AFM6 San Francisco Sessions Dataset, 1967-1972

Tony Orbasido was running the American Federation of Musicians' Local No. 6 in San Francisco when I started asking him about researching in whatever papers they had. What they had was two 4-drawer filing cabinets stuff with studio recording contracts. I think the union didn't keep gig contracts in hard copy beyond 3-4 years for space reasons, and there were no gig contracts relevant to me.

This was before I could take legible cellphone pictures. I had to run Xerox copies of what I wanted. In later years, I progressively digitized these paper copies. The sample is biased with respect to anything in the Garciaverse, because I was explicitly looking for and only gathering out to Spudfactor = 1 musicians, in addition to Garcia himself. As I have reported, the Jerry Garcia and Grateful Dead contents of these files was dramatically light. I think Tony O said someone had come through and gathered them up. This could well have been the Jerry Garcia Estate, but I do not know that. Anyway, within the limits of the media I was working with, I was able to go through 1967-1972 pretty thoroughly.

I published the Garcia-relevant stuff in batches. By way of making an index, here they are.

San Francisco Sessions, 1967-1968 (August 4, 2015)

San Francisco Sessions, 1969 (August 5, 2015)

San Francisco Sessions, 1970 (August 9, 2015)

San Francisco Sessions, 1971 (July 3, 2016)

San Francisco Sessions, 1972 (November 18, 2017)

Altogether, this is my AFM6 San Francisco Sessions Dataset, 1967-1972

Hartbeats to New Riders: from spacesuits to OshKosh

Somewhere I have Mickey Hart saying basically what's in the title, but I cannot for the life of me find where I got this, and the Google is not helping me.

Anyone know where Mickey might have said this?

TIA!

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/

Jerry Garcia and Friends, Sanpaku at the Matrix: May 20-21, 1969

Fascinating.

I told you all that the Examiner would yield many interesting things. Well, this is one of the most interesting. Sometimes skimming cream is worth the price of later anticlimax.

Jerry Garcia and Friends and Sam Paku [sic: Sanpaku] at the Matrix, Tuesday, May 20 and Wednesday, May 21, 1969.

Garcia's first understood public pedal steel playing happened 5/14/69 at the Underground, supposedly a Hofbrau house in Menlo Park, understood just to be him and Marmaduke. The second instance was the second day of this listing, 5/21/69.

So, do we imagine this is Jerry and his pedal steel, and maybe Marmaduke and his songs?

If not, then what?

Magic at the Edge of the Western World

Picture of the Murdering Punks at the Inn

A little piece in the from the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat on the tenth anniversary of the Inn of the Beginning in Cotati notes that "A picture spread in the Pacific Sun featured Jerry Garcia and the New Riders of the Purple Sage playing there in their early days". Great - now I *have* to track that down.

! ref: Jensen, Sophia. 1978. Inn celebrates its beginning. Press-Democrat (Santa Rosa, CA), September 29, p. 1B.

Dropping in Robertson Gym (gd1969-01-17)

The Grateful Dead and Santa Barbara are two great things that go great together. One little mystery has always centered on the location of the January 17, 1969 gig. The gig was absent from Deadbase, is listed as Unknown Venue chez Deadlists, and circulates from Vault -> Latvala -> world tape as “Civic Auditorium, Santa Barbara, CA”, which Corry has noted does not exist. He’s right about that (as far as I know), but his alternative explanation, that the gig was at the Santa Monica Civic, is incorrect.

The gig was in Santa Barbara. Like another one a mere four months later (5/29/69), it took place in Robertson Gymnasium (“Rob Gym” for those who pick up games there), on the stunning campus of U.C. Santa Barbara (UCSB). [update: I see that dead.net already knew this.] Must have been a ‘head or two on the Program Council that year, though, as I'll note, looks like only the latter was fully campus-sponsored.

