Jerry Band SoCal '89

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

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

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

The Jerry Band in SoCal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Expectations

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Jerry Band SoCal May '89 "Tour"

The three shows in the mix here underwhelmed me. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Listening notes below the fold.

DOWN in South Jersey? JGB at Glassboro State College, February 15, 1981

LN jg1981-02-15.jgb.all.aud.137422.flac1644

Rock Scully's book Living with the Dead (1996) gets mixed reviews for all kinds of reasons, among them that he presents lots of factually inaccurate information. But, on another intepretation --and, I think, relaying something Corry has expressed-- the book may not be right, but it contains lots of truth. Here is some of his narrative around early '81:

We use the airlines to ship dope. I have somebody run it out to the airport in an envelope, put it on a plane, and it gets there like clockwork until some weird hippie at TWA recognizes Jerry's name on the package and takes it. The first time it happens, we're in Philadelphia. I'm jonesing in the Philadelphia Arport waiting for the shit to arrive and it never shows up. I know it got onto the plane, but somewhere along the line somebody stole it. This little glitch leads to a day and a half of the shakes. Garcia is too junk sick to perform the following night. Prescriptions from the hotel doctor help, but we use up all the pills the first night to get rid of the shakes.

In Washington, a desperate Garcia decides to do a radio interview in the middle of the night and "put the code out." Garcia's nodding into the mike during the interview. On air he asks fans — in code — to bring their stashes down to the station and he will sign albums for them. He says, "Uh, anybody down with Garcia out there tonight? You wanna come down to the station? I'll come down from up here and sign autographs, but bring me some down." Thirty kids show up at the station reception with grass, 'ludes, uppers. Uh oh, the wrong drugs! Oh God, now he wants to get more specific on the air, spell out what precisely he needs. We send kids out to get downers and tranks to get us through the night (Scully 1996, 314).

I relay this here because seeder extraordinaire AF has relayed the following in connection with a recording of JGB in Esby Gym, Glassboro State College, February 15, 1981:

Before the show, Jerry went on the radio [campus radio WGLS] to invite people DOWN and if you were DOWN with it, then come on DOWN to the show. The story goes that they were at the end of the tour, way down in the boonies of South Jersey, and the stash was dry. Jerry had to put out the call for someone from Philly or nearby to drive over with a fix for him and Kahn.

Naturally, this sounds like the second part of Rock's little vignette above. I trust AF to have the date, time, and specifics more accurate than Scully. As for our jonesing hereo, maybe the trip into Glassboro, a charter flight from E. Farmingdale (Republic Airport) to Philly on an 8-passenger twin-engine King Air 200, had him just a little jumpy. (Take that, Rock!)

Plea: does anyone know of tape of that particular interview, 2/15/81 from campus radio WGLS? I will inquire with the school, though odds are strongly against there being a copy there.

What about the rest of Rock's narrative? It kind of fits Corry's characterization. First, I think he swaps Philly (end of the tour) and DC (start of the tour), with the package of drugs not making it to them in Washington. Second --and, yes, I see how petty this is-- they didn't fly TWA, but United (#58, since you asked). Third, there is no canceled show anywhere in the tour. Fourth, the interview was apparently before the show, not in the middle of the night.

Some of this other stuff might have happened on Dead tour, or on a different Jerry tour. He doesn't explicitly say this is the Feb. 81 JGB jaunt - I am just making the connection because of the radio interview, which it seems safe to say can only have happened once. Overall, all of this stuff probably sort of happened, and so Rock's account is true ("truthy," you might say), if not exactly right.

One of the great benefits to me of doing these listening notes, and trying to integrate them into the broader fabric of the Garciaverse, is how LITTLE the drug stories tell us about the music. Here we have relatively firm evidence that Garcia was jonesing hard for the show, specifically needing stuff to take the edge off, and that he got some stuff to get him DOWN to some level of comfort. Yet the show sounds peppy. I don't make a lot of notes, but they all point in the same direction: torrid scrubby goodness in "Catfish John", punch great energy in "Tangled Up In Blue", Gar sounding enthused on "Tore Up Over You". All of this speaks, as Twitterato and all-around great guy Mr. Completely might say, to the limits of drug determinism.

Ticket for JGB 2/15/81 at Glassboro State College, courtesy of gdsets.com.

