Brief Encounters of the Weird Kind: JGB at Penn State, December 11, 1977

jg1977-12-11.jgb.all.sbd-sirmick.80773.flac1644

Again, listening notes may be briefer for awhile. Certainly, these are bullet-style.

David Gans once said something to the effect that Garcia exhibits the shortest distance between spirit and fingertip of any musician he knows. That's probably not quite right, but it was something like this. A reviewer from this last show of the Fall '77 JGB tour, Don Foster, sort of alludes to the same notion, in saying  "I'd swear if there was some way of putting a tracer into his vibrations you would see them travel through his body to his fingertips, out to his guitar, and then into the audience."

I also like Foster's take here: "The Mystery Cat banner in the background reminded me a lot of Donna Godchaux. She would leave the stage when she was not singing and like a cat reappear mysteriously for her next number." Very evocative. I'd say the show has a really sleek, unperturbed kind of feline energy to it. Smooth, pretty graceful.

Nice tape. Thank you for the work on it, sirmick. I didn't compare with other versions - all circulating sources are sbds, presumably from the same root tape. John sounds full and fat, as he would through 1978.

This is a rare Jerry-before-GD performance space.

Peppy "Sitting In Limbo". I like it. And "I Second That Emotion" finds some nice room that I also dug.

Turns out the "Close Encounters" theme in "Lonesome And A Long Way From Home," one of a few on the tour, and which I have mentioned before, is extremely brief. But there is more than one encounter here, as after "Love In The Afternoon" we hear some stage talk about aliens, and then, before "Russian Lullaby," Jerry and John noodle on the famous five-note theme for a good 30 seconds. And, because we focus on Garcia On The Side (GOTS) here, we are contractually obligated to note that this occurs before the Grateful Dead would grapple more fully and wildly with the theme on 1/22/78 in Eugene. Just sayin'.

Band got $12,500 + $2,500 sound and lights for the gig, which only grossed something like 16 grand. Gotta love those student activities budgets! Proft, schmofit, so long as the kids have a good time.

Jerry Garcia Band
Recreation Hall, Penn State University
Curtin Rd.
University Park, PA 16802
December 11, 1977 (Sunday)
sbd sirmick remaster shnid-80773

--set I (5 tracks, 54:22)--
s1t01. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [9:22] [0:06] % [0:03]
s1t02. Catfish John [10:04] % [0:07]
s1t03. Simple Twist Of Fate [12:33] %
s1t04. Sitting In Limbo [10:24] [0:07] %
s1t05. Mystery Train [11:31] (1) [0:04]

--set II + encore (8 tracks, 97:56)--
--set II (7 tracks, 79:31)--
s2t01. [0:03] Love In The Afternoon (2) [11:51] % [0:05]
s2t02. I Second That Emotion [14:12] % [0:06]
s2t03. Gomorrah [7:07] % [0:06]
s2t04. Harder They Come [11:32] [0:18] %
s2t05. (3) [0:54] Russian Lullaby [14:29] % [0:04]
s2t06. Tore Up Over You [9:12] [0:09] % [0:03]
s2t07. Mission In The Rain [9:12] % [0:08]
--encore (1 track, 18:25)--
s2t08. Lonesome And A Long Way From Home [18:21] (4) [0:04]

! ACT1: JGB #4
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-b;
! lineup: Keith Godchaux - piano;
! lineup: Buzz Buchanan - drums;
! lineup: Donna Jean Godchaux - vocals.

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/19771211-01

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/80773 (this fileset), plus lots of other filesets presumably derived from the same root tape.

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html. No Maria Muldaur.

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/07/recreation-hall-curtin-road-university.html. This is a rare Jerry-before-GD hall.

! historical: From Foster review I infer 3,200 attended and 8,600 capacity. But contract makes it clear that capacity is 5,000. Band got $12,500 guarantee, plus 70% over $21,500 (not triggered) plus $2,500 for sound and lights, on gross potential of $25k.

! ad: Daily Collegian, December 1, 1977, p. 17

! exante: "Jerry Garcia Band to perform," Daily Collegian (Penn State University), December 9, 1977, p. 3;

! exante: Clifford 1977;

! review: [positive] Foster 1977: "I'd swear if there was some way of putting a tracer into his vibrations you would see them travel through his body to his fingertips, out to his guitar, and then into the audience."

! expost: Wilson 1977

! seealso: JGMF, "JGB: November-December 1977 East Coast Tour Rarities"

! R: source: source: sdb > master reel > cassette > pcm > dat > cdr

! R: Seeder comments: - this is a remaster of shnid-6622 - Hiss reduction was attempted on this source once before but the results were not very successful.  I think that this is far more pleasing to the ear - remastered using iZotope Ozone and 4Front Sandbrush - hiss reduction with Waves X-Noise - SIRMick December 2006

! R: Nice tape. I haven't listened to this show in many years, and I don't think I have ever heard this sirmick version. It is buttah. The bass tone is as good as the '78 boards. Man. Later on, some more hiss comes onboard, and sometimes it overloads, but it's nice to have!

! P: s1t01 HSII the band comes in feeling absolutely groovy right out of the gate. John sounds so amazing, so it's hard to parse the capture from the playing, but I do think the playing is just wonderful - fluid, inventive, big, playful.

! P: s1t02 CJ nice version, but tempos are a little variable.

! R: s1t03 STOF more hiss

! P: s1t04 SIL done sprightly, maybe peppiest version I have ever heard. In the 7-minute mark it takes a really spare feeling, not much Keith, or he's way back, anyway. Lovely stuff.

! R: s1t04 SIL splice at 7:09

! s1t05 (1) JG: "We're gonna take a break for a little while. We'll be back in a little bit. Thank you."

! s2t01 (2) at around 7 minute mark, someone says something like "check out the aliens [inaudible]".

! P: s2t02 ISTE I am not always a big fan of this tune. But Buzzy does some splashing late 7 that really catches my ear, and maybe Jerry's, because Jerry puts on a little spacier tone and the band gives him a little more room. Just wonderful. 

! s2t05 (3) Jerry and John noodle on the "Close Encounters Theme" for a good 30 seconds here.

! P: s2t05 Russ Lull JK feature 7:58-11:15. Despite the fatter tone, this feature feels more like later ones, very fluttery and not very impressive. Buzzy trying to add some rhythm in the back, but he's swimming upstream.

! R: s2t07 MITR splice at 1:17

! R: s2t08 LAALWFH splice at 6:09

! P: s2t08 LAALWFH Close Encounters 15:30, but it's really just a few riffs here.

! s2t08 (4) JG: "Thank you. See y'all later on."

Dull as Dishwater in a Classic Art Deco Movie Palace: JGB, Astor Theatre, Reading, PA, September 20, 1976 late show

zzzzz

LN jg1976-09-20.jgb.late.aud-peters.138205.flac1644

The rooms sounds fantastic, but the show bores me to tears, except for some nice flowing guitar work in "Catfish John". My copy of the band itinerary lacks the pages after Ithaca College (9/18), but for that gig they flew in and out of Teterboro, coming back to the St. Moritz and New York City. Not sure if they would have flown or taken limos two-and-a-half hours to Reading, but either way I am sure John Scher took care of it, and a good time was had by all.

Jerry Garcia Band
Astor Theatre
734 Penn Street
Reading, PA 19602
September 20, 1976 (Monday) - 11 PM (late show)
Peters MAC flac1644 shnid-138205

--complete show (9 tracks, 85:58)--
t01. //The Way You Do The Things You Do [#7:19] %
t02. //Catfish John [#10:29] % [0:08]
t03. Sugaree [10:27] %
t04. Knockin On Heaven's Door [13:49] %
t05. Mystery Train [9:57] %
t06. Tore Up Over You [8:58] [0:07] %% [0:04]
t07. Mission In The Rain [8:27] ->
t08. My Sisters And Brothers [7:13] [0:04] %
t09. //Ride Mighty High [#7:18] [0:04] %

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #3
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - bass;
! lineup: Ron Tutt - drums, vocals;
! lineup: Keith Godchaux - keyboards, vocals;
! lineup: Donna Godchaux - vocals..

JGMF:

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19760920-02

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/18745 (early and late MAC shnf); this fileset.

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/nfCnX1tMVAU2

! venue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astor_Theater_%28Reading,_Pennsylvania%29; http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/9140.

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/astor-theater-730-42-penn-st-reading-pa.html.

! ad: Mercury (??? city ???), September 16, 1976, p. 22.

! R: field recordist: Dave Peters

! R: field recording gear: Sony F99S microphone > Sony TC-126

! R: field recording media: 1x? TDK-D90

! R: transfer: JVC TD-R462 > Audacity > TLH Flac8

! R: seeder notes: "Tape paused between some tracks. NO ISSUES."

