Geocoding

I have been busy geocoding my Garciavents. Since I do this stuff by hand, it's rather laborious. But I am excited about the possbilities the work will create! With Clio and Geo (so to speak), animated maps should be a snap.

More traffic

Stats show some folks reading "James Booker, Classified". Check that and "Jerry's January 1976" out to get ready for the month. Hopefully your January is better than 1976 Jerry's!

GD Stinson Beach Rehearsal Space 1973

Somewhere LIA was leaving notes and discussion of the Dead's "Stinson Beach rehearsal space" ca. 1973. Can someone point me to that thread?

Oscuro Action

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

Link: David & the Dorks: 1970 SBDs

http://sweetblahg.tumblr.com/post/75940158763/david-the-dorks-1970-sbds

adding: "fwiw it sounds like Mick on both recordings to these ears".

h/t Silberman

CXLv002

I have updated the document CXL - List of Canceled Grateful Dead Gigs - List of Canceled Jerry Garcia Gigs. This is v002.

This attempts to incorporate commenters' suggestions --special thanks to LIA and runonguinness.

Comment on the Blogger Page so we can keep keeping track.

Jerry Garcia, January 17, 1972-January 29, 1972

Here's a visualization of the Garciaverse from January 17-29, 1972. This being blogger, I hope you can see it.

"Jerry Garcia, January 17, 1972-January 29, 1972"

Here is the Codebook as PDF.

There's no particular reason I am showing this slice, just wanted to give you all a look at how some of the cancellations fit in, and how I have my data visualizations currently configured.

Since we're here, though, we can see the Hooteroll? tour contemporaneous with canceled Dead and Jerry gigs. Which is the chicken and which the egg, which the cause and which the effect, I leave to your speculation.

Ateliers to Empereur

Les Sports Illustrés (Brussels, Belgium) moved from 3, rue des Ateliers to 12, rue de l'Empereur sometime between 1924 and 1926. Business must have been good.

Added bonus, the one from Workshop Street, no. 188, has a story about some 1924 New York Giants barnstorming outside of Paris.

Bob Coburn Interviews Jerry Garcia, November 8, 1982

Garcia, Jerry, 1942-1995, “Bob Coburn with Jerry Garcia. "Rockline" radio show, hosted by Bob Coburn, broadcast on November 8, 1982. Includes an interview and phone calls from listeners [radio broadcast],” Grateful Dead Archive Online, accessed August 2, 2015, http://www.gdao.org/items/show/378595.

Garcia had two pretty good reasons to do a live national "Rockline" radio interview on Monday, November 8, 1982 with Bob Coburn.

The first was presumably to sell some tickets for the ongoing Fall 1982 Jerry Garcia Band tour (starting October 27 in SoCal, ending November 15th). From November 8th, the band still had shows in Worcester, Piscataway, New York City, Hartford, a college gig outside of Boston at Brandeis University, and a grand finale at Kean College in Union, NJ. The East Coast Deadhead paid a huge chunk of the Dead and Garcia's bills, better rally the troops.

The second is that Run for the Roses (Arista AL 9603, November 1982) had dropped, and for once Garcia was "touring behind an album" that people could buy from off the shelves of their local disc-O-mat on the way home from the show. For his last studio record, the 1978 masterpiece Cats Under the Stars (1978), work took so long that it remained undone during a putative promotional tour in March, probably not hitting shelves until a week or two after the tour ended. The Mystery Cats toured "in front of their" record, not your industry standard approach. Shocking that one sank like a stone despite representing some of Garcia's finest work, including in his songwriting collaboration with Hunter. Here, they're touring behind the record, but unfortunately, as one of Mike Myers's Scotsmen would say, "it's crap".

November 11^th would find the band playing for John Scher at The Felt Forum, part of an expansion push into the City itself, courtesy (or not) of Ron Delsener. Scher was going big in 1982,[1] and one of his early successes was Garcia and Kahn, in their first ever acoustic duet gig, at the Beacon Theatre, culminating with the good Dr. John sitting in with Jerry and John for some "Goodnight Irene", on April 21^st. That gig did so well (two 2,413 capacity sellouts, with gross $51,523)[2] that they made the same match in November. John Scher being John Scher --a multitalented guy who, from 1976, had basically taken over the GD's operations east of the Mississippi, and did lots more besides—he was fully locked into Garcianomics, on the recto and the verso.

