Grateful Dead

Newly discovered (by me) at local coffee shop...90's album byBrian Jonestown Massacre : "Their Satanic Majesties Second Request." Terrific example of trippy hypnotic drone music wherein vocals do not distract listeners from creative/artistic concentration. Kewl stuff!

Thanks wharfratx - as much as I love the Closing Of Winterland, I don't recall the Johnny B. Good on that one.

Keithfan, lovin' the play by plays but don't forget about the JBG encore from 12-31-78! Jerry is positively blazing! Check out the Closing of Winterland DVD. Never a more animated Garcia will you ever see! Butter!

Day 6 / Europe '72 / April 17, 1972 Night #2 at the Tivoli Theater, of course, was the night the Dead were recorded for television. If you thought these guys would be a little stiff in front of the cameras, think again. As the liner notes point out, they had no problem mugging for the cameras in clown masks or introducing a new song (He's Gone). Yeah, that's pretty loose. They even opened the show with a song that hadn't been played on the tour yet; for fuck's sake, if you're going to dust off a song, put it in the second set after you've warmed up! But if there's any question still - the onstage banter about monitor levels after Next Time You See Me will put all doubts to rest. This is not how a band plagued by nerves behaves. It's the type of thing that seasoned Dead Heads are used to by now, but to put the moment into historical context with the TV cameras and the overseas crowd, it demonstrates that the stage is their home, and it doesn't matter what country that stage is in, who is watching them, or whether or not their behavior is being immortalized on TV. Home is where you're comfortable being yourself, and they pull this shit all the time. 4/17 is one of my go-to shows from April. It should be noted early on that Keith Godchaux is high in the mix again, and he's having a typically good night. They open the show with a Cold Rain & Snow that is hands-down my favorite of all time. I initially came to know this song as the opener from Steppin' Out with the Grateful Dead: England '72 (taken from the E72 show at the Lyceum on 5/24). It grew on me and became a favorite Dead song; but as my collection grew, I noticed they didn't play it that often. The Ladies & Gentlemen version is definitely hot, but for my part, I prefer Keith's input, and that's where 4/17 trumps 5/24 from Steppin' Out. In an otherwise identical performance, Keith is higher in the mix on 4/17, and it's good stuff. Opened with a doozie - check. The sound is a liiitle bit better on this one (all E72 sounds great, but some shows sound a liiitle bit better). They slide Me and Bobby McGee into the #2 slot, as Bobby's first song, and I find myself paying more attention to it here. It's flawless, of course, and Bobby's vocals are spot on. Better understanding of what freedom means - check. The rest of the first set is a little bit different, as it consists of stellar short length rockers, so the energy and momentum is sustained with very little interruption. The only "ballad" per se is the first performance of He's Gone, but even that one was played pretty fast in the early days of its performance life. I love this rendition; in fact, I love all three versions that were played prior to the development of the "going where the winds don't blow so strange" bridge. I may even prefer it. This has something to do how my brain was hardwired for He's Gone, as the only version I knew for years was performance #2 from Rockin' The Rhein. I don't discount the greatness of the outgoing jam in Englishtown '77, but if I had to pick one version of He's Gone for the desert island, it would be from 1972, and at that, it would probably be one of the first three. I like it faster, I like it without the bridge, and I like it without the "whoa-o-whoa, nothin's gonna bring him back" outro. Difficult to undo hard wiring - check. Yeah, I just copped out on the rest of the first set. It's Europe '72, it sounds great, it flows well. More great China Cat Sunrider, Jack Straw, and Black-Throated Wind, no Good Lovin' this time around. Second set has a typically great Playing In The Band; another great Pigpen / Hammond-laced Sugaree; an early One More Saturday Night that they threw in to finish off the stint on TV; solid El-Paso (with more great piano); another great Truckin'; a Ramble On Rose that also features some great Hammond chops from Pigpen and piano greatness from Keith (this song peaked on the Europe '72 tour IMHO). It Hurts Me Too - outstanding. It both peaked and died on the Europe '72 tour. Jerry's blues soloing is outstanding, and he did it so infrequently that it's always a treat. Enjoy. They end up doing a third set because of the TV affair. The show was not really longer for having a third set; it was more like three shorter sets. It went like this: Dark Star => Sugar Magnolia => Caution => Johnny B. Goode. The Dark Star is one of the best of the eleven that they played on the tour, I think even better than the one they played at Tivoli on night #1. The main theme noodling and improv jamming that goes on in the first ten minutes is melodic and superb; the vocal section is fine as can be; the post vocal improv section is melodic and up-tempo; the Space section and subsequent discord is sharp but not overcooked; and then there's the final movement, which is this great jazz piece with lots of cool double-time on the ride symbol from Billy underlying these great piano leads from Keith (which is all decorated with some of that well-timed Hammond goodness from Pigpen, and additional embellishment from Bobby, Phil and Jerry). The transition into Sugar Magnolia on this night is a Face Melt Special with extra How Do They Do This. So...extra melodic thirty plus minute Dark Star without overcooked cacophony section, featuring one of the best transitions into Sugar Magnolia ever - check. Sugar Magnolia is a thing of beauty in 1972. It reached fruition on the Europe '72 tour and sustained that magic through Veneta; but it slowly began to change, and by 1973 it was not quite the same creature. It was still a great song by any band's standards, but something elemental had been lost - perhaps it wilted in Pigpen's absence. It no longer evoked the Sunshine Daydream itself, only reminded us of what that dream had been like. In any event, it's still all caught up in sunlight on this night. The transition from Dark Star is ushered in with some rare non-chordal organ notes from Pig, which fade out as each band member joins the high times of Europe '72 Sugar Magnolia. For fans of the Billy drum fill, he goes with the smooth roll on the floor toms on this one. Caution is incredible. If this show were available on Dead.net still, I would say just buy it for Caution. It goes on for 23+ minutes and showcases one of the rarest (and greatest) elements of the McKernan years: the Pigpen-Godchaux double-barrel keyboard extravaganzational assault. I don't think the keyboards ever sounded better than the Hammond-Steinway / organ-piano blend that they achieved with these two onstage, and the Caution jam is where it climaxed. With only four or five performances the entire tour, and Pigpen's sporadic presence in the mix, this might be the best of the best. Don't miss the trademark Caution bomp-bomp-boms at 18 minutes or so; it's actually kind of cool that Pig raps over them on this version, as it's customarily an instrumental passage. If nothing else, Pigpen demonstrates his versatility as a lyricist here, as he manages to incorporate some stanzas about a certain demure young woman we heard him woo during his Good Lovin' rap the previous night. Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks) with lady who still has her leg up against the wall - check. Inventing a new adjective - check, check. I usually turn off Johnny B. Goode, unless it's Three From The Vault or this show. It's really good here (and the only performance from the tour). There used to be an hour of a great quality video footage on youtube, but alas, it's been taken down. There are however, still a couple of tracks still up there - He's Gone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-yDZdHn6mw

