Straight to Video
Rock Art Rock
See more in the Rock Art Rock gallery.
polls
Loading ...
Psych Dread: Grateful Dead vs. the Boredoms
I was randomly matched with two other freshmen in a large, undivided dorm and expected to live civilly for a full year. One guy I initially expected to get along with, since before moving we’d both thought to coordinate who should bring the turntable. Turned out his vinyl collection included mostly Phish, assorted ’90s alternative, and the compulsory classic rock albums.
He had recently begun growing dreadlocks. Each knotted, three-inch lump bobbed at an odd angle, unsure whether to be pulled up by the roots or down by gravity. When I ridiculed that he always cued Sublime when company was around, he was shocked and said, “I thought everybody likes Sublime.” He added derisively, “I guess it’s not one of those bands.”
At the time, it was clear that he couldn’t be any more wrong about my music. My CD book contained everything from folk to hardcore to jazz. I was too eclectic to grudgingly admit the truth of his statement. The truth was that both of us fell pretty neatly within opposing demographics. He was a crunch and I was a hipster. As infantile as these labels might seem, they tore us apart and made friendship impossible.
The chains of lifestyle marketing have become so pervasive that very similar musical styles can seem worlds apart to fans. The Grateful Dead lies near the beginning of a long tradition of psychedelic music. Every music fan is entitled to love the Grateful Dead without shame. Like almost any music from the Edenic 1960s, the Grateful Dead can appeal equally to high schoolers, investment bankers, artists, and jocks.
What’s a Surrealistic Pillow?
On Halloween of 1966, San Francisco’s Jefferson Airplane entered a Los Angeles studio with a new lead singer to begin recording their second album. The collection of songs—a curious blend of acid-dipped folk, harmony, and hard rock that came to define the San Francisco Sound—was completed in enough time for the band to make it home for Thanksgiving dinner. Upon hearing the tracks, their friend and mentor Jerry Garcia suggested that it “sounds like a surrealistic pillow,” and a classic psychedelic album was titled.
So what is a surrealistic pillow anyway? What does it sound like? And why, if you’re not familiar with it, should you care? I’m banking on the idea that any album whose 11 cuts keep comin’ back to me, 43 years after it was made, is worth having a look into and passing on, so for just this month, it’s the Origin of an Album rather than the customary song.
Following its release in February, four months before Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and a month before the Grateful Dead’s debut, throughout the Spring and Summer of Love, Surrealistic Pillow contributed toward turning the Airplane into Life magazine-styled pop stars. The Marty Balin-founded group and the steel voice of Grace Slick clicked with a growing international audience of West Coast hippie watchers and rock lovers ready to take a walk on the Technicolor side. As a child, I adopted them as my new family; like bigger siblings and fellow travelers (though at least two of them were older than my own dad and mom), I could’ve been their littlest flower child mascot. As the years passed, I grew increasingly fascinated by the story of the five young men and the young woman who put my hometown on the musical map, though despite attempting to divine through listening, reading everything I could get my hands on, speaking informally to its former members and crossing paths with their friends and at least two of their children, I’m only slightly closer to solving the mysteries of Surrealistic Pillow or “the Pink Album,” and its allure for me. Had the record been tinted blue, as Balin had intended it, as an old-world girl, I may not have even gravitated to it in the record racks at all. Decades later, its songs are still alive and green for me, though rarely do I listen to the album in parts; rather, it is as a comfortable whole that I find the greatest satisfaction in the Pillow. Perhaps it is fate that has bound me to the songs. Among the things my love and I share, beyond a mutual attraction, is a mutual affection for the Airplane: They were his first concert and Surrealistic Pillow was my first album. We also share his paperback copy of The Jefferson Airplane and the San Francisco Sound by one of rock journalism’s fathers, Ralph J. Gleason, from which I’ve gleaned many fine details on the band contained herein.
