The Classical Source For All The Performing, Visual And Literary Arts & Entertainment News
Blog

[LISTEN] Casey Jones, Watch Your Tuning: 90-Minute Supercut of Grateful Dead Pre-Song Antics Not Suitable for Soft Ears

Whether you are a Grateful Dead fan or not, you have to admit that if jam band music had a peak, it probably started and ended with the Dead. Although insufferable most of the time, jamming is not even the deterrent here — it is the band's horrendous tuning before a show that kills.

Over at the A.V. Club, they located an hour and a half of tuning material that is not suitable for soft ears. While the group may have had some epic concerts in their day — R.I.P., Jerry — there is little to deny the fact that it is not something you want to be a part of — then or now.

Michael David Murphy, apparently, sifted through dozens of Grateful Dead live recordings on the Internet Archive to create "Tuning '77," a supercut of the mistakes, broken strings, missed pitches and so on worthy of a "fail" audio.

Murphy said to Good Day Sacramento that tuning is "kind of a conceptual art piece — an audio piece that's really about the idea of what does sound sound like when no music is happening."

Whatever you say, Murphy.

Without delving too deep into it, check out the audio below:

About the Author

Real Time Analytics