The Grateful Dead

[Analogman]

There are some photos of it in the GD Gear Book. I don't think there is any info about who owns which guitar though (besides those Irwin guitars).

[calvino]

That the alligator guitar...?

 

Yes.

[calvino]

I Googled the whereabouts and only came up with this. Quote is dated December, 2009

 

 

emailed david lemieux, the guy who runs the dead's tape vault, and according to him the guitar is definitely still in existence but he's unsure exactly who has it at the moment. All he knew was that its in the possession of either a family member or friend of the band.

 

from

http://www.strat-talk.com/forum/stratocaster-discussion-forum/22659-jerry-garcias-alligator-graham-nash-strat.html

[Oil Can Boyd]

A friend just sent me this link from archive.org.  It's described as "a seamless audio supercut of an entire year of the Grateful Dead tuning their instruments, live on stage. Chronologically sequenced, this remix incorporates every publicly available recording from 1977, examining the divide between audience expectation and performance anxiety."

 

It's weirdly hypnotic (but I will admit to have not listened to all 90 minutes of it):  http://archive.org/details/gd1977-12-31_505

[Lammycat]

Man that's frustrating hearing the notes/beginning riffs of tunes and then it never plays. I always thought one of these with between-song banter would be cool. Or all the Phil Donor Raps.....

[Shug]

I can't remember the specifics of these, but as the Dead rarely spoke on stage, it could be amusing when they did.

 

There's the one in which Jerry uncharacteristically berates a fan calling out for Truckin' one time too many "What are ya, some kinda cop or something? What about the people who don't want to hear Truckin'?"

 

And another in which Jerry and Bob ask that the house lights be turned down and as they go down a little bit, Jerry says "turn them waaaay the fuck down, yeah that's it"

[jw harding]

Phil had some pretty good banter: 

 

Meet the Jones Gang: http://archive.org/details/gd1977-11-04.mtx.chappell.SB5.29091.flac16

 

We want Phil: http://archive.org/details/gd90-06-10.sbd-matrix.miller-ladner.6937.sbeok.shnf

[mountain bed]

Man that's frustrating hearing the notes/beginning riffs of tunes and then it never plays. I always thought one of these with between-song banter would be cool. Or all the Phil Donor Raps.....

The between-song banter idea...now wouldn't THAT be fun! Play that sucker at a GD trivia night and watch all of our brains explode.

 

You and I have done this "banter quiz" a few times and I certainly enjoy it. Mostly because I'm such a geek for this kind of thing.

 

I can't remember the specifics of these, but as the Dead rarely spoke on stage, it could be amusing when they did.

 

There's the one in which Jerry uncharacteristically berates a fan calling out for Truckin' one time too many "What are ya, some kinda cop or something? What about the people who don't want to hear Truckin'?"

 

And another in which Jerry and Bob ask that the house lights be turned down and as they go down a little bit, Jerry says "turn them waaaay the fuck down, yeah that's it"

The "are you a cop" rap is from 10/30/71 - one of my first tapes. It was actually labeled as that on the copy I dubbed.

 

Phil had some pretty good banter: 

 

Meet the Jones Gang: http://archive.org/details/gd1977-11-04.mtx.chappell.SB5.29091.flac16

 

We want Phil: http://archive.org/details/gd90-06-10.sbd-matrix.miller-ladner.6937.sbeok.shnf

My  favorite (possibly) of all song banter is 12/1/73 Boston. It features quite a bit of Phil and continues through a couple of tunes.

[Analogman]

I think that was one of the early conversations we had on here - the one about the "beyond the pale" comment.

[Mr. Heartbreak]

Just downloaded a few soundboards from spring '77 that I've never heard before, so it looks like it will be a Dead Xmas/New Year stretch. Boy, when you're in the mood for it, those echoey '77 boards are pretty sweet.

I always wondered why the sound was that way for just that year. They seem to sound the same in every venue, totally different from '76, '78, or any other year, for that matter. Anyone know the story behind that?

