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 Demise of the Matrix, 1971

The Matrix at 3138 Fillmore Street (San Francisco, CA, 94123) [map | JGBP]: it's daunting to type those words and then imagine adding much to what we know, so meticulously gathered over decades. So I'll zero in on a relatively blank space: the venue's demise in 1971.

Ross Hannan and Corry Arnold's Chicken on a Unicycle hosts the data. Here's what we have from 1971 through the end of the year. (I won't discuss the venue's 1973 manifestation, which was in a different space, formerly Moulin Rouge, Casa Madrid, Mother's and Mr. D's, and later the Soul Train, Hippodrome and The Stone, at 412 Broadway (San Francisco, CA, 94133) [map | JGBP].)

Tuesday	02 February 1971	Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders
Wednesday	03 February 1971	Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders
Thursday	04 February 1971	John Fahey
Friday	05 February 1971	John Fahey
Saturday	06 February 1971	John Fahey
Monday	08 February 1971	Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders
Tuesday	09 February 1971	Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders
Wednesday	10 February 1971	Boz Scaggs
Thursday	11 February 1971	Boz Scaggs
Friday	12 February 1971	Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders
Saturday	13 February 1971	Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders
Tuesday	16 February 1971	Larry Coryell
Wednesday	17 February 1971	Larry Coryell
Thursday	18 February 1971	Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Friday	19 February 1971	Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Saturday	20 February 1971	Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Tuesday	02 March 1971	Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders
Wednesday	03 March 1971	Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders
Thursday	15 April 1971	Danny Zeitlin Trio
Friday	16 April 1971	Danny Zeitlin Trio
Saturday	17 April 1971	Danny Zeitlin Trio
Tuesday	11 May 1971	Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders
Tuesday	02 March 1971	Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders
Wednesday	03 March 1971	Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders
Thursday	15 April 1971	Danny Zeitlin Trio
Friday	16 April 1971	Danny Zeitlin Trio
Saturday	17 April 1971	Danny Zeitlin Trio
Tuesday	11 May 1971	Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders

Here is an updated table. I have posted this as a Google Documents spreadsheet which, shockingly, Blogger is entirely unable to handle other than as a link. I reproduce the table as a picture here. These data, based mostly on my research in San Francisco Chronicle microfilm at the amazing San Francisco Public Library, will be concatenated into the Chicken at some point.

Table xxx. Matrix 1971 gigs, as of 9/28/2014.

January and February don't reveal anything particularly noteworthy. On February 7, Joel Selvin (1971) published an interesting little piece in the San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Datebook (my beloved SFSECD), retracing the history of the venue and tying it to Garcia and Saunders experimenting with jazz-rock fusion in the contemporary period. Identified co-owners Ray Bregante and Peter Abrams give no hint of trouble in paradise. But then, after the reformed Sopwith Camel performs in the first week of March, the listings dry up. On March 8^th, John Wasserman reports “Disheartening news -- the Matrix closed, maybe permanently," promising more information in the Wednesday column (Wasserman 1971a). Following up, as promised:

Nobody – mainly owners Ray Bregante and Peter Abrams – seems anxious to be contacted. From good second-hand information, it appears that they just got tired of hassles and, as long as two months ago, had expressed a desire to find a bigger place or just shut down. The Matrix has been surviving by the skin of its frets for a long time but had hoped to make a profit through the release of live albums. Among other things, this hasn’t worked out. More later. (Wasserman 1971b).

The promised further information never materialized, as far as I could find. On March 24^th Wasserman (1971c) notes that the Matrix has reopened --this ended up being about a two-and-a-half week hiatus--, and listings pick up a little bit. There is no indication that the weekend with Jesse "Lone Cat" Fuller, May 14-15, will bring the curtain down. The Matrix drops from view, the Pierce Street Annex moves into the space, and the rest is history, at least until the relative present.

What happened?

I don't know. There's no reason to doubt JLW's rendering, that people just got burned out. It's probably just that simple, and is so characteristic of the human condition, bangs and whimpers mixing company, fraternizing. But I love the bookending: as the Matrix preceded the ballrooms on the front end of San Francisco's psychedelic era, it also anticipated their passing, little more than six weeks before the closing of the Fillmore West.

REFERENCES:

Selvin, Joel. 1971. The Matrix Club and the Rise of Rock. San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle Datebook, February 7, 1971, p. 4.

Wasserman, John L. 1971a. Aretha Franklin – Boss Blues Lady. San Francisco Chronicle, March 8, 1971, p. 39.

Wasserman, John L. 1971b. The Real Match Was at the Fillmore. San Francisco Chronicle, March 10, 1971, p. 54.

Wasserman, John L. 1971c. Some Travesties in the Music Biz. San Francisco Chronicle, March 24, 1971, p. 42.

See also:

Some recent cites: on 3/3/71, see "Contradictions Are Fun"; on 5/11/71 see "Hey Merl, you wanna do that tune in 'G'? Get spaced out a little?"; on Jerry and Merl at the Matrix see my lengthy discussion with Corry Arnold, "Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders at the Matrix - A Dialogue". More generally, click on the Matrix tag to see when it has come up here on the blog.