Sounds like the place was packed, sweltering hot (Chambers 1981), and ol Jer, jonesing or not, put on a good strong show to end the tour. (Since you were wondering, fly home next day, 10:15 AM departure on United #719 through Denver to land at SFO by  2:30 PM, or TWA #31, out at 3:30 PM to hit tierra santa at 6:30 PM. I leave it to you to imagine which flight Jerry caught, and why.)

Listening notes below the fold.

Rocks, Bottles, and a Tired-Sounding Jerry: JGB at the Warfield, February 27, 1993

Apparently 12 people were arrested after this Saturday night show, allegedly for throwing rocks and bottles at police. Ten months earlier had seen unrest in the area, not necessarily caused by Jerry's kids, but related instead to acquittal of the cops in their trial for beating Rodney King in LA. No idea what might have triggered this early '93 issue.

Janet and Chuck Vasseur pulled an absolute masterpiece of a tape this night, as so many others. The show has its moments, including a nice easy start with "I Second That Emotion" (a tune I don't generally favor) and, especially, Old Jerry heart-feeling "I Shall Be Released". "Simple Twist" is also super-gentle. Lots to like in the set II song selection, especially, for me, "Reuben And Cherise". But I spun it three times and didn't get many sparks.

But Jerry sounds exhausted all night. I take to heart Mr. Completely's advice to avoid drug determinism, and I don't think it would be engaging in that fallacy to note 1) that Jerry sounds exhausted, and 2) we know, via Barbara Meier, that he was using in this period. It's not deterministic, but neither is this pure coincidence, IMO, YMMV.

Jerry Garcia Band
The Warfield
982 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
February 27, 1993 (Saturday)
Vasseur shnid-141455

--set  (8 tracks, 72:43)--
s1t01. I Second That Emotion [9:48] [0:52]
s1t02. I Shall Be Released [9:12] [1:15]
s1t03. Mission In The Rain [8:22] [1:16]
s1t04. [0:07] Simple Twist Of Fate [10:15] [0:26]
s1t05. Ain't No Bread In The Breadbox [8:12] [0:50]
s1t06. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [9:34] %
s1t07. /My Sisters And Brothers [#4:26] ->
s1t08. Deal [8:00] (1) [0:08]

--set II (7 tracks, 62:10)--
s2t09. Shining Star [13:34] [0:26]
s2t10. Tore Up Over You [7:30] [1:10]
s2t11. Wonderful World [4:38] [0:09]
s2t12. The Maker [8:05] [0:11]
s2t13. Lay Down Sally [9:24] [2:05]
s2t14. Reuben And Cherise [8:24] ->
s2t15. Midnight Moonlight [6:30] (2) [0:05]

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

JGMF:

! R: 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/19930227-01

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/13036; https://etreedb.org/shn/29344; https://etreedb.org/shn/141455 (this fileset). As far as I can tell without A-B'ing, these are all from the Vasseur master.

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/ZW52vfHTbjs

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2013/02/warfield-982-market-street-san.html

! venue: http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2011/11/september-25-1980-fox-warfield-theater.html

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

! expost: "12 arrests at Garcia concert," Argus-Courier (Petaluma, CA), March 2, 1993, p. 2, allegedly for throwing rocks and bottles at the police.

! R: field recordist: Janet and Chuck Vasseur

! R: field recording gear: 2x Neumann KM54 > DAT

! R: Transfer: DAT Master > CDR (Kyle Porter); Extract: CDR clone > EAC > WAV > FLAC16 (Bill Shaw aka Shark)

! R: This is a masterpiece of field recording.

! R: seeder notes: Sometime in the early 2000's, Chuck loaned Kyle all of his 92-95 JGB masters to transfer to CDR. Kyle "mastered" the DATs to CDR, fading in/out as needed, adjusting levels (as needed) and tracking. Kyle then gave Chuck his masters back, with nice CDR copies of all of it. Chuck offered to clone the entire set for me, so I gave him a spool of 100 blank MITSUI CDRs and the next time I saw him, he gave them back to me, filled with his JGB recordings. Many of the Chuck V. JGB recordings do circulate already, but probably not all of them, and those that do may not be the Kyle Porter transfers. So, here they are! --Shark

! P: s1t01 ISTE It's well known that I don't love this song. But I like how this feels coming out of the gate, despite the fact that Jerry definitely sounds vocally fragile.

