Rock n Roll to Wake Your Ass Up!

So this Deadhead listens to a lot of freakin' music. Quite simply, if I did not run then I wouldn't listen to albums like the one I ran to this morning. See, I HATE running but my health is too important not to and when I run I need a steady beat, sometimes I need beat progression, sometimes beat regression. Dead and Jerry studio stuff could do it but not a lot of it has a fast enough beat which is also an important factor. Man, if I limited myself to what I ran to, I'd get bored real fast. So I stay open-minded (better than being close-minded, right?) and listen to whatever. Sometimes whatever is just perfect. Sometimes it kicks bloody ass all over the place and is the most outstanding bunch of loudness to wake your ass up and really get your blood flowing. I'm sorry but as much as I love listening to Jerry, Sugaree or A Simple Twist Of Fate ain't gonna do that at 6 in the morning.

Van Hagar will!

An Album I've Been Listening To. . . (and the Music I Ran To This Thursday Morning)

	Chickenfoot self-titled debut 2009
Avenida Revolution Soap On A Rope Sexy Little Thing Oh Yeah Runnin' Out Get It Up Down The Drain My Kinda Girl Learning To Fall Turnin' Left Future In The Past Bitten By The Wolf	Sammy Hagar - vocals Joe Satriani - guitar Michael Anthony - bass Chad Smith - drums

Holy bunch of rockin' out aging rockers, Ghost of Jimi Hendrix. Holy crap, I can't get sick of this, at least not after about five listens to far. What a great album from a great band. It would be a rock and roll travesty if these guys don't sell out everywhere they go this summer. Recently they wrapped up a short like 9-show club tour, a warm-up for lots of shows this summer in Europe and then back in North America. What a frickin' whiz on guitar Joe Satriani is. Long, long time ago I had one of his CD's -- Surfing With The Alien, I think? I haven't heard Satriani since then (circa 1992-ish.) Hagar's Hagar and I just listened to him the other day. Sammy's great. Former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith really help drive this album. They're fuckin' animals, man. Holy crap! And then when Satriani dives in... holy crap!!! (That about sums it up -- Holy Crap!) Soap On a Rope, for instance, while oddly named, it goes along la di da di da and then at the end it completely blows out the windows and blows the roof off the house. FUUUUUCK!!!!!!!!!! This just screams at you -- "PLAY IT LOUD. LOUDER, DUMBASS!!!!!!!!!!!!" I might worship just about every note of Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia music but sometimes this is exactly what I want! A great Shakedown Street is a fun way to wake up but when they move into Althea or later on play Looks Like Rain, the life out of being LOUDLY woken up can just be sucked away. Something like this -- oh holy crap hell yeah, THIS is the (musical) way to wake up!!!!

And I just read the following which is blowin' me away -- Sammy's 61 years old?!?!?! Get the FUCK out of here!!!!! Noooo wayyyyy. Holy crap, I don't believe it. At times Satriani sounds as good as and no better than Eddie Van Halen and perhaps at times this is a continuation of Van Hagar... but maaaaaan, it simply fucking rocks. There's just one ballad here -- Learning To Fall -- which is the slow spot on the whole album, and one song -- Future In The Past -- that slows things down somewhat, at least until it picks up a ton of steam as it goes along, and the last song -- Bitten By The Wolf -- is the only to feature acoustic guitar (and harmonica.) Even though it's a total anticlimactic finish to the album, since it's about New Orleans I'll give it a pass. So there are some places where the music isn't completely balls to the wall and alright, not every song is perfection, a few have moments of lame harmonies or lame lyrics, or a spot where Satriani is this totally solo dude not fitting perfectly into a band... but every bad instance is made up for fifty times over. In just a few months, in October, the Red Rocker's gonna be 62?! Jayy-zuzz, you've GOT to be kidding me!

download Chickenfoot @ 320 kbps
free mp3 rapidshare download 320 kbps

Sammy on the late night show Red Eye talkin' to Greg Gutfeld
about sex, rock and roll, and driving 55.


"Oh Yeah" - June 6, 2009
The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson Jay Leno Conan O'Brien

(Quality is MUCH better on the (stoopidly) unembeddable YouTube version)

The Red Rocker Turns Green

No show posted today but I'm workin' on something old, something from this date many years ago, hopefully to be posted before the sun comes up tomorrow morning on America's east west coast. So stay tuned!

This morning I randomly chose some Sammy Hagar to listen to for my running and I was inspired to seek out another Sammy vid, this time a little a lot more Grateful Dead related. Check it out...

Earth Day 2007
Green Apple Festival
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

P.S. This show has Loose Lucy by Sammy with The Dead
in Digital Soundboard form.

