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.

Unidentified Nicky Hopkins Instrumentals

update: Mark Mattson has identified the number as "Lucky Old Sun" - wow!

There may be others, but I am right now pondering two distinct instrumentals that Nicky does out of "Lady Sleeps" with the JGB in the last month or so of his run with the band.

11/23/75: about 1:38:30ff here --> https://ia600902.us.archive.org/9/items/jgb1975-11-23MackeyAuditoriumBoulderCO/jgb1975-11-23MackeyAuditoriumBoulderCO.mp3

He announces that one before as one of his originals, I think.

12/19/75: about 51:30ff here--> http://www.archive.org/serve/jgb1975-12-19WinterlandArenaSanFranciscoCA/jgb1975-12-19WinterlandArenaSanFranciscoCA.mp3 a little peppier, sounds kind of Beatles-ish to me (though it's not "Mother Nature's Son")

Help!

DOWN in South Jersey? JGB at Glassboro State College, February 15, 1981

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Rock Scully's book Living with the Dead (1996) gets mixed reviews for all kinds of reasons, among them that he presents lots of factually inaccurate information. But, on another intepretation --and, I think, relaying something Corry has expressed-- the book may not be right, but it contains lots of truth. Here is some of his narrative around early '81:

We use the airlines to ship dope. I have somebody run it out to the airport in an envelope, put it on a plane, and it gets there like clockwork until some weird hippie at TWA recognizes Jerry's name on the package and takes it. The first time it happens, we're in Philadelphia. I'm jonesing in the Philadelphia Arport waiting for the shit to arrive and it never shows up. I know it got onto the plane, but somewhere along the line somebody stole it. This little glitch leads to a day and a half of the shakes. Garcia is too junk sick to perform the following night. Prescriptions from the hotel doctor help, but we use up all the pills the first night to get rid of the shakes.

In Washington, a desperate Garcia decides to do a radio interview in the middle of the night and "put the code out." Garcia's nodding into the mike during the interview. On air he asks fans — in code — to bring their stashes down to the station and he will sign albums for them. He says, "Uh, anybody down with Garcia out there tonight? You wanna come down to the station? I'll come down from up here and sign autographs, but bring me some down." Thirty kids show up at the station reception with grass, 'ludes, uppers. Uh oh, the wrong drugs! Oh God, now he wants to get more specific on the air, spell out what precisely he needs. We send kids out to get downers and tranks to get us through the night (Scully 1996, 314).

I relay this here because seeder extraordinaire AF has relayed the following in connection with a recording of JGB in Esby Gym, Glassboro State College, February 15, 1981:

Before the show, Jerry went on the radio [campus radio WGLS] to invite people DOWN and if you were DOWN with it, then come on DOWN to the show. The story goes that they were at the end of the tour, way down in the boonies of South Jersey, and the stash was dry. Jerry had to put out the call for someone from Philly or nearby to drive over with a fix for him and Kahn.

Naturally, this sounds like the second part of Rock's little vignette above. I trust AF to have the date, time, and specifics more accurate than Scully. As for our jonesing hereo, maybe the trip into Glassboro, a charter flight from E. Farmingdale (Republic Airport) to Philly on an 8-passenger twin-engine King Air 200, had him just a little jumpy. (Take that, Rock!)

Plea: does anyone know of tape of that particular interview, 2/15/81 from campus radio WGLS? I will inquire with the school, though odds are strongly against there being a copy there.

What about the rest of Rock's narrative? It kind of fits Corry's characterization. First, I think he swaps Philly (end of the tour) and DC (start of the tour), with the package of drugs not making it to them in Washington. Second --and, yes, I see how petty this is-- they didn't fly TWA, but United (#58, since you asked). Third, there is no canceled show anywhere in the tour. Fourth, the interview was apparently before the show, not in the middle of the night.

Some of this other stuff might have happened on Dead tour, or on a different Jerry tour. He doesn't explicitly say this is the Feb. 81 JGB jaunt - I am just making the connection because of the radio interview, which it seems safe to say can only have happened once. Overall, all of this stuff probably sort of happened, and so Rock's account is true ("truthy," you might say), if not exactly right.

One of the great benefits to me of doing these listening notes, and trying to integrate them into the broader fabric of the Garciaverse, is how LITTLE the drug stories tell us about the music. Here we have relatively firm evidence that Garcia was jonesing hard for the show, specifically needing stuff to take the edge off, and that he got some stuff to get him DOWN to some level of comfort. Yet the show sounds peppy. I don't make a lot of notes, but they all point in the same direction: torrid scrubby goodness in "Catfish John", punch great energy in "Tangled Up In Blue", Gar sounding enthused on "Tore Up Over You". All of this speaks, as Twitterato and all-around great guy Mr. Completely might say, to the limits of drug determinism.

Ticket for JGB 2/15/81 at Glassboro State College, courtesy of gdsets.com.

Sounds like the place was packed, sweltering hot (Chambers 1981), and ol Jer, jonesing or not, put on a good strong show to end the tour. (Since you were wondering, fly home next day, 10:15 AM departure on United #719 through Denver to land at SFO by  2:30 PM, or TWA #31, out at 3:30 PM to hit tierra santa at 6:30 PM. I leave it to you to imagine which flight Jerry caught, and why.)

Listening notes below the fold.

Brief Encounters of the Weird Kind: JGB at Penn State, December 11, 1977

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Again, listening notes may be briefer for awhile. Certainly, these are bullet-style.

David Gans once said something to the effect that Garcia exhibits the shortest distance between spirit and fingertip of any musician he knows. That's probably not quite right, but it was something like this. A reviewer from this last show of the Fall '77 JGB tour, Don Foster, sort of alludes to the same notion, in saying  "I'd swear if there was some way of putting a tracer into his vibrations you would see them travel through his body to his fingertips, out to his guitar, and then into the audience."

I also like Foster's take here: "The Mystery Cat banner in the background reminded me a lot of Donna Godchaux. She would leave the stage when she was not singing and like a cat reappear mysteriously for her next number." Very evocative. I'd say the show has a really sleek, unperturbed kind of feline energy to it. Smooth, pretty graceful.

