Grateful Dead

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." - HST

The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. And I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. Probably at the next gas station.

Is Chris Robinson the guy who talks about the grateful dead 's tit?have you ever seen a skull with tits? Thank you for this beautiful work Dave, Jeffrey and all the team . this is beautiful art work, funny book of the superlatives (Do the dead heads still need encouragement?) and music "beyond description" with the first notes of Promised land in N Haven, I understood I were right to order the new may 77 boxset. New haven is number one at the moment...

...and I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff soon enough Thanks Jeff!

hey Jeff, you sure it wasn't the ether? Makes me behave like a drunkard in some early Irish novel.

Hey Frosted, Thanks for the great suggestions – it was amazing how just about everyone we met had lots of good insider tips on cool adventures in Marin. I quickly realized that we should have stayed longer – like maybe another week, no, year! I noted your suggestions for the next visit. Do you do tour-guiding? Hey Now Rich, A Boulder Dead&Co reprise doesn’t appear to be in the cards next month. When you live on the Southwest Coast (near the Rio Grande’s Big Bend), all trips are “cross-country” and they add up fast. Maybe I’ll hitchhike up there at the last minute and track down DeadGeek and her band of SSDD’s, but that’s a long-shot. BTW: that Bertha we were treated to in the Bar at TXR was super-slow – made even slower Bertha’s like 5/7 and 5/9/77 sound like blazing freight trains. . . sooooo fine!

Sounds like you got a good taste of Marin. Truly an outstanding area. I had been checking the Crossroads calendar a few times a week, but missed the announcement on the '77 shows so it was sold out quickly before I got to it. I may have to get on their mailing list... Other times I've seen Lesh play there though, and it goes to another level when he hits the stage. Just stopped in on the outside deck there Friday for a happy hour beer and a pizza, and the bar band was playing some Soundgarden, in remembrance I suppose. Another time I noticed one of those bar bands doing a decent Jack-a-Roe cover as I was nursing a brew out on the deck. Did you make it to Sweetwater in Mill Valley? Weir's place, smaller than Crossroads, but good food, open for lunch too, and a smaller venue but hosts a lot of good shows - I don't see Bobby's name come up very often playing there though. Oolompali is a cool place too. Gnarly oaks like the ones on the back of the Aoxamoxa cover still grace the hills there. It has a steep winding trail up to the top, with great views over Marin, and connects to the large Mt. Burdell open space in Novato that goes down the other side. Both of those have been really green this spring after the winter deluge, and now turning to the brown grasses of summer. A bit of paradise close to the City. Next time you might want to check into the German Tourist Club. It's a large building less than a mile in from the road to Mt. Tamalpais, or you can walk up several miles from Mill Valley on the Dipsea trail. It's open to the public on weekends often, so you can stroll in there and have a brew out on their deck overlooking the forests of Mt. Tam down into Muir Woods. Every so often I trek up there with some buddies and we down too many pitchers, then sober up while stumbling back to our cars down the trail in Mill Valley. Yep, you just scratched the surface, many such journeys are possible around here on return trips, heh heh.

Jeff so glad you made it there. Being an east coaster have been to Levon's barn and seen the Ramble Band a few times, was like going to church. I hear Phil patterned the concept of TXR after that idea. Glad you liked the music, the TFB are quite good and extremely tight. Reading your account gave me chills. It is on the short list.... Having seen Phil with a few Daydreamers of Chicago fame in Vegas made me appreciate the man even more. True his shows are not dead music clones, but why should they be. It brought me back to earlier simpler days of Jerry and the boys, when shows were fun communal experiences and not mass corporate cattle calls. Re. Slow Bertha....5/7/77 and 5/9/77 were just exactly perfect....like a slow dance.....love me some slow Bertha for a change. Re. Missing Jerry.....i know brother, miss him more each and every day, think we all do. Btw you n Pam going to Mayer and Sons in Boulder in under a month?

I'm reading the posts on different mixs on different shows,I agree, Keith is low in the mix a lot. And when you have an 8 track recording, there is really no excuse for this. I'm thinking Europe 72 shows too, where they did not come out with great mixes a lot. I think this was a bit of a rush job. My favorite show was 5-3, first Paris show. I did not get the trunk, but about 3 individual shows. A guy from this forum said the sound quality was not great until that show and that show is stellar. One of the great things about the Cornell box was the book, especially the chapter on "Betty Boards", basically she was recording multitrack to a 2 track tape machine. For most of 77, she had a great set up. She had a betty only feed from each main microphone. The mikes had a 3 way splitter, 1 output to monitor mix,1 output to house mix and 1 output to Betty which went thru a 100 foot snake to a room out of site, where Betty had an eight track mixer, headphones and a set of speakers, so she could adjust the mix on the board to her liking before it went into a 2 track tape machine. A big reason her mixs were so good plus she had a great ear for this and loved the Dead. Cornell is just an incredible mix, Phil sounds perfect, the vocals are great, and the Dead played admirably, everyone was on their A game. Everytime I hear this show, I like it better. This show might not be their best, but it is possibly the best sounding show. I like it better each listen. Love the conspiracy theory, that it never happened. Those stories are funny. "The one thing you need is a left handed monkey wrench"

