• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Phil Lesh Appreciation Society: Enter the Philzone...

Status
Not open for further replies.
#582
Had a great opportunity to play two sets yesterday thru a 1965 100w fender Blackface showmans with the big 15" jbl cabinet. I ran it stereo with my regular rig 12 feet away on the other side of the drummer. Played my Starfire thru it and it sounded HUGE such a joy to play with such an awesome rig I may just have to buy it. What fun!!
 
#583
preside said:
Had a great opportunity to play two sets yesterday thru a 1965 100w fender Blackface showmans with the big 15" jbl cabinet. I ran it stereo with my regular rig 12 feet away on the other side of the drummer. Played my Starfire thru it and it sounded HUGE such a joy to play with such an awesome rig I may just have to buy it. What fun!!
Click to expand...

I know exactly how you feel! That's pretty much my daily rig.

Be aware that the Showman is actually only 85 watts. But with the right cab, it's all you need.

The key is to have the bass knob down around 3 and an efficient cabinet with a good low end. Flat on those beasts is 2-10-2.

With a Starfire, it gets a huge, woody tone. (Yeah, yeah, yeah.).
 
#584
My first Dead show was April 26 1972 concert at the Jahrhunderthalle in Frankfurt, West Germany during the Dead's Spring tour of Europe. I was in the Air Force stationed in Germany about 4 hours from Frankfurt. I still have the ticket stub. I was about 15 rows back about even with the stage height wise and in the middle of the hall. Incredibly comfortable seats. An old hall that a plastics firm redid the interior... all in plastic. The wood floors were plastic, the seats were all plastic, the curtains were all plastic. Everything was plastic but nothing felt like plastic at all. Can I say I wish I never saw them again because they never played as well as this show. (that I saw). One drummer (they supposedly hypnotized Bill the drummer to play louder) and the tie dye wall of sound, Keith (piano) and Donna, great spirits, Jerry kept talking about a band stalker asking them to play “Alligator” all over Europe and Pigpen grounding the band so they didn’t fly out of the building. The show just built higher and higher but not just higher and higher – rounder and this way and that way…. And Phil, this thread is about Phil. How he worked with all the instruments and vocals was amazing. Especially vocals – I always thought his playing was very melodic in a singing way. For about six hours I was glued to the journey/spirit on stage. I saw them later in the 70’s in California… and once at MSG in NYC. To me, the band's drugs always got worse and the shows did too.
 
#585
Wish I could have been there but I wasn't born yet. It's up to all of us to keep the spirit and creativity alive today that the Dead embodied back in their prime. As for the drugs, I heard Phil used to dump a gram of coke in his Heineken on a daily basis.
 
#587
SturmUndDrang said:
Wish I could have been there but I wasn't born yet. It's up to all of us to keep the spirit and creativity alive today that the Dead embodied back in their prime. As for the drugs, I heard Phil used to dump a gram of coke in his Heineken on a daily basis.
Click to expand...

Don't believe everything you hear. OTOH, truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.
 
#590
Floridabwoy said:
Further w. Trey @ Lockn

http://archive.org/details/furthur2013-09-07.flac16
Click to expand...

I saw the Friday night Further sets at Lockn', only had comps for Friday so I missed the fun on Saturday. I'll take what I can get though!

The set list was amazing, the playing was tight but somehow not so very psychedelic. Phil wasn't playing his Ritter, either, I think it was his Modulus Quantum 6. He had a great tone and a huge slice of the mix, which made me smile all by itself.
 
#591
HolmeBass said:
I saw the Friday night Further sets at Lockn', only had comps for Friday so I missed the fun on Saturday. I'll take what I can get though!

The set list was amazing, the playing was tight but somehow not so very psychedelic. Phil wasn't playing his Ritter, either, I think it was his Modulus Quantum 6. He had a great tone and a huge slice of the mix, which made me smile all by itself.
Click to expand...

I don't think the Ritter has been in action in quite a while. I never got to see it in person, but on recordings it left me a little underwhelmed, despite the space age look.
 
#592
Yeah. I only saw Phil play the Ritter once. I think he played them for like 3 months or so when Furthur just started out. When I saw them he had two. One he played and one on the stand in the back. He didnt like the punch and moved back to his beloved Modulus's.
 
#598
Great thread: on one of the links to the link from another link one deadhead mentioned Phil had the ability to single out every string on his Alembic and channel them separately? One or two strings coming through from the left and two or three coming through on the right channel.

Anyone have a specific song example where he does this?
 
#599
edwinhurwitz said:
This one is different from the other versions and a little less crowd noise:

http://archive.org/details/gd1983-06-18.beyer-m88.morrone.119438.flac1644

The short version of my story getting home is that I was going to meet some friends from Santa Cruz and catch a ride with them. I found them inside the venue but we got separated. After the show, I was with some other friends and walked for about an hour through the drizzle in the woods. Eventually we found a tarp to hang out under, as it started pouring, and I talked a guy through his chemical experience so that he wouldn't trip out on his cut feet (dancing barefoot-not such a good idea). As it got lighter, I noticed that across a little gully, there was a VW van parked among the trees. It got a little lighter and I noticed it was green. It got even lighter and I realized that it was my Santa Cruz friends! After they woke up, I found out that they had driven in the dark for about 30 minutes trying to find a place to park, only to end up about 30 feet from me! So, we piled into van and head back through the woods towards the parking lot. As we were about to exit the lot, the gearshift linkage snapped and we were stuck in second gear. Oops. We went out to breakfast down the road and on the way there, we noticed the check engine light. Apparently, some seal blew, probably due to overrevving the engine given that we were stuck in second gear. Luckily, next to the breakfast joint was a general store and we got a case of oil and two cases of beer. We then struck out back to Boston, going all the way in second gear, stopping every hour or so to put in another quart of oil. It was pretty damn hot that day and we were just cooking in the van with no AC and a top speed of maybe 25mph, so not much of a breeze. We pulled into Allston about 9 or 10 that night, out of oil and long out of beer.

SPAC '84 was also an epic journey, both the music and the ride home.

Years later I got to play SPAC on the HORDE tour with the Dude of Life (although relegated to a second stage). The best part of that show was discovering how good Meshell Ndegeocello was live (and her drummer, Gene Lake, son of one of my heroes, Oliver Lake) and dinner backstage with Tony Levin. What a great venue!
Click to expand...

Just goes to show how legendary SPAC really is. Im blessed to live about 30 minutes from SPAC :)
 
#600
Jawbone said:
Great thread: on one of the links to the link from another link one deadhead mentioned Phil had the ability to single out every string on his Alembic and channel them separately? One or two strings coming through from the left and two or three coming through on the right channel.

Anyone have a specific song example where he does this?
Click to expand...

I don't think there are any song samples that would give an audio representation of how it worked. You would have to be in the room.

Phil also said that while it was cool in theory the practical application was not so great. When they were touring with the Wall of Sound he was using 40 JBL 15s... two stacks of 20 speakers on each side of the stage. When he split the signal for each string he couldn't really hear properly since some of the strings came out of speakers that were on the other side of the stage or way above his head. Probably was fun to mess around with but not useful in a real time playing situation.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back