! P: s1t02 ISBR I hadn't really grokked that he played this as consistently in the 90s as he did. This comes in sounding absolutely wonderful. Old Jerry.

! P: s1t03 MITR Garcia sounds quite wasted.

! P: s1t04 STOF bass feature late 5 is almost entirely inaudible, goes to about 7:10. This is a remarkably gentle version of STOF.

! P: s1t06 TNTDODD Melvin bg swirly feature over 6

! R: s1t07-08 strange to have a discontnuty and a clpped start w a DAT master.

! s1t08 (1) JG: "back in a couple minutes"

! P: s2t02 TUOY some good guitar 5:30ff.

! s2t15 (2) JG: "Thanks a lot."

Music Mountain Is All That

Sometimes the conventional wisdom has it right, and the high esteem in which folks hold the Jerry Garcia Band show from June 16, 1982 at Music Mountain in South Fallsburg, NY illustrates the point. I heard it a few times way back when, and really liked it. Then I revisited it a few days ago for the first time in at least ten years, and I really liked it. It brings great energy. Everything pops. Valerie is young and grungy, inducing her man to shoot his dog just for barking! The "Don't Let Go" is incredible, Garcia just overflowing with ideas. There is a board tape of the first set, but if a complete master sbd tape existed this should be a no-brainer for release. I may not love it as much as I love 5/31/83, but one reasonably could.

Bobby and the Midnites shared the bill, and played second. Lucky for JGB, because apparently it rained cats and dogs during the Midnites set. People had a good time. A number of great-sounding tapes made it out of the venue, but I don't think the Cornell Effect drives the love for this show. Instead, it's just really good.

Which is pretty remarkable, because according to Andy Leonard, who had worked for the Dead, Our Hero wasn't looking so good:

I had never seen a human being that color before in my life. He was the wrong color. I thought he was going to die onstage. It scared the crap out of me (Browne 2015, 296).

These kinds of contrasts happen all the time in the Garciaverse. I have just come to accept that there is no one-to-one relationship between Garcia's health and how he performed on any given night.

On this listen, I spun the John Steinthal tape, put out by the Mouth of the Beast (MOTB) crew via the legendary Barry Glassberg's first gen reel. Nice tape, excellent show.

Oh yeah, one more thing: what an odd tour, really two tours in one. Things began on this night, after three hometown warmup gigs on June 10-11-12. JGB would do 8 shows in 9 nights, though they'd lose Liz Stires before the tour was over. Then, the Garcia-Kahn acoustic duet would take over the back end, for 11 gigs in 8 nights. Jerry must have made a pile of money on this two part electric-acoustic tour!

The three electric shows for which I have data (from Billboard), the first three of the tour, show gross of over a quarter million dollars.

The acoustic shows made less: we have data for five, grossing another $123k (with only two performers drawing pay). So we're talking over $400,000 and maybe a half mil for the jaunt, which would have had Jerry away from his hidey-hole on Hepburn Heights for less than three week. At those rates, Chief Smokin' Moccasin (Scully 1996/2001, 359) could afford plenty of new slippers.

Jerry Garcia Band

Music Mountain

South Fallsburg, NY 12789

June 16, 1982 (Wednesday) - 7 PM

Steinthal MAC > 1R MOTB-0057 flac1644 shnid-88972

--set I (6 tracks, 55:02)--

s1t01. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [8:56] [0:02] % [0:05]

s1t02. Catfish John [12:57] % [0:04] %

s1t03. That's What Love Will Make You Do [11:09] % [0:04] %

s1t04. Valerie [6:57] ->

s1t05. Let It Rock [7:35] ->

s1t06. Deal [7:06] (1) [0:08]

--set II (5 tracks, 54:33)--

s2t01. (I'm A) Road Runner [8:41] % [0:04] %

s2t02. [0:32] Love In The Afternoon [12:44] % [0:03] 

s2t03. Don't Let Go [19:27] [0:02] %

s2t04. /The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [#7:48] ->

s2t05. Run For The Roses [5:04] [0:08]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #14a

! lineup: Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals;

! lineup: John Kahn - bass;

! lineup: Melvin Seals - keyboards;

! lineup: Jimmy Warren - keyboards;

! lineup: Bill Kreutzmann - drums;