[Shug]

Echoey soundboards from 1977? I get just the opposite, a real nice dry, balanced sound from them in that year. You don't hear a lot of the room, just a real balanced mix of the instruments and vocals, which is exactly what I prefer in a recording. I don't really want to hear much audience noise or the ambient sound of the room at all. Others feel differently and love the good AUD recordings. About the echoey sound, maybe you and I are just using different terms, I don't know. Either way, like most people, we seem to both dig the recording quality of much of 1977 GD. I've read that the SBDs from 1977 were mostly done by Betty Cantor and she was taking a feed from the PA that was mixed just for the recording. So there was a mix done for the audience to hear and a different mix for the tape. That is the general explanation why the "Betty boards" sound so good, at least to most people's tastes.

 

http://archive.org/post/256242/why-betty-boards

 

http://archive.org/post/132547/ms-betty-cantor-jackson-her-boards-and-the-law

 

What shows did you pick up from '77?

 

 

[Mr. Heartbreak]

Hmm, looks like the '77 ones I just got AREN'T any of the "Betty boards"... 5/11, 5/17, 5/18, & 5/26. They are clearly not AUD recordings, as the crowd noise is always faint and distant...

Anyway, thanks for the info!

[Fritz]

I was watching the GD movie yesterday. Towards the end where there's a scene backstage (Jerry is looking for water) there's an old guy standing there, looking like someone of note who's been invited back to see the band. Hair slicked back, beard, holding a jacket in his hand. Someone makes the comment, "Look who's here!" 

 

To these eyes he looks a lot like Charles Bukowski would've looked like in 1974. Anyone know the dude I'm talking about and, if it's not Hank, does anyone know who it might be? I don't really think the Dead would be Hank's thing but you never know.

[calvino]

After taking a quick peak at it again, I am pretty certain it isn't Bukowski, though I don't know who it is. It does look like him, though I think Bukowski was a bit uglier...

 

From http://www.blairjackson.com/chapter_fourteen_additions.htm

Chapter 14: Beneath the Sweet Calm Face of the Sea

Page 260, middle; Leon Gast on the movie footage, and more:

"Some of my favorite stuff they didn't use," he says. "One night, I had [cameraman] Al Maysles in a dressing room backstage where there's a big table with a huge buffet. There are maybe four or five people in there and then a set ends. The door opens, Garcia comes in. He's pacing back and forth. A couple of minutes later the rest of the band comes in. He goes to Kreutzmann, 'You know it's hard enough playing leads and singing — at least you can stay on the fucking time,' screaming at him. Then he yells at Weir, really dressing him down.

There was that scene and a couple of others — one where Weir talks about, 'Do you know how difficult it's been playing next to this guy the last few years?'

"I spent three or four days and went through all the material, I made some notes, I looked at stuff. I mentioned the Garcia tantrum scene and Weir talking about Garcia, and I said, 'That's what the film is about,' and they said, 'Yes, it is,' but then they put on their own editorial team and they did it themselves. I dropped out of the project because they were going to cut the film their own way."

[Mr. Heartbreak]

The door opens, Garcia comes in. He's pacing back and forth. A couple of minutes later the rest of the band comes in. He goes to Kreutzmann, 'You know it's hard enough playing leads and singing — at least you can stay on the fucking time,' screaming at him. Then he yells at Weir, really dressing him down.

Later in that same passage, Susan Crutcher denies this ever happened, saying Gast might have been "dreaming" or "hallucinating," but I wouldn't be surprised at all if it happened. Because the Dead were so often associated with the peace & love stuff from S.F., there was always a persistent notion that they were beatific hippies, but I remember reading Trixie Garcia saying that they were more like "a bunch of cynical, shit-talking, dark-humored guys: a band of pirates, really." 

 

That being said, I doubt they had many such incidents, or they would not have been able to stay together so long. I suspect they generally got along well. 

 

As much as I love the Dead, I have also always felt that their weakest link was in their drummers, who often seemed to change the rhythm of a song because they either 1) didn't remember how the original version went or 2) found it easier to play it slower. I could be wrong about why it happened, but I have noticed this over the years with everything from Chinacat to They Love Each Other. Drives me a little nuts sometimes and causes me to go back to earlier, preferred versions.

[mountain bed]

Billy was definitely better by himself.

 

And - I really need to go back and see that scene Fritz is talking about. Maybe it's Hank Harrison? 

