dead C vs grateful dead

do get "anthem of the sun," though, julio.

Bob - check out Eusa Killa to ease in, it's the most accessible, tho my favorite is Operation of the Sonne. All pre-millenium stuff definitely worth the search. newer stuff, not so much

But I have to go with the Dead. I wouldn't have said that even four or five years ago, but as I've gotten further into the Dead and their legacy I've discovered tons of the great live stuff that's out there, and my estimation of them only increases. And quite frankly I'm just a lot more likely to play their records.

Oh and for the record I've seen the Dead C live twice, and it was really great even if the experience worked to reduce the shroud of mystery hovering over their records. But I'd probably trade those memories for an opportunity to see the Dead in say '67 or '68 onstage at the Matrix, hopped up on speed.

i like "dark star" okay i guess

i really don't know what their 'aura' is supposed to be, but i listen to their records all the time. that's how i know i enjoy them, you see.

as to the Deac C, i got very sick of them when they were a part of a big PR push from croney nick cain and his magazine opprobrium which badly aped the style of the old FE magazine and more importantly tried to align the dead c with free-er art music in general, and misguided adventures into and understandings of improv in particular

and at about that time ('97-'99) the dead c lost their charm for me by seemingly buying into this opprobrium crap, with bruce russell reviewing records for that magazine and nick writing back-scratching reviews of dead c releases, & at about that time, this special new "free noise" was championed by bruce russell's corpus hermeticum label that's own cd releases themselves included endless philisophical tracts about the nature of music, art and noise -- the tone of all the writing was very self-congatrulatory -- the dead c broke their publicity veil of mystery in this very public way, the reviews in opprobrium by russell all reading like back-slapping pay-back for like minded cronies in other countries

when the dead c were still modest, in earlier less famous times, the arly '90s, still experimenting, like cds and lps like "feel good all over" and "trapdoor **** exit", they were very interesting and it was a joy to see this sort of thing coming out of nz, and it made me somewhat proud to have come from nz myself

so to see this whole magazine and new record label juggernaut launched off the back of what had been a real honest cottage industry that as such had almost accidentally produced real art, that was a dissapointing turn for the worse

the magazine had a smug superiority tone mostly reflected in reviews done by nick the editor, which were either overbearingly superlative to the point of appearing hopelessly insincere, or they slagged review platter and most often the artist too to the point of "hey, it's ridiculous to assume that this [band of losers, etc] could ever impress anyone with [insert attempted dandy/oscar wilde quip damning with faint praise here]"

for example, little nz battler bill direen got needlessly slammed in this mag (for being, i dunno, old and resident nz talent, rather than new and interesting and part of the new wave of nyc/japan/nz circuit bands like those on corpus hermeticum or part of the new noise/art clique, friends of thurston moore, the new scene that supposedly the dead c & mutual back-scratchers sonic youth were godfathers to)

so opprobrium is now a web-zine and recently (typically)slammed eddie prevost, AMM and such improvisors in y'know that "we know it all" tone, er, paraphrase: [all those old improvisors, we're sooo bored with those old guys, why don't they go off and die ..]

so take the dead c stuff and avoid the "free noise" they claimed to be spearheading (the albums repent and tusk and whitehouse were from this period) and especially avoid anything written by people bandwagon jumping, or music like slothful slow moving nz bands that improvise "free noise"

there are other newer dead c albums too that friends tell me are good that do not mention "free noise" or that mag. -- the dead c seem to have reverted to the publicity-shy private tape-assemblers -- "live albums" never worked too well unless the live stuff was touched up (like studio then live version of 4th song on "trapdoor **** exit" )

i don't like "harsh '70s reality" or "operation of the sonne" or bruce russell solo records (though his handful of dust/omit ahared credits album is quite fun) -- everybody has different favourite dead c albums, which is part of the inscrutable charm

and i do wish them well, the best, i hope they keep on doing well in new ways, a bit like what they used to do well when no-one was looking -- now no-one is looking again so they might be doing well

