Who's ready to boogie with a little Brent-era Grateful Dead from the Gateway to the West? DAVE'S PICKS VOLUME 47 features the complete unreleased show from Kiel Auditorium, St. Louis, MO, 12/9/79 and you're going to need stamina because this one is high energy from start to finish.
By the time December 1979 rolled around, Brent Mydland had fully cemented his place in the Grateful Dead canon with his twinkling keys, harmonic tenor, and songwriting skills. No more is that evident than at this show boasting 25 songs including soon-to-be classics from GO TO HEAVEN like "Alabama Getaway," "Don't Ease Me In," "Lost Sailor," and the Brent-penned "Easy To Love You." It's also packed with whirling takes on fan-favorites like "Brown-Eyed Women," "Shakedown Street," and "Terrapin Station." And you've never heard a 2nd set quite like this with eight songs before "Drums" including an improvised "Jam" launching from the end of "Saint Of Circumstance." It doesn't stop there though, with a blazing finale of "Bertha>Good Lovin'" and perhaps one of the best versions of "Don't Ease Me In" the band ever did play. We've rounded out Disc Three with an extra nugget from '79.
Limited to 25,000 numbered copies, this release was recorded by Dan Healy and has been mastered to HDCD specs by Jeffrey Norman at Mockingbird Mastering. Grab a copy while you can.
For you Rush fans...
There is a Rush Road in southwestern Washington state.
Now you know.
Hey, man, leave Bob W alone...
Rush Road....
....does it lead to a Subdivision(s)?
I love that song. In fact, Signals is my favorite.
Followed closely by Fly By Night.
Hemispheres takes the show place.
Rush and me
Hemispheres
2112 (side one)
That's all I ever "got" of theirs. Everything else seemed....I don't know. It just never took.
But I knew a lot of Rush fans over the years.
Good call on Subdivision(s), vguy
Rush and you....
....delve a little deeper. You might be surprised.
What do you suggest?
Not moving pictures, please. I have heard that a lot over the years (wife and sons listened pretty often.)
NOT TOM SAWYER AGAIN! (said in a Hagrid voice)
Ok. It's a deal.
I will check out Signals, then the other two.
Thank you!
Rush
Well this brought me out of my comment section retirement. Been on a Rush kick lately, spurred perhaps by the documentary "Beyond the Lighted Stage." A perfect documentary about these kind, decent, nerdy best friends. Got me to start exploring their post-Signals stuff (not to mention Neal Peart's excellent books especially Ghost Rider.
Hold Your Fire (1987) is a lush understated synth masterpiece that will make few recommendation lists but should. A good intro to some of the great 90s stuff is the live album Different Stages (oh, also has the only complete live version of 2112 which sounds better than the studio version, says the deadhead). Counterparts (1993) is heavy.
Agree about Fly By Night (also love it's followup Caress of Steel but many hate that one).
Permanent Waves remains my favorite. I get that Moving Pictures is overplayed, but the 1980 live show on the deluxe version is essential.
Still tying to appreciate Clockwork Angels (2012), but some of their albums take multiple listens. It'll come...
Holy fuckin shit....
....KC Claney. Wow. Good to hear from you.
You made me laugh.
Ok. I went with Fly By Night first
because I know the title track.
I like the album well enough on first full listen. It'll be my music for my morning walk tomorrow.
Which album has Bastille Day? I ask because way back in 9th grade (1979) we were studying the French Revolution. A classmate of mine asked the teacher if he could bring in a recording of Bastille Day. My memory says he allowed it.
I of course had heard Spirit of Radio a few hundred times by then so I knew who Rush was.
"I'm not a smart man, Jenny, but I know what Rush is"
Bastille Day kicks off…
Bastille Day kicks off Caress of Steel.
Hey there VGUY!
Sooooo. Greta Van Fleet....
....I'm not going to say they sucked. But I'm not going to say they kicked ass either.
