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    A sealed, unlabeled box sat undisturbed for decades on a shelf in the Grateful Dead’s San Rafael tape vault on Front Street, its contents an enduring mystery, even to those few with access to the vault. All David Lemieux knew about that box when he became the Dead’s archivist was that it contained tapes belonging to Bear—Owsley Stanley, the Dead’s first soundman and architect of the Wall of Sound. Even in the Dead Heads’ Holy of Holies, the taped-up box was tantalizing. But this was Bear’s personal property, and so he didn’t touch the box out of an abiding respect for the elder luminary of sound. Bear’s archive of Sonic Journal recordings had been kept safe for him for years within the Grateful Dead’s vault—over 1,300 reels of tape stored in heavy-duty cartons like old banana boxes. At any time, David could have popped the tops and explored them to his archivist heart's content. But they were off-limits without the nod from Bear. - Starfinder Stanley, Hawk, and Pete Bell, Owsley Stanley Foundation

     

    With a wink and a nod from Bear, we've peeled back those banana boxes to find some of the oldest and rarest of all recordings of the Dead including the double dose of shows that make up DAVE’S PICKS VOLUME 43. The two virtually complete performances from San Francisco 11/2/69, Live At Family Dog At The Great Highway, and from Dallas 12/26/69, McFarlin Auditorium, are complementary in their clarity and consistency thanks to Bear himself, and in their ability to foreshadow where the Dead were headed in the years to come. If the two killer 20-minute+ "Dark Stars" don't get ya, how about the Pigpen-centric sets featuring "Midnight Hour," "Next Time You See Me," "Big Boss Man," "Good Lovin'," and the once-lost-now-found complete rendition of "Dancing In The Streets," or the first full acoustic set ever performed? And we're certain you'll be fascinated to uncover the "Mystery Of Bear's Banana Boxes" as told by Starfinder Stanley, Hawk, and Pete Bell in the liners.

     

    Limited to 25,000 numbered copies, DAVE’S PICKS VOLUME 43 was recorded by Owlsey "Bear" Stanley and has been mastered to HDCD specs by Jeffrey Norman at Mockingbird Mastering. Grab a copy while you can.

     

    *2 per order. Very limited quantity available.

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  • Vguy72
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    Accidental Newman....

    ....I know it may considered heresy amongst some here, but I never found Seinfeld very funny....(runs away with fingers in ears).
    .
    .
    Ok. I'm back. Going with Dave's 40 Deer Creek disc 4 on the big boy with the TV on the CMA Fest muted while I bide my time. Cool stage and lights actually.
    HEY! Deer Creek '90 sounds pretty good too!
    We are some spoiled MF'ers and we're here for it. Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy because music is indeed, the best!

  • proudfoot
    Joined:
    Disc 3

    will get virgin listen Monday during road trip.

    Been listening to 6 24 85 here and there

    Summer 85 deserves a box set

    6 24 (30 Trips)
    6 25
    6 27
    6 28
    6 30
    7 1

    Also heard some of DixPix August 74

    Hot stuff

  • proudfoot
    Joined:
    Sumovabitch

    NEWMAN!

  • Vguy72
    Joined:
    Sumovabitch....

    ....still out for delivery. Is the mailman playing Pokemon Go or what? And Hendrixfreak's indica joint is just begging to be lit.

  • icecrmcnkd
    Joined:
    Count Vlad Hacks Again

    Now that the existence of the banana boxes has been revealed a reinvigorated effort to infiltrate the vault has begun.

    Vguy and AJS,
    This site was hacked last week according to (I think) Wilfred who witnessed it being another site. Then other people pointed out how stuff that was gone from the store reappeared, although not available to order.
    At the Rhino store the Waiting For Columbus Box is no longer available to order (it just came out).
    This may also explain why no tracking number emails, and then multiple emails after DaP43 has arrived.

    Something’s afoot in the hackerverse……

    But yes, DaP43 is awesome!
    All hail to Bear and his banana boxes.

    (Ha, a Phil Bomb on 11/2 Dark Star just woke up my dog)

    If you don’t have it already, hope you get it soon.

  • frosted
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    Aliced, I know what you mean by those reactions

    I've had those too. When I laugh out loud at something a musician does, it usually means I'm so stunned by the magnificence of the moment that I can't figure out what else to do.