Nice tape. Thank you for the work on it, sirmick. I didn't compare with other versions - all circulating sources are sbds, presumably from the same root tape. John sounds full and fat, as he would through 1978.

This is a rare Jerry-before-GD performance space.

Peppy "Sitting In Limbo". I like it. And "I Second That Emotion" finds some nice room that I also dug.

Turns out the "Close Encounters" theme in "Lonesome And A Long Way From Home," one of a few on the tour, and which I have mentioned before, is extremely brief. But there is more than one encounter here, as after "Love In The Afternoon" we hear some stage talk about aliens, and then, before "Russian Lullaby," Jerry and John noodle on the famous five-note theme for a good 30 seconds. And, because we focus on Garcia On The Side (GOTS) here, we are contractually obligated to note that this occurs before the Grateful Dead would grapple more fully and wildly with the theme on 1/22/78 in Eugene. Just sayin'.

Band got $12,500 + $2,500 sound and lights for the gig, which only grossed something like 16 grand. Gotta love those student activities budgets! Proft, schmofit, so long as the kids have a good time.

Jerry Garcia Band
Recreation Hall, Penn State University
Curtin Rd.
University Park, PA 16802
December 11, 1977 (Sunday)
sbd sirmick remaster shnid-80773

--set I (5 tracks, 54:22)--
s1t01. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [9:22] [0:06] % [0:03]
s1t02. Catfish John [10:04] % [0:07]
s1t03. Simple Twist Of Fate [12:33] %
s1t04. Sitting In Limbo [10:24] [0:07] %
s1t05. Mystery Train [11:31] (1) [0:04]

--set II + encore (8 tracks, 97:56)--
--set II (7 tracks, 79:31)--
s2t01. [0:03] Love In The Afternoon (2) [11:51] % [0:05]
s2t02. I Second That Emotion [14:12] % [0:06]
s2t03. Gomorrah [7:07] % [0:06]
s2t04. Harder They Come [11:32] [0:18] %
s2t05. (3) [0:54] Russian Lullaby [14:29] % [0:04]
s2t06. Tore Up Over You [9:12] [0:09] % [0:03]
s2t07. Mission In The Rain [9:12] % [0:08]
--encore (1 track, 18:25)--
s2t08. Lonesome And A Long Way From Home [18:21] (4) [0:04]

! ACT1: JGB #4
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-b;
! lineup: Keith Godchaux - piano;
! lineup: Buzz Buchanan - drums;
! lineup: Donna Jean Godchaux - 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/19771211-01

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/80773 (this fileset), plus lots of other filesets presumably derived from the same root tape.

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html. No Maria Muldaur.

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/07/recreation-hall-curtin-road-university.html. This is a rare Jerry-before-GD hall.

! historical: From Foster review I infer 3,200 attended and 8,600 capacity. But contract makes it clear that capacity is 5,000. Band got $12,500 guarantee, plus 70% over $21,500 (not triggered) plus $2,500 for sound and lights, on gross potential of $25k.

! ad: Daily Collegian, December 1, 1977, p. 17

! exante: "Jerry Garcia Band to perform," Daily Collegian (Penn State University), December 9, 1977, p. 3;

! exante: Clifford 1977;

! review: [positive] Foster 1977: "I'd swear if there was some way of putting a tracer into his vibrations you would see them travel through his body to his fingertips, out to his guitar, and then into the audience."

! expost: Wilson 1977

! seealso: JGMF, "JGB: November-December 1977 East Coast Tour Rarities"

! R: source: source: sdb > master reel > cassette > pcm > dat > cdr

! R: Seeder comments: - this is a remaster of shnid-6622 - Hiss reduction was attempted on this source once before but the results were not very successful.  I think that this is far more pleasing to the ear - remastered using iZotope Ozone and 4Front Sandbrush - hiss reduction with Waves X-Noise - SIRMick December 2006

! R: Nice tape. I haven't listened to this show in many years, and I don't think I have ever heard this sirmick version. It is buttah. The bass tone is as good as the '78 boards. Man. Later on, some more hiss comes onboard, and sometimes it overloads, but it's nice to have!

! P: s1t01 HSII the band comes in feeling absolutely groovy right out of the gate. John sounds so amazing, so it's hard to parse the capture from the playing, but I do think the playing is just wonderful - fluid, inventive, big, playful.

! P: s1t02 CJ nice version, but tempos are a little variable.

! R: s1t03 STOF more hiss

! P: s1t04 SIL done sprightly, maybe peppiest version I have ever heard. In the 7-minute mark it takes a really spare feeling, not much Keith, or he's way back, anyway. Lovely stuff.

! R: s1t04 SIL splice at 7:09

! s1t05 (1) JG: "We're gonna take a break for a little while. We'll be back in a little bit. Thank you."

! s2t01 (2) at around 7 minute mark, someone says something like "check out the aliens [inaudible]".

! P: s2t02 ISTE I am not always a big fan of this tune. But Buzzy does some splashing late 7 that really catches my ear, and maybe Jerry's, because Jerry puts on a little spacier tone and the band gives him a little more room. Just wonderful. 

! s2t05 (3) Jerry and John noodle on the "Close Encounters Theme" for a good 30 seconds here.

! P: s2t05 Russ Lull JK feature 7:58-11:15. Despite the fatter tone, this feature feels more like later ones, very fluttery and not very impressive. Buzzy trying to add some rhythm in the back, but he's swimming upstream.

! R: s2t07 MITR splice at 1:17

! R: s2t08 LAALWFH splice at 6:09

! P: s2t08 LAALWFH Close Encounters 15:30, but it's really just a few riffs here.

! s2t08 (4) JG: "Thank you. See y'all later on."

