@FACTSAREUSELESS said:

Fish is a better drummer than Hart or Kruetzman, only Lesh holds his own, I think.

hmm. i alternate between over- and underrating kreutzmann. i like one-drummer dead best of all most days, and have spoken highly of his playing (here!) in the past. but i once read a snarky comment to the effect of 'kreutzmann got famous playing a single drumbeat for thirty years,' and haven't been able to shake it. it sure looks to me like fishman can do everything kreutzmann could do, and much much more besides. funnily enough, trey compares similarly to weir/garcia: one argument for trey's canonical status is that he can accomplish nearly as much on his own as those guys did together. (that said, his style is different enough from garcia's that this comparison's a little harder to make cleanly.)

i *think* fishman has a better touch than kreutzmann, plus better chops/ears/taste. but i'm very open to an argument that i'm not hearing all of what kreutzmann was up to. (christgau loved early dead, and dismissed both drummers as mediocrities. hmm.)

a bass note: mike gordon's a less original player than lesh, in no small part because his connection to rock bass in general is deeper and more fluent. he has never been a dilettante. and right now, for the first time, mike is arguably better than lesh has *ever* been.