Grateful Dead album by album thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by jacksondownunda, May 8, 2009.

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  1. ceddy10165

    ceddy10165 My life was saved by rock n roll

    Location:
    Avon, CT
    i had hoped to sit down listen to all the pressings of the early releases and chime in with some longer, more thoughtful posts, about the 1st 2 WB albums. things were moving too fast to do so, since I was listening to all of the 65-67 shows I have as well.

    In short, I love the youthful, positive energy of the 1st LP. I know it's been atributed to amphetemines, but songs like Golden Road and Alice D. Millionare just glow with optimism and forward movement. I know that Hassinger was chosen to produce based on his production of The Stones, but I hear no resemblence.

    Anthem is an explosion of growth -- all of the sudden the weirdness springs forth fully formed. Phil Lesh's style of long contrapuntal lines comes to the fore. The addition of Mickey Hart gives the percussion a swishing, chaotic, acid craziness, with all of the music moving together and independently at the same time. I've NEVER been able to find a copy of the original mix, but would love to hear it. If Garcia and Lesh think it's too weird, then it must be really far out. I really admire what they were trying to achieve by mixing the live and studio elements -- very forward thinking and artistic.
     
  2. Jerry

    Jerry Grateful Gort Staff

    Location:
    New England
    Actually, the released digital versions ARE the original mix, and the white cover LP is the remix, which is tough to find. VERY confusing, especially in light of Aoxomoxoa.
     
  3. Olompali

    Olompali Forum Resident

    The rhino purple 2001 incl. in The Golden Road box is definitely not the remix white. It is essentially the original mix.

    The earliest vinyl pressings had "the faster we go, the rounder we get" etched in the runout.

    btw, love the Donovan mountain riffs found in Alligator that later inspired Duane and Dickey to create the Allman's Mountain Jam.
     
  4. davmar77

    davmar77 I'd rather be drummin'...

    Location:
    clifton park,ny
    although it might add some time to what will be a pretty extensive thread, i do think the various archive releases should be discussed according to their matching studio or original live releases. i think that way you can also get an idea of where they were headed in between studio work. the incorporation of material prior to studio release can be very enlightening too, especially showing the development of the songs from stage to studio.
     
  5. Jerry

    Jerry Grateful Gort Staff

    Location:
    New England
    Good point! Many songs evolved, sometimes slowly, over the years before they were put down to studio tape. Besides changes in song structure, many had lyrics that also evolved. Some that come to mind are "The Other One", "Comes A Time", "US Blues" (Wave That Flag), "They Love Each Other", "Don't Ease Me In", "Friend of the Devil", "Playing In The Band" and others.
     
  6. ZappaSG

    ZappaSG New Member

    Location:
    Philadelphia
    I really like the more immediate and funky sounding "They Love Each Other" that is found on Winterland '73. I have always liked the laid back '77 versions, but when I heard that Winterland version it was really, really nice.
     
  7. davmar77

    davmar77 I'd rather be drummin'...

    Location:
    clifton park,ny
    they did a turn around with loose lucy too. i always preferred the early versions of both. those songs will follow soon enough in this thread but we still have a ways to go.
     
  8. jacksondownunda

    jacksondownunda Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Okay, I suppose I'll have to buy that it was a good remaster. The "back to purple" really was a very marked improvement on the highs from the original (...unless, of course I'd simply WORN the treble right off the grooves of the original!).

    PS It's clear that more than just a couple folks got gypped out of expressing their thoughts on the 1st lp. I apologize profusely and will give myself a good upper cut. Meanwhile, it occurs to me that most of the 1st album songs were still popping up in the setlists during the Anthem shows, so it wouldn't be incongruous to still express those thoughts here. (Listening to the 1st album followed by Anthem may be a leap, but it works.)
     
  9. Thanks JDU ... :righton: ... been spending some time in the last few days revisiting the first two Warner releases. It had been quite a while and I had somehow forgotten how great they both really are!

    The self titled is extremely energetic and infectious with its off the floor approach in the studio, the highlights for me are happily still as enticing as they always have been ... :cool:
    "The Golden Road" - which bounces along in a very merry and late 60s pop/rockish way,
    "Sitting On Top Of The World" - a great up-tempo version, complete with some amazingly quick and intricate guitar lines from Jerry,
    "Cream Puff War" what else needs to be said - an early classic!,
    "Morning Dew" - another classic and even this early in the game Jerry has crafted this little Bonnie Dobson composition into one of his own masterworks,
    "Viola Lee Blues" - along with, but not for as long as, Dew a long time concert staple.

