Been AWOL in this topic for a while, but I kept up with the listening. Found DiP14 enjoyable, but I only really listened to the first show twice and the second show once. As for DiP 15; for some reason I haven't listened to this one either, despite really enjoying 5/8/77 and DiP3. Anyway, Bobby fumbling the words to Promised Land brings a smile to my face. Usually a good omen
I've never really enjoyed DiP 15 in comparison to my favorite '77 shows like 5/7, 5/8, 6/9 etc. but I gave it a spin this weekend in the spirit of camaraderie and I enjoyed the energy. It is fun hearing the Dead move between theaters, gymnasiums, and huge festival stages.
It's definitely exuberant. I played that for my non-Deadhead-popsnob sister once, and she couldn't believe it was the Dead. She said they sounded like "some classy jazz band." They are showing off some really nice harmonic playing in different parts of that performance. Some of the chordal interplay between Gacia and Weir is excellent. Sophisticated, but not at all staid or self-impressed.
Replying to myself here. This past weekend, for the first time in a long while, I was spinning the legit Dick’s release of 15, and on the superb Estimated>Eyes, Jerry was noticeably lower in the mix than he should have been, compared to my memory of the vinyl boot referenced above. It really brought down the listening experience… not good. I know 15 is only a rough mix, but I’m not getting why this show didn’t get the proper multi-track release treatment, if they had multis in the can… anyone know the story?
If this is the only mutli-track tape from 1977, it deserves a bit better treatment. Could be really powerful sounding in the right hands.
I've listened to Dick's Picks Vol. 15 a number of times, and it's a fine show. The 'Eyes of the World' from here? That I've listened to a WHOLE bunch more. It's just grand. Takes pride of place on my very embryonic GD playlist.
Clickable thread guide List of releases By Release Date One from the Vault (1975-08-13 San Francisco, released 1991-04-15) Infrared Roses (1989-1990, released 1991-11-01) Two from the Vault (1968-08-24 San Francisco, released May 1992) Dick’s Picks 1 (1973-12-19 Tampa, released 1991-10-31) Dick’s Picks 2 (1971-10-31 Columbus, released March 1995) Grayfolded (1968-1993, released 1994 and 1995) Hundred Year Hall (1972-04-26, released 1995-09-26) Dick’s Picks 3 (1977-05-22 Pembroke Pines, released 1995-11-07) Dick’s Picks 4 (1970-02-13, 14 New York, released 1996-02-23) Dick’s Picks 5 (1979-12-26 Oakland, released 1996-05-30) Dozin' at the Knick (1990-03-24 Albany (mostly), released 1996-08-29) Dick's Picks 6 (1983-10-14 Hartford, released 1996-10-07) Dick's Picks 7 (1974-09-09, 10, 11 London, released 1997-03-04) Dick's Picks 8 (1970-05-02 Binghamton, released 1997-06-14) Fallout from the Phil Zone (Various, released 1997-06-17) Terrapin Station Limited Edition (1990-03-15 Landover, released 1997-09) Dick's Picks 9 (1990-09-16 New York, released 1997-10-19) Live at the Fillmore East 2-11-69 (1969-02-11 New York, released 1997-10-28) Dick's Picks 10 (1977-12-29 San Francisco, released 1998-02-26) Dick's Picks 11 (1972-09-27 Jersey City, released 1998-06-09) Dick's Picks 12 (1974-06-26 Providence, 1974-06-28 Boston, released 1998-10-15) Dick's Picks 13 (1981-05-06 Uniondale, released 1999-03-05) Dick's Picks 14 (1973-11-30 Boston, released 1999-06-18) Dick’s Picks 14 (1973-12-02 Boston, released 1999-06-18) Dick's Picks 15 (1977-09-03 Englishtown, released 1999-10-18) By Concert Date Various (released 1994 and 1995 on Grayfolded) Various (released 1997-06-17 on Fallout from the Phil Zone) 1968-08-24 Los Angeles (released 1992-05 on Two from the Vault) 1969-02-11 New York (released 1997-10-28 on Live at the Fillmore East 2-11-69) 1970-02-13, 14 New York (released 1996-02-23 on Dick's Picks 4) 1970-05-02 Binghamton (released 1997-06-14 on Dick's Picks 8) 1971-10-31 Columbus (released 1995-03 on Dick's Picks 2) 1972-04-26 Frankfurt (released 1995-09-26 on Hundred Year Hall) 1972-09-27 Jersey City (released 1998-06-09 on Dick's Picks 11) 1973-11-30 Boston (released 1999-06-18 on Dick's Picks 14) 1973-12-02 Boston (released 1999-06-18 on Dick's Picks 14) 1973-12-19 Tampa (released 1993-10-31 on Dick's Picks 1) 1974-06-26 Providence (released 1998-10-15 on Dick's Picks 12) 1974-06-28 Boston (released 1998-10-15 on Dick's Picks 12) 1974-09-09, 10, 11 London (released 1997-03-04 on Dick's Picks 7) 1975-08-13 San Francisco (released 1991-04-15 on One from the Vault) 1977-05-22 Pembroke Pines (released 1995-11-07 on Dick's Picks 3) 1977-09-03 Englishtown (released 1999-10-18 on Dick's Picks 15) 1977-12-29 San Francisco (released 1998-02-26 on Dick's Picks 10) 1979-12-26 Oakland (released 1996-05-30 on Dick's Picks 5) 1981-05-06 Uniondale (released 1999-03-05 on Dick's Picks 13) 1983-10-14 Hartford (released 1996-10-07 on Dick's Picks 6) 1989, 1990 (released 1991-11-01 on Infrared Roses) 1990-03-15 Landover (released 1997-09 on Terrapin Station Limited Edition) 1990-03-24 Albany (mostly) (released 1996-08-29 on Dozin' at the Knick) 1990-09-16 New York (released 1997-10-19 on Dick's Picks 9) This week: Various (released 1999-11-07 on So Many Roads) Next week: 1969-11-08 San Francisco (released 2000-03 on Dick's Picks 16)
So Many Roads Recording dates: 1965 - 1995 Recording location: Various studio and live locations Release date: November 7, 1999 Disc 1 "Can't Come Down" (Grateful Dead) – 2:59 (Autumn Sessions 1965-11-03) "Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks)" (Grateful Dead) – 3:12 (Autumn Sessions 1965-11-03) "You Don't Have to Ask" (Grateful Dead) – 3:55 (Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, California 1966-07-16) "On The Road Again" (Traditional, arranged by the Grateful Dead) - 2:49 (Los Angeles, California, 1966-03-12) "Cream Puff War" (Jerry Garcia) - 5:37 (Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, 1966-07-16) "I Know You Rider" (Traditional, arranged by the Grateful Dead) - 4:15 (Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco, 1966) "The Same Thing" (Willie Dixon) - 11:37 (Winterland Arena, San Francisco, 1967-03-18) "Dark Star" > "China Cat Sunflower" > "The Eleven" (Grateful Dead/Hunter) – 25:39 (Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, 1968-03-16) "Clementine" (Lesh/Hunter) - 7:48 (Crystal Ballroom, Portland, Oregon 1968-02-02) "Mason's Children" (Garcia/Lesh/Weir/Hunter) – 4:08 (Studio recording outtake from Workingman's Dead February 1970) "To Lay Me Down" (Garcia/Hunter) – 4:00 ((studio recording) outtake from American Beauty Summer 1970) Disc 2 "That's It For The Other One" (Grateful Dead) – 19:34 (Fillmore West, San Francisco, 1969-02-27) "Beautiful Jam" (Grateful Dead) - 4:33 (Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, New York 1971-02-18) "Chinatown Shuffle" (Ron McKernan) - 3:00 (Civic Hall, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 1972-05-11) "Sing Me Back Home" (Merle Haggard) - 10:30 (County Fairgrounds, Veneta, Oregon 1972-08-27) "Watkins Glen Soundcheck Jam" (Grateful Dead) - 19:29 (Grand Prix Race Course, Watkins Glen, New York 1973-07-27) "Dark Star Jam" (Grateful Dead) - 8:28 > Spanish Jam (Grateful Dead) - 4:10 > U.S. Blues (Garcia/Hunter) - 6:50 (Jai Alai Fronton, Miami, Florida 1974-06-23) Disc 3 "Eyes of the World" (Garcia/Hunter) – 18:14 (Winterland Arena, San Francisco, 1974-10-19) "The Wheel" (Garcia/Hunter) - 11:30 (Auditorium Theater, Chicago, Illinois 1976-06-29) "Stella Blue" (Garcia/Hunter) – 11:38 (Rupp Arena, Lexington, Kentucky 1978-04-21) "Estimated Prophet" (Barlow/Weir) – 11:36 (Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, Colorado 1979-08-12) "The Music Never Stopped" (Barlow/Weir) – 7:24 (Warfield Theatre, San Francisco, 1980-10-14) "Shakedown Street" (Garcia/Hunter) – 17:23 (San Francisco Civic Auditorium, San Francisco 1984-12-31) Disc 4 "Cassidy" (Weir/Barlow) – 5:56 (Meadowlands Arena, East Rutherford, New Jersey 1985-11-10) "Hey Pocky Way" (Modeliste/Neville/Nocentelli/Porter) – 6:00 Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, North Carolina 1989-03-31) "Believe It Or Not" (Garcia/Hunter) – 5:09 (Studio recording, outtake from Built to Last 1989) "Playing In The Band" (Hart/Hunter/Weir) - 12:24 (Laguna Seca, Monterey, California 1988-07-29) "Gentlemen, Start Your Engines" (Barlow/Mydland) – 4:48 (Studio recording) outtake from Built to Last 1989) "Death Don't Have No Mercy" (Davis) – 6:39 (Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, California 1989-09-29) "Scarlet Begonias" (Garcia/Hunter) > "Fire on the Mountain" (Hart/Hunter) – 19:22 (Copps Coliseum, Hamilton, Ontario 1990-03-22) "Bird Song" (Garcia/Hunter) - 13:06 (Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, New York 1990-03-29) "Jam out of Terrapin" (Grateful Dead) – 5:20 (Richfield Coliseum, Richfield Township, Summit County, Ohio 1990-09-08) Disc 5 "Terrapin Station" (Garcia/Hunter) – 13:43 (Madison Square Garden, New York City 1991-09-12) "Jam Out Of Foolish Heart" (Grateful Dead) – 8:57 (Madison Square Garden, New York 1990-09-18) "Way To Go Home" (Bralove/Hunter/Welnick) – 6:24 (The Palace, Auburn Hills, Michigan 1994-07-31) "Liberty" (Garcia/Hunter) – 5:56 (The Omni, Atlanta, Georgia 1994-03-30) "Lazy River Road" (Garcia/Hunter) – 6:56 (Rehearsals for unfinished fourteenth studio album 1993-02-18) "Eternity" (Dixon/Wasserman/Weir) – 7:35 (Rehearsals for unfinished fourteenth studio album 1993-02-18) "Jam into Days Between" (Grateful Dead) – 7:04 (Rehearsals for unfinished fourteenth studio album 1993-02-09) "Days Between" (Garcia/Hunter) - 11:05 (Rehearsals for unfinished fourteenth studio album 1993-02-18) "Whiskey in the Jar" (Traditional, arranged by Grateful Dead) - 5:18 (Rehearsals for unfinished fourteenth studio album 1993-02-16) "So Many Roads" (Garcia/Hunter) – 9:24 (Soldier Field, Chicago 1995-07-09) This five-disc box set (containing almost six and a half hours of music) spans the Grateful Dead's whole career. It consists of previously unreleased material ranging from their earliest demos to their final live show, and as such doesn't contain their "greatest hits" - there's no Truckin' or Touch Of Grey here. Instead, it includes rarities and extended live pieces; this helps the listener hear the band’s progression in a way that a greatest-hits set of short performances wouldn’t, and thus makes it much more interesting to both dedicated fans and those starting to explore the group in depth. Even a dedicated listener would have a hard time getting through this in one sitting; I usually approach these large sets one disc at a time. It is generally organized by date of performance which makes this a reasonable way to approach it. I must admit it’s been many years since I’ve given this box set any listening time, but I refreshed my memory over the last few weeks. The first disc explores the earliest years, starting with two of their first studio demos (now available on Birth Of The Dead along with several more). These are undeveloped and rough, and while there is some good musicianship even in these earliest tracks, this material tends to be of interest only to the most dedicated fans. The disc then shows the group’s rapid live development in 1967 and 1968, but skips ahead to a couple of unfinished studio performances from the Workingman's Dead and American Beauty recordings. These