting musicians (including members of the National and various Ratdog-ers) nail this wistful and timeless atmosphere beautifully. They have that sense of songs that have always existed, just waiting to be plucked out of the ether by the writers. The same goes for Bob’s almost entirely solo rendition of ‘Ki Yi Bossie’, one of those ‘Wharf Rat’ style songs that take a sympathetic and well-informed look at folk who are down on their uppers. The eerily arranged ‘Ghost Towns’ too works particularly well, but some of the rest of the material doesn’t hit the spot for me. Maybe there’s a limit to how many cowboy songs I can take at one sitting. Americana has its charm, but does tend to run to excess a lot these days. ‘Blue Mountain’ is a respectable contribution to the pantheon, just not a stand-out. Weir has played some of the material live with some of the other contributors, but don’t go expecting to hear these songs at Dead and Company shows.
So, along with Hart, Lesh and Kreutzmann, Weir’s still here. It may seem that I have a tendency to damn him with faint praise somewhat, and it’s true that my affection for him has its limits. But there’s no shortage of respect on my part for his restless vitality, his politics (see online for more on that) and his service to the music that I love. Weir’s musical history is dotted with gems and I’d like to leave you with one that’s accessible on the web, if you’d care to check it out. It’s Bob performing solo with acoustic guitar. The song is ‘Big Bad Blues’ – with a brilliant late Robert Hunter lyric and which was performed too few times in the Furthur era. I can’t retrace the original video I came across of Bob singing it, but here’s a link to another TRI video that gives some idea of how powerful a performer Weir can be with a first rate song to sing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nry2...
July 2, 2018
Whatever happened to the Grateful Dead? 3: Bill Kreutzmann
The profile that follows was originally published in the weekly online magazine ‘Gonzo’, issue #282. It was the third of a series of pieces I wrote for the magazine concerning former core members of the Grateful Dead, taking a look at their musical activities following the demise of the original band with Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995.
I felt that a lot of former ‘Deadheads’, especially here in the UK, had tended to lose interest in these guys’ activities, which seemed a shame as all four of them had, each in their own way, edged into new and worthwhile musical territories. Obviously, those like me who did keep track could use the internet to keep abreast of their activities and access some of the music. But for anyone who hadn’t bothered, I thought a few pointers towards selected highlights might be enough to rekindle interest.
My own interest is not so much on the live performance of the band’s old material, which – understandably in many ways – all four of them tend to fall back on. Not that the reinterpretation of an old song hasn’t on many occasions wowed me, of course. But it’s what they have done that is new and exploratory that excites me and on which I tend mainly to focus.
Sticks Man
Profiling the music of Bill Kreutzmann, post-Grateful Dead.
Creatively, I think, Phil Lesh and Mickey Hart were the guys who covered the most ground, out of the four surviving Grateful Dead originals, but over the last twenty years or so their colleagues’ work has not been without considerable merit.
Bill Kreutzmann then, this time round.
Kreutzmann kept a low profile, musically during the mid nineties. He’d made his home in Hawaii, and seems for a good few years to have concentrated his creative energies on other work, including film-making and computer based artwork. His first serious venture back at the drum-kit was a short-lived trio known as Backbone who put out a self-titled album in 1998. This one passed me by, I’m afraid, and now seems pretty much unobtainable. By all accounts it was firmly blues and r’n’b based and even the relatively short tracks on the album contained a fair dose of loose jamming.
Interviewed at the time and asked the inevitable question as to whether he would get back together with his former band-mates, Kreutzmann seemed reluctant. ‘I didn't want to tour with the band after he (Jerry Garcia) died. It would be like the Beatles without John Lennon. There is no such thing.’ Nevertheless, he was tempted by the idea of a New Year’s Eve 1999 reunion which he thought would be ‘fun’. An intermittent series of link-ups followed and have continued to this day with the current Dead and Company band. Some newly written material emerged during the 2003-4 and 2009 periods of touring as The Dead, but seems to have been rapidly sidelined. A shame in my opinion. Everyone loves the old songs, of course, and instrumental, even vocal reinvention has always been part of the performance, so I’m not going to knock the pension package ventures but a strong dose of the new is something I’m always looking for.
This Kreutzmann has embraced in a good many of his other ventures, so the rest of this piece is devoted to them. First up was another band, The Trichromes. I don’t think they lasted any longer than Backbone, but managed to turn out some very pleasant recordings. Initially ex-Santana/Journey guitarist Neil Schon was a fifth member, contributing to an e.p. release containing one excellent new song ‘Dice With the Universe’ with lyrics by Robert Hunter, plus a couple of lengthier live tracks. They were down to a four piece when they recorded their 2002 self-titled album. This featured eight songs with lyrics by Hunter, including a re-recorded and slightly less satisfying version of ‘Dice’, two more by guitarist Ralph Woodson and a long instrumental to close. A little reminiscent of mid 70s Allman Brothers, the album mixed pop, rock and folk elements never quite hitting the heights but mostly enjoyable.
As the decade rolled on, not unlike Steve Kimock (with whom he has frequently played), Kreutzmann participated in a number of short-lived, ad-hoc and one-off line ups. One, Serial Pod, in 2005 involved a largely instrumentally jamming collaboration with Mike Gordon and Trey Anastasio of Phish. Other links have included taking the drumming seat with the David Nelson Band on several occasions and in 2006 re-uniting with Mickey Hart as The Rhythm Devils. This line-up I described more extensively in my Mickey Hart piece in Gonzo 225-6, but here I will just mention one of the few still available soundboard recordings of this band. You’ll need to go to Live Downloads.com and pay for this one, but – titled Rhythm Devils Concert Experience – it’s a nice compilation of some of their best tracks and can be downloaded for a small sum (it also came out as a DVD).
2008 saw a somewhat more prolonged venture, the Bill Kreutzmann Trio (aka BK3), with Oteil Burbridge on bass and Max Creek guitarist Scott Murawski. They played a good few gigs around this time and have occasionally reconvened since. Material included the inevitable Grateful Dead covers, some of Murawski’s songs and one or two new compositions. Audience recordings of some of their shows can be found on the Live Music Archive. Something about Murawski’s guitar style never quite clicked for me, so with such material as I downloaded and listened to long since deleted I can’t tell you too much more about them. They had their enthusiasts though – here’s a quote from a review: ‘At times it got out of hand, at times it worked. One magical moment occurred during the segue into "Franklin’s Tower" where Kreutzmann exploded into one of his patented four measure rolls across the toms, ending in a triplet pattern on the fourth bar that Murawski duplicated with synchronistic beauty. A delight to the senses.’ Maybe you had to be a bit of muso to appreciate them.
The collaboration that thrilled me somewhat more began the following year when Kreutzmann jammed with a singer-guitarist known as Papa Mali. Aka Malcolm Welbourne (he got the nickname from Burning Spear, we are told), he already had a couple of well-received rootsy r’n’b albums under his belt at this time. Louisiana born and New Orleans based, his music had a nice if somewhat inconsistent swamp rock feel about it, with raw vocals reminiscent of if not quite in the same league as Dr John. He was and still remains a fine, improvising rock guitarist. Playing with Kreutzmann, along with Tea Leaf Green bass man Reed Mathis and multi instrumentalist Matt Hubbard, brought out a hitherto unexplored psychedelic edge to Mali’s music. What ensued reminded me strongly of the energy, drive and raw edges of the Grateful Dead back in their 1967-69 heyday.
Check out their two shows, available again on the LMA, at the Las Tortugas ‘Dance of the Dead’ event (31-10-09) for a powerful dose of this band. They tended to start the proceedings by going straight into a jam that would segue into some of the potentially looser material from Mali’s albums such as ‘Do Your Thing’ and ‘Firewater’. There’d be a smattering of 60s Dead covers, before running on to the often lengthy highlights of their early gigs. These included Mali’s ‘Early in the Morning’ – a blistering hard rock version of the folk song ‘Little Sadie’ - ; and powerful covers of John Lee Hooker’s ‘Bottle Up and Go’ and Dr John’s ‘Walk on Guilded Splinters’. It was psychedelic rock at the top of its game, jam-heavy but loaded with excitement. In the second of the two Las Tortugas shows they broke out, pretty much for the first time, a new song with some of the best Robert Hunter lyrics I’d heard in years. It’s the lament of a punch-drunk loser character, beyond caring whether he lives or dies. For my money ‘King Cotton Blues’ is up there with ‘Wharf Rat’ or ‘Black Peter’ amongst Hunter’s most affecting ‘in-character’ songs. Check out the unforgettable chorus: ‘King Cotton Blues, boys / Be it understood / Shotgun is too merciful / Hanging is too good / Drowning too uncertain / And poison is too slow / To snuff a worthless widow’s son / Whose time has come to go.’
With Willie Nelson guesting on the chorus vocals this song was the centrepiece of their 2010 album ‘7 Walkers’ – which was the name they’d given themselves as a band by then. Hunter presented them with several more strong lyrics tailor made for Welbourne’s croaky but passionate vocals and bayou stylings, such as ‘Louisiana Rain’, ‘Chingo’, ‘New Orleans Crawl’ and ‘Sue From Bogalusa’. By the time of the album’s release, Mathis (back with TLG) was replaced by former Meters bass man George Porter Jr. They were still shredding it live through 2010 and on into 2012, with the album’s title track extending into a powerful live epic. A second album was spoken of, more Hunter lyrics apparently in the pipeline, but it never happened. Though they never disbanded as such, they’ve not played as a band since. It’s possible a period of perhaps severe ill-health on Welbourne’s part may have had something to do with this. Videos I’ve seen of him in more recent years show a man who has lost an awful lot of weight, though he seems healthy enough now and brought out another solo album in 2015.
