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!
This is my first year (just was not in the know). I am using Grateful Stats to give me all the venues where the song(s) occurred throughout history and Relisten or Archive to give me the audio of the shows in question. I am "Generally" pretty good at narrowing things down to a 2 to 4 year time span with my ears and knowledge of historical cues. I think when this month is over I am going to go back through all the past 30 Days of Dead and fine turn my ear/knowledge. The act of searching is uncovering many Gems that's fer sure.
Edit: Bummers looks like we can't go back and listen to the past years of 30 Days of Dead :-(
I did the exact same powerup from setlist+archive to jerrybase+relisten. A gamechanger indeed!
I only spent about 5 mins of my life seeking all the Attics to find the how this one was sung.
One secret I will tell, this was never my favorite era of the band.
Still had many shows in this time period where I dreaming lay amazed.
Attics is such a beautiful touching song. Cannot be the easiest tune to sing live.
Thanks again David. Only 5 More Days. Where does the Time Go?
I've been doing the 30 Days since the first year and I've never had as many hits as I have this year. Of course, a lot of that is the selections being very narrow choices. But some of it has been changing my routine. I always used Setlist and Archive.org before. Last year I started using Jerrybase and Relisten. It has made all the difference.
So far, The Other One is the Grand Poobah these 30 Days, making no less than four (!) appearances (Days 5, 17, 20, and 24). We've also had three (!) Black Peters, and two each of Mississippi Half-Step, Black-Throated Wind, Looks Like Rain, Box of Rain, The Wheel, Bird Song, and China Rider. Great stand alones: Dark Star (Day 4), Candyman (Day 2), and St. Stephen>The Eleven>High Time (Day 13). What a motherlode of great Grateful music! Maybe we'll soon be hearing some fine renditions of Caution, China Doll, Playing In the Band, GDTRFB, Terrapin Station, and Lost Sailor>Saint of Circumstance, too. Thank you David!!! Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!