POX: GRATEFUL DEAD

Jerry on that "The Wheel" in particular ... SPINDLY is the only way I can describe his tone and note choice on that introductory solo.. breathtaking stuff. so sad, so beautiful.

1. Sugar Magnolia
2. Bertha
3. China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider
4. Jack Straw
5. Franklin's Tower
6. Althea
7. Eyes of The World
8. Uncle John's Band
9. Friend of The Devil
10. Ripple

YEah, that was hard. Often had to choose between what really made an impression on me for years vs. what I listen to most often now.

Ramble on Rose
Brown Eyed Women
Sugaree
Friend of the Devil
Black Peter
Dire Wolf
He's Gone
Me and My Uncle (that last line still always kills me)
Tenessee Jed
Casey Jones

For me it's all about that late-early period from 70-73: post-SF-psychedelia, pre-retirement. They wrote their best songs during that time. I've always prefered the performances during that period as well.

Bertha
Uncle John's Band
Scarlet Bogonias
The Wheel (Garcia solo, technically)
Ripple
Sugaree (Garcia solo too)
Friend Of The Devil
Candyman
Box Of Rain
New Speedway Boogie

Dark Star -> St. Stephen -> The Eleven
All of Workingman's Dead
Box of Rain
Brokedown Palace
Truckin'
Bertha
Estimated Prophet
Franklin's Tower
The Other One
Magnolia Mountain (Ryan Adams & The Cardinals)

dark star (live/dead)
st stephen (live/dead)
box of rain
mountains of the moon
rosemary
china cat sunflower -> i know you rider (europe 72)
the golden road (to unlimited devotion)
dire wolf
playin in the band -> uncle john's band (dozin at the knick)
viola lee blues

Box of Rain
Brokendown Palace
Crazy Fingers
Bertha
Brown Eyed Women
Jack Straw
Black Peter
Blow Away
Easy To Love You
I Will Take You Home

(beneath their yacht-rock arrangements, Brent's songs were the real deal)

Grateful Dead POX: Sad Sack Edition:

1. Standing on the Moon (Dick's Picks Vol 9)
2. Box of Rain (American Beauty ... or maybe Freaks and Geeks, last episode?)
3. Broke-down Palace (DP Vol 5)
4. Loser (5/8/77!!)
5. Looks Like Rain (Without a Net)
6. Row Jimmy (DP Vol 12)
7. Ship of Fools (DP Vol 31)
8. So Many Roads (So Many Roads box)
9. High Time (DP Vol 4)
10. Wharf Rat (DP Vol 3)

St Stephen>The Eleven (Two from the Vault)
Darkstar
Cold Rain and Snow
Jackstraw (Europe 72)
Dicks Picks Vol 16 Disc 2
Scarlet Fire Cornell 77
Bertha (skull & roses)
Born Cross Eyed
Smokestack Lightning (where is the LOVE for PIGPEN!?)
Touch of Gray

Yeah, I noticed right after I posted that I included no pigpen songs. I'd substitute Love Light and Alligator for I Will Take You Home and Brown-Eyed Women, I guess.

I think the germ of (China Cat Sunflower) came in Mexico, on Lake Chapala. I don't think any of the words came, exactly--the rhythms came.

I had a cat sitting on my belly, and was in a rather hypersensitive state, and I followed this cat out to--I believe it was Neptune--and there were rainbows across Neptune, and cats marching across the rainbow. This cat took me in all these cat places; there's some essence of that in the song.

This cat took me in all these cat places

Lake Chapala cat otm

man "Been All Around This World" on Reckoning is about the sweetest wind-down-the-day jam ever

whole album really

gonna listen to the dead all weekend imo

yeah i love DIRE WOLF on reckoning!

gonna listen to the dead all weekend imo

just before noon saturday, goin' with aoxomoxoa and thinking about buying the winterland '78 album

gonna be a good day

listened to american beauty, gonna mow the lawn

summer in america

aerosmith, that winterland 78 set is p poor, wldn't make it a priority

Live/Dead has such a nice sound to it. Bass is really evident.

diggin "west LA fadeaway" this morning -- Dylan should've sung it when they toured together! i should explore more late period dead. or should i?

No, don't think so. best stuff is mainly pre-retirement far as i can see.
Wouldn't know where to start with doing one of these I have too much to choose from

Did notice 21/2/69 recently was very tasty.
& Veneta may have some of the best music ever recorded, especially the Bird song, Dark Star and a cou[ple of others.
Trying to think what the other '72 I was listening to recently was.
Had some lovely stuff on.