Background: Grateful Dead in Santa Barbara

Deadlists:
4/29/67 Earl Warren Showgrounds Santa Barbara CA
1/17/69 Unknown Venue Santa Barbara CA
5/29/69 Robertson Gym - University Of California Santa Barbara CA
5/20/73 Campus Stadium - University Of California Santa Barbara CA
5/25/74 Campus Stadium - University Of California Santa Barbara CA
2/27/77 Robertson Gym - University Of California Santa Barbara CA
1/13/78 Arlington Theatre Santa Barbara CA
6/4/78 Campus Stadium - University Of California Santa Barbara CA

There are some interesting Jerry engagements in lovely old Santa Barbara, too, but I will break form and ignore them for now.

Ads and Such

With a little slaving over a hot microfilm reader, I found the following:

! ad: El Gaucho, January 16, 1969, p. 3;
! caption: El Gaucho, January 17, 1969, p. 1;
! ad: El Gaucho, January 17, 1969, p. 3;
! listing: El Gaucho, January 17, 1969, p. 5.

Here’s the day-of-show ad:

"Kappa Sigma presents In Concert Santana Blues Band / Grateful Dead / Travel Agency, lights by Dry Paint, January 17 [1969], 8:30 PM, Robertson Gym (Bring Your Own Pillow)"

Brief Analysis

Thank you, El Gaucho!

The ad reinforces the lost-from-memory feel of the gig, a bit of an in-your-face guerilla exercise with Kappa Sigma. The Santana Blues Band and its successors are well documented, and this show is not listed at the canonical Santanamigos site. If I were an objective observer, I would say SBB headlines over the Dead as a matter of presentation, which is pretty amazing given how early in Santana's run this occurred. It's useful to remember just how Spanish Santa Barbara is, perhaps - maybe Santana would bring the vaqueros' kids in from the high school.

El Gaucho advertises what's going to go down in technicolor glory, even through bad microfilm in black and white. In the sweet spot, top-left of the front page, soak in the picture of a bunch of crazed Deadfolk in various degrees of sprawling on the steps of 710 Ashbury, over caption beginning “DROPPING IN ROBERTSON GYM”, (caps original), and a–wink-wink and a-nudge-nudge.

Bring Your own Pillow

Perhaps it’s no surprise that the show seems to have fallen somewhat out of memory – many may not have imprinted for very long in situ, more the decaying trails of an up-close camera flash.

Listening to the Dead tape now and it's pretty bad. Pigpen is lost in Lovelight, even Dark Star > Steven > Eleven leave me totally flat. Death Don't is good, TIFTOO is fine but uneventful, and a *very* tentative Cosmic Charlie closes things out. The show is way below average for the period, for sure. It sounds like a good crowd which cheers a lot for the Lovelight (maybe the sound was bad), but eventually The Man drops in and shut things down, and young Mr. Weir puts a point on things:

They say that's all there is, so I guess that's all there is.

And goodnight to you, too.

Altamont Dreams

I have so little time for this hobby these days. I have fallen way behind on my reading, but I really look forward to reading Joel Selvin's Altamont, among other things.

With that in mind, I did want to put down this little tidbit I found in the Grateful Dead Archive at UCSC concerning the December 4-7, 1969 Dead shows at Fillmore West (1). I can't remember if there are additional pages of this in the folder, but there's a handwritten page which looks basically to be a handwritten (not sure by whom - Lenny? Rock?) contract addendum, probably drafted early December sometime.

Condition. In the event of a free concert, it is agreed that the members of the Grateful Dead and the members of Fillmore West families will participate in said concert and hereby forego the Saturday evening [12/6] performance at the Fillmore West. The Grateful Dead will forego $2,000 - and no comps for Saturday nite.

Condition. Because of the extraordinary circumstances surrounding this coming weekend and the presence of the Rolling Stones, Terry Reid parties -- also the homecoming of the Jeff Plane -- it is hereby requested that the promoter provide the Grateful Dead 75 more comps.

