Sunday, April 19, 2020

Legion of Mary at the Arie Crown Theatre, Chicago, April 18, 1975

LN jg1975-04-18.lom.all.composite-proctor-droncit.124466.flac1644

Thought I'd spin this one on its 45 anniversary yesterday. The only moment of the show that made me sit up some was the meltiness at the end of La-La, which could have gone anywhere and ended up going nowhere. After mostly getting through the show yesterday, I thought to myself "It's no wonder Garcia pulled the plug on this band within three months". But it's amazing how little of interest can happen in any given 15 minute song. Chicago Trib reviewer Lynn van Matre, who saw the Dead and Garcia many, many times, was thinking along similar lines: "Laid back and enjoyable, ... though ...it went on far too long."

Let me blaspheme even further: all of the Ronnie Tutt aggregations, the Legion of Mary from December '74 to July '75, then the Jerry Garcia Bands through summer '77, suffer from languid pacing. I am not blaming Tutt so much as Jerry. I get wanting to get into a deep groove, but at some point I need a little more zing.

Maybe I am just grouchy, what with Covid and all. Thanks, Obama.

The band got $5k for this gig plus $1,250 for sound and lights, which was a little low for the tour. Show did not sell out, and the band didn't even get any of its percentage topper (60% of gross over $20k). They moved 2,700 of 2,916 top-price ($6.50) tickets, and only 277 of the 1,403 cheaper seats ($5.50)., for 2,977 sold on capacity of 4,319. Jerry would return to Chicago in November with first Jerry Garcia Band, featuring Nicky Hopkins on piano, playing the Auditorium Theatre (capacity about 4,000), nearly selling out and earning $6,000 guarantee plus $1,500 for sound and lights.

Legion of Mary
Arie Crown Theatre
2301 Lake Shore Drive
Chicago IL 60616
April 18, 1975 (Friday) - 8:30 PM
aud + sbd proctor-droncit composite shnid-124466

--set I (7 tracks, 79:48)--
101. Let It Rock [11:50] [2:09]
102. La-La [13:46] [1:52]
103. Feel Like Dynamite [9:32] [1:35]
104. Last Train // To Poor Valley [8:#20] [1:08]
105. Tough Mama [8:13] [0:40]
106. Sitting In Limbo [14:48] [1:50]
107. (I'm A) Road Runner// [4:06#]

--set II (7 tracks, 93:05)--
201. Tore Up [12:54] [0:42] %
202. You Can Leave Your Hat On [13:07] [0:08] %
203. Mississippi Moon [8:50] [0:09] % [1:14]
204. I'll Take A Melody [10:28]
205. //Harder They Come [18:02] %
206. Boogie On Reggae Women [13:24] [0:29] %
207. Talkin' About You [13:26] (1) [0:12]

! ACT1: Legion of Mary
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards;
! lineup: Martin Fierro - flute (102, 203, maybe others), saxophone, percussion;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;
! lineup: Ron Tutt - drums.

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.


! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/4482 (start set II, sbd, shnf, deprecated); https://etreedb.org/shn/138626 (start set II, flacf); https://etreedb.org/shn/124315 (set II sbd composite); https://etreedb.org/shn/124466 (this fileset).



! listing: Chicago Tribune, April 18, 1975, section 3, p. 4. This says tickets are $6.50 and $7.50, but that's not right.

! expost: Van Matre 1975. "Laid back and enjoyable, ... though like the Dead's shows it went on far too long." Lynn Van Matre reviewed the Dead and Garcia dozens of times, and was always pretty even-handed.

! historical: Tickets $5.50 and $6.50. Band $5,000 guarantee plus 60% on gross over $20,000, plus $1,250 for lights and sound. Since gross was just over $19 grand, no percentage topper. Looks like they were relatively underpaid for this gig. Show did not sell out, moving 2,700 of 2,916 top-price tickets, and only 277 of the 1,403 cheaper seats. So, 2,977 sold on capacity of 4,319. (A different reckoning has 2,449 sold at remote locations and 671 at the box office, for a total of 3,120, producing an improbably round $20,000.00 in receipts, on capacity 4,389.)

! seealso: JGMF, "The April 1975 Legion of Mary Tour" for a bit more on the tour and listening notes for 4/10/75 early. I like that show and 4/5/75 more than this one, and 4/12/75 about as much, it seems from my notes.

! R: source 1: MAC (Unknown taper & equipment) > C > c > C > CDR > EAC > flac (mono) supplies 1st set & "The Harder They Come" & alternate "Boogie On Reggae Woman" of 2nd set

! R: source 2: shnid-4482, MSR > 1R > 1PCM > 3DAT > CD > EAC > SHN supplies first four songs of the 2nd set.

! R: source 3: shnid-124315, sbd > ?? > cass > flac supplies last two songs of 2nd set.

! R: seeder notes: I received a CD of this show several years back. The quality was poor and I put it on the self and forgot about it. It was only recently I ran across the CD and realized much of the show did not circulate. Somewhere in the lineage, someone substituted a degraded copy of the circulating soundboard source (4482) for the first four songs of the second set and probably tossed the audience copy of those songs. The audience source picked back up with "The Harder They Come" and the CD finished with "Boogie On Reggae Woman". The Jerry site lists the tracks to end the show (206 & 207) as "Boogie on Reggae Woman" & "Talkin' About You" and does not list "Harder They Come" as being played on the 18th. Who knows, about all we can tell is that this Harder They Come does not match the song from surrounding shows. I decided to leave it in for your enjoyment. Recently taperchuck3 & Kevin Tobin released a soundboard copy of the two final songs of the second set (124315). I have added these to my copy to make a complete show. Not wanting to toss the audience copy of "Boogie On Reggae Woman", I have labeled it as alt206 and left in the show folder. I handed everything over to Droncit to see if his wizardry could make something out of almost nothing. What you will hear is significantly better than what's on my CD. Bill Proctor aka germain 4/25/2013.

! R: Droncit Notes: I used a paragraphic equalizer to lower some of the boominess in the bass. I added a little clarity to the bass with a virtual valve simulator, but most of the change from the original was to get rid of some of the bassiness and loss of high frequencies through equalization.  That left a very noisey tape. The tape was mono, and the left channel appeared to be slightly better than the right, so this is just the left sidespread over both channels. It sounds clearer this way. There may be multiple sources involved (besides the soundboard). I decided to not use noise reduction because there was so much noise and so little signal that it would have cut into the music too much.  Instead, I used a spectral filter to bring down the noisiest areas by a few dB. The last thing I did was to gain-normalize each track (including the soundboard tracks, after interpolating the pop in one track) to -1.5 dB, and then to autolevel so that they all sound somewhat similar.

! R: tagging notes: Show information is embedded within the headerof each flac file. It will display on any player capable of directly playing flac files. If converted to wav during processing, all tags will be stripped, however audio data will remain unaffected. If you must transcode to a lossy format, do so directly Flac > Lossy. Use ffp to validate audio integrity. Md5 values will change if tagging is altered. B. Proctor 4-25-2013.