John Scher Presents in New York City: Jerry Garcia Band at the Felt Foum, November 11, 1982.
John Scher Presents Program no. 270.

I don't know how many records they sold, but November 11^th grossed $107,661 on two sellouts @ 4,332 capacity.[3] Not bad – not bad at all. Biggest night of the tour.

Why do I get into the reasons for this interview? Because we find here yet another instance of Garcia being utterly incapable of marketing. In January 1976, he either forgot to announce a set of his band's gigs upcoming, chose not to, or else was reminded to book them when asked live, on the radio. I think there are a few other examples I can pin down of Garcia not really even swinging and missing on the tee'd up "new record" question, but kind of dodging it. And how's this for the soft sell, answer question of who's in the band:

I’ve had a band off and on for some time now, I guess about five years now … when you have musicians that you’re playing with on a regular basis, it’s easier to communicate with them, and they’re in the neighborhood, and things like that. Actually, the tracks on the record are recorded by parts of my band, as well as my current band, over the last, um, some of the tracks on the record were recorded as long as 4 years ago, 5 years ago.[4]

It’s a long slow process. See, when I make a solo record I have to make it in between the spaces, between Grateful Dead activity. So I have to do it as I can. Sometimes they accumulate, like a snowball rolling downhill.

Now, for someone like me, this is fascinating. First, "when you have musicians that you’re playing with on a regular basis, it’s easier to communicate with them, and they’re in the neighborhood, and things like that" could have come out of his mouth in January 1976 about Keith and Donna.[5] "I just picked whoever was around" isn't going to get me off the fence about these $11 tickets. Second, hearing that some of these tracks were recorded in 1977-1978 might signal to the discerning record buyer that they found at least some of this stuff sweeping up the cutting room floor. If they didn't buy Cats when it was released, why would they buy the lesser tracks now? Third, by interstitializing Garcia to the Grateful Dead, sublimating himself into the Borg, he gives further impression that the record might be rather second class.

Maybe he's just too honest, and can't shill the record that he may or may not feel good about. I guess I gotta respect that, even if it does thwart Global Corporation's master plan. Or maybe he just didn't get it. As McNally has recently said, "the celebrity interview, an opportunity for an artist to talk about himself and to pitch a current endeavor in as brief and efficient a manner as possible, was completely lost on Jerry".[i]

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[i] McNally 2015, 9.

Other things I pull from this:

• Influences? Freddie King. Django, and he mentions Django's physical handicap – can there be any doubt but that Garcia felt a special kinship with Reinhardt?
• solo vs. GD: " When I compose a tune, I have a sense of what I want it to sound like. When I do ‘em for my own band, they sort of stay at that developmental level. But in the Grateful Dead, they have a tendency to keep moving. That’s true, I think, with Bob’s tunes, too."
• dodges a religion question
• Bashes Hank Harrison and his books; "wait for McNally's".
• a few other tidbits, depending on what interests you

LN jg1995-01-13.jgb.s2.aud-sisler-goodbear.79638.flac1648

update 5/17: I have revisited this date, with rather contrasting perceptions.

Needless to say, I don't get out to 1995 very much. I enjoyed this, overall. It was not a ripoff.

Jerry's guitar play is fine, if mixed very low. The arrangements are pretty interesting, but the execution suffers without David Kemper in the chair. Garcia is flubbing like 50% of the lyrics, and there are a few moments where he seems completely to lose himself.

"Positively 4th Street" is a tune Jerry loved, played here for the first time since 4/24/93.

Jerry Garcia Band
The Warfield
982 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
January 13, 1995 (Friday) - set II
s2 Schoeps MK4 via Goodbear flac1648 shnid-79638

--set II (7 tracks, 64:00)--
s2t01. crowd and tuning [0:17], The Harder They Come [10:21] [0:15]
s2t02. And It Stoned Me [8:48] [0:24]
s2t03. [0:41] Evangeline [5:44] [0:07]
s2t04. Don't Let Go [14:09] [0:12]
s2t05. Lazy Bones [8:38] ->
s2t06. Positively 4th Street [8:04] ->
s2t07. Midnight Moonlight [6:03] (1)

! ACT1: JGB #23
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, v;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;
! lineup: Donny Baldwin - drums;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - backing vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones - backing vocals.

JGMF:

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19950113-01

! historical: First shows of 1995, let's see how ol' Jer sounds.

