Thoughts On The Dead

Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Tag: jesse jarnow (Page 1 of 4)

I Guarantee You Did Not See This One Coming

April 24, 2020 / / 0 Comments

“Good evening, everyone. I’m Grateful Dead archivist David Lemieux. I’m here with Gary Lambert, who will not have a speaking part due to the limitations of the dialogue-only format, and the great Jesse Jarnow. Hey, Jesse.”

“Thanks for having me, Dave.”

“David.”

“Sorry.”

“Jesse, we have a great show from 1993 tonight, or at least most of a great show from 1993.”

“Right. The last couple songs were not filmed.”

“Right. Do you know why not?”

“Because the Dead weren’t occasionally bush league. They were fully committed to half-assing it, phoning it in, and declaring their efforts ‘good enough.’ They were big-league bush leaguers.”

“Interesting. Can you share your thoughts on Gary’s shirt?”

“I’d rather not, David.”

“Also interesting.”

SWHUBBLEDUBBLEVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPOP!

“Jesse, are you still there?”

“BOOF ME!”

“Excuse me?”

“SHOVE ME UP YOUR ASS AND BECOME IMMORTAL.”

“Okay, this is just inappropriate.”

“I AM THE UNIVERSAL CLEANSER.”

“Excuse me for a sec.”

…

“Hey, hoser.”

Me?

“You see any other hosers around here?”

Guess not.

“Shit like this is why you’re not allowed on the pre-show.”

Aw.

“No one to blame but yourself, buddy.”

I know.

The Healy Collection

March 20, 2019 / / 3 Comments

I do not know how I feel, Enthusiasts, about this latest offering from the great Jesse Jarnow. In it, he reveals that longtime live sound mixer Dan Healy was merch yoinking at a steady pace for his entire tenure with the band, and not just yoinking: storing. Every shirt Mickey ever yoinked went right on his sweaty, often bloody, torso; Healy kept everything in a cool, dry basement that didn’t get any direct sunlight, and so he’s got boxes full of mint-condition merch.

Look at this bullshit:

(Technically, since these are bootleg shirts, Healy could not have yoinked* them. These were most likely traded for. Precision is important when it comes to important matters such as these.)

What is the source of my ambivalence, you ask? Surely not the piece itself: as always, Jesse’s writing is superb, thoughtful, and informative. Nor the topic: while not the rediscovered trove of Betty Boards, a hidden cache of merch resurfacing is a newsworthy one. The pictures are brightly-colored, and all in focus.

No, my hesitance to sign on fully lies in what the article’s placement represents. GQ shouldn’t care about the Dead. I don’t want GQ to know the Dead exists.

This was the next story:

And I’m just gonna leave it at that.

 

*Merch can only be yoinked from one’s self (for an extended definition of self). Taking a shirt off your merch table is yoinking; taking a shirt off someone else’s merch table is stealing. Or buying. Maybe trading. You can also be gifted an item, in which case the item is no longer classified as merch, but rather as swag.

I know it’s complicated.

It Was, Indeed, A Time

December 10, 2018 / / 4 Comments

It’s like my daddy used to say to me, Enthusiasts: “TotD, you can’t fuck to folk,” and then he’d shit on a pool table because my daddy was a honky-tonking man.  He was right, though. You can’t fuck to folk music. It’s inappropriate to even become aroused during a hootenanny, let alone start plugging up stinky holes. Try it! I dare you! Try banjo-boning! You’ll fail.

You can, however, fuck to the great Jesse Jarnow’s new book Wasn’t That a Time: The Weavers, the Blacklist, and the Battle for the Soul of America.

That’s the worst advertisement I’ve ever heard. 

Stick around! Anyway, like he said: this is an ad. I am blatantly trying to get you to buy the book, and I am biased. DaCapo Press sent me two free copies, and I like Jesse very much; quite frankly, even if the volume were 300 pages of Godzilla porn, I would tell you to by it. Luckily, there are very few sexually-explicit passages at all, let along ones starring giant lizards tail-fucking giant moths.

No, instead what you get is a delightful example of one of TotD’s favorite maxims: Singer, not the song. I have–and this will come as no surprise–never been to a hoot, nor a sing-a-long, nor an old-timey high-kickin’ n’ hollerin’ wing-ding/rent party. The only way I would listen to folk music is if all the other music disappeared and then they started charging for the silence. Not a fan.

Why? Because folk music is too:

A: Wholesome. 

The Weavers go on a British tour, and one of them–Lee Hays, the fat Southerner–orders a glass of milk from room service. I can’t relate to that shit, man.

B: White.

Folk music is some white people bullshit. I had to play Fela Kuti while I was reading, just to balance my head out.