I bought this LP not long after it was released in March of 1975. About 10 years ago, I transfered it to CD-R. It's clean sounding, but you can tell that it's from vinyl. I listen to it from time to time and I do appreciate it. If you have a copy on hand, read the credits on the back cover. I see "Published by Artists Publishing Collective except: ..." I wonder if this has anything to do with why this album has not been released on CD yet. According to bizpedia.com: Artists Publishing Collective, Incorporated is a California Domestic Corporation filed on January 23, 1975. The company's filing status is listed as Suspended and its File Number is C0729867. The company's principal address is 1016 Lincoln Avenue, San Rafael, CA 94902. Hmmm...

I finally got to listening this officially released nugget again. It's only my 3rd time from this box. I know this show quite well from previous unofficial recordings - cassette & CD-R, but this 3rd disc containing Dark Star> Sug Mags> Caution> JB Goode really shone brightly this morning while listening to it. It's as if I heard it for the 1st time - excitedly and with no expactations.An amazing great show, but all of Europe 72 is like that.

I may be wrong but I thought that it was Keith's untimely death that caused the "break up". It is a shame that the Keith & Donna album is pretty much the only Round/Grateful Dead catalog release that has never been reissued on CD. Maybe one day it will happen.

Not that it matters to the music...but I wonder what caused Keith & Donna to "break up?" Probably an intriguing soap opera there.

