Music
Panic in Bend on Deck
This weekend I am going to be seeing one of my all time favorite bands at the Hayden Homes Ampitheater in Bend. I saw my first Widespread Panic show on November 13, 1994 at the Warfield in San Francisco. To this day, it remains the loudest concert I have every experienced. We had great seats that night, directly in front of the band and Panic became a staple in my musical life. Indeed, during the rest of the 90s, when Phish blew up, Panic was always my favorite. When Phish 3.0 began (in 2009) I started seeing more Phish shows and Panic sort of fell off. That was partly due to the sad fact that the original guitar player for Widespread died of pancreatic cancer in August 2002. The guitar never quite sounded the same after he passed on.
Nevertheless, Panic has a deep bench of great songs. They also have great taste in what they cover, as well. Furthermore, they are a jamband, which suits my tastes. That means every show is different and it means being a fan means you’re part of a community of fellow travelers that are in on the same esoteric references that you are. And everyone knows the main goal is to have a good time. Of course, Phish and Panic fandom also means you’re swimming in the larger Grateful Dead universe, which I am comfortable with.
These will only be the 3rd and 4th times I’ve seen these guys in the past 10 years, so I’m excited. Mid-July, outdoors in beautiful Bend will be quite the scene. The band has a new guitar player at the moment (their 4th all together) and I really like the way he sounds. I’m planning on seeing some old high school friends, too.
There’s another song playing, and we can hear it in the wind outside
For the Heads
This YouTube channel has got to be one of the coolest Grateful Dead related things on the internet. If you’re a head, you’ve probably seen them before…_but maybe not! _
They call themselves Searchlight Productions, as in ‘search light casting, for thoughts in the clouds of delusion.’ You know. There are a few aspects of their production that I love. First, the host is a young dude who likely never saw the Grateful Dead. He also is dressed like a middle brow professor type. Yet he comes across as a fierce lover of the music and he definitely knows his shit. Indeed, these videos are steeped in GD lore and they aren’t shy about dropping primary source (and secondary source) materials on us. The videos are a perfect mix of Grateful Dead and history, which zaps my dinger. The video shared below covers the history of the band’s performances on July 3. Watcing the video, it was fun to see that I was at the last July 3 Dead show in 1994 at Shoreline. I think it was the only time I saw Fire on the Mountain unpaired with Scarlet Begonias.
I noticed in the video that the host has a few ‘history’ books about the Dead on the desk. One of them is a great book called Heads that I have read and highly recommend.
Currently...
I always enjoy these sort of listicles from others because they get me out of my own world a bit and expose me to different ideas. Here are 5 things I am ‘Currently…" doing and or thinking about:
- Road tripping to the Redwoods in Northern California
I try to go on a road trip with my kiddo every summer. We’ve gone north and east, so this year we are heading south to the giant Redwoods that reside along the northern California coast. Our trip will take 8 days and we’ll stay in hotels, a few Airbnbs, and do some camping. Good times!
- Listening to Goose’s new album and current tour
Big Modern! is another solid effort by Goose. I especially love the way the album ends. Bandcamp makes it easy to listen to their live shows pretty much immediately after they happen.
- Looking forward to lots of great live music this summer
I’m going to see one or two Rush shows in the YYZ. I also have two Bend weekends booked for Widespread Panic and Goose. Summertime, back-to-back shows in Bend is hard to beat! I’ve also got tickets to see JRAD (finally!) in downtown PDX in mid-August. No Phish this summer, but I am not feeling like my live music itch isn’t going to get scratched.
- Enjoying some fiction (for once)
My reading diet leans heavy to the non-fiction side of things. However, I am really enjoying the bestselling Dungeon Crawler Carl. The book was originally self published and is now a smash hit. I can see why. If you enjoy quirky science fiction, I highly recommend it.
- Appreciating another summer to recharge
The life of a teacher is cyclical. For me the hardest stretch is mid October through the end of work in December, as the days get shorter and the grading starts to pile up. However, every summer I get 10 weeks to recharge my batteries. I really, reallly appreciate this part of my career. This is especially nice because summers in the Pacific Northwest are so beautiful.
That One Random College Roommate
Sometimes, we cross paths with famous people, or in my case, with people whoe who would become famous. The summer after my freshmen year in college I lived in a small, affordable apartment with two other dudes behind the Safeway in east Davis. One was my buddy MI, who I befriended in 2nd grade and with whom I am still friends. Our other roommate that summer was another Davis kid named Josh Davis. I don’t recall how it is that Josh became one of our roommates, as he was a year younger than us and wasn’t part of our crew. As I compose this, I think the connection was that he also worked at Steve’s Place Pizza, which was the local pizza joint (owned by the father of a classmate) that many of my friends worked at at one time or another during the early 90s. Yeah, that’s it–he was a Steve’s Place co-worker!