  • frosted
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    Charlie 3, your comment

    Yeah, Soulful Strut, if that's what it's called, is the jam in those Dark Stars that I was referencing in my comments a few days ago. I did think I recognized it from the 1970 30 Trips Dancin in the Streets too, as it always caught my attention there as well. Sort of reminds me of the majestic interlude jam between Alligator and Going down the Road on the 1971 Ladies and Gentlemen...not the melody or tune itself, but the way it has that joyful, otherworldly quality.

    Those jams both put me in the best of moods and get my endorphins peaking, especially when I'm spinning them on a road trip somewhere along a mountain road in the California Sierra. Which I was again during my first listen to 43.

    This 43 disc got me fired up to go back and start checking out some more 1969s and 1970s that I hadn't heard on youtube yet. Some really good new ones since I last checked.

    I also stumbled onto the full Woodstock set which I realized I had never heard, though I always heard that the Dead didn't like it and wouldn't approve release. It's not really so bad, I actually enjoyed it mostly. Though with the technical glitches and some guy (concert promoter approved?) sharing the stage and blabbing nonsense into the mike at the first part of Lovelight, I could see why they'd not want it released. There was a different and interesting jam by Jerry about 2/3 of the way through the very long Lovelight that I don't recall ever hearing before, must have been one of his improvs, and a very nice one too.

  • Angry Jack Straw
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    Vguy

    I received the same text. When I tried to reload it so I could track the package off of the real USPS site, the language changed to French, then Arabic. I wonder if dead.net was unknowingly hacked. Seems highly unlikely that both you and I would get the same text message otherwise.

  • AliceD
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    Dave's 43

    I can't find the words to accurately describe # 43. But listening to it last night I smiled, laughed, stared at my stereo in awe and even got a little teary a couple of times. A lot of different emotions over four hours. Personally, I feel its Dave's best pick yet (and that's saying a lot).

    Thanks Dave, Jeffery, Bear and everyone else involved in this release.

  • Gary Farseer
    Joined:
    OB, BTK, Dave Rock

    Just wanted to clean up a few recent discussions with you guys.

    OB: you had said 42 bonus disk would be a tub thumper and you were correct. Sounds Great!

    BTK and Dave Rock. In discussing "funky joints", BTK you wrote about them finding a body when renovationg Oakland Auditorium. I did include that article when I wrote a PhD dissertation on OA. Had many articles and lots of pictures of the now shuddered wonderful facility. (I had a bunch of lynx, but when it was time to post, no more lynx.) You also mentioned Lake Merritt. I really loved the lake and the entrance. It made me feel as close to what a Winterland show was like. Maybe 200-300 campers. Very nice, fun, but small shakedown. Made everything feel like home and so relaxed. We had 2 of the 4 tickets for our run. We got a travel package that included round trip airlines, supposed to be 4 tickets instead of 2, and two nights hotel at the Hotel San Francisco or San Franciscan Hotel. All for $800. Was a GD travel group out of Philly. The first night we had two walk away about a mile to a pay phone at Oak St. and 14th St. where we would call a holiday inn a few miles east where Kurland tours was staying. They answered and said, yeah I have 2 tickets for tonight if you can come get them. We hauled ass back to OA got in the car and took off to the holiday inn. Grabbed the tix and got back to drop and get in just as the Neville Brothers were playing. Glad you saw them and liked their playing as well. That was New Orleans in Oakland.

    Dave Rock, speaking of funky joints, the very first funky joint I was ever in was the Marquee at 90 Wardour St. Was there twice, March 1982 and March 1983. 1982 was just going inside during the day. The club was preparing for the night, it was around 1 or 2 that afternoon. Just amazed at the long hall with all the pictures of artists on the wall. Reminds me of the Whisky a go go in Los Angeles. In 1983, my friend and I went to see a band called "The The." Never had any USA success but I understand that were relatively successful in Europe. Of course, you can be relatively successful and still make a very good living. Great presence, as a funky joint, although not sure you could ever smoke or get real funky in there. Let me know if I am confused.

    Any way, not sure y'all will remember this from about a month back.

    Can't wait to crank 43, will begin Friday afternoon. Sure it will get a couple of listens this weekend.

    Again, want to say Thanks to Owsley Foundation, Dave, Jeffrey, and all the others that help keep this bus moving forward and with with great new music (to me)!

    Also, thanks to the regulars. I wish I had as much to write about. Bet TTB and Los Lobos was killer. Hard to believe no smoke at Red Rocks, bet that is a non executable regulation.