Request. That in the event of a free concert, the Grateful Dead and the Rolling Stones hereby request permission to use the premises of Fillmore West Saturday nite for a private, by invite only party -- the most memorable evening in San Francisco ballroom history!!

Ahhhh, what might have been!

REFERENCE:
(1) Grateful Dead Archive, Special Collections, UC Santa Cruz, ms 332 Series 2: Business, Box 2, Folder "Contracts - Fillmore West, December 4-7, 1969 - Production".

Green Green Grass Of Home

This show (GD 5/31/69) is a maxed-out masterpiece. Mamma mia. Play it loud!
Random tape archaeology: this is shnid-76, very early in the shn game.

https://goo.gl/maps/T4udv2YuEAR2
44.0417292,-123.0763108

! Corry: "when the Dead headlined McArthur Court on May 31, 1969, it was one of the biggest rooms that they had headlined up until that time. The show appears to have been scheduled for the track stadium (Hayward Field) and moved indoors, but in any case it was a sign of the Dead's status in Oregon."

! ad: Oregon Daily Emerald, May 28, 1969, p. unk, via URL http://home.earthlink.net/~deadtraders/images/from_oregon/HAYWARD.JPG;

! Corry: Arnold, Corry. 2011. Grateful Dead Pac-10 Home Court Analysis. Lost Live Dead, February 15, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2011/02/grateful-dead-pac-10-home-court.html, accessed 5/31/2016.


! song: Green Green Grass Of Home
Lyrics: Curly Putman
Music: Curly Putman
http://www.whitegum.com/~acsa/songfile/GREENGRS.HTM
http://www.deaddisc.com/songs/Green_Green_Grass_Of_Home.htm.  5/31/69 version struck me as a real Garcia masterpiece. He achieved that sound he was searching for quite nicely, thankyouverymuch (as Babbs might say). Weir sings it well - he had a great memory for these country tunes, and he "Bobby Ace" was stepping forward for the first time right in this period. He sounds great. Garcia's steel is getting "that sound" that you want from the steel, Ralph Mooney and Tom Brumley's sounds, for starters.

Investing in Marmaduke

Some notes-to-self.

Corry:

The Grateful Dead family was interested in turning John Dawson into a recording artist as early as 1968, and willing to spend their own studio time to do it, even though nothing ever came of it, so the New Riders project can be seen as a solution rather than a random idea.

I do think this slips a little into "functional fallacy", of postulating as the cause of some beneficial thing the mere fact that it is beneficial, ergo, folks must have wanted it and caused it to be produced. It might have been that they loaned him a bunch of money as friends, and then contributed so as to increase the probability of future repayment. So that would be "money -> idea" rather than "idea -> money" (in which case we are 180 degrees from our usual positions).

LIA seems to agree that the idea of Dawson as a "solution" doesn't follow from what we know: "we don't know what the purpose of the Dawson demo was, if Garcia himself had any plan or record-label in mind, or if Dawson just wanted to shop around various companies, or if there was thought to be any leverage from Dawson's 'Dead connection'."

Either way, cool insight: this is "as if" it were an early investment in a more diversified portfolio of commercializable music - absolutely fascinating.

updates

LIA comments "If indeed the Dead were giving some of their studio time to an old buddy, it strikes me as a precursor to the Round Records idea", an interesting thought. JGMF, in comments:

I agree with LIA (in comments) and you that Round becomes the formalized expression of some basic elements of the Garciaverse: he wanted to help out his friends with paying gigs, and the world demanded that he monetize himself (in addition to giving time, effort and layers of skin) to achieve that. For all of his other flaws, Garcia was an unusually generous friend. Think about how many lives were "made," how many properties in Marin and Sonoma made affordable, by professional involvement with Jerry. Man had the Midas Touch.

JGMF, in comments, where apparently I have already had the same urge to think through the titular proposition. At least I agree with myself that this is interesting!