Upon Further Review: Various and Sundry Listening Notes on the Last Night of the Fall '83 Tour: JGB at Wilkins Theatre, Kean College, December 13, 1983

LN jg1983-12-13.jgb.early.aud-newberger-seaweed.133469.flac1644

LN jg1983-12-13.jgb.early-late.aud-minches.31253.flac1644

LN jg1983-12-13.jgb.early-late.aud-newberger.77710.flac1644

LN jg1983-12-13.jgb.late.aud-nak300.151810.flac2496

I first heard 12/13/83 in 2003, when Andrew Faintych sent me tapes from both shows recorded with Senn 421s from the 10th row by "Tom from Avon, NJ". In 2005, Bu lent me his DAT of an unattributed aud, and minches and I did our transferring and lossless thing as shnid-31253. shnid-77710 came around in 2006, and I think I listened to it in 2009. shnid-133469 came by in 2015, and I must have listened to it because I have timings, although I have no performance notes. Most recently came 151810 of the late show. It's a sign of my generalized appreciation for this show and tour that I have spun all of these, while countless hundreds of filesets, and probably a dozen or more from this very tour, sit unheard.

Given that weird batch of data, I thought I'd post all my listening notes, and present some extractions, maybe with rough datings, going in performance order. The listening notes comes last, the extractions of comments through the performance are in the middle, and the executive summary comes first.

1. What do we learn from this?

Probably not that much.

I am consistent in timing the blast-off of the early set Deal around 3:45 in, and I also note how it finds an open space at the end which I think is quite uncommon. Now of course I want to listen to the rest of the tour to see. But it's cool and worth checking out.

The late show setlist draws my eye throughout time, but I may well find that the performance doesn't quite live up to it (though my 2009 self raved).

One version of me called the late show "Catfish John" an all-timer, though others didn't bother to make a single note. Similarly, on the most recent listen I found the TUIB pretty compelling, but not so much on earlier listens (to other filesets). 2021 me also raved about the Rhapsody In Red from the Nak 300s, while others did not. The Don't Let Go gets similar notations re the vocal-instrumental doubling around 4 minutes in, and two mes also noted the sweet transition into Mid Moon. 2021 me made the particular note that DLG never returned to the song. On current thinking, that seems exceptionally rare. When did Garcia leave a song unfinished like that outside the Dead? Update: 12/4/83b DLG > Deal segue may be another case, need to double-check if DLG reprises.

2. Note Extractions

A. 1983-12-13 [Tue] Early Wilkins Theatre, Kean College, Union, NJ

2005:  Great setlists (especially the late show), and really terrific performances.  The vocals are a little rough, but there is some sparkling late '83 guitar work here, lots of energy.

Mission In The Rain

2006: the start of MITR is very off sounding. What a weird sounding tape. Where is John Kahn? It's a little cringeworthy for me, as MITR could sometimes be - once he lost the fall 1975 voice with which he originally sang it, it took him years to find an arrangement that really worked - probably not until 1987. I am really enjoying the raindrop notes Garcia's painting on the ceiling of the room, and, 8:20 and a nice note 8:40. Some excellent liquid playing. It's much better to play than sing, sometimes. Melvin stepping up a little bit early 9. I need to check how long this has been instrumental, and how much lyric this covers. Great instrumental break! @ 9:51 "all the things I planned to do I only did halfway ... tomorrow will be Sunday born of rainy Saturday"

 
They Love Each Other

2006: wanna hear what Kemper can do for you? Check out 3:04-3:08 of this TLEO. He just does a great driving run to enthuse Melvin for his feature, which sounds fine. Sounds like his fast hard start to TWLWMYD, but in a totally different context. Great drumming, looking way ahead and navigating the whole band to the '1', everyone gets comfortable.

Simple Twist Of Fate

2006: my God you understand exactly why Garcia loves this song. He is giving this great Dylan a great treatment. Carefully phrasing himself. John takes a lead ca. 6:50. Still leading early 9, Garcia has been playing an ethereal bowing sound behind John, who's still fluttering around until Jerry takes over 9:56. That was maybe a little abrupt on poor ol' John, but Jerry has something to say. John is still doing his lead style through 10:30, so a very nice dual thing from them. Good for John not to take getting cut off lying down, but I, for one, vote that it's Jerry's turn. John had stayed very forward into early 11, by 11:30 he drops back into his normal STOF swing. I think that, overall, this is an excellent STOF.

Run For The Roses ,
I Second That Emotion ,
Deal

2006: @ 3:55 this one had been dragging for me a little, then to trigger the frenzy, David Kemper just hammers down the drums and forces Jerry into action. Jerry snaps to a higher level, immediately dialing in some fuzz and juice. That piece right from late 3 over 4 is pretty smokin'. @ 5:13 Jerry writes a nice sentence, everyone is playing well. The drummer is a freaking MONSTER. Band is active but indistinct, perhaps recording or PA issue. Organ big and full in all of the spaces, painting in every contour. Jerry very high to frets 6:20. This Deal goes to a totally unique space 10 min mark, almost letting it breathe ... very rare for JGB to enter this space. They find the '1' and come back 10:50. John Kahn sounds lost, or is just not available. Not sure this is entirely successful, a little strange sounding. Unusual.

2009: found Deal hot, especially solo @3:45

Encore:

How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)

2009 found this hot

B. 1983-12-13 [Tue] Late Wilkins Theatre, Kean College, Union, NJ

2005:  Great setlists (especially the late show), and really terrific performances.  The vocals are a little rough, but there is some sparkling late '83 guitar work here, lots of energy.

Set 1:

Cats Under The Stars

 
Catfish John 

2005: The late show Catfish John is an all-time version of that song, tight all the way through and then really cooking from about the 10-minute mark.

Someday Baby

2021: s1t03 Someday Baby a big ol yikes on the vocal clam on the first "worry my mind". He slows down and girds himself for the second one and it's a little better.

 
Love In The Afternoon

 
Tangled Up In Blue

2006: TUIB and this whole set, Jerry sounds a little tired to me. Kemper picks up the tempo 1:30ff. Pretty good TUIB.

