A new lease on life for the Dead, Ratdog
Friday, November 17, 2000
bergen.com
RATDOG: And the Persuasions. 8 p.m. Saturday. Call for prices. Hammerstein Ballroom, 311 W. 34th St., Manhattan. (212) 502-4581. Also: And Hot Tuna, 7 p.m. next Friday, $30, Convention Hall, Boardwalk and Ocean Avenue, Asbury Park, (732) 502-4581.
By ED CONDRAN
Special to The Record
During the mid- to late Nineties, Bob Weir said Ratdog would release its first album.
You can't blame fans of the loose, eclectic rock band, which formed in 1988, for rolling their collective eyes. Weir's former group, the Grateful Dead, was less than prolific -- during the legendary band's final 14 years, the Dead released two albums: 1987's "In the Dark" and 1989's "Built to Last."
Finally, Weir is true to his word. The vocalist-guitarist and his band released their debut album "Evening Moods" in October.
"I wanted to put out an album earlier, but it really wasn't practical," Weir said during a phone call from Milwaukee, Wis. "We were going through so many players [during the mid-Nineties]. It would have been fun to do new material and record it, but the reality of the situation was that I seemed to always be teaching the old book [Grateful Dead material] to these guys. But once the lineup settled, it didn't take long to write the songs."
Weir, 53, and his band mates -- bassist Rob Wasserman, keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, drummer Jay Lane, saxophonist Dave Ellis, and harpist Matthew Kelly -- penned two albums' worth of tunes from February to April of '98. Weir enjoyed crafting the songs with the rest of Ratdog as opposed to bringing in lyricist Robert Hunter, who penned the words to much of the Dead's vast canon.
"This was the right thing to do," Weir said. "There's nothing like working with people who are emotionally invested in the songs like a band is. That made a huge difference."
"Evening Moods" contains a number of pretty, melodic midtempo rock tracks. "Welcome to the World," inspired by the birth of Weir's daughter, now 3, is one of his most moving compositions. "Ashes and Glass" features some nifty harmonizing. Blues icon Robert Johnson's gritty characters inspired the straightforward "Bury Me Standing," and Ratdog displays its loose, funky side on "Odessa."
"The songwriting process was very simple," Weir said. "I just followed my muse and it all flowed naturally."
Ratdog, which performs Saturday at the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan and next Friday at Convention Hall in Asbury Park, won't render more than three or four new tracks a night. "I would be remiss if I let it slip under that amount," Weir said. "The first order of business is the new material, but there's a lot more on the set list."
But fans can expect a healthy dose of Grateful Dead material, because Weir has rediscovered his passion for his former group's tunes.
Weir avoided Dead material for a few years after Jerry Garcia's death in 1995.
"It was a little too much for me to take on," Weir said. "But you know, I missed playing those songs, and I think Jerry would like his songs and my songs from the Dead to continue to be played. It's funny how things have turned out, since Ratdog was originally my vacation from the Dead, but now I do the Dead covers."
And it's interesting that Weir dubs the rendition of the songs "Dead covers," because he wrote many of the tracks.
"That's true," Weir said with a laugh. "Maybe I shouldn't be phrasing it that way. Regardless, the songs are strutting their stuff. You can't have enough Dead songs at our shows." |
