jürgen fauth’s muckworld

Fewer movies than usual because I’m working on several top secret plans for world domination, we’re still catching up with The Wire, and my obsession with Daniel Plainview shows no signs of abating. (Check out the new entries in the contest.) The notable exception was Etgar Keret’s Jellyfish, a sweet film that plays like minor-key Israeli version of Magnolia. I also tried to talk Marcy into watching Southland Tales, hoping that Richard Kelly’s sophomore disaster might improve upon second viewing. The answer was a resounding no — we didn’t make it past the 15-minute mark.

It’s been a good week for concerts, though. I never blogged about the March 19 benefit for Scotty Hard, a cause that brought all the champions of the downtown groove scene to the Highline Ballroom. My personal highlight was an outrageous and all-too-brief set by elusive dub god Bill Laswell, accompanied by Bernie Worrell. This weekend, Ratdog was back at the Beacon — unlike the Rolling Stones, they’re a band that actually belongs there. I missed Thursday’s sit-ins by Jimmy Herring, Warren Haynes, and Steve Molitz, but witnessed Friday’s ups (Tomorrow Never Knows! Hard Rain!) and downs (ridiculous sound problems during The Weight), as well as Saturday’s just-about perfect four hours of rock’n roll heaven. And now you’ll have to excuse me while I retire to my favorite secure undisclosed location.

The Wire. Season 3. ****
There Will Be Blood. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007. *****
Jellyfish/Meduzot. Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen, 2007. ***
Southland Tales. Richard Kelly, 2007. *

Ratdog
4/4/08 Beacon Theatre, New York NY
I: Jam > Playin’ in the Band > Tomorrow Never Knows > Tennessee Jed, Sitting in Limbo > West L.A. Fadeaway, Even So > October Queen > The Deep End > Big Railroad Blues
II: K.C. Moan, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, The Weight, Eyes of the World, The River Song > Stuff > Dear Prudence > China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider
E: Casey Jones

4/5/08 Beacon Theatre, New York NY
I: Jam > Help on the Way > Slipknot! > Maggie’s Farm, Row Jimmy, Dark Star > Weather Report Suite > Let It Grow
II: You Win Again, City Girls, Victim or the Crime, Lazy River Road > Jack Straw > Dark Star > Stuff, Days Between > Two Djinn > Slipknot! > Franklin’s Tower
E: One More Saturday Night

I’ll take bubbly pop over self-righteous posturing any day, so we’ll lead this post off with the Pet Shop Boys’ brilliant cover of “Where the Streets Have No Name” (with a touch of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.”)

With that out of the way, my review of U2 3D is now up at UGO: “You’ll thrill to the sight of a hundred thousand stoked fans! You’ll duck from under Bono’s flying sweat! You’ll read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — in 3D!”

• My review of U2 3D 

U2 3D. Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington, 2008. ***

All week, I’ve been checking back on PhilLesh.net, hoping for the promised photos from the show, reasoning that you can’t possibly post about Ryan Adams’ birthday party without at least one good shot of Ryan’s green knit pom pom hat. I’ll update if any hat photos ever surface; in the meantime, my own camera-phone shot of Phil seen through my friend Walter’s white shock of late-era Garcia hair will have to suffice.

The shows? Phenomenal. After Halloween’s cover extravaganza, Tuesday’s sets mingled classic rock standards — Dixie Down, Brown Sugar, Revolution — with Grateful Dead warhorses like Deal and Shakedown, and seeing Phil drop Other One bombs from the rail was bone-shatteringly good. I was just beginning to miss the ballads when Death Don’t Have No Mercy, sung by Jackie Greene, provided a rare treat, topped off by a sweet, sweet Brokedown Palace for which I happened to be the audience member closest to Phil. A deeply satisfying concert, as good as anything I’d ever hope to see from anybody who didn’t use to be in my favorite band.

But Monday was the real reason I’ll keep on coming back as long as this music is getting played. After a first set loaded with primal late-sixties Dead grooves enhanced by Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin on sax, the second set was pure Deadhead heaven. It happened to be Ryan Adams‘ birthday, reason enough for Phil to splurge and extend the show until after 1am for four hours of music filled with some of the best tunes in the Dead catalog, played with vigor, love, and inventiveness.

An informal poll conducted on the way out confirmed what we already knew: “That was profound” and “Wharf Rat dominated my skull.” Walter, who’d come in from Düsseldorf to see Phil for the first time since 1994, could hardly have picked a better time–if you’re going to take a transatlantic flight to a rock concert, this was the night. Two more shows this weekend top off what by all accounts has been a stellar 11-night run. Thank you, Phil.

