"the world’s most recorded musician in the world’s most famous arena"

Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19911115-01

The Red Light folks tagged GarciaLive 16 (MSG 11/15/91) with the subject line, and I have to say that it's badass. That crew does a good job, IMO. I am not kissing up. It's a hard job and they have released some amazing stuff. And that's just a good line. Tip o' the cap.

I wanted to post my review of this release from Grateful Dead Studies.

It contains some pretty good distillations about which you will read again in Fate Music.

The performance by the ... JGB at Madison Square Garden on November 15, 1991, represents the acme of Garcia’s solo career, the culmination of a nearly quarter-century name-claiming journey by which he established his identity as an individual American musician, Jerry-Garcia-full-stop, beyond and distinct from his wider fame as Jerry-Garcia-of-the-Grateful-Dead.

...

Jerry Garcia never planned a solo career; it just sort of happened as he sought more and different avenues for expression than the Dead allowed. Inchoate jams at the Carousel Ballroom became tempo études (“Mickey and the Hartbeats”) at the Matrix, which became regular but musically formless Monday night jams with Howard Wales, which morphed into ongoing and more musically grounded gigs with Merl Saunders. Even after four years, the amorphous aggregation resisted naming itself, going by “The Group” in the Bay Area, or just listing members’ names, before coalescing into “Legion of Mary” for its last eight months. The meantime saw numerous aggregations under other (and others’) names, playing diverse musics, cutting some records, running some drive-by tours, and banking an increasingly sizeable pile of accomplishments, including the country New Riders of the Purple Sage, the space-jazz Hooteroll? proj- ect with Wales, and the incandescent bluegrass all-stars Old and In The Way. Otherwise off-nights found Garcia making a singular solo record, engaging protean Dawg Music (David Grisman’s Great American Music/ String Band), renewing bluegrass ties with the Good Old Boys, vibrating electrons with Ned Lagin, and making time for a vast array of sessions, sit-ins, dalliances, and one- and few-offs.

But the Jerry Garcia Band (1975–1995) bore his name, and it played the music its eponym liked, the way he wanted to play it. Over the years the JGB, always featuring Garcia’s friend bassist John Kahn but with an evolving array of other musicians, grooved to soul, R&B, Motown, contemporary gospel, reggae, and other Black idioms that fit the band’s changing personnel, especially after the arrival of church organist Melvin Seals in 1981 and his handpicked backing vocalists starting the next year. A second tranche of cover tunes drew from the contemporary White Anglosphere, both the British Isles and North American settler colonies, heavy on the Americana. Garcia-Hunter originals, some shared with the Dead and others exclusive to the JGB, rounded out the repertoire. The six players integrate seamlessly. This is the canonical Jerry Garcia Band, a lineup that lasted 1984–1993, the core three plus steady David Kemper on drums and harmony vocals by Jackie LaBranch and Gloria Jones, Oakland church singers with day jobs who took to calling themselves the Jerryettes.

Read the whole thing as they say. I dig this show, and I dig imagining how this son of an immigrant musician might have felt seeing that family name in lights at the Garden.

JGB Spring '93 SoCal

Preface: JGB in SoCal

Little springtime SoCal jaunts became a regular thing for JGB starting in 1983. (OK, that was very late winter, but March is generally pretty springy down there.) Some were one- or two-offs, others were a little more elaborate. Here's a sketch.

1983: 3/11a and 3/11b in Santa Barbara; 3/12a and 3/12b, 3/13 in Beverly Hills

1984: 5/17 Beverly Hills, 5/18 Irvine, 5/19 Santa Barbara, 5/20 Reseda

1985: Garcia-Kahn 5/31a and 5/31b in Beverly Hills

1986: 5/23 in San Diego, 5/24 in LA

1987: 3/13 and 3/14 in LA

1988: no SoCal

1989: 5/19 Irvine, 5/20 San Diego, 5/22 LA

1990: LA in November

1991: no SoCal

1992: summer dates

1993: 4/16 and 4/17 at UCLA, 4/18 in San Diego

1994: 5/13 San Bernardino, 5/14 Ventura, 5/15 Irvine, 5/17 and 5/18 San Diego + 5/19 Phoenix

So much to say, but so little time. Let me just foreshadow some of what might get some write up in Fate Music.

'83: Hell's Angel George Christie, Jr., a rather remarkable dude, promoting in Santa Barbara (again in '84). I have some super-sweet material here about how much better it was for Jerry working for an outlaw than it was for some of the "straight" promoters in the area.

'84: not sure yet, but definitely mention the killer music and DeeDee Dickerson's swan song.

'85: "Bullshit! Bullshit!" and all that

'86: Wolfgang trying to product-differentiate the "Band Electric" 10 months before the birth of the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band. And one of the great sardonic review headlines of all time: "Band Electric Plays at Pace Languid".

'93: maybe some stuff based on this post

'94: "Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!!"

Among the themes that will pop up are NorCal vs. SoCal, maybe some nods toward playing on John Kahn's home turf, and definitely the evolution of the SoCal jaunt as a commercial proposition: 1) from local promoters (with John Scher's help) to conceding Bill Graham the west coast monopoly he so badly wanted. (He wanted it all, but John Scher was simply too great to work with to give him up.) And 2) obvs., the switch from clubs and theaters to amphitheaters and basketball arenas. Of course, too, some great music.

JGB SoCal Spring 1993

So much for the long windup. I really just wanted to plop down some notes around a listen a month or two ago to the April 16-17, 1993 gigs in Pauley Pavilion and the 18th in the San Diego Sports Arena. I have listening-noted the Warfield 4/23/93 show on these pages, and found it somewhat low energy, though I abso-fucking-lutely love its version of "Señor" (released on Garcia Plays Dylan) and "The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game" (released on Shining Star). It seems like I haven't listened to the 4/24 or 4/25 Warfield shows, which I guess I will need to do at some point.

These three SoCal shows from the week before strike me as overall better than 4/23, generally strong, rarely really bad and occasionally fantastic. If forced to rank these three, I'd say 4/18 > 4/17 > 4/16. I note that The Powers That Were released 1 tune each from the 18th and 17th, but none from the 16th. That seems about right to me, and I have to say that they made fantastic choices. Despite its execrable cover art and (not unrelated) the fact that it was released under the reign of She Who Shall Not Be Named (whom I nevertheless name below), the Shining Star release contains some outstanding music, and the selections from this run of shows are top-shelf.

From the 17th, they selected "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love", which the Stones had covered soon after Solomon Burke's original 1964 version on Atlantic, and which was most successfully covered by Wilson Pickett. This Garcia Band version is absolutely killer, a truly fine late era performance ranging across some stanky pedal effects to some very spare sections, sung together and tenderly by Jerry and the ladies, but also across some growly exclamatory "I need it! I need it!" from ol 'Jer. More detailed notes, probably not all that illuminating, below.

From the 18th, they selected Dylan's "Positively 4th Street". (Happy belated 82nd birthday to Mr. Dylan, BTW!) What can I say about Garcia and 4th Street? Of all the Dylans he did, I think this one was the most special. It was almost never not amazing. It is one of those tunes that I still haven't found quite the right word for, which appeared across the decades, but typically in short spurts, which I think have a particular quality of Jerry loving them but finding them either challenging to do or too special to wear out. This is speculation, of course, but it's what my gut says. And none of these tunes --also including "Tough Mama", "Like A Road", a few others-- better captures that profile for me than "4th Street".

