strumminsix wrote: ↑Wed Nov 10, 2021 8:18 am
carlo zakers wrote: ↑Tue Nov 09, 2021 10:36 pm
that is a bad habit you only see in very poor musicians ... they get excited and play faster and louder ...
Very true.
carlo zakers wrote: ↑Tue Nov 09, 2021 10:36 pm
Bobby apparently realized what a bunch of hacks he had assembled
I've never heard anyone call Bill, Mickey, Otiel, and Rob hacks before.
carlo zakers wrote: ↑Tue Nov 09, 2021 10:36 pm
slowing everything down, at the expense of the music sounding right, was the only way to control it ... like babysitting kindergartners ... this is a sure sign of poor musicianship, and i'm surprised he admitted it ...
it's funny how they never had this problem with Jerry and Phil and Brent playing, eh? ...
I'd argue that keeping great timing in you 30s and 40s is probably a lot harder than in your 70s when for most, energy is a struggle.
My experience seeing older musicians is that it's a struggle keeping their energy even. Further, Bobby said "good performance" which means controlling speeds, not slowing down. You combine those, their ages (Bobby's 74, Mickey 78 and Bill 75 ), and think it's a fair assumption that it's a combination of things with being "hacks" having nothing to do with it...
i agree that older age can make it harder to maintain quicker tempos ...
i think everybody thought that was the reason they play so slow, but now Bobby has said that it's easier to keep things under control that way ...
i didn't think they were hacks, either, until i heard them play ... i am not trying to bash them... but, the problem is, there is no leader in D&C ... they are always lost ... with no one to turn to for direction ... which used to come from Jerry and Phil ...
that is how two great musicians... Mickey and Billy ... who definitely aren't hacks ... can PLAY like hacks in this situation ... because the players they are supporting are not accomplished at playing grateful dead music ...
Bobby is awesome, but he was always following Jerry... the Ying to his Yang ... now, no one is in charge ... there is no leader ... Bobby used to be able to just stand there, and allow things to happen all around him ... and with Jerry and Phil on stage, things would always happen ... now, he stands there waiting for something to happen, but it never does ...
Oteil is not accomplished at playing grateful dead music ... he may be ok at allman brothers, or r&b stuff ... but, from a technical stand-point, he is a "root" player ... mainly playing the root notes of the chord changes ... he doesn't really play melodies like Phil did, who often played through chord changes on the 3rd, or 5th notes of the scale ... wherever they fell within the melody he was playing ... this requires a while different level of playing skill than oteil has, who has no clue it even exists, as he plods along playing basic root notes ... song after monotonous song ... love his singing though!
mayer has kind of figured out one tiny style jerry used ... Jerry had lots of cool styles and modes he would play in ... but mayer can only play maybe one of those styles ... one ... he can play clean little licks that sound vaguely like Jerry ... but, he even ruins that by trying to fit the one blues lick he knows into every song, whether it fits or not ... and his jerry singing is atrocious ... the worst i've ever heard ...
so, although none of them are really hacks on their instruments, collectively, they play like hacks on stage ... which is understandable seeing as how no one is in charge ...
so, to keep things under "control", and from everybody getting too loud and lost ... bobby has to consciously slow things down ... at the expense of the music just sounding wrong ... it loses all life and energy ... Mickey and Jeff do their best to bang away and try to put some energy in it, but the tempos are just so slow, and wrong for the songs, that it is usually a lost cause ...
mayer and oteil try to groove along, but, since they have never really grooved to this music before, they really just don't know how ... there is a big difference between "playing" the song... and actually PLAYING the song ... anybody can just play the song ... but it takes a certain skill to actually PLAY it right ... which they don't
all in all, it is like the blind leading the blind ... the drummers try to make the best of it, but it is a flawed foundation they are working with ... i describe it like this ... you can't just replace Jerry Garcia, and Phil Lesh, with ANYBODY, and expect it to be anywhere near as good ... not to mention replacing them with mayer and oteil, who are both clueless about how to play grateful dead music ... plus they have no one to sing Jerry songs right ... and that's kind of a big deal ...
that is not to say that playing grateful dead music differently than the grateful dead is bad, or that you have to play it just like them ... but, D&C misses the mark on so many basic levels it is truly sad ... they ignore all the good things about the music that i love ... there is no energy, or feel, or creativeness ... i think they are a poor representation of the grateful dead music, and a stain on the good name that Jerry worked so hard to achieve ... as much as they wish they are, they aren't the grateful dead ... not even close ... they are so inept as a musical unit, that they have never even come up with a 3 chord song of their own to play yet ...
i was watching the rolling stones concert the other night from 2021, and they have a huge intro to their show remembering charlie watts ... five minutes going on and on, showing multiple videos on the huge screens of him playing and laughing ... dedicating their entire tour to him ...
as far as i know, D&C has never even acknowledged Jerry's existence on stage ... not a single shot on the big screen ... not a single mention of him on the mic ... and yet they constantly butcher his songs on stage, and make money off his songs ...
it's almost like they think they are better the the grateful dead ... and ... in some ways ... maybe they are ... they make 10 times more money than they ever did with Jerry ... at the expense of ripping off grateful dead fans, who spend huge amounts of money traveling to, and attending, their ridiculously high-priced, and musically sub-par "concerts" ...
hopefully this helps clear up my previous comments, and points out some of the problems that i see with their line-up and approach ... let me know what you think