! R: tape genealogy: "So the story goes: I answered an ad on Craigslist for 500 free Grateful Dead tapes. On picking them up from the taper, I'm also informed he and a friend recorded other bands through the 70's. These were never circulated, and deemed inferior in quality. When I inquired about digitizing his masters, he laughingly obliged. Most of the old Ampex and BASF tapes are in poor shape, several completely off the spool, and many squealing badly, these will be baked in an attempt to salvage them. I will be presenting the ones of superior quality only. I do believe these shows will be lovingly embraced by the Dime community, and will be shared here exclusively. Zombiwoof to Dime 2017 series."

! R: t01 TWYDTTYD cuts in

! P: t02 CJ this version gets some extension at the end, and 8:30ff Garcia's guitar work flows like a river.

! P: t05 MT some nice bendy notes 7:45 ish.

! P: t07-t08 true segue

! R: t09 RMH cuts in

"When you add a new member, it becomes a new band"

 LN jg1979-11-07.interview.26mins.fm.xxxxxx.flac1644

This is a nice little interview with Garcia after the 11/6/79 Philly Dead show. He talks about "Mission In The Rain" and "Reuben And Cérise", picks some gospel Dylan to spin, tells the story of the Rambler Room gig in '78, and drops the titular line, which I like a lot.

JERRY GARCIA
WMMR Studios
addy
Philadelphia PA zzzzz
November 7, 1979 (Wednesday) - 2:30 AM
26 min FM cassette

! historical: WMMR-FM Radio interview with Lyn Kratz & Michael Tearson at 2:30AM

01 intro [0:58] %
02 Brent in the band, Making Go to Heaven album [6:02] %
03 Story of Reuben & Cherise, Jerry's new guitar, Acoustic shows, Bertha the fan
04 Mission in the Rain, Egypt trip, Smaller venues, GD films, Eclectic listening
05 Terrapin II Suite, thanks & outro
06 DJ Talk [0:45]

! R: Transfer: TDK D90 > Nakamichi CR-5A > Edirol FA-66 > Wavelab > CD-Wave > TLH > FLAC 1644 tagged.

! R: seeder Note: This interview occurred in the wee hours of the morning after the 11/06/79 Spectrum show.

! R: seeder note: Thanks to Poordevil and Sounddawg for this historic tape!

! t02  "When you add a new member, it becomes a new band"

! t02 GTH: "I think it's our best album." Yeesh.

! t03 song R&C: movie Black Orpheus. "It's the Orpheus story, and the Black Orpheus adaptation of the Orpheus story. Plus we transmogrified it and put it into New Orleans and Mardi Gras. And we changed the outcome somewhat. It was one of those songs that was very slow growing. It started off with a melody that I was fooling around with, while we were working on Blues for Allah, and I gave a copy of the melody to Hunter, and he took it home and fooled with it, fooled with it, fooled with it. He came up with a lot of different ideas. And then, independently of the original melody, he set a group of ... those lyrics. And I liked the lyrics better than I liked the original melody. So, I dumped the original melody, held onto the lyrics, and, after fooling with the lyrics, and look at em for a long, long time, and really liking them, and really wanting them to work, I came up with the new melody."

! t03 @ late 5:50 11/17/78 "Dan Healy has a cousin who is involed in Loyola University in Chicago. They were doing a little small benefit for a famine relief thing in Pakistan, and so we got involved in doing just that - an acoustic show, Bob and I and Phil playing electric bass very quietly, and Mickey playing a little snare drum with brushes. ... we rehearsed it about 15 minutes before we went in and did it. We enjoyed it really a lot."

! t04 song: MITR. "It's about SF. It's about me in San Francisco. It's as close to autobiographical as it's possible for me to get working with another guy. ... Hunter is able sometimes to write if I would say ... it's very personal. It's him speaking about me. When I do the song, it's a very personal song, I'm talking about myself, my life.

! t04 @ 7:20 "I've always been a Dylan fan." "Music is music." "Even the worst music doesn't hurt anybody ... wound anybody." Jerry picked "Gotta Serve Somebody" to listen to.

Swan Song for JGB #15c: Philly, June 5, 1983

LN jg1983-06-05.jgb.early-late.aud-nak300-minches.76973.flac1644
LN jg1983-06-05.jgb.early-late.aud-peters.138199.flac1644

I consider 5/31/83 at the Roseland Ballroom to be one of the best Garcia Band shows of the 1980s. Six days later, this band, featuring the great and powerful Greg Errico on drums, would play its final two shows at the Tower Theater in Upper Darby, PA. Surprisingly, only two tapes circulate as of mid-2017: an unattributed 1st gen copy of a Nak 300s master, and, now, Dave Peters's pulls of both shows have enter digitalia. Of historical note, as far as I know Jerry Garcia and Greg Errico would never play together again.

What follows are listening notes from the older source from at least a few years back, and then listening notes finished today from the Peters tape. Interesting to compare - they end up hitting a few points identically (6-7 minute range of LIR, circular patterns in TUIB, Errico's power), and are generally quite convergent.

LN jg1983-06-05.jgb.early-late.aud-nak300-minches.76973.flac1644

Jerry Garcia Band
Tower Theatre
19 South 69th Street
Upper Darby, PA 19082
June 5, 1983 (Sunday) - Early and Late (9:30 PM) shows
1st gen Nak 300 flac1644 shnid-76973

--early show, main set + encore (9 tracks. 70:31)--
--early show, main set (8 tracks, 60:12-0:07)--
a-t01. tuning [0:05]
a-t02. Cats Under The Stars [7:24] [0:08] %
a-t03. /They Love Each Other [#7:38] [0:07] % [0:19]
a-t04. Let It Rock [9:01] [0:04] % [0:14]
a-t05. Love In The Afternoon [7:46] [0:05] % [0:13]
a-t06. I Second That Emotion [9:20] [0:05] % [0:02]
a-t07. Simple Twist Of Fate [12:28] ->
a-t08. Run For The Roses [5:00] (1) [0:05] % pre-encore [0:07]
--early show, encore (1 track, 0:07+10:19)--
a-t09. Rhapsody In Red [10:17] [0:02] %

--late show, main set + encore (10 tracks, 87:19)--
--late show, main set (9 tracks, 79:21-0:05)--
b-t01. tuning [0:19]
b-t02. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [8:34] [0:02] % [0:17]
b-t03. I'll Take A Melody [15:27] [0:01] % [0:13]
b-t04. Cats Under The Stars [7:16] %
b-t05. Gomorrah [5:51] %
b-t06. The Harder They Come [14:13] %
b-t07. tuning [0:07]
b-t08. Dear Prudence [14:27] ->
b-t09. Tangled Up In Blue [12:20] [0:03] % pre-encore [0:05]
--late show, encore (1 track, 7:58+0:05)--
b-t10. Midnight Moonlight [7:53] [0:05] %

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #15c
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-Guitar, vox;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-Bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - Keyboards;
! lineup: Greg Errico - Drums;
! lineup: DeeDee Dickerson - vox;
! lineup: Jaclyn LaBranch - vox.

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/19830605-01 (early); https://jerrybase.com/events/19830605-02 (late)

! JGC: http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1983-06-05 (early); http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1983-06-05-tower-theatre-upper-darby-pa-2/ (late).

! db: shnid-76973 (this fileset), shnid-138199 (Peters MAC flac1644). Only two tapes from a Philly show - surprising. The Nak 300s version runs slower, not sure which is correct.

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/IBjq9

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/12/tower-theatre-19-s-69th-street-upper.html.

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html. Final show for JGB #15c. That makes this the last known time Garcia and the great Greg Errico would share a stage.

! R: field recordist: unknown

! R: field recording gear: 2x Nakamichi 300 > Sony D-5

! R: source: master cassette > 1st copy cassette

! R: transfer and FLAC encoding by David Minches: 1st generation cassette played back on Nakamichi Dragon > ART DI/O > Digital Audio Labs Card Deluxe soundcard > Cool Edit 2000 > flac encoding > FLAC.

! R: profoundly muffled, distractingly low vocals. a-t06 ISTE you can hear Jerry counting off the tune, perhaps spliced in from an alt. source? For a second there is sounded real real upfront. That would be consistent with low vocals.

! P: a-t04 LIR is quite good. A 6:25 some interesting patterning, then 6:45 some fanning, over 7, fan to pluck. More fanning early 7. Nice note around 7:28.

! P: a-t05 LITA some lyrics issues to start LITA.

! P: a-t08 RFTR this is a nice period for the song. Errico is much more heavily percussive than Kemper. Not evaluating in any way, just noting the stylistic difference. Errico is a banger.

