Sweet liberty! We're venturing into the depths of 80s Dead with the complete show from 4/20/84 at the Philadelphia Civic Center and we're placing bets you'll think this one is more than fine. A strong contender for our mega 30 TRIPS AROUND THE SUN boxed set, 4/20/84 missed the cut by virtue of its setlist being a wee bit too similar to the years before and after. As DAVE'S PICKS VOLUME 35, it's found its time to shine. The first set delivers yin yang harmony between Jerry and Bobby songs, yielding driven and powerful takes on tracks like "Feel Like A Stranger," "Cold Rain And Snow," and "Brown-Eyed Women." The second set begs the question - will we ever stop peaking? - with a monumental "Scarlet>Fire," a ripping "Samson and Delilah," a "Space" that pulls shapes that know no names, and that "Morning Dew" - get.in.to.it! And because this one might have ended just a little too soon, we've packed disc 2 and 3 with knock-your-socks-off bonus material from most of the second set from the previous night, 4/19/84. Grab ahold while you can!
Limited to 22,000 numbered copies, DAVE’S PICKS VOL.35: PHILADELPHIA CIVIC CENTER, PHILADELPHIA 4/20/84 has been mastered to HDCD specs by Jeffrey Norman and is guaranteed to sell out.
*Limited to 2 per order. Very limited quantity available.
Peter Green
Sorry to hear Peter Green passed. To hear the live “Rattlesnake Shake” from early FM recordings - such as Live in Boston - was to hear Thunder itself. A gifted guitarist, but unfortunately a troubled soul. RIP.
Seinfeld quote: "we have a list!"
A list or not a list...
I would be interested. I doubt they would tip their hand, though. The element of surprise is good business, I reckon.
But I would love to know what is in the vault.
5 29 71?
Etwas ganz besonderes...
Any Husker Du fans 'round here?
Bob Mould's next band Sugar...I got a copy of Copper Blue about a weeknhalf ago. Some good tracks
Husker Du:
Zen Arcade
New Day Rising
Flip Your Wig
If you want to hear some high-octane psychedelia, check out Reoccurring Dreams on Youtube....14+ minutes of fun.
B.B. King /How Blue Can You Get. / RIP Peter Green
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P27tTNP7SFc. I don't know much about Peter Green, but I know he was really into the Blues, so I'm sure he would dig this. B.B.King had high praise for Peter Green's tone. I just learned today that he wrote Black Magic Women,, my favorite Santana song.
Peter Green....
....hmm. I visited a reddit post yesterday about Fleetwood Mac. Posted that the Peter Green Mac was the better Mac. Feedback was 50/50. Then this.
I still don't believe in coincidences.
Husker Du is good. As are the Minutemen and Seven Seconds.
Peter Green
He replaced Eric Clapton in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, and played on the "Hard Road" album from 1967. That's the only album I have with him on, and its a good solid blues album. Maybe not quite a spectacular as the Clapton driven Beano album from the previous year-but its worth hearing.
I saw him live once at a blues festival, Bishopstock, round about 2003. That was quite sad, really. He seemed disengaged and all the main solos and audible guitar parts were played by someone else. Peter didn't sing or talk to the audience, as I remember it. He just seemed sort of propped up there, with a guitar hung round his neck. Yet they used his name to advertise the band. The price of being a living legend, I suppose.
I have only heard Fleetwood Mac's singles with Peter on-and they do seem to be significantly better than the MOR band from later in the 70s.
Candy Apple Grey
That was the only Husker Du album I ever owned. I don't know how typical it was , but I used to like it. I was surprised when I first heard it how melodic it was-buzz saw guitars and enough energy to detonate a factory...but also quite poppy in way. A good way.
Oh Well.....
My favorite Peter Green tune (with Fleetwood Mac)
"I can't help about the shape I'm in
Can't sing, I ain't pretty and my legs are thin
But don't ask me what I think of you
I might not give the answer that you want me to"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0ag8DkipmQ
RIP blues man.......