"JGMS 5/20/71" is probably really JGMS 5/20/71

The tape traveling as Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders, May 20, 1971, Keystone Korner (a.k.a. xx/xx/71 and 5/xx/71) probably really is Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders, May 20, 1971, Keystone Korner (750 Vallejo Street, San Francisco, CA 94133) [map | JGC | JGBP | shnid-93137 | shnid-100855 | shnid-126365 |shnid-126389 and listening notes]

The most important reason to believe this is that Dead audio archivist David Lemieux, who has also had his hand in a number of Garcia releases, says it is, having compared it to an uncirculated Garcia Vault recording dated the next night, 5/21/71. Update: now officially released as GarciaLive volume 15!

For whatever reason, maybe because the music is just so mindfuckingly awesome and people get distracted, the metadata around this tape have been slippery. Corry prompted me to clarify my own understanding of the tape, which I have done and report here.

Current Metadata

As of late 2013, this presented as a Debbie tape of JGMS 5/20/71 at Keystone Korner. Note the four dimensions: the provenance of the tape, the band, the date and the venue.

1) Tape: Pat Lee (from JGMF shnid-93137 notes): "It originated from a stash of tapes that Kidd Candelario made for JG back in the early '70's for his listening pleasure. It was labeled Garcia/Saunders jams with no venue or date associated with the tape. I don't remember if it was a cassette or reel source." I have gathered that Jerry's tapes found themselves in the possession of his ex-/"it's complicated" Debbie, whose Cincinnati-area acquaintance, or acquaintance's acquaintance Will Boswell obtained copies in ca. spring 1979. Note: contrary to the assertion in shnid-93137, the tape did not come from Peter Kafer. Later shnids have more accurate information, though none of them have complete and correct information.

2) Band: see Pat's testimony: "Garcia/Saunders".

3) Date: We are given the date of 5/20/71 based on an analysis by David Lemieux, apparently comparing this with Garcia Vault tape dated 5/21/71. See shnid-100855.

4) Venue: Pat Lee and friends concluded that the tape was from the Matrix, based on its sound profile. Matt Smith reached the same conclusion, as reported in shnid-93137. The venue is currently given as Keystone Korner, which seems to derive from Lemieux's analysis. I think KK is right, see below.

Metadata Analysis

First, along with Rob Eaton, Lemieux would be the guy likeliest to be able to make this judgment, just for his ears and understanding of the music. The fact that he has access to a piece of tape that no-one else can compare, and that his A/B comparison leads to the JGMS 5/20/71 KK, is probably sufficient to call QED.

But, of course, I don't give up that easily when there are dead horses to beat. ;-)

Second, related, DL2 understands something that I think is hard to see from outside the Vault: tapes were probably recorded in batches at this early stage. In Bayesian terms, knowing that there's a tape of 5/21/71 in the Vault leads us to raise the subjective posterior probability that the prior night was also taped. Jerry wanted to have some tapes of this newish outfit to listen back to. He did that sort of thing. He had Kidd or Bob Matthews or someone come down to the club and spin a couple of nights' oxide. Maybe he leaves with the tape, or maybe he asks Kidd for it a day or month later. Kidd grabs one of the nights, while another night travels a different path, to an acclimatized Vault shelf in southern California somewhere. (It is noteworthy that "5/20/71" does not appear to be in the Vault, while 5/21/71 does - I agree with MS that this suggests that Jerry's tape --i.e., Debbie's tape-- was a master reel, so we are listening to a first copy. However, the tape feels edited down, too, so unless Will introduced these, it's possible that master reels are with Kidd or elsewhere.) Regarding specifically whether this might be Thursday 5/20 or Saturday 5/22, that's of course hard to say, but the tiny crowd makes Thursday sound more likely than Saturday. These shows were listed in the paper ("Rock, Pop Entertainment Here," San Francisco Chronicle, May 19, 1971, p. 59), but a Thursday might have been reasonably quiet.

 

Third, we are blessed with a 20 minute tape fragment traveling as "5/11/71 Matrix" (shnid-28784 | listening notes), also featuring "Save Mother Earth". Lemieux A/B'd two pieces of tape, but we can triangulate to publicly-traded tape. The "5/11/71 Matrix" performance of SME sounds very much like this one, on every level. It especially strikes me that Garcia's guitar sounds the same, and it sounds a little 1968ish to me. A few times I said "sounds like Hartbeats 1968" when auditioning. Yet these two pieces of tape must be very nearly contemporaneous to each other, and they seem to have arrived by reasonably independent routes within 9 days of each other in May 1971. (To ensure independence of observations, I'd like to ask Lemieux if he has listened to 5/11/71 or not.) Again, the fact that these seem to say "May 1971" makes it more likely that they really are from May of 1971. And, Bayes again, the fact that we have collector tape called "5/11/71 Matrix" joins the fact of Vault tape from 5/21/71 in increasing the likelihood of escaped-Vault tape from 5/20/71.

Contra

What about the old notion that this was a Matrix tape? I agree with Pat et al. that it sounds like the Matrix, both in terms of some monitor fuzz around the recording characteristic of tapes made there and in terms of the room feel. I did an "applause analysis" after t03 and t04, and it sounds like a few dozen people in small room. Moreoever, it sounds for all the world like a few dozen people in small room at 3138 Fillmore Street, San Francisco, based on all of the circulating tape from that room from about the same time period. It sounds like a Matrix Tape.