! a-t08 (1) JG: "Thanks a lot. We'll see you later on. [inaudible]"

! P: b-t08 DP is quite good, with some extra vocal effort, some beautiful unhurried guitar work over the 6-minute mark, lovely. Throughout 9 over 10 he is really weaving lots of concentric circles, all the way to a great brief fan 10:32, now feels like he's unwinding the circles, speeding them up late 10, mixing punctuations with circles, some pulls 11:10-11:11. Lovely.

LN jg1983-06-05.jgb.early-late.aud-peters.138199.flac1644

Jerry Garcia Band
Tower Theatre
69th and Market
Upper Darby, PA 19082
June 5, 1983 (Sunday)- Early and Late (9:30 PM) shows
Peters MAC flac1644 shnid-138199

--early show, main set + encore (8 tracks, 68:50)--
--early show, main set (7 tracks, 59:19)--
e-t01. [0:26] Cats Under The Stars [7:12] [0:16]
e-t02. They Love Each Other [7:28] [0:10] %
e-t03. [0:19] Let It Rock :20-9:09 -9:15 % -9:26
e-t04. Love In The Afternoon 7:51
e-t05. I Second That Emotion 9:19
e-t06. Simple Twist Of Fate 12:08
e-t07. Run For The Roses 5:01
--early show, encore (1 track, 10:54)--
e-t08. [0:29] Rhapsody In Red [10:04] [0:21] %

--late show, main set + encore (8 tracks, 84:12)--
--late show, main set (7 tracks, 77:15)--
l-t01. How Sweet It Is 8:54
l-t02. I'll Take A Melody [15:06] [0:11] % [0:10]
l-t03. Cats Under The Stars [7:06] [0:05] %
l-t04. /Gomorrah [#5:38] [0:11] %
l-t05. /Harder // They Come [#13:#00 ][0:11] % [0:03]
l-t06. /Dear Prudence [#14:04] ->
l-t07. Tangled Up In Blue [12:05] [0:27] % pre-encore [0:04]
--late show, encore (1 track, 8:19)--
l-t08. Midnight Moonlight [7:41] [0:39] %

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #15c
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-Guitar, vox;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-Bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - Keyboards;
! lineup: Greg Errico - Drums;
! lineup: DeeDee Dickerson - vox;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - vox.

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/19830605-01 (early); https://jerrybase.com/events/19830605-02 (late)

! JGC: http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1983-06-05 (early); http://jerrygarcia.com/show/1983-06-05-tower-theatre-upper-darby-pa-2/ (late).

! db: shnid-76973 (1st gen Nak 300s Minches), shnid-138199 (this fileset). Only two tapes from a Philly show - surprising. The Nak 300s version runs slower than this one, not sure which is correct.

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/IBjq9

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/12/tower-theatre-19-s-69th-street-upper.html.

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html. Final show for JGB #15c. That makes this the last known time Garcia and the great Greg Errico would share a stage.

! R: field recordist: Dave Peters

! R: field recording gear: 2x Nakamichi microphones > Sony D6C

! R: lineage: JVC TD-R462 playback > Audacity > TLH Flac8

! R: seeder notes: Tape paused between some tracks. Splice in late show t05.

! R: seeder notes: So the story goes: I answered an ad on Craigslist for 500 free Grateful Dead tapes. On picking them up from the taper, I'm also informed he and a friend recorded other bands through the 70's. These were never circulated, and deemed inferior in quality. When I inquired about digitizing his masters, he laughingly obliged. Most of the old Ampex and BASF tapes are in poor shape, several completely off the spool, and many squealing badly. I will be attempting to bake some of them. I will be presenting the ones of superior quality only, out of the initial batch he loaned me. I do believe these shows will be lovingly embraced by the Dime community, and will be shared here exclusively. Zombiwoof to Dime 2017 series.

! R: lots of room feel, vocals a little boomy. SBEs on every track should be fixed before burning to CD, if anyone still does that.

! P: e-t01 CUTS Philly crowd is singing along enthusiastically. This is a tight version, doesn't go 'round too many times at the end. Good start.

! P: e-t02 TLEO late 2 it's Melvin's turn, but he's inaudible. Up a little more 3:30ff, but he's still pretty low in the mix.

! P: e-t03 LIR is just smoking. Late 6 into 7, boy oh boy can this boy play his guitar. Even more 7:17 just head down and charging, very high in the register late 7.

! P: e-t07 RFTR John sounds great on this.

! R: e-t08 RIR levels come up late 2, but the guitar is pretty buried in the mix. The bass sounds great, by contrast.

! P: e-t08 RIR Jerry sawing 3:20ff, very good molten tone and sensible note choices. Hits the next verse perfectly right at 4. His voice is scratchy-fragile, but he's giving it his all. "I sing the blues | where has it led" (as he sang it) is always a great line. Oh my gosh, late 6 over 7 Garcia is absolutely on fire. Very good RIR, as expected.

! P: l-t02 ITAM Jerry is really feeling it, and the tape does a great job of capturing the crowd responding to him. Nice, nice feeling performance. John has missed a cue or two. @  6:30 one of the ladies goes a turn too many, Jerry circles back to pick her up, all is well. 8:40 ish he is doing some kind of pitch-bending which foreshadows the sustained work in this vein he'd undertake a decade later.

! P: l-t03 CUTS gotta learn how to end it. Like, someone just keep count, define a limit?

! R: l-t04 Gomorrah clips in

! R: l-t05 HTC clips in, splice @ 8:53

! R: l-t06 DP clips in DP

! P: l-t06 DP 9ff long circular progressions.

! P: l-t07 TUIB great energy on vocals and now guitar 6-min range. Exceptionally long phrases 8+ min mark, over 9 just sailing, and the band sounds great. More Garcia guitar pyrotechnics to close the tour. Nice landing to close.

Visions of Johanna

Powerful viewing of a gut-wrenchingly beautiful performance, a dying man grasping at life, stumbling a time or two, laying bare the depth and beauty of the human condition. Thank you, videographer, thank you Bob Dylan, thank you Jerry.

JGB: Halloween 1981 - LN jg1981-10-31.jgb.early-late.aud-levene.88958.flac1644

Late Jerry loved playing on Halloween. In the last fifteen years of his life, the only years he is not known to have gigged on Halloween are 1982 and 1994.

Table xxx. Garcia on Halloween, 1980-1994. Orange is GD, blue is GOTS.

As indicated in the table, things were distributed across the GD (6 dates/shows) and JGB (7 dates, 9 shows). From 1985 forward Garcia played Warren Zevon's "Werewolves Of London", and a good time was generally had, as at the 1989 (a very good JGB show) and 1990 (a raggedy Dead show) iterations, which I attended.

On October 31, 1981, the Jerry Garcia Band played two Halloween shows to open its 18-show-in-20-night "Return of Ron Tutt" tour. Since Garcia had actually been in London at the start of the month, it seems plausible that he might have given "Werewolves" a shot, but it was not to be.

Nevertheless, any start-of-tour is interesting to examine, and this one has some of the telltale signs, including a burst of adrenaline in the early show followed by a shorter and more uneven late show. I have not directly A-B'd his vocals here against vocals later in the tour (I have addressed myself to 11/10/81b Palladium, 11/13/81 Boston, 11/15/81 Provy, and 11/17/81 Chicago), but my unsurprised sense is that they sound better here at the front end than they do at the back end. Update: 11/19/81 has a bone to pick with this idea. Obvious enough, but aAnyway, always nice to see how they sound, take JGB #14b's temperature.

The Tutt angle is especially rich. In 1981-1982, as he descended deeper into a drug haze when not playing, Garcia nevertheless, rather ironically, started getting his business affairs in order. It seems that one early order of business was to square up with Ronnie Tutt, one of the three principals dba Jerry Garcia Band from the very beginning of the JGB and who  for many years faced liens earned by Jerry and John well after Tutt's 1977 departure from the touring band. In later years, as his income grew, Garcia expanded this practice of engineering a payday or few for a collaborator he had done/allowed to be done wrong -- see Saunders, Merl and Grisman, David. Here, in late 1981, both Peter Rowan (who opened a number of shows on the tour) and Ronnie Tutt get to set the precedent. I don't hear anything that seems particularly emotionally resonant here - more typically, I hear Jerry and the band, perhaps particularly Tutt, getting themselves together a little bit.

Two more small pieces of preface. First, I grabbed this to put some context around 11/4/81, which I have revisited pursuant to Weiner (2014, pp. 67-76), and on which I hope someday to report. Second, in terms of tape archaeology, this is the only tape in circulation as of this writing (4/11/2015). I figure several masters must have sauntered into the Philly morning, but this is the only one to have come into the digital light. Thanks to John Levene and all involved in bringing these very nice tapes forward.

