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    clayv
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    Sweet liberty! We're venturing into the depths of 80s Dead with the complete show from 4/20/84 at the Philadelphia Civic Center and we're placing bets you'll think this one is more than fine. A strong contender for our mega 30 TRIPS AROUND THE SUN boxed set, 4/20/84 missed the cut by virtue of its setlist being a wee bit too similar to the years before and after. As DAVE'S PICKS VOLUME 35, it's found its time to shine. The first set delivers yin yang harmony between Jerry and Bobby songs, yielding driven and powerful takes on tracks like "Feel Like A Stranger," "Cold Rain And Snow," and "Brown-Eyed Women." The second set begs the question - will we ever stop peaking? - with a monumental "Scarlet>Fire," a ripping "Samson and Delilah," a "Space" that pulls shapes that know no names, and that "Morning Dew" - get.in.to.it! And because this one might have ended just a little too soon, we've packed disc 2 and 3 with knock-your-socks-off bonus material from most of the second set from the previous night, 4/19/84. Grab ahold while you can!

    Limited to 22,000 numbered copies, DAVE’S PICKS VOL.35: PHILADELPHIA CIVIC CENTER, PHILADELPHIA 4/20/84 has been mastered to HDCD specs by Jeffrey Norman and is guaranteed to sell out. 

    *Limited to 2 per order. Very limited quantity available.

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  • Colin Gould
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    Coupons in the UK

    Dennis, I think your ad will be for cigarette coupons just as you mention existing in the US. While I wasn’t around in 1947 I can remember such coupons being advertised in Embassy brand cigarettes in the 1960s.

    Although rationing of many items was still in place in the UK in 1947 you didn’t buy the coupons they were issued in a booklet by the government. There would have been a black market in selling ration coupons but that wouldn’t have been advertised.
    Talking of rationing, there was an anecdotal (so probably false) story from the early days of rationing in the 39 - 45 war where Churchill, the Prime Minister, was shown a typical food ration. He, supposedly, said that it wasn’t too bad and you could make a good meal from it. No-one had the nerve to tell him it was the ration for a week.

  • billy the kid
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    San Francisco Blues Festival

    The only festival I ever went to was the San Francisco Blues Festival, and it was absolutely fantastic! It started in 1973, it was free for years and when they started charging it was well worth it. I went to an awful lot of them and I never saw any trouble. I did see B.B.King, Buddy Guy , JR. Wells,,Stevie Ray Vaughn, Akbet Collins, Jimmy Cotton and many many more. Whether it was in Golden Gate Park, McLaren Park or over at CHrissy Field overlooking San Francisco Bay, great beer , food , and music, they were wonderful.

  • JimInMD
    Joined:
    Great Bands in Small Venues

    Any good stories about seeing the stones in a bar of 150? There's got to be some Garcia band or Jerry/Merl stories out there that surpass the biggest mega festival event ever??

  • JimInMD
    Joined:
    Losing my car at Foxborough

    Could have been the intense heat, dehydration or there is a slight chance the mushrooms played a tiny part.

    I had fun.. don't get me wrong. Me and the wonderful Terry, my favoritous, bestest tour buddy.. such a sweet woman. She would not take the wheel when I was seeing double though....

    On the bright side.. but the time I did find my car.. I was stone sober, a good thing. I remember thinking as we drove off.. now where in the hell are we going to sleep tonight?

  • snafu
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    Dennis and coupons

    Daverock could speak better to this but I think the coupons you're talking about were ration coupons. After WW2 England had rationing until around 1955

  • Angry Jack Straw
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    Sir James

    Not quite, but almost, almost your first negative comment. I’m teasing you of course.

    Sorry about your experience at Foxboro. Piss poor show, but we had a blast. We were locals at the time, knew the lay of the land and planned accordingly.

    Festivals don’t do it for me either. Too many hassles.

    The HORDE festival was virtually empty until the headliners showed up. No joke. Big head Todd and the Monsters probably had 10 people in the audience when I saw them. It was 2 o’clock in the afternoon on a weekday. Regardless, I got to see them play Midnight Radio live.

    Papa John and the other boys played a small, natural amphitheater. Summer gig, blanket on the lawn and a cooler full of beers. It didn’t suck.

  • JimInMD
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    Festival PTSD

    I have PTSD when it comes to large Festivals.

    Got the back of my calves puked on at one (yes, into the shoes), got into a sweaty violent hug with someone freaking out on something (PCP??) just before security pulled him over the front row gates and dragged him off.. had a hell of time finding my car after 7/4/87 Dead-Dylan at Foxborough Stadium. Certainly my bad that time... I'm too old to do em anymore.

