Kicking off the January '86 Garcia/Kahn acoustic tour

LN jg1986-01-24.jgjk.all.aud-CC.138168.flac1644

A huge bulge of heretofore elusive Garcia tape from the late 70s and especially the 80s has been hitting cyberspace. I don't have much time for this, just a few scattered notes laying down some markers for eventual discussion of the tour.

First, a tour snapshot.

Snapshot of the January '86 Garcia/Kahn acoustic east coast tour

Then, listening notes from newly-circulating closet call material from the first night out. For some reason, two short sets for JGJK seems fine - it's not always easy to listen to.

Jerry Garcia and John Kahn
D.A. R. Constitution Hall
1776 D St NW
Washington, DC 20006
January 24, 1986 (Friday) - 8 PM
CC shnid-138168

--set I (7 tracks, 37:13)--
s1t01. /Deep Elem Blues
s1t02. Friend Of The Devil
s1t03. When I Paint My Masterpiece
s1t04. Little Sadie [4:19] ->
s1t05. Spike Driver Blues [4:26] ->
s1t06. Jack A Roe
s1t07. Run For The Roses

--set II + encore (6 tracks, 38:52)--
--set II (5 tracks, 31:07)--
s2t01. Dire Wolf
s2t02. To Lay Me Down
s2t03. I've Been All Around This World
s2t04. Bird Song
s2t05. Ripple//
--encore (1 track, 7:45)--
s2t06. Goodnight Irene [7:37] (1) [0:08]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and John Kahn [JGJK]
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - ac-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - ac-b.

JGMF:

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19860124-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/138168 (this fileset). Nothing in digital circulation prior to 4/17. Probably very few copies of this show were traded.

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/constitution-hall-311-18th-st.html. Notes the following gigs in a room in which "every president since Calvin Coolidge has attended events": 11/2/75 Jerry Garcia Band; 11/27/83 Jerry Garcia Band; 8/8/84 Jerry Garcia Band; 11/20/84 John Kahn (acoustic); 1/24/86 John Kahn (acoustic).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/8FVYgH5QiCK2

! ref: Billboard, February 8, 1986, p. 37.Ticket I see went for $14.50. Show did well, selling out 3,741 for reported gross of $53,288.

! R: AUD (marked 2nd Gen) kindly provided by wk & http://jgmf.blogspot.com/

! R: transfer: TDK SA90 > Nakamichi CR-5A > Edirol FA-66 > Wavelab 2448 > R8Brain > CD-Wave > TLH > FLAC 1644 tagged. Transfer by Andrew F. 04/2017

! R: s1t01 DEB enters in progress, not much missing. PA mix improves about a minute in, and tape follows.

! historic: The January 1986 Garcia/Kahn acoustic tour --seven shows in nine days for John Scher in interesting, core northeast halls-- was a lucrative proposition for the two partners. Billboard reported this show as a 3,741 sold sellout grossing more than $50,000.

! song: "Little Sadie" (s1t04): Every Deadhead of this era knew the tune from the amazing and massively circulated 2/13/70 Fillmore East tapes, but of course it's draws in several great American song forms and traditions. See http://www.deaddisc.com/songs/Little_Sadie.htm.  "Sadie" presents a character fragment of the sort that avowedly drew Garcia in, illiterate antihero Lee Brown having shot the titular girl in the street for no apparent reason, slept soundly, and rather ineffably turned himself in to get "41 years to wear the ball and stripes".

! P: s1t04 LS @ 1:20, 1:35 very good guitar work at these instances and around. Very solid. There are moments here that sound as engaged as the later work with Grisman, very nice acoustic guitar, John also holding things down well. @ 3:30 Garcia revisits the first verse, then closes the song. There was a little fumbling around the end, but he was decisive and mostly hit it. This was an *excellent* Little Sadie.

! song: "Spike Driver Blues" (s1t05): Garcia didn't do many work songs, but this one is fun.

! P: s1t05 SDB: The acoustic setting is really good in letting him just sing vocals without too much strain. That helps him give more expression. "This is the hammer | that killed John Henry" is done with great around-a-fire-in-a-holler feeling and movement.

! P: s1t06 JAR here's another one that the show-attending Deadheads would have known, from Reckoning. But, yikes, the vocals are too much, first half of 2.

! R: s2t05 Ripple cuts out at "there is a fountain".

! P: s2t06 GI I am coming to this after having FF >> from Jack A Roe to here, not necessarily compelled to hear set II. 

