Grateful Dead

Hey Now. I guess this thread /is/ called "Pick of the Day", not simply "Now Playing with Discussion", but I'm just gonna bore you with stuff I've been listening to lately.... and then you probably won't see me again for a month, so, hey, decent trade-off, I'd say.

First off, right now I've got 3/24/93 Chapel HIll rollin'. (I'll explain later) It's weird how in the second set the band totally sees-off Jerry's attempt to start Crazy Fingers out of the Playin' Jam. Phil basically sounds like he's just thrown his hands up, and completely stops playing. In fact, basically every just stops, er... dead. Only Vince seems game to find something to do. When Jer finally gives up, they launch into Box of Rain. After they finish BoR Jerry immediately starts Crazy Fingers again and they actually do it, and do they ever.

Whadda ya figure's goin' on there? Did Jer "forget" the pre-written set list? was it like a super-tease, or did Jerry just get vetoed on his audible? The Playin' jam was sounding cool and a spaced out transition into Crazy Fingers would've been killer. However, Box of Rain into drums would have been, let's just say, unusual. It seems Billy's got some bidness to take care of, 'cause it pretty much immediately turns into a Mickey Beam solo.... as did the 3/25 drums, but Space takes off into a Spanish Jam that seems to go on and on, thankfully. When they launched into GDTRFB I was thinking, wait, what song were they just playing, did I space out?... well, I guess in a way I got spaced out. ... Now that I think of it, there may have been a "We Want Phil" chant starting in the Phil Zone, but it's not audible in the SBD, and I can't remember if that was actually before Box of Rain, or not.

The Crazy Fingers is actually really cool, btw. SPOILER ALERT there's this momentary, and initially slightly awkward, little Playin' reprise before someone gets on the intercom (you can hear the ambient noise disappear for a second... yes I'm listening to a board for once) and seems to call it off. All of these questions seem to typify the sort-of cool, detached, risk-averse nature of this period. Haven't found an AUD source from the Dean Dome that has much life to it. Might be some new ones. It's a basketball arena designed to amplify cheering voices, not music, I'd imagine.

Anyway, just wanted to take a peak at Jer the last time I saw him, in Vegas back in '94, and the same YouTube uploader also had the second night from Chapel Hill, which is notable for its nice Terrapin, and perhaps more so for the stellar Morning Dew. Jerry keeps trading sly grins with someone, and getting an outright laugh out of watching Bobby do his thing. I actually read the comments on YouTube videos 'cause, wow. there are some opinions out there. One dude mentioned this Crazy Fingers from the 24th and how the first night had "always" overshadowed the second. In my mind it had been the other way 'round, which sent me to the Archive this monsoon-drenched morning. Yeah, nobody goes back to listen to 90s Dead, I know. Even the band seems bored sometimes, but there are diamonds in the rough. More often, however, there are outright wth? mysteries like the one above.

The other one... on heavy rotation has been the 50th Anniversary Skull & Roses 180g vinyl. Missed the propeller variant waiting for the credit card roll-over date. Anyway, wow, the bass is boomin'. I mean, it's not overpowering booming, but there is a LOT of Phil. I A/B'ed it with the single disc CD, and even though there's a lot of Phil on that too, he's allotted a lot more low frequencies on this version... which is odd, because people will tell you that you can't put too much bass on vinyl or it'll cause the needle to skip. No fade in, but Bertha also starts a few seconds earlier than on the CD version. There's some little warming up noise before they hit it. Pretty superfluous, but, hey, 2 more seconds! I have not heard the OG Skull and Roses vinyl, but I actually debated on picking one up from Discogs instead of getting the anniversary edition, which ended up being released three weeks late. The price is comparable. Maybe next month.

