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    Who's ready to boogie with a little Brent-era Grateful Dead from the Gateway to the West? DAVE'S PICKS VOLUME 47 features the complete unreleased show from Kiel Auditorium, St. Louis, MO, 12/9/79 and you're going to need stamina because this one is high energy from start to finish.


    By the time December 1979 rolled around, Brent Mydland had fully cemented his place in the Grateful Dead canon with his twinkling keys, harmonic tenor, and songwriting skills. No more is that evident than at this show boasting 25 songs including soon-to-be classics from GO TO HEAVEN like "Alabama Getaway," "Don't Ease Me In," "Lost Sailor," and the Brent-penned "Easy To Love You." It's also packed with whirling takes on fan-favorites like "Brown-Eyed Women," "Shakedown Street," and "Terrapin Station." And you've never heard a 2nd set quite like this with eight songs before "Drums" including an improvised "Jam" launching from the end of "Saint Of Circumstance." It doesn't stop there though, with a blazing finale of "Bertha>Good Lovin'" and perhaps one of the best versions of "Don't Ease Me In" the band ever did play. We've rounded out Disc Three with an extra nugget from '79.


    Limited to 25,000 numbered copies, this release was recorded by Dan Healy and has been mastered to HDCD specs by Jeffrey Norman at Mockingbird Mastering. Grab a copy while you can.

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  • JimInMD
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    Re:

    I'm with Oro on the snow, no bueno.. it's a terrible drug that ruined many a life of the people I grew up with. It seemed my high school friends that didn't go to college all got 'high paying' jobs (for our age) in contruction, landscaping, cable companies, UPS, whatever.. and all started doing blow... and all experienced serious problems. Going to school, we couldn't afford it that much. A friend in 87 or so turned me on to the idea that the stuff was no good.. stay away.. Danger Will Robinson. And pretty quickly I heeded his advice.

    As to Chucks comments.. well said. I saw a few shows where I walked away wondering what could have been or what happened. One was that last show at RFK in 86. Well.. they got much better after that, then they got worse but still had their moments.

    In the end we got what we got.. if I have one regret it's that I wish I would have gone to a few more shows. In hindsight, I probably went to as many as I could afford. A very positive experience on my life, I am grateful for that.. and grateful that I got to meet many of you here, and for those I have not met yet.. I at least get to read about your excellent stories, views on life and takes on music and all good things.

    Oh, I really liked that interview with Whiz on recording Europe 72 and the most excellent 5/26/72, which they played on SiriusXM last night at 9. Serendipitous it comes up on these threads today. I will listen to it in its entirety very soon...

    Be well people.. rock on. or as Mr. Burns said after his first dead show:
    Excellent!

  • Gary Farseer
    Joined:
    Wiz

    My memory fails as to his direct relationship. He was a technical type within the Organization. Now where placed I am not sure. Under Bear directly, maybe under Betty. In the documentary, he talks about the very last show of E72 and maybe some other things. He was the last tech in the recording truck, that is, recording switching tapes etc. This last show was pulling him in, blowing his mind. When Morning Dew came, he left and locked up the recording truck and went to go watch. He gives a deeply passionate discussion of that Morning Dew, that it was so incredibly emotive. That Jerry was crying, he began crying and was absolutely blown away with that version. He never went back to the truck and felt fortunate the remaining tape was able to record the whole show. That is my understanding, and from memory 4-5 years old, and my memory is not that great. May have to go back and watch Long Strange Trip, think it is still on Amazon. Might need to re-listen to that show as I became overwhelmed by the last years offerings and didn't make it through the whole E72 box this year. But can renew the listen as I am still digesting HCS and #47, and a lot of other stuff also. I also went thru the From the Vault 1-2.

    Here is a direct write up over at rick turner. Anyone want reference website, DM me or look up Grateful Dead's Wiz.

    May 12, 2020
    Dennis “Wiz” Leonard’s Notes on Europe ’72

    Here are my old friend, Dennis “Wiz” Leonard’s tech notes on the recording of the Grateful Dead’s great live album, “Europe ’72”. Most of my blog is my own writing, but I asked Wiz if I could share this, and he graciously said, “yes”. This is the clearest explanation of how Alembic did live recordings that I’ve ever seen. Wiz now works at Skywalker Sound…he went way big league!

