Just trying a video ... may or may not keep it up ...

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In the not-too-recent past, I might have passed up picking up something like this at the thrift store. But of course I bought it and got to wear it with these shoes on Saturday.

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In tribute to his passing, here's the Grateful Dead's first live album, their fourth album overall. Bassist Phil Lesh is all over it, through the exploratory improv of side 1's "Dark Star", doomy feedback noise on side 4, the pumping R&B bass line of side 3's "Turn On Your Lovelight", and most of all, for (co-)writing both songs on side 2, "The Eleven" (named after its complex time signature, which is why the band dropped it not long after this recording ... "Timing X" by Devo is a better example of a song in 11/8 that's actually playable), and one of the band's all-time classics, "St. Stephen" (too good to axe from the repertoire, but again, with too many complicated changes to fiddle with for a band who couldn't be bothered to rehearse, so rarely performed after 1970 or so).

The best bands consist of musicians with a broad range of musical interests, and the Dead certainly lived up to that tenet, with Lesh providing an academic/avant-garde viewpoint different from the folk, rock&roll, blues/r&b and jazz favored by the other four founders.

This has to be the quintessential Phil Lesh moment with the Grateful Dead (Baltimore 1982), with his poetic recitation (assisted by prodigious amounts of Nitrous Oxide):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEWI4OdiUu0

(any Dead fans out there have memories/experiences to share? For me, it was notable to catch the tour in the 80s when he started singing "Box of Rain" again after 10 years or so without the song being in their live repertoire)

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Saturday night's Halloween show went as well as previous years, if not better. It turns out that we were very well suited to doing Roxy Music (once we had a sax player on board), and our singer outdid himself with his Brian Ferry emulation.

Remake/Remodel - Love Is The Drug - Out Of The Blue - Street Life - Mother Of Pearl - Editions Of You - Do The Strand - In Every Dream Home A Heartache - Virginia Plain
(I played all the keyboard, synthesizer & violin parts)

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Cleveland, Ohio's Pere Ubu were one of the great American art-rock/post-punk bands (although their roots and career beginnings were pre-punk), "avant-garage" as they referred to themselves. Perhaps even more challenging & adventurous than their neighbors (about 50 miles away, in Akron) Devo. But far less accessible than the Talking Heads (although probably more accessible than the Residents).

Anyway, I had been thinking about them recently while learning Roxy Music songs, as Ubu were very clearly influenced by that band - the odd song structures/arrangements, Alan Ravenstine's Eno-flavored synth noises, and singer/bandleader/sole constant David Thomas clearly trying to sound like Brian Ferry (at least early in their career - this is their second studio LP (1978), they released their 19th last year) the same way he had been trying to sound like Iggy Pop in his previous band, Rocket From The Tombs. His actual voice sounds absolutely nothing like either Iggy or Ferry, so the results are ... interesting. At least his actual voice -does- sound more-than-remotely like that of his other major influence, Captain Beefheart.

Here's the entire album, taken from an original Chrysalis pressing (same as the one I'm holding) ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypabg28VCqM

(Like last week's selection, Can, file under "bands beloved by critics and record collectors; 'who?!?' to the rest of the world")

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