Grateful Dead

July 9, 1995; final Grateful Dead concert.
July 5, 2015; Fare Thee Well final concert.
March 11, 2020 Bob Weir and Wolf Brothers last concert of the year.

On the edge of your city you’ll see us and then
We come with the dust and we go with the wind

Pastures of Plenty / Woody Guthrie

July 23, 1990 / Lest we forget Brent / There’s something about Chicago

8/9 - somehow forgot the import of the date until I saw Strider's post. in '95 I was just beginning a whole new life chapter in the southwest, one that continues to this day. 8/9/95 actually started out with some very beautiful Grateful Dead energy, that turned very spooky once we found out about Jerry's death at the end of the work day. By chance had been back in Chi-town in early July visiting family and had caught the 2 Soldier Field shows, totally unplanned, brother had extra tickets. Whole different scene/planet from what I'd experienced in Seattle that spring. Seattle was fun and very well played. Chicago was seriously heavy. But still never expected the news of his death. And yes Strider - the Days Between is an absolute masterpiece. First heard it on the GD hour that featured Landover '93 (at time didn't know that my brother was there.) Hair stood up on end, super eerie, emotionally charged from that first listen - it is always like that. It seemed like Hunter somehow was shown the future that lay before us. For me in some ways as emotionally powerful as any song he wrote. Brings me close to tears anytime I hear it, or really even think about it.

8/8 - GOGD - Alpine 82 - I was in the cheap "seats" on the lawn, but by 2nd set against rail at back of the shed. i don't "think" I was full on smoking crater but it was getting awfully close. agog as this force of nature swept past us, just drinking it in. remember Zakir throwing a drum stick at Mickey as he walked onto stage. Cippolina was just suddenly "there" and Healy had him dialed up loud, no fooling around. I had zero clue who those guys were. The Satisfaction was unreal - Phil was at 11 both in terms of sound and energy. The Brokedown that followed is my all time favorite. Left that show with Phil's bass tattooed across my brain. That show took me to a whole new level.

8/7 - Oro, so glad you enjoyed the rediscovery! I don't know much about Phil and instrument history, I figured it was more of Healy thing. At the time, 8/8 made a bigger impression, but a couple of years later I was gifted with a killer low gen of 8/7 with most 2nd set and show opener and that further opened the door as to how magical 8/7 was. i ended up calling that cassette "Sacred Alpine" and it got more play than any tape in my collection back in the day, and that's a LOT. turned a bunch of folks onto it.

8/6 - that Palladium show is crazy good, and its got a smoking Cumberland! A dub of the legendary bootleg record highlighting the 2nd set was one of my earliest tapes from a pre-hiatus show - love love love the sound from that era. in terms of sources - a wealth of riches there - the Bertrando audience is fantastic and that's where I generally head (there now in fact!) i think it was the source for the bootleg record.

The night of 8/9/95 ended up camping with a friend in a canyon up on Cedar Mesa. I remembered 2 dreams from that night. 1) Jerry playing solo acoustic guitar to about 20 of us in a small room (sort of like the Rambler Room.) He was overweight, sweating, and he was pouring himself into it, giving everything he had. 2) I was on a stage with the rest of the band (no Jerry) watching them perform. I have a clear picture of that scene to this day, I was stage left in the wings, it was dusk, outdoors, no backdrop, lighting was all soft violets and silver, Phil was closest but still a good ways distance. The stage was HUGE and there was something like 40 meters between band members, as in, nobody was close. The music was unearthly and beautiful, but what they were playing wasn't the Grateful Dead.

Love you Jerry.

Take care and stay safe everyone. Time for a cold one!

Yaaasss, have a mini bottle of “champagne”...perfect for a Mimosa or 2...need a little hair of the mutt after Playing in the sand last night. Started off with one of those Tall Pliney the Elders and didn’t let up. If we weren’t seasoned veterans it might of been too much too fast, but you and I have been through that, and this is not our fate...
So a toast....to the Fat Man! We miss you more than words can tell....
I used to say today was the day the music died, but as evident by how many awesome folks are still putting it out there and lighting people up as Bob would say, it truly is a testament to just how amazing the Music is, never mind the players. Been tuning in occasionally this week on Daze Between etc and who’d a thunk 25 years later there’d still be anyone, let alone the ridiculous plethora of fine musicians, and the magnitude of popularity that exists. Crazy!
So to JG, Hunter, AND the amazing gifts they bequeathed us!, my old departed Buddies favorite toast: “ here’s to swimming with bowl legged women, and swimming between their knees”
Nostrovia!

