The Tao of Wu
Travellin' On...
By Jason Fladager -
flash@cabooze.com
I'm having a hard time with the question of whether or not lesser know jam
bands will shoot themselves in the foot by playing the music of bands like
Phish and Grateful Dead. Most of the people that I have spoken to about this
topic think its a tremendously bad idea to attempt covering music of these
bands. It will only hinder your progression is what I've been told. It seems
that if mainstream media, like our own Minneapolis Star and Tribune, catch you
playin' a GD tune or a Phish tune, you get labeled Grateful Dead Cover Band
and you are doomed by this tattooing forever, even if 90% of what you play is
your own music. That kind of labeling and generalizing stinks but then its
mainstream media and they are stinky by nature. So who care's right?
There are a number of arguments here. Isn't the Grateful Dead the biggest
cover band of all time? And if you are payin' attention to what Phish is doing
this fall, they are well on there way too. Just as maybe the Dead paid
Tribute to Bob Dylan by playing his "masterpieces", what is wrong with another
band doing the Dead's music in tribute? You may argue that we are
talking about Bob Dylan and The Grateful Dead here....we're talking legendary artists,
and they can cover what they want eh? For some unknown band to cover this
music is somehow not so cool. Isn't the fact that Dylan and the Dead were
both real people playin' real music, part of what made them so great? Isn't
that what this genre of music is all about....real people playin' real music
for real people? I mean the Dead had a profound impact on my whole way of
thinking and my views of the world. The words and the music were like new
awakenings for me. A reality often so real it left beautiful scars on your
soul! Garcia's ideas of making every note special and the bands utter
commitment to TRYING and goin' fer it with all glory are very much within
myself. I think that playing music with that in mind, with the concept that
you can only do the best you can, is the approach I hope to master someday. I
know that I'm not the most fluid guitar player and I don't have the greatest
voice but as long as you go for it and do the best you can, the rest hopefully
will fall in to place. I think if you approach Grateful Dead music without
ego and make it your own so to speak, then its a beautiful thing. I never
understood bands that try to re-create an actual Dead show. I mean what if
Jerry sang Visions of Johanna with the sweet nasal tones of Dylan...would it
have been nearly as effective? There are guys out there who strain their
voices to sound as close to Jerry as they can....for what I ask? I say sing
with your heart and soul and if it sounds like Jerry we'll ya just can't help
that. I think what I got outta my Grateful Dead years, more than anything
else, was that you have to find your own voice. Straining to be something
your not, just ain't gonna work out in the long run.
And so with that, your gonna hear me sing Althea every so often because dammit
I love the song and I love the words and it means alot to me. Singing those
words feels so good and why should that be a bad thing? Why shouldn't an
audience here those words and soak in those good vibrations....eh? Why is it
that when a band covers a Stones tune its kosher but when its a Dead tune your
like treading on sacred ground and cursed? I fail to understand.
Jason Fladager is a guitarist and one of the founding muscians in the Minneapolis jamband THE
BIG WU. In addition to being a part-timeTalent Buyer for the Cabooze, he is finishing up his
second album with the band and touring regularily.
