This is a bit of a first in that I have shamelessly stolen it from someone else's blog. I'd been struggling to find enough time to write a new top five when my Twitter friend Alicestronaut popped up with a link to this wonderful entry on her blog. My job has changed dramatically since I started work but I'm still, officially, a cartographer and maps have always held a certain magic for me. Reading this I wondered whether the appearance of maps in some of my favourite childhood books may actually have influenced my choice of career.
After I stopped kicking myself for not having thought of it too, I began to consider my options for getting this topic into my blog. I pondered doing my own top 5 but really Alice has got this spot on. Alice has been very kind in letting me reproduce it here but you should also take a look at Alice's "Stuff & Things" blog or follow her on Twitter here. I think this could be my favourite top five of the year, over to Alice.
I spent a lot of time drawing maps, floorplans of houses and designing the layouts of new libraries when I was younger (I'm not fibbing, I spent hours and hours over a layout for my ideal library and sent it in to the one I used to go to. They never wrote back. I'm beginning to suspect my Mum never sent the letter). I'm not going to subject you to my top five favourite house layouts (yet) but how about some maps?
Here you are then.
Lord of the Rings - Obviously. Although you can argue over whether this is a children's book, I read the first one when I was that age so it is to me. I've still never read the other two all the way through but I'm sure I will one day.
Miss Jaster's Garden - Plot the route of a garden stealing hedgehog. Miss Jaster could benefit from a bit of laser eye surgery.
Winnie the Pooh - The first book that had me flipping back to the endpapers every five minutes. [aside - who is the best poet of all?]
Milly Molly Mandy - Another endpaper flipper. If you read these when you were small, you'll know how I feel about these books. If you didn't then buy a set for your kids right now - don't let them miss out too!
Treasure Island - The inventor of 'x marks the spot' and another of my favourite books, although more recently discovered.
The Herbie movies were simple but fun and were amongst the earliest films I can remember seeing in a cinema. I totally believed in the sentience of inanimate objects (I should perhaps point out here that I was only 6 when I saw the first film) and Herbie was proof positive that cars could do incredible things. Original director, Robert Stevenson, had made some of Disney's best kids movies (The Absent Minded Professor, Mary Poppins & One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing) but with Herbie found the perfect formula for boys under 10.
1. Herbie Rides Again (1974) - Directed by Robert Stevenson
This first sequel to The Love Bug is, in my view, the best of the series. Herbie's original mechanic Tennessee Steinmetz leaves Herbie with his great aunt Mrs. Steinmetz (played perfectly by the wonderful Helen Hayes) and the plot revolves around the attempts of, evil real-estate mogul, Alonzo Hawk's attempts to evict them from their Firehouse home. This is the first Herbie film I saw in the cinema and the mixture of the surreal and the madcap made it a winner. My highlight is the finale which sees lots of other V.W. Beetles come to life to help ward of the demolition crew and defeat the villains once and for all.
2. The Love Bug (1968) - Directed by Robert Stevenson
The original movie sees down-on-his-luck race car driver Jim Douglas (Dean Jones) acquire Herbie after defending the car from humilaitation by car salesman Peter Thorndyke (David Tomlinson). Thorndyke is also a race driver and becomes their bitter foe after Herbie beats him in a race having been tuned by Jim's mechanic friend Tennesse Steinmetz (Buddy Hackett). The Love Bug sets up the Boy-Car-Girl template that persists throughout the series, at heart these are quite simple love storys but in every one it's Herbie who remains the biggest star.
3. Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) - Directed by Vincent McEveety
Dean Jones returns as Jim Douglas and Herbie is back in the racing business though this time a cross continent chase from Paris to Monte Carlo. Don Knotts is entertaining as Herbie's new mechanic and the European backdrop provides some new scenary for the usual Herbie related mayhem. The much missed Roy Kinnear also makes an appearance as one of two thieves who hide a large diamond in Herbies fuel tank and then have to chase him around Europe in an attempt to reclaim it. There's a noticeable drop in quality with the loss of Stevenson as director but this film retains enough of the original movies charm to pull it off.
4. Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005) - Directed by Angela Robinson
A slight return some 25 years after the disaster that was Herbie Goes Bananas. This time Herbie finds a female owner in Maggie Peyton (played by a pre-rehab Lindsay Lohan), the youngest member of a racing family.The film recreates many of the scenarios we've seen before; Herbie helps owner beat race driver in posh big car, Driver accepts that Herbie is sentient, Driver bet's something important on winning a race, Herbie then delibately loses. Girl meets Boy, Boy falls for girl, car brings them together & they all live happily ever after. It's simple and a little cheesy but there are times when I think that's all we need. Fully Loaded restores a bit of pride to the series and gave me a little thrill in taking my eldest to see it when he was abount the same age I'd have been for Herbie Rides Again.
5. Herbie Goes Bananas (1980) - Directed by Vincent McEveety
Oh dear. This one is a shocker, poorly written and struggling to raise the gentlest of titters. Herbie is shipped to Brazil to take part in a Grand Prix but after causing havoc on the ship is dumped in the sea. He eventually surfaces, covered in rust and somehow finds his way to Mexico. The only scene that is even vaguely memorable sees Herbie as a matador in a Mexican bullring. Otherwise this was just a desperate attempt to prolong the series.
I think last week might be the first Friday I've not supplied a top five all year. Not that it really matters to anyone else but me, but it has provided me with something to write about this week. Perhaps more a diary entry than a top five but hey, it's better than nothing, right?
1. Work, Work, Work - It only happens once or twice a year but I've had a couple of weeks of long days and weekend working. This has mainly consisted of a team of contractors arriving to wreck havoc on my previously working system while I try and keep track of everything they do. In the past I have enjoyed the extra pressure, but this time I've felt a bit useless. Uninvolved, frustrated and under appreciated. These are all signs I've been in this job too long. Typically for me I'm finally considering a change of direction when I'm over 40 and there's a massive recession on. Great timing.
2. George's 8th Birthday - After nine consecutive crappy days at work my youngest celebrated his 8th birthday on Tuesday. This came as something of a relief and I left work early for a change. A family outing to see "Johnny English Reborn" with a meal after-wards at Pizza Hut. We don't do this enough and it was great fun. The film was just about perfect for my frame of mind amusing but untaxing. Pizza Hut may only be a small step up from McD's but the boys enjoyed the food (especially the ice-cream factory) and Mrs Top 5 and I enjoyed the chance to sit and talk for the first time in ages.
3. Beer - Back to work the next day, then straight out for a few beers after with the install team. We'd hoped to go to the Twickenham Beer Festival on Saturday night but had abandoned this as that day went slowly pear-shaped. This was an opportunity to show the install team a bit of British culture and we visited a few of my favourite pubs in the world, followed by a very nice meal at a Thai restaurant up the hill (my waist line dramatically increasing as the week wore on).
4. Football - I was really struggling by Thursday evening. Candle burnt at both ends. Wislaw Krakow were in town for the 4th of Fulham's Europa League group matches. A pub meal and a visit to another of my favourite pubs livened me up a little and we headed down towards the Cottage fashionably late. The accents we heard as we strolled through Bishop's Park suggested that there were a lot of resident Poles taking the opportunity to see their team in London, but we were still surprised by the large numbers of riot police dotted around the stadium. More police than I think I can ever remember. The reason for this became clear when we entered the ground and could see that Krakow fans had not only filled the small official section of the Johnny Haynes stand but also most of the Putney End. They made a lot of noise all game, several hundred were in home areas and these were eventually relocated to the far end. The official section let a smoke bomb off halfway through the first half. For a minute we thought the stand was on fire. It was, at times, a bit intimidating but it definitely sparked the game into life. The players and home fans responded and an entertaining 4-1 win for Fulham didn't feel comfortable until the 4th goal went in with 10 minutes to go.
5. Music - Finally Friday arrived and I literally had to drag myself out to a gig that I'd booked long before I knew what sort of a week this was going to be. Had it been any other band I may well have stayed home, but this was to be Dananananaykroyd's last ever gig in London. They've been just about the best live band I've seen in the last five years and I needed to say goodbye. They didn't disappoint, I didn't get as involved as I might have done, but a last opportunity to join in with the mass hug that is the "wall of cuddles" saw me collect two unsuspecting punters and dive into the middle of the throng. Fun times.