Very talented, but the guitar player seemed to try too hard if that makes sense. Guitar solos for days and his technique is.....odd.
They did have a smaller stage at the opposite end of the floor by us where they played a three song acoustic set, which was cool. The drummer played a mandolin. Nice.
Light show was weird too. They didn't have lights that searched out into the crowd. They stopped maybe fifteen rows out. Most of the lights were down on the stage. I guess Phish spoiled me. They did have flames shooting up though.
The singer tended to disappear for ten minutes at a time. More guitar solos.
They did play almost 2 1/2 hours without a set break, so got our money's worth.
Lots of pretty ladies though. Even got hit on again, so there's that. Woman sitting next to me kept putting her hand on my knee. Beverly from St. George Utah who drove down solo for the show. She had glitter on her face and was really sweet. Temptation is a helluva drug guys. Feels good to know I still got it though lol.
6.7/10. Probably won't see them again.
Something cool
We still get a print copy of the Seattle Times on Sundays.
In the Pacific magazine section, there is a story about a guy who lives in Shoreline (borders Seattle to the north). He took photos of music giants over the years.
The article has a great photo he took in color of GD on 5/25/74, plus a shot of Jerry 5/25/95 in Seattle.
A pleasant surprise on a Sunday.
What Happens In Vegas
VGuy - Stop being so damn adorable!
Last 5:
Santana & McLauglin - Love Devotion Surrender
(Larry Young is the “secret sauce” in this disc)
Buddy & Julie Miller - Breakdown On 20th Ave S
Dillard & Clark - Through The Morning, Through The Night (Gene Clark was an overlooked genius)
Maret, Collin & Frisell - Americana
Jerry Douglas - Lookout For Hope (the dobra master invites Trey Anastasio to jam)
47, 47, Wherefore art thou? (Sigh)
Tales From the Golden Road-Dead Head TV Interview
Today, Sunday, I'm going to be interviewed on the Sirius Golden Road show sometime between 1 and 2 pm pacific time about my Dead Head TV re-issue on dreamswedreamed dot com. Tune in if interested.
Get Sirius
But I dont have Sirius
Thank you for Deadhead TV work, Nitecat
2/18/85 is a fun little show if you dig GD85
Don't look at the setlist... just listen
Grateful Dead
Good day Deadnetizens. I recently, finally bought external hard drive to start downloading music, of course starting with my Garcia and Grateful Dead collections. This has been an arduous task as I don't have a complete set of releases, some of the Big Fish (one of those movies makes you think about Dad) I missed for various reasons, but nice bit o tunes to enjoy.
Although doing my Garcia collections somehow pretty much have every release except 1-2 of the first sorta bootleg releases. There was talk on one of these about PureJerry 1978 release. I have bay area 1978 includes almost 30 min Don't Let Go and seconnd set which inspires cover of LEt Me Roll It (McCartney) and the ending Gomorrah, I'll Be with Thee, Lonesome and a long way from Home. And the 3/18/78 show which encores such a tender Palm Sunday. Have the Zabriske Pointe SDTRK which has some nice stuff too for alt Garcia/Dead stuff.
Some off the wall releases are the Twilight Zone sdtrk for the 1985 tv series. So cool with Merle Saunders and the Dead version of the Twilight Zone theme and others. Another used gold find from way back is cool cool set called, Can you pass the acid test one more time? Disc 3-4...anyone have 1-2? Love a rip of it..
Anyhow just digging going back through the awesome amount of music we have been blessed with,,,still waiting for an 1986 only year I don't have .....more Shakedown's more Althea's...wa going to be more in depth post but friend of the devil stopped by with some purple haze and now I'm numb...dig on...carry on
PS: This 4979 release is nice companion to couple other 12/79 releases...and rip RR Broken Arrow one of my all time favorite songs.
Big Fish....
....you want to know a movie that makes me cry at the ending? That's one of them.
