Last night, before hanging up my hat of conciousness, I felt compelled to chase the 4/24/72 dragon with a repeat performance of Dark Star > MAMU > Dark Star > Wharf Rat > Sugar Magnolia. I see why this DS appears at the top of many folks lists; for me it’s teeming with the same sort of electric magic—as though the gang tuned all their synapses to the same frequency beforehand and unleashed themselves to, both independently and simultaneously, wield lightning bolts of subtle and bombastic intensity from finger and limb—that I’ve always found in 2/13/70.
I’m gonna have to take a little breather from this Dark Star (ie 4/24) for a while... but, I do have 3/23/72 queued up for an inaugural departure sometime soon, maybe tonight. This morning I’m decompressing as I return back to earth by finishing off the 7/3/66 show that I started yesterday afternoon and now I’m carrying on that vibe with 7/29/66 from the debut’s 50th anniversary.
If I'm following correctly, ’71 Fillmore East and ’69 Fillmore West both have 2-track mixes that circulate in the usual places.
One of my favorite shows since I got it on tape in the 80s. Thanks for the writeup, and thanks for pointing out that there's a new CM version.
Been on a 71 kick all week. Started with the '71 Dead box that was brought up maybe 3x weeks ago and went through several DicksnDavesnRoad Trips. This was always kind of a flyover year for me, almost totally overshadowed by '72-74, but for whatever reason these shows are just sounding 'right' now. Makes me wish I had a hard copy of Dave's vol 3 (Chicago Oct '71). Played through it last night and was just enjoying the hell out if it. I know I have 10/22 downloaded separately but will have to go check my hard drive to see if I have 10/21 or not. Keith on this introductory run is just fantastic. Will take a peek on the eBays, but last time I look at the early daves sets they were really jacked through the roof.
I can't believe that all of the 30 Trips sets on Amazon sold out already. I told a friend at work who missed out on the box the first time around about it and he was going to order one this weekend after he got paid. He said as of Wednesday this week there was still 171 available, so I am wondering if WarnerMarket just pulled the remaining stock off Amazon or someone purchased the rest to flip?
I haven't encountered this as much lately, I think the newer ones are usually tagged in such a way that it translates to itunes? Anyway artist name and date are easy, since you can just select the whole thing and type them in once. But the track names are onerous. The only thing I've ever figured out is to listen to a few seconds of each track and then type the name in; you can't just work from a setlist, which would be faster, because often there is a track or two of "crowd" or "tuning" or whatever which throws the whole thing off. I generally delete those once everything else is tagged...I'm somewhat abstractly glad they exist, as more of the whole shebang is archived somewhere, for someone, but I know I'll never listen to them....
You are following correctly, I guess the question is are they the FOH mix vs. something designed for a stereo tape. I guess you'd only know by listening and making a judgement unless there is some knowledge or a consensus about them.
About a decade ago I went down the rabbit hole with China > Rider, amassing a big archive from the pre-combined versions up to the final Rider-less China Cat (9/27/69) and then of all of the subsequent ‘70’s versions, and listening obsessively to a mega-playlist of the giant pile over and over. I’ve got to revisit that stuff and explore whether I’ve changed my mind about the original Europe ‘72 version, overdubs and all, being the untouchably greatest performance of them all, especially in the perfect and transcendent all-killer-no-filler execution of the transition jam. Other performances have their fine virtues, but too often they go for groove over counterpart, either via a somewhat samey drivin’-that-train locomotive chug or with the circular Mobius Strip stunt that is Feeling Groovy. But I bet time has flattened out my recollection of how many great versions they actually pulled off in a few short years, and I gotta give it another go-round. Good origin story stuff here: Grateful Dead Guide: China>Rider - The Early Years
There's one for sale at Discogs for $800.00. Sometimes it seems people price things as if they don't really want to sell it.
In the case of the Fillmore East April 1971 shows, the circulating sources originally came from tapes recorded by Buddy Miller in a tiny janitors closet near the SBD location in the balcony. Nobody noticed the extra set of cables coming out of the FOH board and running into the closet. In 1970 the stage crew had a reel-to-reel machine under the stage and had tapped into the lines from the FOH board that fed the in-house PA. The Fillmore West 1969 official release was patched with an official 2-track recording, but of unknown provenance. It sounds like a dedicated recording mix, but we have no specific information.
I was listening to 6/26/74 last night and noticed the same Phil jumping the Groovy, and then after a breath Jerry decides to proceed. That is one to my untrained ear I can hear oh they are changing the key, or mode or other some such musical term where it's happening well before the Groovy... knowing this only because I've been taught around here. Nice, thanks. I like the two Frosts if you haven't checked them out yet.
There is always a text file with the track list in the download folder. Here's my workflow. I use iTunes. If tracks are untagged, I'll triple click the line in the text file and paste it into iTunes. Hit cmd-n to go to the next song, repeat. That will make the titles like this: 1. Jack Straw Then there are scripts (Doug's scripts for iTunes, I think). There is a track prefix to track number script that will make that track 1. Then there is a remove n characters from front or back. I use that to batch remove the numbers from the song name - one step if there is a leading zero for single digits or <10 tracks. Then, I will select each disc and label disc number and total number of tracks (or set- I have been moving away from CD breaks and to set breaks). Last, I select the whole show and add artist, show title, total number of discs and artwork. I have been going back and changing titles to YYYY-MM-DD - Location. That way they sort by year/date automatically. I like uniformity in things. I have a problem.
It's a fairly small change; they go from being in D (just plain D, not D Major) as derived from the key of G Major (meaning they use a D Mixolydian scale (D to D in the key of G Major)) to D Major proper. The A B C# D lead-in to Rider from Jerry is the last vestige of D Major and Rider is back in D as derived from the key of G Major. Glad to hear some of this is creeping into your ears. You don't necessarily need to fully understand it for it to compliment your listening experience as hmmm, something just happened.
^Uniformity/staying organized. I'm the same way. That's why just buying the CD/LP continues to make more sense to me. Inherently "organized," fail save storage & high quality playback all in one. Gravy is satisfaction of ownership, collectability and maintaining or increasing in value.
Well, you know, it's a "dead letter office" version. It's special! C'mon, drop those 8 bills! I'll keep my eyes peeled. I do a fair amount of cruising around the various sites and two (count 'em!) local used shops we have.
Well, on the positive side them being sold out means I'm no longer tempted to click the buy button. But, man, I do feel a bit bummed to have missed out on a second chance to get those shows.
There is a good chance I am confusing this with something else, but I thought CM circulated some 2-track sources for ’71 Fillmore East shows? I'd check db.tree but it seems to be down for maintenance at the moment.
I guess I coulda shoulda bought the slim 30 trips at $700 so I could parcel the shows out individually on eBay for $50 each so that I could afford to pick up the early Dave's I missed out on. Flag this as a missed opportunity.
Where there any good shows in the 30 Trips box? Anything along the lines of 5/2/70, 10/25/73, 9/19/70 (has this been released?), 10/31/91, 6/28 to 7/2 85?
