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

i...don't understand why they ever had two drummers. it makes sense on occasion, certain eras (earlier, especially), and different songs where they play in a complimentary way. but for the most part, whenever i have the chance to watch a grateful dead clip and both billy and mickey are playing, they're pretty much playing the exact same thing. it is weird.

in 68/69 i feel the duo drumming did have good effect, when mickey rejoined after the hiatus i fail to hear anything interesting coming from the pair. they were certainly more dynamic and got into some of my favorite stuff with just bill. that said, i do appreciate that mickey is and was a really far out spacey dude and kept a lot of weirdness present as they got bigger and lamer. this read on the beam is pretty cool even if a lot of it is over my head:

https://www.mickeyhart.net/news/all-about-the-beam-baby-5211

and he seems the most curious and restless member even into the current day-

https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2018/01/09/dead-notes-15-the-mickey-hart-interview/

Thanks for linking that interview... I skimmed over some chunks of it, but it’s really interesting. Mickey is cool.

holy shit, the beam

i didn't know about ANY of that.

i also have no idea what the beam is about, for the most part, but it strikes me as something where only mickey hart thinks he understands and everyone else is like "well either we're friends with mickey or paid by him to work on this beam, so fuck yeah the beam"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcRkeN0lmA4

He should have kicked Mayer in that clip, jfc

https://cmga360arts.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ellen-p1000430.jpg

it strikes me as something where only mickey hart thinks he understands

this is why it’s cool btw

What band title is that Hart beam thing from. Not being paying attention to what they are going out under these days.

is the amazon series worth watching, btw

anyone

see discussion starting here: should i give the grateful dead a chance?

yeah it's good!

XXP - It's a treat, definitely!

and yeah, i've listened to a fair amount of post 74 Dead and it seems to me that Hart is usually at his best when you forget he's even there. the main argument you could make for him is that he kept the band's experimental edge in the mix on the drums > space situations (which can be the most interesting parts of 80s/90s shows). but in a lot of cases he keeps things in a weird rhythmic zone — too bad, because between 72-74, Kreutzmann was proving himself to be a pretty incredible drummer. After that he's a little bit checked out. But I can only assume he wanted Hart there ...

Anyone else think about this commercial all the time?

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

I read that the Dead paid everyone in their crew -- roadies, drivers, techs, soundpeople -- the same amount that the band members got paid for a show. So, whatever Jerry made on a show, that's what the truck driver made, too.

Anyone know if that was true? And if so, did it continue into the '80s and '90s?

i don't know if that's true but i know they paid health insurance etc

Wow, I do faintly remember that ad

I totally remember that but it meant nothing to me at the time as I was still pissed that the Dead didn’t sound like sabbath.

Also is that Spike Lee in there?

He directed the ad iirc.

from the same campaign as the rob liefeld levis ad. heady times

I feel like that was a trend in the early ‘90s, high-profile directors bringing “prestige” to TV commercials... guess it doesn’t really happen now (maybe b/c commercials are often skipped)?

yeah David Lynch, PTA, and I think even Tarantino did commercials in the 90s.

afaik that detail about pay could be correct, perhaps exaggerated, but in the 4 hour doc from a couple years ago, it was stressed how much Jerry felt obligated to keep the machine going despite his poor health and addiction issues because if he stopped, even for a season, he'd be putting hundreds of people out of work.

the '90s was definitely lynch's ad-making peak, he's done ads since then but not as many as he did in the '90s

his playstation 2 ad was pretty memorable

you know, in '81 he did a music video (sparks' "i predict"), in the 2000s he did online videos. the man adapts with the times.

five years from now people will want to know the thread where david lynch's playstation 2 ad is discussed and it'll turn out to be the grateful dead live thread, and everybody will say "of course!"

from Rolling Stone---thanks Jon Blistein (I hope to catch up with the 50th Anniversary series this Fourth of July weekend):
The Grateful Dead will include a set of unreleased music taken from a handful of 1969 shows on the upcoming 50th anniversary reissue of Aoxomoxoa, out June 7th.

The set will feature two versions of Aoxomoxoa: A newly remastered version of the original 1969 LP and a remastered version of the band-produced mix the Dead released in 1971. The reissue’s bonus disc will boast live music recorded January 24th to 26th, 1969 at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco, California (the recordings were among the first live performances recorded to 16-track tape).

How Taron Egerton Became Elton John for ‘Rocketman’
Presented by
“In 1969, for their third album, the Grateful Dead eschewed outside producers and created Aoxomoxoa themselves, beginning a run of self-produced albums that would continue until 1977,” said Grateful Dead archivist Dave Lemieux in a statement. “Scrapping the first sessions, which were recorded to eight-track tape, the Dead now had 16 tracks with which to experiment their psychedelic sound, with an album that included entirely Robert Hunter-penned lyrics for the first time.”

