POLL away the dew... Best Grateful Dead recurring live jam/transition piece

It's from Live/Dead.

As much as I love Sunshine Daydream, I'm completely unconvinced that it will seduce anyone over any other Dead album. That "holy grail" song search is for Deadheads only

watch the movie of the concert

warning if you are alienated by the fans of this band, don't watch the movie of this concert

"live/dead" is the easiest answer but i'm hesitant to recommend it because i don't like it!

i was already a convert by the time i heard the live/dead dark star but it is really great and accessible-seeming

i put it on sometimes when i'm writing

I was trying to think of an 80s answer to this question, taking to heart Duke's comment above, which is probably OTM. What came to mind is the first set of the pay-per-view from Summer of 1989 at Shoreline. The date is 6-21-89, I think. Pro quality video and a completely solid set of tunes, several of them catchy and upbeat. Jerry is lively and smiling a bunch, and is having a pretty good hair day.

weird as it is i think i just don't like constanten. i've only recently been able to get into stuff from his time in the band - the dark stars from 1969-06-14 and 1969-08-23 are pretty good, but even then... the june 14 is so concise, which is sort of the opposite of what i like about later versions of ds.

The zabriskie point sdtrk Dark Star is a 2 minute edit of the 23 minute Live Dead Dark Star though, so unless you like it in such a way that you wish it would go on for 21 more minutes, you might just prefer the edit. Constanten doesn't bother me. I like the brevity and raw, rough tone of the early Dark Stars, like this one: https://archive.org/details/gd68-02-14.sbd.kaplan.15640.sbeok.shnf/gd1968-02-14new-d1t03.shn#

My dead listening habit now is to just pull up whatever show has the most views for today in history on the archive instead of putting on the official live recordings. It's like listening to broadcasts of every game in a baseball season - a lot of it just blends into the background and some of it is so bad you just want to turn it off, but occasional moments of joy and brilliance shine through. And between the commentors recalling the scene at each show and the voices caught on audience recordings, it's fascinating beyond the music.

I want to get into live Grateful Dead but they have like 50 billion live albums. Where the hell do you start? Live/Dead? Europe 72? One of the Dick's Picks?

This is a random one I’ve always liked a lot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick%27s_Picks_Volume_12

the big jam from that one is good

i guess i'll ask here - any suggestions for someone who a severe cherry-picker who likes some (but not all) versions of "dark star" in terms of where to go from there? i like the second set of avalon ballroom 1968-10-12, "playin' in the band" and "bird song" from veneta, the entirety of 1975-03-23... basically i don't want to hear their shitty singing and mostly cherry-pick (already cherry-picked!) comps from "save your face". favorite years are 1970 and 1972. have a really hard time with anything post-'75. what's gold?

Three of my favorite moments in GD jammery:

12-2-73 playing in the band
2-18-71 the second half of dark star, after wharf rat
5-9-73 help on the way, slipknot, franklin’s

These are all pretty well known and it’s for a good reason

5-9-77, the third one should be

xp Well, the gnarliest Dead stuff I know (in terms of stuff that sounds more like Sonic Youth or the Dead C than anything "hippie") is third disc of Rockin' The Rhein (which is 72). Check that out and see if I'm on the right track. There's also a very gnarly jam toward the end of Dick's Picks 1 (Tampa '73) that's pretty dark and scary iirc.

My suspicion is that you're a Deadhead in waiting. In my experience it's a tough band to like only casually. Today you're saying you don't like the shitty singing and limiting your listening to the pre-hiatus years, tomorrow you'll have a Brent Mydland tattoo and a favorite "Black Throated Wind." I've seen it happen.

at my age? i don't think i'm a deadhead in waiting. i had somehow missed the 12-2-73 "playin" and the 5-9-77 help suite - the latter i'd confused with cornell the previous day, which i listened to and left me so underwhelmed i figured '77 wasn't for me. should've started with 5-9, i really like the "blues for allah" material...

the live vocal stuff, i don't know, i can respect it - i get the appeal of that kind of ragged roots approach - but there are so many folks who do that kind of sound better. i'd rather listen to old sacred harp recordings. of course the dead have songs, some of them very good, but listening to them live is like listening to bob dylan's songs via never-ending tour recordings - it doesn't tend to improve the songs, and at worst what comes out are travesties of great songs.

on the other hand some of the songs themselves are just awful imo. even when the songs are serving as jam vehicles, if i don't like the vehicle i'm not going to get very far with it. beyond its legendary status that's what made it easier for me to start with "dark star" - a lot of days the single version of that song is my favorite, and i'd rather hear them jam out a song i like rather than, say, "eyes of the world" which is a song i can't fucking stand. (yeah, probably not a deadhead in waiting...)

