Grateful Dead

....fuckin' Space Invaders video game effects. Liam would be proud. Pissed off of course, but proud....edit. No weed in the wooden box. :( One can't fail for trying.

Mine arrived today. Scheduled for Monday, but the UPS truck pulled up around 5:00. Odd for a Saturday. I saw the driver coming up the driveway with a big box in hand so I met him at the door. "I wasn't expecting this until Monday." So you are why I am working today he responded, clearly not happy. "Do you have any pot you can sell me? It's the Grateful Dead." He turns and walks away in disgust. Those who got the download are missing out on a nice box. Even the kids thought it was awesome. Vguy, the number is in a classy little box between the CDs. Similar to a small jewelry box or some place to hide a key. It comes with a cool passage, distinct in Native American undertones. Very well done. I'm holding off on listening until tomorrow. Watching some old episodes of Parts Unknown. Tony was no Jerry, but he was a awesome dude nonetheless. 10/1/94 is the only show from TTATS that I have listened to past 87. Even then I have only listened to the So Many Roads. I have said many times, fall 94 was the dead cat bounce tour. Unexpectedly good.

Squirrel

...by the way, has anyone figured out yet who "they" are? The grays? The man? The IRS? At any rate, or so I've heard, "they" say that doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Hell, I think it's just being a stone-cold gambler. I buy lottery tickets every drawing, using the same numbers, and goddamn it I'm going to hit big one of these decades. Just you wait and see. I really wish my box had arrived today. Alas, it is not to be and I don't know if UPS delivers on Sunday. I've had those non-descript amazon white vans drop stuff on Sunday though, and that feels like Christmas. Although most of my dead.net WEA product arrives via the Good Ol' USPS, and on our street the mail goes into those group box kiosks. You got your box, and on a special day there will be a key waiting inside for one of the parcel boxes (few, and larger). You're always hoping for a key, and when you see it your heart skips a beat. My theory is that the ubiquitous amazon white vans (Sprinters and the like, windowless) are not adorned with "amazon" graphics for several reasons. For one, they'd attract looters and thieves. For another, we'll all get desensitized to them, and one of these times when one pulls up, you'll run out arms wide ready to embrace yet another Grateful Dead offering, and they'll (it's, "them" again) leap out and pull a hood over your head and throw you in the back. When you wake up, tied to a chair in a cold room with only a single, bare light bulb hanging above you, you'll hope like hell Liam Neeson is about to break in and save your ass. \m/

