The Grateful Dead??

Anyone into The Dead on here? I noticed in the Psychedelic/space rock section they're not even mentioned, and they were def the seminal psychedelic rock band of the US. Certainly they have moderate prog rock elements, but far more then Jefferson Airplane ever did. Their live material, structurally, is so similar with prog-rock its crazy. Terrapin Station was the song that turned me on, coming at it from a prog-rock nerd viewpoint, it's a 17-mn musical suite that's just awesome.

I like a lot of their jams.Blues For Allah and Terrapin Station are the only albums of theirs that I like enough to own.

Sorry, I'm going to have to move this thread to General Music Discussions.

Barbu wrote: Every car should have one

Dean wrote: Sorry, I'm going to have to move this thread to General Music Discussions.

Along with the other 28 threads dedicated to the Grateful Dead over the years...

I like the  'Dark Star' piece from the Live/Dead album. It is a psycedelic epic which have a lot of improvisations, a nice and recognisable theme and a fantastic climax. The piece's atmosphere is great. I use to listen to it with lights low and perhaps a glass of wine. This piece tells all about the group in the time. 

I'm a recent convert.  I used to hang out with people who loved listening to them all the time, and it just sounded so boring and uninteresting to me.  I didn't hate it, but didn't really enjoy it either.  Then about a year ago, a friend loaned me their entire studio album catalog (with recently-appended bonus live material), and I decided one week to listen to it from start to finish at work and see how it went.   I already had a "working knowledge" of their catalog but wasn't yet too good about attaching songs to song names to albums.

Before long, I realized it was music that made me happy. The early improvisational/experimental stuff like Anthem of the Sun and Dark Star gave me a soft platform for my mind to wander and drift.   The countryish stuff on Workingman's Dead and American Beauty were a much harder sell (I despise country music), but I was still able to enjoy it in a toe-tapping, head bobbing capacity.  Then they went more jazzy and got more sophisticated composition and recording techniques (I'm not going to call it prog or even prog-inspired)  with Wake of the Flood through Terrapin, and I probably liked that stuff the best.  Even stuff that everyone hates like Go to Heaven have gotten repeated spins accompanied by comfort and smiles.

They're a band that wants to be your friend, that's the best way I can put it.  Once I let my guard down and let them into my life, they entertained me in lots of ways.  It's definitely a convenient band to like, because there's no end to the collection of live recordings, each with their own little personality stamp, that you can enjoy and discover.  So I'm glad I like them now.  They're an easy band to like.  An easy band to hate, too.


Edited by HolyMoly - December 27 2011 at 15:22

ExittheLemming wrote: I like Workingman's Dead but otherwise heartily loathe the Grateful Dead

Edited by jude111 - April 27 2013 at 12:41

... And the Grateful Dead had the best sound quality of any band I ever saw live.  And I saw almost every great band there was to see back in the day.  And they even ALLOWED us fans to tape record their shows.  They even set up a special taper section so people could set up their recording equipment away from the noisier fans.  

Okay.  Since some of you dig Terrapin Station here is the very first live performance at the San Bernardino Swing Auditorium on 2-26-1977.  I was there!