I grew up with Punk so I always avoided "hippy music" but now in my old age I am really beginning to enjoy the Grateful Dead, especially the early studio albums. Any other "Deadheads" on here?

The "semi" in the title is because I always relate the Dead to the Stones because of Altamont. I would also be interested to hear any Dead/Stones connection stories.

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Sure. It's been discussed before as well.
I always enjoyed the Dead. Only connection I can think of is Altamont.

Mick Taylor played a gig with the Dead in 1988....

Mac was offered a job in the band in the 80's (he discusses in his book).....

many musical connections....The Dead routinely covered The Last Time and Satisfaction....

humanriff, speaking of punk (or pre-punk ), Television did some Stones covers too. Satisfaction was good.
Grateful Dead played Not Fade Away many times, I know it's not a Stones song, but you know... It's always good to compare 2 covers of the same song.
I like GD, indeed. You gotta adore "Jack Straw", it's like "Hand Of Fate" but with more jazz feeling.

The Dead also did Chuck Berry covers from time to time...like Johhny B Goode, Around & Around...

I have always liked the Dead, but am by no means a deadhead. I saw them perform a couple of times in the late '60's and they put on a good show.

Though Altamont kind of connected them, the comparison stops when you consider that the Stones had the b***s to actually take the stage and perform, but the Dead backed out.

Quote
DaveG
I have always liked the Dead, but am by no means a deadhead. I saw them perform a couple of times in the late '60's and they put on a good show.

Though Altamont kind of connected them, the comparison stops when you consider that the Stones had the b***s to actually take the stage and perform, but the Dead backed out.

balls???? ummm...one could opine that they were stupid as hell....

My two favorite bands.

Saw them a few times in the eighties. Still love 'em.

I Love the Dead! I was never a "Hippie tie -dye" kind of guy. I only new the hits Truckin, Uncle Johns, touch of Grey etc. A friend of mine showed me the light 2 years ago. Wow Incredible. I saw the light many a times prior but their music just blew my mind. One of the few bands where they sounded much better live. Their studio stuff is ok but once you hear the live boot stuff, well welcome on the bus! Jerry garcia and Keith Richards had a love of music 24 / 7 that Iv'e never seen before. That is my belief anyway. Check out Europe 72 or Skulls and Roses for official live. Once you get it then proceed to Live Dead official album. For boots check out Winterland 73, Paris 72, Cornell 77, Dillon stadium 73 for starts. Anybody wants to discuss Dead hardcore etc drop me a line. Any deadheads in Connecticut? Stones are #1 for me but The Grateful Dead were great musicians and a great band esp live. Truckin to Buffalo 89 great as well. July 4th. Turn on if you please MEZ

Hey Amused, funny you mention Television, they are my other favourite band. I see some connection between Television and the Dead. I think its the guitar playing of both is somewhat influenced by John Coltrane and Free Jazz.
James - I have a couple of the live records and am just getting into them, I think the early acoustic studio stuff fits well with Exile and Stick Fingers type vibe, especially the records American Beauty and Workingmans Dead.

Some gutairists are instantly recognizeable, most are equally replaceable. Our Keith and Jerry Garcia, though world's apart in style are two such that come to mind. I considered myself a dead head for about a year. I still put on a CD now and then. But for my taste, live, especially in later years when I was sober AND THEY WERE NOT, I found the live experience IFFY at best. The long jams that many appreciate hit my ears as rather self indulgent meanderings.

In London, during Licks, Bob Weir played at the Astoria with his band Rat Dog(?) and I remember getting excited about having tickets. Wow in a short span, Mick Taylor, Bob Weir AND several Stones shows, it was a slice of a rock and roll heaven! Now Bloomington , Indiana, 1975, I admit I passed out at a Stones Show ( a lesson that has driven me to attend the last 33 years MOSTLY sober), but Rat Dog is the only rock show I remember actually falling asleep at,and I had not intoxicant one in my body! I awoke only because my freind's head hit my shoulder mouth agape like some weird human fly trap dribble on chin and his snoring woke me up! I don't know, maybe the show really took off later, but we left after 45 minutes and had a better time at a local pub with a band of unknowns!

My initiation - what better date than 31st October.

It happened in 1990 at Wembley Arena.

Stones connection? Twofold. Firstly a song they did that night - Little Red Rooster!

After each "the hounds begin to howl" line the whole audience bayed "ooooowwwooooooooooh!" in spontaneous concordant howl. So damn funny, especially for a novice that had never appreciated a Dead audience before, nevermind one at Halloween and probably half of them switched on.

And another special they did that night which demanded bayings and howlings was ............ "Werewolves of London"!!!!!
Again, the whole audience ............... AWOOOOOOOOO! "Wererwolves of London" AWOOOOOO! etc.

The whole show was a celebration of music. Audience and band together.
My friend who went with me, who had heard no dead stuff before, said something like,
"This is fanastic, it's like a giant Rave"
(The Rave scene was big circa '89-90 in UK).

The second Stones connection:

I saw this gig advertised at Wembley Stadium (in flashing neon) at the last Stones gig tha summer. Otherwise would never have known at all. Fot a laugh I thought, "Ha, better see that old bunch jokers while I get the chance". The very pleasant joke was on me.

"Without a Net" was a (triple) live album from that era. It has a very good version of Robert Johnston's Walking Blues. The rest is ok.

I'm told "Skullfuck" is the best live album, which is deadspeak for Skuuls and Roses, methinks.

