Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

I posted this last year on August 9 and, while it may seem cheap to repeat a post, this is something I cannot visit too often. Here’s some of what I wrote last year:

Not long after Jerry passed, something unexpected arrived in my mailbox. Actually, it was not so much unexpected as it had been forgotten. Earlier in the year, Jerry and his side band had recorded two songs for the soundtrack to the film, Smoke. In a mailer from The Grateful Dead or, perhaps in Relix magazine, I had spotted an offer for a free videocassette of the music video for one of the songs. Although it was noted as a very limited offer, I sent away and promptly forgot. That is, until one day, I opened my mailbox and found a mailer inside.

I rushed inside and popped in the video as I read the enclosed note. The note said that they had been flooded with requests after Jerry’s passing and that I was one of the ‘lucky few’ whose request they would be able to fill. The music started and I saw his face and I cried. It was not the first time I’d cried since that day, twelve years ago, when Jerry passed. This time, however, was the first time my tears could resolve into a smile. Things would get better. Life would go on. Tears are normal.

As they say, “When a lovely flame dies, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.”

 [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEuJqlrfEZ0[/youtube]

Happy Birthday, Jerry Garcia

Jerry 71

Today marks Jerry Garcia’s 66th birthday and the beginning of our second annual Jerry “Week”.

Our first entry features an excellent soundboard recording of one of my favorite shows:

1973-06-10
RFK Stadium

Set 1
Morning Dew, Beat It On Down The Line, Ramble On Rose, Jack Straw, Wave That Flag, Looks Like Rain, Box Of Rain, They Love Each Other, The Race Is On, Row Jimmy, El Paso, Bird Song, Playing In The Band

Set 2
Eyes Of The World -> Stella Blue, Big River, Here Comes Sunshine, Around And Around, Dark Star -> He’s Gone -> Wharf Rat -> Truckin’, Sugar Magnolia

Set 3
It Takes A Lot To Laugh It Takes A Train To Cry, That’s All Right, Mama, The Promised Land, Not Fade Away -> Goin’ Down The Road Feeling Bad -> Drums -> Not Fade Away, Johnny B. Goode

From the opening strains of “Morning Dew”, right on through to “Johnny B. Goode”, this show smokes and burns up with crazy, high energy. “The Eyes of the World” is a personal favorite. Also on the bill that day? The Allman Brothers.

To hear the stream, continue to the next page.

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Phish News?

Ok. I know I told you last month not to gas up the microbus just yet but the way these gas prices are heading, you might wanna go ahead so you’ll be ready for what might just happen “pretty soon.”

Those are the words of Mike Gordon when talking to WNEW about the possibility of Phish doing something (what, exactly, they don’t seem to have decided,) in the future. Check out the full article (including audio of the the interview) here.

 

In other vaguely Phish-related news, it turns out guys behind the electro/dance/pop/rock sensation, MGMT have something to say about the Jamband scene. Spinner‘s Concert Blog caught up with them at Bonnaroo. They professed their secret love for Jambands in general and then went on to blame “bad imitators of Phish” for ruining the scene. Read all about it here.

I guess now I can confess my appreciation for their album, Oracular Spectacular. It’s really groovy stuff.  (And that, friends, is my shortest album review, ever.)

Fleet Foxes

Another album that I’ve been checking out lately is the new, self-titled, release from Fleet Foxes.

I had though that I might regale you with a detailed review that referenced Jethro Tull,  the 60s British folk revival and Brian Wilson but someone beat me to it.

The same friend who got me to listen to Beck again for the first time in ages not only suggested this but reviewed it on his company’s website. It’s a good read with great insight.

Read it here: The Sound Room

 

Beck’s Modern Guilt

Okay. I was on vacation last week so, forgive me for not getting to this before now.
Actually, that’s not entirely honest. I was on vacation but, the truth is I’ve not seriously listened to a Beck release in years. I did check out The Information last year but it barely made my play list.

“What’s changed,” you ask?

I was hipped to this record by a friend who shared my disappointment in the new My Morning Jacket album, ‘Evil Urges’. Not as a consolation for that disappointment but, peripherally to the conversation, he noted that he was rocking this and that it was great, and yadda, yadda, yadda. All this I’ve heard before. However, feeling a little open minded and adventurous (I credit the time away from work for easing my cynicism,)  I committed to checking out Modern Guilt.

It struck me as a little unfair to review this album without proper context. After all, Beck has been releasing albums for nearly 15 years and I have long maintained that my favorite is 1994’s One Foot In The Grave– a work that is not typical of his catalog. And then there’s the fact that I saw him in concert in 2005, knew very few of the songs performed and yet, I had a great time. So, over the past week, I have enveloped myself in the music of Mr. Beck Hansen.

I’ve found myself nostalgic for the psychedelic garage sounds of Mellow Gold and the harder, yet more accessible crunch of ‘Odelay’. I relished the avant-garde muscle of ‘Stereopathetic Soulmanure’ (which has been possibly the most frequently played of Beck’s albums in my life because it’s the only one that I own on vinyl!) I discovered beautiful songs on Mutations and Sea Change (which quickly became my favorite album of the marathon.) And found myself staring at the new album, Modern Guilt, with feelings of inevitability and curiosity propelling me to listen.

I put it on last night as I rode the train and found myself sucked in to the drum beats and the lyrics. Here is a songwriter who once mixed the lines, “You can’t write if you can’t relate,” and, “drive-by body pierce” into the same song with no apology. He has turned in an album the compels me to listen to his lyrics- to hang on them even- and allow myself to be blown away by the sincere questioning of the world around. War, environmental collapse, isolation, conspiracy; it’s all here. Continue reading