[El Picador]

Echoey soundboards from 1977? I get just the opposite, a real nice dry, balanced sound from them in that year. You don't hear a lot of the room, just a real balanced mix of the instruments and vocals, which is exactly what I prefer in a recording. I don't really want to hear much audience noise or the ambient sound of the room at all. Others feel differently and love the good AUD recordings. About the echoey sound, maybe you and I are just using different terms, I don't know. Either way, like most people, we seem to both dig the recording quality of much of 1977 GD. I've read that the SBDs from 1977 were mostly done by Betty Cantor and she was taking a feed from the PA that was mixed just for the recording. So there was a mix done for the audience to hear and a different mix for the tape. That is the general explanation why the "Betty boards" sound so good, at least to most people's tastes.

 

 

 

 

The echoey sound is apparent in all Spring '77 Betty Boards. Listen to Peggy-O from 5/9/77 or any Estimated Prophet (I believe they played it in all but 3 shows in 1977) and while the notes are all crisp as can be, their is a cool echo in the vocals that is reminiscent of the echo chamber effect in so much of today's music. There is another recording from 3/26/90 that sounds this way as well (this SBD has been circulating since the early 90s but can now be found in the Spring '90 box set released in 2012).

[El Picador]

He's pacing back and forth. A couple of minutes later the rest of the band comes in. He goes to Kreutzmann, 'You know it's hard enough playing leads and singing — at least you can stay on the fucking time,' screaming at him. Then he yells at Weir, really dressing him down.

 

 

It makes me wonder what these guys had to say to Garcia in the later years. I gave a listen to Charlotte 3/23/95 the other day for the first time in 15 years or so and felt sorry for the 5 guys on stage who were holding it together so well while Jerry struggled to play the correct notes. I know they practiced Unbroken Chain but in this version it sounds like Jerry is hearing the song for the first time and attempting to fill in a note or two. The lyrics to the first verse of Scarlet Begonias are completely forgotten and, if not for some strong playing by the rest of the band, may well have been completely aborted. Jerry then shows up for 30-45 seconds during the solo, which he nails, and then disappears again.

[Fritz]

Billy was definitely better by himself.

 

Yes, I agree with this.

[worldrecordplayer]

Yes, I agree with this.

Me too. Billy swings by himself.

[calvino]

I enjoy Billy/Mickey up to 70 a lot, but solo Billy is probably my favorite.

[Mr. Heartbreak]

For those reasons (and probably a few others), I will be saving my $ when the Mickey Hart tour comes to town. Sorry, Mick!

[El Picador]

I'm with all of ya on the two drummers thing. Looking back at some of the videos from later years, they really could've let a drummer sit for the first set and come out only for set 2. Most first set GD tunes are not worthy of two drummers. But I've heard many unreal Drums/Rhythm Devils that were out of this world. For this I appreciate the Billy/Micky combo.

[Analogman]

Dave's Picks Volume 6:

 

 

We're really bad at keeping secrets around here so just imagine how hard it's been for us to contain our excitement about the 2 now-complete shows, once missing reels for more than 40 years, that have been selected to make up Dave's Picks Volume 6. The first major return of material to the vault since 2005's Houseboat Tapes, Dave's Picks Volume 6 will feature never-before-heard material from 2/2/70 Fox Theater, St. Louis, MO and 12/20/69 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA. Long a mystery, the riddle of the 2/2/70 set list has now been solved and the music restored to its proper - and spectacular - sequence. 2/2/70 is also notable as Tom Constanten had just left the band. Tom, however, makes his return to give his first-hand perspective on 12/20/69 in this volume's liner notes. Pigpen fiends, ask and you shall receive. Both shows feature loads of Pigpen including a major 35+ minute "Lovelight" from 12/20/69. Recorded by Bear with an excellent mix and sound quality, this very special release feels like a return to the classics.

If you've been curious about the subscribers-only bonus disc, this one is the stuff of lore as well. Like Dave's Picks Volume 6, the last-ever Grateful Dead show at the Fillmore Auditorium - 12/21/69, was once missing reels, but we've acquired the elusive first reel to go with the end of the show that we've always had. This jam-packed CD, featuring almost 40 minutes of never-before-heard music, includes one of only three versions of "Smokestack Lightning" from 1969. You most certainly won't want to miss out on this highly collectible Dead!

[calvino]

Well that's look good.