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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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  • #1131
    Oroborous
    Joined:
    Simple must do audio rules

    There are many things that can be done to get your system set up correctly that often can facilitate noticeable performance improvements equal too or greater than any electronics! Best part, they cost little or nothing!

    SPEAKER PHASING: one of the most notorious mistakes that makes a huge noticeable difference and is super easy.
    Make sure your positive amp/receiver terminal is connected to the positive of the speaker, ON BOTH speakers!!
    So positive to positive, negative to negative etc. on both speakers.
    If one is wired opposite of the other, your speakers are out of phase which means their working against each other instead of with each other. Speakers move back and forth, or in and out. If one is wired out of phase that means one speaker is pushing air out while the other speaker is pulling back in, thus effecting bass coupling dramatically! So what you say? You will likely laugh or gasp at how much better your speakers sound (bass enhancement) when you hear them in phase after getting used to them being out!

    SPEAKER HEIGHT: the tweeter should always be placed at ear height. So if using stand speakers, measure so stand places the speakers tweeter exactly at listening position ear height. In conekids case he’s a little higher, which might effect his main position, but since he’s trying to cover 2 zones IR areas it’s a trade off. This is an example of how the situation may dictate slight tweaks, but you should at least start following these rules then tweek.

    SPEAKER PLACEMENT: optimally should form an equilateral triangle: same distance from listening position to each speaker, and same distance between speakers. This can be tweaked depending on several variables.
    Spread them out too far and you lose acoustic coupling and stereo imaging etc., too close together and your sound field collapses and you lose stereo effect etc. This is something you can play with and doesn’t cost anything.
    Obviously you should try to avoid placing objects in front of speakers…
    They should be placed along a wall, but out from the wall. Too close to the wall causes boundary issues that make bass bloated and unnaturally loud etc. Too far out from the wall and they can sound too thin (not enough bass).
    Again, depending on your speakers and other factors you can play with this until you get it right.
    Same with listening position: if you sit too close to any wall, but especially the back wall you’ll again suffer from boundary issues that unnaturally bloat/muddy bass.
    Really you should never put speakers or listening position next to a wall!

    RULE OF THIRDS: look it up. Though using the third dimension is usually not practical, the rule of fifths is and works perhaps better. What’s that you say? Divide your room into fifths. Place the speakers one fifth of the way in from the side walls, leaving three fifths between them. So a 20’ room would have the center of each speaker 4’ from the side walls with 12’ between speaker center points. Then, to form the equilateral triangle, measure 12’ from the center of each speaker to your ear position at your listening sweet spot! Depending on your speakers you may want to toe them in slightly versus having them point directly forward. Again, play around and tweek. Tweeting should be done vary slightly, sometimes an inch or two can make a big difference! Be slow and methodological.

    SUB WOOFERS: I’m not a fan of subs for 2 channel stereo, but they can be a necessity for small bookshelf speakers etc.
    Subs suffer even more from boundary issues described above! Corners are usually the worst place to put a sub woofer!
    Here’s a trick. Place your sub in your listening position and put on some bass active music you know well. Now crawl around on the floor and listen. When you find the place the bass sounds best, put your sub there. This is a cheap down and dirty way to deal with room modes, one of the biggest negative factors in music enjoyment. (Look them up).
    I have a fairly large above average system in a dedicated room, but my room is too narrow for my system so I often have horrible bass bloat issues because of these room modes etc. (funny but it’s mostly only a problem with old Dead when Phil was still playing Alembic lol). Usually I can just roll off a little of my 30 hertz eq nob on my C 40 pre amp. I have a DSP room unit that uses excellent Dirac SW, but haven’t gotten around to it (slacker).
    There are many solutions and sometimes DSP can help (but that won’t do pure analog folks much good) but often the best way to deal with many of these issues is to follow these fairly simple rules and play around with things.

