Grateful Dead

....you can say I took that shit to another level.

Well Boys and Girls ... here we are !!
... or at least ... I AM ... I AM ... I AMMMMM !!

I haven't posted here in a long, long time ... basically since this website redesigned itself. Some of you may remember me, I never posted a lot; however, it sure is comforting and heart-warming to see all the regular contributors still active. I can surely say I've been the direct beneficiary of past generosity extended by JIMINMD (thank you Tuscaloosa !!!) (thank you 30 Trips !!!).

I've been a Dave's Picks subscriber since Day 1 and have never had any kind of issue whatsoever.
Imagine my excitement over the announcement re: Baltimore '77 as Dave's Vol. 41 (I'm sure y'all can relate).
Imagine my disappointment ... day after day ... visiting my empty mailbox ... waiting.

Dave's 41 ... where are you ??? ... I want you in my life ... please come home !!!

Flakey Foont ..."Mr. Natural, what does it all mean?"
Mr Natural (as he zips by on a scooter) "It don't mean shit!"

Today's TIGDH was 3/1/70, did not disappoint. 69+1.

In a way.. 68 was a prerequisite for 69
70 was just pure fun after they beat the bust on Burbon Street
71 was a prerequisite for 72
76 was a prerequisite for 77
87 and 88 were prerequisites for 89 and 90

Early on I spend much of my time in the big years, lately I find plenty of space in the prerequisite or warmup years. Just another way to look at things, no disrespect meant to any years or eras. There was learning then perfecting then learning more and changing up equipment and sometimes personnel.

Tahoe is another gem. We are due for some primal dead. If not now Dave, when?

Thanks Billy..

I saw the Eagles in concert tonight. Classic rock n roll. They sounded great, even without Glenn Frey. The first set was the whole album of Hotel California front to back, and the second set was just a parade of classic hits. Awesome stuff. Henley played Boys of Summer…..Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac

One of the interesting things about listening to The Dead now is to hear how they evolved and developed from one style into another. Necessarily there are going to be peaks and valleys when you take this approach. If you are going to try something new, it is unlikely that you will be picture perfect at it straight away, and it is to the bands credit that after mastering one approach, they moved on to another while trying to maintain elements of the former. And sometimes, the journey to something is more interesting than what happens at the destination

It must be very different listening to shows now, from across the decades, than it was at the time, when they were actually being played. This isn't often mentioned-but it is in the booklet accompanying Daves Picks 30- 2/1/70 and 3/1/70 that Jim mentions below. Strider Brown refers to the opening songs on the first night as mystery songs before they got to the Anthem material, and Jeffrey Taylor says that the crowd got restless and some actually booed during the opening "Uncle Johns" "High Time" and "Dire Wolf" at the second set on 2/1/70. Now it is all seen as part of a whole - but it must have thrown a few people at the time. I wonder if they lost and gained listeners at this time.

It's a similar thing with Bob Dylan, in a way. This year I have bought a few of his albums that I have never heard before-"New Morning" and "Self Portrait". Neither of them-especially "Self Portrait" were that well received at the time , I don't think. But now, in the overall context of his career, they sound much better." "New Morning" in particular sounds great.

Was Jim checking out Fillmore East 1970 or Family Dog 1970? :-)

‘Bubblegum’ - Mark Lanegan

‘How Lonely Sits The City’ - Magnus Granberg

‘Twelve Dreams Of Dr Sardonicus’ - Spirit
I treated myself to the 50th anniversary release, listening to the live tracks from the Fillmore West on 16th May 1970 and reading the liner notes describing how difficult it was to get them sounding this good makes the sound quality of the contemporary GD releases nothing short of miraculous.

‘Patterns In A Chromatic Field’ - Morton Feldman

‘Live In Colorado’ - Bobby Weir and Wolf Bros
Interesting performances I particularly like the ‘Lost Sailor/Saint Of Circumstance’.

DP 16 was my first Dick's Picks and second overall Dead CD (Rockin' The Rhein was my first). On DP 16 I was immediately drawn to the 2nd set jamming, including Uncle John's Band Jam and The Main Ten. I thought wow, these guys not only improvise for huge durations, but they incorporate themes from other songs into the jams as well (I didn't realize UJB and PITB had not been recorded yet). But moral of the story is I enjoyed that "old" sounding Dead as much as the crisp clean version of the band on Rockin' The Rhen.