! R: JGMF: not a great aud tape to start, but your ears adjust. It was recorded from quite close to the stage, as one can pick up the countoff to La-La (for example) directly from stage.

! P: 102 La-La ends with some meltiness, which could have become something

! R: 104 LTFPV splice @ 6:04

! R: 107 IARR cuts out

! P: 204 ITAM John is playing a Motown-style bassline. The tune had debuted on 4/4/75.

! R: 205 HTC cuts in

! 207 (1) JG: "Thank you. We'll see you all later on."

Thursday, April 16, 2020

Gloria NON Advenit! JGB at Keystone Palo Alto, Saturday, July 10, 1984

update 1: Jeez ... I now think Gloria must have arrived 7/10/84-7/11/84, a Tuesday-Wednesday in Palo Alto. Working backward: she is mentioned in reviews of August 1984 east coast shows. It is an iron law that the band played local warmups before leaving on tour, which would be these birthday shows. And it is just about an iron law that new members broke in on off-nights, off-the-beaten path, or both. Tues-Weds in Palo Alto fits the pattern better than a Saturday (7/28) in Berkeley the weekend of Jerry's birthday.

Having spent some time with it, I am prepared to declare that I hold that the titular show, JGB at Keystone Palo Alto on Saturday, July 28, 1984 Tuesday, July 10, 1984 represents Gloria Jones's public debut with the outfit. It thus also marks the birth of JGB #21b, THE Jerry Garcia Band, which would play together through November 1993, making it Garcia's longest-running aggregation outside the Brent Mydland-era Grateful Dead.

I have been circling around this conclusion for almost a decade now. Let me reconstruct. Older reckonings had Gloria starting on 7/21/83, or 9/30/83. In late 2010, I found an ad for 11/27/83 naming DeeDee Dickerson and not Gloria alongside Jackie LaBranch, which got me to thinking those earlier understandings were wrong. Five years later, I went through band itineraries for the November-December 1983 tour, which included DeeDee's flight arrangements and so on. So far, this has DDD present through '83, consistent with Corry's current reckoning (as JGB #21a, b. 7/20/83, d. 12/13/83).

I did a bunch of stuff in 2014. First, I conjectured that 1/8/84 was Gloria's first gig, which probably led to Corry's current dating for JGB #21b. I am now pretty sure that was wrong because, second, I found a show review from Santa Barbara (5/19/84) which namechecks the band, including DDD. This is no guarantee, of course, since JGB member names were not always  correctly rendered by local journos, but it was suggestive. And, third, I found pictures from 8/11/84 which show Gloria onstage. So, the bookends have now moved forward quite a bit - DDD was in the house 5/19/84, and almost certainly the last night of the little mini SoCal jaunt it was a part of, 5/20/84 at Wolf & Rissmiller's in Reseda. The next show was 7/28/84, part of a four-night birthday run for Garcia, warming up for the East Coast tour.

So I did some listening around those bookends, the May shows now presumed to be with DeeDee, and the July-August shows now presumed to be with Gloria. Despite obviously strong priors (and probably other bias in favor of finding a difference), I hear differences in the backing vocals. I couldn't characterize them beyond saying they are different. Basic methodology was to find clean tapes (sbd preferred) that have clear backing vocals. I ended up focusing on the first chorus of "Cats Under The Stars" on 5/18/84 (an FM-SBD tape, shnid-32156) and on 7/28/84 (sbd, shnid-14428). Again, the backing vocalists sound different. There aren't a lot of board tapes in these frames, so then I compared the opening stanza of "Catfish John" on the same 5/18/84 and the next known version, 8/10/84. Again, I detect a difference.

update 2: the original version of this post had Gloria arriving July 28th. But I now think it must have been July 10th.

On this basis and on the basis of earlier sniffing around 10/82 and 7/83, I am prepared to "call" the following:
  • DeeDee Dickerson's tenure with the Garcia Band ran from 10/24/82 1/13/83 (with JGB #15b) through 5/20/84 (with JGB #21a)
  • Jacklyn LaBranch's tenure with the Garcia Band ran from 1/13/83 to the end (4/23/95).
  • Gloria Jones's tenure with the Garcia Band ran from 7/10/84 (with JGB #21b) to the end.
My only concern is that I thought there was a new member on 1/8/84 based on audience chatter. That, combined with the fact that journos didn't always have the most up-to-date information about who was in the Garcia Band, gives me some pause. I hope the listening analysis I did holds up!

Now, how about 7/28/84, listening notes for which I post below?

The setlist novelty here is Allen Toussaint's "Get Out Of My Life, Woman", which came in strong and stuck around pretty much to the end of the Garcia Band. The JGB never varied its setlists that much (certainly not relative to the GD), and I don't really have the data I'd need to map song debuts, but this is just about the only new-to-the-repertoire tune I can think of between, say, 1981 and 1985. Are there any others, like, is there a single other cover tune that JGB added to the repertoire between, say, "Eleanor Rigby" in 1980 (sort of) and "It Stoned Me" in 1986? Anyway, great tune, done well, and at points "hot-hot-hot", per my notes.

The show, overall, offers plenty of sloppy pep. I hated when he couldn't figure out how to end "Cats Under The Stars", and this version suffers from that. There's plenty of mumblyverse, slop, and hot energy in tunes like "Tore Up Over You". Not bad, all told.

Listening notes below the fold.

Monday, March 30, 2020

Kabuki Acoustics

LN jg1982-08-23.jgjk.early-late.aud-menke-connor.12586.shn2flac
LN jg1984-06-03.jgjk.all.sbd-unknown.81273.shn2flac

Bill Graham ran the Kabuki Nightclub in Japantown for a few years in the early 1980s, and Garcia played twice, both times acoustic with ol' buddy John Kahn. I am not a huge fan of the Garcia-Kahn acoustic duet, and these shows do nothing to move me from that basic position. Jerry still sounds somewhat youthful in '82, not at all the case two years later. Not much to report either way, though I did like the "Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie" from the '82 late show.


BTW - did Garcia (JGJK? JGB?) really play the Warfield on Saturday 8/21/82?


Jerry Garcia and John Kahn
Kabuki Nightclub
1881 Post Street
San Francisco, CA 94115
August 23, 1982 (Monday) - early (7:30 PM) and late (11 PM) shows
Menke MAC early-1, late shnid-12586 shn2flac

--early show (8 tracks, 1 tune missing, 54:37)--
e-t01. [0:19] Deep Elem Blues :20-
e-t02. Friend Of The Devil [7:06] [0:24]
e-t03. Little Sadie [3:34] [0:08]
e-t04. I've Been All Around This World [4:12] [0:41]
e-t05. Valerie [8:19] (1) [0:49]
e-t06. Simple Twist Of Fate [11:42] % [0:01]
e-t07. Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie [6:22] [0:04]
e-t08. Run For The Roses [4:23] (2) [0:17]
[MISSING: Ripple]

--late show main set + encore (11 tracks,
--late show main set (10 tracks,
l-t01. //It Takes A Lot To Laugh It Takes A Train To Cry [#5:24] [0:08]
l-t02. Dire Wolf [3:02] [0:20]
l-t03. To Lay Me Down [7:06] [0:18]
l-t04. Bird Song [8:25] [1:02]
l-t05. Going, Going, Gone [4:17] [0:03]
l-t06. Jack-A-Roe [4:40]
l-t07. Gomorrah [5:44]
l-t08. Run For The Roses [4:56] [0:12]
l-t09. Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie [5:44] ->
l-t10. Ripple [3:54] (3) [0:47]
--late show encore (1 track, 6:26)--
l-t11. Reuben And Cérise [6:11] (4) [0:15]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and John Kahn
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - ac-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - ac-b.

