"...this essentially reactionary attitude became the prevailing orthodoxy in rock's critical establishment." And remains so to this day, I fear.
The dominant [critical] view came to be that of [Jon] Landau and Esquire's Robert Christgau, and it focused on two things: technical excellence and the primacy of the African American roots of the music. As Chrtistgau wrote, "the problem is that when poetry, musical complexity, and psychedelic basso-profundity come into the music, its original values - simplicity, directness, charm - are often obscured." This became code for limiting rock to three-minute songs with clever hooks, and the [Grateful] Dead clearly failed that test. That spring, Christgau wrote, "Most hippie rock and roll musicians exhibit the same in-group pretentiousness that characterized the folk and jazz purists who were their predecessors." Though Christgau himself would be more flexible in the future, Landau would not. In his defining critical manifesto, "Rock and Art," Landau declaimed, "Rock was not intended to be reflective or profound." Where this left Bob Dylan went unsaid, but this essentially reactionary attitude became the prevailing orthodoxy in rock's critical establishment.
As is often the case now in the Age of the Internets, I'll get an idea for a post, do a quick Google search on the topic, and find an article where someone has said everything (or almost everything) I wanna say about it. So anyway, here's a link to the article (on, in this case, improvisation in rock music), from the excellent Perfect Sound Forever website:
I also found some useful information from the following text; I of course take exception to the characterization of the Grateful Dead's improvisations as "ponderous", but I gotta give some respect to any author that's able to discuss the Dead, John Coltrane, and Black Flag in the space of two pages and say something significant about each one.
For those of you who still have no idea of what the hell these guys are talking about, here's of few of my favorite examples of rock improvisation, courtesy of YouTube:
Not too much. The only things I can come up with are (1) they are both the names of American psychedelic rock bands formed in the 1960s, and (2) they're the subject matter of the two items I have shipping from Amazon.com! (Yes, my life is officially so boring that the best thing I can come up with for a blog post is something about items I'm getting from Amazon. Look for Art's next post, in which he enumerates his favorite breakfast cereals!) Specifically, I'm getting copies of An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia by S.T. Joshi and David E. Schultz and Live/Dead by the Grateful Dead. (I'm actually listening to the Live/Dead version of "Dark Star" on Rhapsody as I write this.)
I actually had a fairly tough time deciding what to get. The Lovecraft encyclopedia was a gimme, 'cause I use the (incomplete) online version of it at Google Books all the time. (This brings me to important (albeit discursive) point I wanted to make. To wit: ATTENTION PUBLISHERS/ AUTHORS/ EVERYONE AT GOOGLE BOOKS: Having your books available on Google Books is an excellent marketing tool. Even if I can read your book online, if I find it useful and/or entertaining, I still want to own a copy of it. I don't really like reading books on a computer, so if there is a book that I find online that I use all the time or that I am pretty sure I will read in its entirety, I will probably end up purchasing it. I am sure there are lots and lots of other people that feel the same way I do.) The Dead CD was a little harder - I had another 7+ bucks to play with 'cause I decided I wanted to be eligible for Super Saver Shipping, so it was between the Dead CD and A Game Of Thrones (the first book in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice And Fire series, which a friend described as "turning the fantasy genre upside-down"), as they were each a little over 7 bills. I finally decided on the Dead CD simply because although I'm a long-time fan (saw my 1st show back in '87), I really don't have a lot of the band's stuff on CD and I've wanted Live/Dead in particular for a very long time.
Ah, the joys and agonies of capitalism. Did I make the right decision? I'll have a better handle on that once I actually obtain said items, but, in the meantime, what do you think?
About every 4 - 5 years I get on a kick where I am intensely into the Grateful Dead for about 6 months, to the point where I want to listen to little or nothing else. I don't know why this always happens to me with the Dead; I go through similar phases with the Stones and AC/DC, but I also listen to them during "down times". With the Dead it's strictly feast or famine - I'm either listening to them all the time or not at all.
These "Deadhead periods" (if you will) are usually triggered by seeing a show or a film that features the band - this time, it was actually through discovering the live music section of the Internet Archive. Holy shit! If you are remotely interested in the Dead (hell, if you're remotely interested in live music period), you needed to check this out. I got to listen to the famous Cornell University show from 5/8/77 (embedded below) & thought it might be interesting to post some notes on where the different songs performed come from. So... here 'tis.
(Note: if the player isn't working, you can access the page for the Cornell show at the Internet Archive directly by clicking here.)
- "New Minglewood Blues", originally by Noah Lewis, is from Shakedown Street (1978)
-"Loser" is from Jerry Garcia's album Garcia (1972)
-"El Paso", originally by Marty Robbins, first appeared on the live album Steal Your Face (1976)
- "They Love Each Other" originally appeared on the Jerry Garcia album Reflections (1976)
- "Jack Straw" originally appeared on Europe '72 (1972)
- "Deal" also appeared originally on Garcia (1972)
- "Lazy Lightning" appeared originally on the Kingfish album Kingfish (1976). "Supplication" originally appeared on this album also.
- "Brown-Eyed Women" is also originally from Europe '72
- "Mama Tried" is a Merle Haggard song. Its 1st appearance on a Dead album was on Grateful Dead (aka Skull And Roses) (1971)
-"Row Jimmy" is from the album Wake of the Flood (1973)
- "Dancing in the Street" was, of course, originally recorded by the great Martha and the Vandellas in 1964. The Dead actually started performing it way back in 1966, but it did not make an appearance on one of their records until Terrapin Station (1977). It has also been covered by the Everly Brothers, the Kinks, the Mamas and the Papas, Van Halen, and about half of the other artists in the fuckin' universe.
-"Scarlet Begonias" is from the album From The Mars Hotel (1974)
- "Fire On the Mountain" is from Shakedown Street (1978)
- "Estimated Prophet" is from Terrapin Station (1977)
- "Saint Stephen" is from Aoxomoxoa (1969)
- "Not Fade Away" was originally recorded by Buddy Holly and the Crickets in 1957. Its 1st appearance on a Dead album was on Grateful Dead aka Skull & Roses in 1971. Much like "DITS", its been covered by about a bazillion other artists, including the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen. It was also issued as the 1st single by Rush.
-"Morning Dew" was originally recorded by Bonnie Dobson. It made its Dead vinyl debut on The Grateful Dead (1967). It was also covered by Fred Neil, Tim Rose, The Jeff Beck Group, and Devo(!), amongst others.
-"One More Saturday Night" is from Bob Weir's album Ace (1972)
"Looks like a good book. I wish they'd come up with their own fucking title."
- Joe Haldeman, author of the Hugo and Nebula award-winning novel The Forever War, on New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins' book of the same name
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