Kreutzmann, meanwhile, maintained his loose association with Reed Mathis in various jamming situations and the two continue to play together when the opportunity arises. For a while in 2014 they had a four-piece band formed, under the name Billy and the Kids, with Aron Magner of the Disco Biscuits and Tom Hamilton Jr. Compared to the 7 Walkers venture I felt both the name and the repertoire (Grateful Dead covers pretty much exclusively) lacked inspiration. It was quickly superseded, following the Dead’s 50th anniversary ‘Fare Thee Well’ concert series, by the Dead and Company outfit. Some one-off shows have proved more interesting, in recent years. In September 2014 for example, a line-up for the ‘Lock’n’Step Festival’ combined Magner, Hamilton and Burbridge with guitarist Steve Kimock and featured a wonderful guest spot on two songs by blues man Taj Mahal. And in December of that year Kreutzmann linked with members of the David Nelson Band , Mathis and multi-instrumentalist Jason Crosby in the curiously named Trypto Band. Meanwhile back with Murawski he has worked with former Copperhead bass man ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson and Donna the Buffalo singer Tara Nevins – a combination that looks interesting, but which I’ve yet to hear.
Of the two former Grateful Dead drummers it’s Mickey Hart who tends to grab the limelight with his flamboyant character, exotic percussions and imaginative ventures, while Bill K tends to be the solid rhythmic backbone of whatever band he plays with. But his improvisational skills match those of all his former outfit’s members, and – so long as it’s not just rehashed Dead songs – I’m more than happy to listen to anything he gets involved in, should the chance arise. Some of it may perhaps leave me cold, but when the spark ignites it’ll be powerful and exciting stuff.
I felt that a lot of former ‘Deadheads’, especially here in the UK, had tended to lose interest in these guys’ activities, which seemed a shame as all four of them had, each in their own way, edged into new and worthwhile musical territories. Obviously, those like me who did keep track could use the internet to keep abreast of their activities and access some of the music. But for anyone who hadn’t bothered, I thought a few pointers towards selected highlights might be enough to rekindle interest.
My own interest is not so much on the live performance of the band’s old material, which – understandably in many ways – all four of them tend to fall back on. Not that the reinterpretation of an old song hasn’t on many occasions wowed me, of course. But it’s what they have done that is new and exploratory that excites me and on which I tend mainly to focus.
Sticks Man
Profiling the music of Bill Kreutzmann, post-Grateful Dead.
Creatively, I think, Phil Lesh and Mickey Hart were the guys who covered the most ground, out of the four surviving Grateful Dead originals, but over the last twenty years or so their colleagues’ work has not been without considerable merit.
Bill Kreutzmann then, this time round.
Kreutzmann kept a low profile, musically during the mid nineties. He’d made his home in Hawaii, and seems for a good few years to have concentrated his creative energies on other work, including film-making and computer based artwork. His first serious venture back at the drum-kit was a short-lived trio known as Backbone who put out a self-titled album in 1998. This one passed me by, I’m afraid, and now seems pretty much unobtainable. By all accounts it was firmly blues and r’n’b based and even the relatively short tracks on the album contained a fair dose of loose jamming.
Interviewed at the time and asked the inevitable question as to whether he would get back together with his former band-mates, Kreutzmann seemed reluctant. ‘I didn't want to tour with the band after he (Jerry Garcia) died. It would be like the Beatles without John Lennon. There is no such thing.’ Nevertheless, he was tempted by the idea of a New Year’s Eve 1999 reunion which he thought would be ‘fun’. An intermittent series of link-ups followed and have continued to this day with the current Dead and Company band. Some newly written material emerged during the 2003-4 and 2009 periods of touring as The Dead, but seems to have been rapidly sidelined. A shame in my opinion. Everyone loves the old songs, of course, and instrumental, even vocal reinvention has always been part of the performance, so I’m not going to knock the pension package ventures but a strong dose of the new is something I’m always looking for.
This Kreutzmann has embraced in a good many of his other ventures, so the rest of this piece is devoted to them. First up was another band, The Trichromes. I don’t think they lasted any longer than Backbone, but managed to turn out some very pleasant recordings. Initially ex-Santana/Journey guitarist Neil Schon was a fifth member, contributing to an e.p. release containing one excellent new song ‘Dice With the Universe’ with lyrics by Robert Hunter, plus a couple of lengthier live tracks. They were down to a four piece when they recorded their 2002 self-titled album. This featured eight songs with lyrics by Hunter, including a re-recorded and slightly less satisfying version of ‘Dice’, two more by guitarist Ralph Woodson and a long instrumental to close. A little reminiscent of mid 70s Allman Brothers, the album mixed pop, rock and folk elements never quite hitting the heights but mostly enjoyable.
As the decade rolled on, not unlike Steve Kimock (with whom he has frequently played), Kreutzmann participated in a number of short-lived, ad-hoc and one-off line ups. One, Serial Pod, in 2005 involved a largely instrumentally jamming collaboration with Mike Gordon and Trey Anastasio of Phish. Other links have included taking the drumming seat with the David Nelson Band on several occasions and in 2006 re-uniting with Mickey Hart as The Rhythm Devils. This line-up I described more extensively in my Mickey Hart piece in Gonzo 225-6, but here I will just mention one of the few still available soundboard recordings of this band. You’ll need to go to Live Downloads.com and pay for this one, but – titled Rhythm Devils Concert Experience – it’s a nice compilation of some of their best tracks and can be downloaded for a small sum (it also came out as a DVD).
2008 saw a somewhat more prolonged venture, the Bill Kreutzmann Trio (aka BK3), with Oteil Burbridge on bass and Max Creek guitarist Scott Murawski. They played a good few gigs around this time and have occasionally reconvened since. Material included the inevitable Grateful Dead covers, some of Murawski’s songs and one or two new compositions. Audience recordings of some of their shows can be found on the Live Music Archive. Something about Murawski’s guitar style never quite clicked for me, so with such material as I downloaded and listened to long since deleted I can’t tell you too much more about them. They had their enthusiasts though – here’s a quote from a review: ‘At times it got out of hand, at times it worked. One magical moment occurred during the segue into "Franklin’s Tower" where Kreutzmann exploded into one of his patented four measure rolls across the toms, ending in a triplet pattern on the fourth bar that Murawski duplicated with synchronistic beauty. A delight to the senses.’ Maybe you had to be a bit of muso to appreciate them.
The collaboration that thrilled me somewhat more began the following year when Kreutzmann jammed with a singer-guitarist known as Papa Mali. Aka Malcolm Welbourne (he got the nickname from Burning Spear, we are told), he already had a couple of well-received rootsy r’n’b albums under his belt at this time. Louisiana born and New Orleans based, his music had a nice if somewhat inconsistent swamp rock feel about it, with raw vocals reminiscent of if not quite in the same league as Dr John. He was and still remains a fine, improvising rock guitarist. Playing with Kreutzmann, along with Tea Leaf Green bass man Reed Mathis and multi instrumentalist Matt Hubbard, brought out a hitherto unexplored psychedelic edge to Mali’s music. What ensued reminded me strongly of the energy, drive and raw edges of the Grateful Dead back in their 1967-69 heyday.
Check out their two shows, available again on the LMA, at the Las Tortugas ‘Dance of the Dead’ event (31-10-09) for a powerful dose of this band. They tended to start the proceedings by going straight into a jam that would segue into some of the potentially looser material from Mali’s albums such as ‘Do Your Thing’ and ‘Firewater’. There’d be a smattering of 60s Dead covers, before running on to the often lengthy highlights of their early gigs. These included Mali’s ‘Early in the Morning’ – a blistering hard rock version of the folk song ‘Little Sadie’ - ; and powerful covers of John Lee Hooker’s ‘Bottle Up and Go’ and Dr John’s ‘Walk on Guilded Splinters’. It was psychedelic rock at the top of its game, jam-heavy but loaded with excitement. In the second of the two Las Tortugas shows they broke out, pretty much for the first time, a new song with some of the best Robert Hunter lyrics I’d heard in years. It’s the lament of a punch-drunk loser character, beyond caring whether he lives or dies. For my money ‘King Cotton Blues’ is up there with ‘Wharf Rat’ or ‘Black Peter’ amongst Hunter’s most affecting ‘in-character’ songs. Check out the unforgettable chorus: ‘King Cotton Blues, boys / Be it understood / Shotgun is too merciful / Hanging is too good / Drowning too uncertain / And poison is too slow / To snuff a worthless widow’s son / Whose time has come to go.’
With Willie Nelson guesting on the chorus vocals this song was the centrepiece of their 2010 album ‘7 Walkers’ – which was the name they’d given themselves as a band by then. Hunter presented them with several more strong lyrics tailor made for Welbourne’s croaky but passionate vocals and bayou stylings, such as ‘Louisiana Rain’, ‘Chingo’, ‘New Orleans Crawl’ and ‘Sue From Bogalusa’. By the time of the album’s release, Mathis (back with TLG) was replaced by former Meters bass man George Porter Jr. They were still shredding it live through 2010 and on into 2012, with the album’s title track extending into a powerful live epic. A second album was spoken of, more Hunter lyrics apparently in the pipeline, but it never happened. Though they never disbanded as such, they’ve not played as a band since. It’s possible a period of perhaps severe ill-health on Welbourne’s part may have had something to do with this. Videos I’ve seen of him in more recent years show a man who has lost an awful lot of weight, though he seems healthy enough now and brought out another solo album in 2015.
