Grateful Dead

This is not eBay. If you have something you want to give away or sell at cost I think that is reasonable. You have been known to sell things at higher than cost to people on this web site.

You said something in defense of yourself and your business practices on the public forum when you were selling Stanley Mouse stuff a couple of months ago. It sounded like you had somebody complain prior to the Stanley Mouse artwork you were peddling, and you were trying to discredit that person before they spoke out.

It wasn't that long ago that you told me you needed CDs burned of the Fillmore West 1969 box set. I offered to help because you said you were going blind. You also said how grateful you are and that you would give me exclusive information on the shows that would be included in the 2019 box set that was released this year. I spent hours trying to convert the FLAC files that I have of Fillmore West 1969 into something that you could play, not because you offered me information that you really didn't have, but because I would do that for anyone indeed, especially someone who allegedly went blind. But then it got weird. You kept stringing me along on the PM, saying that you would tell me in a couple days and then a couple days would come by and you would just say something generic like "oh it's going to be so good you're not going to believe how good it is. It will be Primo". Or "soon very soon my friend". I think what happened was you realized that it was going to take me a lot longer to figure out how to convert Flac files into something I could burn onto CD, and you ran out of excuses to sell me because you didn't really know what the box that was going to be.

Anyway this ain't eBay pal. I'm pretty sure it's somewhere in the bylaws it says you can't sell stuff here.

Sixtus:

I'm very sorry to hear about your father's condition, and hope you will accept the sympathy of all of us.

Having your parent go through an impending death situation is never nice or easy. My own father was going through a situation with congestive heart failure, and we lost him about 3 days prior to Christmas about 4 years ago. While I'm single, my brother is married, has 2 sons, and it was an awkward time for him to separate those observances for the purpose of remembering them so they aren't inextricably associated in his family's minds. I can't help but think of the similarity of that to what you're going through.

I'm 2000 miles away from where Dad lived (and where I grew up), was planning on visiting him in mid-January, but alas, had to rapidly change travel arrangements to be there for the memorial. That certainly sounds kind of selfish, I know, but it's done, and I had to balance competing responsibilities (and while he understood that, I still regret it). The one thing the memory of that tells me, is not to try to defer any unfinished business I have with someone I care about - serious matters of health don't wait for or respect human traditions (the "end-game" occurred very rapidly for him- when his health began to slide it was done in a span of about 2 days). Details of the arrangements he took great care to talk to me about when we lost my mother about 13 years prior, so what my brother didn't know, I did and could fill in whatever gaps there were, so we knew his wishes were carried out.

Thinking about you.

Great comparison, and one that has never occurred to me before. Van Gogh' paintings are absolutely stunning if you ever get the chance to see the originals. The first time I came across them was in 1991, when I was in Amsterdam. I went into the Rijksmuseum just because I happened to stumble across it-I had no real knowledge or interest in Van Gogh. But I was transfixed...so many extraordinary paintings, and the more I gazed at them the more moved I was by what I was seeing. Definitely the unexpected highlight of the trip.

The famous painting The Sunflowers is hung up in a London gallery, and I saw that again a few months ago. I walked into the room, and it was hanging at the end of the large room. And it was shining...I could see it even from a distance. You get closer, and it looks as though it is lit from within. Its...well, I say all sorts of things are amazing...but this really is.

Back to Jerry, he did develop his tone, as opposed to John Cipollina, who as far as I can tell, found his sound and kept to it. Would it be fair to say that Jerry was initially inspired by drugs, and then confined by them? Maybe a bit presumptuous. But certainly in the first 10 years of the Dead's life, at least, he seemed able to stretch the imagination in way no other guitarist I have ever heard quite can or could. And believe me, I have heard a few.

I love the tones Jerry was able to get from his guitars throughout his career.. even in the acoustic days, his picking was clean and he seemed to always have a recognizable tone. Playing in the Band and Estimated Prophet are great examples but there are many. As his career progressed, so did his experimentation with tones (and guitars). Listen to Stella Blue or Loser over the years for example.. there was a progression.

I took a bunch of art classes in college for fun and I remember reading about Van Gough at some point. There was talk about his use of colors, specifically Oranges and Yellows. There were lots of theories that his epilepsy and the drugs taken to control it combined with perhaps the absinthe he loved to drink (contains a toxin called Thujone, which when taken in high doses also makes ones vision skewed towards oranges and yellows) might explain why his paintings often reflected those qualities. That is how he might have actually seen things.

I always equated Jerry's tone to similar qualities but instead of absinthe his drink of choice, at least in the early years, was Prankster Juice.

Anyway.. silly and unprovable observation, but I do consider Jerry a tonal genius much as I consider Van Gough a genius of color. Since the topic came up I thought I would put pen to paper, I don't think I have ever discussed this thought before with anyone. I still think there is perhaps more than a thread of truth in this.

Finally.. a friend shot me something on Meyer Sound this morning and it got me poking around in a few places. There was a pretty decent article on Jerry and his guitars which sort of circles this whole discussion that I found quite interesting. A pretty big topic for a Friday afternoon. TGIF!!

https://www.guitarplayer.com/players/how-jerry-garcia-revolutionized-th…

And what kind of condition is it in?

Both the Alligator and the Wolf sounded superb with whatever amps they were powered through...but for me the supreme tone was sourced with the mighty Gibson SG during 1969 and 1970. Sometime during 1969, Jerry started playing a sunburst strat at some of the shows, but the SG continued to make regular appearances, and can still be heard, I believe, to devastating effect, at Binghampton 5/2/70.
But those Fillmore West shows from February-March 1969 may be the best recorded example of just how perfect that guitar sound was. I have never heard anybody get a better sound out of a Gibson SG. Apart from John Cipollina.

Thanks for letting me know about the PM problem. I thought I was going nuts every time I saw the message I wrote come back as sent to me. I do talk to myself sometimes, but rarely do I write to myself.

Yeah, I know, and I've reported it to the tech folks so they're working on it. So sorry for the extra layer of aggravation.

New PM's are not going through. Unless you reply to an existing, good PM thread whatever you send to someone else is only sent to you.

Now the calendar has shipped, so I don't have any complaints about my order from six weeks ago. (other than the lag time between order and shipment . . . )