tracks, Mason’s Children and To Lay Me Down, never made it to a studio album so are of great interest. Clementine is possibly the most intriguing live rarity here. Although it’s never bad, sound quality is inconsistent on this disc. The second disc is full of great music, but almost all of it is from shows that have since been released. It starts with a great The Other One from the famous Fillmore West 1969 run, and then proceeds through the one-drummer '71-'74 era with some choice cuts, including two amazing open-ended jams. These jams, the Watkins Glen soundcheck (in an edited form) and the Dark Star Jam sequence, are must-hears. The Watkins Glen soundcheck is the only track that hasn’t since been released as part of its complete concert, but some of those releases are now quite hard to find. The third disc opens with a fantastic version of Eyes Of The World from the last complete single-drummer show near the end of 1974. From there it’s a gorgeous 1976 wheel with a good jam at the end, and a powerful 1978 Stella Blue. Then it's on to the Brent era, with a fine 1979 Red Rocks Estimated Prophet; the jam at the end is first-rate and it’s frustrating when it fades out. A 1980 Radio City version of The Music Never Stopped is a little bland, and the 1984 New Years Shakedown Street is a letdown, partly because it’s audibly slow, robbing it of power. Disc four continues the exploration of the 1980s. As well as several live tracks, studio versions of Believe It or Not and the relentlessly negative Gentlemen Start Your Engines make for intriguing outtakes. It also includes an uncharacteristically exploratory 1988 version of Playing In The Band. Other highlights here include a fantastic Scarlet>Fire and a Bird Song that includes Branford Marsalis; while revelatory at the time, both are from the Spring 1990 tour that has since been completely released. The final disc covers the Vince Welnick years, the second half of 1990 through the last show in 1995. Some of the choices are odd. To these ears Terrapin Station isn’t spectacular and it’s surprising that this version represents this key song. While good, the jam out of Foolish Heart is out of place, and it’s strange that the song itself wasn’t included (it could be spectacular live and was included, along with this jam and another hour of material from the concert, on the Road Trips 2.1 bonus disc). Way to Go Home and Liberty are good versions of latter-day songs. From here on (with one exception) it’s rehearsals of new songs, providing a different perspective compared to the live versions; it makes me wish they’d finished that final album. Don’t overlook the surprisingly exploratory version of Eternity, the jam into Days Between, and the fun run-through of Whiskey in the Jar; unfortunately Days Between itself lacks the spark it had when played live. The set concludes with (an edited) So Many Roads taken from the band’s final show, and it’s a fine version. It was packaged in a cloth cover, and sits on standard-sized CD shelves. The cover looked good at the time but easily picks up dirt. It contained two booklets; one had several interesting essays, while the other contained the discs and Blair Jackson’s excellent notes on every track. It’s far from the super-deluxe box sets to come, but that type of packaging wasn’t needed here. At the time this was an excellent release for the hard-core Grateful Dead fan. In the years since it’s become less essential, because all the eras have been covered to one degree or another. But there are enough rarities to make it a worthwhile acquisition at the right price. The next time the band attempted to cover their entire career, they would use 80 discs… Incidentally, this marks the 26th entry in our weekly discussions. We've been at this for half a year!