The great David Gans and Blair Jackson asked Garcia about the tune in a 1981 interview.

Q: Do you have any trouble singing a song as bitter as "Positively 4th Street"?

Garcia: Not at all. It's easy for me to cop that asshole space. I was that guy, too. For me, it occupies the same space as 'Ballad of a Thin Man'. It tells that person who's lame that they're lame, and why they're lame, which is a very satisfying thing to do. 'Positively 4th Street' has this way of doing it where it's beautiful, too. And 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue' is basically a put-down, too. It's one of those things like, 'You're losing bad - dig yourself.' It was the beautiful sound of 'Positively 4th Street' that got to me, more than the bitterness of the lyric. The combination of the beauty and the bitterness, to me, is wonderful. ... That's something that only Dylan has been able to pull off in terms of modern songwriting, I think (Jackson and Gans 19810911, 29).

Jerry played it somewhat regularly with the Garcia-Saunders aggregation in 1973 (as represented, e.g., on the original Saunders-Garcia-Kahn-Vitt Live at Keystone, and re-released by Fantasy endlessly since then). He picked it back up for a month in 1975 in the first JGB with Nicky, then dropped it again until Ozzie Ahlers came on board in 1979 (check out the 12/21/79 version, one of the greatest single-song performances of Garcia's playing career). He dropped it again in the middle of the February 1980 tour for more than ten years, bringing it out staccato in the 90s. Here are the all of the post-1980 versions. Because I think the song held special meaning for Jerry, I offer up some conjecture as to what I think might have motivated the revival.

3/1/91, which I have called "Certainly One of the Best and Most Interesting Shows of the 90s" (which may be damning it with faint praise): I note that 4th Street is "just about perfect - I think he gets all of the lyrics, and he does it with the right degree of bitterness." What might have led Garcia to dust this gem off after 11 years, obviously rehearse it with the band, play it for this "just for this one moment", and drop it for two years again? Well, first we know that he was using again, and not just chipping but to the point that the GD would stage another intervention four months later, whereupon Jerry went onto a methadone program. (It didn't stick.) Second, we know from his September '91 interviews that he was wildly burned out on the Dead, and he explicitly said that it was during the spring that he was asking the band about chilling out for six months, only to be told that the show had to go on. *cough* Phillesh *cough* So, in this case, I blame the Grateful Dead. Does any of this have anything to do with why he played 4th Street? Neither you nor I has any idea. But, while it may  not have been carefully planned out, I think something definitely caused its appearance. What do you think?

4/18/93 (this version) and 4/23/93 (on Shining Star): Here, I primarily blame woman troubles (Jerry's, not necessarily the women's). Humiliatingly, San Francisco institution Herb Caen led a January 1993 column asking "would the beloved Jerry Garcia dump his longtime ladyfriend, Manasha (the mother of his 3-yr-old daughter), and take off for Hawaii with a new inamorata?" (Caen 19930112). I can't recall where this occured, but when People wrote about his personal life in 1976 Garcia lost his shit, and I can't imagine the isolated and private 1993 version of himself would have been happy about having his love-life laundry aired in public. The new inamorata in January was the sweet and lovely Brigid Meier, but he had already left her in March after a) running back into Deborah Koons (also involved the 1976 complications) in Mill Valley and b) Brigid finding out he was using and asking him to get clean (McNally 2002, 603). Her recollections of that encounter supply some of the darkest images we have of the man in the grip of his addiction. Maybe he had her in mind when singing about "what a drag it is to see you" and all that. After a little fling with one Shannon Jeske (ibid), it seems like by April he would have been back with Deborah. Indeed, having heard some of the inside skinny about how She worked, the fact that She and Jerry were back together right around this time may have motivated the selection of material from these very shows.

There were other things going on in this window, of course. The last time he had played the Warfield, in late February, there was a "mini riot" outside the venue, involving 20 cops, rock-and-bottle throwing, and a dozen arrests ("12 arrests at Garcia concert," Argus-Courier [Petaluma, CA], March 2, 1993, p. "Deadheads blame riot on S.F. Police," San Francisco Examiner, March 1, 1993, p. A-13). So, to whom, or about whom or what, would he be venting his spleen in April 1993, by again dusting off, rehearsing, performing, and again dropping 4th Street? I have no idea. But I will say that, as on 3/1/91, on 4/18/93 he dusted the tune off and played it nearly perfectly, as close to perfectly as he ever did any song. I think he nailed every single lyric. And, heart? What heart! My only note about the song is this: "this is stunningly good".

There is lots of other really nice stuff in these shows, as my notes below narrate. The "Don't Let Go"s are too brief for my taste. But even tunes I don't generally love --I am looking at you, "Dixie Down"-- have a little extra something, again more on the 18th than the 17th and more on either of those than the first night. The Garcia Band at this point was running like a pretty well-oiled machine, putting plenty of bread in the breadbox --around $225,000 for these three nights!-- punching in solid 60-minute sets, and delivering good stuff to the faithful. They hold up well after 30 years, and I can recommend them to you --especially the 18th-- if you are searching for something to spin.

Oh yeah, what about the 1995 versions of 4th Street? On 1/13/95, he botches the words ("Jerry can't sing 4th Street if he can't remember the lyrics", I snipped). But I also note that he manages to remember more of them than I would, and as far as I know I am not on death's door. On 3/4/95 he says "I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes" no fewer than four times - so he does the "I could be you" and "what a drag it is to see you" responses twice. Not lyrically correct, I don't think (?), but could be (over-) interpreted as really feeling true to the man in that moment. By 4/15/95 he is running on fumes, though the version certainly makes up in feeling what it lacks in power. If my whole reasoning about the song's appearance reflecting a particularly embittered mindset is right, it certainly makes sense that it was around for these three months. He had crashed his car in January, canceled shows in February, and, not least, he was dying. So 4th Street certainly fit the Zeitgeist.

Listening Notes for April 16-18, 1993 below the fold.

Jerry Band SoCal '89

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The Jerry Band in SoCal

After the Jerry Band started in 1975, SoCal trips were mostly one, two- and few-offs - no real tours as we define them at Jerrybase. Starting in spring 1983, the band started doing what were called "tours" in-house, but were typically just a couple days, couple of rooms:

• March 11-13, 1983: three nights, two rooms, five shows
• August 1983: a few canceled gigs, not sure how many nights/rooms/shows were ever totally solidified
• September 30 - October 4, 1983: makeups for the August gigs, five nights (one off), three rooms, four shows
• May 17-20, 1984: four nights, four rooms, four shows
• May 31, 1985: just the one night, two shows at the Beverley, fleecing the fans

These were all arranged between the Jerry folks (sometimes with John Scher brokering) and the local promoters. In 1986, Bill Graham took over Jerry's SoCal gigs, which for several years are Wiltern dominant. Here's the rest of the Garcia-in-SoCal story:

• May 23-24, 1986: two nights, two rooms, two gigs
• March 13-14: two nights at the Wiltern
• December 3-6, 1987: four nights at the Wiltern in the acoustic-electric format
• November 25-27, 1988: three nights at the Wiltern
• May 19-22, 1989: four nights, three gigs, three amphitheaters
• November 11-16, 1990: five nights out of six at the Wiltern
• July 29 - August 2, 1992: five nights, four gigs, four amphitheaters
• April 16-18, 1993: three nights, three gigs, two arenas
• May 13-19, 1994: seven nights, five-and-a-half gigs, five amphitheaters

As with everything else in the Garciaverse, institutionalization is more or less the story. Things went from pretty fly-by-night in the first half of the 80s to professional, streamlined in the last decade. Graham wanted it all, and the fact that Scher ran Jerry's SoCal stuff apparently irked him. I suppose that Bill getting the Wiltern was the real pivot - he had a great room for Jerry to play that was appropriately scaled. You might say the same thing up north, especially as Jerry got too big for Freddie's clubs. And once the Warfield was renovated (I still have never seen a perfectly clear timeline for that), certainly by late 1989 through to the end, it was probably most efficient to have Wolfgang run the whole west coast.

