Grateful Dead Listening Guide

1970 December 28 - El Monte, CA

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:38:48 PDT

GRATEFUL DEADMonday, December 28, 1970Legion Stadium - El Monte, CAAudience Recording

Music can change your mood, brighten your day, and transport you to far away lands. The Grateful Dead were good for all of these things, and sometimes a bit more. Sometimes the Dead’s music could even change the weather on you, causing the sun to burst through a cloudy day, or even change the season from winter to summer. Such is the case with 12/28/70. Firmly planted in what nearly anyone would call the middle of winter (okay, just seven days in on the calendar), this show ushers bright green grass, sunshine, and warm breezes into the coldest and darkest of days. It’s really something pervasive to what could be called the Dead’s 1971 sound – a folk and country tinged psychedelic rock that emanates a deep relaxed and joyful ease. And here at the doorsteps to 1971, we have a recording that brings this to our ears beautifully. Good time, summertime Grateful Dead.

12/28/70 was another tape which came to be a fixture for me as my appreciation of audience recordings grew over the years. As yet another recording by the same duo responsible for the infamous 08/06/71 tape, as well as the wonderful recording of 07/01/73, on December 28^th, 1970 Craig Todd and Harv Kaslow managed to come away with a recording that stands right up there with the gems they would produce in years to come. With beautiful range and surprisingly impressive stereo separation, this tape defies the standard pigeonholing that many people attribute to old Grateful Dead audience tapes.

Musically, 1970 becomes a difficult year to stack shows against shows, mainly because the truly phenomenal nights claim an unfair advantage over other shows which are good in their own right, yet perhaps don’t exist on the same “truly phenomenal” plane. While 12/28/70 isn’t one of these shows that can be called “best ever,” recognizing it as a good 1970 show coupled with its being preserved in spectacular recording quality given the time period, offers a quality inroad to the world of great AUDs. It’s a quiet and unassuming date tucked into the tail end of 1970. Overall it sounds a bit more distinctly like 1971, aided by the set list featuring tunes which would come of age in that following year. All of this combines to make for a fine addition to anyone’s collection. As your ears come to acclimate to the frequencies and ambience of the recording you should easily find a spot on the floor with the crowd, relaxing and flowing with the evening’s proceedings; summer breezes flowing through you.

The show’s set list also delivers an interesting chronology across the Dead’s repertoire, inserting highlights throughout, rather than building to a single explosive climactic moment. In so doing, the entire show plays out with a very nice energy. And while the over all feel is relaxed, there is just enough intensity and edginess intermingled with more standard material to make for a fine end to end listening experience.

Set One: Cold Rain And Snow, Truckin', It Hurts Me Too, Me And My Uncle, Beat It On Down The Line, China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider, Cryptical Envelopment > Drums > Other One > Cryptical Envelopment > Sugar Magnolia, Casey Jones

Set Two: Smokestack Lightnin', Big Railroad Blues, Me And Bobby McGee, Deep Elem Blues, Cumberland Blues, Morning Dew, Good Lovin' > Drums > Good Lovin' > Uncle John's Band

The show offers up a wonderful string of tunes out of the gate, complete with the opening Cold Rain And Snow, a stand alone Truckin, and fine China>Rider which unfolds like a spiraling flower with infinite petals. China Cat Sunflower throbs, filling every beat possible, and Garcia’s solos ring out beautifully. The road opens up before us as they coast into the transition jam. Bobby solos nicely as the band shifts effortlessly around bends and over hills. When Jerry picks up the lead, and Pigpen the tambourine, they have locked into the epitome of everything sublime in 1970-71. I Know You Rider flows out from the stage, and you can feel the crowd locking in, soaking it up, and gelling into synch with the music. The recording quality here shines as brightly as ever, and we are placed in a spot from which we have no desire to leave. From here the show feels like it could never end. Some prolonged equipment troubles sort of squash this vibe until we emerge on the other side into Cryptical Envelopment. It’s early in the set still, yet the band is casting its full spell over us, picking up directly off of the energy which trailed out of I Know You Rider.

This Other One suite doesn’t disappoint in the slightest. The great haunting storytelling ensues as Jerry spins Cryptical’s twisted tale, and the song reaches out with arms of unavoidable beckoning like dangerous craggy seashores luring sailors with songs of mermaids hidden in the wind. Drums follow, and then Other One itself. The deeply tribal rhythm resonates throughout as the music swirls in a sea of incomprehensible vines intertwined into an Escher-like landscape leaving no safe place to tread. There is darkness licking like flames all around as the band folds into and out of the beat, occasional returning to the driving pulse while often letting go into a soup of frothing confusion. With shifting syncopations the music resemble how the band’s jamming in 1973 could feel like it was just on the edge of tumbling head over heels down a mountain while running downhill. The song crackles into the final verse and then breaks like the sun over the horizon back into Cryptical Envelopment.

As is so often the case, the final Cryptical brings us to the voice within the inner sanctum of the Dead’s musical muse. As Jerry lightly solos over the slow churning gurgling riverflow of music, a serenity pervades as the song captures the most elemental being at the band’s core. This is remarkably simple music, wanting for nothing, pushing nowhere. And as Garcia sings out the last refrains of “You know he had to die,” the music goes on to fold in on itself, bending all perception into a center of pure musical satori, once again fusing us to nothing but perception of the moment.

We drop directly into Sugar Magnolia which has fully matured since it appear earlier in the summer. This is long before Sugar Mag evolved into the heavy rocking set two closing standard (a tune that I’m unashamed to say I skip more often than not). Here, the song is full of its original intent, and a good time is had by all. I particular enjoy hearing the guy near the taper after the song who comments, “Amazing what you can do with two guitars.”

A lot like 03/18/71, this show seems to shine in some unsuspecting spaces. Tucked away in this set are thoroughly wonderful renditions of Big Railroad, Deep Elem, and Cumberland Blues. Deep Elem Blues and Cumberland stand back to back, and exude a pure Grateful Dead American rock-n-roll that is deeply intoxicating, in much the same way that I Know You Rider and Going Down The Road Feelin’ Bad was in this time period. The music is unforced and relaxed, hypnotically drawing the listener in. When Morning Dew follows Cumberland the edges are beautifully blurred into that Americana-Folklore-Psychedelia that stands as the figurehead for this band’s musical persona. As Jerry opens up into the final solo section there are diamond raindrops hovering all around, swirls of colored smoke crystallizing from glass into spider webbing, all eventually exploding into a cascade of star showers as the song climaxes. Out of the dust, Good Lovin’ appears and everyone shakes their bones.

Not necessarily a hall of fame version, this Good Lovin’ demonstrates some fine improvisational rockin’ and a nice little segment deep in the jam where Bob and Jerry fall back into the song’s thematic key while the rest of the band continues to churn in the more bluesy groove. For a brief time Jerry is cartwheeling his solo in a slightly more St. Stephen and Eleven fashion which overlays the rest of the music nicely.

Good Lovin’ spills directly into Uncle John’s Band which closes the show with more of that pure Grateful Dead warmth and inviting energy which, once again, brings us to a place from which we have no need to consider leaving. Time could stop here and we wouldn’t care why.

12/28/70 AUD etree source info
12/28/70 AUD Download

The Ones That Get Away

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:26:45 PDT

This time of year always gets me thinking about its significance related to the Grateful Dead’s output in the year 1973. I’ve well documented my proclivity for everything “summer ‘73” in numerous posts, and as the last ten days of June approached, I even planned to honor certain favorite highlights in homage to this favorite time of my favorite year. While the Dead seemed to lock into their summer ‘73 vibe early in June at RFK stadium, the three show run at Universal City, CA holds a special place in my heart, even while for most people, it lives well in the shadows. For me, it’s more than simply the music, as each date has its own story in my trading travels. Interestingly, one of the stories is even seeing chapters written as we speak.

I’ve made detailed work out of the passion I hold for the closing night of this Universal City run on July 1st, 1973. It’s a tape that stands out as a shining example of all things good in audience recordings. Now, I’d like to turn our attention to some of the tapes from the rest of this stand.

June 29^th, 1973 was the first date from this run I ever collected – a one tape wonder SBD/? tape that provided ample openings into that certain something going on in the summer of ’73 sound. A full review might make its way to these pages eventually, but I’ve held off for the time being. This might have to do a bit with a personal disappointment in the quality of the tape that circulates, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had more to do with the game of “hard to get” an audience tape from this date has been playing with me for nearly ten years. In fact, this date actually offers a nice window into the world of tape trading relationships, and into the story of how some tapes end up on archive.org in the first place, or sometimes don’t. For 06/29, even though there is a soundboard in ample circulation, it is marred by certain level settings and technical issues which make one thirst for an upgrade of some sort, even perhaps coming from an audience recording source.

To give you a glimpse into how the world of tape trading wasn’t (isn’t) just about finding a copy of a show, but was (is) also about constantly searching for upgrades and alternative sources, let me get you up to speed on my hunt for the June 29^th, 1973 audience tape.

So, 06/29 was an early addition to my collection, and served to spark my love of this portion of the year itself. When you would run into this tape on lists, it was always roughly the same partial SBD version. Eventually a SBD “upgrade” came into circulation after Dick's passing. But it left me still lusting after some kind of complete upgrade. Adding to the mystique of 06/29 was the fact that I had never once seen an audience tape for this date show up on anyone’s list.

One day, going back perhaps 8 years ago now, I was contacted via e-mail by a person who had found my contact information off of the several info files circulating around online related to audience tapes from the 1973 era. This sort of contact had become a beautiful undertone to my tape trading experience, helping to spark my amazement at the way the Deadhead community and technology were intermingling, and assuring me that somewhere out there all tapes were waiting to be found. This fellow told me that he had taped 6/29, and wondered if I might help him out by transferring the tape to digital format. What a glorious day that was for me – as seemed to happen often enough, here was another holy grail dropped from the sky on my head. Alas, it was not meant to be…

I confirmed with him that I would obviously be interested in helping him out. Despite his stories of having to miss recording some of the songs because of tough security, I made him aware that this was quite a find, and regardless of quality, the tape yearned to get into circulation. He talked of how he found better seats for the second set, and taped much of the big jams from a pretty sweet spot in the crowd (let the drooling commence). So, I gave him my address and waited for the tapes. And waited... And dropped him an e-mail after a week or so. And waited… To cut to the chase, eventually months went by where I would send off an e-mail every 6 to 8 weeks (completely in stalker mode, I know) wondering if he had sent the tapes, or found some other means of transfer. No reply, ever. Probably three or four years later, my now annual e-mail to him eventually hard bounced off his mail server with a fatal error – his address was dead.

So close. So close!!! When I first made this connection I had shared my excitement with one or two of my trading buddies, fellow hunters who were always out on the fringes looking to fill in gaps in the Grateful Dead taping history. They shared my schoolgirl-like glee over having bumped into this guy, and eagerly awaited my getting the tapes in hand. Only they can truly know this level of frustration. I’m sure they have shared the experience of a vein drying up before the gold itself was found. It’s one of the more frustrating levels of this area of tape trading – silence from the other end of a great line on a tape. And to know that this fellow is more than likely out there somewhere with some understandable reason for not sending the tapes, and never responding to my e-mails, makes it all the more maddening. It’s an example of the both the good and the bad in online relationships: great to get them started, but sometimes falling very short in going further. Where does this guy live? What’s his phone number? Who else do I know who might know this guy?? Maddening.

While I share this story mostly for entertainment purposes, I also do so with hopes to stir that tape back into the light. We sit here at its anniversary, so perhaps getting the stars to align and talking about it will do some good. It certainly worked with the next night.

06/30/73 was a recording I seeded out on the Audience Devotional Tree back in August of 2001. Just a few weeks ago I pulled out an old old DAT version of the same recording which offered a different lineage path from the reel I put into circulation eight years ago. My ears really liked what they heard. I had decided that with this being one of my all time favs recordings, it would be fun to seed out this DAT, get it up on the archive, and then write my review on June 30^th, 2009 sharing this new copy with everyone here. It all went according to plan until just three days ago.

The DAT source (http://www.archive.org/details/gd1973-06-30.aud.weiner.99703.sbeok.flac16) is indeed now up on archive.org. But drawing this bit of attention to the date over the last week has stirred up some contact from some old friends in the community – friends who were pivotal in my seeding out 06/22, 06/26, and even that first copy of 06/30 back in 2001. And that stirring has just now shaken loose an upgrade of true proportion for this date which I am eagerly awaiting in the mail (I do know that this copy will indeed arrive). Once I have it, I will seed yet another version of this show, and after it makes it to the archive, I’ll post my review for 06/30 and link to the upgraded copy at that time. It won’t hit the anniversary exactly, but I’m okay with that. I look forward to it just the same.

What is interesting to me is that my world of tape trading, and in particular this Indiana Jones type treasure hunting, is still in motion today. And for this passage of time you all get to ride along with me just like the old days. You probably can’t resist listening to the version I posted up just last week. I can’t blame you, and I’d be shocked if you weren’t interested. It sounds darn good. And then you may stay tuned in for the new version to be made available, saving that repeat listening perhaps for the new copy coming a week or two from now. That, my friends, is the living breathing heart of trading tapes, rolling out right here on the pages of the GDLG.

And we can all collectively keep holding our breath that the 06/29/73 AUD will show up in my mailbox soon too.

The Quiet Allure Of Audience Tapes

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 06:47:12 PDT

Upon launching the Grateful Dead Listening Guide I brought up a somewhat understated intention that went beyond the overarching goal of helping folks navigate the endless choices of Dead concert recordings online. Early on I came clean on the point that I was particularly fond of audience recordings, and that in years past I had devoted much of my time and energy to spreading the word of audience tapes and the joys within. There was little denying that throughout my ongoing ramblings there would be a sometimes subtle, sometime outright, push to wake people up to the beauty of audience recordings and my opinion that they (yes, I’ll say it) put the soundboard medium to shame on many levels critical to enjoying the magic of the Dead’s music.