! JGC: http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1995-01-13-the-warfield-san-francisco-ca/
! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2013/02/warfield-982-market-street-san.html

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/ZW52vfHTbjs

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/21484 (Vasseur, shnf); http://etreedb.org/shn/79638 (this fileset)

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

! R: field recordist: unknown

! R: field recording gear: 2x Schoeps CMC-MK4 > Reutelheuber power supply ("Billbox") > Denon DTR80p > Sony D7 [patch deck]

! R: transfer: Sony D7 master > ? > 48k wav > CDWave > FLAC. Dan Sisler supplied the DATs in 10/2006 to Teddy Goodbear, seeded 11/2006.

! R: seeder notes: "Thanks go out to Dan Sisler for sending me the DATs in 10/2006!"

! R: seeder notes: "Seeded 11/2006 by Teddy "GoodBear" Selby [http://www.goodbear.com :wave:"

! R: who knows which DAT Brat :) recorded this? I assume this is from the drink rail, though it's pretty spacious. What makes it hard for me to tell is that Garcia's guitar stays pretty muffled.

! R: s2t02 AISM overload @ 0:49

! P: s2t02 This ancient, dying Jerry picks his material so nicely. Of course, he'd been doing the Van classic for nine years, tackling it night after night with the Garcia Band in that whole period between near-death  (the 1986 coma) and the thing itself.

! P: s2t01. HTC Baldwin has to really hit hard to keep the band on pace, because Jerry is a little hesitant, and quite lost on the lyrics. DB is no David Kemper, and I actually don't love how he's playing the verse parts, but ahe seems to be giving it his all. Melvin and the ladies are pure pros on it. I haven't heard a note of John Kahn yet is he even here? ;-) Now I heard him 3:45. There could clearly be PA issues here vocals are mixed low --there's John again with a scale @ 4:10, so PA issues-- drums are nice, keyboards forward, vocals real low so far. Tempo is quite peppy, and now the mix is settling in 5:35 Melvin swirly while Jerry comps, now Jerry a nice descending, much more wah pedal on this, almost Shakedown-era. 6:08 Jerry steps up for a turn a register up his guitar playing sounds fine. 6:56 his lyrics fumble, he starts with the response and just the call entirely. The GD were using teleprompters at this time, he could sure use one here!

! personnel: this is Donny Baldwin drumming. HTC he has to dig in real hard to set the song's whole tempo, and we see how important time is going to be to play these songs when the singer can't remember any of the words.

! P: s2t03 Evangeline

! R: s2t03 more bass overload when JK audibilizes himself.

! R: s2t04 more static. Bass still overloading.

! P: s2t04 DLG Jerry sounds peppy. Let me embed a general comment about song tempo and set pacing - they are nice. I can see that this set will end up not super-long. Each song is done on the fast side of its historical tempo, and that's all to the good. We get a nice, peppy 64 minute set - nothing wrong with that. 2:57 Jerry digs down for a growl on "hold me tight". Does he hang a vocal there about 3:10? This is so interesting. Garcia is missing this next verse, but he's making up for it with some vocal improv, more or less. He's not even playing his guitar at periods. He or someone hangs another something 4:05 - is that John? 4:15 goes on down to a deep and careful "don't let go". 4:25 he starts trying on the a few measure of vocal-guitar, vocal-guitar call and response, now late 4 he's got the wah pedal working a little. Things are not entirely together with Baldwin and Jerry. I miss Kemper, no offense. John tickles some spacy stuff 5:39, Melvin starts rounding out the fill, John a few picks late 5 as Jerry. Late 6 Jerry gives a nice cranky washboard, now 7:18 steps up the register to play some Jerry Garcia guitar, totally unmistakeable (for better and for worse), stepping up the pace 7:49, quotes DLG a touch. I don't want to be critical, but I feel like Baldwin is not with it. 8:15 Jerry. Garcia some very inventive lines. 8:30ff I love what Jerry is going here. He is still full of ideas, still able to draw from a lifetime of sitting around with a guitar in his hand, cigarettes and coffee and picking and strumming. He's got a big triumphal thing playing mid 9, states a bluesy tone, the band doing almost a little marshal thing, Jerry has picked up his tempo and is playing super energetically, a little clunky second half of 10, 10:54, first nod back to DLG, now 11:05 he's back in tone, digging in for it, Baldwin on it by 11:20, they are understanding each other, 11:42 Jerry steps up to "hound dog barking upside the hill", which will lead him back to "I'd be barkin' and hollerin' too," which we already heard. Anyway. The song was nicely played, but it just didn't deliver that much punch. Maybe the guitar is just too far back in the mix.

