Grateful Dead

Funny thing, FirstShow, I just ordered both of those books. I'm especially looking forward to the Dead Economic History book.

Fun to look at the list of Greeks, I attended every one except the one released from 1968. The Greek was a great place to see the boys. I profiled the Greek on my TV show Dead Head TV back in 1988. you tube id 2N53lBOjsY8
You can also find it at our DTV Archive website, dreamswedreamed dot com

Wow the LIG in set one is way hot and the jams are varied, less predictable than they became in later years. I'm working my way through this release, and lovin' it!

One of the things you don't have if you follow The Dead from a distance, is sense of place. The Fillmores East and West, Red Rocks, Winterland...they are well documented through photographs and stories. But other venues mean nothing to me. I would have no idea if I had a live release from either The Greek or The Frost, for example. For most live shows that are released, my sense of where they are being played is minimal.

Daverock, that's one of the reasons I created Dead Head TV. There were venues I wish I could visit, and if I couldn't, wouldn't it be cool to 'armchair travel' via TV? We have two episodes that profile Frost, two for the Greek, and a few in the Northwest. Check them out at dreamswedreamed dot com.

Makes me realize how fortunate I am to have caught the band in many key circumstances, not just venues. Spoiled here in Colorado to have venues like the Rocks, Gothic theater (tiny), Denver Fillmore, Ogden Theater, Boulder Theatre, CU Events Center, Mackay Auditorium, the now-gone Rainbow Theater, Blue Note and First Bank Center. I also caught shows in Boston Music Hall, Academy of Music (Palladium), Knickerbocker Arena, Capitol Theater (both Long Island and Passaic), and schools like Seton Hall.

Then there were the "field settings" like RFK Stadium and Roosevelt Stadium and the ephemeral situations such as Watkins Glen, Colt Park (CT), Englishtown, etc., where stages were erected out of almost nothing.

The thing is, many of these places are long gone, but even a visit would tell you nothing. You can pull more insight, I think, from the tapes -- contrast the small theaters of GD's '76 tour with the louder, more raucous sound of Englishtown. Yet some shows that have been released, such as 6-9 and 6-10-73 don't really give a hint of the setting.

Thanks for making me think. That being dangerous to do under present circumstances. To my brethren overseas, as well as Canada and Mexico -- please forgive, understand, and be patient, we are working on the problem. I take strength but no solace in saying, we're all in this together.

Those of you outside the insane asylum referred to as the US:

not all of us asked for nor like the current situation

Hopefully that's obvious

The other day my school group took a field trip to Jimi Hendrix Memorial Park in Seattle

I played JH loudly on my phone for ambiance and educational purposes

I thought, "HF would dig this"

Y'all be cool, HF

.....KGATLW - Paper Mache Dream Balloon.
The Who - Quadrophenia.
Tame Impala - Innerspeaker.
I realized I didn't own Quadrophenia in any format. Had to remedy that. Tame Impala was an impulse buy. Never heard it. Gizzard because I'm working on getting them all aka Pokémon. Only ten or eleven to go.
Wifey likes the Dream Balloon. Pretty accessible for that band.
Going to watch Seven Years In Tibet with the family here in a minute. Never seen it and I'm admittedly a fanboy re Brad Pitt. One of my favorites.

We get it - just like some of us didn't vote to leave the EU or vote for Boris Johnson!

PF - Agreed. You can't understand a country by looking at it's politicians. To do that you need to take note of it's artists. Or visit it, if you can. Experience a country and talk to it's people. I listen to American music every day of the week - nuff said.

Dennis - thanks for the offer of 3/18/67. It would take me forever to work out how to download it on to a cd, but if it isn't too much trouble I could give it a go.

Nitecat - thanks for telling me about your show on T.V. and online. I'll check that out later, it looks really interesting.

HF - The places where you saw the Dead sound amazing. It was often said, usually in relation to Egypt, that they were influenced by where they played. For me, it's usually in my front room ! I remember the one time I went to America, listening to 9/28/72 on a cassette recorder as we drove round the West Coast on towards San Francisco. It really brought it home to me the strong connection between the music and the country.

check messages

as the beatles say,,,,, we can work it out

& his band were excellent last night. At 82 he can still lead any band.

Thanks Sir McCartney! The words sing truer now than ever.

No! Only one Paul was good singing at his age, and he had some younger help with the vocals. Which got me thinking of the 1975 version he did with Harrison and the one from last night with the slower, softer more fragile sound and tempo. No disrespect to George Harrison, I liked the "Homeward Bound" from last night better than 50 years ago.

