u/StrifeKnot1983

Choice excerpts from a 2022 interview with Fuzzy Frazer who did "mics and PA" for the Dylan & the Dead tour.

https://web.archive.org/web/20231207064545/https://www.flaggingdown.com/p/stories-from-bob-dylans-first-never

>When did you join the Dylan tours?

I started out with Rush in the late '70s and spent six years with them. Then they changed sound companies and I got picked up by Ultrasound, who Dave later joined, and we were doing the Grateful Dead. I was with them [and Dead offshoots] from '83 to '97, something like that. Then if I had to mix Mickey Hart one more time, I was going to open a vein. The Beam, oh my god. Really nice people, don't get me wrong, but you had to pay me to listen to the music.

[...]

>What do you remember about the Dylan and the Dead run before the G.E. years?

I remembered I liked Bob with Petty more than I liked Bob with the Dead because, even though I worked with them for 15 years, I just was not a huge fan of the musicianship. You would sit behind them and listen to the two guys drumming, you'd never know they were drumming to the same song.

Billy was an okay drummer. Mickey was— He's got this reputation as “planet drum,” like he's some world class drummer. Oh my god, there could be nothing further from the truth. You’d go out to the house console and Billy's faders would be all the way up in the mix and Mickey's would be way down. People didn't want to hear that.