    Dennis Wiz Leonard Europe ’72 Technical Liner Notes By Dennis Leonard
    “Less is more!” This was the motto of Alembic and many of the sound artists in the S.F. Bay Area’s growing community of folks trying to advance the state of the art in both “live” and “recorded” sound for rock ’n’ roll. One can hardly mention this philosophy to recording without touching on the Alembic PA system and its unique qualities.
    The new paradigm for live sound: the Alembic PA. In 1964 The Beatles played at Shea Stadium using a circular array of Vox Grenadier Column speakers, a box quite similar to the Shure Vocal Master Column. This approach to sound for a stadium was doomed even if all the girls did not scream. Fast-forward to ’67-70 and things were not much better.
    The Alembic PA was the first really hi-fi approach to a live system. It had direct radiator low-frequency elements rather than horn-loaded boxes, which were the standard. It was an electronically crossed-over three-way system using McIntosh MC-75, MC-275, and MC-3500 vacuum-tube amplifiers and Ampex MX-10 vacuum-tube mixers as the front-of- house console. It eventually evolved into the famous Wall of Sound. This was a philosophic approach, brainchild of The Bear, put together by some of the most talented engineers in the Bay Area, and the same philosophy was applied to the task of recording bands.
    Alembic Recording did not have a truck to pull up to a venue. We had gear, and we often built a studio at the venue in a room somewhere backstage. Sometimes we would haul the gear to the gig in a rental truck, then unpack and build the studio for the gig in the truck, take it apart when we were done, and take it back home.
    Recording Europe ’72 was a monumental task, and we came up with a great solution to building a truck which we could fly airfreight to and from Europe. A video-production company was letting go of a pair of cargo containers built for them to ship a portable video-production remote unit by airfreight. This was perfect—when set back-to-back, these two rode in the top of a 747 airfreighter. Each container was built around a reinforced floor, the sides and top latched on and off.
    We moved all of the components of our Ampex MM1000 16-track into a video chassis that put all 16 sets of AG-440 electronics down below the transport which was then on a 45 degree angle. This was not only more robust, but it was also going to allow us to run 14-inch reels. This took place in an all-night marathon. When we started, Ron Wickersham was not sure all of the original cabling would work. We were lucky it did! At around 5 am, the new machine was rolling; no cables needed to be cut or spliced from the original wiring loom!

    Another obstacle was that the capstan speed in an MM1000 was derived from line frequency. Ours was a 60-Hz machine and we were going to 50-Hz land. Ron came up with a solution which would also solve another problem down the road: He built a precision 60-Hz crystal oscillator; we drove a McIntosh 275 vacuum-tube amplifier and picked off a tap on the output transformer, which would give us 120 volts with enough current to run the capstan motor at our precise 60 Hz/15ips, also now immune to line-frequency fluctuation. The other problem arose when we tried to get Ampex to give us their 207 tape on 14-inch reels. Ampex 207 had a thinner backing; instead of the traditional 30 minutes one got out of a 10.5-inch roll, 207 would give us 45 minutes, so a 14-inch reel was going to run 90 minutes—very desirable when recording a band with long sets, like the Dead. Ampex would not build the reels; we had to do those ourselves. Remember, we were running the recorder’s capstan on an oscillator, so for building the reels we hooked up a variable-frequency oscillator. We would ramp the machine up to 60ips to pack the tape. Each of the 14-inch reels had a splice in it. Ron and Sue Wickersham and I spent a few nights at Alembic having a 14-inch- reel-building party.
    The recording rig was quite simple: “less is more.” We recorded the Dead quite often, so a lot of what we did for Europe ’72 had been tested and proven.
    We built the rig at Alembic. One of the newly procured containers had the 16-track and an outboard equipment rack, the other . . . a custom built cabinet which was our tape library, and this cabinet also had our monitor console, Revox two-track, cassette machine, and Orban reverb units mounted on top of it. A carpenter met us at Heathrow airfreight in London. When the gear arrived, we took the sides and tops off of the two containers (which were left there in storage for the tour) and had them forklifted into our rental truck for the tour. The container floors were about ten inches high, so after the two were in the truck, the carpenter secured them and built us a filler floor so that the recording truck would not have a split- level floor.
    We wired the truck up and hung drapes and the 4310 JBL monitors, as well as many other things at the first show venue, Wembley Arena.
    The flow of the rig, starting inside the venue, consisted of the following:
    Two nine-pair snakes plugged into a custom Alembic split. AC from the stage ran to the truck with the two nine-pairs. Once inside the truck, the AC power was conditioned in an automatic, motor-driven variac made by General Radio. This was to, hopefully, prevent severe voltage fluctuation. The split plugged into the rack, which held a patch bay and minimal gear. We had a couple of Ampex MX-10 tube mixers and some limiters. The limiters, by the way, were used only on vocals for our monitor mix; we did not want to do anything to the vocals on the 16-track record master.

