Syracuse Press-Standard
March 19, 2004
by Mark Bialczak
Does Bob Weir's musical mission change when he slips off his guitar for The Dead and pulls it back on for RatDog?
Not a bit.
"The modus operandi is the same: State a theme and take it for a walk through the woods," Weir says earlier this week in a interview on his cell phone in Boulder, Colo., before RatDog plays at the Boulder Theater.
Fans of iconic folk-rock band The Grateful Dead have been taking that meandering journey for almost four full decades with the man who co-wrote (with pal John Perry Barlow) the song "The Music Never Stops."
"Bob Weir's professional creative life has been long - 39 years and counting - strange (trust me!) and definitely a trip (ditto)," writes longtime Grateful Dead friend and publicist Dennis McNally in the liner notes to the new double-disc retrospective "Weir Here: The Best of Bob Weir." "And he's not remotely done yet."
Not close to completion, Weir agrees.
"I've been anything but unemployed," Weir says. "I've just been good. I love to play. That's all I ever wanted to do. It keeps me out of the streets."
He's happy to be on the road with RatDog, the side project he began in 1998 with noted bass player Rob Wasserman.
"Well for me, The Dead (that's the name Weir and other former mates in The Grateful Dead decided to call the post-Jerry Garcia in carnation a couple of years ago) is a little more work than RatDog these days," Weir says. "In RatDog, we've been together as a unit pretty much intact. Nobody has to learn anything. There's no learning curve."
With The Dead,however, singer Joan Osborne was added for last summer's tour schedule, and other famous musician friends are always dropping in. Guitarists, in particular, change as The Dead continues to pay tribute to the late Garcia.
"Yes, The Dead, we've had good players coming through," Weir says.
The one change in RatDog was a major move. Wasserman left in early 2003, replaced by Robin Sylvester.
With pianist/keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, guitarist Mark Karan, saxophonist Kenny Brooks and drummer Jay Lane, RatDog had evolved into a band less suited for Wasserman's jazzy style, Weir says.
London native Sylvester, a sessions and live-performance veteran in Weir's home San Francisco Bay area for more than 20 years, fits in well.
"Wasserman was jazzy. A lot of what he does gets lost in a large ensemble," Weir says. "It just wasn't working out. I'm still playing with Rob in smaller ensembles."
With Sylvester, "the bottom groove is fuller," Weir says.
As has become custom, RatDog will play a set that's "60 to 80 per cent" Grateful Dead songs, Weir says. The rest will be "stuff from my back tapes and covers," he says.
Unlike with The Dead, which still takes the stage every night without a predetermined set list, Weir draws up the agenda of songs before each RatDog concert. It's a mission in avoiding repetition.
"With RatDog, what I do is pull up the last week or so, the last seven or eight set lists. These songs are automatically out," Weir says. "Then I pull up the songs we played the last couple of times in that town, and I throw them out."
Plenty of songs remain. RatDog has a repertoire of between 130 to 150, Weir says.
Friends and folks at Hybrid Records helped Weir go through tapes to choose the 27 songs for "Weir Here." The first disc includes 16 studio recordings. The second holds 11 live performances, including five that are previously unreleased.
"It was a group effort," Weir says of the planning for the retrospective that spans Weir's work with The Grateful Dead, solo projects and side bands Kingfish, Bobby and the Midnites and RatDog. "I don't think I could have done it myself."
Weir did have a say.
"Any artist is going to champion tunes that he feels haven't gotten the attention they deserve," Weir says. "I think it's a pretty tidy package."
Weir says RatDog plans to record its first studio disc since the 2000 release "Evening Moods."
"I'll probably get some writing done this year, I think," Weir says. "We may well record it on the road. You don't have to go in the studio to make a studio record any more. You can carry the studio around with you."