Peter Green
I am a big Peter Green fan. After he left the band he founded, Fleetwood Mac, he did go on to make several solo albums, quite nice stuff. The early releases with him and Danny Kirwin were peak early Mac. I saw Peter once at the Fillmore, he was a little subdued. RIP Peter.
Grateful Dead 87
did some 7/24/87 and 7/26/87 view from the vault can't wait for this release and rz thanks for the california earthquake never knew or heard but if only two were played they should be released cool cool stay cool and love early fleetwood mac with peter green have some cds for that and when saw Tom Petty at the pepsi center they ripped oh well...well oh well rip
Live at the Boston Tea Party
Several months after the Dead’s 69 run at the Ark In Boston, Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac held court at the Boston Tea Party across town in 1970. Love those BTP releases, and listen to them a lot. Peter Green was a true guitar God who will be missed. The music remains. Be at peace Peter.
The Dead played 6 shows at the BTP in 69. Including New Years Eve, a rare NYE show outside the Bay Area.
Albatross
George Harrison said Albatross was the inspiration behind Sun King from Abbey Road. Now that's a piece of music! I would have been okay if it went on another 5 minutes, but I guess sometimes it's the small bits that keep you wanting for more. It's a perfect union of bass and guitar melodies. I imagine this is what codeine would sound like if it had a voice. Rain has a similar effect, though obviously more upbeat (and one of Ringo's finer moments).
I sense French Roast and Jai-Alai 6/23 in my immediate future.
Feel Like a Stranger
Sounds like a good performance here. Audio is just okay, but I'm sure once I treat it with some Poweramp magic it'll get a little better.
It's interesting- I recently read that Betty Cantor Jackson used to record those 70 shows on her private board. Not sure who paid for the actual tapes, but it does sort of answer the nagging question I've had in my mind for a while now - how is it possible that audio quality degraded so badly in the 80s. It also explains how the tapes that were sold off at auction from her unpaid storage bin warrant in so official Grateful Dead Vault somewhere.
But anyway, I really like the keyboard sound Brent uses on Feel Like a Stranger here. It's not too far from Dave's Picks 8 from 11/30/80, which is my favorite version; this may be my second fav.
The track list on here is superb. Hopefully they're on top of things throughout.
feel like a stranger...
hate to project but if the next release is some dirty 60's mmmmmm
The best music has been played
I think the best music has already been played and the greatest musicians are dead and gone. That's not to say there is no new good music happening and no great musicians out there. I think for Blues , Country, Rock & Roll, Jazz and Blugrass the best music has been played. There are some exceptions of course as far as musicians go, but for the most part the legends are all gone.
As culture changes, so does the music ( and vice versa)
The music and culture of the 20th century may have been unimaginable to the 19th century mind, so maybe the music of the 21st century will be similarly unimaginable to the 20th century mind. Which most of us still have. With new technologies, new instruments...new drugs...who knows what might happen?
30 years ago today
Fare the well Brent
A Brent release will be loaded onto carrier pigeons in a few days.
Re: Culture, Music, Tastes, Changes
baah humbug. These new kids and their (furry) tennie shoes, loud music with long jams and their long hair. Music hasn't improved since a bit since Glenn Miller, Bennie Goodman. ahh. the golden era.
Boy the old Lasalle ran great.. those were the days.
So turn it down, get a haircut and get off my grass, hippies.
:D (hopefully not to be confused with fact or any resemblance of an honest opinion)
Oh, RIP Brent. You are missed.
Billy
I’m sure Beethoven fans said “All the best music has been created” after he died. One would hope that a Beatles, Grateful Dead, Miles Davis would come along at least every hundred years or so.
I must be crazy ‘cause I’m starting to get excited about Dave’s 35. It’ll be great to have another ‘80’s show to love(at least I hope so).
Even a ‘68-‘72 Head can revel in a fantastic show from ANY era.
Re: Beethoven
Imagine if Beethoven dosed. Deaf or not, we would have gotten another symphony. I bet it would have been real and spectacular.
Me Ones /Roll over Beethoven
I don't know anything about Beethoven or Classical music, so has there been someone who is as famous or as influential in Classical Music as Beethoven was since he died, just speaking about Classical music. I'm curious.
