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!
and you mistyped "Thank you for making these treasures, the source of your living, available for free."
like me today for example. From the post Candyman noodling I was able to correctly identify the next tune played which significantly narrowed down the number of shows it could possibly be. And lo and behold the first show my finger landed on in my trusty Deadbase turned out to be the one we're all looking for! Sometimes you get lucky, and I'll take luck over skill every time.
Every year it's the same: the first availability is a low bit rate and eventually a 320 kbps replaces it.
Why do you bother doing it that way? and really, I want these collections but not at 124 kbps. 256, maybe, if space is an issue out there.
Not tryin to get yelled at. Just sayin, is all.
I got it on my second try. I'll take credit for picking the correct year, but lucky to have stabbed where I did.