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

i liked the nyer piece but i'm so sick of people picking on the studio albums. very few memorable studio albums my eye! but i've always kinda listened to the studio albums more than live stuff so i guess i'm the oddball.

I agree, I think Aoxomoxoa especially has some really wild recording techniques to be appreciated, and of course Workingman's Dead and American Beauty are stone cold classics. Also the studio version of Terrapin Station is so well constructed.

Would it kill the dudes over at dead.net to slap some metadata on those songs though?

i just feel like so many people - even desdheads like the new yorker writer - downplay how amazing the songs are. he wonders what to shoot into space? how about really faithful renditions of great songs? i realize that the live thing is its own world but it still bugs me. lesh has the right attitude. people singing the songs a hundred years from now on their porch. they are great modern folk/americana songs! (the paragraph where he plays devil's advocate and lists all the negatives like the "fruity" lyrics, etc...)

Listening to Dusseldorf '72 today, "Loser" and "Deal" stuck out for me, in a good way, in the "how amazing the songs are" way.

listening to the Ace album last week, man, what a great record. maybe the studio naysayers just need better pressings or something. i have this beautiful german copy of jerry's reflections album and it makes me want to weep it sounds so beautiful. two unforgettable records right there. though not strictly speaking dead records.

I think the "studio/radio" Dead kind of hijacked their own career the way they got out of Warner Brothers with those final two live records and how those early solo records happened, which contained some of the best material they ever had. They had kind of built up a following and got radio play on Workingman's Dead/American Beauty and didn't really follow up on them for a few years. The live record Grateful Dead (aka Skullfxxk or Skull & Roses) seems to have been received as a let down going by a couple of reviews at the time. Then they did Europe 72 and Bear's Choice and then some of their most long standing tunes came out on Ace and the first Garcia album. I don't know if they would have had a bigger hit LP if the best tunes would have been done as a Grateful Dead album with high quality studio recordings, but you never know, timing is everything.

i just feel like so many people - even desdheads like the new yorker writer - downplay how amazing the songs are. he wonders what to shoot into space? how about really faithful renditions of great songs? i realize that the live thing is its own world but it still bugs me. lesh has the right attitude. people singing the songs a hundred years from now on their porch. they are great modern folk/americana songs! (the paragraph where he plays devil's advocate and lists all the negatives like the "fruity" lyrics, etc...)

Would it kill the dudes over at dead.net to slap some metadata on those songs though?

― HAPPY BDAY TOOTS (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, November 19, 2012 10:40 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ otmfm

It's been taking me a long time to get through that article. Despite the Deadhead deep in my heart, I just haven't been in a Dead mood lately. But I just got up to the part where Lesh listens to Brad Paisley these days.

ha, yeah, hmmm.
the author of the nyer piece picks some of his fave recordings here: www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/11/nicks-picks-paumgarten-picks-his-thirteen-favorite-live-grateful-dead-recordings.html

Ward Fowler's above recommendation of Road Trips Vol. 2 No. 2 much appreciated! Finally got around to it today. Pretty sure it's only a matter of time now before I completely submerge myself in this band. Will probably do Two From The Vault next.

Well, this is one testifyin' pilgrim, not the last word. he aptly quotes Lesh on all these versions of the songs:"like fairy tales, they're all true." So yeah, I'd like him to feel the albums more, and the acoustic sets. Also, while Weir has his quirks, he could belt out the ol' roadhouse covers effectively enough; he's no Pigpen, but he sure fills some of the 'pen gap. Also, leave us not forget the Ace album, or some Other Ones songs he and Hart came up with (his suaver side, not so far from the "Weather Report Suite". which Paumgarten does favorably mention here). Phil Lesh and Friends (when they include Warren Haynes) and 7 Walkers, Kreutzmann and Papa Mali's band, are also robust, spacey and adventurous enough for me. But this is the single best Dead road trip map I've seen in quite a while.

conversations with the dead by david gans (the oral history book) is really interesting for audio/tech stuff. mostly cuz he interviewed people like bear who don't get interviewed a lot.

The Lesh part where he has no idea what the author is talking about when he mentions "Scar->Fire" is priceless

“Scar-Fire?” he repeated, unfamiliar with the shorthand.

Oh yeah. "The shorthand." As if anyone other than Paumgarten had ever abbreviated Scarlet Begonias > Fire on the Mountain that way.

ive heard it referred to "Scarlet>Fire" quite a bit

Yes! That! But not the other one.

ScarFire kind of sounds like the name of a lady you might meet in a Grateful Dead parking lot.

sorry. just makes me think of an angry dom passantino. doesn't do it for me.