    One of the big “less is more” philosophic bits of Alembic magic was the use of transformers in the input section of the MM1000. Ampex offered modules which plugged into an octal socket on the back of each 440 record amplifier. We used these sockets for the transformers, which would allow us to take microphone level right into the tape recorder, totally passive—no electronic noise added and no record console electronics to fail.
    The MM1000 fed a very small, 16-track Alembic monitoring console built by Ron. Janet Furman was our technical engineer and not only fixed things, but also set up the 16-track to the custom equalization we were using with the thinner-backed Ampex 207 tape. We could monitor, solo, and build a two-track mix on this. We recorded to a Revox B77 and a Sony cassette machine, and we also had some pretty simple spring reverbs for our two-track mixes.
    Shows seemed to generally fit on two 14-inch reels and a ten-inch reel or two. Tape changes were quite interesting: We did not have a lot of room and had practiced this quite a bit, and it took three of us to do this at high speed. In an effort to not run out of tape during a performance, we had an indicator-light system of communication. Under Jerry’s monitor wedge there were three small lamps mounted on a piece of wood. The lights could be lit from the truck. A green, yellow, and red light: Green = we are rolling and in record; yellow = if you can wind it down and stop, we need to change tape; red (if, in fact, the band did stop for us) = changing tape, not in record.
    This, of course, did not fit in with the way the Grateful Dead worked. There were not going to be any rules. Early in the tour, I tried a “yellow,” asking for a possible wind-down of the jam so that we could change tape. Even though this had been an idea we had discussed Stateside, Jerry was having no part of it! As I switched on the yellow light, I looked at Garcia on our 13-inch B&W TV monitor. He looked up at the camera, knowing I was watching, and simply smiled and nodded no in a very friendly way. Don’t fuck with the music!
    We did some tape changes while the band was playing. We really did not want to interfere with the flow of the music.
    I was in the truck for the tour, parked in front of the Ampex 16-track. Since we had no record console in the path to tape, the 16-track itself was actually the only place to make any level adjustments, so with our custom MM1000, all 16 of the AG440 record amplifiers were clustered together in two stacks of eight, easy to keep an eye on. Betty Cantor did our live two-track mix in the truck; she was around eight feet away. The band really had no set lists in those days, so as the show went down, I would write one on each of the tape boxes. Bob Matthews was at front of house. We would chat on our intercom after songs, and he, Betty, and I would decide how many stars to give a song: Three stars meant it was a really good performance! The star system was used when we got back home in order to focus on candidates for the Europe ’72 album.
    Twenty-two shows in two months (57 days) is a vacation tour. The current tour-booking standard is to average 4.5 shows a week, and the Grateful Dead Europe ’72 tour was booked at around 2.5 shows per week. It does not get much better! Although it was an amazing time, with many days off, we took recording this tour very seriously and there was no relaxation on a show day at all.
    It was a high time for everyone. The music was just amazing and for me not seeing any of it except on a small B&W TV was OK. I did, however, get inside on the last night. Due to circumstance, I was alone in the truck. We had, only minutes before, put a fresh 14-inch reel up and had 1.5 hours before the next tape change. A microphone onstage needed attention and I had to go inside. I did this with a bit of trepidation; I really did not want to simply leave the truck, but no one else was available and the mic needed to be fixed. The band was in a spacey jam and was very unlikely to produce levels which would be a problem on tape.
    I locked the truck, went inside, and quickly fixed the bad mic, which was just a bit loose on its stand. As I went for the stairs to leave, the band dropped into “Morning Dew,” which has always been a favorite tune of mine. I decided to stay. Dynamically, the levels in the truck—which was now “running itself”—were going to be fine, and I had to stay! I parked myself behind Jerry’s rig for the song, a time I will absolutely never forget.
    Fast-forward to Alembic Studios, 60 Brady Street, San Francisco. The band is choosing the final songs for the album. I am walking down the hall towards the control room. Jerry bursts out, very animated as he catches me, “Hey, Wiz. Guess what? ‘Morning Dew’ from the Lyceum is for sure going on the album.” (Big smile from Jerry.) He says, very emphatically, “And no one was in the truck!” (Bigger smile.) The Grateful Dead’s music was built on taking chances, embracing the unknown, letting serendipity have its hand. So the fact that, while no one was in the truck, a true pearl was recorded was not unusual at all! It was just an affirmation that we were letting the muse guide us in an invisible and mysterious way.
    The tour was a truly magical time. It changed my life forever! If I were to be marooned on an island with only one piece of music I could ever listen to, “Morning Dew” from Europe ’72 would be it. Jerry’s solo says it all!

    Oh… One more anecdote, I got back to SF after a quick trip to Vermont to get my dog Zach… Got back to Alembic in time to meet the gear, we were now at 60 Brady street… Big M (Bob Matthews) grabs me and says, “Hey remember we had to fast wind some tapes off, so I want you to play the tour, the whole tour, so all the reels are playback packed at “Tails out” the control room is yours” So I said, “hey I’ll just live here till it’s done, ok?” Big smile from Big M… What a drag, I had to play the whole tour, update thoughts (Star System) on quality and I put another pair of 4310’s in the back of the control room and played the room miss through them… (Surround sound) sat and did a live mix for I am not sure how long, I would play and sleep, sleep and play… But it was pretty constant… Stop every show to clean the heads….. Then I moved up to Fairfax and really slept..
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  • Gary Farseer
    Joined:
    Sixtus

    I have been dabbling in Goose's pool this year. Definitely very enjoyable stuff!