As far as 1st half to 2nd half 1969 comparisons...I would like more 2nd half released now. I have enough early '69 to hold me over (but you guys did turn me on to The Ark shows - I would never frown at that as a box set); but there is some great stuff in late '69 I would love to have released. I don't know what the conditions of tapes are, but there is some greatness in the following shows:

8/30
10/25
11/2
12/26
12/29
12/30
12/31

There is some acoustic stuff in here, a couple of great TOO and Alligator jams (the one from NYE is super mellow cool -- much different from yesterday's post-Alligator Jam from the 3/2 Fillmore West anniversary), and of course, Dark Stars and Elevens (the vocals on the 16 minute 12/30 performance are fantastic). There's also a really good Mason's Children where everyone knows he died on Monday.

So yeah, if the tapes are good, I think some of these dates are better than DaP 6 and 10, and may be on par with 11/8.

The city of S.F. shut down Haight St. so they could have a Haight St. fair. The Grateful Dead parked 2 flatbed trucks at the corner of Haight & Cole St. and ran their electrical cords into the Straight Theatre. The Dead played a free concert. There is a short video clip of the concert. The concert was taped by Steve Brown, he had taped the Cream at Winterland the night before, so the batteries in his tape recorder ran out before the Dead were finished playing that day. Cool pictures of the concert , some ended up inside the cover of Live Dead. there is a cool picture of Garcia, walking down Haight St. with his guitar.

DaveRock,

If you like New Morning and the original Self Portrait, you should check out Dylan's Another Self Portrait from the Bootleg Series. Maybe because I had such low expectations, but this has become one of my favorites from the series.

THIS!!

Vguy, like certain movies, your jokes are so bad they're good. That's a compliment. Keep it rolling...

Anyone remember the cd size book they printed at the end of Dick’s Picks? Nice little reference indexing the run. Would be nice if they did a 1-40 on Dave’s with updates every so often

It might seem surprising, but the last time we had a new, stand alone release, from the late1967-mid 1969 era was 2010! Road Trips Vol 4 No1-the Big Rock Pow Wow from May 69. There was the February 69 show in 30 Trips, and three excellent vinyl re-issues from Feb and April 69-but they weren't newly released shows.

By contrast in the Daves Picks series we have had no less than 6 shows from the second half of the year - counting 1/2/70 and 1/3/70, which I think can be included with the others, even though they are a few days into the New Year. As said before, you can't really divided the bands music up into years. The second half of 69 marked a new era.
I guess what you would like to see come out next would depend to some extent on whether you would like to hear more of the perfecting of a comparatively small repertoire ( by The Deads standard), or the introduction and slow development of a new one.

Lebowski99 - there's a coincidence - I downloaded this off itunes this morning ! I don't like doing this, but it was a lot cheaper than buying the actual cds. I have just had it on in the background so far, but from what I have heard, I would say it sounds better than "Self Portrait" itself.

It was the Family Dog, 3/1/70. They played the following sequence on SiriusXM yesterday:

Me And My Uncle
Cryptical Envelopment
Drums
The Other One
Cryptical Envelopment
Black Peter

What I didn't catch running errands, I finished in the house when I got home. The second part of Cryptical was especially good, almost as long as The Other One. Plus I got hear distracted Dave somehow comingle Chet Helms and the vibe at the family dog, Bill Graham and the vibe at Fillmore West, Log Rolling and Sasquatch Hunting all in a singular rant. (well, there might be some hyperbole mixed in for good measure, but I get a kick out of his rants).

I love 1970 GD. Too bad soundboards weren't made for most of the year. 1970 has that feeling of an alchemist or sorcerer that after discovering their raw power (67-69) begins to develop it like a skilled craftsman or devoted artist. Think the Sorcerer's Apprentice into the Rite of Spring in Fantasia. To me that symbolizes 1970 GD.

There are some all-time classic GD shows in 1970. I'm sure mescaline Mickey Mouse agrees.

Have been digitized. I just saw this on jambase. This is essential to all of us here in Deadland!

This was also my favorite until vol.16 came out. Another Self-Portrait is now my SECOND favorite entry in the Bob Dylan Bootleg Series.

Does anybody like 1969 Dead??

Cosmic yawns, forgot about those! I got the "cosmic yawns" twice last Dead & Co tour. The other thing I got was the sensation my shoes were untied for 6 hours, happened both times and I don't remember that from the old days.

.....that he will be joining the war in Ukraine.
Early reports suggest that he will be stationed somewhere along the Crimea River.

more often then not, I was the driver after a show...the way I looked at it, the front end of my car was a giant crayon and as long as I stayed coloring the road inside the lines I was OK...and if I wasn't the driver I had enough faith in whichever one of my knucklehead buddies did drive...I can remember one drive home back to the Eastside after a gig at the Santa Monica Civic I was in the backseat and I could've sworn we were at a standstill even though the speedometer said 85 mph...

