It was Phil's idea to have no song repeats on SYF, in reference to prior live albums. In light of this declaration it is surprising he didn't drop an Eyes of the World on SYF. The recent remaster is very well done given the source recordings.
The last GD book I read, It's All A Dream We Dreamed (I think that's the title; I'm on a bus) has the backstory on why the Dead signed with Arista. As I remember it, no label at the time wanted anything to do with the GD, and Arista (which was basically a comeback attempt for Clive Davis after he got booted out of somewhere else) was a new label happy to get an established act, even if they were studio pariahs. But it paid off for both in a big way with In The Dark.
They did try to start recording an album in early '84, but as Dennis McNally describes it in his book, "The sessions were a farcical waste of time," they didn't want to be there and didn't finish anything. So that's not on Phil's end. Their last attempt at recording an album was in 1994, but once again, "the sessions came to nothing; Garcia sat in a corner grumbling...and never really settled down to work." I don't think it's a coincidence that their successful shots at recording studio albums came in 1987 and '89, when Garcia was in much better shape and more involved. Maybe it's true that Phil vetoed studio trips sometimes, but Garcia had the bigger vote.
First of all - well done. And, you haven't veered from official releases - that Hard to Handle is on Fallout From The Phil Zone. The crowd going nuts in the middle doesn't express how great that performance is.
I feel kinda like having my molecules dis- and subsequently reassembled, I’m hoping WRS > DS > MD from disc 3 of the GD Movie Soundtrack will accomplish this.
Re: Boise '83 2nd set Jerry badly flubs the vocals to Help on the Way and then spends the next 90 minutes making up for it by playing his *** off.
Not to make anyone jealous, but one of my favorite pages of the book that came with the E72 trunk box is one near the end that lists all of the songs (tracks) played on the tour and the date of every gig it was played at.
I had gotten that book at the library, based on comments here I looked it up on google books, you guys were right it was early 1984 - For those who haven't read it, each chapter of that book is centered around a date or event, and he moves backwards and forwards in time from that event. (e.g. Chapter 7 is 'Reno Nevada 12 May 1974' (ie the first tour with the Wall of Sound.) Chapter 11 of the book is 'Berkeley California Late February to Early March 1984' which were the sessions in question, I remember that being the chapter that talked about 83, though I could have that wrong too.
There are some studio takes of West LA and other songs from that attempt out there. [edit: sorry to have posted this after being beaten to the punch multiple times... to make up for it I’ll add that I listened to the Good Lovin and Playing, both excellent, as I continued thru 5/25/72 last night, and Reckoning for the first time in a while at work today. Back when I got into the GD the awfully retired “For the Faithful” was the only in print version of Reckoning, and I still have that as my vinyl copy.]
Nice. But one brilliant track that is sadly missing from that tour? "Friend of the Devil" Still in disbelief that it was put out of rotation for so long.
Hey all, this is post 10,000. I'm not sure if I should be proud or if I should get a life, har, har. I wouldn't still be on this forum but for the Dead Threads and their interesting and copacetic denizens. Anyhow, I'm sure I read the above information somewhere, because if I didn't, I have an active imagination. Consulting This Is All A Dream We Dreamed by Jackson and Gans, all it says is that after Grateful Dead Records failed 'round about 75-76, the Dead signed with Arista because although Clive Davis may or may not have actually understood what they were about, he believed he could turn them into a "million-selling band." According to Keith Olsen, who was then the sh--t due to his successful work with Fleetwood Mac 2.o, Davis had wanted to sign the Dead for years and years. He hired Olsen because he wanted a commercial record out of the band. Olsen said, "Nawwww! No way!" But Clive told him to give it his best shot. This begat Terrapin Station. Edit: My self-quote above reflects Dennis McNally's telling of the genesis of the Arista/Dead relationship in my favorite-ever GD book, Long Strange Trip. Mickey states that in 1976, "not too many people [record companies] wanted us." Clive had been ousted from Columbia and assumed the leadership of a company called Bell Records. He changed the name to Arista, after a high school honorary that he and Hal Kant belonged to in NYC. Arista was a small company, and the Dead gave it visibility. His company was a year old when the band signed. Clive considered the Dead and Patti Smith visionaries that could not and should not be controlled. But he did get the band to agree to outside producers for the next three albums.
Davis had indeed been coveting the GD since the early 70s at least, when he was with Columbia. The New Riders of the Purple Sage being signed to that label has been viewed as a gambit by Davis to get in good with Garcia
This is the one thing which makes NO sense about SYF - the "no repeats" thing is a laudable policy, in the context of always giving the fans something new on record at the time, but either Eyes or the full WRS are the standout new jam vehicles of the period and were the ridiculously obvious candidates for the "long song" slot on SYF. The fact that the version of Eyes on 10/19/74 subsequently went on to be a featured song on the Movie (which wasn't put together until after SYF, of course) only makes the earlier decision to omit the song from the album all the more baffling. Anyway... recent GD listening for me: Terrapin Station, Shakedown Street & Go To Heaven back to back yesterday. I hadn't played these three LP's for a while, but fancied testing my old preconceptions - Shakedown Street was as crappy as I recalled, but Go To Heaven is actually half a good album!
SYF was released in '76, so it was contemporaneous with the Movie. It also closed out the distribution deal that Round Records had with United Artists records. In retrospect putting Eyes on SYF might have been a Touch of Grey moment, the band would have become too popular too early.
Clive Davis had been the head of Columbia from around 1967 to 73, got fired and started Arista a short time later. The label needed some more rock acts so he got the Dead, as well as the Kinks, also a somewhat anarchic band who Arista also steered in a more late 70's/early 80's radio friendly direction.
Listened to Road Trips 2.2 from 2/14/68 Carousel ballroom. Wow. Great recording and the Little Schoolgirl was fantastic especially the little riff fest toward the end when Pig jumped on organ for a spell. What really struck me though was how much they exuded the San Francisco sound of 68. At various points it could have been Quicksilver, Airplane, Big Brother and even early Santana. The intro to Spanish Jam especially sounded like an Airplane version of Pooneil. And all that vibrato in some of Jerry’s lines were very Cippolina. I’ve never really grouped the Dead into that scene even though I know they were a huge part of it. Perhaps that’s because most of my Dead listening starts from 71 onward. Regardless of my rambling, this is a great release!