There's more to say about Jerry in SoCal, which I will try to get to in Fate Music. In short, a disproportionate number of negative things happened to Jerry, or involving Jerry, south of, let's say, Gaviota Point. He was a third-generation San Franciscan, and the antagonisms between SF and LA (north and south more broadly) make all kinds of sense, what with the whole good-and-evil dichotomy at work there (heh heh). It is just kind of funny that SoCal had more than its fair share of bullshit.

That's one set of background conditions, more just historical than anything.

Expectations

My expectations supply a second set of background conditions. Here, they were extremely high. Here's how I described my sense of the overall period writing some eight years ago:

For my money, 1988-1989 is one of the great JGB periods, which a fresh and healthy Jerry (that's what starts to break down, for me, 1990-1991), solid band, some fresh material, rehearsed arrangements, and lots of classic American songs. Nothing too crazy, lots of good music.

In that same post, I had described spring '89 as "a peak period for me". All of that was based on the following, I think.

• I have long been hamina-hamina crazy about 2/5/88.
• 7/10/88 is happy, healthy Jerry, and feels amazing to me to listen to.
• Halloween '88 is more great unscary Jerry.
• The January '89 Orpheums (1/27 linked above) are great, with 1/28/89 being truly special.
• The March Orpheum shows have also struck me as nice, though not astonishing (here are notes on 3/3)
• I have long known about the MONSTER Don't Let Go on 5/19/89.
• I really dig the clean fun feel of 6/10/89, what I consider to be the best of the three Eel River dates.
• I attended 8/26/89 and 10/31/89, and had a great time. I was 18 and life was pretty grand.
• As a political scientist of a certain age specializing in European integration, 1989 was the annus mirabulus in which the Berlin Wall fell.

Another piece of the puzzle is instinctive contrarianism, and my long-held desire to assert the "year too late" hypothesis with respect to the 1991 Jerry Garcia Band double-live CD, which is pretty self-explanatory: they recorded it in 1990, but Jerry Band in 1990, I had in my mind, was not as good as Jerry Band in 1988-1989.

True, I found a couple of duds in that timeframe, such as 12/3/88, which I thought just kinda sucked. But even when we factor that in, I had high hopes. Whoever it was who said that "expectations are the enemy of happiness", or whatever the saying is, may have been onto something.

The Jerry Band SoCal May '89 "Tour"

The three shows in the mix here underwhelmed me. 

True, "whelming" is a function of expectations, and I have already noted that mine were high.

True, the 5/19/89 Don't Let Go is one for the ages. It's right up there with some of the early '80s classics, or the shocking 2/6/94 masterpiece. Definitely top-10, maybe top-5.

True, there are some nice tapes here, including the Tapers From Hell pulling 5/19, and some rare late '80s sbds (albeit incomplete) for 5/20 and 5/22. (Where in the world did these come from??) 

But the whole batch is quite uneven, in various ways.

5/19/89 may be the weakest of the bunch. The vocals are downright bad. As a newspaper reviewer put it, "Garcia's croaked singing ... has pretty much waned from endearing to abominable". WFAM and STOF exhibit some lyrical wobbles. Good hot guitar in "Deal", but the voice is just shot. The astonishingly great "Don't Let Go" may show the compensation effect at work, and of course could be said to redeem the show all on its own. I wouldn't argue. It's great.

I find 5/20/89 the strongest of the bunch. CUTS is clean and doesn't get caught cycling at the end. "Forever Young" has some great screaming and scrubbing, "Like A Road" is real sweet, "Sisters and Brothers" ditto, and "Deal" is shreddylicious - this "Deal" KILLS. "Think" has a nice edge. Things kind of fall off for me after that, though hard to say if the advent of the atmospheric Matt Xavier Nak 300s tape is driving this. (Note, too, young'uns - chomping is as old as the hills.) The second set clocks in at a pretty paltry 46 + minutes. Even with the between song stuff mostly edited out, I think a reasonable expectation in this period is a 55-60 minute set.

I characterize 5/22/89 as "below average for the period", but I think it's probably average, and "below my expectations" would be more accurate. The guitar work in "Deal" and "Think" comes in for more praise, but overall not much moves me here, and another sub-50-minute set II also takes it down a peg.

Let me make one final note: I do think drugs are playing a role here. Trying to pin down Garcia's opiate use is mostly a fool's errand. He seems to have been mostly clean in '87 and '88, though it seems he was probably chipping on and off (Jackson 1999, 406). If Browne's account is to be believe --and I absolutely believe it-- by the time the GD were really seriously recording Built to Last, Jer was back in pretty deep. I have long felt that darkness around 8/26/89 and 10/31/89, both of which I plan to revisit soon. And the Dead's hair-raising "Dark Star" from Miami on 10/26/89 certainly earns its adjective. Finally, as noted above, I have long that that 1990 Jerry Band was overrated and exhibited some of the telltale signs that Jerry was making problematic pharmacological choices.

We are smack dab --see what I did there?-- in the middle of this window, and I think there are issues. The negative reviewer from 5/19 (Washburn 1989) didn't dig ol' Jer dealing "six-string sedatives", and he may have been closer to some truth than he knew. Colleague Mr. Completely rightly warns against "drug reductionism", and I don't intend to reduce the unevenness of these shows to drugs. But I can't shake the feeling that they are playing their part. *sigh*

Listening notes below the fold.

JGB Debuting Señor and Tears of Rage: The February 1990 Warfield Run

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The Jerry Garcia organization embraced a "no taping" policy, for reasons that aren't entirely clear given the principal's own experience recording bluegrass in the Sixties, his oft-stated indifference to audience taping in the Grateful Dead (GD) context ("when we're done with it, they can have it"), the Dead's own allowances in the form, from 1984 forward, of an Official Taping Section (OTS) just behind Dan Healy's soundboard and, frankly, the low commerical appeal of the Garcia Band. What was gonna do, etch some bootleg vinyl of yet another show closing "Midnight Moonlight"? Yet, nevertheless, there the policy was.

Enforcement was another matter, and seems to have been highly variable. Some busts happened at various places and times, tapers such as John Corley seem to have felt that stealth was called for (dismantling his Nak 700s and wiring them up through the top of a very "silly hat"), but generally a lot of tapes walked out of a lot of Jerry shows. Anecdotally, the no taping policy was most assiduously enforced at the Warfield in 1990, which one imagines relates to the fact that Jerry and Co. were recording themselves for an official live release (Jerry Garcia Band, Arista 18690-2), which arrived August 25, 1991 with material culled from Warfield shows in April and August of the prior year, sweetened in some cases with some vocal overdubs, at least.

