Tasty Fucking Tape: JGB at Paramount Northwest Theatre, Seattle, October 28, 1978 (Severson MAC)

LN jg1978-10-28.jgb.early-late.aud-severson.148540.flac2496

These last few shows of the Keith and Donna JGB are generally strong. And the recordings often sound really nice, not least because the bass, and I'd say generally the whole band, was dialed-in in the rooms. I don't know who was doing room sound, but they did a great job.

Mark Severson pulled the "tasty fucking tape(s)" of the title. That guy never missed, it seems.

Not a lot of notes, but that's kind of been characteristic of what I have been posting lately.

I really like the Reuben and Cherise here. It's not quite flawless, but it's strong. LAALWFH clocks in under 14 minutes, last time played until 7/26/81. 

For those who say that Keith Godchaux was worthless and nodding off in 1978. SHOW ME. I have never seen or heard evidence of this. Of course, maybe he was more engaged in the JGB than in the toxic cesspool of that other band. But, again, don't just repeat the narrative. Show, don't tell. (LIA supplies a bunch of the relevant canonical quotes in comment at LLD.)

Oh yeah, BTW, I also just upped some additional notes to my already-existing 10/27/78 post.

Jerry Garcia Band
Paramount Northwest Theatre
901 Pine Street
Seattle, WA 98101
October 28, 1978 (Saturday)
Severson MAC flac2496 shnid-148540

--early show, main set + encore (8 tracks, 7 tunes, 71:57)--
--early show main set (7 tracks, 6 tunes, 65:41)--
e-t01. ambience [1:14]
e-t02. Harder They Come [11:09] (1) [0:21] % [0:34]
e-t03. Mission In The Rain [9:16] [0:20] % [0:06]
e-t04. They Love Each Other [7:22] [1:11]
e-t05. Knockin' On Heaven's Door [13:01] [0:08] % (2) [1:54]
e-t06. It Ain't No Use [7:56] [1:36]
e-t07. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [8:58] (3) [0:16] % [0:10] %
--early show encore (1 track, 6:16)--
e-t08. Reuben And Cherise [6:06] (4) [0:10] %

--late show (9 tracks, 8 tunes, 74:40)--
l-t01. ambience [1:03]
l-t02. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [8:14] [2:39]
l-t03. Catfish John [9:40] [0:15] % [0:33]
l-t04. I Second That Emotion [9:19] [0:25] % [0:15]
l-t05. Love In The Afternoon [8:14]
l-t06. Mystery Train
l-t07. Gomorrah [6:18] [0:15]
l-t08. I'll Be With Thee [5:15] ->
l-t09. Lonesome And A Long Way From Home [13:32] [0:28]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #4
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals;
! lineup: Donna Godchaux - vocals;
! lineup: Maria Muldaur - vocals;
! lineup: Keith Godchaux - piano;
! lineup: John Kahn - bass;
! lineup: Buzz Buchanan - drums.

JGMF:

! Recording: 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/19781028-03 (early); https://jerrybase.com/events/19781028-04 (late)

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/12679 (McCaw MAC, shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/89135 (Severson master, via minches); https://etreedb.org/shn/148539 (this fileset, flac1644); https://etreedb.org/shn/148540 (this fileset).

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/11/paramount-northwest-paramount-theatre.html

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

! Sue: For the two shows, $5k guarantee plus percentages on high gross and cost savings, on gross potential of $47,616-$53,568. Monarch got $3,000 for production, looks like co-pro was the John Bauer Concert Company.

! review: [negative] MacDonald 1978: "typically, the shows went on interminably. The first, which began at 7 pm, didn't end until almost 11 p.m. The second show, which was supposed to have started at 10:30 p.m., didn't get under way until past midnight. It was still going strong when I left about 3 a.m." Further, "I felt the second show audience, which was made to wait outside in the cold for hours and got a tired show, were ripped off."

! R: field recordist: Mark Severson

! R: field recording gear: 2x Sony ECM 270 mics > Sony TC-158

! R: Transfer Info: Master Cassette (Nakamichi CR-7A) > Tascam DA-3000 (DSF 1-bit/5.6 MHz)> dBpoweramp (24/96) > Adobe Audition CC 2019 > TLH flac2496

! R: seeder Notes: Thanks to Mark Severson for the master cassette recording. Thanks to Charlie Miller for the transfer and coordinating this effort. Thanks to Joe B. Jones for verifying the pitch. Mastered by Scott Clugston, December 2019.

! R: tasty fucking tape

! P: t02 HTC Garcia's first guitar turn is just so damn lyrical and melodic! Keith's first turn also nice.

! e-t02 (1) JG: "Thank you."

! P: e-t05 KOHD is beautiful! The notes Garcia plays in late 5 just slay me. Keith steps up for a feature 6:20ff.

! e-t05 (2) a guy in the crowd yells out something about "one show tonight, instead of two", and gets a good cheer from the crowd.