Phil Lesh and Friends, Nokia Theater, 11/5/07
Set 1 (with Steve Berlin)
Brown-Eyed Women, The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion), Viola Lee Blues > Operator> Viola Lee Blues> Next Time You See Me> Viola Lee Blues, Chest Fever, Sugaree
Set 2 (with Ryan Adams)
Happy Birthday Ryan, Eyes of the World> Scarlet Begonias> China Cat Sunflower> Bird Song, Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad, Ripple, I Know You Rider> Uncle John’s Band> Dark Star> Franklin’s Tower> Dark Star
Encore: Wharf Rat

Phil Lesh and Friends, Nokia Theater, 11/6/07
Set 1: Bertha> Deal, Big River, Gone Wanderin’, Just Like Tom Thumbs Blues, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, Cosmic Charlie
Set 2: Brown Sugar> Shakedown Street> Revolution, Beat It On Down The Line> Cryptical Envelopment> The Other One> Death Don’t Have No Mercy> The Other One> Brokedown Palace
Encore: Not Fade Away

Tunes
For your listening enjoyment, audience recordings of Monday’s skull-dominating Wharf Rat encore, Tuesday’s Revolution, and Death Don’t Have No Mercy. Torrents for the Nokia run are up at etree.org in flac format, but if you’d rather grab mp3s, you can download 10/31 (312 MB), 11/5 (247 MB), and  11/6 (229 MB) while the bandwidth lasts.

[audio:WharfRat-071105.mp3]

[audio:Revolution-071106.mp3]

[audio:DeathDont-071106.mp3]

YouTube has a pro-shot clip from the 2005 Jammys, when Ryan first came out as a Deadhead, also with Wharf Rat. If you squint, you can spot me in the audience. Carefully, this clip is brutally cut at the ten minute mark — and Ryan’s not wearing any green knit hats, either.

Reviews on the fan message boards are mixed, but I had a blast at Phil Lesh’s Halloween party on Wednesday night. Halloween’s a major head holiday, and how could you not have fun getting down to Sympathy for the Devil with a room full of hippie witches, blinking aliens, Imperial stormtroopers and the usual assortment of wookies? Phil’s new line-up features the very talented Jackie Greene along with Particle’s Steve Molitz and regulars Larry Campbell and John Molo, and the show was a little heavier on blues jams than on the usual psychedelic freak-outs.

The Werewolves encore was a safe bet, but I don’t think anybody saw the cover of Phish’s Ghost coming. There was an unusual number of first times played (Don’t Let the Devil Take Your Mind, I Put a Spell on You, Boris the Spider, and Sympathy for the Devil) and the second set achieved lift-off with Caution > Voodoo Chile. I’m very much looking forward to the rest of the run, even if my chances of catching any of the rumored sit-ins — there’s talk of Bob, Bob, Ryan, Warren, Levon, and Trey — are pretty slim. I’ll keep adding setlists to this post as we make our way through the Lesh Marathon of 2007.

Phil and Friends, Nokia Theater, NY, NY
Set 1: Shakedown Street> Loose Lucy> Don’t Let the Devil Take Your Mind, Candyman, I Put A Spell on You> Jam> Story of the Ghost> Casey Jones

Set 2: Phil Reads from “The Pit and the Pendulum”, Cryptical Envelopment> Boris the Spider> Caution (Do Not Stop on Tracks) > Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)> The Other One> Cryptical Envelopment> New Speedway Boogie> Fire on the Mountain, Sympathy for the Devil> I Know You Rider

E: Werewolves of London

There are no torrents up yet, but here’s the Grateful Dead playing Warren Zevon’s Werewolves of London on Halloween ‘91, a show that also featured a truly frightening guest appearance by Ken Kesey, reciting e.e. cumming’s “Buffalo Bill is Defunct” mid-Dark Star to commemorate Bill Graham’s death. You can download the entire show from nugs.net. and archive.org.

[audio:Werewolves of London-Grateful Dead.mp3]

They say the show ain’t over till the fat man melts, but that particular show has been over for quite some time now. Yup, Jerry Garcia would have turned 65 today, and I don’t really know what else to say about that. Maybe I’ll just quote Dylan’s eulogy again and link some tunes?

There’s no way to measure his greatness or magnitude as a person or as a player. I don’t think any eulogizing will do him justice. He was that great, much more than a superb musician, with an uncanny ear and dexterity. He’s the very spirit personified of whatever is Muddy River country at its core and screams up into the spheres. He really had no equal. To me he wasn’t only a musician and friend, he was more like a big brother who taught and showed me more than he’ll ever know. There’s a lot of spaces and advances between The Carter Family, Buddy Holly and, say, Ornette Coleman, a lot of universes, but he filled them all without being a member of any school. His playing was moody, awesome, sophisticated, hypnotic and subtle. There’s no way to convey the loss. It just digs down really deep. — Bob Dylan

There’s tons of Jerry on YouTube: with Rick Danko and Janis on the Festival Express, backstage at Woodstock, warming up with Crazy Fingers, playing Bird Song in 1980 and Eyes of the World in ‘91, and taking it way out with Branford — but instead here’s the late ballad So Many Roads, which you just have to love in spite of Jerry’s shorts, Bob’s undershirt, and more than a few flubs.