regarding that jam on dp1 - is that the jam -> other one -> jam sequence? the first jam reminds me a little bit of that dark sequence in some of the "dark stars" from 72 - is it the one the fans call "tiger"? i can see the sonic youth/dead c comparisons but i don't really go in for those bands :) (the noise stuff i go for is grungy aud tapes - there's a may '70 aud dark star that's been compared to les rallizes denudes - accurately! those super-distorted phil bombs, fucking amazing shit) the jam after the other one actually encapsulates the aspect of jerry's playing i don't like - he does this thing that sounds like, i don't know, triplet scales, he's just going up and down the fretboard in triplets. i fucking hate that! nails on a chalkboard to my ears, so it's kind of weird that i've listened to as much dead as i have because he does that sort of thing _all the time_.

what i like, though, is i went back to dick's picks 12 for the "spanish jam", which burbles along nicely for a couple minutes and then phil for some reason decides to start playing "the other one" and it all falls apart. that's not necessarily the part i like, though i do appreciate self-sabotage. what i like is that after that there's a lengthy sequence of absolutely gorgeous minimal dead - jerry isn't really a shredder to my taste (another reason i don't go in for "live/dead", too much shred), but is, i think, super underrated as a minimal/ambient guitarist.

also, having criticized the jam on dp1, i will say that it was a surprise to actually listen to it - i do think it's underrated, for some reason it got a lot of fan backlash because, i guess, the fans had ideas invested in their head about the show they wanted to be "first" and mostly this wasn't it? which is ridiculous, it opens with the consensus best-ever "here comes sunshine" which is a fucking great song, and it's also got an absolutely top-notch "playin", which admittedly stands out less in their catalogue.

I think the 12-2-73 jam might be up your minimalist alley. It’s very quiet and mellow and spacey. No shredding until the meltdown much later in the set.

the "playin" jam? yeah i'm liking it a lot!

"eyes of the world" which is a song i can't fucking stand. (yeah, probably not a deadhead in waiting...)

ha ha ha, probably not. Eyes is one of my favorites, I can listen to it endlessly. Different strokes, I guess

regarding that jam on dp1 - is that the jam -> other one -> jam sequence?

that's the one I was thinking of, yes!

he does this thing that sounds like, i don't know, triplet scales, he's just going up and down the fretboard in triplets.

Good ear. Jerry does indeed love the triplets (and pull-offs). But he'll often throw an extra note in, or take one away, or jump a few intervals, or something. His unpredictability is one of the qualities about his playing I love most. Whatever you can say about Jerry, his playing was never 'stock.' No tired blues licks (ahem, Allman Brothers), no cliches, no machismo. Just endless openness and a lot of heart.

I'm sure it's not just straight scales. Honestly, it reminds me a little bit of early period Coltrane - a lot of the stuff Trane plays can come perilously close to scale exercises. I'd have to say, though, that I like Coltrane in spite of this tendency rather than because of it - he's playing fast, he's playing a lot of notes, and most of them don't really add anything. It's still better than a sack of blues cliches, because at least there's _something_ there, but it's a lot more work than it should be to hear it.

I think in a lot of ways the Dead have a good attitude towards playing. They're very open to failure, and that openness takes them to places most other bands wouldn't get to. However, I do find most of the actual failures to be, unsurprisingly, pretty bad. That's why it's easier for me to listen in retrospect, because I can just get the bits where they went somewhere cool. It's sort of like a retrospective version of the editing Holger Czukay would do on Can's endless, aimless jams. For the old-style fans who wanted the actual uncertainty, of course, there's nothing left, that trip is over, but I find that I have enough genuine uncertainty in my life.

Gang I think I’m becoming a deadhead at age 45

hell yeah

the new PNW set (the 3-disc version, I can't afford these huge Dead sets) is a great listen. one of the best "bird song"s ... incredible 40-minute "Playin" ... sick jams.

best "Bird Song" ever, I think, though I think the PitB is more long than essential. I can't afford the box either, hoping I can get a rip for someone who can, this is a great period

I passed out last night listening to the Live Dead Dark Star while reading 'Children of Dune' and felt like I was sufficiently living my best life, Sunday Night edition

^^^^

the new PNW set (the 3-disc version, I can't afford these huge Dead sets) is a great listen. one of the best "bird song"s ... incredible 40-minute "Playin" ... sick jams.

― tylerw, Monday, 10 September 2018

PNW? I should know this....!

Pacific
North
West

Aha! Thanks

my beloved homeland!

