Grateful Dead

This is definitely the best thread going on the site. Good music and good vibes. Thanks for all the great stuff here, especially from The Good Ole Grateful Dead.

Couldn't agree more, brother!

Firing up Curtis Hall now! I think I'll cheat and just start with Set II :)

Peace

..adding in all other contributors here as well.

Strider, deadvikes, otis, oroborous, Cone Kid and I'm sure I forgot acouple......

Well it's the last stop on my December 73 virtual tour!! Hanging out at the Curtis Hixon with Good Ole and That's Otis!!! The tour was great only hiccup was Cincinnati!!! The shows in North Carolina and Atlanta were awesome. I always wonder what the 6 day break was for. Have a good weekend everyone.. Bob t

...and BobT for sure.. I'm losing my mind.

“This is the best that can be done as far as getting them willing to release this stuff. Listen, if this doesn’t work, I seriously wonder if anything will ever come out of their vaults.” - Dick Latvala 1993/4

December 19th -
Today is an historic date in the annals of GD history.
47 years ago the GD played their final show of the year and it smokes.
But possibly bigger than that, 27 years ago that same show was picked to be the first GD live recording released as part of the now legendary Dick's Picks series.

If you're a collector (which includes all of us here) then it's important to realize what a game changer this release was for all of us. Literally, it is the moment when all of our collections would level up. Over the next 27 years all GD collections would grow exponentially with live two-track releases from the band. Official Bootlegs! The legendary Vault, the untouchable Vault, would open up for us commoners. Back then it was a moment that most of us dreamed about, but few were sure it would ever really happen. It definitely wasn't guaranteed. And Dick's Picks Volume 1 started it all. Finally a fan was releasing Grateful Dead music with the band's blessing.
(Yes there was the From The Vault Series, but that's a different story all together for another time).

And Dick, well he was probably the only person who could've gotten this all started. Honestly I feel certain that without Dick's persistence, passion and enthusiasm, we wouldn't have what we have today. That's just how this world works. Sometimes it takes the only person who could possibly get something done, and puts them in exactly the right place to do just that. I like it when that happens.

I remember when this release came out. We were stoked. Of course eventually there was the complaining about it not being the complete show, but what none of us realized at the time (and some still don't realize) was how big of a coup this was. And that this was the jumping off point. We could not imagine in 1993 the plethora of Grateful Dead official releases we would eventually get. And for that, we have Dick to thank.

So, pick a release out of your collection today, and put it on. And raise a toast..
LATVALA!!

With that all being said, I know which show I'm gonna pick :)
Final night on tour, and it feels like it's gonna be a smoker! Last night's show was phenomenal!!
The WRS > Dark Star > Drums > Eyes > Wharf Rat > Sug is a thing of beauty. Listen to the jam in WRS it's an air guitar frenzy, especially where it's patched during the tape flip. During Dark Star it sounds like the band gets into an I Want To Tell You style jam that Bob, Phil, Keith & Jerry are all playing off of (I wonder if they listened to that earlier in the day) they run that theme for awhile in the jam. And Uncle John's Band encores, why did that stop?!?! What a show. Man you should've seen Bob T he was bug-eyed!! We all were, it was soooo amazing. Get that show and put it on right now and listen to what I'm talking about. It could easily have been the first release.

But as Dick would go on to say: "The only reason 12/19/73 was the choice, was because of the Here Comes Sunshine. Jesus, what a monster!”

Alright, it's time to "Remember Your Hippie Training folks, Be Cool!" - Jerry 12/19/73
I want to thank all of you that participate on this forum and contribute your opinions and thoughts and ears to this wonderful music. It's been a real joy to pick shows with friends and give them a spin and talk about them. In this time when we can't be together, this is the next best thing. And it wouldn't happen without you.

High fives all around, thanks for touring through the vault, buying the ticket and taking the ride!

Good Stuff.
LATVALA!

