The Deadcast explores the Mars Hotel obscurity “Money Money” & goes on the Dead’s mayhem-filled Europe ‘74 tour, including a long look at the extended jams & Seastones sets performed with Ned Lagin.
by Jesse Jarnow
“Money Money” didn’t last long in the Grateful Dead’s repertoire, recorded during the April 1974 sessions at CBS, played a few times on their May tours, then gone forever, never again appearing in Grateful Dead setlists nor even the bands Bob Weir has performed with since 1995.
When “Money Money” was recorded in 1974, Jerry Garcia’s long-mysterious Texas-to-California collaborator Sarah Fulcher (who I interviewed a few years back) contributed backing vocals, just as she had on “Weather Report Suite” the year before. But nobody (not even the members of the Dead) were given credits on the original 1974 release of From the Mars Hotel and when the first reissue arrived in the mid-1980s, Sarah Fulcher’s contribution slipped through the cracks. We remedy that with this week’s episode.
Ned Lagin collaborated with the members of the Grateful Dead between 1970 and 1975, coming to a kind of peak in September and October of 1974, when Lagin’s Seastones performances occasionally transitioned directly into the Dead’s own sets. Details of his evolving synthesizer instrument can be found in NedBase. The chaos of the band’s Europe ‘74 tour has been well-documented (notably in the band’s authorized A Long Strange Trip by official historian Dennis McNally), but the Seastones sets were a bright weird light in its midst.
Enormous thanks to the writers and journalists who appeared on or contributed material to this episode (or both).
After having his mind blown at the Lyceum in May 1972, Andy Childs published a well-researched 3-part history of the Dead in ZigZag in 1973 (part 1, part 2, part 3), and was invited to interview Phil Lesh when the Dead hit London in 1974, published later that year. Many thanks to Andy for letting us use the audio of his interview! These days, Andy contributes reviews and columns to Caught By The River.
Michael Kaler’s Get Shown the Light is available as part of Duke University Press’s Studies In the Grateful Dead series.
Our doyen David Gans shared never-heard audio from his many books, radio shows, and other projects, available from his site.
Next year, St. Marin’s Press will publish Brian Anderson’s Loud and Clear, a history of the Wall of Sound, which we can’t wait to read.
Steve Brown’s home movies of the Europe ‘74 tour.