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/19820823-01 (early); https://jerrybase.com/events/19820823-02 (late)

! JGC: http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1982-08-23 (early); https://jerrygarcia.com/show/1982-08-23-kabuki-theater-san-francisco-ca-2/ (late)

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/12586 (this fileset); https://etreedb.org/shn/106691 (early Jaret MAC)

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/tmuZ7bWNniw

! JGBP: https://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/01/kabuki-theater-1881-post-street-at.html. He lists capacity 700, but I show 1,400. Ticket calls it Kabuki Night Club, ad calls it Kabuki Nightclub at Japan Center Theatre.

! ad: San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Datebook, August 15, 1982, p. 28

! historic: comedienne Paula Poundstone opened the late show. These were the first Bay Area JGJK shows. First time for Garcia playing the Kabuki - only other time was two years later (6/3/84, also JGJK).

! R: field recordist: Bob Menke

! R: field recording gear: 2x Nakamichi 700 > Sony D5M

! R: field recording media: 2x (presumed) Maxell metal cassette, Dolby B

! R: field recording location: 25' from stage DFC

! R: Transfer: Cassette Master > Echo Event Gina A/D > Sound Forge 4.5 > CDR > EAC (secure mode) > CDWave (retracked on sb's) > SHN (MKWACT). Analog > Digital transfer by Bob Menke, EAC/Shn'ed by Charlie Connor.

! R: seeder notes: Seeded to fungus, and abgd 10/20/02. Correct sector boundaries verified with Shntool. Flaws: d1t06 - dropouts at 11:05 & 11:07; d2t03 - dropout at 1:32; d2t07 - dropout at 1:41; The dropouts were tightened up using Steinberg's Wavelab 3.0.

! e-t05 (1) JG, as if surprised to see the crowd in front of him: "Hi!"

! P: e-t06 STOF bass feature 6:27ff

! e-t08 (2) JG: "Thanks a lot. [inaudible]"

! P: l-t09 OBIANL maybe I am just in the mood for it, but this sounds especially heartfelt to my ears

! l-t10 (3) JG: "Thank ya."

! P: l-t11 RAC late 2 he has to ta-da-da through a verse, having forgotten it.

! l-t11 (4) JG: "Thanks a lot. See ya later."

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


Jerry Garcia and John Kahn
Kabuki Nightclub
1881 Post Street
San Francisco, CA 94115
June 3, 1984 (Sunday) - 9 PM
sbd shnid-81273 shnf2flac

--set I (6 tracks, 36:19)--
s1t01. //Deep Elem Blues [#6:30] (1) [0:12]
s1t02. Friend Of The Devil [7:29] (2) [0:10]
s1t03. Dire Wolf [3:25] (3) [0:03]
s1t04. Oh Babe, It Ain't No Lie [6:06]
s1t05. It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry [7:26] (4) [0:02]
s1t06. Run For The Roses [4:40] (5) [0:17]

--set II (6 tracks, 45:56)--
s2t07. Little Sadie [4:25] (6) [0:07]
s2t08. To Lay //Me Down [7:#51] (7) [0:02]
s2t09. Valerie [8:05]
s2t10. Bird Song [13:40]
s2t11. Goodnight Irene (8) [6:54]
s2t12. Ripple [4:40] (9) [0:12]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and John Kahn
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - ac-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - ac-b.

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/19840603-01

! JGC: http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1984-06-03

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/8912 (sbd, shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/10134 (sbd, shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/81273 (this fileset); https://etreedb.org/shn/93922 (Abrams Nak 300 MAC, flac1644); https://etreedb.org/shn/108054 (Greeney55 MAC, flac1644).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/tmuZ7bWNniw

! JGBP: https://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/01/kabuki-theater-1881-post-street-at.html. He lists capacity 700, but I show 1,400 (Selvin 1996), while Golden Road brief review of this show pegs it at 1,100.

! historic: Robert Hunter opened for this second of two Garcia dates at the Kabuki (the other being 8/23/82, with early and late shows).

! official: More of the Best [3 track bonus CD that was distributed with pre-ordered copies of The Very Best Of Jerry Garcia] (Rhino, 2006) (t03-Dire Wolf)

! review: "Deadline," Golden Road no. 03 (Summer 1984), p. 6. "Garcia had slight problems projecting his vocals, and Kahn seemed utterly lost on the Dead material" (GR03 p.6).



! R: SBD -> Cm -> Dat -> CD -> EAC -> SHN

! R: s1t01 DEB cuts in

! s1t01 (1) JG: "Thank you."

! s1t02 (2) JG: "Thank you."

! s1t03 (3) JG: "Thank you."

! P: s1t04 OBIANL John sounds lost at the start of this.

! s1t05 (4) JG: "Thank you."

! s1t06 (5) JG: "Thank you. We're gonna take a little short break, and we'll be in ... a little later."

! s2t07 (6) JG: "Thank you."

! R: s2t08 TLMD splice @ 6:22.

! P: s2t08 TLMD some interesting extended vocal work at the end. No biggie, but not nothing.

! s2t08 (7) JG: "Thank you."

! P: s2t09 Valerie interesting work late 4, different tone that I recall having heard on other acoustic versions of this tune.

! s2t11 (8) JG: "Thank you."

! s2t12 (9) JG: "Thanks a lot. See y'all later on."

Thursday, March 26, 2020

Self-quarantine

I accidentally let a few notes of "Looks Like Rain" slip into my ears this morning. I immediately went to hit stop, but I was too late. I have disinfected everything and am self-quarantining for 14 days so as not to infect the rest of you.

Thursday, December 26, 2019

Garcia Interview by Ben Fong-Torres, ca. fall 1975

jg1975-xx-xx.interview.ben-fong-torres.gdao-379555

Garcia, Jerry, 1942-1995, "Ben Fong-Torres interviews Jerry Garcia. Interview recorded circa 1975 for the documentary radio program "What was that?" broadcast on KSAN-FM in San Francisco [radio broadcast]," Grateful Dead Archive Online, accessed November 10, 2013, http://www.gdao.org/items/show/379555.

The interview is given as 1975, at least some of it takes place at His Master's Wheels, and there's a snippet with Nicky Hopkins. I have Jerry and Nicky et al. there working on what would become Reflections mostly in September-October 1975, so this seems the most likely timeframe.

Sketchy notes below the fold.