Well, I haven’t been keeping any kind of score card, but I can safely tell you that after general e-mails and comments thanking me for putting up the guide overall, nothing quite comes close to the number of people who confess to having been converted over to an appreciation of audience tapes where before they wouldn’t have given them a chance. And, with readership growing steadily, the frequency of converts continues to rise. It’s a good thing, and it seems to be happening naturally, without my wildly banging some audience tape gong.

I often look at the collective readership of the GDLG like that single person I described at the start of this project who discovered the old grizzled deadhead living across the street (still not sure why I always paint him as old and grizzled. I’d like to think that I’m not particularly either), and began borrowing tapes, listening to stories, and building a collection of music not ever to be found in the nearby record stores. So here after nearly a year and a half, the old deadhead has turned this fellow on to about 80 shows. And being careful as he has been, he has slowly let his personal preference for audience tapes whisper its way into the newcomer’s ear. And slowly, being unconcerned with succeeding, the audience tape medium has been allowed to work its magic and gain another passionate devotee.

There can be little doubt that something more than music is going on when you listen to audience tapes, and this goes well beyond the simple fact that these recordings capture the crowd noise and room ambience. As has been recently articulated by folks commenting on the passing of legendary taper, Jerry Moore, when you listen to a good audience tape you can’t help but experience a layer of gratitude for the person who saw fit to deal with all the rigmarole of taping in the first place. This gratitude quickly expands to a difficult to describe sharing of the taper’s experience as it happened, placing a certain physical layer into the soundscape where we come to discern the true scale of the live musical experience (readily displayed when listening to tapes of 1974’s Wall Of Sound. Worth checking out the podcast too). And then we also come to appreciate the fact that the audience recording is a document completely separate from the world of commercial music. It is the product of people, shared from friend to friend, not packaged onto the shelves of record stores. This most quiet social/cultural layer is on every tape, and infuses the listening experience before during and after the tape is actually playing.

It is no wonder that the Grateful Dead Listening Guide is doing such a fine job of showing people the light of audience tapes. They work on so many levels, one only needs a slight nudge in their direction. From there, the tapes themselves begin to shed light on many things, not the least of which is the actual music itself as it flowed from the stage to the audience.

I once thought that an audience tape was only bringing us a small fraction of the listening experience at a Dead show, like how a photograph is a two dimensional take away from a four dimensional experience. But, when we consider everything “coming off the tape” when listening to audience recordings in particular, they appear more akin to the experience of discovering a rich layer of complexity hiding just below the surface of something we hitherto thought we fully comprehended. There is far more within them than a surface view can reveal, like fractals within fractals, and the sub atomic universe deeper within physical matter than any microscope can see.

It’s the crazy talk of a Deadhead, I know. But I struggle to find any more concrete means to explain the experience of the Dead’s music preserved under the glass of a pristine audience recording. That it is really there defies proof, yet the effects of its being there ripple into our more discernable perceptions of the experience. We know it's there because of the impact it leaves on us. People do turn on to audience tapes. The ear does tune to the spectrum of frequencies caught on tape after a short while allowing the listening experience to unfold like a blooming flower. A slight nudge really is enough to draw in the masses.

There is an invisible pied piper playing a siren song here – crazy as any deadhead out there. I’ve been drawn in by that song for a good long time, and I’m glad to see others hear it too.

Under Eternity Blue - Psychedelic Folk

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 06:23:35 PDT

The next installment of Under Eternity Blue hits the airwaves this weekend. For those that don't know, I started a podcast side project for an online radio station (Spirit Plants Radio) a couple of months ago. Loosely structured, Under Eternity Blue explores other music that I find meaningful and satisfying - I do spend 80% or more of my time not listening to the Grateful Dead after all.

This episode focuses on the Psychedelic Folk genre. It's an easy call that most Grateful Dead fans will find plenty of inroads to this particular installment, and perhaps I'll turn you on to something you hadn't heard before.

Spirit Plants Radio

streaming live:
http://spfradio.yage.net/
Under Eternity Blue with DJ Arkstar
Saturday, June 20th: 6pm – 7pm PST

Sunday, June 21st: 6am – 7am PST & 4pm – 5pm PST

The full weekend line up (11am PST Saturday - 11pm PST Sunday) is listed on the Spirit Plants Radio page above. If you can’t tune in live, all shows become listenable via archive streaming after the show ends Sunday night.

If interested, check out the first Under Eternity Blue podcast focued on Ambient Electronica.

The Stories Of Jerry Moore

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:14:19 PDT

He Was A Friend Of Mine

I lived through the dawning of the Internet Age of Grateful Dead tape trading. I participated through our amazement that we could be so immediately in contact with other traders (by the thousands), all sharing lists and arranging trades instantaneously - so unlike "the good old days" - to the full explosion of high speed sharing which brought the real need for a trading community to its end.

While living through all of that, I built up a cassette tape collection (then CD collection) numbering in the thousands, and all the while enjoyed not only collecting the tapes, but collecting the stories. Hearing about the old days, talking to people, sharing long e-mails - this was an even more precious gift than the tapes themselves.

One of the ongoing stories was the one titled, "Jerry Moore." I call it a story, because he was no more than that to me (and pretty much my entire circle of trading partners). Yes, there were people who could referencing knowing him way back when. But after getting online in 1997, despite my own ever-widening circle, Jerry Moore was "lost."

Did he die? Had he fallen off the grid? Did someone last hear that he was battling heroin and had sold off all his tapes to pay rent? Had someone seen him retreat into a forest cave to live among the rocks? Quite literally, all of these stories were floating around, and the only thing that stitched them all together was the fact that Moore was "lost" to us; "us" being the world of obsessed tapers trying to digitally archive all the old master tapes we could find. Often were the times I pined over how very absent Jerry Moore was from our world.

And so he grew mythical. And so I found myself in possession of tape copies of many of his recordings not even knowing they were his. Tapes of 10/01/76, 11/04/77, and God knows how many others, all were more often simply "AUD - taper unknown." And this in the age of digital communication.

That all changed for me one day in 2002, when an East Coast taper I knew quietly let me in on the fact that he was acquainted with Moore himself - an old friend, and that Jerry was interested in archiving what was literally a closet full of his masters, complete with a TARDIS-like quality of holding far more music than could conceivably fit inside. A small group of us became MooresBoys, a Yahoo Group devoted to making trips to Jerry's place to help deal with the closet, and then go through the careful Analog>DAT transfers, followed by digital editing into the final drafts that would go into mass circulation.

Living half a country away from the closet, I only performed my tasks on the DAT>SHN/FLAC mastering side of the equation (though Jerry did send me his actual tapes from 10/02/76 - Jesus! He had taped the holiest of 1976 grails ever - 10/02/76!!), so I never got out to meet him in person. But that didn't stop the stories.

Jerry wrote. He wrote a great deal. He wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. We conversed in e-mail over a multi-year period back then where I was blessed to learn a seemingly endless wealth of knowledge around the life and times of Jerry Moore, the taper. Stories of how he fashioned a telescoping golf ball retrieval tool into his mic stand of choice in the 70's. Stories of how his very first recording, Grateful Dead 06/10/73 was so disappointing to his ears that he recorded over it a month or two later with a sweet recording of the New Riders. Stories of cajoling other concert goers to record with his gear because his seats sucked (07/29/74). Stories of avoiding roadies. Stories on top of stories, back and forth in e-mail.

Reading Jerry Moore is sort of like reading James Joyce or Camus, or Aristotle, or Edward Albee. He wrote thickly. He loved words, perhaps more than music. And he loved vetting out the truth in people and their actions, as much as he loved the details around nearly every facet of what it took for him to do all that taping. I always had to read his e-mails more than once to make sure I was *getting* what he was saying, sometime afraid I was catching the complete opposite meaning in his prose. And I loved that about Jerry.

An example, from the very last e-mail exchange we had between us. He begins an answer to my question related to the appearance of other old tapers more recently on the Internet scene:

odd?

yes and noah.

seems obvious.

then again,

hmmm.

real world answer?

okay.

It was not the first time he played on my name like that, and, of course, the e-mail went on and on from there. It pains me deeply that there will be no more e-mails going on and on from Jerry Moore. I will miss him terribly. I have him to thank for elevating my joys in tape trading to their very highest, and that had nothing to do with the actual tapes he made, but just by being a friend of mine - just by turning from myth into a person with great stories.

So, the giant Internet tubes that changed our community forever get a big tip of the hat today. We can all remember and relive Jerry Moore's master cassesttes so easily now. He is certainly forever part of our living history in music. Just a few of his recordings have made it here onto the guide so far. So many more to come.

09/07/73
06/23/74
08/04/74
04/23/77
05/08/77
11/04/77

GDLG-005 - Into The 80s

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Sun, 31 May 2009 06:55:17 PDT

Listening Session 005: Exploring the sometimes under-appreciated early 1980s output of the Grateful Dead in excellent audience recordings, along with the occasional story and insight adding color along the way.

1969 June 14 - Monterey Performing Arts Center

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Sat, 30 May 2009 05:36:51 PDT

GRATEFUL DEAD
Saturday, June 14, 1969
Monterey Performing Arts Center - Monterey, CA
Soundboard Recording

Most all Deadheads are familiar with the 1969 “Live Dead” album. To a certain degree, this record represents a watershed moment in the band’s history, showcasing the true “live performance” magic of the Grateful Dead captured on vinyl. Not only does it possess quite possibly the highest of all musical events in all Dead folklore with the 02/27/69 Dark Star, but it also goes a long way in writing the book on the rest of the material contained on the album. While it could be argued that it was all downhill for Dark Star after this LP version (no, I’m not attempting to make this case myself), such is not the case with Lovelight. Its evolution had gotten well down the path by the time they played the version used on the record (January 26, 1969), but it was not nearly complete. As 1969 moved along, Lovelight continued to grow, stretching its boundaries not only in duration, but in creativity as well. By the summer of 1969 the song was bursting at its own seams.

It is often the case when listening to old tapes of Grateful Dead music, that you can be struck by the fact that what you are hearing never made it onto a commercial release, and thereby, into mainstream society. It is not uncommon to hear music so good, you can’t believe it only lives by the grace of a sub societal sect that cared for and shared this music fully outside the scope of a record label and commercial industry’s ability to present it as an example of a band’s musical identity to the “outside” world. This tends to happen at a higher than average ratio when it comes to 1969 Grateful Dead. And June 14th, 1969 exemplifies this in spades.

Turn On Your Love Light > Me And My Uncle > Doin' That Rag > He Was A Friend Of Mine > Dire Wolf; Dark Star > St. Stephen > The Eleven > Turn On Your Love Light > Drums > Turn On Your Love Light

As this show begins, we can hear everything known to be archetypically “Lovelight,” and a good deal more. Jerry’s leads give the appearance that he is a daredevil tightrope walker, fearlessly charging forward while blindfolded and balancing several tea cups on saucers across each extended arm, each of these holding aloft a feather-strewn lady sitting in a chair – like some twisted and distorted Dr. Seuss character. He has no concern which way the tightrope turns, bows, or buckles. He’s confidence radiates for miles. The song rolls like a river charging through the wild west terrain of America, great frothing whitecaps boiling over boulders, long swaths of orange and mustard brown silt running like ribbons under crystal glass cover. We are delivered to more remote and twisted vistas than the commercially released Lovelight might ever have dreamed of. Pockets of imploding feedback, great yawning taffy-like pulls of guitar-dinosaur moaning, and strobe light exploding curtains of color adorn the music while Pigpen’s improvised truck driver love poetry sprinkles a consistent thread throughout the 26 minute opening bookend of the show.

When the song sneaks its way into Me And My Uncle, the unmistakable aura of Grateful Dead magic pervades everything. We are defenseless as the band casts its controlling energy over the entire hall, happily lost in their hypnotic trance. Me And My Uncle crackles with a psychedelic power unfairly permeating a simple cowboy song. Bobby’s vocals quiver and tremble with their edgy glimmer, and Garcia’s guitar work is like a tumbleweed caught in a tornado. The Dead’s ability to superimpose one musical genre into the fibers and tissues of another in 1969 was nearly unequalled in any other year. Here in the summer of ‘69, the band was already headed down a creative path toward the formation of the “Acoustic Dead” which would fully play out through the winter and well into 1970. Yet at this time the titanic lysergic beast of 1968 still shrouded even the most traditional of songs, and often made it a more brain twisting challenge to reach stable ground in even the most straightforward of music. As Me And My Uncle deposits us directly into Doin’ That Rag, we are immediately thrust into the belly of the beast again, and Garcia is in as fine vocal form as he’s been on guitar up to this point. He’s delivery matches Bobby’s with its certain crazed and bug-eyed intensity.

That Jerry Garcia could sing a song! His voice paints a Cheshire Cat smile into the air. Doin’ That Rag is so overflowing with the symbolism that pervades the veiled and subtle messaging of the Grateful Dead, it’s a shame that the song could not have secured a more stable home in the Dead’s repertoire. It flashes forward to Robert Hunter’s lyrical majesty contained on American Beauty, crafting pictures and imagery into a poetic mural of spiritual grace, lessons to learn, and endless snapshots of the psychedelic experience.

This draws us directly into He Was A Friend Of Mine, another song that fell out of the rotation after the first few years and probably the one I personally miss the most, along with Viola Lee Blues. Jerry’s vocals and guitar solo only build upon what was happening in Doin’ That Rag. It’s a drippy walk through a folk ballad, showcasing the Dead’s personal signature wonderfully.

