A Rehearsed Post-Brent Garcia Band: Wiltern Theatre, Los Angeles, November 15, 1990

LN jg1990-11-15.jgb.all.sbd-patched-miller.135953.flac1644

An all-time version of "The Way You Do The Things You Do", a top-shelf latter-day "Reuben And Cherise", and a tape with a story to tell - what's not to love?

Jerry Garcia Band
Wiltern Theatre
3790 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90010
November 15, 1990 (Thursday) - 8 PM
sbd-patched-miller shnid-135953

--set I (8 tracks, 60:13)--
s1t01. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [5:54]
s1t02. Stop That Train
s1t03. Let It Rock
s1t04. The Night They Drove Ol' Dixie Down
s1t05. Someday Baby
s1t06. Run For The Roses
s1t07. Sisters And Brothers
s1t08. Deal

--set II (7 tracks, 62:55)--
s2t01. The Way You Do The Things You Do [11:02] [1:00]
s2t02. Knockin' On Heaven's Door [9:40] [0:24]
s2t03. And It Stoned Me
s2t04. Reuben And Cherise [7:46] [0:09] %
s2t05. Evangeline
s2t06. That Lucky Ol' Sun
s2t07. Midnight Moonlight

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #21b
!lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-guitar, vocals;
!lineup: Gloria Jones - vocals;
!lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - vocals;
!lineup: Melvin Seals - organ;
!lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;
!lineup: David Kemper - drums.

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/19901115-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/23228 (sbd shnf deprecated); shnid-23774 (DeTally MAC); shnid-135953 (this fileset).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/6c14vkBJBMT2

! venue: http://www.rockandrollroadmap.com/los-angeles-area-venues/the-wiltern/view-details.html;

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/09/wiltern-theatre-3790-wilshire-boulevard.html.

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

! historical: I have wrongly neglected post-Brent 1990 JGB, despite having big love for 12/22/90's burning "Let's Spend The Night Together". 11/15/90 is gig four of five at the Wiltern in a six-day span. This whole run would probably reward study, just to see how LA differed (and didn't), but there is no time. I find all-time interesting version of TWYDTTYD here, which is quite a claim. Note the 2x 60-minute set structure. Very nice pacing, content. Folks got their money's worth (contrast: "Bullshit! Bullshit! 5/31/85). Nice to see enterprising Deadheads patching out of speakers --generously run by Bill Graham out to hallways to allow people room to dance with nice fresh sound-- running tape in the bathroom. Some good sound on this!

! R: SBD -> ? -> Cassette; Sony TC-K677ES -> Sound Devices 744T (24bit/48k) -> Samplitude Professional v11.2.1 -> FLAC/16 (2 Discs Audio / 1 DVD FLAC). All Transfers and mastering By Charlie Miller, charliemiller87@earthlink.net, June 13, 2016.

! R: Patch Info: John Detally's TOA DM1200d -> FLAC (shnid-23774) supplies: How Sweet It Is (complete track), Stop That Train, Deal (5:05 - 7:24), That Lucky Ol' Sun (complete track), Midnight Moonlight (complete track).

! R: seeder note: Thanks to John Almirall for supplying that tape

! R: seeder note: This was made in the bathroom patched out of the speakers

! R: seeder note: This may not be perfect but I think it's still an upgrade

! P: overall, this show has a lot to recommend it. The second set contains, as it struck me in the moment, an all-time version of TWYDTTYD and a top latter-day version of Reuben And Cérise.

! P: s1t08 Deal: I FFd from after HSII to see how he does Deal. Interesting to hear from a sbd perspective.

! P: s2t01 TWYDTTYD this is really great, very far "out there" for this song throughout 7, over 8, very good. All through 8 Kemper is earning his keep, hammering out the floor like pounding out brass. Garcia picks up his pace 9:10 and Kemper is with him. This has to be one of the spaciest versions of this often-played song - check timings.