    G

    Edited

    Edit2 - BTK found where they found the body early this year but it seems when I wrote the piece there had been a body found on much earlier renovation. I am going to search and find that write-up and see if I am correct. Hope all well ur way!

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A sealed, unlabeled box sat undisturbed for decades on a shelf in the Grateful Dead’s San Rafael tape vault on Front Street, its contents an enduring mystery, even to those few with access to the vault. All David Lemieux knew about that box when he became the Dead’s archivist was that it contained tapes belonging to Bear—Owsley Stanley, the Dead’s first soundman and architect of the Wall of Sound. Even in the Dead Heads’ Holy of Holies, the taped-up box was tantalizing. But this was Bear’s personal property, and so he didn’t touch the box out of an abiding respect for the elder luminary of sound. Bear’s archive of Sonic Journal recordings had been kept safe for him for years within the Grateful Dead’s vault—over 1,300 reels of tape stored in heavy-duty cartons like old banana boxes. At any time, David could have popped the tops and explored them to his archivist heart's content. But they were off-limits without the nod from Bear. - Starfinder Stanley, Hawk, and Pete Bell, Owsley Stanley Foundation

 

With a wink and a nod from Bear, we've peeled back those banana boxes to find some of the oldest and rarest of all recordings of the Dead including the double dose of shows that make up DAVE’S PICKS VOLUME 43. The two virtually complete performances from San Francisco 11/2/69, Live At Family Dog At The Great Highway, and from Dallas 12/26/69, McFarlin Auditorium, are complementary in their clarity and consistency thanks to Bear himself, and in their ability to foreshadow where the Dead were headed in the years to come. If the two killer 20-minute+ "Dark Stars" don't get ya, how about the Pigpen-centric sets featuring "Midnight Hour," "Next Time You See Me," "Big Boss Man," "Good Lovin'," and the once-lost-now-found complete rendition of "Dancing In The Streets," or the first full acoustic set ever performed? And we're certain you'll be fascinated to uncover the "Mystery Of Bear's Banana Boxes" as told by Starfinder Stanley, Hawk, and Pete Bell in the liners.

 

Limited to 25,000 numbered copies, DAVE’S PICKS VOLUME 43 was recorded by Owlsey "Bear" Stanley and has been mastered to HDCD specs by Jeffrey Norman at Mockingbird Mastering. Grab a copy while you can.

 

*2 per order. Very limited quantity available.

Yes, here's to good health for all.

I am truly sorry for the loss of the previous child. How can a person fully come back from that?

Treasure your days, folks.

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In Japan and there was an arena size greenhouse with monstrous tropical birds flying around and the GD was playing on a stage at the base of it all.

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In reply to by proudfoot

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Marrying four girls years ago and admitting to it now is not advisable during an election year.
Just saying.

On a serious note, sorry for your loss but happy that things have gone full circle. The VGuy family is alive and healthy. Good to hear..

Edit: Married into, sorry. Reading glasses....

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Charles Bradley - No Time for Dreaming - fantastic raw, modern soul, Charles Bradley smokes, worth a listen
XTC - Oranges and Lemons, thanks to whoever mentioned them on here recently, been a while since I gave that a listen, good album
Khruangbin - Mordechai, I dig everything these folks have put out, they put on a cool live show too
Washed Out - Mr. Mellow, dreamy mellow vibe, as might be expected from the title, cool to chill to
Black Pumas - Black Pumas, back to the modern soul sounds and these guys do it well, just spinning it now

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4 years 4 months

In reply to by Charlie3

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Rolling Stones
Its only rnr
Black and Blue
Goats head soup
Some girls
Beggars Banquet
Let it Bleed
Sticky Fingers
Tattoo you

Nirvana Bleach
Motorhead Overkill
Nirvana in utero
Nirvana incesticide

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17 years 5 months

In reply to by Charlie3

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....speaking of dreams, I had one where I was married to several women. In hindsight, that was actually a nightmare. Woke up in a cold sweat.
Last Five
Edie Brickell & New Bohemians - Ghost Of A Dog
Phish - 9.3.22 Dicks Sporting Goods Park, CO
Blue Oyster Cult - Secret Treaties
Motley Crue - Girls, Girls, Girls
Neil Young - Harvest
I treasure all my step-daughters as if they were my own. It was tough sledding at first due to the fact that their moms prior boyfriends were apparently assholes that treated them like crap and their trust factor was low. But, I persisted and just tried to be a good dad. Guess it worked because they call me dad now. Except one. She's a little lost and spiteful. But my work is not done.

