TL-DR Dept. - "Why Dead Heads Are Full Of Shit"

Dead Heads™, yestiddy

Today, Dead Heads™ fall into three basic species, as shown above [above - Ed.]. From left, the Old Hippie, Mr. Hip Businessman, and Tucker Carlson. The Old Hippie lives in a Malibu beach house which boasts a climate-controlled Dead Vault containing digitised copies of every known live recording. Mr. Hip Businessman lives in an Alpine chalet designed by Le Corbusier and keeps his extensive collection of Dead memorabilia in a Swiss bank. Tucker Carlson? Yup. He's a Dead Head™, can list his top five live versions of Althea. The Dead's broad church includes an army of shitferbrains gun-humping nutbars. Good people on both sides, right? Uh ...

They all share a belief in the core Dead Head scriptures, and the First Commandment is, Thou Hast To Have Been There. That many of them weren't, or were barely on the periphery, doesn't matter. The second, and the one that concerns us today, is Yea, The Studio Albums Kinda Suck. They're for us Walmart shoppers out here. Why? Because they don't capture their live magic, and hey! - the band hated being in the studio! And yadda yadda. It's achieved critical opinion mass - the studio albums (except for the two obvious exceptions that even twenty-somethings might have heard of) are regularly dismissed by *cough* "rock critics" and there's always some internet pencil-neck regurgitating the same old crap, etching it deeper into the public psyche as a "rock fact". They can't mention a studio album with shoe-horning in the old trope [you said trope huhuhrr - Ed.] about it not being as good as the live experience. These people are full of shit, and I'm here to tell you why.

Of course the Dead were a live band first - they lived for the stage, not the studio. That doesn't mean the albums are garbage, or even sub par. They didn't approach recording cynically or lazily, they gave it their considerable best. The studio was where they had to stop fucking about, and for a band whose holy mission was to fuck about, it was a stretch. But it was where they created their core repertoire, flexed their experimental muscle, and did their best singing - although they're never going to be thought of as a vocals band, they could sing a whole lot better than the impression given by their live performances. Nope, endless takes and retakes in a windowless room with just mics and chairs and headachy lighting was as close to back-breaking labor as these guys got, but when they finished their assignment they got to go outside and play, like good boys. And the albums reached a global audience that spread even further than their tour itineraries. The majority of Grateful Dead fans - us Walmart shoppers - never saw them in concert, and became fans through the studio recordings. To dismiss them en masse [Fr. - en bloc - Ed.] because it's not the live experience is just dumb. And lazy. And dumb. But mostly dumb.

Swell album. Bite me.

The studio albums are disconcertingly varied, reflecting the wide individual skills and tastes of the band. From the avant garde (avant everyone) cut-ups of Aoxomoxoa through the radio-friendly Go To Heaven, they're all way better than the Dead Heads™want you to know, because they believe they own the idea of the Grateful Dead. They're theirs, unnerstan'? And the fact that the Dead mostly are dead these days and therefore unavailable for concert performance doesn't seem to register. The Dead's live recordings can be fantastic, but let's face it, Dead Heads™, you're just squaring those Dave's Picks up on your custom-built Deadshelf, occasionally sampling a disc through iPods with a bag of Werthers on the couch and trying to get the rug in focus. That ain't exactly the live experience, pally - it's a near death experience. Nobody sane has the time or willpower to sit through even one multi-disc box set, leave alone dozens. The container ship volume of live recordings is too daunting for just plain folks to approach, and every year we get another essential set from the golden year of whenever to file alongside all the others. Enough awready! This is not healthy!