Speaking of records skipping, I've had the 5/4/72 Olympia Theater vinyl for, what, less than two months and Bertha is already skipping. I think I screwed it up with the generic replacement stylus that I installed back in April. Apparently the Sure stylus/cartridge division has gone belly up. I've kept the old needles lying around, and found one that had been swapped out really early for some reason, so I went back to that. Otherwise, I can't figure out what the problem could be. I play my records, but consider myself more careful than most when handling them. Hard to say. I might have damaged the record, or stylus myself, but it looks like I'm in the market for a new cartridge. The vinyl had no problems at first, but I have records I bought 30 years ago that still play fine, while this one is skipping after 5~10 spins.

The difference between Phil's bass frequencies on the Olympia Theatre record versus Skull and Roses, is beyond description. Phil is fully present in the Olympia Theatre release, but he couldn't deliver a bass bomb if he tried with the frequency range he's assigned here. Wanna compare with the Europe 72 album, but actually don't have a copy of Europe '72 in any format. Just ordered a green label '72 pressing. It was a mint for one in decent condition, but so will any 50th anniversary that might come out next year be. These are supposed to sound amazing. They've already done a bunch of Europe 72 reissues recently, so it might get the Live/Dead treatment.

Two non-audio notes about the Olympia Theatre box are regarding the photos used for the inner sleeves. At first they seemed really dark, and not particularly interesting. The photo of out-of-her-mind-on-Owsley Donna was of interest for how calmly she appeared to be peering out into the spotlight, but a closer look reveals a rather wild set to her jaw, or perhaps I'm just projecting. The other photo that finally grabbed my attention was the Side 1 photo of the band, completely washed out in red lighting taken from stage left, almost behind them. Bobby is standing out front in the spotlight singing and Jerry and Phil appear to be standing behind(!) Billy with Pig at the organ stage right harmonizing with Bobby. So, Jer and Phill would totally just retreat into the shadows when they didn't have any singing parts in those days? Fascinating. Might depend on the stage. You don't see that in the Veneta footage, but there really weren't any shadows that day, were there.

Anyway, my answer to a question nobody asked.

Good Housekeeping tunes!
Kept the mother rolling with first disc of 2/14/68 etc. shizzle fo sho!

Next chance I get we will get down to tge funky sounds of 3/24/73!

Great show... It's been a long time since I listened to it.

The 30 Trips show, yes, this one smokes. On it!
Thanks Oroborous.

I was going to offer up another Spectrum show, Dave's Picks #32, 3/24/73. Maybe tomorrow.

My #39 still has not shipped, 😩.

Maybe 5/14/78?
Got my server back, up and running and need to HEAR, some good sheet mon.

For the reference, I’ll definitely have to check that one out. Love Babs, what a character!
I’ll bet his memoir will be very interesting after all he’s lived.

And thanks for the rest of your sage words of wisdom.
You should write a book!

Been really digging 71. Was sorta a flyby year for me until nice folks like you and Doc helped show us the light.
His job was to shed light, not to master...

Who Shot the Water Buffalo is a great book by Ken Babbs. The title has a funny twist , double meaning. Any of us old time wild land firefighters knows what it refers to. Once they get to that point in the book.
Pick of the day. I have been staying on the 50th anniversaries of 1971 Dead shows since January. Otherwise taking a break from Grateful Dead music. Kind of like smoking ganga all the time. The effect may become lack luster. As was said in the old days, “space your trips”. Although yesterday I did watch the black & white video of Robert Hunter sitting in with the Garcia Band 1980 at the New Jersey Capitol Theater. Tiger Rose “where the children play ringolevio”.
Speaking of books, “Ringolevio” by Emmett Grogan was one of Jerry Garcia’s favorite books.
On the subject of the mountain west states. Ironic that the people who lost the most , true Natives and in the case of Montana where I lived from 1975-1981 the Blackfeet treated me the best. Very similar here in New Mexico where I’ve lived most of my life. But respect has to be earned and that doesn’t happen overnight.
As an old professor Joseph E. Brown who taught Native American Studies at the University of Montana used to finish his class by saying, “Be of good heart”.

To Mr JG. Hope yer digging the jam...

