Grateful Dead Dave's Picks 2020 Subscriptions

And then there are those of us weirdos who love All of it

 

Ha ha! I like your devotion to your stance!

I was thinking earlier, that some of the stuff I absolutely LOVE - such as those epic raging versions of The Other One, Viola Lee, Caution etc., from 1968/69 - could very easily be viewed as boring and repetitive by fans of later-era GD (let's be honest, Jer could be VERY repetitive with those looping blues scales in a 1968 Viola Lee Blues), so perhaps we both need to attune ourselves to the surroundings we choose to explore and accept we actually like the same things (albeit in slightly different clothing).

By the way, there was a good little mini-thread on Jerry's guitar style here a while back, for those who didn't ee or participate in it,

When did Jerry Garcia peak as a guitarist?

 

Thanks for the link.

 

Too me Jerry hasn't peaked yet. I am constantly marveling at how good he was. Having said that he was brilliant in the latest Garcia Live which was in 86 ( I almost typed '96 and that would have been quite the accomlishment).

 

YES.

1965 - 1995!!

 

Now, are we still expecting yet another box set this year, or was the ‘76 set delivered early to offset the AB 50th?

 

I think two box sets would be incredibly ambitious in any year, to say nothing of this year.

 

I recall Dave saying something about the 76 set coming out earlier than usual for a box b/c there was something bigger planned for the year.

 

I don't believe he said something "bigger." He said things that required their own room to breathe, or something like that. I believe someone posted the seaside chat video several pages back.

I would love to be interpreting his statement incorrectly, and I'm not sure why he took the cryptic approach when the items in question were almost certainly the 50th anniversary releases of what are probably the band's two most broadly popular and accessible studio albums, but I really, really don't think there's going to be another box set this year.

 

I'll be pleasantly surprised if there is anything else in the works for this year, but I highly doubt it.

And, to be perfectly honest, my wallet will be just fine without another big box so soon.

 

I can’t see another box being released this year, although I hope I’m wrong!

There’s still a month to go until the American Beauty 50th release at the end of October, then there’s the final Dave’s Picks of the year. I don’t think a boxset will come out in the lead-up to Christmas, but who knows, 2020 has thrown up all sorts of curveballs so far!

 

He never said bigger, just something that needed "its own room to breathe". We could interpret that many ways.

 

Don’t forget 7” Singles Series #16 - Shakedown Street / France

 

Or Buffalo 5/9/1977 on vinyl for the RSD drop in October.

 

Having listened to a lot of it, I would say that whatever Garcia adds in terms of the slurring or super fast notes or whatever you want to call it that he starts doing in the 80s, is frequently in addition to the kinds of things he was doing before and not necessarily replacing them entirely.

One of the things I find cool about the later years is the fact that on some random tune, Garcia will pull out some licks that are reminiscent of how he played back in the olden days.

 

Some being the operative term. There were times he could not hit the riff during Playing In The Band. Sad.

 

Or the Grateful Dead Origins Deluxe set:

Grateful Dead Origins Deluxe Edition + LP Grateful Dead

 

So there’s plenty left still to come this year.

 

Yeah, and dropping another box set on top of the AB50, DiP36, RSD Buffalo '77, and the Singles Series item would be an odd way of giving releases some room to breathe. If he really wanted to do that, he didn't have to release the June '76 box so early. He could've put it out in June, but I think he probably didn't want to overshadow the WD50 release--and he couldn't delay the box without crowding AB50 and the Fall releases. So, it had to be March.

 

Just watched the June 76 seaside video again and he says "Later in the year we also have other stuff that requires its own time to breathe" as an explanation for why the June 76 box came out so early. So that perfectly describes the 50th sets and other items.

 

There's an interesting interview from 1985 in Frets magazine. You can read part of it at the bottom of this page and you can download the whole thing from ftp://gdead.berkeley.edu/pub/gdead/interviews/JerryGarcia-complete-1985-interview.txt

(That link is from Grateful Dead Guide: Jerry Garcia Interview Links and the first link is from Jerry Garcia's Middle Finger: April 2014 , which has the magazine cover):

He's talking about the difference between playing electric and acoustic and they get into this:

There's a lot of great stuff in that interview, and at all those links, actually, but the first thing that jumps out is that Jerry is still challenging himself and trying to improve. Later in the interview, he talks about having several guitar books that he wants to work on, and I think he mentions something similar in the 1978 interview that's mentioned above. He was always working on new stuff, increasing his musical knowledge and trying to improve his technique, even in the literal depths of his heroin addiction.

Now, obviously, we could discuss (and probably will) the degree to which Jerry's earlier style was, formed by his own limitations or lack of musical knowledge, and whether that was "better" in one way or another (going back all the way to the repetitive playing of the late 60s, if we want to), but my point is that I agree with @ianuaditis that Jerry was adding to his previous style, and building on it, and Jerry tells that story the same way himself.

 

I can't wait to stack that bad boy up on my automatic record changer, so I can listen to that whole show and only get up once to flip the records over...

 

Which begs the question: How much did his heroin use diminish his ability to actualize this in concert?

 

Well, UPS says tomorrow’s the day for shipment to arrive. We ll see. I grabbed copy just in case and will post on the board if anyone is looking when (if?) mine shows tomorrow.

 

Well, that's a good question, and we can all pretty much hear it for ourselves, but the point still stands for the majority of the 80s and early 90s, when he wasn't completely wasted.