Any Grateful Dead fans??

Burning Eclipse

Hey, been listening to a few of their songs recently (the well known stuff, Touch of Grey, Sugar Magnolia, Uncle John's Band, Casey Jones etc...) and I love them. I'd like to get into their music more. I don't wanna go down the road of Greatest Hits because that's never the way.

I'm gonna pick up American Beauty, Aoxomoxoa, maybe Live/Dead... Question for those who know their stuff tho: should I pick up the original CD's (Based on Vinyl) or go with the remasters?!

Any advice, or recommended further listening would be great!

el_tiddlero

shouldn't make too much of a difference really - i couldn't tell you whether my copies are the originals or the remasters tbh.
i'd say buy em on vinyl though-for that authentic feel.. i got live/dead on vinyl a couple of months back and it's barely left the turntable.
my advice is to buy American Beauty first - it's easily their best work.

BKtje

if your into the grateful dead you should definately try check out Dark Star Orchestra some time. They are the Grateful Dead cover band.

They recreate Grateful Dead shows song for song. Seen them a couple of times now, really excellent.

blastman

As suggested, American Beauty is the simplest and one of the best places to start. In The Dark (the album that has Touch Of Grey on it) is also a favourite of mine and pretty accessible.

After that, there's only about 643 triple-live albums to go......

dr.bollocko

Love the Grateful dead. Absolutely magical band. Love the guitar sound and the choons are incredible. Will always remember this busker on Haight Ashbury playing a solo version of "Truckin" as I walked on by to hippie hill.
What a long strange trip that was.

Burning Eclipse

Thanks for the advice guys, pretty much confirming what I was thinking. Off to shop I go!

dr.bollocko

Anyone have a particular favourite track? Friend of the devil has to be mine. Although that is likely to change. American Beauty is a fantastic album.
Anyone know of any similar? When I first heard the dead I was shocked that they were so mellow. I was always led to believe that they were Hard rock!

el_tiddlero

my favourite off American Beauty is Ripple - favourite Dead song overall has to be St. Stephen - i just love the way it kicks in after Dark Star on Live/Dead..

If you're looking for similar bands then i think Phish are probably the closest thing - they're more on the trip out/20 minute psych side of things, but it's about as close as you'll get. Otherwise try trawling through some greatest country albums in the world ever.. you might find something on one of them..

Yeah there's a lot of misconceptions about the Dead. I suppose the fact that they're touted in retrospect as one of the leading anti-establishment bands lends to the view that they must have been really hard rock (seen as punk is considered as anti-est as it gets) but their schtick was more a free love acid vibe. Scared the hell out of the squares back in the day.. Doubt there was too many Irish dead-heads first time round.. although i have heard rumblings from some of my friend's parents about acid/mushroom parties back in the day.. anyone got any good tales of 60s psych culture in Ireland??

It's amazing how many people have never bothered to listen to them because of those misconceptions - when i was buying Live/Dead on vinyl in a shop in Georges St Arcade the dude behind the counter was all "oh, i've never listened to them, what are they like?" Given that i'd been chatting to him about all kinds of other weird and wonderful stuff, i was a bit shocked that he'd never even been tempted to listen to em.. ah well.. we'll all just have to work harder at converting people!!

Burning Eclipse

dr.bollocko wrote: »

Anyone have a particular favourite track? Friend of the devil has to be mine. Although that is likely to change. American Beauty is a fantastic album.
Anyone know of any similar? When I first heard the dead I was shocked that they were so mellow. I was always led to believe that they were Hard rock!

The Eleven from Live/Dead is the first one that springs to mind, but I can't pick one.

I know this is an old thread, but I was going to post a new one, and decided to bring this one back instead.

I love the dead. In the two years since I posted this thread there is no band I have listened to more. Live/Dead is an album that is just about as good as live music gets imo!

American Beauty is indeed a great album, as was suggested to me by many on this thread, but I think I prefer Aoxomoxoa in terms of studio work. Workingman's Dead is also great. I think their earlier stuff is better tbh, but they have some great songs from later in their career too.

Anyone else a fan? It can't just be the 5 of us??

edhead

American Beauty & Workingman' Dead are their best work - studio anyway.

Europe '72 is a fantastic live album. And its live is where their at. Never translated well in studio as "structure" was not suitable for a band like them.

Great site for free Dead shows and other bands similiar to Dead right here

http://bt.etree.org/index.php

Grid.

American Beauty is great indeed, probably their best album!

bnt

I'm into concert sound a bit, and one of my regrets is that I never got to hear the Wall Of Sound in action. I've heard it described as a hi-fi that sounded great a 1/4 mile away. Phil Lesh's bass needed four channels - one per string.

Burning Eclipse

edhead wrote: »

American Beauty & Workingman' Dead are their best work - studio anyway.

Europe '72 is a fantastic live album. And its live is where their at. Never translated well in studio as "structure" was not suitable for a band like them.

Great site for free Dead shows and other bands similiar to Dead right here

http://bt.etree.org/index.php

While I love both of those albums, they are a very different style to Aoxomoxoa. On the surface of it, they are 'better' albums, but I prefer Aoxomoxoa I think.

As for Europe '72... China>Rider is just perfect.

Does anyone own the Anthem to Beauty dvd?

Minstrel27

I love them. I was introduced to their music a few years ago on the always fantastic television series Freaks & Geeks. Box of Rain was the song played which made me want to find more. I was glad that I did.

johndoe99

One of my favourite rock bands, i have loads of there albums, but my pride and joy:

Grateful Dead -The Golden Road (1965-1973) (12CD Boxset)

that's the icing on the cake.

Burning Eclipse

johndoe99 wrote: »

One of my favourite rock bands, i have loads of there albums, but my pride and joy:

Grateful Dead -The Golden Road (1965-1973) (12CD Boxset)

that's the icing on the cake.

The period of time which, imo, they were at their best!