Grateful Dead

It's interesting.. both Anthem of the Sun and Live Dead were designed partly at least to have that whole show feel. More specifically to guide the listener through a full trip.. from coming on, to take-off, to interstellar exploration and peaking and ending by safely delivering you gently down and hopefully planting your feet firmly on the ground. I believe that was the goal anyway.. This is mentioned for Anthem at least in the excellent documentary Anthem to Beauty. There are a lot of the compilations out there I really like.. DP2, DP18, even the oft aligned, choppy Wall of Sound Road Trips. ..but things have evolved and with many of the lower hanging fruit already picked and released.. and with what is not an unlimited supply of top shelf, releasable shows left, I think it's safe to say for the most part the whole show model is here to stay. There is hope though.. there have to be many fragments left in the vault that need to be released where the whole show either does not exist in the vault or there are technical issues with part(s) of the show. My guess is in the coming years you will see Dave and Rhino come to grips with how to get the excellent quality segments to market, somehow.. and I doubt of the Road Trip model will be the vehicle for that. We all don't listen to an entire show every time we listen to the GD.. we often build our own playlists or hit the FF and RW button to get what we want with the time we have. But Dave's Picks will likely continue to release full shows if they exist.

I thought you hit the nail on the head when you drew a distinction between seeing the band live and listening to a live recording. We, who collect live recordings, are not listening to live shows. We are listening to recordings of live shows-which is very different. It seems strange in a way how much emphasis is placed on the importance of including the whole show in releases. If what we want to listen to is the best music the band played, then we do not necessarily need to listen to every song played at every show. Especially, perhaps, when we have got so much music to listen to. Two of the best releases in the Dead catalogue remain Anthem of the Sun and Live Dead. Both releases are enhanced by a cut and paste technique. Anthem is a work of art. Both releases seem to recognise that recorded music is different from live music. They present live music in an imaginative way that capitalises on the benefits of both mediums. Having said that, I do like complete releases. But there is surely room for other approaches as well. I bought Long Strange Trip last year for the Dark Star, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed listening to both cds from beginning to end-even though I already had most of it. It just hung together really well. Someone mentioned that they would like to see a box set of Dark Stars last year somewhere-all unreleased, from one particular year. All sorts of things could be done-there is surely room for diversity.

I am so, so very sorry, man. I know what that is like, and it is one of the hardest things in this life to deal with. When my first cat died many years ago, I woke up crying for three days straight, I mean right out of sleep, first thing after waking up, right into crying, it was fucking horrible. The pain was so intense. Now my second cat is about fifteen, and is now showing signs of end of life. People don't realize just how close/connected we are to our furry friends...for some of us they are like our children. I pray that you and your wife find peace soon. Peace, man.

In the den I never listen to complete, sequential evenings of all the songs that were played together in a row. If I wasn't "at" that show when it happened, I sure as shit ain't now. Having been to several Mardi Gras, in New Orleans, and also having suffered through weak Fat Tuesday celebrations elsewhere in the states, there is nothing like being there. So listening to a past show sequenced in totality is the same as drinking in an Irish bar on Fat Tuesday in Cleveland, and finding the baby in the King Kake. It's bullshit, compared to being there. To each your own, however, at home we shuffle every song every date every year every lineup. It's all the same show, really, a massive God-breath that peaked, petered, and eventually blew out before relighting and burning into the mellow amber we have now. Dead and Company. Still listen to complete shows on cd in the car, though. Have to forward whenever Supplication, Sunshine Daydream, Weather Report Suite or Cassidy comes on. I am unfond of those numbers. Let's add Looks Like Rain and Lazy Lightnin' to that shit list. And all of Brent's songs cut to album by this band at the end, at it's most dysfunctional and void of material.

d'oh! there is no justice, I tell ya.

Angry Jack Straw - I'd also go with just the five. Which to choose though, that's tough. I like Ladies & Gentlemen a lot. I mean, that is some Midnight Hour. Sunshine Daydream for sure. Now it starts getting tricky. Have to economize though. Dick's Picks 14. Dick's Picks 18. The 3rd show from the Winterland 1973 box set 11/11/73...and one free soundboard for my troubles, 2/26/77!! That was difficult. I could easily rotate a different 5 releases in there. DP 12, Rockin' The Rhein (with Bonus CD), One From The Vault, Winterland June 1977 3rd show 6/9/77, Closing of Winterland...one free soundboard RFK 6/10/73!!

https://themidnightcafe.org/2018/01/22/lossless-bootleg-bonanza-gratefu… Grateful Dead Family Dog at the Great Highway San Francisco, CA March 01, 1970 Download: FLAC/MP3 Recording Info: SBD Master Reels -> Dat (Panasonic 3700) > Transfer Info: Delta DiO 2496 sound card > HD > CD-R > Mastering Info: HD > CD WAV > Cool Edit > Trader’s Little Helper 2.7 > xACT 2.35 FLAC 8 (2 Discs Audio / 1 Disc FLAC) Mastering by Seth Kaplan (alligator69@optonline.net) March 25, 2015 Disc 1 1.Big Boy Pete * 4:14 2.Morning Dew 9:47 3.Hard to Handle 6:09 4.Me and My Uncle 3:30 5.Cryptical > 1:58 6.Drumz > 3:48 7.Other One > 10:15 8.Cryptical//reprise > ** 8:45 9.Black Peter 9:12 10.Beat It On Down the Line 3:30 11.Dire Wolf 4:26 Disc 2 1.Good Lovin’ > 1:46 2.Drumz > 3:28 3.Jam > 5:01 4.Good Lovin’ 2:04 5.Cumberland Blues 6:27 6.King//Bee *** 8:09 7.China Cat Sunflower > 4:57 8.I Know You Rider 4:58 9.Uncle John’s Band 7:27 Notes: -This is as complete a SBD as is available on the master and eliminates the cassette generation present in previously circulating versions of this show -Missing from Disc 1: New Speedway Boogie Jam/soundcheck, Casey Jones (before Big Boy Pete) -Missing from Disc 2: Dancin’ In The Streets, It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (after Uncle John’s Band) -These AUD only tracks are not included here but are available on shn ID # 4641 to supplement the SBD Thanks to anonymous for the discs * – First 0:06.122 of d1t01 Big Boy Pete spliced in from AUD patch via previously circulating SBD source from Hanno Bunjes: 3rd gen cassette > CD > SoundForge (5% speed correction/amplify) > CD as per shn ID # 4641 notes. (AUD patch volume adjusted -25% in new source) ** – splice @ 04:56.54 of d1t08 Cryptical reprise *** – splice @ 05:24.72 of d2t06 King Bee All flaws noted above are present in the master and appear in the previously circulating SBD shn ID # 4641

If I had to choose between the three releases I mentioned, one of the FW69 shows and just one of the E72 shows OR the entire catalog from the 80s and 90s (released and unreleased), I would take the former all day long. No questions asked. Yup. Those five over all the rest of it. And I purchased the TTATS box set for the '84 show alone.

Funny.. I listened to 10/31/71 this afternoon doing some finish work on my never ending master bathroom. I just got in the mood. This is a great release, but doing work that takes time did make me realize just how short it is.. The talk of Selland Arena last week got me revisiting Dave's Picks 17, 7/19/74. I decided to hit some of the neglected 74 releases, DP 12 among them. Serendipitous I guess.