Anyway, a few bullets, in no particular order.

1. The tapes sound great.
2. The early show is very long (over 90 minutes), and is outstanding.
3. The late show is much shorter (just over an hour and a 10-minute encore, still not bad), but more importantly, it just doesn't light me up, finding Garcia having to pull the e-brake on as both "Valerie" and "I'll Take A Melody" fall apart. The one exception is "Russian Lullaby", which is stellar, a smoky sensorial mix of Django Reinhardt and Irving Berlin.
4. Jimmy Warren sounds absolutely fine. People have been way too hard on the guy.
5. "Valerie" is not quite together, but boy oh boy do I love this song.
5. Late 1981, JGB #14b, is a fascinating period. Garcia's voice is still present here at the start of the tour, but with just enough weary crackle to give songs like "Simple Twist Of Fate" and "I'll Take A Melody" the ballast they really need.

Listening Notes follow.

Jerry Garcia Band
Tower Theatre
19 S. 69th Street
Upper Darby, PA 19082
October 31, 1981 (Saturday)
Levene shnid-88958

--early show (8 tracks, 93:53)--
e-t01. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [9:15] [0:08] %% [1:08]
e-t02. Catfish John [11:29] [0:10] % [0:58]
e-t03. That's What Love Will Make You Do [10:48] [0:36] % [0:14]
e-t04. [0:21] Simple Twist Of Fate// [13:22#] %% [0:29]
e-t05. Knockin' On Heaven's Door [16:20] [0:10] % [0:18]
e-t06. (I'm A) Road Runner [9:01] [0:15] %
e-t07. [0:14] Deal [8:17] [-0:05] ->
e-t08.  Tangled Up In Blue [+0:05] [10:08] (1) [0:06] %

--late show + encore (8 tracks, 73:57)--
--late show (7 tracks, 64:44)--
l-t01. //The Way You Do The Things You Do [#7:28] [0:08] % [0:08] %
l-t02. They Love Each Other [6:56] %% [0:15]
l-t03. [0:10] Valerie :11-7:04 [0:04] % [0:36]
l-t04. I'll Take A Melody [11:47] %% [0:21]
l-t05. Russian Lullaby [10:14] [0:04] %% [0:30]
l-t06. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [8:02] ->
l-t07. Dear Prudence [10:40] (2) [0:12] %% [0:16]
--encore (1 track, 9:12)--
l-t08. Sugaree [9:07] [0:05] %

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #14b
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-b;
! lineup: Jimmy Warren - electric keyboards;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - organ;
! lineup: Ron Tutt - drums;
! lineup: Julie Stafford - vocals;
! lineup: Liz Stires - 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/19811031-01 (early), https://jerrybase.com/events/19811031-02 (late).

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/88958 (this fileset).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/IBjq9

! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/12/tower-theatre-19-s-69th-street-upper.html

! band: JGB #14b (http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html)

! seealso: 11/10/81b, Palladium, NYC (http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/03/ln-jg1981-11-10jgblateaud.html);  11/13/81, Orpheum, Boston (http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/03/ln-jg1981-11-13jgbearly-lateaud.html); 11/15/81, Provy (http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/03/ln-jg1981-11-15jgballaud.html); 11/17/81, Uptown, Chicago (http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2015/03/ln-jg1981-11-17jgballaud.html).

! data: Billboard, 11/21/81, p. unk, via Google Books: two sellouts, gross $58,276 on 5,960 tickets sold.

! R: field recordist: John Levene

! R: field recording gear: 2x Nakamichi 300 (cp4 shotgun) > Marantz CD330

! R: field recording location: taper: "I seem to recall that I taped the early show in the back of the floor seats, but no recollection of where I was for the late show?  I think it was the balcony."

! R: Transfer: Yamaha K-1020 > Sony SBM-1 > Nomad JB3 > Creative Play Center > Soundforge v6e > CDWav. reative Play Center software used to copy to laptop. Soundforge used to prep file for tracking. CDWave used to track and flac at level 8 compression.

! P: historical: Cognitively, we are drawn to variation, a point I discussed in "James Booker,  Classified". Methodologically, my day-job sistren and brethren like large random samples, and preferably Randomized Control Trials under asymptotically-approaching-the-experimental ideal conditions. Given the impossibility of that kind of construction in re my study of the Garciaverse, we'll have to select strictly *unrepresenentative* moments, informed by strong priors. For example, I am listening to this show precisely because it's got some unusual features from which I hope I might learn some things. Most obviously, this is the first night of the "Return of Ron Tutt" tour, 18 shows in 20 days on the road. In 1981-1982, as he descended deeper into a drug haze when not playing, Garcia nevertheless, rather ironicallym, started getting his business affairs in order. It seems that one early order of business was to square up with Ronnie Tutt, one of the three principals dba Jerry Garcia Band from the very beginning of the JGB and who  for many years faced liens earned by Jerry and John well after Tutt's 1977 departure from the touring band. In later years, as his income grew, Garcia expanded this practice of engineering a payday or few for a collaborator he had done/allowed to be done wrong -- see Saunders, Merl and Grisman, David. Here, in late 1981, both Peter Rowan and Ronnie Tutt get to set the precedent. Beyond that historical context, there's just the chance to hear the first night of the tour, see how they sound, take JGB #14b's temperature, and also to put some context around 11/4/81, which I have revisited pursuant to Weiner (2014, pp. 67-76). Oh yeah, one more thing: this is the only tape in circulation as of this writing (4/11/2015). I figure several masters must have sauntered into the Philly morning, but this is the only one to have come into the digital light. Thanks to John Levene and all involved in bringing these very nice tapes forward.

! EARLY SHOW NOTES

! R: this is a really nice tape - outstanding! There are some singers around, there's lots of ambience. There's also someone nearby who is quite knowledgeable, cheering John by name during his STOF feature.

! P: early show: I don't recall being lit up by the first three tunes when I listened to them spring break 2015. In returning 4/10/2015, a couple weeks later, I find this to be absolutely smokin. The band sounds great, everybody - Melvin a little buried in the mix but ethereal, Jimmy Warren playing well, the ladies singing powerfully for white chicks.

 ! P: e-t01 Weird little "ooh-ooh" backing vocal in HSII, a little arrangement variation to start the tour, but I think they'd drop it - wonder if they were asked to do so, or instructed to do so by Melvin?

! R: e-t01 HSII @ 3:48-3:56 real time gap. Listening to the crowd clap is just a joy - this tape sounds great.

! R: e-t04 STOF cuts in

! P: e-t04 STOF I am picking this back up a month or so after the notes from the first three tracks. Here I note Tutt sounding totally in the pocket, and Garcia singing well. The tape is great. Around 2:10 he hits a nice vocal thing, letting himself sound world weary, in a delivery that really suits the song. Huge long phrasings over 4. More long Jerry passages. John picks up his feature at 8.

! P: e-t05 KOHD Jimmy Warren takes a totally respectable solo late 7 to 8. Kahn sounds great, the whole band sounds great. As this songs ends after 16 minutes, I find myself reminded why I love this song during this era. Unlike the dirge of 1976 (which admittedly could clock in over 20 minutes, IIRC), this just hops really nicely along. I love how they arranged this with the organ, giving it a nice little lilt that it never had before. Awesome.

! P: e-t06 IARR so great! He doesn't get the lyrical progressions right, but it pops pretty nicely. Note that this is a real punchy tape and I find the music sounding punchy.

! P: e-t07 Deal this is real nice as Jerry takes another turn late 1 over 2, and he is playing very creatively and enthusiastically. 2:30ish "since you poured the wine for me", then a little vocal flub before "composin' loneseome blues". Big long 1981 vintage pull as he starts ramping Deal up ... that's a good thing. Nice feedback 4:15, great sustain, now picking up his action, characteristically great 1981-Deal-guitar. Pedals in some more raunch, dials up a little, 4:55 and over 5 he's starting to get his wail on. I can't believe he's going to play TUIB after this. Recall that 11/17/81 Chi and maybe 11/19/81 Denver are long. No shortchanging the early show ticket holders here on the opening night of the tour. 6:10 they are being treated to some serious rock and roll guitar, way up the neck 6:25 ish, mixing up long sustains and fast descending scales. Very nice guitar late 6. Doing a little Carlos thing start of 7.

! P: e-t08 TUIB first solo right from 2. Nice, sounds great. Very stringy (that's a good thing) 2:27. Another go 2:40ff, excellent. @ 2:57 Tutt hits a high hat that is perfection itself. Mid-7 just some great long TUIB expressions, very fluid and fluent. 7:58 big rock chord, faster rounds 8:07, huge feedback 8:15, wow, that is a keeper piece of feedback right there.

