6.15.2007
PART ONE OF A LONG, STRANGE TO BE CONTINUED
Like many I knew as bylines before friends, Piotr Orlov does not write as much as he/we once did.
He now runs this, which still refuses to work on my computer.
here is the first in a possibly periodical "dredging of the memory banks " focused on orlov's truly great summer deadhead memories (or what remains of them) (a lot, actually). it's great.
mp3s down below somewhere.
ALMOST FORGOT!
Piotr and Kate blog here: Newly Lost Edge
***
Summer Dead I
For a decade of my life's early adult formation, summer meant Grateful Dead
tours, and all the clichés expected to accompany them -- friends, drugs,
long car rides with friends and drugs, interstate bonhomie, etc. I miss the
simplicity of those days: "Tour on?" "We ride!" No questions asked. A lot of
wasted time and brain cells, but also experiences, with our psychedelic
selves, with other people's frayed edges, with being stoned and shaggy and
barely of drinking age, discovering random towns and villages of a country I
at the time thought was only going through a conservative patch. (Little did
I know.)
And, of course, there was the music which I miss most of all. No one in my
life has taught me more about music than the Grateful Dead; not just names,
songs and genres, but how to listen to them, and to a live band working
things out, hitting the highs, hitting the weirds, giving the fuck up and
calling it a lost night (of which musically there were plenty), but always
returning (no choice in life, brah). Some of these nights were stone-cold
classics though. Even now, when cool Dead revisionism knows no bounds -- and
every surviving band member wants to say that nothing good ever happened to
the group in the '90s -- these tapes emanate hippie magic and avant-garde
accidents, bravado and compassion. Yes, more clichés, but fuck, on a good
hour, these guys could control the world.
So, you want summer jams Hua? How about I present you with a few great Dead
shows I saw during the long hot summers of the late '80s and early '90s.
(Historical and personal context at no extra chargeŠsave reader boredom.)
(Musical streams of hi-fi soundboards provided by archive.org)
07-21-1990 World Music Amphitheater, Tinley Park, IL
Background: Long-ass drive straight from DC, made longer by a mighty
marijuana drought (one that strangely ended the moment Saddam invaded Kuwait
a couple of weeks later "ahem, priorities!"). The venue's a crappy shed 30
miles outside Chicago, one the Dead ended up never playing again, dissing
its sound (I do not remember this being the case, having secured an
excellent field spot under a speaker that poured Lesh & Garcia at me all
night long. That shed's has now hit on hard times, and is in the process of
being sold. Good riddance most likely.). The first on
the last three-show stand of the East Coast summer tour, Saturday night,
non-Deadhead yahoos out in full force hassling hippies, tickets are scarce
(by mid-first set people would be spilling over the fence like water out of
a blow-up pool). The scene, in the parlance of the tie-dyed, is a bummer.
But the first set, despite only OK song selection, is excellent. "Greatest
Story" is Biblical punk rock glory, and "Bird Song" flies further than the
famous one with Branford Marsalis from earlier that year. The money jams,
though, come, as they so often do, after the break: "Scarlet > Fire" is
tight, the transition short but Garcia's solos are crisp, he's emoting (and
not forgetting) the words, and Lesh runs around the fret like a mad man.
Obvious boiling point reached when Weir let's out a yelp during the final
chorus of "Fire." Burn baby burn. There's a pause, before "Playing in the
Band." As it is in the set for the 2nd night in a row, we all think
something's up -- the guess is, "here comes 'Dark Star'" (one hadn't been
played in Chicago yet after the '89 return) and as the extended jam gets
more and more atonal, it seems we are correct. But then a turn intoŠwow,
"He's Gone." Unexpected. The Dead's own blue period lament, chugging along
on the famous sing-along ("nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile"
illegally), nice soft jam that doesn't meander and ends quickly, with
everybody seemingly leaving the drummers be. Except Lesh, who thunders along
for a few minutes like a petulant child trying to make mountains crumble
(maybe he was pissed off that the "Star" did not happen, we gossip). I dance
through the drums (yes, I was one of those when the drugs worked) and ogle
cute midwestern girls through space (finally getting around to marrying one
in September). How will it end? "Miracle" comes out of the mellowness, full
of horny distorted power-chords, a common tune made special. And then Phil's
bass demands "Crazy Fingers" (relatively rare as is, almost never
post-space); it's just gorgeous, Lesh, Garcia and Weir gentling wrapping
lines around one another, Brent underpinning it on the organ, the outro
flirts with the "Playing" reprise, but veers again, this time toward rock
guitar nirvana: "Dear Mr. Fantasy" rips, wiping the slate. Mydland
thankfully keeps his rooster croon on a leash, while Garcia, at his most
heroic (demonic?), starts doing that little high-stepping jig'n'sway that he
does when he's 'aving it! Oh la-di, la-di. Now they bring "Playing" back. To
close? No! "One More Saturday Night" rocks me back to day-of-week
consciousness (in times like these, one holds on to any tidbits of reality
available) and to president gas ("come on Georgie, it's Saturday night
now"). Well, at least the encore will give me a chance to catch my breath;
except that it's "Quinn, the Eskimo" and now even the yahoos sing-along
("everybody's gonna wanna dose!"). Point. Game. Set. Match. Fuse.
Post-script: I am toxic. I am a needle in the camel's eye, diving deeper
towards the hump of life, about to discover a wellspring. I could really use
a desert to organize the voices in my head. Instead I am behind the wheel of
somebody else's large automobile, navigating an I-57 state-trooper-rigged
roadblock, in a mid-summer night thunderstorm, red flares glaring off my
dilated peoples, and my passenger turning the sound up on (I kid you fucking
not) "Night of the Living Baseheads." (I am still not sure how I got out of
that one without confronting a member of a law enforcement agency.) Living
to tell the tale.