For most of my life I have read very little non-fiction. I enjoy the thrill, that fiction provides, of being transported somewhere else, and until recently, had rarely felt the desire to read about "real life". All of the choices in this top five, have affected me in a very similar way to my favourite novels. They tell great stories but ones born from real life experience.
1. "Down and Out In Paris and London" George Orwell - Orwell's first full length work and a captivating depiction of poverty in two great cities. The first half, set in Paris, sees Orwell having to take work as a kitchen hand and is by far the more convincing half of the book. A genuine feeling of the author living on the bread line and having to scratch together whatever money he could. If nothing else it will make you seriously consider the journey your food has taken, at even the poshest of restaurants, before arriving at your table. The second half has Orwell return to London, where he chooses to live as a tramp for a few weeks before the start of a job he'd been promised by a family friend. Whilst this is still a fascinating account of the time, and wonderfully written, I felt less sympathy for the author's predicament knowing that he choose to be there.(NB: To any Orwell fans out there, I have not yet read Homage to Catatonia or The Road To Wigan Pier)
2. "Bound For Glory" Woody Guthrie - One of the things I have discovered since I started writing a blog is how apalling my memory is. Even recent events can be a little vague but anything that stretches back to my pre-teenage years forms little more than random snapshots in my head. Guthrie's autobiography is full of wonderful detail about his early life rural Oklahoma, the impact of the Great Depression and his subsequent travels around America. There are elements of the book that benefit greatly from his songwriting skills. The boundary between fiction and non-fiction seems blurred but it stands as a thoroughly engaging tale about the founder of modern American folk music.
3. "My Family and Other Animals" Gerald Durrell - Another book that I first read at school. I'm not entirely sure when as I'm sure this wasn't O-Level material but it's a story that has stayed with me ever since. Durrell writes with great humour about his family, an eccentric bunch to say the least, their exploits in Corfu and his burgeoning interest in the natural world.
4. "Kicked Into Touch" Fred Eyre - The story of the original journeyman footballer (in the days when players didn't change clubs every six months). From being top kid in the local kick-about it took several years before he represented Manchester Schoolboys. This led to him being becoming Manchester City's first ever apprentice and attending a close season training camp at Lilleshall alongside; Neil Young, Tommy Smith, George Graham & Eamon Dunphy. Injury cut his Maine Road career short, having never made a first team appearance, and began his downwards spiral from Lincoln City to Crewe Alexandra, from Stalybridge Celtic to Rossendale United. In all he played for some 25 clubs (most of them non-league), briefly managed Wigan Athletic and was assitant manager at Sheffield United. He also found time to set-up his own office supply company and became a popular after dinner speaker. Fred's character shines through and he shows no sense of bitterness at his lack of success. A role model for all of us not just professional footballers.
5. "Hell Bent For Leather - Confessions of a Heavy Metal Addict" Seb Hunter - Hilarious account of the author's personal Heavy Metal odyssey. Flying Vs, Spandex, extended drum solos and desperately needing a wee in the middle of a muddy field in Donnington. It particularly strikes a chord with me as I did so many of the same things myself. To be fair, Seb did at least manage to graduate from playing air guitar in his bedroom to being in a real band. They just weren't particularly good.
I left school with a disappointing number of O-Levels which somewhat limited my A-Level choices. I picked the only three subjects I could (English, Maths & Physics) and failed miserably at all three. It's OK, things worked out for the best in the long run. During my very first A-Level English lesson our teacher asked us to put together a list of our favourite books and explain why we liked them. Excellent I thought, I love lists, I have loads of books that I love, this will be easy. My list included novels by Douglas Adams, Hammond Innes and Alastair Maclean with a Dickens and a Shakespeare thrown in for good measure. When we received this work back I was told that these were the wrong sort of books.
At the time I was annoyed by this response. A disgruntled feeling that was not helped by us spending the next three months reading Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the D'Urbervilles". I now see that in many respects my teacher was right. The breadth of my reading was poor, I really needed to expand the style, quality and subject of literature I read. What I really needed was someone to point me in the right direction. What I got was someone telling me I was wrong and then making me read the worst book I ever read in my life. I didn't finish A-Level English. In the last ten years I have expanded my reading considerably. I have no regrets about not having A-Level English but I do wish I'd spent more of the intervening years reading great fiction.