Main HOT periods i can think of offhand are
August '68
& May '70

& there are great sets from every year from '67 to '74. Even '71 though songs aren't as exploratorily jammy for a lot of the year.

& '77, '78 & Anchorage at least in '80 all have great bits in them.

Saw them in '90 & listening to the dvd of one of the wembley sets Garcia's voice was shot, unless it was temporary laryngitis.

West L.A. is a standout track! Of late-period dead stuff, I recommend checking out any of Brent Mydland's songs. It can get kinda dicey, because as always performance quality varies wildly. There aren't very many good Garcia/Hunter tracks from this period. Some of Weir's stuff is okay, particularly Victim or the Crime. Mydland/Barlow was definitely the most consistent songwriting team of the era.

Oh wait! The other Garcia track that is great from this period is Foolish Heart.

I just threw on "easy to love you" from the 1990 nassau run. I think brent could have saved this band.

If by late period Dead you mean Wake of the Flood onwards then I don't see why not you shouldn't explore this material. It's not like you have to buy the albums to hear all the songs. So it's like "big whoop" if you hear a lot of filler-type material. There's nothing wrong with hearing every Dead studio song at least once.

aerosmith, that winterland 78 set is p poor, wldn't make it a priority

― Ward Fowler, Saturday, August 14, 2010 2:51 PM (7 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I disagree with this.

"Just a Little Light" is another massive fucking late period gem. A dark, dark Brent song that the band coalesces around well.

yeah basically post-wake of the flood is what i'm talking about. not like there's a ton of stuff.

Obviously late-era (thinking post-coma, '87-'95) is totally spotty, but a lot of the Hornsby shows, around '89-'92, are worth listening to; think Dick's Picks Vol. 9 has some great stuff. Without a Net, from that era but w/o Hornsby, has some stand-out tracks.

Yeah I would also recommend Without A Net

I listened to all the latter-day Dead albums pretty recently & mostly enjoyed them; the new expanded box set versions of Reckoning & Dead Set are great (fab "Dark Hollow" on the former).

yeah, Reckoning is great! in fact, that might be might my OPO late-period dead. i love the long version of "To lay me down" on the exanded version.

just found the recording of the first dead show i saw when i was 14. http://www.archive.org/details/gd93-05-15.schoeps.fink.17955.sbeok.shnf
might not be a classic show, i don't know. sting opened. memories.

I regretted checking out the 94 and 95 dead shows that I went to.

haha, yeah. they were fun, um, experiences, but the shows from that time that I saw might not hold up musically.

Touch of Grey isn't bad - just played out to an extent. There's a great version somewhere, from 86 I think, where Garcia leads into the song at a breakneck clip and it just doesn't let up. I'll have to track that one down.

The Warlocks box from last year, which is 1989 shows, is as good as I've heard them sound during the v. late period. Without a Net is nice too, first live Dead I really absorbed. Still one of my favorite "Eyes of the World" in there w/ Brandford on soprano.

oh yeah forgot about that warlocks thing.
this 93 vegas show is sounding kinda good!
commenter deadhead OTM:
There was clouds and some light rains and drizzle most of the day and into the first set. There was also some pretty impressive lightning.
Into the set break the sky was still crying. Then came the second set. The boys come out and start the usual routine of tune-noodling as I've heard it called. Then comes the opening lyrics of Here Comes Sunshine. The crowd went wild, the sky stoppped crying and the the sun came out . You might think i was on something but I swear that this is how it happened. The remainder of the second set was dry and the sky was blue for the rest of the day. INCREDIBLE!!!

some questionable synth sounds from the keyboard man

Best Dead pop song is Golden Road

I really like the set from his birtyhday in 1973 but it has been an age since I listened to it. Struck me as more soul influenced than other stuff I'd heard by them when I first heard it.
Think solo he covered quite a bit of MOtown type stuff, Marvin Gaye tunes etc.

man in terms of the iconography of the grateful dead i feel like a set of skeletons playing to an audience of fans incapable of noticing is not all that 'fun', i do like touch of grey though

Music and comments by participants here:

http://www.openculture.com/2014/07/when-miles-davis-opened-for-the-grateful-dead.html

First bit of "It's About That Time" really sounds like The Contortions to me.

xp cool! i do remember really loving that bit in miles' autobiography when he talks about the dead and how he and garcia hit it off pretty well

Some of Miles' sets from those shows were released on the most recent Bootleg Series.

there are definitely some later dead jam where you can tell they were paying attention to miles' stuff from this period.
i think in lesh's autobio he says jerry was the only one who talked to miles -- the rest of them were too scared.