Yet, as Pat has said, "It was purely our guess that it came from the Matrix, due to the sound, nothing else" and here's the kicker - we have no idea what Keystone Korner sounded like. My notes have it as capacity 200. So, while I guess it was bigger than the Matrix, it was not a big room. If Lemieux is correct that this is a Thursday night, a reasonably small crowd might be indicated.

What worries me more is the consonance of this tape with every Matrix tape I have ever heard, which is, well, a lot, in terms of monitor fuzz, the sound of the hardware. The fact that "5/11/71 Matrix" is labeled as such and is very similar worries me a little bit, too, but not as much. He could have asked for tape to be spun both times and places that month, and although "5/11/71 Matrix" sounds like an ambient (i.e., aud) rather than a line (i.e., sbd) recording, that's not dispositive, either. Dead sound guys were known to record from the hall, no reason it couldn't have happened on a Tuesday at the Matrix. The tape is a little degraded (SME is pitched very differently on the two tapes), and it's hard to see. But, again, my point here is that we don't have a baseline of what KK should have sounded like. Lemieux does, and he thinks it sounds the same. So I reckon that what we are picking up is that as contemporaneous performances in small rooms, possibly recorded on the same gear, tend to sound a lot alike.

Bottom line

I conclude that these pieces of tape are correctly labeled JGMS 5/20/71 Keystone Korner.

Corry concurs: "I have done a little listening and decided that your analysis is fully supported by the evidence, even if the evidence itself is pretty sketchy. A Thursday night tape (May 20), recorded and casually edited by an insider (like Kidd Candelario) for Jerry's pleasure and analysis makes sense of what is missing and present."

Hartbeats as Tempo Études

LN jg1968-10-30.hartbeats.163mins.sbd-gadsden.xxxxxx.flac1644

Well, we probably won't ever be able to identify everything about the various Matrix Tapes (dates, personnel, etc.), with 100% certainty. But there's no particular reason to doubt that this is something like Mickey and the Hartbeats (here, as Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, with guest Elvin Bishop on a few tunes) from around Wednesday, October 30, 1968.

Many people find this too noodly, but I appreciate them in all kinds of ways, among them that the middle section (t08-t16) is a like a long tempo Étude. I can appreciate this material as such.

I have listened closely to the bass playing and other context clues in the last fragment. I hear Phil repeatedly speaking and have to conclude that it's Phil-souding-like-Jack, rather than Jack-sounding-like-Phil.

Mickey and the Hartbeats
The Matrix
3138 Fillmore Street
San Francisco, CA 94123
October 30, 1968 (Wednesday)
163 minute sbd via Bill Gadsden 2008 reel transfer flac1644 JGMF

(23 tracks, 163:04)

t01. noodling [0:53] ->
t02. Dark Star [17:09] ->
t03. Death Letter Blues [8:57]
t04. talk (1) and tuning [2:19]
t05. The Other One // [15:57#] %

t06. talk and tuning [0:30] %

t07. // Turn On Your Lovelight [#9:30] [0:09] %

t08. talk (2) and tuning [0:40]
t09. noodling (New Potato Caboose theme) [1:10] ->
t10. talk (3, 4) and noodling [3:48]
t11. Clementine [3:57] ->
t12. The Seven [9:30] ->
t13. Elevens, Sevens and Sixes [2:04] ->
t14. The Eleven [7:35] ->
t15. Death Don't Have //% No Mercy [8:#32] (5)
t16. talk (6) and tuning [1:18]
-enter Elvin Bishop-
t17. untitled 19681030a [14:53] ->
t18. untitled 19681030b [6:20] (7) [0:10]
t19. talk (8) and tuning [0:33]
t20. Prisoner Blues [10:49] (9) [0:05] % [0:09]
-exit Elvin Bishop-

t21. ... The Seven [9:29] (10) [0:35]
t22. tuning and talk (11) [6:39]
t23. Dark Star ... [19:10#]

! Band: Hartbeats
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: Phil Lesh - el-bass;
! lineup: Mickey Hart - percussion;
! guest: Elvin Bishop - el-g (t17-t20), vocals (t20).

JGMF:

! R: 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/19681030-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/1205 (Gadsden/Wise/Sacks, presumed same source tapes, but older transfer than the present fileset); http://etreedb.org/shn/112737 (PNW flac2496 presumed lineage MSR (Abrams) > R (Kafer) > R @ 7.5ips (Will Boswell) > digital, leading me to believe that 112737 has an extra reel gen, since IIRC Gadsden in 2008 transfered the Kafer "1st copy" reel, which is represented in this fileset; 112737 is also mono); http://etreedb.org/shn/116833 (Berger flac2496 from Moore unlineaged stereo reel, TT 89 minutes (so "incomplete).

