Grateful Dead listening party tonight with guest host, Eric Krasno. Should be an interesting night with picks we haven’t heard. I don’t know about you, but it’s blazing hot where I am. Staying inside and listening to the show is a great end to a long weekend. Speaking of which, how was your weekend?
I know people ask this all the time is this sub,but what should I go for out of these?
My goal is something to stack with a tube screamer (e.g. slow dancing solo), but also for a base drive to push my amp a bit harder (e.g. good love is on the way by John Mayer trio or crumbling empire by Sam fender)
These are all in the price bracket I have atm,because I’m also buying a delay pedal for €100(carbon copy).
I think it’s obvious I’m a fan of Mayer,but I want to have a bit of versatility
Also open to other suggestions.
Edit:Amp is a boss katana gen 3
This song pulls every emotion in my soul
And I think That the urgency under the calm delivery sneaks up on you
By the final verse “words in stone, kids grown, still dancing” it's less a guarantee and more a fragile hope
And all the way through, the song fades out still waiting, and somehow that’s exactly why it stays with you.
Both are still factory sealed
Inside Wants Out self released version from 1999 (with Neon 12:47 am)
Aware records Room For Squares pre-Columbia release
I guess I probably shouldn't open them...
I genuinely don't know how anyone can go below B. Even the songs I play the least are still songs I enjoy.
I know he's done an acoustic cover of Kid A, but I was thinking about how awesome it would be for him to cover Jigsaw Falling into Place by Radiohead
One of my favourite tracks from Born and Raised. Thanks for listening!
Hi r/JohnMayer,
As many of us here know, I had the privilege of writing John Mayer’s biography, and while writing it I came across something really insightful about songwriting and creativity that I keep thinking about.
In the Born & Raised Tour: John Mayer G+ Hangout, John said:
"My inspiration has kind of always come from enjoying the sound of someone else’s music. I’m still discovering music that’s existed before I was born. And there’s so much music out there in the world that you sort of stumble on something […] So I find something new that I hear that really moves me and I say to myself, I would love to know what that’s like to create. So I sort of study it. I’m very inspired by having a song like a song I love.
[…] And if you study it correctly, you actually don’t sound like it. If you study it incorrectly you sound just like it. If you study it correctly, you actually break it down to its smallest particle, then you can rebuild it and nobody, not even yourself, will notice that it actually came from—I mean, I could play you a song and I’d say, I heard this one song, and I wanted to make a song just like it, and you’d go, “it sounds nothing like it.” Because you studied the song enough to break down what it is about it that moves you. It’s not really the chords or the lyrics, it’s some other little intent."
As a musician too, it really challenged the way I thought about influence in music and now I see it as a positive way to create art by emulating what we another song makes us feel.
Did you personally come across any JM songs that you feel are directly inspired by other famous songs?
And if you're a songwriter yourself, have you ever consciously tried to "study" a song this way?
It’s that feeling of holding onto one last chance without ever saying what the chance actually is.
A person. A season. Hope. Peace.
The song leaves just enough unsaid that it somehow becomes about whatever you’re running toward.
And maybe the silence it leaves behind is louder than the lyrics themselves…
Do you guys miss the old days as much as me? When John was touring and doing current mood? I know a lot has changed but times don’t feel right now. A John tour would heal me I’m sure it would heal a lot of you too! His music his banter I miss it!
I've been listening to John Mayer since I was a kid.
The songs never changed. I did and somehow they kept meeting me where I was.
Every few years I come back to the same albums, the same solos, the same lyrics I thought I understood when I was younger... and somehow they've changed. Or maybe they were waiting for me to grow into them.
It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't listen to him.
His music doesn't just soundtrack your life it grows alongside it.
There's something almost miraculous about writing that is so simple on the surface, yet so endlessly deep. No unnecessary complexity. Just truth. The kind of truth that quietly finds the parts of yourself you couldn't put into words.
In a world that often feels loud, rushed, disconnected, and impossible to make sense of, his music somehow says, "I know." It reminds you that someone else has stood where you're standing. That your fears, your longing, your mistakes, your hope, your love, they've all been felt before.
And somehow that makes carrying them a little lighter…
And I think, long after we're gone there will still be someone pressing play on a song he wrote decades earlier, hearing it for the first time, and feeling understood in a way that's almost impossible to describe.
What a rare gift that is.
Attempting to learn it and the rhythm portion for the accelerated portion is so difficult… and he improvised it???
Hey now!
We’re back to John’s picks tonight. It will be interesting to see if Don’s episode inspired tonight’s picks.
With summer in full swing, and many of us coming up on a holiday weekend, what is your go to show to listen to on a road trip? I’ll start with Dead and Company in Boulder, CO on July 3, 2023. 😂
John: The contours of grief are interesting and surprising to say the least and this has been a tough week for John in terms of losing Bobby. Your dreams are like TV shows that you’re forced to watch. They set you up emotionally for the day.
He doesn’t want to fake his way through this or cry all over us, so he’s going to play a few he wants to talk about and then some “best of” GDLP songs.