    Oh, lastly. You can help smooth out your room by dampening first reflection points. There’s diffusion and absorption and more. But to keep it simple. We’ll just look at some basics.
    Have someone with a mirror move along the side wall with the mirror. The place where you can see the speaker in the mirror while being seated in the listening position is the first reflection point. Put something (all kinds of things both diy and professional) in that spot along the wall (and ceiling if you want to go the extra distance) that will absorb the sound, so that your hearing the direct sound from the speaker without the phase issues and coloration of the reflected sound off the wall. This is another simple but big improvement.
    You can experiment with placing adsorption in other obvious places like directly back from the speakers on the opposite wall. If you have a big room, perhaps look at second reflection points.

    NOTE: this is not sound proofing! That is a whole other field above and behind this tutorial. Save your money! Putting egg crates, foam, or most of the items for sale on line DO NOT WORK! They will not stop bass from passing through walls and structure! Some of these products may help the sound in the room, but will do nothing for stopping it’s transmission out of the room!

    SPEAKER ISOLATORS: another thing you just have to try. Using the pointy spikes or not for speaker feet. Sometimes they help other times you may want to isolate your speakers from the floor to eliminate too much bass and our help with transference to another room or dwelling.
    Oh, use a heavy carpet on the floor at least between the speakers and listening position if not bigger. Put this is yet another situational thing that you may have to play with.

    Remember folks: the situation is the boss!
    Hope this helps!

    HDCD: if everything is set up and functioning properly you can hear a difference. How noticeable or if noticeable will depend on your equipment, set up and ears. If you have a nice system and actually play discs, you might find some improvements but for many you might not really hear a difference, certainly not a huge difference so I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Following the above mentioned rules as much as possible will!

    Oh, ps, the above assumes best case practices. As no room is perfect, and some are just plain awful, and many of us need to live with our significant others, ahem, obviously not everyone will be able to follow all of these.

  • #1132
    daverock
    Joined:
    Replacement

    Cnkd - It never occurred to me at the time that I could have asked for a brand new replacement. The replacement from the shop floor is better - the first one used to skip tracks out - with this one it's just the delay in registering which track is playing by about a second that's a bit odd. It plays to perfection apart from that. And really sounds good.

  • #1133
    Dennis
    Joined:
    Sound systems

    Good talk.

    More important to system?

    Listening!!!

    When I bought my system the guy told me, you will not hear what this system does, while doing the dishes, while cleaning, while doing anything else. You have to sit and listen.

    It's true.

    Sound systems and people are a funny thing. I think MOST people listen to the radio and only own a handful of cd's/albums, usually the stuff they listen to in high school or college,,,, after that they stop buying. Kids today seem to live off spot-e-fied and own nothing. I have found the largest genre in people's collection is christmas albums (go figure!)

    I think this group of people are the exception to that.

    What'd ya think?

  • #1134
    KeithFan2112
    Joined:
    Since there's a CD player discussion going on...

    For people who are listening on HDCD players, what sort of improvement can you hear in the audio? I would think there is some discernable improvement.

    I think I've listened to these shows 10x each. Moved on to others in the time period. Doing Dick's Picks 4 at the moment. I was not hardcore into the Dead when it was released. I imagine people were reacting even more positively into it than even this Dave's Picks, due to the Fillmore legend of the Feb 13 & 14 shows when it came out. Was there a discussion board up at the time to spread the enthusiasm?

    Vguy - good to see the red dice and green felt has returned - it's positively you.

    Nitecat - also digging TC's contributions on these shows. When he was "on" and audible, he really filled out their sound nicely.

  • #1135
    icecrmcnkd
    Joined:
    More audio talk

    Wow, Daverock that’s a pricey player to be malfunctioning, and then be replaced by a floor model (which apparently has the same defect). They should have given you a new one from the factory.

