Saturday, September 08, 2007

Steals Your Face Right Off Your Head

I know I said I owed you a post today and, if I can finish this one to my satisfaction within the next 45 minutes I am not a liar. A procrastinator yes; a slacker for certain, but a liar- not this lemming. I promise a post and I deliver a post. Is it on par with my usual post? Do I have a usual post? Well, I honestly can't say right now. You see, I am as deep into this post as you are at this moment and know about what's coming next as you do right now. It should be fun to find out with a disappointing ending; kind of like aM. Night McShamalamdingdong movie.

I don't endorse products by name here usually as a rule. You may have noticed I have yet to name which pill I took to quit smoking because it is not my place to push products, but I must babble about this to someone and no one else I know really cares so here it goes.

Sirius offers something like 120 channels and I currently pay for two receivers (home and car), yet as of yesterday at noon I will be wasting 119 of them. I have not been able to turn off channel 32 since it began its new life as, are you ready for it, Grateful Dead Radio. Yes, 24 hours a day of Grateful Dead. We are talking studio tracks, live tracks, full concerts, related family bands, and covers of Dead tunes all the time! Last night I fell asleep listening to the Stanford Marching Band playing “Uncle John's Band.” Right now I am hearing a full show from New York, 9/22/93. I think I used to have a tape of this show actually, but this is a digital soundboard (drools on keyboard). I woke up today at the Fillmore in San Francisco, 1973 I believe.

I wonder if Sirius would discount my subscription if I explain to them I only need one channel. Yes, I can and most probably will listen to this all the time. In my pizza delivery days I had a bootleg playing in my car everyday, all day. When they moved me inside the music came with me. The punks hated when I ran a shift. I would usually break down and let them hear their music as we closed. I mean I may be a Deadhead, but I am a Metalhead, punk, grunge hippie, alternative, Gothic, disco Deadhead at heart.

Oh my....Here Comes Sunshine is playing right now. It has been literally 15 years since I heard this song at least. Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

You mean he was a dead deity super-villain pretending to live in the past the entire time?

11 comments:

Serena said...

Kan's a Deadhead. Well, I mean, I knew that already, but I didn't realize how dedicated you were. Perhaps you should let Sirius know about your need for only one channel. They might give you a discount for that and for this nice plug for them. You never know.

Camille Alexa said...

Hm.

Nessa said...

I knew a woman who spent every penny she could scrounge together, including her children's birthday money, to go to GD concerts across the country with her girl friend. She is divorced and childless, now and Jerry Garcia is truly the Grateful Dead.

Anonymous said...

Your mother understands

Unknown said...

Yes, I am a Deadhead (or as a close friend used to put it- dead from the neck up). The secret is out. I hope that doesn't lower your opinion of me.

Birdie,
Do I get the impression you do not approve?

Golden,
There is such a thing as too much of anything. In my 5 years of being an active Deadhead (going to shows), I never spent money I did not have, nor miss work to see them. I did travel across the country twice to see them, but once was on vacation and the other time was when I was moving to the West Coast. Jerry is dead, but I am not sure how Grateful he is about it.

Hi mom.

Yes fellow lemmings, that is my real and actual mother. Yes I actually have one. She sneaks in from time to time.

Camille Alexa said...

It's not a matter of approval, I just never even heard of the Grateful Dead until a few years ago, so I still don't understand the phenom too clearly. My pop-cultural knowledge has serious gaps. I guess I was just trying to let you know I was here, but didn't have anything substantive to add to the discussion.

But there was some fantastic Dead footage in the excellent 2003 documentary Festival Express.

Nessa said...

Are you game? Please play with me.

Unknown said...

The "Dead thing" is something no one can ever really understand again because it really is one of those "you had to be there" things. It was a era. The music is great, but it was only a small part of the picture.

ThatGreenyFlower said...

A Deadhead! Well, I never!

Don't you think that you'll get tired of All Dead, All the Time? When one local station was in transition, they played only Led Zeppelin. I loved it...for a couple of weeks. Now, I am aware that the Grateful Dead canon is greater than Led Zep, but still...

Unknown said...

Greeny,
Do you live in Tampa by any chance? When I was in college, 98Rock went all Zeppelin and screwed it up. I will always remember the exact process.

Week 1: all Zeppelin
Week 3: all Zeppelin and Pink Floyd
So far so good
Week 5: all Zeppelin, Floyd, and ZZ Top
WHAT?
Week 6:Zeppelin, Floyd, Top, Stones
Week 7:bad heavy metal.

The thing that makes all Dead never boring is that they were the ultimate improvisation band. While the lyrics would remain usually constant (barring forgetting them) the music would alway go off in various directions. Some songs might go on for 30 minutes even. They would react to the mood of the crowd and amplify it.

ThatGreenyFlower said...

This was when I lived in Texas...I can't remember the name of the radio station, but I can assure you that no ZZ Top was involved. That would have been burned forever into my memory as a traumatic event.

I'm not such a jam-band fan. The 30-minute song just doesn't work for me...guess my attention span is too short.