[Corry says] "I find it strange that no record company was interested in John Dawson's demos." Here's a flyer: maybe the record companies insisted on some demonstrable GD/Garcia connection, e.g. a playing contribution from Jerry, as a condition of signing on his friends? This necessity drove (at least to some extent) Garcia's constitutive role in the NRPS, which is consistent with your idea that the NRPS was a solution (a band with Garcia, i.e., one that could sell records) to a problem (Jerry's desire to help his ol' pal Marmaduke).

Bear Tracks and Bear Drops in the Bear Republic

"Slewfoot" was a great selection for the Dead's Santa Rosa shows June 27-28, 1969: "Bear tracks" in the Bear Republic.

date	venue	city	state
6/11/69	California Hall	San Francisco	CA
6/21/69a	Fillmore East	New York	NY
6/27/69	Veterans Auditorium	Santa Rosa	CA
6/28/69	Veterans Auditorium	Santa Rosa	CA
7/3/69	Reed's Ranch	Colorado Springs	CO
7/4/69	Kinetic Playground	Chicago	IL
7/12/69	NY State Pavilion, Flushing Meadow Park, Queens	New York	NY
8/2/69	Family Dog at the Great Highway	San Francisco	CA
12/31/69	Boston Tea Party	Boston	MA

6/27, Corry: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2009/07/june-27-1969-sonoma-county-fairgrounds.html
6/27, Bear: https://archive.org/details/gd69-06-27.sbd.samaritano.20547.sbeok.shnf
6/28, Bear:  https://archive.org/details/gd69-06-28.sbd.samaritano.20548.sbeok.shnf

Some classic 6/28 banter, including Phil, "This song is about Bear Drops". Heh heh - that'd be an LSD reference, ladies and gents.

Oh yeah, can I get a ruling on the venue? Deadlists gives Veterans Auditorium, Corry gives Sonoma County Fairgrounds.

San Francisco Sessions, 1969

update: changed title 20160319

San Francisco Sessions Series

• San Francisco Sessions, 1967-1968
• San Francisco Sessions, 1969
• San Francisco Sessions, 1970
• San Francisco Sessions, 1971
• San Francisco Sessions, 1972 

Moving through the Garciaverse, I pick up lots of pieces that are more degrees of separation out from Jerry than I can ever have real occasion to write-up, except purely on grounds of the shedding necessary to free up scarce cognitive resources. Thus was born my series San Francisco Sessions, which will run through 1972, I think.

/update

I just posted some random gatherings from SF (mostly studio) sessions, 1967-1968, mostly involving people who cross the Garciaverse in some way or who just interest me (e.g., QMS).

More of the same, 1969, with some half-baked effort to put in bold the names of folks with whom Garcia shared a stage.

A few fun ones, for me:

• I love that the Mule and the Bloomfielders did a radio commercial for Country Club Malt Liquor. I am sure that stuff went down smooth.
• A Howard Wales sighting! Ever the obscurity, even the union doesn't know his address.
• I notice Richard Greene and Kahn working a Brewer & Shipley session together on December 1st - I am not sure I knew that Greene had crossed into the Kahn-o-verse in this way.
• Question: is James Cooke of the Steve Miller sessions a.k.a. Curley Cooke, or is that someone different?

Anyway, please do leave name corrections, random thoughts, hoots and jeers in comments.

Eskimo Blue Day

Just found Garcia at Heider's (SF) on May 27, 1969 with the Airplane (Grace, Paul, Spencer, Jorma - very vew times I have found all of the Jeffersons listed on the same sessions!). What's interesting is that, as far as I know, Garcia is only known to have contributed (pedal steel) to "The Farm" on Volunteers. This session shows them working on "Eskimo Blue Day". Now, that doesn't mean he didn't work up some steel for "The Farm" on this date. And it could be that they didn't end up using whatever he might have recorded for "Eskimo Blue Day". It doesn't mean shit to a tree, of course, but I find it interesting.

