Thank you Archtop. I’ll be brushing up on Miles footprints and then revisit the examples you just mentioned. All I really know is that it’s really hard to pick a favorite Dark Star, but if I had to choose one 4/8/72 would be it.
I could have sworn you mentioned me there! I thought it was funny, I had it coming after the "ridiculous opinions" comment...
1973-02-21 Solid, but relatively undistinguished, show includes a subtly good China>Rider, nice and sort of well put-together; Truckin’ flirts with excellence before dissolving into some Phil stuff which flirts with Eyes a few times before getting there; Eyes is nice although not world-shattering; seems to lack the jazzy riff at the end this time, but there is a very early instance of Jerry playing Slipknot licks briefly around 14:25; nice Stella Blue but with a cut; Jerry does seem to remember the words, though, which is a bonus. Nothing that exciting in this show, but some nice stuff. If this was back in the day and this was your only tape of 1973, you'd like it well enough. EDIT: there seems to be some indications on that there internet that Dick Latvala regarded this show very highly, but honestly I don't see anything here that stands out very far, although it's all nice enough.
I find 2/21 and 2/22 to be the best from Feb 73 imo. I love those shows along with 2/26 Lincoln. For one thing the SQ of what circulates for 2/21 and 2/22 is stellar. Secondly The Eyes of both 2/21 and 2/22 are both great versions to me. The format for Eyes wan't really locked yet and surprises seem to be there at every turn. That is primarily why I find these shows special and the rest of the material is good too. I will say Eyes is one of the few songs that upon debut didn't seem stiff and take a while to grow into itself. Seems like from the very first Eyes they just took off with it. Probably will listen to the new recent CM upgrades of 2/9, 2/15 and 2/17 73 shows soon and who knows I may then put them on par with 2/21 and 2/22 as well after listening to the upgrades.
2-22 is one of my absolute favorite concerts. Maybe next time I'll see the specialness of 2-21, to me it seems ordinary in a good way--everything well played, some nice moments, but nothing stunning...
Guys...to my shame, I’m listening to the ‘73 shows from this box for the first time now. Specifically, set one of the Great Vancouver Monster. I’ve tried a search of the thread about the following without success. Is there something wrong with my fancy AKG noise cancelling buds or is there a fair bit of distortion in the right channel, especially on the drums? I think it has to be at my end. Just a bit odd. These buds were fine on Friday...
But more seriously, if the sound quality issue is just on the one show, it might indicate an issue with something other than the buds. If they've got a problem I'd expect it to show up on lots more music. Maybe you're a more discerning listener than me but I don't hear anything objectionable after a quick check on my speakers.
Just went in to listen again to confirm. I'm not hearing any distortion (only listened to first two songs again just now, Bertha and Beat it on Down the Line).
The Vancouver show has quite a bit of low level distortion, especially on the Bird Song. It certainly ain’t the AKG. It’s subtle mostly. IIRC, there was a problem with the master tape that apparently they did wonders with to get it to where it was releasable.
Thank you for the serious and less serious responses! It was Bird Song that was particularly bad - it’s not there on Bob’s guitar. It’s only annoying when Billy gets busy on the parts of the kit that are panned right. It sounded to me like it was coming from the source and if the bud were the issue I would have expected it to happen when Bob hits his strings hard...but there are conflicting responses here. I doubt it anyone would miss this type of distortion if it were on the source...
great post, as a big fan of that mid-60's miles album 'miles smiles' (and the wayne shorter song footprints, of course, from that album) im gonna have to check these out
Please do report back once you've digested. I don't mean to proclaim any sort of expertise here, but as a performing musician of some 40 years, I do hear what I hear. Maybe I'm way off base, or maybe not. Regarding the 6/24/73 Dark Star, my only issue is that Billy's cymbals come and go from the left to the right. Not sure what's actually going on there. His hi-hat work is clear in the left channel up until 7:30, when it then enters in the right channel for just a few seconds and then it immediately reverts to the left channel. This happens again from 7:41-7:42. These seem like patches, but it's just Billy's cymbal work, so I dunno.
I find the mixing choices in late '72 and into '73 quite unpleasant - unbalanced or something. The drums are usually the worst offender, followed by the mixes where a guitar and the piano are centered, another guitar is wide, and all you get on the other side is the occasional cymbal. I think in the Vancouver '73 show Billy's kit is mostly on the left but something - a crash or ride - is over on the right so when he hits it (which is rare) suddenly the drums seem to lurch to the other side and back. It's actually that sound that was causing the distortion - only the swishy percussion in the far right. I know these weren't being mixed for me to listen to 48 years later so this is an observation, not criticism.
If you listen to the segments that I time stamped in headphones, it sounds quite clearly akin to a noise gate closing on one cymbal and opening on another in the other ear. So if Billy did move from one cymbal to another, there's some sort of electronic artifact contributing to the overall sound. It doesn't sound like a natural move from one cymbal to another. But I agree in principle that these tapes weren't intended for release, so just having what we have is all gravy.
So, I've listened to the 6/24/73 Dark Star again and at 7:30 and 7:41 it's clearly a fade-out of Billy's hi-hat in the left channel to a fade-in/splice of Billy's ride cymbal in the right channel in both spots. Actually, at 7:30 there's initially some ride in the left/center that immediately moves to the right channel. Seems like a couple of patches to me and it's not clear if the ride stuff (there's only about 4-5 seconds of "ride splice" in total) actually came from that segment of Dark Star or even from that Dark Star. But at 9:38, the ride comes back in again (and again sounding suspiciously like a fade-in and not a choice by Billy to move to the ride). Early on in this segment, he's playing near the bell, but at around 11:18 he starts playing further out and playing a bit more lightly. The splices (if that's indeed what they are), could have been taken from there.
