FLAWS FOUND IN DEAD'S NEWEST ALBUM
Despite their overwhelming array of talent, their magnificent percussion, their searing guitar riffs, and their unfailing power to excite, the Grateful Dead are flawed, specifically these three ways: 1) their attempts to construct any viable blues vocals consistently fail; 2) they have a mysterious and irritatingly unnecessary preoccupation with electronics; and 3) their scope of material is limited, sometimes severely so.
The group's second album, Anthem of the Sun, incorporates all these shortcomings - each in a different tone. As for the first, its truth is essentially admitted outright, thus clarifying much of the late controversy over Pig Pen's voice. (Actually, many Dead freaks have for some time recognized his lackluster blues efforts. "Schoolgirl" is an old example.) But there is now a new development. Anthem makes no attempt to sing honest blues; instead, it employs a semi-comic approach that is seemingly indicative of the group's realization that they perform the art poorly. Alligator's vocal section best exemplifies this: the minimum frame of a Southern accent is present, but both the lyric itself - "creepy alligator, comin round the bend" and its musical contest - kazoos, an erratically thumping rhythm section, etc., are so humorous that the listener can do little more than laugh along.
Because the Dead are basically a musicians' band, this flaw is trifling, but their electronics are not. They are superfluous. Electronics can be a legitimate vehicle, but not without intensely focused imagination, tedious studio labor, and an appropriate mood - this last being an admittedly nebulous concept. (A model synthesis of these elements is Lennon-McCartney's "Tomorrow Never Knows.") But the Dead are in a different vein; they work with electronics live, wielding amplification units as improvised instruments, producing droning, irrelevant passages that bore to frustration. Often, they will precede a blues classic like Bland's "Lovelight" with 10 to 15 minutes of this. The question is: why? Why give us, between the first and second cuts on Anthem's A side, a combination of SAC bombing runs and the bell tower of Notre Dame?
The third problem - a narrow scope of material - strikes hard at the perennial fan. One tires, eventually, of hearing "Schoolgirl," "Morning Dew," and "Lovelight" each time the Dead appear; enjoyable as these songs are, some fresh ones are needed; Anthem supplies the long-awaited new works, some of them seemingly incongruous. Because they project, like the Rolling Stones, a harshly masculine image, the Dear [sic] appear rather silly singing a soft, sensual ballad like "That's It for the Other One" - in concept. In actual performance they are so exquisite that all thoughts of incongruity fade. Garcia's lovely, mournful vocal projects a mood of prayerful solemnity that is simply overpowering.
What about good old Grateful Dead hard rock? Anthem gives us some, but rather grumpily, as if it doesn't deserve much exposure. "The Faster We Go the Rounder We Get" is an example: the cut is unwaveringly strong, thrashing out in the fashion we've come to expect from the Dead, but is disappointingly short. Garcia's guitar is taped at a nearly inaudible level, while the rhythm section steals the scene. This is both tragic and not: it does succeed in displaying the band's new drummer, Mick Hart, schooled in Eastern technique and a former student of Ali Akbar Khan. Making heavy use of the snare, he effects a quasi-military beat that, coupled with Kreutzmann, composes a percussion unit an experience unto itself. Everyone finally merges on the live portion of Alligator to produce an amazingly truthful reproduction of what the Dead are when they peel off their facade: the most exhilarating musical event in San Francisco - and maybe anywhere.
(by Raymond Lang, from the Daily Californian, November 1, 1968)
Lang also reviewed Live/Dead with much more enthusiasm:
See also:
Lang was a regular music reviewer for the UC Berkeley paper in '68-69. This is an unusual review in that Lang was both a hardcore Dead fan but also very critical of them - it's interesting to see that dichotomy in such an early review.
ReplyDeleteHe's no fan of Pigpen's "lackluster" singing (and even says there's been a "late controversy" about it among "Dead freaks"). He really dislikes their feedback and noise segments, whether live or on album ("droning, irrelevant passages that bore to frustration"). And he wishes they'd do more songs since every show repeats the same old favorites - "One tires, eventually, of hearing Schoolgirl, Morning Dew, and Lovelight each time the Dead appear; enjoyable as these songs are, some fresh ones are needed."
(Ralph Gleason had a similar criticism in a May '69 review: "If there's a fault with this great band, it's that they have not really expanded their repertoire for concerts. They keep changing the structure of the things they do, but they come up with relatively few new numbers.")
Nonetheless, these are the criticisms of someone still deeply in love with the Dead (in his rather pretentious way). After all, you can't complain of hearing the same songs all the time unless you're going to show after show! He calls them "a musicians' band" (something Garcia also said) - despite their flaws, he still finds them "overwhelming," "overpowering" & "exhilarating." Though he's not happy with the noisy interlude on side A, he finds the "unwaveringly strong" Other One "disappointingly short" and not well-mixed - he wants more thrashing hard rock from his Dead. Finally the live Alligator jam satisfies him - this is the true Dead!
He's also able to compare the album tracks with the live versions, though only the Cryptical portion is specifically compared. He suggests that soft ballads like this are "incongruous" for such a "harshly masculine" band on album, but in performance, "Garcia's lovely, mournful vocal" is "exquisite." (No comment on New Potato.)
By the time Live/Dead came out, he'd put aside all criticisms and just babbled in excitement.