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not necessarily in this order : 1) Dire Wolf. 2) Cumberland Blues. 3) Easy Wind. 4) Uncle John's Band. 5) Attics of My Life 6). Ripple. 7). Alligator. 8).Stella Blue. 9)Brokedown Palace. 10)High Time

So are Cumberlands.

Top 10 GD Songs, impossible.. I love all my songs the same.

Eyes, Brokedown, To Lay Me Down, PITB, UJB, tossing in Morning Dew because they made it their own, Brown Eyed Women , Comes a Time (yea yea, JGB, whatever.. it's on the list), Stella, China Doll, TOO, BCE'd, New Potato, anything on the Live Dead suite, anything on Anthem/Working Man's Dead & A.B.

and I'm just getting started.

I surrender, throwing in the towel

I believe the GD are seriously under-rated songwriters. The material they wrote is rich, timeless, and classic.

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In reply to by JimInMD

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First, thanks to all who post here on their recent music, dreams, loves and adventures, this diverse wellspring of interests most always freshens and diverts my attention towards something new. Breathing walls, three dimensional carpeting, matrices of coincidence, synchronicity, guitar heroes in the back seat. Recent talk of Miles soon to arrive 7th Bootleg Series made me go back and listen to some of the earlier ones. I would add, if you can find a copy, listen to Miles Cellar Door Sessions 1970 recording. Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I began to run with a camera and have been searching for those photographs, for example, my first Dead show, Baltimore March 1973... have not found those yet, but did find my own images of Mahavishnu John MacLaughlin, BB King, Bob Dylan, The Band, Roy Buchanan, Tom Waits, Leslie West, ELP as well as photographs from some music festivals and anti-war demonstrations in downtown DC. There's more and too many times I did not have the camera at hand. Never pass up the opportunity to be present in the moment.

Some of us have read the long letter Robert Hunter wrote to Jerry after his passing, I just found Hunter's farewell Bob Weir spoke upon his release of Jerry's ashes upon the Ganges:

"Last Words for Jerry Garcia"
Go naked in the world, wind for your cloak and coverlet. Whom the Gods love best they reward with early death, gather them into the sun, reflect them in moonlight, crown them with comets, annoint them with shooting stars. Go naked to the Throne of Love, go as the stars go, arrayed in their own incandescent light. Go and our hearts go with you. Return to the source of the soul by way of the Sacred River, royal road to the sea where all shall be music and dreams shall be dreams no more, but visions of the World's foundation scattered among stars. Dust shall be dust and the voice of dust shall be music, pleasing to God who sent it forth in search of melody to crown His silence with eternal song.

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Catching up on some purchases from months ago.
Garcia Live Vol. 7 at Sofie's Palo Alto.
Tapes from Donna's storage.
Keith is SO good in this type of presentation.
And Donna can hear herself and jumps right in.
Her Muscle Shoals and gospel roots just shine.
Who Was John, Strange Man, Stop That Train,
are all seldom heard and choice cuts!
Cheers

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I know someone's got to be a true Deadhead when they explicitly list New Potato Caboose among their favorite songs....

Most of American Beauty, then a selection from Workingman's Dead. Mountains of the Moon and China Cat Sunflower. New Potato Caboose.
I'm taking Dark Star, The Eleven and The Other One to be more jams than songs - otherwise them too, maybe at the expense of the Workingman's songs.
re New Potatao- that's a coincidence, considering the simultaneous post below this one

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14 years 1 month
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So funny... I noticed the rave reviews of the Jayhawks recently, and ordered one that was mentioned here. Two days later, at a thrift shop, what do I find, a different Jayhawks CD than I ordered!

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So many of my choices are joined at the hip that I went with an > list:
In no particular order,
Scarlet > Fire
Estimated > Eyes
NFA > GDTRFB
China > Rider
Truckin' > Nobody's
The Other One > Wharf Rat
UJB > name your song
Playin' > name your song
Shakedown > name your song
Bertha > Good Lovin'
and the singles are way harder or just today's idea as there are just too many
Smokestack Lightning
Sampson & Delilah
Black Throated Wind
Cumberland
New Minglewood
New Speedway Boogie
Friend of the Devil
Attics
Standing on the Moon
Days Between

That's all I got (today), Cheers

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14 years 1 month

In reply to by 1stshow70878

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First Show, I love that Sophies show! Kieth is really playing great and very prominent in the mix, thanks to Betty!