He thanks you in advance and from afar for understanding that sometimes you just get punched in the face with grief.
These first two are ones he heard in Andy Cohen’s apartment.
A gentle Althea from Barton Hall, but not the most famous one. It’s from 1981 (and he’s gone on a 1981 spiral which he’ll share in a future show).
Althea - 5/16/81 - Barton Hall, Ithaca, NY
John: How grief works continues to flumoxx scientists.
Every once in a while you have a dream that you’re playing on stage with the band and you wake up and there’s no band. It’s just going to hit you some weeks. He’s not trying to avoid working, it’s just been a gut-punch kind of week. It’s probably like that for you too some weeks. He doesn't want to be crying all over us. He wants to be dancing in the streets!
When he was with Andy Cohen in NYC this week, he and Andy agreed that the only Dancing in the Streets that matters is from Cornell University 1977. He’s not the biggest fan of Dancing in the Streets, but he is a fan of THIS version of Dancing in the Streets.
Dancing In The Street - 5/8/77 - Ithaca, NY
John: He realized part of why he likes doing the show so much is because it reminds him of writing a setlist with the guys, but he misses having Bobby push back with “well. . .” and Bobby was always right because he was the guy that wrote the songs.
This is widely regarded by Deadheads as the best performance of 1990.
It is one of the most satisfying tunes to play for the artists, and it’s satisfying for the listener.
Ramble On Rose - 3/29/90 - Nassau, NY
Where was I when memory? Lost Sailor into Saint of Circumstance is one of John’s favorite Bob Weir compositions.
He was at Hotel Cafe in LA and his back went out. He went back to the hotel (where he was living at the time) and took a pain killer which did nothing for his back but much for his wellbeing (at least temporarily). He stood in the bathroom since he was without an amp and he had a phone on the sink recording him figuring these songs out.
Lost Sailor is one of the moments he’ll miss the most with Bob being gone as Bob had this dreamy place he went to when he played.
Lost Sailor > Saint of Circumstance - November 30, 1980 - Fox Theatre, Atlanta, GA
John: John: It’s Dead & Co. archives - he notes that it’s the first time he’s recognizing this as an archive now, but he’s holding onto the honor and not the sadness of this being an archive.
Saratoga Springs was a very important place. They never played a bum tune there. It’s a Thunderdome of groove and love. (and the place John once threw out his back playing wiffle ball).
This tune was often a second set tune. John loved kicking it off knowing that they were going to be there awhile (so settle into your beanbag chair). The end of it would become a kind of sermon and John could answer with little guitar bits.
He’s Gone -6/17/23 -SPAC
John: He thanks us for letting him play GDLP songs from the past.
Getting hit with the realization of it just happened in January. And we have to be kinder to ourselves and ride those waves. We’re going to something he’s always loved, Jack Straw from 1974. It’s a shortie and he thinks we need that right now.
Jack Straw - 6/16/74 - Des Moines, IA
John: Pigpen is about sing for us. Great singer and harmonica player. He was in the band until 1972. This is while the Dead in ‘69 was still a rollicking blues band. There’s something about hearing a band that is about to create a catalogue that is colorful and melodic.
Sometimes he thinks to himself, “they have no idea.”
Hard to Handle - 12/12/69 - Los Angeles, CA
John: Occasionally there’s a song he can play for us that he thinks will be a mindchanger.
On this next instrumental track, Jerry is doing Clapton/BB King things. This is really more of Jerry with a band and Merl Saunders. It’s a Stevie Wonder cover.
John discovered this when he took a seaplane to the Hamptons and Andy picked him up there and reminded him it existed. The song is blazing.
I Was Made to Love Her - 5/21/71 - San Francisco - w/ Merl Saunders
John: What’s better than a real good Bertha?
For that matter, what’s better than a bad Bertha? It’s like pizza.
This is from the very famous week of May ‘77 that produced the Cornell recording. He’s an expert on May ‘77 Dead. This is a great mix. There's lots of drums, a waterfall of rhythm and Phil's bass sounding great as well.
Bertha - 5/3/77 - New York, NY
John: Next week’s guest host is Eric Krasno! He’s a talented guitar player. John first met him when he was in Soulive. He preceded John in the existence inside the GD universe. He and John have stayed friends. John says next week’s playlist is very clever and something for us to look forward to.
He’s leaving off with a song so important to him and to others. John did sing Standing on the Moon the first two or three times Dead & Co did it, and then Bobby decided he wanted to sing it, so John let him. It was just how it should be. John believes it was Jerry speaking through Bobby’s signing. John’s guitar-playing toward the end of them playing this was him communing with Jerry and Bobby. John played it a little like sax lines. He played repeated lines like a soprano sax with the idea that he was sending the lines up to the moon.
He and Bobby were on Artemis -1/Artemis 0 to visit a guy up there named Jerry.
Thank you for helping him move forward and he hopes he’s helped us move forward.
Standing on the Moon - 7/3/23 - Boulder, CO
Not Fade Away - 7/3/23 - Boulder, CO
2019 shirt is a small, 2017 shirt is a medium, and 2022 shirt is a large
PM me if interested.