Kreutzmann, meanwhile, maintained his loose association with Reed Mathis in various jamming situations and the two continue to play together when the opportunity arises. For a while in 2014 they had a four-piece band formed, under the name Billy and the Kids, with Aron Magner of the Disco Biscuits and Tom Hamilton Jr. Compared to the 7 Walkers venture I felt both the name and the repertoire (Grateful Dead covers pretty much exclusively) lacked inspiration. It was quickly superseded, following the Dead’s 50th anniversary ‘Fare Thee Well’ concert series, by the Dead and Company outfit. Some one-off shows have proved more interesting, in recent years. In September 2014 for example, a line-up for the ‘Lock’n’Step Festival’ combined Magner, Hamilton and Burbridge with guitarist Steve Kimock and featured a wonderful guest spot on two songs by blues man Taj Mahal. And in December of that year Kreutzmann linked with members of the David Nelson Band , Mathis and multi-instrumentalist Jason Crosby in the curiously named Trypto Band. Meanwhile back with Murawski he has worked with former Copperhead bass man ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson and Donna the Buffalo singer Tara Nevins – a combination that looks interesting, but which I’ve yet to hear.
Of the two former Grateful Dead drummers it’s Mickey Hart who tends to grab the limelight with his flamboyant character, exotic percussions and imaginative ventures, while Bill K tends to be the solid rhythmic backbone of whatever band he plays with. But his improvisational skills match those of all his former outfit’s members, and – so long as it’s not just rehashed Dead songs – I’m more than happy to listen to anything he gets involved in, should the chance arise. Some of it may perhaps leave me cold, but when the spark ignites it’ll be powerful and exciting stuff.
June 18, 2018
Whatever happened to the Grateful Dead? 2: Mickey Hart
The profile that follows was originally published in the weekly online magazine ‘Gonzo’, issue #225/6. It was the second of a series of pieces I wrote for the magazine concerning former core members of the Grateful Dead, taking a look at their musical activities following the demise of the original band with Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995.
I felt that a lot of former ‘Deadheads’, especially here in the UK, had tended to lose interest in these guys’ activities, which seemed a shame as all four of them had, each in their own way, edged into new and worthwhile musical territories. Obviously, those like me who did keep track could use the internet to keep abreast of their activities and access some of the music. But for anyone who hadn’t bothered, I thought a few pointers towards selected highlights might be enough to rekindle interest.
My own interest is not so much on the live performance of the band’s old material, which – understandably in many ways – all four of them tend to fall back on. Not that the reinterpretation of an old song hasn’t on many occasions wowed me, of course. But it’s what they have done that is new and exploratory that excites me and on which I tend mainly to focus.
Devilish Rhythms
The many creative ventures of ‘rhythm devil’ Mickey Hart.
Of all the musicians who were a part of the Grateful Dead, Mickey Hart has arguably had the most varied and unpredictable solo career. Unlike his generally laid back Californian colleagues, Hart is a fast talking, self-promoting character with something of the showman/charlatan about him. His interviews tend to read like press releases. On the whole, there’s something endearing about his enthusiasm for whatever project his restless mind has latched onto. I imagine, though, that he could be a bit wearing in person.
Between 2011 and 2013 he managed to braid together many of the varying threads of his work into one almighty outfit, the Mickey Hart Band, and this piece will focus largely on that intensely productive period. Prior to that, however, let’s take a look back at his activities outside of the Dead since the early 70s, kicking off powerfully in the form of his 1972 album ‘Rolling Thunder’. With a spectacular Kelley/Mouse designed sleeve, this album drew in large part from the pool of Californian musicians who participated in the making of Paul Kantner’s Jefferson Starship and David Crosby’s ‘If I Could Only Remember My Name’. It’s a rousing, energetic, mostly rock styled piece of work, containing several strong, memorable songs and it stands up well to this day. Recording sessions continued with a view to a follow up. It never found release but most of the completed or near completed tracks can be found for download on the web these days.
Hart’s ethnomusicalogical interests were already surfacing on this album, manifest in both the Shoshone Indian Invocation with which it begins and the contributions elsewhere of tabla player Zakir Hussain. Hussain was a major collaborator in Hart’s next album, released on the Dead’s short lived ‘Round’ label and featuring an almost entirely percussive outfit known as the Diga Rhythm Band. The focus on drums and percussive instruments remained throughout several more record releases, running up until the middle 90s. These included ‘The Apocalypse Now Sessions’ (with Bill Kreutzmann), ‘At the Edge’ and ‘Planet Drum’. There was a sense of parallel development between these albums and the increasingly elaborate ‘Drums’ segments which spotlighted Kreutzmann and Hart during Grateful Dead shows. Rooted in what was frequently a bit of a curse in 70s rock music, the drum solo, these became one of the most exploratory passages in (usually) the second set. Hart brought ‘world music’ to the table with things that rattled, things that boomed and things that buzzed, many of which I assume he’d located and collected on his travels. There’d be an element of electronica creeping in to the sound too, especially as the remaining members of the Dead began to re-assemble and ‘Drums’ morphed into ‘Space’. In the late 80s and early 90s there was often little difference between these improvisations and the new and fashionable music of outfits like The Orb. Hart’s albums likewise, whilst zestfully rhythmic naturally, explored sound textures and ambience inventively.
Outside of his own recordings and performances, Hart – as mentioned – spent a great deal of time travelling, studying and recording music across the world during this period. He was looking particularly for forms that were in danger of cultural extinction, in association with such august bodies as the Smithsonian Institute, and issued a large number of these recordings, details of which can be found on his website. He was also writing fairly prolifically. At least four books on music have appeared so far. Haven’t got round to reading any of them myself, but from the titles I see in Wikipedia I’d say it’s a safe bet that the emphasis is largely on percussion.
But unpredictability has been a constant facet of this man’s career and the release of the album ‘Mickey Hart’s Mystery Box’ in 1996 certainly took me by surprise. It was a song based album, and though some of the tracks were ‘rapped’ by Hart (a touch affectedly, in my opinion), the majority were graced by the elegant vocals of the Mint Juleps. Originally UK based, the Juleps were a multi-ethnic female harmony singing group, who I’m pretty sure made regular appearances on UK TV programme ‘The Tube’ in the early 80s. How they ended up in Hart’s orbit I’ve no idea, but their superb vocals on a full set of lyrics by the Dead’s Robert Hunter were a match made in heaven. The music behind the vocals remained largely percussive, but with bass, keyboards and occasional guitars thrown in. ‘Mystery Box’ remains a personal favourite of mine to this day. A fine twelve minute version of one of the stand-out tracks, ‘Sito’, performed at one of the 1996 ‘Furthur Festival’ gigs, can be accessed on YouTube.
Over the next ten years Hart continued to release still more albums of mainly percussion based music, whilst participating in the post Garcia groupings of The Other Ones/The Dead and collaborating with other musicians besides. Then, in 06, he got together with Kreutzmann once more, reviving the name ‘Rhythm Devils’ – a nickname with which they’d been dubbed in the Dead and had used for the ‘Apocalypse Now’ album – and recruiting the hugely accomplished Steve Kimock on guitar, along with Mike (Phish) Gordon on bass. With a mixture of material from their existing repertoires, plus a handful of new songs with lyrics provided once again by Hunter, they took to the road. They added singer Jen Durkin, who’d previously been in a band known as Deep Banana Blackout. After the bliss of the Mint Juleps, her strident voice didn’t quite cut it for me. Credit where credit’s due though, she managed superbly a tongue twister written by Hunter in the chant-song ‘Fountains of Wood’. You try rapidly repeating ‘Multiphonic, supersonic, catatonic, anodyne,’ a few times, let alone singing it.
There were various incarnations of the Rhythm Devils over the next five years, several musicians passing through the ranks. Invariably tight and very much a dance act, they struck me as one of the most interesting and exciting new projects from any ex-member of the Dead. But what came next was quite transcendent. Although he somewhat prosaically stuck with the name Mickey Hart Band, the outfit he formed between 2011 and 2013 (releasing two albums and undertaking two US tours) was a near perfect synthesis of just about every pie that Hart ever dipped finger into. I can find little whatsoever to criticise about the Mickey Hart Band of that time, except perhaps that Hart might have done better to steer clear of his own attempts to write lyrics. No matter, they mostly sound good even if on the whole they don’t seem to make a lot of sense, and both the albums have a further dose of yet more lyrics from the ever prolific Hunter.
But the music, that was pure transport. Sometimes I imagined it as a cross between the Grateful Dead and Daevid Allen’s Gong at their very best. It’s pretty damn good on both the albums, particularly the first – somewhat portentously titled ‘Mysterium Tremendum’. Live they took it to the max. Fronted by two powerful singers, one of whom was an outstanding black female vocalist named Crystal Monee Hall, they brought together the complex, multi faceted rhythms of world music, a bunch of really memorable tunes, a slew of Orb-esque electronica and samples and a whole division of deep, deep drones. Hart even managed to find yet another superb guitarist in Gawain Mathews.
