Grateful Dead Jam Band audition How to prepare?

[JTE]

Um, just spend the whole audition time tuning, that'd be the most accurate recreation of a Dead concert in my experience...

 

[Mvilmany]

There's a lot of good live dead on YouTube. You can get a feel for the way that the band evolved by comparing 60's through 90's stuff.

I have this love/hate thing with a lot of what Phil did. IMO, some lines were absolutely brilliant, and some lines were just a complete mess which made the whole thing collapse.

Dead bands vary. Some focus on playing classic songs, some are 90% jams.

I'd really suggest having the "hits" under your belt (sugaree, truckin, sugar magnolia, touch of grey, franklins tower, etc). These will probably be expected.

I think that they peaked during their summer tour of 1972. Their live album, Europe '72, is probably their most essential recording. Get that album if you don't already have it. Every show they played was recorded, and there are a LOT of bad shows. Europe '72 will help you avoid weeding through painfully bad material.

As many have said for the last 40 years, their studio crap was horrible. During their first albums, they just went in to studios, fooled around, pissed off every engineer and producer that they worked with, and made cow patties instead of albums. Avoid these earliest albums. They had a couple of gems later (terrapin station).

Good luck with the audition.

 

[mellowinman]

Um, just spend the whole audition time tuning, that'd be the most accurate recreation of a Dead concert in my experience...

On a scale of one to ten, do you want to guess how helpful that comment was?

 

[mellowinman]

There's a lot of good live dead on YouTube. You can get a feel for the way that the band evolved by comparing 60's through 90's stuff.

I have this love/hate thing with a lot of what Phil did. IMO, some lines were absolutely brilliant, and some lines were just a complete mess which made the whole thing collapse.

Dead bands vary. Some focus on playing classic songs, some are 90% jams.

I'd really suggest having the "hits" under your belt (sugaree, truckin, sugar magnolia, touch of grey, franklins tower, etc). These will probably be expected.

I think that they peaked during their summer tour of 1972. Their live album, Europe '72, is probably their most essential recording. Get that album if you don't already have it. Every show they played was recorded, and there are a LOT of bad shows. Europe '72 will help you avoid weeding through painfully bad material.

As many have said for the last 40 years, their studio crap was horrible. During their first albums, they just went in to studios, fooled around, pissed off every engineer and producer that they worked with, and made cow patties instead of albums. Avoid these earliest albums. They had a couple of gems later (terrapin station).

Good luck with the audition.

American Beauty is one of the greatest albums ever recorded by any band. "Brokedown Palace," and "In the Attics of my Life" are amazing, as is the studio "Truckin'," "Sugar Magnolia," and "Ripple." I would put that album up against any album, at any era of rock history.

Workingman's Dead is excellent.

Terrapin Station and Shakedown Street are fantastic.

The studio albums may be different from the live Dead, but they are still excellent listens.

 

[Mvilmany]

American Beauty is one of the greatest albums ever recorded by any band. "Brokedown Palace," and "In the Attics of my Life" are amazing, as is the studio "Truckin'," "Sugar Magnolia," and "Ripple." I would put that album up against any album, at any era of rock history.

Workingman's Dead is excellent.

Terrapin Station and Shakedown Street are fantastic.

The studio albums may be different from the live Dead, but they are still excellent listens.

I'm not a fan of those early studio tracks, but you and I are on the same page with Terrapin and Shakedown.

 

[glocke1]

There's a lot of good live dead on YouTube. You can get a feel for the way that the band evolved by comparing 60's through 90's stuff.

I have this love/hate thing with a lot of what Phil did. IMO, some lines were absolutely brilliant, and some lines were just a complete mess which made the whole thing collapse.

Dead bands vary. Some focus on playing classic songs, some are 90% jams.

I'd really suggest having the "hits" under your belt (sugaree, truckin, sugar magnolia, touch of grey, franklins tower, etc). These will probably be expected.

I think that they peaked during their summer tour of 1972. Their live album, Europe '72, is probably their most essential recording. Get that album if you don't already have it. Every show they played was recorded, and there are a LOT of bad shows. Europe '72 will help you avoid weeding through painfully bad material.

As many have said for the last 40 years, their studio crap was horrible. During their first albums, they just went in to studios, fooled around, pissed off every engineer and producer that they worked with, and made cow patties instead of albums. Avoid these earliest albums. They had a couple of gems later (terrapin station).

Good luck with the audition.

What do you consider to be things Phil did that caused trainwrecks? What era?
To be honest some of his playing, especially in the early 70s was just simply pure genius and I have a heard time thinking of anything he did that caused a trainwreck...


OP, one thing to keep in mind also that part of the dead sound is to have the bass pretty far out in front of the mix...At, or near the same level as the lead guitar...

 

[nukes_da_bass]

Wow how opinions differ! Those first two Warner Brothers records (the greatful dead and anthem of the sun) are two of my favorite albums of all time!!!