EDIT - I second Bob T, this has been a great tour. In regard to the 6 day lay off, supposedly the Band went back home to SF and chilled, then headed to Florida to play two shows and finish the year. Only the GOGD '73 would do that!

EDIT2 - Dick Latvala quotes from Amazing interview from Dupree's Diamond News Volume 27. Get it, read it, love it. Wonderful stuff! Also big props to John Dwork & crew for all they've done for Heads everywhere. Love you all.

Thanks Dick for kicking open the Vault doors.

That HCSS is a monster. Good call Dick.

I’m not calling for a reissue of the DP series, but I am calling for a Box containing 12-18,19,-73 in all their Plangentized/Normanized glory.

here here..

....I remember when it came out. I prayed that it would be a sign of things to come. Now, I'm running out of shelf space. Prayers do work!
Best Here Comes Sunshine? Hard to argue.
Good test for disc rot. I haven't spun this in quite some time. Let's do this!
My step-daughter, her daughter and her daughter are visiting for the weekend. My step-daughter loves the Dead with zero influence from me. She agrees on this HCS.

Beware the insect fear jam.
It might freak the uninitiated out ;)

The HCS def rules it.

Playing now, my first listen ever, as far are I know.
Pretty cool Playing>UJB>Playing to close set 1.
I even listened to all of Phil and Ned.
Now sliding into Eyes.

Listening to Miller.96275.

I’ll get to the DP1 anniversary tonight once the beer starts pouring.

After CDs appeared, there was a lot of talk of releasing shows from the vault due to the longer time format (72+ minutes). It took a few years but they finally pulled it off. Too bad the first CD medium wasn't BluRay like.. they hold 50 gigs = 70 CDs = 32 shows, I think the length of CDs was originally formulated to fit Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Can you imagine a world where they formulated CDs to hold the Bickershaw Festival 5/7/72?

He's Gone->
Truckin'->
Nobody's Fault But Mine->
Jamming->
The Other One->
More Jamming->
Stella Blue->
Around Squared.
.
I know you all know the set list. I just like to -> songs.

Thank you GOGD for calling attention to this pivotal moment in Dead recorded-and-released history for us obsessives. Disc 1 spinning right now. Ordered from the original Almanac announcement.

i want to give a shout out to a key player in those early days in getting that ball rolling. Peter McQuaid was the head of Grateful Dead Merchandising at the time and he was instrumental in getting Dick Latvala's dream made reality. Read this Cloudsurfing "outake" for that history: http://cloudsurfing.gdhour.com/archives/9064. Deepest thanks, Peter.

That's rich! I enjoyed that, thanks BlueCrow.

I wonder how many more outtakes are out there... hmmm.

It just so happens I'm reading TIAADWD currently.
Amazing book! Highly recommended.
Super well done, and love this format. Great work Gans & Blair!
Add Gans, Blair & Kidd to the Peter McQuaid props list for being extra instrumental in getting these releases going.
And extra to Kidd for recording this puppy.

Great Stuff. Thanks for sharing BC, and check out that DDN article with Dick if you haven't already.

Still got that Almanac notification?

given that i don't throw much of anything like that away, answer is probably yes, somewhere in the "vault"

There's probably some good reading in them there old almanacs.

I'd like to see the Dick's Picks Volume 1 ad.

Nothing turning up on the quick interweb search.

Next time you're dusting in there, look around for it ;)

on my long list GOGD

btw - 6/6/92 Set II, is on youtube in proshot on voodoonola channel. somewhere in my "vault" is a VHS i have of this show. received ca. 1997 in this tiny back water desert town, told at the time not to copy for anybody!! because it wasn't supposed to circulate. Friend of a friend had gotten it from DL after a tour of the vault. I held my part of the bargain - never did copy it.

Thanks for sharing that link Bluecrow, that is great stuff.

None of the stuff past OFTV and TFTV was release quality. Look at where we are now? Unreal and all gravy in my opinion.