! song: "Goodnight Irene" (s2t06): This is a favorite of mine. "Gonna take another walk downtown" is Garcia alchemizing New Orleans and his beloved San Francisco, and of course "jump overboard in the river and drown" is a mighty close reference to his own father's death. He played it with the Dead on 12/31/83, the night he and MG finally married after 17ish years.

! P: s2t06 GI @ 2:37 he does "sometimes I live in the country" -- but did he miss the "ramblin | stop all that gamblin'" verse? A little voice scratch early 3. I expect he'll want to play his guitar. He digs in with gusto, fluid and dextrous and with great energy. Good stuff. The vocals are too rough to really make this one to recommend to a novice. @ 4:20 he hits ramblin' / gamblin' ... "come home to your wife and children" all given great feeling. Shaky vocals late 4. 5:10ff he really swings and digs into his guitar pieces here, which I really like. 5:35ff drops into a jazzier swing, John not all there with him. Now John walking it up over 6, but I find him mostly not quite where I want him.

! s2t06 (1) JG: "Thanks a lot. See y'all later."

Dead and the Allmans

47 years ago today.

Acoustic at the Denver Rainbow - JGJK, May 23, 1985 (late show)

LN jg1985-05-23.jgjk.late.aud.137966.flac1644

These shows have been very elusive, and the early show still has not made a digital appearance.

Standard "Rock Bottom Era" take: croaking vocals and very good (acoustic) guitar picking. The one plus of the acoustic setting is that he can sing quietly, which works well on a relative rarity like "She Belongs To Me". The first set might be incomplete, but either way this show is pretty well below the Minelli Line.

Jerry Garcia and John Kahn
Rainbow Music Hall
6358 East Evans Avenue
Denver, CO 80222
May 23, 1985 (Thursday) - late show (10 PM)
AF shnid-137966

--set I (4 tracks, 25:16)--
s1t01. /When I Paint My Masterpiece [#5:34] [0:08] (1)
s1t02. I've Been All Around this World
s1t03. Bird Song
s1t04. Run For The Roses [4:26] (2) [0:12] %

--set II (5 tracks, 32:01)--
s2t01. Simple Twist Of Fate
s2t02. Dire Wolf
s2t03. She Belongs To Me
s2t04. Goodnight Irene
s2t05. Ripple

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and John Kahn
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - ac-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn - ac-b.

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/19850523-02

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/137966 (this fileset). Nothing in circulation before 2017, and still nothing circulating for the early show.

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

! JGBP: Rainbow Music Hall, East Evans Avenue and South Monaco Parkway, Denver, Colorado. Jerry's Brokendown Palaces, October 29, 2012, URL http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/10/rainbow-music-hall-east-evans-avenue.html, consulted 11/17/2014.

! P: overall: Jerry's voice is in pretty bad shape here. First set material clocks in at 25 minutes - we may be missing at least a song or two, otherwise (and perhaps in any case) this set falls *way* below the Minelli Line. See also set II, at just over a half hour one of the shortest sets on record.

! R: source: Unknown AUD kindly provided from the collection of DL.

! R: transfer: Maxell XLII > Nakamichi CR-5A > Edirol FA-66 > Wavelab 2448 > R8Brain > CD-Wave > TLH > FLAC 1644 tagged. Transfer by Andrew F. 03/2017.

! R: seeder Note: The tape was not marked "early" or "late", appears to be the 1030PM late show since there's an annouced set break after Run for the Roses. [JGMF: I agree with AF's judgment, though we can't be 100% sure.]

! R: s1t01 WIPMM enters in progress. Nice tape.

! P: s1t01 WIPMM Garcia's voice is nasal and scratchy right out of the gate.

! s1t01 (1) "Thank you."

! P: s1t04 RFTR Garcia's guitar work is crisp, and the recording is loving the sound of the acoustic instruments.

! P: s1t03 Bird Song - my goodness, he is *croaking*. This is a pretty grim listen. Around 3 minutes in Jerry takes a nice guitar departure, and Kahn makes himself heard (or, I hear him) for more or less the first time on a somewhat background  listen. Ain't nothing wrong with Garcia's guitar playing here.

! s1t04 (2) [excuse-me cough] "Thanks a lot. We're gonna take a little, short break, and we'll be back [inaudible].