Fun Hunter interview:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/robert-hunter-on-grateful-deads-early-days-wild-tours-sacred-songs-20150309?page=5

19h 50m of "dark star" on spotify (including grayfolded)

80 cd, 30-show dead retrospective coming out:

http://www.dead.net/store/special-edition-shops/50th-anniversary-shop/30-trips-around-sun-box

lol

Just a Little Light
I Will Take You Home
Blow Away
Easy To Love You
Box of Rain
Ripple
Jack Straw
It Must Have Been the Roses
Black Peter
Deal

Oh, I see I have posted here before.

Box of Rain
Brokendown Palace
Crazy Fingers
Bertha
Brown Eyed Women
Jack Straw
Black Peter
Blow Away
Easy To Love You
I Will Take You Home

(beneath their yacht-rock arrangements, Brent's songs were the real deal)

― kingkongvsgodzilla, Thursday, October 11, 2007 9:43 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Until just this day, I had thought Brokedown Palace was titled Brokendown Palace. I kinda like it a little less now with that knowledge.

80 cd, 30-show dead retrospective coming out:

http://www.dead.net/store/special-edition-shops/50th-anniversary-shop/30-trips-around-sun-box

― Thus Sang Freud, Tuesday, June 2, 2015 12:58 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Career-spanning sets that give equal weight to each period just seem to invite unflattering comparisons (which the 3-song teaser makes abundantly clear).

Will buy the 4 CD version "just to have it," I guess. Funny how even the zip drive version costs as much as a Gibson SG. I'm a pretty huge fan but $700 is absurd..

Unbroken Chain is so satisfying. Love Phil.

And that insane high pitch frequency that floats in and out.

Does Garcia play his Alembic on this one? sounds like it to me.

Some Donna vocals on here I guess. pretty 70s

Synth on Unbroken Chain courtesy of Ned Lagin, I believe. Great song, barely misses my top 10:

Dark Star
Row Jimmy
Wharf Rat
Bird Song
China Cat Sunflower
Cassidy
Franklin's Tower
Terrapin Station
Ripple
He's Gone

19h 50m of "dark star" on spotify (including grayfolded)

― adam, Thursday, May 28, 2015 11:20 PM (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I spent the weekend listening to every version of Dark Star from 73 and 74 lol. There's nothing better than when Keith sticks with the Rhodes, as he often did in those years.

Eyes of the World (Roosevelt Stadium '74)
Viola Lee Blues (Harpur College 1970)
He's Gone (Europe 72)
Morning Dew (Europe 72)
Playing in the Band (many good ones)
Fire on the Mountain (studio)
St Stephen (studio)
Terrapin Station (studio)
Uncle John's Band (studio)
Help on the Way/Slipknot/Franklin's Tower (studio)

Terrrrrrapin!

Kind of feel like tennessee Jed should sneak in there too.

WB Era POX

Not Fade Away/Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad (Skull and Roses)
Dark Star (Live/Dead)
Cumberland Blues (Workingman's Dead)
Dire Wolf (Workingman's Dead)
Friend of the Devil (American Beauty)
New Potato Caboose (Anthem of the Sun)
Jack Straw (Europe '72)
Cosmic Charlie (Aoxomoxoa)
St. Stephen/The Eleven (Live/Dead)
China Cat Sunflower/I Know You Rider (Europe '72)

new speedway boogie
mountains of the moon
dark star
st stephen
ripple
dark star
row jimmy
wharf rat
franklin's tower
estimated prophet

Estimated Prophet
China Cat Sunflower
Franklin's Tower
Wharf Rat
Althea
Truckin'
Bertha
Ripple
Ship of Fools
Sunshine Daydream

Solid lists both.