So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
That if God's on our side
He'll stop the next war

One of my old friends told me he was once woken up by his buddy, and at first he didn't know where he was. He then realised he was sitting in the drivers seat of his car..and that the traffic lights were on go. Claimed he had no idea how he got there, or of the previous few hours.

Mr Ones - I don't think anyone at deadnet likes Dead 69! For me it was the culmination of The Dead's career up to that point-and maybe the culmination of American rock music of the 60s. With The Stooges picking up the baton before the paint was dry.

3 shows from 1968, 3 shows from 1969, & 3 shows from 1970, & the 1970 shows will all have acoustic sets.

When I posted about late '69 yesterday, I was thinking, yep it's the same chronological year, but they were different Dead eras for sure!

30 Trips was nice for me, as I hadn't heard the Shrine, Greek, or Dream Bowl shows previously. And it wasn't until a few years ago that one of you fine folks let me in on a little secret - the Dream Bowl show is its own beast - I had put it on a few times and initial impressions were that it was just a fifth show from the Fillmore West Box set (mistake).

Well I couldn't do anything except put on Dave's 30 this morning. Talk about your slow Midnight Hours. Good thing I have this "tempo" dial.....ah there we go.

"1970 has that feeling of an alchemist or sorcerer that after discovering their raw power (67-69) begins to develop it like a skilled craftsman or devoted artist."

I struggle through the AUDs occasionally. Once you get used it, some of it ain't bad. The 9/19/70 Dark Star and the 6/24 "Dark Star / Attics" medley is something to behold, grungy sound or not (how cool is that early Sugar Magnolia jam!) Yeah of all the years for Bear to land in the Joint.

My last laptop, may it rest in piece(s), began to overheat and expand at the seams. It essentially grew a beer belly, so I put it to pasture about a month ago. I can usually conjour a few hours of use if I need some old files, artwork or whatever.. but it's essentially dead to me, enter Bertha, my new supercomputer.

I used to rarely have to click the squares with traffic lights, street crossings or time machines, but with the new PC came increased crapatcha demands. Argh. After about a month I selected the stay logged in option and crapatcha is back to a manageable annoyance. I'm guessing that helps. Now I can focus on getting the John Deere up and running so I can hit some killer 1970 GD.

P.S. fu count vlad. Peace. As you were. Oh, firstshow070778 check your PM.

A Jarring Tangent.

But I was particularly inspired this morning by The Wheel, rising from March 5, 1992.
Bruce is all over this one.
Jerry is yearningly channeling his pedal steel sound.
A goosebump-inducing intro.
The whole show is fantastic.

Now back to your regularly schedueled1969 Deadhead Funhouse.

Sixtus

...have been announced for August with stops at both Berkeley & LA Greek Theatres included...

s
c
u
m
b
a
g

...and laced with strychnine...

Keithfan - I think a few other years were like that, as well as 1969. They were infinitely more powerful at the end of 1967 than they had been at the beginning. 1990 also changed course after Brent died and Bruce and Vince joined. I guess the years that held the most changes were ones in which the composition of the band changed - but I sometimes wonder if it's more Deadheads than the Dead themselves that think/thought in terms of years.

An ex-pat Russian millionaire has offered up a bounty on Vlad's head of a million dollars.
Is Radio Free Europe still operating or do I remember Vlad's buddy donald killing that off?
Back to radio free Dead:

Last 5
11-4-77 Colgate (just Wow)
So Many Roads, disc 2 '69-'74
The Radiators, New Dark Ages
True Life Blues: The songs of Bill Monroe (stunning all-star list of players)
Little Feat, Waiting for Columbus ( the go-to 1977 start the party music) (also heard on pre-show public address music @ Red Rocks 7-8-78 by the way)

Cheers all!

....The Surfragettes. An all girl surf music band 👍.
They have a record coming out on the 22nd. They cover Jefferson Airplane, Britney Spears and The Electric Prunes and others and turn it into surf.
You go ladies! Huge fan of The Bangles, The Go-Gos, The Donnas and The Runaways here.
Last Five was all Surfragettes lol.

Thanks for the heads up on the Surfrajettes, VGuy. I see they are playing a date this April at a local club I have frequented, might drag the better half out for a night of fun surf music, just the tonic after all the rabble of the recent past!

So many great music suggestions pop up here. Not only did the Dead members have a vast love of various music styles, all synthesized into a very unique Dead sound, but the band’s enduring fan base - yup, I’m pointing at us! - really has varied, eclectic, and IMHO, quite amazing love of all music, too!