Monday, December 16, 2019

Old And In The Way Performance List

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7TAYus5LRzuWXRydUZFLVJ5UzRsQ2RWSjFLTHBrQUtLY2dR/view?usp=sharing

Here's a list of all known-to-me performances by Old And In The Way. It includes a few rehearsals and a handful of studio dates, but is mostly live gigs (N=49). Date-venue combos that show up twice indicate early and late shows. This info is in my spreadsheets (as is all kinds of other stuff), but for ease of presentation as a document I didn't include it here.

Comments and all that most welcomed!

Sunday, December 01, 2019

Jerry, tògòtigi - JGB at the Warfield, Wednesday, March 9, 1994


Marquee for Jerry (who?) at the Warfield, March 9, 1994. I would LOVE to find out who the photographer is and give credit.
I love the image above, of the Warfield marquee reading just "Jerry" for the March 9, 1994 JGB show, because, assuming his last name is not photoshopped out, it speaks to who Jerry had become by the last year of his life. In the Bamana language of the Mandé culture of West Africa, he had become a tògòtigi - "proprietor of his own name" (Skinner 2004, 157). "In Mandé social thought," musicologist Ryan Skinner has elaborated,
the purpose of these acts of self-making is to make a name for oneself (ka tògò sòrò, literally “to find one’s name”) and become what people call a tògòtigi, or an individual who is the owner (tigi) of his or her given name (tògò)".  Malian literary critic and cultural theorist Chérif Keïta summarizes that "The togo is the axis of individuality and desire for personal distinction" (Skinner 2015a, 22).
The concept applies across artistic fields in the Mandé world, especially among griots "expert hereditary professional" (Dubois 2016, 32) storytellers --musicians, poets and artists-- charged with carrying forward the collective knowledge embodied especially in the oral tradition (but see Chérif Keïta 2005). In the musical realm,
the artist who improvises a running solo, incites the dance with a syncopated rhythm, and makes his instrument sing with a novel melody asserts his dynamic and creative agency as a performer. He claims his individuality, a distinctive subjectivity symbolized by his first name, or tògò, and the status and identity of being a tògòtigi the achieved state of making a name for oneself, of being an owner (tigi) of one's name (tògòtigi ) ... There is an existential risk in such acts of musical distinction and innovation (Skinner 2015a, 88).
Anyway, not that, in certain circles, people didn't know who just-Jerry was before 3/9/94, but I have always loved this marquee for capturing it, the culmination of the name-claiming journey which began on a seasonal May day in 1968, when the name "Jerry Garcia" appeared on a sheet of paper billing a musical event for the first time since the formation of the Warlocks. Over decades of gradual assertion and musical differentiation, and eventual commodification, he had successfully made his name. That progression is probably the main arc of Fate Music, where I'll get into it hopefully more artfully and definitely at greater length.

The show is off-pattern in a few other ways. First, it was a single-shot on a Wednesday night. While midweek Warfield gigs were not unheard of, they almost always took the form of multinight runs. Indeed, though I have not gone and checked, I can't think of another Warfield one-off like this one in the Wolfgang-Warfield era (December 1989-April 1995). Second, the handbill is especially lame.


I wonder if this show was pinned down late, and/or if ticket sales were slow, or if BGP was just on a tight budget, but this is about as basic as it ever got.

Third, as to the show, it's fine, but what jumps out at me is that there is not a single Garcia-Hunter original here - it's all covers. Jerrygarcia.com makes this relatively easy to see, since the originals have hyperlinks and the covers do not. I spun through '93-'95, I think, and didn't see any other shows without at least a "Deal" or a "Run For the Roses" or something else. If I find time and motivation I might dig deeper, though I understand that this has no particular importance, it's just a curiosity. But it's a Garciaverse curiosity, which is kind of the bread and butter of JGMF, so there you go.

An hour first set was just about what he seemed to be going for, and 75+ minute second set is nothing to sneeze at. Chuck Vasseur pulled a typically great tape. The performance is fine, all pluck and less fire, which was his style at the time (no onion on his belt, as far as I know). Donny does some nice hard trapping in Don't Let Go, and everyone sounds just fine. Well, John doesn't "sound" much at all, but that was pretty much par for the course in this timeframe, too, and it's all good by me.

Listening notes below the fold.

Friday, November 29, 2019

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/

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

ca. November 1-2, 1970 fragments

Having just posted on Janis's wake, which is said to have taken place on 10/26/70, I find myself wanting to at least take a stand on a few other gigs which have left me a little befuddled over the years.
The first involves a "First Annual San Francisco Halloween Marathon Festival of the Performing Arts", running 8 PM Friday 10/30/70 through midnight Sunday, 11/1/70 at the Harding Theater. Among the artists scheduled to appear during the 40 continuous hours of music we find Thelonious Monk, Les McCann, NRPS, Bobby Hutcherson, the Rafael Garrett Circus, Shades of Joy, Beefy Red, Pemmican, the Hot Hush Puppy Rocking and Jamming Society, the Ann Halprin Dance Troupe, theater groups and filmmakers. Subtitled "Marathon '70", the event was put together by Delano Dean, Lenny Sheftman and Gerry Pearlman of the Both-And, with proceeds going toward establishment of the Harding as an ongoing center for the performing arts.

Wasserman wrote the event up in general terms on 11/4/70, though he didn't mention the New Riders. Let's assume they performed as advertised. Since they were in Stony Brook on 10/30 and 10/31, I list this as a NRPS gig on 11/1/70 at the Harding. I guess I have already written this up, so you can just consider this pinned in my own data, and enjoy the above snippet of the Chron.

! announce: "A Halloween Marathon at the Harding," San Francisco Chronicle, October 23, 1970, p. 50;
! listing: San Francisco Chronicle, October 30, 1970, p. 45;
! expost:  Wasserman, John L. 19701104. On the Town: Marilyn Maye--Zing in the Anthem. San Francisco Chronicle, November 4, 1970, p. 58;
! mention: "From the Music Capitals of the World", Billboard, November 21, 1970, p. 25 (accessed via Google Books);
! JGMF: "NRPS: ca. 11/1/1970?" URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2009/11/nrps-ca-1111970.html.

The second is also at the Harding, and comes from a listing I found once the digital Examiner came to my attention. From that entry: "11/2/70 (Monday): Jerry Garcia / BBHC / Ice / Cleveland Wrecking Company. Harding Theater. Benefit for A Learning Place. I don't know if this would have been NRPS or JGMS; I am listing as JGMS for no particular reason."

So, another benefit, same building, the next night. Odd, but, OK.

! listing: San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Datebook, November 1, 1970, p. 27;
! listing: San Francisco Examiner, November 2, 1970, p. 35;
! JGMF: "New-to-The-List from the Examiner, 1970-1972," URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2018/10/new-to-list-from-examiner-1970-1972.html.

As a final point, I'd just note that this timeframe really shines a light both on how much our boy liked to play, and on how ready he was to fly back home between gigs in other time zones, when logistics might suggest he not do so.

