Grateful Dead

DTV released today on dreamswedreamed dot com:

Fall 1989: The Dark Star Tour
Dead Head TV Host Open Episode 016 August 1989
Dead Head TV Credits Episode 016 August 1989

....let's just say, I paid a little bit more than that Taylor Swift ticket price re the Golden Knights Stanley Cup winner game. Worth it? Yes. You either want it or you don't.
To be fair, Swift plays for over 3 hrs and her shows look top shelf.

Check out the geek fest on Meyers D&C Panther system at Light Sound Journal dot ya know…
I haven’t read it yet, but it looks mighty tasty!
PROPER!

Funny you mention Grace Potter, DMCVT was talking about her recently (and talked TO HER and Bernie Sanders, too). Also, funny you mention Zakir Hussain, he and John McLaughlin have reunited Shakti, put out their first album in decades, and are doing their first US tour in decades, just began in Boston a couple nights ago with John Scofield opening. Bela Fleck joins the tour as opener soon. Sorry I missed that.

I've never listened to Taylor Swift (knowingly, anyway), and don't really plan on it. Wish she would use her ticketing clout to call for a revamp or destruction of Ticketmaster. The fees are absolutely astronomical, and the higher your ticket cost, the higher the service fee, yet it's the same exact service, for the exact same event, being processed by the exact same people! They lost a lawsuit a few years back and I got emailed some worthless free ticket vouchers that magically never were available when I tried to redeem any of them. Not sure how they could just blithely raise those very fees that got them in trouble, and the new system with ticket exchanges and the killing they make off every single transfer is ridiculous. One of my favorite things about String Cheese Incident is their lawsuit against Ticketmaster over monopolistic practices. They won, Ticketmaster settled, but Cheese had to find funky non-Live Nation venues for some time. I only wish the bigger artists who could effect a change would try it. Pearl Jam spoke out and didn't take a hit, but that was 30 years ago, and this Sisyphean Rock keeps rolling back downhill, with more and more expensive undertakings to roll it back up. I yearn for the days of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and a Teddy Roosevelt to wield it.

A friend just revealed to me that at the last minute she decided to take her daughter to a Taylor Swift show here in the Twin Cities. The afternoon of the show she paid $1000 per TICKET ($400 "Service Fee" to someone) to sit in the absolute worst seats in the 75,000-person stadium! Their backs were literally against the wall, as they were in the top-most row, behind the stage by about 15 degrees, so there were no more seats behind or to the side of them.

I have always had mad respect for Taylor Swift, as she keeps it classy, writes good tunes, and REALLY looks out for her fans, just like the good ol' Grateful Dead did. Those two, Pearl Jam, and Garth Brooks stand out as musicians who always tried to keep tickets cheap and available. Garth in particular just kept adding shows in a town until people quit buying tickets, so as to appease every fan who wanted to hear him.

I don't really listen to three of those four, but do give them all credit for actually giving a darn about the fan experience.

Never knew I would love streaming (Qobuz!) so much, but it gives me a chance to sample TONS of stuff . . .

The Wake Outtakes are on there, but while mistyping a search for K'naan, I stumbled across this band, and I had to check them out just for their album covers--turns out their moody rock music is very cool, too!
Kanaan--Windborne

Then I listened to someone named Grace Potter, who dropped an album yesterday--quite tasty blues rock!

And Zakir Hussain (who I saw in concert this past winter) from Bear's Sonic Journals, which led to a bunch of Ravi Shankar listening. I'll have to check out his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival . . .

R.I.P., Robbie--that first solo release of yours is an all-time classic.

Finally got around to showing our teens "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" last night--still terribly clever and hilarious! R.I.P., Paul. I remember renting the VHS of that (and "Children of the Corn") for my 15th or 16th birthday sleep-over.

And of course, stickered on every VHS cassette was a good life motto: Be Kind . . . Rewind . . .