When we arrive in Dark Star, it quickly makes everything that proceeded it seem like child’s play. The song comes on as if we’d been slipped a massively over-potent elixir brewed by some medicine man in the Central American jungle, and all the warnings we’d been given in preparation for the ensuing experience amount to not even the smallest level of readiness for what’s happening. Looking back on the show up to this point, we can only laugh at ourselves for having thought we were witnessing the psychedelic grandeur of the Grateful Dead. Dark Star is the real deal, a true game changer.

Oddly, in the grand scheme of Grateful Dead things, the fact of the matter is that most of their music isn’t all that psychedelic. We all have probably been asked the question, “How is this psychedelic rock?” by people in our immediate circle who hear this music over our shoulder. I’ve been asked the question many times, and there’s little point in arguing. Tennessee Jed? Ramble On Rose? Promised Land, Big River? This list goes on and on – this isn’t hippie psychedelic music. I suppose those of us on the inside find it all tinged with the roots of psychedelic rock in some way. Such is the power of that portion of the Dead’s music that truly was psychedelia incarnate. And that, beyond doubt, was Dark Star in 1969. The Dead’s psychedelic preferences didn’t infuse Dark Star. Dark Star was the elixir itself. It was stepping into the inner chamber of a hidden palace to find a secret underground sea of mists, colors, and sounds all in a cosmic dance of intricate beauty. One taste, and you can forever onward begin to trace hints of it throughout everything else. Have you ever heard the strains of Dark Star while gently taking in a beautiful spring morning? That’s it.

There’s little sense in road mapping 06/14/69’s Dark Star for you here. It’s a version that makes you very thankful that recordings of this band were made in such abundance. The idea of this performance having been lost to history as each note rang out without being recorded is unthinkable. The one thing I will mention in regard to the actual playing on 06/14 is that while the entire song quickly latches into the musical satori experience of the Grateful Dead’s living breathing musical muse, there is a near indescribable soul burning passage in the section that follows the first verse. As music revolves, and feedback swarms into all empty space around every sound, the dance between form and chaos overwhelms. This push and pull is never ending. It lays to waste any ability to retain a sense of separation between music and listener.

You are drawn to listen because the music is finding itself within you. Dark Star is the muse within us all. It wakes itself as it plays. The illusion is that we believe Dark Star works on us. This is not true. It is seeking itself within us. We aren’t really there at all in the end. The more we can work to realize this absence of division, the more deeply we can release into the moment. The parallels to pure spiritual knowing here are not coincidental. The force of Being sings through many forms, and in the depths of Dark Star its musical voice is true. The thematic undercurrent which was Dark Star itself binds to everything in the Grateful Dead’s history. In that, it goes beyond any simple mapping from one song to another on a time line. In 1969 we were blessed to be exposed to the pulsing heart of the Dead’s magic. Once exposed, the beat echoes forever forward and back, in and out of music, in and out of self. Dark Star is just something altogether elemental while also dwelling beyond most everything else imaginable.

When Saint Stephen rolls out into The Eleven, there is a controlled frenzy to the intricate rhythm. As if taming something part swarm of bees, part lightning, and part molten furnace core, the Dead sear through time and space with an impossible control over something so ferocious. The music sweats. The pulse races. And in a great swirl of callioped color we find ourselves back at the start of the show as Lovelight steps back on the stage. Beautifully the song drops completely out into Space momentarily and then flashes back into view (one of my favorite elements of any Lovelight). Complete with opening band Aum's leader, Wayne "Tha Harpe" Ceballos, filling in a bit as a guest vocalist, and a drum solo in the midst of everything else, this closing bookend of Lovelight adds another 17 minutes on top of the 26 minute opening ride. Yes, Lovelight was in full bloom during the Summer of 1969.

The tape we have sounds good, but also possesses something of a classic Dead bootleg quality to it. It isn’t culled directly off of a 10” master reel. It has that cassette feel to it, while not taking anything away from the quality of the recording – just a nice layer of listening pleasure reminding us how lucky we are to have the tape at all.

06/14/69 SBD etree source info
06/14/69 SBD Stream

Grateful Dead Listening Guide - Kindle Version

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:26:05 PDT

Amazon expanded Kindle subscriptions to offer blogs. I couldn’t resist setting up the Grateful Dead Listening Guide (Kindle Version) in the Amazon store. They are currently offering a free 14 day trial too. Got a Kindle? Check it out. Know someone with a Kindle whose life is missing that certain electronic layer of the Grateful Dead? Pass along the news!

1976 June 14 - Beacon Theater

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Wed, 20 May 2009 20:22:34 PDT

GRATEFUL DEAD
Monday, June 14, 1976
Beacon Theater – New York, NY
Soundboard Recording
Just as picking a show from the early 80’s can present a daunting task when it comes to knowing which way to turn first, June 1976 is like a microcosm of the same problem. The Grateful Dead played a lot of shows marking the inaugural run in the band’s return to the road as a touring act in '76. It seems that nearly the entire month of June has always circulated in good quality, and the shows can sort of bleed together. Way back when we all had to build our tape collections through trade, a large portion of June ’76 was among the easiest music to find because the band had done so many FM simulcasts. This meant that soundboard quality recordings were being seeded, potentially by the hundreds, night after night, up and down the East Coast. Interestingly, certain shows from this run (Chicago Auditorium Theater) remained lost in the fog even from an audience tape perspective while the surrounding dates were easy pickings.

I’ve mentioned before how it seems that this overabundance of easy to find music from June contributes to the bad rap 1976 gets in general – so much material from, arguably, the low point of the year. And while I’ll be the first person to tell you that the music only continued to get better and better as 1976 rolled along, there is plenty to enjoy even as the band was shaking the rust off from its near 20 month hiatus. In fact, the highpoints among this historical “snoozer portion” of the year become that much more special precisely because one generally expects very little from June ’76.

I made early mention of one of my favorite Dead shows in general which happens to come from this time frame - the long time under-circulating masterpiece from June 9, 1976 - and here now is another show that has always managed to poke its colorful petals up over the rest of the June ’76 flower garden in my mind: June 14th from the Beacon Theater.

The show packs great energy, both from the band and audience (clear even on the soundboard), and the first set plays like an archival sample of everything good going on in 1976. In typical early 1976 fashion, nothing explodes (though Might As Well – often miss-documented as “Mighty Swell” – does fly over the top), but the entire set is a worthy listen. And it all rounds out with a memorable Playin’ In The Band.

This Playin’ presents a wonderful balance of every direction the song could flow in 1976. Still a staple feature of Dead shows, 1976 saw Playin’ begin to more fully explore different rotation slots in the set lists beyond its hallmark set one closing role. It also started to traverse distinctly different temperaments as if reflecting the changing mood of the band – some would flow out in silky smooth oceans of psychedelic waves, while others could find their ways into jagged and treacherous terrains that boiled with fire and hail. 06/14’s Playin sits in the traditional set one closing spot, and seems to explore and taste both extremes of expression.

With sound quality on the soundboard source that rivals nearly all other tapes, when the band slides into the Payin’ jam everything is about as close to perfection as we could wish. With a terrific balanced mix of instruments, the sense of this six piece band as a true ensemble comes shining through on this tape. Everything weaves together as the band continues to pick up steam. There’s a lovely flow oozing in and out like one’s breath as they roll along. Eventually things quiet to a whisper and we find Playin’ set at the precipice that might have easily led to a roaring Tiger Jam two years earlier, but here in 1976 it hints more at Blues For Allah. The intensity builds again as if we have just passed though the eye of a hurricane, and we are slowly swept back into the fantastic stitch work of an intricate tapestry. Not long after, the drummers tip over an edge into pure rolling thunder – the beat has been consumed and the entire band begins to tremble and fracture leaving us both on dizzying heights and staring up at more impassable mountains of dark foreboding rock. Before a completely blinding meltdown can ensue, the band reappears and another phase of the jam takes form. The drummers come back to the beat while we were lost in some phrasing by Garcia, and soon there is the sense of all the instruments fitting together like massive planet sized gears of reflecting kaleidoscope glass. It’s as if the music can’t take a wrong turn. Each member zeroes in on a simple phrase of their own and they begin to repeat them into each other like the inner workings of a watch. This is one of the most subtle explorations of the band’s pure creative musical force, made somehow more precious by its delicate and fleeting nature. Capping off the jam section of a nearly twenty minute Playin’ In The Band, we find that we’ve travelled many diverse miles all while we otherwise thought we were just listening to another Dead show.

The Wheel opens set two, to the clear shock and delight of the crowd. The song came out on Garcia’s first solo LP in 1972 yet never made it into the live show line up until 1976. Here, the band is fully enjoying themselves (there’s even a nice “Woo!” let out along the way as they become clearly locked into the slow pulsing arch of the songs melodic runs). The solo section paints a majestic picture with Garcia dancing on tiptoe from star to star. It’s short lived, but no less enjoyable for it, as the song comes to a close just as we’re ready for it to go on forever.

There follows some fun stage chatter as no one seems to know what to play next, eventually seeing the band land on Samson & Delilah, followed by a tasteful High Time, and The Music Never Stopped.

With Crazy Fingers, we head into the meat of the second set. Always good for casting a subtly gentle, yet psychedelically mysterious mood, we find ourselves casually ambling through a misty evening as our peripheral vision seems to flicker with unseen light sources. The song trails off into the end portion improvisation and the slow turning galaxy wagon wheels are back. The tides shift, and just as we feel the arrival of a Spanish Jam, Bobby provides a distinctive tease into the Dancin’ that will follow. Gently the jam subsides leaving the drummers to assemble the backbone of Dancin’ In The Streets.

Dancin’ was a tune that matured over the years after its return in 1976, and the ’76 breed is often one that merits little attention. Truly the versions in the following year become epic. Here, however, we are gifted with some of Garcia’s most delicious solo work of the entire evening. When they launch into the jam, Jerry’s phrasing becomes that of a 1950’s jazz saxophone player (insert your favorite’s name here). The way he holds back, and then blows out phrases flying up and down the fret board provides us with the Jerry we are all so thankful for. His tasteful note selection, filling the syncopated spaces between the beats, brings nothing but smiles to your face. All in all, it’s an understated Dancin’, as most were in 1976. But it’s worth everything to ride with Jerry through the solo section.

Cosmic Charlie, another song seeing its revival in 1976, comes next and is delivered perfectly. Vocally, the song just takes you in and works its magic. And as the pulsing backbeat that bore The Wheel at the start of the set returns to ricochet and echo its way through this song too, we’re firmly locked into the hypnotic trance of the Grateful Dead.

Then the set caps off with the wonderful highlight of Help>Slip>Franklin, containing an improvisational masterpiece during Slipknot which firmly locks this entire show into its spot as one I’m always happy to return to and explore. Here, as the 1976 tour was getting started, this song trio was well rehearsed and sounding very much like the Blues For Allah album version while allowing the band plenty of space to work each rendition into its own unique direction, and all the while finding Garcia able to forget the correct ordering of the lyrics in Franklin’s Tower.

Help On The Way overflows with heartfelt and emotional vocal delivery by Jerry, and rides ever so sweetly through the extended solo section. The tempo is locked in the pocket, and everything shimmers and gleams as they roll into the last verse, and then deftly navigate the intricate path which leads to Slipknot. This jam is representational of a new direction for the Dead. Nothing they were doing in their first ten years sounded quite like this at all. And the music finds its way into a lovely expanse of long flowing phrases atop Bobby’s wide volume swells. A deeply explorative jam finds the musicians listening to and playing off of each other. For a long while we are buoyed in a borderless ocean of the jam’s theme, lost in a timeless space of coolly dark comfort.

Soon much of the jam drops away, leaving Garcia playing off of the drummer’s light accents. Slowly Phil works back in, layering his own solo efforts while Jerry’s notes fly past like meteor showers. Eventually the rest of the band assembles again, and off of Bobby’s seemingly forced change of direction inspired by Phil’s own thumping, the band slips into the heavenly realm of absolute bliss and musical satori that forces chills to electrically snake across your face and down into your heart. We are cast into a pure musical presence which sucks all attention into its own focused midst. There is nothing else in the universe at all. This short (painfully fleeting) passage calls back to the inspirational brilliance found deep within 1970 Dark Stars – joyful expression of exquisite musical passion. Experiencing this music when you can offer it your open heart is a healing event. Our souls filled to bursting, the inspiration fades and the band returns to the coolly dark and mysterious interplay we were comfortably enjoying moments ago. We ride the twisting river toward Frankin’s Tower and arrive in the song’s own uplifting energy and simplicity.

Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile.

06/14/76 SBD etree source

06/14/76 SBD Stream

06/14/76 AUD etree source

06/14/76 AUD Download

Learning The Ropes To A Forgotten Trade

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:19:19 PDT

Way back when, if you decided that you were going to collect Grateful Dead concert tapes, it wasn’t something that was extremely easy to do. Back in the days of analog music preservation, it was not all that common for someone to have two cassette decks, and having two decks was only the bare minimum required in the secret door knock that would get you into this club. It certainly didn’t stop there. Once inside, there were many feats of strength you had to perform in order to be granted a seat at one of several tables that warmly understood you were a welcomed comrade ready to trade. It was barely enough to just be a lover of the Grateful Dead, who then felt something snap in your head telling you that you had to figure out a way into the club. You had to learn the rules. Now in general, everyone had some kind of help. Since you couldn’t easily stumble upon the world of Grateful Dead bootlegs without someone “turning you on” to tapes, you would generally know someone who had at least a faded and patched together map of the road in.

While the kindness of deadheads is a historical fact, being allowed to copy your friends tapes (or relying on your friend to copy them for you if you didn’t even have your second deck yet) would only get you so far. Eventually you’d run out of his tapes. By then, you were probably a full blown addict, and getting deeper into the club was now a necessity – life without more of those Summer ’73 tapes was just unthinkable. So, you had to wrangle up two cassette decks and start trading.