Their shows were non-stop, mixing material from the albums with a selection of often radically re-arranged Grateful Dead songs and the occasional fascinating cover (Cream’s ‘White Room’ was a cracker). Hart brought a few marginally gimmicky concepts to the feast – tone patterns based on signals from stars and other heavenly bodies, followed with the second album by sounds generated from a skullcap of sensors picking up rhythms from his own brain as he played. There was a fair bit of bull in all this, but it was all part of the fun (just as that bit of daftness was, I think, with Gong).
Live soundboards of the second tour shows were available for a while on Hart’s website, but were not to be found when last I looked. The albums (the 2nd one was called ‘Superorganism’) give a fair idea of the band’s strengths, but if you can find any soundboards of the shows on file sharing sites, I’d recommend them. Hart, like most of the Dead, takes care these days to keep soundboard recordings largely off the internet and audience recordings tend to muddy the complex and layered sound – but there are a few on the Live Music Archive and some are fair recordings.
To my disappointment, as the faff about the Grateful Dead’s 50th anniversary shows began to accumulate, Hart let the band members go their separate ways. Though he and Kreutzmann doubtless add sparkle to the currently running Dead and Company band, it all seems a bit business-as-usual compared to what was achieved by the MHB. The only thing that’s caught my attention from Hart in the last year or two was a studio collaboration with veteran jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd, of which there was but a five minute extract on YouTube available last time I looked.
Nevertheless, Mickey Hart gives the impression of being a pretty tireless guy and age does not appear to have slowed or mellowed him that much. I live in hope of more pleasant musical surprises from this rhythm devil before he and his drumsticks make their exit.
Not all that long after the above piece was written came the announcement that Hart was to release a new album, 'Ramu', which then appeared late in 2017. In many ways it was pretty much what I was hoping for. Although not a re-appearance of the Mickey Hart Band it had the same level of vitality and inventiveness that I found on their albums. One track featured a further collaboration with Charles Lloyd and there were strong contributions from a number of other performers of varying degrees of fame. It was not accompanied by any live performances at the time, presumably due to Dead & Co. commitments. I reviewed the album in Gonzo 272 and may well re-run the review here once these 4 pieces have run.
I felt that a lot of former ‘Deadheads’, especially here in the UK, had tended to lose interest in these guys’ activities, which seemed a shame as all four of them had, each in their own way, edged into new and worthwhile musical territories. Obviously, those like me who did keep track could use the internet to keep abreast of their activities and access some of the music. But for anyone who hadn’t bothered, I thought a few pointers towards selected highlights might be enough to rekindle interest.
My own interest is not so much on the live performance of the band’s old material, which – understandably in many ways – all four of them tend to fall back on. Not that the reinterpretation of an old song hasn’t on many occasions wowed me, of course. But it’s what they have done that is new and exploratory that excites me and on which I tend mainly to focus.
Devilish Rhythms
The many creative ventures of ‘rhythm devil’ Mickey Hart.
Of all the musicians who were a part of the Grateful Dead, Mickey Hart has arguably had the most varied and unpredictable solo career. Unlike his generally laid back Californian colleagues, Hart is a fast talking, self-promoting character with something of the showman/charlatan about him. His interviews tend to read like press releases. On the whole, there’s something endearing about his enthusiasm for whatever project his restless mind has latched onto. I imagine, though, that he could be a bit wearing in person.
Between 2011 and 2013 he managed to braid together many of the varying threads of his work into one almighty outfit, the Mickey Hart Band, and this piece will focus largely on that intensely productive period. Prior to that, however, let’s take a look back at his activities outside of the Dead since the early 70s, kicking off powerfully in the form of his 1972 album ‘Rolling Thunder’. With a spectacular Kelley/Mouse designed sleeve, this album drew in large part from the pool of Californian musicians who participated in the making of Paul Kantner’s Jefferson Starship and David Crosby’s ‘If I Could Only Remember My Name’. It’s a rousing, energetic, mostly rock styled piece of work, containing several strong, memorable songs and it stands up well to this day. Recording sessions continued with a view to a follow up. It never found release but most of the completed or near completed tracks can be found for download on the web these days.
Hart’s ethnomusicalogical interests were already surfacing on this album, manifest in both the Shoshone Indian Invocation with which it begins and the contributions elsewhere of tabla player Zakir Hussain. Hussain was a major collaborator in Hart’s next album, released on the Dead’s short lived ‘Round’ label and featuring an almost entirely percussive outfit known as the Diga Rhythm Band. The focus on drums and percussive instruments remained throughout several more record releases, running up until the middle 90s. These included ‘The Apocalypse Now Sessions’ (with Bill Kreutzmann), ‘At the Edge’ and ‘Planet Drum’. There was a sense of parallel development between these albums and the increasingly elaborate ‘Drums’ segments which spotlighted Kreutzmann and Hart during Grateful Dead shows. Rooted in what was frequently a bit of a curse in 70s rock music, the drum solo, these became one of the most exploratory passages in (usually) the second set. Hart brought ‘world music’ to the table with things that rattled, things that boomed and things that buzzed, many of which I assume he’d located and collected on his travels. There’d be an element of electronica creeping in to the sound too, especially as the remaining members of the Dead began to re-assemble and ‘Drums’ morphed into ‘Space’. In the late 80s and early 90s there was often little difference between these improvisations and the new and fashionable music of outfits like The Orb. Hart’s albums likewise, whilst zestfully rhythmic naturally, explored sound textures and ambience inventively.
Outside of his own recordings and performances, Hart – as mentioned – spent a great deal of time travelling, studying and recording music across the world during this period. He was looking particularly for forms that were in danger of cultural extinction, in association with such august bodies as the Smithsonian Institute, and issued a large number of these recordings, details of which can be found on his website. He was also writing fairly prolifically. At least four books on music have appeared so far. Haven’t got round to reading any of them myself, but from the titles I see in Wikipedia I’d say it’s a safe bet that the emphasis is largely on percussion.
But unpredictability has been a constant facet of this man’s career and the release of the album ‘Mickey Hart’s Mystery Box’ in 1996 certainly took me by surprise. It was a song based album, and though some of the tracks were ‘rapped’ by Hart (a touch affectedly, in my opinion), the majority were graced by the elegant vocals of the Mint Juleps. Originally UK based, the Juleps were a multi-ethnic female harmony singing group, who I’m pretty sure made regular appearances on UK TV programme ‘The Tube’ in the early 80s. How they ended up in Hart’s orbit I’ve no idea, but their superb vocals on a full set of lyrics by the Dead’s Robert Hunter were a match made in heaven. The music behind the vocals remained largely percussive, but with bass, keyboards and occasional guitars thrown in. ‘Mystery Box’ remains a personal favourite of mine to this day. A fine twelve minute version of one of the stand-out tracks, ‘Sito’, performed at one of the 1996 ‘Furthur Festival’ gigs, can be accessed on YouTube.
Over the next ten years Hart continued to release still more albums of mainly percussion based music, whilst participating in the post Garcia groupings of The Other Ones/The Dead and collaborating with other musicians besides. Then, in 06, he got together with Kreutzmann once more, reviving the name ‘Rhythm Devils’ – a nickname with which they’d been dubbed in the Dead and had used for the ‘Apocalypse Now’ album – and recruiting the hugely accomplished Steve Kimock on guitar, along with Mike (Phish) Gordon on bass. With a mixture of material from their existing repertoires, plus a handful of new songs with lyrics provided once again by Hunter, they took to the road. They added singer Jen Durkin, who’d previously been in a band known as Deep Banana Blackout. After the bliss of the Mint Juleps, her strident voice didn’t quite cut it for me. Credit where credit’s due though, she managed superbly a tongue twister written by Hunter in the chant-song ‘Fountains of Wood’. You try rapidly repeating ‘Multiphonic, supersonic, catatonic, anodyne,’ a few times, let alone singing it.
There were various incarnations of the Rhythm Devils over the next five years, several musicians passing through the ranks. Invariably tight and very much a dance act, they struck me as one of the most interesting and exciting new projects from any ex-member of the Dead. But what came next was quite transcendent. Although he somewhat prosaically stuck with the name Mickey Hart Band, the outfit he formed between 2011 and 2013 (releasing two albums and undertaking two US tours) was a near perfect synthesis of just about every pie that Hart ever dipped finger into. I can find little whatsoever to criticise about the Mickey Hart Band of that time, except perhaps that Hart might have done better to steer clear of his own attempts to write lyrics. No matter, they mostly sound good even if on the whole they don’t seem to make a lot of sense, and both the albums have a further dose of yet more lyrics from the ever prolific Hunter.
But the music, that was pure transport. Sometimes I imagined it as a cross between the Grateful Dead and Daevid Allen’s Gong at their very best. It’s pretty damn good on both the albums, particularly the first – somewhat portentously titled ‘Mysterium Tremendum’. Live they took it to the max. Fronted by two powerful singers, one of whom was an outstanding black female vocalist named Crystal Monee Hall, they brought together the complex, multi faceted rhythms of world music, a bunch of really memorable tunes, a slew of Orb-esque electronica and samples and a whole division of deep, deep drones. Hart even managed to find yet another superb guitarist in Gawain Mathews.
Their shows were non-stop, mixing material from the albums with a selection of often radically re-arranged Grateful Dead songs and the occasional fascinating cover (Cream’s ‘White Room’ was a cracker). Hart brought a few marginally gimmicky concepts to the feast – tone patterns based on signals from stars and other heavenly bodies, followed with the second album by sounds generated from a skullcap of sensors picking up rhythms from his own brain as he played. There was a fair bit of bull in all this, but it was all part of the fun (just as that bit of daftness was, I think, with Gong).
