I Shit Music

There was a time in my youth when I was straight-up addicted to Mountain Dew. The destruction of a 6-pack was an easy afternoon affair, and when they made the genius and frightening move to introduce the wide-mouth can to the soda universe in the mid-90s, shit got  out of control. The first can was like a primer – it wouldn’t even touch my mouth. It’d just kind of rapidly coat my throat in preparation for the subsequent can that I would take a solid 90 seconds to savor. Thus it was right around this time when my teenage hippie mind decided this shit was no fucking good for me. It was also right around the time when the rumors began to circulate about Yellow-5 making you sterile… or impotent… or doing something shitty to your penis – I can’t really remember. Anyway, despite not having touched the stuff in nearly 20 years, I still hold a fondness for the natural absurdity of the product itself. Thus, I’ve been quite intrigued by the past week’s news of two different musical spokespersons being fired from the Dew’s ad campaigns.

Here’s the thing: MTN DEW brings to mind off-the-wall, zany shit. So they try to get some zany motherfuckers to hype the stuff. You’re not gonna get the dudes from Bon Iver to promote the Dew, you’re gonna get some nutso jack-off like Lil Wayne. But if you’re the Dew, you should have been prepared for Weezy to drop the occasional line causally referencing a lynching victim from the 50′s as he just did with a horrid line about Emmett Till. Thus the Dew just dropped him. As a side note, as somebody who keeps getting hospitalized for near-fatal seizures, maybe chugging Mountain Dew isn’t the best idea for Weezy anyway.

So what other nutso rappers could the Dew go to – well how about Tyler the Creator? He sarcastically raps about rape and murder on a casual basis – sure he’d be great at bringing in the kids. But whoops, Tyler’s latest directed commercial for the Dew was deemed overly racist and was pulled down. It featured a goat standing in a police lineup with some black fellas, and in my opinion wasn’t really racist. The problem was it just wasn’t funny. Either way – that’s two strikes in about 4 days for the Dew, and perhaps it’s time they rethought their promotional attack. That is, unless this was all some intentional move to use random controversy to put their name in some unexpected places. That’s obviously quite potentially true, but I think they’d be better of showing some hyper-teens chugging the liquid sunshine. You know, Bieber that shit out or something. Or even better, just have this fake-ad by Thomas Lennon and Kerri Kenney play on a loop somewhere all day.

As Bonnaroo released their schedule today, two things struck me right off the bat. 1st off, while at first I thought it was an incredibly weak lineup this year, their ability to format bands’ schedules,  plus the fact that gigs go so late into the night, plus the fact that they give each band full set time slots (I’m looking at you Coachella,) makes for some fairly dope moments. I mean hell, Friday night you get to see 2 and a half hours of Paul McCartney, followed by an hour and a half of the full Wu-Tang Clan til one in the morning, culminating in the psychedelic explosion that will be Animal Collective playing from 2 to 4 A.M. And yes, mark my words, that will definitely be the most perfect time slot for A.C. and thus their greatest gig of all time. Now, it’s definitely quite odd that there seems to be a gap in music from 1 til 2 in the morning, but I guess they want to give kids time to consume more substances without missing any music.

Anyway, the 2nd and most important thing that struck me is the notion that people actually give a fuck about seeing R. Kelly. He has the golden gem time-slot of 11:30 on Saturday night. So sure, you love to dance to “Ignition” drunk at weddings, and you laughed your ass off at how completely ludicrous “Trapped in the Closet” was, but do you actually ever listen to his music? The shit is horrendous. I was asked to review his latest album last year and  I couldn’t even fathom how anybody would even find it listenable. It sounded like an act you’d see playing at the Circus Circus Casino on a Sunday night – just a complete joke. So I’m sorry if I missed the memo, but when did we all decide that this dude made great music? It sure as hell wasn’t when he put out that dumb split LP with Jay-Z that nobody ever bought or listened to. It sure as hell wasn’t when he was pissing on little girls’ heads. Was it Space Jam? It was Space Jam. The Roo is just banking on the notion that at least 20,000 people will be so fucked up on Saturday night that they’ll want to bask in the ironic glow of singing “I Believe I Can Fly” at one in the morning. But please, if you have any insight into what this dude did that made him a desirable headliner at any major music festival – please let me in on it. I’m dying to know. And if you don’t have any leads, then get ready to hear this crap…