! song "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" (s2t02): The rare tune Garcia could do simultaneously with GD and JGB. I don't think I being too partial in saying that the JGB versions stand far superior to the Dead ones, because the organ and the female harmonies and the reggae arrangement all make it beautiful. The Dead version is all angles and elbows, in comparison, IMO, YMMV. This is the last JGB version until 11/12/91. 7:38 Melvin is leaning his ample self down to blast the B3, when Garcia turns to another verse (managing to get to "the sun is setting in western skies", which wasn't always the case). Melvin is light on his feet for a big fella, and rears it back like a horse, letting the vocal go first. Nice. I also like how he pulls it to a close at 9:30, makes it compact.

! P: s2t04 RAC Garcia is right on it vocally - this sounds nicely rehearsed. I think the tempos feel a little squirrely, but he's got the words. He flubbede some lyrics as far as the general public might hear it, but it's pretty remarkable that he gets the whole long narrative in order. http://www.whitegum.com/~acsa/songfile/REUBEN.HTM. Powerful chording, tight ending. Bravo! This is one of my favorite latter-day versions of RAC.

! P: s2t05 Evangeline: I usually dislike this song, but this version is good. Garcia does a lot of great country jukebox descents, very telecasterish.

LN jg1987-03-14.jgb.all.aud-archival_audio.124259.flac2448

Garcia doesn't quite have his stamina back. Nothing particularly noteworthy happening here. Good tape.

Ian Stoy's ticket stub for JGB 3/14/87 at the Wiltern Theatre in LA

Jerry Garcia Band
Wiltern Theatre
3790 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90010
March 14, 1987 (Saturday)
Ian Stoy MAC flac2448 shnid-124259

--set I (8 tracks, 60:40)--
s1t01. crowd and tuning [1:09]
s1t02. Cats Under The Stars [8:00] [1:33]
s1t03. Mission In The Rain [9:15] [0:29]
s1t04. They Love Each Other [6:42] [0:27]
s1t05. Simple Twist Of Fate [12:17] [0:29]
s1t06. Think [6:05] [0:01] % [0:22]
s1t07. Like A Road Leading Home [7:32] ->
s1t08. Deal [6:10] (1) [0:09] %

--set II (7 tracks, 51:53)--
s2t01. Get Out Of My Life, Woman [8:00] [0:20]
s2t02. Run For The Roses [5:28] [0:42]
s2t03. Love In The Afternoon [8:25] [0:17]
s2t04. Gomorrah [6:40] [1:01]
s2t05. Crazy Love [4:38] [0:16]
s2t06. That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day) [9:18] %
s2t07. /Midnight Moonlight [6:35] (1) [0:13] %

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #21b
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - backing vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones - backing vocals;
! lineup: David Kemper - drums.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [x:xx] = 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/19870314-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/32006 (Sony 939 flac1644); http://db.etree.org/shn/124259 (this fileset)

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/71INU

! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/09/wiltern-theatre-3790-wilshire-boulevard.html

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

! R: field recordist: Ian Stoy a.k.a. Archival Audio

! R: field recording location: Orch Row D Seat 114 Aisle 4 (FOB)

! R: field recording gear: 2x Toa K1 (handheld about 4' apart chest high) > Sony WM-TCD-6C > ! ! R: field recording media: 2x Maxell XLII-S 90 (Dolby C on)

! R: transfer: Tascam 302 Dolby C on >  ArchivalSilver/Gold RCA/1/4" TS > 1/4" > Tascam DR-680 24bit/48khz (dual mono) > Transcend SDHC Class10 card > iMac 3.06 Ghz i3 12 GR 133MHz DDR3 > AudioFile Engineering Wave Editor 1.57. Normalize to -.9 db (each side) Remove DC offset regions [labels] exported .wav  > xACT v2.21to FLAC (level 8 ) Metadata (aka tags), generate ffp and len (shntool) output.

