Grateful Dead live, Dick's Picks etc - S&D

haven't gotten to it yet but 30 from earlier this year fuckin knocked me over. one of the best shows ever.

I've just bought Dick's Picks vol 36 for a high, but reasonable price.

Hesitated because I've got lots of 72 Dead. But went for it because I love 72 Dead

Hell yeah, September 72 might be their single best month

Listening to the first set from Get Shown the Light from 5/5/77 and I've rewound the guitar solo on "Peggy O" three times now.

i was spinning "the eleven" from 1970-04-24 for a couple friends just now (those of you who can't fuck with AUDs are missing out, that performance is fire) and it has me thinking again that i really am curious as to what a "power trio" dead would have sounded like, just jer, phil, and billy

of course they never played in that performance but it does make me wonder if the stems are out there of any of the multitrack shows from back in the day, if anybody's tried it, just mixing out bob and keith or tc or whoever else was with them that day

like, uh, you know, if you've ever heard the raw mix of "maggot brain" and there's a really prominent vibraphone part, or the way david cross is basically mixed out of the "red" version of "asbury park"

There are some interesting '74 single drummer shows on the Archive where the sound mix is jacked such that you can hear different incarnations of the band, like the Bertha from https://archive.org/details/gd74-06-16.sbd.fink.17701.sbeok.shnf/gd74-06-16d1t01.shn is basically just Jerry, Bill and Keith, not sure if there are any from this era that just capture Jerry, Bill and Phil though.

Yeah, I've heard some weird mix shows and I definitely like hearing them. Half the time the Dead sound good it just seems like an accident! With all the tapes out there, there's so much room for fucking around... What Oswald did was interesting but it was all based on 2-track mixdowns, and it was 25 years ago now, and I'm tantalized by how much more is possible!

Lotta soundboards from this period sound wonky for the first 1-3 songs because they were just dialing in the sounds, people ever actually listening to these was the furthest thing from their mind (as opposed to Betty Boards and audience tapes)

like, here's an AI trying to do "king solomon's marbles": https://jukebox.openai.com/songs/787978798

happy anniversary

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/417X2A5X0EL.jpg

Wow man! Must check. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick%27s_Picks_Volume_8

like, here's an AI trying to do "king solomon's marbles": https://jukebox.openai.com/songs/787978798

― Kate (rushomancy), Thursday, April 30, 2020 4:21 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Lol, sounds like The War on Drugs!

Anyone been listening to the 36 From the Vault podcast? I find it's been pretty useful for me contextualising different time periods for the band as I've only just been getting into them over the last year or so. Also made with the assumption that people who listen to Dead live shows have a lot of patience for fucking around, which is probably fair.

The out of tune guitars in the acoustic set of Dick's Picks 8 make me wince.

I love the Dead, but I struggle with their acoustic sets.

So now https://www.jambase.com/article/grateful-dead-workingmans-dead-50th-anniversary--skipping Live/Dead" bummer, and what the Hell, man?? I realize we already had the Beyond-Deluxe Complete 1969 Fillmore Concerts or whatever the exact title may be, but can't afford that! Just the reremasted orginal and a bonus show would be fine.

I love Vol 8. The Viola Lee Blues on that slays.

One of my local record stores just posted on Facebook that a customer has sold them a complete CD set of Dick's Picks.

xpost - Apparently there's a real dearth of good quality 1970 shows in the vault, which is why they jumped ahead for this '71 Capitol Theatre show.

I figured they would have done something for Live/Dead, but I guess not. My dreams of the '69 Ark box live on.

Meantime, this new Dave's Picks from 6/23/74 at the Jai-Alai Fronton is sounding fantastic and tiding me over. Long been a fan of this show, great to have an official release. The bonus disc from the night before is terrific too.

That one contains "the sole Grateful Dead performance of Chuck Berry's "Let It Rock." I don't think they ever delivered a version of "Around and Around" that I liked, so that is not going to sell me. I'll check it out though.

Haha, that's nowhere near the peak of the show, but the "Let It Rock" does slay - I like it better than most of the JGB versions I've heard and it makes me with the Dead worked it into their Berry rotation more often.

It's the "Dark Star > Spanish Jam" and the jam into "Ship of Fools" that are the selling points for me on the main show.

https://youtu.be/r9vnz8nzZus

(in re: to the discussion above about wonky mixes, etc)

Apparently there's a real dearth of good quality 1970 shows in the vault, which is why they jumped ahead for this '71 Capitol Theatre show.

Almost certainly, there are a handful more outtakes/alternative mixes in the can that haven't seen release from 1970 as well than what's been officially (Though, in both cases maybe more from the American Beauty era).

I think the reason that '71 show was picked had more to do with it being a full pristine 16-track recorded show (from the run that would become the '71 Grateful Dead/Skullfuck album) than anything.

Personally, I would have rather seen a two bonuses disks of assorted 1970 live rarities, outtakes, what have you, but given the heavy live focus that GDP has had on recent reissues, that was just not going to be the case.