Live soundboards of the second tour shows were available for a while on Hart’s website, but were not to be found when last I looked. The albums (the 2nd one was called ‘Superorganism’) give a fair idea of the band’s strengths, but if you can find any soundboards of the shows on file sharing sites, I’d recommend them. Hart, like most of the Dead, takes care these days to keep soundboard recordings largely off the internet and audience recordings tend to muddy the complex and layered sound – but there are a few on the Live Music Archive and some are fair recordings.
To my disappointment, as the faff about the Grateful Dead’s 50th anniversary shows began to accumulate, Hart let the band members go their separate ways. Though he and Kreutzmann doubtless add sparkle to the currently running Dead and Company band, it all seems a bit business-as-usual compared to what was achieved by the MHB. The only thing that’s caught my attention from Hart in the last year or two was a studio collaboration with veteran jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd, of which there was but a five minute extract on YouTube available last time I looked.
Nevertheless, Mickey Hart gives the impression of being a pretty tireless guy and age does not appear to have slowed or mellowed him that much. I live in hope of more pleasant musical surprises from this rhythm devil before he and his drumsticks make their exit.
Not all that long after the above piece was written came the announcement that Hart was to release a new album, 'Ramu', which then appeared late in 2017. In many ways it was pretty much what I was hoping for. Although not a re-appearance of the Mickey Hart Band it had the same level of vitality and inventiveness that I found on their albums. One track featured a further collaboration with Charles Lloyd and there were strong contributions from a number of other performers of varying degrees of fame. It was not accompanied by any live performances at the time, presumably due to Dead & Co. commitments. I reviewed the album in Gonzo 272 and may well re-run the review here once these 4 pieces have run.
June 4, 2018
Whatever happened to the Grateful Dead? 1: Phil Lesh
The profile that follows was originally published in the weekly online magazine ‘Gonzo’, issue #222. It was the first of a series of pieces I wrote for the magazine concerning former core members of the Grateful Dead, taking a look at their musical activities following the demise of the original band with Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995.
I felt that a lot of former ‘Deadheads’, especially here in the UK, had tended to lose interest in these guys’ activities, which seemed a shame as all four of them had, each in their own way, edged into new and worthwhile musical territories. Obviously, those like me who did keep track could use the internet to keep abreast of their activities and access some of the music. But for anyone who hadn’t bothered, I thought a few pointers towards selected highlights might be enough to rekindle interest.
My own interest is not so much on the live performance of the band’s old material, which – understandably in many ways – all four of them tend to fall back on. Not that the reinterpretation of an old song hasn’t on many occasions wowed me, of course. But it’s what they have done that is new and exploratory that excites me and on which I tend mainly to focus.
[image error]
A Garland of Pearls
The post 1995 career of former Grateful Dead bassist, Phil Lesh.
“We treat it as a repertoire. In Grateful Dead terms, that means every performance can be different. All versions of the songs are true, just like a fairy tale,” said Phil Lesh in 2009 of the many songs he has been performing throughout his working life as a musician. He was, at that time, engaged in a new band project with former Dead member Bob Weir, Furthur, which was to be his main focus for another three or four years.
The ‘long strange trip’ did not end with the death of lead guitarist Jerry Garcia and the disbandment of the Grateful Dead in 1995, but for Lesh it took a little while to regain velocity. There were serious financial problems facing the organisation that had grown around the band, and Lesh himself had contracted hepatitis C, culminating in 1998 with a liver transplant that saved his life. Although he’d been involved initially with the band’s first attempt to regroup as ‘The Other Ones’ in 1998, he’d withdrawn from the line-up after the release of their one official album, a two CD live set, ‘The Strange Remain’.
Upon his recovery he began to develop the idea that was to become ‘Phil Lesh and Friends’. He had become aware that the ‘repertoire’ was being adopted by many other musicians, who not only played Grateful Dead songs but used them as a springboard for improvisation, in the same spirit as the Dead had done. The idea was to play with these musicians in a fluid, ever-changing line-up, seeking fresh approaches to the Dead’s songs and also taking on board other material: tunes he’d long wished to play, along with those brought in by his ever-changing musical partners.
In his 2005 autobiography, ‘Searching for the Sound’, Lesh said of this concept: “As a bandleader, I like nothing better than to plan shows in which I can string songs and improvisations together thematically, like a garland of pearls, and then encourage the musicians to step outside their standard way of thinking and play – completely in the context of the moment. I continue to seek out multiple musical partners, in a quest for that elusive chemistry that comes and goes as it wishes.” It was to prove a fertile inspiration and has continued to this day.
One of his first close and continuing colleagues in PL&F was Steve Kimock, a guitarist whose calibre was established over many years with his own band Zero. Lesh's initial interest in working with Kimock had been consolidated when the guitarist had played with The Other Ones. However, despite the bassist’s claim that he would always work with Kimock, that partnership lasted for only a year or so and the two have not played together again as far as I know.
Which was a shame as Kimock’s fluid and versatile guitar work wove elegantly with Lesh’s melodic and ever inventive bass lines, as can be heard particularly well on soundboard recordings of some of the first PL&F gigs, available for download on the Live Music Archive website. For three nights at San Francisco’s Warfield Theatre they joined forces with Trey Anastasio and Page McConnell of the band Phish, plus drummer John Molo. They established their territory with a 33 minute Viola Lee Blues, and the stratospheric impro continued through all three shows. They delved into the Dead repertoire including numbers long since abandoned in the Garcia years such as ‘Alligator’ and ‘Mountains of the Moon’. To these they added Dylan covers, songs from Phish’s repertoire plus one of Kimock’s, and an unexpected rendition of Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’. As a statement of intent, those gigs stand tall.
More line-ups followed in hot succession. Jorma Kaukonen of Hot Tuna/Airplane fame, UK keyboard/bass man Pete Sears and others within a month or so (official release ‘& Love Will See You Through’ – a double live highlights set). Then came collaborations with the wonderful David Nelson Band, jam bands String Cheese Incident, Moe and Zen Tricksters, Little Feat, Merl Saunders and many more. Lesh is, I think, an ethical and magnanimous sort of a gent (he has made a point of including a personally delivered organ donor appeal at every gig he’s played since 1998, not to mention his part in setting up the charitable Rex and Unbroken Chain Foundations) and in those days was happy to allow free soundboard recordings onto the internet. They are well worth tracking down.
By 2001 it looked like the line up might be turning into something more fixed. Lesh had begun a long lasting musical relationship with ex Allman Brothers and Gov’t Mule guitarist, the mighty Warren Haynes. This version of PL&F, sometimes referred to as ‘The Quartet’, was rounded out by guitarist Jimmy Herring (Jazz is Dead), keyboard man Rob Barraco (Zen Tricksters) and then consistent drummer John Molo. They developed some fairly standard sets and began to come up with new material including collaborations with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. A surprise studio recorded album appeared in 02, ‘There and Back Again’. There’s a strong set of melodic and vital material to be found on this album, and it’s one of my few regrets as regards PL&F that Lesh seems to have lost faith in these fine songs. They are rarely if ever performed now, even when ‘The Q’ occasionally reunite.
In 2003 came the first incarnation of ‘The Dead’ as Lesh linked up once more with Weir, Kreutzmann and Hart, bringing Haynes, Herring and Barraco with him. Something of the spirit of PL&F seemed to pervade this version of the band. New material, interesting covers (‘Cortez the Killer’, ‘Eight Miles High’, ‘Milestones’) and GD rarities kept their sets less predictable, along with guest appearances by the likes of Steve Winwood and Willie Nelson. They even got back together with Bob Dylan at one point. Deadheads seem often to look down on these reunions, but personally I still find a lot to enjoy in live recordings from this period. The addition of quality singer Joan Osborne at this time rang the changes still further for the good.
As both ‘The Q’ and the Dead went their separate ways in 04, PL&F reverted to its original concept and line ups varied throughout the next three or four years. Lesh formed new links, many of which have continued on occasion to this day, with musicians such as jazz guitarist John Scofield, former Black Crowe Chris Robinson, singer songwriter Jackie Greene and musical couple Larry and Teresa Campbell – former sidekicks to Levon Helm at his Woodstock home based ‘rambles’. Whilst I continue to applaud Lesh’s ever welcoming spirit, I did start to find some of these collaborations less appealing personally.
At this time another problem began to emerge for me in my appreciation of this music. Not only was I listening to the PL&F recordings, but also some of Bob Weir’s Ratdog and a whole bunch more jam bands covering Grateful Dead songs. Quite a lot of them were beginning to wear out for me. No matter how well played, no matter how many fine instrumental interludes they contained, I was getting more than my fill of ‘Sugaree’, ‘Ramble on Rose’ et al. Every version may be different, but the words and the core tune do tend to stay the same most of the time. My tendency is now to look for the non-GD covers, the pieces the other musicians bring, the occasional newly written songs, and skip the rest – with some exceptions. I no longer pay the same close attention I once did.
I found this to be the case with the second and shorter incarnation of The Dead in 2009 (though not without highlights) and the early days of the aforementioned Furthur. In 2010 new songs did actually begin to creep into the latter’s repertoire, enough I reckon for them to have made a decent album. I particularly enjoyed the ones newly written with Robert Hunter such as ‘Seven Hills of Gold’, ‘Big Bad Blues’ and ‘Colors of the Rain’. There are some downloadable live versions of these excellent songs, but vocals tend often to be lost in the mix. Studio versions of those three and a good few more would have been welcome.