Last night during the 9th straight show Furthur was playing at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY – shit was not going good for Bob Weir. I started receiving texts from a friend at the show during “Me and My Uncle.” He was telling me that Weir was in hilariously fucked up form all night: leaning at a weird angle, forgetting all the words, strumming aimlessly. But then the texts got darker…”He just fell over”…”I think I’m gonna cry.” As you can see from the video below, Weir takes a straight up face-plant onto fake-Jerry during “Unbroken Chain.”  Two crew members come out and prop him up in a folding chair as he stares aimlessly like an Alzheimer’s patient, or more like someone under the influence of a massive amount of opiates. The song ends, the band walks off stage, and then returns sans Weir to finish out the set. Phil Lesh announces that Bobby strained his shoulder earlier in the day, like that’s some sort of excuse for passing out on stage. I suppose he could have been under a good amount of medication, but that’s besides the point.

The point is something much larger. First off there’s the very ominous sign that the entire band is dressed head to toe in black. As my friend pointed out, “Maybe the whole band wanted to dress like Jerry but Bobby wanted to take heroin like Jerry.” Regardless, the scariest part of the situation is the band’s reaction – which is absolutely no reaction at all. It seems like they could honestly care less what’s happening to Weir. Now this leads to two things – First, they obviously seemed well aware that Bobby was a mess before the show started, and thus seem prepared for this potential scenario. Even the crew members seem to have a folding chair ready to go just in case it was needed. Secondly, and more importantly, they seem prepared to not give a fuck what’s happening to Weir.  Now I don’t care how big of a band you are or what legacy you carry… when you see your 65 year old friend take a massive digger front and center, you fuckin’ check to make sure the dude’s OK. Hell, what if he had seriously cracked open his skull and bled there to death while Phil Lesh just kept singing “Unbroken Chain.” Clearly it seems like there is a severe break in the chain there fellas. And honestly, John “Fake Jerry” Kadlecik doesn’t seem to give a fuck either. Seriously, one of the founders of the band that this guy has modeled his life after just fell on top of him, and he just kind of takes a step out of the way.

Sometimes you gotta stop. Sometimes you need to remember you’re a human being as are the other members of your band, and make sure they’re still breathing. Honestly, I feel sad and sorry for Bobby, but I feel anger towards Phil. This is a tremendous low-point for the legacy of the Grateful Dead. It’s not sad that Bobby was so fucked up, it’s sad that nobody seemed to care if he was all right. You don’t just pretend nothing happened. It will be interesting to see what news arises about the actual background behind this situation, but it’s clear we’ve reached an odd point with the Grateful Dead. With hundreds of Dead cover bands out there, it’s become clear that the music itself is more important than the people making it, but Phil Lesh has just taken that mantra to a whole new level.

Now don’t get me wrong, these guys work their fuckin’ asses off, and I understand the desire to keep playing music and push through everything. But at least glance at the man and make sure he’s OK… maybe John could have reached down and lent him a hand at least… Ugly scene all around – get prepared if you haven’t watched the video yet – it ain’t pretty. Get well soon Bobby… and Phil.

Ok, so Jackie Greene… when he first showed up playing with Phil Lesh in Phil and Friends back in 2007, my first reaction was “Who is this pretentious fuck wearing knit scarfs and fake squinting on stage?” He’s got an OK voice. He can play some OK guitar. He can play some OK organ. But none of those talents are impressive enough that he should be singing Jerry tunes in an off-shoot of The Grateful Dead. I tried to be impartial to the fella, but for some reason his lackluster abilities were put front and center with Phil, and they just rang of utter blandness. My frustration only grew further when I read interviews of him saying things like, “I never really listened to the Grateful Dead but I love singing “Brokedown Palace.”" C’mon man – go shove a fat one up your ass. And believe me, I gave the dude a bunch of chances, but each time a solo was thrown his way it was a signal for me to go buy a beer. Again, another direct quote of him is “I’ll probably never know how much these songs might mean to some people” – yeah, and it’s not like it’s important to grasp how Dead-Heads relate to the music or anything there buddy… I don’t think the bond between the GD and their fans has ever really been all that tight. Fucking Christ. The dude’s main problem is that he seems to think he’s a worthy comparison to Bob Dylan, and by having such a massive ego to believe that you’re right up there with the most massive ego, is just one of the most egotistical things anybody can do. The dude’s even got an album of just Dylan covers – Oooo – I really like Bob Dylan, I’m sure I’ll love some random fuck’s album of him playing all the same tunes the same goddman way. Turns out the dude’s name isn’t even Jackie Greene, it’s actually Chris Nelson. That’s right – he’s a 32 year old dude with a perfectly fine name and just decided 10 years ago to change it to another random name. Why?  What would be the purpose of that other than to proclaim that you’re really and completely full of shit?