    I thought that my new Cambridge Audio CD player was defective but then realized that my Vizio TV remote interferes with it. I had the TV on and was going through the menu adjusting settings but every time I hit a button on the TV remote the CD player would jump tracks or stop playing. Was relieved to find that the CD player was fine.

    Nick, go with what sounds best to you.

    Last night spun the Anthem of the Sun CD that I bought in 1989 (it’s the 1971 remix) and it sounded pretty dull.
    Then put in Steppin’ Out CD3 and started at Truckin’. Sounded better, but not that great.
    DaP43 sounds far superior to those older CD’s.

  • #1136
    daverock
    Joined:
    Magic Ingredient

    To me, the best sounding recordings I ever heard were the first ones I got, between 1971 and about 1978. They were records, and what made them great was the magic ingredient. It had nothing to do with what I played them on. If your system captures that-you've got it. For me you can no more improve on that than you can The Grand Canyon

    Nick1234 - having said that, I got a Rega Saturn-R cd player about 3 years ago. And it sounds great - but the first one I bought had to go back to the shop after about 9 months, as some cds wouldn't play-and others jumped to the 3rd or 4th track when I wanted to hear the 1st one. They eventually replaced it with a display model from the shop floor. That is great - although I have noticed that half way through a cd...when the music for track 4 starts, the display unit still shows track 3 for a few seconds - it is slightly behind the music. But the sound quality is top notch. As for the magic ingredient....

  • #1137
    Charlie3
    Joined:
    My Wife

    I joke, but my wife has put up with my idiosyncrasies and such for 30 years, 36 if you count the time we were together before getting married. She deserves a medal, 'cause I am aware that I can be a difficult person to live with sometimes.

    The speakers have a clear pretty clear path to spread the sound around the space and the actual speakers are at the upper two thirds of about a 43 inch high tower, so a bit above the ground, and built to tilt ever so slightly to direct the sound slightly upward and fill the space nicely, so I exaggerate about the impediments, or more accurate to say I just get a little obsessive about the impediments to the sound.

    For tonight's classic '70s movie I went with the Godfather, the first one. I've watched it several times before but it never disappoints, I love that movie every time. A near perfect movie, weirdly gratifying.

  • #1138
    Nick1234
    Default Avatar
    Joined:
    System advice

    While we're on the subject can I ask for a bit of advice? I'm in the market for a new system and at the moment I'm thinking of a Naim Supernait 3 amp and B&W 702 S2 speakers. I can audition these at my local hifi dealer. What CD player to accompany these? I'm not going for a turntable at the moment. I have 5 weeks to audition anything at my local shop before I move to the Shetland Islands and there's no hifi dealer there that I'm aware of so it's now or never. I'd sort of like to support Rega as their factory is about a mile from my current house but at these prices I'll go for the best fit for my ears.

  • #1139
    Vguy72
    Joined:
    Also point out....

    ....that at concerts, they raise the stacks on cables for maximum efficiency.

  • #1140
    icecrmcnkd
    Joined:
    Charlie, etc

    Point out to your wife that at concerts they don’t put the speakers on the floor, that would block the sound.

    My kitchen and living room are connected end-to-end, about 12 feet wide, so not a huge area to fill with sound. The speakers in the air project the sound into the kitchen perfectly, with the sweet spot from the front of the couch back to the island in the kitchen. Can also see the TV on the wall from the kitchen.
    It’s just me and my dog, so I can turn the volume up as loud as I want.

    I’ve had this new CD player for 2 weeks and have also been playing non-GD CD’s to see how they sound. The Cambridge Audio dealer that I got it from said that it needed about 100 hours of use to get broken in so I’ve been spinning CD’s instead of using my iBasso music player.
    Once the CD player is broken in I might then run it into the DAC via stereo RCA cables which I did at first, and it boosts the signal by about 20 dB according to having to turn down the volume, but I wanted to break it in sending the signal to the receiver.

