Women Who Behave

I just finished a class titled Artists & Audiences. It was taught by Robert Christgau, and was a combination music history and music criticism class. The first paper was a short discussion of one of your favorite bands (I did Mindless Self Indulgence), the second was about a pre-rock figure (I wrote about Richard Wagner and The Ring Cycle), and the final was again writing a long discussion about a band.

For this third paper, I had a tough time deciding who I wanted to write about. I'd already tackled They Might Be Giants, so they were out. The Dresden Dolls have also appeared in papers for two separate classes, so they were also out. I thought about writing about Led Zeppelin, as they were the first band I got really obsessed with, but a part of me decided I didn't want to. Then I realized that since this was supposed to be partly a research paper, I should do The Grateful Dead.

My parents are Deadheads. I've always known that. I know the basic members of the band, and many of the songs, but I never actually knew the full history of the band. So, I decided I could use this as a way to maybe figure out my parents a little better. I did, but not in ways I expected because I decided to focus the paper on the Dead's attitude towards the bootlegging of their shows and how it greatly differed than most other bands' views on the subject. I went and found some really interesting articles on the subject, and even formally interviewed my mom. It's been fun, and multiple of my parents friends requested copies before I even had decided what I was focusing on. I decided to reproduce it here as well.

( Be warned: It's 9 pages long in my word processor )

It was also a lot of fun to write this because I'm heading to my first Dead show three days after I get home. May 16th they finish up the tour they're currently on at The Gorge in George, Washington. I'm not completely positive it will be my first Dead show, but the concert I do remember was when I was small. I can really only remember being surrounded by my parents' Deadhead friends and tye-dye. It was at Memorial Stadium in Seattle, so it may have been during Bumbershoot, but my dad thinks it also might have been The Jerry Garcia Band or several other acts that attracted the same Seattle hippie scene. So, this May will be my first official Dead show. It's going to be a great time, and researching for and writing that essay has given me a nice anticipation.

It's funny how little brothers do eventually grow up and stop being a pain-in-the-ass most of the time. They also stop being literal little brothers. This is especially good news coming from mine because all my friends who met him agreed in the past that he was one of the worst younger siblings out of all of ours. Also, Graham used to be a shrimp. As of halfway through winter break he is taller than me. That was a funny one: I leave for college and he's shorter than me. I get home for winter break and we're the same height. I leave a month later and he's taller than me. Anyway, to get back on topic, we had a lot of fun this past weekend up at Whistler. We used to whine and moan and fight when none of our friends were able to accompany us up, but we had a good time in each other's company. We both proudly sport goggle burns from end-of-the-season skiing (I got down to my tank top it was so damn hot! Wish I'd worn sunscreen though.), and had a nice 4 hour car ride home earlier today. Quite a change from the pest who would sit in the back seat of our van while my friend and I were in the middle and poke my friend (who was meeting my family for the first time and hanging out with me outside school for the first time) incessantly while asking odd and pointless questions. (Yes, Dave, that was you. I'm not sure if you remember this, but it was quite embarrassing for me at the time.)

Also, it's funny having the same friends as my parents. There's a band based out of Whistler that we've gotten to know over the almost-ten years we've had our cabin up there. It's made of two guys, Doug and Greg, and they are an amazing cover band. Their library is about 600+ songs that anyone can request while they're performing, and just the two of them can fill a bar with sound making it seem like there ought to be five people on stage. We got into them because a lot of these songs tend to be the Grateful Dead, and my parents are pretty big Dead Heads. I think my first concert may have been the Dead when they played Bumbershoot in '92 or '93. But I can't clearly remember anything other than being there with my parents, and Memorial Stadium being filled with tye-dye and dancing. So, likely it was. Anyway, yeah, Doug and Greg cover a lot of Dead stuff, and over the ski seasons that we've kept showing up to their shows, they've eventually gotten to know us. It was when we discovered Greg's other band, the Zeppelin-cover band Whole Lotta Led, that I started to connect. That was when I was really really into Zep and could keep up with him on trivia. Well, I still can, but I'm not as Zeppelin-centered as I was.

