Category Archives: News

It’s been an interesting week here at The Official Home of Unofficial Grateful Dead and Music News. Apparently, I’m either a decent writer or a good actor. Maybe I just cuss too much… It seems like the bulk of the readers were under the impression that I’d waste my vital life energy being mad about something that someone said about somebody else. I don’t get mad about shit like that. Truth is, I saw all the headlines and weighed in on it. I did my best Don Rickles impression. While perched on the toilet, I took 10 minutes to make up a rant and send it out. I was totally free from any real feelings of anger and just thought a rebuttal was appropriate given the situation.

Like my parents with me, I had very limited expectations for it… In another case of, “If it bleeds, it leads!” the blog set new records for circulation. That doesn’t mean much since my blog isn’t monetized in any way but it’s interesting that in our community of endless love, the most circulated pieces have been the most unloving. Regardless, while I relaxed on a hammock, visualizing pleasant shit wrapped in 100 dollar bills, with absolutely no anger in my glowing spiritual center, I caught a vision. I was sitting there with Jesus and he had the CRB’s new album in one hand and John Mayer’s in the other. He said he was considering sending me to an Island like Patmos, as he did with John the Apostle, and I could only take one album with me. In my vision, he seemed to lean forward a little more with the hand that held “The Search For Everything”. I thought about being stuck on an island with nothing to hear but “Still Feel Like Your Man” and “Love On The Weekend”. I began to feel slightly withdrawn like one might feel if they were standing naked in front of the Dallas Cowboy’s Cheerleaders immediately after exiting an ice cold lake. Then the Lord said to me, “Why you gotta cuss so much?” I was starting to realize I had no good answers for anything…  As I reached out for the album I chose, the vision blacked out…

Once I regained full consciousness, I realized I might be the biggest ass of them all. I was just having a laugh and it turned into something much larger than planned or expected. Mayer won’t have anything to say about any of it because he’s more like Garcia than Chris Robinson. I should probably shut up because I was more like Stern than I was David Gans. Before you’re too quick to agree with me calling myself an ass, realize that you’re an ass too. If you agree with me, you’re an ass. If you don’t agree with me, you’re an ass. If you didn’t care either way, you’re a lukewarm ass. If you left a comment anywhere, regardless of what you said, you might be an ass too. Regardless of who you are, someone thinks you’re an ass. Once we accept that we’re all asses to someone we can move on peacefully and in harmony without caring much about it.

Then I had this revelation… When it comes to the giant nipple that is the Legacy of The Grateful Dead, it’s like a nipple with a million nipples on it. There’s one for everybody so there’s no need to fight about a particular nipple. Folks will always fight about the nipple that seems to be getting sucked on more than the others. There’s a lot of jealous nipples out there. Some folks prefer the $15 nipples. Some folks only want the free nipples and are pissed that there are other nipples that charge people at all. The nipple they suck on is usually the one that tastes like a lemon and has a big black hair coming right out of the center of it. Regardless, there’s a nipple for everyone…

When we walk through life, we should do so like a beautiful, productive, perky nipple. Just like The Grateful Dead, the nipple is the delivery system for the substance of life. It’s not the substance of life itself, it’s simply the vehicle that the substance of life passes through. Not all nipples are capable of that. Without some great and productive nipples, there would be no life in nature. Nipples represent the beginning of a tremendous time of growth and development. For some of the species, once they have matured and grown and developed, they will then possess the nipples that carry the substance of life to a new generation. Once again, they’re not the substance, merely a way to deliver it to the next generation. When you grow up, you start to see nipples differently. While you can acknowledge that they provided for your growth as a baby, they eventually become a form of entertainment more so than nourishment. Some bands are like man nipples. They seem to be of little use and certainly don’t provide any life for those that feed on them. Nothing is produced by them and other than being a personal thermostat, they provide nothing. I’m thankful that the substance of life I was raised on came from the giant nipple that The Grateful Dead provided. Through that experience, my life took shape and I developed from the inside-> out. As I’ve grown older, nipples provide me with more entertainment than they do the substance of life. I still take joy in knowing that the same nipple and the millions of nipples that exist as a result of it are feeding and providing for the growth and development of the next generation.  In my own life, I hope that I can be a conduit through which the substance of life occasionally flows. Just another nipple passing on what’s required for the growth and nourishment of the next wave of folks. In that sense, we should all aspire to be nipples!

I don’t know who to credit with the Stealie but, here’s to ya!