Campolindo High School alumnus and sound engineer extraordinaire Marcus Buick kept a little journal of his own and his taping buddies' battles against one particularly dedicated Warfield security guy, by the name of Oren David Green. Apparently, at least in '89 and into '90, he was not a BGP bluecoat, but worked for VIP security. Bu kept a running score, and it was good guys 4 (successful complete shows pulled) and Oren 2 (busts) after the last Garcia Band show of '89. Oren then went on a little run to start the new year. He seems to have successfully kept the tapers away from the best recording location in the house, "The Spot" on the first drink rail. Rob Darroch and Sara Paul managed to pull complete analog masters from there the first night, February 2, 1990, but the digital tapers got busted during the first song. On February 3, Buick, Rick Katzeff and Tom Hughes (Campolindo '87) were able to pass equipment, hop seats, and relocate to get the 1st set from row M of the upper balcony, but got busted set II. On Sunday the 4th, Bu finally managed to digitally pull a whole show, but only by jamming his Josephsons into the right floor speaker stack from about a foot away, far too close. Oren thus played the digikids to a tie for the weekend, impressive given how committed and enterprising they were. (To give an indication of this, note that some soundboard material circulates from this run, derived from recordings made by splitting wire running to the hallway speakers, a technique first accomplished at the Lunt Fontanne in 1987, as far as I know.)

So, the tapes are generally sub-optimal, and I know well that this can color my listening experience. Historically, I have found these shows to be just sort of "meh", perhaps partly because of recording limitations and perhaps also from reasoning motivated to support my "one year too late" thesis about the double-live album: as great as that album is --and I do think it's great--, I think it would have been even better if they had taped in '88 and '89, when things were fresher and peppier. By 1990, to my ears, Jerry is sounding a little more fatigued. I like the March 1-2 shows a good deal, remember finding the April shows to be "meh", definitely find the June shows to be relatively weak, have formed no opinion on August, and think things are hotter in November, after GD keyboardist Brent Mydland had died and Jerry seemed to transfer some amount of energy over to the JGB.

I want to revisit all of these and see how my older assessments hold up, and I began over the last week with the February 2-4 shows. The key setlist interest here is the arrival into the Garcia Band repertoire of Dylan's "Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power)" and Dylan and Richard Manuel's "Tears Of Rage", both of which were added, I imagine, with the album in mind. The Señor from 4/15/90 did make it onto the release, while Tears of Rage would wait to be released until the version from that same date appeared on the posthumous How Sweet It Is record (Grateful Dead Records GDCD 4051, April 1997). The former stuck around for over four years --note that Jerry had also played it once at the Warfield with Dylan, way back in 1980-- while the latter lasted less than a year in the repertoire, much to my chagrin. Both find Jerry reaching way down into deep darkness, full of mournful pathos that well-suited his old man period. On their maiden voyages of this February weekend (Señor appeared all three nights, Tears the last two), they show their newness. Things aren't entirely pinned down in terms of Jerry's own or the backing vocals, he hasn't settled into the tunes yet, and so they sound a little uneven. But that is not to say they don't sound great - they do. Whoever picked these tunes for the Garcia Band --one presumes either Jerry or his musical director, bassist John Kahn-- picked well. 

Generally, the shows exhibit I haven't-played-live-in-a-month-itis, which is perfectly reasonable. Jerry headed out to Kona and took no fewer than 26 plunges with Jack's Dive Locker between January 6 and 29, 1990. January '88 found him tan and healthy in a Hawaiian shirt playing the "Blues For Salvador" benefit with Wayne Shorter, Carlos Santana, and lots of others. January '89, again in post-scubal bliss, found him warming up the first night out (1/27/89) and then dropping a true masterpiece of a show on 1/28/89, though the Dead shows the next week were, well, pretty weak. 

None of these February 1990 Warfield shows reaches those peaks, though there are plenty of strong moments. The first two nights, especially, he flubs all kinds of lyrics, like throughout practically every tune. The first night is pretty short for a 90s Warfield show, though I note some nice peppy tempi and an "I Second That Emotion" that is worth a listen. The second night, I don't note much. The set II opener, "Harder They Come", is not present on any circulating tapes, though we can pretty well imagine what it must have sounded like. 2/4/90 is the best show of the run, to my ears, though it's still pretty uneven. I took real notice that he went up an octave to sing the last stanza of Señor, "this place don't make sense to me anymore", which gives it a really worried tone fit to put weaker listeners into the nervous hospital. I think it was like that all three times here, and I doubt it would ever be that way again.

All in all, I enjoyed listening to this three shows as a whole run. I think I will do more of that. Because even though things can get repetitive, it does provide something like a consistent baseline, allowing little things (like the pretty fun "Let's Spend The Night Together" to open set II on 2/3) to stand in sharper relief. I wouldn't tell you to grab these as a first choice from the year -- go ahead and get the record for that. But they do strike me as pretty straightforwardly representative of what the Jerry Band was up to as the 1990s got going.

Listening notes below the fold.

The Bicycle Rule: Don't Stop Pedaling, or You Might Fall Over (JGB at the Stone, November 10-11, 1986)

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Not a lot happening here one way or the other. It's a Monday-Tuesday night, Jerry sounds a little tired, even Corley's tape from the 10th sounds a little muffled.

Jerry Garcia Band
The Stone
412 Broadway
San Francisco, CA 
November 10, 1986 (Monday) - 9 PM
Corley shnid-17749 sh2flac

--set I (8 tracks, 7 tunes, 52:51)--
s1t01. ambience [0:13]
s1t02. Cats Under The Stars [7:50] -8:31
s1t03. Forever Young [8:43] -9:35
s1t04. They Love Each Other [8:16] -8:57
s1t05. Love In The Afternoon [7:41] [0:11]
s1t06. Run For The Roses [5:08] [0:02] %
s1t07. //Think [#6:00]
s1t08. Deal [6:22] [0:12]

--set II (7 tracks, 60:14)--
s2t01. //Harder They Come [#11:14] -11:42
s2t02. And It Stoned Me [6:51] [0:11]
s2t03. Knockin' On// Heaven's Door [9:58] [0:06]
s2t04. Reuben And Cherise [6:50] [0:22]
s2t05. That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day) [7:42] [0:03]
s2t06. Gomorrah [6:30] ->
s2t07. Tangled Up In Blue [9:54] (2) [0:05]

! ACT1: JGB #21b
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;
! lineup: David Kemper - drums;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - backing vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones - backing vocals.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [m:ss] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the "real" time of the event. So, a timing of [m:ss] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19861110-01

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/17749

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/Vr6EBXU6KvA2

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/07/stone-mothers-412-broadway-san.html

! band: JGB #21b, THE Jerry Garcia Band (http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html)

! R: field recordist: John Corley

! R: field recording gear: 2x disassembled Nak 700s clipped to brim of the "Silly Hat" > Sony TCD5M

! R: field recording location: 20' from stage, first row of tables, dead center

! R: lineage: MAC > ? > CDR > EAC > CDWave (retracked) > Shn. EAC'd / retracked / Shn'd by Charlie Connor. Correct sector boundaries verified with Shntool. Seeded to fungus, tol and abgd 2/5/03. Special thanks to Bob Menke for the audio discs

! R: muffled out of the gate

! P: s1t02 CUTS comes out sluggishly, Jer sounds a little tired.

