Jerry Band SoCal '89

LN jg1989-05-19.jgb.all.aud-tfh.24537.flac1644

LN jg1989-05-20.jgb.all.sbd-miller.20679.shn2flac

LN jg1989-05-22.jgb.all.aud-ebay-liberation.150868.flac2448

The Jerry Band in SoCal

After the Jerry Band started in 1975, SoCal trips were mostly one, two- and few-offs - no real tours as we define them at Jerrybase. Starting in spring 1983, the band started doing what were called "tours" in-house, but were typically just a couple days, couple of rooms:

• March 11-13, 1983: three nights, two rooms, five shows
• August 1983: a few canceled gigs, not sure how many nights/rooms/shows were ever totally solidified
• September 30 - October 4, 1983: makeups for the August gigs, five nights (one off), three rooms, four shows
• May 17-20, 1984: four nights, four rooms, four shows
• May 31, 1985: just the one night, two shows at the Beverley, fleecing the fans

These were all arranged between the Jerry folks (sometimes with John Scher brokering) and the local promoters. In 1986, Bill Graham took over Jerry's SoCal gigs, which for several years are Wiltern dominant. Here's the rest of the Garcia-in-SoCal story:

• May 23-24, 1986: two nights, two rooms, two gigs
• March 13-14: two nights at the Wiltern
• December 3-6, 1987: four nights at the Wiltern in the acoustic-electric format
• November 25-27, 1988: three nights at the Wiltern
• May 19-22, 1989: four nights, three gigs, three amphitheaters
• November 11-16, 1990: five nights out of six at the Wiltern
• July 29 - August 2, 1992: five nights, four gigs, four amphitheaters
• April 16-18, 1993: three nights, three gigs, two arenas
• May 13-19, 1994: seven nights, five-and-a-half gigs, five amphitheaters

As with everything else in the Garciaverse, institutionalization is more or less the story. Things went from pretty fly-by-night in the first half of the 80s to professional, streamlined in the last decade. Graham wanted it all, and the fact that Scher ran Jerry's SoCal stuff apparently irked him. I suppose that Bill getting the Wiltern was the real pivot - he had a great room for Jerry to play that was appropriately scaled. You might say the same thing up north, especially as Jerry got too big for Freddie's clubs. And once the Warfield was renovated (I still have never seen a perfectly clear timeline for that), certainly by late 1989 through to the end, it was probably most efficient to have Wolfgang run the whole west coast.

There's more to say about Jerry in SoCal, which I will try to get to in Fate Music. In short, a disproportionate number of negative things happened to Jerry, or involving Jerry, south of, let's say, Gaviota Point. He was a third-generation San Franciscan, and the antagonisms between SF and LA (north and south more broadly) make all kinds of sense, what with the whole good-and-evil dichotomy at work there (heh heh). It is just kind of funny that SoCal had more than its fair share of bullshit.

That's one set of background conditions, more just historical than anything.

Expectations

My expectations supply a second set of background conditions. Here, they were extremely high. Here's how I described my sense of the overall period writing some eight years ago:

For my money, 1988-1989 is one of the great JGB periods, which a fresh and healthy Jerry (that's what starts to break down, for me, 1990-1991), solid band, some fresh material, rehearsed arrangements, and lots of classic American songs. Nothing too crazy, lots of good music.

In that same post, I had described spring '89 as "a peak period for me". All of that was based on the following, I think.

• I have long been hamina-hamina crazy about 2/5/88.
• 7/10/88 is happy, healthy Jerry, and feels amazing to me to listen to.
• Halloween '88 is more great unscary Jerry.
• The January '89 Orpheums (1/27 linked above) are great, with 1/28/89 being truly special.
• The March Orpheum shows have also struck me as nice, though not astonishing (here are notes on 3/3)
• I have long known about the MONSTER Don't Let Go on 5/19/89.
• I really dig the clean fun feel of 6/10/89, what I consider to be the best of the three Eel River dates.
• I attended 8/26/89 and 10/31/89, and had a great time. I was 18 and life was pretty grand.
• As a political scientist of a certain age specializing in European integration, 1989 was the annus mirabulus in which the Berlin Wall fell.

