Deadly Accuracy
Here's to Dark Star Orchestra—if you're going to try to sound like the Grateful Dead, why not go all the way?
by Jack Silverman
Dark Star Orchestra
Jan. 31 at Mercy Lounge
While it's certainly fair to question the artistic merits of the tribute band phenomenon, there's a commendable forthrightness to Dark Star Orchestra, the Grateful Dead tribute band playing at Mercy Lounge on Jan. 31. No group has spawned more imitators who function under the guise of originality than the Dead. While countless bands try to cop their vibe—extended jams, elaborate multi-song segues, varied set lists from night to night, trippy effects, authorized taping sections—DSO, eschewing the pretense of innovation, have taken the premise to its ultimate, if extreme, conclusion.
At some level, the Grateful Dead experience has always been about extremes. Many rock bands have developed rabid followings, but Deadhead behavior borders on OCD. Take DeadBase XI: The Complete Guide to Grateful Dead Song Lists. Besides containing song lists for 2,314 shows the band played between 1965 and 1995—apparently the 2,777 Dead shows available for free download at archive.org include duplicates—the information is cross-referenced to include how many times each song was played, how many times a particular song was played at a specific venue or in a specific year, first and last dates a song was played, ad nauseam. Never mind Deadheads' preternatural drive to possess recordings of all of these shows.
So it makes sense that DSO, instead of merely playing the music of the Dead, actually re-create specific shows in their entirety: one night they might do they do "Boston Garden, May 7, 1977" and the next night could be "Madison Square Garden, Oct. 12, 1983." They attempt to reproduce the show, from the set lists, to the stage plot, to period-appropriate music gear, even interjecting between-song banter from that particular evening (gleaned from bootlegs). They don't reveal what show it is until the end of the night, allowing Deadheads to indulge in the esoteric amusement of guessing the show. And to their credit, if you close your eyes it's hard, though not impossible, to tell them from the real thing.
OK, it's a little strange. But at least they're capable players, they manage to capture the Dead's sonic gestalt and, for the most part, they're playing good songs. Granted, the Grateful Dead's output has been erratic, and the bulk of their best material was written before 1976. Still, the unique brand of contempt reserved for the Dead by a large portion of modern music critics and fans is mostly a reaction to the band's overzealous following; a band whose devotees include Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello must have a gem or two in their catalogue. (In fact, Costello's "500 Albums You Need," published in 2000 in Vanity Fair, included four Grateful Dead records.)
That's one of the reasons so many recent jam bands—specifically those whose DNA bears the imprint of the Dead—are so forgettable. Many of these acts feature gifted musicians, and some can provide engaging musical moments, but good songs—lyrically or melodically—are virtually nonexistent.
Various members of the Dead (along with lyric contributors Robert Hunter and John Barlow) grew up immersed in the great story songs of American folk music's golden era, and then expanded into more improvisatory territory. The majority of today's hippie rockers, by contrast, seem to have grown up loving the jam first, and only afterwards realized that they had to write a song before they could get to the guitar solo. Indeed, some of these bands' songwriting skills appear to be inversely proportional to their musical gifts.
For instance, when you go to the Web site for Leftover Salmon—a group with considerable musical talent—the song that automatically cues up is "Just Keep Walkin'," which features this compelling chorus: "Just keep walkin'/ Walkin' to the end / Just keep walkin' / Walkin' with a friend." One would assume that if this number kicks off their Web presentation, it's their stronger material. Sure, quoting rock lyrics out of context is not always fair—"She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah" is not exactly Yeats. But at least that song had a great melody and some emotional urgency.
Furthermore, the words to "Just Keep Walkin' " hint at a lyrical trend in the jam-band scene: songs that sound like Deepak Chopra-style self-help creeds for the no-direction set. It's as if some bands are saying, "We're glad that you love us and follow us around, but you really might want to try and make something of your life beyond twirling around and selling veggie burritos in the parking lot." (One of the worst transgressions was penned by the Dead themselves in the mid-'80s—a song with the chorus, "Keep your day job / Till your night job pays," which went over with fans about as well as a piss test.)
Or consider this platitudinous excursion from the song "Pleas," by Widespread Panic: "They tell me it takes sorrow, boy / To help you feel the joy / They say it takes poverty / to let you love a toy / Now, you can't have the good / Until you've shared the bad / Don't let it get too sad...." It just might edge out Paul McCartney's embarrassing post-9/11 fiasco "Freedom" for the title of World's Most Artlessly Expressed Sentiment.
For most of these acts, when it comes to the music, there's a formulaic element to much of the improvisation that lacks the mystique of the Dead in their heyday. So much of that alchemy resulted from serendipity: a gang of musicians, unpolished and indifferent to convention, plundering the vaults of American folklore. Even if the drugs are still around, the social upheaval and sense of discovery that made that era unique can't be reproduced. Many second-generation jam bands—Phish were a great example—figured out what made those happy musical accidents work, and codified them. The result, entertaining as it could be, was often more contrived than inspired.
So if you want to see live music that conjures up the spirit of the Grateful Dead, go see Dark Star Orchestra. At least you're getting a reasonable facsimile of the real thing. Meanwhile, the other jam bands might want to heed the example of the Dead: if the band's members can't write lyrics themselves, hire someone who can.
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