! R: s1t07 Think cuts in

! R: s2t01 HTC cuts in

! P: s2t01 HTC everyone stops pedaling, and they all almost fall over at 9:28. Don't stop pedaling - you'll fall over!

! R: s2t03 Splice at 8:51 tightened up using Steinberg's Wavlab

! P: s2t04 RAC I am as big a fan of this tune as one can be, but Jer sounds a little tired for sure. Sluggish. I am revisiting this after a bit, and I hear how buried the vocals are.

! setlist: somehow we have always Mid Moon as the show closer, but it is demonstrably TUIB.

! s2t07 (2) JG: "Thanks a lot. See ya later."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jerry Garcia Band
The Stone
412 Broadway
San Francisco, CA 94133
November 11, 1986 (Tuesday)
Taz MAC shnid-94632

--set I (6 tracks, 51:03)--
s1t01. //How Sweet It Is [#5:26] [0:22]
s1t02. Like A Road [7:05] [0:28]
s1t03. Get Out Of My Life Woman [6:36] [0:13]
s1t04. Simple Twist Of Fate [11:53] [0:10]
s1t05. Run For The Roses [5:15] [0:05]
s1t06. I Shall Be Released [8:07] ->
s1t07. Deal/ [5:24#]

--set II (7 tracks, 54:41)--
s2t01. //The Harder They Come [#10:21] 0:11]
s2t02. Forever Young [8:13] [0:17]
s2t03. Think [6:09] % [0:14]
s2t04. And It Stoned Me [6:01] ->
s2t05. Dear Prudence [9:29] [0:17]
s2t06. That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day) [6:54] ->
s2t07. Midnight Moonlight [6:35] (1) [0:04]

! ACT1: JGB #21b
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;
! lineup: David Kemper - drums;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - backing vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones - backing vocals.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [ ] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the "real" time of the event. So, a timing of [x:xx] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19861111-01

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/15006 (Corley MAC shnf);  https://etreedb.org/shn/94632 (this fileset)

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/Vr6EBXU6KvA2

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/07/stone-mothers-412-broadway-san.html

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html

! R: field recordist: Tazuo Yamaguchi

! R: field recording gear: 1x Nakamichi 100 > Sony TC-D5M

! R: field recording location: 5' from stage

! R: Transfer and FLAC encoding by David Minches: Master played back on Nak Dragon> Grace Lunatec V3 (24/96) > Digital Audio Labs Card Deluxe > Adobe Audition 2.0 > (dither/downsample) > FLAC encoding.

! P: JG sounds tired (somewhat ragged vocals), but the show has energy. STOF quite rough vox. I think the tape isn't doing his voice any justice, either, since it is just capturing direct from Garcia's mouth rather than through the PA, I'd guess. The low vox of an upfront aud.

! R: s1t01 HSII beginning cut

! R: s2t01 HTC beginning cut

! P: s1t04 STOF no bass solo

! P: s1t06 JG flubs first verse of ISBR. But he is singing very delicately and thoughtfully here. 

! R: S1t01 Deal end clipped

! R: s2t01 HTC cuts in

! P: s2t01 HTC comes out much more peppily.

! P: s2t02 Forever Young sounds pretty out of it, but in that endearing, "Jerry's struggling" way, not the "he's out of it" way.

! P: s2t05 DP pretty good guitar solo in the 5-min mark.

! P: s2t06 Melvin's church organ is so perfect for this song

! s2t07 (1) JG: "Thanks a lot. See y'all later."

Open-Air Vasseur: JGB at Shoreline, July 26, 1992

LN jg1992-07-26.jgb.all.aud-vasseur.141462.flac1644

Brief listening notes.

Vasseur Warfield tapes are incredible. Vasseur Shoreline tapes are ... incredible. So much air in this mics. Wow.

Jerry does some extra percussive stuff in a few places that I found noteworthy.

Guy who called out "Reuben!" and got it must have been pretty fired up. I would have been. I lament that Jerry missed the "Cherise was dressing as Pirouette in white" line, but whaddya gonna do? Did you ever notice that "Reuben And Cherise" sometimes touches on "Terrapin" territory? I heard it somewhat late in this version, let's say right around late 7 over 8. Nothing explicit, it just came to mind. I find Jerry three or four times trying to step out from the assigned chords of the song into some other space. He hits some interesting allusions, but he just can't see it through. I can *almost* here possibilities of hte song opening up a good deal more, what it might sound like.

Reuben, Gomorrah: that is definitely some "don't look back" thematic consistency there. Both Orpheus and the wife of Lot could have used the reminder.

Not bad, I'd say average for the period.

Jerry Garcia Band
Shoreline Amphitheatre
1 Ampitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
July 26, 1992 (Sunday) - 2 PM
Vasseur shnid-141462

--set I (7 tracks, 55:52)--
s1t01. (1) [0:29] Cats Under The Stars [9:01] [0:52]
s1t02. They Love Each Other [6:52] [0:37]
s1t03. Simple Twist Of Fate [11:30] [0:15]
s1t04. Let It Rock [6:10] [1:20]
s1t05. Run For The Roses [5:40] ->
s1t06. My Sisters And Brothers [4:08] [0:04]
s1t07. Deal [8:42] (2) [0:22]

--set II + encore (9 tracks, 75:18)--
--set II (8 tracks, 66:21)--
s2t08. [0:05] Stop That Train [7:50] [0:18]
s2t09. You Never Can Tell [5:28] [0:16]
s2t10. Lay Down Sally [8:59] [0:33]
s2t11. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [10:07] [0:31]
s2t12. (3) Reuben And Cherise [9:00] [0:38]
s2t13. Gomorrah [6:37] [0:12]
s2t14. Ain't No Bread In The Breadbox [8:58] [0:14]
s2t15. Midnight Moonlight [6:13] (4) [0:12] %
--encore (1 track, 8:54)--
s2t16. [0:10] What A Wonderful World [8:31] (5) [0:13]

! ACT1: JGB #21b (THE Jerry Garcia Band)
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;
! lineup: David Kemper - drums;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - backing vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones - backing vocals.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [ ] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the "real" time of the event. So, a timing of [x:xx] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19920726-01

! db:

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/07/shoreline-amphitheater-1-amphitheatre.html

! Sue: 6,850 tix @ $22.50, 13,150 @ 18.50 (20,000 total capacity), GP $397,400, surcharge of 10%, so net gross potential of $357,660. Band guarantee $35,000 plus various percentage provisions.