! lineup: Julie Stafford - backing vocals;

! lineup: Liz Stires - backing 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/19820616-01

! JGC: https://jerrygarcia.com/show/1982-06-16

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/4422 (Senn 441 shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/6659 (Silberman Senn 441 shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/12513 (Eaton-Wise Senn 421/PZM blend shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/19278 (Holvey AT815a shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/33417 (Eaton-Wise Senn 421/PZM blend flac); https://etreedb.org/shn/88972 (this source, flac16); https://etreedb.org/shn/89042 (s1 sbd); https://etreedb.org/shn/89194 (s1 mtx); https://etreedb.org/shn/89198 (s1 DTS 5.1); https://etreedb.org/shn/89657 (this fileset); https://etreedb.org/shn/120086 (Dyche Nak 300).

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

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/10/music-mountain-south-fallsburg-ny.html

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

! ref: Billboard, July 3, 1982, p. 39. The show did not sell out! The venue held 10k, but this drew 7,863 paying customers for gross of $79,458.

! ref: "The Dead Come Alive: Bob Minkin's Live Photos of the Grateful Dead," URL http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/the-dead-come-alive-bob-minkins-live-photos-of-the-grateful-dead-20141103/music-mountain-south-fallsburg-new-york-june-1982-20141103;

! 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.

! historical: Bobby and the Midnites also billed, Garcia Band went first. Apparently it rained mightily during Bob's set. Andy Leonard, former GD employee, says Garcia looked horrible: "I had never seen a human being that color before in my life. He was the wrong color. I thought he was going to die onstage. It scared the crap out of me" (Browne 2015, 296). Despite that, this is widely viewed as one of the great Garcia Band shows. and spinning it now (May 2020) after not having heard it in probably ten years, it holds up extremely well. It just packs tons of clear energy, not too grungy/down-and-dirty yet, still some youthful sweetness to Garcia's voice (though that'd be gone before long, and is already on its way out here in Dixie Down), the band very tight. After three hometown warmup gigs on June 10-11-12, here they start an east coast jaunt, 8 shows in 9 nights before the Garcia-Kahn acoustic duet would take over the back end, for 11 gigs in 8 nights. Man, Jerry must have made a pile of money on this two part electric-acoustic tour! The three electric shows for which I have data (from Billboard), the first three of the tour, show gross of over a quarter million dollars. The acoustic shows made less: we have data for five, grossing another $123k (with only two performers drawing pay).

! R: field recordist: John Steinthal

! R: field recording gear: 2x Nakamichi CM-300 > Sony TC-D5M > MAC (Maxell XLIIS-90)

! R: lineage: Sony TC-D5M (??) playback > TEAC AN-300 (Dolby encode) > Technics RS-1506US (Maxell UD 35-90 @ 3.75ips) > Technics RS-1506 > TEAC AN-300 (Dolby decode) > Grace Design Lunatec V3 (pre-only0 > Korg MR-1000 > DSF (1-bit 5.6448 MHz Stereo) > Korg MR-1000 > Korg AudioGate > WAV (24/96).

! R: MOTB Release Date: 2007-12-07

! R: people notes: R1 supplied By: Barry Glassberg; Transfer By: A. Egert; Mastering By: J. Waddell

! R: Mastering Notes -- Edited, mastered and downsampled to 16/44.1 on the GEMS Edit Station. -- Tape was paused between several songs. -- s2t0{3,4} - Tape pause between "Don't Let Go" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" cross-faded. 

! R: seeder notes: -- No music is lost due to the numerous tape pauses; however, the lead in is very short on a number of them. -- s1t01 - Output levels are very unstable during the opening of "How Sweet It Is"; taper is able to quickly adjust to optimum levels. -- s2t0{3,4} - Cross-fading of the tape pause - between "Don't Let Go" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" - may give the impression of a direct transition between the songs. The cross-fade was applied for aesthetics, as the tape pause was very abrupt, and there was actually a musical break.

! R: overall: Steinthal was a great taper, and this is a nice tape. Everything is forward out of the gate except the bass.

! P: s1t01 HSII he flubs the second verse, starting again with "needed the shelter"

! P: s1t03 TWLWMYD 5:30 ish Garcia is just hitting some great notes, very high up the fretboard as 6 approaches, crystalline playing, crowd appreciative. Jimmy takes a lead early 6.

