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

Q: Is Dark Star Orchestra as good as they were 8-10 years ago?

ehh, I'm not sure if I want to go. John Kadlecik has joined Further. He did a great Jerry Garcia voice. And another founding member, keyboardist Scott Larned, had a heart attack in 2005.

This isn't making me want to shell out $25

Now they have Jeff Mattson from The Donna Jean Godchaux Band
http://www.archive.org/details/dso2010-05-29.flac16

According to the current DSO keyboardist Rob Barraco:
"The one thing that Jeff has above everybody else is that he really understands the earlier bend on the Dead. The late '60s, early '70s. He does it so well and that's something that we really haven't concentrated on in this band until now. Jeff brings just a little more grease, that psychedelic greasy element that was missing in John's playing. Not to demean John's playing, because he's brilliant. That's just what Jeff brings that is different."

I haven't formed a good enough opinion on Jeff Mattson's voice but that link to him playing with DSO up above really highlights his guitar playing (from what I heard of it so far). I think I want to go again.

When I saw DSO for the first time they did this show (I'll link the Dead version):
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1984-06-12.nakcm304-mikeg-suraci.suraci.78162.flac16

People who want to hear The Dead freak out should listen to this show. I particularly remember having no clue that the Dead had music like this. Lots of psychedelic stuff on speed

I went to the site to read about this Europe '72 box, and it says that all 7,200 copies were sold at $450 each in four days. 7,200 x 450 = $3,240,000. I find that just astounding.

lol that is nuts

That is 432,000 units

well Dark Star Orchestra was really impressive at Atlanta tonight. Interesting that this show had a crazy amount of hits compared to all the streaming shows I've seen at archive.org. Like 'friend of the devil' into 'new minglewood' and 'truckin' into 'sugar magnolia' into 'bertha'(I believe). They did stuff like 'alabama getaway' and 'johnny b. goode'; and 'friend of the devil' and 'passenger'; 'wharf rat' and 'morning dew' (I believe). 'ripple' was right near the beginning of the night along with the countryish songs.

we left when the encore started and they started doing 'casey jones'. lol, the guy in the bathroom was talking out loud and he said the two songs he really hates is 'casey' and either 'drums' or 'space'. and yeah they did those ones as well. some of my favorite songs of the night were the ones I didn't recognize after 'space' and 'drums' because they obviously went into heavy psych/"jam band" territory at that point - although none of the freak out sort of psych like in the "dead version" link I put upthread.

huh, i'm always kind of tempted to go see these guys (they play in colorado constantly it seems). kind of afraid of the "scene" but maybe i should just suck it up and go. it's probably be fun.

I thought Dark Star recreated specific shows?

Was just going to mention the 60cd box but obviously been beaten to it by some way. Apparently sold out in 4 days & the band's store is selling the music without the extras for the same price. Shame you miss the box.

Not seen if there's been talk of Veneta and Sunshine Daydream the movie. But that set has to be one of their peaks 28/7/72 I think

& May '70 seemed to largely be a peak too as did august '68.

I'm mainly into them up to the '74 retirement but there are peaks after that.

My guess is that Sunshine Daydream will be the centerpiece of a future Dead box -- it is great!

here's a trick:

save the the streaming .m3u playlist to your desktop
open it in a text editor
turn the mp3 urls into links
save file as dead.html
open dead.html in web browser
right-click on the mp3 links, save mp3s to hard drive

friend of the devil is a friend of mine

― Mangrove Earthshoe (herb albert), Wednesday, January 19, 2011 7:15 PM

ha awesome

I found the live dead recording corresponding to the DSO show I saw last night
1980-10-27 - Radio City Music Hall, NY. 3 set show

you should go this year, tylerw. there's 4 shows around colorado in april. i've been to boulder and i don't think you should be afraid of that "scene". maybe you know more about that scene though... i wouldn't mind hearing your opinions about it

I never saw the Dead (no interest at the time) and I've only seen DSO once, but I thought they did an excellent job of recreating the sound of the '70s Dead. "The scene" I saw was really just a bunch of tie-dyed 20-somethings in Phish shirts, no cause for fear imo.

I will give the next local Dark Star Orchestra show a chance, I suppose.
Unless it's on like a Monday night or something.

so does DSO announce what Dead show they're playing beforehand or is it a surprise?

afaik it's always a surprise. A few old heads near where I was standing at the back of the bar kept trying to "guess the date/venue" throughout the show.

RIP Owsley "Bear" Stanley -- the guy responsible for most of the Dead's live recordings. And umm other stuff too.

Oh damn. RIP. :(

Designed my favorite lightning bolt.

Shit, I hadn't realized that was why my buddy shared this on FB. interesting story, one of a kind dude.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2007%2F07%2F12%2FMNGK0QV7HS1.DTL

yeah, quite a life, even aside from any grateful dead stuff.
bear's choice is still one of my fave Dead experiences

supposedly stanley had a ton of non-dead live recordings from the late 60s in his archives that he was really protective of, and mainly kept unreleased -- wonder if any of that will start to surface? selfish, i know, but can't help wondering.

A lot of my favorite Archival Dead releases are from his tapes
http://www.thebear.org/albums.html
His site is refreshingly stark.