It was, I read in one interview, Lesh himself who was least keen to record those versions. I accept there is little income to be made from making albums, these days, and to a lesser extent Lesh’s argument that the songs are ever evolving, there are no ‘definitive’ versions. But the songs can’t evolve if they aren’t played, can they? To be fair, one survived – in more recent line ups, Lesh has repeatedly revisited ‘The Mountain Song’. The origins of this one do go back to the early 70s and the sessions for Paul Kantner’s ‘Planet Earth Rock’n’Roll Orchestra’ project. It can be heard as a ‘round’ on recordings bootlegged from that era with the singing of Garcia, Grace Slick and David Crosby amongst others. It’s been rewritten since then by various folk at various times, Lesh’s version using lyrics written by Robert Hunter and arranged by his son Brian. A stirring and lovely song. Thanks for at least keeping that one alive, Phil.
After Furthur played its last gig, Lesh again went his own way. He and his wife Jill had, around this time, set up a restaurant cum music venue in San Rafael, California, called Terrapin Crossroads – which, in some ways, was the realisation of a Grateful Dead dream project from somewhere back in the 1990s. Although Lesh’s line ups still play some concert hall and festival venues, he has cannily used the premises to bring the music home, rather than keep it on the move. Inspired in part by Levon Helm’s barn venue and the ‘rambles’ there, Lesh hosts jam bands aplenty, along with his own continuing projects. These now include new assemblies involving his now grown and well musical sons, Brian and Grahame, such as the Terrapin Family Band. A loose collective of mostly younger musicians play in these bands, with and without Lesh on bass. One that has taken my interest is ‘Communion’ in which he does participate. Although they started with GD repertoire pieces they have, on their occasional appearances, brought in some exciting new songs and well rearranged covers. A refreshing take on the classic West Coast rock sound, in my opinion.
PL&F at Terrapin largely concentrated, over a period of 3 or 4 years, on reproducing entire Grateful Dead shows or albums from the 60s onwards, a venture in which, for reasons established already, I had little interest. Now and again, however, the excitement returns. A concert in 2015 featured among the guests, notable and veteran jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, and on drums, Billy Martin of Medeski, Martin and Wood. Although they did stick mainly to material from the repertoire, Frisell and Martin brought enough freshness and vitality to the jams to entirely overcome my ennui. Another highlight from that period was a shorter set at the Lockn’ Festival featuring a three lead guitar line up of Warren Haynes, the David Nelson Band’s Barry Sless and none other than Carlos Santana. Tasty.
That year also saw the Grateful Dead’s 50th anniversary and the surviving original members’ five ‘final’ shows, augmented by Trey Anastasio, keyboard player Jeff Chimenti and associate band member Bruce Hornsby. A much heralded and multi-million dollar event, I’m sure it gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure but for me the ennui returned almost if not quite full on. I’ve listened to all the shows and there are some nice versions of many of the songs, for sure. The jams are pleasant, though for me lack the excitement of the Anastasio/Kimock pairing back in 1999. The only bits that seem to hit new territory on the whole are the drums/space interludes. Of the shows, the most interesting I found was the first, in which they played a set of entirely 1960s material. Whilst I would probably prefer to go back and hear a Dead set that was actually recorded in the 60s, some of this worked well for me. I suspect that Lesh had a lot to do with the choice. As mentioned he’s been responsible for reviving long unplayed songs from this period, and at one point they even assay one of the more ‘out there’ numbers: ‘What’s Become of the Baby?’
To many people’s surprise, Weir, Kretzmann and Hart elected to continue working together after this event, bringing in guitarist John Mayer and others, under the name Dead and Company. Lesh declined to join them. Reaching his mid 70s he was understandably tired of relentless touring. His current projects are, besides, probably of greater interest. An occasional appearance with his former colleagues is, I would think, not out of the question. But for me, such excitement and interest as I maintain will centre on Terrapin Crossroads and its community of musicians. This would, to use a bit of 21st century jargon, appear to be a ‘hub’ of some considerable creativity. Whilst I shall continue to avoid the songs of which I am weary, I intend to keep an eye and if at all possible an ear on whatever emerges that is experimental, adventurous and new. And for that, again, thanks Phil.
I felt that a lot of former ‘Deadheads’, especially here in the UK, had tended to lose interest in these guys’ activities, which seemed a shame as all four of them had, each in their own way, edged into new and worthwhile musical territories. Obviously, those like me who did keep track could use the internet to keep abreast of their activities and access some of the music. But for anyone who hadn’t bothered, I thought a few pointers towards selected highlights might be enough to rekindle interest.
My own interest is not so much on the live performance of the band’s old material, which – understandably in many ways – all four of them tend to fall back on. Not that the reinterpretation of an old song hasn’t on many occasions wowed me, of course. But it’s what they have done that is new and exploratory that excites me and on which I tend mainly to focus.
[image error]
A Garland of Pearls
The post 1995 career of former Grateful Dead bassist, Phil Lesh.
“We treat it as a repertoire. In Grateful Dead terms, that means every performance can be different. All versions of the songs are true, just like a fairy tale,” said Phil Lesh in 2009 of the many songs he has been performing throughout his working life as a musician. He was, at that time, engaged in a new band project with former Dead member Bob Weir, Furthur, which was to be his main focus for another three or four years.
The ‘long strange trip’ did not end with the death of lead guitarist Jerry Garcia and the disbandment of the Grateful Dead in 1995, but for Lesh it took a little while to regain velocity. There were serious financial problems facing the organisation that had grown around the band, and Lesh himself had contracted hepatitis C, culminating in 1998 with a liver transplant that saved his life. Although he’d been involved initially with the band’s first attempt to regroup as ‘The Other Ones’ in 1998, he’d withdrawn from the line-up after the release of their one official album, a two CD live set, ‘The Strange Remain’.
Upon his recovery he began to develop the idea that was to become ‘Phil Lesh and Friends’. He had become aware that the ‘repertoire’ was being adopted by many other musicians, who not only played Grateful Dead songs but used them as a springboard for improvisation, in the same spirit as the Dead had done. The idea was to play with these musicians in a fluid, ever-changing line-up, seeking fresh approaches to the Dead’s songs and also taking on board other material: tunes he’d long wished to play, along with those brought in by his ever-changing musical partners.
In his 2005 autobiography, ‘Searching for the Sound’, Lesh said of this concept: “As a bandleader, I like nothing better than to plan shows in which I can string songs and improvisations together thematically, like a garland of pearls, and then encourage the musicians to step outside their standard way of thinking and play – completely in the context of the moment. I continue to seek out multiple musical partners, in a quest for that elusive chemistry that comes and goes as it wishes.” It was to prove a fertile inspiration and has continued to this day.
One of his first close and continuing colleagues in PL&F was Steve Kimock, a guitarist whose calibre was established over many years with his own band Zero. Lesh's initial interest in working with Kimock had been consolidated when the guitarist had played with The Other Ones. However, despite the bassist’s claim that he would always work with Kimock, that partnership lasted for only a year or so and the two have not played together again as far as I know.
Which was a shame as Kimock’s fluid and versatile guitar work wove elegantly with Lesh’s melodic and ever inventive bass lines, as can be heard particularly well on soundboard recordings of some of the first PL&F gigs, available for download on the Live Music Archive website. For three nights at San Francisco’s Warfield Theatre they joined forces with Trey Anastasio and Page McConnell of the band Phish, plus drummer John Molo. They established their territory with a 33 minute Viola Lee Blues, and the stratospheric impro continued through all three shows. They delved into the Dead repertoire including numbers long since abandoned in the Garcia years such as ‘Alligator’ and ‘Mountains of the Moon’. To these they added Dylan covers, songs from Phish’s repertoire plus one of Kimock’s, and an unexpected rendition of Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’. As a statement of intent, those gigs stand tall.
More line-ups followed in hot succession. Jorma Kaukonen of Hot Tuna/Airplane fame, UK keyboard/bass man Pete Sears and others within a month or so (official release ‘& Love Will See You Through’ – a double live highlights set). Then came collaborations with the wonderful David Nelson Band, jam bands String Cheese Incident, Moe and Zen Tricksters, Little Feat, Merl Saunders and many more. Lesh is, I think, an ethical and magnanimous sort of a gent (he has made a point of including a personally delivered organ donor appeal at every gig he’s played since 1998, not to mention his part in setting up the charitable Rex and Unbroken Chain Foundations) and in those days was happy to allow free soundboard recordings onto the internet. They are well worth tracking down.
By 2001 it looked like the line up might be turning into something more fixed. Lesh had begun a long lasting musical relationship with ex Allman Brothers and Gov’t Mule guitarist, the mighty Warren Haynes. This version of PL&F, sometimes referred to as ‘The Quartet’, was rounded out by guitarist Jimmy Herring (Jazz is Dead), keyboard man Rob Barraco (Zen Tricksters) and then consistent drummer John Molo. They developed some fairly standard sets and began to come up with new material including collaborations with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. A surprise studio recorded album appeared in 02, ‘There and Back Again’. There’s a strong set of melodic and vital material to be found on this album, and it’s one of my few regrets as regards PL&F that Lesh seems to have lost faith in these fine songs. They are rarely if ever performed now, even when ‘The Q’ occasionally reunite.