Paul McCartney on the other hand, well. He could still play no doubt about that, & he gave us a good sample at the end when he came off the piano to play the guitar. His vocals however, needed some help. Alone he showed his vocal wear and tear, Paul always sang big and bellowy too, so that doesn't make it any easier.
I thought I saw Schmitty {Timmy B.} up there playing bass and backing up singing. He should've been more vocal in retrospect but maybe even he ain't got it like he used to. Sir Paul needed a duet with some good female vocalist, the same way Paul Simon did.
Adele would've done nicely.

43 years ago tonight and last night ,I I was up in S.F. for two knockout shows with the Grateful Dead at the Warfield Theatre, these would make a nice release. Fun times!

45 years and 45 minutes ago ( where did the time go), I was up in Oakland for a killer of a show by the Good old Grateful Dead. What a show! It was a benefit show called Rock for Life. This show is in the vault and I'm pretty sure it will be an official release one day .

Well, daverock, as you're no doubt aware, the trans-Atlantic slave trade and 400 years of murder, rape, torture, persecution and economic and cultural denigration produced the blues music of the earliest 20th century that eventually gave us jazz, country and rock 'n roll. Hence the joyous music of the 60s had roots in and was fertilized by centuries of America's Second Sin. (The first being genocide against Native Americans.)

Think of a forest entirely consumed by fire. Very soon, small green shoots arise, unaware of the catastrophe that gave them birth. No judgments! Rock 'n roll is also a wonderful American invention and worthy of taking pleasure in. Obviously everyone loves it. But the roots remain etched in stone. And now we're revisiting what bigotry, stupidity and hate can wreak.

As you were, HF

P.S. Thanks for the nod, proudfoot. Although instead of a phone, I'd have brought portable power to drive a pair of Infinity Monitor speakers with the Band of Gypsies on tap. Hell, maybe I'll rename my music studio Jimi Hendrix Memorial Park, a designation that knows no physical, locational limits!

HF - absolutely. I do sometimes think about the enormous difference between the lives of country bluesmen who I listen to, like Son House, and myself. Even the 60's, in England and America were nowhere near as joyous for most people as is often portrayed in documentaries. It was only a comparatively few, quite privileged, mainly white and young people who enjoyed the Swinging 60's, or even knew what they were . Most people just swung.

Maybe with the current political situation we will see an artistic renaissance. It's not worth it. I would rather see more happiness and equality myself, which might breed ever new artistic forms to celebrate it.

You mention Son House... I caught Tinsley Ellis this past Sunday night at a local acoustic music organization and he played Death Letter Blues, and played it well. He related that, during the folk blues music revival of the early 60s people scoured the South for the real thing and it turned out Son House was working as a porter on a railroad out of Rochester, NY. When asked to play a festival he said he no longer owned a guitar and hadn't played in 40 years. "They" gave him a guitar and he spent his last years as a blues hero.

The injustices today are as bad as always, perhaps only less visible? I'm working on a new song titled "Lyin' Criminal Psycho Fascist Blues." Seems timely...

completely unrelated. Was at the store today and a beautiful blond walked by. First time I have seen hip hugger bell bottoms since I was to young to know better. Absolutely gorgeous. Looked like Patti Boyd at the age of 33 or so.

...had one of those artistic renaissances
the last time we had an "actor" serving the people
nyuk nyuk nyuk!

and lots of great music ensued

o' beautiful, for spacious skies
but now those skies are threatening
they're beating plowshares into swords
for this tired old man that we elected king

HF - I always enjoy reading your posts. I have never heard of Tinsley Ellis, but anyone who covers Death Letter Blues is obviously well sourced. I read somewhere that after he had been discovered, Al Wilson taught him how to play in the same "Son House" style he had done in the 1930's.

The last time I heard a Son House song covered live - not that it happens very often - was when I saw Larkin Poe a few years ago, in a trendy bar in London. They are both in their 20's and the audience was made up of young people. They must have thought I was somebody's dad. The ghost of blues rock past. Anyway, when the singer, Meghan, introduced "Preaching Blues" she told everyone that it had been written by Son House, and she talked about him for a bit. When she had finished she shouted "Lets hear it for Son House" and all these young people in this trendy bar cheered. Great.

Incidentally, one of my friends gave me a tip last year on how to play "Death Letter Blues " in open G, using the "Delta Snap". On the first note - that's the bass E string, tuned down to D, rather than play the note in the normal way, you put your thumb pick under the string, and pull it up hard, then let it go so it bangs down on the fret board. Then quickly move to the next note. I was doing this all the time, but then found out it wasn't too good for you guitar, so I stopped.

You probably know all this stuff already - but it just popped into my head while I was typing.

He used to be in a great band, The Heartfixers. They released a couple of fine albums on Landslide records, "Live at The Moonshdow" and "Cool on it" (both on Spotify) as well as an album by Nappy Brown with The Heartfixers, "Tore up" on Nightflite records. After that his talents were noticed and he continued as a solo artist. Essential listening.