! P: s1t04 Valerie lyrical flub again around 1:40, and this time the protagonist shoots his dog for merely *barking* at our anti-heroine. Very nice guitar work 3:44 ish, before and some after, featuring unexpected jumps between notes, skipping some, not splitting stuff evenly but taking a more diverse approach.

! s1t06 (1) JG: "Thanks. We're gonna take a break for a few minutes. We'll be back a little bit later."

! P: s2t02 LITA what I really hear is how he is varying the phrase lengths and note intervals. Man, this is highly articulate playing.

! P: s2t03 DLG is truly top shelf Jerry. Billy steps forward 10:20ff, and it becomes a true solo from about 10:35-11:20 or so. Then John steps back in and we have a drum-bass duet. Jerry returns 12:41 with a beautiful, confident, melodious piece.

! R: s2t04 TNTDODD clips in

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

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

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

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

redemption! (the AP birthday story)

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

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

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

Anyway, not bad, not bad at all.

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

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

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

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

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

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [ ] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the "real" time of the event. So, a timing of [x:xx] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19920801-01

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

! R: s2t06 WAWW clips in

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

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

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

Mr. Sandoz Dilaudid

I have a memory of hearing Phil say this over the PA during one of the Dead's Egypt shows, but I have no idea if this was just a dream I dreamed, it happened at another show, something like this but not exactly like this happened, or something else.

Does this ring a bell to anyone?

update: 11/2/77 - Canada, not Egypt. After FOTM and before Estimated, https://archive.org/details/gd1977-11-02.mtx.chappell.sb23.86233.sbeok.flac16/gd77-11-02s2t07.flac at about 9:35

Would Mr. Sandoz Dilaudid please come to the backstage area?

Merl Saunders and the Rainforest Band, featuring Jerry Garcia

Here's a weird one bottom of column 1 to top of column 2:

"Merl Saunders and the Rainforest Band, featuring Jerry Garcia. Performing music from their album Blues From the Rainforest, July 26 at the Great American Music Hall and July 27 at the Cotati Cabaret"

Several possibilities.

First, perhaps most likely (?), whoever called this in to the Petaluma Argus-Courier dropped Jerry's name in connection with Merl's 1990 Blues From the Rainforest release, and the person at the paper was somehow left with the impression that Jerry would play the listed gigs. It wouldn't be the first time that Garcia's name would pop up in unexpected ways in the promotion of a Saunders gig that Garcia really wasn't involved in. For example, almost a year after their last shared agglomeration had knocked off, a preview for an August 1980 Saunders gig in far northern California teased that Merle [sic] was "currently playing with Jerry Garcia under the name of 'Reconstruction'." (1)

Second, maybe Gar really was going to play these gigs, but, as with two other prospective July 1991 engagements (JGB on the Eel, 7/13/91 cum 8/10/91, at the Frost on 7/14/91, and at Telluride, 7/19/91), he ended up not doing them because he was in rehab (as I surmise about the other three dates), or just forgot.

update: heh heh, my own files would help me. I know he was scuba diving on 7/27/91 in Hawaii, which would likely involve flying out no later than 7/26. I don't know if that trip would have been planned by whenever the 7/19/91 item was called in, but I strongly suspect so. This makes Hypothesis 1, that the Saunders camp somehow, surely innocently, gave mistaken impression that Jerry would play, to the Petaluma paper, seem most likely.

Thoughts?

REFERENCE:
(1) "A weekend of jazz planned at the Back Door Aug. 8, 9," Ukiah Daily Journal, August 6, 1980, p. 10.

Alex Bennett interviews the Dead, September 16, 1970

Bennett, Alex, “Alex Bennett with the Grateful Dead. Interview broadcast on WMCA in New York City in 1970 [radio broadcast],” Grateful Dead Archive Online, accessed August 2, 2015, http://www.gdao.org/items/show/378659.

Nothing here is verbatim, but hopefully this can provide some markers if anyone else wants to go check this out.

A few things of interest.

First, the date is 9/16/70, just before the Fillmore East "An Evening With the Grateful Dead" run.

Second, this is the day they flew on the plane with Huey Newton.

Third, I love that Bob Weir was reading the Times.

Fourth, with Paul's passing I'd like to go back and see what they said about Kantner.