That fiddle!

https://archive.org/details/gd1969-08-03.sbd.miller.30652.sbeok.flac16

I can't believe how great the guest fiddler is on this show, 46 years ago today. There's also a sax and maybe a few other mystery players.

Goddamn, I wish I could have seen a show at the Family Dog.

Seasons Of My Heart

Deadlists, Deadbase, GD19691003

I understand that the Deadbase guys are making a 50th anniversary print edition. I doubt I'll get it, because I already have Deadbase I, II, III and IX, and though they promise updates based on the wave of information that has emerged in the digital era (starting with Deadlists, and moving through LLD, LIA's work, some of my tidbits, etc. etc.). I hope they give credit where it is due in respect of all those and countless other sites from which, if they have done a good job, they will have gleaned their updated info.

In the spirit of updating The List, I note that Lenny Kaye (1969) drops a few little setlist nuggets about the Dead's Boston Tea Party gig on Friday, October 3, 1969, with respect to which It (i.e., Deadlists) currently shows nothing, mentioning a long jam around/into some Anthem of the Sun material and a resurrection of that Old Chestnut, "In The Midnight Hour", apparently with Garcia on pedal steel (!).

That info should go to Deadlists, if it were ever to be updated. And the fact that Deadbase 50 is already printed and can't take this info onboard speaks to the limits of the print medium for this kind of thing (without denying its considerable other charms). Anyway, there you have it.

--> Kaye, Lenny. 1969. The Grateful Dead: The Year of the Dead. Fusion, November 14, pp. unk, via rocksbackpages.

"Hoagy Carmichael is making a fortune – Jerry Garcia is starving"

So said in August 1969 one David Rubinson, Fillmore Records head who had been a producer at Columbia Records, working with Big Brother, Mike Bloomfield, Moby Grape, The Chambers Brothers and Taj Mahal, and other groups ("if picasso" 1969).

It's a good line.

It especially caught my eye because, in sniffing around 12/12/73, I went to the Archive to check out the Dead show from that night. The show is not very good, especially for the period. But this particular fileset has the Atlanta soundcheck, lots of interesting little nuggets. There are far fewer soundcheck tapes out and about than there should be, if you ask me. The first track is identified as "Sleigh Ride" (wiki), and there is a bar of that. But at around 2:40 of that first track, Keith and Jerry work up a few turns with "Heart And Soul" composed by none other than, you guessed it, Hoagy Carmichael.

So let's consider this a marker to talk about Garcia (named after Jerome Kern), who in this period was working up a stunning version of Irving Berlin's "Russian Lullaby", playing show tunes, and a tie-in to Hoagy Carmichael, who twice, independently, crossed my radar on this day.

REFERENCE:
"if picasso fucks my wife i'll kick his ass," NOLA Express, August 29, 1969, pp. 8-9; apparently reprinted from Good Times.

GD at Gold Rush Festival, Lake Amador, CA, October 4, 1969 - CXL

"Tribe Pushes Gold," Berkeley Tribe, September 12-18, 1969, p. 13.

"Gold Rush is on - 24 hours of rock-folk-blues on the shores of Lake Amador, a private lake resort miles from anything. " Scheduled for October 4th, planned acts include Ike and Tina Turner, Sons of Champlin, Taj Mahal, Grateful Dead, John Fahey, Cold Blood, Albert Collins, Linn County, Al Wilson, Country Weather, Daybreak, Kaleidoscope and Southwind.

Things look to have been pretty far advanced, with lots of buy-in from various hip community forces, including the Tribe.

Since the Dead played Boston that night, they certainly weren't there. Did the event happen? Either way, I'll call it a canceled Dead gig.