  • Gary Farseer
    Joined:
    Wow

    In the mid 80's we a had massive gak parties. Some lasting several days and going thru massive amounts of cocaine. My last dalliance was summer 1986, sort of lines up with other events of 1986. I was born with a heart condition, thought I should stop as the heart palpitations might lead to an arrhythmia. Just before that, Crack started to come out. Remember being in a friend's friends house that had turned into a Crack lab. Man were they a factory. Started to change my views about Coke. Trying to put puzzle together on 86. Only time I smoked crack was in Manhattan, August 86. My brother and I had just left the Blue Note watching Dizzy Gillespie. We were already high on white lightning (name for blotter - and yes there is that deeper connection to Bear and The Human Be-In). We were walking the streets around 2am and we come across a cat hanging out on the front of a brownstone. He was smoking and we started talking. We ended up buying bag of pot from him. He also pulled out another joint and fired it up and then passed to us. After smoking it he told us it was laced with crack. There was only one other time that I was that high and that is the show I wrote yesterday saying I would write about it next year on anniversary of show. We were so incredibly high, that at 3am on a packed subway, New Yorkers were freaking out watching us. It was a ball. I have posted about that night a couple of times here with a lot more detail. So somewhere summer/fall 86 was my last ride. Not sure of timing, remember the party but not the time. Know it was shorty after NYC August 86, but then when was the crack house event...timing of Jerry getting sick. It is all a big blur now. But dang, that feeling of doing two quarter gram lines up each nostril was absolutely amazing. That is, a buddy of mine took a gram divided into four lines and each took two.

    Hmmm, I do remember an ear nose and throat doctor soaking my throat with cocaine before she sent a camera up my nose and down my throat. That was 2004, so I guess that counts too.

    Everything has its purpose but all things in moderation. Guess that is why I never crossed the line and became an addict to anything.

  • Sixtus_
    Joined:
    Goose at the Boston Pavilion

    ...headed to Goose the next two nights at the seaside pavilion in Boston; looks iffy with thunder expected for most of this afternoon/evening, but tomorrow looks good. Will be the start of their Fall tour here before they head to Europe in November for the first time. I've been on this ride for the past 18 months or so, and I have to admit it's been amazing so far with no limits in sight. Each show is literally the best show you've seen, until the next one. Where have we heard that one before?? They are on a true roll. For any who may be skeptical, this is a full-hearted prompt to go and dip that toe into the waters to see what its all about. A lot of stuff on The Tube with a U, and Bandcamp has all of their shows and albums to listen for free (it's all also on Nugs).

    Also saw that Phish announced their first festival in many years, holding a spot for next summer already.
    In Delaware of all places!
    Hey Garth, we're in Delaware....

    Be Well People!
    Sixtus

  • Gary Farseer
    Joined:
    Proudfoot

    check DM.

  • Oroborous
    Joined:
    Toot toot totsie

    No Bueno!

    It was around, luckily we were too poor for that. (It was expensive then)
    Occasionally, maybe for special occasions, or weddings or NYE etc, but fortunately only rarely.
    If you’ve never, don’t bother.

  • Oroborous
    Joined:
    Sheik

    My understanding is the Fillmore 71 tapes were chopped up to use for Skull Fuck and other things.
    Supposedly that’s why they did Ladies and Gentlemen: to use the best of what was available…

  • daverock
    Joined:
    When your day is done..

    Cocaine never appeared in my orbit when I was young, so I never took it either. I'm sure if it had appeared during my teens I would have had a dabble - I believed in living adventurously. I suppose I could have had a go later in life, but I never felt it was worth it, all things considered. I am not sure what the characteristics of a coke inspired jam would be.

    I would watch a biopic of Jerry if it was on the telly. But I would have very, very low expectations.

  • sheik yerbones
    Joined:
    multitracks recordings

    Recently listening to Three from the vault, St Louis 71, and Europe 72, I am just asking about the multitracks recordings if there is anything about Fillmore East 71 (a full show 27 or 29) or the final run at winterland in 74 (full show) - St louis is a good show but the sound is not as shining as the others. I return to the capitol 71 shows, they are so good, great shows as a quintet.

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3 years 6 months

Who's ready to boogie with a little Brent-era Grateful Dead from the Gateway to the West? DAVE'S PICKS VOLUME 47 features the complete unreleased show from Kiel Auditorium, St. Louis, MO, 12/9/79 and you're going to need stamina because this one is high energy from start to finish.


By the time December 1979 rolled around, Brent Mydland had fully cemented his place in the Grateful Dead canon with his twinkling keys, harmonic tenor, and songwriting skills. No more is that evident than at this show boasting 25 songs including soon-to-be classics from GO TO HEAVEN like "Alabama Getaway," "Don't Ease Me In," "Lost Sailor," and the Brent-penned "Easy To Love You." It's also packed with whirling takes on fan-favorites like "Brown-Eyed Women," "Shakedown Street," and "Terrapin Station." And you've never heard a 2nd set quite like this with eight songs before "Drums" including an improvised "Jam" launching from the end of "Saint Of Circumstance." It doesn't stop there though, with a blazing finale of "Bertha>Good Lovin'" and perhaps one of the best versions of "Don't Ease Me In" the band ever did play. We've rounded out Disc Three with an extra nugget from '79.