But The Weavers had an interesting story, notwithstanding the music, and the great Jesse Jarnow tells it well. Did you know that the U.S. government was gonna throw one of The Weavers–Pete Seeger, the skinny Yankee–in jail just for being a Communist? And not even a scary commie. It was Pete Seeger, for fuck’s sake. Pete Seeger’s Communism was a family-friendly one. He was a Summer-Camp Communist. It should also be mentioned that all the man was doing was playing a banjo and singing the tenor parts. Regimes throughout history have persecuted the guy playing banjo and singing the tenor parts.

Blacklisted! The Weavers! Lee and Pete and the two others! Just for some songs about peace. Or maybe it was the banjo. Go read about it.

 

ALSO: It turns out that Burl Ives named names and now Frosty the Snowman is ruined for me. Thank you, Jesse. Information I did not need.

Proper Order

September 19, 2018 / / 3 Comments

Enthusiasts, you owe it to yourselves to buy the great Jesse Jarnow’s new book, Wasn’t That a Time: The Weavers, the Blacklist, and the Battle for the Soul of America; it’s a doozy. Real honey of a book JJ put together here. It’s all in English, but the authorial command makes you feel like the next chapter might be in Italian or Kanji characters, something high-class like that. In fact, it’s a high-class book all around: this is a volume that would never wipe its dick on a guest towel.

Excuse me.

Don’t interrupt me while I’m reviewing a book. Would you pester Michiko Kakutani?

Fuck her. We’re talking about you. Have you read Jesse’s book?

Define “read.”

I’ll enter that into the record as a “no.”

It’s not my fault.

It never is.

Jesse’s book made a terrible strategic decision in arriving at Fillmore South the same day as Nick Tosches’ Dean Martin biography. I’m not blaming Jesse. It’s the book that was wrong.

You don’t deserve friends.

They don’t deserve me.

John Perry Barlow’s Book, A Non-Review

July 30, 2018 / / 2 Comments

I’m not reviewing Mother American Night. If you want to read a thoughtful analysis of the book, try Chris Jennings’ take in the Wall Street Journal or Jesse Jarnow’s piece in Wired. They got paid to ruminate on this tissue-thin memoir, but Hatchette didn’t even send me a free book, so fuck it. As you might imagine from the venues of their reviews, Chris concentrates on JPB’s politics, which were so shallow it took him a decade to realize Dick Cheney was a fucking monster, and Jesse on his connection to the computer machines, which JPB loved almost as much as when the makers of the computer machines paid him to give speeches and go to parties.

So I won’t talk about those topics, instead relating to you the rhythm of the book. The first half is a series of Mentos commercials.

  • John Perry Barlow finds himself in a wacky and slightly dangerous situation.
  • Through verve and pluck, JPB extricates himself from said situation, often tossing a witty bon mot over his denim-clad shoulder as he exits.
  • The authority figure in the story chuckles, shakes his head, waggles his finger.
  • Repeat.

The second half is a lip-chapping selfsuck about the EFF, the Electronic Finger Fuckers or whatever that stands for, which is a grassroots lobbying group started by Barlow to protect the rights of internet users. You remember the manifesto:

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone.

That’s the Declaration of Cybertronian Independence or whatnot, and the version you know has been bowdlerized. That quote you just read? Originally, it was longer.

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. Leave us to be digitized, monetized, and collateralized by our non-elected betters. The internet industry, unlike every other known to man since time immemorial, will morally and righteously police itself without governmental interference and you can’t tax us, either. I called it. No taxes on the internet, that’s a thing now because I put it in my manifesto. 

Upon learning of the edit, John Perry Barlow fired his pistols indoors and stormed off to Gstaad to ski with Jackie Onassis.

So, anyhoo, read it or don’t. But now I don’t have to feel guilty about not writing about it.

Crumbs

August 7, 2017 / / 1 Comment

As you must surely know by now, Thoughts on the Dead is not a one-stop shop for all your Jam Scene needs. Sartre said that hell is other people, but he hadn’t heard Twiddle. It’s all just a bunch of doodlebopping for smelly whites to stand in a field to, and I’ll have no truck with any of them. I also wouldn’t get in a van with any of them. Take your Widespread Cheeses and your Dildo Bilbos and begone with you.

And while the Phishes are galactically better than the rest of the dreck on that JamOn station, TotD is not TotPh.

(Seriously, Phish: it is embarrassing at this point that you don’t have your own channel. Jimmy fucking Buffet has his own channel, and he is a demon in flip-flops.)

Which is to say that the Phish nonsense ends tonight, and not a moment too soon; if I read another too-clever-by-half article about the band, I’ll plotz. Plotz, I tells ya. Thankfully, like a cactus bloom in a desert, the great Jesse Jarnow writes about the highlights in Rolling Stone. Mr. Jarnow (along with Ms. Petrusich in her New Yorker article) distinguishes himself from the pack by knowing what he’s talking about, and I urge you to go read his lovely prose.