Another piece of the puzzle is instinctive contrarianism, and my long-held desire to assert the "year too late" hypothesis with respect to the 1991 Jerry Garcia Band double-live CD, which is pretty self-explanatory: they recorded it in 1990, but Jerry Band in 1990, I had in my mind, was not as good as Jerry Band in 1988-1989.

True, I found a couple of duds in that timeframe, such as 12/3/88, which I thought just kinda sucked. But even when we factor that in, I had high hopes. Whoever it was who said that "expectations are the enemy of happiness", or whatever the saying is, may have been onto something.

The Jerry Band SoCal May '89 "Tour"

The three shows in the mix here underwhelmed me. 

True, "whelming" is a function of expectations, and I have already noted that mine were high.

True, the 5/19/89 Don't Let Go is one for the ages. It's right up there with some of the early '80s classics, or the shocking 2/6/94 masterpiece. Definitely top-10, maybe top-5.

True, there are some nice tapes here, including the Tapers From Hell pulling 5/19, and some rare late '80s sbds (albeit incomplete) for 5/20 and 5/22. (Where in the world did these come from??) 

But the whole batch is quite uneven, in various ways.

5/19/89 may be the weakest of the bunch. The vocals are downright bad. As a newspaper reviewer put it, "Garcia's croaked singing ... has pretty much waned from endearing to abominable". WFAM and STOF exhibit some lyrical wobbles. Good hot guitar in "Deal", but the voice is just shot. The astonishingly great "Don't Let Go" may show the compensation effect at work, and of course could be said to redeem the show all on its own. I wouldn't argue. It's great.

I find 5/20/89 the strongest of the bunch. CUTS is clean and doesn't get caught cycling at the end. "Forever Young" has some great screaming and scrubbing, "Like A Road" is real sweet, "Sisters and Brothers" ditto, and "Deal" is shreddylicious - this "Deal" KILLS. "Think" has a nice edge. Things kind of fall off for me after that, though hard to say if the advent of the atmospheric Matt Xavier Nak 300s tape is driving this. (Note, too, young'uns - chomping is as old as the hills.) The second set clocks in at a pretty paltry 46 + minutes. Even with the between song stuff mostly edited out, I think a reasonable expectation in this period is a 55-60 minute set.

I characterize 5/22/89 as "below average for the period", but I think it's probably average, and "below my expectations" would be more accurate. The guitar work in "Deal" and "Think" comes in for more praise, but overall not much moves me here, and another sub-50-minute set II also takes it down a peg.

Let me make one final note: I do think drugs are playing a role here. Trying to pin down Garcia's opiate use is mostly a fool's errand. He seems to have been mostly clean in '87 and '88, though it seems he was probably chipping on and off (Jackson 1999, 406). If Browne's account is to be believe --and I absolutely believe it-- by the time the GD were really seriously recording Built to Last, Jer was back in pretty deep. I have long felt that darkness around 8/26/89 and 10/31/89, both of which I plan to revisit soon. And the Dead's hair-raising "Dark Star" from Miami on 10/26/89 certainly earns its adjective. Finally, as noted above, I have long that that 1990 Jerry Band was overrated and exhibited some of the telltale signs that Jerry was making problematic pharmacological choices.

We are smack dab --see what I did there?-- in the middle of this window, and I think there are issues. The negative reviewer from 5/19 (Washburn 1989) didn't dig ol' Jer dealing "six-string sedatives", and he may have been closer to some truth than he knew. Colleague Mr. Completely rightly warns against "drug reductionism", and I don't intend to reduce the unevenness of these shows to drugs. But I can't shake the feeling that they are playing their part. *sigh*

Listening notes below the fold.

The Auds Have It - JGB at Irvine Meadows, May 18, 1984

LN jg1984-05-18.jgb.all.fm-ladner.32156.flac1644
LN jg1984-05-18.jgb.all.aud-french.84138.flac1644

There is a famous story of President Abraham Lincoln, taking a vote in a cabinet meeting on whether to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. All his cabinet secretaries vote nay, whereupon Lincoln raises his right hand and declares: "The ayes have it!" (source)

Just had an interesting experience highlighting the variable reactions that different tapes can generate.