Deadhead tape traders were (are) a detail minded bunch, and there were many facets to tape trading that could either smooth or obstruct one’s way into the world of building a tape collection. Once inside door number one of this club, you would be quickly directed down a particular hallway based upon just which kind of cassette decks you owned. If you could afford it, or rigmarole some means of acquisition, possessing two Nakamichi tape decks could get you into the first class lounge of this tape trading Moose lodge (never do it without your fez on). Folks who went “all in” to this club were spending a pretty chunk of change to get set up with two Nak decks. Even as tape decks were speedily going down the path of the black and white TV and 8-track player, Naks were fetching top dollar, and this long after they went out of new deck production. There were some models that represented the crème de la crème, one of which was the Nak Dragon, a deck that would run you a minimum of $900 “used” in the 1990’s. This, while you could stroll into Target and pick up a fancy dual-well dubbing deck for under a hundred bucks (we have a special room in the club for you guys with dual-well decks, by the way). And yes, even in the Nak lounge, the Dragon guys would sit at their own table (the bastards!). It’s not that Nak folks wouldn’t trade with non-Nak folks, but it certainly helped. Those Nak decks really did make the very best possible copies of tapes. If you had the tapes I wanted, and Nak decks, I was going to do everything I could to find a way to score a trade with you.

Okay, so decks were important. I brandished a couple of Nak decks myself. But even more important was knowing how to use them. There were a few cardinal rules in trading that I’ve probably mentioned before: NO DOLBY; use good quality tapes (Maxell XLII’s and XLII-S’s); and set your levels right. That last rule was subject to serious debate. Because of this, you were best off to just ask your trading partner where they wanted their levels set (I was a +3 to +5 peak guy. Many others would say set them flat to +0). And then you had to actually set the levels. This required looking at the set list, picking a part of some tune (or tunes) that you knew generally produced a “loud” moment, fast forwarding to find that spot, and playing the tape to then set the recording peaks on deck two. I would generally seek out the end portion of a Sugar Magnolia, or the explosive start of an Other One. You had to take care, because blowing level setting would cast a negative picture in your trading partner’s eyes when it came to trading with you ever again.

It didn’t end there. Where do you want the set list and tape genealogy written out? Can I write on the j-cards? Back of the peel-and-stick tape label sheet? And special packaging instructions - did you know that we typically never ever mailed the plastic cases that cassette are stored in? They just break in transit. Rubber banding the tape with a special loop to prevent the hubs from spinning the tape loose while in the mail – I kid you not, we cared about all of this.

Rules. Rites of passage. Customs. When we weren’t blissed out the newest Dark Star to cross our paths, deadheads certainly were sticklers for details.

Social Deadworking

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:20:38 PDT

I find myself drawn to the way the world of online Social Networking and the Grateful Dead have been crossing paths of late. I work in the field of Internet Marketing, and thus have an interesting perspective to see both forces at play. Recently, there has been a good deal of buzz around the way folks are twittering set lists while attending the current Dead tour, and the ensuing shock and disgruntled opinions around how this “new age” of communication technology is stabbing the magic of the Dead concert experience in the heart. It seems someone nabbed a complete set list before one of the shows even began, and was tweeting the songs prior to the band playing them, thus bursting the bubble of spontaneity for many folks. Beyond the simple fact that people have a choice whether to read up on these things while en rout to, or while attending a show, it is wild to see how the electronic age version of scribbling a set list down on some paper can stir such discord.

The fact of the matter is that we occasionally get more than we bargain for with all this technology. Today, we are all best friends with the guy who snuck a peak at the Dead’s set list before the show got started. 30 years ago, our friend would have emerged from back stage grinning broadly and immediately told us what he saw (this assuming there was a pre-show set list to see back then). We’d probably be thrilled at this window of insight, and then perhaps bemoan his telling us every song before the fact – or be amazed that he was able to remember the entire list long enough to retell it at all. But it would have all happened between perhaps a half dozen people, tops. Today, the pack of friends he tells is every human being who happens to be tuned in online. Now, instead of a few of us talking about this event, hundreds (thousands?) of us are amazed to find that we even had a friend nosing around back stage at a Dead show, let alone that he crushed all the excitement for those of us in attendance who thrive on the spontaneity of the band’s performance.

These are just the growing pains we suffer as we mesh our Grateful Dead community into the ever-evolving digital age. In some ways it’s not unlike the bitterness many deadheads felt when every single show turned up online, making the music that took some of us decades to track down and assemble into our personal tape collections instantly accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. It took a lot of years, but we got over it (most of us, anyway), and now the full online digital catalog is just part of life.

And I’d venture to say it’s the growing pains talking when people instinctively curse the advent of these technologies (Damn you Twitter! You harshed my buzz!). But what’s happening here is an evolution of the way our community ties itself together. Facebook, Twitter, blogs, they all serve as a new version of being signed up to the Grateful Dead’s mailing list as advertised in the bi-fold of the 1971 Skull & Roses record sleeve:

Today we’re able to sign up for a myriad of communication channels, with the band and with each other, and many of them now flow in real time. But they serve the same purpose as the original – to unite us.

While anyone dabbling in these new Social Media tools will attest to a certain level of static noise coming over the channel, it is an interesting vantage point from which to experience the thoughts and goings on of our tribe, especially while there are events (the Spring 2009 Dead tour) going on in real time around us. For anyone struggling to wade into the water because of the sense that this information comes too quickly and from too many angles, it’s actually possible to clear away some static. First, you should accept that you’re going to miss stuff. You can’t keep up with all of it, so don’t rank the experience upon how much of the information you can consume. You can also impose a little filtering. With Twitter, for example, it’s possible to search tweets with an imposed theme via hashed keywords like #GratefulDead, or #TheDead. Check it out. It’s a little better than pouring though what seems like mindless noise, although there’s plenty of noise even within a themed search. As things like Twitter stick around, the ability to filter will only improve. There are many third party apps out there helping as well.

So, while the new world of Social Media catches many of us off guard, we should try to avoid rash decisions related to its value. It really just points to another skill we need to develop – learning how to best make use of our tools, even if that skill turns out to be the talent for dialing down the constant drone of Dead noise to an acceptable level. As we’ve seen with the evolution of audio technology, all new gadgetry needs to be accepted, learned, and adapted to best serve the community. We screwed up CDs big time when they first flooded into trading circles. For those of us who were there, we have countless piles of drink coasters made from Track At Once (TAO) burned discs with two second gaps between our Scarlets and Fires, and endless Sector Boundary Errors (SBE) leaving those annoying little blips between tracks. Eventually, we figured it all out, got over it, and wove the technology into our community. Thank goodness the price of blank discs plummeted so continually.

Eventually more and more technology will come along making the stuff we struggle with today seem completely normal. I eagerly await the day I can re-master all of my AUD transfers into some new holographic simulator that allows us to go back and feel like we are actually sitting 10th row center while Jerry and the boys play their hearts out in front of us. We’ll go to shows together without leaving the house. And yes, there will have to be a holographic parking lot scene with every show too.

Shall we go…?

1971 July 02 - Fillmore West

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:56:14 PDT

GRATEFUL DEAD
NEW RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE
Friday, July 2, 1971
Fillmore West – San Francisco, CA
Soundboard (FM) Recording

There’s something wonderfully enjoyable about great 1971 Dead shows. The band was so comfortable by now that its entire concert experience could be equally appealing for its lovely folk-rock good times song delivery, as well as for the band’s ability to reach the psychedelic seas. Coming out of 1970 after releasing both Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, two albums that completely reshaped the way everyone had to think about this band, the Dead’s persona had evolved a long way from being the poster child from 710 Ashbury and the Summer of Love.

The Dead rolled into their featured night during the closing run of Bill Graham’s Fillmore West as a well polished (as much as being the Grateful Dead would allow them to be polished) cosmic country rocking titan. Steeped deeply into the nearly two year period where they toured with the New Riders of the Purple Sage as their opening act (really more of an extension of the Grateful Dead family than another band, with Jerry Garcia playing pedal steel in the Riders), the Dead’s concerts from 1971 exude happiness more than anything else during this period. It’s an odd overarching accolade to bestow, especially while the band was probably more multidimensional in 1971 than most people think – pure folk-tinged timelessness, raw bluesy Pigpen-driven swagger, and the ever present psychedelic power. But through all of this, the band simply sounds content and comfortable. It was a good time to be the Grateful Dead.

07/02/71 offers a perfect slice of the Grateful Dead pie, or perhaps an entire pie, since we have the complete evening’s performance to enjoy from a collection of recordings made off of the FM-Broadcasts of the show. Having things complete, there is an uncompromising need to begin one’s enjoyment of 07/02/71 with the New Riders’ opening set. As much as the Dead were masters of their game by 1971, the Riders were completely hitting their stride here, and this date offers a fantastic example of how wonderful the New Riders of the Purple Sage were.

This was one of the first New Riders tapes I ever got in a trade, and it came as a gift, just something included with a number of other shows from a trading partner. I wore the tape out. The reference Bill Graham makes in his introduction to the Riders being one of the things that makes Marin County as sunny as it is seems to suffuse their set completely. Having personally collected pretty much every available note in circulation from this band, I can attest that the Rider’s set on 07/02/71 is spun from pure gold. Not only is Garcia completely on fire with his steel playing, but the band is just completely in synch from start to finish. John “Marmaduke” Dawson’s vocal drip like honey, and the band epitomizes their own special brand of psychedelic country rock. As you go from song to song, and hear the crowd going more and more bananas in appreciation, you quickly come to find how this band’s music was a critical feature of the Dead’s entire output over 1970 and 1971. The evening with the Grateful Dead starts here.

The Riders cap their set off with an encore of The Band’s song, The Weight, and if you could take only one NRPS performance to a desert island, it may as well be this rendition (which, by the way, can be heard featured in the bonus material on the re-mastered release of their debut album). Garcia’s solo will teach you never to miss another opportunity to listen to the Riders again. As Dawson continues to deliver the verses after the solo, you find that you are cradled in a little meadow of golden streaming sunlight. Dust specs sparkle like tiny glass prisms. There’s no place else to be. And the Dead have not even taken the stage.

When the Dead do take the stage, sunshine explodes as they open up with Bertha, a song more at home here in its debut year than any other. Jerry has clearly drawn all the energy from the Rider’s set directly into his vocal delivery. And his solo absolutely sings over the equally charged energetic delivery from Bill Kreutzmann on drums. Perhaps it’s from being the opening track on the Dead’s live album, Skull & Roses from 1971, and that being one of the first GD records I bought as a youth, but to me Bertha embodies 1971 Grateful Dead beautifully. It’s like the bands calling card for this year. The joyfulness is unmistakable, and by the end of the song, when the instrument mix is completely dialed in, we can tell we are in for a wonderful sounding ride through a night with the Grateful Dead.

Me & Bobby McGee follows and the pervasive comfort and pleasure continues. We are less than ten minutes into this show, and we’re already wrapped into the Dead’s vibe completely. Also a song featured on the Dead’s ’71 live record, Garcia’s backing vocals have always struck me as so well thought out on this song. He’s not simply harmonizing. He’s threading his own melody line just under Weir’s.

Following Bobby McGee, Pigpen steps up for Next Time You See Me (a song, by the way, that was mislabeled as “Lied & Cheated” on many an old Dead tape), and the Dead demonstrate that they still pack that throaty, bluesy strut and swagger that was such a primary force in their music early on. Pigpen blows fantastic harmonica, and the crowd can be heard exploding in appreciation of his talent. This is followed by a China > Rider which hammers everything home. Garcia’s guitar tone blazes into the air during the China Cat solos, and the segue and ensuing I Know You Rider find the band firmly settled into a dance with what is clearly, for them, one of their most cherished golden rings in 1971. All the sunshine energy and Americana-Folk-like groove that pervaded Bertha and Bobby McGee comes pouring out in the Dead’s improvisational expression. Here then, we lock in and find our hearts entwined with the music. This isn’t the deep soul rending psychedelic madness type of intoxication. Rather, it’s the equally intoxicating flip side of the same coin. Somehow, the Dead’s established ability to psychedelically pierce the heart allows them to guide the audience along into their own evolving heartfelt pleasure during I Know You Rider. We’re early in the show, and already the music has fully transformed the borders between everything around us. The joyfulness of it all has clearly soaked into everyone and everything.

The first set continues to deliver on this energy, including a wonderful Hard To Handle. This period of the year was a high watermark for Hard To Handles, containing freight train-like energy and power through the pounding solo section. This version is also worth noting for showcasing the amazing ability of the band to save itself after a mistimed vocal re-entry on the final verse. They right the ship so effortlessly it’s almost as if nothing went wrong. The set wraps up with a steamy and strutting Good Lovin’. Cascading out of the formal song into the rolling and swirling gutsy blues-tinged jam, it’s a wonderful ride into a sweet spot of early Dead jamming style that we would see completely disappear with the eventual loss of Pigpen. The music sweeps everything into a near tribal frenzy, and closes the set on a wonderful high.

Set two opens with a rocking Sugar Magnolia, another song that was in prime form this year, and eventually we reach Cryptical Envelopment and Other One. It comes at us as if out of nowhere, a bit like 07/26/72’s Dark Star. There’s little hint that the band might veer down the psychedelic path at this point, and the somewhat unexpected turn adds to the enjoyment. While the mass of this show features that highly infectious “good old Grateful Dead” vibe – something altogether relaxing and smile producing – this Other One reveals the more sinister and snaky Grateful Dead that apparently has been waiting just out of view the whole time. This is a hold on to your seat ride that, even as it gets going, belies the true dangers lurking just around dark corners. We go in not sure that the bottom will ever really drop out on us, and what takes shape is more of a slow dissolve. The song just keeps pushing the envelope as it transitions liquidly from Other One theme to dripping feathery interplay, back to the theme again, and soon gets completely lost in a burning sea of stars, all before making it seamlessly into the first verse. Afterward, the music begins to bow and flex at odd angles as the intensity continues to build. Eventually it all swarms into madness, erupting in great plumes of molten color. Somehow the ground is found within the Other One theme breathing fire like a dragon. Fiercely, the song slams into the final verse, and eventually comes to rest beautifully in a mournful breeze without re-entering a Cryptical reprise at all.