In 2003 came the first incarnation of ‘The Dead’ as Lesh linked up once more with Weir, Kreutzmann and Hart, bringing Haynes, Herring and Barraco with him. Something of the spirit of PL&F seemed to pervade this version of the band. New material, interesting covers (‘Cortez the Killer’, ‘Eight Miles High’, ‘Milestones’) and GD rarities kept their sets less predictable, along with guest appearances by the likes of Steve Winwood and Willie Nelson. They even got back together with Bob Dylan at one point. Deadheads seem often to look down on these reunions, but personally I still find a lot to enjoy in live recordings from this period. The addition of quality singer Joan Osborne at this time rang the changes still further for the good.
As both ‘The Q’ and the Dead went their separate ways in 04, PL&F reverted to its original concept and line ups varied throughout the next three or four years. Lesh formed new links, many of which have continued on occasion to this day, with musicians such as jazz guitarist John Scofield, former Black Crowe Chris Robinson, singer songwriter Jackie Greene and musical couple Larry and Teresa Campbell – former sidekicks to Levon Helm at his Woodstock home based ‘rambles’. Whilst I continue to applaud Lesh’s ever welcoming spirit, I did start to find some of these collaborations less appealing personally.
At this time another problem began to emerge for me in my appreciation of this music. Not only was I listening to the PL&F recordings, but also some of Bob Weir’s Ratdog and a whole bunch more jam bands covering Grateful Dead songs. Quite a lot of them were beginning to wear out for me. No matter how well played, no matter how many fine instrumental interludes they contained, I was getting more than my fill of ‘Sugaree’, ‘Ramble on Rose’ et al. Every version may be different, but the words and the core tune do tend to stay the same most of the time. My tendency is now to look for the non-GD covers, the pieces the other musicians bring, the occasional newly written songs, and skip the rest – with some exceptions. I no longer pay the same close attention I once did.
I found this to be the case with the second and shorter incarnation of The Dead in 2009 (though not without highlights) and the early days of the aforementioned Furthur. In 2010 new songs did actually begin to creep into the latter’s repertoire, enough I reckon for them to have made a decent album. I particularly enjoyed the ones newly written with Robert Hunter such as ‘Seven Hills of Gold’, ‘Big Bad Blues’ and ‘Colors of the Rain’. There are some downloadable live versions of these excellent songs, but vocals tend often to be lost in the mix. Studio versions of those three and a good few more would have been welcome.
It was, I read in one interview, Lesh himself who was least keen to record those versions. I accept there is little income to be made from making albums, these days, and to a lesser extent Lesh’s argument that the songs are ever evolving, there are no ‘definitive’ versions. But the songs can’t evolve if they aren’t played, can they? To be fair, one survived – in more recent line ups, Lesh has repeatedly revisited ‘The Mountain Song’. The origins of this one do go back to the early 70s and the sessions for Paul Kantner’s ‘Planet Earth Rock’n’Roll Orchestra’ project. It can be heard as a ‘round’ on recordings bootlegged from that era with the singing of Garcia, Grace Slick and David Crosby amongst others. It’s been rewritten since then by various folk at various times, Lesh’s version using lyrics written by Robert Hunter and arranged by his son Brian. A stirring and lovely song. Thanks for at least keeping that one alive, Phil.
After Furthur played its last gig, Lesh again went his own way. He and his wife Jill had, around this time, set up a restaurant cum music venue in San Rafael, California, called Terrapin Crossroads – which, in some ways, was the realisation of a Grateful Dead dream project from somewhere back in the 1990s. Although Lesh’s line ups still play some concert hall and festival venues, he has cannily used the premises to bring the music home, rather than keep it on the move. Inspired in part by Levon Helm’s barn venue and the ‘rambles’ there, Lesh hosts jam bands aplenty, along with his own continuing projects. These now include new assemblies involving his now grown and well musical sons, Brian and Grahame, such as the Terrapin Family Band. A loose collective of mostly younger musicians play in these bands, with and without Lesh on bass. One that has taken my interest is ‘Communion’ in which he does participate. Although they started with GD repertoire pieces they have, on their occasional appearances, brought in some exciting new songs and well rearranged covers. A refreshing take on the classic West Coast rock sound, in my opinion.
PL&F at Terrapin largely concentrated, over a period of 3 or 4 years, on reproducing entire Grateful Dead shows or albums from the 60s onwards, a venture in which, for reasons established already, I had little interest. Now and again, however, the excitement returns. A concert in 2015 featured among the guests, notable and veteran jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, and on drums, Billy Martin of Medeski, Martin and Wood. Although they did stick mainly to material from the repertoire, Frisell and Martin brought enough freshness and vitality to the jams to entirely overcome my ennui. Another highlight from that period was a shorter set at the Lockn’ Festival featuring a three lead guitar line up of Warren Haynes, the David Nelson Band’s Barry Sless and none other than Carlos Santana. Tasty.
That year also saw the Grateful Dead’s 50th anniversary and the surviving original members’ five ‘final’ shows, augmented by Trey Anastasio, keyboard player Jeff Chimenti and associate band member Bruce Hornsby. A much heralded and multi-million dollar event, I’m sure it gave a lot of people a lot of pleasure but for me the ennui returned almost if not quite full on. I’ve listened to all the shows and there are some nice versions of many of the songs, for sure. The jams are pleasant, though for me lack the excitement of the Anastasio/Kimock pairing back in 1999. The only bits that seem to hit new territory on the whole are the drums/space interludes. Of the shows, the most interesting I found was the first, in which they played a set of entirely 1960s material. Whilst I would probably prefer to go back and hear a Dead set that was actually recorded in the 60s, some of this worked well for me. I suspect that Lesh had a lot to do with the choice. As mentioned he’s been responsible for reviving long unplayed songs from this period, and at one point they even assay one of the more ‘out there’ numbers: ‘What’s Become of the Baby?’
To many people’s surprise, Weir, Kretzmann and Hart elected to continue working together after this event, bringing in guitarist John Mayer and others, under the name Dead and Company. Lesh declined to join them. Reaching his mid 70s he was understandably tired of relentless touring. His current projects are, besides, probably of greater interest. An occasional appearance with his former colleagues is, I would think, not out of the question. But for me, such excitement and interest as I maintain will centre on Terrapin Crossroads and its community of musicians. This would, to use a bit of 21st century jargon, appear to be a ‘hub’ of some considerable creativity. Whilst I shall continue to avoid the songs of which I am weary, I intend to keep an eye and if at all possible an ear on whatever emerges that is experimental, adventurous and new. And for that, again, thanks Phil.
May 22, 2018
May 7, 2018
Quorntroversy!
I’ve spent a large part of my life living with vegetarians. I’ve never been one myself. Thought about it at one stage of my life and decided I’d probably have to go the whole way if I was going to do it, veganism, no more leather shoes or belts, and being kind of lazy decided against it. I do subscribe to the idea that human beings eat far too much meat and it is a grossly inefficient way to use the waning resources of our planet. But that kind of dovetails with my own relative lack of interest in or strong desire for meat and my contentment with the idea of eating it occasionally and selectively.
But anyway, living with vegetarians tended to divert my cooking skills – such as they are – away from meat recipes and I built up a fair knowledge regarding how to use wholefoods etc. Getting protein from pulse/cereal combinations or dairy products seemed to work for me. But as the years went past, there were times when I got a bit tired of using the same products over and over. Maybe I wasn’t being imaginative enough or looking in recipe books with sufficient enthusiasm, but I began look out for anything with which I could vary my diet – without going to too much extra effort.
Enter ‘quorn’.
I think I first heard about quorn when it was being marketed as a new product in the mid to late 1980’s. At first I was snooty about it. Why manufacture something to be like meat in the first place? Also it seemed kind of pricey and I’ve lived most of my life on a tight budget. So the best part of 25 years passed without me trying it, as far as I can remember. It wasn’t ‘til I found myself in a new relationship with a woman who’d taken to using the stuff, utilising it in some rather pleasant recipes, that I realised what I’d been missing.
I’m not sure it would convince any confirmed beefsteak fanatics. But if you cook it right, you can add a lot of flavour to it and –particularly in its ‘chunk’ form - it has for me an agreeable texture. Great in curries, wraps, casseroles and more. And some of the quorn products turned out to be tasty too, burgers and escalopes and such. So far so good.
However, times and partners have changed, and my received wisdom on this is under question once more. Quorn is a microfungus, derived from soil mould and grown in vats. It is subsequently heated and vitamins and nutrients are added to it. It is a ‘processed’ product. We are told that certain processed foods are bad for us – reconstituted meat products being a prime example. Could it be, it was suggested to me, that quorn might be in the same bracket?
It was an upsetting question. I’d got used to using the stuff, enjoying it in many of its marketed forms, and it seemed cheaper these days. Would I have to go back to my old pre-quorn ways?
Well, on the home front, I’m still working to defend it. I’ve been thinking about the word ‘processed’ and what it really means. ‘Food processing is the transformation of cooked ingredients, by physical or chemical means into food, or of food into other forms,’ says Wikipedia. So it includes cooking, mincing, slicing and dicing, and pickling for example. As far as I know no such processes has an intrinsic tendency to make food ‘bad for us’, far from it in a lot of cases. It is pretty much inseparable from the concept of cooking. Or so I tell myself.
Not only that but I’ve yet to locate any information regarding health issues associated with quorn consumption. Okay, I haven’t looked that hard, so if – oh you precious and rare readers of this blog – you have come across any such information, do please let me know. I will view it with an initially sceptical eye, of course, but I’m always open to good evidence.
I have to go now. My stomach’s rumbling and quorn burgers await me.