Grateful Dead Drummer: In the Key of Kreutzmann
Once known as the most obscure member of the Grateful Dead, rhythm-maker Bill Kreutzmann is a man with many hats. After a 30-year career with the Bay Area’s longest-running psychedelic rock band, and following the death of Jerry Garcia in 1995, the drummer seemed to have disappeared off the map and onto the Hawaiian coast, where he spent the better part of the last decade following his other passion as a digital artist. Popping up here and there for an occasional tour with the Other Ones, the Dead, and a 2006 run with the Rhythm Devils, it wasn’t until last year that Kreutzmann jumped back into music full-force with a band of his own design. Lately, the co-composer of Dead staples “Dark Star” and “The Other One” has been infused with a renewed passion as a musician. Or, as he relates: “Right now, I’m playing music like crazy with all kinds of people. That hunger or something bit my ass again to go out and play.” Kreutzmann’s new trio, BK3, is a musical force to be reckoned with. Featuring guitarist Scott Murawksi from Max Creek and bass guitarist Oteil Burbridge (or, alternately, bass guitarist James “Hutch” Hutchinson), the trio is Kreutzmann’s belated answer to RatDog, Phil Lesh & Friends, and the Global Drum Project—the post-Grateful Dead musical offspring of his band mates. Relaxing at his home on Kauai, Kreutzmann took some time to answer a few questions while packing his bags for a tour with his new trio, followed by rehearsals for the Dead’s spring tour.
Crawdaddy!: With your new trio, how did you come up with the name “BK3″?
Bill Kreutzmann: [Dead lyricist] Robert Hunter suggested that we should call our band “Three,” but there are a lot of other bands out there that have been called that, so I just put my initials in front of the “Three.” And “BK3″ is kind of cool, I mean, that’s what we are. We are a trio. One name came our way from a great friend, Col. Bruce Hampton. He’s a good friend of mine and he said, “You should call yourselves ‘The Egyptian Windmill Operators.’” [laughs]. But it’s kind of long, so “BK3″ works well.
Your Handy Guide to the Month in Music
As is always the case with November, it’s been a particularly big month for pop music in the United States, as artists and record labels seek to cash in on the traditional holiday spending spree that might not even exist anymore considering the current state of the economy. Between Guns N’ Roses, Kanye, and the Killers, not to mention the mighty Taylor Swift, the indies are being overshadowed by the majors, and if nothing else, well, it gives music critics an awful lot to talk about. I’ll be back next month with some sort of recap of the entire year. Until then, enjoy.
This Month’s Most Notable News Stories
Chinese Democracy Is Here. Now Maybe We Can Talk About Something Else?
I do apologize for contributing another hastily written account of this situation to an already very, very saturated media environment, but it would be foolish of me to pretend to write a column recapping the month’s most notable music news and ignore the long-awaited release of Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy. After 15 years, millions of dollars, a half a dozen or so alleged release dates, innumerable lineup changes, and one particularly memorable, terrible haircut, Axl Rose finally got his shit together and released a proper follow-up to the Use Your Illusions, which hit store shelves (and promptly flew off them) in 1991. As with almost every other big record that came out this year, the release of Chinese Democracy was complicated. In September, the song “Shackler’s Revenge” was released as part of the game Rock Band 2 rather than through traditional radio outlets, and the record’s official physical and digital release date, November 23rd, was a Sunday. To complicate matters even more, and to solidify Guns N’ Roses’ role in history as a giant corporate rock band with no allegiances to anyone but the most powerful possible business partners, the only store carrying it was Best Buy.
Grateful Dead Archive Incites Scholastic Followings
by: Angela Zimmerman
The Grateful Dead have proven themselves to be nothing if not business savvy. And with the band’s massive physical archive recently gaining admittance into the library at University of California Santa Cruz (for which Stanford and UC Berkeley also bid)—with an exhibit to be unveiled on March 5th by the New York Historical Society, which will be the cornerstone of the library’s new collection—the scholastic teachings of the band’s music and business model have never been explored so prominently. In an article posted in The Atlantic, senior editor Joshua Green discusses the impact their model has had on scholars, and industry, in the wake of their legacy.
Green makes the point, through examples and interviews, that at a time when an emphasis is placed on free content now more than ever, with regards to how to monetize music and media, that the Dead did it first, allowing their fans to tape and trade their concerts freely, thereby amassing a gigantic fan base, which in turn has garnered them a shitload of cash. The band treated their biggest fans the best, allowing them first access at show tickets through mail-order, further solidifying a strong relationship with their listeners and securing for themselves one of the most vibrant, loyal followings in contemporary American history.
read more
by: Angela Zimmerman
published: February 10, 2010
in column: What Goes On
no comments yet
Tags: