• 1,599 replies
    Dead Admin
    Default Avatar
    Joined:

    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.

Comments

sort by
Recent
Reset
  • billy the kiddd
    Joined:
    Anniversary show 9/11/81 Greek Theatre

    41 years ago today, I was at the Greek Theatre for an absolute blast of an evening with the Good Ole Grateful Dead. It just happened to be Mickey Harts birthday and Joan Baez came out with a cake and the crowd sang Happy Birthday to Mickey Hart.. This 1981 run at the Greek Theatre was my favorite of all the times the Dead played at the Greek in the 1980s. This was my favorite show at the Greek of all the Dead shows I saw there.

  • Vguy72
    Joined:
    Fripp and Toyah....

    ....I've watched a few. He's like the crazy uncle that you would never want to leave a family reunion.

  • Nick1234
    Default Avatar
    Joined:
    Fripp

    Have you seen his 'Sunday Lunch ' videos with Toyah? Disturbing but they show he does have a cracking sense of humour.

  • daverock
    Joined:
    Translations

    Yes, they can amount to a re-writing of the original text sometimes. A few years ago I was in a poetry group - we would decide on a poet, then meet up a week later to discuss what we had chosen. It takes all sorts, as they say. Anyway, when we read Baudelaire it seemed that all the translations of specific poems that we brought in were markedly different from each other.
    Not poetry, but a remarkable book I got delivered yesterday is "The Guitar Circle" by Robert Fripp. It's nominally about guitar playing, but he takes a meditative approach to the subject. In the parts I have read, he considers the relationship of sound to silence, and of our bodies to instruments. It's a long way from Bert Weedon.

  • Nick1234
    Default Avatar
    Joined:
    Saxa Vord

    I'll check out the distillery at Saxa Vord and report back. As you say Highland Park is top notch. I have been to Saxa Vord but not the distillery. It's lovely on Unst, the northern most island in the UK but it is two ferry rides from my house. I may stay up there for a few days next spring. Saxa Vord holds the record wind speed for the UK, 197mph! Blimey! It was New Year's Eve 1991 if I remember correctly, two Canadian hikers sadly died.

  • dmcvt
    Joined:
    Scottish authors

    Nick: at great risk of divergence, pandemic fostered my run through a spell of various readings from Scotland, for example Andrew Grieg's tome on fishing and philosophy, At The Loch of The Green Corrie, how I found MacCaig. Also in that vein of self discovery by journal, The Outrun by Amy Liptrot, growing up on an Orkney farm with Skara Brae next door, her escape to London, mired in drunken dissolution, the saving grace of return to essential roots. Now many of us moderate tipplers might know the superb Highland Park of Orkney well enough, so I will look for your report on Shetlands only distillery, Saxa Vord.

  • Vguy72
    Joined:
    My wife and I are celebrating our 23rd anniversary today....

    ....it was our day first before that awful day in 2001. But at least I'll never forget the date!! Love ❤️ you Cheryl. Here's to 23 more.

  • Nick1234
    Default Avatar
    Joined:
    Haiku

    I used to work voluntarily, before covid struck, as the Saturday librarian at the Buddhist Society in Eccleston Square in London. They published a lot of Haiku including Basho and I read a lot and enjoyed it, but always wondered if I liked the translator rather than the original author. How do you translate Japanese characters into English and keep the Haiku format? I'll purchase a few volumes though so thanks for the nudge Dave and thanks for the other suggestions.

  • daverock
    Joined:
    Words are birds

    Nick - the poets who immediately came to mind on reading your posts were Coleridge, William Blake and T.S.Eliot. You may well already have read them , but if you haven't, "The Rime of the "Ancient Mariner" and Blakes "Songs of Innocence and of Experience" may be the best entry points.
    There's an obvious Dead connection with Eliot, in that both "Dark Star" and "Stella Blue" feature lines that are very close to ones in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." "The Four Quartets" is infinity confined within a poem.
    But it's all down to personal choice. My best friend hates Eliot, saying she doesn't want to read books where you have to read another book to find out what they are about. She would recommend Haiku, the three line Japanese poems. Basho would be worth checking out in that field. I don't agree with her- I tend to like books that exist just on the edge of my understanding.

    VGuy - yes, I was thinking that about our respective ages. Heavy rock was also the sound of my teens more than 20's. I had friends who were into what was called The New Wave of British Heavy Metal in the early-mid 80s - Saxon, Samson, Iron Maiden etc Motorhead were lumped in - I liked them alright-but more their singles than their albums. But the NWOBHM, as it was known didn't appeal to me at all.
    Last 5
    Undercover of the Night Stones
    Nine Below Zero Sonny Boy Williamson
    Guitar Wizard Tampa Red
    Feelin' Good Jesse Mae Hemphill
    Stars of the Mississippi Blues cds1 and 2 Big Joe Williams

  • Nick1234
    Default Avatar
    Joined:
    Norman MacCaig

    Thanks dmcvt, no I wasn't familiar with Norman MacCaig but I will be soon, his collected poems will be the first package I'll have delivered to our new house.

    You must make it to Shetland, it's a magical place. I've travelled all over the world and it's the only place I've wanted to live. It's very civilized but very wild at the same time.

user picture
Default Avatar

Member for

3 years 8 months

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.

user picture

Member for

10 years 3 months
Permalink

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.

user picture

Member for

13 years 6 months

In reply to by proudfoot

Permalink

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....

user picture

Member for

9 years 3 months
Permalink

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

user picture

Member for

4 years 5 months

In reply to by Charlie3

Permalink

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

user picture

Member for

17 years 6 months

In reply to by Charlie3

Permalink

....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.

user picture

Member for

3 years 1 month
Permalink

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.

user picture

Member for

11 years 8 months

In reply to by JimInMD

Permalink

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.

user picture

Member for

10 years 3 months
Permalink

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

user picture
Default Avatar

Member for

8 years 4 months
Permalink

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

user picture

Member for

14 years 2 months
Permalink

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!

user picture

Member for

10 years 3 months
Permalink

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

user picture

Member for

14 years 2 months

In reply to by 1stshow70878

Permalink

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

user picture

Member for

3 years 1 month
Permalink

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?

user picture

Member for

16 years 5 months

In reply to by Oroborous

Permalink

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...

user picture

Member for

10 years 2 months
Permalink

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…

user picture

Member for

3 years 1 month
Permalink

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

user picture

Member for

16 years 6 months
Permalink

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

user picture

Member for

3 years 1 month
Permalink

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.

user picture

Member for

10 years 3 months
Permalink

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?

user picture

Member for

17 years 6 months

In reply to by 1stshow70878

Permalink

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

user picture

Member for

10 years 4 months

In reply to by Vguy72

Permalink

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.

user picture
Default Avatar

Member for

10 years 8 months

In reply to by daverock

Permalink

£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.

user picture
Default Avatar

Member for

10 years 8 months

In reply to by daverock

Permalink

£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.

user picture

Member for

11 years 11 months

In reply to by daverock

Permalink

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...

user picture
Default Avatar

Member for

8 years 4 months
Permalink

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

user picture

Member for

17 years 6 months

In reply to by frosted

Permalink

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 😃

user picture

Member for

4 years 2 months
Permalink

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

user picture

Member for

17 years 6 months

In reply to by Oroborous

Permalink

....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 😃

user picture

Member for

10 years 3 months
Permalink

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

user picture

Member for

17 years 6 months
Permalink

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

product sku
081227881597
Product Magento URL
https://store.dead.net/dave-s-picks-vol-43.html