    Interesting little bit of info on Dew from wiki -
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_Dew

    "Anthem Of The Sun" is a major breakthrough in structure, arrangement and approach. Longer more complex material and sound that flows like liquid from one piece to another.
    My favorite early GD album ... :D ... the fact that they (specifically Jerry, Phil along with their new sound man Dan Healy) took back the power of direction and production on Anthem is/was and turned out to be a very good thing indeed.
    A tougher album to extract from the whole but a good chunk of this would remain part of the live set (on and off) for many years to come.
    "That's It For The Other One", "Alligator" and "Caution ..." stand out for me as favorites.

    Have these 2 on vinyl at home but, for convenience purposes at the store, been listening to the HDCD remasters with the bonus tracks and the extra material provided on both is stellar!
     
  10. ron p

    ron p Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I agree completely with Jackson's comparison of the live releases from this period. I haven't listened to that Carousel download in a while but he's inspired me to. Maybe it's just me but that Kings Bowl DP just strikes me differently than the others. It's has a blistering, raw, jammed out, primal quality to it that I don't hear elsewhere. I vaguely remember a band members quote saying that '68 is when they really learned to be the Grateful Dead. All wonderful good fun after that but more of a back to business type thing.
     
  11. jacksondownunda

    jacksondownunda Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Re; Clapton/Garcia pic; there’s a Henry Diltz pic from the same month (same EC hair & length) of EC w/Crosby & Joni Mitchell. EC’s at least got a faint grin with Jerry.

    Clapton’s autobio says he was originally “contemptuous” of the West Coast bands like Airplane/Dead/Big Brother when Cream first came out to SF in ’66, and “thought they sounded pretty second rate”, but also concedes he “didn’t understand what they were doing” (he had earlier made the same remark about Dylan). Maybe it’s worth considering that Clapton had hoped that Cream would sound like a Chicago blues band, so that may have been some of his frame of expectation. Cream DID however find playing SF liberating as folks watched the big light shows and the audience “listened” as they experimented with long sets. Maybe by the time this photo was taken in 1968 there might have been some appreciation of Jerry’s technique by EC. I can understand EC not appreciating Jorma’s phrasing as it’s quite different, but like Jerry, EC claims to had some kind of exposure to banjo technique and the quest for clean notes, so EC & JG are somewhat kindred spirits. Bill Graham’s book says he admired EC’s playing but never saw him try to stretch himself past his limits. I think that’s part of what I admire about this Dead on Anthem is their real evident sense of often reckless adventure and “never before played” licks.

    Speaking of guests, it’s quite often mentioned by out-of-town bands that they were greeted by the Dead and Airplane like visiting counter-culture dignitaries. Bands like Traffic would blow in, get high and get shown the sights and often became fast friends. Linda McCartney took a series of GD snaps in 67-68 (one shown here) that appeared in her book, and in 1999 Paul reportedly made a 9 minute Grateful Dead film using her pics!
     

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  12. Olompali

    Olompali Forum Resident


    Plot summary for:

    Grateful Dead (1995)

    IMDb


    A series of still photographs taken by Linda McCartney of the Grateful Dead at the Dead's house in Haight-Ashbury and at a concert in Central Park, both in the early days of the band. Panning, morphing, and other techniques are used to impart some motion. Excerpts from three Dead songs are played in the background
     
  13. davmar77

    davmar77 I'd rather be drummin'...

    Location:
    clifton park,ny
    i've seen that shot with ec, joni and crosby. interesting look on ec's face. he's probably thinking 'where did she find those chords?'
     
  14. jacksondownunda

    jacksondownunda Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Where are the mix outtakes?

    The live shows are the real outtakes here, of course, and there are some of the studio basic backing bits from late '67 that circulate on tapes (nothing mindbending there, though). However, it's often related how the live tapes were selected for their special highlights, then synchronised to see if some highlights worked well back-to-back, then became part of a master sequence on the master 8 track, which finally had three or four sets of hands on the mixing board sliders fading up and down "performing the mix". There would HAVE to have been some completely different sequences experimented with, and later there would HAVE to have been several alternate "passes" at the final 8 track. Unless they wiped absolutely everything leftover afterwards, one would think there'd be mix outtakes. I've heard a couple Blues For Allah alternate mixes with different bits, anybody heard of alternate Anthem mix outtakes?