Although many of their albums were essentially platforms, working canvases, from which to extract songs to take to the stage, I like a whole damn lot of them in their own right. Eclectic blends of styles. Blues, Jazz, Folk, R&B, many all mixed up, with tempo changes and coy harmonies.

Blues for Allah one of my favourites. Trippy without acid.

Here's a great site to listen to over 1,000 Grateful Dead shows live. The link starts at the last page, which is the beginning of their career.

My favourite period is roughly page 83-87...the early 70's. (I think 1973-75 were their most interesting years.

1987-89 are also good years, as well as 1982-84.

I would stay away from the years 1991-95...IMO, they almost suck those years....Jerry and Keith don't seem to play as well in the twilight of their careers....ashame, that Jerry died so young, it's almost like he died before he died...at least that's how I felt. I stopped seeing them after 1991 because Jerry was no longer Jerry. Keith should take note....he's going down the same path.

I saw the Grateful Dead approximately 150 times.

Oh, here's the link to listen [www.archive.org]


I love the fact that they play a different show every night....you'll never go see a show and they play the same thing. They are true musicians, who go with the flow. The way music should be played...IMO.


RIP...Jerry, Pigpen and Brent

what in the world ever became of sweetjane she lost her sparkle she isnt the same .living on reds vitamin c and cocaine all a friend can say aint a shame !trucking out to buffalo i been thinking about that mellow soul MISS YOU JERRY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Love the Dead, one of my all time favorite bands. Jerry lived and breathed music live nobody else. Only got to see them in the early 90s a few times, would have loved to have seen them in the 70s.

James I am from Connecticut. I live in Stamford.

I saw them a couple times in the mid '70s and really was too young to appreciate their intricacies and infinite musical passions. Went thru the late '70s and '80s as a punker and rocker and rediscovered the Dead live in the early '90s. Saw them a bunch of times and collected the whole canon. Towards the end it was not unusual to hear them perform "The Last Time."

They also did Its All Over Now pretty often. And Jerry did Wild Horses and Lets Spend the Night Together on his solo albums.

Also Jerry did Moonlight Mile a few times live in the 70s.

Odd that a few more Bluegrass bands didn't discover drugs in quite the same way ;^)

humanriff77 the link below is to an 85 show from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio...great soundboard recording, plus the show has a nice mix of covers. Day Tripper, CC Rider,Big River and Gimme Some Lovin'

Sounds real nice with headphones

Click on Try The New Beta Player

[www.archive.org]

I seem to remember a story about Bob Weir meeting up with Ron Wood in NYC when one of the two bands played Mets stadium.

On the Rob Wasserman CD "Trios", Wasserman, Weir and Neil Young (?) cover "Satisfaction". Worth checking out...keep an open mind about it, though.

Hey Bingo
Thanks for the links Im not going to run out of stuff to listen to

I love the dead , American Beauty/Workingmans Dead are two of the finest pieces of Americana who could hear. the Live/Dead album is also fantatstic, yest the were indulgant and some albums veer from patchy to downright awful, but wheh they were good.............................

Thanks Bingo thats a great sounding concert.

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SPUD it wasn't the drugs it was jerry garcia guitar and the sweetest voice in the world that was the magic of jerry and the dead

I will wade in on the negative side.

While most bands in the sixties experimented the Dead remained an experiment, but a disjointed one. Where bands successfully, say, transformed blues into pop music (FLeetwood Mac comes to mind) the dead hashed allot of non descrpt stuff into there music. Now, I like a hook, a beat, rock and roll, non of which the Dead did for the most part. Long jams are a matter of taste. They change keys just for the fun of trying to trip up the other band members, nice for musicians but a key change can confuse a rookie.

Yes they have a key place in sixties rock, the were inovative, they were the most toured band, they had the family thing going, many atributes.

However they never had a successfull album, were trying to get themselves out of debt and just did not play popular music. I did see them in a 5 hour concert, where I would nod off until every 45 minutes they would try to wake folks up with a rocker, then put you back to sleep with a 20 minute sleeper. Later that year I walked out on them just before they played for their biggest audience at Watkins Glenn, went back to the car and do not regret it.

Oh man...this show smokes ...The "Mescaline" show.

Enjoy!!

[www.archive.org]

love the dead, i'd say '69-'73 and '87-'90 were the best years.

for people who like "skull and roses" and "live/dead" i'd suggest "ladies and gentlemen" and "fillmore west '69" which contain most of the shows that were compiled for those 2 releases

I remember reading a Rolling Stone interview with Jerry about '89-'90 and he said "I Think Steel Wheels is a hell of an album".

" There's nothing like a Grateful Dead show" wasn't that the truth. In Phil Lesh's book he talks about Altamont and in hindsight wishes that the band had played, his logic being that by backing out they had created a gap of nothing for the crowd to focus on except getting more wasted and agressive.
The Grateful Dead are in some ways like The Stones, musically they tried all styles of music, some consider the early 70's their creative peak, and both Jerry and Ronnie had an artistic side to them.
Are there and Ratdog fans out there? I think that Bobby has done a nice job of tweaking the Grateful Dead cataloge.
Can anyone imagine Ronnie and Bobby partying together in NYC back in the late 80's, talk about rehab situations.
Love it when Pigpen gets to raving during Lovelight..." Get your hands out of your pockets, unless you like playing pocket pool..."
It's fun to be part of the Grateful Dead tribe.Hey Bingo let's not forget,
RIP Keith G. and Vince W.