This from that page: "I have a lot of tapes stored in the Dead's tape vault. Virtually every band that played on the same bill with the Grateful Dead during my years as soundman, and who did not bring their own soundman, was recorded. I would be very interested in working with any of the bands concerned to see if the tapes represent anything worth releasing. I will post the list once it is OCR'ed (a big job!)."

would love to see that list, jesus christ.
the flying burrito bros. live thing from a few years back was one of his tapes.
some people have suggested he has some unheard Velvet Underground stuff too.

Maybe you could peruse the archive at UC Santa Cruz?

road trip!
this show is the VU one: http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-04-25.sbd.2596.sbeok.shnf

a happy pairing it sounds like "According to Ron Ramsey, who attended the show, the other bands on the bill were SRC (a local group), and the Velvet Underground. The Velvet Underground played a very long set and as a result the Dead only got to play one set on this date. According to Ramsey the Dead did the same thing to the Velvet Underground the next night."

this is the show i really want though
http://olivier.landemaine.free.fr/vu/live/1969/vu_ad_690207_the_pittsburgh_press_february_5_1969.jpg

Love that poster

a happy pairing it sounds like "According to Ron Ramsey, who attended the show, the other bands on the bill were SRC (a local group),

So not the Quackenbush brothers band? Who were from Detroit, this was a Chicago show you were talking about was it? i wasn't aware there were 2 SRCs

and the Velvet Underground. The Velvet Underground played a very long set and as a result the Dead only got to play one set on this date. According to Ramsey the Dead did the same thing to the Velvet Underground the next night."

Would love to hear those shows. I take it they're not in circulation already? Would love it even more if it was a year earlier with Cale onboard.
Did i read recently that there were supposed to be a number more Cale era tapes somewhere. Think I've only heard the normal few, Gymnasium NYC, Columbus Ohio '66, think there are a couple others but can't think what.

dunno, coulda been the quackenbush band?
yeah, the VU sets with the dead have never been bootlegged if the tapes actually exist.
here's a funny thing from unterberger's site about the shows:
10. The Kinetic Playground, Chicago, April 25-27, 1969: For the second and last time, the Velvet Underground shared a bill, unbelievably, with their ultimate antithesis in attitude, the Grateful Dead. According to Doug Yule's recollection in the fall/winter 1994 edition of the fanzine The Velvet Underground, "That show the Dead opened for us, we opened for them the next night so that no one could say they were the openers. As you know, the Grateful Dead play very long sets and they were supposed to only play for an hour. We were up in the dressing room and they're playing for an hour and a half and, hour and 45 minutes. So the next day when we were opening for them, Lou says, 'Huh, watch this.' And we proceeded to play a very long set. We did 'Sister Ray' for like an hour and then a whole other show." But for all the differences between the Velvets and the Dead, they do share one thing in common: sheer volume. "There was a guy standing over by the sound mixing board, and somebody said, 'that's [Grateful Dead soundman] Owsley,'" remembers Milwaukee radio DJ Bob Reitman. "I walked over to him and said, 'Are you Owsley?' He turned to me to answer, and the whole sound system just—and it probably was him—it's like somebody turned the whole thing up so loud that we couldn't hear each other. We just looked at each other and shrugged."

so i guess owsley was definitely at these shows -- whether he taped the VU, who knows?

I'd say for people looking for a second place after live dead that really like the electric rock improv angle, I'd say the 2nd disc of Hundred Year Hall is one to check. They pretty much explode on The Other One and that jam starts with Casey Jones and goes pretty much full tilt for an hour. It's crazy for any band really. When Lesh rockets that main bass line for the Other One, they just take off. Some of the jamming when they get past the head/song part is really intense on this take and wouldn't sound out of place with Ash Ra Tempel or Cosmic Jokers, but really more melodic as Garcia could really soar.

I think the Cryptical Envelopment/The Other One is one of the best jamming tools the original Dead had and definitely one of the most 'rockin'.

psyched that a bunch of the dick's picks things are on spotify. listening to winterland 1977 now, sounds amazing.

There was a show from Dallas, '77 that they were playing today on the GD channel on XM and it was incredible.

Dunno if anyone's posted this yet, but all of the Europe '72 shows are being released individually:
http://store.dead.net/store/europe-72-shop

oh man you are gonna buy that box set aren't you? keith moon is frowning in heaven. even frowning he looks like a dirty and adorable little imp though.

You had to play the Moon card, didn't you?

I've heard the first two shows, and man, they just come charging right out of the gate. The first show (London, 4/7/72) is stronger than the second (London, 4/8/72), though.

The 72 box is ridiculous.

I mean, you can make a case for the Dead as one of the top three greatest American bands using these shows as evidence.

how many discs is the box?
also, can i borrow it.

There is a palpable sense of some higher presence/consciousness on some Dead boots. I think I was listening to "Not Fade Away" from the London set that I became aware.
They're the only ones, etc.

"more than 60 CDs"

xp tyler I think it's like 40 discs, and of course I didn't shell out the $500 for it - who the hell would? Anyway, it's OOP as a set already. But I've found it via unscrupulous means (you can too!) - I'm five shows in right now. All good, even the weird cafeteria show in Aarhus, 4/16/72.

The original, limited box set was 72 discs, but for some reason the newer, less fancy version you can buy is quoted at "more than 60 CDs".

Nah, they've repressed a sparser version with none of the fancy trimming to buy.