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Phil Lesh and Jack Casady Chatting last night
- Thread starter silvertone
- Start date
I sure hope when I'm their age that nobody busts my balls for trying to have a little fun playing music.
I hope nobody does that to you now.....
and that you're still having fun playing music at their age.....
and that you (continue to) care about the opinion of anonymous interweb dweebs as little as I'm sure they do........
Ha. Thread got smelly. Phil and Jack are having a good time after all these years. Truly blessed and returning the favor.
Yeah it got smelly for me when I heard Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple being traded on for laughs. My take. I do think they sounded best early on in the scene before getting obsessed experimenting with improving the instrument..and it's pleasing to hear Jack say in his Ribbeke interview that after all of that he has no use for onboard electronics.
- Dec 21, 2007
- 15,233
- 45,125
- Disclosures
- Lark in the Morning Instructional Videos; Audix Microphones
What I found interesting regarding pickups is that lately (at least on TB) there has been huge love/interest for the old Guild Bisonics (and remfg's like DarkStars), at least partly pointing to the great old Jack and Phil tones on their Starfires.
But... they had Wickersham mod their Starfires because they weren't really happy with the tone.
And much of the love for their tone came after those Alembic mods...
Interesting.
But... they had Wickersham mod their Starfires because they weren't really happy with the tone.
And much of the love for their tone came after those Alembic mods...
Interesting.
edwinhurwitz
Supporting Member
I'd agree with that. The buffers built onto the base of the BiSonics came pretty early. By 1968, they were both playing active instruments. The "obsession with improving the instruments" happened very early on.
My favorite Phil tone is probably fall of 1972, lots of knobs on the bass!
Hey, Mr. PC, how come your profile is blocked from us peons? Turn us on to all the seminal and influential music you made with your passive instruments!
Yeah, the Guild Bi Sonic pickups were real good as they were..slopping extra magnets on those required even more mods to make it sound right. It really was like a ball of string unwinding, and in at the end of it all, the stock pickup sound was fine, and sounded perfect in the arena it was designed to function in.
edwinhurwitz
Supporting Member
Not in my experience. In fact, some of the Bi Sonics came with two magnets from the factory, so there are lots of 60s Guild basses out there with dual magnet stock pickups. Adding the extra magnet does not require any mods. I don't know why you are so intent on pissing in everyone's Cheerios.
On the Bi Sonic pickups, that is an interesting fact about the factory magnets. Everytime Casady talks about modding the bisonic, he mentions that it started with adding magnets...and went on to rewind, re pot, shield, adding electronics, ect. In short, deconstructing, changing the primary materials. Pretty soon it wasn't anything like the stock pickup which sounds wonderful in the context it was designed to function in. Just like any other great piece of vintage gear.
Last night's 1975 show was potent, very well played, interesting and full of rarities. Stu and Phil were on fire - not to mention Molo, Cochrane, Baracco and even Grahame Lesh.
Blakesberg kicked things off with Phil who seemed pretty oblivious to history and didn't really seem to have much memory for the era or the functional workings of Big Brown which he demo'd for the audience. To this bass playing musician the demo was less than impressive but it was still pretty cool to see Phil bewildered by this talisman of Godlike power...
The show had just a few rocky moments and was mostly A+ with a very Jerry-centric list and vibe. And though it irked me when Grahame (less than familiar with the repertoire than merits a spot on that stage) Lesh biffed the words and cadences of Music Never Stopped it was more than made up for by some cool rhythm guitar and surprisingly strong approach to one of the GD's ultimate rarities: Sage and Spirit.
The 2 drummers were rock solid and potent: "The Great White Cloud," Molo who really laid down the pulse and newcomer to the Grate Room: Cochrane McMilan (of local Jamband Tea Leaf Green) who outdid himself in the Micky Heart seat with lots of texture, hand percussion and aggression behind the kit.
The newfound female element: Elliot Peck was once again great when given opportunities in places like Music Never Stopped and Blues for Allah.
Stu Allen played some of the most incendiary and powerful music I've seen him play last night and I was dead sober for the first set. He was literally on fire and Phil was feeling it and egging Stu on alongside the locomotive rhythm section.
This show was wildly powerful but was a strange contradiction in that there a lot of loose tickets outside and a lot of room inside. I'm guessing the price and the Monday factor caused this incongruity.
Psyched for '76....
The first 20 minutes of this youtube features an interview of Phil by photographer Jay Blakesberg and 10 minutes of Phil demonstrating Big Brown - his 1975 - 1978 Alembicized Guild Star Fire with 25 Knobs and a Quad pickup....
Blakesberg kicked things off with Phil who seemed pretty oblivious to history and didn't really seem to have much memory for the era or the functional workings of Big Brown which he demo'd for the audience. To this bass playing musician the demo was less than impressive but it was still pretty cool to see Phil bewildered by this talisman of Godlike power...
