Your opinions on Phil Lesh

[rickbass]

You asked for opinions and I find it great that everyone has remained respectful...........so far.

Because I grew up in community where so many revered the Dead, I used to go to their concerts just because I knew it was going to be a party. Personally, I hate/hated the Dead because I found them immensely boring.

I never understood why Lesh needed umpteen jillion dollars' worth of custom Alembic gear to sound so clean and play such simplistic, slug-ass, weaving, basslines under "Uncle Jerry's" incredibly meandering solo nonsense.
I guess it's just my perception. Their success means they reached a lot of people and that's what matters.

I respect Lesh for what he did/does in the way he means something to other players. But give me someone from his era, such as Jack Casaday, anyday.

 

[jgsbass]

You asked for opinions and I find it great that everyone has remained respectful...........so far
I respect Lesh for what he did/does in the way he means something to other players. But give me someone from his era, such as Jack Casaday, anyday.

Thats funny because both Jack and Phil were very similar in both style and sound ( Probably those lysergic guys at Alembic) and often influenced each other

 

[rickbass]

Thats funny because both Jack and Phil were very similar in both style and sound ( Probably those lysergic guys at Alembic) and often influenced each other

jg - I guess it's just perception.

I found Casaday much more "raw" and imaginative than Lesh, who just seemed much more "supportive" to me.

Believe me - I'm not saying that Lesh is/was a "poor" bassist...he just didn't turn me on like Casaday, whose lines were challenging enigmas on bass, to me. When I heard his off-the-wall lines on, "Somebody to Love," I thought - "What the hell is this guy doing ?!?!?"

When I heard Lesh, I thought - "This guy is getting PAID to do this?!?!"

But, as I alluded to before, Lesh's success indicates that he must be a fine artist I just don't "get."

The difference of opinion keeps the world interesting, IMO.

 

[jerry]

Either if you love or hate the Dead, you have to give them props for doing it their way. They never followed trends, and except for one album, never really sold many records, and still became icons to a real lot of people.

 

[baba]

I love Phil's playing. I don't play like him in any way but I enjoy the hell out of him. After Jerry I think he is the most important player in the GD.

I've heard Phil play with other musicians at Seva benefits and the like, and it just doesn't work too well. I think his playing has evolved to fit the GD's music and not much else.

 

[Floating teetH]

I dig phil lesh. He always gets superb tone, whether he's playing a jazz bass (supposedly the stuff on Live Dead was recorded with phil on jazz bass, and it sounds just as good as anything else he's played in my opinion) or alembic, or modulus.

Those who worry about them touring as the dead should consider that they went through many personel changes before Jerry died. If stuff w/ donna singin' all out of key and cheesy digital synths can still be called the dead, why not?

That being said, though, I still prefer PLQ to the dead (non grateful).

 

[jgsbass]

jg - I guess it's just perception.

I found Casaday much more "raw" and imaginative than Lesh, who just seemed much more "supportive" to me.

Believe me - I'm not saying that Lesh is/was a "poor" bassist...he just didn't turn me on like Casaday, whose lines were challenging enigmas on bass, to me. When I heard his off-the-wall lines on, "Somebody to Love," I thought - "What the hell is this guy doing ?!?!?"

When I heard Lesh, I thought - "This guy is getting PAID to do this?!?!"

But, as I alluded to before, Lesh's success indicates that he must be a fine artist I just don't "get."

The difference of opinion keeps the world interesting, IMO.

Agreed. Phil Lesh's style suits his playing with the Dead but anywhere else, that style isn't as supportive as could be. Casady just rips through everything. Back in the day ( I lived through it) you went to the Dead to hear Jerry, you went to Airplane to hear Jack. Both however ,found a style that works without being meat and potatoes bass. Although my playing rarely reflects either of their styles anymore, both were seminal in my approach to bass. Givin my druthers, I'd rather sound like Jack than Phil, but its all good.

 

[Planet Boulder]

I love Phil, his style is really cool. But ive been hearing that as of late that alot of Dead heads are startin to get pretty pissed at him and Bob because theyve started touring again since Jerry died.

Yeah - there are definitely some split factions. While I'm not "pissed" at either, I wish they had just remained "The Other Ones" and left "The Dead" alone.

Semantics to be sure, but what the hell. I'm a Jerry-head.

