August 9, 1974 is probably August 10, 1974: a fine show either way

LN jg1974-08-09.jgms.s1s2p.aud-falanga.8073.shnf

More listening around August 1974, as with 8/11/74 and a mention of 8/15/74.

I have some doubts about the date. The always-excellent "Rock Talk by KG" column (by Kathie Staska and George Mangrum) in the Hayward Daily Review (August 9, 1974, p. 40), says "Clifton Chenier does Keystone Berkeley tonight and Jerry Garcia & Merl Saunders with Paul Pena play the same place Aug. 10-11". update 20110906: Man oh man, I am dumb as a bag of rocks. The setlist for this show is identical, with one exception, to the setlist for August 10, 1974, Keystone, Berkeley. That setlist comes from Rob Eaton, who transferred the master reels of this show from the "third batch" of Betty Cantor-Jackson tapes. Rob was forensic in his listening and in his tapebox notations. (Parenthetically, if those tapes reveal a three-song second set, we can of course eliminate the speculation that what's represented on the Falanga-Menke tape is incomplete.)

The only difference in the setlists of "8/9/74" and 8/10/74 is the placement of Think. Yet since it's surrounded by tape discontinuities on the Falanga tapes, it's just as plausible to think it was the first song, but somehow ended up out of place. (This would, in turn raise some lineage questions ... how could a master tape have the second song first? Sigh.)

Anyway, I am arguing here that the Staska-Mangrum mention, on the very day of the show, in addition to the (correlated) calendar listing in the Hayward Daily Review, and the identical setlists attributed to "8/9" and 8/10, the latter of which has a full setlist of impeccable provenance, all outweigh a tape label. We should eliminate the spurious Listing for August 9, 1974, and merge our data from that show with the show from August 10, 1974.

Listening notes follow. 

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Keystone
2119 University Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
August 9 [sic: 10], 1974 (Friday [sic: Saturday])
Falanga MAC shnid-8073

--set I (7 tracks, 86:41)
s1t01. tuning [1:14]
s1t02. Expressway (To Your Heart) [22:42] [0:08] % [1:06]
s1t03. [0:05] //Think [#7:54] [0:19]
s1t04. % [0:03] Are You Lonely for Me [25:06] [0:11] %
s1t05. tuning [1:49]
s1t06. Soul Roach [9:13] [0:34]
s1t07. I Second That Emotion [15:55] (1) [0:25]

--set II (3 tracks, 53:55, ?incomplete?)--
s2t01. [0:18] Mystery Train [17:54] [0:15]
s2t02. Lonely / Avenue [27:#08] ->
s2t03. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [8:12] (2) [0:07]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals.
! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;
! lineup: Martin Fierro - horns;
! lineup: Bill Kreutzmann - drums.

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/19740809-01 [presumed spurious]; https://jerrybase.com/events/19740810-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/8073 (this source).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/LDc43

! JGBP: https://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/02/keystone-2119-university-avenue.html

! metadata: First, as my title here indicates, the circulating tape puts this as August 9th (*shiver*), but there is no other evidence for that data and loads of evidence that it's actually 8/10. I am well into the p < .05 range on dating this as 8/10. Second, I used to have question marks around BK just out of an abundance of caution, but I am not at least as certain that this is him as I am about the dating. Third, I used to wonder if the second set was incomplete. I now think they were probably just running up against closing time, though I reserve the right to update on that question.

! P: This show is excellent. There's more deliberateness than fire here, to my ears. So we have three exceptionally long (22-27 minute) numbers which actually stay pretty close to their constitutive themes for a very long time if not throughout. There's lots of elaboration and less exploration, maybe. Interesting. Jerry was in a mood to play and sing some old R&B this night, and that's what we have. "A Mission Street R & B guy," as I think he once described himself. Nice.

! R: field recordist: Louis Falanga;

! R: field Recording equipment: 1x Sony ECM-270 + 1x Sony ECM-250 > Sony TC-152 cassette deck

! R: field recording location: microphones on-stage at Garcia's feet (stage ?right xxx left?), one directed toward Garcia's monitor and the other pointed to center stage.

! R: lineage: unknown MAC transfer to DAT by Bob Menke; DAT > CD transfer ?ca. 2001? ?by Menke?; CD copy made for Jim Powell ca. 2001; CD copy made for Jack Warner ca. 2001; CD copy made for jjoops ca. 2001; extraction [EAC], re-joining [WavMerge], re-tracking [CDWave] and shn encoding [mkwACT] by jjoops, 8/14/2001. Subsequent circulation via vines and tol.etree.org; shnid 8073. JGMF shn2flac conversion, file renaming (by sets), tagging (foobar2000) 7/20/2011.

! R: What an amazing recording. Everything is right where you want it. Thank you Louis Falanga, Bob Menke and everyone else.

! s1t02 ETMH Martin quoting "Red Clay" from 7:40 for quite awhile, even still in the 16:30 range.

! R: s1t03 beginning of Think is mangled.

! s1t07 (1) @ 16:06 JG: "We're gonna take a break for a little while, be back in a little bit."

! s2t02 Lonely Avenue @ 5:57 Martin almost hits an "Ain't No Sunshine" riff.

! R: s2t02 Lonely Avenue gap @ 11:14-11:18

! P: the transition from Lonely Avenue to HSII is pretty smooth. Nice job!

! P: s2t03 this HSII reminds us of what a great bass player John Kahn was, when he was. Listen to him in the first 5 minutes of this. He is locked in.

! s2t03 (2) JG: "Thanks a lot. We'll see you all later."