! e-t08 JG: "Thanks a lot. See ya later on."

! LATE SHOW NOTES

! R: late show: I suspect stage right/house left a little bit. Organ more audible late show than early show. It's very nice instrumentally, bass a little indistinct to start, now coming in l-t04 ITAM. As of ITAM I'd say the bass is still overloaded a little bit, unfortunate. This is the only circulating pull of a night that must have seen at least several tapes saunter out of both shows. Overloading again on "Sugaree".

! R: l-t01 TWYDTTYD cuts in. It sounds a little oversaturated, levels come down 0:17. Jimmy's piano very forward, way more present on the than Melvin's organ playing.

! P: l-t01 TWYDTTYD Jerry's first solo 1:44 he has turned up a little, comes in with enthusiasm and the tape picks up the crowd, pleased.

! P: l-t02 TLEO not my favorite choice, but I can be surprised sometimes. Here, because the tape has Jimmy Warren's electric piano so far forward, you can really hear what he could do, and I will say here that I think he sounds absolutely fine. It sounds like Jerry hasn't quite pinned down all of these arrangements with his band out on its first night of a very long tour. On TLEO, Tutt and Jerry don't seem sycn'd up to start, easy to say since it's just the two of them to start. But Jimmy picks up his part right on time. Melvin follows and they are providing a nice bass of support for the rhythm section to get together. I can't really hear John very well, so maybe he was responsible for the thudding start. It gets more together, but it never really goes any where for me.

! R: l-t03 Valerie taper has his levels way up and things overload until 0:16, when taper dials down.

! P: l-t03 Valerie, by contrast to TLEO, is a song I love, and this is a very early version that I look forward to hearing. On this tape, so from wherever we are in the room, we'll get a nice perspective on the early take of a great song in its too-brief place in the Garcia Band repertoire. My take is that it's what you'd expect for a new song on opening night of the tour in Philly. They are clearly pinning it down, but it's mostly fine and at times very good. Late 4 Jerry has stacked up some nice guitar and the crowd perks up its ears. Jerry delivers this song, with its shoulder shaking, finger-wagging, mane-shaking defiance, with the appropriate attitude. But then, whoops, early 6 he mumbles through a forgotten verse and is pulling the rip chord ... run away! John became audible there for a moment. So, it's a mixed bag, but interesting to hear. I love this song and you can already tell it has great promise from the get-go.

! P: l-t04 ITAM: This song sounds great in late 1981. Jerry can still sing, but he's already taking on and making good use of a weary scratch. He can still, just barely, sustain his notes, and he warbles his weariness with just enough remaining lung and force to get it a great swinging groove. He sounds confident, he's still moving ontstage with some swagger. Soon enough, heroin would trump cocaine and place the swagger with mooby, withdrawn stationarity, but not yet. On 10/31/81 in Philly Garcia can still bring it. Late 10 there is a nice scrub that sounds promising but then, in 11, and like Valerie, it just falls appart at some point ca. 11, and Jerry leads the close, preempting other trouble.

! P: l-t05 Russian Lullaby: "Russian Lullaby", how do I love thee? I love thee lots. I am really looking forward to hearing this, based on the start. Jerry and John are have constructed a bar scene in a Django Reinhardt - Irving Berlin suspensorium, to the drinker's soaked delight and amazement. This is careful, attentive music, totally respectful of the traditions, standing with and bheind them, spinning threads 3:20 and after 3:30, Tutt all gentle highhat, Melvin was playing so beautifully in this period, calm and spacious. Jerry 4:20 breaks off a shard, Jimmy feature 4:30ff and he sounds just fine, still fine over 5 and sounding great, with a glissando 5:11, cool and sounding very nice as he hands it off to John, 5:33ff. Tasteful piece. By 8:10 Jerry has bent in a little minor urgency, everything takes on a different color, John skipping lightly, Melvin and drums super tasteful.

! P: l-t06 TNTDODD This works well in this late 1981 Jerry voice. I worry about hearing this at the end of the tour, but here at the start it works well.

! l-t07 (2) JG: "Thanks a lot. See ya later."

Finally Busting out Cats at the End of the Cats Tour: JGB at the Philly Spectrum, March 16, 1978

 LN jg1978-03-16.jgb.all.aud-petrunis.124066.flac1644

Jerry Garcia Band
Spectrum Theater
3601 S. Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19148
March 16, 1978 (Thursday)
Petrunis aud shnid-124066

--complete show (10 tracks, 87:45)--
t01. The Harder They Come [10:36] % [-0:02]
t02. [+0:02] /Mission In The Rain [10:40] %
t03. /That's What Love Will Make You Do [10:25] %
t04. /Gomorrah [#7:15] %
t05. //Tore Up Over //You [#7:#48] %
t06. /Love In The Afternoon [#10:44] %
t07. //I'll Be With Thee [5:25] %
t08. //Cats Under The Stars [#7:14] [0:02] %
t09. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [9:11] %
t10. /Midnight Moonlight// [#8:23#]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #4a
! Member: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! Member: John Kahn - el-b;
! Member: Keith Godchaux - piano;
! Member: Buzz Buchanan - drums;
! Member: Donna Jean Godchaux - vocals;
! Member: Maria Muldaur - vocals.

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/19780316-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/28790 (unattributed aud, possibly this source); http://etreedb.org/shn/124066 (this fileset).

! map: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=3601+S.+Broad+Street,+Philadelphia,+PA&hl=en&sll=38.997934,-105.550567&sspn=7.587664,16.907959&t=h&hnear=3601+S+Broad+St,+Philadelphia,+Pennsylvania+19148&z=17

! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/06/spectrum-and-spectrum-theatre-3601-s.html

! review: Matt Damsker, "Garcia Offers Some Homespun Folk-Rock," Evening Bulletin (Philadelphia), March 17, 1978, p 34. The band's "affection for casual variety was well received by approximately 6,600 fervent followers of the Dead." His basic characterization: positive about their "homespun folk-rock".

! see also: Mike Grosswald and Glen Blavat, "Jerry Garcia’s Band Under the Stars," Happytimes (Philadelphia), March 31, 1978, p. 15. See notes at http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2010/11/reading-notes-grosswald-mike-and-glen.html.

! R: field recordist: Rich Petrunis

! R: field recording gear: Sony handheld recorder

! R: field recording media: 1x Lafayette low bias cassette, no NR

! R: transfer: nak dragon > tascam hd-p2 24/96 > pc > adobe audition 2.0  > cd wave > tlh flac, transfer & seed by Rob Berger march 2013.

! R: notes: "thanks to LL's powrtoch for loaning me his Dad's masters. great sound for a hand held and a classic Mystery Cats set." There is some nice color, including folks near the taper, perhaps the folks he was with, struggling with folks standing in front of them.

! P: t01 HTC Garcia's guitar work in 5-6 minute range is potent, aggressive, exploratory. Very, very nice.

! R: t01-t02 tracking maybe a bit off. MITR cuts in.

! P: t02 MITR vocals sound OK at this point, relatively speaking. Having had the day before, two of the last three, off seems to have helped. I love the way Jerry is singing MITR here. This song wore well (thematically, if not vocally) as he suffered his travails. And I love the harmony arrangements with Donna Jean and Maria, the one's "white gospel heartiness" with the other's "white  blues sultriness" (Damsker 1978). A little madonna-whore thing going there, but whatever.

! R: t03 TWLWMYD I suspect taper might have stood up, because a minute or two in, the hi-hat is much more present. Or maybe the PA was still settling in. The Damsker review notes the below-GD-par sound quality.

! R: t03 TWLWMYD clips in

! R: t04 Gomorrah clips in

! R: t05 TUOY cuts in, splice @ 4:18

! P: t05 TUOY never really takes off, to my ears.

! R: t06 LITA clips in.

! song: Cats Under The Stars (t08): This is the first time played on this tour. Funny to be "touring behind" (really, because they were catastrophically late, "touring in front of") an album named Cats Under The Stars, and not breaking out the title tune, which I gather Jerry hoped would garner some airplay, until midway through. I suspect they finalized (and possibly began working on!) a serious live arrangement for the song on the off-day (the day before). The two known versions from '77 (11/21 and 12/2) were definitely at the "work in progress" stage.

! setlist: It is impossible to tell from this recording whether HSII and MM, or just MM, or neither, represented an encore. I would guess that MM was the encore, but I can't really tell for sure.

! P: t10 MM sounds to me like JG and BB are not on the same tempo to start, but it could be the boominess of the room and all the ambient clapping. This is a nice energetic version of MM. But Jerry is losing steam at the end.