    The alternative, I suppose, is loading your own. I'd had a funny daydream of GDM creating an X-Box/Playstation "make your own Anthem" with all those shows synced & linked at strategic points so one could jump back and forth between shows and bits in endless "Anthem" variations. (Include those early Dark Stars (one with jumbled lyrics on Roadtrips), Chinacats, Elevens, and Clementines.) Time for me to go back on the lithium, I suppose.

    Anybody going to give the album a spin this weekend?
     
  15. Not noticed a 'winki' ;) info link yet which, amongst other notable things, states then Warner president Joe Smith calling out Anthem of the Sun as "the most unreasonable project with which we have ever involved ourselves." :biglaugh:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthem_of_the_Sun
     
  16. mrbillswildride

    mrbillswildride Internet Asylum Escapee 2010, 2012, 2014

    Write the Night Train...

    Here here, hear's to Jackson and his wonderful posts and killer GD thread... :edthumbs:

    Now the stressors... We are hear, we are with you JDU, but I think you expect/wish for too much, too soon... 30 hours? that is nothing... You gots to give us some time to dig these puppies out, play them and think on things before rushing off to comment... I think we all want to, fully intend to too, but you should not interperate the lack of quick, decent-sized posts on your latest GD offering as a slight to the Dead, your thread, or anything, rather real life, that pesky bugger, keeps getting in the way, and meanwhile we fall father and father behind in this fast moving thread... Hell, in order to feel close to being with it, I skipped straight from their first album onto Live Dead in hopes I might have something to say as it passes by tomorrow night..., again, working all weekend, and wondering where we'll be by the time I get back... I petition you Lord JDU with prayer, keep up the great work, stunning visuals and amazingingly spot on and erudite insights, but slow down on the pacing Casey Jones... :angel: :sigh: :righton: :winkgrin:

    Not to mention some of us are also trying to keep abreast and up with the more languide Bob Dyland and Richard Thompson A by A threads... amongst others... (the Who just started up...)

    cheers,
    :cheers:
     
  17. jacksondownunda

    jacksondownunda Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Though the Dead were often regarded as a benign cheerful beast by fans, be under no delusions that many who had to "deal" with them, including Joe Smith, David Hassinger, airline check-in personnel and hotels, weren't driven to utter madness by either GD's adherence to their own principles or their outrageous pranks. I'm also sure many DH's can also think of live tapes where GD deal quite rudely and arrogantly with some fairly friendly requests from the audience. It's all part of the notorious and often humorous GD story.

    Meanwhile, while we're still in Anthem, I've found a WB picture sleeve photo from the April '68 "Dark Star/Born Cross-Eyed" studio single. WB shipped 1600 and sold 500. (WEA UK gave away a repress of the single with a different sleeve in Dark Star fan magazine in 1977.)
     

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  18. jacksondownunda

    jacksondownunda Forum Resident Thread Starter

    I'm really enjoying those threads!
     
  19. on7green

    on7green Senior Patron

    Location:
    NY & TN
    From an interview with James Lowe of the Electric Prunes:

    In a documentary about the Grateful Dead's Anthem of the Sun album, the band remember how difficult it was to work with such a straight guy [Hassinger]. They said the thing that finally got Hassinger to throw up his bands, give up, and walk out of the studio, never to work with them again, was when they said they wanted the sound of "thick air" on one particular track.

    Dave told me about it and I wrote an instrumental after the band broke up with that title because I thought it was a cool phrase. He told me they sat around for a couple of hours trying to capture it on tape......those were the Owsley days. Dave used to lay on the control room floor of American Studios and read the paper while we played tracks. That's not an inspiring production posture, perhaps he was doing the same with the Dead?
     
  20. jacksondownunda

    jacksondownunda Forum Resident Thread Starter

    “Everybody say ****!”

    “Everybody say Dope!”

    “Everybody say Oh-Noooo!”

    “Everybody say Primate!”

    “say what?”

    “oh yeah?”

    -stage banter from the era..
    --------------------------------------------------------------

    Everybody's now been shaken out of their trees and we’ve been a week into Anthem. If ANYBODY’s still trying to find that old copy of Anthem in the attic, or still coming down from that authentic 60’s Anthem listening session on the weekend, and STILL want to say something here about the last few albums…

    …PLEASE HOWL LOUDLY (or thump your chest or throw old tires around) and we’ll hold the bus. Otherwise, “AoXoMoXoA” is up next in a couple days. LOL
     

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  21. GerryO

    GerryO Senior Member

    Location:
    Bodega Bay, CA
    Anthem Versions on Cd Question...