He now runs this, which still refuses to work on my computer.
here is the first in a possibly periodical "dredging of the memory banks " focused on orlov's truly great summer deadhead memories (or what remains of them) (a lot, actually). it's great.
mp3s down below somewhere.
ALMOST FORGOT!
Piotr and Kate blog here: Newly Lost Edge
***
Summer Dead I
For a decade of my life's early adult formation, summer meant Grateful Dead
tours, and all the clichés expected to accompany them -- friends, drugs,
long car rides with friends and drugs, interstate bonhomie, etc. I miss the
simplicity of those days: "Tour on?" "We ride!" No questions asked. A lot of
wasted time and brain cells, but also experiences, with our psychedelic
selves, with other people's frayed edges, with being stoned and shaggy and
barely of drinking age, discovering random towns and villages of a country I
at the time thought was only going through a conservative patch. (Little did
I know.)
And, of course, there was the music which I miss most of all. No one in my
life has taught me more about music than the Grateful Dead; not just names,
songs and genres, but how to listen to them, and to a live band working
things out, hitting the highs, hitting the weirds, giving the fuck up and
calling it a lost night (of which musically there were plenty), but always
returning (no choice in life, brah). Some of these nights were stone-cold
classics though. Even now, when cool Dead revisionism knows no bounds -- and
every surviving band member wants to say that nothing good ever happened to
the group in the '90s -- these tapes emanate hippie magic and avant-garde
accidents, bravado and compassion. Yes, more clichés, but fuck, on a good
hour, these guys could control the world.
So, you want summer jams Hua? How about I present you with a few great Dead
shows I saw during the long hot summers of the late '80s and early '90s.
(Historical and personal context at no extra chargeŠsave reader boredom.)
(Musical streams of hi-fi soundboards provided by archive.org)
07-21-1990 World Music Amphitheater, Tinley Park, IL
Background: Long-ass drive straight from DC, made longer by a mighty
marijuana drought (one that strangely ended the moment Saddam invaded Kuwait
a couple of weeks later "ahem, priorities!"). The venue's a crappy shed 30
miles outside Chicago, one the Dead ended up never playing again, dissing
its sound (I do not remember this being the case, having secured an
excellent field spot under a speaker that poured Lesh & Garcia at me all
night long. That shed's has now hit on hard times, and is in the process of
being sold. Good riddance most likely.). The first on
the last three-show stand of the East Coast summer tour, Saturday night,
non-Deadhead yahoos out in full force hassling hippies, tickets are scarce
(by mid-first set people would be spilling over the fence like water out of
a blow-up pool). The scene, in the parlance of the tie-dyed, is a bummer.
But the first set, despite only OK song selection, is excellent. "Greatest
Story" is Biblical punk rock glory, and "Bird Song" flies further than the
famous one with Branford Marsalis from earlier that year. The money jams,
though, come, as they so often do, after the break: "Scarlet > Fire" is
tight, the transition short but Garcia's solos are crisp, he's emoting (and
not forgetting) the words, and Lesh runs around the fret like a mad man.
Obvious boiling point reached when Weir let's out a yelp during the final
chorus of "Fire." Burn baby burn. There's a pause, before "Playing in the
Band." As it is in the set for the 2nd night in a row, we all think
something's up -- the guess is, "here comes 'Dark Star'" (one hadn't been
played in Chicago yet after the '89 return) and as the extended jam gets
more and more atonal, it seems we are correct. But then a turn intoŠwow,
"He's Gone." Unexpected. The Dead's own blue period lament, chugging along
on the famous sing-along ("nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile"
illegally), nice soft jam that doesn't meander and ends quickly, with
everybody seemingly leaving the drummers be. Except Lesh, who thunders along
for a few minutes like a petulant child trying to make mountains crumble
(maybe he was pissed off that the "Star" did not happen, we gossip). I dance
through the drums (yes, I was one of those when the drugs worked) and ogle
cute midwestern girls through space (finally getting around to marrying one
in September). How will it end? "Miracle" comes out of the mellowness, full
of horny distorted power-chords, a common tune made special. And then Phil's
bass demands "Crazy Fingers" (relatively rare as is, almost never
post-space); it's just gorgeous, Lesh, Garcia and Weir gentling wrapping
lines around one another, Brent underpinning it on the organ, the outro
flirts with the "Playing" reprise, but veers again, this time toward rock
guitar nirvana: "Dear Mr. Fantasy" rips, wiping the slate. Mydland
thankfully keeps his rooster croon on a leash, while Garcia, at his most
heroic (demonic?), starts doing that little high-stepping jig'n'sway that he
does when he's 'aving it! Oh la-di, la-di. Now they bring "Playing" back. To
close? No! "One More Saturday Night" rocks me back to day-of-week
consciousness (in times like these, one holds on to any tidbits of reality
available) and to president gas ("come on Georgie, it's Saturday night
now"). Well, at least the encore will give me a chance to catch my breath;
except that it's "Quinn, the Eskimo" and now even the yahoos sing-along
("everybody's gonna wanna dose!"). Point. Game. Set. Match. Fuse.
Post-script: I am toxic. I am a needle in the camel's eye, diving deeper
towards the hump of life, about to discover a wellspring. I could really use
a desert to organize the voices in my head. Instead I am behind the wheel of
somebody else's large automobile, navigating an I-57 state-trooper-rigged
roadblock, in a mid-summer night thunderstorm, red flares glaring off my
dilated peoples, and my passenger turning the sound up on (I kid you fucking
not) "Night of the Living Baseheads." (I am still not sure how I got out of
that one without confronting a member of a law enforcement agency.) Living
to tell the tale.
Labels: ORLOV