Keep it rolling!

back in those days my primary connection to the larger GD world, outside of actually seeing a show or drinking a few beers on a Sunday night (GD night) at the Blue Moon Tavern, was the Grateful Dead Hour. looking through the GDHour logs, Show 267 (11/1/93 - https://www.gdhour.com/logs.php?year=1993) is centered on DiP 1 and includes a Gans interview with Mr. Latvala about the selection process. I can't find a working link to the actual show audio but here is a link to a transcript of that interview: https://www.gdhour.com/transcripts/latvala.931005.html. a good read. I was a regular listener but can't be sure i heard this episode when it originally broadcast.

I'm discovering more and more, had some just magnificent shows.
- Dick Latvala 10/5/93

Well, I couldn't agree more Dick.

What a great tour the Dead played 11/30 - 12/19/73. It's worth hearing all of it!
I sure had a good trip on the virtual road with Bob T, that was some good times.

Thanks BlueCrow for the DL GDHour Transcript. It's more complete than what was aired originally. (I believe the complete interview as well as others were aired as 3 part tribute to Dick shortly after he passed on GD Hour No. 571-573) You can Listen here:
https://www.dead.net/features/gd-radio-hour/grateful-dead-hour-no-571
https://www.dead.net/features/gd-radio-hour/grateful-dead-hour-no-572
https://www.dead.net/features/gd-radio-hour/grateful-dead-hour-no-573
Thanks Gans & Dead.net!

Like you, at the time of the first Dick's Picks release my main source of quality tapes was the GDHour.
I'd actually gotten out of collecting at the time of this release but this brought me back in for awhile.

Dick, was a hardcore tape collector.
Here's some excerpts from the transcript that I really think tell the story:
By late '67, I was a Grateful Dead fan, or freak. There was no question.

I didn't realize that live tapes existed until around 1974.
So late '74 I discovered that actual tapes existed, I wanted tapes of every show, so that's what I pursued.

That's all I did from '74 through the present time, really, is collect and listen to Grateful Dead tapes.
- Dick Latvala 10/5/93

I love that.

Also Dick says the following about the Series -
This is really an experiment, this first one, to see how it does, because no one has a clue as to how much interest there is out there to get at this material. This is only mail order, you see. It's not going to be in record stores. So this will be like a little private club, so to speak, you know, that is willing to go that extra mile for the really good stuff.
- Dick Latvala 10/5/93

I guess we're in the club?!?!

Alright, 12/19/73 was a great pick Dick and it worked. Thanks man for all you did for us.
LATVALA!!!!

Well, I guess I'll try and not pick any 1972 & 1973 for awhile ;)
Thanks to all that journeyed through so many shows from those eras.

Now, I kinda want to spin the old 10/12/68 and figure out why that hasn't been released yet.

Or if there's a show you all are itching to hear let's hear about it.

BlueCrow - Blue Moon Tavern, have we talked about this? I used to go to the Portland Blue Moon all the time in the late '90s.

Thanks GOGD for the links to the Latvala interviews!

Blue Moon was the one in Seattle.

What a grate club to be a part of!

Playing 12-19-73 right now.
Sound quality was amazing compared to the tapes I had in the early 90’s.
But now as I listen to this show the sound quality is nothing like the PNW Box.
So, I reiterate my desire to have 12-18,19-73, along with other shows from the tour, Plangentized and Normanized and included in a Nov/Dec 73 Box.

Cool stuff guys, thanks for posting DL.

I wonder what Dick would have thought of the E72 Box Set??

This has all come a long way.

I’ve heard 12-19 so many times that I’m moving to something I’ve never heard before.
11-1-73 set2.sbd.goodbear.80714

Yesterday I processed a bunch more torrent files and got 29 GB of ALAC playlists loaded on my music player.
Included in the batch was

11-1-73 .80714
11-20-73 .76616
11-23-73 .112801
11-25-73 .113007

So I’ll get a mini tour of late 73.
Also processed shows from 67,68,70,71,88,89,90,95.
Some good variety.
I’ve got 2 weeks off work and am going to do a lot of jobs around the house. The music player is loaded with tunes and ready to go.

