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Phil Lesh 4 vs Phil Lesh 6

Stingus

Stingus

Jan 2, 2004
285
14
58
Des Moines, Iowa
brothersother.com
#1
I tried a couple different searches on this and nothing I was looking for came up...

I've been listening to "Live Dead" a lot lately, and I realised that I really prefer Phil's sound on the 4 string much more than the 6. He is barely audible (at least to me) on things like "touch of grey" and later period stuff, compared to "live dead", which is just majestic. For people who are often dismissed as hippies, the Dead (especially on Dark Star) played music just as progressive as Yes and King Crimson...

Anyone else notice?
 
#3
Anyone else notice?

I'm with you 100%. I saw many shows pre-'76, then lost interest in the Dead, although I still occasionally went to later shows. Ironically, Phil's love of Ornette Coleman and other outside jazz was a big influence on my own musical taste.

As far as old Phil versus the later period, I'll take the "Seastones" era, when he had the quad system, and the classic Wall Of Sound period a little earlier, as my favorite tones of any of his rigs I've heard. Once he got away from the Starfire/Alembic fours, he kind of lost me tonewise.
 
#4
Stingus said:
I tried a couple different searches on this and nothing I was looking for came up...

I've been listening to "Live Dead" a lot lately, and I realised that I really prefer Phil's sound on the 4 string much more than the 6. He is barely audible (at least to me) on things like "touch of grey" and later period stuff, compared to "live dead", which is just majestic. For people who are often dismissed as hippies, the Dead (especially on Dark Star) played music just as progressive as Yes and King Crimson...

Anyone else notice?
Click to expand...

Oh thank God I'm not alone. I agree 110%. When I started listening to the 80's and post "Touch of Grey", they started getting really synth heavy (which isn't bad unless... YOU'RE THE GRATEFUL DEAD!) to my ear. The move to 6 string only weakens the low end of their sound and pushes it further from their old organic sound.

Lesh is a really good bassist in my mind, but I think that there are some bass players that just don't need more then 4 strings. There are some amazing players that use 5+ and get great sound, but there are also some that use it like a crutch and don't sound good. Like a guitarist with 20 million pedals all with the sole purpose of covering up a weakness in his playing. Sometimes having more options doesn't work.

And yes, check out Darkstar. It's really some of the best instrumental psy-rock you'll ever hear
 
#5
Baofu said:
When I saw Lesh with RatDog, he played an upright exclusively (bowed most, if not all, of it).

Not much of a dead fan myself, my Dad's a huge dead-head though. Maybe I need to check out Dark Star.
Click to expand...

i think that was rob wasserman, not phil lesh....

i believe phil lesh is quite underrated, and i also really appreciate his earlier, more agressive tones.
he also played a huge part in helping to experiment with and develop the electric bass guitar by working closely with companies such as alembic. not to mention that beautifully crazy wall of sound. i would suggest to any audio geek to read up on that one.
d
 
#7
Perfect-Tommy said:
Oh thank God I'm not alone. I agree 110%. When I started listening to the 80's and post "Touch of Grey", they started getting really synth heavy (which isn't bad unless... YOU'RE THE GRATEFUL DEAD!) to my ear. The move to 6 string only weakens the low end of their sound and pushes it further from their old organic sound.

Lesh is a really good bassist in my mind, but I think that there are some bass players that just don't need more then 4 strings. There are some amazing players that use 5+ and get great sound, but there are also some that use it like a crutch and don't sound good. Like a guitarist with 20 million pedals all with the sole purpose of covering up a weakness in his playing. Sometimes having more options doesn't work.

And yes, check out Darkstar. It's really some of the best instrumental psy-rock you'll ever hear
Click to expand...

I notice the sonic difference more than the other stuff.... he still seems to play pretty much the same way. As far as 4 vs 6, though, it seems to me he tends to stay in one place on the neck more and play across the strings rather than along them. I could be wrong, :hmm: though.
 
#8
I was thumbing through the Taper's Compendium and a picture of Phil playing a psychedelic, swirly painted Gibson EB 3 jumped out at me. (At least that's what it looks like...I don't know my model numbers very well).

