From JGMF to Fate Music

What you see happening is that I can't really blog much anymore. I think.

The communication medium known as blogging mostly invites me to express paragraph- subheading- and heading-level ideas. All of that now needs to go into the Fate Music manuscript. At least, that's what I expect.

It's certainly not over. Hell, it may thrive. But thanks to all of you reading this for all your support. Please follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/FateMusicJG AND on Mastodon at https://heads.social/@FateMusic. I can spin off sentence there to clear my mind and then focus on the task at hand.

"I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all" -- unk

Fate Music in a Nutshell: JGB at MSG: November 15, 1991

I just changed the name at the top of the blog from Jerry Garcia's Middle Finger to reflect the progress I am making on Fate Music: Jerry Garcia's Name-Claiming Journey Beyond the Grateful Dead. That subtitle subject to change, that lead title not.

The best summary narrative is in my review of Jerry Garcia Band. Garcia Live volume 16: Madison Square Garden, November 15th, 1991 (Round Records JGFRR1037, 2021) in Grateful Dead Studies volume 5 (2021/2022): 228-234 [pdf].

If Carousel and Matrix jams present the uhr moment for Jerry Garcia Beyond the Dead, this musician's son's first time headlining Madison Square Garden under his own name supply the acme.

Anyway, read the whole thing if you are so inclined. And, of course, stay tuned!

Thank you all for reading Jerry Garcia's Middle Finger, commenting, correcting, all the rest. The function of this bit of cyberspace will remain mostly unchanged, maybe a bit more pimping. But this will still capture whatever random slop I can generate in the meager time I have.

If you are a lurker - come on out and play! "We're trying to have a reasonably good time here", and all that. I know the partly depends on me generating posts. I wouldn't hold my breat, but, either way, gimme a shout here, email, or if you find yourself in Colorful Colorado.

Updated Bibliography

I have updated the JGMF Bibliography. It lives at the top-right of the blog, under JGMF Essentials.

listening notes backlog

I have a bunch of info files from stuff I have listened to, but generally without much to say. Will probably post a bunch of stuff. Or not.

Deadsources Index

Somehow it had eluded me that LIA was maintaining an index of posts at Deadsources. Wonderful - thanks!

Random Posts Widget added

I got to meet the amazing David Davis of Grateful Seconds yesterday. So much fun!

A random outcome is that I have replaced the top posts widget along the right side of the blog with a "random posts" widget. It pained me that I was creating a feedback loop for more and more people to read about the Golden Gate Park bust, rather than, say the Golden State Country Bluegrass Festival.

I just copied and pasted code from somewhere so it has a different aesthetic, but whatever.

Happy reading!

Probably gonna be slow for awhile

So, so much to do.

in lieu of new content

Let me point you to the JGMF date index at http://db.etree.org/jgmf.

Any show that I have addressed explicitly at any length is indexed there, more or less.

Anyway, take a spin and leave a comment!

Half a mil

Somewhere along the line JGMF crossed over half a million pageviews. Thank you!

New blog: Mickey's Gong

https://mickeysgong.wordpress.com/ 

the idea is i listen to every single recording of the grateful dead's 1970 performances and then write about every single one

Sounds like a winner!

San Francisco Sessions

Quick reminder (or introduction, if you are new here) about the work I put in this summer documenting San Francisco Sessions in a way not just limited to (though definitely strongly oriented toward) the Garciaverse:

• San Francisco Sessions, 1967-1968

• San Francisco Sessions, 1969

• San Francisco Sessions, 1970

• San Francisco Sessions, 1971

• San Francisco Sessions, 1972 

With more time, I'd be able to do 1971 and maybe even a bit beyond, but it's not gonna happen anytime soon, if ever.

Oscuro Action

Glad to see "Oscuro - February 2, 1975" getting some play.

Essentials Panel

At the top right of the page there is now a JGMF Essentials panel, with my bibliography, some data, etc. More to come.

Reader Appreciation

As I have said, blogging will be very intermittent for awhile.

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank y'all for reading. It makes me happy. I am especially happy when folks reach out and share information, post comments, etc.

There are something like 500 posts here. I have made very liberal use of tags as a kind of index to the site. I'd like to encourage you to click around some tags and read some old stuff while new blogging is spotty.

In the meantime, thanks again. This is a great hobby and there is so much more to do ...

Prolly gonna slow down again

Ebb, flow, ebb, flow. Blogging is likely to be like that, for awhile.

In the meantime, regarding 46 years ago today: did the Dead play Hippie Hill?

SF Sessions 1970 updated

I have updated my post on 1970 SF Sessions, more rumination on the various filmings, a few other points straightened out.

updated again 8/11/2015 0830 Mountain Daylight Time

light blogging

Odds are that blogging will continue to be light for awhile. I like to do more during the summer, but circumstances just don't permit right now.

Click some tags and sniff around here, or the allied blogs such as Lost Live Dead, Hooterollin Around, Grateful Dead Guide, Dead Sources, etc. Links are to the right.

In the meantime, some randomalia.

Thesis: Garcia on the side is about more music with proportionally less bullshit.
Antithesis: Garcia being JERRY GARCIA OF THE GRATEFUL DEAD, the bullshit found a way in.
Synthesis: Jerry Garcia's Middle Finger.

Also, re-reading one of my all-time faves, Voltaire's Candide, in French. Love it love it love it love it.

I wish the Dead's canceled October 1968 Europe tour would have happened, but on the other hand that might have deprived history of Mickey Hart and the Hartbeats. Not Heartbeeps, the preclusion of which might have left history better off, or so I gather.

JGMF RSS feeds

You know I have significant complaints with Blogger, but as Corry keeps insisting, you get what you pay for.

Given its imperfections, but also because I found this useful, I thought I'd spotlight how to follow JGMF posts and comments.

JGMF Posts RSS feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/JerryGarciasMiddleFinger
JGMF Comments RSS feed URL: http://www.blogger.com/feeds/18366371/comments/default

Books post updated

jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/12/books.html

I did manage to get some reading done, have updated the post with some very brief thoughts on some recent books.

Grazing

With a tiny bit of space, I have been doing some good work, reading, noting, cleaning, filing, listening. On this last, I have been in a grazing kind of mode. I have listened to an OAITW (6/5/73), some November '74 JGMS (11/10/74), a '78 (3/12/78), 11/17/81, 6/4/83b, a few other things (12/5/84 s2).

This batch of listening raises various questions.

First, in identifying variation in my assessment of a given show, what percentage of the variance is accounted for by variation in the actual quality of the show?

I ask this because I didn't come away from most of these listens very impressed. The second question, then, is what might account for this?

Hypothesis 1: I am in a bad mood/wrong frame of mind/whatever. It has to do with me, the listener.

Hypothesis 2: The tapes, many of which are of relatively recent vintage (in terms of shnid), just aren't as great as, say, a bunch of Betties (and what is, after all? what is?).

Hypothesis 3: Improbable things happen, and here I just, improbably, drew a bunch of middling cards off the deck all in a row.

Something else?