! R: seeder notes: "Second ever "stealth" show, hand held mics, cable connection crackles and a drop out or two in the left channel during Cats. I did my best to lessen the pops but left the slight dropout. At the beginning of set 2 security was trying to seat someone in our aisle flashlight out and pointed at us, and therefore the start of GOOMLW was a bit muffled and a second or two was missing. Also the tape flip at the end of set 2 caused a second or two of might nigh moonlight to be missing. Light phasing can be heard throughout the show due to hand held spaced cardiod mics. A light buzz in the PA can be heard , more prevalent in quiter passages.  Can be rougher at times but overall not that bad!"

! R: this is a nice tape, e.g., start set II. Great spot.

! historical: seeder notes: "As with a number of LA shows my friend James (Jim) Ford waited in line to get the tix when they went on sale. He and Ron Cook help me get my gear in and hold one of the mics. This show was before In The Dark came out, and was lacking many of the In The Dark heads that attended the December '87 run we recorded, post Broadway run.  These 2 shows Friday  3/13 and sat 3/14 were the first shows I ever "stealthed" and was surprised there was "No Recording" enforced.  I did record 10/31/86 JGB and Kingfish. That was open with stands but I had an impedance mis-match and my recordings came out horrid. Back to 3/14 Light phasing can be heard  throughout the show due to hand held mics. The right channel (if I recall correct) was held by me mostly, except starting stopping or adjusting levels on my D-6. I held my mic chest high and mostly still aimed at the right stack. Whereas the left channel was more casually held and potential lower. The night before due to my first steal thing, I managed to record the second set over the first set, and due to cable issues, I believe that only one channel was recorded super botched job. We had a bank of 4 seats each night we were in Row D  I was in  Seat 114. First time at the Wiltern and it was very sweet! Enjoy! AchivalAudio, 2013-03-26."

! R: quite a pleasant tape!

! R: s1t05 STOF drop @ 2:16, 10:40

! P: s1t08 Deal Jerry is not sounding very good here, running out of steam. He doesn't really hit the vocals properly, either with the verses or with the chorus ... but let's see if he can make it up with his guitar playing from 3:30ff? Indeed, good. As ever, Garcia's guitar playing is excellent, while the vocals are the canary in the coalmine in re basic health. I don't think he's using here (but WTF do I know?), but he just hasn't built back his stamina not just from The Coma, but from years, at least eight but probably a decade or more, of hard drugs and hard living. The Tom Davis book gives you the nadir, or the August 1984 recordings.

! s1t08 (1) JG: "We'll be back in a few minutes. Thank you."

! R: s2t01 GOOMLW fades in, but not really anything missing. Taper says ""Second ever 'stealth' show, hand held mics, cable connection [problems]. At the beginning of set II security was trying to seat someone in our aisle, flashlight out and pointed at us, and therefore the start of GOOMLW is a bit muffled and a second or two is missing."

! s2t01 GOOMLW JG is putting some extra measures in vocally, "I don't love you no mo' oo oh". It's nice. Guitar solo 2:20 is pretty good. Late 3, Melvin takes a feature.

! P: s2t02 RFTR I find this tempo just a little bit sluggish.

! P: s2t03 LITA Jerry's voice is shot. And the band is not all on the same page toward the end of the song, 7ff. Not great.

! song: "Crazy Love" (s2t05): 15 times from Oct 19, 1986 to Oct. 31,1987: https://jerrybase.com/songs/805

! R: s2t07 Mid Moon clips in.

! s2t07 (1) JG: "Thanks a lot, see ya later."

Jerry Garcia Band Electric

**update 1: final paragraph, 8:47 Eastern 20111212**

Jerry Site administrator slipnut just updated the venue name for a show given as Jerry Garcia Band, California Theatre, San Diego, CA, on Friday May 23, 1986. Handbill follows:

Handbill for Jerry Garcia Band Electric, California Theatre, San Diego, CA, 5/23/86. Possibly courtesy of Iver McLeod.

