Phil Lesh Appreciation Society: Enter the Philzone...

[TwentyHz]

Me too.

[StrangerDanger]

If yall havent read it already, I highly recommend Phil's book "Searching For The Sound". Thats what we are all doing anyway, right?

[spacebassed]

Originally Posted by StrangerDanger

If yall havent read it already, I highly recommend Phil's book "Searching For The Sound". Thats what we are all doing anyway, right?

Or you can have Phil read it to you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F65Bsws2kqI

[TwentyHz]

And oops ... Number please, me too, me too.

[bassRunner]

Originally Posted by StrangerDanger

If yall havent read it already, I highly recommend Phil's book "Searching For The Sound". Thats what we are all doing anyway, right?

+1 Very interesting read.

Don't forget about the "Eye of Horus" bass! I recall being terrified of it at Rothbury 2009.

Also, I'd like a number, thanks!

[TwentyHz]

Originally Posted by spacebassed

Or you can have Phil read it to you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F65Bsws2kqI

Ha! Oh Well... heck I think pretty much heard his voice in m'skull when I read it anyway.

[Basshappi]

Originally Posted by spacebassed

.

would you like a number, Basshappi?

Sure.
If I mention that I also read Phils autobiography do get a super, special, secret membership?

[FretlessMainly]

Originally Posted by spacebassed

Well Said. Counting out that 7 for "Estimated Prophet" is a trip, isn't it.

I play a fair bit of stuff in odd time sigs, but what's great about that one is how smooth and natural it feels. It doesn't have that "dropped beat" feel that 7 often imparts.

[spacebassed]

Originally Posted by TwentyHz

Ha! Oh Well... heck I think pretty much heard his voice in m'skull when I read it anyway.

Haha, Me too! It's almost impossible not to!

[Musicphan]

77' Phil Bombs!! LOVE EM'

[Philonius]

Big Phil fan here; we even share a first name. Subbed.

[RDagBasses]

I "buy the ticket and take the ride"

[spacebassed]

Hey Roger! How are the Hagstrom Bisonic recreations coming along?

[FretlessMainly]

Originally Posted by Musicphan

77' Phil Bombs!! LOVE EM'

http://archive.org/details/gd1983-06...19438.flac1644

SPAC, 1983. Phil destroys the world during Morning Dew. I think I stepped on my jaw more than once during this one.

[edwinhurwitz]

Originally Posted by FretlessMainly

http://archive.org/details/gd1983-06...19438.flac1644

SPAC, 1983. Phil destroys the world during Morning Dew. I think I stepped on my jaw more than once during this one.

This was a great show. I had a bass revelation that night. After I got into the venue and before the show started, I watched a girl try to teach a guy how to do a cartwheel. She had a very easy, graceful way to do it that just flowed. He tried to copy her arm and leg movements but it wasn't working because her movement wasn't about the arms and legs, it was about her spine. All she had to do was lean over at the right angle and set up her spine so that it would curve and then straighten out and her arms and legs could just go along for the ride. For some reason, best left to the imagination, watching that got me in tune with seeing people's spines. When the music started, I was watching everyone dancing and I realized that despite the many different dancing styles, everyone's spines were all sync'ed up to the bass. Arms, legs, heads, all the other body elements were different but the spines were all locked into the bass groove. So, I experimented with playing to that concept, playing to the spines in the room. It changed the way I played, for sure. That summer, one of the songs on the radio was My Spine Is The Bass Line. Coincidence?

I also have to give a shout out to the Bird Song. It was the first one I saw and hadn't really heard any versions of it since the early 70s versions, which are my favorite, but it was great to hear.

Of course, the Scarlet->Fire is epic. That big roar in the crowd that you hear on the very first note of Fire isn't for the entrance of the riff, it's for the huge bolt of lightning that hit right on the note. They even had the weather in sync!

Sadly, there is no soundboard known to exist for this show. The audience recordings are OK, and even capture the intense humidity and sense of electrical potential in the air with the impending thunderstorms, but none of them really capture the impact that it felt like that night.

The rest of the night and the journey home were also epic stories, with both hardship and serendipity. It should not take 10 hours to drive back to Boston from Saratoga!

[spacebassed]

Originally Posted by FretlessMainly

I play a fair bit of stuff in odd time sigs, but what's great about that one is how smooth and natural it feels. It doesn't have that "dropped beat" feel that 7 often imparts.

Right, I meant that its not a straight 7, it's almost like he divides that 7 into 4-3, then 3-4 the next time... however you envision it - it WORKS!

[FretlessMainly]

Originally Posted by edwinhurwitz

Of course, the Scarlet->Fire is epic. That big roar in the crowd that you hear on the very first note of Fire isn't for the entrance of the riff, it's for the huge bolt of lightning that hit right on the note. They even had the weather in sync!

Sadly, there is no soundboard known to exist for this show.

Indeed; they also had the weather in sync for The Wheel, during, "if the thunder don't get you then the lightning will."

That was a crazy good show. I think we ended up sleeping in our car from about 4-7 am, then taking the Pike back to Worcester, uneventfully.

I linked to as good a version as there is. I believe all copies seem to originate from a Nakamichi deck source that has this swirling effect going on. My copy from 1984 sounds exactly like the ones on Internet Archive.

[spacebassed]

Originally Posted by edwinhurwitz

They even had the weather in sync!

Don't forget about the time they made Mt. St. Helens explode - think it was 6/12/80. There's something powerful about that song.

[FretlessMainly]

Originally Posted by spacebassed

Right, I meant that its not a straight 7, it's almost like he divides that 7 into 4-3, then 3-4 the next time... however you envision it - it WORKS!

Interesting; I've written several things in seven, and often it has this feel (two bars of seven makes the complete phrase):

ONE two three four FIVE six seven
one TWO three four five SIX seven.

Something similar to what you mean, I think.

[Nathan Levine]

I'll take a number on this one. Lets hope he keeps dropping those bombs for years to come.