In trying to be methodical in dating the birth of the longest-running GOTS aggregation, JGB #21b, to July 10 28, 1984 with the arrival of Gloria Jones, I wanted to compare some sbd tape from that night with sbd tape from the mini SoCal jaunt of May 17-20, 1984. I did so using some choruses from "Cats Under The Stars" from Irvine on May 18, for which there is an oddly-lineaged "FM-sbd" tape which the great Chris Ladner put into circulation back in the days of the tol.etree.org FTP server, when he and I did business as "misSHN in the rain" an offshoot of The Music Never Stopped Project. I think I came up with the misSHN appellation, and quite proud of it I was, too - a relatively successful triple entendre --we were on a mission, shn was the prevailing file format, and "Mission In The Rain" was primarily a song from Garcia's side projects, which was our focus-- is not that easy to come by.

Anyway, I decided to listen to the rest of the show, because I love me some '84 JGB, including the next night (5/19) and a hot hometown show a week prior (5/12), which my third grade teacher, Don Dearth, had taped. I was also  partly inspired by a new-to-digital Doug Lamarre pull of 8/13/84, which I'd like to spin soon.

It left me surprisingly cold. Not believing my ears, I decided to return to the FANTASTIC audience pull made by Mike French (shnid-84138), his first solo taping effort before he and crew gained experience as the "Tapers From Hell". As I had remembered, the tape positively screams, coming at you 6' up (Mike's chin level), from 9th row center in the orchestra pit, and Garcia is a grungy monster. Anything I note about a performance leads with a P, and I said this:

It's amazing what an aud can do. The first P note, for example, involves the effect Garcia kicks in around 5:30 (track time) of CUTS. I hadn't even noticed it earlier in this day listening to the board. Now, I go back to the board tape to find the same piece, and it's really pretty flat on the board tape, none of the zing that this aud delivers. Night and day.

The P note in question now includes "Great guitar playing. Then about 5:25 he puts some huge hairy fuzz on it, crowd lit up ... Pretty filthy." Similarly, my listening self found nothing noteworthy in the FM-sbd version of "Catfish John", but said this about the aud version: "this is one of those really long CJs that makes you marvel at how much Garcia had to say around this song. Big wah on, real round and soft, then a little more glassine ...", etc. Totally different observations emerge from the tape. Same goes for RIR. The board tape version left me unmoved, while listening to the aud I noted "raging guitar playing over 8, crowd is duly appreciative. Filthy grungy fanning, crazy power."

Und so weiter. No "team of rivals" here. The auds have it. Second set was pretty short, three tunes, which I imagine must reflect a hard curfew behind the orange curtain. Listening notes below the fold.

Last Time in Irvine: JGB at Irvine Meadows, May 15, 1994

I forewarned a few posts back that I had some backlogged listening notes, and have been posting them this weekend. They were backlogged, in many cases, because I just didn't have that much to say. I often check the date index for the blog in picking something to listen to, looking for gaps or inflection points that I might not have covered. I won't be able to cover it all, ever, but I want to get a nice sampling.

So, here we are in May of 1994. Garcia had been doing brief SoCal jaunts for many years, and especially from the early 80s on these were Bill Graham joints. From the early 80s these were generally small club and theater gigs, but by 1994 our hero was in big spaces that the Dead had pioneered, such as Irvine Meadows, behind the Orange Curtain. The venue, had the honor of hosting Jerry on his 50th birthday, years after the Grateful Dead had been banned by the city because of unruly fan hairdos behavior. The May 15, 1994 gig came just three days after Jerry had signed the last, eventually highly-contested version of his will, and was the third of six shows in seven nights. This little southwest mini-tour, his last, ended with a thud when our hero, for the only time in his career that I can think of, started a show but couldn't finish it, a flu in Phoenix ending the May 19th show after a single set.

If Robbi Cohn's photos from Irvine are any indication, Jerry may well have caught the flu from John, who looks decidedly green.

Jerry and John, 5/15/94. Photo by Robbi Cohn, reproduced with permission. Visit www.deadimages.com and www.robbicohn.com to see more!

Anyway, the show has a few good moments, as in "Let It Rock", on its penultimate appearance (3/4/95). Other tunes mix some good guitar work with lots of forgotten vocals (though he never entirely falls and can't get up, nor leads me to exclaim "confused, trainwreck, yeesh, yikes", as would happen with other shows plus or minus a few months). Only "Midnight Moonlight" is worryingly bad, with Jerry changing key a few times and the whole thing not coming apart at the seams only because it was never together in the first place.

