Grateful Dead

Soon. The SBDs came off LMA in 2005. http://archive.org/post/49553/good-news-and-an-apology-gd-on-the-intern…

I read that article when it came out. I think this is an example of they evolutionary conclusion I came to. There was certainly a lot of back and forth. I have also read in Dave's words that he was considering a few mini boxes from the E-72 tour also. A Paris box, a 5/10 and 5/11 min box. So they had several ideas and took their time and came to the right decision. Similar to the Road Trips project. They tried a few things and it didn't work so well. I believe Dave was picking the shows for those releases also, and I'm glad they switched to a mostly whole shows only approach. Anyway, I'm not here to argue just offer another point of view and I certainly do not speak for Dave nor was at the table when these decisions are made. Have a good one all.

Thanks for posting LJ. Jimbo, Sixtus, others, help me out brothers - Who IS Dr. Rhino? Is he the Mark Pinkus mentioned in the article? Is he the owner of Rhino entertainment? Is his last name Rhino? Is he a Dr.? I keep hearing about the 10 year deal - when does it end? These questions keep me up at night. Those and how did Snoke get his scars. I have a theory....

Nice discussion - food for thought (great UB40 song) - I can see both sides. Love the out of body thread as well. I would say I'd be in the camp back then when the Road Trip series came out to stray away from incomplete shows. As for the Download series, I'd prefer the physical products, so I did not participate and enjoyed the archive.org. Looking back that was a bit presumptuous on my part and I missed out on some solid releases. All of my Dick's Picks were first editions ordered when I got the email. I was travelling a lot for work and did not keep[ up with the later releases cause I did not want to peruse website on company assets. After missing out on Fillmore West back set and missed out on E72 Trunk, became more diligent at seeing what Dead.net was up to. I was also off the road. The Road Trips releases in contrast were acquired just as they were selling the remaining stock. My WAG is that it's probably a little bit of both. Rhino had a ten year deal to skim the cream of the crop. Dave wants the music released, as a deadhead he knows first hand what some of the holy grail recordings are. He's also probably shrewd enough to know that the ten year deal is a tryout on both sides (Dead & Rhino). If it's beneficial to both parties, it will continue. If not Rhino who would you trust or the band trusts to continue the work. There's not that many "independent" music production companies out there. I don't think they'd trust Warner or Arista again. Look how Columbia or Sony bastardizes the live shows for other artists. One of my favorite live albums back in the 90's was Tour De Force by Al Dimeola - the re-release is shameful. The recent Genesis live releases (with exception of Lamb from LA) was shameful. Second's Out still had Steve Hackett's guitar low in the mix. When the live album was originally produced, Hackett had left the band rumor had it Tony Banks was pissed and Hackett's guitar was mixed low. The Yes Songs box (2015) is a good release and that was produced by Rhino. I loved being able to purchase the live show for several of the Smashing Pumpkin, Pearl Jam and Phil & Friends shows. Great memory, but from a live recording standard like a Betty board - not even close. We're spoiled! Devil's in the details, but I personally hope this ride (relationship) continues to evolve and we keep getting awesomest of awesome releases. I've feel lucky that two of the shows I have attended have been released - one from the Brett and one from the Vince eras have been released. Still dreaming about RFK 90 and the other Oxford 88 show get released, but I have not been disappointed in any of the releases since I re-upped starting with Dave's #2 and made it a point not to miss another release. My biggest fear is the next ten years becomes a subscription based streaming model. You just pay a monthly fee and this leads up to less than stellar release quality since typical streaming is lower than redbook cd or HD files. No more need to go to Jeffery Norman for the mix, no more plangent process to clean it up. I hope I'm wrong. I gobble up as many Charlie Miller, Hunter Seamons and all the original tapers as the next crazed deadhead, but I like getting the official release, even if I have that show in better than average archive quality. Dave, keep up the great work. Given the musical canon over the last five years (series, individual and box releases) since you started the Dave's Picks this has been truly special. We are the luckiest fans in the world. Glad to see bands like Phish and Pearl Jam adopt and evolve the model. Thank you! Sorry for the ramble... Ramble on Rose!

Dave makes it clear here and in other interviews I've read, that he had to convince Rhino to do Europe '72 Complete. My only point is that people should not rip Dave Lemieux or call him a shill or anything of the like, if they are happy with the volume of music we've had available in the last 5 years. Without his pushing for Europe '72, there would be no 30 Trips, Spring '90, or any of the other large box sets, as Rhino was clearly too risk averse to even put E72 on the market. http://ultimateclassicrock.com/grateful-dead-archivist-david-lemieux-ta… Beyond that, Dave's instinct for Dave's Picks and the other mini-box sets led to sell-outs that happened fast enough to allow for the next project / release to get on the books. No sell-outs, no continued releases - the revenue drives the release schedule. Again, my only point is that without Dave Lemieux, there would be fewer releases for us to enjoy today. There are several interviews with Dave where he indicates he is not a fan of partial-release shows, unless there are simply not quality tapes to allow for a full release. And there are interviews with him where he indicates that more freedom was given to him for the latest series, hence the moniker "Dave's Picks". The only speculation is that Dave's Picks is a more successful series than Road Trips, but I think the premature ending of Road Trips, coupled with the large overstock of the series (half of it was available for months / years after their initial release dates), along with the fact that the current series is "Dave's Picks" is enough to connect the dots. Just saying, there's plenty of interview footage available to put 2 and 2 together, so nobody who is enjoying the quantity of releases should be ripping Dave as someone who is a shill or incompetent vault keeper.