Wife thinks it's sweet that my eyes well up during certain movies.
And yes. I am subscribed to dreamswedream. Back on the bus I go!!
Good Job Nitecat!
Big time son, big time!
Keep those episodes coming!
Can’t wait for the Candace interview!
I haven’t checked em all yet, but there perfect for those nights, especially this time of year, when there’s nothing to watch and ya don’t have time or gumption to dig a movie…like a fun time capsule, I only wish they were longer lol
Edit: now I have to find that camera melting psychedelic Kaiser show y’all were discussing!
Little Rascals episodes are up on you toob....
....those take me back. Funny stuff. Produced during the Jim Crow era and broke major ground. That's swell!
Nitecat is infamous here. Also awesome. Good job dude. Take a bow.
🍻
DaP 47: Where's the Bass?
So, did my first listen on my computer, with a decent Sony setup, that always is a fairly good reference system (I use it for mixing more often than my studio monitors), and the bass seemed quite present, especially Shakedown. When I got it into the car, albeit in mp3 on a USB drive, I only get mid-range bass, which is ridiculously prominent with Phil hitting that riff repeatedly, but thinking maybe I missed it, restarted the song, and again, no basso profundo in the opening. On the computer, and on a bluetooth speaker, seems to be there. I have never encountered this disparity in mixes. I'm gonna burn a cd from the rip (that went to flac, not mp3), just to make sure it's not an encoding issue. I know people here and on Steve Hoffman often bring up the HDCD encoding and, HCS was a big issue for this for some people, apparently, so wondering if that could be an issue somehow?
I know Phil in post-1977 mixes, especially cassette masters, is not nearly as prominent (dominant), and this gets worse into the 80s as he goes to the 6 strings and we start getting PA mixes that have less guitar in them, and especially less bass guitar, but this isn't totally absent bass. It's there one two sets of wildly different speakers, then, my preferred listening spot lacks that oomph. Anyone else experiencing wildly different mixes of this same release, or am I going slightly more insane? (Though I did read below that the filler materials sounds different between the 31 and 47? Haven't gotten to that part yet, actually, but will make a cd with all the filler together.)
Little Rascals
Both highly inappropriate and highly entertaining.
I love those shows.
The He-man Woman Haters Club.
Don't drink the milk. It's spoiled.
Happy Birthday Mr. Hood.
"Isthmus by my lucky day."
Mr. Brown from the bank is calling on the phone for Grandma. Spanky answers. Mr. Brown asks, "Who is this?" Spanky says, "I don't know, I can't see you."
I won't posted the more inappropriate ones.
Little rascals inappropriate?
I gotta rewatch those to see what's up with that.
Spanky...lol
Hey GD85 fans...2/19/85
Glad yourz arrived, ThatMike. You'll love it.
Ha (rascals/bass)
We adopted our own version of the he man woman haters club after several of us went through bad breakups and divorces in the early nineties lol. That lil Darla was trouble ; )
No Bass? I’d guess the combination of the unique sound of the Irwin bass, and perhaps the voicing of the speakers, and reduced frequency response of highly compressed music.
That bass was very unique sounding, partly why I think he stopped using it. (And going “dry direct” to the board can accentuate it)
And, very often general use speakers, especially car speakers are “voiced”, meaning their not very linear, their tweaked for lack of better word to sound a certain way that is more familiar/pleasing to the causal listener, and to integrate into less than stellar acoustic environments, like cars, radios, TVs etc…i.e., the designer might cut or boost certain frequencies of the speaker, often to compensate for idiosyncrasies inherent in cheaper general use speakers.
Good speakers are usually more neutral or linear sounding. The goal being for the speaker to not have a “sound” but to reproduce the music as naturally as possible. To get out of the way of the music. It’s impossible to fully achieve this, but better speakers come much closer.