! R: field recordist: Chuck and Janet Vasseur

! R: field recording gear: 2x Neumann KM54 > DAT

! R: Transfer: DAT Master > CDR (Kyle Porter)

! R: Extract: CDR clone > EAC > WAV > FLAC16 (Bill Shaw aka Shark)

! R: Source Notes: Sometime in the early 2000's, Chuck loaned Kyle all of his 92-95 JGB masters to transfer to CDR. Kyle "mastered" the DATs to CDR, fading in/out as needed, adjusting levels (as needed) and tracking. Kyle then gave Chuck his masters back, with nice CDR copies of all of it. Chuck offered to clone the entire set for me, so I gave him a spool of 100 blank MITSUI CDRs and the next time I saw him, he gave them back to me, filled with his JGB recordings. Many of the Chuck V. JGB recordings do circulate already, but probably not all of them, and those that do may not be the Kyle Porter transfers. So, Here they are! --Shark

! R: No audible bass for first four minutes, vocals low, but this is a really nice tape, simultaneously spacious and punchy. The guitar sounds incredible, the drums sound great.

! s1t01 (1) taper, or neighbor: "Resplendent." Yell to stage: "Were's those ties, Jerry?"

! P: s1t01 CUTS a little lyrical uncertainty. Adjusting mix starts getting John, and he announces himself with a nice little run 4:03. Kemper bangs his way to the satin blouse break very assertively, leaving no doubt as to where the band needed to go. Effect to some feedback that Jerry nicely rides at 6. Love this tone!

! P: s1t02 TLEO @ 5:45 voice a little phlegmy.

! P: s1t03 STOF bass thing 6:10ish

! P: s1t04 LIR solo 2:30ff more percussive than fluent, but kind of interesting. Ol Jer did love him some rock n roll guitar. @ 3:13 he puts some sustain on it.

! P: s1t07 Deal excellent brief fanning action late 5.

! s1t07 (2) JG: "Be back in a few minutes."

! s2t12 (3) a crowd member yells "'Reuben And Cherise', Jerry!" and then Jerry drops into it. Good call, fella.

! P: s2t12 RAC he morphs the "Cherise was dressed as Pirouette in white" line into a "Reuben, Reuben", but he recovers. Muffs second verse start before "the breeze". Some reasonably interesting stuff, in the Terrapin space for a minute. He tries to explore some unusual spaces, changing key some, but can't quite get his ideas to extend, e.g., late 7 over 8. Goes around a little too long. @ 8:43 JG drops off for a measure to key in the close.

! P: s2t13 Gomorrah you can really hear his voice being gravelly to start this off.

! P: s2t14 ANBITB some really nice percussive stuff in the 6 minute range, never heard Jerry do it quite like this, Kemper also on it.

! s2t15 (4) JG: "Thanks a lot. See ya later."

! P: s2t16 WAWW bass feature 6ff.

! s2t16 (5) JG: "See y'all later."

How Come History's Got to Take Such a Long, Long Time? JGB, Warfield, Sunday, May 3, 1992

LN jg1992-05-03.jgb.all.aud-lucien.106771.flac1648

I just don't always have a lot to say, but want to put these here to invite others to comment.

I enjoyed this. Some mumblyverse, but some real depth of feeling, too. I really enjoyed this version of "The Maker", with a little extra vocalization at the end that I can't quite make out --it's supposed to be "oh river, rise from your sleep" (h/t minches)-- and there's some real goodness in "Don't Let Go", as well.

RIP Danny Lucien.

Jerry Garcia Band

The Warfield

982 Market Street

San Francisco, CA 94102

May 3, 1992 (Sunday)

Lucien MAD shnid-106771

--set I (6 tracks, 50:57)--

s1t01. //Cats Under The Stars [#8:57] [2:02]

s1t02. Waiting For A Miracle [5:38] [1:27]

s1t03. Run For The Roses [5:24] [0:37]

s1t04. Struggling Man [6:22] [0:44]

s1t05. Mission In The Rain [10:32]

s1t06. Lay Down Sally [8:29] (1) [0:08]

--set II (7 tracks, 75:58)--

s2t01. Everybody Needs Somebody To Love [9:37] [1:10]

s2t02. Shining Star [12:35] [0:43]

s2t03. Tore Up Over You [7:46] [1:37]

s2t04. The Maker [8:05] [0:26]

s2t05. Don't Let Go [15:45] [0:17]

s2t06. That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day) [11:58] [0:05]

s2t07. Midnight Moonlight [5:50] (2) [0:04]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #21b

! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;

! lineup: John Kahn - el-b;

! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;

! lineup: David Kemper - drums;

! lineup: Gloria Jones - vocals;

! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - vocals.

JGMF:

! R: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [x:xx] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the "real" time of the event. So, a timing of [x:xx] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19920503-01

! db:

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/ZW52vfHTbjs

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2013/02/warfield-982-market-street-san.html

! venue: http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2011/11/september-25-1980-fox-warfield-theater.html

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html

! R: field recordist: Danny Lucien

! R: field recording gear: 2x Schoeps MK4 > Rbox > Panasonic SV250

! R: field recording location: Drink Rail

! R: Transfer: SV3700 -> RME Hammerfall DSP (SPDIF) 16/48 -> Nuendo

! R: s1t01 CUTS cuts in

! P: s1t01 CUTS too many go 'rounds, way too many. Way, way too many.

! P: s1t02 WFAM lots of little lyrical flubs and whatever. I do like how he says "how come history gotta take such a long long time" instead of "the future" - feels Rodney King relevant, though that's pretty surely projection.

! P: s1t03 RFTR some more lyrical irregularity

! P: s1t06 LDS he starts with the chorus.

! s1t06 (1) JG: "Thanks a lot. We'll be back in a few minutes."

! P: s2t01 ENSTL the crowd seems very stoked to hear this one, special cheer at 0:49 for not-sure-what. Love the tone and the notes in 5. Great playing.

! P: s2t04 Maker he is singing in a different key than usual. Lyrical issues. Some interesting lyrical improv at the end, 6:20 "run rabbit [?] run way from yo [space]"

oh oh still waters

dark and cold like the night

I stand with arms wide open

I run the twisted mile

I'm a stranger in the eyes of The Maker

I could not see for the fog in my eyes

I could not feel for the fear in my life

across the great divide

in the distance I saw a light

Jean-Baptiste walking to me with The Maker

My body is bent and broken

[mumble] and dangerous sleep

I can't work the fields of Abraham

turn my head away

I'm not a stranger in the hands of The Maker

Brother John have you see the homeless daughters?

standing there with broken wings

I've seen the flaming swords

there over east of Eden

burning in the eyes of the Maker

oh burning in the eyes of the Maker

whoa burning in the eyes of the Maker

run [] run ... away from your [??]

! P: s2t05 DLG nice low vocalizations 4, starts doubling after 4:30 or so, with some interesting variations before stepping back from mic 5:02. He lets things go to a big orchestral melt around 9:25, then he starts doing a swing march that is really wonderfully groovy, now minor allusion 10:20, John modal, Melvin light and Kemper glue holding it together. Faster flurrying late 10 over 11. Return to tune late 13.

! s2t07 (2) JG: "Thanks a lot. See ya next time."

The December '85 Garcia Band Shows

LN jg1985-12-14.jgb.all.aud-CC.137723.flac1644

LN jg1985-12-15.jgb.all-1.aud-CC.137724.flac1644

LN jg1985-12-21.jgb.all.aud-gale.14980.shn2flac

LN jg1985-12-22.jgb.all.aud-gale.14981.shn2flac

seealso: LN jg1985-10-14.jgb.all.aud.138028.flac1644

Earlier this year I posted listening notes on four JGB shows from August 1985, and here I do the same for December of the same year. It's relatively feasible to do this for Rock Bottom shows because they are fun sized, with sets regularly clocking in below 45 minutes.