Fifth, some time-stamping on American Beauty, which is just being finished. I think we knew that, but anyway.

Sixth, note they say they are going to go out and jam somewhere this night. I wonder?

Seventh, already talking about playing the base of the Great Pyramids. Badass.

Sketchy notes follow.

~~~~~

Reading Notes: Goodman 1989

Goodman, Fred. 1989. Jerry Garcia: The Rolling Stone Interview. Rolling Stone no. 566 (November 30, 1989): 66-68, 73-74, 118

Garcia says he has “vacillated furiously” over the years as to whether he wanted to stay with the Dead or not (Goodman 1989, 68).

“The most cogent example of how my life is changing is that when the GD wasn’t working, I used to go play in bars. Low profile, not many people were interested. Now this has escalated along with everything else. And the stress level has skyrocketed” (Goodman 1989, 68). JGMF: This is one way of understanding the arc of Garcia’s solo career. Garcia had the Midas Touch, and when even his bar band started playing Madison Square Garden (11/15/91), the bullshit quotient is moving into the red. That said, I am coming around to the idea that maybe it wasn't as bad as all that, that it remained a refuge until the end.

Here he advocates drug legalization. “Accept the reality that people do want to change their consciousness, and make an effort to make safer, healthier drugs. When you take the greed out of it, all of the damage starts to fall away” (Goodman 1989, 68)

Says of JA “they’re all so amazingly argumentative”, notes that “sometimes it’s the chemistry that makes you fight and that makes the music good” (Goodman 1989, 68). Could be said about the GD.

“I can call up Kantner any time. And certainly Grace [Slick] was very helpful when I was going through my drug trips” (Goodman 1989, 68). Also mentions how much he loves Pete Townshend.

“What the Acid Test really was was formlessness. It’s like the study of chaos. It may be that you have to destroy forms or ignore them in order to see other levels of organization” (Goodman 1989, 73).

#politics Garcia didn’t vote. “choosing for the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil” (Goodman 1989, 73).

Visual art: “I think of notes as objects that have perspective. They have the front part of them and the back part of them, the attack and the release. To me, it’s very visual. If I had the time, I would illustrate all my solos. I could do it – I have seen them that way (Goodman 1989, 74).

“The members of the GD really have a complex relationship. At this point it’s gone beyond even blood. The GD has been the most intimate kind of relationship I’ve ever experienced” (Goodman 1989, 74).

“I spent a good long time trying a drug world that was pretty closed” (Goodman 1989, 74).

Q: why did that happen? “It’s just wear and tear more than anything else. It’s kind of like I needed a rest. … I stopped because I care more about the GD than I do about myself, ultimately” (Goodman 1989, 74).

"The Grateful Dead has become the focus of all of our lives, even though we have families and children. The GD - that's the center" (Garcia ca. October 1989, in Goodman 1989, 74).

Why did you end up with such a bad drug problem? “Self-indulgence, pretty much. I mean, I liked it too much, and the more you like it, the more it likes you, and pretty soon that’s just about all there is. I’m glad I’m not involved in it anymore. … But I haven’t come to any conclusions about drugs at all on any level. I don’t think I’ve gained any particular insights, but I do know that I’ve always basically been an addictive personality. That’s just who I am. And so, for me, it’s one of those things I always have to watch out for” (Goodman 1989, 74).

Good discussion of Neal Cassady over pp. 74, 118. “He blew my mind hundreds and thousands of times” (Goodman 1989, 118).

About the kids coming to shows: “Grateful Dead stories are their drug stories, or war stories. It’s an adventure you can still have in America, just like Neal on the road. You can’t hop the freights anymore, but you can chase the Grateful Dead around. You can have all your tires blow out in some weird town in the Midwest, and you can get hell from strangers. You can have something that lasts throughout your life as adventures, the times you took chances. I think that’s essential in anybody’s life, and it’s harder and harder to do in America. If we’re providing some margin of that possibility, then that’s great. That’s a nice thing to do” (Goodman 1989, 74).

Reading Notes: Henke 1991

I wasn't paying attention at the time, but my sense is that these September 1991 interviews (I think there might have been some separate remarks in the Boston Globe) caused a good deal of consternation in Deadlandia - and why not? The golden-egg-laying-goose sounds like he'd love to leave the reservation at this point.