! R: t10 SQ change, slightly more muffled, @ 3:45. Maybe had to put mics down, or someone stood in front of taper? Opens back up @ 8:02. Straight bad tape cut on the back-end, but by this time it's just as well -- not that much missing, I would guess.

! itinerary: Fly out Wednesday, March 8th (all but Tutt: United #72, DC8, SFO 9:45 a.m., arrive Cleveland 5:05 p.m.; Tutt: United #78, LAX 11:30 a.m. - Cleveland 6:40 p.m.) to start tour in Cleveland on the 9th. Shows 9-10-11-12, Monday 3/13 off. Show Tues. 14th in Boston, another day off, then this show in Philly. Staying at the Hilton, 10th & Packer, "across the street" from the venue (http://goo.gl/maps/NyEhx). This is hardly a downtown location, but it's right across from the gig and probably much better than the next night's digs, at the HoJo's in Clifton, NJ. Levon Helm and His R.C.O. All Stars opened, scheduled to go on at 7 pm, JGB on at 9 with an 11 pm closing. Five shows the three nights following, then home sweet home on TWA #25 on Monday 3/20.

Lizless Sextet: JGB at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, June 23, 1982

LN jg1982-06-23.jgb.s1s2p.aud-CC.xxxxxx.flac2448

This date interests me because Liz Stires is said to have left the JGB tour after the previous night's gig (6/22/82). So this would be a show with only one backing vocalist (Julie Stafford), a rare JGB sextet with two keyboards (JGB #14d, I have proposed we catalogue it). Truth is, I can't hear from this tape whether there is one vocalist or whether there are two. I plan to put ears on the other partial tape (which looks to complement this tape nicely; concatenated, they should provide the complete show). Anyway, the review (Allison 1982a) seems to say pretty clearly there is a single vocalist, so given the provenance [redacted] of the information that Liz left on 6/22, it's a pretty sure bet she's not here.

Oh, yeah. There's a really outrageous, ripping guitar solo about 8 minutes into Tangled Up In Blue. As I say in  my notes, I bet Garcia was sweating like a greased pig. But it's good stuff.

So, review, then listening notes.

Jerry Garcia Band
Stanley Theater
830 Liberty Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
June 23, 1982 (Wednesday)
Closet Call 2nd gen s1s2p cassette (81 minutes)

--Set I (6 tracks, 59:01, complete)--
s1t01. crowd and tuning [3:48]
s1t02. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [9:21] [1:48]
s1t03. I'll Take A Melody [14:55] [2:12]
s1t04. Valerie [7:31] [0:06]%
s1t05. (I'm A) Road Runner [8:48] [0:19]
s1t06. Tangled Up In Blue [10:13] (1) %

--Set II (3 tracks, 22:12, incomplete, start of set)--
s2t01. crowd and tuning [1:11]
s2t02. The Harder They Come [11:29] [1:53]
s2t03. Let It Rock [7:36] [0:02] %

[MISSING Russian Lullaby ->]
[MISSING Dear Prudence ->]
[MISSING Run For The Roses]
[MISSING --Encore-- Deal]

! Band: Jerry Garcia Band #14d
! Lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! Lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;
! Lineup: Melvin Seals - organ;
! Lineup: Jimmy Warren - electric piano;
! Lineup: Bill Kreutzmann - drums;
! Lineup: Julie Stafford - 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.

! JGC: https://jerrygarcia.com/show/1982-06-23

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19820623-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/90876, incomplete unlineaged audience tape.

! map: http://goo.gl/maps/oab9c

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/05/stanley-theatre-830-liberty-avenue.html

! seealso: JGMF, "A JGB drum solo by Bill Kreutzmann - Cape Cod Coliseum, June 18, 1982," URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2017/07/a-jgb-drum-solo-by-bill-kreutzmann-cape.html.

! seealso: JGMF, "Long Ago and Far Away: JGB at Cumberland County Civic Center, Portland, ME, June 20, 1982," URL https://jgmf.blogspot.com/2019/08/long-ago-and-far-away-jgb-at-cumberland.html.

! personnel: The key historical interest of this show lies in the personnel. This is an odd, fleeting, sextet configuration with Garcia and Kahn (of course), featuring two keyboardists (Melvin Seals on organ and Jimmy Warren on electric piano). Bill Kreutzmann is on drums, which would happen periodically for reasons that are not very clear, but worth thinking through at some point. Yet this is a rare night with only a single backing vocalist (Julie Stafford, as I presently understand things). I think the last time Garcia would have played with a single backup singer (always a "girl singer", as he once referred to Dolly Parton) would probably have been late '77, with Donna Jean Godchaux but without Maria Muldaur. In this instance, there were two backing vocalists for the tour, but Liz Stires left the Garcia Band after the June 22nd show at the Richmond Mosque in Richmond, VA [TJS]. A review in the Penn State Daily Collegian (Allison 1982a) identifies the band personnel (though only Garcia and Kreutzmann by name) as including "a woman vocalist", going on to note that "the woman vocalist had few opportunities to perform, but was always a fine addition." I think this is pretty solid confirmation that there was only one singer, and that, indeed, Liz Stires left the tour a few days early. According to Corry's typology, this should be JGB #14d, which would have done three shows on 6/23/82 and 6/24/82 (early and late).

! setlist: Allison 1982a says "Let It Rock" ended the second set, but he also says that LIR is a Garcia original. This tape runs continuously from the warmup before HTC through the end of LIR, so if LIR was last (before the encore), then HTC was also the penultimate tune.

! historical: see note about personnel. The Allison review (1982a) notes that Garcia will play two shows, at 6 and 9, Sunday night (6/27) at the Tower Theatre in Philly (actually, Upper Darby), and that as of the the 24th tickets were still available. (Note that the Tower show was Garcia/Kahn.)

! R: this is definitely a different recording than the one embodied in shnid-90876, and on a quick listen I think this one is better. I have to check more carefully, but it looks like these tapes will fit nicely together and, hopefully, can be concatenated to provide the complete show.

! R: source tape: "2nd gen aud", 1x Maxell XLII (no Dolby)

! R: transfer: Nakamichi BX-300 playback (no Dolby) > Pyle Pro cables > WaveTerminal 2496 > Samplitude 10.1 Download Version (record @ 24 bits/48kHz) > CDWave 1.9.8 (tracking) > Adobe Audition 3.0.1 Build 8347.0 (fades) > Traders Little Helper 2.4.1 (FLAC 2448 encoding, level 8) > Foobar (tagging).

! R: This is a classic Closet Call tape. It's not great, but it's not bad. Things are a little overloaded, and there's definitely some room feel, but the (unknown) recordist was in a pretty good spot and did a pretty good job. The keyboards and backing vocals are a little washed out, while the bass sounds pretty good. The recordist just left the tape rolling, 45 minutes at a time, by the sound of things, which is really nice.

! R s1t03 ITAM about 7 and a half minutes in there is a real-time blank spot. You can sort of hear the music imprinted underneath it. Maybe someone forgot to pop the tabs on their tapes?
! personnel: s1t06 TUIB I can't tell if I hear two backing vocalists?

! P: s1t06 TUIB Garcia is tearing it up in this TUIB. This is some pretty outrageous guitar. Easily some of his @@ best licks of the year. Solo around 8 minutes into TUIB. Late 8-min mark and forward, just very, very lengthy phrasings, also at blowout intensity and some great raunch. I bet Garcia was sweating like a fucking hog here.

! s1t06 (1) JG: "Thanks, we're gonna take a break for a little while. See y'//".

! Disclaimer: This is part of a "Closet Call" project aimed at getting missing Garcia dates into the digital realm. These are "warts and all" ... straight transfers of the source cassettes with editing only of the most offensive tape transitions and such. If you don't like hiss, possible speed problems, etc., etc., then move along. And, to anticipate a FAQ: no, I don't plan on doing 16/44s of these. Thanks to wk for supplying these tapes!