The set closing segment begins with a Not Fade Away which storms in and shows off Garcia’s guitar work at its lyrical best. His solo arches high in the air, singing lovely lines while the rhythm section churns along. This provides a certain “pretty” layer not often found in Not Fade Away, and becomes a lovely bridge to an equally luscious Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad. 1971 was far and away the pinnacle year for Going Down The Road. The band had clearly found something of a sweet spot in this song, much like in that of I Know You Rider. The warm glow of tube amplification, Bill Kreutzmann’s impeccable ability to skim the beat along tiny wave crests, Jerry’s emotional story telling delivery of the lyrics – all of these things and more found a wonderful convergence in 1971. Without bringing the roof down, GDTRFB could nonetheless deliver a peak highlight to any show. Bookending it smoothly, Not Fade Away elevated this even more into a classic Grateful Dead pairing. 07/02/71’s version is fresh from the mold, delivering everything we could ever want. It’s that lovely marriage of Folk-Americana and country rocking rainbows that the Dead embodied so well in 1971.

Also not to be missed is the Johnny B Goode encore. Introduced by Jerry with, “Alright folks, here’s the one it’s all about,” this version does indeed bring the house down. The Dead surge with such power here that even this straight up rock-n-roll classic demonstrates that this band was cruising at the top of their game. Fantastic Summer ’71 Grateful Dead all around.

New Riders Of The Purple Sage:

07/02/71 SBD-FM etree source info

07/02/71 SBD-FM Download

Grateful Dead:

07/02/71 SBD-FM etree source info

07/02/71 SBD-FM Stream

Under Eternity Blue

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:19:26 PDT

Early on, while introducing this blog, I referenced a period of a few years just before being inspired to start this project where I had stepped completely away from Grateful Dead music. That was no small feat, let me tell you, because I had been listening to a nearly steady diet of the Grateful Dead and its associated close circle projects for a long, long time. Oh, I had plenty of other music, but the Dead occupied something on the order of 80% of my listening time.

The trigger for the transition came when I entered the world of MP3 players. Suddenly the chance to queue up several hundred of my CDs (non-Dead) into a pocket sized jukebox was exhilarating. And while I listened to friends talk about how they were filling up iPods with Dead bootlegs, I was having nothing of it. I was rediscovering my record collection. I was crafting playlists to underscore everything from a Friday night dinner, Sunday morning coffee, doing dishes, to late night relaxing on the screen porch. Beyond some of the Dead’s commercial albums (gasp!), the boys were not making an appearance anywhere.

I think keeping your ears open to lots of different music is one of the healthiest things you can do. Yes, finding something you like and playing it until the proverbial vinyl wears thin is a pleasure any music fan should enjoy. We all have our guilty pleasures too. But, what this time away from the Dead taught me was that the soul enriching musical pleasure I was finding in their music, was lurking everywhere. It was in the past, and it was in the recently past present of music too.

Now the Grateful Dead fill only about 10% of the musical backdrop I weave into my life. Sometimes it’s a bit more, sometimes far less. And what’s interesting to me is that if, in starting this blog, the Dead’s music didn’t once again light a flame deep in my heart, I would have wrapped things up after about 20 reviews and set it adrift on the Internet seas, satisfied that it might do its job here and there. But, the Dead did indeed re-light that flame. It’s just that now their music is in competition with so much more that equally satisfies me. And I like it that way.

About a month or two ago, I noticed that episode 001 of the GDLG podcast turned up on a live radio program devoted in part to the realm of psychedelics called Spirit Plants Radio. I thought it was totally cool to hear my podcast streaming live late one Saturday night, and thanked the guy who organizes the show for thinking to include my stuff on his program. We got to talking, and it dawned on me that this might be a unique platform to exercise my passion for non-Dead music (I have toyed for a long time with the idea of devoting some space here on the blog for NDC – Non Dead Content). And thus was born “Under Eternity Blue” (couldn’t resist the subtle Dead reference), a radio show where I aim to indulge the rest of my musical universe, and set it out into that Internet ocean. If you trust my judgment on Grateful Dead tapes, who knows, maybe I can turn you on to some other stuff too.

I mention all of this now in part to give props to the entire radio project itself (there’s a wide range of other interesting content streaming on this guys radio marathon each weekend), and to invite over anyone interested in some potential side tripping with me to tune into this other area of my musical garden. My debut show airs this weekend (links coming below).

The format of Under Eternity Blue is a work in progress. I had started off building the first 2 hour set with a wide reaching variety of music from a whole host of different genres (everything from early Reggae and 70’s Afro-Highlife to Acid Folk and Soul Jazz from the late 60’s), but then landed on the decision to feature just one corner of music this time which seemed well matched with the shows overall devotion to psychedelia. So, on its maiden voyage, Under Eternity Blue is exploring the world of Ambient Electronica. Next time, it will go in some other direction entirely, I’m sure.

In the pure spirit of “one man gathers what another man spills” I invite you to poke you head into this episode, or some future one, to see if there’s anything you might enjoy. If not, no worries. I know for me personally, finding inroads to new music is a sometime treacherous adventure. Nothing can be everything for everyone, but a willingness to dabble can often open a door to great riches.

I’ll plan to find some platform here on the GLDG (perhaps over on the side bar) to link to the Under Eternity Blue shows as they get produced. After each broadcast, the shows become linked for streaming anytime. Perhaps I’ll even set up another podcast or blog page for them. We’ll see. For now, you are invited to check out the first installment as part of this weekends lineup. The show is being featured a few times across Saturday and Sunday:

Spirit Plants Radio http://spfradio.yage.net/
Under Eternity Blue with DJ Arkstar
Saturday, April 25th: 8pm – 10pm PST
Sunday, April 26th: 4am – 6am PST & 8am – 10am PST
The full weekend line up (11am PST Saturday - 11pm PST Sunday) is listed on the Spirit Plants Radio page above. Again, if you can’t tune in live, all shows become listenable via archive streaming after the show ends Sunday night.

GDLG-004 - Call Of The Wall

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:46:25 PDT

Listening Session 004: A tribute to the Grateful Dead's historic 1974 sound system, the Wall Of Sound, featuring fantastic audience recordings which preserved the experience, along with the occasional story and insight adding color along the way.

Listening Trail - Call Of The Wall

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 06:28:56 PDT

You aren’t going to get very far into Grateful Dead tape collecting without hearing about the Wall Of Sound. Considering 1974, the year of the Wall’s existence, the Dead’s sound system marked a triumph in audio engineering. Beautifully loud and remarkably clear according to those who recount the experience of being in its presence, the Wall Of Sound was as much a part of the mid-70’s Grateful Dead sound as the band that was making the music.

As one traverses the musical history of the Grateful Dead, conversations about what it was like to see the band in 1974 are common. The Wall Of Sound was a lot like a work of theater in that it came and went - all the technical and creative elements were assembled for a brief stretch of time, like a play’s run on Broadway, and then were gone. Fans of 1974 Dead who weren’t there due to the pesky laws of time, can’t help but pine over what the Wall experience was like.

Understandably, wanting to get a taste of what the Wall sounded like is something that can truly only be approached through tapes recorded by fans in the audience. Soundboards from this year are not the Wall, at all. Luckily, there are a number of very nice aural documents to enjoy, and the year itself consistently delivers some of the most thrilling improvisational music the band ever produced. So, we end up with a true win-win every time.

This Listening Trail could serve double duty. While there aren’t nearly enough reviews on the guide to foster the production of trails based on each and every year, by focusing on the Wall Of Sound, this trail will certainly highlight the particular magic that was 1974 Grateful Dead all the same.

07/21/74 – This tape is like the Wall Of Sound expertly preserved under glass. Rob Bertrando had everything gelling on this day as he recorded the show from an ideal spot in the crowd. Not surprisingly, this is an outdoor recording – hearing the Wall in an open space where it could fully flex its muscle, makes for an ideal setting. The entire show is a gem, but head to the lovely China>Rider or the sensational Playin’ In The Band jam to get right down to business.

07/31/74 – Never one to get a lot of attention, mostly because the long circulating soundboard was only so-so, and no audience tapes circulated, when Bill Degen’s tape first crossed my ears in the late 90's it was an unforgettable moment. While this outdoor crowd could tend to be somewhat noisy, and the wind here and there can be intrusive, all of this fades away more often than not when you really need it to. Eyes Of The World is an unforgettable experience on this tape, and the Truckin’ jam is… well... just listen. This is the Dead, loud.

06/23/74 – Jerry Moore’s recording goes down as one of the most famous of them all. Capturing a crowd more mellow than you might ever hear anywhere else in 1974, this recording comes off as a church service, full of a quiet grace. The opening of set two, the Let It Grow, the Dark Star, a beautiful To Lay Me Down, and one of my favorite versions of Cumberland Blues, all combine to set this tape in its rightful place on the top shelf of ’74.

05/12/74 – The Wall’s first outdoor appearance and another remarkable tape demonstrating the towering power of the sound system. Hearing the Truckin’ explode after a minute or two of great crowd cheering and song requesting sets the stage for one of the most enjoyable and acrobatic improvisational jams of the year. Even as a mono recording, this tape draws the listener in with it’s full sound spectrum, and deep in the jam you may find yourself very thankful that someone (we don’t know who) was sitting there in the audience taping it for you.

08/06/74 - A welcome addition to any trail (also found on the Best Dead Shows trail), the electricity beams off of this tape as the Wall Of Sound casts the crowd into rapt silence and attention. The highlights of set one will make you forever glad that this was being caught on tape.

1982 September 5 - US Festival

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 13:03:52 PDT

GRATEFUL DEAD
September 5, 1982
US Festival, Glen Helen Regional Park – Devore, CA
Audience Recording

It’s hard to explain the pleasure I get from this show. Something draws me in despite the fact that much of this show gives off the tell tale signs of a tape I wouldn’t gravitate to, nor listen to more than one time. However, when I step back a bit, I see this show as a wonderful example of many things the Dead were all about, and it makes perfect sense as an inclusion in the Listening Guide.

This was a tape I never traded for back when I was a rabid collector. It just never made it anywhere near the top of the list of shows I wanted to seek out. The Grateful Dead, if you weren’t already aware, were famous for complete failure when it came to rising to an occasion. The list of downright disappointments across great musical events is like a calling card for this band. “Got a big event coming up? Invite us, and we’re sure to miss stepping up to the plate.” While the enormity of underwhelmment (will this word ever get in the dictionary?) can vary from person to person, calling to mind such rock events as the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, and the Dead’s trip to Egypt, all ring true with a common theme of let down. And that’s undoubtedly why I always took a pass on the tape from 1982’s US Festival. It was a landmark musical event. How well could the Dead possibly have played?

I’ll be the first to say it: the Dead didn’t play anything earth shattering at their breakfast show on September 9th 1982 (they went on at 9:30AM). So why is it showing up on the Grateful Dead Listening Guide? Well, in part, I think it comes down to the fact that this show demonstrates a certain quality of the Dead that might not often be glorified on these pages. At this show, the Dead thoroughly nail a vibe that I’m not normally drawn to. It’s an undercurrent you can hear running through songs like Minglewood, Samson, Man Smart (Women Smarter), and Not Fade Away on this date. It must be a Bobby vibe of some sort. Regardless, those tunes don’t generally call to my heart like many others. Yet, on this date, there is no mistaking that the Dead we playing this particular vibe in perfected form. I find myself completely swept up by what’s going on, and therefore feel this is an ideal show to feature here. This particular facet of the Grateful Dead is another hallmark characteristic of what their music was all about, and it deserves some attention.

Musically, this is actually one of the most approachable Dead shows I can think of. The band doesn’t take a tremendous amount of risk here, perhaps due to the scale of the stage they were playing on. And yet, perhaps because of the technical difficulties early on, they seemed to become possessed with a spark of energy and passion, as if to compensate for the floundering mechanical toe stubbings. We end up with a set list that juxtaposes the standard format of a Dead show, normally starting with a straightforward first set leading to more explorative improvisation in the second, and come away with a show that both plays like a Grateful Dead greatest hits record, yet is also infused with many tremendous highlights woven into the fabric of the music. While it is divided into two sets (mostly due to the technical issues needing to be resolved), the show plays like one long extended single set, overall. This all somehow makes sense when we consider that we were smack dab in the middle of the era where first sets could out shine second sets. And thus, of all the “big moment” shows in the Dead’s history, this one actually does the best job of bucking the trend (or curse) of always falling short. Oh, and this audience recording is so good, it will knock you flat out of your head. Crystal clear outdoor Dead goodness, and I struggle to bring to mind any audience tape that delivers Phil’s bass any better.

So, let’s take a look at the set list and dig into some of the music:

Set 1: Playin' In The Band > Shakedown Street > New Minglewood Blues, Samson & Delilah, China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider
Set 2: Sugaree, Man Smart (Woman Smarter), Truckin' > Drums > Space > Not Fade Away > Black Peter > Sugar Magnolia
E1: U.S. Blues E2: Satisfaction

It’s impossible for me not to be drawn in to a show that opens with a Playin’ In The Band. Being one of my favorite Grateful Dead musical vehicles, and so rarely seen in the show opening slot, it’s a convergence that always grabs my attention. After a long opening passage on this tape where the band is getting set to play, the song sparkles into existence, loud and clear. It doesn’t possess a long jam, but before it slips into Shakedown Street, we sense a shredding of the fibers which tether the music to the ground. Just as things begin slipping beautifully over an edge, they coil back in and reach Shakedown.