The shows make for nice comparison pieces in this regard.

Recall these set lengths from August:

DATE      s1      s2           TT      
8/4/85    46:03   31:04      77:07
8/5/85    49:31   48:37      88:08
8/9/85    42:26   38:32      80:58
8/10/85  37:08   34:14      81:22

Here are the December equivalents:

DATE         s1        s2            TT      
12/14/85    47:22   39:24       86:46
12/15/85    42:31   29:02*     71:33 *missing Cats, probably about 8-9 minutes
12/21/85    50:11   34:09       84:20
12/22/85    40:03   44:03       84:06

So, things are not very much different four months on. More than half the sets fit on a tape side (5 of 8 and 6 of 8, respectively). In the case of the December tapes, this is not due to tape discontinuities: Jerry runs from one song to the next with very little time between, and the taper kept things rolling. That sub-35 minute 12/21 II, looks mighty short, but it probably doesn't enter the bottom five for shortest electric sets.

The big difference, then, is in personnel: the August shows involve THE Jerry Garcia Band, #21b, which ran with only a single interruption from ca. July 10, 1984 to November 19, 1993, Jerry's longest-running aggregation. The interruption happened October 1985 - February 1986 when, for reasons unknown, David Kemper was not drumming, replaced by the legendary Oakland funk master Gaylord Birch. Clean inference would really require blind listening, of course. Here I know Gaylord is in the the house, I am listening for distinctive style, and boy do I hear it. Lots more snare and hi-hat, generally busier, not as much in either respect as Kool-Aid Chemist Paul Humphrey, who played with Jerry and Merl in '74, but closer in style to him than, say, the 50-caliber Greg Errico.

This is Birch's third Garciaverse appearance. He played a few gigs in early '75 (January 21-22) with the Saunders-Garcia aggregation, certainly the funkiest and some of the most challenging gigs Garcia ever did. He next manned the chair from January-September 1979 with Reconstruction, again, an outfit that pushed Garcia out of his comfort zone, the last "challenge band" outside the Dead he ever regulalrly played with. (Not coincidentally, also the last band he'd regularly play with that didn't bear his name.) Finally, we find this little interregnum, nine gigs in six months subbing for David Kemper in the Garcia Band.

Table xxx. Gaylord Birch in the Garcia Band, 1985-1986

(Hopefully that gets a little bigger if you click on it! Otherwise, just click the link above the table.)

(Note that Mid Moon ended every show except the first one. The great Walter Keenan has pointed this regularity out to me before, and here we see it plain as day. The Jerry Band setlists never varied as much as GD setlists did, but this is ... striking even for JGB.)

Anyway, Birch simply amazes me at ever turn here. He had played four gigs in October (7th-8th not in circulation, 13th and 14th), then nothing for two months, then returns for these four in December. I doubt there was an awful lot of practicting going on in the interim, though I don't know anything about that for certain. And, yeah, some of these tunes, like "How Sweet It Is", are going to be straightforward enough, even as the Garcia Band's loose-to-unraveling arrangements, gas-brake tempo fluctuations, and general approach to things would have defied a lesser drummer. But then there are the Garcia originals and tunes played in so many different genres that it's hard to imagine Gaylord had thought much about over the years, less still played. Maybe they threw some charts at him or something, but whatever the preparation they provided him, the '85 Garcia Band would certainly have been pretty darn hard to drum for, I'd imagine. Yet Birch seems to have no trouble at all, with anything. He plays most every tune like he's been playing it for years. It's not perfect, but man is it great, and man oh man is it impressive.

I will paste listening notes below the fold. Nothing will really surprise you here, so let me just sketch some moments I dug. Thanks to the legendary Erik VanO for the ticket stub scans!

12/14

s1t01-GOOMLW great way to kick things off. Melvin sounds great, Jerry finds some liquidy goodness midway through.

s1t02-Garcia steps in the Mutron with a big click and a wahh and the crowd hoots appreciatively, knowing that Catfish John is about to happen.

s1t04-Love In The Afternoon, a song he would never have played outside the GD, Gaylord just shines. He does some stuff 6:50-7 that knocks me out.

s1t06-Deal: there will be no surprises here. "The voice during Deal is horrifying. Big scrubba dubba doo later on 6:49, though. Yow! Go to 7 and hear the Great Barcia wail."

Overall, I had more to say about set I than about set II.

12/15

It's getting toward the holidays, and the crowd sounds drunk and ready to party. Elmer Fudd is definitely in the house vocally. But one of the things to note is that Garcia is figuring out, on the fly, how to sing with his now powerfully limited vocal range. He can't just numb up and try to power through. He has to dial back the force and dial in a little bit of singing nuance. This is really the beginning of the rounding, softening of his style over all. In '83-'84, he'd just BLAST. Here, we see the start of a little more circumspection, more befitting a man of his age.

s1t03 my love of pre-coma 80s JGB Knockin's is well known (to myself). This one is just wonderful. From the notes: "Right at 4:01 or so he hits a terrific guitar combo, and a crowd member yelps at it. 4:45 I love the feel of this - it's like the sound of recovery. Oh my, at 8:35 you hear a thing only Gaylord Birch could ever have done with JGB. Trust me, and check it out. What a drummer."

s1t04 a characteristically shreddy balls-to-the-wall wailing guitar Deal

s2t04 I find him doing some interesting picking in Midnight Moonlight, which is really uncommon at this stage.

12/21

Looks like the weakest show of the run on this set of listens - almost no notes.

Interesting to note the following recollection at Jerrybase: "I stood five feet from him the whole night. He didn't open his eyes once. He also stood at the mike, or one step back or at his amp. Not much movement. The show was great." Those observations and that assessment are, of course, not mutually exlcusive when it comes to Rock Bottom Jerry.

12/22

s1t01 CUTS man, yeah, listen to Gaylord! Yowwww!!! And they don't circle aroud too much at the end. Nice.

s1t04 after a nice salty Think (s1t03), Deal is big, as it was wont to be in this period. Gaylord double-timing some 6:15, crazy high-neck Jerry tone 6:30, even higher 6:49, doesn't sound possible. Big raging Deal here for sure. I can't imagine how loud this must have been in situ.

s2t01 Kahn does some neat stuff in HTC. Attaboy, John. Chin up.

s2t05 somehow my silly mind coins another silly acronym: MAMMM: a mile-a-minute Midnight Moonlight. Gaylord's going to need a cortisone shot after this one.

In Sum

All in all, I don't really have many complaints about these. There's lots of good stuff happening. If you need a haircut, go to Deal on any given night. But, generally, I do think there's something to be said for the effect of fresh blood on ol Jer. Looking back at my August notes, I summarized "Overall, I guess I'd say totally characteristic. Some really good guitar work, some lyrical fumbles, vocals getting rougher by the minute." I think these shows are stronger. I would certainly not play these for the unitiated - the vocals are still pretty terrible. (The tapes have the featurebug that the vocals are buried.) But I hear many interesting moments, and a higher average level, here than I did in August. Some of the credit, I think, has to go to Gaylord. This is no knock on Kemper, whom I love. But it's the same way that people sometimes let themselves go after marriage - no need to impress. But if you are looking to get with someone new, or with someone new, you want to sharpen up a little bit. So you're maybe a little more together ex ante. And, then, the new person brings new stuff - surprises. So you need to listen a little more carefully, and you  have some new stuff to respond to. That's all to the good.