Dead To The Core,
Dean Sottile (pronounced So Tilly)

@gd50th on Twitter

Grateful Dean on Facebook

 

 

While hanging out with Howard Stern, Chris Robinson had some disrespectful words for John Mayer. As a matter of fact, they were pretty disrespectful to every musician that plays the music of The Grateful Dead for a living. During his talk with Stern he said, “The Grateful Dead has turned into this giant nipple that everyone sucks off of to get money. I’m not a big John Mayer fan. Jerry Garcia is a hero of mine. Everything that Jerry Garcia ever talked about or stood for – John Mayer is the antithesis.” He went on to say,  “He knows all the licks, there’s nothing unique about his playing. Jerry was one of the most unique musicians in the world. Jerry never played anyone else’s licks and now here’s John Mayer playing everyone else’s licks.”

I’ve got some news for Chris Robinson. For starters, I’ve seen you play several times with Phil and any attempt you make at being unique, while playing Grateful Dead music, sucks more fuckin peter than a crackhead porn star. You talk about someone else’s licks with absolutely none of your own. You might as well just sit up there with some maracas or a fuckin triangle. You couldn’t put together a lead to save the life of a loved one and you’re gonna run your mouth like you can play. There’s one thing unique about Mayer’s licks, you couldn’t play a single damn one of em… You know what’s the antithesis of Garcia? Going on a radio show and talking shit about a musician playing with 3/6ths of his band you fuckin droopy eyed, weak strummin, murdering Sugaree every time you sing it, bag of egotistical shit.

You talk about the Grateful Dead nipple that everyone sucks off of for money yet you’ve been a part of numerous nipple sucking collaborations. Here’s some breaking news Kris, NONE of them have produced music that could serve as a piss bucket to hold the urine that Dead & Company relieve themselves of at Set Break. When you made that comment, I wonder if you considered how many musicians you were insulting. When asked about Mayer, Clapton said, “He’s a master guitar player.” When asked about Chris Robinson, Clapton said, “Who the fuck is Chris Robinson?” Mayer has done one thing for sure, he’s treated the opportunity and the material as a sacred body of work. At no time has he showed anybody within the community of people that play Grateful Dead music anything but respect.  Not only could you learn something about that from him, he could probably teach you how to play an instrument at the same time. Mayer is probably one of the only musicians that play with any of the living legends that takes an enormous pay cut to do so.  He makes more money than you, he sells more tickets and albums than you, he has A TON more fans than you and he’s grown the fuck up. You sound like he did when his head was still up his ass. When you’re old or dead, you know how many musicians will be able to provide for their families by performing YOUR music for a living??? Absolutely zero. None. Nobody…

After that, you went on to talk shit about your own brother, a dude that created something with you that gave you the opportunities that you’ve had throughout your life. Your own blood. You know what’s the antithesis of Garcia? Going on the the fuckin radio and trashing your own blood. How many people do you have to have problems with before you consider the possibility that the real dick in your life might be you? While Mayer is playing nearly sold out stadiums with your hero’s band mates this summer and selling out arenas on his own tour, you’ll be playing small, half sold theaters with your Brotherhood which is a pretty fucked up name since you obviously can’t get along with your brother worth shit. “Jealous Again?” You think something unique is happening in your band? It’s just like the Black Crowes only half as good. Maybe Phil will throw you a bone and you can make the Dead catalog sound like some shitty sounding noise as a back up member of The Friends while Mayer is killing it, playing the music that we wanna hear, like we wanna hear it. I love Phil and his friends but I need to hear you singing Garcia’s tunes like I need to lose a testicle in a chainsaw accident. I’m not even mad, I’m pretty damn happy right now, but you can go jump in a lake of dicks bro! Maybe you can sell more tickets if you start playing after parties following Dead & Company Shows.

Jerry never played anyone else’s licks except for the 200 cover tunes he played regularly. One thing is absolutely true. Garcia improved upon every song he ever decided to play. Something you’ve never done in your entire career.  Any attempt you’ve made at playing one of Garcia’s tunes has had the same result. The song has suffered like a dying goat being violated by a horny soldier.

“If you plant ice you’re gonna harvest wind” Rant over… In Loving memory of Tito Garcia… Love y’all!!!

 

  Here’s a trailer for The Long Strange Trip! 

Dead To The Core,
Dean Sottile (pronounced So Tilly)

@gd50th on Twitter

Grateful Dean on Facebook

Grateful_Dean on fans.com

Grateful Dean on Facebook

Grateful_Dean on fans.com