CDVS: Crime Vs. the Grateful Dead

Rock 'n' roll has brought us fashion and bravado, sex and disaster and, occasionally, art. And let's not forget cheeky proclamations of self-importance. Crime's brag: It was "San Francisco's first and only rock 'n' roll band," a boast that harumphs anew as San Diego's Swami Records recently issued a package of the band's best work, a 22-track spazz that captures the S.F. rockers (they quite wisely shied from the media-blessed term "punk") at their most pleasantly careening and crazed. It's all here: the glassy guitars, the warped, skinny-tie blooz, the vocals spat in utilitarian fashion and a bass that sounds like a farting hedgehog (hey, want better production? Turn the friggin' volume up). And with Crime thus arisen from the musical graveyard, shaking off tatters and clods, let's conjure that other seminal S.F. outfit, those trippin', grizzled teddy bears known as the Grateful Dead. Here they stand in a miasma of skank-smoke and junk daze as they enter the nighttime arena of CDVS--no ropes, no ring, just a circle of zombies in Ray-Bans and tie-dye joining hands...

Crime never did get a fair shake when it came to production values, but the cool thing about San Francisco's Still Doomed is it finally offers the casual consumer entree into the Crime cult without having to get reamed by the greedy record-store gnark who price-tags his vinyl in the stratosphere. Highlights, highlights, highlights: "I Knew This Nurse" is all yearning and sunset axe wangle; "Murder by Guitar" slonks around like a whiskey high tide; "Flyeater" shows off no-shit rock chops; and, of course, this Crime collection would be a mere misdemeanor if it didn't include the standard "Hot Wire My Heart." More than two decades later, the song still flails with red tentacles of good-humored sneerage that embody one of rock's most enduring principles: that of well-managed chaos.

But the Grateful Dead isn't exactly willing to go gentle into that big drum circle in the sky. Its 1970 effort American Beauty, long considered the band's studio masterpiece, skirts along with a humble tunefulness that has a grinning, delayed impact, delivering surprises in its repetoire with the strut of "Sugar Magnolia" and the breeze of "Truckin'." But, alas, the furry peaceniks blow it with "Box of Rain," carrying the band's postured passivity into the--bweer! bweer!--wimp zone. Crime sneaks in with a six-string hook, some stray roundhouse from the flailings of "Hot Wire." Wham! Cartoon roses and skulls dance around Jerry Garcia's dead head.--Andrew Kiraly