Anyway, the douche grabs a bunch of unsubstantiated notoriety, plays huge gigs like an evening of Rolling Stones covers with Gov’t Mule, and now has been nabbed for the craziest gig of all – playing lead guitar for The Black Crowes. That’s right – the Black Fucking Crowes. The Crowes are a massively guitar-heavy band. Not only is Rich Robinson stellar, (despite his tendency to just play rhythm these days,) but for their prime years the Crowes had Marc Ford in their band. In my mind, Ford remains one of the greatest rock guitarists of the past 25 years – bleeding soul into his dominating riffs while a cigarette hung from his lips. The past few years the Crowes have been touring with Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars – a shredder in his own regard, but still one who had trouble living up to the guitar-dominating legacy that the Crowes embody. Now, with Greene in the band, the Robinson brothers are basically acknowledging their status as being completely insignificant. Seriously Chris Robinson, I don’t care how many joints you’ve smoked with the dude, you should have never brought him into your band. This is one of the worst band hiring jobs in the history of music. This is like if Wu-Tang Clan brought in Chris Brown to replace Ol’ Dirty Bastard. I can seriously only presume that Jackie Gr… I mean Chris Nelson, sucks a mighty man schlong. I was gonna put up a recent video of them playing live from a week ago, but I really can’t take the band seriously anymore. Rich won’t even solo, and Chris Nelson looks smugger than ever playing with these guys. Instead, let’s watch a “Remedy” from 20 years ago – when Rich was willing to go balls out, and Ford was adding crushing degrees of soul to the music – what a killer band they used to be.

So here’s the news… Last night, Good ole’ Bobby Weir was playing at Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley, CA – a venue which he just reopened a year ago. He was scheduled to play a solo acoustic set followed by an electric performance with his band, Ratdog. Bob’s solo set was cut short when he stormed off stage halfway through Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall”. It seems that a group of people, or perhaps an even larger contingency of folks, would just not stop talking during the gig, and with Sweetwater being such a small room, that shit must have echoed a little more than usual. Bobby looks visibly frustrated through the song, and pauses for a moment to ask the folks if he’s interrupting them before totally abandoning the track. I wonder if he started the tune in the first place so he could sing the line: “Ive seen ten thousand talkers whose tongues are all broken.” But you know Bob, sometimes hard rains fall and sometimes you gotta push through that shit. During the full band “Knockin on Heaven’s Door” encore, he reportedly yelled “Shut the fuck up.” I’ve thought about this all morning, and I’ve decided that Bobby was right in telling them to shut the fuck up, but wrong to walk off stage. Here’s why…

I’ve brought up this whole ‘talking during the show’ thing for a while. It totally fucked up the 2nd night of Phish’s 3-night run in San Francisco last year, and I totally wanted to kick a girl in the cooch during New Year’s. Here’s the thing – if you’ve paid a bunch of money for a band and have totally gone out of your way to see them, then why the fuck are you not going to pay attention to the show? This same thing happened when Trey played the 800-capacity Higher Ground in Burlington, VT 7 or 8 years ago. It seems that once inside these small venues, some jerk-offs feel a sense of entitlement. What’s even cooler about seeing a huge band in a small place? Not even giving a fuck that you’re there – it’s the ultimate hipster fuck-face move. So talking during a tiny Bobby solo gig is wickedly poor form. What surprises me though, is that there weren’t any other heads in the crowd who told them to fuck off. I wasn’t there, so perhaps there were, but usually in these GD crowds the older heads are not at all afraid to tell some younger lot trash to go suck a fat one. Perhaps the talkers were older fans themselves, which makes for a slightly more perplexing situation, but still one that you have every right as a fellow fan to tell them to close their traps.