NRPS (formerly The Murdering Punks) - August 7, 1969

There has long been a tape identified as New Riders Of The Purple Sage (NRPS), Thursday, August 7, 1969 at the Matrix in San Francisco. Corry has found corroborating evidence for the dating, though of course the tape cannot be tied to the Ralph Gleason "On The Town" listing he found, which bills the band August 6-9.

Matt Smith has recently undertaken a great high end transfer of Will Boswell's tape of this show, somewhere (but not too far) downstream from Matrix proprietor Peter Kafer's copy.

What an opportunity! We get to hear more or less the first gig of the New Riders an sich (Corry, see link above). Marmaduke jokes that they formerly called themselves the Murdering Punks, and they certainly murdilize a few arrangements here in what sounds for all the world like a public rehearsal. Thanks to everyone involved in creating a world in which we can hear this stuff.

My notes aren't very extensive, so let me just drop a few markers.

1) Proto-New Riders. Fascinating, exceptionally sloppy stuff.

2) The tape distorts throughout, especially on the pedal steel.

3) "Kaw-Liga" is a great freaking song. See also 7/30/70, another Thursday at the Matrix.

4) Garcia's tone on the pedal steel is unlike any other I hear him achieving. I doubt he's technically very proficient, but the soaring sound of the instrument grabs you right in the lonely spot more than a few times.

5) This copy is missing a second iteration of "Last Lonely Eagle" - see my notes, which conclude that it probably was played in both sets, since the second LLE segues over continuous tape into the show-closing "Six Days On The Road". More generally, I suspect that this reel #1 and reel #3, with a reel #2 MIA from public circulation.

LISTENING NOTES

New Riders of the Purple Sage
Matrix
3138 Fillmore Street
San Francisco, CA 94123
August 7, 1969 (Thursday)
70 min PNW flac2496 shnid-133326

--15 tracks, 69:53)--

--set I (10 tracks, 43:04)--
t01. [0:27] Kaw-Liga -4:28 [0:14]
t02. If You Hear Me When I'm Leavin'
t03. tuning (1) [1:25]
t04. Superman [3:42] [0:36]
t05. Mama Tried [2:25] [0:02] % [0:11]
t06. Games People Play [5:53] [0:21]
t07. Last Lonely Eagle [5:24] [0:01] % [0:06]
t08. Truck Drivin' Man [3:09] [0:05]
t09. Me And My Uncle [3:30] (2) -4:07
t10. Delilah [3:47] (4) % pre-set II [-0:05]

--set II (5 tracks, 26:48, incomplete)
t11. Long Black Veil [5:44] % [0:06]
t12. All I Ever Wanted [8:02] [0:10]
t13. Henry [3:35] % [0:10]
t14. Don't Take Any Chances [5:21] [0:03]
[MISSING: Last Lonely Eagle ->]
t15. Six Days On The Road (5) [3:30] [0:08]

! ACT1: New Riders Of The Purple Sage
! lineup: John Dawson - rhythm guitar, vocals;
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - pedal steel guitar;
! lineup: David Nelson - lead guitar, vocals;
! lineup: Bob Matthews - bass;
! lineup: Mickey Hart - 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/19690807-01

! JGC: http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1969-08-07-the-matrix-san-francisco-ca/

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/133325 (PNW flac16); http://etreedb.org/shn/133326 (PNW flac24)

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/htd1l

! venue: http://www.chickenonaunicycle.com/Matrix%20Shows.htm 

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/08/matrix-3138-fillmore-san-francisco-ca.html

! seealso: Arnold, Corry. 2010. August 6-9, 1969 The Matrix, San Francisco New Riders Of The Purple Sage. Lost Live Dead, February 16, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/02/august-6-9-1969-matrix-san-francisco.html, consulted 6/21/2015.

! historical: The material is pretty primitive ... the official NRPS concert history at http://www.nrps.net/music/1969.html suggests that this is their 6th show, though that would include what are understood to be Garcia/Dawson duets on at least two occasions.  They certainly seem to be trying to find their feet here, and it wouldn't surprise me if this were one of the very first full-band gigs.