Limited to 25,000 numbered copies, this release was recorded by Dan Healy and has been mastered to HDCD specs by Jeffrey Norman at Mockingbird Mastering. Grab a copy while you can.

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9 years

In reply to by Oroborous

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Because they were lost in the warehouse.
But still, it’s been over a week now and 11-2-69/12-26-69 has a few copies left (at least when the Bulletin came out today).
It would seem that there are less than 25,000 people who have to have every ‘69 released.

Dave, don’t let that discourage you from releasing more Pigpen shows. Most of us still want more.

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17 years 4 months

In reply to by icecrmcnkd

Permalink

....The White House announced the Office Of Gun Violence Prevention.
I'll toast the shit outta that because its obviously not gonna announce itself!
Celebrating 🍾 with a gummy or two and St. Paul 5.11.77.

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10 years 1 month
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Got stealies and bears on them.
Limited edition to commemorate the final D&C tour.
We have history with this brand. Wall of Sound!
High priced tech I don't even understand, wireless, powered?
Their $12K pair of the retro ML-1 speakers I do understand (and covet). Sweet!
Cheers

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12 years 1 month

In reply to by 1stshow70878

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I settled for the T-shirt rather than the speakers a few months back.

DaP43 still available? I am baffled as well. Easily in the top 3 of all the releases in the series.

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17 years 4 months

In reply to by Angry Jack Straw

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....our AC went out last month. Only cost a cool 13k. Cheers!

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1 year 2 months
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Hi all - thank you for the warm wellcome.. About 47; I found it to be "a weak rerun" of 31, but without the wonderful Wharf rat- Truckin setcloser. Also 31 has one of the best 1 sets of the era. A fun thing; Mr. Glasser did the mastering of 31, and the 3 bonus cuts, but Sir (we should call him Sir..) Norman did the ones on 47 - kind of strange.. Copenhagen.. I live outside the city, and rarely go there: nothing now but cheap bars and hotels - "Things aint what they used to be".. BW

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10 years 2 months

In reply to by That Mike

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Thatmike - I had the same reaction listening to Dicks Picks 36 - 9/21/72 plus the incredible bonus tracks from 9/3/72 earlier this week. He was really playing beautifully at this stage. I don't know if he was better recorded here than on the E72 dates, or whether he was becoming more adventurous - or whether it was just me being more receptive when I last played it. But whatever - one of the best releases for me there has ever been.

DaveRock- well said! I think Keith was on a real roll at that time. DP 36 is a real gem! I was just listening to that PITB version off the radio from DP 11, and it truly hit me how his playing rose above the mix, and was absolutely incredible. The 1972 Dead was likely one of their best off-the-showroom-floor models, firing on all cylinders.
A nod to Owsley, too, who had an ear to rival the greats like George Martin or Brian Wilson.

Options always vary on releases. I think the sound quality and performance of #47 is much better than #31. Just my opinion.
Danehead, 79 has alot to offer. Official releases and shows available on the archive. Both shows from Cape Cod. The December Oakland run. The Nassau shows, the Stanley Theatre shows and the November Spectrum shows (11/5 and 11/6). Definitely worth checking out.

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17 years 4 months

In reply to by DeadVikes

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....my dad was Danish. My mom is Spanish. Welcome aboard!
We have a pretty neat little group of music lovers here.
To quote Cesar Rosa's from Los Lobos, "Hello to all the music lovers out there!"
He says that every show, and I always say hello back.

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1 year 2 months
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Goodevening - early morning here in Denmark.. Hi VGUY - where was you dad from ? Some months ago I mailed Lemieux about doing a "Rex style", Grateful Dead benefit for Hawaii. I have a sealed copy of Daves 19 (yes, the one from Hawaii 70), and will donate it, if Dead.Net can come up with some cool "Dead- Hawaii" stuff. Lemieux never returned my mail, but now that I am in the engine room(so to speak..), maybe someone can pass this along.. BW

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4 years 3 months

In reply to by Danehead

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I have had a renewed interest in and appreciation for the Beatles over the past few weeks.

Wow. They created a lot of great music.

And their evolution is truly remarkable.

Just...wow.

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Member for

7 years 3 months
Permalink

I’m probably showing my age here, but The Beatles were IT for me. They opened my world and turned my monochrome life into full color vista-vision. It’s amazing to think how far I’ve branched out since 1964, but it all started with the Fab Four.
I’m just lucky to have been so musically driven way back when. We are all blessed to love music as much as we do. There’s no right or wrong here, only shades of grey. I will never tire of hearing Rain, Day Tripper, Magical Mystery Tour, I Want You (She’s So Heavy) and all the other songs they created.
Music is the Best!!