Bobby telling these douche-bags to shut up is a well-deserved move, and one that we should totally respect him for. Surely bringing it to attention in such a small room is going to insure that it stops. Walking off the stage, however, is not the classiest way to handle the situation. By doing that, he not only let the talkers win the battle, but he fucked over the show for everyone else in the crowd. Yes, he can blame it on the gabbers, but that still isn’t fair for the people who are being respectful and not talking – you just cut them short on music they paid good money for. By watching the video, it does seem like a good portion of the crowd is being pretty loud, but it’s hard to tell exactly where it’s all coming from. I think the reason for his move is that he came up in a band that was always part of a greater collective scene. Unlike other smaller, hard working bands, the Dead never had to deal with inattentive rooms. If they had, then perhaps Weir would have learned that part of being an entertainer is being able to push through no matter what. You put your heart out there all the way, no matter if there’s only 2 people there, or if there’s people talking really loudly. I mean hell, the man owns this venue, it’s not like he couldn’t have asked security to intervene if they didn’t shut up after he asked them to. Anyway, it’s a shitty situation and I probably would have been really pissed off if I was there. But basically, he should have told the dumb fucks to shut up even sooner, and not let them get him so riled up. Take control, don’t act like a victim. Oh well, we all have our shoulda-woulda-coulda nights I guess. Check it out for yourself…

So my main man Tim Heidecker of Tim and Eric: Awesome Show – Great Job! fame has now fully established himself as the most sarcastic man on the planet – and thus my complete hero. If you’re unaware of Tim’s brand of comedy, then watch this incredibly awkward stand-up clip that makes Andy Kaufman seem like a Vegas lounge act. Anyway, in August Heidecker took the audacious move of trumping Dylan’s new 13 minute 54 second song about the Titanic, “Tempest,” by releasing his own 15 minute long Dylan-esque Titanic track. Composed in the vein of something off Desire, the track really has no sense of notable irony to it. It really just sounds like an actual Dylan track about the big boat sinking, and to tell you the truth I actually find it more listenable than “Tempest” itself. The other thing is that it’s produced perfectly enough for it to actually be mistaken for Dylan. You can listen to the whole thing at the bottom of this post.

Last night though, things got even more interesting. Heidecker streamed himself live last night at Midnight to present a big announcement. He claimed that due to Beyonce lip-synching the National Anthem at last week’s inauguration, she has been bumped from performing at this week’s Super Bowl halftime show and is being replaced by Bob Dylan. He then claimed that he had been leaked the info on what track Dylan would be performing – a supposed outtake from 1983′s Infidels album called “Running Out the Clock” – a track that was originally supposed to be played at the ’83 Super Bowl. Complete with nods to Iran and a Mark Knopfer guitar solo, this track is spot-on amazing. So amazing in fact, and presented in such a dead-pan manner, that about half of the people commenting on the track actually believe it’s Dylan. Even more so, as of right now someone has actually updated the Infidels wikipedia page to include the track as an official outtake that will be performed at this year’s Super Bowl! This, my friends, is a new degree of modern comedy. This is sarcasm taken to such a serious level that it is only intended to cause confusion. This is truly brilliant. Honestly, this is fucking brilliant shit right here. I have never wanted to take my hat off and salute anyone as much as I do for Tim Heidecker right now. The man is a straight up genius. Take a listen and see if you would have potentially believed that Dylan would have ever written something like this.

Just when you thought the world was lacking in innovative new musical instruments that could instantaneously launch you into an alternative ethereal landscape, along comes the Wheelharp. Essentially taking the foundation of the hurdy gurdy and expanding it into massive fruition, the wheelharp uses a constantly cycling bow to play actual strings that are controlled by a keyboard. It basically puts an entire orchestra’s string sections at your fingertips. The sound quivers though with more of a unified echo then any orchestra, and it also has a totally spooky, metallic ring to it. If I could find that shoebox I misplaced with $10,000 in it, I would buy one right now.

The story is that it’s based on an old design of DaVinci’s that he never actually constructed, and then some fella named Jon Jones began building one about 10 years ago. And despite being burdened with one of those obnoxiously redundant names, we owe Mr. Jones a great deal of respect because this is one of the dopest sounds I’ve heard in a long time. I guarantee this thing is going to find itself a home somewhere in the soundtrack for The Hobbit Part II, and I can’t wait to see who the hippest band will be to use one in the studio and on stage for the first time. I’ll give Arcade Fire 3-1 odds, and The Low Anthem 2-1 odds dependent on them receiving some sort of foundational grant. I’ll also throw in Wayne Cohen and The Flaming Lips at 8-1, and Stephen Malkmus at 12-1. You can send wager payments to my paypal account.