! Deadlists Comments [abridged]: The 'On The Town" column in the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper, by Ralph J. Gleason, which which gave listings of what bands were playing locally, says that "Jerry Garcia & Friends" are playing at The Matrix" on these dates (see the San Francisco Chronicle for Monday October 28, 1968 p. 45). Bobby and Pigpen were absent. On page 26 of issue #34 (Summer 1996) of Dupree's Diamond News, Dick Latvala stated in an interview 'What I know exists in our Vault are the shows, and they are on four-track 15 i.p.s." and 'There are two dates, 10/28 and 10/29, both of which have four reels. On 10/30 there's a Dark Star Jam into a Jerry vocal, could be Death Letter Blues'. He also stated 'That's what's written on the box. I haven't listened to it.'"

! Historical/dating: Note that Dick's statement contradicts itself in saying that there are two days (28 and 29) but then describing what's on the tape of the 30th. I do not know whether the GD Vault copies are masters, copies from Abrams's house tapes, or something else. I suspect they're copies from Abrams's house tapes, but I do not know for sure. Regarding how this relates ... [edit: not sure where I was going to go with that]

! R: Tape Provenance: Peter Abram's 7" 1/4 track SBD reels @ 7.5ips > Peter Kafer/Bill Gadsden's 7" 1/4 track Maxell reels @ 7.5ips > Revox B77 playback > Alesis Masterlink (sampling @ 24 bit, 96kHz) > CD > EAC > CDWave > TLH (FLAC level 8) > foobar2000 (tagging).

! R: the sound quality is what you'd expect for a Matrix Tape. This is a stereo recording.

! historical: on shnid 116833 Berger speculates that only the first 90 minutes is from this date, while the rest is from 10/8/68. I don't think so. I have listened to and noted both, and I can confirm that the talk around the various pieces of music is different. I haven't A-B'd them directly, which would seal the deal, I think.

! P: t02 Dark Star: Phil Lesh is a monster right from the get-go. He is fiercely melodic right from the start. This really is an attempt to have two lead instruments simultaneously, because Lesh and Garcia are on the same plane. Jerry seems to quote Tighten Up @ 1:49, and he's still dancing with some of that feeling around 2:15. Very sweet stuff. . Back to Star at 2:30. @ 6:24 Garcia quotes Born-Cross-Eyed for a a little bit. At 11 min mark things take a darker, slower turn. While JG is signalling the return of Dark Star @ ca. 13:00, Mickey makes a little statement on the toms. Jerry considers but re-asserts Dark Star. Mickey and Phil assent, Mickey picking the scrapy-turny things again and Philip doing his Dark Star melodic statement. That rough breadcrumb framework established, Garcia wanders around again, but with Dark Star now providing a tighter backbone.

! setlist t03 Death Letter Blues is the Leadbelly song (see Jackson 1987); @ 6:24 Jerry early engagement with a little bit of what would become the And We Bid You Goodnight/Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad theme. This is just about a one-off version.

! t04 (1) JG: "Thank you. Uhh, I might explain, uh, that we're ...we're really here just playin' ... just goofin'. I mean, we really don't have anything in mind or anything. Yeah. (laughs) We're just thrown together by fate ... and so we're uh playin' Fate Music. Also called Luck Music." Someone else: [inaudible]. JG: "Good one, good one. ... fateful."

! P: t05 TOO @ 7:20 Jerry starts a crazy hot, pretty fast 12-beat up-down pattern -- very unique. Phil hears the promise and jumps on it right away. @ 8:17, a little Latin feel. Jerry picks up that earlier progression @ 8:31. It's real nice, very power-tro-ish. Not quite Latin (though there were some Spanish inflections between the two groups of 12-note runs), but hot as hell. @ 8:52-9:02 Phil lands on some pretty deep two-beat march space, then a little Spanish 4-beat, then they are back on the Other One by 9:15.

! R: t05 TOO cuts out.

! R: t07 Lovelight cuts in.

! t07 Lovelight is insrumental.

! R: t08 there are various tape splices and some static during this long tuning

! t08 (2) can hear Elvin Bishop say something like "Let's play, man." @ 0:35 JG: "I don't think we have any straps. ... I'll sit down [?if we need?]." Maybe they are looking for a guitar strap for Elvin.

! t10 @ 1:49 (3) Mickey Hart: "Hey Ram?" Ramrod: "Yeah." MH: "Did you get the hammer? Did you get the [inaudible]?" More inaudible talk.

! t10 at end (4) Phil Lesh: "Wanna try the six?" JG: "Yep. Sure."

! setlist: t11 Clementine: This is an instrumental version. See LIA's post for an analysis of the song and how this version fits into its short, uneven history.

! t12 The Seven: I track "The Seven" where I track it, but the whole 3-minute range of "Clementine" is really the gradual transmogrification of The Six into The Seven. I put it here because I take Mickey's hard assertion of the tempo at this point to signify the change. Since this is a series of tempo Études, well, the tempo *constitutes the "song".

! P: t12 This version of "The Seven" , notes from a musical person, MJ: "3/4 time jazz waltz, but technically not because and it swung of course because it was a jazz waltz. If it is a 6/8 it's slow. The fact that it's swung means that if it was a normal 6/8 it would ... usually if it's in 6/8 at a normal speed ... so the combo of 6/8 with swing beat makes it unusual. A slow 6/8. Sounds more like a 3/4" to MJ.

