Grateful Dead

.... meanwhile, I'm here shuffling to 7.31.82. #poorme
p.s. sarcasm

Well, this is fun. Friday night fun to me and my 14 yr old son who tells me what I want to hear concerning the Dead, 'Yeah, the sound is pretty great Dad', I can add that there is great dynamic in the recording.
Ahh the simple pleasures of life, dragging the speakers into the living room (moms gone), eating pizza and drinking Resiliance IPA, (Recent news headline: 10yr old brews Resiliance IPA, donates proceeds to Camp Fire Relief), ok and yes listening to the newly arrived 2/26/77.
Thanks to the earlier prompt to listen to the 2/27/77 Santa Barbara show on Archive, I was prepped coming home tonight.
The liner notes and news clippings are enlightening, I never knew the Dead had a cult following that rivaled the Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman cult following...just goes to show....wow into playing in the band now and indeed it's a swell show....kudos to the the journalist who wrote the Santa Barbara clipping....and thank you Jeffrey Norman! enjoy ya'll

Haa! Mine arrived today, but I haven't had a chance to spin it. How is the sound?

Once again the roof of my skull is gone cause the dew just blew my brain right out of it !!

I love the Revolver / Sgt. Pepper / Mystery Tour psychedelic sound. Some great singles accompanied that period too (Rain, Day Tripper, We Can Work It Out, Paperback Writer come to mind). I always listen to St. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour back-to-back, like a double LP, because they sound so much alike (and as you all know I'm sure, several MMT tracks were recorded during the Sgt. Pepper sessions, most notably Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane).

Let It Be has some great tracks, but it's not my favorite record. I really dig Dig It (ha! had to) and Two of Us is real nice. The Let it Be track of course is awesome, but I grew up on the Blue Album version, which has the take where they replaced Harrison's solo with choral backing vocals, and I love that version. Across the Universe is one of my all time favorite Beatle songs. I've Got a Feeling was the surprise nugget I found on Let It Be when I bought the CD after college.

Abbey Road. Ah. I've always thought of side two as the single, Here Comes the Sun + "The Golden Slumbers Medley" is sublime. The trippy guitar strumming on Sun King should come with a nitrous balloon. I do have to admit though, that I don't care much for the last bit by Paul - the 20 second "Her Majesty". I simply didn't rip it to my phone with the rest of the album, so the Golden Slumbers Medley concludes with "The End" - as it should have. If I ever see Sir Paul, I will lie and say it's my favorite part of the record. Which could happen. My cousin used to live in his neighborhood. I have a nice pic of his house, as well as Abbey Road Studios. And of course I did the march through the legendary crosswalk.

The White Album feels like a lot of filler to me. I think there are 3 LPs of top-shelf Beatles, and then a bunch of B-sides. I kind of feel like they should have put the electric kick-ass version of Revolution on that album, and maybe reserved some of the singles they recorded that year (Hey Jude, Lady Madonna, Hey Bulldog) to put in place of Revolution #9 and some of the other weaker tracks. I would say to include It's All Too Much as well, but it honestly wouldn't fit in with the rest of the sound of that album, where the other songs I mentioned would. Wait a second....if I can edit Her Majesty out of Abbey Road using digital technology....then I can make the White Album whatever I want it to be. Dear Prudence!

My wife had Grey's Anatomy on the other day when I inadvertently noticed a picture on the wall in one of the scenes. It looked a lot like the artwork on the PNW Box set and Believe It If You Need it releases. I was able to scan back to the scene and freeze it. The picture, upon additional scrutiny, was amazingly similar to the art on these releases and obviously painted by the same artist. Similar art was hanging in various places during another episode. Who knew that Grey's Anatomy had a Dead connection...and who cares? Ha!

Stereophile magazine reviewed the PNW Box Set as one of it's records of the month and gave it very high ratings for both performance and sound. I guess they didn't get one that skipped...

Recent listens-
Believe It If You Need It - Steady rotation since it's release - one of my favorite all time Dead compilations
Beatle's White Album 50th - Enjoying all the Beatle's conversations - My favorites are Revolver and Rubber Soul
Hendrix Electric Ladyland Legacy 50th - Very well done
Ry Cooder - The Prodigal Son
A Day In The Life - Impressions of Pepper - Various artists - If you like the Beatles you should give this a try - nice jazz improvisation
Witches Stew - Lettuce - A well done nod to Miles Davis
And some Stones, Little Feat, Dexter Gordon, and Jimmy Smith - to name a few.

Waiting for Dave's 29 to arrive on Monday.

Enjoy!

Will be listening this evening as well and picked up the new Garcia 'Electric on the Eel' box.

Aka DaP 29 has landed in my boat! To paraphrase the great Bob Marley, I will be a-burnin' and a-rippin' tonight.

So I'm sitting here earlier today, fidgeting anxiously for the notification on my phone that Swing has arrived in my mailbox.

My phone pings and an email from my alma mater comes across the wire.

The title of that email..."The Value of Herman Melville."

You can't make this stuff up.

That's Otis, I also find that Let It Be is the peak Beatles album for me. Something about the album as a whole really works. It did surprise me that it took so long for someone to mention Magical Mystery Tour, that is another excellent album with some overlooked gems. Blue Jay Way anyone? Baby You're a Rich Man? The other albums everyone mentioned, Abbey Road, White Album, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's, Rubber Soul, they are all among my favorite albums as well as Hard Days Night and Help which were among the first Beatles records I heard. Good stuff, much like the Grateful Dead I pretty much like it all.
All this talk of Dave v. Dick made me glad to have access to both of their picks. Currently going with 10/19/73 DP 19, although after someone here pointed out that Dick only made the first 15 picks of the DP series and mapped out a few more for Dave, who gets credit for DP 19? Personally, I think that argument misses the point that without the fact that Bill Candelario made the great recording of the Dead's excellent performance on 10/19/73, neither Dave nor Dick could pick it.

Always dug the weird stuff the most, though don’t recall ever hearing anything I didn’t like.
Abby road was my go to forever, but since I got a copy of Let it Be a few years ago it’s grown on me.
The white album of course. Peppers, I of course dig, but it doesn’t move me as much as some others.
The big surprise was Magical Mystery Tour! Somehow that one wasn’t really on the radar until a few years back when I finally got my vinyl collection back from the rents. Holy-shmoly! Coo-coo Kachoo indeed.
Really wish they would release that on Blu-ray high res format....