October 10-12, he does three gigs in New York and Jersey, then flies home to play the Matrix for two nights, before flying back to Philly for a gig on the 16th. Then Cleveland and Minneapolis, back home to the Matrix, three nights off before gigs in DC and St. Louis on 10/23-24. Home for Janis's wake, two nights in Stony Brook, home for these two benefit gigs and, on November 3rd, a session with Crosby at Heider's as well as a Matrix gig, Heider's again on the 4th, then playing somewhere in the state of New York every night (often Dead and New Riders, sometimes two shows a night) from the 5th through the 16th (less a canceled show on 11/15/70). And on and on and on through the end of November. What a nut.

Pearl's Wake

Around November 3, 1970 the Associate Press (AP) had an item in lots of papers noting that Janis Joplin had left $2,500 in her will for a big ol' celebration of her life after her passing. Invitations went out reading "The drinks are on Pearl", and it happened at the Lion's Share in San Anselmo. The AP story (e.g., in the Red Bluff Daily News, November 3, 1970, p. 8) says that the GD and other rock groups entertained.

Mastropolo 2015 puts the date of this event as 10/26/70. I don't know how he knows that, but there it is. (update: as usual, Corry was on it before I was --in this case, a decade!!-- and the date comes from his post.) He references the memoir of Janis's road manager John Byrne Cooke in saying that members of the Quick, Big Brother, and the GD formed various playing combinations, which is a little different than a GD gig per se.

As of now, I am listing this as a GD gig. I am also coding the Wales-Garcia Matrix gig advertised for this date --the latest with Howard's name on it, as far as I can recall-- as canceled. Any thoughts on that?

I also note that LIA hipped me to a canceled GD gig in Columbus, OH, between 10/24 and 10/29. Janis's wake may well account for the cancellation.

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

MTV Interview, June 2, 1983

I don't know where this would have taken place, but the date of June 2, 1983 seems right, in between shows at the venerable Roseland Ballroom on 52nd Street and promoter John Scher's main room, the Capitol Theatre in Passaic outside of Philly.

I have gotten direct quotes on the Garcia-on-the-side (GOTS) material, and sketchily paraphrased the GD history and other stuff. The man was just so brimming with energy. Check him out around 7 minutes in to part one, talking about the amazing creativity and peculiar genius of so many Deadheads. Good stuff.

update: if you want verbatim, you can copy it from ... the published transcript. D'oh!

! ref: Blackwood, Nina. 1983. Jerry Garcia: Interviewed for MTV. Relix 10, 4 (August): 16-20.

Where Was Garcia on May 29, 1987?

As I have noted, Garcia's final Keystone Family gigs before jumping ship to Wolfgang as his permanent and exclusive hometown promoter took place at the end of May 1987, as In the Dark was getting huge. The big fella would play very few club gigs after the Wednesday (27th)-Thursday (28th) and Saturday (30th)-Sunday (31st) Stone shows.

The Friday gap night always just struck me as a day of rest. But, well, was it?
The Hermes Project, based in Malibu, was promoting a world premiere showing of "The Hero's Journey", a film about mythologist Joseph Campbell, featuring the man himself, plus special guests on a panel, plus a reception. Music composed by Mickey Hart and Rand Wetherwax --presumably "The African Queen Meets The Holy Ghost"-- "with special performance by Jerry Garcia" [itals original], all scheduled for Friday, May 29, 1987, 8 PM, at the Director's Guild, 7950 Sunset in LA (map).

The event got other line announcements in the LA Weekly and the LA Times, but I found no ex post accounts, nor have I ever heard of this thing before. Of course, the November 1, 1986 "Ritual and Rapture" event at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre in San Francisco is well known, and it included a performance of the Hart-Wetherwax composition, with Garcia playing a headless Steinberger. Blair Jackson wrote it up in Golden Road (no. 13, Winter 1987, p. 6).

But did this encore event happen on May 29, 1987? I sure would like to know.

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Emerge and See: Hunter Hosting Garcia at the Cellar Door - May 15, 1978 (DISCONFIRMED)

update 20210526: this seems not to have happened. David Kramer-Smythe reached out to David Morgenstern, who was with Comfort at this time. He remembered this gig for other reasons, but said Garcia definitely did not join, and that, in fact, Garcia never sat in with Comfort. So this is one of those cases of .... hmmm ... how does such a specific (if uncertain) memory form? What do we do with such a memory? In the absence of other advice. I will just keep this here for posterity.

Courtesy of slip at JGBP, this:
May 15, 1978 Robert Hunter and Comfort 
This was a three night run, the 14, 15, 16th at the Cellar Door in Washington DC.  
(The 14th  we saw the Dead play in Providence, RI. We were just finishing a post  spring semester  Vermont > Springfield > Providence run, so my memory of this event is extremely fuzzy, but it happened.) 
Anyway – towards the end of the Hunter show, Steve Parrish..what was he doing there?... helped roll a doorway sort-of-thing out on stage. It was like a big stage prop with a man-size keyhole shape cut-out. What…A giant keyhole? 
Then, I remember smoke machine and a siren howling like an ambulance. Lights flashed. The Cellar Door was a pretty small and dark venue as I recall, so this was kind of jarring. 
And then the PA screamed “Emergency…Emergency…Emergency” and gradually slowed to say “Emergggge an Seeeeee,” “Emergggge and See,” “Emerge and See,” Emerge and See!!!” 
And a fellow in a bozo mask walked through the keyhole. The fellow was Garcia. 
This is where it gets fuzzy....I forget what he played, maybe Boys in the Ballroom [sic]? Promontory Rider? Goodnight Irene? It wasn’t a standard Dead tune. 
Who’s got the tape?
Who, indeed? Can anyone confirm or deny?

Tuesday, October 01, 2019

Help Us Out

Head over to Nick's place and render judgment on the appropriateness of the title "Merl's Tune" for the Garciaverse tune by that name, versus the titular line of this post.

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Monday, September 02, 2019

Major New Piece of Instrument Research

Michael Clem has published a major piece of research into Garcia's instruments over at LIA's old stomping grounds. I don't know gear, and will surely make use of it whenever I have a question about it.

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Alice Kahn Fall 1984 interview annotations

These are for my purposes, no pretense to completeness.

I find his comments about Joe Garcia to be quite revealing. There are a few other good nuggets in here. Man, even in the depths of his Rock Bottom period, he sounds engaged and articulate. What a mind!

~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

Sunday, August 18, 2019

Howard Rheingold Interviews Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir

https://archive.org/details/RheingoldGarciaWeirInterview

Not sure I know this one, pinning it here so I can find it again!

The Bard on WLIR (Long Island), March 1978

http://tela.sugarmegs.org/_asxtela/asxcards/RobertHunter1978-03WLIRInterviewRoslynNY.html

Robert Hunter
1978-03-xx* Roslyn, New York unknown hotel (Hunter's room)
Interview by Denis McNamara for 92.7 WLIR-FM Garden City, New York (M?-FM)
"Sunday At 9:00" radio program -expanded edition- (3 shows/parts)
"A Conversation With Robert Hunter"

Not sure how close in time this was to the 3/12/78 Long Island show with JGB, NRPS, and Comfort (w/ Hunter). He says some interesting things about particular songs. I will just post annotations for the stuff that interests me.