the lesson for me has been that entrepeneurial journalists trying to create synergies for the band by getting their opinions for reviews and trading on being matey with them or being part of the same scene will alienate people who admire the band for it's single-minded modesty

of course free jazz, "fire music" etc.. is not the big deal now that it was in the late '90s when lot's of people were finally being introduced to the likes of sun ra (pretty much missing out on the main event there) -- now yoshide, fennesz, the dead c are all part of a wider shared knowledge of music partly enabled by list-serves and other internet type special interest niche marketing -- amd FE which were the people who first helped sell dead c records to the rest of the world, people who have been as important as projects like opprobrium have been annoying distractions

[thjis was written extremely fast with no proof reading in attempt to be honest and leave "felt" impressions rtaher than create soem other impression or serve some agenda .. generally i think the principles that motivate the deadc to do what they do in the musical sense have produced drone music with real content, and content is the thing so often lacking in drone music .. dead c are a very good musique concrete band, in that as music concrete, the band rocks .. i think that some of their best polished studio experiments are what has made this band special so far .. the notion that the band can "improvise" "live" with feedback and given that so many of their songs are assemblages is intuitively wrong to me, and so grouping them in with any of the improv or virtruostic free jazz that finally became popular in the late '90s is to do both that music and the unique music of the dead c a dis-service]

it's also worth noting that it takes a while to get on friendly terms with some dead c records, but they pay off and the songs become old friends, like some other good but quite different avant music

The thing that I got from Zappa's tinseltown thread (you know the one where you just ranted endlessly abt how crap zappa's 70s output is) is that Tad really kept his cool and didn't reply to every single point: unlike me when we had that thread on opprobium (I don't know: i must've had a lot of time back then) (it turned into one of the longest ILM threads at the time as i recall).

''the dead c aura is amazing, i wonder if people who heap all this praise actually listen to the records? i was sucked in for a bit but i realized i never wanted to listen to any of the records because they are a drag. live they were even more painful. their records draw huge trade-in and resale value though so they are a good investment.''

plz get back to yr belle and sebastien records. or I'll come to yr house and kill you. really.

the dead c are more powerful as stuff that annoys me about the whole nz/dunedin/etc quasi-noise whatever.

never got into eusa kills really. bob- plz check out harsh 70s reality. that was my first one => it begins with a 23 min guitar 'ambient' piece so that could be 'difficult' on first listen but all the other stuff will pull you in.

ess kay- are you still gonna send it? i gave you my home address.

(& this is after seeing the strange girls & sex platform at the paradise bar last night!)

xpost - yeah, was going to get round to it eventually but uh yr email was like some sort of greedy grasping dalek child & freaked the hell out of me.

(I like dead can dance too)

um, as i recall (I'm posting from work now but I'll check my 'sent items' folder in outlook express when i get home) I offered a CD burn in return so in other words I don't know what your talking abt but nevermind.

HA! I don't know why the above is so funny to me. I guess fame is relative, but really...

there isn't that much that is ''challenging'' abt their music. its all really overplayed by the wire magazine type crowd, i think.

julio & duane, you've read/heard my rants on those annoying "scene" aspects before, but hey, the above post was free-association improvised, in the spirit of the deads grateful and c. -- i'm sorry that it was maybe a failed experiment (evidence you're familiar with "improvising" yourselves both here and there)

but look at this thread -- agreement on opprobrium, confusion as to which are the good dead c. records

like i said, everyone has a different favourite dead c.record
(which means they've left a special fuzzy soft focus impression on almost everyone, so "the dead c. experience" beats that u.s. launched "titanium exposé")

and i don't think Tad "kept his cool", no, he just did not have answer (and o.k. defending zappa is probably difficult, even if arguing the 'badness' of zappa is a tad too easy and maybe beneath further attention)

please interpret those anti-zappa rant-posts as 'continued pointless pontification' done in a tribute to the style and substance of the endless stream of frank zappa material from the last forty years

I did. it wasn't perfect but its OK. but i have said it already on that other thread a long while back.

