Grateful Dead

I think BG's line sums them up a lot better than applying the Clash's line to them

The Frost shows while also bathed in beauty never had the same emergy as tje Greek

listening to disc 1 of 5/5/90 got through the first part of Franklin's. like a brontosaurus that got into the sleeping pills or something. Race Is On: very cool. other than that...c'mon, wake up guys!!! I'll listen to the rest eventually; they must pull themselves "out of the oxygen tent" at some point. Young girl, they call them the Grateful Dead. No matter what, the only band that _truly_ matters.

https://archive.org/details/gd82-10-10.sbd.sacks.338.sbefail.shnf

The first time I really noticed the "kick drum problem" was on the 30 trips Worcester 10/21/83 show. Dang, its really prominent all through that show. After a first listen, I didn't think I'd ever be able to enjoy the show. But lately I've been listening to it a lot and have learned to pretty much ignore the kick drum and enjoy the music. That's a great jammy second set. Weir's playing is particularly great/weird. He must have been in a weird mood, even by his own standards!

Excellent conversation. For those clamoring for more 80s and 90s who have NOT read earlier threads that include Dave's comments on 80s tapes, there is another reason: the kick drum. I would never have guessed that a prominent kick drum could be so annoying, but Dave is right. On many of these 80s recordings - especially the "pre-coma" shows - the kick drum is prominent in the mix on the existing tapes. Of course you won't hear it at all in a boomy audience tape, which may be part of the reason that '81 show got released as a matrix. The Frost shows are great recommendations for listeners of 80s era, and I'm glad to see 10/9 getting some love. I've always seen 10/10 get all the accolades, but I much prefer 10/9 for what feel like near-definitive versions of Alabama>Greatest Story, West L.A., and Throwing Stones> Touch of Grey.

Yes, that one has me miffed too. I did poke around and asked Lemieux a series of questions about the contents of the returned reels to which he responded. I specifically asked him if any of the tapes returned were complete surprises, meaning.. new shows or parts of shows that had not circulated with setlists unknown. He was a bit guarded, but answered the question.. he said no, not much new information but many sound much better than anything that circulates. Again, I don't think he revealed anything new nor would he to some random guy who sent him an email.. and a couple releases later we got Dave's Picks 24 where the final part of the second was completely unknown.. but still it's all very interesting. The last thing he said was some of the older tapes, 71 and 72 sound significantly better than what circulates. Which brings us to Dave's Picks 25 :D

"they considered releasing 4/2/73 earlier but for one reason or another it didn't happen.." Couldn't one of the reasons be that the masters were not in the vault (but the performance was certainly release worthy)? Also, I seem to recall some of these getting released perhaps before they had the masters in the vault. Maybe I am wrong.. For instance, what about Dave's Picks 14? But there is an older one where conversations evolved about the origin of the source file used for release. Again, perhaps I have this wrong.. but this topic has come up. Perhaps someone out there has a better memory than I.

Dave's 21 was definitely part of the returned tapes, Dave's 16 was not, one big distinction between them is that Kidd Candelario recorded 3/28, and Rex Jackson recorded 4/2 (on 10" reels, this being the firsttime I recall seeing a mention of a show recorded on 10" instead of 7" reels). Kidd may have been recording 4/2 as well, and Betty and/or Rex may have been recording as well. From what Dave has said on Kidd's role in recording, I believe most of his tapes were in the Vault as he was recording the shows for the band, where the Jacksons may have recorded some for the band, some for themselves. We know Betty did her own recordings, but that she also worked for the band on recordings, so some of her tapes aren't the reference tapes the band would have used. But this brings me to the most fascinating part of the whole ABCD/returned "Bettys" discussion: Dave's 24 was recorded by Bear, not Betty or Rex, yet was also part of the ABCD collection, and already we have nearly 3 Rex recordings as part of that collection Dave's 21, 22 and bonus, and 2 more are likely to be Rex recordings in Dave's 26 and bonus. Why Rex tapes are in the collection makes perfect sense as he was married to Betty. But why did she have a Bear tape? And did she have more of his tapes in her collection that was returned with the ABCD deal? They were astonished to get over 100 shows returned, the list of Bettys that circulated in the "What Happened to the Bettys" article wasn't nearly that many shows, so clearly they got shows they didn't expect because there are times she was known to have recorded and times she was known not to have recorded, but if you add in Rex tapes when she wasn't on tour, you get Fall 1971, Spring 1973 tapes popping up. Now add in the wildcard of what kind of Bear tapes did she have?! The guys clamoring for more 80s and 90s will be pissed at the possible treasures that will necessitate pushing 80s and 90s Picks down the road to put out legendary shows or under the radar gems that never attained a reputation due to lack of circulation. I think the compromise will be a small 80s box each year while these Bettys, Rexes, and Bears are used for Picks. I think that's a great compromise, because then the 80s and 90s choices can be multitrack and more listenable than a PA mix.