! P: t12 Note the sequence: "The Six" -> "The Seven" -> "The Eleven" ... this is a tempo Étude. Insofar as we like attributions from The Horse's Mouth, we might even consecrate (by officializing, naturally) this track as "The Six", per Phil's identification (see note 4, above).

! t13 @ ca. 0:13ff Jerry is playing The Eleven while Phil is back to Clementine/The Six! @1339 hear someone say something. Now Phil is playing The Seven while Garcia is playing The Eleven. That's really what Hartbeats is all about. Mixing tempos. Garcia is mostly staying on 11/8, while Phil plays around with sixes (Clementine) and sevens. So I am just coining a term for this: Elevens, Sevens and Sixes.

! t14 The Eleven is instrumental.

! R: t15 DDHNM a little static @ 0:53, 1:14; hiss seems to come up during this track.

! R: t15 DDHNM splice @ 5:08, unknown amount missing.

! t15 (5): JG: "Thank you."

! t16 (6) JG: "Well, where's Elvin? Where'd he go? Where'd that skunk go? Where'd he go?"

! personnel: t17 Elvin Bishop is present from this point forward (from 94 minutes in). As far as I can hear, he is only present until the end of t20 (about 33 minutes).

! t17 untitled 19681030a is a nice mournful theme. It has a name, I think (hence me calling it untitled 19681030a-I think this can be substituted with an actual name ... if it were just a theme, I might have called it "mournful theme" or something like that). Before the track mark, you can hear Jerry asking something like "what's that tune?" I want to say that it's probably an Elvin Bishop melody, but I have no idea. It's really pretty. Damnit, what is the name of this? It surely has a name. @ 6:38ff Elvin is doing a theme that sounds almost related to New Potato Caboose thing. It sounds a little bit like Donovan's First There Is A Mountain, as well. @ 7:40 quotes The Seven a little bit. He, especially, is focused on these tempo Études. In the 11-12 minute marks it has more NPC feel. Around 12 minutes in, someone yells a change to someone else, but I can't hear what it is. Things slow down. By 14-min mark Phil is referencing The Seven again. @ 14:18 Garcia takes up a four note repeating thing, and then by 14:30 he is doing a slowed-down version of his ending riff from Born Cross-Eyed! His work here is very much more reminiscent of early 1968 than of, say, the Fillmore West shows four months later.

! t18 untitled 19681030b is a blues instrumental. It sounds very similar to Prisoner Blues. It cooks pretty well. In the late 3-min mark it has a little Death Letter Blues vibe. In the 4-minute mark Jerry and Elvin have some very nice call-and-response going ... Jerry is being the gunslinger here, for sure.

! t18 (7) JG seems to say "That's right" at the end. Then he says, obviously in answer to a query about what to play (presumably from Elvin): "Anything you like. Just start it."

! t19 (8) JG: "JG: "Hey, you got a vocal mic for over at that end? Elvin's gonna sing one." He's smiling behind his (?non-? beard) as he mentions Elvin singing.

! setlist: t20 Prisoner Blues: This is presumably just a way of being conventional about this. It's not a song so much as a theme around a slow blues.

! t20 (9) Elvin Bishop: "Thanks."

! setlist: We can't know for sure if the stuff from this last piece (t21-23, 35+ minutes) is from the same night as the other material. For that matter, it's really impossible to know whether anything on opposite sides of any tape discontinuity is from the same night. This could be snippets. I have separated out what I view as the different pieces with an extra line in the tracklist. I don't know that it is from one night or several, and I am not trying to sow obscurity or confusion. We might as well assume that this is from the same night and that that night is approximately correctly dated as October 30, 1968. I mention this only to get in front of the question that might arise from the presence of "repeat" engagements with The Seven and Dark Star. Given the exploratory nature of these Hartbeats dates, it's entirely possible that they took repeated, separate passes at these tunes. But it's also possible, given the nature of Matrix Tapes, that this material is a separate snippet from a separate night or set.

! personnel: There is no second guitar on the last piece.

! R: t21 The Seven cuts in.

! t21 @ 1:36 JG is yelling something. Sounds like he says "It all falls in, man", mentions Phil and the bass.

! t21 (10) JG: "That's not necessary. You don't really have to do that. We're ... uhhh ... We're here primarily to screw around. And, uh .. so don't expect anything that isn't screwing around. Because everything we're doing is screwing around unless otherwise stated in advance." JGMF NB this makes me think this piece is from early in a set/show/date.

! R: t22 tick @ 1:16.

! t22 (11) Phil Looney Tunes goof @ 2:45. They are talking about drinks, I think. Phil asks "Ohhh, 7-Up this time?" @ 4:11 Mickey says "Hey Ramrod?" Around 6-minutes in Mickey's gear is ready and he says "OK, now let's play." So this long interlude sounds like it was to do with gear. Indeed, the drums seem to be audible in the right at the start of the track, then move middle/left. Phil: "A little bossa nova, huh?" JG: "Bossa nova?"

! t23 compare this Dark Star with the "November 1968" version. This one starts off with the bass and guitar together, jumping right into the guiro -- a classic start to primal Dark Star. I think that one is different.

! R: t23 hard for me to tell if it's a tape fade (I think it is) or if they just soften to a close with Dark Star.