The bonus disc of live material includes several gems, including two early versions of Aoxomoxoa tracks, “Durpee’s Diamond Blues” and “Doin’ That Rag,” as well as the final live performance of “Clementine,” a song the Dead began playing in 1968 but never released on a studio album. The Dead lineup at the time of the Avalon shows was Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, Phil Lesh, Tom Constanten, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann.

The 50th anniversary version of Aoxomoxoa is available to pre-order and will be released as a two-disc CD set and a limited edition vinyl picture disc.

In This Article: The Grateful Dead

https://open.spotify.com/track/1LL1dvOe6Y0Pd5pRgKGJKq?si=Fs7FpQNcTga7G_bj3_bbzw

“Beautiful Jam” from ‘71 on the So Many Roads comp

^^^ all-time great

“Durpee’s Diamond Blues”

Also enjoying Watkins glen rehearsal from that same album, which goes from spacey to hippie funk until jerry introduces a major key

yesterday i went through and listened to all of the top-rated performances of the first album songs on headyversion. well, i didn't actually get through pigpen doing "good morning little schoolgirl" for 16 fucking minutes, the album version was excruciating enough, but i did run across this ten minute jam on "cream puff war" from '66 that i liked a lot, actually. i have a hard time thinking of the dead as a genuinely "psychedelic" band, at least not in a way i'm into, but this sounded like it in a way jerry's playing usually doesn't for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLV-73VF6Tg

Just Bob.

Bob Weir - Isolated Jorts

^ love that

Dick's Picks #8 -- Harpur College, 5/02/70 -- Three-Quarters of this is impeccable; good form, nice song selection - one disc acoustic, one disc electric, and one disc rave-ups (i don't much care for their R&B covers like "Dancing in the Streets" and "It's A Man's Man's Man's World"). 8.5

Listened to a lot of this on my commute this morning and it's great! I don't think I had ever heard live acoustic dead from that era before. A highlight of the electric portion for me is Viola Lee Blues

I've been trying to spend some time with Cornell 77, but I still struggle with how almost supernaturally clean it sounds. Maybe that's part of the appeal, but I still prefer the grit of the earlier shows. 70-74 is my sweet spot. Obviously some of the performances on Cornell 77 are very good and the sound quality is great, but I still find something about it a little offputting.

Meanwhile, been really enjoying Dicks Picks 28 - Lincoln NE and Salt Lake City UT 1973, and also Roosevelt Stadium 1974.

I love Playing in the Band so much.

DiP 28 is so great. That was the first "Eyes" I heard, and it's got one of my fave "Dark Star"s, where Kreutzman just keeps the momentum going through the whole thing (akin to the 8/27/72 Veneta, OR "Dark Star").

I think 77 is a bit over-celebrated due to the number of good recordings that have been circulating for a long time, way before the internet. Cornell is definitely over-hyped but there's no denying they were playing clean and tight that year. quite possibly their cleanest and tightest year, maybe alongside 72. Recordings from 78 are also super clean but they begin to slow things down and the cleanliness begins to approach a really thin sound (lack of reverb maybe?) that I find grating.

hmm that's an interesting sort of historiographical (if that's the right word) point. I wonder if there were some significant advances in portable taping tech around that time.

Fwiw I’ve read that once Dan Healy took over (not sure exactly when that was), he didn’t pay a ton of attn to the soundboard mix. That’s why the soundboards from 82 and 83 and 84 haven’t been released much. He is also blamed for turning Bobby’s guitar way down in the mix.

Those 77s tend to be credited to Betty Cantor, who maybe was more careful about mixing the soundboard for the purposes of replay at home.

I’ve always wondered about how they mix the drums in the 80s and beyond. The hi-hats are way too loud and the snares sounds like crap. Heard the 91 RFK show on Sirius yesterday and it sounds like the snares are on another stage. I don’t have the technical expertise to say why that is.

That’s why the soundboards from 82 and 83 and 84 haven’t been released much.

Also, they stopped using reel-to-reel tapes around 1979, so the majority of early/mid-'80s soundboard recordings were made on hissy cassettes.

weren't they also mostly playing bigger venues in the 80s or at least in the 90s? That could impact sound a lot.

the mixing itself on Cornell 77 is admittedly kind of incredible. Can't think of another live recording that sounds like that.

Yes to your point about larger venues.

They made lots of great recordings in 89/90 for Without a Net. I assume they were using better equipment and being more careful about it. I love the way those sound and the best may be Hamilton Ontario in March 90. The Scarlet/Fire from that show made it to the big retrospective box set they released a few years ago.

that isolated bob video is awesome

This is most likely a long shot, but are there any recordings out there that have a particular atmosphere from the floor that give you an idea of the sound/power of the crazy wall-of-sound PA system?

I've not heard these myself, but some wall-centric suggestions from the ever-enthusiastic Grateful Dead Listening Guide: Call of the Wall.