I still hold readability very high in the attributes required to make a great novel. There has been quite a debate recently surrounding the choice of short-listed novels for the Man Booker Prize. Readability versus literary ability is at it's core and the truth is the greatest novels ought to have both.
1. "To Kill A Mockingbird" Harper Lee - A book I first read at secondary school which opened my mind to the power of literature. It's a captivating and moving story about growing up and learning truths about the adult world. It initially focuses on the lives of Scout & Jem finch, the two young leads, and how they fill in the endless days of summer. Then there's the parallel story of their lawyer father, Atticus Finch, and his defence of a black man accused of raping a white woman. Narrated by the six year old Scout, it's a wonderfully observed discourse on racial inequality and human nature.
2. "Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy" Douglas Adams - Despite what my old English teacher said this book is still on my list. It's a novel I've read more times than any other. Since first discovering it after enjoying the BBC T.V. adaption, I read it at least once a year for a good 10 years. Initially a radio comedy it's a bit on the short side and really should have been combined with the follow up The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe as they are two halves of the same story arc. It's the humour in Hitch-Hikers that really wins through. Obviously I was a 14 year old boy when I first read it but it still has the power to make me laugh out loud some 30 years later.
3. "Nineteen Eighty-Four" George Orwell - Almost certainly my favourite author, I first read this in, appropriately enough, 1984. Spurred into action by the release of the Michael Radford film adaption I found it a bleak but utterly absorbing read.
4. "The Man In The High Castle" Philip K Dick - Not PKD's most famous book but I think this is his best. Set in an alternative reality where the Axis Powers won the Second World War and the world has been divided between Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan. The novel follows several initially unconnected characters as they conduct their daily lives against the background of a totalitarian society. I picked it up second hand from my Doctor's surgery having been intrigued by the cover. I generally find that "judging a book by its cover" is actually a pretty effective method of picking a good read.
5. "Pop. 1280" Jim Thompson - Picador's Jim Thompson Omnibus collects four of the best crime novels I have ever read into one handy compendium. Having read them all in one go I now struggle to pick out the highlight but for now let's go with "Pop. 1280" which is told from the point of view of an apparently genial and laconic Sheriff who turns out to be anything but. Thompson writes genuine hard-boiled noir like no other author.
I was recently inspired by @Alex_Berwick on Twitter to re-listen to my favourite albums of the nineties. Alex published his top ten and I thought I'd do the same. Alex also writes a rather brilliant blog called The Kids Are Coming which you should definitely check out.
For continuity purposes this is still a top five, but for completeness sake the rest of my top ten is included as well.
1. Radiohead "O.K. Computer" (1997) - This is the album that rekindled my interest in new music after several years in the wilderness. A huge step forward for the band but the album that, for me, found the perfect balance between tune and experimental. There are the big "name" songs (Karma Police, No Surprises and the epic Paranoid Android) but it's the little bridging songs such as Fitter Happier & Exit Music (For A Film) that help tie it together and give the album contrast.
2. Nirvana "Nevermind" (1991) - Nevermind has so far made both attempts at my all time top 5 albums which I probably need to revist now seeing as O.K Computer didn't. It's an album I love as much for what it meant to me in 1991 as for what I think of it now. Like Radiohead's magnum opus it changed my view of music. Now I struggle to decide if I like it more than In Utero (also a nineties contender) or Bleach but history keeps it high in my list.
3. R.E.M. "Out Of Time" (1991) - As I mentioned a few weeks back, Out Of Time soundtracked my summer that year. Like Nevermind, it is an album rooted in a time and place. This was the same year I started to see Mrs Top 5. A happy year. A turning point. The start of something great.
4. Fugazi "Repeater" (1990) - I have only recently properly got into Fugazi. This was their debut full length release and it's a corker. Joe Lally & Brendan Canty are the rhythm section from heaven. Producer Ted Nicely manages to get a drum sound as crisp as Steve Albini (the highest accolade I can give). The album bludgeons you into submission but never feels overbearing. How I wish I'd discovered them sooner.