In one of those awesomely profound WTF moments, the legendary DJ and producer DJ Shadow was actually kicked off of the tables at a headlining gig of his in Miami on Friday night. Even though the absurdly obnoxious Miami Mansion Nightclub had not only booked Shadow for the gig but had highly promoted him as the main attraction, whoever the snooty, coke-dripping fuck who runs the place is decided that Shadow’s music was “too future” for their 3 AM Friday night crowd – yes, his set started at 3 in the morning. I guess when a DJ is playing such amazing music that the crowd is actually focused on his set, it becomes a lot harder for the club to push $8 Heinekens. “Hey Tony, turn this crap off and plug in my iPhone so we can hear this sweet dub-step remix of “Gangnam Style.”" Honestly though, if this isn’t one of the most depressing signs of the end of the modern DJ, then I don’t know what is. I’m sure when he was bringing his turntables into the club that night, most of the bouncers there were like “Whoa, those are the craziest laptops I’ve ever seen.” Truly the club has no right or reason to call itself a music venue, and to be honest I don’t think it’s something they claim to be – but I mean, look at the venue – if I was a DJ it definitely seems like a hot room to rock. However, it doesn’t look like like the normal nor ideal place to be in the audience and watching a DJ perform. Shadow’s been pretty vocal on his Twitter feed about it. Today he posted “Obviously I should have never been booked there in the first place. Square peg in a round hole, etc.”

But to his awesome credit, he also posted this – “I don’t care if I get kicked out of every rich kid club on the planet. I will never sacrifice my integrity as a DJ…ever.” And this just a moment ago: “Ironically it was drum and bass that broke the camel’s back! Note to self…play more drum and bass!!!”

With all the latest news of DeadMaus basically saying he’s only in the DJ game for the money, and along with the whole other string of button-pushers out there, it’s great that there’s still a DJ that you can believe in and who’s actually standing up for himself and his music. I’ve had mad respect for Shadow ever since Entroducing… blew everybody’s minds in 1996, and now my love for the man has only gone light-years higher. Here’s a really shaky video of him getting kicked off the tables, as well as my favorite and the biggest and darkest track off that debut album, “Building Steam With a Grain of Salt.”

There’s some folks in this world who are legitimately evil – folks who some people defend by saying they’re just idiots, but nobody can honestly be that stupid. You know, folks like the Kardashians or that bastard running for Senate in Missouri, Todd Akin, and his asinine comments about “legitimate rape”. That guy ain’t an idiot – he’s just a fucking evil asshole. The same goes for this prick over at ARK Music Factory, Patrice Wilson. If you haven’t seen his new creation yet, and in honor of it being Thanksgiving tomorrow, then behold the horror that is Nicole Westbrook and “It’s Thanksgiving”.

Now some people will argue that there’s a degree of sarcasm in this song, or even that it’s just a little girl having some harmless fun. But don’t be fooled – this shit is pure evil. This guy is such an untalented hack, that all he can do is write beyond simplistic bullshit that can only potentially be accepted as tolerable if it’s performed by a 12 year-old girl. This is the same bastard that dropped that piece of shit “Friday” song with Rebecca Black last year. I really hate to post her horrible performance on here, but again here it is if you haven’t heard this complete crap.

But here’s the thing – I think Wilson is well aware of how completely intolerable these songs are to 95% of people who watch the videos, and I think that is his whole evil-genius game plan. Right now “Friday” has 43.5 Million views, of which 1.1 million people have either liked or disliked, and of which 80% of the people who took the time to click the thumbs up or down button actually clicked DISLIKE. “It’s Thanksgiving” already has 10.3 million views since it was released 2 weeks ago, and 88% of the thumb clickers clicked DISLIKE. So what this means, is that an overwhelmingly large percentage of viewers are watching these videos because they HATE them. The top comment on “Friday” right now is actually “I keep creating users just to dislike this video.” But of course the whole thing is that the haters are making this shit viral. Hell, I’m one of them myself – I’m devoting an entire blog to this crap.