    Spinning Rush - Exit Stage Left currently.
    This morning was Floyd - More and then Piper.
    I’m thinking next the Anthem of the Sun CD I bought in 1989, want to see if that sounds good or if it’s a victim of crappy 80’s mastering.

    The iBasso music players come with a burn-in adapter which simulates the electrical resistance of being plugged into a stereo system. You plug that in and put a show on loop and just let it run for about 50 hours, and then it’s supposed to be broken in.

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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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Submitted by Oroborous on Fri, 09/09/2022 - 13:57

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Have you tried a PM to Marye?
Sometimes she can gain access behind the magic curtain and inform the great Dr Rhino of Oz!

EDIT: I’ll be joining ya shortly Istshow, just give me about a half to get home lol.
CHEERS Y’all!

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Submitted by proudfoot on Fri, 09/09/2022 - 19:42

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10 9 81 LA
Rolling Stones
J Geils Band
George Thorogood
Prince

Prince got booed and pelted and had to leave stage

He ultimately got to say "how do you like me now?" though.

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Submitted by proudfoot on Fri, 09/09/2022 - 22:18

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I have the storiez of biblical rains and weather

I have heard show
Way hot

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Submitted by Forensicdoceleven on Sat, 09/10/2022 - 05:44

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Hey rockers!!!

We got majorly drenched at SPAC in 84. Still, enjoyable, solid show. We got soaked on the way down from Toronto, we were on the bikes that summer................

Next summer, also on the bikes, we got soaked on the way and during the Hershey show. Another wet enjoyable time................

Rain symbolizes darkness but also represents an essential part of rebirth..........

Doc, off to morgue, homicide calls..............
Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life..........

Why why why in this age of instantaneous everything and GPS and mofo Alexa and such does it take a simple package ("days, weeks, months...who knows" - Eeyore) forever and a day to get over to Europe?

Sent by rowboat? (row, row, row, row, row)
Porpoise?
Plate techtonics?

And then pay taxes fees duties royalties shipping costs...

You have my sympathy Deadmike. Maybe it will arrive by Christmas.

I don’t mind, the weathers fine!
Yes indeed d Doc, the Toga 84&85 slip-n-slide left a smokin crater to be sure, fine time indeed, because of the weather! Well, that was part of it lol.
And Hershey, what can I say, lost my shit in Hershey!
But speaking of Toga PF: could have gone to that 6/18/83 show, BUT…long story short, IDIOT!
Caught the 84&85 madness, and that’s what I recall madness, the band, the weather, the scene, “ran into a rain storm”
Had tix for 88 but long short, had to sell and go to hospital for upper GI etc, BOOOOOooooo!
TOOoooGA

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Submitted by Crow Told Me on Sat, 09/10/2022 - 09:29

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I was at that 10.9.81 show. One of my worst concert experiences, actually.

It could've been epic. I was living in NorCal, got a call from a friend down South who said he had extra tix for the Stones gig, did we wanna come down? In those days, the answer to questions like that was always yes, even if it meant we would have to leave now and drive all night to be there. So we did. We drove 400 some miles in the Magic Bus (my roomie's VW van), got to our friend's apartment at about 3am, where there was a party raging. Everybody decided to head over to the Coliseum and get in line. So we did. Eventually got inside and had a decent spot on the grass, where I lay me down to sleep for a while, finally, before the show started.

Woke up when Prince started his set. He's getting booed from the get go. I had no idea who he was, and was in no condition to make any judgments, just wanted to find a bathroom and maybe a coffee. Coffee? Hell, no. My friend's got something a little more potent. I snort a spoonful of it and as my neurons suddenly snap into action and the whole ugly scene comes into focus. The band's Black. The crowd's white. They're throwing shit, booing. A Stones roadie comes out and scolds them. Says something like, "this is who the Stones wanted to open the show, if you don't dig it, at least show some respect." They didn't show some respect. They kept throwing shit till Prince stopped playing, maybe halfway through his set. A really horrible moment, because it definitely felt like these people where fine with Black music, as long as it was played by white people.