 

[IvanMike]

phil doesnt fit with everything, that's for sure. but he is what he is. One thing we all owe the dead is the thanks (in part) for the current technology in music. Throughout their career phil and the boys always demanded the best and were willing to experiment. Companies like alembic, furman, bag end, etc probably wouldnt be anywhere close to where they are today if it wasnt for the GD. And thank god alembic got a big push, who knows how many of their competitors in the bass manufactuing world wouldnt exist if alembic hadn't been as successful as they had? Phil gave a lot of input to later co's like modulus, groove tubes, swr, etc. Right before the end i read an article detailing the GD's then over one million dollar sound system. They continued to be innovators then, using and field testing prototypes of in ear monitors, myer sound system products, etc. I wish 10% of current sound companies cared as much about their sound as the GD crew did.

 

[jerry]

For you Casady fans, they released a DVD of the history of the Jefferson Airplane called 'Fly'. You can see the growth in Jack's playing starting with his Jazz-bass through his custom made basses........it even has his solo from the Family Dog, that I haven't seen in over thirty years. That solo had a huge impact on me as a young player back then

 

[AlembicPlayer]

I dig Lesh and that whole scene...
Deadheads know how excellent Lesh is and how sophisticated his playing is...non-Deadheads can only judge from the outside looking in...which sometimes isn't pretty To truly understand that music, one must get inside of it.

I agree about the sound industry being better off because of the Grateful Dead Family of gearheads.

Here's an excerpt from a interview with Dan Healy in 1992-

Dan relates, "The Grateful Dead has always been unbelievably supportive. They would get royalty checks for records and instead of buying houses and cars and yachts and all of that junk, they would give me the money back to put into the sound system and stuff. And so we reinvested emotionally and materially for years. By the early '70s we were the leaders in the field. By 1969 I was asking questions that had no answers. I had bottomed out all the research which [had basically been done] by the Bell Labs in the '20s. During that period a number of now-famous audio people sort of collaborated on the Wall of Sound." By working together, Dan claims their collective knowledge moved ahead by leaps and bounds.
"It caused major, major changes," he says. "Changes that are still going on in the sound industry today. We debunked so much stuff that you'd be amazed. And we verified so much stuff. In the period from 1969 to 1974, the entire audio industry completely turned upside down and the Grateful Dead was at the hub of it. Just that alone is something to have lived through and seen.
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some more interesting info-

Phil Lesh's Basses


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* Speaking on the new Osage Orange Alembic bass just built for him*

Phil is using a new quadraphonic bass, the electronics of which were designed and built by George Mundy and the body and pickups by Rick Turner. The new bass has the same versatile qualities as the old bass: three pickups (bass and treble pickups covering all the strings, and a quad pickup which has a separate signal for each string); on each of the bass and treble pickups there are controls which enable him to select 1) the band-width of the filter, 2) the center frequency of the filter, 3) the kind of filter being used and 4) mix unequalized unfiltered direct sound with the filtered sound. The variety of sounds which can be achieved on the bass is the result of the many different combinations of these variables which can be used. The new bass has a frequency response with a crisper tone, and two quad pickups instead of one, the new one being a frequency-detector pickup. The main addition to the new bass is a Digital Decoding Circuit such that ten push buttons on the bass allow Phil to select any one of sixteen quad spatial arrangements of his speakers, and eight in stereo mode

The bass guitar system has two columns of fifteen inch tranducers stacked 18 high. Four power amplifiers are used as the bass requires more power for equal loudness. Since the instrument has the capability to operate with individual outputs on each of the four strings, the array can be fed in this manner which makes it possible to play chords on the bass without intermodulation.

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[boogiebass]

I love Jerry's quote about Phil playing the bass guitar like he invented it. Absolutely correct. Nobody approaches the instrument like Phil. His creativity is fully on a par with the best jazz improvisers and he drives The Dead, as he did The Grateful Dead. I saw them earlier this year in Southern Cal. and Phil was Phil: great. I love Phil Lesh.

 

[atldeadhead]

I dig Lesh and that whole scene...
Deadheads know how excellent Lesh is and how sophisticated his playing is...non-Deadheads can only judge from the outside looking in...which sometimes isn't pretty

To truly understand that music, one must get inside of it.

I love Jerry's quote about Phil playing the bass guitar like he invented it. Absolutely correct. Nobody approaches the instrument like Phil. His creativity is fully on a par with the best jazz improvisers and he drives The Dead, as he did The Grateful Dead.

