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

i want things to get sort of 80s cokey/synthy. i just finished reading the mcnally bio (which is great) and was interesting to read about nerdy things like rig setups, etc. like each of lesh's bass strings having their own monitor mix or some shit.

― tylerw, Tuesday, July 10, 2012 4:15 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That wall of sound thing, of which Lesh's strings were a part, didnt last too long. Began in '74, dismantled not long after.

I just recently found out what the Phil Zone was. Too funny.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QUa_j6JIEk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXCuA2nt_6A

omg. this is so good. listen to the whole 12 minutes. r.i.p. brent. Fuck you for dying and fuck everybody who doesn't celebrate you as much as you deserve.

sounds good. haven't gotten quite that far in my listening project, but the Mydland years are better than I expected thus far! first show i listened to with him had an unfortunate keyboard sound and a kind of listless performance from the rest of the band, but the rest have been awesome.

Yeah, if you don't like Brent's keyboard sound, I don't know if I can reconcile you to it. To me it's pure acid. And the 80s mediocrity definitely hits him too. But when he's on, he's very very on and I love his songwriting in general. The spring and summer 90 runs right before he died are generally regarded as his best period.

YES! Someone else gets Brent's sound. Pure acid is EXACTLY right. Pity he often sang like Richard Marx, but that's another thread. I'm more a Keith man, but I love Brent.

Dudes upthread who are relatively new to the Dead - don't fear the eighties! The eighties were awesome. I always say if you shave off the first five and last five years of the band's existence, the Dead are my all time favorite band. 72-77 is my idea of perfect music.

Also, audience tapes >>>> soundboards.

yeah! the auds have been sounding better than the sbds in the 80s.

view from the vault 3 has some pretty good late-period footage but whenever they get in the zone... there are cheesy video effects :(

what was up with jerri's midi-guitar thing

the 80s seem like weird times for guitarists who had money to burn, i don't know.
i think there are supposed to be some theater showings of the grateful dead movie for garcia's birthday next month or something?

like everybody heard Brothers in Arms and was like THAT'S THE SOUND I WANT

Ha! Probably pretty accurate. Knopfler and Jerry are not too terribly far off style-wise relative to other guitarists of the era (or, you know, speed wise).

Dudes upthread who are relatively new to the Dead - don't fear the eighties! The eighties were awesome.

I gotta say, I've been trying my durndest, and I'm having trouble making it past (or even through) 1973. After '72, everything seems to slow down, and a certain dullness creeps in; the interaction just wasn't as sharp anymore. I've listened to the Cornell '77 show, and I do think Jerry's on fire -- "Dancing In The Street" was a pleasant surprise. But tempos no longer surge and pull back: "Jack Straw" plods along at one tempo, one dynamic level, and falls flat for me, as does much of the rest of the show.

I haven't given up, though.

try Pembroke Pines '77? I just love '77 to bits tho

Tarfumes, have you heard Reckoning? Slow at times, maybe slightly dull at times, but so much heart&soul and it's immacuately recorded.

"to lay me down" from reckoning is especially beautiful

tbh this 81 show has been one of the faves i've listened to in my little listening project: http://archive.org/details/gd1981-12-09.senn421.wise.82199.sbeok.flac16

Wish there was a Grateful Dead app where you could listen to every set.. 1st world probs

when I rent a car sometimes there's satellite radio & I find the Dead channel and just groove on down the damn road & it rules

yeah, i've only had one rental car/satellite radio experience and that's exactly what i did! it was the right thing to do.
don't know if this has been posted, but this is a good dead through the years listening guide: http://deadlistening.com

I have considered getting satellite radio for just this reason. But then I remember I have 236 cassettes, 60+ CDs (many multiple sets), and untold hours of mp3s full of live Dead music.

Tarfumes, I think the slowdown you refer to is part of the appeal of the band's early middle period. Much as I love Pigpen in spirit, I don't really find myself reaching for 25 minute rave-ups with Pigpen 'raps' much these days. My primary area of interest is 72 through 77, stopping right before Egypt, and picking up again in the early eighties. The band only played four shows in 1975 and all four of them are crucial, some of my all time favorites.

I think the band just found their groove in the mid seventies, became more distinctive, and I think a lotta that has to do with Keith's narcoleptic jazz style (and a lot of it has to do with Jerry taking less acid and getting into, err, "Persian"). It may just be an aesthetic thing, because, to me, the lazier and more languid the tempo, the more I get out of the jams. 66 through 70, to me, can sound very conspicuously 'sixties' in that dated sort of way, and some of the jams from this era could just as easily be the Airplane or Canned Heat, at least when Jerry isn't soloing. Not a bad thing, of course, but not what I want out of a Dead tape.

Wish there was a Grateful Dead app where you could listen to every set.. 1st world probs

I've had good luck with the Archivist app for iPhone. Crashes a bit, and takes a minute or two to load the entire vault, but once it loads, you've got the entire archive.org collection available to stream. My external hard drive has been collecting dust since I got the app.