Week-before-last my wife & I toured around Marin County by day and basked in the music at Terrapin Crossroads by night. Phil Lesh has created a music landmark. Like Levon's “Barn” in Woodstock, NY, “Terrapin Crossroads” in San Rafael is an extension of both founder and locale. Lots of excellent musicians can be found there just about every night. You never know what unexpected guests (including Phil) might join in, but Phil and the Terrapin Family Band is why we were there. Besides music, Terrapin Crossroads includes a bright, family-friendly restaurant with diverse menu of fresh local ingredients overseen by an outstanding chef (even if grilled cheese sandwiches are AWOL). Ask for Barney. Flowing out from the Restaurant is the Bar and an excellent selection of mostly California microbrews. Most evenings there's free live music. The spacious Waterfront Patio overlooking San Rafael Harbor has its own al fresco dining, bar, bandstand and lots of places to sit and play and look. Never made it upstairs to the Living Room. Under the same roof, but totally separate from the restaurant is the Grate Room. I had envisioned a cavernous warehouse-type space. When we walked in on our first night, a big grin spread over my face as soon as I discovered instead an intimate (capacity <350) performance hall with fantastic acoustics and state-of-the-art Meyer Sound. The stage is centered on one of the long sides of the space, so nobody is very far from the band. It’s SRO, of course, and the alchemy between band and deadheads is just exactly perfect. As you'd expect, Phil has assembled a lineup of virtuoso players: Grahame Lesh: rhythm guitar, vocals; Ross James, lead guitar, vocals; Jason Crosby, keyboards+ and Alex Koford, drums, vocals. This is a TIGHT band who obviously enjoy playing together. I kept looking at Phil, who after all, had inspired our pilgrimage, trying to get my head around the fact that the guy laying down his unmistakable, innovative bass line and dropping the Phil Bombs was one of only three living people who’d been at EVERY ONE of the Grateful Dead’s concerts! And he’s still enjoying himself as much as anyone in the building. P&TTFB didn’t try to imitate the GOGD so much as channel the spirit of the music from 40 years ago. The first night they conjured Cornell '77. Three heads next to us had actually been at Barton Hall on 5/8/77 and were duly and continually blown away like the rest of us. The Scarlet>Fire reigned once again above the many highlights along with an exquisite Morning Dew out of St. Stephen (I think the GD only paired SS>Dew that one time). The second night, the 5/9/77 Buffalo Redux, was every bit as high-energy and transcendent. I think this Brown-Eyed Women might have been even more nostalgic than the night before with Phil’s poignant, song-ending, “it looks like the old man's getting on.” We all still miss Jerry. We came back for a 3rd night to hear Phil, Ross James and a few of Grahame's friends jam at the Bar stage. They played a long laid back set sans keyboards or drums that included Folsom Prison Blues, Ripple, Stealin’ and Ramblin Rose. They did the absolutely-by-far-slowest Bertha I’ve ever heard. I know some here have said they prefer faster, driving Bertha’s, but this glacially slow arrangement totally transformed Bertha into a haunting, plaintive new animal. I think it probably was the musical highlight of the trip. I’d gotten to the Bar early and shared a stage-side table with Toby from nearby Lagunitas. He had great stories about the music he’d heard growing up in the Bay Area plus all the shows he’d recently heard and those on the way. I told him tonight’s show seems like just another “Friday night” for him, but for somebody from the hinterland, this was a true “pilgrimage”. The relatively short-notice for upcoming Phil shows at TXR makes it difficult for out-of-state fans to plan a trip. Tickets usually sell out in hours. If you are even remotely curious about Terrapin Crossroads, get on their email list (https://www.terrapincrossroads.net/contact/mailing-list/). Next time a P&TTFB show notice catches your eye, be extremely impulsive and pull the trigger on tix and a flight (Oakland Int’l’s closest). During the days, we trekked up to Olompali State Park to see the ruins of the Mansion where the Dead and much of the SF music scene cavorted for a few notorious months in 1966 (the portrait on the back of Aoxomoxoa was made there). We also went to Muir Beach of Acid Test fame and Stetson Beach to check out the storied post office where all those mail orders went. And Mt. Tamalpais… And an amazing crab shack at Point Reyes Station. Limantour Beach (locals’ choice & less windy than Reyes Pt) was sunny and relaxing until we ended up helping search for a missing 77-year old guy. You get the idea. Somehow didn’t make it to the Dead’s recording studio, vault and hangout, Club Front (’75-’94) at 20 Front Street. And never crossed the Golden Gate into San Francisco, but had a totally magical time in San Rafael and environs. Ready to do it again!!!