This is a great tape, as so many of these 90s DAT masters are, and generally this landed about where I expected it to, our protagonist declining but still smiling enough for Robbi to capture.

Smiling Jerry calling a song to a close, 5/15/94. Photo by Robbi Cohn, reproduced with permission. Visit www.deadimages.com and www.robbicohn.com to see more!

Jerry Garcia Band
Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre
8808 Irvine Center Dr.
Irvine, CA 92618
May 15, 1994 (Sunday) - 5 PM
Neumann KM140 shnid-145697

--set I (7 tracks, 47:54)--
s1t01. How sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [6:01] [0:28]
s1t02. They Love Each Other [6:17] [0:31]
s1t03. Let It Rock [6:58] [0:59]
s1t04. Run For The Roses [4:27] [0:14]
s1t05. Ain't No Bread In The Breadbox [10:27] [0:11]
s1t06. My Sisters And Brothers [3:58] ->
s1t07. Deal [7:13] (1) [0:10]

--set II (7 tracks, 67:27)--
s2t08. Shining Star [17:25] [0:20]
s2t09. Tore Up Over You [7:08] [0:19]
s2t10. Wonderful World [4:32] [0:54]
s2t11. Simple Twist Of Fate [11:21] [0:16]
s2t12. The Maker [9:05] [0:28]
s2t13. Lucky Old Sun [9:17] ->
s2t14. Midnight Moonlight [6:14] (2) [0:08]

! 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:

! 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/19940515-01

! JGC: http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1994-05-15

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/6632 (unknown MAD, shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/145697 (this fileset)

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

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/CddGMG2NU4x

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/02/irvine-meadows-8808-irvine-center-drive.html

! historical: $29 tickets. Robbi Cohn's pix show Jerry looking white-haired and haggard, but John looking absolutely terrible - pale greenish-greyish.

! R: field recordist: unknown

! R: field recording gear: 2x Neumann KM 140 > DAT

! R: field recording location: FOB

! 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 15, 2019.

! R: Really nice tape. The guitar tuning after HSII, e.g. at 6:29, sounds right in your face.

! P: s1t01 HSII his voice sounds wheezy, but he brings some energy.

! song: "Let It Rock" (s1t02): this is the penultimate version of the Chuck Berry rocker, last one coming 3/4/95.

! P: s1t02 LIR his guitar tone is awesome. He blows the second verse. But, again the guitar work is pretty killer, great buzzsaw tone, chopping rhythms.

! P: s1t07 Deal late 2 Jerry forgets his place and reprises the "since it costs a lot to win" thing for the third time. Ladies are doing their backing thing for awhile, and finally at 3:40, JG figures out how to fling into his big guitar. Pretty big fanning 5:21, but this hasn't burned me up yet. Some good technique, but not quite the power I need. Maybe it's the recording, which has the guitar back, but it's not melting my face. Relatively short version.

! s1t07 (1) JG: "Thanks a lot. We'll be back in a few minutes."

! P: s2t14 Mid Moon oh no - Garcia is totally off-key in the first verse, doesn't remember how to sing this. The tempo isn't settled across members of the band. I can't hear John at all.

! s2t14 (2) JG: "Thanks a lot. See y'all later."

Half Century Jerry: JGB in Irvine, August 1, 1992

In looking at the date index for the blog, I noticed I hadn't engaged a 1992 show, and the only tag for the year wasn't really focused on it. I confess that I have a strong prior that 1992 sucks. I have spun pieces of shows a time or two, and even whole ones, including 2/7/92, some of the April and early May gigs, a summer show, and 10/31/92, and never found anything to feel good about. I have it in my head that 1991 has some greatness, and 1993 has some greatness, but that 1992 had none. Update: I have now done up some notes for 4/30/92 and 10/31/92.

So, feeling a certain level of aversion, I thought that I'd pick a show with some possible meaning, so I picked Jerry's 50th birthday show, 8/1/92, from behind the Orange Curtain. I have to confess that I didn't hate it, and even found plenty to like. It pleasantly surprised me.

In the book, I plan to narrate the way the media narrated Garcia's 1992:

redemption! (the AP birthday story)

fall! (8/3/92 collapse, the dirty f!@#$% hippy probably doing drugs again)

redemption! (ca. 10/31/92, Jerry's second triumphant return, having lost a bunch of weight, smoking less, etc.)

