Like many, I work long grueling hours. Toward the end of the Day, I learned Phil had passed. I finished the day stunned. With no thought, I loaded a Binghamton Show into my car cd player (yup, I still have one). That helped me sort things out on my 1/2-hour drive.
Once home, I went first to my beer fridge and grabbed a choice IPA and chilled glass and headed straight to my living room for my "Friends of the Devil" box. I could almost say I own too much Dead, but I didn't have to give it much thought as to what I wanted to hear. I own the majority of the Dead boxes; I have to say this has been one of my favorites. I have been taking my time and savoring the shows. In truth, I've worked through about 75% of this one. I'm usually a methodical listener. Not last night, I just randomly grabbed 4.16.78 and loaded it into the changer. As I sat and listened, texts poured in from friends, knowing I had to be home mourning. 4.16.78 was a joy, it reaffirmed all that Phil and the Dead were and perpetually are. It was like an IV drip; it brought me back to my center. I couldn't ask for a better life support system. Dave and company, thanks for this box. The doctor doesn't make house calls anymore, but if you are feeling loss right now, take one Dead show and call me in the morning! (Thanks for having been in the world Phil!)
P.S. I had trashed the box artwork before this box arrived, it really quite ingenious.

As I sit down to start the onerous task of shredding Friend of the Devils CD's to add to my "cloud" library, I see the news that Phil has laid his last bomb on this plain. I'm staring out of my den window into the dark, Salisbury Live Fire Range well within earshot, quiet tonight, and I chuckle at the irony.

Here's to Phil. Not just unrivalled at his craft, but also one of the tidiest, most free, incredibly lucid, beyond comparison instrumentalists, Phils is up there in the pantheon of all time great improvisational musicians to ever have played. Phil bought it each and every show... A living oxymoron of precise freeform melody and wildly inventive noise. All performed literally live and without a net. Many a time have I mentally isolated Phil's "space", in awe of the effortless contortionism of his unique antithetical ouvre.

Personally, I think that Phil was to the 'Dead's lower register, what Jerry was to the High side. It seems almost sacrilegious to suggest it, but I'll put my money down and suggest that Phil's space in the band was as pivotal as Jerry's... No Phil, no 'Dead.

Thank the maker that we have all of this legacy music available still. I look forward - should I be so lucky -
to many more years of getting lost in the Phil Zone.

Rest up old boy. You done good! Best to Phil's family and friends. Thank you in absentia to the donors and their families who helped Phil in later life. I hope there's some salve in the legacy and the joy still to share and share again.

x

Phil just passed away. It's a sad day at casa JimInMD. I am flying my freak flag at half mast. Phil was a legend, a talented musician, he spoke his mind and he was a kind soul.

I had the pleasure of meeting him once, we hung out and drank beer for four or five hours and talked Grateful Dead and assorted stuff. I will never forget that night.

Rest in peace Phil. Let it be known you made a great difference in this world. Come hell or high water I was going to venture to the Capitol Theatre this March to see his 85th Birthday shows if they could pull it off. I'll have to wait until I get to the other side to make that happen.

Such a bummer.. no smiles for me today.

Count me among the disappointed customers who shelled out hard-earned currency for a very flawed product. I lost count of the number of songs across various shows in the set that were marred by skips and pauses.

When I first reported this I received a quick reply and a new set of download links. There was no acknowledgement of the problem, just new links. I downloaded one of them and it too had songs with skips. I have since reached out again, and now the folks at dead.net/rhino are silent.

I'll provide an update if I hear anything. In the meantime, anyone else who has experienced the same thing with the Friend of the Devils download set, please make your voice heard.

I also found numerous skips and gaps even after downloading the flac files twice. Support has been unresponsive. I finally instituted a disputed charge

That was my first Dead album too. Summer 1976 it came out in England. There was one side of the triple album "Glastonbury Fayre" which featured about 23 minutes of Dark Star from Wembley 4/8/72 that I got a few years before that.

Oh yes Jim, I remember Steal your face. It was very hard to find in the mid eighties and when I finally got it, I was excited at the time.

I believe they put it together very quick to try and raise some money after Ron split with $650k of the bands money.

I will say the 2004 Grateful Dead Movie Soundtrack is some of the best sounding 74 I have ever heard. Love it. So, certainly think they could give us some more. Dave also mentioned (in the 2004 Grateful Dead reissue) that they had more movie footage to put out another movie. Don't know for sure, but again it would be great.

Pinkus has a new unboxing video for this year's box. We owe him a lot and he has been very instrumental in bringing us tons of fantastic releases. Keep them coming!

I think SYF was my 1st GD LP. College dorm guy next door was a very knowledgeable CA deadhead and he seemed to think it wasn't a very worthy release at that time (during hiatus) so then I worked backwards to Skull & Roses, Aoxomoxoa, Live Dead, EU72 and by then Blues For Allah came out. Needless to say I was hooked.
Cheers

I wouldn't worry about the All the Video Edition. As I understand it, Jerry rode that horse to death, and it almost bankrupted the band (or did it bankrupt them?). I don't think they have the resources to pull it off and even if they did, I do not think they can make a return on the investment.

I even think the All Music Edition is problematic. When Steal Your Face came out (anybody remember that double album?), Bear and Phil complained that the recordings were problematic, something about the original mix being in Quad or the differential mics bleeding through or something like that. I seem to recall the box we got didn't come easy but I could be wrong.

So who knows what if anything we will get from this run, but I still want it. Each and every glorious show, yes to audio. If they somehow cobbled a few more hours of video that would be a cherry on top but I'm not holding my breath for that much new video from this run being released.

As for 78 and cocaine, etc. I find attraction to different years and eras at different times. Some things do not appeal to me but given a different time and setting sometimes they break through, and I get sucked in. On the other side of the same coin, the GD never got everything exactly perfect. They came close but there was always something that ventured off course, seemed astray. Like they were constantly striving for something just beyond their grasp and then by chance when they got there, they didn't quite know what to do with it. And for me, that's the appeal. That's what keeps me coming back. The adventure, not the destination. The willingness to take chances and keep things fresh.

My favorite Brown Eyed Women's are from Spring '78 and some of my favorite Peggy-O's. Was there excess, of course, but there were diamonds in the rough. Go through some of those older boxes or shows less travelled, toss one in the player and don't be surprised if it sounds better than you remembered. Like the Stella Blue on Steal Your Face.

I'd rather the complete run be released on cd than dvd. When I am listening I can go anywhere, but when I am looking at a screen I tend not to lose the plot as easily.

It always strikes me as a bit strange that cocaine is often cited as a reason for 1978 shows being the way they were. I got the impression that it became their drug of choice for playing live many years before then. 1974 being a good example, going off reports from the time.