I think everything is more or less on the Archive, I don't know that there is circulating stuff not on there
I know, but being dichotomously incongruous is a skill Well, I think is nebulous. I'd prefer I know. On the other hand, if there are a few shows from '67 or '68 that I cannot access readily, I can always just join in when things normalize, as it were.
There are occasional things like official releases that were not on the Archive/relisten when I last checked, e.g. some of the E72 shows (maybe also that download series show mentioned above, etc.)
Every Dark Star? Boy, I can't wait until some of you get to listening to 05/08/70 for the very first time!
I wonder if this was common knowledge among the band or if any fans knew at 12/31/81 that the first live Dark Star occurred in the same building
So what's everyone's opinions on the new Light in the Attic pressings of One From the Vault 1, 2, and 3. I really want the first two but $60 and $80 is pretty ridiculous.
I wasn’t aware of any new pressings of those three “From the Vault” issues? I’ve got One From The Vault (2013) and it’s excellent. Beautiful triple gatefold, quiet and detailed pressing cut by Kevin Gray. It sounds fantastic.
I only have 1, which sounds great and works out well on vinyl. Highly recommended. I like 2, but its a literally a song per side of vinyl. YMMV, but that doesn't seem like a great flow. I think 3 is one of the most mediocre official GD releases, so 80 bucks would be a hard pass.
Yeah I am definately getting 1. The second one has one of my favorite Dark Stars but yes the flips blow. I think Smokestack Lighting is 14 minute side of one record. So annoying. As far as 3 I've never been into those shows for whatever reason.
Jerry loosely quotes the Dark Star melody for the first time in Viola Lee Blues on 9/3/67. Hunter is quoted that he was writing the lyrics that weekend. The studio versions from November are the first known recordings and it first shows up in a live show on 1/17/68.
My bad. Too many rats 'round these parts, I guess. Thanks for the clarifications. I know that the SL Program has errors, but that's a sizeable difference.
An every Dark Star thread that took multiple years to complete sounds very Dark Star; I think it's a cool idea. And people could come and go as they like - as long as there is some number of people participating each week it could still proceed interestingly.
That's a decade long project at least. I started in late 2016, really picked up the pace around November 2017, had a stretch of 20 months where I averaged more than 2 shows a day, and in all likelihood it will be at least 2022 before I will have heard every GD show at least once. Such a thread would be an amazing reference though.
Really Dancing in the Street from that 9-3 show has basically a Dark Star jam. It's possible there is a live one or two from December of 67 that have not survived. I can't imagine the June one happened.
From the Grateful Dead Guide website: Dark Star was born in September 1967, while the Dead were staying at Rio Nido. One of their guests was Robert Hunter, who had recently joined up with the Dead as a lyric-writer. (Bear was also visiting, which is how the 9/3/67 show happened to be recorded.) Hunter had been living in the southwest, mailing some lyrics to the Dead; in June '67 Garcia wrote him to say that the band had set Alligator to music, and asking him to come to San Francisco to work with the band. So in July, Hunter returned, and in September he found himself listening to the Dead's rehearsals for their scheduled second-album sessions later that month. "I was in my cabin. They were rehearsing in the hall, and you could hear from there. I heard the music and just started writing Dark Star lying on my bed. I wrote the first half of it and I went in and handed what I'd written to Jerry. He said, 'Oh, this will fit in just fine,' and he started singing it... [When] I heard the Grateful Dead playing, those were the words it seemed to be saying.... That did it for the time being. Then, a couple of days or weeks later," Garcia said he wanted another verse, so Hunter wrote the next verse sitting in Golden Gate Park.
If I did that I would end not wanting to listen to the band in years. The most prolonged GD-only period in my life took place in 2011 when I bought the steam trunk. I listened to every show in order and every moment I had to listen to music was exclusively devoted to that box set. It was a marvelous journey.