The show had just a few rocky moments and was mostly A+ with a very Jerry-centric list and vibe. And though it irked me when Grahame (less than familiar with the repertoire than merits a spot on that stage) Lesh biffed the words and cadences of Music Never Stopped it was more than made up for by some cool rhythm guitar and surprisingly strong approach to one of the GD's ultimate rarities: Sage and Spirit.
The 2 drummers were rock solid and potent: "The Great White Cloud," Molo who really laid down the pulse and newcomer to the Grate Room: Cochrane McMilan (of local Jamband Tea Leaf Green) who outdid himself in the Micky Heart seat with lots of texture, hand percussion and aggression behind the kit.
The newfound female element: Elliot Peck was once again great when given opportunities in places like Music Never Stopped and Blues for Allah.
Stu Allen played some of the most incendiary and powerful music I've seen him play last night and I was dead sober for the first set. He was literally on fire and Phil was feeling it and egging Stu on alongside the locomotive rhythm section.
This show was wildly powerful but was a strange contradiction in that there a lot of loose tickets outside and a lot of room inside. I'm guessing the price and the Monday factor caused this incongruity.
Psyched for '76....
The first 20 minutes of this youtube features an interview of Phil by photographer Jay Blakesberg and 10 minutes of Phil demonstrating Big Brown - his 1975 - 1978 Alembicized Guild Star Fire with 25 Knobs and a Quad pickup....
edwinhurwitz
Supporting Member
The Big Brown demo was a bit disappointing. I know exactly what I'd do with that instrument! But it was cool to hear it through the modern rig. The basic tone of the instrument does sound really good, all filtering aside. The sweep range of the filters is pretty ridiculous. It was also interesting to hear that it does suffer from some the same noise issues my Series II (electronics and pickups ca. 1973) equipped Starfire does.
That's funny as hell...the basic tone of the instrument is the original platform designed by Guild in the mid '60's. Adding the rest of that crap is like pissing in the cheerios, as you mentioned earlier. Why did those guys insist on pissing in the cheerios by adding all of the bodacious electronics..I guess because they could. Good enough. 
That's funny as hell...the basic tone of the instrument is the original platform designed by Guild in the mid '60's. Adding the rest of that crap is like pissing in the cheerios, as you mentioned earlier. Why did those guys insist on pissing in the cheerios by adding all of the bodacious electronics..I guess because they could. Good enough.
They might have done it because they "could" but I think the real motivation was to see what would happen when they got off their butts and actually did it....nobody really knew at the time. As a player the Alembic modded Guilds have never appealed to me in the least but the onboard systems that came out of those experiments radically changed the way people think about how to EQ a bass guitar. It's too easy to criticize in retrospect and a certain amount of respect is due to any pioneer. The Wright Brothers airplane didn't really work all that well but it did make people believe you could power a set of wings with a piston engine. Look where that went.
I think this thread is dead - but I found this recently on the local SF, CA Craigslist:
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
McIntosh MC2300 amp
RocknRoll History~Papa John Creach/JA w/case - $2500
Up for sale is one of my most prized possessions, the McIntosh MC-2300 power amp that I used to run Papa John Creach's live sound on stage for the ten years we were The Papa John Creach Band. I started working with Papa John in 1973, and we used the McIntosh amp along with 2x12" and 2x15" Alembic speaker cabinets, which both Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead (especially Jerry Garcia) used for their signature sound. (see the pic with Keb' Mo' and myself, showing the MC2300 with the two Alembic cabinets taken in 1974) This amp with 300 watts per channel and lowest total harmonic distortion rating gave us the most clean, clear and powerful sound possible for Papa John's legendary violin, and I used a Roland 301 Chorus-Echo with the MC-2300 to create the on-stage effects that wowed crowds across the Country for those magical ten years. I used the original Jefferson Airplane ATA flight case to keep it safe on tour, which it performed a masterful job.... (Read more here: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
McIntosh MC2300 amp
RocknRoll History~Papa John Creach/JA w/case - $2500
Up for sale is one of my most prized possessions, the McIntosh MC-2300 power amp that I used to run Papa John Creach's live sound on stage for the ten years we were The Papa John Creach Band. I started working with Papa John in 1973, and we used the McIntosh amp along with 2x12" and 2x15" Alembic speaker cabinets, which both Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead (especially Jerry Garcia) used for their signature sound. (see the pic with Keb' Mo' and myself, showing the MC2300 with the two Alembic cabinets taken in 1974) This amp with 300 watts per channel and lowest total harmonic distortion rating gave us the most clean, clear and powerful sound possible for Papa John's legendary violin, and I used a Roland 301 Chorus-Echo with the MC-2300 to create the on-stage effects that wowed crowds across the Country for those magical ten years. I used the original Jefferson Airplane ATA flight case to keep it safe on tour, which it performed a masterful job.... (Read more here: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