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14 years
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We watched a insightful documentary about the actor Peter O'Toole called Peter O'Toole: Along the Sky Road to Aquaba, then two great O'Toole movies where he played King Henry 11, "Becket" (with Richard Burton) and "A Lion in Winter" (with Katherine Hepburn). What a charismatic actor!

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14 years
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Regarding that great band the Beatles, I've been enjoying the Sirius Beatles channel,where they randomly play lots of Beatles tunes.

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17 years 4 months

In reply to by nitecat

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....circa 1978. I was ten. Found a box of records in the hallway closet. It was my dad's. Started flipping through it. The Early Beatles caught my eye.
"Dad! Who are these guys? They have cool haircuts and look serious."
"That's The Beatles. They are good."
Dad was correct.
Then I got Rubber Soul thanks to my mom taking me to record stores.
Norwegian Wood and In My Life were game changers.
They evolved a ton in like three years. Yay acid!
And here I am.
Dolphins 🐬 should have gone for the all-time scoring record btw.
Check out Phish covering The White Album. Halloween 1994. They pretty much nailed it.

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Member for

2 years 11 months
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29 years ago today ( 29 years doesn't seem that long ago) the Dead played their final acoustic show, and what a show it was! We started the day at the S.F Blues festival, Solomon Burke, Robbben Ford, Charlie Musslewhite and many more. After the show, we headed over to Berkeley to catch Phil & Friends ( Lesh, Garcia, Weir, & Welnick) put on a killer of a show! Acoustic Attics of My Life, they could have just played that and I would have been satisfied. What a fantastic day!

....and Paul is a dead man.
Beatles lore runs deep.
"Declare the pennies on your eyes" - Harrison with the opening track.
Pretty dark if you take into consideration the age and time.
Don't get me started.
George Martin was untouchable.
The Perfect Storm.
Fact.

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George and the Beatles were not too keen on paying something like 90% tax on their millions in royalties. But they got a cool medal for being MBEs for bringing all that money to the coffers and fame for the empire I guess. "I buried Paul" was a reference to multitracking? See, conspiracy theories have been around forever.
My local record store owner (store long gone, got nothing now) had Tax Man cued up and dropped the needle when the county tax license agent came to inspect his books. He's not there anymore so hmm.... might have been a mistake. But likely not the cause of him closing up shop. Just too small a town? Besides that he ran for city council later after his teaching career (while owning the record store) and even got his turn at mayor which is cool here in a majority conservative area as a voice of progressive reason. City gov. cool, county the opposite here.
As a kid it was uncool to like the Beatles in the Rock early '70s. Too pop I guess even though I liked lots of their songs. Boy were we wrong on that one. Pretty sure I have all of their albums now, with some being later reissued compilations. Revolver gets the most play for some reason.
Cheers

EDIT: Wait, WHAT? Dolphins 70 Broncos 20? Vguy is right, how many times do you get the opportunity to set a record? Look in the dictionary for "blowout" and this will be there.

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"Your Mother Should Know", Brad Mehldau Plays the Beatles. It's a live solo piano set, and the encore of Bowie's "Life on Mars?" will touch your soul. Next up, Al Di Meola, "All Your Life", a Tribute to the Beatles. Yes, I love interpretations of Beatles tunes, and, yes, I have preordered "We Can Work it Out", Covers of the Beatles 1962-1966.

Last month my Mom had a stretch of iffy health and was bedridden. (She's much better now.)

Anyway, I sat bedside and played her a bunch of music, including "Beatles For Sale". She is from a different time and doesnt know Beatles music. But she listened and after "I'll Follow The Sun" she said, "I like that one."

That was a cool moment.

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My first exposure to the Beatles was their first number 1 hit in the states, "I want to hold your hand". On February 9, 1964, I joined 77 million viewers watching the Beatles debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. Our family was eating dinner outside in the backyard, and I said I had to go inside to see the Beatles!

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....my smack talking Broncos loving cousin had more excuses than usual.
And that's saying a lot. Believe me.
He finally caved and left the chat. Had to do "stuff".
I guarantee the "stuff" could've waited until after the game.
Collingsworth is on. Time for the Magical Mystery Tour.
Like cry. Cry Baby Cry. Make your mother sigh.
It's Getting Better all the time over here.

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40 years ago today, I was at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds for a knockout of a show with the Good old Grateful Dead. What a blast! Great show & great venue. This would make a great release.

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I can identify with 1stshows comment that it was uncool to like The Beatles in the early 70's. Being born in 1957, my first memory of them was dancing at a children's party when I must have been about 7. The first record player I had ever seen in my life, and it had The Beatles on it ! Singles like Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane reminded me of the world of comics a bit - plus the Batman T.V. series with Adam West and ( deep breath)Julie Newmar as Catwoman.

