Former Sleater-Kinney guitarist/vocalist Carrie Brownstein blogs at NPR, and her latest post has a fully cleared MP3 mix that has tracks by the likes of Pylon and Wire, and is appended with a note: "This mix was supposed to have the Grateful Dead on it, whose music I really love, but they refused unless we promised to do a piece on them on All Things Considered. In addition, we would need to run a feature on The Dead on the site. Here's a sentence I've never written: Someone needs to take a bong hit and chill out. Just a simple 'no thanks' would have sufficed. Are The Dead really in need of publicity? Because I swear there's a dancing bear sticker on every third car I see in Portland." Hey, they're just trying to take blog payola to the next level! Never underestimate those dancing bears' marketing savvy. [Monitor Mix; HT BV]
touch of presumptiousness
Grateful Dead To NPR: You Scratch Our Back, We'll Lightly Pat Yours
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4:30 PM on Tue May 13 2008
By Maura Johnston
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16 comments






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Here's a thought...
Tour as "The Dead" again.
While entertaining, Ratdog and Lesh & Friends just can't compare to the synergy they have together as one unit. The lot has been the best thing about either of their shows for the last few years.
Phil can still jam (he's awesome), but Bobby needs to drop the lame covers like Penny Lane, and maybe bring back the short shorts. LOL!!!
Oh... and play Dark Star and more of the blusey tracks!!!
And get rid of the damn dancing bears!
Incinerate them forevermore and go back to the skeletons and the badass shit.
And also possibly a few shirts that aren't tie dyed. Please for the love of God!
I've been fighting with my Sleater-Kinney loving brother all day about this. I thought it was unfair of Brownstein to spill the beans on this, even though the Dead corporation's request was totally absurd. After all, even though they didn't use the song, writing about the incident is actually even more effective in drawing traffic than including Friend Of The Devil in the podcast. So she leveraged the Dead organization's stupidity (well known to one and all) into free pub for her blog. Carrie gets threatening comments from Deadheads, The Dead take another black eye for their hilariously bad business practices, and in some remote Mexican hotel, Jerry Garcia chuckles softly.
so she's giving the Dead free publicity on the site by bitching about not being able to give the Dead free publicity via podcast because they want more free publicity on the site?
@Captain Wrong: I think that about covers it.
I just keep imagining the scene with James Earl Jones fending off Kevin Costner in Field Of Dreams: "Rules? No, there are no rules here!"
Pretty savvy move by Carrie, I'd say. Up until this moment, I didn't even know her blog existed. Now I do.
Double motherfuck The Dead. They were worse than the Holocaust.
@NeverEnough: I have no problem imagining Ian saying that.
@Dick Laurent is dead.: @Dick Laurent is dead.: Agreed... except he'd sound far cooler saying it than I do. Speaking of Ian (and Will), a friend just sent me this: [i32.tinypic.com] If I ever have a child...
@NeverEnough: That is pretty fantastic; I'm all for a reboot of Sesame Street with all the characters playing british rock stars (Elmo is going to be one of the brothers from Oasis because I hate him).
@NeverEnough: I wish that had been my yearbook quote.
@Dick Laurent is dead.: I wonder which muppet would be most Bez-like...
@NeverEnough: Oh you poor sad little Moz fanboy. Someone get this fellow a hit of acid an a copy of Maus I & II immediately.
Fangirl, hippie.
@NeverEnough: apologies. i thought only gay guys and mexicans liked The Smiths.
@GhostOfDuane: Don't forget the important 'fag hag' demographic. :)
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