Thorogood, playing his bar band blues, was much better received. As was J Geils with their white boy R&B schtick. The Stones, I have to say, were bad. I saw them four times, and this was by far the weakest performance. Sound was horrible, and the band was so untogether it was hard to figure out what song they were playing.

"Dude, is this Shattered?"

"I think it's Get Off My Cloud. No, wait, it's When the Whip Comes Down. Isn't it?"

I thought maybe my memory of the event was overly negative, perhaps fueled by my relative unfamiliarity with the Great God Speed, but just a couple weeks ago I spent time with an old friend who had also been there. He remembered it pretty much the same way: Bad vibes, bad show. Sometimes that's how it goes.

Finally cooling off today after a week of 110F. Praise ye gods! Last five:

Little Feat: Waiting for Columbus
TTB: I am the Moon (vinyl finally arrived!)
Kamasi Washington: Heaven and Earth
Sly and the Family Stone: Live at the Fillmore
Prince: Sign o the Times

Yeah Crow, similar unfortunately less than ideal experience with the Stones.
Might of been 78? Definitely around 1980, Rich Stadium, no clue who else was on the bill?
Honestly, we weren’t big fans, probably still too young to really get their deal?
Anyway, kinda funny to say now after what happened to Dead Land, but we went mostly to party in the lot and in those days about the time all the openers were finished and basically just after the main act came on you could just waltz right in without a ticket.
But the sound was so atrocious that you couldn’t tell what they were playing half the time! Loud and bad, is not good…I believe that’s the only concert outta hundreds, thousands? that I ever walked out on, and it was free!
Unfortunately this soured me and my pigheaded young peanut from ever going to see the Stones again : (
So remember boys and girls: God Is Sound!
ALL HAIL John, Dan, Don, Howard etc, those Ultrasound folks were Gods!

EDIT: ooopps forgot, I have a PBS recording on the DVR that I haven’t watched yet of the Feat, the current lineup, playing Columbus. Can’t comment since I’ve not watched it yet but just an FYI to keep an eye out…

It's a horrible feeling, being in a crowd that starts booing or throwing things at someone on stage. My worst memory of that was at Reading Festival, 1977. Both Jayne County ( Wayne as she was then) and a reggae band, whose name escapes me, got bottled off because they didn't meet the white hard rock template. It was an intolerant era, and if someone didn't like the look of you...bosh.
Many years later, at a Blues Festival, both Courtney Pine and then group of gospel singers got rough treatment for daring to be different.
Curiously, I looked at the bands who played at Reading in 1977, and apparently Kingfish were scheduled to play on the first day. We arrived way too late to have caught them.. so that was something of a missed opportunity.

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Submitted by Vguy72 on Sat, 09/10/2022 - 11:13

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....those '80's rockers can still rock. Very impressed with Poison and Def Leppard. Crue and Jett were pretty good too. I will say that the sound was incredible though. Neat little thing they did. I caught a whiff of cigarette smoke and thought, "who lit that?", then Crue broke into Smoking In The Boys Room. Then the cigarette smell was gone. Some olfactory sense trick??
Tommy Lee did get a few girls to show off their boobs too.
Everyone had a blast, but my son was ready to leave after four hours lol.
Rock on 🤘

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Submitted by proudfoot on Sat, 09/10/2022 - 14:01

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I went to the show with my friend Chris was a big Prince fan even then. He turned in to a lot of music such as New York Dolls and a whole bunch of Zappa plus other stuff.

If you had to categorize him, he would qualify as Black. I say that because of Crow's observation of "we want White people playing Black music". I dont recall his thoughts on the rejection of Prince and his band.

