House of Drumming.com

Getting together w/ an experienced group for some Dead covers. I've been watching a lot of 70's-80's dead vids...lots of wanking back there sometimes, more by Mickey than Bill it seems. Interesting to me that the tempos often are faster than they feel. Curious if guys have spent much time on Dead tunes and how they approach/feel about them.

I was thinking of putting up a similar topic. i recently joined new original band that the only covers we do are from the Dean and Phish. Having learned about 20 Dead tunes in the last 6 months, i can say some of theire stuff is very complex. Kruetzman is a rock. Very solid but jazzy at the same time. in some spot only once they will throw in a bar of 5. It goes by so smoothly that it passes by for most people like it never happened. They tend to use more ride cymbal based grooves than hat. Also because of the 2 drummers you as 1 drummer will really have to listen to what is important in the track so it still sounds like 2 drummers. I feel the same way about the tempos. I have become very laid back in my backbeats over the years, but now I have to push the feel of the tempo because thats where it sits. Youi are correct in Mickey being the wanker. Watch the Closing Of Winterland, Watch 12/31/87 Oakland Stadium, and Ckeckout the show at the pYramids. All great examples of the two together. The Winterland show is what sold me on Bill K.

I heard some stuff from Europe 72 and prior to that I hadn't given Bill K much respect, in fact, I thought he wasn't very good.

There was some absolutely blistering mind bending shit on there.

Most of his beats are broken 16ths, that interact with Jerry's soloing. The bass drum is barely heard, which is probably the result of the recordings. It's somewhat challenging to play them, it takes some concentration.

What also gets me is the flow of intensity, like a wave. It's a really live performance thing that you can't really get from these recordings. And that's also why some of their shows were not quite there, getting that groove is probably hard when things aren't very healthy. Jerry could rip paint off a building when he was on his game.

Here are a couple links with lots of good stuff.

http://www.deadlistening.com/
Their FB. https://www.facebook.com/deadlistening?fref=ts
http://archive.org/details/GratefulDead