Lots of good stuff here.

Henke, James. 1991. The Rolling Stone Interview: Jerry Garcia. Rolling Stone, October 31, 34-40, 103, 106, 108.

Two September 1991 afternoons, hotel room overlooking Central Park.

July 1991 was release of JG DG, August 1991 was release of double live JGB. Meantime, JGB was a stone-cold junkie, waiting in line for methadone like everyone else.

“solo jaunts are often more entertaining than his work with the Dead, and one gets the feeling that if he felt he could easily extricate himself from the Dead and his attendant responsibilities, he might just do it. Still, when pressed, Garcia claimed the Dead take precedence. … We’ve all put so much of our lives into it by now that it’s too late to do anything drastic” (Henke 1991, 37).

Two separate interview sessions September 1991 NYC. In a family way with Manasha and Keelin.

“recent” meeting in which Garcia told the other band members that he wasn’t having fun anymore, that he wasn’t enjoying playing with the Dead. Garcia confirms this. “The band is the board of directors, and we have regular meetings with our lawyers and our accountants. And we’ve got it done to where it only takes about three or four hours, about every three weeks. But anyway, the last couple of times, I’ve been there screaming ‘Hey, you guys!’ Because there are times when you go onstage and it’s just plain hard to do, and you start to wonder, ‘Well, why the fuck are we doing this if it’s so hard?’”

“We’ve been running on inertia for quite a long time. I mean, insofar as we have a huge overhead, and we have a lot of people that we’re responsible for, who work for us and so forth, we’re reluctant to do anything [38] to disturb that. We don’t want to take people’s livelihoods away. But it’s us out there, you know. And in order to keep doing it, it has to be fun” (Henke 1991, 37-38).

“we’re … going to have to construct new enthusiasm for ourselves, because we’re getting a little burned out. We’re a little crisp around the edges” (Henke 1991, 38).

They are trying to work up to taking a long break, a la 1974, “aiming for six months off the road” (Henke 1991, 38).

p. 38 Gar talks about how he dislikes trying to write songs. “It’s like pulling teeth.”

They saw Brent’s death coming. “About six or eight months earlier, he OD’d and had to go to the hospital, and they just saved his ass. … I think there was a situation coming up where he was going to have to go to jail. He was going to have to spend like three weeks in jail, for driving under the influence or one of those things, and it’s like he was willing to die just to avoid that. Brent was not a real happy person. And he wasn’t like a total drug person. He was the kind of guy that went out [39] occasionally and binged. And that’s probably what killed him” (Henke 1991, 38-39).

Getting older, people dying. Rick Griffin just died. “[F]or me at this point, I’m just happy if someone dies with a minimum of pain and horror” (Henke 1991, 39).

“I’m not a religious person” (Henke 1991, 39).

“The Grateful Dead is not where you’re going to find comfort. In fact, if anything, you’ll catch a lot of shit. And if you don’t get it from the band, you’ll get it from the roadies. They’re merciless. They’ll just gnaw you like a dog. They’ll tear your flesh off. They can be extremely painful” (Henke 1991, 39). Note that one word from Garcia could have put a stop to that, but he didn’t roll that way.

“Brent had a deeply self-destructive [40] streak.” (Henke 1991, 39-40). Talks about Brent lacking in culture.

“My life would be miserable if I didn’t have those little chunks of Dylan Thomas and T.S. Eliot” (Henke 1991, 40).

#drugs “I’ve been round and round with the drug thing. People are always wanting me to take a stand on drugs, and I can’t. To me, it’s so relativistic, and it’s also very personal. A person’s relationship to drugs is like their relationship to sex. … For me, in my life, all kinds of drugs have been useful to me, and they have also definitely been a hindrance to me. So, as far as I’m concerned, the results are not in. Psychedelics showed me a whole other universe, hundreds and millions of universes. So that was an incredibly positive experience” (Henke 1991, 40).

Still dabble with mushrooms: “It’s one of those things where every once in a while you want to blow out the pipes. For me, I just like to know they’re available, just because I don’t think there’s anything else in life apart from a near-death experience that shows you how extensive the mind is” (Henke 1991, 40).