! personnel: LIA (comments to this post): "That is absolutely not Phil on bass. He couldn't play this primitively in '69 if he tried. The bass player has a totally different sound & fingering than Phil - he only plays the root notes, crudely & repetitively. I say it's Bob Matthews, unless a two-fingered bass player steps up as candidate."

! setlist: I surmise that we have reel #1 (the set II material) and reel #3 (the end of set II and the show). Furthermore, other dubs of the Peter Kafer tape have a second version of "Last Lonely Eagle" in set II, segueing without tape discontinuity into "Six Days On The Road". I am guessing someone left it off because they thought it extraneous, what with repeats being nearly unheard of in the Garciaverse. But the band the song are brand new, the whole thing feels like an avowed rehearsal, and I would not be surprised to learn that they had tackled it in both sets.

! R: Recording Info: MR > R (Peter Kafer) > 7.5 ips reel (Will Boswell)

! R: Transfer info:  Akai GX636 direct tape head output  > Bottlehead tube tape pre pair Tesla tubes circa 1980  > Apogee Mini Me 24/96  > Apogee Mini DAC monitoring and mastering  > FLAC. Mastered By Matt Smith, April 2015.

! R: seeder comments: Notable gain difference between songs.

! R: stunning SQ in terms of a representation of the source tape. The source tape is super bright and oversaturated, especially on the steel guitar, and the fileset faithfully captures all of that. (What else could it aim to do?)

! P: t01 What an incredible song. Not 100% together, but Hank Williams ... early 2 Garcia's pedal steel lead is just incredible - not the most gifted, but just in terms of the sound he is getting out of the instrument, trying to give acoustic form to that sound in his head.

! t03 (1) JD: "The name of this organization is the New Riders of the Purple Sage, formerly the Murdering Punks." A little later, after some stage chatter. "Oh ... I'm told there's a Murdering Punk left. There's still a murdering punk in the organization. We ain't sayin' ... for the protection of the audience. For the protection of the band, for that matter." Someone says "Let's do that 'Superman' song, JD into mic "the 'Superman' song".

! P: GPP is rather shambolic.

! R: t07 LLE tape warble 4:48, I think I hear some warbling after that.

! P: t08 TDM late 2 kind of falls out of key.

! P: t09 MAMU has that real drippy "Kaw-Liga" feel, very dark.

! t09 (2) "We're gonna play 'Delilah' and then we're gonna take a break for a couple of moments." Someone else: "Then come back and play some more."

! R: t10 more tape warble

! R: t10 (4) "Thank you. Right. //"

! P: t12 AIEW early 3 there is some very ethereal playing that reminds me of some of the bending that Garcia would do in latter-day versions of the Manhattans' "Shining Star" (youtube). Nelson is doing some real nice stuff, is that Nelson, or the steel? Wow, this is some amazing steel ethereality.

! P: t13 Henry mess up ending, but not bad overall, given the other songs.

! P: t14 DTC again there is some real ethereal stuff happening in the guitars.

! P: t15 SDOTR they don't know how to end it. These arrangements are checkered at best. This is a public rehearsal.

! t15 (5) "We're gonna make it home right now. Thank you very much."

The Common: September 5-6-7 ish, 1969

Berkeley Tribe, August 8-14, 1969, p. 3.

Regular readers will know that I have been chasing the idea of "Jerry and the Jeffersons" in my head for a good long while. It narrates the arc of Garcia's life as a process of gradual privatization. I started it years ago, have picked it up and put it down repeatedly, have kept adding to it, etc. It is stewing in my brain.

Annie's photo at the center of p. 3 of the August 8, 1969 Berkeley Tribe shows Jerry Garcia dressed as Bluto, standing and talking at a meeting of The Common, in the Family Dog On The Great Highway on the afternoon of Saturday, August 2, 1969. (This copy is a scan from my old photocopy, with all of my marginalia and stuff. Within a few years, this page will become accessible via the Independent Voices collection.)