Not seen in studio

No one studio album defines Grateful Deadness in the public mind, acts as their Dark Side Of The Moon, or Kind Of Blue. American Beauty probably gets close, but it's a unique snapshot of them at that time, like all the others, and as soon as you say American Beauty somebody leaps down your throat with Workingman's Dead. There's no consensus as to their "best" album. There's always a shift, sometimes sideways, sometimes back, from one album to the next. A blurred zig and zag rather than a consumer-friendly straight line. So the overall narrative of the studio albums is hard to follow, because it ain't there - the chronology is irrelevant. Look at it this way - none of their albums is transitional, you can start anywhere. They never made a classic iconic rock album in the sense that, say, Led Zeppelin or The Eagles did because they were never really a "rock band" at all, in spite of appearances. A good friend of mine (hi, Stuart!) could never get over his disappointment with the music after the hard rock promise of those great psychedelic covers. He's not alone in expecting something the Dead never delivered, and unless you can take them (and the albums) on their own terms rather than yours, you'll be scratching your noggin at all those bozos on the bus letting the air out of their shoes. That's groovy, too. It's your trip, man.

Given that there is no majority-voted and definitively representative studio album, any interested music fan (as opposed to Dead Head™) has to discover their own gateway disc that will suddenly click for them. From The Mars Hotel has always been Top Five Dead for me. From the gorgeous two-for-the-price-of-one cover [above - Ed.] to the filler-free thirty-eight minutes or so of swell tunes, it delivers on every level. What other band could have made this album? None. None other band. It not only sounds like none other band, it doesn't sound much like any other Grateful Dead album. Like all the others don't. Let's take a detailed look at each track to see how the whole thing comes together! [let's not - Ed.]

Note how Ugly Rumors appear mirrored and upside down in the great tradition of oh wow man, and is a play on the "ugly roomers" at the Mars Hotel depicted on the back cover. It's this kind of attention to detail that [remaining text lost in freak internet storm - Ed.]

ADDEADUM

A small discussion in the comments about the cover to Go To Heaven cover prompted me to get my crayons out and come up with an alternative:

This post homologated by AAAAAAAAAA(AAAAAA) - Affiliated American Amalgamated Accurate Album Awareness, Assessment And Appreciation Association (Anaheim And Azusa, And Also Albuquerque) 

Britpop - Non! Frogpop - Oui!

Famed animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot dances to the latest Affaire Louis Trio chart topper, yesterday. C'est swing!

Back when British rock, pop n' roll fans were busy convincing themselves that Oasis and Blur were the vanguard of a resurgence of traditional pop group values, the French were quietly doing it better, and under the radar, because they sang in French, which nobody outside France (or worse, Quebec) gives a fuck about.

Beau comme un camion

Affaire Louis Trio [à gauche - Ed.] is a Great Lost Pop Group. Even in France, where the garbage men speak French they're so cultured, mention of their name today will get a contemptuous Gallic shrug. Yet in the 'eighties, they and Les Innocents made music that effortlessly revivified the songwriting excellence of the great British groups (there is no trace of American influence), producing albums that to this day get repeat plays in th' IoF© Conversation Pit O' Sound®, if nowhere else.

Oui, byeng shewer, je parle Français, but I rarely focus on lyrics when listening to pop and if you're the type guy what can't speak French (i.e. statistically as near the entire global population as makes no diff) you might try this approach. Yes, you'd miss out on some of the cleverest lyrics ever written for pop, but so what. You get the tunes, the playing, the everything else, which is considerable. Just pretend you understand, goddammit, like you pretend to understand Taylor Swift so young people think you're not cringe.

Today's loadup is the cream of the cream. Trust me. The first three were okay, but this is ALT in its full pop splendor. Europium has the limited edition cover and vital extra tracks, the others don't need anything to make them perfect.

Here's antecedently posted screed about Mobilis In Mobile:

ALT started out making jumpy disco and dancehall pop, but quickly matured into a band capable of delivering one of the finest concept albums ever made anywhere, Mobilis In Mobile, which means, before Ed. sticks his nose in, free in a free world. Sorta. It's the Latin motto adopted by Jules Verne's Captain Nemo, whom older readers may remember from when Nemo wasn't a fish and Doug McLure was a film star. As you might expect, ALT are a bunch of boulevard intellectuals, and this album is fathoms deeper than Yellow Submarine. But what hits you is the giddy melodic joy, the thrilling production, the sheer boggling quality of the thing, from the beautifully constructed cover to the last submarine bell. How can a single album contain so many great hooks, song after song? It is fucking brilliant.