This could all, of course, reflect the narrative fallacy. I know Gaylord is here, and I dream up some story that could plausibly flow from that kind of situation. You should certainly go back and check my work, if you are so inclined. But this idea that the fresh blood brought forth better from our guy is my story here, and for now I am sticking to it.

Listening notes below.

Kemper's Last: JGB at Hampton Coliseum, November 19, 1993

The great drummer David Kemper joined the JGB on Wednesday, July 20, 1983, at the Keystone Palo Alto, probably for a few hundred beer drinkers at a show with gross potential of something like $5 grand. He played his last gig with the band at the legendary Hampton Coliseum on November 19, 1993, before a sellout crowd of just about 14,000, a show of gross potential of $291,000 (net of taxes, so "net gross potential").

One of the big personnel mysteries of the Garciaverse is why Kemper was let go after over a decade of stalwart service, keeping one foot on the gas and one foot on the brakes for the highly variable Jerry Band. Talking to Barry Smolin a few years later, the drummer himself seemed unclear on this.

We did that tour in '93. It was financially our most successful tour. We played big venues and sold out a large portion of them. But the success didn't translate into the music. It wasn't any different musically from the ones before. But everything else felt different somehow. I felt that Jerry was starting to change in some way that I don't really understand to this day. Maybe he was tired of me.

[Smolin: How were you informed of your termination?] 

I got a call from [Big Steve] Parish in January of '94, saying, 'Well, here's that phone call you've been expecting for ten years. Where do you want us to send your drums?' I said, 'Well, Steve, why don't you send them here to my house. ' And he said, 'Don't you want them sent to your cartage company?' I said, 'No, have them sent here to the house. ' And he said, 'Oh, by the way, we have a new drummer already. ' I said, 'Oh, okay. ' And he said, 'Well, I don't know what else to say but good-bye.' I said, 'Well, Steve, you know, you always had a way with words.' And that was it. No explanation, nothing (Smolin 1997, 21).

When the JGB next materialized at the Warfield, on February 4-6, 1994, former Starship drummer Donny Baldwin was in the chair, where he'd remain until the end.

Deadheads gossip like suburban Karens. In this case, word on the street was that someone else in the band wanted more money, and Kemper was traded out for a cheaper model. Unless Big Steve dishes, it seems unlikely that we will ever know the reasons for the change. 

update: David K has finally dished, and Big Steve was the one who wanted more money. So the gossip was half right (I had heard it was Kahn).

What I feel pretty certain about is that having Big Steve do your dirty work, canning a guy who had played well over 300 gigs with the Jerry Garcia Band, speaks to Our Hero's well-worn instinct to avoid interpersonal conflict. At least have the courtesy to call the guy yourself, Jer! But that was not his way.

Anyway, I wanted to love this last show, also the Jerry Band's final show in the eastern time zone. And it was fine, the way the fall '93 shows generally are. The voice is a little frail. The guitar playing offers more pluck than power, though it has its charms. The 84 minute second set speaks to a guy still wanting to play. And, I gather from eyewitness testimony that anyone who was present for this 25+ minute "Shining Star", with extended band-audience singalong, remembers it fondly. I have no complaints at all. It feels just like any other show, and I wonder if it felt that way to David Kemper, too.

Jerry Garcia Band
Hampton Coliseum
1000 Coliseum Drive
Hampton, VA 23666
November 19, 1993 (Friday)
Schoeps Miller shnid-77281 rename to sets

--set I (6 tracks, 54:26)--
s1t01. [0:06] How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [7:27] [0:57]
s1t02. Stop That Train [10:18] [1:18]
s1t03. Money Honey [7:54] [0:16]
s1t04. Lay Down Sally [11:16] [0:04]
s1t05. My Sisters And Brothers [3:51] ->
s1t06. Everybody Needs Somebody To Love [10:57] (1) [0:07]

--set II (6 tracks, 84:04)--
s2t01. Shining Star [25:10] [0:08] %
s2t02. [0:25] Struggling Man [10:42] [0:04]
s2t03. The Maker [12:30] [0:08]
s2t04. Don't Let Go [17:47] ->
s2t05. That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day) [10:05] ->
s2t06. Midnight Moonlight [6:59] (2) [0:06]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #21b
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-b;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;
! lineup: David Kemper - drums;
! lineup: Gloria Jones - vocals;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - vocals.

JGMF:

! R: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [m:ss] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the "real" time of the event. So, a timing of [m:ss] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19931119-01

! db:

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/xGt3Bg1Hekzt9Quj8

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/01/hampton-coliseum-1000-coliseum-drive.html

! band: THE Jerry Garcia Band, JGB #21b (http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html)

! historical: final show for David Kemper. Final east coast Garcia gig.

! data: Contract dated 10/20/93 (unsigned by JGB): $75k guarantee vs 80% of net box office receipts after taxes and employer's reasonable and actual direct concert expenses as approved by artist whichever is greater, plus $21,250 estimated for artist-supplied production. Capacity 13,800, net gross potential (NGP) after 5% tax of $291,428.57.

! R: field recordist: unidentified

! R: field recording gear: Schoeps MK4 -> Dat (48k)

! R: field recording location: FOB

! R: Transfer Info: Dat (Sony R500) -> Samplitude Professional v7.02 -> FLAC (2 Discs Audio / 2 Discs FLAC). All Transfers and Mastering By Charlie Miller charliemiller87@earthlink.net September 2, 2006

! R: Notes: -- Fixed drop-out in How sweet It Is -- The audience sings backup vocals during last half of Shining Star -- Thanks to Ryan Shriver for the Dats -- This has the fixed Shining Star

! P: s1t01 HSII Jerry's guitar playing sounds wonderful. His voice sounds thin, but not uncharacteristically for the period.

! P: s1t02 STT Melvin does some lovely piano work late 6. Jerry playing beautifully layered stuff.

! R: s1t01 HSII drop/gap at 0:29

! P: s1t03 MH has the extra arrangement on the ending

! s1t06 (1) JG: "Thanks a lot. We'll be back in a few minutes."

! P: s2t01 Shining Star big pitch-bending in 10. Jerry much softer vocalizing late 18. Now around 21 ladies and crowd singing, Jerry picking some in response. I know everyone who was there remembers the singalong fondly.

! R: s2t02 not sure why there's a tape discontinuity, and sounds like a short repeated section from end of s2t01 and start of s2t02.

! P: s2t04 DLG fragile voice. Mumbly lyric @ 2:57. Kind of a weird drop to the guitar/vocal comping, very low but also sooner than I expected. I like the doubling late 3 over 4. Nice and low and easy. He drops the vocals @ 4:30 to modal tone. Pretty nice dangerous, urgent feel to this DLG.

! s2t06 (2) JG: "Thanks a lot. See y'all later."

The "Little Cash Cow," Fall 1991 Edition

 

Table xxx. JGB Gig Income, Fall 1991 Tour

Table xxx. JGB Gig Gross and Income, Fall 1991 Tour