MI and I lived with him that summer, which was a fateful summer for us because it was the summer we became fully immersed in the world of the Grateful Dead, and all that that entailed. (Suffice to say, we didn’t get in to the Cal Expo shows that summer, but we did visit the parking lot.) Anyway, Josh was going in a very different direction. Keep in mind, this was 1990. Josh was getting into hip hop and had a show on KDVS, the local college radio station. From there, after parting ways with him that summer, Josh eventually became a world renowned DJ with moniker DJ Shadow. Being an era before social media and the era I went down the Grateful Dead rabbit hole, I lost touch with Josh and didn’t realize until about 15 years ago that he became a successful musician. I remember that he was a pretty chill roommate and a good co-worker.
The reason I am sharing this story today is because I came across an article announcing that DJ Shadow is playing a concert this December with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London. Pretty cool!
Big Red Spotted Court Side in the Times Today
Browsing through the New York Times today and who do I spot? Phish frontman Trey Anastasio, sitting courtside at a Knick’s game. The article was published today, spot-lighting the team’s owner James Dolan. Of course, Phish has played the Knick’s home arena, Madison Square Garden, more than any other musical act other than the great Billy Joel. Dolan also owns the Garden. And Sphere in Las Vegas, where Phish was the second band to play, behind U2.
Anyway, I love it when my world’s collide. In this case, the sports page and PHISH.
32 Years Ago Today
Being a Gen X Deadhead means I also was in my early 20s when Phish started to make a splash on the scene. I had first heard of the band while in England in late 1991 from a UCLA student that was in the same junior study abroad program I was a part of and who was at the same university I was. The album he turned me on to was Lawn Boy.
When I returned home from my time abroad I settled in with my crew and got busy seeing as many Dead shows as I could. A few of the friends that I was hanging out with and seeing shows with indicated we needed to go see Phish. Having been introduced to them already, I was down with that. Of course, this was also the time that I was introduced to Widespread Panic by a Southern refugee from Auburn University who crashed on our couch for a few months in 1993 (he was a high school buddy of one of my roommates).
As it happened, I saw both Phish and Widespread Panic for the first time in 1994 at the venerable Warfield Theater in downtown San Francisco. That venue was the site of the some legendary 1980 Dead shows, and for me and my friends, some super fun Jerry Garcia Band shows in the early 90s. Deal, anyone?
It was 32 years ago today, on May 25, 1994, that my friend JC and I walked into the Warfield to catch Phish for the first time. I remember we sat in either the very last row of the venue or the second to last row and had an absolute blast. I didn’t know the band’s catalog all that well, but it didn’t matter because JC and I knew how to have a good time, even in the very back of the venue!
In hindsight, the set list isn’t one I’d like to see or hear today. Rift as a set opener? No thanks! There are some nuggets in there though, including Chalk Dust Torture, Tweezer, and Maze. I have seen 69 Phish shows in the intervening 32 years and still love the band. Indeed, the joy I’ve experienced with my friends at those shows is, in my mind, the ripening of extremely good karma.
Here’s to a bunch more in the future!
Hat tip to Phish.net for sending me an email reminding me of my first show!
Rush is My Jam Show #16, for Geddy!
To celebrate the great new Rick Beato interview with Geddy that dropped today, I’m sharing another setlist in my ongoing fantasy Rush tour. This interview reminds me of one of the reasons I love Rush so much, which is that the guys in the band seem like such down to earth, nice guys.
This show, #16 on the tour, would be killer. Heavy hitters and deep cuts aplenty. Thanks Geddy and Alex!
Encore
This represents why I love Goose in particular and jambands in general. This is an encore from Goose’s El Gonzo festival last week down in Mexico. Cortez the Killer had never been played before by Goose so it was a major bust out, and then the Rockdale is classic Goose. Not my favorite version, but it’s unique because Jim James is rocking out with them. It’s also a good reflection of what I am listening to a lot these days, namely live Goose.
Ragin' with Tom Joad
This past week we were learning about the Great Depression in my APUSH class. I usually have my students read an excerpt from The Grapes of Wrath while we are looking at the Dust Bowl and the experience of rural Americans during the early 1930s. I read the novel in high school (I think most California high schoolers my age were likely assigned the book at some point) and really didn’t like it. However, I read it again in my early 20s and enjoyed the novel immensly.
While discussing the book, Bruce Springsteen’s song “The Ghost of Tom Joad” came up. Knowing my kids, I also mentioned that Rage Against the Machine did a great, heavy cover of the tune. That led me to remember after class that Rage also did a fantastic cover of Dylan’s Maggie’s Farm, a song I was introduced to by the Dead.