Was the reason that Prince was booed because he was black-or was it more the music he and his band played, and the way it was presented? Reason I wonder this, is that when I saw The Stones in 1973, Billy Preston played a set in support with no problem. And in 1982, Black Uhuru were one of the support bands, and they went down really well. On the Stones 1969 tour of America, both Ike and Tina Turner and B.B King were on the bill-and I have never read that they had any problems with the crowds.
Personally, I like B.B.King and Ike and Tina - Black Uhuru were okay - Prince I have never really cared for. Not that I would have booed him, obviously -I'd have been really interested in what he was like live if I'd come across him by chance.

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Submitted by LedDed on Sat, 09/10/2022 - 18:13

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Prince Rogers Nelson achieved great success in entertainment. He was known for having multiple bodyguards in public at all times and being standoffish and unapproachable to fans as well as often maintaining unwanted contact with other celebrities.

He had talent to be sure - his guitar soloing on that famous take of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," with Tom Petty, Dhani Harrison, Jeff Lynne etc. is the stuff of legend.

He always came across to me as creepy and a little bit of a prick. Also, in his music, he could not produce a drum sound to save his life - and ultimately, he didn't. Thin and tinny - tit tit tit tat tit his percussion always went.

Prince wasn't for me and he never will be although millions disagree and that is their choice.

\m/

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Submitted by carlo13 on Sat, 09/10/2022 - 19:30

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I sure wish I could have seen pig on lovelight. It would be cool if a genie in a bottle (like on the twilight zone) would appear with 3 wishes. One wish would be at a pig show. I would definitely not play pocket pool at that show.

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Submitted by carlo13 on Sat, 09/10/2022 - 19:52

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My timeline was Aerosmith rock in a hard place tour1983 I believe, and ac/dc 1984 to Judas priest. I jumped in the whole hair band scene, until I started going to the max creek bar scene in Providence R.I. at the living room. Total party scene, and acid source. Jiggle the handle, and later max creek with jiggle as one band jiggle the creek. They were the launching pad to terrapin station. The first dead show at BB arena, and on the bus since.

....that was the mid-eighties. It was bad-ass. I was bad-ass. Still is/am.
80's metal is not dead. Just ask the 40K plus fans singing along to every song last night. Holy flashback Batman!
And my granddaughter gave me the biggest hug afterwards and her husband gave me double fist bumps. Then I introduced them to my post concert ritual. In-N-Out burgers. Passing the torch y'all because music is indeed. The best.
And yes. That's my son making the face I love/hate.

I wasn't suggesting that Prince wasn't talented either. He wasn't my cup of coco, but he obviously had something. I wasn't put off by the androgynous aspect - in Britain in the early 70's a lot of boys who were into rock music looked like girls. I was really into The Stones and David Bowie, Iggy and the Stooges. And although I have never felt inclined to wear makeup, when I look at photographs of myself when I was 18, I look as though I had had a sex change compared to how I looked a few years earlier.

The hair metal bands of the 80s passed me by - I gravitated towards punk in 1976- but the heavy rock bands of the early 70's were the soundtrack of my teens. Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep etc. Hawkwind being the main one, and they were also the gateway drug to The Dead. The music press of the day often referred to them as the English version of The Dead, and I used to wonder - who they?

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Submitted by Vguy72 on Sun, 09/11/2022 - 00:30

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....I'm guessing daverock is approximately ten years older than me.
It's all about the teenage formative years in my opinion.
And yes. I recall wearing makeup. Earring. Spiked belt. Mullet. Roachclips. Walkman. Pushead art shirts. Converses.
I was dangerous.

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Submitted by Nick1234 on Sun, 09/11/2022 - 07:17

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Any recommendations for poets? English language, 20th or 21st century? We pick up the keys to our house in Shetland on Tuesday, the winter nights up there are dark and long, plenty of reading time. I find I prefer to dip into things these days, my concentration is shot, probably an internet victim, so poetry suits me fine. No Beat poets thanks, I read all that stuff when I was in my teens, that was enough then, they really tried too hard.