The Fader had a nice tribute issue a few months back; you can download the entire thing as pdf. Dig deep into the Dead vault at Live Music Archive and David Lemieux’ Taper’s Section. New York heads are celebrating Garcia’s birthday with the Zen Tricksters at B.B. King’s tonight.

Okay, one last tune: I Shall Be Released with the Jerry Garcia Band, 10/31/87:

[audio:I Shall Be Released-Jerry Garcia Band.mp3]

With regular guitarist Mark Karan ill, Bob Weir’s Ratdog is currently touring with Steve Kimock, beloved originator of the K-Wave. Last week’s way-sold-out show at Summer Stage assured everybody who cared to know that wherever they play Grateful Dead music, it’s still “one of the safest places in the world“–and one of the funnest, too. More from Some Dude. Related: Dan compiles GD segues from ‘78.

July 9, 2007 - Central Park Summerstage -New York, NY
Jam > Tomorrow Never Knows > Playin on the Band > Ramble On Rose, El Paso, Corrina, The Weight, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl > Help on the Way > Slipknot! > Stuff > Dear Prudence > Bird Song (reprise) > Slipknot! > Franklin’s Tower
E: U.S. Blues

Listen to Dear Prudence or download the entire show from etree.

[audio:rd2007-07-09t12_Dear Prudence.mp3]

Even though a certain red-headed guitar player is conspicuously absent this year and only a single surviving member of the Grateful Dead is performing, I’m packed and ready for Tennessee. Where else but Bonnaroo am I going to be able to catch The Slip, Wilco, Ornette Coleman, Gogol Bordello, Hot Tuna, Mavis Staples, David Cross, Lily Allen, and a superjam with John Paul Jones, Ben Harper, and ?uestlove, all in the same cow field?

A week or two ago, I posted about Bonnaroo7 acts I haven’t seen before. Hidden Track begins its coverage with those dread scheduling conflicts. Bonnawho’s Who has in-depth entries for every performer in the lineup. Over the weekend, you’ll be able to stream a number of shows live, and if you’re dying for a Jürgen fix, you’re welcome to check my Twitter page. Time and signal strength permitting, I’ll post the occasional camera phone shot of Sting to flickr. And now if you’ll excuse me, I gotta hustle so we don’t end up in Camp Austin Powers again….

Seen Anything Good Lately?
Whenever this question gets asked, either the music’s too loud or I’m preoccupied with chasing down hors d’oeuvres, so here’s a more considered answer. For my money, the best current releases in New York are Once, Away from Her, and Day Night Day Night — and The Host is still playing, too. You might also like The Wendell Baker Story, Severance, and Hot Fuzz. (I haven’t seen Brand Upon the Brain!, 28 Weeks Later, or Rolling Like a Stone.) If you happen to find yourself in Germany, you must not miss INLAND EMPIRE. Also, Ray Pride informs us that Nicholas Geyrhalter’s Our Daily Bread premieres on TV next week.

This Week in Dead History
Much thanks to Daniel A. and Ace Cowboy for reminding me of the Taper’s Section, where Grateful Dead archivist David Lemieux releases new mp3s every week. I’ve just barely scratched the surface but so far I’ve dug The Music Never Stopped (4/27/78), Dark Star (5/7/72), and Estimated Prophet>Uncle John’s Band (4/12/82.) Tons more where that came from.

Must Be A Good Cause If They Have a Button
You might have noticed the button on the sidebar enticing you to support the National Book Critics Circles’ efforts to save book reviewing. More from Lizzie Skurnick, AWFJ, and Salman Rushdie on The Colbert Report.

Rebel without a Pause
As you can see, the new camera appears to be well-suited for bones, skaters, and strange brides. It has also been indespensable in our ongoing attempts to solve the Mansion Mystery:

Speaking of the neighborhood: for those who like to order in, Joey in Astoria’s Floozgrl maintains a Flickr pool with handy Astoria menus.

Extreme Navelgazing
Google Book Search reveals that through the magic of MySpace, Lauren Cerand and myself have now become characters in Twins.

The Graphic Novel Was So Much Better
GalleyCat found the trailer for Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. The first comic book adaptation I can get behind since Ghost World.