30 Days of Dead
It's a Dead Head's most wonderful time of the year! Welcome to another 30 days of unreleased Grateful Dead tracks from the vault, one for every day of the month, selected by archivist and producer David Lemieux. The tracks are yours, 100% free gua-ran-teed, but the real fun is taking part in the challenge for the chance to win some sweet swag from the Dead.
Those of you who know what to do, feel free to skip right on ahead. For those of you who need a refresher, here's the drill:
You know your Ables from your Bakers from your C's, but can your finely tuned ears differentiate the cosmic "comeback" tour from a spacey 70s show? Each day we'll post a song from one of the Dead's coveted shows. Will it be from that magical night at Madison Square Garden in '93 or from way back when they were just starting to warm it up at Winterland? Is that Pigpen's harmonica we hear? Brent on keys? If you think you know, lob your answer in and you just might find yourself taking home our daily prize of a 2025 Grateful Dead wall calendar or the grand prize – a copy of limited, numbered, FRIEND OF THE DEVILS: APRIL '78 boxed set!
Thought it was one, but then it was another. Good fun
I was going to not even hunt (overwhelmed), but knew the era and got lost noodling around. And there it was. An enjoyable ride listening to a lot of my faves. Song lengths and era were the key, and intro helps!
As there's obviously a whole lot of China/Riders out there. Awareness of time signatures will also help. These two well played standards make me very much appreciate the remastering/cleanup efforts of the behind the scenes wizards who offer it up to us. Well done and BIG THANKS!
Fun fact regarding yesterday's show from 8/13/87: It was the first and only time ever of a Big Boss Man show opener for the Grateful Dead(the word according to Deadbase 50 that is).
I think this is the hardest one of the year so far.
Probably took a few hours total as I've been searching off-and-on all day.
Hope it's not giving too much away to reveal that my approach was basically to listen to Bill at the beginning. Fun journey though, great era for sure!
I started at one year then thought hmmm close but it's all about that 1st guitar solo after the 1st verse. The approach... so I went with another year and found it after a few choices. Love that swingin' Billy K! And it's always great to hear something with twin lead guitars trading off and harmonizing. That one guy can really play some lead guitar when he puts his mind to is.