References:
Allison, John. 1982a. Garcia band hot at the Stanley. Daily Collegian (Pennsylvania State University), June 25, 1982, p. 13.
Arnold, Corry. 2012. Jerry Garcia Band Personnel 1975-1995. Lost Live Dead, January 12, 2012, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html, consulted 3/24/2013.

jgmf.blogspot.com

By the Grace of the Lord: Legion of Mary at the Masonic Temple, Scranton, April 12, 1975

LN jg1975-04-12.lom.late.sbd-gems.117832.flac1644

Legion of Mary
Masonic Temple
420 North Washington Avenue
Scranton, PA 18503
April 12, 1975, 11 p.m. late show (Saturday)
sbd gems shnid-117832

--late show, 11 pm, main set + encore (7 tracks, 91:36)--
--late show, main set (6 tracks, xx:xx)--
t01. Let It Rock [12:27] [0:16] % [0:04]
t02. tuning [0:38], La-La [12:44] (1) [0:38]
t03. tuning [0:20], Boogie On Reggae Woman [16:18] [0:12] % [0:47]
t04. Mississippi // Moon [8:#20] [0:08] % [0:46]
t05. tuning [0:18], Going, Going, Gone [14:08] [0:51]
t06. Beer Barrel Polka [0:11] -> Mystery Train [12:49] (2) [0:58]
--late show encore (1 track, xx:xx)--
t07. crowd [0:03] % dead air [0:07], tuning [0:42], Tough Mama// [7:43#] % dead air [0:04]

! ACT1: Legion of Mary
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;
! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards;
! lineup: Martin Fierro - flute (t02, t05), saxophone, percussion;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;
! lineup: Ron Tutt - drums.

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/19750412-02. 

! R: Ryan Shriver's note from TJS: "This is probably the most confused Legion of Mary show in circulation. The setlist above is what I believe to be the correct setlist for the Late show." Shriver was a pioneer in many things, including trying to sort out the mess of the tapes with this date. The setlist on this tape matches the TJS setlist until the alleged encore.

! db: shnid 4484 ("MSR > 1R > P > D > ZA/2 > SHN"); shnid 31479 ("sbd > reel > dat > cdr > cdwave > flac > wav > flac"); shnid 117832 (this fileset). The notes for shnid 31479 say "Unlike the other source in circulation (shnid 4484), there is no splice in Lala and Mystery Train does not cut at the end". Neither of these earlier sources has the Tough Mama that appears on the present fileset, though as elaborated below I am not persuaded that that song is actually from this show.

! seealso: JGMF, "Catholics Listing the Legion"

! Seeder Notes: "Lineage unknown, some imperfections and dropouts remain but this seems different than the other sources.  I hope listeners sort out the extra song, which sounds to my ears to be the band coming back for an encore, but I could be wrong. Happy Holidays 2011. *gems*"

! Seeder: "Fresh transfer of Archived SBD DAT from Thrak; Mastering by Jamie Waddell; TDK DAT > Tascam DA20 > Lynx2 > Wavelab7; WeissSaracon for 16bit 44.1kHz FLAC8 SBE Free."

! R: I had originally said "very nice Betty Board", but as of 2/1/2014 I no longer thing Betty was along for this tour. I do not know the precise provenance of these April 1975 Legion sbd tapes. I suspect that the lineage given on shnid 4484 is closer to correct than the alleged sbd reel > DAT label on the (later-created and -circulated) 31479, but I am not sure. I now believe that Kingbee obtained copies of the April 1975 LOM tapes independently, though things are hazy.

! P: t01 LIR some nice fanning descents in the late 10-min mark, some bending and running around, brief flurries @ 11:25. Nice, Jer!

! t02 La-La, can hear Martin counting it off to start. Nice.

! R: t02 drop @ track 4:07

! P: t02 La-La: The cheek-shaking screaming in the 4-minute mark strikes me as consistent with the proposition I have articulated re: Martin Fierro, namely that he got more forward, more or less continuously so, over the course of his time playing with Jerry and Merl. We talk a lot, directly or indirectly, about the respective personal, musical/artistic, professional and other circumstances/goals/ambitions/hopes/dreams of Jerry, John Kahn, Merl, the OAITW guys and so forth. But we rarely talk about Martin. OAITW struggled and reasonably quickly failed to integrate [the circumstances/goals/ambitions/hopes/dreams of] Grisman, Rowan and Garcia. Corry has analyzed post-1972 JGMS as an equilibrium between Garcia, Kahn and Saunders. But Fierro has been largely overlooked. I'll try to elaborate and speculate at some point.

! t02 @ 13:50 (1) Merl vocal mic check "Testing. Testing"

! t03 BORW: Martin on guiro at start, but blowing saxophone right in the first verse.

! P: t04 Mississippi Moon: tempos are off at first, because Jerry wants this to be really, really, really, really slow. They're on the same page by the lyric, but the first half-minute involves everyone else successively (repeatedly) cutting their tempos inhalf to slow down with Jerry. It's amazing how sweet Garcia's voice still sounded at this point.

! R: t04 MM brief drop/clip @ 6:37.

! setlist: Playing Mississippi Moon and GGG back-to-back really anchors the languid pacing of this set.

! t06 (2) JG: "Thank you. We'll see y'all later on." House music comes up @ 13:28 or so. Stage announcements, crowd cries out in dismay. This is a show-closing announcement, so it's correctly placed regardless of the status of Tough Mama.

! setlist: t06 Mystery Train is intended as the last song of the set.

! setlist: t07 Tough Mama: This Bob Dylan composition was first released on the album Planet Waves. I have contended about Going, Going, Gone --also from Planet Waves-- that Garcia liked the sound of the song (as played on record by The Band) as much as the lyrics. Wild speculation, but Robbie Robertson's guitar work is just so striking, so obviously worthy of listening to (repeatedly) and playing with ... and Garcia picked these songs up off the album and put them in his side-band repertoire so quickly ... this song just has a nice feel to it.

! setlist: The Lossless Legs seeder (*gems*) opened the question of whether "Tough Mama" is indeed an encore of the late (11 pm) show held at the Masonic Freaking Temple at 420 North Washington Avenue in Scranton, Freaking, PA 18503 on Saturday night, April 12, 1975. Let's evaluate, quickly. Pro1: here it is, labeled that way. Pro2: the room and recording, to my useless ears, sound very similar. Con1: Tough Mama is not on other tapes. Con2: Ryan Shriver (TJS) went forensically through all of these April 1975 tapes years ago. He said of 4/12/75b "This is probably the most confused Legion of Mary show in circulation", and his findings did not include a Tough Mama encore for thos show. Con3: Unless they took like 10 minutes warming back up for the encore and *really* got the crowd settled down, I cannot believe the minute or so of tape leading up to Tough Mama captures a Legion of Mary encore in April 1975. Now Scranton ain't NYC, but there were probably at least a few Deadheads in the audience who had taken the time to see Legion of Mary on this present tour or, as something like Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders (JGMS), during the November 1974 tour. Passaic 112 mi., NYC 121 mi., Upper Darby 122: not next door, but not impossible. Travel aside, many local Deadheads would be familiar with the Garcia-Saunders-Kahn-Vitt Live at the Keystone album from Fantasy. Things are way too sedate to believe that it's a late night encore of a tune from Dylan's Planet Waves. The Grateful Dead were "retired", or whatever they called it. The crowd sounds pretty rabid in the time after Mystery Train (t06), when the show appears to be ending. Folks are pretty worked up, and now they're really calm and quiet-like for the encore?. Long story short, the quietude of the crowd before Tough Mama (i.e., at the start of t07) seems incompatible with this being an encore for this show, at this time of night. It just doesn't ring true. In sum, while we are just dealing with a 9 minute tape fragment, I feel reasonably confident that this is not the encore for the 11pm LOM show on 4/12/75 in Scranton, PA.

! R: t07 Tough Mama cuts out.

OAITW: June 11, 1973, Temple University-Ambler, Ambler, PA

This show (OAITW: June 11, 1973, Temple Festival Theater, Ambler, PA) will end up being important to me, I think, as I write more about OAITW and the summer of 1973. Can't wait.

For now, I just want to address venue confusion.

**update: it was definitely in an amphitheater, not an enclosed theater - thanks to attendee/commenter Gr8fulD for further confirmation**


The Jerry Site's data are presently a mess. Here are the two "changes" that have been noted at the Jerry Site's entry for the show:

• Mar 8, 2010 - [ryanshriver@mac.com] Changed venue based on info from Hank Edenborn, "The venue for the show below was definitely the outdoor concert venue of the Temple University - Ambler Campus. The "Ambler Theater" is an indoor venue where other Dead spin-off bands may perhaps have played, but there is no way that this show was played there. I was finishing up a year at Temple University main campus at the time and it was undoubtedly how I saw the announcement for the show." 
• Sep 10, 2008 - [ryanshriver@mac.com] Changed venue from the Temple Festival Theater to The Ambler Theatre based on info from Harry Angus. 

 And yet the listing is still traditionally given as Temple Festival Theater.

I have one datum to ad to the mix.

Unfortunately, I don't have the reference for this. But I do have a copy of the "ad [actually a calendar listing] in June 5th edition of Philadelphia newspaper Drummer" mentioned at TJS, which I believe came from Joey Newlander. And it also says Temple Festival Theater.

