News Briefs 02/28/07

Bob On Boomers

According to KnoxNews, a national survey of 1,008 adults conducted by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University found that boomers are not regarded as the most generous, self-sacrificing or hardworking generation, but are credited for enjoying life and for producing the best music of any recent generation. The article quotes Bobby (a frequent pundit of music & culture who was on a Disco documentary I recently watched):

"Our music had the most eclectic roots. We listened to everything," said Bob Weir, 59-year-old founding member and a lead vocalist for The Grateful Dead. "The stuff that gets played today is heavily produced and formulaic. The melodies are all almost identical. Selling records today is only about business. Back in our day, it was a marriage of business and art."

"We were just more footloose and intoxicated with all of the possibilities of life," said Weir.

Forty-three percent also thought boomers "had the best music," significantly more than the other two generations, a finding that surprised Weir.

"After all, the generation before the baby boom produced Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett - pretty cool stuff," Weir said. "Really they were the ones who produced rock and roll. We inherited it. Little Richard and Chuck Berry were not of the boomer generation."

Cops Undercover as Deadheads

I had to chuckle when reading an article on amny.com. "It is clear from recently released police documents that the NYPD was preparing for the 2004 Republican National Convention as if the world were about to end" begins the article. But at the end it quotes a protester:

"I could easily pick out the undercover police officers in the room," he says. "They were so obvious. They were wearing Grateful Dead shirts."

A Little Humor

Minyanville posted a "spoof" article that plays with using the word "jam":

Boeing Co. (BA) is offering to install advanced anti-jamming technology on some future commercial satellites for the first time, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. “Some of our customers are looking for technology to potentially reduce the threat of jamming,” said Craig Cooning, deputy general manager of Boeing’s Space and Intelligence Systems unit. “Inevitably, we’re going to see more jamming in the future.”

“The threat of jamming?” Does this mean jamming will be blocked on satellite radio, like XM (XMSR) and Sirius (SIRI)? If so, will Boeing’s anti-jamming technology spread to other media delivery formats, like mp3 and compact discs? Perhaps the deeper question at hand is why Boeing is leading the charge against jamming? Is legendary jam band Phish dangerous to society? Is the String Cheese Incident just a homegrown al-Qaeda in tie-dye? What will this mean for the annual Jammy Awards? Or the Bonnaroo festival? Or for Ratdog fans?

Read the rest of the Jamming piece here

Another story, which also tried to be funny (but failed miserably in my opinion) is over at the Second Supper.

Rolling Stone Bashes Dylan & the Dead

Also not funny was the Rolling Stone article that listed Dylan & the Dead as one of the worst albums by good artists:

2. Bob Dylan & The Grateful Dead Dylan & The Dead

What looks incredible on paper sounds lazy and half-baked on record. We’re still curious as to why only Dylan standards were played, cold-shouldering an entire GD catalogue.

Now I like that album (and that's not because I like all the Dead CDs, in fact I don't). But having Dylan do complete sets with the Dead as backup is great on paper and was even better on stage. And I can answer his curiosity as to why they did Dylan standards. Because it was a Dylan set! Dylan sang Dylan songs, and the Dead backed him up.

Update on the Grateful Dead Stories Project

I've been busy doing a bunch of other things this week (including dancing to a 4 hour & 15 minute George Clinton & Parliament/Funkadelic set) but plan on getting back on it (and my overly detailed reviews, as promised). If there is anyone who's an expert at Wiki software and would like to help, I would certainly appreciate it. I need to learn what can and can't be done, and then how to do it.

Contact me here: slclibraryboy@yahoo.com