Surprising; I never knew he used one of those. From pictures in the book, it looked like he was paying that from late '69 to early-mid 71. That was a pretty good era for the Dead and Mr. Lesh :D

Lots of big pounding bass on live tapes recorded then. Go Phil :bassist: !!!
 
#9
I'm a longtime Deadhead and I'll have to agree, at least somewhat, with the contention that his "older" tone was more appealing than that of his more recent years.

Also, over the past 20 years, Phil has kind of gotten away from his old "groove" technique and has become more inclined to play shorter notes with more space. In the right context, that obviously works well, but in his case, I think his style almost comes across as sounding more "pokey" and less fluid. To each his own with respect to preference and I know that Mike Gordon has actually worked in recent years to emulate Phil's style more, but it just doesn't appeal to me.
 
#10
Stingus said:
I tried a couple different searches on this and nothing I was looking for came up...

I've been listening to "Live Dead" a lot lately, and I realised that I really prefer Phil's sound on the 4 string much more than the 6. He is barely audible (at least to me) on things like "touch of grey" and later period stuff, compared to "live dead", which is just majestic. For people who are often dismissed as hippies, the Dead (especially on Dark Star) played music just as progressive as Yes and King Crimson...

Anyone else notice?
Click to expand...

Nope, can't say I agree at all regarding his 4 vs. 6 sound. While I enjoy all of Phil's work over the years, I think his work on 6 string has more clarity and is far more sonically impressive than anything done on a 4. I've never heard a better bottom end than what Phil did at The Dead show in Irvine, CA last September. And the previous year with Phil & Friends in San Diego, he dropped some bombs that were just massive.

Digital recording, in general, tends to make some of the later recordings sound less bass-heavy. His tone was definitely great on the stuff that ended up on "Live Dead." My favorite Phil 4 tone was on the Europe 72 recordings, however.

As to Phil's playing, I find that he uses the 6 very creatively, selectively and judiciously going into the extended upper and lower ranges to great dramatic effect. I remember his quote about why he plays a 6 string: "More notes."

I recommend you seek out some early nineties shows or check out what Phil is doing these days before you decide you don't care for his 6 string playing/tone. I think you may be surprised. I agree with your last sentence, of course. In fact, The Dead have always had more in common with a good jazz group than a rock band given the progressive and extensive use of improvisation as a basis for much of their music.
 
#11
My band does alot of Dead stuff. The old Phil with the Alembec 4 was much more fluid and rythem based than the Q6 he has been playing more recently. If you listen to something like Dick's Pick's 13 you really get a feel for the short punchy notes with lots of space inbetween, but at times when the really throw down Phil steps up and is rollin just the same as he used to. It seems to me that he has changed his playing style over the last 3,000 or so shows to make things different. I can hear it in 1993 as well as in Live Without a Net. I really think that it depends upon what night you catch them or what recording you have as to how punchy or fluid Phil sounds.
 
#12
I dig what phil has done in the later years. I like the crystaline ambient feel of the dead post 1980. I love the earlier stuff too, but the later sound of the dead is just more pleasing to my ears. I tend to get into the tone of the modulus/eden rig he's using of late as well.
 
#13
i think phil's best tone was with his custom alembic of the late 70's. i also really dig his current sound with the q6.

in terms of his playing, i think i like him on 4 better because back then he had to go up the neck to get the low notes, and got a great crunchy (does that make sense to anyone else?) tone from the first 5 or so frets on the E string (as heard in The Other One intro). Nowadays he plays more in the middle-upper part of the neck and just goes down to the B string for the lower notes, and loses that aspect of his sound that i love.
 
#14
Since I started this thread, I read an interview with Phil where he spoke about the Dead getting away from the freer stuff around '72/American Beauty period, which he sounded a little regretful over.

Also, I like a quote in his Bass Player interview where he said that his style grew out of "trying to put some polytonality" into rock music.
 
#15
I believe Lesh played that EB3 on Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, both of which featured a REALLY aggressive sound. Check out the bass entrance on Friend of the Devil, truly unconventional tone then and now I'd give anything to emulate! That Gabson was supposedly heavily modified, wish I knew how.. And yes,Dark Star is the Dead's single absolute masterpiece but I think he had the Guild Starfire then.. So if anyone knows how to get that bonky wooden sound, let me know!!!
 

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