Grateful Dead

I had that album with We're An American Band in high school. Sold off a ton of albums in college as trade ins at a great record store in Ft. Collins. I imagine that's where that one went. I think it came with a giant sticker? Crow's comments reminded me of watching Foreigner on some PBS begging show recently. Never followed them other than recognizing that about everything they played was some huge commercial hit. Tons of them. Listening to that stuff now I was watching the lead guitarist and going, meh. The other striking thing was how the new lead singer, Kelly Hansen who is very good, sounds exactly like the original guy, Lou Gramm(?). I think they even had some of the old band members on that show too. We've talked about such reissued bands here to some degree. The We're Near Death Now Tour types too. What do they do, sell the rights to the name of the band when there are no longer any original members? Still keeping royalties for their families? The hits just keep on rolling, in wheelchairs.
Cheers

Boy, Rare Earth - a great band that slipped my memory. I remember buying their Motown records singles, they were quite popular on AM radio in the late 60s. I also owned Grand Funk’s “We’re An American Band” on gold vinyl, which I thought was pretty hot stuff at the time.

Last 5
Phish - Bittersweet Motel (DVD)
Frisell - Disfarmer (DVD)
Charles Lloyd - Forest Flower (great summer jazz, and a first rate band)
Dylan - Shadow Kingdom (Bob in great voice)
Nils Lofgren - Nils Sings Neil (better than you might expect for an album of covers)

Grand Funk is another example of that Thing some of us was talking about a little while back, ie how the rock critics of the early ‘70s despised a lot of bands that were really popular among “the kids.” Grand Funk was HUMONGOUS at my junior high school. I think somebody gave me E Pluribus Funk at my 13th birthday party. If you just wanted to boogie, well, they boogied. They had #1 hit singles. They sold out Shea Stadium (and unlike those wimpy Beatles, only took a couple days to do it.) They were Homer Simpson’s favorite band of all time. They were comin to your town, they were gonna help you party it down. They were an American band.

A pretty shitty one, though, with benefit of hindsight and no longer being 13 years old. Some of the early ‘70s Bands That Kids Liked But Critics Hated have stood the test of time surprisingly well, most notably Sabbath and Zeppelin. Some have earned a grudging respect, like Kiss and Alice Cooper. But the critical disdain for Grand Funk has never wavered. Which is kind of surprising, given that even disco (mindless boogie music if ever there was) has gone through a popular revival or two and gets a fair amount of respect these days. You’d think some contrarian critic out there would make the case for them as a great band, but no. Maybe because … they weren’t?

Anyway, we know Phil Lesh didn’t like ‘em. On one of the shows in the St Louis box, I forget which, Phil calls out the Funk. I can’t remember what he says exactly but IIRC Bobby is going on with one of his “take a step back”" raps and Phil butts in to say something to the effect that if everybody doesn’t behave the Dead won’t be able to play there anymore “and you’ll have to listen to Grand Funk Railroad.” I think I remember that, anyway. These days I remember a lot of things that didn’t actually happen.

Anybody else out there listen to the Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast? At the end of the current ‘season’ of episodes about the shows in the HCS box, Jesse Jarnow says something about lingering for a moment in the spring of ’73 before moving on to the summer. Is that a hint that they’re about to (finally!) release Watkins Glen? Does the fact that the HCS box includes a jam with some Allman Bros indicate they may have worked out the legal difficulties that may have held up a release in the past? Did Jesse Jarnow even say that, or am I remembering another thing that never happened? Is anyone still reading this?

Last five:
Lee Morgan: Lee Way
ABB: Nassau Coliseum ‘73
Captain Beefheart: Lick My Decals Off Baby
Little Feat: Valentines Day Massacre
Jimmy Smith: House Party

Grand Funk Railroad was a great band? LMAO...............

Off to morgue, I think I heard the corpses laughing a bit as well...............

Doc
When people hear good music, it makes them homesick for something they never had, and never will have.......

The Groundhogs are a perfect example of a band that didn’t make the leap from U.K. to US.
A great guitarist, and a great band. I only knew a small handful of people who knew/liked the band. But only because of a lack of exposure. And that goes west to east also. These bands just didn’t quite make it in a ‘world’ context. The only album I owned was “Split”, and I loved it.
I would put Family, Taste, Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band & many, many others in this category.
Going west to east, Grand Funk Railroad, Rare Earth, Molly Hatchet and hundreds of others.
This even is the case just going from one country to another.

I guess my point is that we miss out on a LOT of music just because of where we are born.
Now this crowd I say is MUCH more aware than your average music listener, but we still miss out on a lot from one side of the Atlantic to the other. I’m always going to lack exposure to a LOT of great bands, but it doesn’t mean I HAVE to. I just gotta poke around.

After all, Music IS the Best!!

Very sorry to read about Tony McPhee. Split was my favourite album of theirs by some distance. Curiously I felt like playing it last night - I didn't, but I'll put it on later today. The Groundhogs were great live, too. I was amazed the first time I saw them that Tony could play all those extraordinary guitar sounds heard on Split on stage. He was also more earthed in the blues than most of his more celebrated contemporaries, backing John Lee Hooker, with The Groundhogs, in the mid 60's. A great and underrated musician.
I don't like it as much as"Split" but "Thank Christ For The Bomb" has always been one of my favourite album titles.

I love Split

Billy has it spot on.
Cheers

Everyone OUTSIDE of Toronto up here hates the Leafs (and Toronto) passionately, so that hazy smoky sky we are experiencing is from anywhere but here.

Are you guys up there burning Leafs jerseys again? Please cease and desist. We don’t need any more smoke.