''and Julio, with regard to that zappa thread, i wasn't losing my cool, just using Tad's lack of any substantative contribution to make more remarks about frank zappa''

you misread me again. i didn't say you george lost or kept yr cool or any of that. I said Tad kept his cool => as in he didn't try and argue with you (he quoted james blount when giving a reason for this) unlike me in that opprobium thread.

''julio, bro i like you & shit but i think you were really unnecessarily rude to my friend back there, men swearing at & insulting each other stuff in arguments about music is such no-class shit! ha ha & it only happens in threads about geek dork no-fun bands that no girls like.''

I'm sorry you think i insulted george but we all know he hates nick cain's guts. this thread is not abt fucking opprobium!

having said that i liked what george has to say on the dead c (I mean have you done a 180 on them bcz i used to believ you hated the dead c so i'm surprised). but you haven't said much on the grateful dead.

Are you fucking serious? Oneida continues to stupify, can't wait to hear that. The best band on the planet!

Har har i don't think the C will be letting Heazlewood in the same room as them or anywhere near their stuff.
So did someone actually really LIKE Opprobrium? Yeah there was always good stuff in Oppobrium like the Mikami Kan and Simon Wickham-Smith interviews so I kind of miss it in a way (since I can't be bothered reading the online version). Of course we only remember the shitty things about it like Nick's reviews and the title (did Nick actually listen to any of those records?) Actually i think George is wrong about Oppobrium pushing the Dead C's barrow because it barely mentioned the C, preferring to rave about every Handful of Dust release. I suspect this is because the Dead C are a rock band and we're supposed to have outgrown that stuff.
None of the C seem smug in person. Bruce is pretty humble about his lack of guitar playing ability and has a well-developed sense of humour that people usually miss out on when they read about him.

You have to LEARN to love both the Dead C and the G Dead, and I still have a lot to learn when it comes to the USA Dead

The thing that turned me off of Cain's muisc criticism was that he doesn't have the sense of humor that the rest of the Forced Exposure et al. crew still has.

but i don't think they'd have trouble with Chris Heazelwood, musically or personally, unless they wanna get off on a "guilt by association" thing with respect to some of the PR stunts of King Loser, a band that had at least _two_ quite different kind of people in it

i do recall lot's of people who liked King Loser and seeing it as rejecting what they saw as a musical clique from Dunedin -- and King Loser had a contract with Flying Nun that maybe caused some from the Dunedin circles of the time to feel indignant and left out themselves

julio,
over the last ten years there've been a few attempts in nz to up the ante a bit and make nz seem like the centre of some new "free noise" universe (as it was then called, a deliberately vague definition, often extending to rather loose jam-outs by people taking a loose "paint in the dark" or "naive" approach to instrumntal ability)
ironically, it's sometimes been people who've been blown away by some of the "free noise" they've heard who've themselves to jump into it with both feet and make a "free noise" or "art" cd or lathe cut vinyl thing of their own
sometimes that enthusiasm has been good, maybe it depends on the configuration of the band you set up, i dunno
bruce russell himself makes no apology for being no great instrumentalist himself, his m.o. seemingly being assembling the right collection of noise making devices arranged in the right way if recent performances are to be a measuring stick -- it's something he does on a part time basis (his full time job is running this neat-o cafe in chch, a different nz city from most of his former free noise colleagues) -- he doesn't practise playing his instrument(s) it's claimed, another "art strategy" maybe
i guess that if you're reading ILM in england then some of what's referred to by us new zealanders here from time to time will not make sense, so it maybe looks like we're arguing about small matters
sorry if that's how it seems julio

anyway, working with the dead c on a very part time basis has been a configuration that's worked for bruce russell
for me, some of their recordings have been splendid -- and they clearly have lots of keen fans around the world, and clearly i'm hardly their keenest fan

yet it's not easy to just draw conclusions from conventional instrumental yardsticks, as dead c are a band for whom the "free noise" thing has worked as i say by a lot of different peoples' standards

but do you think everybody who's a sunday painter should be presenting their music to anyone other than their friends ?
(after all, thank god these days you can grant yourself your own recording contract, even if getting it in all the shops might be hard or pointless)

