Friend of the Devil!
In just-released news, it is being reported that Malibu stand-out Jonah Hill has been cast to play Jerry Garcia in an upcoming Martin Scorsese film about The Grateful Dead. Per Deadline:
After stepping up as a producer on his next film Killers of the Flower Moon, Apple has found its next Martin Scorsese project, and its subject is a band the Oscar winner knows well. Sources tell Deadline that Scorsese is on board to direct and produce a new untitled biopic on the Grateful Dead with Jonah Hill on board to play the group’s frontman, Jerry Garcia.
Hill will also produce the pic through his Strong Baby banner along with his producing partner Matt Dines.
Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who received rave reviews for penning American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson, are writing the script with Rick Yorn of LBI Entertainment joining Hill and Scorsese as producers. The Dead’s Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann will executive produce along with their late bandmate’s daughter Trixie Garcia, Eric Eisner and Bernie Cahill.
As you know, well, I grew up on the Oregon coast and The Dead would regularly lope through the state being followed by people I considered my sworn enemies. I did not like The Grateful Dead’s music, I did not like their dancing bears, I did not like their fans, I did not like the length of their songs, I did not like the overall, or underlying, aesthetics.
Psychoanalysts might discover that my dislike stemmed from the iconic Grateful Dead “steal your face” or “lightening skull” logo. When I first saw it, sometime in elementary school, I assumed the band played some form of heavy metal or heavy metal-adjacent. When I first discovered the song title “Friend of the Devil” I knew they must play some form of heavy metal, not even adjacent.
Like Twisted Sister.
When I heard long acoustic guitar riffs, great confusion descended and has not dissipated.
Do you like The Grateful Dead?
Will you watch the movie?
David Lee Scales, who happens to be named after David Lee Roth from light welterweight metal Van Halen, and I discussed many things on our podcast today including surf film and white tennis shoes but did not discuss Hill’s turn as Garcia.
Would have been a lot cooler if we did.
Listen here.
That is really cruel. That is why I prefer Savannah over other beach resorts. Tybee Island’s beach is fantastic! I’m planning a trip back there next month; do you have any recommendations for places to visit? I already found some great ones on https://visittybee.com/beaches but I am very much open still to suggestions! Thank you so much!
Kudos to the writer of this for being a close-minded piece of shit. Well done. Always good to hate music based on a dancing bear and a “lightening skull.” (What a loser.)
No one’s going to comment on that weird garage sale flea market looking wall of sound thing that was invented to for their shows?
🤜🤛
GD was the #1 money making band on tour for years. They have a huge fanbase. You can hate them, but it doesn’t mean they are bad!
Chas… your tying in the latest pathetic escapades of VAL boy Jonah into your weekly piece to promote the latest Grit podcast episode should be used in post-graduate-level journalism schools across the western hemi as example of “pulling in the reader”… I only teach 3rd grade writing myself, so I bow to you on this masterful hook, line, and sinker… btw… the white leather Airwalk hi-top skate shoes from the late 80’s/early 90’s were/are a full-blown, dry-head except-for-the-spit barrel…
Love them or hate them, Jerry could play the guitar ( or mandolin or banjo). The Dead were not my speed but they did manage to create a couple of classic albums in the 70s. Also not sure why they didn’t get someone with some Mexican background to play Jerry. I wonder if Scorsese just thought ” Who do I know that’s chubby and can grow a beard?”
Nice deductive reasoning.! You sound quite familiar with West Coast psychedelics during that time.
Sadly that could never get made. The jokes those guys told are so non PC that people would lose their minds. That was when comedy was comedy and men were men
Who are the dead? And why is this fat jew following me ?
Used to be.
America is the blues.
I think the British sound like they are copying something.
I love the Stones but they are definitely borrowing from someone else’s culture.
Most on here won’t get it because they don’t know much about music and that’s OK. Miles, Trane, Dylan, Tony Rice, Jerry, Muddy, Waylon, Prince, Merle, Monk, Stevie, etc…..these are the giants of American music that transcend genres and fanbases. Most hear 2 minutes of the Dead and don’t get it and move on but it is indeed an acquired taste. Much like surfing, 90% of Deadheads won’t try to get you to understand the music…there’s already enough of us out here.
But lemme make it clear, the day Jerry died is the day the Dead died. All this crap that came afterwords is crap.
