The Grateful Dead demo that David Byrne thinks captures the sound of modern music
You can always rely on David Byrne for an expert curatorial playlist or authoritative music recommendation filled with yesteryear’s undiscovered gems and the latest in pop’s innovative vanguard. Former frontman for Talking Heads, Byrne was able to captain the band from wiry post-punk through synth-soaked polyrhythms, colourful art-funk and chunky pop rock across their decade-long output—placing them among The Beatles and Radiohead as a force that was able to have their triple-layered sponge cake of artistic integrity, critical acclaim, and commercial success and eat every last crumb.
Restless creative hunger and authentic connection to music’s fringes make Byrne the perfect host for a monthly radio show. Hosting the David Byrne Radio Mixcloud channel, each month, we’re treated to a lengthy upload exploring a theme of his choosing, be it his favourite Colombian music or the classic funk that should score your summer. One such topic took a more off-kilter turn with last year’s ‘How?’ episode.
Each selection was accompanied by a question: “How did Willow change from being a punk rocker to a funky Joni Mitchell?” “How did Kim Gordon do a single that no one doesn’t like?” “How does Swamp Dogg continue to surprise and maintain his sense of humour?”
The answers supposedly lie in the songs played in some idiosyncratic fashion. One question is curiously aimed at one of the 1960s counterculture’s biggest names, a band not known for their contemporary appeal and suffering from a seriously stodgy reputation by the time Talking Heads and the wider new wave movement sought to upend the world of rock in the late 1970s—”How did the Grateful Dead do a demo in the ’80s that sounds contemporary?”
One listen to the song in question reveals a charitable definition of “contemporary”. Recorded in ’73 at frontman Jerry Garcia’s home and not the ’80s—as erroneously stated by Byrne—the ‘Wave That Flag’ demo will be familiar to committed Deadheads as From the Mars Hotel’s opener ‘US Blues’. Sketched long after the hippy idyll had died, Robert Hunter penned the satirical piece aiming at America’s hubris and the loss of radicalism set to principal frontman Jerry Garcia’s signature rootsy noodling.
Reflecting a period of bolstered confidence following the creation of their independent label and the commercial success of Wake of the Flood, ‘Wave That Flag’ illustrates the abundance of material the psychedelic country outfit was dreaming up.
“…’Wave That Flag’ changed with nearly all of its 15 performances in the first half of 1973,” Jesse Jaronow revealed on a podcast last year. “Though Robert Hunter was on tour with the Dead for some of this period and may have contributed a few new lines here and there, I suspect that many of the changes were less about carefully tweaking the lyrics than Jerry Garcia finding an order that made sense for him to remember. Many so-called traditional folk songs are comprised of what musicologists call ‘floating couplets’ that might appear alongside any number of melodies.”
An interesting lore surrounds the development of ‘Wave That Flag’, but there’s nothing in Garcia’s breezy home demo that can point to a modern sensibility any more than some Woodstock rocker awkwardly shuffling into the ’70s. Perhaps its contemporary edge can only be spotted via Byrne’s sideways lens? However, the admiration may have been mutual, with the Talking Heads’ Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth’s Tom Tom Club side-project opening for The Dead in the late ’80s.