Sorry incoming box idea!

Why not do a box of early Dead one show from every "Band Configuration" era?

(12/04/65 - 09/24/67) (09/29/67 - 11/22/68) (11/23/68 - 01/24/70) (01/25/70 - 02/18/71) (02/19/71 - 08/26/71) (10/19/71 - 03/23/72) (03/25/72 - 06/17/72) (07/16/72 - 10/19/74) (10/20/74 - 02/17/79)

Dooood, what town do you live in? I'm on my way! Tell "Patty Boyd" I'm driving as fast as I can...

DR - the "snap" is indeed (what do I know?) a blues technique and if you just play "naked" -- ha ha, without a pick -- you can non-violently snap the strings in fingerpicking style to get that sound. Shouldn't be any impact on the guitar nor even the strings. Mighty satisfying on a summer night on the back porch with a cold one at hand...

Tinsley Ellis did relate that Canned Heat took Son House under their wing, but I kinda doubt that "Blind" Alan Wilson taught the man. I think it would have been the other way around. [Insert "what do I know?" after every confident assertion by HF]

Maybe this delta snap is only bad for resonator guitars - dislodging the come or something. But maybe not that either - they are built to survive a war.

Another maybe....Al Wilson learnt from listening to old blues records, and when Son House was "re-discovered" in the 1960's, supposedly not having played a guitar for decades and having forgotten how to, Al Wilson taught him what he had learned from him earlier. Like a circular process, from House to Wilson back to House. But as you suggest - who knows for sure ?

Tinsley Ellis sounds worth checking out.

Bringing it back home - Mickey and The Hartbeats covered "Death Letter Blues" - at least once on 10/30/68 at The Matrix.

Bukka White does a "snap" thing, too, in case anybody's interested. He often uses an open E minor tuning (ie, E-B-E-G-B-E) and then 'snaps' in rhythm from that G to G#. Try it, it's fun.

And meanwhile ... I appreciate the posts from some of our friends living in Europe and elsewhere who are trying to see the good in my country, which I must admit has gotten difficult for some of us lately.

I also appreciate the offer made by some of our friends in Denmark, who have responded to US "offers" to annex Greenland by offering to take over California. I can only speak for myself, but many of us in Cali are bit tired of the lack of representation we receive in Washington (2 senators for 40 million people), and tired of taking abuse from people who don't seem to realize our single state is responsible for about 15% of the American economy, or that California pays more than $83 billion more in federal taxes than we receive in benefits, by far the most of any "donor" state. We'd be the world's fifth largest economy if we were a country, but we generally get treated like redheaded stepchild by most of the nation.

I think I speak for most Californians in saying that we share a lot values with the Danes: the rule of law, for starters. And I feel we've got some things offer in return: the US's biggest agricultural production, Silicon Valley, some of the world's greatest universities, hospitals, and research centers, the bulk of the music industry. Not to mention the beaches, Yosemite, and lots of places you Danes might like to vacation.

So I hopes the Danes can work this out. It's getting lonely out here on the Left Coast.

Hi Crow - wellcome to our tiny Kingdom (6 mill.) - always room on the bus to 40 millions or so..

Dave's 47 is sold out. The great show from the Kiel in December 79.

Still available:
#46-72
#48-71
#51-71
#52-83
#53-76

Like your idea fourwinds but think it should include three more shows: Brent show, a vinnie/bruce and a vinnie show.

I, too, am ashamed and saddened.

Love CA, especially Yosemite and god bless the Grateful Dead.

That's all I've got and probably all I can get away with here.

If you get confused, listen to the music play.

wadeocu, three more wouldn't hurt! :-}

Maybe they’ll use all slightly incomplete shows!
They said it was gonna be different?
Ya know, really good/great shows, but that are missing a song or three so can’t be Dave’s…hell, even some super hot single sets…great way to get primal too!

.....Canada vs US.
I'll be rooting for our northern neighbors. No offense.

California remains The Promised Land -- Where else would I choose to hitchhike to from the East Coast when I turned 17 on the road? Not as groovy as it once was, but no place is. It's a magnificent region that has mtns, deserts, great ag valleys and stretches from Mexico to Oregon. So many regions within one state.

As for the bigger picture, it's a tenet of mine that the peoples of the world can live together, but the money and power at the top attracts a weird lot -- sometimes enlightened, too often malignant and power mad. That's why cultural exchanges, well outside of politics, are key because they are people-to-people, which works most of the time.

I used to have a beloved Iranian friend; she was good-hearted, smart and the Shah murdered her uncle. I had a great friend from Brazil. I made Russian friends during glasnost. The list goes on (and includes my beloved ex-sweetheart from California).