REFERENCE:
Jackson, Blair. 1987b. Roots, part 14. Golden Road no. 14 (Summer): 44.

New Riders of the Purple Sage and Acoustic Grateful Dead: Lion’s Share, San Anselmo, July 30-August 1, 1970

(This is an updated version of an earlier post,
“GD/NRPS19700731-19700801: Lion's Share, San Anselmo, CA, 4/20/2011.)

Some time back, I reported listings for "New Riders of the Purple Sage & Grateful Dead, Lion's Share, 9 pm" for both July 31, 1970 and August 1, 1970, in the calendar section of the Berkeley Tribe. Here’s the scan (click to enlarge). (FWIW, the Tribe calendar’s name was commonly “George”. This day, it was “David” [at the tag end of the question “how about George David?”.)

Calendar section of the Berkeley Tribe v3 n4 (no 56) (July 31 - August 7, 1970), back page.

I have just uncovered a few more tidbits, so I am updating the whole original post. The tidbits are a calendar listing and a preview ‘blurb’ establishing to my satisfaction that the New Riders of the Purple Sage and Acoustic Grateful Dead played the Lion’s Share, 66 Red Hill Avenue, San Anselmo, CA, 94960 on Thursday, July 30, 1970, in addition to the previously-established shows the next two nights.

“Datebook/Opening Today,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 30, 1970, p. 41;
“’Purple Sage’ At Lion’s Share,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 30, 1970, p. 41.

Let me go through some of the points that come up out of this little bit of material, in no particular order.

1. The New Riders of the Purple Sage and Acoustic Grateful Dead played the Lion’s Share, 66 Red Hill Avenue, San Anselmo, CA, 94960 on Thursday, July 30, 1970, in addition to the previously-established shows the next two nights (July 31-August 1, 1970).

2. Michelle’s Mc’s Midsummer 1970 Memories of Acoustic GD at Lion's Share seem confirmed.

With the addition of the Thursday night to our understanding of this run, we can now confirm four of the five confirmable assertions made by Corry's informant "Michelle Mc", as relayed by him at LLD:

The acoustic Grateful Dead played a number of shows at the Lion's Share. They played two or three nights in a row, on a weeknight in the middle of the summer of 1970. She knows--she went. These shows were utterly unpublicized, and only friends of the band were given the heads up.

• Acoustic Grateful Dead: confirmed.
• “two or three nights in a row”: confirmed.
• “weeknight”: confirmed.
• Midsummer 1970: confirmed.
• No publicity: disconfirmed. The idea that these shows were mostly for GD family insiders is supported by the fact that the Saturday show was Jerry Garcia’s 28^th birthday. If it appeared in the Chron –and more importantly, given that there was an item in the Chron—it was no secret. However, it’s possible that the Share staff called the papers, but weren’t supposed to.

3. Acoustic Grateful Dead

The item and Michelle’s memory make it clear that the Grateful Dead played acoustically (AGD). This brings the 7/30/70 and 8/5/70 tapes to mind, the only two all-acoustic GD nights –billed as such—that I can think of.

4. What About The Tapes?

By the tapes, I refer to the New Riders tape and an Acoustic Grateful Dead tape (shnid 17077), both dated 7/30/70 and said to be from the Matrix. First, given the relative reliability of an “Opening Tonight” item in the Chron and a Matrix tape label, I propose that our lists (i.e., The List) be updated to list GD at Lion’s Share this night, and not at the Matrix.

Second, I had actually offered some analysis and speculation about all of this in the 7/30/70 installation of my still-unconcluded NRPS-Matrix-1970 series. Let me just quote myself at length.

Note that the first NRPS piece (I'll call it set I) runs only 23 minutes. Normally, we would conclude that it's incomplete (and probably missing the material at the start of the set, since there's a set break announcement over continuous tape after Lodi). I do think it's probably incomplete. But it could also be that this night was different, and ended up including the mini GD acoustic set. That might have substituted for at least some part of the expected additional NRPS material.

The tapes do suggest that there was a three-part show on 7/30/70: (I) NRPS, (II) AGD, (III) NRPS. I think the billings fit hand-in-glove with this structure, because …

5. ... The NRPS Appear to Have Been Headliners Above the GD

I think this newly-discovered evidence supports the view that these tape fragments are of a piece, insofar as NRPS seem to be headlining over the Grateful Dead. As far as I know, this is the only time such an arrangement, a kind of inversion of the “An Evening With the Grateful Dead” set structure (see my discussion in connection with a 5/1/70 analysis), ever materialized.

In my post “NRPS-Matrix-1970 05 of 7: LN19700730: Thursday, July 30, 1970”, I had run the discovery of the Tribe listings for 7/31 and 8/1 through evidence provided by the tapes, and said this:

I am intrigued by the possibility that the order in which the acts are listed for those shows might reflect that NRPS was "first billed" over the GD, which might be consistent with NRPS doing two sets and GD just a little acoustic one.