If we're comparing studio GD to studio Dead C, I'd have to go w/ Dead C. If there is a bad Dead C song, it still isn't that bad. There are TONS of bad GD songs (esp. in the 80s/90s), some that are so bad that I'm embarrassed to be a fan. But if you consider the vast live output, I'll take GD's catalog. In fact, if you gave me maybe four GD songs played live throughout the years (Playing in the Band, Dark Star, The Other One, and Drums/Space), I'd probably still go GD. And that is still discounting all of their great pop/americana songs (too many to name). At the same time, you could probably play 30 straight bad GD songs, and I don't think that you could do that with Dead C.

But there are many similarities in sound that I don't think people would expect (well, Dead C. fans). But the only time that the comparison becomes apt is when you compare the a GD jam, 20 minutes in, to something like "Driver UFO."

Operation of the Sonne
Harsh 70s Reality
White House
Clyma est Mort
Trapdoor Fucking exit

I'd like to hear Greyfolded. I should checkout those early studio experiments too.

I now see Dead C as some sort of studio experiment band. I really like Operation of the Sonne, Trapdoor Exit, DR503 & C, s/t double cd
and especially Repent. I like parts of Whitehouse and Harsh 70s too, but i don't get Tusk.

.. love the use of "lo-fi" to facilitate and blur multi-layered sound/jam combinations, almost concrete, renders that distinction un-necessary.

Yeah, i'm a big fan of the mid-tempo information pileup of the New Zealand band. The GD seem a bit too bluesy and noodly, but the meandering of both bands is, for me, somehow more convincing or valid or art etc. than the 3-minute rock song.

Weird. I bet I'll buy it. I bet I'll buy it FOR people.

Weird. I bet I'll buy it. I bet I'll buy it FOR people.

how're you finding it, ian? no "bad politics", no credibility. only available as an import in NZ, heh.

Dead C win by quite a large margin. The only Dead record I truly love and listen to regularly is Anthem For The Sun. I'm more-or-less in love with everything by the Dead C--particularly The White House, Eusa Kills, Operation of the Sonne and Trapdoor Fucking Exit.
― Ian John50n (orion), Saturday, July 9, 2005 3:12 PM (3 years ago.) Bookmark

How things change.
I just wanted to post and talk about how fucking awesome American Beauty is feeling right now. One-two punch, Box of Rain into Friend of the Devil.

Walk into splintered sunlight
Inch your way through dead dreams
to another land
Maybe you're tired and broken
Your tongue is twisted
with words half spoken
and thoughts unclear
What do you want me to do
to do for you to see you through
A box of rain will ease the pain
and love will see you through

real freaks n geeks shit but OTM.

also: "one in chino, babe, and one in cherokee" = catchiest moment of the dead's career?
i picked up a jerry garcio bio ("Captain Trips") at the thrift store today for a buck.

garcio lol ;_;

i think box of rain is the only dead song not sung by garcia that i love. does lesh have anything that comes close? one of my absolute favorites though.

First side of American Beauty still absolutely destroying me here. My buddy today, we were out record shopping, asked me should he get American Beauty or the first LP. I asked him whether he wanted something more country-rock or something more psych. He kinda shrugged and ended up getting neither. I should have made him get both. (he likes the dead C too.)

i think he got like three bassholes LPs on the cheap at the Kim's moving sale.

wait, which one of these guys put out american beauty?

grow up.

soon i'll be 20!

Gee some of my posts up there were a bit silly, looking back. I like the top(first) post though, it's more accurate and less angry or reactionary. The argument with Julio is awful, I'm embarassed by it really (thank you Julio for bothering to call my bluff).

