The Grateful Dead “In the Dark”
1987. The Hippies were all grown up. Their kids were now the ones wearing tie dye. The Dead were a venerable industry by this point, albeit one showing signs of decay. Their last studio album, seven years earlier, had been unspeakably tepid. Its cover featured the band members in white suits with wide lapels. It was supposed to look heavenly but most everyone thought it looked like the cast of “Saturday Night Fever” after two decades of a long strange trip.
In 1986 forty-four year old Jerry Garcia had fallen into a medically induced coma, caused by worsening drug addiction. But just a year later the band released “In the Dark,” their twelfth and penultimate studio album. Surprising pretty much everyone, four of the record’s seven songs charted on Mainstream Rock radio. The album’s opener, “Touch of Grey,” actually topped the charts for three weeks — MTV even played the band’s goofy video for the single. Jerry, Phil, Brent, Bob, Mickey and Bill — the six guys who’d kept the party bus going for the previous decade — went out for a well deserved victory lap. It was the beginning of the final chapter of a book that would end in 1995. But what a dramatic and unlikely final chapter it was.
Like all things Dead, their triumphant return to the Pop zeitgeist requires some sober context. While their radio success was unprecedented, 1987 was also a decidedly retro year for mainstream Rock. Aside from U2, a relatively young and alternative band at the time, the airwaves were filled with Petty, Springsteen, Mellencamp, Floyd and the like. So while for Deadheads it might have seemed incongruous to hear the band on heavy rotation, the singles from “In the Dark,” actually fit into the playlists of 1987 quite well. The bigger surprise, perhaps, is that, while in their sunset, a band that so famously struggled to translate their live sound to an album, finally made a studio record that sounded alive. Though “In the Dark” only featured seven songs on its original version, more than half of them were already standouts from the last half decade of touring. They were seasoned and practiced. The band knew their way around them. Additionally, the albums was recorded mostly live, in an empty theater, plugged into a board in a truck outside. While there were certainly some overdubs, much of the record is simply the guys, undustracted, simulating what they liked to do in concert.
The result is likely their best studio album since “Terrapin Station.” And while this claim only amounts to faint praise, for many “In the Dark” represents a fitting epitaph. The band sounds fun, tight and fully aware that they were playing their “back nine.” It also was released at a time when the future indie congnoscenti of Brooklyn and San Francisco were young, but aware enough, to be introduced to the band. The epic “Day of the Dead” tribute from 2016, spearheaded by The National, but spiritually led by The War on Drugs and Kurt Vile, had a direct through line back to “In the Dark.” Though most of the covers on that tribute were of songs from earlier albums, the real talisman for these now forty-somethings was the Grateful Dead of their 1980s. The War on Drugs, for example, borrow from the jazzy, heady, cleaned-up Blues meditations that the Dead borrowed from Steely Dan who, no doubt, were themselves inspired by the Dead. More than sounding like the band, though, “Day of the Dead” conjures the idea of the band — a free, loose and egalitarian concept that is more a journey or experience than a singular sound, song or album.
Those dots on the timeline — from the surprise of “In the Dark,” to Jerry’s sad, but expected passing, eight years later, to their legacy, cherished by Phish and Jam bands, to their reconsideration by intellectual indie rockers — might make a neat and happy ending to this essay. The narrative is accurate. The facts are facts. But this happy ending obscures the headline: “In the Dark” has its moments, but, like most Grateful Dead albums, it lapses and drags more than it should. More to the point, while the idea of the Grateful Dead is an enduring one and while their concerts could be revelatory, on record the band was generally closer to good than to great. With The Dead there was always a lot of waiting for the moments. A snow flurry from Jerry’s guitar. Some twilight from the keyboards. The bass drum switching to something polyrhythmic. Those moments could accentuate the journey. But, in between the glittering highs, the waiting could be excruciating.