“as far as the drugs that are dead-enders, like cocaine and heroin and so forth, if you could figure out how to do them without being strung out on them, or without having them completely dominate your personality … I mean, if drugs are making your decisions for you, they’re no fucking good. I can say that unequivocally. If you’re far enough into whatever your drug of choice is, then you are a slave to the drug, and the drug isn’t doing you any good” (Henke 1991, 40).

“I’m an addictive-personality kind of person. … with drugs, the danger is that they run you. Your soul isn’t your own. That’s the drug problem on a personal level” (Henke 1991, 40).

Says he was doing H on and off for 8 years.

Hard to quit H, but real problem now is smokes, that last thing left. “My friends won’t let me take drugs anymore, and I don’t want to scare people anymore. Plus, I definitely have no interest in being an addict” (Henke 1991, 40).

“I still have that desire to change my consciousness, and in the last four years I’ve gotten real seriously into scuba diving.” Also gives him some physical exertion (Henke 1991, 40).

With Keelin “I have a little more time to actually be a father. My other daughters have all been very good to me, insofar as they've never blamed me for my absentee parenting. And it was tough for them, really, because during the sixties and seventies, I was gone all the time. But they've all grown up to be pretty decent people, and they still like me. We still talk. But I never did get to spend a lot of time with them." (Henke 1991, 40).

Garcia got together with Heather (daughter of Jerry and Sara Katz) for 18 or 19 years at one point (Henke 1991, 103).

At this point, JG and MG are in the process of getting divorced. “She’s real glad to get rid of me. We had a great time, a nice life together, but we went past it. … We haven’t really lived together since the 70s” (Henke 1991, 103).

Joe died when Gar was 5. Joe played clarinet and other woodwinds, in a big ol 40 piece jazz orchestra. “My father’s sister says he was in a movie, some early talkie.” (Henke 1991, 103).

“I remember him playing me to sleep at night. I just barely remember the sound of it” (Henke 1991, 103).

Jerry watched Joe go under and drown. “It was horrible. I was just a little kid, and I didn’t really understand what was going on, but then, of course, my life changed. “ (Henke 1991, 103).

Ruth was an RN, but after Joe died she took over his bar. “He had this little bar right next door to the Sailor’s Union of the Pacific, the merchant marine’s union, right at First and Harrison, in San Francisco. It was a daytime bar, a working guy’s bar, so I grew up with all these guys who were sailors. They went out and sailed to the Far East and the Persian Gulf, the Philippines and all that, and they would come and hang out in the bar all day long and talk to me when I was a kid. It was great fun for me. I mean, that’s my background. I grew up in a bar. And that was back in the days when the Orient was still the Orient, and it hadn’t been completely Americanized yet. They’d bring back all these weird things. Like one guy had the world’s largest collection of [106] photographs of square riggers” (Henke 1991, 103, 106).

His third grade teacher Miss Simon hipped him to the possibility of being a creative type. “’You mean you can spend all day painting pictures? Wow! What a great piece of news’.” (Henke 1991, 106).

Dwight Johnson was another teacher, “he’s the guy that turned me into a freak” (Henke 1991, 106). He was a motor cycle guy, 7th grade teacher.

Talks about liking Dylan songs: “they speak to me emotionally on some level. Sometimes, I don’t even know why. Like that song, Señor. There’s something creepy about that song, but it’s very satisfying in a weird sort of way” (Henke 1991, 106). “This is talking about a kind of desperation that everybody experiences” (Henke 1991, 108). Songs-S

More fun outside the Dead. “that’s always dangling in front of me, the thing of, well, shit, if I was on my own, God, I could … “ (Henke 1991, 108).

“Bruce, Branford, Rob Wasserman and I have talked about putting something together. I had this notion of putting together a band that had no material, that just got onstage and blew. And maybe one of these days we’ll make that happen” (Henke 1991, 108). Him saying this is the verbal equivalent of gazing forlornly out Grisman's picture window.

Garcia listens to Django, Art Tatum, Charlie Parker, Coltrane. “Michael Hedges is great. And my personal favorite lately is this guy Frank Gambale, who’s been playing with Chick Corea for the past couple of years” (Henke 1991, 108).

“Living Colour is a great band … Jane’s Addiction is another band I like” (Henke 1991, 108).

“I feel like I’m a hundred million years old” (Henke 1991, 108).

Why kids keep coming to see the Dead: “There must be a dearth of fun out there in America. Or adventure. Maybe that’s it, maybe we’re just one of the last adventures in America” (Henke 1991, 108).