Red Rocker

An Album I've Been Listening To. . . (and the Music I Ran To This Monday Afternoon)

	Sammy Hagar I Never Said Goodbye 1987
When The Hammer Falls Hands And Knees Give To Live Boys' Night Out Returning Home Standin' At The Same Old Crossroads Privacy Back Into You Eagles Fly What They Gonna Say Now

Sammy Hagar's only solo album from during the time when he was in Van Halen. Reportedly, he's on guitar while Eddie Van Halen is on bass but I don't believe for a second EVH didn't play any lead guitar. Tis album was also reportedly made in 10 days, start to finish. Well, maybe songs were written or mostly written and ready to record but apparently when Sammy joined VH, his record company demanded him to fulfill his recording contract and so he whipped this together.

This isn't bad. A couple of these songs even made it into VH concerts. The more I listen to this, the more I like it... not love it, but it's pretty cool. I need something exactly like this from time to time. I didn't help me in my running today but this is perfect early early early a.m. music to wake yer ass up and get yer ass moving! I've always thought that of 5150 and OU812 and this being from the same period of time as 5150 is kinda sorta very similar. Fun stuff...

and there's a Grateful Dead connection here: I'm not sure when the friendship started but Bay Area rocker Sammy is a friend of and has played with Bob & Phil and Mickey (on several occasions) so Sammy's always cool in my book!

find a download @ The House Where Music Does not Suck!
free mp3 rapidshare download 320 kbps

Not my favorite but maybe one of only two songs from this album
that he made a music video for... but this one kind of costars
his VH bandmates, Eddie & Alex Van Halen and Michael Anthony

Sammy Hagar - Hands And Knees

No hike but some tasty tunes!

Today I kinda messed up by not going on a hike. Not truly messed up but I should have hit the trail. Sunday is often a day for church, a day for football, a day for hiking... but it wasn't imperative that I go. Woulda been a fan-freakin'-tastic way to burn some calories, that's for sure. But hey, another way to burn calories: dance, baby, dance! Seriously. Get up outta that chair yer sittin' in, put on one seriously delicious nugget of a show and just dance. Know what I'm sayin'? Well, do ya??!? I don't think yer hearin' me -- DANCE!!!!!!!!!!

"The Dead" -- 2/14/03
The Warfield, San Francisco

(Robert Hunter opened)

The Band
Phil, Bobby, Mickey, Billy,
Jimmy Herring - guitar
Jeff Chimenti & Rob Barraco - keyboards

1st Set
tuning/Jam -> Hell In A Bucket -> Iko Iko,
Lazy Lightning -> Supplication -> Lazy Lightning,
Loose Lucy#, Hard To Handle²³, Casey Jones²³,
Cumberland Bluesª -> Sugaree³

2nd Set
A Love Supreme Jam -> Looks Like Rain ->
Sittin' On Top Of The Worldª -> Spaceª ->
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds³, Born Cross-Eyed ->
Jam -> Help On The Way -> Slipknot -> Jam,
Turn On Your Lovelight²³ª-> Slipknot²³ª-> Franklin's Tower²³ª

Encore
Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad³ -> Not Fade Away²³ª

² with Joan Osborne; ³ with Warren Haynes;
# with Sammy Hagar; ª with Michael Kang
+

What band is this now? The Grateful Dead? Nooooo. The Other Ones? Nope... well, yup, sort of. Between the show on New Year's Eve 2002, just 2½ months before, and this show on Valentine's Day, for whatever reason, Bobby, Billy, Mickey & Phil decided to ditch the TOO moniker in lieu of, simply -- "The Dead." Very same band members, though. The Other Ones was just fine with me so why the change. Marketing reasons? I don't know. In any case, ladies and gentlemen -- The Othe, er, umm, I mean -- The Dead!

Right from the start this is a hoppin' and jammin' show! The Jam-> Bucket-> Iko is over 18 minutes long and just so wonderfully retro, almost, harkening back to the good ol' Grateful Dead, but this time with Mickey covering vocals on Iko. He has a fun time with it, too. Cool as that opening was, holy cow, Joe, let me tell ya, that was just the tip of the iceberg!

After rollin' through Lazy Lightning -> Supplication, twas time for a little Van Halen flavor, kinda, sorta, courtesy of Mr. Sammy Hagar. "A good friend of mine, a guy who needs no introduction so he gets none," Bobby says jokingly. Could there seriously have been anyone in the house who really needed to be told who that was walkin' on stage?! And what song would this guy be joining in on? Loose Lucy? With Sammy on vocals? I bow down to Jerry, okay, but this was just plain freakin' sweeeeeet!!! Did Jerry & Sammy know each other? No clue have I but this is fun tribute! He does it justice and then some! Afterwards Phil says to the crowd: "Everybody say, 'Thank You, Sammmyyy!!!!'" with Bobby quickly adding, "Everybody say, "There goes the neighborhood." Ahh, great music, good laughs, very cool and the grin splashed wide across my face as it comes to a close again right now can attest to my pleasure so far.