I have a lot to say about this moment in time. I have a lot to say about The Common, though it's already very nicely trated in Michael Kramer's Republic of Rock. Kramer scooped me in using the Bluto photo - I had been holding back on it for the book, but he beat me to it. It's a great image, and he has good taste!

The idea of being scooped is a weird one that I don't want to get into. Needless to say, there are some really good bits that I am holding back for the book, some really great stuff. On the other hand, I am swimming in data, more stuff is coming out every day, and odds of really losing anything are pretty small.

Correspondingly, I wanted to drop this little nugget on you.

Good Times, September 4, 1969, p. 19.

The great Good Times entertainment listings for Friday, September 5, 1969 in the prior day's issue list at Family Dog "Malachi, Rubber Duck (mime) and a jam with members of 3 groups we're not allowed to name. Lights by Temporary."

Verrryyyy innnnterresssssssting.

First, note Rubber Duck, which is the psychedlic mime-and-minstrelsy thing around Joe McCord (see here), sometimes involving TC and Garcia.

Second, more importantly, "a jam with members of 3 groups we're not allowed to name". I don't know why, exactly, they couldn't name the bands, nor at whose request. But I wonder where Mr. Garcia was, this Friday night?

Third, the reason we ask this is that it sheds light on the tapes made by Owsley Stanley ("Bear"), dated September 6, 1969, featuring the Jefferson Airplane at the Family Dog with Garcia, Mickey Hart, and others sitting in, and Sunday, September 7th, featuring Jorma and Joey Covington, Garcia possibly playing some drums (see Dick Latvala's cassette copy jcard below), and the lot of them playing a weird little set of drunken surf music at the Edge of the Western World.

Latvala!

Naturally, Corry is on the case.  I can't really try to parse the specific dates of the specific materials, but I do think that the Good Times listing sheds new light on this event, especially in terms of my "Jerry and the Jeffersons" frame.

The guy who wrote the book which is to Airplane stuff as my listening notes are to Garcia stuff says that the jam on 9/6/69 is the "longest time of an Airplane improvisation, jam or song ever!" (Fenton 2007, 158). The Jeffersons played their asses off this night. Though the sonic journal bears some imperfections (sorry, couldn't resist), it has been featured as some sort of quasi-official release.

The Family Dog Presents the Jefferson Airplane at the Family Dog Ballroom, Featuring Special Guest Jerry Garcia (Charly SNAP 293 CD, 2007SNAP 293 CD, 2007)

Furthermore, the Jeffersons had never really been very close to Chet Helms, by appearances. I have generated some data (not ready for prime time) suggesting that these parties crossed professionally less than they should have, given the contexts in which they moved (compare JA to GD in this respect). The Jeffersons were more Bill Grahamers from the beginning, and the Dead were more Chet Helmsers. So the fact that the Airplane would play an unadvertised gig for Chet in September 1969 is noteworthy (LIA). This and the 2/4/70 "Night At The Family Dog" filmed session (see) are really the only two instances I can find of the Jeffersons doing something for Chester.

My big takeaway, though, is what this tells us about The Common, a very fragile little bloom that burst out momentarily and then faced the fate that things that live must.

REFERENCES:
Arnold, Corry. 2010. September 6-7, 1969 Family Dog At The Great Highway, San Francisco Jefferson Airplane/Grateful Dead. Lost Live Dead, January 30, 2010, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/01/september-6-7-1969-family-dog-at-great.html, last accessed 1/19/2012.
Fenton, Craig. 2007. Take Me To A Circus Tent: The Jefferson Airplane Flight Manual. West Conshohocken, PA: Infinity Publishing.
Johnson, Art. 1969a. Out on the Edge. Berkeley Tribe, August 8-14, 1969, pp. 3-4.