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Atlantic
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
Before the Sphere, There Was the Wall
Picture yourself at a concert. If you're standing by the soundboard, usually near the rear center of the venue, you'll enjoy the best possible version of the band's performance—what the 'sound guy,' whose job it is to make everything coalesce inside the room, hears. But if you step away to grab a beer and end up watching from a different place, you'll hear something else. At an outdoor show, the experience is even more varied, because of the open acoustics and elements such as wind, which break up sound waves. Far too often, the song you've waited all night for may finally reach your ears as a distorted puddle. How does a band ensure that it sounds like the most pristine version of itself, no matter where the show takes place or where the audience listens? In the early 1970s, the Grateful Dead tried to solve this dilemma with the help of their on-again, off-again sound engineer, Owsley 'Bear' Stanley, who conceptualized one of the boldest innovations in music history: a literal 'wall of sound.' On hits such as the Ronettes' 'Be My Baby,' the music producer Phil Spector had famously created a figurative wall of sound by layering instruments and orchestral sweeps. But the Dead's wall was essentially a behemoth sound system, a hulking electrical mess of amps, speakers, wires—like the menacing heavy-metal rig in Mad Max: Fury Road, but far larger, louder, and, perhaps, more ludicrous. The grand idea was both utopian and egalitarian: The wall placed virtually every piece of technology needed for a live show behind the group, allowing the crowd to hear precisely what the Dead heard as they played. The wall, the journalist Brian Anderson writes in his new book, Loud and Clear, 'weighed as much as a dozen full-grown elephants' and 'stretched the length of a regulation basketball court.' At each tour stop, roadies would assemble the nearly 600 speakers that, when operable, stood at about the height of a small apartment building and sounded 'as loud as a jet engine at close range.' During outdoor shows, fans could be up to a quarter mile from the stage and still hear Jerry Garcia's guitar runs with depth and clarity. But a relatively short time after its creation, the complexity and expense of maintaining the wall catalyzed the band's first serious brush with burnout—and, Anderson argues, played a factor in its hiatus. In trying to shorten the pathway from instrument to eardrum, the Dead's wall had simultaneously created a host of previously nonexistent issues. On paper, the wall was a tool to expand the scope of their sky-reaching jams; more than any of their rock contemporaries, the Dead were known for extended, full-band improvisation. But relying on engineering in order to achieve a perfect sound brought a new set of anxieties: Because there was frequently some glitch with the wall, the band was often held back from reliably playing at its best. Stanley helped the Dead reach a new stratosphere of live performance, but he also established an impossible standard—one the band couldn't measure up to. Grateful Dead fandom invites—and thrives on—obsession. Though the Dead's jam-band sound is undoubtedly groovy, many of its songs concern heavy themes such as life and death. There's a deceptive weight to their songs, even when the tunes feel bright; the music is an ongoing search to unlock something hidden in the recesses of your mind. Though the band has a wonderful collection of studio recordings, the real juice is in the live stuff: the thousands of concerts performed over dozens of years, with a different set list every night. There's a lot to get lost in, and from their early days as a touring band, the Dead won legions of stoned and tripping devotees. Anderson's book, though, is dizzying in a different way: It's a detailed, almost show-by-show breakdown of the band's live performances across its first decade (roughly 1965 to 1974), augmented by insider stories. Readers meet not only Stanley but also other engineers, roadies, and crew members who worked long hours under difficult conditions to help the Dead put on incomparable shows. (Many of the roadies also relied on, according to one band member, 'mountains of blow.') But undergirding this occasionally exhausting narrative effort is a tale about the tension between innovation and hubris. The wall was, in a sense, a physical manifestation of a brainiac's acid trip; after Stanley took LSD at a legendary Dead show at an upstate–New York speedway, Anderson writes, he believed that he could weave an unbreakable connection between the wall, the band, and the crowd. His acid-tinged goal with the wall was 'hooking it up to a whole sea of people like one mind,' he said. For years, most other bands had played the same way in concert: with instruments connected to amps, and amps and vocals running through the house PA. Even when traveling with their own sound guy, they'd still be beholden to each venue's setup—unless they toted all of their own gear, which just wasn't realistic. The wall, in theory, allowed for both top-notch sound and show-by-show consistency. In practice, though, it was an unwieldy nightmare. Speakers often