I have to laugh at these posts.. yesterday a friend of mine sent me an email he got from one of his friends. It's long.. names omitted to protect the guilty. It was written a year or so ago.. so I'm sure it's floated around a bunch. To the author, I hope it's ok to share. The title was Next Level Obsession. ______________________________________________ I love Deadheads with OCD. Not my post but I appreciate the work. Thu Oct 19, 2017 6:49 pm #1 When I was in high school, there was a girl who would always ask me if I had acquired any new Losers of the “sweet Suzy” variety. And so whenever I received a new batch of tapes from some remote part of the country, I’d note any Losers with the “sweet Suzy” verse and then surprise her with one at the next gathering of our mutual group of friends. These gatherings were almost always centrally concerned with new tape acquisitions or new knowledge regarding the Dead. We were a group obsessed with the band and everything swimming through the vast universe of the band, including apparently any Losers with the “sweet Suzy” line. My memory is foggy when it comes to my findings of the “sweet Suzy” Losers, except one distinct time in which I can remember telling her, “Hey, Shannon, I found a ‘sweet Suzy’ for you.” I don’t know which show it was , but I’m pretty certain it was a 1971 Loser. What lives in my memory is precisely where we were and me saying those exact words to her. It must’ve been a revelatory moment for me regarding the rarity of the “sweet Suzy” Losers, for I have never forgotten that moment after 20+ years. Fast forward to a few months ago, in June of 2017, when I found myself thinking of those great tape-trading days of high school, the discoveries, the euphoria of acquiring a new batch of tapes. And for some reason my mind turned to the “sweet Suzy” versions of Loser, and how I would search out copies of this song without a handy Deadbase at my fingertips, nor a more convenient “etree mobile” app which allowed me to effortlessly flip through shows and fast forward to the two particular instances in which “sweet Suzy” is sung with the simply movement of a finger across my iPhone. Wow, how times have changed with regard to searching for a particular part of a song. So a few months ago I decided to complete the project once and for all. I needed to know when “sweet Suzy” died, and I kind of wanted to arrive at a reason for her death. Sadly, I found her apparent death on October 20th, 1974, then realized she had risen from the dead on January 10th, 1979, only to be buried once again for eternity. Even more tragic is the unknown reason for her death. What I did find, however, is an obscure protraction of her death. Think about all the hours I’ve logged listening to “Last fair deal in the country, sweet Suzy!” and the amount of accumulated thoughts about Suzy, what she must’ve looked like to Hunter and Jerry, what she must’ve meant to Jerry on the nights that he sung her into the song with such love and tenderness and longing, what she must have meant to him on the nights that he abandoned her and left the audience singing her in their own empty words, and what he must’ve thought on January 10th, 1979 when he resurrected her one last time. What drove him to do it? The Dead performed Loser 346 times. Only a few of these shows do we not have the recording. I tally 88 known Losers that include the “sweet Suzy” or just “Suzy” line. Remarkably, of the 54 Losers performed in 1971, only one show did not feature the “sweet Suzy” line. That show is 7/2/71 at the Fillmore West, oddly the last show at that venue. The very first Loser performed on 2/18/71 at Port Chester features a “sweet Suzy” in the first slot and a rare “Suzy”-only in the second slot. All three “Suzy”-only versions were sung in the second slot of the song in 1971, but of the three remaining “Suzy”-only versions in 1972 and 1973, Jerry sang it in the first slot of the song. The first show in which Jerry sings “sweet Suzy” in only one of the two slots is the 22nd performance of Loser on 4/21/71 in Providence, Rhode Island, and it appears in the second slot. There are no other shows or patterns in 1971 of note except to say that toward the middle of the year, immediately following the 7/2/71 Fillmore West show, Jerry starts to exclude the “sweet Suzy” line in one of the two slots more frequently. Between 2/18/71 and 5/30/71, Jerry performs Loser 31 times, and he is fairly regular with the “sweet Suzy” line in all of the Loser versions, singing it both times in all but 2 of the 31 times. But once 7/2/71 hits, the remaining 23 performances of the song are variable when it comes to the singing of the line. Between 7/2/71 and 12/31/71, Jerry sings the line twice during the song only 13 of the 23 times. What this means is that Jerry started the slow death of “sweet Suzy” officially on 4/21/71, booted her from the song for the first time altogether on 7/2/71, and then proceeded to ween her from the song thereafter. 1972 sees the demise of Suzy even more. Of the 39 times Loser is played in 1972, only 4 times does Jerry sing “sweet Suzy” in both slots of the song. 13 times he abandons “sweet Suzy” entirely. 1973 isn’t any better. 