If you don’t have time, though, I can recap his highlights for you:

Best Donut-Related Teen Freakout: “Adam Hershowitz, 19” (Jimmies, Night 9)

Adam’s cousin told him to wait an hour. Adam didn’t feel anything after 20 minutes. Adam put the donut on his dick and ranted about how rosary beads were just wearable prayer wheels. Adam got tackled by security.

Most Unexpected Celebrity Sighting: “Suge Knight” (Boston Cream, Night 12)

When asked about his presence at the show, Suge explained his longtime love for the improvisatory Vermonters. He went on to express his hope for some “dope 2.0 shit,” and then went backstage and dangled Page out a window for a while.

Killerest Jams: “Multiple” (Multiple nights)

Phish showed the packed house opening night that this wasn’t to be a normal run with intensely jammed-out versions of Swack, Mining In The Forest, and Lamp Fight. (The Lamp Fight jam in particular was incredible, lasting 40 minutes and containing musical allusions to Trey’s never-completed fantasy-themed rock opera, The Moate Of Grilm.) Night two saw an almost hour-long rendition of Tetherball Daddy, while night five featured an Anteater>Face The Water>Frictional Fraction>Anteater that was better than any magic trick Criss Angel can do.

Angriest Crowd Member: “Sam Cutler” (Strawberry, Night 2)

Sam Cutler threw his donut at a young woman in a wheelchair, and then punched Mike Gordon right in the scarf. He had nothing but compliments for the spicy chicken sandwiches, though.

Reading, Material

July 28, 2017 / / 3 Comments

Reading time, Enthusiasts, and nothing dreary and dangerous like politics: our subjects include rococo homes, baroque bands, and how awesome I am.

We begin with what began as an adjunct to Lost Live Dead, but has since become its own river of well-sourced Rock Nerdery: Hooterollin has the all the family secrets behind Me And My Uncle. John Phillips, from the Mamas and the Papas and also incest, wrote it–maybe–during a tequila-fueled public blackout, and then Judy Collins got involved; it’s a long and interesting story, so go read it.

Or you could take a look at Tony Duquette’s work. He was a designer from Los Angeles who worked on movies and for the theater, and made restaurants and hotels look swanky; when he went home, he preferred a restrained decor.

Nah, just kidding: he was an insane maximalist who put all the furniture and all the art in every room always. This is low-key compared to what he thought a bathroom was supposed to look like.

Captain of the Comment Section and Professional Lorax J. Eric Smith brings us two nuggets of beauty and truth, and also many links to his thoughts on prog rock bands and also that super-scary metallic music that he favors. First is an interview the man did with The Man himself, George Clinton, about the funk (it is multitudinous but yet singular) and the music business (those are some money-stealing motherfuckers, y’all). Second is the kindest–and only review–that whatever the fuck I wrote about Little Aleppo has gotten so far.

You thought I was lying about one of the subjects being my awesomeness? Are you new here?

Miss Hippie In Mississippi: A Curious Girl in a Zany Family Or How I Danced With the Skeletons in the Closet is an actual book written by Billy’s actual sister and it is actually 100 pages and $15. If you choose to purchase it, I expect a review.

We finish up with the great Jesse Jarnow in Rolling Stone writing about whatever it was that Sam Cutler was doing the other night. Some band or something.

The Wrinkle Was Sold To Me As A Crease

June 17, 2017 / / 6 Comments

This is from Rolling Stone back in May. The great Jesse Jarnow interviewed Bobby about Dead & Company, and the new ’77 box set, and bliss. I was not mentioned, even obliquely, and the article lacks for my absence. Bush league move, Jarnow.

Stop that.

People should talk about me more.

Okay, champ. Get to whatever stolen premise you’re gonna half-ass while you procrastinate doing your big-boy writing that you’re so proud of that no one will pay you for.

…

Ow.

Point out the lie.

It’s all true, but the tone was a bit much.

You deserve it, plus more.

That’s true, too, but it still hurts.

Get to it.

Anyway, Dead & Company’s summer tour is well underway and Enthusiasts everywhere are still a bit perplexed as to what this so-called “wrinkle” is. It must be subtle, whatever it is, so allow me to make some guesses and also steal some from the internet:

  • Entire band going commando for performances. (“It makes the jams freer,” Oteil says. “Makes it easier to take my dick out,” Billy adds.)
  • Jeff Chimenti changed conditioners.
  • Some video screen bullshit?
  • It can’t be Mickey’s clogs; though I have no evidence, I will state definitively that the wrinkle is not Mickey clip-clopping away back there.
  • And it can’t be Oteil singing lead, either, not from the sentences that follow the stuff about the wrinkle.
  • Bobby, what the fuck are you talking about?
  • I demand the great Jesse Jarnow get Bobby on the phone and make him explain himself.
  • Everyone go bother Jesse on Twitter about it.
  • Give him no respite until he answers our questions.
  • Call him names!
  • I’m not gonna tell you to stop again.
  • I was done.
  • Good.
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