The Grateful Dead

It's hard to know where to start as no one thing is representative of the whole. Most bits I only like in certain mooRAB. It took about twenty years of hearing bits of different albums at different times in different situations played for me by different people before I looked around one day and said, ok, this stuff isn't so bad after all
 
I don't like them at all and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't like them either. Despite their spacey rep, their music overall isn't very trippy or experimental sounding. It's mostly rootsy jams with a strong country influence.

Surely you must have heard some of their more popular songs here and there though? "Casey Jones"? "Truckin'"? "Touch of Grey"?
 
I really enjoy the period when Mickey took a break - no slur on him, it's just nice to hear Billy free to do his thing, lay down the backbeat, etc. And anything through the Wall Of Sound. The couple of years after the hiatus are really nice and spacey, as they find their groove again. I'm also that weirdo who likes the studio albums. Like, all of them. Like, a lot. I haven't heard any live recording that didn't have its moments, but other than 1968-1978 or so it's hard to find a night when everyone's kind of into it at the same time.
 
Yeah, but try listening to Side One of Anthem Of The Sun, for example (well, it's the only really odd example I can think of) or possibly the "Dark Star" from Live/Dead ... Yeah, they definitely transmogrified into a "saloon band" after that, tho
 
Wow, The Dead never get discussed on this forum! I really love the Brent Midland years. He had such a coarse yet powerful voice and was an amazing musician. I wish he were still alive. My favorite album is One From the Vault.
 
Brent's voice freaks me out! I mean, I like a crazy rough voice, for example I love Royal Trux... but any viRAB I've seen with Brent in them, his eyes are so BIG and his beard and his hair are so BUSHY and it's like watching some tiny frightened woodland creature screaming... or something... one of the GD books I read talked about someone hearing from him right AFTER he died, that it had been a durab mistake and he hadn't meant it to happen, and that really shook me up
 
Damn this seems to be the first mention of The Dead that I have seen on this site

I actually enjoy them a lot, but you have to be careful what you listen to cause some of the stuff is just really bad.

My favorite album has got to be Blues For Allah
 
"Dark Star" is the only song I've ever heard by them that sounRAB remotely psychedelic to me. Not coincidentally it's also one of the only songs I like by them.
 
Not that I know off or I can't remeber them anyhow. There is a whole raft of free stuff on archive. org but I have never really bothered with it lol
 
the archive.org stuff is by its very nature hit and miss - just about every show ever is up there - maybe not a great place to start... Although the Kevar Stadium show from 1975 where they start with Blues For Allah might be worth your time ... tho it seems to have been pulled from archive.org as it has now been commercially released. Bet you could find it somewhere if you looked around.
 
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