The Grateful Dead - Aoxomoxoa 50th Anniversary Details

69 days, but who's counting?

 

Misleading and ingenuous perhaps, but it does not specifically state that the live disc comes from the multitrack.

Perhaps some of the lawyers on the thread may wish to offer up some pro bono interpretations.

 

Maybe my "legaleeze" ain't so good. Lols. That said def would prefer to hear some primal '69 DEAD recorded on 16 vs. 2 tracks!!

 

Currently $19.44 at Amazon.com

 

They said (factually) that these performances were among the first to be recorded to 16 track tapes. They didn't say they were using those tapes for this release.

"One hour cleaners? That's just the name of the shop, ma'am".

 

Added to my wishlist!

 

I am fairly certain both mixes were included
I am currently in China so I can't access the files unfortunately. But I clearly remember having 2 versions

 

"Remastered"? Well, these have never been issued before so that might be the wrong word to use but it does make it sound as though they're working from 2-tracks...in which case, why not give us the Star or one of the Other Ones?

 

I agree on all four of those, but I don't think they're reason enough to buy the whole albums, especially these days when you can just buy the track.

 

I was doing some sorting of old items in the basement last night and decided to up cycle a bunch of cassettes to friends etc. I found an old cassette that said "Aoxomxoa outtakes" listened to it twice in a row. Really raw and energetic. That "barbed wire whipping party" is absurdly funny. Probably keep that one for a bit longer.

 

I love the studio albums. I would add these to your "essential" studio tracks list from the albums you mention:

China Doll
Ship of Fools
Ripple
Brokedown Palace
Estimated Prophet
Passenger

So that's 3 from each album.

Heck, I'd argue that ALL of the studio albums are essential - full of unique sounding versions of all these great songs in the catalog - with nice vocals, harmonies and other qualities that are elusive in even the best of the live performances. But you HAVE to have these 3 albums. Plus Wake of the Flood. Plus Blues For Allah. Plus Workingman's (Uncle Johns, High Time).

OK, so you have to have 6 albums !

Most of the GD albums can be found for under $5 used. Doesn't matter which version you get - the originals sound great, so do the remasters (plus w/ the remasters you get all the bonus tracks).

 

I enjoy having full GD studio albums like Anthem of the Sun, Aoxomoxoa, and American Beauty.

 

It strikes me that live disk might have been put together as a complement to Live Dead. The only duplicated song is Death Don't Have No Mercy, and this version might well be included because Clementine transitions into it.

 

I sure hope the 1969 doesn't sound like complete ASS like the 2011 Rhino LP.

 

Just got my shipping notice for my t-shirt and cd set, doubt it'll arrive in time for the 7th tho

 

Just ordered my Aoxomoxoa Set

Looking forward to the live stuff

 

"Your sign says 'Open 24 Hours'."
"Yeah, but not in a row."

 

“Got pulled over for driving 80 miles per hour. I told the cop I wasn’t going to be driving that long”

Steven Wright

 

Faster tempos on a couple of the tunes intended as radio hits- "Love In The Afternoon" and the title track- would have helped a lot. And flashier guitar solos. Garcia made it more like a Maria Muldaur record from 1973, instead of a Peter Frampton record in 1976. The target audience was looking for more upbeat tempos and guitar hero soloing. Guitar guitar, like what took Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits up the charts in 1979. Straight-in playing. No pillowy phase shifters or pedals. And with all due respect to Robert Hunter, no clavinet guitar. It's a good lyric, but Garcia didn't have to put it in bold outline by actually processing his guitar that way.

Jerry compressed his vocals a lot on that one, too, trying to sweeten his voice. He sounds better with his uniqueness intact, including his flaws. People are not always the best judges of their own singing strengths. Everybody's own voice sounds a little strange to them.

My favorite Garcia studio vocals are on the expanded outtakes of "To Lay Me Down" on his first record. He's just going for it. That singing is out of this world.

My favorite song on Cats after "Ruben and Cherise" is Donna's song, "Rain." Probably her best song. Could have used a memorable guitar break in the middle, instead of just a tease on the outro. I love "Palm Sunday" and "Down Home", too, but they're interludes. Okay, it's a pretty good record, really. What doomed it was that FM radio had changed. From melody and idiosyncrasy-friendly progressive free-form non-formatting to the narrower values of upfront guitar-based Rawk (albeit often with a lot of saxophone on the side, 1976-1978.) And even given that Album Oriented Rock radio was an inferior, condensed, formatted genre, 1978 was its last great year. The competition was steep. The rock audience was still open to melodic compositions, but the audience- the American audience, anyway- was still wanting players to show off their instrumental chops. Steely Dan's Aja would have gone nowhere without its extended instrumental breaks.

 

To my pleasant surprise, my Bull Moose order of the 50th Anniversary set was waiting for me in my mailbox when I got home from work. Looking forward to digging in!

 

Yeah, I agree with this. Around this time, the Dead were reportedly trying to become more popular -- working with Keith Olsen fer chrissakes! -- but they don't seem to have had any idea what the average rock fan would like. I mean, they released "Dancing In the Streets" as the single from Terrapin Station! The same thing carried over onto Cats. Jerry was probably just trying to do his best work and hoping people would dig it, but as you say, the tempos were slow and the songs just didn't rock out the way you would expect for a radio hit.

 

Anyone know if the HD Download is more dynamic than the CD on this release?

 

My interest in the Dead begins and ends with the first three studio albums. Listening to the live disc of the Aoxomoxoa 50th right now: what a shambolic mess. You keep waiting for something musically interesting to happen, and it never does. Give me the psychedelic and relatively structured studio album any day.

 

Shambolic sounds great, Pigpens prime for me

 

For anyone who cares, this is another great sounding picture disc.