Comments on: Tournament of Rock – Legends: the Grateful Dead pod

By: Mike Sheehan

Mike Sheehan — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 22:29:15 +0000

BTW Marvin: We both know who’s gonna win this.

By: Mike Sheehan

Mike Sheehan — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 22:28:07 +0000

Yay Queensryche! I’ve been listening to them all day in fact to celebrate this. Never get tired of “Jet City Woman” and “Eyes of a Stranger.” And DeGarmo’s solo at the end of “Della Brown” is some of the finest axework I’ve ever heard by anyone.

I’m sorry the ABB didn’t make it, I do like and respect them… maybe Sam can rig the vote to make it up to all the teethgnashers.

By: Marvin Beatles

Marvin Beatles — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 20:15:28 +0000

I still can’t believe these results. QUEENSRYCHE? Just unbelievable. They are cheesy as all hell. It’s a real shame they are beating the Dead & ABB (or T. Rex for that matter.)

By: Jim Booth

Jim Booth — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 02:31:52 +0000

I second Darrell’s nomination of Les Paul.

By: elaine

elaine — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:40:08 +0000

She ain’t as good though…but she is good.

By: Darrell

Darrell — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:00:28 +0000

I nominate Les Paul as the next face on the header of S&R.

By: wufnik

wufnik — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:37:53 +0000

btw, the guy who made it all possible, Les Paul, died today at 94. See here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/arts/music/14paul.html?_r=1&hp

By: Dr. Slammy

Dr. Slammy — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:31:32 +0000

Elaine: the only thing wrong with your last comment is that it doesn’t go far enough in stating the T Rex influence. For instance, one of the most interesting bands out there these days is Goldfrapp (although I didn’t love their last CD so much as the previous two). Genre-wise they’re sort of electro-pop, I guess, with more than a splash of Portishead-trip thrown in for good measure.

Now, watch this and you tell ME who they’re riffing on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wEzPgXOaHg

By: elaine

elaine — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:43:35 +0000

“Influence

T.Rex have vastly influenced the glam rock, punk rock and Britpop genres, and many modern indie bands play music heavily influenced by the glam scene, especially T.Rex. The early acoustic material was influential in helping to bring about progressive rock and 21st century folk music-influenced singers.”

By: Lex

Lex — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:29:40 +0000

wufnik, no doubt about the power of the ABB when Duane was alive. That was one of the greatest bands of all time. And like the Dead, they weren’t a jam band; they were a band that liked to jam. Wouldn’t any musician who plays a lot? What fun would it be to play songs exactly as they were recorded for an album over and over and over?

Ah, i love Bobby singing the cowboy songs. And they certainly did have their moments even on the downside. But i suppose that it was the sort of thing you had to be there for.

By: elaine

elaine — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:21:04 +0000

Yummy combo!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTRd79e8xiY

By: elaine

elaine — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:13:39 +0000

My favourite:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUdryqgHIpA

By: elaine

elaine — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:10:06 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQS59C3sYAA

By: wufnik

wufnik — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:09:51 +0000

Lex–yes, they were transcendent when they were really good, actually. And they had as much intensity on stage as anyone else I’ve ever seen. I agree–I would hardly call them the greatest band ever–too many feedback songs, and far too much Bob Weir. I saw them any number of times in the 1970s, and when I saw them in the 1990s, they were clearly older, and Garcia was clearly feeling the effects of a dubious lifestyle, but even then they had their moments. When they were in top form, no one has been better, that I’ve seen anyway, and I’ve seen lots. Even the ABB, which, not to correct you or anything, was a genuine jam band when Duane was around–because he really LIKED to jam. He was the driver of it. I was at Fillmore East the nights that those albums were recorded, and they don’t capture the half of it. I’m voting twice.

By: Lex

Lex — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:58:51 +0000

I know something of the Dead. They were a fine band, though i’d be hard pressed to call them the greatest ever. (I believe that Jim’s feeling about how overrated they were stems from too many heads going on and on and on about how they were the greatest ever. Those would be the people who listen to them almost exclusively.)

They were a great live band…before Jerry was so fucking nodded out all the time. The eras of ’72-’74 and ’77-’78 were by far the best (all of the 70′s were good). In essence, they were a party band. That’s how they started and even right up to the end they remained that, except that instead of playing other people’s parties they threw parties for 80,000 people. They were also exemplars of American music: blues, country, folk, jazz, rock and roll. I wish i could have seen them at their height instead of the early 90′s.