    So, have the two official mixes of Anthem actually been released on cd?

    I've compared two reportedly different WB cds (according to the bar code numbers and the inside booklets) and the Rhino cd and all three sound the same to me, and I don't own the white album version.
     
  22. jacksondownunda

    jacksondownunda Forum Resident Thread Starter

    According to my post #93 lifted from deaddisc.com, THEY claim that some early versions of the cd were the re-mix. I bought a couple Anthem cd's separately when they first came out, but they definitely were NOT the white album re-mix. I'd think they'd be pretty darned rare if they really exist. You'd know them if you heard them as there is a lot less echo (and the feedback crescendo after Born Cross-Eyed instead of abrupt fade-out).
     
  23. jacksondownunda

    jacksondownunda Forum Resident Thread Starter

    I’m with Olompali; this stuff is slightly fabulous. I read it a couple nights back and it still slightly haunts me. Essentially, Hunter and McKenna start comparing their psychonaut notes as regards their specific DMT experiences. Remarkably, they had experienced a very similar “place” and “entities”, which inescapably raises more very interesting questions than answers . Though the experiences were quite profound for Hunter, there were no obvious references in his lyrics of the period, though no telling what made it’s way into the music (Sam Cutler remembers a “smoke that makes you fall over” when the Stone’s 1969 tour passed through SF.) McKenna is also associated with 2012 theories (though he was loathe to call himself “New Age”), as well as the interesting hypothesis that language may have developed in stoned apes as synesthesia suggested pictures in another’s mind with the use of vocal sounds.

    Whether, any of it holds water isn’t important here. What IS important in Grateful Dead-dom is their integration of a complex “inclusive” rather than “exclusive” “reality” and passing it on in their art. If any other interesting things like this come to mind enroute in the thread (particularly if you happen to be aware of the period of their exposure to it), please feel free to post as this may give us a better insight of GD’s mindset.

    Please take note that no offense will ever be intended by me in this thread. Please accept this tongue-in-cheek teasing in the merciless spirit in which it is offered. To tell the story any other way wouldn’t be fair in my mind to anyone involved.

    A few fans here will tell you that after the “Primate” remark on this above referenced often mis-dated tape, the band did NOT invite audience debate about the Scopes Monkey Trial, but instead launched into songs from the 1st album and Anthem (Golden Road>New Potato Caboose) which is what we’re doing here for another day. Any last thoughts? (..see, this thread does have inherent other levels!)
     
  24. ceddy10165

    ceddy10165 My life was saved by rock n roll

    Location:
    Avon, CT
    Thanks for the Hunter/McKenna link -- I've never seen that material. Deep, mindblowing stuff!
     
  25. mrbillswildride

    mrbillswildride Internet Asylum Escapee 2010, 2012, 2014

    Hold The Joint...

    JDU writ: "…PLEASE HOWL LOUDLY (or thump your chest or throw old tires around) and we’ll hold the bus. Otherwise, “AoXoMoXoA” is up next in a couple days. LOL"

    Not really a HOWL but a whimper/whisper/winkwink... I played the cd of half of AOTS last night at the gym, first time in ages, if ever--I once owned and played (once) the white remix vinyl, but sold it off recently.. Not really a rabbit fan of what (TF?) they were doing with this record (I read the booklet that comes with the box set cd as well). I get the "trip" expanding the boundries of conventional music and the square walls of the mind, butt kiss this Palo Alto mind melt just does knot send me to a higher plane... Nobill intentions and all, but I think they fall flat hear, lost the plot once they lost any restictions with the prooducer giving up the ghost and leaving the mad mess for them to dabble dew and add a gate ore too... No, for me the first record has its charms, a real honest to gob muscial expression of where they were, and who they'd come from when they did that, whereas, this record just seems like a really long, uber strange trip, bordering on a bad one too oft (YTMV). No, I much prefer the stunning sound and muse-inspired lyrics on their next long-player, which to me, is their real coming out as a ****-hot band with much to say, the chops to say it, and the words to make it all be most magical for a long time to come... Eye four om, am ready to head to the mountians of the moon, just past the dark star singing out where supreme bean saint stephen gathers up all that will remain... see it just there down to the right, beyond the anthem of the sun, and rising before you like a real musical beauty... :righton:


    cheers,
    :cheers:
     
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