2021: TUIB is on fiyah, notes flying all over the place, spraying around indiscriminately at moments, but with laser focus at others. Around 9:30 Jerry takes TUIB a little out! Whoa, this is pretty bonkers.

Set 2:

2005: The second set of the late show is maybe just a touch disappointing, but probably only because the setlist raises expectations so much.

Rhapsody In Red

2021: HUGE chordal approach 5ff. The ladies tried to sing the chorus and Garcia just bulldozed, now 5:47 doing that syncopated galloping. Loud. Screaming again 9:34. John sounding strong here, too.

 
Gomorrah

 
Don't Let Go >

2003: Jerry does some really cool sing-along with his guitar in the 4-minute mark, and the jam over to Midnight Moonlight is pretty nice

2021: DLG nice vocal-guitar doubling 4. Steps out into a mode at 4:53. Man I dug this DLG. Garcia just put his head down and played with total determination for like 8 straight minutes. Melvin did some nice chunky stuff relatively early on, everyone else did their thing, but this version just found Jerry having a lot to say, and saying it. And then, fascinating true segue to Mid Moon - he never did reprise DLG, which is very rare indeed.

Midnight Moonlight

2021: Mid Moon has an extra special galloping quality to signify not just the end of the show, but the end of the tour. I don't know if it's the fastest version ever, but it's done really fast.

Listening notes below the fold.

Segueing Out of Stony Brook: JGB in Pritchard Gym, SUNY Stony Brook, December 4, 1983

Lawn Guy Land, and especially SUNY Stony Brook, stands in the pantheon as one of the ground zero sites of the birth and development of the East Coast Deadhead and, by derivation, of the East Coast Garcia Freak. The Dead played Pritchard Gym on campus very early on, and, as so often happened, the Garcia Band followed, playing it in '77, '80, and, finally, on December 4, 1983.

Garcia's Bands in Pritchard Gym, SUNY Stony Brook. Source: Jerrybase.

The fall '83 JGB tour, undertaken largely by bus, bears all the hallmarks of this year in Our Hero's life, a little grungy, previewing the troubles that would become even more marked over the next few years --shorter sets, vocal limitations-- but playing LOUD, raging guitar and generally making up in enthusiasm what it lacked in precision.

His Stony Brook swan song illustrates all of this. Here's the lede from a show review in the campus paper, The Statesman:

In today's world of molded plastic superstars Jerry Garcia is a breath of fresh air. Rick Springfield fans wouldn't appreciate Garcia; he is old, fat and looks like he's just a step away from burning out. A person not familiar with Garcia would be more likely to ask when his last hot meal was, and not for an autograph (Reiss 1983).

The reviewer, who probably didn't stand close to Jerry (where the air was presumably rather unfresh), extols his authenticity, offering very good perspective on this Garcia era: not a picture of health, but making good music.

SUNY Stony Brook Statesman, v27 n37 (December 7, 1983), Alternatives section, p. 1A.

He makes mistakes, but he recovers and even makes up for them with a little extra added something. He hits some vocal clams, but he blasts so loudly on guitar that maybe the fans --buying up all of the 2,200+ tickets, moving over $22k Jerry and Co.'s way, and *very* knowledgeable-- might not hear the next hiccups through their ringing ears. The band works with and around him, but mostly just gets shoved aside by Garcia's overflowing ideas, limitless playing vocabulary, and sheer decibels. The show is very good, and the closing medley, rare (for JGB) true segues of "Don't Let Go" -> "Deal" -> "Tangled Up In Blue", is absolutely outstanding. Every DLG is at least good, most are very good, and a great many are great. It was very well-played in this period, and the crowd, which recognizes it out of the gate, gets treated to a great one this night, which merits a "holy camoley" from me, earns the "monster" designation, and very neatly drops into Deal after a 20 minute journey which feels efficient, packing huge punch every step of the way. The medley is worth the 45 minutes of your ear time, and provides a fitting end to Garcia's illustrious Stony Brook career.

It ain't broken, but it's badly bent.

So good that he earned a rare-for-the-tour night in a hotel bed, at what I am sure is the lovely Holiday Inn in Hauppage.

Listening notes after the jump.

JGB in Binghamton, November 20, 1977: first night DLG + LAALWFH = 1/2 (two weeks later DLG + LAALWFH)

LN jg1977-11-20.jgb.all.sbd.141495.flac1644

First night of the fall '77 Garcia Band tour (22 gigs in 22 nights), third live gig for young Buzzy Buchanan in the drummer's seat. The great Jerry Moore had some nasty thoughts about him, but I think he sounds fine here. Keeping time for this group could not have been a picnic.

I have covered the Fall '77 tour in a number of posts, and David Davis has done a couple, as well.

• JGMF,  "JGB: November-December 1977 East Coast Tour Rarities"
• JGMF, "Maria 'Shaking Her Substantial Booty' at Waterbury's 'Decrepit Palace Theater': JGB 11/23/77, Commander aud"
• JGMF, "His voice is fading fast: JGB at SUNY New Paltz, 11/29/77"
• JGMF, "Fall '77 Gig Economics: The Case of SUNY New Paltz (JGB, 11/29/77)"
• GratefulSeconds, "The Jerry Garcia Fans Strike Back: Buffalo, November 30, 1977"
• GratefulSeconds, "Another Great 1977 Show: Jerry Garcia Band, Boston December 2, 1977"
• JGMF, "A Monster Don't Let Go at Hartwick College, December 3, 1977"
• JGMF, "A Long Way From Spain: JGB at SUNY Stony Brook, December 9, 1977"

Musically, the true segue between "I'll Take A Melody" and "Don't Let Go" is quite interesting. Garcia Band didn't do such things all that often, and it just sounds like Jerry asserts the change and everyone else falls into line.

Also noted is the vast expansion of "Don't Let Go" and "Lonesome And A Long Way From Home". Here, they run14+ and 9+ minutes respectively. By later in the tour (12/3 and 12/9, respectively), they'd each clock in at a much chunkier 27 or so minutes. So Buzzy gets a few iterations to play it pretty straight, but by the end of the tour he's swimming in the deep end.