    My absolute favorite festivals were the first few Delfest's, bluegrass and jambands, but even they got big and cop ridden after a while. When you have to take a shuttle vehicle from your car to the venue, ....

    At a Dead Show at the Capital Centre in the mid to late 80's.. somebody benevolently pranked a cop in the parking lot who pulled his gun shouting, "Freeze or I'll shoot you in the back" Nothing happened but man.. Dead Lives Matter. The Capital Centre really did suck.. some great shows at a very shitty venue, I genuinely refer to it as the Crapital Centre.. always packed with hippie hating cops on horseback. At another dead show at RFK perhaps 86 or 89?? some fan came right up behind me and chucked a bottle (coke I think, the old school greenish ones with ridges.. thick) at a cop and it hit him squarely in the head, made this sickening loud thud.. the bottle did not break and blood gushed all over the cop.. It was horrific, we are talking likely serious brain trauma. The other two, uninjured cops drew their weapons and ran like hell after the freak that instigated the whole thing - I don't know if they ever caught him. The incident was completely unprovoked, cop lives matter too. Bad hippie, bad hippie.

    No thanks.. give me an outdoor shed or an intimate theatre any day of the week.. the Greek, Red Rocks, the Beacon, the Stanley, the Capitol.. one band, no opener. Alpine Valley is about as much of a venue as I would enjoy anymore.
    Nice intimate setting, great acoustics, no cops on horses, no cops with guns or asshole fans throwing bottles at cops, etc. BTW, the nitrous mafia was not a good thing... (although I sinfully indulged on more than one occasion).

    Glad I did the festivals when I could and have many great memories but I think 2008 was my last one. Sorry for the doggy downer perspective, but they a are sort of money grabs in a sense anyway. Was wearing my Village Vanguard shirt today. I dig the smaller clubs. That's always been where it's at in my humble opinion.

  • billy the kid
    Joined:
    Us Festival 9/5/82

    Grateful Dead, Fleetwood Mac, Jackson Browne, Jerry Jeff Walker, Jimmy Buffet.. When we were driving down to see the Dead in Ventura in July, Steve Wozniak drove by us, I guess he was going down to set the festival up.

  • Angry Jack Straw
    Joined:
    Multiple Acts

    Very surprised that nobody mentioned the H.O.R.D.E. tour.

    I caught it twice. The ABB was the headliner one year. You got early versions of Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Dave Matthews Band, Blues Traveler and many others. Very cool stuff.

    David Johansen, The Clash and The Who. Two days after my first Dead show. The first two bands were meh. The Who killed it.

    Forget about this one. Jonathan Edwards, David Bromberg and Papa John Creach. Papa John was unreal.

  • proudfoot
    Joined:
    8 28 88

    Jimmy Cliff
    Then
    Robert Cray
    Then
    Grateful Dead

    An atrocious performance by the GD. Still, glad I went.

    A mere 6 days later, they played Ripple.

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Sweet liberty! We're venturing into the depths of 80s Dead with the complete show from 4/20/84 at the Philadelphia Civic Center and we're placing bets you'll think this one is more than fine. A strong contender for our mega 30 TRIPS AROUND THE SUN boxed set, 4/20/84 missed the cut by virtue of its setlist being a wee bit too similar to the years before and after. As DAVE'S PICKS VOLUME 35, it's found its time to shine. The first set delivers yin yang harmony between Jerry and Bobby songs, yielding driven and powerful takes on tracks like "Feel Like A Stranger," "Cold Rain And Snow," and "Brown-Eyed Women." The second set begs the question - will we ever stop peaking? - with a monumental "Scarlet>Fire," a ripping "Samson and Delilah," a "Space" that pulls shapes that know no names, and that "Morning Dew" - get.in.to.it! And because this one might have ended just a little too soon, we've packed disc 2 and 3 with knock-your-socks-off bonus material from most of the second set from the previous night, 4/19/84. Grab ahold while you can!

Limited to 22,000 numbered copies, DAVE’S PICKS VOL.35: PHILADELPHIA CIVIC CENTER, PHILADELPHIA 4/20/84 has been mastered to HDCD specs by Jeffrey Norman and is guaranteed to sell out. 

*Limited to 2 per order. Very limited quantity available.

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In reply to by Colin Gould

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Sorry to hear Peter Green passed. To hear the live “Rattlesnake Shake” from early FM recordings - such as Live in Boston - was to hear Thunder itself. A gifted guitarist, but unfortunately a troubled soul. RIP.

Any Husker Du fans 'round here?

