The Little Engine That Could

LN jg1978-03-10.jgb.all.aud-zimmerman-minches.80887.flac1644

Love this image of Jerry's face on a locomotive.

The show didn't do that much for me, though I do give rare praise to Dixie Down.

Reviewer paints a picture of the Dirty F$%^ing Hippies and assorted others:

The dressing room backstage at the Auditorium Theater [sic] has that lived-in look. The air is thick with various kinds of smoke. Cigarette butts litter the floor. On two long tables in a corner the remains of a catered meal are decaying. There are a lot of people hanging around who found the meaning of life in 1967. They look a little worn around the edges. Hells Angels in greasy and tattered denim are stomping around in pointed-toe boots. Beefy security guards eye them, nervously.
Jerry Garcia's in town.

Jerry Garcia Band
Auditorium Theatre
875 East Main Street
Rochester, NY 14605
March 10, 1978 (Friday)
Zimmerman MAC shnid-80887 flac1644

--set I (6 tracks, 5 tunes, 63:21)--
s1t01. crowd and tuning [0:56]
s1t02. Harder They Come [11:59] [2:02]
s1t03. Mission In The Rain [9:48] [1:14] % [0:06]
s1t04. Russian Lullaby [13:26] -14:58
s1t05. I Second That Emotion [11:15] -13:50
s1t06. Mystery Train [8:06] (1) [0:25]

--set II + encore (8 tracks, 7 tunes, 75:41)--
-- set II (7 tracks, 6 tunes, 64:38)--
s2t01. crowd and tuning [0:32]
s2t02. Love In The Afternoon
s2t03. They Love Each Other
s2t04. Tore Up Over You [8:03] -11:10
s2t05. Simple Twist Of Fate [11:34] -13:41
s2t06. I'll Be With Thee [5:17] [0:23] % [0:16]
s2t07. Night They Drove Old Dixie Down xxx some pre-encore tuning here
--encore (1 track, 11:03)--
s2t08. Midnight Moonlight


! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-guitar, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;
! lineup: Buzz Buchanan - drums;
! lineup: Keith Godchaux - keyboards, harmony vocals;
! lineup: Donna Jean Godchaux - backing vocals;
! lineup: Maria Muldaur - backing vocals.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; # = truncated timing; { } = time as tracked on this recording; [ ] = recorded even 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/19780310-05

! db: this is the only circulating tape of this show as of 11/18/2017.

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

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/auditorium-theater-885-east-main-st.html.

! ad: Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, February 26, 1978, p. 6G;

! ref: Billboard, March 25, 1978, p. 114;

! review: King 1978

! seealso: JGMF, "Come back for Garcia Band. Come back, come back." URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2017/12/come-back-for-garcia-band-come-back.html (interview from earlier in the day).

! R: field recordist: Alan Zimmerman

! R: field recording gear: 2x Sony 54P or Sony ECM 99 > Teac PC-10

! R: field recording media: 1st Set on Sony FeCr-90; 2nd Set on Maxell UD XLII-90

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

! R: low levels muffled low vox some static. Not a great tape, but the only one circulating as of this writing (10/15/2017).

! s1t04 RL a very nice dropping sequence 4:30 ish.

! s1t06 (1) JG: "Thanks a lot. We're gonna take a break [inaudible], we'll be back in a little bit. Thank you."

! P: s2t05 STOF I love the careful Dylanesque inflections

! P: s2t07 TNTDODD very nice!

Fall 1971: Keith Speaks, records, FM broadcasts

van Matre, Lynn. 1972. The Grateful Dead Haven't Changed Much. Now Sound 1, 4 (January): 4, 14.

Very brief little piece, the text of which I reproduce in full, à la Dead Sources, below the fold.

Here, just a few bullets, I'll also file under "reading notes".

• The interview material with Phil Lesh and Keith Godchaux is from 10/22/71, based on one of Keith's comments. 

• Now Sound is new to me, a Chicago area music paper covering just about every genre, with blurbs and chart info. Lynn van Matre also wrote for the Chicago Tribune and reviewed a bunch of Dead and Garcia shows over the years.

•  Phil expresses being sick of constantly touring, wishing to get more out of their records. 

• Keith speaks!

Keith's background is strictly West Coast club work. About a year ago, he attended a Dead concert at Winterland. 'A very heavy flash,' Keith says. 'I'd never conceived of playing with them. I had my own trip, and couldn't see the two mixing. I met Jerry and talked to him and somehow things just worked out. So, last night was my second concert with them. Touring's great, but I've had a hard time keeping a sense of continuity.' (van Matre 1972, 14)

• Records: Skullfuck has gone gold. They owe WB two more records. "They're eager to do one more studio album. They're also considering recording their upcoming European tour which begins in May." LIA's devastating "Brotherhood vs. Machine" post quotes Hunter, from an interview with Silberman which he helpfully links, calling the planned studio record Rambling Rose, as part of a " Workingman's Dead/American Beauty/Rambling Rose trilogy". I still don't understand why they didn't do that studio album! It would have been great, and instead, indeed, they chewed most of it up on the E72 release. I am sure they had their reasons. 