In  other words, don’t try to tell me that this Patrice Wilson guy doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s making tons of money right now off of shit he knows will get popular BECAUSE people hate it. He’s not an idiot, he’s just an evil bastard. He’s no better than the guys who make 16 and Pregnant. They know the shit is horrible, and they know that America loves to watch a train wreck. The only thing is that with Wilson, he himself is standing right beside us watching the train wreck. He’s not in the crash himself – rather he’s just destroying the lives of poor little girls like this Nicole Westbrook chick who’s wearing more slutty makeup than a Staten Island tramp of Friday night, and he’s just cashing in on it massively. Although, the stupid serious eyes she sings with makes it clear that she’s that snotty bitch who always talked about how much better she is than you in Junior High and that you always wanted to slap upside the face. But there it is. “It’s Thanksgiving” is the truest example of everything that is wrong with our country right now. It’s not ironic or kitsch like that damn “Gangman Style” – it’s just bad. So bad that I’m telling more people about it, and making more money for the evil bastard who made it. I fucking suck.

I first got into the Grateful Dead in 8th grade…let’s see when was that? 1993 if I do so believe. Which also meant that a couple years later I had just turned 15 when Jerry died, and wicked horribly never crossed that threshold to see the Fat-man swing. The scheduled show October 23, 1995 would have most likely been my first gig, but as is life. I of course did see my first Phish show on December2, 1995 at the New Haven Coliseum to assure that I didn’t miss out on any other ridiculous bands in my life, but that’s another story. Anyway, due to fate of circumstance I have thus always carried this overly-critical judgement about any Grateful Dead music I hear performed. And it sucks. Because GD music is supposed to be this eternal tradition which will surpass us all, and the main reason of that is how universal the songs are. But what’s worse is that I’m far more critical of the musicians’ sincerity on stage than the actual sound of the music.

And yes, if you know me, this is all an even more absurd notion of mine since I’ve been playing in well-established Grateful Dead cover bands for nearly 10 years. So maybe that gives me more of this inner, twisted relationship with hearing the music being played or maybe I’m just an overly-critical, and occasionally jealous asshole. And maybe I am just an asshole, but I always have this inner feeling of, “Oh, Jerry’s dead and this is what I’m pretending to like?” But everyone else around me has the notion of “Oh, Jerry’s dead so let’s have as much fun with what we got!” Believe me, I wish I could have that sensation. I almost feel like a disgrace to the name of the music by demanding so much from its resonant echoes, but I’m just not into it when the musicians seem into it for the wrong reasons. That’s why I started a Dead cover band – to establish a solid framework of incredible musicians who could play the fuck out of the music, and not have some odd delusion that they actually were the Grateful Dead. And please don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen some amazing post Jerry, GD oriented concerts in the past 17 years, but I’ve always seen a slew of BS GD desecraters.

Sorry, I rant, but why? Well tonight one of my heroes, Melvin Seals from the Jerry Garcia Band is playing a few miles away from me. But when I saw him play with JGB a couple months ago, his and the whole band’s performance was rather sub-par. And tonight he’s just playing with some random Jerry cover band that I have no clue who they are, and who have the massive nuts to be charging $18 to get in. It’s not that the money would take food off my table, but I can’t feel justified in paying it without some guarantee of sincerity. Sure, all of my friends are there havign a friggin’ blast and I’m writing a late-night blog post, but I can’t shake the need for truth and balance. Yet this notion frightens me even further as 6 days from now I will be seeing Furthur for the first time. Now I love Bob Weir, and I love Phil Lesh, and also have great affection for the other members of the band except for their fake Jerry. The thing is that when this band started a couple years ago, up until that point no member of the band had played with a fake Jerry. All the fill-in lead guitarists had either been well-known players who already had their own definitive sound which they brought to the music, or they were lesser known guys who could reinterpret the guitar leads into a whole new twisted fashion. But now they’ve got the fella from Dark Star Orchestra – the fella who spent yearspretending to be Garcia, and I’ve always felt scoured of my insides when I saw him and the rest of the band try to mimic the band’s movements as well as their music like they were in some Vegas tribute show.

Obviously the answer is yes, I am a self-loathing Dead-head. Will I look like a cynical asshole next Friday? Quite possibly. So here’s my personal mission – I will fully cloud all my pre-judgments of this band and approach it with a completely clean slate. I will listen to these songs with no prior thoughts of visions to compare them to. I shall succeed and feel justified in paying $75. Yes, I shall succeed.