blew out or failed mid-show. Stanley drifted in and out of the band's orbit; other engineers and roadies expanded on his original visions. All the while, maintaining the rig became more convoluted: The band kept booking larger venues, thus requiring more sonic power, more crew members, and more attention to detail. Peak functionality was far from guaranteed, and Anderson convincingly makes the case that many early versions of the wall sounded better than the 'official' wall shows in 1974, because the smaller scale allowed for relatively more control (though it was far from an efficient process; early iterations could still take five hours to set up and another five to break down). Within the band itself, the wall was divisive. Bassist Phil Lesh called the wall 'apocalyptic,' but also compared it to the 'voice of God.' For him, the wall allowed for 'the most generally satisfying performance experience of my life with the band.' Bob Weir, who sang and played guitar, called the wall 'insane' and 'a logistical near impossibility.' Drummer Bill Kreutzmann, according to Anderson, said it was a 'creature that was supercool to look at, but impossible to tame.' And Garcia, it seems, would have been fine keeping things a little more down-to-earth. At the wall's official debut, on March 23, 1974, technical difficulties led to Garcia's guitar volume plunging moments into the first song. When you listen to this show today, the beginning sounds, well, kind of crappy. In the end, the Dead played only a few dozen shows with the fully built-up wall, as the cost and draining elaborateness of touring with the device eventually became too much. At the end of 1974, the Dead downsized its crew and, in Garcia's words, 'dumped' the structure. When they hit the road again almost two years later, their sound setup was more practical—in essence, sacrificing the perfect for the sustainable. They remained road dogs until Garcia's death in 1995, and have kept offshoots of the band rolling along since. Though I never saw the band perform with Garcia—I was 7 years old when he died of a heart attack—I've seen its different configurations over the years. Last summer I saw Dead & Company play as part of their residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas. That night demonstrated the clearest and most all-encompassing live sound I'd ever experienced. Most people have heard about the Sphere's mind-bending visuals and mondo LED screens; fewer may realize that it also contains 167,000 individual speakers (including in each seat). Though I was able to lose myself in the show, a very real part of me almost would have preferred hearing these same songs outside in the sun, in an uncontrolled setting, where any number of variables—the breeze, a storm, air pressure—might have affected the sound. Imperfection can feel just as right, in a different way, as technical perfection. It's freeing to accept that something might always be a little off, no matter the herculean effort; the Dead seemed to accept this too. Anderson's book makes a compelling argument that reaching for total audio domination was—and is—a noble endeavor, albeit one rife with pitfalls. But even the most advanced rig in the world doesn't necessarily make the songs any good. That much is up to the band.


The Guardian
31-01-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Melancholy, morphine and the Baader-Meinhof group: Marianne Faithfull's 10 best recordings
Marianne Faithfull's 60s releases were wildly variable, perhaps because she seems to have been beholden to the whims of producers who didn't really know what to do with her: one minute she was recording rounded-edged folk – Cockleshells, What Have They Done to the Rain – the next retooling the Ronettes' Is This What I Get for Loving You? to no great effect. But, occasionally, she rose above it all, injecting her cut-glass delivery with an alarming degree of melancholy, as on Morning Sun. The B-side of her hit This Little Bird, it's a pretty but slender song, driven by what sounds like a echoing harp, that her voice transforms into something weirdly wrenching: 'I'm very sad, tears follow me,' she sings, and she genuinely sounds it. Co-written with Keith Richards and Mick Jagger – the latter also acting as producer – Sister Morphine effectively curtailed Faithfull's recording career at a stroke: it was only the B-side of her comeback single, the Gerry Goffin/Barry Mann-penned Something Better, but in early 1969, the very thought of Faithfull singing about opiate addiction horrified her record company into pulling the plug on the whole enterprise. Presumably part of the problem was that it sounded so authentically damaged and decadent: a raddled country-rock track that appeared to be on the brink of falling apart, Faithfull's tremulous vocal alternately pleading and numbed. She subsequently re-recorded it in the late 70s, but the original version is the one to hear The Broken English album wasn't just a deeply expected comeback, it was a complete reinvention. Its sound spoke of the new-wave present, not the era that had made her famous. Moreover, Faithfull seemed happy to dance on the grave of 60s nostalgia, reporting – with a certain relish – how the decade's excesses had resulted in addiction, her own included, and, on