! P: s2t01 STOF very nice, low-down feel to this

! P: s2t03 She Belongs To Me is a relative rarity, and this is a fragile, interesting take.

The Twin Keys Quintet: JGB, The Stone, February 23, 1981 (Monday)

LN 

jg1981-02-23.jgb.all.aud-CC.xxxxxx.flac2448

which became 

jg1981-02-23.jgb.s1s2p.aud-CC.138135.flac1644

Andrew F. is transcribing the Closet Call tapes. What follows is from my deprecated transfer, with some updated details about Andrew's shnid'd version mixed-in. Funny that I found this show so bland, because I loved 2/22/81 when it first hit the streets.

"I have absolutely nothing of note to say. Completely run-of-the-mill" pretty much says it all (on this listen, &c).

Weirdness: apparently George Thorougood was in the house, and the Garcia Band and crowd sang him happy birthday.

Jerry Garcia Band
The Stone
412 Broadway
San Francisco, CA 94133
February 23, 1981 (Monday)
s1s2p CC shnid-138135

--set I (5 tracks, 56:35)--
s1t01. They Love Each Other [8:11] [0:12] %
s1t02. Knockin' On Heaven's Door [14:55] [0:04] %
s1t03. It's No Use [9:00] [0:08] %
s1t04. /Sitting Here In Limbo [13:07] ->
s1t05. Tangled Up In Blue [10:49] [0:07] %

--set II (3 tracks, 27:29)
s2t01. ... Let It Rock [6:#53] [0:07] %
s2txx. [MISSING Russian Lullaby]
s2txx. [MISSING Harder They Come]
s2t02. Dear Prudence// [12:31]
s2t03. //Midnight Moonlight [7:55] [0:01] %

! ACT1: JGB #12b (1/27/81-6/1/81)
! lineup: Jerry Garcia: el-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn: el-b;
! lineup: Daoud Shaw: drums;
! lineup: Jimmy Warren: keyboards (Fender Rhodes);
! lineup: Melvin Seals: keyboards (Hammond B3).

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/19810223-01

! JGC: jerrygarcia.com/show/1981-02-23

! db: none in circulation as of these notes (3/12/2011, deprecated transfer); http://etreedb.org/shn/138135 (best xfer of same tape).

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

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/07/stone-mothers-412-broadway-san.html

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html. JGB #12b, this is the shortlived twin-keys-no-vocalists configuration, with Daoud Shaw drumming (one presumes).

! setlist: the missing songs indicated here are from TJS setlist. However, this tape and the TJS setlist have different order for set I. TJS has KOHD, INU, and then TLEO, while here it's TLEO then the other two. The ordering on this tape makes more sense to me than starting off with KOHD, though I haven't studied setlist orderings from this time frame enough to really know if that's true. It's just a hunch. **update: AF has put the shnid'd version

! R: Tape Specs: unknown gen audience cassette (Maxell XLII90 no Dolby) > 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) > Wavelab 5.0.1a (cross-fades, etc.) > shntool (stripped non-canonical headers) > Traders Little Helper 2.4.1 (FLAC encoding, level 8) > Foobar (tagging).

! R: s1t03 INU bad tape warbling

! R: s1t04 SIL clips in

! R: s1t05 TUIB some tape munching/panning @ 7-min

! R: s2t01 LIR enters in progress

! R: s2t02-t03 sounds like a missing guzinta.

! P: I have absolutely nothing of note to say. Completely run-of-the-mill.

! R: 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!

During Gaylord's Second Stint: JGB at the Stone, October 14, 1985 (Monday)

These may be the shortest two JGB sets ever played. Gaylord Birch drumming.

See also "The December '85 Garcia Band Shows"

LN jg1985-10-14.jgb.all.aud.138028.flac1644

Jerry Garcia Band
The Stone
412 Broadway
San Francisco, CA 94133
October 14, 1985 (Monday)
CC shnid-138028

--set I (4 tracks, 34:48)--
s1t01. Cats Under The Stars [7:12] %
s1t02. When I Paint My Masterpiece [8:45] %
s1t03. That's What Love Will Make You Do [8:31] [0:04] %
s1t04. Tangled Up In Blue [10:15] %

--set II ( 4 tracks, 31:22)--
s2t01. Run For The Roses [4:54] %
s2t02. [0:20] Love In The Afternoon [9:22] %
s2t03. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [9:25] ->
s2t04. Midnight Moonlight [7:19] [0:02] %

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #22 (First show - October 7, 1985 Keystone Palo Alto; Last show - February 21, 1986)
! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-guitar, vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones - vocals;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch - vocals;
! lineup: Melvin Seals - organ;
! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;
! lineup: Gaylord Birch - 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/19851014-01

! db: http://etreedb.org/shn/138028 (this fileset).