Bob Mould's next band Sugar...I got a copy of Copper Blue about a weeknhalf ago. Some good tracks

Husker Du:

Zen Arcade
New Day Rising
Flip Your Wig

If you want to hear some high-octane psychedelia, check out Reoccurring Dreams on Youtube....14+ minutes of fun.

....hmm. I visited a reddit post yesterday about Fleetwood Mac. Posted that the Peter Green Mac was the better Mac. Feedback was 50/50. Then this.
I still don't believe in coincidences.
Husker Du is good. As are the Minutemen and Seven Seconds.

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In reply to by Vguy72

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He replaced Eric Clapton in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, and played on the "Hard Road" album from 1967. That's the only album I have with him on, and its a good solid blues album. Maybe not quite a spectacular as the Clapton driven Beano album from the previous year-but its worth hearing.
I saw him live once at a blues festival, Bishopstock, round about 2003. That was quite sad, really. He seemed disengaged and all the main solos and audible guitar parts were played by someone else. Peter didn't sing or talk to the audience, as I remember it. He just seemed sort of propped up there, with a guitar hung round his neck. Yet they used his name to advertise the band. The price of being a living legend, I suppose.
I have only heard Fleetwood Mac's singles with Peter on-and they do seem to be significantly better than the MOR band from later in the 70s.

That was the only Husker Du album I ever owned. I don't know how typical it was , but I used to like it. I was surprised when I first heard it how melodic it was-buzz saw guitars and enough energy to detonate a factory...but also quite poppy in way. A good way.

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My favorite Peter Green tune (with Fleetwood Mac)

"I can't help about the shape I'm in
Can't sing, I ain't pretty and my legs are thin
But don't ask me what I think of you
I might not give the answer that you want me to"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0ag8DkipmQ

RIP blues man.......

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I am a big Peter Green fan. After he left the band he founded, Fleetwood Mac, he did go on to make several solo albums, quite nice stuff. The early releases with him and Danny Kirwin were peak early Mac. I saw Peter once at the Fillmore, he was a little subdued. RIP Peter.

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did some 7/24/87 and 7/26/87 view from the vault can't wait for this release and rz thanks for the california earthquake never knew or heard but if only two were played they should be released cool cool stay cool and love early fleetwood mac with peter green have some cds for that and when saw Tom Petty at the pepsi center they ripped oh well...well oh well rip

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Several months after the Dead’s 69 run at the Ark In Boston, Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac held court at the Boston Tea Party across town in 1970. Love those BTP releases, and listen to them a lot. Peter Green was a true guitar God who will be missed. The music remains. Be at peace Peter.

The Dead played 6 shows at the BTP in 69. Including New Years Eve, a rare NYE show outside the Bay Area.

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Albatross said it all.

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George Harrison said Albatross was the inspiration behind Sun King from Abbey Road. Now that's a piece of music! I would have been okay if it went on another 5 minutes, but I guess sometimes it's the small bits that keep you wanting for more. It's a perfect union of bass and guitar melodies. I imagine this is what codeine would sound like if it had a voice. Rain has a similar effect, though obviously more upbeat (and one of Ringo's finer moments).

I sense French Roast and Jai-Alai 6/23 in my immediate future.

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Sounds like a good performance here. Audio is just okay, but I'm sure once I treat it with some Poweramp magic it'll get a little better.

It's interesting- I recently read that Betty Cantor Jackson used to record those 70 shows on her private board. Not sure who paid for the actual tapes, but it does sort of answer the nagging question I've had in my mind for a while now - how is it possible that audio quality degraded so badly in the 80s. It also explains how the tapes that were sold off at auction from her unpaid storage bin warrant in so official Grateful Dead Vault somewhere.

But anyway, I really like the keyboard sound Brent uses on Feel Like a Stranger here. It's not too far from Dave's Picks 8 from 11/30/80, which is my favorite version; this may be my second fav.

The track list on here is superb. Hopefully they're on top of things throughout.

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I think the best music has already been played and the greatest musicians are dead and gone. That's not to say there is no new good music happening and no great musicians out there. I think for Blues , Country, Rock & Roll, Jazz and Blugrass the best music has been played. There are some exceptions of course as far as musicians go, but for the most part the legends are all gone.

The music and culture of the 20th century may have been unimaginable to the 19th century mind, so maybe the music of the 21st century will be similarly unimaginable to the 20th century mind. Which most of us still have. With new technologies, new instruments...new drugs...who knows what might happen?

baah humbug. These new kids and their (furry) tennie shoes, loud music with long jams and their long hair. Music hasn't improved since a bit since Glenn Miller, Bennie Goodman. ahh. the golden era.
Boy the old Lasalle ran great.. those were the days.