2826 how about working for JG as a solo performer? Does that affect your writing?

2840 Sometimes. The best that can happen is that I'm just being prolific. some discussion

2915 first Garcia solo album related to the American Beauty and Workingmans field of material

3040 Deal is a reflection of what it's like to be in the rock and roll business

3815ff Bob Weir album

3916 CUTS a tune that I had been working on for years. I started working on it in London. ... a subterranean march of cats

4000 then there's a song which is my Orpheus it's called Reuben And Cérise which is one that I wrote several years ago for his second album Reflections but it just didn't around to gettin done until now. It's an Orpheic epic set in New Orleans ... he narrates this tune beautifully he recites it "her hair hung gently down" - "when Garcia sings this thing, it just brings goosebumps up my arm. It shivers up my spine - the full tragedy. I think we got Orpheus.

4213 record company stuff RH denies that it was economics. "I'll tell ya - I didn't give 'em the material. Here we were, all set up, ready to go, ready to rip, and if I had written albums like I've been writing ... it's just one of those situations where you get this nice snazzy Cadillac and the battery doesn't work for some reason. My streak ended. I don't know what it was. But ... WOTF I think has some excellent songs on it ... didn't grab [inaudible] exceedingly laid back, for one thing ... one of the problems was the choice of tempos on songs like Row Jimmy Row ... Stella Blue ... 1/2 Step ...

4418 first RH album Rum Runners I love the songs my singing is a little short of pathetic 4525

4610ff Blues for Allah 4646 people didn't take to it

4719 Crazy Fingers is his favorite from BFA

5320 JG wanted to do Tiger Rose!

5445 Tiger Rose

5515 "with Rum Runners, I didn't know [it would be released], and I don't think I could have sold that album if I didn't have my own record company, because it doesn't meet professional standards for recordings. It's quite dirty, in some respects."

5536 "Tiger Rose was produced by Garcia. ... I am afraid that the tracks sound more like Garcia music than mine, which may be good or bad. It has that mellowed out sound that he's into, whereas Rum Runners has this real rough-and-ready, which is my own style. ...Cruel White Water / Wild Bill

5652 excuse for TR vocals

5715 Mickey as anti-producer. Mickey Hart is the most wired cat you've ever met in your life. He has so many ideas, we had to like put em in a bag and tie it up and put em in the corner..... 5757 unsupressable ...

Simple Twist of Fate: JGB #23 at the Kaiser, November 11, 1994

LN jg1994-11-11.jgb.all.aud-CMC5-mk4.145714.flac1644

Like so many of the late-era shows that I have listened to in the last couple of years, this one pleasantly surprised me. The only thing that troubles me is that it brings me into aesthetic disagreement yet again with Nick, who called this show "bad enough to make you want to give Jerry a hug and make him a big pot of soup". I get it. There are certainly parts of this show where Garcia is lost and mumbling, his voice shot (even has moments as bad as 8/8/93), everything off-kilter. "Wonderful World" supplies several such moments. But I find some incredibly touching and beautiful stuff here, as well, I think it's overall pretty good (for the era ...), and I see that with a first set over an hour and a second clocking in over 80 minutes, the man is still putting it out there.
 

 

I guess, in looking back over my notes, the one tune that I really like here was "Simple Twist Of Fate", which is odd because, despite its awesome autobiographical resonance ("waterfront bar ... where the sailors all come in"), I don't usually love it. Kahn's bug ... errr ... feature ... is pretty unobjectionable, just about the only time he's audible all night. Donny sounds good to me (that tape captures the drums nicely), Melvin is good, the ladies are very far forward, especially helping Jerry with the lyrical progression of "Wonderful World" and generally putting some lung into the vocals to make up for his that are lacking.

The Maker is a nice microcosm of the show. It's just achingly flawed. He sings the "body is bent and broken" line in the wrong key, and then compensates with a little whoa-oh-oh on the "by long and dangerous sleep" line. (I also noted the body bent and broken line on the show two months before, 9/10/94 in Reno.) He sound absolutely exhausted with living.

"That Lucky Old Sun" gets a merciful e-brake at just over 5 minutes, half its typical length, which is fine. The "Don't Let Go" never really goes anywhere, though I did find him doing a repeated percussive blue note that felt kind of insistent. Some good fanning in "Deal", but it's all note and no power (unlike ten years before, when the opposite was true).

His last gig at the venerable Kaiser, where many a great time was had. Anyway, more data.

Jerry Garcia Band
Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center
10 Tenth Street
Oakland, CA 94607
November 11, 1994 (Friday) - 7:30 PM
CMC5-MK4 MAD shnid-145714

--set I (7 tracks, 63:53)--
s1t01. [0:04] Cats Under The Stars [11:16] [1:30]
s1t02. They Love Each Other [7:31] [2:33]
s1t03. Mission In The Rain [9:31] [0:33]
s1t04. Run For The Roses [5:18] [0:36]
s1t05. Simple Twist Of Fate [11:52] [0:16]
s1t06. My Sisters And Brothers [3:53] ->
s1t07. Deal [8:53] (1) [0:07]

--set II (8 tracks, 80:36)--
s2t08. [0:11] How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [6:37] [0:33]
s2t09. Shining Star [20:09] [0:24]
s2t10. Tore Up Over You [8:18] [1:55]
s2t11. The Maker [11:47] [0:13]
s2t12. Wonderful World [4:31] [0:12]
s2t13. Don't Let Go [14:10] [0:08]
s2t14. That Lucky Old Sun [5:14] ->
s2t15. Midnight Moonlight [6:08] (2) [0:06]

! ACT1: JGB #23
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;
! lineup: Donny Baldwin - 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/19941111-01

! JGC: https://jerrygarcia.com/show/1994-11-11

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/15882 (Neumann KM440 shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/145714 (this fileset).

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

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/syxJeJyHJMB2

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/02/henry-j-kaiser-auditorium-oakland.html

! R: Source Info: FOB Schoeps CMC5 Mk4-> DAT

! R: Transfer Info: Dat Tape (Panasonic SV-3700)-> Marantz CDR-615-> CD (Late 90's); Extract Wav-> Flac Level 8-> Tagged (16/44.1). Transfers by Pete Ebel, Late 90's and March 17, 2019.

! R: quite a nice tape

! P: overall: listening evening of 8/17/2019 I had a warm feeling about this. The vocals are low in the mix, and that's good, because he sounds pretty ragged. Now, returning to WW, then back to The Maker to check myself, I am struck that the vocals are *really* fatigued sounding. There's a fine balance with these Old Jerry shows, between appreciating the weary beauty of an old man and feeling upset at how rough it is.

! P: s1t01 CUTS kicks the show off pretty well.

! P: s1t05 STOF I love this! I have listened to it a second time and still love it. Jerry gets almost all of the lyrics right. John does a feature 7:25-9:15 which is not as much of a bug as at often was. It goes to 9:15, and it's not terrible. But the key to this is Jerry's clarity with the lyrics - very good.

! P: s1t07 Deal some fanning in 6. Not powerful like ten years before, but a game effort.