They are responsible for the jam band genre, but nobody that i’ve heard even comes close to their ability at the trick. Which brings me to the ABB and deciding if i’ll vote based on the ABB with Duane or the jam band that they became.

I’ll go with the Dead if only because some of the best times of my life happened inside shows (and one of the scariest…seriously, when you can’t see, talk, move or hear inside a rock concert you wonder if you’ve gone right over the edge of no return. But the second set was great fun!)

By: Dr. Slammy

Dr. Slammy — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:15:25 +0000

Kev: It’s no secret that I don’t care for jam bands, and also that I think Queensryche has been badly underrated through the years. That said, I’m stunned at the results so far. (I’m used to being in the minority.) At the moment, Q not only is beating the field, but they have more votes than the Dead and ABB combined. I expected the Dead to lap the field.

Then again, I expected Elton John to win easily, too. So what do I know?

By: Grateful Kev

Grateful Kev — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:50:14 +0000

At 1st I was excited, I hadn’t checked out S&R since my computer crashed some 10 wks ago,and a GD post. I of course voted for the boys, thinking it was a shoe in. The results are mind boggling. Queensryche? WTF? I have like 75 GD shows on tape, and another 50 on CD, prob over 100-110 different songs easy. My bro was into Queensryche, I remember 2 tapes and maybe 4-5 decent songs if that. They played a free concert not far from here a couple wks ago, the Canal-Fest, that says it all.

By: Dr. Slammy

Dr. Slammy — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:53:07 +0000

D: Maybe I’d be better off saying that Metallica’s actions were anti-artist, regardless of the effect they had. The RIAA may benefit some artists, but let’s not confuse “mission” with “collateral, unintended effect.” On the whole, RIAA policies serve everybody BUT aspiring musicians, and whoring yourself to them is AT BEST self-serving.

Dre? I’d bitch if I’d ever seen him as something other than a self-serving tool. And I don’t care if the Brothers Gibb crank out ten records in a row that are better than anything The Beatles ever did, you don’t serve the gods of disco and expect to EVER be taken seriously again.

By: Darrell

Darrell — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:46:50 +0000

Sam: I don’t know how Metallica’s actions were detrimental to the music industry. It made them look like rich money hungry pricks. The industry itself eventually failed to think forwardly about digital music distro. If anything the state of music is awesome, if you have time to discover news artists by clawing through the clutter. However it’s been a long time coming for the labels, crappy A+R people, the inability to develop artists that can produce a full album of good songs, and just plain arrogance are more to blame. Again I think Metallica’s main beef (which gets lost) was how a new unfinished song got illegally released. And I believe it was the MI2 song which they wrote for the soundtrack for a million bucks and I believe would have received very little royalties from anyways becasue it was a front loaded work for hire deal. If anything it should have been the movie studio that should have been pissed. What’s funny is that people also forget Dr Dre was also a part of this law suit, but there’s no hatred spewed his way about ruining the free music party.

The Gibb’s brothers also wrote a lot of non disco songs for other artists, they’re very important.

By: wufnik

wufnik — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:43:14 +0000

Fun comments. I guess I just come from a different planet, partly from age. I grew up watching not only the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, but Elvis too. Which dates me, sadly. But from that perspective, my viewpoint is actually straightforward. There have been maybe a dozen or so genuinely transformational bands–bands who changed the way rock music was played and the way it sounded, and what it drew from. The Dead and the Allmans are both in that group. There have been maybe six or eight genuinely transformational guitarists–guys who changed the way the guitar was not only played, but how it fit into everything else, and how the music sounded, and how it could actually drive everything else. Jerry Garcia and Duane Allman are both in that group. And on songwriting, fifty years from now people will still be covering Hunter/Garcia songs, many of which are in a direct line of great American songwriting–people will be singing Friend of the Devil and Dire Wolf and Loser just as they’ve sung Pete Seeger and Woodie Guthrie songs the past couple of decades. That’s not likely to be the case for the other groups in this pod (including Greg Allman, who is a good songwriter, but not in the Hunter/Garcia league), or for most of the groups in this entire Tournament. But as I say, I’m probably on a different planet. On my planet, both bands are in the final eight.