Also yes it would’ve been way cooler if you guys talked about this on the pod
You were spot on until the end. The day Jerry died, the Grateful Dead died, but the spirit, and the bus, kept rollin’ on. To deny that is just pathetic. While every band since 8/9/95 involving members of the Good Ol’ GD never equalled the Good Ol’ GD, that doesn’t mean it didn’t contain the Dead’s spirit, including the spirit of our beloved departed friend Jerry. To say the music since that day is crap is a close-minded, bullshit lie.
Everyone has differing opinions about music that’s what makes it great. The dead without Jerry? Nah…..especially when you start including guys like John Mayer and Trey….yuck
DUUUUDE! Spend some time deep in the Dead’s lyrical genius of Robert Hunter and his take on Americana and the West as it once was. As for the lengthy jams, no thank you but studio Dead is solid and they always had great bootleg swag at the shows. The Blotter was generally good and the shrooms made the shows tolerable. But shrooms won’t be enough to watch this biopic with Jonah involved as the disconnect is too great just as it is with John Mayer on stage these days regardless of their impressive talent
This man gets it. Tho I’ll watch the flick if it gets good reviews from friends.
Not unlike listening to a BeeGees song, we will all watch it but will limit which friends know we watched.
I’ve read all the comments so far. The band’s name alone should garner some sorta respect.. Can’t say the same for 90’s Blink…, Sub… any of the flat brimmed ball cap, tattooed stuff. Think I
I’m going to have a look what Longtom upto.
Yep yep
That movie would be the tits.
Weir everywhere. Just Philin up space…
We have tapped a vein of knowledge of GD that many didn’t know lurked here.
My little brother just mapped that next trip out for us. Need to process all that is going on….
Well that movie looks guaranteed to be a pile of shit.
Seth Rogen would at least have been a better choice for the role.
Having listened to less than ten minutes of the Grateful Dead in my whole life, I agree that they are a huge pile of shit Chas so maybe Jonah is suitable after all.
I thought they were gonna be heavy blues rock and was extremely disappointed with the crap poorly arranged and amateurishly played country sound I was hearing when some old mate put it on the stereo that one short moment I heard them in the mid ’80’s.
It’s laughable that some considered them to possess accomplished musicianship.
A huge pile of unlistenable crap made by, and for, boring fucks…
I don’t like them. But you have a very strong opinion for 10 minutes of exposure.
Rest of your criticisms/judgements reflect your ignorance.
It’s ok, you’re blowing off steam and it smells when you farted. Either way, bad energy out!
Paarrppfffttttzzzzz
Ten minutes of that crap was enough to turn any nonboring person off for life.
Whereas unlimited time of Zeppelin, Sabbath, the Stooges or anything else with grunt, pounding drums and loud guitars was never enough to quench the fires (and which suited the oceans own powerful wave energy to boot haha).
P.S.
Never trust a hippy for anything, especially fart powered steam energy…hehe
I’m a zep dude, always been. It’s like no other music existed.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Exactly.
A very amateurish poorly played awfully sung boring students never-ending jam rendition of what’s a genuinely powerful song in the hands of its original artist.
P.S.
But hey, I’m sure they were having fun and their crowd was too out if it to know the difference…
“We’re like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.”
― Jerry Garcia
“There’s no way to measure his greatness or magnitude as a person or as a player. I don’t think eulogizing will do him justice. He was that great—much more than a superb musician with and uncanny ear and dexterity. He is the very spirit personified of whatever is muddy river country at its core and screams up into the spheres. He really had no equal. There are a lot of spaces and advances between the Carter Family, Buddy Holly and say, Ornette Coleman, a lot of universes, but he filled them all without being a member of any school. His playing was moody, awesome, sophisticated, hypnotic and subtle. There is no way to convey the loss. It just digs down really deep.” – bob dylan
boring fucks… Your analysis is amazing. Lol. #1 gross money making band for YEARS.
Dead heads were harmless vagabonds with good acid who cruised through town with easy girlfriends. Music was good, but not worth full devotion and most of them did not surf…. which we viewed as a good thing.
Now everyone surfs and there is no good acid, easy chicks are on your phone if you can only put it down long enough to grope them. Consenting of course.
It’s so much better now to have formulaic, 2 minute renditions of a catchy chorus with no guitar solo’s or playing! All that pesky musicianship. So self absorbed.