• And, for Corry, note the use of FM broadcasts as a way to have their cake of playing out, sometimes in cool theaters like the Auditorium, selling tickets, but without creating hassles for towns and fans. Of course, selling records is expressly desired, too.

The end of the November 1974 Jerry Garcia - Merl Saunders (JGMS) east coast tour

There is so much to say about the November 1974 east coast tour undertaken by the Jerry Garcia / Merl Saunders group (the quintet of Garcia [el-g, vocals], Saunders [keyboards, vocals], John Kahn [el-bass], Martin Fierro [horns], and future Lawrence Welk drummer Paul Humphrey).

Garcia had done two national "tours" outside the Grateful Dead prior to this one.

• First, in January 1972, he went out with Howard Wales behind the Douglas Record Hooteroll? on something like a 10-date tour. I think we have barely scratched the surface with that tour.
• Second, in June 1973 Old And In The Way booked a midwest/east coast bluegrass festival tour which seems to have fallen apart after a scant 3-4 gigs. Again, we know next to nothing about this.
• Third, we have this tour. (The gigs at the Bottom Line, New York, NY, July 1-3, 1974 were one-offs, more like "scouting trips" for the tour, in my eyes. One helluva party, it seems like, and another barely documented episode.)

It began at the Bottom Line on Tuesday, November 5, 1974, and ended, I will argue, on Sunday, November 17, 1974 at the Auditorium Theatre in Rochester, NY. By my count the group played 22 shows in 12 days. I am not going to narrate the whole tour, just the end.

TJS currently has the tour running through a Monday night (November 18, 1974) show in The Dome at C.W. Post College in Greenvale, NY. Ryan's note says "All tapes I've seen with this date are really 11/08/74." Indeed. There was a show on Friday, November 8, 1974 in The Dome at C.W. Post College. There are several different tapes and lots of eyewitness accounts (though I'd love to gather more!). It seems pretty open and shut to me that the "11/18/74" dating is just a transcription error from "11/8/74". Not sure the point even needs belaboring, but I guess I'll go ahead and summarize all of the reasons this date is probably bogus:

• there is lots of evidence for 11/8, no evidence for 11/18 except mislabeled tape;
• easy to make "11/8" become "11/18".
• Why would they come back to the same venue ten days later?
• Why would they do so on a Monday night?

So this is what I think of as a "mere mislabel". The chances that it happened are tiny. How should these data be kept, and for example how should they be displayed at TJS?


In sum, I conclude that the current listing for Garcia and Saunder at C.W. Post College on November 18, 1974 is based on a mislabel of tapes from November 8th.

If "11/18/74" wasn't the last show of the tour, what was? For the night before (Sunday, November 17, 1974), TJS lists Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders at the Auditorium Theatre (*not* the Rochester War Memorial Auditorium) in Rochester, NY. It notes a 145 minute audience recording, which I do not believe I have heard. It also notes information from "Mark Wilkins", who presumably attended the show. There's a quite complete looking setlist as well. I would note, finally, that there is a listing in the (Canandaigua, NY) Daily Messenger, Thursday, November 14, 1974, section two, front page. So, lots of evidence that this show happened, and finishing on a Sunday makes a certain amount of sense.

So far I hope to have done the following:

• established that "11/18/74" is a "phantom gig";
• invite feedback on this is a type of phantom gig, and how TJS might represent such data;
• established that 11/17/74 did occur and was the final show of the 12-day, 22-show marathon (or is it a sprint?) northeast tour.

One last point I'd like to make is that John Kahn seems to have finished up with Garcia and Saunders and picked right up with Maria Muldaur's road band. Nice scheduling!

• The first Maria Muldaur gig from this tour that I have come across is, you guessed it, Monday, November 18, 1974 (Avery Fisher Hall in New York, NY). It was reviewed in Billboard (1). John Kahn is not mentioned.
• 
  
• The second one I came across was the same billing (Maria Muldaur, Livingston Taylor) at the Music Hall in Boston, MA on Friday, November 22, 1974. This was in an ad in the Boston Phoenix (November 12, 1974, p. 6, in the "Don Law Presents" space). 

Obviously I am not trying to narrate this Muldaur tour, though the Kahn story will eventually require all of that to be done. I am just noting the transition for John: finish with Jerry on the 17th, head back to the city for Maria on the 18th. Few more paying gigs (and maybe quite a few ... where were they until the 26th?), not too bad!

I suppose my point about this is that, in those days, Kahn was quite a busy musician. I don't think Garcia was carrying Kahn in 1974.


REFERENCE:
Stephen, Jim. Talent In Action: Maria Muldaur, Livingston Taylor, Avery Fisher Hall. Billboard, December 14, 1974, pp. 21, 31.