Dude 12/19/73 was so Yesterday!

That PITB from Feyline Field is mighty fine.

Sounds like a nice plan my man.

BTW 10/12/68 is still super sick, in case anyone was worried it'd changed!

But now I have a lot of unheard shows on my music player.
It’s going to be a good 2 weeks.
I use winter as a time to work on my music collection since I’m stuck inside and it gets dark by 5 pm.

No work tomorrow, think I’ll start off with something barrel aged.
I’ve got ribs slow cooking in the oven.

Can't believe I snoozed on 12/18.

Do it today man. It's worthy.

Not gonna happen today, I can barely move and it's late.

I am digging the hell out of select cuts from the PNW box. I did the unthinkable.. and cut up full shows to the best parts. So much fun.. It seems likely to go down as my snow set. We haven't seen winters here since.. well a decade, and we finally have some decent snow. Love Winter fun.

By Wednesday I will be partially human again. I will shoot for that.

Anybody wanna check out 10/2/81 today?
New miller S2 SBD showed up and SIRMick remaster of S1 as well.

Killer '81 show.

Ultimately this is a rhetorical question, I should say.. I'm listening to 10/2/81 upgrade and it sounds awesome and you all should too, cuz it's killer and has a smoking Set List and a Playin' > Shakedown > Bertha > Playin'
But you know... it goes both ways.

And it sounds like you made the right choice Jim, enjoy the snow!
12/18 will be there for you when you're ready.

Looks interesting GOGD. I will check it out. Thanks for the pick.

excellent, that entire 81 European run is fantastic, there are some great shows in this October run and if you haven't heard them, check them out, those London shows are just so groovy. Daverock, didn't you make a couple of these shows? Got any memories to share?
Peace all you groovy cats and chicks on this thread, a tip O the hat and a toast to each and every one of you, tis the season for Peace, Love, Dead. Stay home and check out this 81 overseas tour, you will have a great time.

....had me at Cumberland.

I second Unkle Sam's request for Europe '81 stories.

Bob Minkin has some good ones in his book, especially about the Oops shows in Amsterdam.

But would love to hear more from anybody here that attended.

Yeah UNK, I dig this tour and this upgrade is sounding good. I believe the last "tape" I had of this show had intentional cuts for personalization and that was the only thing in circulation, so def stoked to move away from those.

The return to Playing In The Band is worth admission alone.

Blair writes up some good reviews on this tour and the tapes, which are notoriously not perfect here -
https://www.dead.net/features/blair-jackson/blair-s-golden-road-blog-fo…

I still remember having a audio VHS of 10/3/81 and spending hours trying to transfer it to tape, but was having all kinds of tracking issues with my VHS player and getting pissed, shortly after that the guys I was trading with switched to Dat and CD and that was a whole 'nother ball game, I think I quit collecting for awhile after that. It was so much work back then and honestly shit just wasn't ready.

Glad to be back in the game in the digital age!

Good Stuff.

PS - VGUY I was gonna say there's a Cumberland!
BTW listen to that GSET on 12/18/73 bro, thought of you. Phil is dropping some huge bombs at the end it's sick!!

I guess I was due for the full meal deal, gonna have to listen to the whole run from London.

Great shows here and Jerry's voice and playing are sounding sweet in 1981.

If you dug 10/2 than 10/3/81 is well worth a listen!

Set 1 is pretty typical with an upbeat Jed and nice Bird Song plus a China > Rider to close the set.

But... You GOTTA hear this Stranger! It's pretty special. The other thing I really love about this show is the intro into NFA from Space. Listen to Brent at about 0:54 seconds into NFA, It sounds like a John Carpenter movie soundtrack. Made me sit up and listen for real. I wish it would've gone on longer but those 10 seconds alone are Definitely worth the trip.