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It's hot here. Temperature wise, I imagine the hottest Grateful Dead show I ever went to ,was probably the Oregon Country Fairgrounds 8/28/82. or One of those shows up at Cal Expo, it gets pretty hot up in Sacramento.

....I'm sure one of those was the hottest shows I attended. Once you go over 110 on the floor, it doesn't matter anyway. The only time I recall Garcia wearing sandals. Veneta? Ptth. I would have reveled in that heat. Lots and lots and lots of water and sunblock. A few of those shows had awesome storm cells that cooled it down though.
I caught every one of them....
Edit. Just found out Jeff Beck is playing Vegas Nov 4th. Hmmm.
Tix price edit. $200?

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In reply to by Oroborous

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The Sept. 6th edition of Paste has an enjoyable article about TTB's I Am The Moon.

I can't come up with a top ten list of favorite Dead songs, but Wharf Rat is my all time favorite - right up there with Spanish Moon by Little Feat...

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I was just tuning into this new Brit spy vs spy show on Apple TV called “Slow Horses”. Normally you can skip the opening theme (thankfully) once you watch it through once - I’m listening to this theme song, and hey, you, get off of my TV! That sounds like Mick Jagger. No - that is Mick Jagger, singing some song I’ve never heard. Quick search on the net, and yup, he has written and performed the theme for this show, something he calls “Strange Game”.

Top Ten Dead Tunes? Yikes! Monday’s list would be completely different than Tuesday’s list, which wouldn’t at all match Wednesday’s list, or come close to what you choose Thursday…

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What a bargain it was! 41 years ago today I was out at the Concord Pavillion to see Jerry Garcia put on a great show , admission to the show was $1.00. Queen Ida and her Zydeco Band opened the show. We had our tickets. for the first run at the Greek Theatre, only four days away. Fun times!

Haven't got Apple TV so can't watch Slow Horses....but the whole series of Slough House books by Mick Herron are brilliant. Very funny with great characters

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16 years 6 months
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Mornin', rockers!!

Favorite originals: Dark Star, Other One, Saint Stephen, The Eleven, New Potato Caboose, Truckin', China Cat, Easy Wind, New Speedway Boogie, Black Peter, Cumberland Blues, Friend Of The Devil, Dire Wolf..........

Favorite covers: Hard To Handle, Dancin' In The Streets, Viola Lee Blues, Not Fade Away, Know You Rider, Big Boss Man, Next Time You See Me, Morning Dew..........

Songs I never did handle very well: Casey Jones, Attics Of My Life, Row Jimmy, Stella Blue, China Doll, anything Brent....

Just sayin'..............

Rock on,

Doc
But I believe above all that I wanted to build the palace of my memory, because my memory is my only homeland.....

I intentionally left out combos (S>F, H>S>F) as they take up multiple picks.

Bertha
Bird Song
Brown Eyed Women
The Eleven
Eyes
HCS
Jack Straw
Mountains of the Moon
Rubin & Cherise (Yup. JGB song , but I had to put it in since they played it)
Terrapin
The Other One
To Lay Me Down
Wharf Rat

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Born on Sept 8th 1945 in San Bruno Calif., Pig Pen would have been 77 years old today. My favorite songs that Pig Pen did, Alligator, Hard To Handle, Big Boss Man, King Bee, Smokestack Lightning, Mr Charlie, The Rub, Next time you see Me, and of course Easy Wind, one of the greatest Grateful Dead songs of alltime, that was played far to few times. The Dead were never the same after Pig Pen left them. Hopefully today he's hanging out with some of his favorite blues musicians like Lightning Hopkins, Jimmy Reed and Muddy Waters.

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10 years 3 months
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New picture on that page with the opened box itself.
Doesn't look like it will fit on the shelf. Kinda long?
The artwork is fun!
Cheers
Edit: Got the Sept. bulletin email now with the "unboxing".
Community Bits cites the same thing I found (Sept. 3 post on this thread) on the fake WakeOTF LPs. I checked. Mine's good.

P.S. Why does the Lyceum box page have no listening party?

