This is Really Terrible

[Jimmy Jazz]

Didn't like it, didn't hate it. I've kind of grown out of hating the dead (personally that is -- not trying to put anyone who still hates them down) but deadheads are still unbearable. I've come to tolerate and occasionally even enjoy some of their stuff that doesn't include a long meandering jam. Plus Jerry Garcia always seemed like a really likable guy to me. But of course I'm not into deep Dead theory so he could secretly be evil and terrible like The Clash for all I know.

[Kory]

Didn't like it, didn't hate it. I've kind of grown out of hating the dead (personally that is -- not trying to put anyone who still hates them down) but deadheads are still unbearable. I've come to tolerate and occasionally even enjoy some of their stuff that doesn't include a long meandering jam. Plus Jerry Garcia always seemed like a really likable guy to me. But of course I'm not into deep Dead theory so he could secretly be evil and terrible like The Clash for all I know.

Nobody is as terrible as the hated Clash.

[JennyB]

Just watched it again, still can't figure out why peeps dislike it with such a passion. Sure, the lead vocals are lame (is that Bob Weir singing?), but it just sounds like an average US bar band from 25 years ago playing a good song competently - not very exciting, but no jamming or mucking about. Why the hate?

For all the reasons you just listed!

So if the band jammed and fucked about and played it forever in true "jam band" fashion, would that make it better or worse? What if Mick Jones sang the song with the same band, the same take? Would that have any bearing on its "awfulness"?

Again, for me, it's just sort of a PTSD thing I get from anything associated with the Dead. Intellectually, I know this is neither better nor worse than any random cover band, but the association really tars it for me.

I know I sound like I'm not over it almost 30 years later (and I swear I really am, at least 99% of the time), but I moved to St. Louis my senior year in high school. All of the guys who harrassed me (sexually and otherwise) and generally made my life a living hell were huge deadheads.

I'm sorry, Jenny. Didn't mean to be harshing on you (or anyone). I was just coming at it from a purely musical standpoint. But I do hear you, re: fucking frat boy Deadheads (and pretend Bob Marley fans). But I will say that those fucks were often no more nasty, sexist, obnoxious and even violent as a lot of so called "punk rockers" that I met after the mid-80s or so. And a lot of that hardcore shit was, to me, equally boring and stagnant as the Dead and similar later "jam bands". But I do get what you're saying, even though I'll never experience such fuckery from a woman's perspective.

Peace, strength, calm and gentleness be with you, mate.

No worries at all - I didn’t take it in a bad way from you.