! e-t07 (3) JG: "Thanks a lot. We'll see ya later."

! P: e-t08 RAC Buzzy just kills some splashes around 3:25 - sounds great! I love how compact this version is. Great energy!

! e-t08 (4) JG: "So long."

! P: l-t09 LAALWFH it is pretty out there, but it never really did anything that interesting.

GD at Eagles Auditorium, Seattle, WA, January 1968

 I am going to argue that the Quick and the Dead played Eagles Auditorium in Seattle, WA on Friday, January 26 and Saturday, January 27, 1968, and *not* on Monday 1/22 and Tuesday 1/23. This may well be widely accepted, but since the tapes still circulate with the latter dates, and Deadlists remains a bit noncommittal, I thought I'd lay it out.

Argument 1: The GD played Eagles Auditorium on Friday 1/26 and Saturday 1/27, 1968.

There is both ex ante and ex post evidence for this.

For ex ante evidence, to the left is an item in the Seattle Times dated 1/23/68.

Here is a calendar listing for 1/27/68, published on the day of the second (Saturday) show:

There were also articles written ex post in the Helix, as the following two. Note that I am not entirely sure about the volume/issue/date. I noted these as v2 n 13 (2/1/68), but according to the University of Washington's Special Collections Helix scans, this is v2 n10. The microfilm from which I was working made it exceptionally difficult to figure out this sort of thing, insofar as it was legibly identified at all.

What do we learn from this? The Quick and the Dead played late January 1968 Friday-Saturday shows at Eagles Auditorium. The GD, on 'jc''s account, opened the second show with Lovelight.

There is a poster in Art of Rock, plate 3.104, p. 287; see also p. 249.

By the way, the liner notes from the Golden Road boxset give the Seattle Eagles Auditorium dates as 1/26-27/68.

In sum: I believe the evidence establishes that the GD played Eagles Auditorium on January 26-27, 1968.

Argument 2: The Quick and the Dead did not play Eagles Auditorium in Seattle on January 22-23, 1968 (Monday-Tuesday).

As far as I can tell, the only evidence in support of this dating is the labeling of GD vault tapes. Now, I am aware that notwithstanding the chemicals that could have been involved, GD vault tape labels are incredibly reliable. So when I say "only" I don't mean to deprecate this empirical source; I merely mean to say that this is the unique evidence that is known to me. Material from "1/23/68 Seattle" has been issued on the official release Road Trips v2 n2, and of course material with both dates has circulated for some time in collecting circles.

Evidence against the 1/22 and 1/23/68 dating is entirely mostly of the "dog that didn't bark" sort. There are no known posters. There were no show announcements in the Seattle Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the University of Washington Daily, nor, most importantly, in that masterpiece of Seattle psychedelic underground journalism, the Helix.

Update: I have found a dog barking, albeit quietly, about 1/23/68. The Seattle Times, January 14, 1968, p. 85 (or is it B5?), has a little item entitled "Hanauer, David in 10-Rounder Here" about a World Wide Boxing Club event. Seems Jack Hanauer, a middleweight from Pasco, was going to meet Indian Joe David of Oakland. There were a few other fights on the card. Most importantly, the fight was scheduled for January 23rd in Eagles Auditorium. Indeed, the January 23rd opening date for the fight club was announced as early as 12/31/67 in the same paper.

Based on spending a little bit of time with these sources, I am 100% persuaded that any GD show at Eagles and/or otherwise in Seattle would have been advertised and/or otherwise covered in some of these sources, ex ante and/or ex post. The GD's first visit to Seattle, AFAIK, was in July 1967. That show was extensively advertised, including with a poster. The "Be-In" that afternoon at Golden Gardens Park, before the Eagles' show, was reported in the P-I. Similarly, the Eagles Shows on September 8-9, 1967, featured a nice ad in the Helix. The January 26-27 shows were advertised widely and much-discussed.

Finally, reading the above in particular, there is just zero intimation that the GD shows on Friday-Saturday are taking place after a set of Monday-Tuesday shows that same week. Does this make sense? There's no mention anywhere that they had just played the same venue a few days before. By contrast, there's lots of "sense" in the coverage that the Quick and the Dead came upon a Seattle that was barely ready for them. The rube Seattlites are made to seem like they have a lot to learn. Hard to imagine that'd be necessary if the GD had warmed them up just a few days before.

In sum, notwithstanding the apparent existence of taped in the GD vaults labeled with these dates, I argue that no GD shows took place at Eagles Auditorium in Seattle on January 22-23, 1968.

I have no idea what would explain the mislabeling of the tapes. Maybe 1/22-23 were originally scheduled, and maybe since the GD were recording for the album tapes were pre-labeled before they were rescheduled. Just one less thing to do on tour, and all that. I have no idea. But unless some other evidence turns up, I am compelled to conclude that 1/22-23/68 Quick and Dead shows are phantoms.