How to Drop a Phil Bomb | The Other One Bass Lesson by the Grateful Dead

[@aluccasen-cr3gz]

Wow! Very helpful for those of us searching for the sound! Rest in Peace, Phil. Such a long time to be gone, and a short time to be there

[@FerniFF]

I made a video on this years ago. Your video is 100000x better.

[@victorwong9622]

Thanks for shining the light on this signature Lesh move!!!

[@SirPsychoSexySpaceCowboy]

You're welcome! Glad it helped!!

[@esquandolis]

Crystal clear! And all in One take! Thanks for taking the time to drop da bomb. Had been hoping you'd offer some insight into your technique one of these days... Keep em coming!

[@SirPsychoSexySpaceCowboy]

Thank you so much! I'm planning on doing more videos like this to help out those who are trying to figure out Phil's style since it is very unconventional to say the least. Glad it helped! That's what it's all about for me.

[@bayouav]

Thank You Evan. Years I've Spent trying to get this right.

[@SirPsychoSexySpaceCowboy]

You're so welcome! Glad it helped!

[@IceC0led]

sick! very exciting riff to learn. thank you

[@jazzdrumguy5044]

Sweet - I did a tribute to Phil on Tuesday and we ripped 5 Dead songs but I wanted to do this big drop. I've played it before but not as good as you show. Thanks! And RIP Phil & Jerry.....

[@claydoerschlag6277]

This rocks and so does that Ween poster!

[@SirPsychoSexySpaceCowboy]

Thank you! I've actually gotten to jam with Deaner at John and Peter's in New Hope! We did Third Stone From the Sun and Rock the Casbah together.

[@jroc2201]

A single “ Hit” followed by about three more hits, felt that, been there, haha 😂

[@hubertsumlin9697]

Terrance McKenna's son, Jaco McKenna LOL

[@SirPsychoSexySpaceCowboy]

LOL!

[@nodnarbreggud6047]

omg yes thank you lol

[@SmashAtoms]

And he sounds like Stevie Janowski

[@DavyLaStrange]

Good job! Nice tone too!

[@treyphillips3867]

good stuff, thanks!

[@SirPsychoSexySpaceCowboy]

No problem! Thanks for watching!

[@WeepTheGreed]

That’s much better than I was doing it!

[@l.a.m7645]

Can you do Ripple I'm having trouble finding good tabs for it. Thanks.

[@emersonpenrose4620]

Thanks brotha

[@jameskoch6549]

Congradulations, you are now a "teacher". You did great. Keep it up. I had one question. Phil often had a extended crescendo intro [at least in the later years], I was wondering if this is because he was using the 6 string, and started on the B, then moved to the E string to finish up or if he was using and octave booster and extended to the A on the 4 string.

[@SirPsychoSexySpaceCowboy]

In the later years he exclusively played 6 string with the Grateful Dead. He first used one on 12/26/82 after seeing the creator of Modulus holding one in an ad in a guitar magazine. He reached out to him and asked him if he could get one or try one and he immediately sent him the one from the picture. The problem was that it was a six string bass on a neck the width of a typical four string, so it was very tight string spacing. He still continued to play it though and said that by about the 4th model they finally had it right. He's occasionally used, or may still use, one of his old four strings at a special show or something for maybe a song or two, but he is pretty much exclusively a six string player since 12/26/82 in Oakland.

[@SirPsychoSexySpaceCowboy]

Also, thank you for the compliment! I also realized I didn't fully answer your question haha! The Dead would do songs differently from tour to tour a lot (also, night to night, but thats different than what I mean here haha). They might take something and decide to change the arrangement a bit. You might notice that early Cassidy's have an uplifting middle section whereas later Cassidy's tend to also go slightly darker. When it comes to Let it Grow, that song went through a lot of "What do we do with this?" kind of thing, because it was technically originally part of Weather Report Suite, so it's intro was already mapped out. When they decided to drop the whole first part of WRS but still wanted to keep the Let it Grow in rotation, they sometimes would start it out of a jam from another tunes and other times would just start it cold, which for them usually means a little noodling before they fully reveal where they're going. I don't think Phil's bass had as much of a bearing on that rather than it was a conscious band decision and he was just being himself to fill out the space before they would drop into it full on. And to end this ramble haha, they would also sometimes straight up change the keys of things. For example, most China Cat's you hear are probably in G. However, the China Cat's from the 60's that would go into The Eleven are actually in E. In the versions in G, the second bridge/solo section happens in E before the final verse. So naturally you would think that if we've changed the key and we're now transposing it that that solo section would no longer be in E, but it is haha! They were just like "We really like how the solo sounds in E" I guess haha, but that also means not only is the key changed, but the arrangement is technically slightly changed cause you're no longer going up an additional whole step for the second solo since the first one in the versions played in G happen in the key of D.

[@SirPsychoSexySpaceCowboy]

And now I realize I kept referencing Let it Grow and this is not that video haha! However, the same sentiment can still be applied to The Other One. It started its life as the middle section of That's It for the Other One, and then became it's own standalone thing that would sometimes come out of a jam, start cold, comes out of Space or whatever.

[@thezenrunner651]

What about teaching one on one zoom or live? I don't know where u live. I have a flyers shirt. I'm in Delaware

[@SirPsychoSexySpaceCowboy]

I'd be down for that. We can set something up and give it a go. Just remember I'm not an actual music teacher, but I'll do my best haha

[@beezyflippins]

3:20 you mean 9th fret of the *G string right?

[@thezenrunner651]

Do u teach?

[@SirPsychoSexySpaceCowboy]

I don't usually, but I'm always willing to give something a try. I do plan to try and make a video about how I go about approaching Phil's style of playing, but I have to gather my thoughts on it first, organize them and then put it into a video that will make sense and actually help people instead of me just going off on a tangent like a nut job and losing people halfway through haha