In a studio, the Grateful Dead were never the equal of Love or, even Crosby, Still, Nash & Young. As a jazzy Blues Rock band, The Allman Brothers and The Band were in a different league than the Dead. And, purely as a jam band, I think the Velvet Underground, Television and possibly Yo La Tengo and Built to Spill all scaled heights the Dead did not. I deeply appreciate, and genuinely like, their first four studio albums. They sound better than the best jug bands and more interesting than most of the late 60s Folk and Blues purists. But they never had their “Like a Rolling Stone,” much less their “Forever Changes.” Their best albums could not reasonably be called “masterpieces.” Their best songs could not reasonably be called “sensations.”
In full transparency, I never saw the Dead live in the 60s or 70s. But I did see them throughout the late 80s. And, while they were past prime as album makers, they were also only in their late thirties and forties during that decade. I can’t adjudicate the prowess of the early Dead. And while I always found their performances to be much lesser than the sum of the experience, I obviously cannot impugn the greatness of their concerts. The sheer volume of their live output — the hours, commitment and openness that it required -- is staggering. However, while millions would undoubtedly claim otherwise, I always found their live sound to be thin and a little sloppy, interrupted by the occasional, thrilling run, solo or jam. Their best night would be an off night for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and their best hour live could not stand against, say, Miles Davis’ band in the early 70s or The Velvet Underground getting deep into “Sister Ray.” While their accomplishments were great, and the experience possibly life-changing, their music — the songs on record — was, too often, less than great.
“In the Dark” is absolutely less than great. But it is also better than good. Of its seven tracks, three were well crafted, and feature excellent hooks and wry, self-awareness. “Touch of Grey” is undoubtedly the last great, and perhaps most fitting, song that Jerry Garcia wrote. “Hell in a Bucket,” written by the band and sung by Bob Weir, is both fan service and a swinging good time. And, “Throwing Stones,” with all of its half-baked politics and metaphors, still makes for a good workout. With its big bass drums and the way it opens up to the jams, it is perhaps the closest they got to approximating a live performance from the 1980s while in the studio. Each of these three standouts had been live staples for years. They were incredibly well honed by the time the band put them to record. They were hits and the undeniable calling cards of the album. Unfortunately, like nearly all Dead studio albums, the problems are with the filler.
In their mediocrity, the Dead reveal their shortcomings. Specifically, they have two lead singers who cannot sing very well. Their harmonies are charming but not pretty. And, while they have two drummers, they lack a bottom to their sound and cannot functionally groove. What remains, when the songs are not great, is an exceptionally average Folk Rock group. “When Push Comes to Shove” is a kindly, bluesy number, with Jerry on lead, that sways a bit but never swings. “Black Muddy River,” with its easy vibe and traditional Gospel hue, isn’t rich enough to qualify as “Yacht Rock,” but it seems to really want to. And then there is “Tons of Steel,” Brent Mydland’s opportunity to get out from behind the keys and take the mic. Although Brent’s contributions to the band, on piano and on backing vocals, are indisputable, it’s a struggle for me to find anything kind to say about his one featured track. Built around the clumsy, hackneyed “woman as machine” motif, Mydland digs himself deeper and deeper into cringeworthy metaphor. As he reaches high for the working man spirit of The Boss, he doesn’t just fall short, he slips on a banana peel, stumbles for five minutes and then finally falls into a pile of manure. If it were satire, it would still not be funny. As sincere art, it embarrasses.
At barely forty minutes, “In the Dark” goes by quickly. It starts out on a high and saves “Throwing Stones” for the end, leaving us with a mostly pleasant taste to savor. And that pleasant taste endured for the band’s Generation X fans, who rightfully treasure the album as the one good Dead studio album from their lifetime. It was the album that they put on the radio. The one they put on MTV. The one that inspired them to go down to Tower Records or Sam Goody to buy concert tickets. The one that prompted them to ask their friend’s older brother if he could ask his friend from college to buy a dime bag from “his guy.” The one whose title is featured on the back of their first tie dyed concert shirt. The one that sounds better, but not unlike, the cassette bootlegs they got on St. Mark’s Place in 1989. For the Dead, “In the Dark” was the jubilant beginning of the end. For young fans, it was just the beginning of the beginning.