So, this weekend I helped The Hairfarmers set up for a couple of their gigs, and did some other general roadie-like stuff. (Tuned Doug's guitar. Did sound check. Plugged shit in.) Then, last night, my entire family, them, Greg's fianceé Cara, our friends-through-the-band Ian and Laura, and Laura's parents and sister and brother-in-law, all went out to dinner. Five(ish) bottles of wine and renditions of everything from The Beatles and REO Speedwagon to The Spice Girls and Aqua (with many a Monty Python quote in-between) later, Ian and Laura introduce us to the plan to play midnight Bocce Ball at the public court next to the 7-11. But first, of course, we must stop at Citta', a bar that Doug and Greg frequently play the patio of. My brother got carded at the door (at 15, he still looks too young to pass for even 19), so after one drink my mom decides that she doesn't want to play Bocce but still wants to appear mother-like, so can't go home before I do. Thus, my brother and I were shooed back to the cabin. It was pretty funny, as when Greg (who was keeping my brother company outside at the moment) heard the plan he immediately grasped her reasoning, laughed, and said he'd see me in a month. As I'd already said farewell to everyone inside, my brother and I trekked back to the car. I don't actually know how long my parents stayed as I went to bed as soon as I got home and the morning was a busy mess of packing and loading up the cars and my brother and I leaving by 10:30. I'll have to ask them how the evening ended later...
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Sadly, Lauren is leaving for the summer to go back to Connecticut (she's only been home for two weeks and I've only gotten to see her once so far). Her plane takes off at midnight, so Carolyn and I, and hopefully Abby, will head over for one last dinner.
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In more exciting news, Alan is definitely coming up for about a week in June. He lands in Seattle on the 24th, and I'm whisking him up to Whistler, but also gonna make sure he gets to check out life down here. Now we just need to confirm me going down in August. I really need to talk to Uncle Dave about Northwest perks, as he's a Captain now and so far they are the cheapest company in order to get down. However, the weekend I was thinking about going is a weekend that Alan's parents have a wedding, so his dad needs to know for sure if I'll be coming. If I don't Alan goes to the wedding too. So, I need to talk to Uncle Dave soon, but I think he left yesterday or today for Japan. Crap.
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MSI concert on Friday. That should be super fun. Graham can't come, so I get to go down early and snag a good spot in line. I'm not SO excited for The Birthday Massacre, who's opening, but I'll probably try to stake out a barrier spot for their set anyway. Beats joining the mad rush that will occur as soon as they vacate the stage. I haven't been to the Showbox SoDo, so that should be interesting.
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farmanimalsrock, you asked me about Seattle and NYU. Well, here's the story: I was pretty sure I was just gonna apply to a bunch of schools and do either a general degree until I could pick a science-y major, or go pre-med. But then I realized that everyone and their dog wants to be a doctor nowadays, and I don't have the drive for that kind of competition, so I started looking at other types of degrees. My mom suggested something with music, because according to her I never shut up about the stuff. I knew I didn't have the talent or the desire to perform, and needed to perform to go into teaching, so I thought more about the business end of the industry. Turns out there's a program at NYU called Recorded Music, and something similar at USC in LA. So I applied to those and to a few other schools. Also, my dad's old frat brother's daughter is a year older than me, and also goes to NYU, so we got to hear her stories about it being fun and exciting as I was applying, so I started to really really want to go there. Amazingly enough, I got in to both music programs, and decided that New York is a lot cooler than LA. 1) I like seasons. 2) I've grown up hearing stories about my parents living there in the 80s when my dad was at NYU for grad school. So, now I live in New York for most of the year and go to NYU, but I'm currently home in Seattle for the summer. Ironically enough, I thought coming home and getting a summer job would be easy. But, Seattle's in a bit of an economic slump so even though I've applied to like 30 places I've only heard back from one. But the only job I applied for in New York went through. Had I stayed for the summer, I could be earning money. Now I'm here and have an uncertain employment future. Blech. BUT I love it here so it's okay.