Famous since Beethoven
I'm going to say Rachmaninov, or Dvorak. Or Chopin, or Schumann or Liszt or Paganini. Or Stravinsky, Debussy or finally Copland. Although, I am partial to Sor (the Beethoven of the guitar), Giuliani, Carcassi, Brouwer and Villa-Lobos... :-)
I think you're pulling our leg,billy
No more new music? That's like the( apocryphal) story about The patent office head saying in 1899 his office should be closed since everything had been invented lol
Rattle snake
I've racked my brain but other than an old blues song involving women I can't think of a song about self gratification being so popular on radio. Any thoughts?
Dennis
I know this will come off hasher than I mean but....some things are not funny, they way the CCP treat its people especially minorities is beyond the pale. I am not some woke sjw who needs a safe space at every turn, but sometimes people including myself need to be reminded of the evil out there.
Songs...
...about self gratification on the radio - the Divinyls song I Touch Myself got some airplay in the early '90s and was a catchy little tune, and let's not forget Pictures of Lily by the Who. Not sure who Maryanne With the Shaky Hand was using her shaky hand on, herself or another, but that might be another self gratification tune depending on your interpretation of the lyrics.
Divinyls I Touch Myself
Oh, that's a good one.
That chick brought the ol' shelehlee out of the closet...
But anyway...give a listen to 5 15 70 today, folks.
Snafu/ The best music has been played
Snafu, I just said that I felt that the best music has already been played. I didn't say that there was no new music being played or that there was no really good music being played. I'll just keep that to Blues and Rock & Roll, I still believe that. There is
nobody out there that can come close to Jiimi Hendrix, or the Grateful Dead from 1969 - 1972. As far Blues music, I don't even need to give it a second thought, the best Blues music has been played. You've probably heard of the great harmonica player Rick Estrin, well he said , there are a lot of good harp players, a few great harp players, a couple of excellent harp players, but the best harmonica players are dead and gone.
Billy and The Best
I think everyone thinks that about everything at some point.
Think you could handle better than the best Dead ever Done?
I'll go with Frank -
Best is yet to come and babe won't that be fine
You think you've seen the sun but you ain't seen it shine
Best blues and rock n' roll-Billy
Thinking about it, I would agree with you in the sense that we may have seen the best in blues...in its current form. What we don't know, is if someone will come up with a new form of expression within the idiom. Its quite believable that someone might have thought that in the 1920s that it was impossible to improve on the blues and jazz of Bessie Smith or Louis Armstrong. And in the way that they played, those people may have been right. What they wouldn't have accounted for would have been the different approaches of Robert Johnson, Charlie Parker, Jimi Hendrix...and many others. I like to think there are more twists and turns ahead. Blues musicians who are informed by the past, but are able to use new skills, instruments and technologies to advance the form. Would it still be blues? Could be! Muddy Waters and Jimi Hendrix were.
7/27/73 Watkins Glen
47 years ago today the Dead did their famous sound check at Watkins Glen. Hendrix Freak, were you at this, or Strider were you there?
Snafu/ Stevie Ray Vaughn
Snafu, I saw Stevie Ray Vaughn play twice, once at the San Francisco Blues Festival in 1979, and once at a Wavey Gravey event called.Cowboys for Indians, he played solo acoustic. . You're right he was absolutely fantastic.
Recent Reads
A friend asked me what I had been reading lately, so I thought I would share my latest reads:
Guitar King: Michael Bloomfield's Life in the Blues by David Dann-excellent read if you are into Bloomfield
California Dreaming by Michele Philips - OK with some insight into how fast the Mama's and Papa's took off and then broke up
Rod Serling: His Life, Work and Imagination by Nicolas Parisi - Excellent detailed look at behind the scenes of the Twilight Zone
Simple Dreams by Linda Ronstadt - a great read, very funny and honest, tells her story and the story of the beginnings of Country Rock
Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge by Sheila Weller - If you admire Carrie, this is a great book telling her story
The easiest, most fun read is Linda's.