I couldn't have said it any better fellas. A master at the bass guitar who has a style unlike anyone else. His lines are far from simplistic. He studied classical music in college and was asked by Jerry to join the band (Grateful Dead). At the time he had zero experience playing bass. He learned as he went and because he never listened to or tried to emulate other players he wound up with a style uniquely his own. Although Jerry got most of the recognition through the years, Phil was equally important to the Grateful Dead sound as Jerry was. If Jerry was alive we would say as much. Phil was and always will be the master of lead style bass IMHO.

I have many influences for sure but Phil is tops in my book. An incredible musician, a one of a kind personality and a totally unique bass player.

!! BASS GREAT....LESH PHILLING !!

 

[Jherrera]

billy is most definetly underrated. If you ask mickey he will say billy is the best drummer EVER. and hes played with plenty.

 

[Sonorous]

Hmm. I don't like many of his studio recordings, the ones I've heard are pretty boring.

But the live things I've heard, I love.

 

[iriegnome]

Who else can go 18 measures without a repeat. GOD.. People complain about the length of the music, just do not get it. Those who do get it just never want it to stop. I am in a GD type band. There is no GD style band that sounds like the dead, but most of the time the dead don't sound like the dead. That is the magic of the Dead. It is always evolving, growning and changing. Phil has been in the front of generations of bass players, just laying it down. It is the scene. It is a whole experience, not some fluffed up radio crap. While I did not study Phil comming up as a youngun', I have developed a great respect for what he does, just as you can send out great respect to John Entwistle and John Deacon..

 

[Jimothy60]

Thats funny because both Jack and Phil were very similar in both style and sound ( Probably those lysergic guys at Alembic) and often influenced each other

I totally disagree. I've seen Phil and Jack many times over the years, they are totally different. I prefer Jack, but some people even prefer Gene Simmons!

 

[ModmanQ6]

Phil had a definite effect on the shaping of my personal style and in my choice of instruments. I got my Quantum back in '85 after he started playing one on tour. His improvisational style and weaving melodic synchopations are one of the things that made him become so influential in my own style. I played in several dead cover bands in the mid-late 80's and it was a blast!

And yes, Phil can drop the bottom out and splatter everyone during a live concert...

 

[Matthew Burris]

The Dead should have "died" when Garcia died.

for most of us, they did. or earlier, when brent died.
after that, it was playing out the string, keeping the colossal enterprise running out of duty rather than throwing in the towel and leaving a WHOLE lot of people wandering and wondering. those employed by the GD corporation and those who were followers voluntarily. hornsby, welnik, marselis, clemons, that synthesizer guitar, the whole batch of late late career tunes that were awful, the gate crashers the police presence, bill long gone, that awful venue in mt. view......it was over before it was over...no diggity

 

[Matthew Burris]

when it comes to the dead, i have to say that im hardcore on bob being the best. ....... The way he plays, without using chords every ****in song, he plays mainly licks and fits them into a solid rythmn, its great. He is an influence on my guitar playing more so than any other guitarist.

i like that bob has influenced you thats great. he's a lot better than hes given credit for.
HOWEVER.
Hes an apprentice to jerrys wizardry. bobs playing is unique. he plays a lot of broken, partial and alternate chords (mind you, he IS playing chords every f'n song). bob has been playing forever with the ultimate teacher always by his side. A guitarist (two actually) so talented as to be able to follow, cover up for, direct and basically let bob be bob, let weir teach himself how to play
Bob is tireless and unafraid. he knows how to play a G a g5 a gsus a Gdim a G mG7 etc. and he knows here each are at every and any place on the neck. And hes learned how and where to use any combination. he developed his own unique rhythm style. very slashing and long strums. His riffing and licks are ok, almost always blues based and he does an ok chuck berry rip off (who doesnt?) a whole lot.
jerry and phil are musical prodigies though. Phil was already very educated musically when he joined the band having studied the trumpet, symphonic music and changing hischools to berkely hi so he could take part in the more advanced theoretical classes he desired that werent being offered in marching band. he grew to explore avant garde classical and free jazz.
jerry is jerry/ a savant. a walking encyclopedia of american music, guitar styles, unquestioned leader, jazz musician fronting a rock band.
point is, bob was always an eager and endearing musician but limited somewhat. a natural entertainer (thank god jerr and phil werent gonna develop charisma ) and someone more than glad to do most of the rythem work. he was perfect for the band. robin to jers batman.
dont kid yourself and keep practivcing!