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

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/07/stone-mothers-412-broadway-san.html

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html. This is ultrarare JGB #22, with Gaylord Birch drumming. This configuration debuted on a Monday-Tuesday, October 7th and 8th, 1985 in Palo Alto, then Sunday-Monday the next week in San Fran. Of those four shows, the last one, 10/14, is the only one to circulate as of March 2017. Four gigs in October, four in December (14-15 in SF, 21-22 in PA, weekend gigs, all in circulation), then one gig in February (2/21/86). These were the only JGB shows without stalwart drummer David Kemper between 7/20/83 and 11/19/93. We know so little about this period. Where was Kemper? Corry bands post: "I presume that Kemper had another commitment, and since Birch was an established quantity from his time in Reconstruction, he was a comfortable choice as a sub." Stylistically, I don't hear the kick bass as much with him, a lot more snare and high stuff. He remains probably the second snazziest drummer with whom Garcia ever played, after Paul Humphrey (1974).

! seealso: Arnold, Corry. 2012. Gaylord Birch – Drums. Hooterollin' Around, February 3, URL http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2012/02/gaylord-birch-drums.html, consulted 11/15/2014.

! R: source: AUD (marked 2nd Gen) kindly provided by wk & http://jgmf.blogspot.com/

! R: transfer: Maxell XLII > Nakamichi CR-5A > Edirol FA-66 > Wavelab 2448 > R8Brain > CD-Wave > TLH > FLAC 1644 tagged. Transfer by Andrew F. 03/2017.

! R: "Very tight edits thru-out, most songs cut in and out abruptly with bits missing." The vocals are deeply buried, the bass isn't particularly audible, guitar is at least pretty upfront. As I am in s1t03, I'd say the guitar sounds great, drums are OK, everything else (e.g., bass and keys) is buried.

! historical: These tapes are tightly edited, but 35 minutes and 31 minutes for the two sets, respectively, is far below the Minelli Line, below which a good square effort for the fans becomes a Cabaret Economics ripoff.

! P: s1t01 CUTS is actually surprisingly together. The December 14-15 shows are the only other late '85 Jerry Band tapes in circulation as of this writing (3/24/17), and I had thought that at least one of them opened with some real timing misfires between drums and band. They manage to wrap CUTS up pretty tightly, not doing that thing of not knowing how to end it.

! R: s1t01 CUTS 34-seconds blank tape, cross-faded out at 4:52.

! P: s1t02 WIPMM Gaylord doesn't catch the ending, it sort of fizzles and fazzles to a close.

! P: s1t03 TWLWMYD Birch is great on this, right from the get-go. He has an extra beat going that really works well, and he nicely accents behind Jerry's chorus vocal. This is cookin'!

! P: s1t04 TUIB it's too bad the vocals are so buried, because they sound reasonably strong. compare with GD 9/3/85, or the September Red Rocks shows, and he sounds much better here.

! s2t02 LITA I may have to retract my statement about the voice - maybe sounding a little more ragged here later in the evening.

! P: s2t03 TNTDODD I have been wavering on the vocals, and here they are not terrible at first ... then they get pretty bad by 3 minutes into the song.

Da Weez

https://archive.org/details/gd1983-04-23.117598.Sennheiser421.daweez.d5scott.flac16

! db: shnid-117598
! R: field recording gear: 2x Sennheiser 421 microphones > Sony TC-D5M
! R: field recordist: Da Weez
! R: transfer: Sony TC-D5M (original record deck) > Pre Sonus Inspire GT > Sound Forge > .wav files > Trader's Little Helper > flac files, by D5scott.

I have no idea who these gentlemen are, but taper Da Weez never made a bad tape, and the good taste in gear suggested by D5scott's name is exceeded only by the straightforward beauty of his transfers of Da Weez's masters. They all come tagged "R.I.P. Sandy - aka 'Bigfoot'", which adds a sad human note to these revelatory sonic documents.