8/7/82:Bluecrow great pick! Another Lil nugget that gets lost in the couch cushions so to speak....I think part of your displeasure with the Bass sound is complicated by that G&L Bass Phil was playing between the Irwin and when he started playing Modulus....not a huge fan of the Irwin, but really didn’t like the G&L. Remember first seeing/hearing the Modulus, with the Meyer Sound rig, spring 83 twice, front row in front of Phil....my jaw is still probably stuck to the floor of Broome County Arena!

STRIDER: great post as usual...I felt like I was there with you, especially cruising around the desert at night with the midnight radio playing all Dead...
Interesting to about this date, betting there’s more interesting history! Weird though, the misses has been getting freaked out lately. She keeps a journal and for a while now every time she opens it up it always opens to the week of August 10th...? I’ve asked if there’s pages stuck or what ever and she says no, no matter what it keeps opening to this page? Very weird and kinda freaky, she’s starting to get the fear! Somehow I feel you would understand this?

PLAYING IN THE SAND: great show last night. Besides a couple snoozers in the first really good show!
Looks like a cool scene too. If not for the vid I’d be down for a winter get away, but alas, I fear never more quoth the Raven...

Columbian Supremo, black and oily.
Got 25 lbs of green unroasted beans this spring.
Roasted a batch a few weeks ago. Had the roaster out on the deck in the sun when temps were in the 90’s. Really helps get the roaster really hot to achieve the black oily beans I prefer. The thing I like about Columbian Supremo is that when they are black and oily a chocolate flavor comes out. The chocolate flavor doesn’t seem to exist in beans from other parts of the world. Not that I don’t like those beans too.

Wrapping up 8-6-74%, now heading outside to do various jobs around the house.

I have to ask.. what beans, assuming a dark and oily roast.

Just finished converting and combining the best version of each song from 8/6/71 into a single folder and have imported it into my electronic world.. in about 10 min I will start my listen to strong black coffee myself.. Ethiopia Limu Musa Aba Lulesa somewhere between full city and a French roast. (sounds like a song they came out of space with Hamza El Din sitting in.

As for beer later, I promised myself this week would begin a period of summer discipline and scaling back. All good things in all good time.

Here's to Jerry!

Let it be said often and with more eloquence and poetry.

Truly remarkable how many people he touched in one lifetime.

Glad to be one of the many.

Cheers to all the others!

With strong black coffee now, and again with beer later today.

August 9th, 1995. Driving up into the Burro Mountains south of Silver City I could scan the FM airwaves and hear the Grateful Dead on a half dozen FM radio stations everywhere from El Paso, Texas to Las Cruces and Truth or Consequences in New Mexico to Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, just about non-stop all day. Only time that’s ever happened. That night I drank Guinness Stout and smoked strong Ganga with a friend who played both sides of the first Garcia album vinyl version on his powerful stereo system that included a Macintosh Amp and Kliptch speakers. Being inebriated certainly fit the mood.
Today would have been my brothers 72nd birthday. He was responsible for first turning me on to the Dead clear back in the fall of 1968 by way of Anthem of the Sun. He once said that heavy duty events happened in this date. 75 years ago the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. On this date in 1974 Richard Nixon resigned. I happened to be hitchhiking cross country going over the bridge from Ontario into to Upper Michigan while hearing his resignation speech.
And of course twenty five years ago the news that was less surprise but still a great shock to the many of us who love the music of the Grateful Dead.
Phil Lesh once spoke of how the music of Dark Star is always playing in the Universe and how they would tap into that force. I paraphrase his quote but you get the concept. On the subject of Dark Star, about 30 years ago I was at a gathering of long hairs on Ash Creek at the foot of Mount Graham in southeast Arizona. Some kind of barter fair or something on private land. There was a deadhead who was playing an acoustic guitar, jamming with a sitar player. I requested Dark Star and without delay they started playing the melody and formless form of that universal composition. That early spring day on the edge of the desert became filled with the beautiful music of East meets West. A transcendent American raga.
I posted on the daze? Days Between page on Jerry’s birthday but hardly anyone seems to go there. Speaking of Days Between, by far the most powerful Robert Hunter composition of the 1990s.
Time is fleeting, try and make the most of it.

...and so it is. Nice mix up, Dave, a worthy adventure.

I think I am going to try and cobble together a complete show from the various sources.. this is always a hassle, but usually worth the effort.