So between missing info of compressed music, a unique bass sound that has not been fully processed, or voiced, and voiced speakers that might have a frequency dip at a similar frequency dip or cut of the instrument, could add up to a big hole in the bass frequencies.
The opposite, would be a mode or resonate frequency of the bass, accentuated by a boosted speaker voicing, and possibly by the physics/space of the car or room. Even with my dedicated room and above average system I suffer from room modes around 100htz! . This would give a big unnatural, uneven loudness of certain frequency’s and/or it’s harmonics that would be much louder than all other frequencies. Unfortunately, this kind of uneven overly loud bass has become popular due to certain modern music formats…
I’d suggest phase issues, but that shouldn’t be a problem in a car, and you stated you’ve never experienced this phenomena before. So guessing perfect storm of above issues. That Irwin bass sounded different, but good live through speakers, direct to board often not so much…this again is often due to the mix being for the house, not a recording like a Betty…
That’s my guess Alvar, curious to see what you figure out!
Now if you’ll please excuse us, Spanky, Buckwheat and I need to go bail Darla out for solicitation again…
Anniversary show 8/15/81 Portland Oregon
42 years ago, I hitchhiked up to Oregon for a wild weekend with the Good old Grateful Dead. What a great show! Great party down by the Willamette River, all day. Hitchhiked down to Eugene after the show, caught a ride with some great guys from Washington.. Portland was crazy, Eugene was about to get crazier. Fun times!
Hot guitar
Winterland 10/22/67 - the bonus disc with the last version of "Anthem". I tend to forget about this one, but it's a scorcher. Good reminder as to why more primal Dead would be so welcome.
Primal Dead
BTK 's call for 68 hopefully has fallen on receptive ears
Thanks, Oro
Makes sense. I didn't think about the Irwin, though I noted it in the Jay Blakesberg pic. The shift to 6 stringers definitely changed their sound, because before the switch, the lowest note Phil could fret was the G on the E string, so third fret, hence any of those crazy synthy harmonics from '73-'74 especially are from some notes that are too for the system. Which is scary. Don't know how those Guilds and earlier amps/PAs could withstand his power chords. But that switch to the 6ers, and Irwin before that, led also to the switch to Phil being left out of the PA mix for the most part. That that switch roughly coincides with cassette masters makes it especially jarring when era jumping. The relative absence of Phil makes the two tracks of the 80s and 90s harder for me to get into. The multitracks are usually a different story. Will say that a recent re-listen to Giants Stadium '89 and '91 shows revealed a fairly quiet overall mix. Even when turning up a few notches past my normal listening level didn't get things super loud. Wonder if that was a limitation imposed by 24 and 48 tracks, respectively. I know the more tracks, the more things are apt to cause an imbalanced mix and hard to keep things from getting too loud, so I suppose it was erring on the side of caution. (As opposed to where it was impossible to affect much of the loudness of Phil in Dark Star and Playing in those big, distorted passages on 6/10/73, without shifting everything lower.)
I did burn a cd version that is definitely louder, and fuller, but still not quite enough punch. Did quite a bit of A/Bing, and I think my initial remembrance on there being a full, punchy bass on Shakedown is the culprit. Set high expectations the car didn't meet. I try to have the car and computer somewhat balanced, given the mixing on the computer speakers, then checking it via car at the same volume level. But now noticing what a hit I was taking with the mp3s, I wish my car would decode flacs, no way am I investing in spindles and spindles of cdr blanks again.
ETA: thanks for the suggestion on Anthem bonus disc, Daverock, haven't listened in a while. Always enjoy a nice New Potato Caboose. Hate to say it, but I think the Allmans ripped that off for Dreams. Duane and Gregg would've likely seen them play it, as they opened for the Dead a few times, and Duane did note Jerry teasing First There Is a Mountain in Alligator, and did something with that idea...
Hello hello hello
Helloooooo uncle Leo!
AJ, back at ya…
Alvar, sounds like yer figuring it out, glad to hear!