Trivia: a sampler CD included "Passenger" from 5/19/77. For unknown reasons (my speculation is that it had to do with a falling out between Lesh and the rest of the band around that time), it was omitted from the box, which ended up including nothing from 1977.
Maybe unluckily for Vince Welnick, a good anthology of his time with the Dead ended up as the final disc of this set (along with 4 CDs including a selection of older classics that was nicely done, but mostly came from shows collectors were likely to already have in one form or another). They finally revisited those 90's songs with Ready Or Not a year or two back.
One bootleg double CD has a set of "So Many Roads Outtakes." I don't know if it's true, but an interesting songlist: Doin' That Rag (4/25/69) Candyman (6/4/70) Easy Wind (2/27/70) Till The Morning Comes, Cold Rain And Snow, China->Rider, Good Lovin', Sugar Magnolia (10/4/70) Uncle John's Band (5/15/77) Passenger (5/19/77 - from the sampler CD above) Terrapin Station -> Playing In The Band (11/6/79) Feel Like A Stranger (3/2/87) Valley Road (studio 1990)
So Many Roads was quite exciting when it first came out, which gives you a sense of how little archival material had really been released at that point. There were certainly a handful of great, jammy shows from Dick's Picks and other releases, but getting this wide assortment of material from across the band's career was quite different from what we'd gotten up until then. Nowadays it's kind of anticlimactic, and it still doesn't have enough Pigpen on it.
I still dip into this one from time to time, usually to hear that great rehearsal take of Whiskey In The Jar.
I was excited about So Many Roads when it came out and I still revisit parts of it once in a great while. It’s a well done set even with some odd choices and omissions. I remember finding the rehearsals at the end pretty neat and the edited So Many Roads from 7/9/95 was an emotional closer. That was still kind of raw at the time; I can still picture myself tearing up a little the first time I played it. (I had also been at that show which gave it some additional meaning).
I never find the time to listen to things like that. I listen to partial shows, and I sometimes skip around different shows, but I never seem to find myself wanting to listen to someone else's skipping around.
A great box set that still has plenty of replay value. I dip into it once or twice a year. Disc 5 is especially a treat. The only bummer is that the first two tracks (“Can’t Come Down” and “Caution”) on disc 1 come from a multi-generation tape and don’t sound too hot. When they came out two years later on Birth of the Dead on The Golden Road box, the sound quality was remarkably better. That being said, it is a wonderful five-disc anthology of the band.
Quoted b/c that's exactly what I would say. I'll add that there is still a market for Vol. II I think its the perfect platform for the Lake Placid Sugaree, Carrier Dome Jack Straw and Merriweather Shakedown.
Possibly my favorite '79 sequence. It's a shame that its RT 1.1 release is so poor (it sounds way too slow to my ears). That show deserves a full planeantized release.
It is slow. Way too slow is somewhat subjective, but it's flat by enough to make a difference in how everything feels. Regarding So Many Roads, other than the Beautiful jam and the Watkins Glen jam, the gem on that one is the Laguna Seca Playin' jam.
I have a fix of that one, if anyone wants it PM me (I don't know if it sounds any different apart from pitch correction)
I don't think Plangent Process works on a cassette, which the 11/6/79 SBD was. There are speed corrected versions of the show out there (and I think speed-corrected copies of that Road Trips have gotten around). For an even slower official release try the Road Trips from May 1980. As @Al Gator mentioned above, the 1984 "Shakedown" on So Many Roads is slow, I think the first significantly off-speed track on an official GD release, but unfortunately not the last. (EDIT: actually I think the first was the 1979 Scarlet->Fire that was a hidden track on the 1981 Dick's Picks.)