I am now beginning to read the Beatles Anthology, a huge book, authorized by them and in their own words.
They Don't Write 'Em Like That Anymore
A sentiment that has been shared by many (including The Greg Kihn Band and their Breakup Song). To put it another way, "It's good to be in something from the ground floor. I came to late for that and I know. But lately, I'm getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over." I suspect this is a generational thing, although I confess that the high point of this feeling came for me in the '80s when there just really wasn't a lot of new music that I dug. I dug some '80s stuff, but not a lot.
Lately, I'm finding a lot of new stuff to dig, although it is not the classic rock sound of yore, nor is it a Dead clone. Mostly, it's artists doing something I haven't really heard before, or doing something old with a new twist. Sturgill Simpson, Khruangbin, Leon Bridges, Flaming Lips, Tame Impala and St. Paul and the Broken Bones would be a few examples of newer artists that I dig. So nobody is gonna do what Hendrix or the Dead did better than the original, I agree with that, but there will be artists finding new forms and styles that will be just as cool in their own way. And honestly, if I only had one artist to listen to, or only one style of music available, it would get old no matter how good it is.
Edit: Or, since I've been on a little Who kick lately, "Rock is dead they say. Long live rock".
@NITECAT / Recent Reads
My own latest music reads include Patti Smith's memoirs "Just Kids" and "M Train". And just yesterday I finished Holly George-Warren's excellent Janis Joplin biography "Janis: Her Life And Music".
The latter brought back bittersweet memories. I was fortunate enough to see her perform twice. The first was on the Cheap Thrills tour in '68 and the second time was at Woodstock.
Such a tragic loss to her fans along with Pigpen, Hendrix, and Jim Morrison.
Billy the kid
Richard Wagner died about 60 years after Beethoven who died around 1827 and wagner around 1887. Wagner was considered new age classical who said that "I am going to produce classical music that is much more interesting and new age than Beethoven's boring and sleep inducing symphonies." He said something like this back in the day.
Wagner
I've been a huge Wagner fan all of my life thanks to my parents playing classical music in our home.
I've seen his operas performed any number of times and like the Grateful Dead, I'm happy to travel great distances to see one. Last summer we made a train journey from Seattle to see his epic four-opera cycle "Der Ring Des Niebelungen" at San Francisco Opera.
Wagner the man was quite unpleasant (anti-semite, philanderer, swindler, etc) but he was a brilliant composer and created the combination of music linked to on-stage action that we see applied today in musical scores for motion pictures.
Carlo13/Richard Wagner
Carlo13, the Grateful Dead were huge fans of Wagner, and they even cancelled a couple of shows in 1985 so they could attend the performance of the Ring Opera in S.F. I saw the Dead shortly after at the Greek Theatre, it was a blast!
re: Reads
....I've started, over the waning weeks of the 'Summer of Sixtus'**, the newly released read: "Action Park - Fast Times, Wild Rides, and the Untold Story of America's Most Dangerous Amusement Park", which is a MAJOR callback to my youth (yooot!) in the late '70's and early/mid-80's when spending time in NJ and at 'The Shore' - which always did its best to emulate the death-defying antics via water slides but never approached the true point-of-no-return that was Action Park. My assumption is that there are at least one or two peeps here that had experienced the unadultered chaos of Action Park. I still remember the commercials and visits, which made me buy this breezy, sarcastic, comical, adventurous, very fun book.
** 'Summer of Sixtus' has officially come to an end as today was my first day at my new Pharma gig. No complaints on this end, it's good to be back in the driver's seat.
Looking forward to DP 35 big time, gimme some Philly.
Be Well People.
Sixtus
Accident Park
Right on, a blast from the past. I grew up across the border from Vernon, NJ in a then rural area of Orange County, NY and went to Accident Park when it was just the Alpine Slide, and maybe a couple of times later. Injuries abounded there, from the minor to the life alteringly tragic. Take a look at the water slide loop that these yahoos came up with, the Cannonball Loop, no engineering or water-ride experience appear to be involved, just the back of a napkin and an idea of what a loop looks like.
Love the fun random connections that come up on these threads.