They're *Not* The Only Ones

"They're the not the best at what they do," the late rock promoter Bill Graham was fond of saying (or maybe he only said it once) in reference to the good ol' Grateful Dead, "they're the only ones who do what they do". Through nearly 30 years, countless nadirs and peaks, this axiom held true. In a way, it let the Dead themselves off from their ultimate decline and musical semi-failure. In recent years, though, as the band has splintered off into related configurations and various warring factions, it's become abundantly clear that not only are the remains of the Dead not the only ones that do what they do, but that they might not even do it the best themselves. (Hell, one might even read the name "the Other Ones" as containing a hint of this.)

Before delving into the diffusion of musical power, it'd probably be best to examine what exactly "what they do" means. A working definition might go something like this: a fusion of musical styles, mostly - but not necessarily - rooted in the American vernacular - tied together by group improvisation". Hell's bells, Bubba, it's clinical (and maybe a little narcissistic), but might as well run with it.

Assuming truth in Graham's statement (and temporarily disregarding the Allman Brothers Band and the like), Phish managed to slip in just under the gun. They ascended to popularity at pretty much the last moment where they could go unchallenged. By the time they'd secured themselves - for argument's sake, let's say somewhere between 1993 and 1994 - as a genuine force in American music in both economic and artistic terms, the first inklings of the present-day jamband scene were beginning to assert themselves in the freakishly cold winters of the North Country, the ski-bum Eden in the Rockies, and the occasionally ultra-hip Athens-Atlanta axis.

Like an amoebae splitting itself, things got bigger and bigger.

***
To make a rather broad jump: the history of education - in America, in the world, in (gadzooks!) the Academy-with-a-capital-A - has followed a path of similarly bifurcating plurality. By the mid 19th century, the idea of a liberal arts education was, for all intents and purposes, well established. History was seen as a linear flow of cause-and-effect. Elements of the various social sciences worked in delicate concert to create a well-rounded and culturally mature adult. One could approach a college graduate and all but assume that he'd been schooled in the canon, in the "classics", be it Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, or whatever.

Somewhere during the 20th century, things began to change. The path began to split. And rightfully so. With the rise of modernism and, ultimately, post-modernism, things began to take on a large degree of all-purpose functionality. To vastly over generalize: on the simplest level, it meant that there was more than one way to interpret art: a poem could mean vastly different, even completely opposite, things to different people. More complexly, it meant that history was no longer a straight line. Marxists could trace certain events and, with a surprising alacrity, prove that they were caused by a fundamental class struggle. Simultaneously, radical feminists could take the same series of events and prove that they were caused by a fundamental battle for domination between the sexes.

And, who knows, both might be right. At least, that's the lesson that we've come away with. Precisely because of this, things have gotten (to generalize) pretty murky. Not only is it tough to prove anything as any one cause or effect for anything else, but it's also become quite difficult to even communicate about such things. With this fragmentation of knowledge came the fragmentation of the canon. Different works of literature and philosophy were now important to different institutions and even professors within those institutions.

The end result is a lot of compartmentalization. It seems that there's ultimately less direct cross-fertilization between academic fields while, at the same time, more and more academics who live and work full-time in between areas of study. But, because things become so grotesquely weird once one pops his head out of whatever bunker he's locked himself in, it's easiest to stay inside the climate-controlled, stainless steel walls and grind out another tome to be thrown on the fire when and if the revolution ever comes. For now, though, all this arcane knowledge lives in libraries and, even more, on the 'net. It's impossible to keep up. And certainly more impossible to grasp everything that's going on.

***
Jumping back into the world of hippie music in a not-so-swift manner: the Grateful Dead were, at one point, the canon. There was a clear and linear progression to what was going on. Sure, there were other bands that people tracked - the Allmans, Zero, Max Creek, and the New Riders to name several - but few that inspired the widespread fervor that the Dead did. For the most part, though, one only had to keep up with a little in terms of Deadness, in terms of following "what they do". For example, the introduction of the Beast - a wide array of world percussion instruments - in the late 1970s completely changed the face of the Dead's rhythm section. Ditto for any band member changes. And though it was probably harder to do, I suspect one could keep up with the tapes with a modicum of effort.

The rise of Phish while the Grateful Dead were still at the height of their touring (though not musical) power was the beginning of the split. Phish rode the crest the first wave of modern jambands: Widespread Panic, Blues Traveler, the Spin Doctors, the Aquarium Rescue Unit, God Street Wine (who, unfortunately, fell between crests), and others. A few years later, another wave came up: moe., the Ominous Seapods, Strangefolk, Leftover Salmon, Moon Boot Lover, String Cheese Incident and more. In the past year or two, another wave has swelled, this one including bands like the Disco Biscuits, Sound Tribe Sector 9, Fat Mama, the New Deal, Uncle Sammy, the Big Wu, and... it's gotten to the point where it's a goddamn fucking tsunami. There's simply no way to keep up.

To an extent, Phish is still a common tie between many listeners, but even that's starting to change (though not as fast as some would hope, it seems). Like academia, a lot of people are sticking to their niches. Just as different branches of the Academy have different canons, so do different areas of the scene. It's gotten to the point where the remains of the Grateful Dead - the Other Ones, Ratdog, Phil Lesh and Friends, etc. - make up one canon that some people who used to fervently track the Dead now all but ignore.

Whether or not it will be possible for one band to galvanize a significantly huge amount of people again remains to be seen. Offhand, I'd say probably not. The only situation I see that occurring in is a pretty grim one.

The scene is very overcrowded right now. There are bands out there that were never meant to be heard by a massive amount of people. As the circuit gets bigger, less and less people will be able to make it to individual shows. A lot of bands won't be able to survive and will either be sucked away into the world of compromised mediocrity or disintegrate altogether. Likewise, like it or not, the jamband scene might be considered a fad. Who knows how long the audience for this kind of music will remain this broad? Or worse, shitty bands will proliferate so greatly that they will actually turn people off to this kind of music. It may seem like an overly negative assessment, but I have come into contact with people who violently hate this coagulation because of encounters with mediocre bands.

Right now, the possibilities seem endless, but the universe and the great goddess Fortuna are fickle. If any one of these dystopian scenarios wheezes its way to life, we will be left with a small amount of bands for a small amount of people. Then, and only then, might things return to a kind of comfortable linearity.

Jesse Jarnow knows he sounds ridiculous.