Dark Star
Row Jimmy
Wharf Rat
Bird Song
China Cat Sunflower
Cassidy
Franklin's Tower
Terrapin Station
Ripple
He's Gone

― J. Sam, Tuesday, February 28, 2017 7:35 PM (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I mostly stand by this but would replace "Franklin's Tower" with either "The Wheel" or "Ship of Fools"

Chronological order from studio albums:

That's It for the Other One
New Potato Caboose
Born Cross-Eyed
Mountains of the Moon (1971 remix)
Uncle John's Band
Box of Rain
Sugar Magnolia
Stella Blue (no-one else has picked this?)
Eyes of the World
Crazy Fingers

Staying away from Bob and Jerry solo records otherwise I’d have to make room for Cassidy, Sugaree, and prob like 2 others from Garcia

Doin That Rag
Wharf Rat
New Speedway
Black Peter
Candyman
Scarlet Begonias
Franklin’s Tower
Estimated Prophet
Fire on the Mountain
Althea

May gotta sub out Fire with Help on the Way

Help on the Way>Slipknot!
Jack Straw
Wharf Rat
Scarlet Begonias
Roy Jimmy
Cassidy
Mississippi Halfstep
Brokedown Palace
The Wheel
The Other One

If Morning Dew counts as a Dead song, it's in there somewhere. Subbing for what, I don't know.

The Dead suck so much they didnt care WHO made illegal recordings of their concerts

Dick's Picks between 68-71 are really good so far

xp easiest FP ever, stop making terrible posts plz

ladies and gentlemen, the grateful goddamned dead!!

Praying for Latham Green that they may one day Get Shown The Light

Just Kidding I love the dead

I had a great realization today that even though there are thousands of recorded hours of the band, I think I know what I like now and I never have to search:

Anthem of the Sun
American Beauty/WMD
that old Skeletons in the Closet greatest hits
Live/Dead
Live stuff from 72/73

That's all I really need as someone who is not inclined to get super deep

Two From The Vault catches them at an early peak.August 68, them doing the Anthem sound live.
Dicks Picks 4 is May 70 which is another similarly high peak
& I think I need a new copy of the '69 Fillmore set cos my old one is damaged. Right at time of Live/Dead.
Then Sunshine Daydream from Veneta in summer of 72
& the Pacific Northwest 3cd which is 73/74

are all pretty necessary.

Sometimes I think if I have a good Help/Slip/Frank and a good Scarlet/Fire/Estimated I have most of what I need.

I recently discovered there were a number of shows where they added Eyes of the World to the latter, which makes a 4 song stretch about an hour long. Noodly, but it works if I'm in the right mood.

fairly agree, but then i went into this 77 era "peggy-o" and when that is firing good lord.

the problem i have with the dead is that it's addictive, i started out saying "just this one song" and then "just '72" and now i'm down the rabbit hole trying to figure out if they did anything good in 1985

it was sixty years ago today...

The first show under the name Grateful Dead was in San Jose on December 4, 1965

60 years...!

This was a fun/painful exercise. I disqualified Reuben & Cherise and Mission in the Rain. Chronologically:

Bertha (1971)
Wharf Rat (1971)
The Wheel (1972)
Unbroken Chain (1973)
Crazy Fingers (1975)
They Love Each Other (1976)
Terrapin Station (1977)
Passenger (1977)
Althea (1979)
The Days Between (1993)

Bobby songs that were in the running: Black-Throated Wind, Cassidy, Estimated Prophet, My Brother Esau, Throwing Stones. But most of my favorite Bobby songs debuted *after* Jerry died -- The Banyan Tree, Ashes & Glass, Two Djinn, Money for Nothing...!

Oh and also Big Bad Blues, and Seven Hills of Gold. Such great stuff.

has anyone seen Dark Star Orchestra? any good?

I have once, and yes they are. Or were, it’s been 20 years.

Their "Jerry" has changed since 20 years ago -- the current guy Jeff Mattson doesn't always make as strong an impression as John Kadlecik who was in that role back then (and went on to play with Furthur and many GD offshoots with the original members), but he is more than serviceable. And he's a bigger guy so they went from a skinny to a fat Jerry just like the Dead, lol. Their biggest negative is that they often (usually?) still go with their original conceit of playing original setlists, and when they choose a latter era show that's not always a good thing. But if you can dodge those shows they are pretty great.

I saw Mattson play guitar last year with a really great local Long Island band at a bar a 5 minute walk from my house. They did a different set of covers each Thursday for a month. The show I saw they covered the entirety of the Dylan Bootleg Series Live 1975 2CD, which was amazing. I missed the next week, Halloween, where they covered the entirety of the GD's 10/31/79 show at the Nassau Coliseum.

Nice, a Rolling Thunder tribute show sounds awesome.

I just reread my post and realized I may not have been clear - when I wrote “original setlists” I meant “as performed by the original band the Grateful Dead, not “original to DSO.” Does make me wonder if “original” qualifies as a contronym… hmm…