I actually liked the Modulus sound better than those 70s Alembics, seemed much more linear, especially when recorded SB direct. Bass SB direct has always been a challenge to get right. If you were standing right in front of Phil, even with that Irwin etc, it would sound so big and full you’d shit yer self, and as you know, hearing it through the PA it sounds awesome too, but often the dry direct feed directly from preamp to SB is not anywhere accurate of what it really sounds like. But that’s part of the caveat emptor deal, and hey, their better than nothing and still can sound pretty dern good! Obviously multitrack is the shit as every channel can be tweaked and the Bass especially can be isolated and made nice.
I have an Alembic and used to record our bands live 2 track and it took some adjustments to not have it be overpowering similar to 70s Dead.
PS, I really dig Phil’s current Alembic he’s had since FTW I believe. Of course that High tech Meyers rig he uses on bigger gigs is to die for!
Sirius Dead Head TV
If you have Sirius Radio, the Tales from the Golden Road interview with Dead Head TV co-creator/producer Kathy Watkins and myself will repeat tonight (tuesday). Show starts at 7pm Pacific and our interview starts at around 7:30.
More Phil talk
I love Modulus sounds, I don't think it sounds quite right for Phil. Which, who am I to say that, right? I'm a nut for the sound of the Guild Starfires up to the Alembics of late 70s (at least one of which was a modified Guild Starfire). That wooden, full, rich tone he had is just heaven. The Irwin and the Ken Smiths and the Moduluses have a far different sound to my ears. And, I didn't get to experience Phil live until 2001, by which time his rig was that which could power a club PA. His lack of pedals and rack effects means precisely what you're saying about his dry sound. Of course, his dry sound, isn't as dry as that Guild when it was off the rack, with so many filters and eqs available. But he doesn't seem to use reverb, never delay, never envelope filter, never phaser (sometimes the frequencies from Bob's prominent use of phaser gives the effect that Phil's bass is also modulated on the HCS box), and if he had used a High Pass Filter back in 1973, maybe we wouldn't have those weird mice sounds coming from his low notes! But one thing you can about Phil's tone, that use of dry makes him sound virtually the same, and replicates well on audience recordings whether 1969 or 2019. And I cqn't critique Phil at all, I had gotten my old Ibanez SRA505 sounding like that sweet wooden tone, getting the flats was the final bit, and then I fell for an Ibanez SR505, which is almost the same number, but not quite, and I just fell for its tone(s) and endlessly resonant body. I've had that bass for the last 9 years now, and never regretted moving on from the quest for that Phil tone. Partly because I use a ton of effects (my "clean tone" has EQ, Compressor, and, typically, a touch of Room Reverb), and I liked the clean tone it had, and it seems to drive the effects better. And I'm also in the camp that's curious at Mike Gordon's (Phish) recent bass switch to Serek from Modulus, after rocking the Modulus for 26 years. I find it strange that Gordon's tone live differs greatly from the live recordings. His dry signal live is often quite different sounding than what you hear on the Live Phish. I was particularly struck by that in 2014, as Mike sounded like Phil circa '74 in the venue, but on the recording more like Mike.
Gonna check and see if my car will play flacs, have the 24 bit 6/22/73 on a USB drive for the test. If that works, would be a game changer.
But, when you take him out of the reference mix, as they did in the late 70s and onward, I think the overall mix suffers. Though, the sound is also greatly enhanced by the sudden ability to record keyboards consistently. Sure, sometimes the sounds are dated, but a Hammond Organ is always welcome, and it's nice to hear, consistently, the keyboard parts for the songs. I love when I can hear Keith, but it's so inconsistent. The HCS box was lots, and lots of gorgeous Keith. Too bad he seemed to feel the Fender Rhodes was foisted upon him by the band, but it adds such beautiful touches, and too bad they didn't foist an organ on him... or think about adding Merl Saunders or Melvin Seals at some point...