The venue appears to be an old movie palace originally known as the New California Theatre, and while the handbill says “4^th and C Street”, neither the Google Street view for that location, nor for the one given by the San Diego History Center webpage (1122 4th Avenue, San Diego, CA 92101 – am I violating their terms of use by reproducing that address?) makes it obvious to me where the theater is/was. A Save Our Heritage Organisation (SOHO) site (a San Diego-area British expat, I presume) entry for the California Theatre does not give an address. The fact that this show took place in a fabulous old movie house is awesome and I am sure the venuologists would have a field day with this one. Perhaps I can egg Jerry Garcia’s Brokendown Palaces to do an entry on what looks to be a groovy, funky old place. ;-)

I am more interested in the billing, as “Jerry Garcia Band Electric”. Some small number of people knows the importance I place on institutional formalities, such as the names of bands. Many would dismiss these as mere trivia, and for certain purposes they might be right. But not for my purposes. My purpose is to understand Garcia on the Side as an institution, or a set of them. From that perspective, band names are really important. Names in recollections; on tape boxes; in newspaper listings; on handbills, fliers, posters, tickets; in published reviews, etc. etc. are some of the key data. To take one macro view on how I can use them, consider the following very simple descriptive statistic: variance across the names listed in those eight kinds of sources (recollections, tape boxes, newspaper listings, handbills, fliers, posters, tickets and published reviews). Hypothesis: cross-source band name variance reduces over time. Now I know that time is not a cause. I’d say that what this simple descriptive actually provides is one measure of the degree of institutionalization. Time is just the simplest proxy, for expository purposes. But if the data could be gathered—and I am not saying they can, to my satisfaction—I think you could show a much wider standard deviation in early years, closing almost monotonically over time. Just a hunch.

But I digress. For two out of town (Southern California) shows in May 1986, the one I am discussing and one on Saturday, May 24, 1986 at the Wiltern Theatre, 3790 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA, 90010 –Jerry’s first at the Wiltern, I think—Garcia’s outfit was billed as “The Band Electric” by Bill Graham. I think this has always stuck in my mind a little bit because of the clever bit of headlining over a negative review of the May 23^rd show: “Band Electric Plays at Pace Languid” (Toombs, 1986). Toombs goes on at some length about how dull the Band Electric is, how tedious the Band Electric’s languid pacing, how pedestrian the Band Electric's song selection, and so forth. Heh heh. It's clever, and I don't doubt it's a totally reasonable evaluation of the show. A review in the L.A. Times of the next night’s show is only slightly more positive (Strauss 1986), and doesn’t mention the billing, although the handbill (below) shows it was the same.

What’s strange about this, of course, is that it prefigures a distinction that would come about over a year later, with the acoustic-electric shows of August-December 1987. Those would feature, first, the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band (JGAB), called by some (e.g., Jimbo Juanis of Relix) the Black Mountain Boys, comprised of Garcia on acoustic guitar, David Nelson on guitar, Sandy Nelson on dobro and mandolin, John Kahn on string bass, Kenny Kosek on the little fiddle and David Kemper on the snare drums. Second, the acoustic-electric shows featured the Jerry Garcia Band (JGB), i.e., the electric band comprised of Garcia, Kahn, Kemper, Melvin Seals on organ, and Gloria Jones and Jacklyn LaBranch on backing vocals.

I don’t doubt the canonical history of the JGAB, told by inter alia Sandy Rothman, that the thing started (quasi-publicly) with the GD’s Thanksgiving Party at the Log Cabin in San Anselmo on 11/23/86, when Sandy, David and a newly-hungry-to-play, post-coma Garcia sat around and regaled the gathered party goers with some old favorites. When Garcia, Nelson and Rothman got back together for the Artists’ Rights Today benefit at the Fillmore on 3/18/87, the story goes, Bill Graham came in raving about taking he show to Broadway, which is, of course, precisely what he did. Hence, the acoustic-electric shows. For more on this, see Silberman 2010.