The recording is fine, with some hiss, swish, wow and flutter, especially from tape 1. AF did yeoman's work, as he always does, marrying it to tape 2 and sharing it out.

Maria is absent, for reasons unknown.

Public debut of LITA.

JERRY GARCIA BAND
West Gym (aka Men's Gym), SUNY Binghamton
1092 Bunn Hill Rd.
Vestal, NY 13850
November 20, 1977 (Sunday) - 7:30 PM
mono sbd composite shnid-141495

--set I (8 tracks, 71:25)--
s1t01. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [9:01] [0:41]
s1t02. They Love Each Other [7:23] [0:06] %
s1t03. Let It Rock [8:38] [0:17] %
s1t04. [0:14] Simple Twist Of Fate [11:18] %
s1t05. /Stir It /Up [#9:15] [0:31] %
s1t06. That's What Love Will/ Make You Do [9:#06] [0:16]
s1t07. Gomorrah [6:39] [0:02] %
s1t08. Mystery Train [7:52] (1) [0:06]

--set II (7 tracks, 72:57)--
s2t01. [0:07] The Way You Do The Things You Do [8:51] [0:12] %
s2t02. ... Love In The Afternoon [#6:38] [1:07]
s2t03. [0:07] Midnight Moonlight [8:15] [0:25] %
s2t04. [0:39] Russian Lullaby [11:18] [0:07] %
s2t05. [[0:15] I'll //Take A Melody [9:#55] ->
s2t06. Don't Let Go [14:10] [1:12]
s2t07. Lonesome And A Long Way From Home [9:29] (2) [0:05]

! ACT1: JGB #4*
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-b;
! lineup: Keith Godchaux - piano, vocals;
! lineup: Buzz Buchanan - drums;
! lineup: Donna Jean Godchaux - vocals;
[! absent: Maria Muldaur - vocals]

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/19771120-01

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/132097 (s2 sbd flac1644); https://etreedb.org/shn/132098 (s2 sbd flac2496); https://etreedb.org/shn/141495 (this fileset).

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html. Maria Muldaur is absent, so this is #4*, a variant Corry doesn't list.

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/A3rerZrT2hR4xLkL9

! JGBP: https://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/12/west-gym-harpur-college-suny-1092-bunn.html

! seealso: JGMF, "JGB: November-December 1977 East Coast Tour Rarities," URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2010/10/jgb-november-december-east-coast-tour.html.

! seealso: JGMF, "Maria 'Shaking Her Substantial Booty' at Waterbury's 'Decrepit Palace Theater': JGB 11/23/77, Commander aud," URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/02/ln-jg1977-11-23jgballaud-commander.html.

! seealso: JGMF, "His voice is fading fast: JGB at SUNY New Paltz, 11/29/77," URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/02/ln-jg1977-11-29jgballaud.html

! seealso: JGMF, "Fall '77 Gig Economics: The Case of SUNY New Paltz (JGB, 11/29/77)," URL https://jgmf.blogspot.com/2019/01/fall-77-gig-economics-case-of-suny-new.html.

! seealso GratefulSeconds, "The Jerry Garcia Fans Strike Back: Buffalo, November 30, 1977," URL http://www.gratefulseconds.com/2019/03/the-jerry-garcia-fans-strike-back.html.

! seealso: GratefulSeconds, "Another Great 1977 Show: Jerry Garcia Band, Boston December 2, 1977," URL http://www.gratefulseconds.com/2020/06/another-great-1977-show-jerry-garcia.html.

! seealso: JGMF, "A Monster Don't Let Go at Hartwick College, December 3, 1977," URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2011/01/listening-notes-jgb-saturday-december-3.html.

! seealso: JGMF, "A Long Way From Spain: JGB at SUNY Stony Brook, December 9, 1977," URL https://jgmf.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-long-way-from-spain-jgb-at-suny-stony.html.

! historical: first show of the fall 1977 Garcia Band tour, 22 shows in 22 days November 20 - December 11. Ronnie Tutt had left the live band that summer, and young Buzz Buchanan came on board, drumming through the end of the band's run in fall 1978. This is his third show, and he sounds just fine.

! P: overall, the show strikes me as solid but not remarkable. The true segue between ITAM and "Don't Let Go" is the most interesting part, musically, and is really kind of out of the blue. At 14 minutes, DLG is half as long as the monster they played at Hartwick College 13 days later (12/3/77). Size isn't everything, of course, but this version never achieves escape velocity. The following LAALWFH, on only its second spin after more than a year away (9/18/76, then 11/16/77 preceding this version) also has not found its legs - at 9 minutes, it was one-third the length of the 27+ minute iteration at Stony Brook on 12/9/77, which got waaaayyyy out. So this certainly sounds like a band breaking in a new guy on the first night of the tour.

! R: Source: Unknown SBD > ? > CDR, combined with ID-132097, see note below.

! R: Transfer: CDR > EAC > FLAC (2005) > TLH > WAV > Wavelab; and ID-132097 > WAV > Wavelab; both sources: CD-Wave > TLH > FLAC 1644 tagged. 03/2018

! R: Note: This show was previously listed in etree as having taken place at the Forum Theatre in Binghamton, now listed here with the correct venue. This file-set presents the entire concert together, with thanks to JGMF and Rob Berger for the sources!

! R: JGMF's CDR provides HSII thru TWYDTTYD ("tape 1"), with the balance of the show from ID-132097 ("tape 2"). These appear to derive from the same root (mono) SBD. Both sources were re-mixed a bit to better match each other. Tape-generational hiss remains, particularly in parts of "tape 1" where low-gain sections were raised. There's also some minor tape speed fluctuations & warble audible in the "tape 1" material (STOF & SIR).

! R: Pauses and cuts were left as-is, no cross-fades were added. SIU cuts in near the beginning. There's a fade-to-cut in SIU at 6:51 (from the source CDR) but it appears that no music is missing there. Another fade-to-cut in TWLWMYD at 7:15 with the end of Keith's solo missing. LITA cuts in with about a minute missing from the beginning. Cut in ITAM at 2:13 with about 45 seconds missing. (Small FLAC size is due to mono WAV data.)