the title track, how its political idealism had curdled into terrorism: its obliquely handled subject is the Baader-Meinhof gang, the Stones's Street Fighting Man turned murderous. It's a fantastic track, Faithfull's ravaged voice rasping over a sparse, tense, cyclical backing made up of electronics and clanging guitar. The Ballad of Lucy Jordan was a song that had been knocking around for years: the saga of a depressed, possibly suicidal housewife, it had been recorded by Lee Hazlewood, country star Johnny Darrell, and, most famously, Dr Hook, a band its author Shel Silverstein regularly worked with. Set to a beatless synth accompaniment courtesy of Steve Winwood, Faithfull's rendering immediately rendered them all null and void, perhaps because her vocal changed the tenor of the song completely. Dr Hook's version is full of pity for its protagonist; Faithfull's was full of an affecting empathy: if she didn't know much about being a housewife, she clearly knew about feeling like you were out of options and had blown your youthful promise. Neither 1981's Dangerous Acquaintances nor 1983's A Child's Adventure were the match of Broken English, although there's scattered highlights on both: For Beauty's Sake, Sweetheart, The Blue Millionaire. But the pick is the closing track from A Child's Adventure. She's Got a Problem starts out lovelorn but calm, Faithfull singing over a backdrop of acoustic guitar, warm electric piano chords and modish fretless bass, but gradually reveals itself to be a song not about romance but alcoholism: 'Will I see whiskey as a mother in the end … will I smash my brains with drinking?' Unsurprisingly, there's no happy ending, just a blank acceptance of fate. Stumped by the commercial failure of her previous albums, the Hal Willner-helmed Strange Weather chose to reinvent Faithfull again, this time as a battered chanteuse and interpreter of others' material – standards, old blues songs by Lead Belly, a track written for Faithfull by Tom Waits – throwing in a mordant torch song re-recording of As Tears Go By for good measure. It was risky, but it paid off. Boulevard of Broken Dreams had previously been recorded by Tony Bennett and Bing Crosby among others, but no one made it feel quite as grimy and raddled as it appears in Faithfull's version, which seems to be emanating from the stage of a particularly seedy nightclub. In the second act of her solo career, Faithfull proved adept at attracting an incredibly high calibre of collaborator. Her first album of original songs in 12 years, A Secret Life was a collaboration with David Lynch's preferred soundtrack composer Angelo Badalamenti, and also featured lyrical contributions from playwright Frank McGuinness. In truth, the material on A Secret Life didn't always work, but when it did, the results were startling: on the chanson-like She, the contrast between Badalamenti's soft-focus and very filmic orchestral arrangement – epic enough to support a mandolin solo! – and Faithfull's rough edged and very human-sounding voice lends the song's lovely melody and lyrics about a protagonist whose tough exterior hides a desperate need for companionship a real emotional impact. Not for the last time, a host of big names queued up to work with Faithfull on Kissin Time: Beck, Jarvis Cocker, Billy Corgan, Dave Stewart. The results were remarkably consistent – it sounds like an album, not a diverse bunch of collaborations – but the jewel is the title track, precisely because it sounds like nothing Faithfull had recorded before. 13-era Blur are the backing band, and the song shares some of that album's loose, experimental feel: bass informed in equal parts by dub and Krautrock, a hypnotic guitar part, ghostly backing vocals. It's both a fabulous song and alien territory, but Faithfull completely rises to the occasion: if you're always aware who's behind the music – you can spot Damon Albarn's voice a mile off – it's also clear that she's in charge. Albarn turned up again on 2004's Before the Poison, but it's largely an album split between collaborations with PJ Harvey and Nick Cave, both of whom are on particularly good songwriting form. Cave co-wrote the exquisite Crazy Love with Faithfull, and it's just fantastic, Warren Ellis's violin wrapping around her vocal, which seems to have a strangely destabilising effect on the lyrics. Ostensibly a song about a dizzying romantic rush, it attracts a strange uncertainty in Faithfull's hands: the way she sings 'I know somehow you'll find me' makes the line sound less optimistic than desperate and doomed. It wasn't her last album – that was She Walks in Beauty, on which Faithfull recited Romantic poetry to Warren Ellis's soundscapes, its recording disrupted by her near fatal brush with Covid – but nevertheless, Negative Capability had a sense of finality and leave-taking about it. It featured Faithfull revisiting songs from throughout her career, and musing on mortality (in part provoked by the death of her friend Anita Pallenberg) and ageing. Co-written by Ed Harcourt, No Moon in Paris is almost unbearably sad, a reflection on fading memories and lost loves, its poignancy heightened by Faithfull's voice, which had been audibly affected by her various health scares: 'Everything passes, everything changes … it's lonely.'