Shakedown Street delivers its wonderfully sultry disco-ish groove, and we are quickly finding ourselves fully immersed into the infectious world of the Dead’s music. Everything shimmers in the hot morning sunshine. Minglewood follows, and it’s as if the band has finally slipped into fourth gear. Garcia explodes with one powerful guitar solo after another, and everything boils. Then the technical gremlins appear, as Bobby informs us that the amps are dropping like flies in the heat. Eventually, things are resolved, and the band manages to step right back into the vein with a bone shaking Samson & Delilah.

The set closing China>Rider is pure 1982 perfection. The song duo charges forward like a stiff breeze drawing everything into its wake. Glorious pinwheels and sparklers are cast into a blurring canopy of sound which twists endlessly inward and outward. This is the Dead at the height of 1982 power. Everything ties together, leaving us in a harmonious state of musical joy with the band. And then they take a set break to deal with more technical issues.

Set two on this tape starts off with the soundboard recording covering the first few moments of Sugaree. It is expertly spliced into the AUD where the taper got things started again. This little passage speaks volumes about the way an audience recording can completely outshine a soundboard tape – especially in the early 80’s. When you hear Garcia’s tone flip in as the AUD tape returns, it places you back in a completely perfect sonic landscape. Joyfully, we settle back into this aural masterpiece, and are treated to a wonderful Sugaree, as much about Jerry’s intricate solos as it is about Phil’s fantastic underpinning throughout. Phil is not to be missed here.

Man Smart (Woman Smarter) latches right back into that Samson & Delilah energy. Somehow, the drummer’s beat is cycling in on itself, and the other instruments bounce on the beats defying the body to find the downbeat. An infectious dance is in the air, and you can feel the twirling girls, and the guys dancing, knees bobbing high in the air. Bobby, apparently as lost to the downbeat as we are, sings the second first about a quarter measure too early, and the rest of the band slowly catches up with him perfectly covering the misstep, and increasing the music’s ability to blur beat over beat.

Truckin’ comes on like a flag waving emblem of the Grateful Dead’s legacy. Rolling out into a very nice post song jam section, the signature thunder clapping chord that comes off of the rev up section is pricelessly perfect. It explodes with such power, even the most seasoned listener can’t help but have a huge smile spread from ear to ear. The entire audience is rocketed into the stratosphere. Jerry flips on a compression/distortion effect, and the band cruises forward into an ever-spiraling jam that eventually finds Garcia floating out on a glorious Other One tangent. Bittersweetly, they head into Drums, rather than the Other One that seemed so close.

The Space that follows is really fine. Phil leads the entire passage, playing a gooey and dripping melody which makes this entire portion of the show far more than random noise and cacophony. Shimmering, whispering, tinkling breezes wrap everything in an otherworldly blanket. And, slowly Not Fade Away appears out of the mist. We are back in that same groove again where the downbeat is turning concentric circles upon itself, while the music drapes liquidly over everything.

It’s a classic Grateful Dead run to the finish line, which includes the crowd helping Bob out when he forgets the lines to Sugar Magnolia (poor Bobby). The US Blues encore is a treat, outdone by the Satisfaction which follows it.

Brimming with bright sunshine, this fantastic audience recording delivers a wonderful morning ride with the Grateful Dead. While there may not be any extended jamming to speak of, the unmistakable fingerprint of the Grateful Dead is all over this show. So, rub on some sunscreen and step under the cooling spray of the water truck hoses. The Dead are taking the stage.

09/05/82 AUD etree source info
09-05-82 AUD Download

known photo credits: Franklin Berger, Karl King

The Dead Are Live Again

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 07:45:32 PDT

The Dead 2009 tour is upon us, and deadheads all over the country are gearing up for the upcoming musical adventure. Having had the pleasure of being interviewed by Bill Kramer, journalist for The News Leader, a newspaper serving the Shenandoah Valley, it got me thinking about the events that are about to unfold. Portions of the interview were used in the article, The Dead to conjure their magic in Charlottesville. And this left me with a number of thoughts still bouncing around my head, many of which did not find their way into print.

I think folk’s anticipation of the upcoming tour of The Dead is mixed with excitement and melancholy dismissal. And I’ve found no way to personally come out on one side of the fence or the other. Those too young to have seen Jerry and the true Grateful Dead are blessed with the real chance to hop on the bus (2009’s version of it, at least), and experience not just the potential for great music, but the entire “scene” from the parking lot and beyond. There’s no denying the power of tapping into a sea of people who all seem to “get” what you get. The Dead culture lives on, and that’s very good. Yes, it has changed dramatically over the years. But we were talking about the way it was changing dramatically way back in 1989 too. And they were saying similar stuff in 1979, and probably 1969. Personally, I lean hard on the melancholy side of things. I miss Jerry Garcia. A lot.

For those old enough to have been to shows while we had Jerry, the Dead 2009 tour holds the promise of our “scene” coming together again. However, most deadheads will go through some resetting of expectations due to the absence of Garcia, and that itself can be a softly sad experience. It’s a mixed bag for sure. As I was quoted in the article, in the end, if you focus on the here and now, the tour holds the power to connect musician, music, and audience in that wonderful dance the Grateful Dead did for so many years. I’d rather have them out there playing, than not playing at all.

Bill asked me if all the musical incarnations that the surviving members have been exploring post-GD would impact The Dead on the 2009 tour. Without a doubt, they will. They can only enhance things. The members of the Dead follow their musical passion much like Jazz artists. Every night has to find some inroad into discovery and growth. You can’t do that without drawing on what you did last night, last week, or last decade. Sure they may be cynically thought of as the best Grateful Dead cover band of all time, but they are still more truly artistic than a lot of what’s on the road these days.

On the subject of the Dead and their commercialization, the reaction to ticket prices for this tour sees opinions vary widely. Are they sellouts? Are they capitalizing on the past? Can we blame them for that? It goes on and on. Despite all the ups and downs around this, it is clear that the power of catching the closest thing to a live Grateful Dead show is mighty. There’s no denying the call down by the river side to hear Uncle John’s Band one more time. And perhaps The Dead will bring Summer on just a little sooner for us all. It’s early April here around Chicago, and I think I can speak for most of us when I say we’re all feeling pretty overdue for the change of seasons right about now.

DeadListening on Twitter

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 19:59:26 PDT

The Grateful Dead Listening Guide is now on Twitter!
(follow deadlistening now)
Without new technology this site would never have come into being. The idea for the GDLG came in response to what I felt were drawbacks and roadblocks born from the benefits associated with our new digital age bringing all Dead shows to our fingertips. It becomes an interestingly blurry distinction, or perhaps more so, an uroboros-like connotation, which leaves it hard to call the technology outright bad, or good. Without its drawbacks, I would not have found an avenue into the pleasure of my own creative output here. We wouldn’t have all the Dead shows online if not for the dedication of a well connected community, and we wouldn’t have seen the entire face of our trading community turned on its ear if not for the music having made it online. One has fed the other, and back again.

That said, there is also new communication technology springing up all the time. On the surface it can seem to only complicate the angles from which we get our information. But the Internet world is one of constant change. One’s existence online has become far more than a single webpage. Groups, companies, and people now have a “web presence,” and this spreads across multiple platforms and communication channels – I beg your pardon. That’s my “day job” persona talking.

I know some of you are already “fans” of the GDLG blog page on Facebook, and I’d encourage and welcome any Facebook users here to pop on over and join the group there – not that there’s anything particularly unique happening on that page. I keep waiting for Facebook to improve the usefulness of the blog pages in general. Regardless, I’d love to keep building the community there. Come on by and become a fan.

The jury may still be out on how good or bad all of these Social Networks are, but they are here just the same. Take Twitter. Good? Bad? I have no clue. My gut reaction is that it’s as much an intrusive little bother into the flow my day, as it is a unique way to keep up with people I know. And in the spirit of accepting new technology as having as much potential for good as bad, I’ve launched a DeadlListening specific Twitter account.

Do you tweet? Whether that question is completely baffling to you or not, why not stop by and consider following the GDLG on Twitter? And to be sure, not following DeadListening on Twitter will not leave you out of any loop. As you’ll see from the most recent tweets, I’m not plumbing the deepest Grateful Dead wisdoms on Twitter. It’s just a slightly more personal (and decidedly less significant) way to keep in touch over the Internet tubes.

I look forward to seeing you, everywhere.

1978 February 3 - Dane County Coliseum

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 08:53:38 PDT

GRATEFUL DEAD
Friday, February 3, 1978
Dane County Coliseum – Madison, WI
Audience Recording

Early 1978 marks a wonderful peak in the career of the Grateful Dead. Many folks like to say that 1977 didn’t really wrap up until the end of the Jan-Feb run in ’78. I’m not one of them. 1977 can have its own 365 days. 1978 deserves the credit for its early section of musical mastery. Even with Garcia battling laryngitis early on in January (which only made him play more intensely while not being able to sing at all), the first tours of 1978 are worth exploring in detail.

Looking at another stretch of shows that makes choosing one to review nearly impossible (including yet another great run at the Uptown Theater in Chicago), I’ve come back to an old favorite tape for its somewhat subdued, yet wickedly potent dose of phenomenal Grateful Dead music – February 3, 1978. The Dane County Coliseum was some sort of ignition point for this band. It’s hard to find bad shows played at this venue. Featured on Dick’s Picks 18, the highlights from this night make this pick one everyone should own. To add color and perspective, there is also an AUD of this show to enjoy. It’s not what we’d call A quality, but it fully succeeds in delivering the full spectrum of the power that was happening on this night. The deeper the music goes, the more the quality of the listening experience improves, and the music goes quite deep, to be sure.

While it’s set two that will receive most of my focus, I can’t help but call attention to the first set’s closer, The Music Never Stopped. After revisiting it for this review, I can’t believe this one hasn’t always stuck in my brain as one of the best ever. How could I have forgotten this? Why don’t all Deadheads hold other versions of this song up to 2/3/78 to judge their worthiness? Do not pass it up when you pull out this tape for a listen. And then, you’ll want to get right to the meat of the second set…

Estimated Prophet > Eyes Of The World > Playin' In The Band > The Wheel > Playin' In The Band

Estimated Prophet expands like we’ve found a veiled entrance to an underground cavern of ancient, untouched mystery. Slowly torches reveal a labyrinth of loosely coiled passages, all reflecting a soft shimmering glow of prism hued light off of flickering flames. The music is soaked, cool and dark, with a hypnotic power that is hard to see coming. The evening’s concert has slowly begun to evaporate around you, and before you’ve even noticed the shift, it’s already nearly gone, leaving you quite powerless to defend the music’s insistent pursuit toward waking your soul to its siren call. By the time the music begins blending into a rolling and shifting landscape, sounding more like a mellow Other One and hinting at the Eyes to come, we have found that our pulse, breath, and complete attention have synced into a collective presence with the music. Effortlessly, the music dissolves the cavern’s wet rocky canopy into sunlight, as if small fissures are allowing starlight to pass through causing the walls to liquidly evaporate like steam, and slowly fade away.

Eyes Of The World brings with it that buoyant joyfulness that gives off the distinct impression that the music is smiling broadly. Relaxed into the moment, Jerry rushes nothing. He runs through solo after solo, and just when you figure he’s stepping up to the microphone to sing, he flows back into another solo section, cart wheeling up mountain peaks again. In between each verse he triumphantly soars and delicately floats in a gorgeous interplay of sunlit peaks and valleys. Even at 16 minutes, the song seems to stretch out far longer, eventually leading up to the highpoint of the evening, Playin’ In The Band.

This Playin’>Wheel>Playin’ captures an enormous segment of quintessential Grateful Dead creativity, reaching well outside the bounds one can easily pin down as simply 1978 Dead. The Playin’ jam begins with Phil taking a relaxed solo over drums and whisper quiet instrumentation from the rest of the band. It’s as if the bass is strolling through a forest, gently kicking up swells of musical texture, like leaves in its wake. The haunting mystery of Estimated Prophet has returned to bring a hushed reverence to the musical experience. The band seems to be allowing their musical magic to reach its own deepest levels of inspiration. They force nothing, and the jamming that slowly begins taking form appears organically, as if born of the music itself, not from the individual members of the band. It courses into you, more than just music – the sweet magic of the Grateful Dead has fully opened its flower, its rich color and fragrance so strong as to wipe all other sensation away from your senses.

Formless grace seems the most apt description of the long jam that follows. Things aren’t veering aggressively away from the Playin’ theme, yet it has been left miles behind in the distance just the same. As this was the section of the band’s career which saw the formalization of Drums>Space as a fixture in the second set, it is worth noting that while the drummers reach a passage where they are musically calling for the rest of the band to give them room, it doesn’t happen. On the fingertips of small hand percussion the music continues to gently evolve into one intricate tapestry after another. Eventually, the musical beat slips away, as the band coxes the gentle grace into a shifting, tilting landscape of Space. Beware a somewhat brutal tape flip edit as this Space gets started. It’s a bump in the road that quickly passes and leaves you deeply immersed in a pulsing sea of light and color. Throughout this passage, The Wheel is hinting its way into being, and eventually we come out on the other side into the song proper.

The Wheel tends to always strike me as a pop song that someone dosed heavily with LSD, driving it into a realm beyond mere hallucinations to a pure resonance with all things – an awakened spiritual grace tinged with a quiet peaceful knowing. It wears psychedelia like a flowing garment on a body of spiritual serenity. That there is a real song going on binds this inner world quality with a more tangible form. The song’s lyrics and musical structure call us into the same pure church-like setting as Attics Of My Life, or Brokedown Palace. This is a song you often “attend” more so than simply hear. The exit jam embodies a pure distillation of the ocean of grace that has been going on for over a half hour now. It is absolute Grateful Dead music, undeniably marked with the personal expression of the collective musical muse underlying the band’s creative energy. Gently, and with the hands of a loving parent, the music settles us back into Playin’ In The Band, and the set wraps up there.