5. The Flaming Lips "The Soft Bulletin" (1999) - My first contact with the lips came in 1997 when I read about their previous album Zaireeka. That album consisted of four seperate CDs that needed to be played simultaneously on four different machines. The process meant you'd never quite hear the same music twice. They followed this with a tour in which members of the audience were given boom boxes to play music on different tapes conducted by the band. It's those sort of ideas that make a band appeal to me. Soft Bulletin was a more conventional release but took the style the band had developed during the Zaireeka period and turned it into a more accessible format.
... and the rest ...
6. Godspeed You! Black Emperor "F♯ A♯ ∞" (1997) - Post-rock year zero. Godspeed brought the mystery back into rock, though as Efrim recently explained "It's not hard – all you need is four chords and a really long runway".
7. Jeff Buckley "Grace" (1994) - The mid-nineties are poorly represented here but Buckley's only proper full length album was an early sign that great music was still there if you looked hard enough. Achingly beautiful vocals.
8. Cornershop "When I Was Born For The 7th Time" (1997) - An really eclectic mix from Pop - Brimful of Asha, to hip-hop - Butter The Soul, to Country - Good to Be on the Road Back Home all tied together by an Indian influence and rounded off by a cover of Norwegian Wood in Punjabi.
9. Mogwai "Come On Die Young" (1999) - More post-rock but with a Glaswegian flavour and a passionate rant from Iggy Pop about Punk Rock. Genius.
10. Detroit Cobras "Mink, Rat or Rabbit" (1998) - Detroit garage-rock band with album of obscure R&B covers that could soundtrack the wildest of parties. You need to see this band live.
A happy by-product of doing my top 5 R.E.M. albums was the chance to pick out my favourite songs at the same time. This proved to be harder to thin down with most albums providing at least one song I really love. Despite that my final five have come from only three albums. I thought about restricting myself to one song from each album, but try as I might I didn't feel happy with any alternative selections. Short on words this week, as I've been tied up with other things, so I'll just have to let the music do the talking.
Last week saw the sad, though slightly overdue, news that R.E.M. have called it a day. They certainly seemed to lose something when Bill Berry left the group, though by that point they had already surpassed most other groups with the quantity of very fine albums they'd released. My first thought on hearing the news was how long would it be before they get back together for the re-union tour. Inevitabilities of the music industry aside, R.E.M. have contributed massively to indie-rock over the last 25 years and deserve huge respect for their consistency and longevity.
1. Document (1987) - The band's final independently released album and the tipping point between their early "college rock" success and the subsequent multi-million selling stadium filling era. Some of their best songs are included ("Finest Worksong", "It's the End of the World as We Know It" & "The One I love") mixed with a few quirky numbers and a great cover of Wire's "Strange".
2. Out Of Time (1991) - This was my R.E.M. point of entry and sound-tracked my summer that year, I played it a lot and it's one of those albums I will always have a soft spot for. My musical interests had previously been more heavy rock based, so whilst I was aware of the band I hadn't really shown much interest. However, by the early nineties I was broadening my musical horizons and this caught the mood of the time perfectly. An uncharacteristically chirpy album that saw the band having fun with additional musicians and guest vocalists.
3. Murmur (1983) - The first album and one that created their reputation for introverted tunes and difficult to decipher lyrics. The vocals are indeed quite low in the mix but this is still a fine album with many of the bands best songs. "Radio Free Europe" is a jaunty opener and the bands debut release. "Perfect Circle" was not a single but remains one of the bands very best songs and one of my favourites.
4. Automatic For The People (1992) - There's something about the unrelenting greyness of the cover that has always depressed me and, unlike "Out Of Time", it's huge popularity has probably contributed to lowering my love for it. I think it's the band's biggest selling album, providing them with six singles that will be familiar to anyone with even a passing interest in the band. Some of those songs have suffered (to my ears) from being overplayed. I'm not sure I ever need to hear "Everybody Hurts" again. But, replaying the album in preparation for this top five I realised how good it is. "Drive", "Find The River", "Ignoreland" and "Man on the Moon" are all wonderful tunes whilst "Nightswimming" is a beautifully delicate song that only features Stipe's vocals and Mills' piano motif.