The discovery of another (partially independent) piece of data from the Chron reinforces this connection between these shows and these tapes, in my mind. Both of the calendar listings put the New Riders first, and the Grateful Dead second. If I understand how such listings came about, this correlation is partly spurious: presumably the same person from the Share or from the GD offices called the item into both the Tribe and the Chron. But there may be at least some independence among these observations, insofar as the staffers at the two separate newspapers did not turn the order around and put the GD first. That would have been the obvious, natural thing to do. As far as I know, this is the only time the New Riders are billed over the Grateful Dead. I think the fact that things are billed this way in both papers is no accident. I believe (pure conjecture, of course) that these were quite explicitly and consciously listed as NRPS-GD.

The headline of the preview item, “’Purple Sage’ At Lion’s Share”, especially, reinforces this. It is, I think, incredible to imagine that, under usual circumstances, this would not have said “Dead At Lion’s Share”. Woe betide the Chronicle lackey who should make the mistake of headlining the second act instead of the Grateful Goddamned Dead! No. This was quite consciously constructed with the New Riders at the top of the bill, and the Grateful Dead at the bottom.

I view this as just one more incremental step in the gradual speciation of the New Riders from the Grateful Dead.

David Torbert had been around as NRPS bassist (I said, NRPS bassist. Or, NRPS personnel more generally!) since probably April. They had done a number of high-profile gigs in the An Evening With the Grateful Dead format. I don’t have precise dates for when they started working on the first New Riders album in the studio, but it is certainly right around this time. Dryden said that Tolbert was brought for the express purpose of making an album (Kahlbacher 1974, 27). By mid-1970 the cognoscenti are starting to ask about the Riders’ studio plans (Hard Road interview, took place on 6/22/70). In October 1970, Garcia says that the NRPS record is “about 50% underway” (Goodwin 1971).

We also know, conventionally, that on the Festival Express train a month or so prior to 7/30/70, Garcia had spotted a hotshit pedal steel wizard named Buddy Cage and appeared immediately to have conceived the idea of bringing the Canadian on as his own full-time and permanent replacement. This seems only to have put flesh on the bones of a general plan that he harbored all along, to help found and launch the Riders, help his friends out financially by getting them a record deal (and the attending patch of land in Marin or Sonoma or wherever) and making them famous, and then stepping out gracefully. He was already public with a desire to step back by late 1970: “I think eventually it would be groovy if they auditioned other steel players so they could go out and tour, without having to depend on the Dead” (12/27/70 KPPC-FM interview, shnid 26583).

So, why would NRPS have been top-billed at a local show in a little Marin club that held like 212 people? It’s not like this was their big break. I don’t think they were planning on this being the launch of a national tour in this configuration, of course. Most plausible seems to be just that they wanted to keep things low key, and probably especially the GD guys. These quiet acoustic sets, with loads of wonderful spirituals and such (Jordan, A Voice From On High), along the lines of show known as 8/5/70 San Diego, are profoundly relaxed. From my listen to the NRPS set dated 7/30/70, I said “sounds like just a good old time foolin' around at the bar. It seems to run quite late." Here are Cousin Ace (Bob Weir) and Marmaduke to a sparse and shrinking late-night crowd:

Cousin Ace: “Well the rats are desertin' the sinkin' ship. And, uhh, in the meanwhile we're gonna do a ...” [interruption by Marmaduke: "Welcome to the campfire folks... "] “... hot lead and bloodshed ballad ...” ["... this is story time ..."] “...sad story time ...” ["... here on the plains"] …

All of the tapes in the NRPS-1970-Matrix nexus (feels redundant, but better than NRPS-1970-Matrix matrix!) have that kind of feel. More of alcohol vibe (a la the Festival Express train) than an acid- or coke-fueled one.

So, putting this all together, I think it was probably just a fun, low key, local trial balloon designed to try on what it would look like to have the New Riders go first.

6. What About The Tapes? Part II

So, do the tapes that circulate come from the Lion’s Share? I don’t know. I am honestly pretty stumped.

Everything I know about Lion’s Share tapes has pretty much been posted. Garcia shows are overrepresented since Betty taped so much. Outside of those the only period in which I know tape was regularly spinning at the Share was June 1971-January 1972, when soundman Lou Judson made an impressive handful of recordings.

I cannot explain why the “7/30/70” material comes out of “Matrix Tapes”. The likeliest possibilities, it seems to me, are

1. that the material is from the Matrix, and is mis-dated (though not by much), and the similarities of the tapes and these Lion's Share shows is spurious. Maybe the tapes really are from 7/27/70, as "Mickey Hart and the Hart Beats, with Jerry Garcia", a billing I have just confirmed at LIA's place, also from the Chron (7/27/70, p. 37); or
2. the material is correctly dated, but comes from the Lion’s Share (e.g., taped by the GD folks), and somehow eventually made it into (or became conflated with) the Matrix Tapes; or
3. the 7/30/70 show was moved from the Share to the Matrix.

I doubt #3, but #1 and #2 seem about equally plausible to me.

7. NRPS : GD :: Hot Tuna : Jefferson Airplane

Just wanted to note that the Chron item draws this analogy. It’s true for a time, and interesting. Around the same time that Jack and Jorma are branching out from well-known “day-bands” to play some American roots music on the side (alongside, early on, some really hot rock jamming) –which seems to begin in earnest ca. January 1969—Garcia and others in the GD are doing the same thing. It’s obvious, but since I have Jerry and the Jeffersons on the brain I thought I’d bring it up.