Like an ace up your sleeve, this show hides out of view for most folks as they draw from the deck of Grateful Dead music. It's a card worth playing time and time again. Enjoy.

02/03/78 AUD etree source info
02/03/78 AUD Download

GDLG-003 - The Jingle Bell Rainbow

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 05:02:28 PDT

Listening Session 003: Stepping directly into the Dead's magical fire for some hallmark vehicles of intense psychedelic wizardry from the history of Grateful Dead live recordings, complete with the occasional story and insight adding color along the way.

1970 Study – Musical Soul Expander

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 06:22:42 PDT

I’ve gone on record saying this before, but it’s worth repeating: While 1973 is generally my personal favorite year of Grateful Dead music, 1970 might truly be the best year of them all.

The year stands out for me because it is one of convergence – the unanimous kings of pure psychedelic mastery merging with their own soul stirring progress into consummate songwriting which calls to mind a certain timeless Americana/Folklore campfire intimacy. Rooted in 1969, when they first started folding this acoustic element into shows, it reveals the Dead as an even more multifaceted jewel than anyone could have imagined over the previous four years. The Grateful Dead were riding a wave of pure creativity in 1970 which saw them artfully playing well worn strings while also inventing new instruments at the same time.

An evening with the Grateful Dead was now something altogether epic, spanning the relaxed intimacy of an opening acoustic set, followed by the amped up Psychedelic Country twang of a New Riders Of The Purple Sage set (complete with Jerry on pedal steel and Mickey on drums), capped by the Electric Dead at full force. “Mama, mama, many worlds I’ve come since I first left home.”

With this multidimensional musical energy at full throttle, 1970 also seems to best encapsulate something of the real roots of the subculture documentation of the band’s musical history. Great swaths of the Dead’s output this year are missing from the Vault completely, due in no small part to soundman Owsley “Bear” Stanley ending up in jail (it was he who was so instrumental in all the shows being recorded from the beginning), and the loose and unsecured manner in which the band’s soundboard tapes were protectively archived (master reels had a way of “walking out” of the vault). As the luck of timing would have it, by 1970 the growth of the Dead’s fan base, and audience tapers along with them, meant that even while large chunks of the year were either going absent from the band’s personal archive, or never even making it in, many of the missing holes actually were documented in the organic archiving of the intrepid tapers of that day – the grandfathers of the Dead bootleg audience tape phenomena.

It is no understatement to say that a lot of the audience tapes from 1970 are God awful wrenching on the ears. And sometimes these recordings with the worst sound quality are all we have as a clouded, scratched, and muddied lens into some of the greatest Dead music of all time (check out 04/24/70 Mammoth Gardens sometime to get this point completely – brutal on the ears, yet possessing a Dark Star and Eleven to rival all others).

Defying the odds stacked up by the band’s challenge to record and preserve their own output, combined with the field recording challenges of the era, there are still soundboard and audience tapes from 1970 which serve as shining jewels in the band’s deserved crown. With regard to the audience tapes in particular, they are often all there is on tape from some amazingly pivotal moments in the Dead’s concert history. These aural documents are plentiful enough to bring ample joy to those tape collectors out there who recognize the glory of 1970 Grateful Dead, and whose ears are seasoned enough to be unencumbered by what those perhaps less initiated might find as barriers to the music itself.

No doubt, fully appreciating even the best AUDs of 1970 requires the listener to have traveled a bit down the road of AUD tapes in general. I often mention that an AUD tape can require a bit of time for one’s ear to acclimate – sometime a few minutes, or a song or two. When it comes to 1970, this acclimation process can take a good deal longer, and is not always measured by listening to a single tape. I know for myself, after getting a number of 1970 AUDs early on in my trading experience, it wasn’t until I had gone down a longer road of building an appreciation for audience tapes in general, and came back to these ‘70 tapes, that I found my ears completely open to the music on these recordings.

This apparent rite of passage makes the joy within this music somehow more precious and special – the known futility of thinking we could hand over what we feel are actually good sounding tapes like 06/24/70, or 05/07/70 to a person never before exposed to audience tapes and believe they would be able to fully circumvent the auditory barriers which block total access to the magic within. They can’t. And thus, shows like this takes on an air of existing in some inner circle, or some secret room within the halls of the Grateful Dead tape collector’s mansion. Many people can’t find the room, because they haven’t passed through the outer chambers yet. But, the journey has its rewards, and is worth all the trials one’s ears might face in making it in.

While it had its own roots in 1969, 1970 ushered in the model of musical journeying that embodied the Grateful Dead forever onward. While there is no denying the pure primal pleasure found in the intense uninterrupted psychedelia of the years before, it seems that when the Dead started to spread their wings and explore the accessibility of acoustic roots, their hypnotic connection to the universal musical soul expanded even further.

1970 November 6 - Capitol Theatre

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:30:52 PDT

GRATEFUL DEAD
NEW RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE
Friday, November 6, 1970
Capitol Theatre – Port Chester, NY
Audience Recording
11/06/70 is one of those “no soundboard” tapes that all Deadheads have always placed in the Holy Grail category. We pine for the master soundboard reel to come on the scene (if it even exists at all). Considering the miraculous soundboards that have appeared out of the past in recent years, anything is possible. But far beyond the issue of the missing board, this show ranks as one of the best Dead performances of all time.

11/06/70 is another of the infamous “usher tapes.” Ken Leigh worked at the Capitol Theater, and was able to set up to record at the balcony rail. Like 06/24/70 and 11/08/70, this tape is pretty sublime, all 1970 caveats considered. The room ambience is quickly absorbed into your ear’s psyche, and before long you are feeling very much perched on the lip of the balcony, taking everything in.

From this date we have not only the entire show, but the soundcheck as well (a unique window into the pre-show Dead playing to an empty house in 1970). The acoustic set proper is steeped in that warm, relaxed, and inviting atmosphere so prevalent from this era. Here, by the end of 1970, the acoustic sets are somehow even more hypnotic than they were in the Spring. The audience is so receptive to the music, and it is clear that no one is in any hurry at all. Understandable, as this was the third time in 1970 that the band brought its circus to this venue. No one in the audience is worried by this point that their beloved psychedelic monster has been swapped out with some lazy, front porch sitting, good ol’ boys with acoustic guitars. Everyone is in it for the long, sweet ride.

Highlights from the acoustic set show up on nearly every song.

Don't Ease Me In, Deep Elem Blues, Dark Hollow, Friend Of The Devil, The Rub, Black Peter, El Paso, Brokedown Palace, Uncle John’s Band

For me, the slow rolling Black Peter is extremely satisfying. Garcia has us all sitting on his lap in rapt silence as he tells his tale. By the end of the set, with its lovely Uncle John’s Band closer, we are fully inducted into the relaxed personal space of the Dead’s musical universe.

From here, the air of intimacy, with its folksy, country vibe, is electrified by the New Riders Of The Purple Sage. The Riders music comes on, much like the undoubtedly electrified crowd, pulsing and throbbing under the twanging bounce of David Nelson’s finger picking, and Garcia’s siren-like hypnotic pedal steel playing; his notes sticking together like a liquid gossamer cotton candy of country-infused psychedelia. John “Marmaduke” Dawson’s vocal delivery on covers and his own compositions lends its own slightly twisted bent to everything as well.

The Riders wore psychedelic music like a subtle cologne or bandana under a hat. You wouldn’t know it was there upon first glance, but after a few passing songs, you would eventually see that all these multi-hued undertones were there the whole time. Syncopated, snaking downbeats, interweaving guitar licks and harmonies, and a pedal steel that seems to smile with a strobe light rainbow playful sort of knowing, all remain veiled within the trappings of some good old country rock music. The Riders packed a deep psychedelia into the cracks and crevices of their music, allowing it to permeate everything, occasionally casting it out into full view, and always using it to reach miles into the listener’s heart and soul.

Their set list on this evening is masterful:

Workin' Man Blues, I Don't Know You, Whatcha Gonna Do, Glendale Train, Portland Woman, Fair Chance to Know, All I Ever Wanted, Truck Drivin' Man, Lodi, Me and Bobby McGee, Louisiana Lady, The Weight, Honky Tonk Woman

They deliver everything beautifully, and Jerry’s steel playing is gorgeous throughout. You can easily get lost in Portland Woman, All I Even Wanted, and The Weight. And the infectious Whatcha Gonna Do, Lodi, and Louisiana Lady are each stellar.

Then comes the electric Dead set. It’s as if some enormous octopus of boiling energy has invaded the theater. The band opens with Casey Jones, and the crowd comes instantly alive; the Dead strutting along with gusto.

Casey Jones, Me & My Uncle, King Bee, China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider, Truckin’, Candyman, Sugar Magnolia

One of my favorite passages of this front portion of the electric set is the China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider. This song pairing rides the borderline between the Psychedelic beast and the Americana/Folklore energy beautifully. China Cat, with its carnival wheel turning spokes flashing colored lights and bubbles, twists and turns its way through the air. All of the instruments sound wonderful. Bobby’s guitar flashes, Phil’s bass rumbles, and Garcia is riding his white hot beam of thick jeweled tone, so typical of 1970. The interweaving patterns slowly work their way into more formal paths as they angle into I Know You Rider, and the music lifts itself on the back of Jerry’s solo into one joyous passage after another. We can feel the audience lock into the energy, and that unmistakable urge to smile washes over us as Jerry rides the beam again. By the end of Rider, the spell is fully cast. The lines between the crowd and audience are blurred. The entire family steps up and marches directly into Truckin’. And a little while later into the set, things just keep getting better.

The show closes out with a titanic portion of brilliant Grateful Dead music:

Good Lovin’ > Drums > The Main Ten > Drums > Good Lovin’, Alligator > Drums > NFA > GDTRFB > Mountain Jam > NFA > Caution > Lovelight

Good Lovin’ finds the band’s true leader, Pigpen, stepping into the spotlight. They quickly kick their way through the tight, infectious cover and head into a drum solo. The thunderous rhythms cool way down and things simmer into The Main Ten. The beautiful roots of Playin’ In The Band’s theme stretch back a ways before the actual song was ever introduced into the rotation. Called The Main Ten, based in no small part, I’m sure, on its ten beat measure, this wonderful little theme gets explored in 1970 from time to time, and here it works like a drug seeping into our bloodstream. It takes us down an unexpected path of blissful, haunting grace. While it never quite blossoms into a full on improvisational jam, the Dead work the theme as a potter might sculpt clay on a wheel. Gentle caresses embrace the theme, slowly forming it into a more and more structured thing of beauty. It is short lived here on 11/06/70, but hypnotic all the same. As mysteriously as it appeared, it is gone, back into Drums on the way back to Good Lovin’. The end portion of Good Lovin’ is full of that sweaty, sultry confidence that the Dead wore so well in 1970. The jam crackles along as Garcia reaches for the sun and explodes in a shower of electricity and raw power.

Alligator sets the band down the long home stretch of this show. It flares with a swampy, dark, voodoo heat. The jam following the formal song section calls to hidden shadowed magic. It winds its way down long liquid rivers which eventually form into beautiful and gentle melodies, the entire electric beast showing that it can hold a delicate flower without completely consuming it in fire. But the fire is there, nonetheless, and that smoky, sultry voodoo dance slips directly into Not Fade Away, with the band igniting again.

Not Fade Away > Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad > Not Fade Away is still a very new thing for the Dead at this stage of 1970. But just as we could feel the absolute perfection of the pairing back on 10/23/70, here it is even more fully locked into an archetypical example of the Grateful Dead’s own personal sound. Goin’ Down The Road keys right back into that Americana/Folklore we found earlier in I Know You Rider. And it is this wonderful juxtaposition of elements – folk against voodoo fire – that reflect the entire evening’s performance, and in fact, the entire nature of the band by the end of 1970. The multi-facetted jewel is ever turning in on itself. When Goin’ Down The Road slides into a Mountain Jam (built off of Donovan’s “There Is A Mountain”), the music takes on a certain level of spiritual beauty as it flows forward. It careens into a near shower of complete Feedback, as if the band knows that Caution is coming, but then remembers that they planned to wrap back into Not Fade Away. It’s a wonderful little passage. NFA returns, finishes up, and then the pure heart of the Grateful Dead steps out of the mist and tears down all barriers between the music and the souls in attendance.

Caution rises and demonstrates what can be considered one of the deepest levels of this band’s musical core. Forever, the Dead were using psychedelia pinned to bluegrass as one of their most elemental launching pads into their own true nature – a place where their guiding muse could take over and freely express itself. It is this thematic undercurrent, and another which was born in Dark Star, that display the ultimate power that this band’s music had over itself, and the fans in attendance. This is yet again a pure Grateful Dead church service; though this ceremony is one of wild, primitive power. For the rest of the show there is an endless tug of war between music and the molten hot, liquid chaos of Feedback singing the song of galaxies being born out of exploding stars. Spiraling fractals come and go while the music plays down to its own base building blocks with Pigpen playing wicked harmonica and the drummers shuffling along. Primal Dead at its finest.

When Pigpen finally announces that all you need is “just a touch,” the world folds in on itself, whipping us into unfathomable wormholes, the universe birthing chaos and completely consuming the music altogether. We are spit out on the other side into an even faster dance between structure and madness until knowing one from the other is hopeless. The battle continues for what feels like centuries, with Garcia’s personal being growing to fill every open space of air in the hall. Down to a whisper, Phil flips the switch over to Lovelight, and for the next 17 odd minutes the entire evening peaks continually while the wheel continues to turn, blurring form and chaos into one.