So turn it down, get a haircut and get off my grass, hippies.

:D (hopefully not to be confused with fact or any resemblance of an honest opinion)

Oh, RIP Brent. You are missed.

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I’m sure Beethoven fans said “All the best music has been created” after he died. One would hope that a Beatles, Grateful Dead, Miles Davis would come along at least every hundred years or so.
I must be crazy ‘cause I’m starting to get excited about Dave’s 35. It’ll be great to have another ‘80’s show to love(at least I hope so).
Even a ‘68-‘72 Head can revel in a fantastic show from ANY era.

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In reply to by Mr. Ones

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Imagine if Beethoven dosed. Deaf or not, we would have gotten another symphony. I bet it would have been real and spectacular.

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Rewatching and listening to Blow Away from 09/29/89 Shoreline as I read your post, VGuy.

RIP Indeed. Let it Blow Away.

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I don't know anything about Beethoven or Classical music, so has there been someone who is as famous or as influential in Classical Music as Beethoven was since he died, just speaking about Classical music. I'm curious.

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I'm going to say Rachmaninov, or Dvorak. Or Chopin, or Schumann or Liszt or Paganini. Or Stravinsky, Debussy or finally Copland. Although, I am partial to Sor (the Beethoven of the guitar), Giuliani, Carcassi, Brouwer and Villa-Lobos... :-)

Absolutely agree with you on the btp mac stuff. We're lucky to have a good amount of FM music from them at that point. It was a dump but they certainly had some great bands

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In reply to by That Mike

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I've racked my brain but other than an old blues song involving women I can't think of a song about self gratification being so popular on radio. Any thoughts?

I know this will come off hasher than I mean but....some things are not funny, they way the CCP treat its people especially minorities is beyond the pale. I am not some woke sjw who needs a safe space at every turn, but sometimes people including myself need to be reminded of the evil out there.

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In reply to by Vguy72

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Go with the website. The bonus is another complete show. Got home from the hospital yesterday now that doc newsom decided my necessary op elective and there it was. Listened to both twice already. Very clean

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...about self gratification on the radio - the Divinyls song I Touch Myself got some airplay in the early '90s and was a catchy little tune, and let's not forget Pictures of Lily by the Who. Not sure who Maryanne With the Shaky Hand was using her shaky hand on, herself or another, but that might be another self gratification tune depending on your interpretation of the lyrics.

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In reply to by Charlie3

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Oh, that's a good one.

That chick brought the ol' shelehlee out of the closet...

But anyway...give a listen to 5 15 70 today, folks.

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Yeah, the Divinyls vocalist had a voice that really made the song.

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Snafu, I just said that I felt that the best music has already been played. I didn't say that there was no new music being played or that there was no really good music being played. I'll just keep that to Blues and Rock & Roll, I still believe that. There is
nobody out there that can come close to Jiimi Hendrix, or the Grateful Dead from 1969 - 1972. As far Blues music, I don't even need to give it a second thought, the best Blues music has been played. You've probably heard of the great harmonica player Rick Estrin, well he said , there are a lot of good harp players, a few great harp players, a couple of excellent harp players, but the best harmonica players are dead and gone.

I think everyone thinks that about everything at some point.

Think you could handle better than the best Dead ever Done?

I'll go with Frank -

Best is yet to come and babe won't that be fine
You think you've seen the sun but you ain't seen it shine

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In reply to by Charlie3

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Good picks I forgot about pictures

To each etc. but even though they're both dead SRV and Fz played years after Jimi and were at least as good if not better. Jimi was great of course but part of the greatness was showman ship which isn't playing.

Thinking about it, I would agree with you in the sense that we may have seen the best in blues...in its current form. What we don't know, is if someone will come up with a new form of expression within the idiom. Its quite believable that someone might have thought that in the 1920s that it was impossible to improve on the blues and jazz of Bessie Smith or Louis Armstrong. And in the way that they played, those people may have been right. What they wouldn't have accounted for would have been the different approaches of Robert Johnson, Charlie Parker, Jimi Hendrix...and many others. I like to think there are more twists and turns ahead. Blues musicians who are informed by the past, but are able to use new skills, instruments and technologies to advance the form. Would it still be blues? Could be! Muddy Waters and Jimi Hendrix were.

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47 years ago today the Dead did their famous sound check at Watkins Glen. Hendrix Freak, were you at this, or Strider were you there?

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Snafu, I saw Stevie Ray Vaughn play twice, once at the San Francisco Blues Festival in 1979, and once at a Wavey Gravey event called.Cowboys for Indians, he played solo acoustic. . You're right he was absolutely fantastic.