Growing up in the Carolinas, I well remember my mom driving us to our grandparents through Hugo, and we rode out the storm at their log cabin, which actually had less trees around it than our house at the time. I believe Hugo was still a 3 or 4 at that point. Was surprising to see so many people on the road, especially after watching it tear through Charleston the night before. One of my biggest memories is all the wonderfully strange sea creatures that had been taken on a very, very long journey inland, mainly little bugs, but most still wriggling and writhing. More recently, riding out Matthew, Dora, and some others. We came through unscathed, excepting limbs and leaves. Power went only briefly, which, during Matthew, my dad actually went on oxygen the day before it hit, so we were glad it came back on pretty quickly. But flooding and power outages persisted in town, and even Waffle House closed due to Matthew. My wife, from Jamaica, knows of hurricanes as well, and takes it more seriously than I do, filling tubs with water, because she lived through Gilbert, which knocked out power for 3 weeks I think she said. Something unprecedented like a hurricane hitting California, Utah, and Colorado could conceivably do greater damage due to the unforeseen threat. Another reason we need that new power grid in the East and West.

But hey, it's perfectly normal phenomena, right? Also, I agree with Jim, I like all the Weather Report Suites. DiP 14 features two of them that are excellent, DaP 19 7/19/74 has a really good one, Winterland '73 has two excellent ones and a good one, DaP 13 2/24/74 is really nice, especiwlly the segue to Row Jimmy, and the king of them all is DiP 12 6/28/74 a fantastic one followed by a 29 min jam that features MLBody becoming a proto-Music Never Stopped jam, Dark Starish jam, and then out of nowhere becomes US Blues. Sonically, one can never go wrong with DaP 34 6/23/74, my favorite Wall of Sound 2 track, and everything is played exceptionally well, including this WRS> China Doll. Think 6/23/74 will be my soundtrack for working on my music room today...

La-La-La-La-La-LaFontaine!!!! RJ was quite a character, Oro.
I got to playing some Seeds last night and I forgot how fun these early bands were, including the Zombies and the Blues Magoos, a favourite of my older brother back in 67-68ish. He used to belong to that Columbia record club back then where you would get a batch of albums for a penny, and signed up for a year’s subscription. Then he got hip, and got way into The Doors and some others, but those early psychedelic band albums he bought were a hoot.
I hope everyone in the SouthWest stays safe through the inclement weather. Up here, it seems like half the country is burning with forest fires really bearing down. Stay safe, all.
PS - Jack: I’m glad Bedard went to Chicago, and can hopefully turn that storied team around. This kid should do for the Blackhawks what Patrick Mahones did for KC - make them relevant again.

How could I forget.
One of the all time greats, May the four winds blow him safely home…
Old school, didn’t need to chatter incessantly like they all do now. Like Collingsworth et el that even after decades, still seem compelled to force you to know every damn thing that’s in their thick sculls and prove how smart they are…gag!
With RJ, Always felt like you were sitting with a buddy watching a game, all relaxed and sorta mellow, until WHAM something would happen and he’d weave his magic with one part entertainer, one part emotion.
Yep, unfortunately they don’t make em like that no more : (
Damn, what’s next? No more Anchor beer, no RJ, DTV NFL, women’s rights, etc, etc, etc, oh well, nothing lasts as the pranksters say…
Thanks for the decades of fun and memories, gonna have to dust off the ole RJ Top Shelf video disc tonight.
He was a great guy, “Top Shelf Where Mama Hides the Cookies” to use his famous quote.
Hopefully Tim Horton has a hot coffee waiting for him in the big press box in the beyond!

HOOOWWLLLLL! (Cue Jer bear on the shredding machine)
Yeah similar here last night 1stshow. Huge lightning, first heat lightning all over, then the real stuff bombing the valley.
It’s pretty impressive when the big thunder booms through these valleys and canyons! And very intense but short deluge. Hopefully no fires from all that lazy lightning.

SPRING: 78: yeah that DaP was a real fine surprise. Sometimes you get shown the light…Spring 78 wasn’t really on my radar until that one dropped. Now I wish he’d drop a box from that tour. Really sweet Betty’s too!

Yeah PT I remember being in SoFla and those “lil” 4 pm downpours…tropical thunder mate!
That’s some rain!

Hang in there boys and girls! and remember…
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!