nicos1331

Whew, Bruce Hornsby & The Range The Way It Is Tour 1986-7. They didn’t have many songs back then. I have a concert of theirs from September of 1986, my earliest Range recording.

That’s way back when, back in the days of troglodytes.

It’s a cool thing to have in your collection. The ‘Every Little Kiss’ / ‘Long Race’ era.

-Nicos

Mr. Hornsby’s senior recital from the University of Miami in the winter of 1977

I am unsure whether this fits into the categories of “most interesting/odd/rare,” but it does stand out in my collection.

There is just nothing like music from the Jimmy Carter era.

-Nicos

I finally looked at the Bruce 100.

That is a very unique “randomize” playlist. It seems just as strange, obscure, and ‘out there’ as everyone elses. So kudos to you!

-Nicos

This is an absurdly shortsighted question that I find quite demeaning and insulting as a longtime Dead fan. Please do not try to stereotype their fanbase. It still shocks me that anyone could ask a question that is so utterly offensive, fatuous, and impertinent.

Go up to Capitol Hill and ask longtime Grateful Dead fan Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who has served more than 30 years in the Senate, that same question. I wonder what his response would be.

Fortunately the poster and I both like Mr. Hornsby so the ties that bind us shall remain stronger than those that divide us.

Anyway, that’s my two cents. I aplogize for the harshness but when I see something that truly disturbs and offends me, I feel compelled to reply.

Now I am off to listen to some vintage Dead from the spring of ’77. I think Barton Hall is a good choice.

-Nicos

I am one who.

My favorite group is the Grateful Dead. I believe they are and have always been underrated. I would disagree and say that Bruce’s music fits in perfectly with the Grateful Dead’s. I am not here to persuade anyone, you can like and dislike whomever you choose. For me, the Grateful Dead will always be my favorite band and an incredible influence on my life.

I do have one big objection to the poster. It is this: The question of whether stoned fans were the only ones who liked the Dead. That question is immaterial in evaluating their (Grateful Dead’s) music. I will not even waste my time by answering such a query that is both injudicious and nescient.

I believe that one can evaluate the music on its own and without outside influence by actors who really have nothing to do with the music itself—song lyrics, song music, arrangement. If you want to have a discussion about their fans or the live performances, then that is a separate issue; a separate discussion.

(The Grateful Dead did participate in the ‘Groupmind’ ethos that allowed interaction between the band and the crowd, but again, that is a separate issue generally limited to live performances and also huge part of the Band’s live existence but again one can evaluate the studio albums–those lyrics, the music, arrangements, the songs themselves, etc. . . on their own.)

I am not sure if I understand the idea of Bruce ‘hankering for greatness’ and what that has to do with the original opinion of the Dead or music or a musical artist. I don’t believe that I even know what that phrase means. But I digress . . .

Even Mr. Hornsby has spoken about how many never really ‘understood’ the Grateful Dead’s music, amazing lyrics, and musical ability (01/30/07 Malibu, CA show after ‘Spider Fingers’). That’s fine by me. After all, a lot of people don’t get Nietzsche, Plato, Socrates, Montaigne, Galileo, Copernicus, Sophocles, Hunter S. Thompson, Descartes, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Zappa, Aristotle, Shakespeare, John Coltrane, Bret Easton Ellis, Phish, Bill Evans, Big Swing Face, Grayfolded, Infrared Roses, Camp Meeting, Nardis, Night in Tunisia, dissonance, atonality, heavy metal, the blues, folk, bluegrass, punk, classical, opera, bebop, hard bop, gospel, and country, and that in no way diminishes the astonishingly eclectic excellence that can be found in each of them.

So kudos to the original poster for making me realize just how wonderful & important the Grateful Dead really were.

So no, there was no impassioned defense of the Grateful Dead here. People’s musical likes and dislikes are all fine by me. We remain united in our appreciation for Mr. Hornsby’s music.

On an unrelated note, my first rock concert was a Grateful Dead show with Mr. Hornsby on piano. It was at that show that I saw my first ‘Deaf Section’, a section in the audience for deaf people with a signer. It was such a positive feeling knowing that even people who were hearing impaired could ‘get’ and enjoy the Dead, feel the vibrations coarsing through the ground, smile in the summer sun, then dance the night away. That’s really what it’s all about.

If you get it, that’s cool. If you don’t, that’s cool too because for the many people who do get it, it’s something special and awfully good.

I wonder what Mr. Hornsby thinks of the Grateful Dead?

-Nicos

“When a true Genius appears in the World, you may know Him by this Sign, that the Dunces are all in confederacy
against him.” (Jonathan Swift 1667-1745)

Mr. Hornsby does perform ‘rock’ music and he is a ‘star’, so I have no problem calling him a ‘rock star’. Considering that there is no one organization charged with rigidly defining such a phrase, it really makes no difference to me. I believe there is a video game company out there that calls itself, ‘Rockstar Games’, and they don’t even really make music. So if a videogame maker can bill itself as a ‘rockstar’ & it doesn’t even really create music, then surely one can call Mr. Hornsby a ‘rock star’. It doesn’t bother me one bit.

-Nicos

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” (Shakespeare, ‘Julius Caesar’ Act I Scene II lines 140-141, said by the great Cassius, who helped take down a tyrant.)

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” James Madison, No. 47 of ‘The Federalist Papers’.