The Grateful Dead used to play a brand of music that was exciting, viable, hardly ever complacent, and most certainly dangerous. Times have changed, and so have the Grateful Dead. Ever since the release of Workingman’s Dead they’ve allowed themselves the sin of accomplishment, slipping into the swamps of acceptance and the dire straits of mega-grouphoodery. They’ve given up the initial innocence of their art for the glory of their bankbooks, which’d normally be fine and good--nobody likes to be a starving artist--but in striving for the monetary they’ve let the spark of their music die out. Simply put, the Grateful Dead are not as good as they used to be, they have not grown with the age, and they’ve digressed and flummoxed a whole generation of listeners into a fandom that’s wallowing in the manipulation of history and the joys of “the way it used to be...”
Shakedown Street is musically competent but so what, there are a lot of groups and LPs that are “musically competent.” This particular shakedown is just another lazy exercise for a band of musicians who know they can make interesting music, but don’t have the ambition to do so anymore. Too bad. If these guys had to deal with the real honest energies of the 70s they’d wilt up and become their own moniker. They could hunker onto the stage and wail off the right kinds of music, the kind they’d set forth back in the heyday of heydays, BUT NO, they won’t, they’d rather let their brains and talents seep through their fingers like so much oatmeal.
People ask me why I dislike the Dead with such a passion. Part of the reason you’ve just read. The other part is the simple fact that they used to represent a major part of a lot of people’s lives. They changed people and they were able to get them through rough times, the days of peace grunts ’n’ acid flame-ons; the confusions of anarchy were the foundations for their musical spirit. It’s not much fun to be deceived by something you once had faith in, and for those who are just jumping on the Dead wagon, be wary, these guys are tricky; they like to betray.
Okay, that was all aesthetics and politics. Musically, despite everything, there are a few modestly interesting moments on Shakedown Street. One of them is “Fire on the Mountain” and the other is....on second thought take that few and make it a single interesting moment, this is the stuff zomboids are made out of, the stuff that forges the iron dreams of fascism...figure that one out between tokes, you nitrous-flaked protoplasmoids.
P.S.--If any of you Deadouts out there in the flatlands wanna argue with me about the efficacy of bein’ a Deadhead, I’ll meet you on any street corner and we can do nitrous bottles at fifty paces, one word of warning though--I don’t fight fair...snicker, snicker.
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