5. Reckoning (1984) - A surprise final entry but when I played it again I realised how many of my favourite R.E.M. songs are on this album. I never felt quite the same attachment to "Fables Of The Reconstruction" or "Lifes Rich Pageant" and though I like "Green" and "Monster" this album edges them all out. "Reckoning" was their second full length release and has a brighter/crisper sound than "Murmur". The singles "So. Central Rain" and "(Don't go back to) Rockville" are both great songs and "Pretty Persuasion" is a more upbeat rocking number that may well feature highly in next weeks Top Five Singles by R.E.M.
A quick topic this week for no particular reason other than it made me happy. I was listening to Marc Riley a few weeks back and he played Corduroy's cover of Motorhead by Motorhead. I think it's a great name and it got my mind thinking.
1. Denim - Nineties Glam Rock revivalists formed by Lawrence from Felt.
2. Suede - Bowie influenced Brit-Pop upstarts.
3. Felt - Eighties Indie band who released 10 albums & 10 singles in 10 years. Led by Lawrence from Denim.
4. The Chiffons - All girl vocal group from the early sixties.
5. Corduroy - Nineties acid-jazz quartet.
Thanks to those of you on Twitter that helped me find a few more.
Black Lace - Novelty euro-pop horrors. Cotton Mather - Indie rock outfit from Austin, Texas. Denim - American party rock band from the early seventies Nylon - Apparently Iceland's most successful, singer/songwriter girl-band. The Nylons - Canadian a capella group Poly-Esther - Possibly just a 5olly joke but I did find a brief mention of a Canadian band with this name. (UPDATE: It wasn't a joke he meant this band The Polly Esthers, check 'em out and let me know what you think) Silk - American R&B group from Atlanta, Georgia Cheryl Tweedy - Maiden name of former Girls Aloud singer Wool - melodic punk-rock band from Washington D.C.
A second guest top five from Richard who is now a "proper published author" as well as continuing to write about Fulham at Craven Cottage Newsround. In fact not only is he a published author but also an Amazon Best Selling author! The book is a nostalgic look at a century of Fulham Football Club as is published, appropriately enough, by Haynes. If you're a Fulham fan you should definitely buy it - it's less than a tenner on Amazon.
Having got to know Richard through Fulham we have also discovered similar interests in fiction (his previous top five was an excellent summation of Raymond Chandler novels) and music. I've never really "got" the Grateful Dead. They have a massive back catalogue and like many bands with a long history it's easy to be put off by making a poor decision early on. I bought the fairly awful live album "Dylan & The Dead" and never went back. This top five seems like the perfect place to start again.
Pull up a chair. I’ve got about an hour of the greatest music you’ll ever hear.
You maybe couldn’t do this Top 5 about any other band. Best year? Who knows? But the Grateful Dead are different, in lots of ways.
The Dead, bankrolled and maintained by Owsley “Bear” Stanley, started to record their shows well in about 1968. Stanley, who had become famous as one of San Francisco’s leading LSD manufacturers, also had some mighty ideas about sound equipment, including the need to record performances. So their gigs – which were often very long and very strange – were committed to tape, and from ’68 to 1995 a good (and growing) proportion of their shows can still be heard.
So what? Why would anyone be interested in this? Well I don’t know. On the one hand, imagine if you could hear your favourite song 50 different ways? Fast versions, slow versions, long versions, short versions, isolated versions, versions in the middle of jams. That’s all possible with the Dead.
But more than that, it’s wonderful to be able to hear the band evolve from a psychedelic blues-rock band in the sixties… well then we get country influences in the early seventies, juggernautism in the late seventies, some… ordinariness in the eighties, and a brief but wonderful resurgence in about 89. It’s all there, it can all be listened to , and most of it’s great. My ipod is full, and contains little else.
On we go then. My top five Grateful Dead years:
1. 1977 - Peak Dead. They’d been going long enough that they’d evolved tremendously, but not too long that they were jaded. Check that: they were jaded – they took most of 1976 off – but this only gave ’77 more freshness. The stretch in May is unparalellable, with the show at Barton Hall, Cornell University on the 8th particularly famous.
Why? I talked about the live music, right? Well until Jerry Garcia died much of this was kept in the Dead’s vault, and was only available through leaked soundboard recordings or audience tapes. (Fans were encouraged to tape the performances, thanks to a mixture of apathy on the band’s part and probably a sneaking suspicion that this all helped get the word out – a masterstroke, in retrospect).