! P: s1t01 HSII he flips the first two verses. I tend to appreciate this, becuase while there's an intial flub, he is tuned-in enough to make it better.

! R: s1t05 SIU clips in

! R: s1t06 TWLWMYD fades to splice @ 7:15

! s1t08 (1) JG: "We're gonna take a break for a little while, we'll see y'all later."

! R: s2t02 LITA fades in, swishy sound of a fresh tape side

! song: "Love In The Afternoon" (s2t02): understood public debut.

! P: s2t04 RussLull @ 6:47 John kicks off a little feature.

! R: s2t05 ITAM splice @ 2:13

! P: s2t05-06 ITAM -> DLG a true segue - totally unique

! P: s2t06 DLG nicely paced.

! P: s2t07 LAALWFH not very long, but good power

! s2t07 (2) JG: "Thanks a lot. See y'all later."

Dawn of the NRPS

I am sure you have already pre-ordered, as I just did, but just in case, here's link to the upcoming Owsley Stanley Foundation (OSF) release called "Dawn of the New Riders of the Purple Sage". I cannot freaking wait to hear this!

https://owsleystanleyfoundation.org/bears-sonic-journals/dawn-of-the-new-riders-of-the-purple-sage/

A Long Way From Spain: JGB at SUNY Stony Brook, December 9, 1977

LN jg1977-12-09.jgb.all.aud-matera-fix.137736.flac2488

Not much time to post much detail, so some bulleted observations.

1)  Keith is playing some classical-Spanish sounding thing at the end of s1t01. Then, @ 7:21 of "Lonesome And A Long Way From Home", I hear John hitting some Spanish stuff, too. Check it out because, while Jerry was Swedish-Irish on his mom's side, his father was, of course, full-blown, born-in-Spain Spanish and, well, that's just fun.

2) I love "Reuben And Cérise" (Hunter's spelling, with French-accent-snob-appeal-to-me), and this one has some great power chords, but they repeat the ending figure a large number of times. I didn't count, but it's too many.

3) This LAALWFH is just amazing. It clocks in at 27 minutes, but, more importantly, it's endlessly interesting. It really gets wide open, not just in a noodly-spacey sense, but always remains musical. I was impressed with what young Buzzy, the studio drummer who often, rather necessarily, played metronomically on this first tour, with new material, with a band lacking in temporal discipline, lays out in this open idiom. The whole band sounds great here.

4) Maria is absent. She was on and off this tour.

5) The previews I reference provide great color around Stony Brook Deadheadism, the purest and ur-ist form of the broader genus Deadheadus Eastcoasticus.

6) About 165 minutes of music on a tightly-edited tape. Second set clocks in at 95+ minutes. Good bang for the six bucks and fifty!

Oh, and I found a pic, uncredited. Happy to supply credit if the identity of the photog emerges.

Garcia at Stony Brook, 12/9/77. Photographer unknown to me at this time.

Jerry Garcia Band
Pritchard Gymnasium, State University of New York
1 Center Drive
Stony Brook, NY 11794
December 9, 1977 (Friday)
Matera MAC shnid-137736 fix shnid-137720

--set I (6 tracks, 68:47)--
s1t01. Harder They Come [12:03] [0:06] % [0:15]
s1t02. Catfish John [10:52] [0:10] % [0:08]
s1t03. That's What Love Will Make You Do [11:13] [0:03] % [0:08]
s1t04. They Love Each Other [7:11] [0:13] %
s1t05. Knockin' On Heaven's Door [14:22] [0:02] % [0:05]
s1t06. The Way You Do The Things You Do [11:50] (1) [0:05]

--set II (7 tracks, 95:43)--
s2t01. Midnight Moonlight [14:53] [0:07] % [0:06]
s2t02. Gomorrah [8:21] [0:04] % [0:02]
s2t03. Tore Up Over You [9:22] [0:04] %
s2t04. Simple Twist Of Fate [15:30] [0:07] %
s2t05. /Reuben And Cérise [8:58] [0:02] %% [1:08]
s2t06. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [9:17] [0:04] % [0:04]
s2t07. Lonesome And A Long Way From Home [27:26] [0:09]

! ACT1: JGB #4*
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-b;
! lineup: Keith Godchaux - piano;
! lineup: Buzz Buchanan - drums;
! lineup: Donna Jean Godchaux - vocals.
[! absent: Maria Muldaur - vocals]

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [mm: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 [mm: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/19771209-01

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/4444 (s2 Nak 300s shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/16859 (reshn of shnid-4444); https://etreedb.org/shn/77713 (pitch-correct shnid-4444, flac1644); https://etreedb.org/shn/137720 (Matera flac2488); https://etreedb.org/shn/137721 (Matera flac1644); https://etreedb.org/shn/137736 (Matera flac2488, this fileset); https://etreedb.org/shn/137737 (Matera flac1644 fix).

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html. I denote this configuration as JGB #4*, since Maria Muldaur is not present.

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/efyWYZ1ew4qmbr4v9

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/10/pritchard-gym-suny-100-nicholls-road.html

! exante: “Ticketron Gets Garcia Tickets Before Campus,” (SUNY Stony Brook) Statesman, October 28, 1977, p. 3, accessed online;

! exante: Grossman 1977;

! exante: Razler 1977;

! review: [positive] Alkon 1977, who liked the show. Misidentifies drummer as Tutt. That said, he didn't like the "irritating" 75 minute intermission.  "Outraged" by a five and a half hour concert (8-1:30) with three hours of music: "When Keith and Donna sat down on the piano bench for a smoke and fifteen minute chat I felt like I was invading their privacy! I realize that a group needs frequent breaks, but the Garcia Band abused the privilege, showed disrespect for their audience, and unprofessionalism."