STRIDER: thanks for the tales, always a pleasure!
Your Yale description let’s us be there, instead of in our mind.

Interesting show. CM SB Audio started out less than stellar but was pretty good bye and bye...
Really dug the Dark Star, perhaps the spaciest of the year so far?
Perhaps this show is a slight step back from some of the earlier beasts, but it’s another solid, very enjoyable 71!

4/12/83: glad you liked it DV. This one goes under the radar, which is a shame, as I think it hangs with most any other on the tour. Among other highlights, forgot about that sweet Rat!
Of course I’m big time biased on this one;
- My 10th show
- front row between Phil and Bob (closer to Phil)
- first show tripping (purple dot I believe, had beautiful death experience)
- first time seeing new, awesome varilights etc
- first time hearing, awesome new Meyers PA
- first time seeing/hearing Phil’s new awesome Modulus 6 string bass (perhaps new Bob guitar?)
- first Help/Slip/Franks, which besides slight early vocal hiccup was awesome
- first (I think?) NFA fadeaway/chant to end, then Mickey came back out and they quietly pick back up and fade back into for encore NFA, followed by sweet Baby Blue!
One of those shows that even after the lights came up nobody moved right away, many still doing the chant! The kind of night where it appeared like A LOT of people were tripping, total 10k mind meld, gives me shivers to recall....

BABS memoir, bet that’ll be interesting!
Loved Last Go around, and that bus one, but don’t have Water Buffalo?
Guess we’ll have to talk to Santa about some books...

I listened to the complete July 31, 1971 yesterday late afternoon and into the the night. Aside from my copy of Road Trips that is only part of that Dead show I had never heard the complete concert since being there 50 years ago. There was a fresh new sound that brought a flood of memories during last nights listen. First a couple quick corrections. I mentioned Pigpen stepping out in front during the third song. Obviously he was playing the Hammond B3 organ while singing Mr Charlie. Another correction is from reading the notes of Blair Jackson in Dead Base 50. Blair states that the audience rushed the stage during the first song Truckin’ but it was indeed the third song, Mr Charlie when people poured on to the grass in front of the band. My friend Danno who I have stayed in touch with for over 50 years also correlates that sequence of events. Practically nobody danced during the first two songs. It was as if it was a high school dance where hardly anyone was wanting to be the first up and dancing.
On a side note the best writers involved in the history of the Grateful Dead in my biased opinion are Blair Jackson, David Gans and Dennis McNally. I have to include Rosie McGee in that mix as combined writer and photographer who was there from the beginning (or damn close) of course add in the books by Jerilyn Lee Brandelius (GD family album) , Phil Lesh (Searching for the Sound) , any of the books written by Mickey Hart ( Song Catchers my favorite) Bill Kreutzmann’s book with ghost writer Benjy Eisen. Must include John Barlow autobiography. So much for book reviews
What struck me about 7/31/71 was the high energy that comes through. Jerry is candid as in effervescent, both singing, playing and commentary with the audience.
Another aspect I remember was the moon was out, and I looked this up on the internet, it was waxing gibbous at 60% illumination.
Another important note, my old school classmate and friend Missy Infante attended her first Dead show that night. I mention her to honor her memory as she passed on in recent years.
So those are some of the flashes I can remember from Yale Bowl, July 31, 1971.
This was at a time when I was earning money cutting oak for firewood. It was how I paid for my first trip to the Bay Area a few days later to visit my sister who was living in Sausalito. That trip included my first two west coast Dead shows that were at the Berkeley Community Theater mid August and then hitchhiking to Oregon to visit my brother and his wife who were spending the summer living in a tipi 35 miles southeast of Eugene. But that’s a whole other story.
Yale Bowl Grateful Dead was an amazing night.
Jerry Garcia would have been 79 today. Also, today Ramblin’ Jack Elliot turns 90.
“ Rollin with my baby down by the San Francisco Bay”.

That is cool Strider. I will have to check that Ken Babbs book out. Gunther your kid is waiting for you at the Kiddie corral.