The funny thing about my experience with the Dead C is that I can't really make up my mind, still. Sometimes I hate the same track I loved the previous week. This is GOOD ! How many musics are really that consistently enigmatic ? How much stuff can get me feelings both so happy and so hard-done-by, evoke such a real-life un-cocooned range of emotions ?

Generally i seem to hate Dead C records until they're about 5 years old, so I'm still not liking the new one and I guess the track "Magicians" is fantastic on Future Artists.

Like some paintings/art, y'know it's OK, somthing there, but not too horribly ecstatically perfect etc. That Dead C don't deliver beautiful or perfect or slick music is what makes them more "art" for me I think. As Bruce seems to feel quite strongly, i really do think the music industry is a nauseating concentration of bad-spirited craftsmanship, and this band really doesn't seem to rely on those industry values at all, in a way not so different to the Grateful Dead.

I'm middle aged now and don't want music to just stick a manipulated smile onto my face. I like this music for it's bluntness. How many bands throw out the crowd-pleasing thing ? The "fuck-you, we'll just do what we want" attitude of the Dead C is fantastically uncompromised. Did you all read that interview with Bruce in the Stranger magazine ? The lack of crowd-pleasing pretense seems the right "natural" post-post stance to be caught naturally exhibiting.

and besides all that, the POLITICS of beings artists, musicians, career-people, etc.,
this is still MUSIC that makes me go "huh ?"

Good luck to them.

I saw Penn of Penn & Teller fame claim that the Grateful Dead were at one point the highest income bringing act in America. Pretty sure this never applied to the Dead C, not even if you count only in Dunedin

he probably meant highest-grossing touring act

yes touring act, but still, that's something

While I agree with a lot of what you've said above, the I think The Dead C (sometimes) do make beautiful music. There's seriously beautiful stuff all over The Whitehouse and Harsh Seventies Reality.

i just saw Phil Lesh's band, who were not the Dead, but pretty good, far better than the musical embarrassment that is Ratdog. Deadheads are kinda annoying, tho, New York deadheads at least.

so, has anyone noticed that the singles comp LP of the Clyma Est Mort reissue is mastered at the wrong speed? It's too fast. Plays at 45 but needs to be pitched down a bit to sound proper--I checked it against my singles to make sure.

That Julio... Such a card! Kudos for thinking of such an interesting pair to compare.

I think both of these bands are very good, but a bit over-rated. On general principles I'd give the nod to Dead C. just because of how widely known Grateful Dead is. Then again, if you restrict the Dead to pre-'72 or so, it becomes a very close contest.

Nonetheless - Dead C. for the win.

just been listening to their new one, patience, kinda like the instrumental mirror of secret earth - gd dead c gateway/intro alb imho

hm, i like them both in a similar way. would probably go for grateful dead though because there would be more to explore.

might try it then xp

heard dead c years ago but cannae remem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbyYzyUPGs8

i like this performance quite a lot, i mean it's the first result on youtube for 'dead c' though.

good video

love the first track on the new one. whole thing is great, really.

new album is hella +lush+ sounding... i can't tell if there's delay on robbie yeats drums on the first track, or he's playing some nicely ill-defined rolls.. feels bigger and creamier than patience

i take issue with the Dead C's championing of a 'non-deliberate' approach, or aesthetic of indeterminacy, where their (sonic) actions are clearly deliberate and idiomatic.. never really tuned in to the earlier, song-based stuff, but their latter period, "improvised" music always sounded overtly tonal and pulse-oriented (at least yeats' drumming). i think secret earth is a perfect record, however. regarding their vocal-less "explorations of sound," i can see the AMM comparison where both acts' members are making sounds/patterns with a determined ignorance of each other (member), but calling it pure improvisation could be off. reflecting on assertions of the past where people have condemned "tonal improvisation" an oxymoron.

http://vimeo.com/73436706

bruce russell's daughter made a documentary.

anybody listen to armed courage? thoughts? first track, do robbie yeats' drums have delay on em?

See you there:

https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/the-dead-c-three-day-residency/

lol did julio ever offer himself to the grip of the dead?