After many hours of auditioning, I've chosen a new hi-fi system. Focal Kanta 3 speakers, Sugden A21se amp and Gold Note CD1000 cd player. Cables I'll go with the salesman's recommendations. Cables were the hardest things to audition, not that many available to demo. It has the best balance of clarity and warmth I found at that price which to be honest was well over my original budget, still, 'you're a long time dead' as my Irish mum often used to remind me. Any thoughts, any down sides you can see before I hand over the dosh? What exactly is a Class A amplifier, the technical stuff is all gibberish to me?

Last 5:

Roxy Music-For Your Pleasure
The Who-Quadrophenia
Hot Tuna-Phosphorescent Rat
Belle and Sebastian-The Boy With The Arab Strap
Neil Young-Zuma

Congratulations on your move, Nick1234. Am totally unfamiliar with your audio equipment, however known is that you have given it much thought and chosen with great care, may it bring you endless hours of enjoyment. Had the good fortune to travel through much of Scotland, but not all the way out to the westerly isles, nor to the north, Orkney is on the bucket list. Shetland as you know well is more Norwegian so many ways... the north being a center of the early civilized western universe thousands of years ago rather than the wilderness south of England when it was contiguous with northern Europe at Doggerland. Do you know the work of poet Norman MacCaig? See what you might think. Recent notes on the Rolling Stones had me thinking back to my teen years, I listened to Big Hits: High Tide and Green Grass endlessly summer of 1966 when it came out, learning guitar parts. My introduction to Muddy Waters music was through the Stones, no surprise there but it was such roots. Later on Thanksgiving 1969, I missed a first shot at seeing them live. They were at the Baltimore Civic Center for the "Get Your Ya Yas Out" Tour and my fourteen year of brother somehow managed to score a ticket... but my parents would not allow him to go. I was seventeen at that point, had been to a bunch of rock shows. But no, my parents said, if he can't go, it would not be fair to give his ticket to you... Aaarrrggggggh. Did not get to see them live until the Exile tour, at RFK stadium.

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Submitted by Nick1234 on Sun, 09/11/2022 - 10:36

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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.

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Submitted by daverock on Sun, 09/11/2022 - 10:50

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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

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Submitted by Nick1234 on Sun, 09/11/2022 - 10:59

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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.

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Submitted by dmcvt on Sun, 09/11/2022 - 11:38

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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.

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Submitted by Nick1234 on Sun, 09/11/2022 - 12:13

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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.

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Submitted by daverock on Sun, 09/11/2022 - 12:52

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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.

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Submitted by Nick1234 on Sun, 09/11/2022 - 13:08

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

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Submitted by Vguy72 on Sun, 09/11/2022 - 13:53

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

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Submitted by billy the kiddd on Sun, 09/11/2022 - 19:31

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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.

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Submitted by daverock on Mon, 09/12/2022 - 05:07

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No, I hadn't seen any of those clips before. They look like a wacky couple - we could do with a few people like that round here. Maybe not next door.
I noticed today that the bard of Salford, John Cooper Clarke is performing here in Lowestoft in a week or two. He was what was called a punk poet, and he became known in England round about 1977. "Evidently Chickentown" may be the single most profane poem ever written -best heard live, with no musical backing - maybe Glastonbury 1981. Definitely someone to hear, not read.

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Submitted by Dennis on Mon, 09/12/2022 - 07:59

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Late as always.

Prince - Miles Davis liked him.

Poets,,, know none, but I know a tune called "Everette" by Slaid Cleaves. (I always think it's title, "that's just what poets do". Lyrics below.

Everette

Everette Maddox was the poet laureate of the Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans, which was where his ashes were buried in 1990, after a jazz parade around Carrollton. This song was recorded by Slaid Cleaves on his Unsung album. The lyric is included in Umpteen Ways of Looking at a Possum, an anthology of writings about Everette published by Xavier University.