! seealso: JGMF, "The mystery of the Jerry Garcia Band 11/28/77 ticket stubs," URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2010/02/mystery-of-jerry-garcia-band-112877.html. Wherein I go on at great length about a very small matter of tickets misprinted with the date of 11/28/77.

! pic: URL http://www.dead.net/fanphotos/jerry-stony-brook-1977

! historical: the previews provide great color around Stony Brook Deadheads wanting to camp out for tickets and such. Stony Brook is just about ground zero in the development of campus-based GD mania and the history of the East Coast Deadhead.

! R: field recordist: Phil Matera

! R: field recording gear: unknown mics > unknown cassette deck

! R: lineage: MAC > Reel (Maxell-UD135, 1/4trk @ 3-3/4) > Teac X2000R > Korg MR1000 DSD DFF@ 5.6MHz > AudioGate > 24/88.2 Wave > Wavelab6 > OzoneRx4a > Ozone6A; CD Wave > TLH > Flac24. Transfer by John Hance.

! R: This is a fix of shnid-137720. The last 2 tracks of the second set have changed.

! R: patches from shnid-77713: s2t01-Midnight Moonlight, s2t04-Simple Twist Of Fate and s2t07-Lonesome

! R: seeder note: "Thank you Phil & JJ! Salah Febuary 7, 2017"

! R: very nice recording

! P: overall: voice sounds a little fatigued.

! P: s1t01 KG is playing some Spanish-classical thing at the end of the track.

! P: s1t05 KOHD KD on electric piano

! s1t06 (1) JG: "We're gonna take a break for a little while. We'll be back a little later."

! R: s2t05 RAC cuts in

! P: s2t05 RAC is very good. Some huge chords. But it does on too long. Quite a bit too long.

! P: s2t07 LAALWFH. This LAALWFH gets *way* out there. @ 7:21 John is hitting a Spanish theme. I think this is pretty incredible, though hard to characterize. Just great open playing by every player.

GD at Freeborn Hall: Friday, October 28, 1966

This is out of my wheelhouse, but since it brings together two loose ends for me I thought I'd post it here.

The Sacramento Bee of 10/23/66 p. W14 has a piece on upcoming homecoming events at Cal Aggie, i.e., UC Davis.

The Grateful Dead are scheduled to play Freeborn Hall Friday 10/28/66, Yellow Brick Road also on the bill.

This ties two things I have discussed here.

First, having gone to Campolindo HS in Moraga, I always wondered why the GD canceled their scheduled gig at little St. Mary's College on this Friday night (10/28/66). I still don't know why, but at least I see that the band played a different gig. Maybe the pay was better.

Second, years back I found a Dead gig at Freeborn on January 6, 1967 which said that the last time they played Freeborn, the GD played to a full house. But there was no "last time" in the record at that point. Now there is: 10/28/66. Add it to your lists.

Kean College Tour Closer: JGB, November 15, 1982 (Late Show)

jg1982-11-15.jgb.late-1.aud-vita-minches.78008.flac1644

Pretty standard late '82 gig to my ears, not the equal to 11/11/82 late or 11/13/82, IMO. Errico's Gatling Gun start to HTC is awesome.

Three little oddities jump out to my pattern-obsessed brain.

First, no early show tape. Hm. Second ... , both the Vita aud and the soundboard tape are missing the encore. Hm. never mind. Third, all of the newspaper listings, some of the tickets, and the band's in-house itinerary show the venue as De'Angelo Gymnasium, but other tickets, the handbill/poster, and at least one recollection (from someone involved in planning the show) place it in the theatre, as the '80 and '83 shows at the college were. Update: it was moved from the gym to the theatre because of concerns for the court surface.

One of these is not like the others.

No biggy, but contradictions are fun.

Jerry Garcia Band

Wilkins Theatre, Kean College

1000 Morris Avenue

Union, NJ 07083

November 15, 1982 (Monday) - Late Show (10 PM)

Vita MAC missing 1 tune shnid-78008

--8 tracks, 7 tunes, missing encore, 74:12)--

l-t01. crowd and tuning [1:23-1:00] 

l-t02. Mission In The Rain [1:00 + 8:53] [0:16] % [0:21]

l-t03. Harder They Come [13:45] [0:11] % [0:12]

l-t04. It Ain't No Use [9:55] [0:02] % [0:03]

l-t05. Mystery Train [8:52] [0:27]

l-t06. Run For The Roses [5:01] [0:33]

l-t07. Dear Prudence [12:44] ->

l-t08. Tangled Up In Blue [11:20] (1) [0:12]

[MISSING: --Encore-- Midnight Moonlight]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #15b

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

! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;

! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;

! lineup: Greg Errico - drums;
! lineup: Elisecia Wright - vocals;
! lineup: Shirley Faulkner - 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/19821115-02

! JGC: https://jerrygarcia.com/show/1982-11-15-wilkins-theatre-kean-college-union-nj-2/. Commenter Matthew Turkin posts (November 25th, 2015): "was one of the people on the concert committe (CCB) that put on this night and the next year's shows at Kean College. Great shows w great people that helped bring these shows 4 ourselves and all the heads that we knew. The theatre was rockin from the seats to the rafters. 'Never had such a goodtime, in my life before'."

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/23339 (sbd, shnf, also missing encore); https://etreedb.org/shn/78008 (this fileset). It appears that the early show does not circulate, though Jerrybase gives a setlist.

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/lhE48

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/07/wilkins-theatre-kean-college-1000.html

! listing: Daily Record (Morristown, NJ), November 12, 1982, p. 17; Courier-News (Bridgewater, NJ), November 13, 1982, p. B-13; Philadelphia Inquirer, November 14, 1982, p. 13-J.

! venue: the band itinerary, three newspaper listings, and some tickets give the venue as De'Angelo Gymnasium, while other stubs and conventional reckoning have it as Wilkins Theatre. The JGC comment by Matthew Turkin seems to confirm it was in the Theatre, so somewhere either wires were crossed or plans were changed. update: plans changed

! seealso: JGMF, "Armistice Day Rocker: JGB at Felt Forum, November 11, 1982," URL https://jgmf.blogspot.com/2018/01/armistice-day-rocker-jgb-at-felt-forum.html; JGMF, "Greg Errico hits like a linebacker," URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2017/07/greg-errico-hits-like-linebacker.html.