25 performances, 7 “sweet Suzy” lines, and none of those 7 times does Jerry sing the line in both slots of the song. 1974 saw “sweet Suzy” virtually die. Of the 10 times Loser is performed (remember, there were only 40 shows this year), only 3 times does “sweet Suzy” make her appearance, the last being on 10/20/74 at Winterland, and it’s sung in the second slot of the song. I fitting farewell to the Grateful Dead at the time and to sweet Suzy, whoever she was. And that is all we know of the mysterious girl called Suzy in the song Loser. For the next 4 years and 45 performances of Loser, not a trace of “sweet Suzy” is found – that is, until the first show of 1979, in Uniondale, New York, on January 10th. Making her appearance one more time – and her last time – was “sweet Suzy” in the first slot of the song. It’s so brief and nondescript. If you blink, you miss it in the recording. There’s no emphasis, no powerful resurgence, no eruption from the audience. It comes and goes in a second and a half. And then it vanishes. Ghostlike. Forever. I knew I had never heard a “sweet Suzy” in the 1980s or 1990s, but I wanted to be sure, and so I listened to all the “Last fair deal in the country….” verses (two per song) of all 169 remaining performances. I sometimes dreamed that I’d find one, hidden within a show that was not on many popular radars. I held out hope that there was a version of the song in the post-Brent era that escaped our listening ears because it was a Vince show. No. I sometimes imagined I heard it because I was listening so hard for it. I truly wanted it to be there. I wanted so badly for Jerry to sing those two words again; I’d even take a delayed and whispered “Suzy.” Alas, it wasn’t going to happen. I have thought about so much along the way. I thought how crazy I am for doing this. I thought how empty this project is. I thought how meaningless and stupid and utterly ridiculous….In short, I thought I had perhaps come to an end of sorts with the band. When I began the journey, I actually was listening to 3/24/73 Spectrum and noticed that Jerry had only sung the “sweet Suzy” line in the second slot. And so I wanted to know what other shows in the March/April ’73 period did this. And then I wanted to know all of 1973. And then I decided I’d do all of the Losers and tally them all up. I searched high and low on the Internet to see if someone had already done this. I found no one. But, above all, I felt like I had to do this. I was reminded of my high school years, and always bringing Shannon new “sweet Suzy” Losers. I simply felt it was my calling to know them all. So, Shannon, if you’re out there, and happen to stumble across this, here are all your “sweet Suzy” and “Suzy”-only Losers. Enjoy… Below are the years and dates in which “sweet Suzy” or just “Suzy” appear. After the date, you’ll see a “1” or “2” or “none,” indicating for that particular show where “sweet Suzy” is sung, “1” being the first slot and “2” being the second slot of the song. “None” obviously means neither slot of the song featured this line. If you see a “Suzy” next to either the “1” or “2,” then that means just the rare “Suzy” was sung. For the inaugural Loser on 2/18, I like that “sweet Suzy” was sung in the first slot and just “Suzy” was sung in the second slot. There are a few shows in which we do not have the recording of Loser: 10/21/72, 11/18/72, 9/12/73 (this one is unclear as to whether the song was player there at all, but I kept it in anyway), 9/28/77, and 2/6/79. Other than those, they’re all here. The penultimate note: the Loser from 5/11/78 does not feature a “sweet Suzy” but rather a Jerry “Yeeeeaaaahhh Arrrrgghhhh” which is the only one of its kind. The ultimate note: I have retained the spelling of “Suzy” as this is how it appears in Hunter’s Box of Rain. 1971 (53) 02/18 1 2 "Suzy" 02/19 1 2 02/20 1 2 02/21 1 2 02/23 1 2 02/24 1 2 03/03 1 2 03/14 1 2 "Suzy" 03/18 1 2 03/20 1 2 03/21 1 2 03/24 1 2 04/04 1 2 04/05 1 2 04/06 1 2 04/07 1 2 04/08 1 2 04/12 1 2 04/13 1 2 04/17 1 2 04/18 1 2 04/21 2 04/22 1 2 04/24 1 2 04/25 1 2 04/26 1 2 04/27 1 2 04/28 1 04/29 1 2 05/29 1 2 05/30 1 2 07/02 none 07/31 1 08/05 1 08/06 1 08/14 2 "Suzy" 08/23 1 2 08/24 1 2 08/26 1 10/21 1 2 10/23 1 10/26 1 2 10/29 1 2 10/30 1 2 10/31 1 2 11/06 2 11/07 1 2 11/12 1 2 11/14 1 11/15 1 2 12/06 1 2 12/10 2 12/14 1 2 12/31 1 1972 (24) 01/02 1 2 03/21 2 03/22 none 03/26 1 "Suzy" 2 03/27 1 04/07 1 04/14 1 04/16 1 2 04/24 1 04/26 1 04/29 none 05/10 none 05/13 2 05/26 1 06/17 2 07/18 1 "Suzy" 07/21 1 07/25 none 08/20 1 08/22 1 08/25 2 09/03 none 09/09 none 09/15 none 09/17 none 09/21 2 09/24 2 09/28 none 09/30 2 10/09 1 10/18 1 10/21 ????? 10/23 2 10/27 1 2 11/14 none 11/18 ????? 11/22 none 12/11 none 12/15 none 1973 (7) 02/21 none 02/26 2 03/16 2 03/21 none 03/24 2 03/28 none 05/13 none 05/20 none 05/26 none 06/09 1 06/26 1 07/31 none 09/07 none 09/11 none 09/12 ?????? 09/17 none 09/20 none 09/26 1 "Suzy" 10/21 none 10/27 none 10/29 none 11/10 2 11/23 none 11/30 none 12/06 none 1974 (3) 02/24 none 05/14 1 06/18 1 06/30 none 07/25 none 08/04 none 09/10 none 09/14 none 10/17 none 10/20 2 1975 None 1976 None 1977 None 09/28 ????? 1978 None 05/11 "Yeaaah arrrgghh" 1979 (1) 01/10 1 02/06 ????? 1980 - 1995 None Thanks, xxxxx

