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!
I got a late start this year, missing the first several days. Hats off to Dave and crew for picking some great selections this year. As others have mentioned, the three song arrangement has really cut down on my search time. I haven't even pulled out DeadBase yet! But the best part about the trio set up is that we are getting so much more music! This is awesome!
This was a fun cassette tape back in the day. Overshadowed a bit by other tapes we listened to... but a good example of what they were doing right about then. I too went over and listened to most of the entire show after listening and solving today's three-fer. There is a nice matrix out there.
This is about the time I got on The Bus. I remember doing concrete work and this hippie looking heavyset guy working with us. Every day he had his Sony Walkman on playing something, no-one knew who though? Till one day he lent me a listen. The jam was awesome and the first time I heard The Other One. At the end of the day, he walked up to me and asked if I knew who the band was (answering no) he told me The Grateful Dead. Then he asked if I had a tape deck, my response who doesn't so what's he do? Opens up the Walkman and hands me that tape, give it a full listen he says. A rewind to the beginning and The Race Is On, a song my parents listened to every weekend (country style). I knew every lyric and soon was convinced The Grateful Dead had become my new favorite band. The next day handing it back to him he asked what do you think? I remember saying they are so good I hope you don't mind that I recorded a copy for myself. (No clue here) That show was from 05-01-1970 Alfred State College, just south of my town. Then the following day he pulls into work with a dozen different complete shows, walks up to me and says have fun! I know He's Gone now, and God Rest His Soul because I know The Grateful Dead did.
R.I.P. my great friend Steve
Got some errands to run, but took a quick listen to some other tracks from this show. This is another one that I'll revisit.
David is serving up the trios to make our listening last longer and our searches take less time.
The bus came by and I got on back in 1984.
Been so grateful for this band ever since.
Will be interesting to see here how everything will lead up to the next 13 Days.