Given I own the 9 disc, 1973 Winterland complete recordings set, I can't justify getting that PNW set.

Apart from Cornell 1977 and the 1978 Closing of Winterland, all of my Dead collection is 69-74. Really must check more later stuff.

Sorry if I'm derailing the discussion here

Duke I am a big fan of 1985. They were p high-energy, perhaps in honor of the 20th anniversary. Jerry plays hard even if his voice sounds like a croaking frog. I kind of like that!

Cheers - I'll have a listen

If I may derail -- I'm listening to the Cornell 5/8/77 set at the moment... this take of "Row Jimmy" just SNAPS so hard

"Fire on the Mountain" *kills* on this one, too...

What other shows are as good as this one??

best "Bird Song" ever, I think, though I think the PitB is more long than essential.

― Paul Ponzi

god, i feel sorry for those kids up in seattle. first they have to sit through 45 minutes of playin' and then the next year led zeppelin comes through and puts them all to sleep with "dazed and confused" for 45 minutes. what did they ever do to deserve such a fate?

What other shows are as good as this one??

― stan in the place where you work (morrisp), Monday, September 10, 2018 7:11 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

see above, but Veneta 72 and Cornell 77 should be your next stops

This is Cornell 77!

(The “St. Stephen” that winds it down is surprisingly mushy, btw)

I like Dick's Picks #3 (5/22/77) as much as Cornell (maybe more), and it has probably their best "Sugaree."

Thx! I love a good “Franklin’s Tower”

dick's picks 3 is the first live dead thing i ever listened to that made me think "huh maybe there's something to this." it was in the middle of that "sugaree"

it was just that incredible looseness, they all sound like they're tripping over each other and it creates this critical mass of interweaving melodies and then jerry starts angrily strumming 10 minutes in and boy does it fucking rule

Ha, it's been that very show that I've been playing nonstop. I had finally connected with the studio Help/Slipknot/Franklin & wanted to hear what a good live version was, and Dick's Picks 3 was where I landed.

I’m psyched that I just arrived at work and can listen to it! (It’s not one I own)

Best Help>Slip>Franklin imo is the one that kicks off that Great American Music Hall '75 show aka One From the Vault. Check it out, it rules (even the Bill Graham intro is goosebump worthy)

Cool, thx! I have Two From the Vault, but never heard One

Yeah, I love how Graham introduces each member and they each come into the mix, that's super cool. xp

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

there's some incredible china > riders and and the jam section of playin can go very deep until it gets donna jeaned and long slipknots are beautiful and not fade away, on the right night, is like sunshine through the clouds, but this is dark star, all the way, forever.

Oh shit I totally got donna jeaned the other day - like ten minutes into Playing and suddenly AAAAAHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYEAHYEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH out of nowhere

I haven't listened to much jrad but their guitarist's sets with kruetzmann & billy strings at red rocks definitely piqued my interest.

Yep guitarist (Tom Hamilton) is great, and Joe Russo (drums) and Marco Benevento (keys) have been playing together in various configurations for 20 years or more, I think, and are both masters. Benevento has a lot of tricks up his sleeve that I haven't heard in other Dead-adjacent projects. They can get very jazzy.

Yeah I first saw Russo and Benevento when they toured as GRAB with Trey and Mike from Phish about fifteen years ago, they were pretty good then but I've grown to like them even more since.

Between Billy & The Kids and the Dead & Co tour, 2021 was a great summer of new shows for old deadheads, I only made it to Pine Knob for Dead & Co, but listened to almost every show of this tour when it came up on the archive and I watched most of the free set openers on nugs to get a feel for the scenes. I went to Wrigley in '17 and '19 so I didn't mind missing that so much, but I really wish I'd gone to Blossom and Deer Creek on this truly special tour. Oh well, summertime done come and gone my oh my!

I get that Wrigley may not be the ideal setting for a show, but I've grown to like it and appreciate it - easy access, plenty of food and drink options nearby for before and after a show. As opposed to Alpine Valley with no convenient non-venue places to meet up, sitting in a parking lot for two hours after a show and either springing for overpriced hotels (which still aren't even within walking distance of the venue, so you still need to either drive or arrange for transportation) or making sure you have a sober group member to drive every back home late in the night.

I loved seeing them at Wrigley, as a Cubs fan it was amazing to dance in the stands and go out onto the field, to experience the friendly confines with a extra dose of kindness. But Deer Creek was the only place I got to see Jerry ('93) so I was thinking it would be cool to go back there again, I was just too worried about Covid - but I would've risked it for that second set had I known: Sugaree>Dark Star>St. Stephen>Eleven>Drums>Space>Dark Star>Death Don't Have No Mercy!