! s1t07 (1) no setbreak announcement

! P: s2t11 The Maker he sounds so tired. @ 3:24 "Body bent and broken" he sings out of the key he had arranged for it. But then he gives a "whoa-oh-old ?? and dangerous sleep", forgets the rest of that verse. Pitch-bending 9.

! P: s2t11 WW bad vocals out of the gate, and a lyrical miscue. OMG, now his voice is gone. Donny hits an extra beat.

! P: s2t13 DLG he fumbled the first lyric, couldn't remember the second one so took an extra turn. He sounds lost and very rough, hasn't gotten a lyric yet. Oof.

! P: s2t14 TLOS he has to pluck the start several times. It must have been hard to try to drum for him in this period, as he is trying to figure out how stuff goes. This version is paced more quickly than most. Oh goodness, he repeatedly loses himself here, guitar and lyric. Ends prematurely, but it was a mercy killing. At 5:14, that's gotta be the shortest TLOS on record.

! s2t15 (2) JG: "Thanks a lot. See y'all later."

Saturday, August 17, 2019

New-to-The-List from the Digitized Chronicle

After spending X hours over X years spinning microfilm to try to find the needles of unListed Garcia gigs in the haystack of the Chronicle, the paper has been digitized.

Je ne regrette rien!

That said, I was able to find a few listings for The List. At this point, I cannot imagine we are missing more than a handful of Bay Area gigs about which information was actually printed somewhere.

2/15/71 JGMS at Matrix (via JLW "Something Else").
11/3/71 JGMS at Keystone Korner ("" "").
12/22/71 JGMS at Keystone Korner ("" ""). Just says Jerry Garcia, presume JGMS.
12/28/71 JGMS at New Monk ("" "").
12/29/71 JGMS at New Monk ("" "").
1/31/73 JGMS at Keystone Berkeley (via listings). This one turned up on a search for Tom Fogerty, who is listed, because JG is listed as Jerry Garcilea.

Update your Lists.

I actually had to FF: JGB at Portland Meadows, 8/8/93

LN jg1993-08-08.jgb.all.aud-vasseur.145607.flac1644

Nick thought the titular show was OK, but the vocals were so catastrophically bad that I actually couldn't really listen to this. The only other show that has revulsed me in the same way was 11/23/72, and that was as much about the recording (overloaded, especially on the vocals) as it was about the performance (which I would actually like to revisit). But 8/8/93 JGB at Portland Meadows is just a man without a voice insisting, nevertheless, on singing. I bet the crowd would have thought it cool if he had just said "My voice is shot, we'll try to do some tunes as instrumentals", but for better or for worse the protagonist keeps singing.

These are the worst vocals since pre-coma, and among the worst ever. They had played the day before in Seattle, but before that he hadn't played in six weeks or so, having spent some time in Ireland around the month of July (Greenfield 1996, 291). Maybe he was jet-lagged. I don't mean to sound too critical - voices are sometimes lost. My judgment here is purely aesthetic - I just can't listen to this.

The Maker is nice. The show has a few other moments. But, overall, a forgettable afternoon show (unless you were there, in which case maybe it was awesome).

Jerry Garcia Band
Portland Meadows
1001 N. Schmeer Road
Portland, OR 97217
August 8, 1993 (Sunday)
Vasseur shnid-145607

--set I (8 tracks, 7 tunes, 55:53)--
s1t01. [0:21] Cats Under The Stars [8:35] [0:22]
s1t02. [0:53] Mission In The Rain [7:04] [0:50]
s1t03. [0:32] That's What Love Will Make You Do [8:02] [0:11]
s1t04. And It Stoned Me,
s1t05. ambience [1:05]
s1t06. The Maker [7:19] [0:11]
s1t07. Money Honey -5:42] [0:05]
s1t08. My Sisters And Brothers

--set II (7 tracks, 63:42)--
s2t01. The Way You Do The Things You Do
s2t02. Wonderful World
s2t03. Tore Up Over You [7:42] [0:46]
s2t04. Ain't No Bread In The Breadbox [8:05] [0:06]
s2t05. Reuben And Cherise [7:52] [0:15]
s2t06. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [9:11] ->
s2t07. Tangled Up In Blue [12:17] (xx) [0:10]

! 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; [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.


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

! ref: Nick, "Aug 93: JGB up north and at home," URL http://deadthinking.blogspot.com/2018/05/aug-93-jgb-up-north-and-at-home.html.

! R: field recordist: Chuck Vasseur

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

! R: Transfer: DAT Master > CDR (Kyle Porter); Extract: CDR clone > EAC > WAV > FLAC16 (Bill Shaw aka Shark)

! R: seeder's 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: great tape

! P: s1t01 CUTS sluggish out of the gate. Nice tone late 4 over 5. Managed to finish it without going around too many times, which is always good.

! P: s1t02 MITR IMO JG sounds absolutely terrible.

! P: s1t06 Maker is excellent. The guitar work mid-4 is very thrilling. He remembers most of the lyrics.

! P: s1t03 TWLWMYD off key and reedy. He screws up second verse, turns it into a nice little guitar piece.

! P: s1t07 Money Honey completely croaking by the end.

! P: s1T08 MSAB his voice is as croaky here as it ever was in 84-'85.

! P: s2t01 TWYDTTYD his voice did not get better over the break

! song: s2t02 WAWW is the Sam Cooke "don't know much about history" one.

! P: s2t03 TUOY coming back to this a few days after hearing the first part of the show. God, his voice is painful to hear. But TUOY finds Melvin bringing some great energy and color, and Garcia tearing it up in the 5 minute mark. The guitar isn't loud in the mix - wish it were louder.

! P: s2t05 RAC he forgets half a verse in mid-2. Man, his voice. I can't wait for this listen to end.

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

Saturday, August 10, 2019

Chieftains Opening for OAITW

Update 7/22/2022: somehow I got the date wrong by a week, but in any case this Chieftains set is now being released by the Owsley Stanley Foundation!

A book by John Glatt entitled The Chieftains: The Authorized Biography (St. Martin's Press, 2015) describes Chesley Milliken arranging a meeting between Garcia and The Chieftains, who were touring the US in autumn 1974. After their local gigs, Garcia invited the Chieftains "to open for his own bluegrass group Old And In The Way, who were playing a show at the Boarding House to be recorded for a live album. Garcia also arranged a radio show with the legendary Tom Donaghue [sic]." Paddy Moloney recalls that "Jerry sent a limo for us and we did the show, which was San Francisco's top-rated radio programme. Jerry interviewed us and we talked and played tunes and discussed the music. Later in the week we opened for Jerry's bluegrass band and it was a wonderful evening of music."

This interested me for several reasons. First, of course, Garcia's grandfather William Clifford was Irish. Second, I have heard snippets of rumors that when he went to Ireland with Deborah in the summer of '93, he picked some tunes in some pubs and such, and I had even thought that maybe he did so with the Chieftains. (It appears not, since the bio would have mentioned it.) Third, of course, lots of the white roots music Garcia played ultimately derived from various isles off the northwest coast of Europe, not just the sea shanties and all that but also bluegrass as a Scotch-Irish-American compound, so I am just interested in this crossing as a meeting of musics. And, finally, this was just specific enough regarding timeframe --OAITW was recorded on 10/1/73 and 10/8/73-- but also necessarily mistaken (because it was said to be autumn 1974), and so I wanted to try to gain clarity.