So having enjoyed both of those shows, I know what I need to do.
I have to hear the next two.
I can't remember much about 10/4 and the 10/6 High Time slays me, and so it's time folks.
I mean how many Blues For Allah Jams can you put into your near future?

Again it's a rhetorical question. The answer not many at all.

PS - I can't really hear a Blues For Allah Jam in 3/31/84?

I really missed Blair's Golden Road blog when they first pulled the plug.

Seeing this show pop up reminded me of the Forgotten Tour recap. For those that might not have read this all those years ago.. it's worth a read. Blair can write and he knows the music.

https://www.dead.net/features/blair-jackson/blair-s-golden-road-blog-fo…

Thanks for posting the link Jim. And I have to agree, the sound quality is not that great, but the music is good. Looks like I will have to check out the October 15 and 16 shows at some point.

The only thing I like as much as listening to the Dead is reading about the Dead and Blair is one of the best.

Peace out.

I listened to the first Dave’s Picks the other day and then read y’all’s recommendation for Dicks Picks 1 . I checked both of them out. First time in years.
Last night listened to 12/21/69 Fillmore Auditorium. Great Christmas vibe.
Dicks picks 1 from Dec. 73 is super interesting. Here Comes Sunshine opener is tight. I saw the Dead a few times when Jerry played the Wolf. Also the Nash Strat in 73, at least once my first time seeing Merl Saunders and Jerry.
I’m gonna check 12/23/70 Winterland tomorrow on relisten.
Jupiter/ Saturn conjunction was spectacular last night! Happy Winter Solstice .

I'm hip for 12/23/70 tomorrow.

Sounds like 12/21/69 might have to get dusted off too.

Not that kind of dusted!!!
But some extra curriculars might be in order for both.
Maybe I'll see Saturn & Jupiter line up again.
Not that kind of line up!!!

If you liked 10/2 & 10/3/81 than 10/4/81 is well worth a listen too!
Jerry shreds at the end of Jack Straw. Fun Set 1, Dig the Set 2 CR&S opener, and Fire is on Fire. Along with Lost > Saint, another sweet Spanish Jam. And dug the Don't Ease.
The Dead does London.
They're on all 4 nights for sure.
If there were multi-tracks we'd probably have a box set already and all this would be old news, which it is! ;)
Ah, it's a High Time.

80th birthday December 23, 2020 , tomorrow. What great guitar player.

....a surprisingly strong '95 show. I was totally caught off guard.
https://relisten.net/grateful-dead/1995/03/23
The return of Bruuuuuuuce.
-
Half Step
Wang Dang Doodle
Cold Rain & Snow
El Paso
Loser
Easy Answers
So Many Roads
Unbroken Chain
-
Scarlet Begonias ->
Fire On The Mountain
Corrina ->
Maltida ->
Drumz ->
Space ->
Days Between ->
Good Lovin'
-
The Weight
-> -> -> ->

Hellzapoppin'!

Now we're talking.

In honor of Jorma, I'll have to give this 5/21/68 a full listen (BTK posted this earlier and I was unawares) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYI9D8PC5jQa

And I like Bruce and a good reason to dig into '95.

Now that's a big fat list of stuff to listen to tomorrow!

....was the day I was born. Twas a wonderful day. That is AMAZING! All these years, I thought Jerry didn't play a show on the day of my birth. It's not listed in DeadBase. Nice to be wrong.

Happy Birthday Show!

Check your Messages.

Any interest in ending the year with like 5 or so favorite New Years Eve shows? We can vote the next few days or throw out shows, and start on the 27th??? I heard Boston Tea Party show on today in GD history today and it started me thinking. Let me know of thoughts, Bob t

Sounds like a fine idea. When do we want to start?

Like it

12/31/72

....1989 was a good one as I recall. I never made it to a NYE's bash. Sad face.
Thanks GOGD.

12/31/71 was my brothers first, 12/31/77 was my first, both pretty good shows.