People sometimes imply that there are no more histories to write of the Grateful Dead and affiliated phenomena, but I totally disagree (beyond my own interest in asserting the contrary). There are tapers' histories to write for example, from socio-, Cleo-, musico-, and psychoacousticotechnicoothero-metric lenses. Just think of Flashback Charlie, that even hard-edged Brooklynite Jerry Moore might have recommended for a little meditation outside the Bottom Line, or finding a backdoor broom--closet way into the Academy of Music, just down the street from the Hells Angels' clubhouse in rough mid-70s NYC, or besuited east coaster Barry Glassberg. In the Bay Area, technical genius Jaime Poris, was were joined by James Olness (later a Bill Graham archivist and printer) in the 80s, joined later by Bu and the DAT Brats (working The Rail at the Warfield), then Chuck and Janet Vasseur with the four-digit, vintage Neumanns, a pierrine digital setup and upfront acumen. There's a book right there.

I just wanted to take a minute to give a thought to all involved. Da Weez went to the show and taped, not a cheap or trivial proposition. Sounds like Sandy (RIP) was around. At the very least, D5scott has taken the time, lending gear and skill to transfer the tapes. Tom Anderson's db.etree and Brewster Kahle's archive.org, helped along by casts of countless volunteers, help us fingerprint the fileset and hear it at any time from wherever you are. Deadlists keeps a canonical reference from The List of ca. early 2000s. The ArcHIVE, consisting of thousands of decentralized copies held by fans and collectors everywhere, relentlessly propagates itself, inter alia through "eternal flame reseeds at the torrent site Lossless Legs (shnflac.net). And, literally, on and on It goes: the parameter I'd use to state Its temporal limit asymptotically approaches the limit of humanity itself.

In other news, "Alabama Getaway" sprints out all flared nostrils and deep, grungy guitar from the first break, coked-out and scatterbrained. There's an "Funniculi Finnicula" tease before "Candyman", and Jerry sounds frisky.

Gee Baby, Ain't I Good To You?

A little over a year ago, I found a review of a unique-sounding Garcia-Saunders gig, backing Maria Muldaur at the Berkeley Community Theatre on October 12, 1974.

While unique at the gig level, it turns out that JGMS backing John Kahn's then-"old lady" Maria Muldaur, still flying high from a hit record or two, was actually not unique. Indeed, we have known from tape that she fronted the band on a few numbers --along with a drummer identified as "Ringo"-- on 10/27/74b at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach, doing Fats Wallers' "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good To You". update: written by Don Redman, but done by Fats Waller.

It turns out that the latter was a pretty strict reprise, since they all did the same tune at the BCT show and the night after the BCT show, 10/13/74 at the Santa Barbara County Bowl. S.B. reviewer David Rowell didn't find much to like about the Garcia-Saunders set --"What was coming from the stage was, at worst, disdain; at best, a 'stoned' lack of awareness"-- but he liked Maria (who also played some tambourine on the number before her star turn). In hitting the previous link, I see that the sit-in is documented at JGC, but I had been unaware of it.

In previewing the Legion at the Granada on 6/26/75, the Santa Barbara News-Review even published a picture of the event in question.

One last point: the same 6/26/75 preview says Maria also sat-in when the Legion played Venice on 6/14/75, so there's a fourth JG-HOST Shared Stage event with Maria (three in SoCal), before she joined the Jerry Garcia Band in its 1977-1978 configuration.

! seealso: http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2011/09/recently-added-to-tjs-saunders-images.html

! ref: Rowell, David B. 1974. Garcia and Saunders take the back seat. Santa Barbara News-Press, October 14, B2.
 

GD Portland 7/25/72

Man, that interlude in The Other One on 7/25/72 is the bee's knees. Jim Powell's analysis (at Deadlists) just refers to it as "mystery theme". LIA: "the Allmans-like Jam in the Other One of 7/25/72 ... sounds so composed it's hard to believe they only did it once."

It sounded a little Jeffersonian, a little Youngbloodsish, a little this and a little that, to me. Discuss.

update

LIA's maiden blog post was on this jam! Awesome.

GD Fillmore West April 9, 1970

https://archive.org/details/gd1970-04-09.137104.aud.cousinit.flac16/gd1970-04-09-d2t03.flac

What a hottie this Good Lovin' jam is!

These shows are only represented in imperfect audience tapes, but they are crucial documents from a period relatively underrepresented on soundboard tape. 7/12/70 at the Fillmore East is another one of these shows that has gotten too little attention because of soundboard snobbery. For this period, which rages, audience tapes are mostly all we have.

