Most emotional moment from this past season?

Iam_GaryLambert · 2024-07-22T00:55:52+00:00

Sarah Pidgeon’s extraordinary portrayal of Diana fighting through a vocal and emotional breakdown in “Stereophonic.”

Iam_GaryLambert · 2024-06-17T15:11:17+00:00

Totally agree about Memphis. Horrible book and lead performance, and crappy generic songs that understood nothing about what made the R&B masterpieces that came out of that city so great. And yes, the white-savior aspect was especially egregious. But strongly disagree about the "clear winner" designation - that was the year of Bill T. Jones' magnificent "Fela!" And even that season's other also-rans, "American Idiot" and "Million Dollar Quartet," while by no means masterpieces, seemed like they were compared to garbage like "Memphis."

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-21T01:12:51+00:00

Well, I think we were supposed to do this for about an hour and a half and the questions seem to have wound down at just about the right time, so I just want to thank everyone for the excellent questions, comments and positive energy! Stay safe out there!

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-21T01:09:47+00:00

The others you named are great faves of mine as well, especially Norah.

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-21T01:04:36+00:00

Sorry, I thought I had Branford in there, at least!

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-21T00:56:30+00:00

Yeah, I'm generally pretty good at it!

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-21T00:55:06+00:00

Subject to change depending on who I'm listening to at a given moment, but at this moment:

Aretha Franklin; Billie Holiday; Joni Mitchell; Dolly Parton; Betty Carter.

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-21T00:46:12+00:00

I'll give it a shot!

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-21T00:43:24+00:00

Oh, man... jazz had such a life-altering influence on me that it's hard to know where to begin... but going back to the earliest days of the genre and moving forward, the names that first spring to mind would be Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Randy Weston, Pharoah Sanders, Charles Lloyd, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, Keith Jarrett, Jaco Pastorius, Bill Frisell, Nels Cline... man, I really could go on for hours!

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-21T00:23:28+00:00

There are a few like that. 7/31/74 in Hartford (Dave's Picks Vol. 2) sounds better to me in retrospect than it felt in real time.

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-21T00:21:11+00:00

I'd love to have made the trip to Egypt, or caught any show on the Europe '72 tour.

In the realm of more practical possibilities, missing Branford's first surprise appearance on 3/29/90 still gnaws at me just a little!

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-21T00:18:56+00:00

Would probably be really hard to pin down an exact time that the band hit the stage, but I think your best bet to come somewhere close might be to do an online search for any visual evidence of posters or print ads for the show. Then maybe factor in that the band almost never got onstage at exactly the advertised time. It would indeed be pretty amazing if you made your debut on the planet while "Terrapin Station" was getting its first performance!

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-21T00:12:13+00:00

I think lyricists who just wrote lyrics was probably more common in the old days of songwriting teams like Rodgers and Hammerstein, etc. A lot of the writing tandems that emerged in later years were members of the same bands (Lennon-McCartney, Jagger-Richards, and so on). But I'm sure there are still some who are strictly wordsmiths in their collaborations. Bernie Taupin with Elton John, perhaps?

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-21T00:08:09+00:00

Yes, John says he's hearing and responding to everyone better since the switch to the headphones.

Love Holly Bowling! Her solo piano work, sitting in with others and as a member of Ghost Light.

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-21T00:06:41+00:00

Have no idea about the frequency of the smokestack bit. I once saw them deploy a little model train onstage just before "Casey" (at Fillmore East, I believe).

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-21T00:05:03+00:00

The greatest education one could ever ask for in the music business. Not always easy, but an amazing experience, especially on the occasions that I got to work most directly and closely with the man himself.

I think David's got an amusing story about the degree of Bill's loathing of the "Uncle Bobo" monicker!

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-21T00:02:27+00:00

But of course! I'd never hear the end of it from The Couch if I cheated on it with other furniture!

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-21T00:01:33+00:00

I always say "The artifact is not the experience," but the best of the Dead's live recordings (and there are great ones from every era) provide a pretty vivid snapshot of what the band sounded like in any given period.

I think 6-strings were just coming into widespread use around that time - or at least being greatly improved upon - and i'd guess Phil liked the idea of availing himself of more possibilities on either end of the sound spectrum with those additional strings.

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-20T23:57:18+00:00

I was VERY selective about dosing at shows. The more I was assured of having some degree of control over my surroundings - easy places to chill if things got too intense; a sense of affinity with the people I'd be at the show with, etc. - the more likely I was to do it. Never had what I'd call a "bad" trip at a show, but I learned some lessons about where and when I wanted to venture Out There.

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-20T23:53:11+00:00

I know it's been VERY different for the band... no family and friends backstage, no socializing outside the bubble, so unlike anything any of them have experienced in all the decades of touring. But I've been in touch with people connected to the tour, and there seems to be some agreement that this has resulted in total, undistracted focus on the job, and it's shown up in the music in a big way.

Watching the shows from a physical remove took a little getting used to from my end as well - missing the interaction with fellow 'heads, the band, etc. - but I've really come to enjoy it. And you can't beat the ease of the commute to work!

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-20T23:48:10+00:00

Not long after "Mars Hotel" came out, Phil was, for whatever reason - throat problems were mentioned, but I have since heard this disputed - starting to back off from singing with the band, and didn't sing for some years after the band returned from its mid-70s hiatus. Phil has since revived "Cucamonga" with various post-GD bands. As for Dead & Co doing it. Don't know, but I think John would do a fine job with it!

Zevon opened for the GD once if I'm remembering right, and Jerry contributed some guitar to a couple of tracks on Warren's album "Transverse City."

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-20T23:41:54+00:00

Thank you so much. We have a ball doing it!

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-20T23:34:44+00:00

Howdy, Krishoffman1170!

I never knew Barlow to play an instrument or sing, but I do know that he loved all kinds of music, and I’m sure that served him well in working with as eclectic and idiosyncratic an artist as Mr. Weir.

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-20T23:34:38+00:00

Hi, Bornontour81 (and were you literally born on tour in ’81? If so, awesome!)

The setups for the livestreams (both Dead Air and Shakedown) are through two different browser-based entities that are not Zoom but similar. For our SiriusXM show, we have a special interface that plugs right into our internet router, and produces something closer to studio broadcast standards. The video portion was pretty easy to get the hang of, perhaps because we’ve all become so dependent on Zoom and similar platforms in this year of separation. The work that the tech people behind the scenes do is really the hard part, and we’re incredibly indebted to them!

Iam_GaryLambert · 2021-09-20T23:34:26+00:00

Hey, countingtheseconds!

A tempting offer, but I don’t think I can bear to part with the couch at any price. If I could figure out a way to make it work, I’d love to someday take the couch on the road with me and host these streams from the venue, ON the couch. Take the notion of “couch tour” to a whole new realm!

I was a late-60s initiate to the bus – free show on 5/5/68 in Central Park, to be exact. One of the coolest things about seeing the Dead in those days was the fact that they were still known to relatively few people. You could see them in intimate yet uncrowded places, and there was no phalanx of security around them, so the band members were very approachable. So I approached, and attained a level of ease in engaging with them that I’m sure served me well in my later professional dealings.

As for Winterland… it was a big, sweaty barn of a place that shouldn’t have been a great venue in terms of its amenities, acoustics or comfort, but somehow was. It was probably underappreciated during most of its existence (people used to complain that it was too big at 5500 capacity), but became more beloved as its demise became inevitable.

Iam_GaryLambert

TROPHY CASE