Nice, thanks for the tip!

on another note, the Dark Star lp (record store day, I think ) taken from Europe 72 tapes really hit the spot on a tired Thursday night

It's weird, because I fucking love Keith's playing (and am pissed that it's buried in the mix on the Europe box relative to Europe '72). If there's a missing link between Andrew Hill and Nicky Hopkins, it's Keith. And I think Jerry's playing on the one '77 show I've heard is tremendous, regardless of tempo. And it's not just the slowness: I love all the '72 "Morning Dew"s I've heard, but find myself nearly falling asleep on the '73 versions. A certain "bite" seems to be missing, like they're not prodding each other (or themselves) like they used to.

I can totally accept that '77 is a different thing, and I dig how they embraced elements of disco...like I said, I haven't given up, and I may end up loving '77 (and later) Dead. I mean, I hated Europe '72 when I first heard it, after falling in love with Live/Dead; I was all, "the fuck? What are they, Poco now?"

and xp haven't heard Reckoning, but you're the second person to recommend it (thx sseward), so I'll check it out.

72 Keith is absolutely great but i feel like he got sleepier and sleepier from there on out. This is their peak.

73 is my fave year for spacey jams and improv, but things could get a bit too mellow and lacking in the rock dept.

74 they just seem to painting by numbers much of the time. maybe you had to be there for the WOS.

75 great and wierd but v small sample

76 blah

77 so overrated. i dont get it. i guess they were very tight and coked up.

78/79 super blah, things get good again around 83.

FYI

gotta say, no matter what your era preference is, the whole archive.org dead collection is a fucking thing of beauty, even if the sbd downloads are gone now. if only more artists would get into it. i know aerosmith is cool w/ it, but it'd be great if more of the dead's peers just put the curating of their live recordings in the hands of fans.

are there other bands that have a volume of recordings that's anywhere near the GD?

probably not -- only artist that comes close in terms of live recordings is probably Dylan and even he sat out most of the 70s and a good portion of the 80s. maybe neil young, he's been playing consistently since the 60s, but he wasn't as obsessively documented (by anyone other than himself, I guess).

If there's a missing link between Andrew Hill and Nicky Hopkins, it's Keith

Totally otm!

Yeah, he and Kreutzmann play off each other beautifully; it feels like that interplay, among other things, was lost once Hart rejoined.

if only more artists would get into it.

^ this. There are scads of Moon-era audience Who shows, and for a few years longliverock.org hosted torrents of them. Despite being officially sanctioned by the band, I guess someone got squeamish, because the site was shuttered a couple of months ago.

"are there other bands that have a volume of recordings that's anywhere near the GD?"

Fugazi's archive is pretty impressive.

I think it takes kind of a unique live band/artist to really be able to carry such an extensive archive, as so many bands really don't change up their set lists/shows enough to make each night a unique experience.

yeah the fugazi thing is cool. yo la tengo have an archive of live tapes, almost 30 years worth of consistent gigging. it's true, some bands wouldn't warrant such obsessive documentation, but it'd be cool if more of 'em signed off on archive.org. might just be a case of fans asking the artist, though, i don't know. would be nice if yo la tengo was competing with the 500 jason mraz shows on there.

Would hit up a comprehensive YLT archive.com page for sure

you never know, they might be into it. the recent ylt bio reveals that ira kaplan was a deadhead who even taped a few shows in the mid 70s.

Also, he listened to Wake of the Flood and he was high.

hahaha

If YLT were to get a space on archive, they would be right next to Yo Mama's Big Fat Booty Band . : /

Come to think of it, have YLT ever covered the Dead? I mean, they've covered pretty much everyone else.

Wonder if that indie-rock Grateful Dead tribute album ever got off the ground.

I play Ripple on a Gibson LG-1 for aero jr. as a lullaby and he really seems to love it

aw. bet that's adorable. anytime I pick up my guit to play for my little girl, she wants to join in with strumming, which makes playing most songs pretty difficult. it's awesome that she wants to learn though. today I caught her with a pick shoved down the front of her onesie.

Pearl Jam are notable for having commercially available recordings of pretty much every show they've played for the last 12 years, but that's still probably not as many as there are GD bootlegs over the decades

listening to some of these mid 80s live shows and actually digging mydland's keys -- he definitely has some weird sounds, but he's making them work!

though good lord, someone needed to tell weir to relax and quit hamming it up.

I'm pretty sure I'm gonna pop for the 2CD highlights of the spring 90 tour.

http://www.dead.net/store/spring-1990-shop/spring-1990-so-glad-you-made-it?eml=dn/080112/sprin90CD

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc6/207822_10151069074089024_1508498336_n.jpg

woah there was already a thread for this?? but ilx spent so much of 2012 discussing it in every other thread ever

I'm relatively new to these guys, but I'm really, really enjoying Dick's Picks 22. Previously, the only live records of theirs I heard were Live/Dead and Europe '72, so I don't have much to compare it to, but damn, I've just been having "this record is exactly what I need right now" moments with this thing all week. Anyway, thanks to everyone who recommended it on this and (I think) other Dead-related threads!