A shout out to Oro in the Colorado mountains, I hope all is well, Amigo, and may the Surfrajettes crush Putin to dust with those faux-Nancy Sinatra kick ass go-go boots!

A bit of a coincidence - I listened to the soundtrack of "Pulp Fiction" this morning, which feature some great surf instrumentals from the early 60's. One of the best soundtrack albums I've ever heard.

Agree, the band cycled through changes much more often than the calendar year. Personnel changes like you pointed out was a big; new music providing depth to the set lists; changes in their instruments is a big one to my ears, and that was a fairly regular occurrence. And then there's just the regular 'ol development in playing style, like you mentioned, where power in their performances increased (as well as the creative fine tuning stuff that Jim mentioned, but he described it in much cooler terms, evoking images of Sorcerer Mickey Mouse). It seems like every 6 months or so, they morphed into a new "era" in their sound (at least in the '60s and '70s). 1974 and '76 may have been their most consistent year throughout, in terms of all these things.

if this has already been mentioned but Weir & The Wolfies are doing a two night celebration of the 50th Anniversary of "Ace" at Radio City Music Hall next month ....the advertisement I saw said "Special Guests" so who knows...tickets on sale now...

Watch out for duplicate discs on this DP 3CD package. Have ordered this twice from Amazon in the past 4 weeks and each time disc # 3 contains same song list as disc #2. Real Gone Records recently re-issued this too so a word to the wise. A real drag...no Dark Star Morning Dew, Eyes, etc, etc

Hey Pedro - no, you can't be having that. I would keep on at them till they give you what you paid for. Or get your money back - which would be the lesser option. I am on the verge of buying Dicks Picks 19 on vinyl, as it goes. I keep hoping the price will drop a bit - while at the same time hoping that it doesn't sell out. Living life on a knife edge.

Howdy Mike!
Was chair surfin for hiatus, listening to lots of Jazz, but back to work, updating a home theater at 10K+ feet.

Count Vlad needs the good shit, that poisoned nasty brown stuff yer suggesting would probably turn em into Manson.
Hell he’d probably like it!
No, what he needs is a big gulp o Owsley, say 1000 mics of Orange Sunshine, that might penetrate?
Ain’t no time to hate!
But perhaps someone could dose that smirk off his face!
Imagine, Count Vlad skipping through the Lilly fields in a dress, tossing daisies, smiling like a China Cat Sunflower weeeeeee!
Speaking of cats, I think Mr Jiggs actually ate our good buddy Nappy? Bad Kitty!

Surfragettes, will have to check it out. Love girls who rock! Chicks kick ass!

Love Pulp fiction soundtrack, one of the only ones I own. Actually listened to that a few times recently. Good happy hour music!

....cueing up now.
Tarantino is a national treasure. Has great musical taste and is a master of dialog.
Bruce Willis looking for the perfect weapon in that "pawn shop" is an awesome scene. Then he goes down the stairs to fuck shit up. Love it.
Getting ready to go see The Batman, because he's the world greatest detective.
The Surfragettes are playing at a rockabilly fest here on April 16th. Tix are forty bucks and there will be awesome cars there as well. Sign me up!

Why did the cows return to the marijuana field?

It’s was the pot, calling the cattle back!

Hey -oooooo (que rim shot) ; )

Oro - Even the cows rolled their eyes at that one!! Glad to hear you are well.

Grabbed my tix for the Drive-By Truckers in April, and the little lady is almost sold on a night of surf pop with the Surfrajettes. Man, I’ve missed Live Music. Turn it up to 11, please.

....that I chuckled then felt bad afterwards. Kudos.

....I'm going to be truckin' up to Red Rocks solo to see the Tedeschi Trucks Band. If anyone wants to meet up, you know where to find me.
That venue is bucket worthy.

In WI, 'Please stay one cow apart'

A sign o the times :-)

P.S. I got ALL the bikes ;-)

How Bizarre OMC
Home is whenever Im with you (forget artist)
Fernando ABBA
Mama Mia ABBA
Never talking to you again Husker Du
Lucky Number lena lovich
Come on, Eileen
Electricity OMD

I'll be there too....

--Reverend Gary Davis - "Let Us Get Together" (Live in Portland & Seattle) killer stuff...he opens with "Death Don't Have No Mercy" & "Samson & Delilah...
--The Fillmore West 1969 Box - 2/28/69
--Various Artists - "Let Me Tell You About The Blues - West Coast" (disc 2)
--Los Lobos - Live in Santa Barbara 1984 Casa De La Raza
--Stanley Turrentine - "Sugar"

@Oro...Mr Jinks won't eat me as he's on a low fat diet at the moment....on second thought, that might be why he would chew on me....