! R: Seeder cousinit provides these notes: "I believe this is a different AUD version compared to [Harry] Ely's master. An example is how Katie Mae differs (to me) in the way the guitar is captured. In the Ely version the guitar can barely be heard. This version has the guitar much more prominent."

! P: seeder notes: The Other One is a absolute monster ..."

This whole show just sizzles, and in all kinds of different ways. Pigpen shines, fronting one of the world's great electric backing band on "It's A Man's, Man's, Man's, Man's, Man's World," and feeling his solo acoustic country blues with "Katie Mae", who walks around "like she got oil wells in her back yard."

"Cowboy Song" is a true oddity. No-one seems entirely sure that it's David Bromberg, and perhaps feel it's not him at all? I wonder if this could have been not the folkie but that gentleman of the same name who wrote Guitar Player's Garcia feature in 1971? Often these music journalists did some picking (see the GPI Guitar Jam in whatever year that was). It might just be spurious, someone's wild guess.

Looking forward to hearing this Other One.

Bay Area Music Venues via deaddisc.com

http://www.deaddisc.com/GDFD_Venues.htm

This is the "Bay Area Music Venues" page at the amazing deaddisc. It complements JGBP nicely because presents a discographical view of the same spaces.

Recent Closet Call Results

http://db.etree.org/shnlist.php?year=Recent&artist=&artist_group_key=4

That link displays recent lossless filesets (shnids) entered at the etree database. The discerning Garcia fan will recognize that Andrew F. is working on two distinct cassette collections which contain some number of previously uncirculated pieces, especially from the 1980s, not already losslessly circulating. This includes the Closet Call tapes that wk has made available - thanks! - and another batch of tapes from DL. Here they are in chron, with a few annotations about what makes them interesting.

11/13/76

A Humboldt show, probably not long after the harvest.

! seealso: "JGB at Freeborn Hall, November 12, 1976"

02/15/78

07/18/80 set I rare 1980 quartet gig

07/18/80 set II rare 1980 quartet gig

10/27/82

! JGMF: "Second Gig for the new Sextet: Rissmiller's 10/27/82"

05/06/83 The best show of the 80s happened on 5/31/83, but 5/6 doesn't move me.

07/20/83 

! JGMF: "First Night Out for Kemper: The Stone, 7/20/83 (WED)" 

10/14/85
! JGMF: "During Gaylord's Second Stint: JGB at the Stone, October 14, 1985 (Monday)"
 

12/14/85

12/15/85

Gaylord Birch on drums on all three of these, and very few JGB shows in '85.

01/18/86
An MIA hometown Garcia/Kahn show (FWIW).

05/23/86

! seealso: "Jerry Garcia Band Electric"

11/22/86

Jerry and Bobby play a couple of tunes at Jane Dornacker's memorial service at the Warfield.

A second link, http://bt.etree.org/index.php?cat=74, takes you to etree's Bit Torrent site, where you can download the relevant lossless recordings. 

Bleg for Tolces on Garcia, Kahn and Reflections

Tolces, Todd. 1975. Deadlines: Dead Lines: Jerry Garcia's been in the studio, fighting the clock and other hazards. Melody Maker, ca. September-October 1975.

I have a partial copy of this, but I am looking for the whole thing. Anyone have a scan to share? Your List Gets Mine.

Joe and Ruth Garcia: Directory Samples

1935: no trace of Joe and Ruth Garcia

1940: Jos R (Ruth), restaurant at 399 1st street and home at 121 Amazon

1942: Jos (Ruth) liquors, same addresses

1951: Ruth (wid Jos), bartender, home at 56 Harrington

These are neat documents, sitting on shelves next to the world class microfilm scanners on the 5th floor of the S.F. Public Library. This is all I had time to get at my last visit. Maybe I'll try to get more next time. Love how they show the professions, noteworthy how the women are parenthesized afterthoughts to the men (or defined as the man's widow), etc.

Concert Vault

My goodness, I don't really follow what all comes online --or maybe it's new, so effectively I do-- but there is some 1980 and 1982 JGB (and snippets of 4/10/82 Garcia solo acoustic) online at concertvault.com. I need to investigate some of this more.

Here's "Let It Rock" from 6/24/82:
http://www.concertvault.com/jerry-garcia-band/video/let-it-rock_2147002982.html

And "Deal" from 7/26/80, Greg Errico on the drums:
http://www.concertvault.com/jerry-garcia-band/video/deal_2147003437.html

Reading Notes: Jackson and Gans 2015

Jackson, Blair and David Gans. 2015. This Is All a Dream We Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead. Flatiron Books.