Oh I don't think you are wrong, I'm just going with the somewhat official line about the lack of '70s shows. I have no doubt they could compile something much better, but they seem to be really all in on the full shows being packaged with these reissues.

One of the good things about lockdown is that I've been able to get through the extensive live catalogue like never before. I'll soon be racking up a Gladwellian 10,000 hours expertise...

I've finally pushed past '72, and I'm really coming round to see the virtues of '77.

feeling like more of a deadhead than ever these days. must be the summer.

dick’s pick’s 12 (June 26 & 28, 1974, providence & Boston) is a new discovery for me. This Spanish Jam is sick!!

Reading through this thread like YES GIMME MORE
Is there a definitive book/bio for a relative noob?

Having trouble setting up some kind of listening plan here too. Tips are surely welcome

A Long Strange Trip By Dennis McNally may be deifinitive.

Searching For Th eSound by Phil Lesh was quite good
So was Bill Kreuitzmann's memopir but you might want to be better versed when you read that, not sure how important taht is.

Could do with a new take on the Deadhead's tape comapnion vol 1 now that the full gigs are avaialble and more of tehm.
THought that was good when most of the sets available seemed to be trading incomplete and Dick's Picks hadn't been set up fully yet.
Could be taht something like that is already around? But chronological layout is pretty important I think.

yes thanks a lot, just ordered Long Strange Trip

Having trouble setting up some kind of listening plan here too. Tips are surely welcome

Help is on the way! Because I'm a detail-oriented type, whenever I decide to explore the discography of an artist I like but never got around, I tend to make a "syllabus": read a biography, listen to the records and any live bootlegs as I go, read contemporary press. Anyway, when I got into the Dead a few years ago, I did the same with Long Strange Trip.

Here's a link to a Google doc that goes chapter by chapter. It's by no means complete--I got bored with "prepping" by 1972--and I don't remember my criterion for choosing shows, and they are all obvious choices I'm sure. Let me know if it is any use--after all that research, I don't remember if I ever managed to make my way through the shows, ha.

Hey thanks! I'm kinda doing that now, watched the Long Strange Trip doc and ordered the McNally book. So i'm checking out all threads, reading and listening all day long (as much as possible) don't know why exactly i'm obsessing over them right now. Doesn;t seem important to know either. I'm just living in the moment and enjoying the ride

the mcnally book is really good

Also worth reading:

This is All a Dream We Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead - Blair Jackson & David Gans (perfect companion to the McNally book, with a wide range of sources quoted/consulted)
Fare Thee Well - Joel Selvin with Pamela Turley ( interesting, sometimes dispiriting account of what happened to the Dead after Garcia's death)
Growing Up Dead - Peter Conners (memoir of a teenage deadhead, the best book on the subculture)

That Selvin book is really key for learning more about where the Dead went after Jerry die, but it's a depressing read. Phil and his wife look pretty awful.

I recently read both Phil's and Billy's books, which are good for different reasons. I liked reading about Phil's classical music background and his take on the music, while Billy's is a much lighter take and it sounds just like you are sitting next to him at the bar listening to him spin tales.

"after Jerry died"

One from the Vault is tight, enjoying this one a lot. Amazing opening with Help on the Way/Slipknot/Franklin

5/19/74 Portland Memorial Coliseum, Portland, OR - China Cat Sunflower > Rider. Gorgeous version!!

Don't forget to the get the roadies perspective as I really liked the two books by Steve Parrish and Rock Scully. Add those other books and you get almost a Roshomon view into the Dead. Don't know that there is another rock band that is covered in quite the same way as in some ways there is less of a distance to what was actually going on in the day to day.

They all end up sad as I think in the end you realize, it did not have to end the way it did for Garcia. In many ways, he is a prime example of being a prisoner of his own success.

Thinking about it, I would say the early NY punk scene has a similar view, as there are 4-5 books with different angles on same story too. I don't quite get the same thing from say the Beatles or Elvis or Led Zep books - there seems to be a distance where the Dead books are often more oral history.

The Bill Graham book is also another one that has a unique view on the Dead as they did so many big shows together.

Playing in the Band, Hec Edmundson Pavillion, Seattle 5/21/74 - Waaaayooo terrific freak out in first quarter of the friggin JAM XXXL

^Hell yeah, that was the longest PITB they ever played, and I believe the longest performance of any single song

Dark Star 5/11/72 is arguably a bit longer if you consider a few minutes of "Drums" in the middle part of Dark Star

Dick's Picks 12 is real good!

Really digging the Closing of Winterland set, slow, weird bar band jam version of Friend of the Devil. Great Scar/Fire, haven't heard the Dark Stars yet.

Yeah 12 is awes! Love the “Spanish jam” on that one.

Wow the Rockin' the Rhein Dark Stars are a huuuuge trip, I can see why this would be a perfect gateway for a noise head. The end of part I just rips my ears off.

that's one of my favorites