Fast forward to 1972/3 and we are in a different world brother. To me, the most significant and relevant bands from the 60's were the heavier ones-Hendrix, Cream..plus The Stones who were still great. Through reading magazines, I discovered that a lot of the bands I liked were psychedelic - and that Sergeant Pepper was such an album. So I got it, and thought it was wonderful. But it did seem very much to be music from an earlier era, when life was very different. A more optimistic time, or so it seemed. The swinging 60's myth and all that. None of my friends in the 70's liked The Beatles.

I still think Sergeant Pepper is one of the best albums ever made. After that, Revolver, Rubber Soul and Magical Mystery Tour are the ones I like best. I then tend to go for the earlier albums rather than the later ones.

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with his Beatles and his Stones
We never got it off on that Revolution stuff"

Name that tune!

"Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust"

Name that tune!

As for me...Beatles awareness started in the early 70s with a picture of Ringo in Time magazine. "Former Beatle..."

Other mentions of former Beatles over the next few years and references to albums...especially when I see them at record stores. I hear various tracks on the radio. Elton John covers Lucy in the Sky...I check out SPLHCB from the library...hmm. "oook....nice, but wassup with this?"

1980 some ratfucker offs John Lennon; I buy "1962-66" and "1967-70". The local radio station plays White Album and Let it Be in full. I buy more Beatles. My friend and I listen to taped copies regularly on our way to and from the beach.

Respectful interest for years.

Various life events over the past few months now has me on the "this stuff is truly miraculous" track.

Ha, remember them?

The bus come by…
So, it was a dark and stormy night….wasn’t it?
Well, it was dark. Surely I don’t recall exactly when the first time was I heard the Beatles?
I do clearly remember a time, perhaps more than once, when I had been left with my cousins for the WE, and we were in their parents room (perhaps that’s where the only radio was as that room was normally verboten). It was some kind of show about the Beatles, and I think it might have had something to do with the whole Paul is a dead hype?
Not sure, so long ago and I was still in the single digits so….
But I remember that though I was annoyed because my cousins wouldn’t play with me, they kept shushing me, and I had to lay on the hardwood floor because I wasn’t allowed on the bed lol. But I remember after that the Beatles now being more in my lexicon, and liking them, I just wish we could play instead lol.
Of course over the years afterwards, since they were still everywhere, you couldn’t help but internalize them via osmosis if nothing else. Can’t recall if I saw them on Ed, possibly?
Anywho, FF to mid to late seventies when my childhood BF John and I were becoming Beavis and Butthead like punks.
His family had a huge, awesome record collection, and his father, who was some kind of nuclear scientist, had built this sweet Heathkit type stereo that was way better than most anybody had back then, at least anybody we knew!
Better yet, his mother bought in bulk (both albums and booze lol) so there was always plenty of Canadian Harwood Whiskey, Fresca, and tab? (Whatever the brand of diet cola was?) Better yet, as his folks had split up, his mother was never home, his sisters had all moved out except the oldest who never left her room except to occasionally yell at us to turn it down lol. We were totally free to freak and rock out whenever we wanted!
So among other things, we “discovered” the Beatles and drinking about the same time lol.
I can remember glorious nights getting slightly stoopid and binging out on the Fab Four all night long, especially the red and blue albums!
Eventually we didn’t outgrow them so much, but moved on to “cooler” things (yeah, by that point the Beatles weren’t so cool anymore, relatively speaking): Zeppelin, Hendrix, Floyd, Peter Frampton and most of the usual suspects of the times, and maybe a little Dead?
Well then the balanced started to shift as I started being indoctrinated by David Homel (long time Dead style guitar and band leader, some might know from the infamous Sutters mill In Syracuse as Homel Alaniz band).
He was dating John’s sister at the time and didn’t waste anytime steering us toward the light lol.
By 78 we were listening more and more to Dead albums and being fed tapes by Dave (and joints lol).
Finally after about a year of waiting, the Dead came close enough to see, and the rest is history!
So one might argue the Beatles were the original gateway drug to all things R&R for this freak!
Man, that is a looonnnggg time ago…
Hail hail the Beatles forever!

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Mandatory viewing

"He didn't have a lot of what you might call luck
But he had a lot of get up and go
Get up and go
Get up and go
Get up and go back home"

A sense of humor is a prerequisite for making it through life

(Look up David Cross's take on the GD and jam bands)

Alright then, the first is from Mott The Hoople's "All The Young Dudes", the second is The Clash - from "London Calling" I would think - I'm a bit less confident with that one.
That Mott single, from 1972, was one of the defining records of the year for this pup - along with "Silver Machine", "Starman", School's Out", "Virginia Plain","Metal Guru" - it's great to be young.

Young people in England in the 70's were very unforgiving - anything from about two years ago, from whatever year you were in, could be dismissed as hopelessly outdated. None of which matters a jot when you grow up of course - great music is great music, whatever decade it was made in.