Tyger, tyger, burning bright,
Through the forests of the night.
Everette’s was the hand and eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry.
Everette, could cage it in a
Line of thought, a line of verse.
Everette knew what words were worth.
And Everette’s words were diamond words.
Whenever you heard them, something stirred
Inside of you.
‘Cause that’s what poets do.

Oh, Everette, he never et
A square meal in thirty years.
But men don’t live by bread alone,
And you could find him any time,
Slouched upon his high chair,
Drinking scotch,
And staring at his crotch.

He slept on sofas, slept on floors.
Some nights, he slept out of doors.
Napkin backs and envelopes
Were the places Everette wrote
His masterworks,
And all of us young

Turks gathered up the scraps
That Everette tossed into our laps.
That’s how Everette won his fame:
We’d print them under Everette’s name,
Every year or two,
‘Cause that’s what poets do.

Who was the man behind the mask?
None of us ever dared to ask.
Poetry was Everette’s shield and sword.
Despair could be its own reward,
When despair was polished hard,
Until it shone, like a precious stone,
Where all of the pain could sparkle through.
‘Cause that’s what poets do.

And all of us at the Maple Leaf,
Knew that he would come to grief.
Some folks live so close to death,
That you can swear you smell it on their breath

Yes, poets dream, and poets drink.
Poets live life on the brink.
Poets smoke, and poets die,
And if you ever ask them why,
They’ll tell you, they don’t have a clue.
They’ll tell you,
It’s just what poets do.

So, Everette’s body turned to ash,
And we all had a mighty bash.
People came from near and far,
To toast the bard at the bard’s bar.
We knew he would have done the same for us.

And Everette, wherever you are,
Leaning on some heavenly bar,
Sloshed upon some sacred stool,
Where God serves His holy fools —
Even while you damn Him to His face —
Everette, I know you’ve got His grace.

And as I listened at your wake,
I saw how only you could make
Triumph out of tragedy,
Tragedy into a divine comedy.
Your words, your words will outlive you.
‘Cause, Everette,
That’s what poets do.

Bluebonnet Border SkinnyWords and music © 1992 by Steve Brooks and Frog Records

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Submitted by Crow Told Me on Mon, 09/12/2022 - 15:16

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A poem so lovely as the GOGD. Although there was a time that I did read a fair amount of poetry. Used to reread Whitman's Leaves of Grass every summer. Had a pocketbook version that I took with me on long bus rides and backpacking trips. I always thought Walt should be considered an honorary beat. “Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs! " (Although I think he maybe meant "jams.") Also used to like Dylan Thomas a lot. Maybe I need to go back to that stuff?

That Playing in the Band feature is kind of cool. If nothing else, it confirms my long head belief that Weir Is Lord over all rhythm guitarists. If we can even call what he does "rhythm guitar." It's really more like what McCoy Tyner does behind John Coltrane: constantly shifting chord shapes, shifting rhythmic accents, little single-note melodies between chords. It's amazing stuff, and very fucking hard to play like that. (Try it, amigos.) We tend to focus on Jerry, understandably, but man, Bob could play his ass off.

Las ultimos cinco:

ABB: Live at AR Studios
Ty Segall: Manipulator
Little Feat: Feat Don't Fail Me Now
Dexter Gordon: Dexter Calling
Sly Stone: Stand

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Submitted by billy the kiddd on Mon, 09/12/2022 - 19:31

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What a fantastic show this was, another great night with the Good Ole Grateful Dead. They opened up with a knockout version of Shakedown Street. It would be really nice if this 1981 run at the Greek could be released, it was my favorite year there.

I also find my ears drifting towards what Bob is doing-especially in 1972. Very inventive - I like the combination of single notes and partial chords - as Crow suggests it's much more than just keeping time. I seem to remember reading him referred to as a "colourist" once, which seemed right to me.

I've also just noticed that on Amazon they have lopped 20% off the price of the 1981 show that's due to come out soon.

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