There was a particular moment last night in Fire on the Mountain that felt authentic to the spirit of the Grateful Dead. I think Dead & Co. is generally guilty of ego-driven power solos, where they go in a circle and just take turns riffing over a backing track that is “in the pocket.” But there was this moment where you could tell John & Trey were intensely focusing on each other, and they were harmonizing and playing into each other. Less about “here’s the genius coming form my head,” and more like, you’re locked in to the other one, adding to them, and even seeing ahead of them, and dancing back and forth. In the best moments of the original Dead, the whole band locked into a telepathic hivemind, totally unpredictable. High risk, but magic when it works.
John Mayer and Phil Lesh have opposite sensibilities, and that accounts for the biggest difference between Dead & Co. and the Grateful Dead. In the original Dead, it was less about the band keeping a backing track while people took turns with over-the-top heroic solos; instead, they were all soloing at the same time. At their best, there was no focal soloist; they were all listening to each other discerningly, warping forward in an unpredictable direction. They were not trying to compose a solo, but predicting where their bandmate would be in 5 seconds, and trying to augment that. The original spirit was more “telepathic” and unpredictable, where the worst of Dead & Co. feels like a literal circle jerk (John's orgasm face is not the problem; the problem is they should all have that face).
In the spirit of experimenting, I live-streamed myself drafting on Substack Live yesterday. 50 minutes, 2,700 words, 38 viewers. It was interesting to see how that context shaped the writing process. Since I knew people were reading live, it was like I tapped into this unbreakable flow state in order to weave thought together at a rate of 54 wpm. I thought the whole thing was 10-15 minutes and almost missed my train. It’s similar to typewriter brain, but perhaps the opposite in terms of speed. Maybe it’s a mode that’s actually helpful at certain stages of drafting. TBD.