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Beating Billy The Kid to the punch with this one!
I remember walking in the theater, I could not believe my eyes when I saw the acoustic set up on stage. Ushers handed everyone a sheet of paper with the lyrics to Ripple. I was in the perfect "mood".
I think it was the first extended Deal by the Dead. A very exciting night, and a great show.
Had balcony row M seats for that show, and the next 10 I attended.

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A less than prescient lyric from The Clash ‘no Elvis, Beatles or The Rolling Stones in 1977’! No need to identify the track since it’s in the extract.
First heard of The Beatles from my brother who saw them many times in Liverpool and I read about them in Merseybeat. Then they signed with EMI and put out ‘Love Me Do’ and I realised a new era had begun. I heard a lot of the early rock and roll as a child because my brother and his friends had lots of singles.

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Lets hope they had back up cassettes so we might one day get a box set. We saw Bill Graham at the S.F. Blues Festival right before this run started, we thought about asking him for some tickets, but we chickened out.

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Pardon my ignorance, but is there any evidence (pictures, audio, film footage) of any of the Dead meeting any of the Beatles? My memory fails me. I assume someone will show me a picture, and I will say, "Of course, I knew that!"

This Mike - McCartney had done a very short documentary called “Grateful Dead” in 1995, which was a feature of all Linda McCartney’s pics of the band, from her Linda Easton - Photojournalist days. I’ve never seen it, and I believe it was likely released for copyright purposes on the pics, because I’ve never read one word by him talking about the Dead. Doesn’t mean he didn’t like them, but never a shout out or a pic in Rolling Stone or Creem I ever saw of him with any of them.

Lennon attended a Legion of Mary show at the Bottom Line NYC 11/5/74 and hung out with Garcia and band backstage. There was a photo of Lennon outside the venue published in Cash Box. And as it turns out there is literally an audience tape of the show where Lennon can be heard commenting on the music. Search for - fate music: between the bottom lines - for a recent (2023) fascinating deep history post on this at the former JGMF blog. It's been recounted elsewhere with varying memories as to what went down and vague/incorrect dating (e.g. Blair Jackson's Garcia: An American Life.) A piece in jam base has some further insights.

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SF Blues Festival.

Saw a few mentions of it, and this time of year would have been when.

A raise of the glass to it. Talking to a fellow music lover one time about Blues Festivals and he described the SF Blues Festival as the "real one".

I made many, many years in a row; can't remember the number. Another great tradition fading into memory. These things move on and change. So many greats and the wonderful opportunity to learn about new bands that were around but you never quite caught up with. Sometimes bands you heard of but did not see. So often, you would come away with new music to follow. All part of the journey.

Always a great day in the City during a great time of year....warm, sunny days, cool nights to sleep well. Like going to Shoreline, getting sunburnt and reaching for your sweatshirt by the end of the night.

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The S.F. Blues Festival was the best! I went to a lot of them saw some great musicians. It was a fantastic party! I really miss it.

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It might not be true, but was there once a suggestion that Paul McCartney got the idea for the Magic Mystery Tour after hearing about the pranksters bus trip of 1964 ? I seem to remember reading that he got the idea after visiting the Dead's house early 1967 - but again, I'm not sure where I read it, or if there is any truth in it. Not influenced by The Dead as such, but edging into the territory. Briefly.

That S.F. Blues festival sounds alright! When did that take place? I only ever went to one blues festival, at a place called Bishopstock round about the year 2000. It was the last one of a series of festivals held there. This one had a bit of conflict, unfortunately. Henry Townsend and David "Honeyboy" Edwards - both in their 90's - were supposed to be appearing, but couldn't make it. Courtney Pine played instead, filling in for them, and got booed off ! Johnny Winter was supposed to be headlining, but he couldn't play through illness, although he had the grace to come out on stage and explain. He shouldn't have bothered - he go booed off too ! Bastards. Still - I did see Booker T. and the MGs, Taj Mahal and the discovery of the whole event, the great Michael Messer. It was the last festival I ever went to.

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D averock, the S. F. Blues Festival ran from 1973 to 2008.. It was held in various sites, Golden Gate, Park, McLaren Park , Crissey Field, . It was free for years, but when they started chaarging nobody cimplained, it was such a cool event. Type in S. Ff. Blues Festival, they have their own web site, you can see all the posters and performers.

Is sweet! Perfect set up. Saw JGB shows June of 90.
Think their fixing it up as I streamed a Phil show from there last year, or early this year?
Can’t imagine seeing the boys there, well, maybe as my first was in small theatre…

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My friend Larry and I sent away for tix for all fifteen (?) nights. We met in my upper Haight appartment and divveed up the tix, sharing the extras with friends. I went every night, the whole run. The hardest thing was when I had school at San Francisco State in the day, then took a long bus ride to downtown. There were nights on the bus when I was exhausted wondering what I was doing. Then each night when the band came on stage for the acoustic set, I knew I was in the right place. Fond memories.

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