See some of my sketchy historical notes below for some thoughts. I don't have time to write it all up right now.

Anyway, not bad, not bad at all.

jg1992-08-01.jgb.all.aud-gotfob.94028.flac1648

Jerry Garcia Band
Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre
8808 Irvine Center Dr.
Irvine, CA 92618
August 1, 1992 (Saturday) - 7 PM
Gotfob MAD flac1648 shnid-94028

--set I (7 tracks, 58:38)--
s1t01. [0:05] Cats Under The Stars [9:27] [0:05] % [0:45]
s1t02. Mission In The Rain [8:44] [1:08]
s1t03. Waiting For A Miracle [5:43] [0:49]
s1t04. Mississippi Moon [9:45] [0:16]
s1t05. Ain't No Bread In The Breadbox [7:36] [0:14]
s1t06. My Sisters And Brothers [4:28] ->
s1t07. Everybody Needs Somebody To Love [9:29] (1) [0:02] %

--set II (6 tracks, 60:46)--
s2t01. Shining Star [13:25] [1:10]
s2t02. Money Honey [7:01] [0:52]
s2t03. Knockin' On Heaven's Door [8:30] %
s2t04. The Maker [6:34]
s2t05. Don't Let Go [13:40] [0:08] %
s2t06. /What A Wonderful World (2) [8:45] %

! ACT1: JGB #21b
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-guitar, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-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; [ ] = 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/19920801-01

! JGC: http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1992-08-01

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/CddGMG2NU4x

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/02/irvine-meadows-8808-irvine-center-drive.html.

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

! historical: Garcia's 50th birthday. Tickets were $28.75, $6-$10 more than the contemporary shows, so one paid a premium to hear Jerry play his own party. It's a fascinating little period: this very day, an AP item made the rounds ticking off Garcia's recent productivity, including JGB, Garcia-Grisman, and Ken Nordine albums, artistic accomplishments, and of course the Dead's record-setting 1991 touring receipts. Then after one more SoCal show, he'd collapse again on August 3, not quite as seriously as in 1986, but seriously enough that he had to cancel August 6-7-8 Warfield JGB shows and then 22 paydays with the Dead, including the planned Third Decadenal Field Trip, reprising a legendarily acid-soaked 1972 gig in Prankster Ken Kesey's neck of the woods. It was serious enough that Garcia even allegedly cut back on his smoking, and definitely lost a bunch of weight, returning to the stage to a third round of national publicity on Halloween night with the JGB. If the health crisis was a little less serious than in '86, and the "back from the brink" narrative was similar, his return to health was less triumphal and much shorter-lived, with Manasha alleging in court papers that ol' Jer was back on the junk before year's end. Indeed, if after '86 Garcia hit new heights --and I think he did-- the post-'92 recovery was merely local, and it's not wrong to envision a slow shuffle from 50 to the grave.

! R: Source: FOB > Schoeps > DAT @ 48k

! R: Transfer: Fostex D5 > Zoltrix 24/96 > Wavelab 5.0 @ 48k(normalized to -1db, edits, crossfades) > Cd Wave > 16/48 FLAC. *Brought To You By Gotfob*.

! P: s1t01 CUTS comes out dragging, but that's as much my priors, I think. This is good.

! R: s1t07 ENSTL fixed right channel mic bump @ 4:25 with left channel pasted in)

! P: s1t07 ENSTL JG doing some nicely layered, complex stuff 5 min mark.

! s1t07 (1) JG: "We'll be back in a little while - thank you."

! P: s2t02 MH they don't have the added piece to the arrangement yet.

! R: s2t03-04 KOHD, Maker fixed pause between knockin/maker crossfaded w/-12db fast.

! P: s2t03 Maker started it in a higher key than he would eventually do, he comes back down after the first few lines. Flubbing lyrics. He doesn't have the lyrical arrangement down, either. When did they start playing this?

! P: s2t05 DLG 7 drops into a faster, interesting space. An interesting version.

! R: s2t05 DLG song faded out, removed  the gap & fixed the fade in.

! R: s2t06 WAWW clips in

! P: s2t06 WAWW this is the Louis Armstrong song. John flutters around as a "feature" in the 5 min range. The tune overall is good though.

! s2t06 (2) JG: "Good night everybody. Thank you very much."

! P: overall, I found this to be very solid.