Well, I have found it. 1974 is indeed wrong.

If he's right about OAITW being recorded, and the Chieftains gigs happening before that, then we should be closely prior to 10/1 or 10/8/73. Through the magic of digitized newspapers, I find them playing the following:
  • 9/29/73: The Gaelic League sponsored a gig this night at 8 PM in the Scottish Rite Memorial Auditorium, 19th and Sloat in the city. (! ad: SFC19730928p57)
  • 9/30/73: concert at the Oakland Auditorium Theatre, 8 PM (! listing: SFSECDB19730930p07)
So far, so good.

Then I started Googling around for a list of "Live From the Record Plant" KSAN broadcasts, and found none. (Someone, please get on that!) It took me some fine-tuning on the search syntax to find what I was looking for, but I found it.
  • 10/7/73: 11 PM, KSAN (94.9) - The Chieftains (! listing: SFSECDB19731007p22)
Even though "later in the week" would normally be understood to mean more than one night later, there was still space for the Chieftains to open for OAITW the next night at the Boarding House. So I queried Peter Rowan, and he affirmed that The Chieftains opened for OAITW on 10/8/73. 

Update: Chieftains appear to have opened on 10/1. Since I followed the logic closely, it seems that Paddy just had the sequences and timeframes a little unclear, as they were reported in the book.

Update your spreadsheets. And, if you keep records of Garcia's whereabouts even when he wasn't playing, you can place him at the Record Plant on the night of 10/7/73, hanging with Big Daddy and talking with and listening to the Chieftains.

Now, I am contractually obligated to make two further queries.

First, is there tape of the 10/7/73 Live From the Record Plant KSAN broadcast?
update: Yes! At the SF Museum of Performance and Design, which holds the KSAN Vault. Two reels have been digitized and are available for on-site auditioning, by appointment.

Second, did Bear tape the Chieftains on 10/8/73 10/1/73 at the Boarding House? update: yes he did!

Let me make one final point, after updating my data: Garcia was a very busy boy right in this timeframe. I now have him as follows for the eight days starting Sunday 9/30:
"Work eight days a week | baby I give it all to you"

And on the ninth day, a Tuesday, he rested. As far as I know.

What is the Opposite of a Bat Outta Hell? JGB at Keystone, September 10-12, 1976

I am not a huge fan of the syrupy tempos of 1976 JGB, the ultimate comfort band for Our Hero. There are some great sounding tapes, the occasional killer show (4/3/76b), and some spectacular specific songs ("Right Mighty High", "Moonlight Mile", "Who Was John" and others are some of my faves), but the overall vibe is just too laid back for me. It has been intimated that I lack the patience and sophistication to appreciate this stuff, which is like fine wine or something. Maybe so.

I have been particularly indifferent to the September performances. The Pirates' Ball on 9/15/76 is certainly fun, holds a lot of curb appeal, but the music wasn't the thing for me. The Astor Theatre may have been a deco masterpiece, but Garcia's one show there on 9/20/76 was dull as day-old dishwater. And so on. I haven't felt particularly differently about the hometown weekend on September 10-12 at the Keystone Berkeley. The thing that most interests me is the provenance of the board tapes. They look like Betty Board lineage, but they are not among the tapes lassoed together by the ABCD crew. I suspect that Latvala spun copies for Alligator or Kingbee and they entered the world via those benefactors, but I can't be sure.

Anyway, below I post my listening notes for the three hometown nights, September 10-12, the first of which took place only 5 days after Rex Jackson's passing. Here is the thumbnail.

Friday 9/10
  • Nick The Greek opened. He'd do so again on 11/15/76 and then he and Jerry wouldn't share a bill, so far as I know, until the 3/18/87 Artists' Rights Today benefit at the Old Fillmore.
  • Reinhart Hohlwein (sp?) pulled a stunning tape.
  • "My Sisters And Brothers" grooves low and slinky.
  • I liked "After Midnight" and this very long version of "I'll Take A Melody".
  • Mighty High has great energy, but it's a little off-kilter here and there.
Saturday 9/11
  • Beautiful Betty Board
  • Sugaree: what is the opposite of a bat out of hell? Whatever it is, that's how they come in on Sugaree. Sloooowww.
Sunday 9/12
  • Short second set at only 40 minutes. Jerry strums HSII, but it either wasn't taped or it was closing time and it didn't happen.
  • Maria Muldaur joins along. I need to check, but I think this is my earliest documented case of her joining the JGB. Sociometrists, take note.
Listening notes below the fold.

Long Ago and Far Away: JGB at Cumberland County Civic Center, Portland, ME, June 20, 1982

LN jg1982-06-20.jgb.all.aud-lamarre.139447.flac2496


Great pull by Doug Lamarre, very good JGB from the strong month of June 1982. Bobby Cochran and Bob Weir from Bobby and the Midnites sit in on the encore, which includes the JGB singleton "Johnny B. Goode".

Jerry sounds quite strong.  Two new tunes stand out. "Valerie" holds some serious heavy-metal appeal, and "Run For The Roses" involves some uncommon wah-pedaling.

Kahn gets two mentions, first for some big pulling at the start of "Mission In The Rain" and, second, neater, for some noodling he is doing at the start of the show. Here is an mp3 of the snippet, which runs about 20 seconds starting from about 0:23 of the first track of this fileset.

The noodle sounded to me like "Blue Moon", but I don't know squat. Nick urges comparison with Ray Brown's bassline on this Oscar Peterson version of Jerome Kern's "Long Ago (And Far Away)". Getting all musicological up in here, he says that "Kahn is playing what sounds like a C, Am, Dm, and G, which in the language of music theory is a I-vi-ii-V progression.  'Blue Moon' is one famous example of this". So I don't feel totally foolish.

Anyway, I would welcome your analyses. It's always fun when Jerome's namesake comes up, and when a Garcia engagement crosses into uncommon deep Americana.

Listening notes below the fold.

Wednesday, August 07, 2019

Jerry Garcia at the Warfield - August 21, 1982??


What a strange thing this is.

SFC listing for Jerry Garcia at the Warfield, August 21, 1982.

It almost certainly wasn't JGB: that band had last played June 24 out east, and wouldn't play again (in a new configuration) until October 13th.

It was almost certainly planned to be the Garcia/Kahn acoustic duo, two days before they'd play the Kabuki Theater a mile and a half away.

But it almost certainly didn't happen. This is the only whiff of this I have ever seen, and it's just so random ... yet it didn't come from nowhere. Someone in Garcia's orbit called the Chronicle and told them about this. Weird.

I don't know whether to call this is a phantom or a cancellation. Anyone?

Tuesday, August 06, 2019

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.

Sunday, August 04, 2019

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.


! 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.



! 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."