....the midi flute Garcia plays is beautiful. Then it goes into the mutron tone we all know, then back into a mutron/flute thing. Jerry plays two different tones at once. Pretty neat and pretty incredible. Miss you. I can see how someone's first show being this one could hook you. God bless the GOGD.

....I don't know what you're talking about LedDed. Now exuse me while I rearrange my bookshelves. It's gotta be just exactly perfect. It's for the grater good.

I love it when Bob would say that. I wonder if Deadbase lists how many times he spit that out from the stage. It was tongue in cheek, and endearing. This was a raggedy bunch folks. This music was only ever perfect in it's glorious humanness, flaws and warts and all. I play lots of guitar. There's a thing called, "relicing," where you can pay the Fender Custom Shop or some guy in his garage to scuff up your brand-new guitar and make it look old. Like some clown who goes and buys "distressed" jeans at the mall. Please... my guitars get beat up because I play the hell out of them, and except for my Gibsons (only because the string tension against the angled headstock can snap the neck if they fall over), I don't give a shit if one of the kids knocks it off the couch or a drink spills on it or whatever. I love that stuff. Gives an item character. I will no longer even pick up certain people's guitars. I feel they would experience a cardiac event if my nails (I play with a heavy hand) should leave microscopic scratches in the finish. Museum pieces all, never to be - gasp! - really played or used as the medium of expression they were designed for. Just ask the collectors who keep these "investments" in humidors, to be looked at only, and just don't you dare stare too hard in any one place for very long. I bought a brand-new truck in 2002. For months, I would park at the edge of the lot and struggle in vain to keep it perfect. Once I finally let that shit go, it was a tremendous relief. My $100 Jimmy Page coffee table book arrived damaged from UPS, they'd crushed the box and there's about a 1" divot on the cover. So what? Now when my friends thumb through it I don't cringe if they haven't washed their hands. I understand paying money for something and appreciating it being in new condition, but some of this borders on the obsessive and misses the point. Warren Zevon was just like that, with the T-shirts. Joey Ramone. It's OCD and a few other insanities rolled into one. I respect that we are different, and I don't know if I find these gripes with product minutiae annoying or just hysterical... but I guess with the Dead fanbase, you get that in all kinds of ways. One of my discs does have a flaw, there's like a metallic shriek/white noise in some song. Maybe more than one. I wouldn't know which, because with many thousands of songs I just skip ahead to the next one. I can't be bothered enough to care. It's all about the music...

This morning I got up and put on what I thought was a perfectly crisp, clean white T-shirt. Imagine my horror upon discovering a stray eyelash had fallen onto the left shoulder, and to top it off a tiny wrinkle was discovered below the right underarm. Then, at lunch my Big Mac arrived shoddily assembled. The cheese was unevenly melted and not at all centered on the patty! And the pickles had been hastily thrown on and I think there may have even been a few brown sesame seeds atop the bun.

I got this show in a tape trade about 30 years ago (Portland 1974), and it was incomplete, missing 6 or 7 songs. A few years ago, the complete show started circulating and we all discovered that those tracks were omitted because the vocals were seriously low and I guess someone thought they'd do us all a favor and leave them out. The songs that were left out correspond almost exactly to the songs you mentioned. Sounds to me like they did everything they possibly could to match them up with the sound of the rest of the show. It'll never be perfect, but they did a hell of a job and it's nice to hear it sounding so much better. There's just always shit you can't fix when you're working with two-track tapes.