Anyway, there were various circles of tape collecting, and if you knew the right people you might get the good stuff, if you didn’t you’d be stuck around the edges with a dodgy audience recording of a show nobody liked.
One show – a brilliant quality soundboard - worked its way to everyone though: Cornell University, Barton Hall, 8/5/1977. It might not be the best Dead show but it’s the best Dead show most people had on tape, and so became something of a gold standard.
Rightly so. The band had it all in May ’77, and in recent years two of the best live albums they’ve put out have come from that one, glorious month. This is fantastic music, absolutely mind blowing.
Sample: Morning Dew from the above show. Listen to this and tell me that the last few minutes aren’t the most extraordinary music there’s ever been.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsKOXDUh2Y0
2. 1969 - Alright, this is probably the best year, but marked down slightly because I have so much love for ’77.
Around 69 and 70 the Dead had the best of both worlds, their raw sixties glory and the LSD soaked improvisations combining to magisterial effect. It led to some music that really was, to coin a phrase, far out.
This is Dark Star. This is what they’re famous for. This is music for acid. This is everything...
(Check out the album Live/Dead if you liked this – taken from a run of shows in ’69)
3. 1968 - In ’68 the band were so raw, so deliciously raw. There’s a wonderful ragged edge to the music. Tapes from ’68 are – if the quality’s okay – always a joy. The band had a smaller repertoire, but absolutely nailed it every show. Or that’s how it seems to me anyway.
Here’s Viola Lee Blues from 1968. Tell me you wouldn’t want this playing in the background of the film of your life...
It’s amazing. I have a couple of 20 minute versions of this and they do it every time I hear them. Oooooooh.
4. 1989 - If you’re still with me you might be wondering what I have up my sleeve next. Well!
This is 1989. The 80s were pretty crap for the Dead. Heroin, Jerry Garcia’s coma, plodding and uninspiring music. Then post-coma we get a resurgence. It took until 1989 to hit another peak, and by now the boys were on fire again. The clip I have below is from a show they played as “Formerly the Warlocks” in a bid to escape the crowds, and showcases the band’s awesomeness rather nicely. We get vocal tracks from Garcia, Bob Weir’s in there too, but the star is Brent Mydland, the band’s third (fourth? Who am I forgetting?)keyboardist. His vocals grab the hairs on the back of your neck on their own. Wowzers.
Garcia’s soloing in here is also something else. There’s an eighties feel to it, for sure, but it’s unmistakeably him and unmistakeably amazing. (Check the run from about four minutes for some great guitar work and some top growling from Mydland).
This was a third peak, in my mind, and the fall would be swift. Garcia never did control himself or his drug habit, Mydland died of an overdose in 1990, and after that they bumbled along to bring in the much needed cash, but playing big, soulless venues to fans who in some cases didn’t get the band at all. Dispiriting stuff.
5. 1974 - Bob Weir, the Dead’s second guitarist, once infuriated producer Dave Hassinger for asking for the music to sound like it was being played through ‘heavy air’. This was taken by some as evidence of Weir and the band’s insanity, or their being hard to work with, or something or other, but what Weir was after was that delicious sound you get in outdoor venues in the summertime.
The Dead cracked this with the Wall of Sound, which was exactly what it sounds like: a gigantic wall of amps that created a massive, massive sound, but a sound which was as clean as a whistle.
The problem was that the wall was so huge they needed three of them: one for the current venue, one traveling ahead to the next, one being taken down from the previous venue! The band also needed extra crew to handle all this, and the costs started to become a problem, leading to endless tours in increasingly large venues, and ultimately to burnout and a year off (1976). They took the wall apart and sold it off bit by bit.
But while it was going… wow. The 1977 sound was very polished, driven, exciting. ’74 is very different, holding onto the early 70s experimentalism, but somehow combining a laid back air with something very hard to explain.
That sound (from Wikipedia):
The Wall of Sound consisted of 89 300-watt solid-state and three 350-watt vacuum tube amplifiers generating a total of 26,400 watts of audio power. This system projected high quality playback at six hundred feet with an acceptable sound projected for a quarter mile, at which point wind interference degraded it.
It was way ahead of its time and led to some classic Dead shows.