Blair Jackson and David Gans, like Dennis McNally and David Browne earlier in my reading year, exceed my very high expectations. I don't generally do book reviews, and won't here, either, but I did want to spotlight just how foundational these guys have been in helping us understand the Grateful Dead's world just a little bit more.

Jackson and Gans are to writing about the Grateful Dead as, say, TC is to the band's music. I mean that as a compliment of utmost seriousness. In thinking about Garcia's musical life, I consider the players, those musicians who shared a stage or room with Jerry, to stand at the closest, inner ring of the social Garciaverse. TC was around 14 months and made an essential contribution to the Dead's most essential music, Live/Dead (1969). You can't understand the Dead if you don't understand TC.

Same goes for Jackson and Gans with respect to the written word (to say nothing of Gans's many contributions via the radio and otherwise). But it's more than just the authenticity and aesthetic – we would have been lost without them. From the second half of the 1970s forward, as the Dead grew more insular, Jackson and Gans became increasingly central informational nodes linking the goings on in Marin to the wider world, sometimes even all the way out to far-flung Contra Costa County. J Through inter alia Dennis Erokan's Bay Area Music (BAM), they brought us the little tidbits of gossip and the long form journalism. Jackson and Gans were the indispensable Deadhead journos in an era before the internet, when information was scarce. In 1981, they teamed up to interview the band and BAM covered Garcia across two issues,[i] as Adam Block had done a few years before.[ii] Blair and and Regan McMahon launched the fanzine the Golden Road (1984-1993) not long after, and with it helped define what such a publication can be, marrying art, erudition, great writing and lots of substance to the Deadhead experience. Gans's first book, 1985's Playing In The Band: An Oral and Visual Portrait of the Grateful Dead was the first of several to decode and re-encode the whole trip.

I won't narrate the rest of their story, but it underscores the creative efflorescence that the Dead tapped into and nurtured. Many talented people engaged many acts of genuine human creation around the whole scene, and the many wonderful writers and journalists certainly took, and continue to take, pride of place in my own text-centric little world. The semicentennial of 2015 was such a bounty of books, for example, that I am only now finishing up some transcriptions, first of Dennis McNally's shimmering personal text-collage Jerry on Jerry, then of Browne's rather stunning chronological retiling, reshuffling the deck and turning up aces, abundant fresh thoughts and material to consider.

In This Is All a Dream We Dreamed (TIAADWD), Jackson and Gans amaze me once again. I once briefly praised their work (with Steve Silberman) in curating the Dead's 1999 retrospective boxset So Many Roads, including the controversial (among picky Deadheads) but, IMO, correct choice to edit the 7/9/95 version of the titular swansong. The 2009 Let It Rock release of November 17-18, 1975 exemplifies their contributions to the Garciaverse: stellar music that is well-chosen, skillfully curated, sounding fat and fine from Betty's tapes and including Gans's excellent liner notes, featuring the rare chance to read drummer Ron Tutt's take on the Nicky Hopkins-era Garcia Band. I could go on and on.

I think Corry praised TIAADWD as oral history, and, as always, I can only second Corry's emotion. Communing with Jackson and Gans found me dusting off Greenfield (1996) and realizing that, not only have I never annotated it, but most every page either tells me something that I didn't know or tells me where I learned something that I do. Listening notes TBD. Talk is beautifully rich, and when it is thoughtful, well-considered, skillfully engaged and curated, manuscripting it reveals facets that may not become visible in similar material, but sourced from the human brain via fingers to text. Jackson and Gans have done lots of interviews, they live and breathe the substance and have come to master the various media in which they work, and it all comes together in a book that will remain an essential resource in any self-respecting Deadhead's library. If you haven't, yet, you should go buy it.

Various annotations and reading notes below the fold.

oh my

https://archive.org/details/gd1978-01-11.135498.sbd.miller.flac16

Check out the Let It Grow.

Reading Notes: Browne 2015

Browne, David. 2015. So Many Roads: The Life And Times Of The Grateful Dead. Boston, MA: Da Capo Press [a member of the Perseus Books Group].

I stand by my initial assessment - this book is the real deal, chock full of great tidbits, fluently written. This is a great addition to the canon, standing alongside Jackson, McNally and the rest.