Alverhanso
I remember Ziggy's very well. Has a helluva lot of fun there. Saw Dave Matthews there in 1993 (?) I think. As you know, just a uniquely designed place. First Phish was there at Lawrence Joel that as 1995. Well, and that DMB was first for him as well.
I lived off Bathabara Park. Short drive to smell Texas Pete. Right on the corner (University Dr), a small strip mall on it, had a great deli. Maybe Elizabeth's Pizza or Italian in strip mall closer to campus.
As far as sports I went to all home games of football and basketball, some of the baseball games; so easy to make a nice afternoon. So yeah, saw all those Tim Duncan games. Watched them slide from #1 to, if memory, to out of top 20. Rumor has it 2 Stags for 1 hind.
Think baseball program was ripped off at college world series. Espn kind of bowed to the SEC, and my main sports followings are for SEC school and schools.
Lots of great posts, thanks.
Edit: Forgot, at one of the basketball games at LJ, I sat two seats down from Darth Vader.
Go to your search engine. Whichever it may be....
....and look up Billy & The Kids free stream.
Catcha later Darla!
She was dangerous and awesome. Just ask Spanky.
I absolutely love me some…
I absolutely love me some Texas Pete.
Not too popular in Central NY :/
Missing 47
Anyone else yet to receive theirs? I guess cause I got a flawless HCS box, I was due for a hiccup.
Playing flacs in car
Alvar
If your car plays mp3 from a USB then I'm guessing it will play ALAC (Apple lossless) also. It is relatively easy to convert flac to alac. I rip all my Dead CD's in flac format but have to convert to alac to add them to my iPhone, since iPhone won't natively play flac files. I don't convert them all, only when I want to change things up a bit on my phone. Foobar2000 (freeware) can do the conversion. Just throwing this out there in case you are interested.
I know it is kind of a pain that auto manufacturers are somewhat behind in providing these types of functionality. I have a 2022 that will play flac but the codec it uses is pretty old, so it puts a 1 sec gap between songs. I know it is the car because every other device that plays the same files is gapless. Sucks when a great jam transitions to another song but I live with it for now. The car does not have a CD player or an aux input so this is the only way to play Dead CDs that are not mainstream releases. The mainstream ones can be streamed on whatever service you choose.
In the stash of CDs I "inherited"
from my late friend Craig I found a couple of unmarked discs. Turned out to be discs from GD movie collection.
A pleasant surprise to find myself in October 74 Winterland again. Great shows.
Also in the stash are a number of other bands on discs with a lot of technical jargon (FLAC, etc.)
I plan to make a list and offer them up here if anyone wants them. I would mail them to you for simply the cost of postage.
Stay tuned, music and tech fans.
Watkins Glen Summer Jam Documentary
...just saw an article informing that a documentary is in the works to showcase the notorious Watkins Glen Summer Jam of '73. Knowing some of you fine folks were there (looking at you, Oro??), this will undoubtedly be a very cool output once it's pulled together. I'd provide a lin-k, but, you know....
Be Well People!
Sixtus
Glen Doc
Howdy Sixtus!
Not me, still just a punk playing with my balls etc.
Your prolly thinking of the elusive but always interesting Hendrixfreak?
In fact, we haven’t heard from the rascally rascal since he mentioned getting sideways and exploring more rivers/wilderness. Not sure if we’ve heard from freak since? Hmmmmm?
Let’s try to roust him: HENDRIXFREAK, HENDRIXFREAK, HENDRIXFREAK!
Works kinda like Beatlejuice ; )
But I heard about that DOC, possible by D&G on Golden Road checking ole Nitecat out on the radio?
Something about a crowd source to get er funded?
Anywho, hope it sees the light of day!
Wish they’d release 6/22/91 and 7/2/89 videos too! Hell the did some of the work already, why not cash in again?
Weezer....
....is coming to town. Worth going? Has anyone seen them live?