Anyway, the ad contradicts the participant/Jerry Site informant's memory, and I am just not sure how to reconcile. On the one hand, you have an ad for a show which seems to be promoted by professionals ("Electric Factory Concerts presents at Temple Festival Theater"). It seems to have nothing to do with Temple University-Ambler. Yet, Hank Edenborn tells TJS that "The venue for the show below was definitely the outdoor concert venue of the Temple University - Ambler Campus", he having attended it.

In general, ex ante advertisements, especially drawn ads rather than calendar listings, probably lose out in an evidentiary test to credible eyewitness testimony. I guess I am just wondering what the hell happened between whenever the ad was submitted and June 11th. And where are we talking about? The Ambler Theater, which looks really nice on a street view, seems not to be the place under discussion (i.e., the same as the "Temple Festival Theater" named in the ad)? The only google results on "Temple Festival Theater" that are relevant go back to The Jerry Site and here. So whatever the hell this advertisement is referring to as the venue, it seems to have been lost to memory. WTF?

Here's a blurb I found from the college's web site, which  might be relevant:

For 13 years, the music played on. In 1968, the Temple University Music Festival and Institute was born at the Ambler Campus with two important goals — to serve as a school for young professional musicians and to provide several summers of world-class music. In its heyday, the Music Festival stage was graced by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, and Duke Ellington. The amphitheater placed the spotlight on rising stars such as Dionne Warwick, Johnny Mathis, and Temple’s own Bill Cosby. Area residents, and many well beyond, fondly remember the “42 Evenings of Musical Excellence” that summers at Ambler would bring.Though the location of the well-remembered Music Festival now plays host to Temple’s Owls baseball and softball teams ... 

Anyway, I guess we have to go with the eyewitness and list the venue as the "outdoor concert venue of the Temple University - Ambler Campus". Maybe, based on the text above, we could just call it "Ampitheater"? Thoughts?

Two final notes.First, I had always thought this was a bluegrass festival. Guess not. Heh heh. Second, if there were hassles with this it'd be really interesting for the narrative that is revealing itself around OAITW and the 1973 bluegrass festival season.

**update2: per commenter Gr8fulD, Doug Sahm opened**

Cat in the Limelight: RN Grosswald and Blavat 1978

Grosswald, Mike and Glen Blavat. 1978. Jerry Garcia’s Band Under the Stars. Happytimes (Philadelphia), March 31, 1978, p. 15.

Grosswald-Bavat 1978: This is a really nicely done piece from what I assume was a Philly underground paper, Happytimes, around the time of the JGB’s visit to that town in mid-March (3/16/78 at the Spectrum Theatre). Garcia had actually promoted Cats Under the Stars pretty vigorously, including interviews at least on March 10 in Rochester, March 11 in Pawtucket, and March 17 in NYC. It is well-established that Garcia poured himself into the album, loved it from an artistic point of view, and felt the sting of its commercial failure very, very deeply. I’d go so far as to say that he gave up trying after CUTS dropped through the charts like a stone. But that’s a matter for another post (or a book chapter!). For now, some reading notes.

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: CUTS described as “brilliant” [CUTS]

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: “The evolution of the Jerry Garcia Band has pretty much mirrored the development of the Grateful Dead. What started at as loose, informal jazz sessions at San Francisco clubs several nights a week has developed into a tight ensemble that writes and produces its own material”. JGMF: interesting and spot-on analogy. There’s a common, underlying evolutionary process in both bands, from spontaneity and “chaos” to institutionalization and “form”. [GD-JGB]

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: “’We started playing by pure coincidence ten years ago,’ recalled John Kahn, ‘in a real small club in ‘Frisco called the Matrix which hasn’t existed for at least eight years. It used to be a Monday night jam session type of gig. Jerry was with organ player Howard Wales, myself, and Bill Vitt, and I’ve been playing with Jerry ever since. The jamming went on for years; most of the time five or six people would join in.’” [JGMS]

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: Kahn: “’Wales quit and I got Merl Saunders, who I knew from my jazz playing days, to join us.’ Being known only as The Group in the beginning is indicative of how loose these early sessions were. [JGMF: yes!] ‘Nobody thought of having a name or any kind of focus besides showing up and jamming. We tried to avoid all the bullshit that we could,’ Kahn added. [JGMF music without bullshit]

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: addition of Tutt and Fierro gave birth to “Legion of Mary” [LOM]

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15 quoting JG from a ca. 1975 interview, re LOM: “Legion of Mary is a different sort of group for me. I don’t write material for it. We play other people’s songs that we like and just have a good time. It’s like a low profile is more desirable for me. The Dead and this group are two different trips. And this one has a lot less pressure associated with it because we haven’t made an effort to get famous at it. That’s one of the things that makes it possible. I couldn’t take the pressure of being a double celebrity. It’s a drag just being it once.”

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: recording CUTS: JK: “was recorded in the Grateful Dead warehouse where they rehearse in San Rafael. Garcia has a 16 track studio machine and we got a real compatible Neve board from the budget of the next hundred million albums.” [JGMF, NB: would be in debt from JGB, for awhile, least!]

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: Kahn speaks to the consonance of the JGB recording process: “We all sort of think the same way musically and the production worked out real well in contrast to other situations I’ve been involved with where everybody contributes different ideas thus you end up nowhere. That can be a real drag.” [JGMF: Reflections?]

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: after the JGB tour, Kahn goes out with Maria Muldaur, including in the area April 10 (opening for Bromberg at the Valley Forge Music Fair). GD will go on tour starting April 6^th in Florida.

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: Maria Muldaur: “Maria Muldaur is now a permanent member of the Garcia Band … ‘I totally cherish being part of a musical experience like this,’ she elucidated. ‘I never was a Dead Head, but I’ve become involved because my old man is the backbone, the right hand man of the Garcia band. John and Jerry have a particular musical exchange happening. Their music has evolved and they’ve helped each other grow musically immensely and that’s when I came to respect them. At first I went to their gigs and thought this is pretty loose,’ Maria continued, ‘but then I saw that the place where they come from musically has nothing to do with putting on a tight show. There’s this intimate interchange and there’s an openness that happens. He may bumble a few notes, but that absolutely doesn’t matter ‘cause of where he takes it. And then to see the whole audience get it every time and not just applaud a solo, but levitate out of their seats. That’s a special thing to be a part of.’”

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: “During the recent [GD?] hiatus, Donna spent time setting up a nursery school with Mountain Girl, Jerry’s old lady.” I didn’t know Donna and MG were close.

Grosswald-Bavat 1978, 15: “Cats Under the Stars, the Jerry Band’s best album to date, is sure to propel the Band to new heights of musical stardom. And while Jerry Garcia’s worst fears of becoming a double celebrity are being realized, apparently the feeling is ‘Cats in the limelight / feels like it’s all right.’” That is pretty brilliant.

GD: January 31, 1971, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA (CANCELED)

Not much to say here, just another monkey wrench in the early '71 touring works for the GD.

A student committee agreed in November 1970 to try to bring the GD out for January 31, 1971. Somewhere along the line a Jefferson Airplane concert took place that offended the University administration's sensibilities. It seems that the administration pocket-vetoed the show by just never working to get the contract signed. No show.

REFERENCES

Curt Harler, "UDG Discusses Plans," Daily Collegian (Penn State University), January 12, 1971 (accessed via Google News);
Karen Carnabucci and Bonnie Shok, "Lewis' rock show committee criticized by concert sponsors," Daily Collegian (Penn State University), January 29, 1971 (accessed via Google News).

GD: April 12, 1971, Civic Arena, Pittsburgh, PA

Funny ... I didn't have this show in my spreadsheet, came across it and wrote a post, only to see that it's listed at Deadlists and boasts a gorgeous Miller sbd over at the LMA.

Heh Heh.

I guess all I can salvage is that tickets were still available as of the day of the show (1).

Heh heh.

REFERENCES:

(1) George Anderson, "Stage and Screen: Valdez is Coming at Gateway," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 12, 1971, p. 22. Accessed via Google News.

Nice Blazer, Kid

JGJK: Eisenhower Auditorium, Penn State University, November 16, 1984

Archives of the Penn State Daily Collegian are available online at http://digitalnewspapers.libraries.psu.edu/, which might prove useful for others (I have found lots of Jerry-related stuff).

Just for giggles, I thought I'd post this little snippet from the police blotter over the weekend of the Jerry Garcia/John Kahn show (Robert Hunter opening) at Eisenhower Auditorium on 11/16/84:


Tee hee.

Good scheme, too bad it didn't work. Also funny to me because it's so east coast. Hard to imagine anyone at, say, CU-Boulder thinking a university blazer would draw attention away from them. :)

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