Incidentally I’ve received no financial or other incentives from Marlow Foods for this blog. Chance’d be a fine thing…
But anyway, living with vegetarians tended to divert my cooking skills – such as they are – away from meat recipes and I built up a fair knowledge regarding how to use wholefoods etc. Getting protein from pulse/cereal combinations or dairy products seemed to work for me. But as the years went past, there were times when I got a bit tired of using the same products over and over. Maybe I wasn’t being imaginative enough or looking in recipe books with sufficient enthusiasm, but I began look out for anything with which I could vary my diet – without going to too much extra effort.
Enter ‘quorn’.
I think I first heard about quorn when it was being marketed as a new product in the mid to late 1980’s. At first I was snooty about it. Why manufacture something to be like meat in the first place? Also it seemed kind of pricey and I’ve lived most of my life on a tight budget. So the best part of 25 years passed without me trying it, as far as I can remember. It wasn’t ‘til I found myself in a new relationship with a woman who’d taken to using the stuff, utilising it in some rather pleasant recipes, that I realised what I’d been missing.
I’m not sure it would convince any confirmed beefsteak fanatics. But if you cook it right, you can add a lot of flavour to it and –particularly in its ‘chunk’ form - it has for me an agreeable texture. Great in curries, wraps, casseroles and more. And some of the quorn products turned out to be tasty too, burgers and escalopes and such. So far so good.
However, times and partners have changed, and my received wisdom on this is under question once more. Quorn is a microfungus, derived from soil mould and grown in vats. It is subsequently heated and vitamins and nutrients are added to it. It is a ‘processed’ product. We are told that certain processed foods are bad for us – reconstituted meat products being a prime example. Could it be, it was suggested to me, that quorn might be in the same bracket?
It was an upsetting question. I’d got used to using the stuff, enjoying it in many of its marketed forms, and it seemed cheaper these days. Would I have to go back to my old pre-quorn ways?
Well, on the home front, I’m still working to defend it. I’ve been thinking about the word ‘processed’ and what it really means. ‘Food processing is the transformation of cooked ingredients, by physical or chemical means into food, or of food into other forms,’ says Wikipedia. So it includes cooking, mincing, slicing and dicing, and pickling for example. As far as I know no such processes has an intrinsic tendency to make food ‘bad for us’, far from it in a lot of cases. It is pretty much inseparable from the concept of cooking. Or so I tell myself.
Not only that but I’ve yet to locate any information regarding health issues associated with quorn consumption. Okay, I haven’t looked that hard, so if – oh you precious and rare readers of this blog – you have come across any such information, do please let me know. I will view it with an initially sceptical eye, of course, but I’m always open to good evidence.
I have to go now. My stomach’s rumbling and quorn burgers await me.
Incidentally I’ve received no financial or other incentives from Marlow Foods for this blog. Chance’d be a fine thing…
April 23, 2018
Our Flying Dog
With my partner at this time, I go to an animal rescue centre and we return home having taken possession of a flying dog. It has ginger fur and in some ways resembles a corgi, but it is also bat-like. It has very large, furry ginger wings that make a ‘swish’ sound when it flies. Take-offs and landings can sometimes be a bit dodgy, but up in the air it moves with grace and elegance.
It seems to take to living in our home, and although it is perfectly capable of flying out of our sight and covering considerable distances, the dog always returns to us. In fact, usually on return, it is pleased to see us. There is tail wagging, eye contact and a clear desire to be stroked and made a fuss of. It has a strong healthy appetite and we feed it on a 50:50 mixture of dog and bird food – on which it thrives.
We train the dog to carry messages to family and friends. At first we encourage it to carry the messages by mouth, but they tend to arrive somewhat chewed and saliva sodden. So we devise a pouch which we attach to its collar, and after dealing with one or two aerodynamic issues, we find this works very well. We send messages only to those who will treat our dog kindly, and feed it or give it treats before it makes the return journey.
Whenever it departs, bearing a message, we stand outside our house – which is high on a hillside – and watch it swish and soar away over woodland below us until it is out of sight. Back inside our house there is a sense of absence. We look forward to the day and hour when it will reappear, barking to announce its arrival if we are not outside awaiting it. Often it will have brought back an answer to one of our messages. Somehow this always seems the best way to keep in contact with our friends and family members.
In our living room we have a large cushion filled basket where our dog sleeps. Like many a dog, it likes to circle round and round in its basket as if making some kind of considered choice, before settling to lie down and sleep. The last thing it does before closing its eyes is to lazily open its wings, stretching them up, then relaxing them so that they drape over the sides of the basket, their tips touching the carpeted floor.
It seems to take to living in our home, and although it is perfectly capable of flying out of our sight and covering considerable distances, the dog always returns to us. In fact, usually on return, it is pleased to see us. There is tail wagging, eye contact and a clear desire to be stroked and made a fuss of. It has a strong healthy appetite and we feed it on a 50:50 mixture of dog and bird food – on which it thrives.
We train the dog to carry messages to family and friends. At first we encourage it to carry the messages by mouth, but they tend to arrive somewhat chewed and saliva sodden. So we devise a pouch which we attach to its collar, and after dealing with one or two aerodynamic issues, we find this works very well. We send messages only to those who will treat our dog kindly, and feed it or give it treats before it makes the return journey.
Whenever it departs, bearing a message, we stand outside our house – which is high on a hillside – and watch it swish and soar away over woodland below us until it is out of sight. Back inside our house there is a sense of absence. We look forward to the day and hour when it will reappear, barking to announce its arrival if we are not outside awaiting it. Often it will have brought back an answer to one of our messages. Somehow this always seems the best way to keep in contact with our friends and family members.
In our living room we have a large cushion filled basket where our dog sleeps. Like many a dog, it likes to circle round and round in its basket as if making some kind of considered choice, before settling to lie down and sleep. The last thing it does before closing its eyes is to lazily open its wings, stretching them up, then relaxing them so that they drape over the sides of the basket, their tips touching the carpeted floor.
April 10, 2018
Paving Slab Earthquake
Working with and supervised by a more knowledgeable gent, I find myself modifying a stretch of paving. We are replacing old metal drain covers with more decorative ones. It’s challenging labour for me, since I am not a physically strong person, but somehow the work seems to be getting done.Temporarily alone, I notice that one of the drain covers I’m trying to lay is not a good fit, and I start shifting and re-arranging the paving slabs around it so that I can improve on this. People are passing me by on the street while I work, and after moving slabs for a while I look up and notice that the people I am seeing are distressed. It turns out that – unnoticed by me – there has been a small earthquake. Apparently, the cause of this earthquake is me, moving paving slabs. Beyond the part where I have been working, the scene looks disastrous. Parts of the paving have collapsed completely into huge, open potholes, others totter precariously. People are trying to keep their balance, and/or jumping and running towards more secure surfaces elsewhere.
I turn from this scene to look down at the place where I have been working. I notice that, as in an archaeological dig, I have exposed older layers of paving from decades ago – some with thick glass slabs inserted amongst the stones, others with just tarmac. I find this interesting, but mainly I’m feeling guilty on account of being the cause of the recent earthquake.
But at this point my supervisor and fellow worker returns. He tells me not to worry, it’s not my fault, it’s the Council’s. All I’ve done is to expose an underlying fault in the way the upper layer of slabs was laid, and it will be the Council’s responsibility to come and fix it. I’m not so sure he’s right. I feel I ought to do something about it, but I’ve no idea what and all of a sudden the idea of moving paving slabs at all seems impossibly difficult. So I accept what he says, and we leave.
A little further on we see a group of people milling around parked cars on the roadside. Unsure what they might be doing, I ask my worldly-wise companion. He tells me they are checking to ensure that none of the cars are parked too closely together.
March 19, 2018
The Unidentifiable Factory Job
I have a job in a factory. It’s something on the administrative side, possibly involving the gathering or processing of data. It appears that I am contriving to spend time not actually doing my job. I am managing to get away with hanging out on city streets, looking in shops, going to cafes and visiting friends of mine who are at home. When I do go back to the factory – where men are working at big lathe-like machines – no one seems to be aware that I am skiving. Not only that, but the truth is that I can’t actually remember what my job consists of. When I talk to other people in the factory, especially to any other admin workers I encounter, I try surreptitiously to pick up clues about what it is that I am supposed to be doing there. If I am directly asked about anything that I am doing, I seem to be able to get away with bluffing, using what little I do know to give an impression of someone who knows what he is doing. I’m starting to feel increasingly guilty about this. Everyone in the factory seems to like me and to be quite happy with whatever it is that they think I am doing. I feel that I owe it to them to be doing my job properly. If only I knew what it was…
Dream or Reality?
I have a job in a factory. It’s something on the administrative side, possibly involving the gathering or processing of data. It appears that I am contriving to spend time not actually doing my job. I am managing to get away with hanging out on city streets, looking in shops, going to cafes and visiting friends of mine who are at home. When I do go back to the factory – where men are working at big lathe-like machines – no one seems to be aware that I am skiving. Not only that, but the truth is that I can’t actually remember what my job consists of. When I talk to other people in the factory, especially to any other admin workers I encounter, I try surreptitiously to pick up clues about what it is that I am supposed to be doing there. If I am directly asked about anything that I am doing, I seem to be able to get away with bluffing, using what little I do know to give an impression of someone who knows what he is doing. I’m starting to feel increasingly guilty about this. Everyone in the factory seems to like me and to be quite happy with whatever it is that they think I am doing. I feel that I owe it to them to be doing my job properly. If only I knew what it was…