30 days of free Dead downloads, starting today:
http://www.dead.net/30daysofdead/

^yes

This is weirdly hilarious: a seamless 90 minute edit of the Dead tuning up between songs, from 1977:

hxxp://archive.org/details/gd1977-12-31_505

I'm so far gone that I find that a really pleasant listen

I've actually been kind of enjoying it myself - it's like a super mellow counterpart to Neil Young's Arc.

haha, nice!

not quite tuning up, but archive.org also has the longest ever dark star here: http://archive.org/download/DarkStar-/1972-05-11DarkstarComplete.mp3
47 minutes!

things get nuts around 34 minutes.

This morning I was thinking I would really like to listen to a '73 show (haven't heard any from that year yet) and figured I'd come here for a recommendation and looking back through the thread there are plenty from that year. So now I'm kinda overwhelmed and don't know where to start!

The Denver Road Trips set is pretty good-to-great. The only one I've heard on Archive is Evanston, IL 11/1/73, which has its moments (particularly "Morning Dew").

i can recommend this one - Grateful Dead - Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles, CA, June 30, 1973 - http://archive.org/details/gd1973-06-30.aud.weiner.100346.flac16

Thanks! I'll start with those and see where I end up...probably gonna check out those '75 shows soon, too. I've been listening mostly to '68 and '72 so far, so it's time to branch out a bit.

i was listening to dick's picks vol. 2 from 1971 last night. with the dark star/tighten up jam. god help me, i think i'm a deadhead.

I saw the Dick's Picks vol1 vinyl box in a record shop this afternoon. Looked great, but soooo expensive.

how much are they going for? $50? more?

My favorite thing about Spotify is their Dead selection. Between that and archive.org, I don't think I'll need to spend money on this band for a long, long time. Thank God, because otherwise I would be the one buying Dick's Picks on vinyl, which is sadly still tempting in spite of everything I just said.

I've only seen them for $75 and up.

Tyler, they were going for 90 euros. Might be a little cheaper in the US, but prob still over 70 dollars.

Interview with Dick Latvala (from 1996, but just posted)

Those prices are outrageous.

This morning I was thinking I would really like to listen to a '73 show (haven't heard any from that year yet) and figured I'd come here for a recommendation and looking back through the thread there are plenty from that year. So now I'm kinda overwhelmed and don't know where to start!

― xanthanguar (cwkiii), Thursday, January 3, 2013 11:16 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

FWIW if I had to pick just one GD year to keep / throw out everything else, '73 would probably be my keep year-- non-jam songs sound tight, jam songs vary a ton from performance to performance. The jam stuff is especially good if you like that "Huh wtf song did they start this with?" feeling; the '73 Playing in the Bands are just about my favorite GD things from any era.

Think you can pick any of the '73 Dick's Picks at random and you're bound to find a great show. You could do worse than DP Volume 14, Boston Music Hall Dec. '73 (haven't checked to see how many of these are on Spotify).

>lonngggggg nyer dead article: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/11/26/121126fa_fact_paumgarten?currentPage=all

Not a deadhead at all, and never really listened to them recorded or live, but read this great article last week. Anyway, I sought out the live recording the author was talking about, and listened to the mythical "transition" that the author and his high school buddies worshiped. I wasn't impressed by it (like most Grateful Dead fans, according to the author)-- but loved the idea that I was somehow listening to a 'sacred moment' that had been listened to millions of times and obsessed over by this guy and his high school. Really fun.

hadn't really been in the mood for these guys for months but had "bird song" going in my car yesterday and now i'm all in the mood.
ordered dead set this morning which though maybe not quite as great as reckoning is ten times better than without a net

these are great:

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2012/12/28/moog-intros-grateful-dead-expansion-pack-for-animoog/

The Denver Road Trips set
Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles, CA, June 30, 1973
DP Volume 14, Boston Music Hall Dec. '73

Really dug all three of these! Thanks again, everyone, for the recommendations! I think I'm gonna get lost in archive.org this weekend...

http://www.glidemagazine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/gratefuldead_may77_productshot3-575x575.jpg
http://www.dead.net/may1977

Saw this link posted on another thread - good stuff.

https://listentothedead.com/

xpost Nice! I just heard 5/8/77 for the first time last week (actually the first '77 show I've heard so far) and really enjoyed it; it has an absolutely transcendent version of "Morning Dew", the best I've heard, which was not played at any of the shows in that box, unfortunately.

spring 77 is slightly overrated, maybe, but it's still a pretty awesome period for the band.

I was pretty much about art rock and new wave in '77, never saw the Dead during this period (or at all until way after Jerry died,) but seeing Dark Star Orchestra replicate the St. Paul May '77 show turned me around on the Dead a bit.

I've finally been broken down and, at 32, gotten into the Grateful Dead.

As I dig in deeper and buy more albums, I notice that I like the slightly jammy blues rock performances just fine, but the ones that really hit hard for me are the real floaty/pretty performances of tunes like 'Dark Star', 'Bird Song' and 'Morning Dew.'

Anybody fairly well-versed in the Dead able to recommend a live set that focuses more on this side of the band?