Of course, after the initial period, the arcs of Hot Tuna and NRPS diverge. NRPS ends up completely speciated from the GD in terms of personnel and, eventually, organization. Garcia builds it up and then walks away from it. Hot Tuna, of course, always has and always will include (no, really, "be") Jack and Jorma.

8. Summary

Summarizing, six take home points.

1. This began as a way to just put another event into The List: NRPS/GD at Lion’s Share on Thursday, July 30, 1970, based on evidence from the San Francisco Chronicle.
2. It seems to confirm the recollection by Corry’s informant Michelle Mc of Acoustic GD sets at Lion’s Share in midsummer 1970.
3. It is suggestive of one of the only all-acoustic GD sets, ever (alongside San Diego, 8/5/70).
4. It dovetails almost perfectly with the tapes we have that are dated 7/30/70, though said to be from the Matrix: two NRPS sets sandwiched around a homey AGD set that also features David Nelson and Marmaduke.
5. It seems to be a rare (perhaps the only) instance of the NRPS headlining over the GD, a kind of reversal of the “An Evening With the Grateful Dead” format (AGD, NRPS, EGD) of 1970. I have argued that this is a small milestone in the gradual (over two year!) differentiation of the NRPS from the GD, which culminated in Buddy Cage taking over Garcia’s pedal steel bench in November 1971.
6. I don’t know how to reconcile the tapes (said to be from the Matrix) with the rest of the evidence.

There we have it. Why say it in 50 words when you can say it in 2,300?!?

SOURCES:

• Arnold, Corry. 2011. John Kahn Live Performance History 1970 (John Kahn IV). Lost Live Dead, March 20, 2011, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2011/03/john-kahn-live-performance-history-1970.html, accessed 2/21/2012.
• “Datebook/Opening Today,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 30, 1970, p. 41.
• Goodwin, Michael. 1971. Jerry Garcia at 700 MPH: Incidental Music at the Celebration of Life. Flash no. 0: 32-39.
• “Jerry Garcia,” Hard Road 1, 1 (July 20, 1970), pp 1-4 (unnumbered).
• JGMF. 2011. “GD/NRPS19700731-19700801: Lion's Share, San Anselmo, CA.” Jerry Garcia’s Middle Finger, April 20, 2011, URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2011/04/gdnrps19700731-19700801-lions-share-san.html, accessed 2/21/2012. Deprecated as of 2/21/2012
• Kahlbacher, Gene. 1974. Aquarian Interview: New Riders of the Purple Sage. Aquarian, January 29-February 12, 1974, pp. 14, 27, 31. Annotated at http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2011/03/reading-notes-kahlbacher-gene-1974.html.
• Light Into Ashes [LIA]. 2011. The Hartbeats - July 1970. Grateful Dead Guide, March 30, 2011, URL http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2011/03/hartbeats-july-1970.html, accessed 2/12/2012.
• “’Purple Sage’ At Lion’s Share,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 30, 1970, p. 41.

Digression on Data

Let’s pause for a minute and reflect on how fortunate we are to have such high quantity and quality of materials to exploit. Posters, handbills, advertisements, previews, blurbs, mentions, reviews, ledgers, contracts, calendars and other sources overwhelm us. (By the way, where are the personal diaries/journals, a la Faren Miller's amazing chronicles of QMS? If anyone reading this kept any notes relating to GD and Garcia, please send me an email at jgmfblog@gmail.com!)

 

Personal memories remain alive and frequently (if imperfectly) captable by those who might seek to document them. They’re often pretty good memories. I’d suggest that levels of intelligence and education among those who remember these things, these “subjects” whose memories we seek to record, explore and understand are generally a way north of the population mean. This is a smart and often articulate bunch. The consciousness that one was engaged in something special or unusual seems to have quite often produced reasonably conscious memory as well – a good thing.

A final point on personal memory, a very meta point that I’ll nevertheless indulge. In comments on my listening notes for May 6, 1983, Corry discussed his ca. late April 1983 data generating process in his role as Keeper of The List, which is very helpful. I produced a nicely anchored memory, one that’s bound up in other important or noteworthy or otherwise salient events, in a kind of syndrome or complex. In the case of the venue for 5/6/83, I find myself persuaded by the participant recollection (i.e., that it was at the Keystone in Berkeley, not at The Stone in The City).

Finally (not really finally, but finally for my purposes here), are events for which there is neither paper nor memory, the shows that happened and that we know about only because of tape recordings. How many were not taped and hence remain unknown? I do not know and I prefer not to think too long on it. Instead, I want to use the lifetimes-worth of taped material we do have as best I can. My listening notes are an attempt to recode the raw data from tapes into other useable (for my purposes) forms. These data, like all of them, have their limits. In a view that Corry has been articulating (e.g., about GD Matrix Tapes from late 1966) and that I suspect is correct, it’s possible that the taped record systematically biases against the quotidian and in favor of the unusual and/or excellent. Recognizing this only reinforces why we need to practice convergent operationalism, i.e., triangulation across sources. We all already do this, but I want to recognize it explicitly as a valuable part of the enterprise.