Like a freight train, this Lovelight powers down the track. Containing Pigpen’s famous “Bear Rap” and wonderful peaks and valleys throughout, the band seems to endlessly catch themselves in whirlpools of musical riffs turning in tight circles, stitching intricate colors together into a tapestry. With a final flourish of searing flame and showering starlight it all finally ends. Utterly spent, it is hard not to come away unchanged from this quintessential Grateful Dead show from 1970.

11/06/70 etree source info
11/06/70 AUD Download

Listening Trail - 1980's Grateful Dead

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:15:53 PST

Another installment in the GDLG Listening Trails Series

Any fan who begins travelling down the road of Grateful Dead concert tapes will often find the 60’s and 70’s to be the most open entry points. It makes sense since this band was famous for being a pioneer of the “psychedelic 60’s sound,” and then a stadium-rock titan that played 3 plus hour shows of cosmic exploration in the 70’s. For those folks exposed only to this elevator pitch story of the band’s history, the 80’s mark some sort of black hole from which nothing emerged until Touch Of Grey got into Billboard’s top ten in 1987, and of course the 90’s were a time when everyone and their brother were into the Dead (and we all attended the “last show” in Chicago – at least that’s what everyone around Chicago retells when discussing where they were that day).

Eventually, any tape collector will notice the 80’s out of the corner of his/her eye, and ponder traversing this most nearly blind alley of the band’s concert history. Sure, there are many of us who first started seeing the Dead in the 80’s, and we feel a special fondness for those personal times. But considering the band’s output and historical significance in the 60’s and 70’s , the early 80’s just don’t stand out. It is important to note that this mass assumption is entirely misguided.

Even at this point, arriving at the Grateful Dead Listening Guide and trying to “figure out” the 80’s can be a cauldron of confusion. There are already enough shows from this period on the site to easily consume the better part of a month trying to digest them all, and more keep coming all the time. Where on earth should one start? I feel a listening trail devoted to jumping into the first half of this decade is well worth it, as the highpoints from this era are not to be missed.

Here are some no brainers as far as I am concerned. Start anywhere and take them one step at a time. There’s plenty to soak in at each stop along the way. After this, you should take comfort in the fact that nothing shows up on the Listening Guide by chance, and every show you stumble across (80’s included) is well worth your ears time. Just gotta poke around…

Please follow the links below to fully enjoy this Listening Trail.

09/17/82 – With strong highlights throughout the show, and a second set that begs repeated listening, this is oddly one of those tapes you might not otherwise stumble across until you had gone a good number of years into the world of tape trading. A stellar introduction into why the early 80’s are so worth checking out.

06/21/80 – 1980 is a year so often missed when considering this decade, let alone the Dead in general. Proving that the evolving musical style of the band was firing on all cylinders, even in a truly transitional year, this show from Alaska rivals most any comers.

06/30/84 – Lauded as containing some of the best music from all of 1984, this show will serve very well to demonstrate how explorative the band was during this somehow forgotten era. Generally, we think of Garcia spiraling down a slope of drugs and physical decline in ‘84. That makes the magic pouring out of this show’s highlights even more special to behold.

02/26/81 – It may as well be plastered on bumper stickers – “There was never a bad Uptown show.” Things are so good on this night, it renders that phrase a nearly catastrophic understatement. This is the 80’s cranked to eleven.

06/30/85 – We can’t talk about the 80’s without paying at least some attention to a year many people feel was the peak of the entire decade. This show finds the band reaching some skyrocketing highlights in an already pretty elevated year. Don’t miss it.

1980 June 21 - Anchorage, AK

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:47:32 PST

GRATEFUL DEAD
Saturday, June 21, 1980
West High Auditorium – Anchorage, AK
Audience Recording

1980 is a year, like 1979 to some degree, that seems somewhat lost between eras. Not even shunned like 1976 as paling to a nearby year thought to be better, 1980 often doesn’t even draw enough attention to offer up a negative dismissal. It is generally simply forgotten. When Deadheads talk about the early 80’s, the years that come to mind are 1981-1984. Poor 1980 seems always the bridesmaid and never the bride. This is a real shame, because 1980 is filled with many breathtaking moments and some pretty standout historic events, such as the return of Acoustic Dead at the Warfield and Radio City Music Hall. Without even focusing on that highlight (we will in the future), you needn’t look far to find an ample supply of great music from this transitional year. It sounds a lot like the late 70’s and a lot like the early 80’s, and generally it will always surprise you and make you wonder why no one gives it much attention.

Alaska. I know a fair amount of Grateful Dead lore, but I can’t recall exactly how the Dead managed to arrange a trip so far north, and to sell a three night run on top of it at this 2,000 seat high school auditorium. What amazes me further is that we were lucky enough to have seen someone up there taping these shows, and taping them well. In fact, there was more than one taper doing it; in Alaska, no less. It warms this AUD lover’s heart to be able to serve up such a wonderful audience recording here now. This run is regarded as containing some of the best music of the year, and the closing night, 06/21/80, shines the most brightly in my opinion.

While it’s well known that the first sets of the early 80’s often could contain a blistering amount of energy and musical excitement which could rival second sets, and any first set output from the previous decade, it is not altogether clear precisely when this first set transformation took place. It seems to have its seeds with the addition of Brent to the band in May 1979, but didn’t really see its groundswell until sometime later. It would be a worthy investigation to try pinning down the first post Keith & Donna show that contained a surprisingly blistering first set. We can at least be sure that by June 1980, the propensity for first set fireworks was well on its way to being a hallmark of the decade.

A fun fact to bear in mind about this show – consider the date and location. The sun never set in the sky while the band played this “night.” People walked out of the concert into daylight.

Right out of the gate, we are treated to a great Sugaree, a song that fully matured during the prior year with the band, as well as in Jerry’s solo band work in 1980. This provides a great start to the show, complete with Garcia reaching some shredding highpoints late in the solo. It is only a precursor for things to come.

The first set continues to deliver the goods, peaking a few different times. Supplication is first to crack open the door to some mind bending psychedelia. Loping along in its 7/8 time signature, Jerry’s fingers fly as the music opens up into great spinning orbits causing everything to cycle through loosely knotted patterns that seem to follow the path of an infinity symbol. A short jam, but fully satisfying. They cool things way down, only to let it all mount up again on electric fingers of fire. Then the set closes with an altogether gooey Feel Like A Stranger. Like huge handfuls of warm, multicolor taffy, the music oozes with complete disregard to anything resembling right angles. Floor, walls, hands, and faces all congeal in a great lava lamp of interwoven wax. Stranger wouldn’t close sets all too often, but here it works oh so well to prime the crowd for what the rest of the night may bring. The jam begins with its fantastic funk/disco high step, only to quickly tip head over heels into a cauldron of stewing colors. Jerry and Brent lose all sense of each other’s beginning and end points as the music follows fractal footprints deep into your mind. You know it’s gonna get stranger.

As things get started in Terrapin Station, the music sheds all connection to the year in which it is being played. Sounding far more like a slice of 1977, this Terrapin calls to mind that strong sense of being gathered around a campfire as the band tells a story – something generally associated with other songs than this one. Nonetheless, the band is casting its hypnotic spell over everything. Gentle hands with flamed fingers caress our face and beckon us in. The door is shut behind us. We are safe and alone, as a grand journey begins with the solo section marking a point of no return. The music rises and falls on the trails of some great juggler’s balls. They change size and color as they translucently pass each other in the air. It’s a ballet of butterfly music in a dream that defies our ability to concretely retell the story after waking. The song reaches its zenith and crashes thunderously as the melody chases its own tail over and over. It gives nary room for a breath before materializing into the next song, Playin' In The Band.

The Playin’ jam wastes no time stroking the fibers of the Grateful Dead’s adoring musical muse. Its power is awakened like a room instantly filling with a heady incense that reminds our ancient soul receptors of the essence of the eternal. Broken up into a handful of section, the jam begins immediately to unbind the tightly wrapped petals of the musical flower that held the formal part of the song together. It’s like a flower slowly waking to starlight. While the tempo of the song churns along, there is a widening space between the beats, into which cosmic oceans gently lap to the shore. Garcia goes right for his auto-filter wha pedal and calls up a nearly invisible web of energy that drifts and turns in unseen air currents. Everything takes on a distinctly three dimensional aspect on the audience recording, all of the instrumentation finding its natural place in the landscape around us.

After a short while Garcia’s pace quickens, and he’s running staccato lines in a musically choreographed dance of twirls, swoops, and back bending joy. The energy of the band tightens around Jerry, and everything takes on the sense of wild horses galloping across moonlit countryside, not unlike the energy we hear in Playin’s from 1972. We flow endlessly over hills which quietly rise and fall at random intervals like the deepest ocean shedding a storm’s energy reserves. What seems like hours later, the band emerges into a more subtle pasture where sounds begin to crackle and shimmer like the air around us is condensing into sporadic forms just out of reach. Slowly these sounds, which could have previously tricked our mind as not possibly coming from the musicians, fill all of our aural space, and we’ve somehow been cast a million miles away from whatever concert we thought we were attending. Great suns are rising and setting. Clouds form into mountains, then into lightning, then into thousands of turning flowers. And on and on it goes.

A molten lava-like creature is stirring. It’s skin ripples with glass sharp scales as it transforms to fill our entire field of senses. Blaring a white hot cacophony of wicked colors which gush out like an uncapped torrent, the band drives deeply into a completely frenzied expression of Space, and leaves us powerless to defend anything as we slip into Drums.

The Space which then returns after Drums is breathtaking. It’s as if we have walked right back into the pre-Drum chaos. Nothing sounds done out of routine, whatsoever. By no means is the band just playing some weirdness because this is where it fits in the show. The music is doing things which defy all the laws of physics completely. Steal your face right off your head, indeed. There’s little sense in trying to describe things more accurately. This Space leaves you completely transformed. As it fades off, Phil can be heard hinting at Dark Star (no WAY!). Instead, the band turns on a dime into Truckin’ and the entire concert has returned around you. As if from a wormhole in another dimension, we are dropped back into something far more familiar to our human experience. There are people clapping along, hooting and hollering. The music dances. The band is playing back on a steady 4/4 beat. My God, where were we?

Truckin’ over delivers in most every way imaginable. When they hit the big power chord after the long triplet ramp up section, a shock wave erupts over the crowd. Just before this note there is a fraction of silence, which is common to all Truckin’s at this moment of the song. But it is somehow more this time. Perfectly executed, the entire band absolutely stops together, and hits that chord in perfect unison – a classic moment where we can hear more in the space between the music, than in the music itself.

The show closes with a Brokedown Palace which brings a spiritual serenity to the entire evening’s experience. In taking you to this quiet spot of personal grace, it actually succeeds in returning us all to a harmonious union; one to which we often don’t pay enough attention…

"Listen to the river sing sweet songs, to rock my soul..."

06/21/80 etree source info
06/21/80 AUD Download

Listening Trail – Unsung Heroes

icepetal@gmail.com (www.deadlistening.com) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 15:28:58 PST

Another installment in the GDLG Listening Trails Series

This is probably my favorite topic of them all, and I could (and probably will) fill many listening trails with shows that fall under this category. Everyone likes to be turned on to a great show that they’d never otherwise give a second glace. With a music collection as big as the Dead’s, there are bound to be hidden gems hiding under rocks and around corners all over the place. Finding them is a challenge all its own, and in large part makes up a sizable portion of the inspiration for the Listening Guide in the first place. In many ways the entire guide is often one long unsung heroes trail.

It’s an extra special pleasure to give someone a show that they’d never thought of before and watch their eyes light up as the music takes over. Certainly one of the more exciting trails to follow, bumping into the unsung heroes among Grateful Dead tapes makes for some of the most satisfying musical experiences we can seek. I hope everyone can find a least a few eye openers while travelling along this trail.

We’re going to stick to the ‘70’s on this trail. Don’t worry. We’ll head down many different unsung heroes trails before it's all over.

Please follow the links below to fully enjoy this Listening Trail.

05/07/70 – This show scores a perfect 10 on both the acoustic Dead scale, and the raging psychedelic beast scale. From the nose to toes, this is one of the greatest Dead shows of all, yet it is so often overlooked. From the amazingly welcoming energy of the acoustic set (my favorite, by far), to the many worlds travelled in the electric set highlights, this show can’t be missed. Wood, organic, Grateful Dead.

03/18/71 – Worthy of the highest of praise, this show gets nearly no attention. Sandwiched between the long standing popularity of the month before and after, this gem from March, ’71 boils over with everything indicative of the Dead’s mastery at this stage of their career. A perfect slice of 1971, and the last known rendering of “Feedback.” The true end of the Primal Era? Let’s not start the debate here.

07/01/73 – I’ll happily talk to no end about my love of Summer ’73 Grateful Dead. A stellar AUD recording with one of the best Playin’ In The Band’s from the year, and a fantastic, deeply explorative set two jam, it makes me wonder why the rest of the world doesn’t share my belief that it doesn’t get much better than everything that this band played in the Summer of ‘73. Shorter lines for me, I guess, when we perfect time travel and can go back to see some shows.

10/03/76 – The latter half of 1976 was always the hardest to come by in tape trading circles, and with most of the year’s best music hiding there at the back end, it’s no wonder 1976 struggles to get its props; that, and big old 1977 coming right after. Hearing this show’s second set changed everything for me regarding 1976, and set me on a path to find every drop of nectar from this year. Multiple moments of inspired improvisation, and wickedly subtle psychedelic interplay throughout, make this show a constant favorite of mine, always one to share.

07/01/78 – Another year where the Summer seems to suffer from a lack of appreciation. The Red Rocks shows from a week later show up on everyone’s list, highly circulated soundboards. I find digging a bit more deeply into the first week of the month pays off even better dividends. No soundboards at all. No reason to worry. You won’t hear this one getting a lot of talk, but I find it to be a perfect stop in 1978.

In finishing this list, I find myself thinking of many many more shows that could be on this trail. No doubt, we’ll be back for more.