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A friend asked me what I had been reading lately, so I thought I would share my latest reads:

Guitar King: Michael Bloomfield's Life in the Blues by David Dann-excellent read if you are into Bloomfield
California Dreaming by Michele Philips - OK with some insight into how fast the Mama's and Papa's took off and then broke up
Rod Serling: His Life, Work and Imagination by Nicolas Parisi - Excellent detailed look at behind the scenes of the Twilight Zone
Simple Dreams by Linda Ronstadt - a great read, very funny and honest, tells her story and the story of the beginnings of Country Rock
Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge by Sheila Weller - If you admire Carrie, this is a great book telling her story

The easiest, most fun read is Linda's.

I am now beginning to read the Beatles Anthology, a huge book, authorized by them and in their own words.

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A sentiment that has been shared by many (including The Greg Kihn Band and their Breakup Song). To put it another way, "It's good to be in something from the ground floor. I came to late for that and I know. But lately, I'm getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over." I suspect this is a generational thing, although I confess that the high point of this feeling came for me in the '80s when there just really wasn't a lot of new music that I dug. I dug some '80s stuff, but not a lot.

Lately, I'm finding a lot of new stuff to dig, although it is not the classic rock sound of yore, nor is it a Dead clone. Mostly, it's artists doing something I haven't really heard before, or doing something old with a new twist. Sturgill Simpson, Khruangbin, Leon Bridges, Flaming Lips, Tame Impala and St. Paul and the Broken Bones would be a few examples of newer artists that I dig. So nobody is gonna do what Hendrix or the Dead did better than the original, I agree with that, but there will be artists finding new forms and styles that will be just as cool in their own way. And honestly, if I only had one artist to listen to, or only one style of music available, it would get old no matter how good it is.

Edit: Or, since I've been on a little Who kick lately, "Rock is dead they say. Long live rock".

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My own latest music reads include Patti Smith's memoirs "Just Kids" and "M Train". And just yesterday I finished Holly George-Warren's excellent Janis Joplin biography "Janis: Her Life And Music".

The latter brought back bittersweet memories. I was fortunate enough to see her perform twice. The first was on the Cheap Thrills tour in '68 and the second time was at Woodstock.

Such a tragic loss to her fans along with Pigpen, Hendrix, and Jim Morrison.

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Richard Wagner died about 60 years after Beethoven who died around 1827 and wagner around 1887. Wagner was considered new age classical who said that "I am going to produce classical music that is much more interesting and new age than Beethoven's boring and sleep inducing symphonies." He said something like this back in the day.

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I've been a huge Wagner fan all of my life thanks to my parents playing classical music in our home.

I've seen his operas performed any number of times and like the Grateful Dead, I'm happy to travel great distances to see one. Last summer we made a train journey from Seattle to see his epic four-opera cycle "Der Ring Des Niebelungen" at San Francisco Opera.

Wagner the man was quite unpleasant (anti-semite, philanderer, swindler, etc) but he was a brilliant composer and created the combination of music linked to on-stage action that we see applied today in musical scores for motion pictures.

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Carlo13, the Grateful Dead were huge fans of Wagner, and they even cancelled a couple of shows in 1985 so they could attend the performance of the Ring Opera in S.F. I saw the Dead shortly after at the Greek Theatre, it was a blast!

....I've started, over the waning weeks of the 'Summer of Sixtus'**, the newly released read: "Action Park - Fast Times, Wild Rides, and the Untold Story of America's Most Dangerous Amusement Park", which is a MAJOR callback to my youth (yooot!) in the late '70's and early/mid-80's when spending time in NJ and at 'The Shore' - which always did its best to emulate the death-defying antics via water slides but never approached the true point-of-no-return that was Action Park. My assumption is that there are at least one or two peeps here that had experienced the unadultered chaos of Action Park. I still remember the commercials and visits, which made me buy this breezy, sarcastic, comical, adventurous, very fun book.

** 'Summer of Sixtus' has officially come to an end as today was my first day at my new Pharma gig. No complaints on this end, it's good to be back in the driver's seat.

Looking forward to DP 35 big time, gimme some Philly.

Be Well People.
Sixtus

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Right on, a blast from the past. I grew up across the border from Vernon, NJ in a then rural area of Orange County, NY and went to Accident Park when it was just the Alpine Slide, and maybe a couple of times later. Injuries abounded there, from the minor to the life alteringly tragic. Take a look at the water slide loop that these yahoos came up with, the Cannonball Loop, no engineering or water-ride experience appear to be involved, just the back of a napkin and an idea of what a loop looks like.

Love the fun random connections that come up on these threads.

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