I'm not sure I buy into all the speculation tossed out there about the Lemieux / Rhino relationship and who pitched Road Trips, how E72 the complete records came to be etc. My guess is there was more an evolutionary aspect to all this than Rhino vs. Lemieux. Here's Blair's insight on Road Trips http://www.dead.net/features/blair-jackson/blair%e2%80%99s-golden-road-… What's revealing here is how Dicks passing lead to a flood of high quality soundboards uploaded to Archive.Org, something no one really expected and this has a greater impact on releases than pitches from Rhino or David Lemieux. Also, I believe Rhino paid a good bit of money for the rights to produce, distribute and license releases over a ten year period. I bet declining sales as a result of downloading and streaming soundboards had a greater impact on the push for larger boxes than personalities or ideas from a particular person. In other words, I bet this whole thing evolved is a bit more nuanced than one would believe reading over a few of these posts. Just my two cents.

Thanks for the 5/25 recommendation Jimbo. I am going to revisit 4/17 too. I love hearing about the nuances everyone gets out Dead music, because at the end of the day, that's what makes all of these vault releases so appealing. Someone on one if the the threads recently said you can't judge a show by the set list, because you can get anything from any song on any night. Minas, agree on 5/3 Rider, they do sing it differently. Lovejerry, I think you tapped into something significant about the nature of DL's relationship with the execs - interviews with him reveal that not only did E72 come first, but that it set the precedent for the Mega-Box marketing strategy. He's said in a couple of interviews that he had to pitch the idea repeatedly for a few years before they gave the green light. Not the case anymore. He said 30 Trips was something like 3 years in the planning, which means he got the green light almost immediately after the smashing success of E72. And of course we had two other big boxes in the interim (Spring '90), and several mini-boxes in short duration. This is all due to Dave's diligence, make no mistake. Then along came a subscription series to replace the failed Road Trips (failed because they did not sell out in the overnight fashion that we see with Dave's Picks, which is an essential component of the sales & marketing strategy). I don't think there is a soul out there that could have accomplished this other than Dave. It had to be a DeadHead, and it had to be someone who had been tuned into Dick's world. I don't think we'd have seen anywhere near the volume of music that has been released since E72, had it not been for Dave Lemieux.

I need to be more disciplined, like One Man, Sixtus and Keithfan.. I never take notes but I do listen. When the E72 box arrived, I did a complete listen show by show. Took me a couple to a few months, mostly on a good system or headphones if I didn't want to wake people up. Then I revisited shit. There was a China Rider that stood out to me, but it took me another few weeks to find it. Its still my favorite for a very subtle reason. I was taking queue's from KeithFan this week (I trust him, he's a doctor) and really dialed into the 4/17 version. As always, its the improv in the transition that makes it. In the last half minute before I Know You Rider, Keith has this great fill that's really unusual and fits right in. He more or less connects the two songs in this instance. I need to give this version more attention. Its a Keith, Phil and Billy party. The problem for me with the China>Rider from 5/3 is its the one on my 35 year old, worn out hunk of vinyl. Sure its the best.. but this is the Grateful Dead and variety matters. ..The version from 5/3 is one of the pieces of music that made me a deadhead, in the days before I was trading tapes this was pure gold. It is that good. Captivating, transformative, the interplay between all musicians, the communication is profound. A classic. But my current favorite (the one I listened to last [kidding]) is 5/25 at the Lyceum. The hand-off between Weir and Garcia is beautiful, Bobby gives it his all and his part ends very deliberately. There is a distinct pause, part of a tension / release theme that I really like, and then Jerry slides into it with this elastic groove that is so appealing to my ears. The pause to me is a great example of colored silence Bobby spoke of referring to a similar pause in Born Cross Eyed, right at the hand off. Like a pronounced deep breath after a significant accomplishment. Give that version a spin, that show doesn't get much love.. but the China>Rider>Oh Where Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone>Playing in the Band is worth the half hour it takes to listen to. ________ Edit: Oh, then there's Veneta, but that's a whole other story.

Love it too. That guitar solo in China Cat is intense. I don't care for the overdubbed vocals in Rider. Too intrusive. They actually carry the end of the verse longer than normal, so the difference from the original makes it sound weird. Wild geese in the Weeeeeeeeesssst instead of the staccato West!

5/3 was my first wife from the E72 box, but since then I have had many mistresses and some do a better job of comforting me in my old age. I like sandwiches, but for this tour the deep space jazzy sequences get me and I like them complete and not broken up. I'm not sure what my go to Other One is, perhaps 5/10?? For the Dark Stars, I simply cannot pick, but I can assure you my absolute favorite one is the one I just finished listening to. I bought the steamer trunk when it first came out, I remember the clusterflock of ordering and being really pissed that I got shut out, I responded almost immediately. Then I got an email from dead.net asking if I still wanted to play. Game on, but I was a little gun-shy and concerned about the cost - would I would really enjoy every single song of every single show? The setlists weren't that varried, had my hobby gone too far? I can honestly say I got more out of that box than I ever imagined. Kayak Guy is spot on with his insightful words. Its a mandatory retirement purchase, not to fund my Medicare supplemental insurance premiums, but to occupy my mind and provide inner peace. The best chuck of music I own, bar none. Good job all in gobbling this stuff up before it disappears. Its a drug in itself.