! R: field recordist: Jim Vita

! R: field recording gear: 2x Sennheiser 421 > Sony D-5

! R: field recording location: 16th row center

! R: Transfer and FLAC encoding by David Minches: Master cassette played back on Nakamichi Dragon > ART DI/O > Digital Audio Labs Card Deluxe soundcard > Cool Edit 2000 > flac encoding > FLAC.

! R: Jim Vita pulled a pretty good one this night - the vocals are low, but that's fine since they sound fatigued here at the end of the tour (as they may well have at the start, in this period). The bass is especially well captured, and the drums are very present, not least because Errico just crushes those fuckers.

! R: l-t01 mistracked, tune starts at about :23

! P: l-t02 MITR vocals shaky out of the gate, as they often were. Nice energy, fluid playing. John is making himself heard here. Errico bashes.

! P: l-t03 HTC man, Errico is just HAMMERING the start. Great energy from John, too.

! P: l-t05 MT frenetically paced

! l-t08 (1) JG: "See ya later."

Fall '77 Gig Economics: The Case of SUNY New Paltz (JGB, 11/29/77)

Handbill for JGB at SUNY New Paltz, 11/29/77. Scan via Mark Cohen. Note that Ron Tutt is erroneously listed among the personnel.

The economics of the Garcia Band's Fall '77 tour have remained a little out of view for me, since I have never been able to track down itineraries, contracts, box office reports and all that, which I have seen for a few other trips. But a great report in the SUNY New Paltz Oracle lays them bare for one gig (11/29/77), and provides a snapshot into Garcia's rock star lifestyle of the time.

I should note that I have discussed a setlist rarity from this show (the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun" inside the Wailers' "Stir It Up"), set forth some listening notes under the title "his voice is fading fast", and have also presented these kinds of data for a gig two years earlier ("Accounting the JGB: October 8, 1975").

The SUNY New Paltz Concert Committee brought in name talent a couple times a year for the students, drawing from student activity fees and generally running these events at a loss. But the earnest-seeming crew in place in Fall 1977, which seems to have been operating under the probably-copyright-infringing-but-totally-1977 name of "Jedi Productions", didn't plan to lose as much as they did on the Garcia Band's Tuesday night gig. For Google interest, here are the names and positions of the folks involved in putting on the show.

Kirt Madsen ... Production Manager
Eric Early ... Production Manager
Bill Dacey ... Stage Manager
Rick Markle ... Electrician
Joni White ... Talent Coordinator
Shari Berkowitz ... Tickets
Esther Friedman ... Publicity
Karen Reilly ... Hospitality
Rob Insolia ... Treasurer
Stan Wisla ... Security
Brian Higgenson ... Staging Consultant
Erica Pauling ... Secretary
Richard Someck ... Concessions
Randi Sackheim ...Programs
Debbie Golub ... Programs
Steve Martin ...General Manager
Jack Babb ... Assistant to General Manager

I would love to hear from any of them, especially Karen Reilly, who is mentioned in the narrative below.

According to the report in the school paper (Ratner 1977), the gig lost about $8,000, which is more than planned, mostly due to ticket sales of only 1,300 against a projected 2,000. But other aspects of putting the concert on probably also taught our young impresarios some valuable lessons in show biz economics. Here are the expenses.

Table xxx. Expenses for JGB at SUNY New Paltz, 11/29/77. Source: Ratner 1977.

So here we have the band at a $10k guarantee, whereas it got $12,500 at Penn State (Clifford 1977). Monarch does well on sound and lighting. But let me get to the "hospitality" line item, which generates the following data and story, a little sidebar under the heading "Garcia Serves Up New Paltz, Brings His Own Chef":

     When the Jerry Garcia Band plays a school, it usually submits a list of refreshment requirements: Freshly ground coffee (either of Sumatra, Celebes, Jamaica High Mountain, Mocha-Java, or Columbian beans); Coffee must be made via the drip method, not electric percolator; Three (3) bottles of good French red wine and one and one-half (1 ½) cases of Heineken Light beer; Four (4) quarts of orange juice – no sugar; Four (4) of bottled spring water; Bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches and good cheeseburgers; a dinner meal for fifteen …
     When they came to New Paltz, they were willing to forego the refreshment requirements. Instead; they brought their own chef, affectionately named Cy Kocis, and asked the concert committee for $600.
   "I knew things were going to be wrong when they wanted $600 in cash Tuesday morning," explained Karen Reilly, the Concert Committee's Hospitality Chief. Karen managed to knock them down to $450.
     Cy Kocis arrived at 1:30 on Tuesday; installed a four-burner stove charcoal grill and large cooler in Elting Gymnasium 101, and went to work. Filet Mignon and halibut steaks were on the dinner menu. The cooler contained a sumptuous feast for the band and its crew. Karen was there to meet the entourage. In fact, she was there since 9:00, earlier than anyone, making sure everyone experienced New Paltz's hospitality. "But when Cy Kocis gave me 4 large butternut squashes and told me to start peeling and cutting, I told him I had to get towels, or something, for the stage crew." Everyone has their limits.

Why do I imagine this merits quoting at length? I love the standard contract rider information. I knew Jerry was a coffee junkie, but I didn't know he was a coffee snob (which I count as a point in a person's favor). Good French wine pleases me, too, though not sure who of the band would most enjoy it. I guess I have Keith as good for at least a dozen of those Heinekens, but what do I know? Burgers? Definitely Jerry.

Then comes "Cy Kocis". Interesting. $600 cash is also interesting, and suspicious minds sometimes wonder whether that kind of wad might not have bought more than filet, halibut and butternut squash. I also admire the cut of Karen Reilly's jib, haggling them down to $450 and taking a pass on the vegetable peeler. She sounds awesome.

Anyway, good color.