But Graham’s May ’86 branding of the JGB as the Band Electric strikes me as foreshadowing this later distinction. I am not saying he was planning the acoustic-electric thing, per se, though in the limit it’s possible. But I had heard that some kind of product differentiation was important to John Scher out on the east coast, which is what brought us the famous (or infamous) solo acoustic shows on April10, 1982 in Passaic and, eventually, the Jerry Garcia/John Kahn acoustic duo. In short, after many years of touring as the JGB out in Scher’s territory, mixing it up with some different product would make it easier to sell tickets. At least that’s one thing I was told by somebody.

I wonder if Graham was after the same thing, i.e., some product differentiation, so he could sell separate acoustic and electric Garcia experiences to the SoCal audience? It would put a slightly different context on the canonical history of the JGAB, if so, making it seem a less spontaneous and a more cultivated Bill Graham strategy. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but I have always had the notion that these “Band Electric” billings earlier in ’86 were anachronistic unless we viewed them in this way, as trial balloons around a Graham marketing strategy that had to be put on hold a few months later when Jerry got sick, and really only took shape with the inspiration of the March 18 ART benefit. Again, I want to be clear: I don’t think this sullies the wonderful little history of the JGAB one bit, just puts it into a slightly longer causal chain.

The rival (really, probably complementary) hypothesis is that Wolfgang was after some product differentiation, but only because of the clusterfuck from Garcia’s previous (non-GD) visit to SoCal, with John Kahn at the Beverly Theatre, 9404 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA, 90212, on May 31, 1985. As related at the JB's entry for the early show, Graham et al. sold this night’s entertainment as two separately-ticketed (i.e., early and late) shows, rather than the two-set single show that Garcia would typically put on. Folks felt ripped off. According to Ben Kamelich (cited at TJS), one attendee brought a sign reading "Jerry Sells Out L.A. Deadheads". Erik VanO recounts that the crowd started up with a “Bullshit! Bullshit!” chant when Jerry announced that the show was over. And why not, after only six songs running a paltry 35 minutes? Apparently Angry Jerry came out for a three-song “second set” just to prevent a riot (or, knowing Deadheads, some hooting, jeering and reproachful looks).

Leaving aside the big question of how such a talented, usually professional (really!) and prideful man could act this way –and, while big, it’s easily answered with a word that starts with ‘d’ and ends with ‘rugs’, I think—it might have been simple good business sense for Graham to signal to the ticket-buying crowd that this was not going to be a Garcia-Kahn acoustic nodfest, but rather the Band Electric. The Toombs review of May 23 and the Strauss review of the LA show on May 24 suggest that the musical results were far from electrifying, but that has to be the subject of some listening notes. The commercial results, by contrast, seemed to have worked out just fine – not a sellout, but not a bad day at the office, either:

The fact that there were newspaper reviews (including, not trivially, the Los Angeles Times), the fact that it grossed pretty well and got this mention in Billboard ... the notion that Bill was also courting Jerry on his home turf, getting him to switch his local playing allegiance from Freddie Herrera and the Stone to Bill Graham and the Warfield (which would be accomplished by June 1, 1987) ... the new billing (what we'd now call an attempt to "rebrand" or maybe "reposition", right?) .... it all seems to suggest to me that the JGAB didn't emerge fully formed from Bill Graham's head, like Athena from Zeus's, on March 18, 1987. And the acoustic-electric structure would seem, at least, to have been a gleam in Bill Graham's eye before the coma ... much for me to chew on.

One last proposition: The JGAB contains the arc of Garcia On The Side (GOTS) in very concentrated dosage, something I hope further to unpack moving forward.

REFERENCES:

Silberman, Steve. 2010. The Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band, The Definitive History: It’s a Long, Long Way to the Top of the World. Essay accompanying Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band, Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band [Almost Acoustic and Ragged But Right] (Rhino, JGCD-1004), 11 pp.

Strauss, Duncan. 1986. Garcia Shorts Out. Los Angeles Times, May 26, 1986, p. SD_D2.

Toombs, Mikel. 1986. Band Electric Plays at a Pace Languid. San Diego Union, May 24, 1986, p. D11.