Both of those songs are relevant now and the Rage versions, I think, convey the proper anger the lyrics convey more subtly. Enjoy!
Real Rush Tour Predictions and Wish List
The real ‘Fifty Something’ Rush tour is starting in a month. I’ll have a few friends in attendance at the first run of shows down in LA. I’ll have to wait till August and the fall for shows in Toronto and Seattle. I figured I’d make a few predictions about what songs they’ll play and also share a few songs I hope they play, but likely will not. From what I’ve seen they are planning on playing around 33/34 songs all together. I’ll come back and visit this after the first run of shows.
I’m going to pick 10 songs that aren’t Tom Sawyer or YYZ (or Spirit of Radio, or 2112 or Subdivisions) that I think will be in the rotation. In no particular order…
- Natural Science
- Witch Hunt
- Analog Kid
- Red Sector A
- The Big Money
- The Trees
- Red Barchetta
- Freewill
- Ghost of a Chance
- Closer to the Heart
Here are 10 songs I’d absolutely love to hear, but probably won’t be played on this tour. Indeed, the fact that so many great songs will not get played is why I dream that Rush was a jamband.
- Superconductor
- Tears
- Losing It
- Chemistry
- Alien Shore
- Seven Cities of Gold
- Out of the Cradle
- Earthshine
- New World Man
- Turn the Page
New Oteil Arising
Like for millions of other Deadheads, Oteil Burbridge is now part of my musical universe. Part of the musical family, you might say. In hindsight, I sure wish he had sung more of the Jerry tunes as part of Dead & Co. His album covering Jerry tunes is truly sublime.
He has a new album coming out in a week. They dropped one single a month or so ago. Today they dropped a live version of another of the tunes on the disc. Check them out below.
Rush is My Jam Show #15
The mystical Rush tour in my mind continues on and this one would be a real dream show. The only song here that hadn’t been played yet is the classic, beautiful deep cut Tears, from 2112. I’m pretty sure Tears has never been performed by the band. I also can imagine a sweet, spacey jam as The Camera Eye fades, eventually leading into The Mission. Hell, this whole show would rip. That encore would end the night with a bang, too.
Best Selling Musical Artists by State?
I came across this map on Reddit, which means I’m not exactly sure if it is accurate because it didn’t link to an original source. Interesting though, and surely largely correct. Apparently, individual artists are attached to the state they were born in, but bands are attached to the state they formed in. This is certainly an eclectic mix of 50 artists.
My top 5
- Phish from Vermont
- Eagles
- Steve Miler
- Dave Mathews Band
- John Denver
Good2B Goose!
I am a huge Goose fan and they have a new album coming out in June. Their Spring Tour starts this weekend. Here is the short version of the first single from the new record. I like it more and more each time I hear it and I definitely dig the video. Hopefully I see them play this in Bend in August.
In the Strangest of Places
This morning I came across this cool story in The Oregonian. Apparently there is a mysterious group in Portland that is beautifying public spaces by creating little pockets of artful color and beauty where there are cracks on the ground on roads or sidewalks. They have an Instagram account titled @fillthevoidpdx.
What caught my eye, other than the utter Portlandness of this activity, is that several of the installations contain Grateful Dead lyrics. Check out the examples of Portland Dead weirdness below. Here’s to this anonymous group’s continued activity around the Rose City.
7 Beautiful Covers
I love me a good cover. Here are some mostly femaie covers of songs I grew up loving.
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The Rain Song, Led Zeppelin
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Tears, Rush
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Going to California, Led Zep
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Landslide, Fleetwood Mac
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Sweet Child o' Mine, Guns and Roses
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Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd
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Dirty Work, Steely Dan
Fellow Travelers
When traveling our family’s usual mode of transportation is Lyft. Despite being fairly introverted, I enjoy talking with the drivers and getting their perspective on driving in that particulr part of the world. Sometimes the drivers have the gift of gab, and often they are hardworking immigrants who don’t speak English well and prefer to remain silent.
On our recent trip to Santa Barbara I took a Lyft across town to a bookstore and noticed my driver was a fellow Deadhead right away. It wasn’t the faint but detectable smell of cannabis. No, it was the Dead and Company shirt and the long white ponytail. I immediately indicated that I was a fellow traveler and we talked Grateful Dead the whole ride. He said he saw his first Dead show in 1974 at the Santa Barbara Bowl. Interestingly, he said he only saw ‘30 something’ Grateful Dead shows, but 42 Dead and Company shows. I thought that was interesting since I would expect most people his age to have seen more of Jerry than the what came afterwards. Oh well.
We also realized we had been at a few of the same shows, including the Santa Clara Fare The Well shows and the 2018 Eugene D&C show, which was amazing.