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17 years 5 months

In reply to by 1stshow70878

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....add this to the list of things that make me go "hmmmm".

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10 years 3 months

In reply to by Vguy72

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Anybody heard about this new release of the 4/26/69 L.A. Forum show ? I have just had an email about it - supposed to be coming out in November from Experience Hendrix. Looks terrrrrific.

A favourite Dead cover of mine is Death Don't Have No Mercy - that version on Live Dead is incredible.

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In reply to by daverock

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£28 pre- order from that South American river online name, I'm tempted I know nothing of the history of the recording but judging by the previous vinyl releases from the estate it should be worth it. I haven't got around to listening to the newly arrived latest Bears Sonic Journals of The Chieftains it appears to be in a deluxe booklet style package.
Not long now before the dispatch of MSG box set either,hoping to have it before the end of this month.

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£28 pre- order from that South American river online name, I'm tempted I know nothing of the history of the recording but judging by the previous vinyl releases from the estate it should be worth it. I haven't got around to listening to the newly arrived latest Bears Sonic Journals of The Chieftains it appears to be in a deluxe booklet style package.
Not long now before the dispatch of MSG box set either,hoping to have it before the end of this month.

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11 years 11 months

In reply to by daverock

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the majority of this show was on the Reprise Box Set "Lifelines"....and various boot sbd's have been released too...But I will definitely grab this CD set ($12 on the SA river system)...and before you ask Oro...yes...I was at this show...

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Sorry, no way I can keep it under 30 or so, so I'm going to lay it out a little differently. Even then, I still left out another 20 or more of my besties. These are all ones that I almost always like to hear, rather than feeling so-so about them or having to be in the mood to get into them.

My favorite rock tune presentation, not just from the Dead but from any rock band, which I think was also the most original and ahead of its time group of songs ever strung together. This first one is to me the very essence of the Dead:

1969

Dupree>Mountains>Dark Star>St. Stephen>Eleven>Lovelight

Favorite other combos strung together:

Scarlett/Fire

China Cat/Rider

Estimated/Eyes

Not Fade Away/GDTRFB

Help on the Way/Slipknot/Franklin

Cumberland Blues/Big River

Best Evolution from pretty good to great tune over a few years:

Hard to Handle

Best old timey Ballads:

Jack a Roe and Peggy-O

Most underrated:

Operator, Second that Emotion, and Oh Babe it ain't no Lie

Favorite outright rockers:

Deal and Bertha

Favorite cowboy tune:

El Paso

Favorite country-ish tunes:

Friend of the Devil, Brown eyed Women, and Dire Wolf

Favorite early cover tune:

Baby Blue from 1966 (?) History of the Dead

Best songs of the road:

Jack Straw, He's Gone, and Mississippi Half Step

Most haunting tunes:

Morning Dew and Death don't have no Mercy

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In reply to by frosted

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Top ten: a fools errand!

I mean Dark Star, Stephen, King Solomon’s Marbles, Help-Slip, Blues For Allah, New Potato, Brown Cross Eyed, Victim or the Crime, What’s Become of the Baby, 74 Eyes, 74 WRS, Days Between, Antwerps Placebo, Serengeti, Terrapin Station,
Attics, Ripple, Saint of Circumstance…that’s just trying to get started, they doesn’t include covers, most of the ballads, or anything else!
Fools errand I say!
So what’s the best ten songs…the last ten I heard!

DOUBLE HA!
Of course Nappy was there 😃

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So I read this book called The End of Time. It was about physics. I understood almost none of it. But the tldr version goes something like this: eventually, the sun will expand and vaporize the Earth, all the stars will explode, and entropy will cause all matter in the universe to be so widely dispersed that there will be no light, no heat, no life nowhere (like Jimi sed!), and Time will End. Which, to me, suggests that we should all forget whatever minor shit is bothering us right now and just enjoy the miracle of conscious being while we can.

(Yes, fuck it! That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it Mr. Lebowski?)

(Well, yeah.)

One of my favorite exercises in time travel is to search Youtube for tapes of local TV coverage of dead concerts in the early ‘80s. At that point, the Dead was mostly unknown to mainstream America, and the good people of Des Moines or Salt Lake City didn’t know quite what to make of several thousand tied-dyed and tripping heads descending upon their downtown areas. So you get these local news reports where you get the Guy in the Blazer doing a live shot from the parking lot and talking to the viewers about the “Dead heads” (you can see the air quotes around the words) and relate with amazement to their viewers the amazing spectacle of people lined up days early, playing hacky sack (still then unknown in the provinces) and selling grilled cheese for a buck. (What the fuck?) Sometimes you get a brief interview with a head or two and maybe even 5 seconds of the band onstage.