Loaddown also includes L'Homme Au Mille Vies, the not-quite-there second album Sans Légende, and Le Meilleur De. Five - count 'em" - albums of pure pop paradis.

This post made obligatory by Babs' continued absence while she gets her toxins flushed at Gwyneth Paltrow's Holistic Wellness Yurt, Mons Veneris, AR.

Frank Zappa Invites You Into His Lovely Home! Dept.

And what could provide more delightful aural accompaniment to your visit than this scented nosegay of Mr. Zappa's most listener-friendly interludes! (that ain't a question).

Yes, dear friends, this, the latest in the critically lauded Thirty Minutes series what's taking the internet by storm, is probably all you need to have in the way of Zappa music if you don't much like his work. It's all instrumental, melodic, and offers nothing traumatising, challenging, or *cough* sexually problematic. Certified safe for work environments, family car trips, and Anaheim, Azusa & Cucamonga Sewing Circle, Book Review & Timing Association picnics!

You'll thrill to new sounds and old melodies, subtly interwoven in this sparkling aural tapestry o' delights!

This post sponsored by Hazy Dave's Shave-n'-Save, "Pismo Beach's Only Bargain Barber! We cut prices and hair!"

Neil Young Prepping "Landfill" Archival Set - To Include Lost Christmas Album!

Neil joins in the fun, yestiddy! Your genial host tenses dynamically, left. Note classical-style decor. ©Foam-O-Graph

Neil Young fans are tumescent with excitement at news of mammoth "Landfill" archival release dropping late summer! On worldwide promotional tour, Mr. Young was kind enough to grant exclusive interview, mooring kelp-powered Lincoln Continental at IoF© dock !

"Ol' Shakey" and your genial host relaxed poolside as Kreemé [18 my ass - Ed.] served her signature Vegemite™ n' fish head smoothies.

FT3 Th' Youngster! Hey now! Lookin' good! [whispered, to camera] For a homeless bum, I guess. Ye-euch.

NY Holy crap lookit th' ass on that gal!

FT3 Ri-ight ... so tell us about the Landfill project!

NY [laughs] It rocks out! There's eight hundred hours of material that basically David Briggs didn't want released. What an asshole! He really held me back!

FT3 So it's all unreleased?

NY Yeah! Well, most of it, except the stuff which has been released before. Which is most of it. But it's all been remixed and remastered for Pono! It rocks out, man! There's some awesome live material I did with with my gardener, Pancho, at RutabagaAid™. It rocks out!

FT3 And we'll be hearing the mythical Christmas Album at last?

NY It rocks out! There's like, a forty-five minute live feedback version of The Man With All The Toys where I just leave Old Black on stage while I distribute gifts to a bunch of orphans they bussed in. And there's an a cappella [Italian, outside - Ed.] version of Little Saint Nick, just me and Peggy, and you can hear her crying, it'll break your fuckin' heart it's so beautiful. That's gonna be the single. 

FT3 Well, I have to go wait in the lobby, Neil, so thanks for dropping by! Uh ... rock out, man!

This post funded in part by Anus-Eze©, the multi-purpose hemorrhoid spray and room freshener.

Oh My Gawd This Is Just So Freaking Cool Dept.

Originally a Japan-only release, this hard-to-find-even-on-the-internet recording from '70 is one of the nicest discoveries I've made this year. Vitous is accompanied by Joe Zawinul (yay!) and Billy Cobham (double yay!!), with an almost imperceptible (so no yay!) John McLaughlin passing through on one track. Apart from this wasted opportunity, we have a gorgeous, cool, meditative suite that avoids both free jazz atonality and jazz standard cheese (triple yay!!!). If you, like, dig this kinda Davis [Miles - Ed.] kinda Weather Report sound, you'll tap yer sandal to this one. Mucho bowed bass, to which I yam attractivated, and Billy working his way round the kit like only he can. Oh, and a fantastic cover. Perfectamundo!

This post sponsored by Jazz Cheze For Jesus, a non-profit organisation. My thanks to Mibsy Finklegarten!