A couple of new (to me) at least summer 1975 rehearsal recordings that should be on the Archive soon - 7/23/75 and 7/24/75. Both versions of an instrumental titled "Bo's Blues," which would become the chromatic part at the end of the jams from the disco "Dancing In The Streets."
I have an Excel file that lists all the shows on it (I didn’t do it, a friend sent me his). When my wife discovered it, I was mocked without mercy.
yeah, I started with 70 but kept 78 as alternate and 91 as super-alternate. The I found that I can easily listen to 78 shows 2-3 per day. And I just decided to throw 83 in the mix. Because 80s dead is winter music. So I'm doing my best to pick from one of those four years, though there have been multiple side trips. LESH: Apparently, in the Deadhead community, that particular little theme, that little chord sequence has been known as the "Mind Left Body Jam." GANS: Well, I can give you a little more background than that. Originally, John Scott, the editor of DeadBase, originally called that thing "Heaven Jam," because he thought the chord progression resembled "Heaven Help the Fool." LESH: Okay. GANS: I, and other "scholars," said, "Huh? I don't hear it." And we complained to him, and then he decided that it derived from "Your Mind Has Left Your Body," which is a Paul Kantner/Jefferson Starship piece from ["Baron Von Tollbooth and the Chrome Nun"]. LESH: But it's just - it's like a chromatic sequence of chords. It's only four chords in the whole thing. GANS: And it's something that turned up off and on throughout the '70s, and I guess later, that you guys would play, and there are some really legendary instances of it, but it never seemed to me to have really a formal structure; it was just kind of a flavor and a set of -- LESH: No, no, it's just those four chords. GANS: But it was *never* done the same way twice. LESH: No, right, and if we ever use it again it'll have a different name. CUTLER: So we knew we had to come up with a name for this thing -- LESH: -- for publishing reasons. CUTLER: We were doing the mixing; we were just like fooling around, going through different names, and one day I was sitting at the board with Phil and I don't know, it just came out of my mouth: "Mud Love Buddy." I don't *know* where it came from. And he laughed, and he said, "That's it!" And that's it... But, it's totally a goof, you know. GANS: Who decided to name "Spinach Jam" on the last "Dick's Picks?" CUTLER: The infamous Dick Latvala named it. LESH: Spinach Jam... ftp://gdead.berkeley.edu/pub/gdead/interviews/Lesh-Cutler-10.17.96 I took this from the page on this topic on the Grateful Dead guide Also, I have 2 or 3 notebooks for different GD topics that I use, all in the computer desk.
So if you've never heard 5/26/77, I'd highly recommend remedying that. Maybe the best 1st set of May '77 (other contenders are 5/9, 5/17, and 5/19) and the 2nd set is no slouch either. On to 5/28 to finish up my trip through May '77. Oh that Sugaree I promise to keep my feelings to myself about this one this time.
So my ownership of Road Trips 3.3 (5/15/70) with bonus disc turned out to be short lived. I discovered some tracks that skip on one of the CDs so I had to drive back and return it today. I did get to listen to it yesterday and I already had FLACs for it so all is not lost, but it would’ve been cool to have a physical copy. We had one magical night together and then she was gone...
Was in Detroit in May of 16 and Melvin Seals was playing some dive. I cab it over to said dive, it’s a warehouse made out of cinder blocks. There’s no one around so we drive right up to the entrance for the venue, where we find a cardboard sign duct taped to the door informing us the show has been moved. Out to some nightclub in Hammtramack it turns out. Cab driver doesn’t want to drive all the way out there and I half-plead, “well I’m not going back to my hotel and you can’t leave me here.” We were in a really bad area, bad for Detroit even. Saw a lady of the night utilize a Little Free Library to store her stash. Hammtramack itself was a trip. Do a little reading on the history of the area, it’s fascinating. I met some wonderful people that night and I’m not usually one to do that, even when I’m by myself. Edit: I’m not sure what the point of that was but it tangently involves Melvin Seals so
This afternoon I’m making my way through the WRS Prelude > Dark Star > Eyes > PITB from 3/28/73. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to this in its entirety, and I probably only gave it a perfunctory listen when Dave’s 16 came out. Most impressive. More thoughts after a second (or third) listen.
July 4, 1987 Foxboro Pretty nice fob recording, AKGs. Lots of low end Phil. Decided I wanted to listen to an aud and this popped up on my hard drive. It’s one of those long one set shows opening for Dylan. They’re in good form through the first 5 numbers but nothing outstanding. I’m anxious for a real jam at this point.
I had a listen to these and they are both basically just the band playing that chromatic riff over and over, although on the 7/23 version there is some cool Rhodes from Keith and some good Meters-style drumming from Bill. On 7/24 Jerry starts to jam a bit more between the riffs while Keith is apparently absent. Some very weird bass from Phil on both versions. Same site also has another clip 9/16/75 of the Grateful Dead playing "Catfish John" before it transferred to the JGB.
Just finishing Miller's 5/22/77 --- that 2nd set is something. I would put this Morning Dew up against any other.
Was it mostly just that "skip" during the first break in "China Cat Sunflower"? I noticed that back when I first got the album. I had considered returning it until I realized that there was a similar anomaly in my unofficial copy. It's a strange hiccup that is on the tape itself, not a digital error.
3-27-83 was OK - nothing stood out too much. A solid Shakedown to open, the aforementioned Minglewood that smoked but for Weir's efforts with the slide, and a much better reading of Esau. Set 2 had a good He's Gone>Truckin, with a tease of the Other One just before Drums. I like the older style of Throwin' Stones, I think, and I especially like it when it is not followed by NFA (in this case Wharf Rat>Good Lovin') Weir's slide on US Blues was much better. Now it's 3-25-91 in Albany. I can't help but compare it to the 83 I just heard; it also starts with Shakedown, this one a much more developed version. I liked the 83, but the 91 is just more tight and polished (and that goes for set 1 overall.) This is about as good a set 1 list from the late period as I could ask for, and it's a bunch of crisp and enjoyable performances. The only beef I have is vince's 'aaah' synth pad on High Time, one of his more dated sounds to be sure. I'm almost to May in 78, and the next 1970 show is May 1, so I may spend a few days in 83 and 91 to catch up. Or not, we'll see. Candyman has a big cut in the cassette version I have. I'm looking forward to listening to that show again soon, though IIRC it's almost 6 hours with the two full shows (and the NRPS sets ) (Sadly, I can't seem to find any NRPS for 5-1-70, though the set list appears on the archive entry.)
I seem to recall that several official Dead releases were put out at the wrong speed, and was hoping to tap into the institutional memory of this amazing thread to get a comprehensive list of those. Apologies if this has been answered before, my searching only came up with individual circumstances. Thanks!
The AUD isn't so bad though and you can hear more of the guests' playing. The band seems to have been in an amazing period in April and May '70 - this Star and the 8 May one are cosmic. In addition there's the Alfred College acoustic set...then there's Harpur College...then there's the Fillmore East (the early show thanks!)...and so on. Oh...have you had some news??
The real jam that day was the road leading into the stadium. We missed half the first set because of it.
Just had 9/27/72 Dark Star and 3/28/73 Dark Star for breakfast. One peaceful and calm. The other scary and creepy.
The last few tracks on disc one had some clicking sounds and a bit of skipping. I checked the FLACs I have and The Complete Road Trips on Spotify and didn’t hear the same thing. On closer inspection there was a scratch near the edge that was probably the culprit.