But I'll echo what Crow said. Forgive us. Half of our countrymen are caring, smart, productive, good neighbors. The American credo has always been fair play -- at least that's the ideal at the "people" level, if not the history of our government. The other half succumbed to racism, stupidity and got sold a bill of goods by lying fascists. Turning this around is going to be very rough. But please don't lose faith that the majority of Americans, including those who sinned by not voting, are not supportive of a mad clown backed by vicious, sadistic, fascists.

Hmmm, I think that should do it, for now. If anyone is offended, boo hoo.

And now, the sedatives and back to the music.

HF

The color of the dream I had, its time to tell somebody 'bout that dream

Would love to see a fall 1991 box. Was a great run of shows. Was at some of the Boston shows, would like to see 09/26/91 get an official release.

....damn straight. 🍻

Our hockey team has nothing to do with the current state of affairs.
Yet you rooted for them to lose.
For shame, and bad karma.

It was a good game though.

Jimi's gentle side, in poetry. A much-needed touch.

Thx

....and I clarified with a "no offense." Still a free country.

Interesting to witness and in regards to an earlier post about the loose volumes selling in the store, #50 & now #47, both excellent shows and filler! I bet that Dave's #53 & #52 sell out before #51. They would be good compliments to anyone that bought the aforementioned picks. I enjoy them thoroughly.
Though as for when #46 & #48 go I am not sure what might be left. They are good eras & line ups at a nice time of year (Nov.'71 & Sept.'72) with a full on groovy jam time & the band all in sync. Also for them two releases there probably is less available anyways since they've been out for awhile now. So I can't give any betting odds on it!

Hockey? Shit! Canada & Hockey is like U.S.A. Basketball, everyone else is the underdog.

Folks that purchase #48 and #51 get a bonus show {1970} & a half, or is it two bonuses for four shows total there? Either way there's a nice array left for sure!

IMO - number 46 is - by far - the weakest 1972 Pick so far.. we have had 4 Daves (plus 2 bonus discs) from that year so far; 5 TOOs, and NOT ONE DARK STAR.. say no more.. BW from Copenhagen..

Yeah, I would be inclined to agree with Danehead, about the Dave's Picks of 1972. I had to double check the playlists since I am somewhat a new subscriber and how interesting about no Dark*Stars.
Dave's #14 was a good Pig pick from the Academy in NYc, {similar to Dick's #30} right before they went to Europe. Then #24 at Berkeley was a nice post Euro~tour {though without Pigpen} around the same time as the Eugene, OR 'Ice Cream' show, so no doubt a good run there. The November show, Dave's #11 may be from one of the best parts of the Fall tour, the one that started with the Southern half of the Mid~West in Kansas.
From what I've got in the "River" Box, the St. Louis 3 shows that started the Northern leg of the tour that October are pretty nice. So is the Dark*Star from 10/18.
By my accounts, not this year but next year or the one after will probably have a 1972 pick. The real question is from what part of the year & what tour? Arguably one could revisit either The Academy in NYc or the August Berkeley run. Maybe October or November? Whatever the show it probably most definitely should have a Dark*Star!

does the next Daves have a Dark Star?

I know it's a 73 not a 72...

And sandbagging lol

Apparently the answer is no, Baltimore 3/26 does not have a "Dark*Star" and the bonus disc from Buffalo 3/31 however will probably include an "Other One" from set two.
Of all Dave's releases from 1973 so far only two shows have that song, #16 from Springfield, MA 2/28 and #32 from Philadelphia, PA 3/24. The Philly show was one of the lost "Betty Boards" that was returned in what was it, 2016?

Well you can't have too many dark stars because if two of them were to collide it would create a black hole that would suck the entire universe into the size of a pinprick. I mean, I'm willing to take that chance but a lot of folks might hesitate.

Including Dave. He's definitely been a little stingy with the Dark Stars. And long jams in general. Dave seems to love best the shows that have an unusual set list for the era, and seems to want to avoid really jammy shows. Which is OK, because Dave gotta be Dave just like you gotta be you and I gotta be me. But, yeah, if any of TPTB are listening, some of us fucking LIVE for a good Dark Star and really can't get enough of 'em.

Sorry for the quasi-political outburst the other day. I was having one of those moments, ya know? I appreciate the kind responses and I promise to keep my politics-adjacent thoughts in the Trouble Ahead thread from now on.

Except maybe this one: Jeg vil gerne være dansk statsborger!

51 years ago today ( I wasn't at Winterland), but my brother was and he said the Dead put on a killer of a show. He said it was a blast!

#43 had two Dark Stars.

Love this 1969 release.

But, yes, we are due. And, yes, we must wait.