! P: s2t05 LB 5:25 Jerry sounds lost, and this is not good. Something that almost never happened with Kemper - the band sounded lost, too. 

! R: s2t06 overloading - dreadful!

! P: s2t06 Jerry can't sing 4th Street if he can't remember the lyrics.

! song: Positively 4th Street (s2t06): 2/23/80, then 3/1/91, 4/18/93, 4/24/93, 1/13/95. Jerry had to reach up to the top shelf to grab Dylan's snide and splenetic rant - I hadn't been aware when it started that it had become such a rarity. He'd try it again on March 4 and April 15, 1995 - I'd like to check those out (update: done! 3/4, 4/15). Positively 4th Street is one of those that Garcia loved and never gave up on - Tough Mama being a 70s Dylan analog.

! s2t07 (1) JG: "See y'all later, thank you." Almost sounds a little slurry, certainly his voice a little weak, il manque d'haleine.

Essentials Panel

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

JGMF Bibliography

Why not try it out, see how it works?

http://jgmf.blogspot.com/p/bibliography.html

A relentless tinkerer said

"if it ain't broke, fix it until it is."

Wise words.

Where Were the GD on December 24, 1970?

My list of canceled Grateful Dead gigs shows Thursday, December 24, 1970 at City Center, New York, NY. Deadbase listed as canceled, with note "Not possible with Winterland the night before".

Two things.

First, I think we are learning that they'd fly for a gig, so I am not 100% sure this is a safe assumption that they would not have played NYC on 12/24 having played SF on 12/23 - especially for a special occasion.

Second, I just came across a piece from Hit Parader, attributed to June 1971, which includes the following: The Dead are anti "new politics", but "do help when they find an individual whose ideas impress them. For instance, on a recent plane trip across the country, the band met Huey Newton, leader of the Black Panthers. He told them his philosophy. They were impressed by what he said, as well as his personality. As a result, they agreed to do a benefit for the Panthers that was held in New York on Christmas Eve".[i]

Hmmm, she uses the past tense. Now, normally I'd poo-poo Hit Parader, but these things can surprise us. Any thoughts as to whether the GD actually played a Panthers benefit in NYC on Christmas Eve. 1970?

! ref: Ross, Penelope. 1971. Grateful Dead. Hit Parader, June: 10-12, 59, 64. 

p.s. "Where Were the Grateful Dead" does better than "Where Was The Grateful Dead", grammar be damned.

---

[i] Ross 1971, 12.

"Once in a while, ..."

.. you know the rest. Was just processing a 1975 article from Hit Parader, of all things. Yet a few things catch my eye:

• Gives working title for The Movie, soon-to-be released film There is Nothing Like A Grateful Dead Show. 
• Maybe this was out there, but I don't remember seeing this in print like this.
• More recently, they built a recording studio on a piece of land in Marin County called Dead Patch. 
• Again, I don't recall that particular appellation being made public at the time.
• "Garcia is now playing banjo [sic] with Merle [sic] Saunders in a band called Legion of Mary, and it wouldn't be surprising if he turned up with the New Riders of the Purple Sage … Bob Weir is working with a new band on a new album called 'Kingfish'. Phil Lesh is experimenting with bio-feedback (doing research with his bass and computers), and Kreutzmann is drumming with Commander Cody (for fun)".[i] 
• Obviously a little wire crossing on Jerry. When did it become public that Kingfish was doing an album? The BK thing is interesting because he didn't mention it in Deal and this is narrated as a very bad time for him.
• names names: Mickey Hart "left after it was discovered his father had put the band into over $100,000 worth of debts".[i]
• Again, I don't recall all that much that was said so publicly and directly making this connection. Since I just read BK's book, in which he's rather blunt about his feelings toward Mickey at this time, this again jumped out at me.

I guess the pattern I observe is that the author had some very inside information here. Surely he called the office and Rock or someone was being voluble. Am I mis-reading this, or do these kinds of details just seem anachronistically well-informed for Hit Parader. (This very article includes the line "Their records are excellent companions for LSD trips" (p. 39).

Anyway ..

Cohen, Scott. 1975. How to Live the Grateful Dead. Hit Parader (September), 38-40.

 

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[i] Cohen 1975, 40.

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[i] Cohen 1975, 40.