There’s lots of ‘em, and they’re awesome. As far as the whole scene goes, the early ‘80s were kind of a sweet spot for me. We were all part of a self-contained bubble that was big enough that it was beginning to draw the attention of outsiders, but small enough to still be self-policing and generally reasonably under control. (Unlike late ‘80s and beyond, when shit got seriously outta hand on occasion.)

No way can I list favorite Dead songs. It’s too too too too too to put a finger on.

A big THANK YOU to everybody who posted about Little Feat recently. Hadn’t listened to ‘em in years, and it’s been such joy to revisit. Music is the best.

There’s a fat man … in the bath tub … with the blu-ooh-ooh-oohs

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17 years 5 months

In reply to by Oroborous

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....as some of you know, I was a metalhead before a deadhead. My granddaughter and new hubby flew down from Reno last night to attend a wedding gift I got them. Def Leppard/Motley Crue/Poison/Joan Jett tonight at Allegiant Stadium. It will be her first real concert as well as my sons.
Saw Poison in a little club here in Vegas in '84 right before they made it big. Seen The Crue once back in '86 I think opening for KISS? Or maybe Ozzy. Never seen Def Leppard or Joan.
The general consensus of the the tour in internet land are mostly positive and Vegas is the last stop. Lots of concern on whether Vince Neil's voice could hang, but hes doing it. Vocal trainers for the win! Looks almost sold out except for the nose bleeds. Rock On!

Unfortunately Crow I don’t think we’ll make it that long (mankind, not “us” specifically) as we seem hell bent on destroying our beautiful home. The planet might live on, but the way we’re going about it…

But I totally agree with your last paragraph!
Late seventies/early eighties there was a palpable sense that we were wining: we weren’t just a bunch of dirtbag good for nothing freaks like perhaps many civilians watching those old broadcasts would think, at least on first impression.
Not that we cared. Being an outcast was a important influence on my becoming a DH. When the going gets weird and all that…
I won’t say it became “popular” yet, but it started to not be a bad thing to be a head. The scene was growing, but as Crow said it was still self manageable etc. To me it peaked in 85, meaning too much of everything was just enough. It seemed like the last year before the regular stadium shows and the crowd perhaps getting too big and unfortunately all the less than acceptable behavior. Sure there were instances of this before, but it was usually frowned upon, where as later people started to think this behavior was somehow cool.
Ah, well, ce la vie, anytime something good gets big it’s usually the kiss of death.
Nothing lasts as the pranksters say!
But hey, to end on that little positive JG uptick that Keasey eulogized: it was @#&*ing fantastic while it lasted and it makes me feel beyond grateful to have been alive and young then!
“Those were the days my friends, we thought they’d never end…”

JOAN JETT: one of the weirdest Dead parings we ever saw: poor JJ opening for Bobby and the Midnights in 82 at small Rochester theatre. Fans were not interested at all and unfortunately they eventually booed her off, ya know “fuck this, where’s Bobby”, but hey, not as bad as the Hollander stadium show where the Good Rats opened and the crowd pelted them off with these little Rat souvenirs they handed out!
If you go down to Deep Elem, the DH will put you on the rocks!
Oh sweet mama, I got them Friday afternoon happys!
Happy Friday peoples, is time to crack a cold one yet 😃

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The sun is over the yardarm as they say.
FAC is on!
Why do you think I'm always saying...
Cheers

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Am I the only one who haven't recieved Dave's Picks 43 yet?

According to my tracking info my package have arrived to Fontana, California on July 27th for processing but it has never left Fontana after that. I have sent my email back to the sender and I have recieved an automatic mail on September 4th, that I will get an answer as soon as possible but no answer yet.

The alternate tracking number is usually searchable by this time through the Swedish Postal Service app by this time but nothing so far, and also nothing on the Postal Service where I can pay the Swedish tax. I wonder if I will get the DP volume this time ... it doesn't feel like it ... :-(

Micke Östlund,
Växjö, Sweden

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081227881597
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https://store.dead.net/dave-s-picks-vol-43.html