Two more guests on the next tune and what an intro this song gets... it could just about get its own Jam label but soon enough they're kickin' into Hard To Handle. Mmmm, Joan and Warren playing off each other... with all due respect to Pigpen, this is amazing and I bet Pig watchin' down just nodded and grooved in agreement at how awesome this sounded. 15 minutes ooozing with bluesy groove to melt the mind... I'm on my 4th listen in a few days and good God, it only gets better with each listen!

Casey Jones with Joan on lead vocals was interesting yet very standard GD-sounding. The next song, though... for me it's probably the #1 highlight of Set 1. Yes, I know this isn't the Grateful Dead but why couldn't they do Cumberland like this? At nearly 18 minutes long, this has the best jam of the night so far, hands down. Again, it ventures off and away from Cumberland altogether, enough to almost be called Cumberland-> Jam-> Cumberland. Bobby finally pulls everybody back to finish it up... but then off they go again into another mini-journey before truly heading into the final song of the first set -- Sugaree. Beautiful.

That could have been a short one-set show, an hour and thirty three minutes worth of music, and I woulda been one happy camper, I tell ya what! Ain't done yet -- still a set to go!

Out of the gate we're treated to more jamming in Set 2 but instead of keepin' the high speed dance theme, Bobby takes us through a slow and smooth Look Like Rain. Soon it's time to get ones groove on again as the boys slide into a little Sittin' On Top Of The World. A little? Whoops, I meant about 11 minutes worth! Yes, kids, jam mode is full on once again. No Drum session for the Rhythm Devils on this night but out of Sittin' appears a bit of Space, a brief Space, but most definitely Space none-the-less. Quickly the sweet sounds of John, Paul, George and Ringo emerge in the form of a little L.S.D. -- just as good as ever!

Valentine's Day this is? More like Halloween, in a way, 'cause what comes next is one of the best treats these dancin' kids could ask for. A week before this show, Bobby busted out Born-Cross Eyed with Ratdog -- first time in just shy of 35 years. (To this day, that remains the only time he's ever played it with RD.) Now it's making it's second appearance here with these guys. Way too short but oh so cool and then the jam was on again diving into Help-> Slip-> Frank? Nah, that would be way too pedestrian for a night like this... more like: Help-> Slip-> Jam-> Lovelight-> Slip-> Frank. Yeah, that's the stuff!! Excuse me while I get up and dance for awhile!!!

Mmmm, as they explore the outermost boundaries of Slipknot and leave it behind, a nice mild Jam ensues, slowing down to a pace where the surely sweaty Warfield faithful can catch their breath for a moment or two. My only complaint of the night comes here where the Jam essentially comes to a halt before Lovelight starts up -- no smooth transition from one to another. Ahh, well, the pause was brief enough to allow some to consider it a Jam-> Lovelight but no matter how it's typed up, soon it's time to dance again. Enter both Joan and Warren again to give Bobby a break while they each take vocal control of this one, spinning it a little differently than normal. While nothing can ever reach the monumental heights of Pigpen, Warren helps this along in great fashion before an abrupt left turn at the end brings on a whole 15 seconds of Slipknot before good ol' Franklin's Tower to end the set. Just a great finish. I can barely imagine bein' there, one of the blissed out 2,000 or so inside the Warfield, one of the lucky few who got to see this show. Not over yet, though! Just a quick encore, and then.... finally out the door.

Quick encore? Ha. Almost nothing was done quickly on this night. GDTRFB-> NFA goes on for nearly 20 minutes strong... and then the night was over. At just over three hours, this was a monster of a show. A cool night in San Francisco it probably was as the crowd exited the theater and strolled out onto Market Street, a scene done so many times before after a Jerry Garcia Band show, or after all those nights of the Dead back in the early 80's. After a show like this, Jerry would smile for what those guys did up there. Pure heaven and nothing less.

"Our love is real, Not Fade Away!"

Sound Quality: Digital Soundboard
A+ might be a bit conservative...
truly this might be more like A++++

I'm unaware of this being available anywhere
for listening but here's the Soundboard
for your downloading pleasure.
Due to my slow-speed internet and my
insistence on using only High Quality mp3 files
(441 megs worth!) I had to break it up
into four parts... but here it is. Enjoy!

2/14/03 The Dead -- Part 1
·
Part 2 -- The Dead 2/14/03
·
The Dead 2/14/03 -- Part 3
·
Part 4 -- The Dead 2/14/03