Day 5 / Europe '72 / April 16, 1972 This was the first show I bought from the E72 box set. I had already owned RTR & HYH since they'd been released, but never the original E72 LP/CD. After a many-years layoff from the Dead, I saw Sunshine Daydream in the rack at Barnes & Noble, and was impressed by the hype sticker that indicated it was the most requested Dead show ever - and I bought it. The rest is history. In my search for something to rival the fantastic Veneta show, I looked online and found a Rolling Stone article that listed 4/16/72 in the top 20 best Dead shows ever. Soon after, I ordered it from dead.net and the addiction that had taken hold with Veneta was firmly underway. My first impression was very positive. RTR was THE music that pulled me into the Dead's orbit many years before, and HYH was high on my playlist as well - so expectations were running high. I was still in the phase of cherry picking "best of all time" song performances, and I was looking forward to the extended jam version of Playing In The Band without Donna, and the extended jam Truckin'. The Greatest Story opener is solid; however, my trepidation about Donna has long since dissipated, and I miss her "cool clear water" vocal, which is now the highlight of the song for me. Sugaree is one one my favorite pre-hiatus versions, because there's some subtle reverb from the barn's acoustics that treats Jerry's guitar line nicely; but more still, Pigpen's organ is great accompianment on this song, and he's (thankfully) up in the mix on this show (not always the case). There are a couple of great tour rarities played here - Cumberland Blues and Dire Wolf. At the time I bought this show, I considered them both throwaways; today they're an integral part of my listening experience, and an element that makes this show a little bit special. Jerry is in prime Bluegrass picking mode during the solos on CB, and Billy drives a swinging no-nonsense rhythm train through Dire Wolf, with plenty of off beat fills that make this slow folk tune sound like an up-tempo rocker - all Billy. China Cat Sunrider is one of my favorites of the tour. There's not much more to my liking it than Jerry & Bobby's sharp crystal clear picking throughout - not that they don't always play it well, but between the barn acoustics and some x factor I can't put a finger on, it's one of the versions I turn to most often. Good Lovin' is a 20 minute affair, and let's just say - she's a bitch dog in heat who got to turn her oven around so Pigpen can smell it (did he really say that?). Tennessee Jed is great - I get the feeling this was one of their personal favorites to play, because you can feel it grow throughout the tour, not so much in arrangement, but in intensity. The jam that leads up to the final chorus of the song seems to get longer and stronger with every performance, and everyone gets involved. Compare to 10/21/71 and you'll hear what I mean. Deal I love best in '72, and while I used to talk up Veneta the most, this 4/16 version has caught my fancy lately (despite Billy coming in late at the beginning - drummers, always late). Jerry's solo, wah wah, and stretched out vocals are what hit the spot. I like this Loser a lot, the harmonies are perfect. The second set jam is worth the price of admission: Truckin' => Jam => TOO => Me & My Uncle => TOO2 => NFA => GDTRFB => NFA2. What can I say, other than they're all top rate versions if you break them up and listen to them independently (but why, right?). Everything is stellar - the sound, the immaculate execution, the energy, and the symbiosis of the musicians in their craft. There aren't any naysayers in this audience, so there's nobody to convince; but even for the Dead, the transition between TOO and Me & My Uncle is so smooth and unheralded, that the uninitiated would swear it's a rehearsed move they've practiced no less than a dozen times. Really, don't miss it. NFA and GDTRFB is equally impressive, though I can't make the same argument about rehearsals:-) The Other One is much shorter than usual, and there's no Sugar Magnolia for the only show of the tour - almost as if to say, next time at least clear the lunch tables out of the cafeteria before inviting us to play (it was a 700 ticket party in the University cafeteria). Playing in the Band is better with Donna. Pigpen may actually be the star of this show. I get the impression his stage time on songs he didn't sing lead on was inconsistent throughout the tour, as there are long stretches during some shows when I don't hear him playing or singing harmony (or even shaking the maracas and tambarine). Not the case at Aarhus; he's all over everything, especially the Hammond. While he's never going to be mentioned in a conversation about the best keynoardists, greatest lead singers, or innovators of rap music, he's the goddam best utility player to grace a rock 'n roll band. His chops during this show augment the rhythm and melody in all of the right places, which is the true sign of a great band musician - knowing when to play. Long live Pig. He was and always will be, one of the Grateful Dead.

Day 3 / Europe '72 / April 11, 1972 I like how the liner notes compare Newcastle to playing on Mars. I look to this show for the fantastic Truckin' (nearly 20 minutes, longest of the tour, although 4/16 kind of breaks it up into two tracks and calls the rest Jam) => Drums => The Other One => Comes A Time. Only two Brokedowns on this tour and I love them both - this one is has this nice piano bit in the beginning that actually comes out louder (along with the crowd applause) on the Steppin' Out mix, but it's still nice; one nice "cool clear water well you can't ever tell" from Donna (sometimes you get two); I also look to this one for the set list of shorter rockers - Greatest Story, Beat It on Down, Jack Straw, Deal, Tennessee Jed, Big Railroad Blues, Brown-eyed Women, Ramble On Rose (ok maybe not a rocker, but one of my Jerry favs in '72, where this song LIVED), and shit what was the other one from Jerry....anyway, a little higher in hiss than some shows, and turn up Bobby for fuck's sake. Would have been funny if he unraveled the T-shirt after the fan got tossed, and it said MARRY ME MARK! mule_skinner - Glad you liked the post, true story. Was at my parent's house DJ'ing the poolside tunes about 10 years ago on the 4th of July, had just purchased it and thought Ladies & Gentlemen would be perfect for the occasion with all of my relatives. On comes Good Lovin' and Pigpen doing his "I'm a bidness man; What kind of bidness? Are you a refrigerator repair service man?; Why you got a refrigerator?; No, I was just asking" Funny right, except he went on to pimp him a girl so ugly, she was mistaken for a Jersey cow (what'd you want, you only had a dollar and quarter). Lesson learned.