Browne's method involved lots of interviews and access to materials with and from just about all of the key survivors at the very center of the Grateful Dead world. As a scholar, I lament that the move to improve the transparency of work done using qualitative methods underway in various scientific fields, which is a very good thing, could never work for this kind of writing. I will treat specific facts given by Browne as correct, unless I can find something to raise doubts. I rarely do.

The usual reading notes methodology. I know the endnotes don't format properly on blogger - one gets that for which one has paid, and I need to do it this way for my own purposes. Notes below the fold.

NGC: Van Morrison and Toulouse Ta Truck

Via the Facebook page of the amazing Jake Feinberg, which is a treasure trove of text snippets from Jake's radio show, which you should listen to and support.

Too Loose to Truck, By Steve Mitchell

I was playing with a piano player 4 nights a week at a club called "Shipwreck Pete's." It was John Allair and myself, we were playing duo gigs. John sang and played piano and a B-3 organ at the same time.

We're playing one night and this fella comes in with his saxophone and he's dressed all in black and he's got a black hat on and nobody knows who he is and he's standing there in the middle of the dance floor getting knocked around and he could play pretty good - it turned out to be Van Morrison.

Van liked what we were doing so he played with us. He came to our gigs and played with us cause he enjoyed playing and he wanted to develop his saxophone chops.

I had run into Phil Lesh at one of Mickey Hart's gatherings and we talked and he said he wanted to be able to play when the Dead weren't on the road.
It was all the Marin County guys, John Allair, Terry Haggerty from the Sons of Champlin and Van and Phil Lesh. There was a revolving door of people who were in and out of the band. Most of the time it was Phil, Allair, Haggerty and myself.
https://www.facebook.com/jake.feinbergshow/posts/1199080536835142

I don't think I ever knew of a Van Morrison connection in Toulouse Ta Truck (aka Too Loose To Truck, etc.). Did you?

If These Halls Could Talk

If These Halls Could Talk: A Historical Tour through San Francisco Recording Studios – by Heather Johnson (2006).

Has anyone ever seen a copy of this? I would like one, but it's $170+ at Amazon and not really available at my usual on-line used book haunts.

Garciaverse Musics

I'll just throw this out there for comment, spitballing, and eventual dismantlement as a putative mapping (for Garciaverse purposes) of Musics that Garcia directly and quasi-publicly performed.

Here are a few design principles (such as they are).

1) minimize the sum of the squared errors of the distances between where it's mapped and where it belongs on every dimension.

2) the core 2x2 is the same as above, the distribution is pretty similar, and I have added a crossover category.

3) not intended to be precise or rigorous - just impressionistic. The "musics" are musics that Garcia played, in the different font. Where a musical idiom came to him derivatively (e.g., Native American music through Bill Monroe, Hawaiian music through white country music (though he might have heard it directly on the radio with his grandmother?), African idioms via the banjo, etc. There's a story to tell about all of those that I hope to get too. Read it like a Humbead's Map, and don't expect linearity, monotonicity, etc. etc.

4) the core of the table are what can properly be called "American musics", though I am a little queasy about having Hawaiian and Native American on the outside. See my point about mediation in note #3 - I intend this to portray musics that Garcia directly and demonstrably engaged. So Indian and Latin musics get the special font, because he played in these traditions.


Have at it.

Older Versions below the fold.

v01 12/17/2016

v03 5/13/2017 19:07

Reading Notes: McNally 2015

McNally, Dennis, ed. 2015. Jerry on Jerry: The Unpublished Jerry Garcia Interviews. New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers.

I didn't quite know what to expect. On a read, it felt like this was all material that I already knew. From a strictly informational perspective I didn't feel like I got anything I didn't know out of Jerry's mouth. But when I went back to transcribe some key things, so engaged the book a second time, I felt like it really painted an intimate picture of Jerry by Jerry. McNally did a great job in using his own creative talent to let Jerry --a Jerry, a version of Jerry-- paint a lovely little posthumous self-portrait.

This is sort of like my "in praise of editorial judgment" thing --no reader here could possibly disagree-- Dennis McNally obviously knew Garcia well, was blessed to have spent a lot of time talking about everything under the sun with him, and he creatively arranges a lot of the material that I know (of), but hadn't really understood. It's nicely paced, a nice easy afternoon conversation, plenty of room to breathe, unlike so many of the Garcia interviews we get to hear. It's a nice piece of work, and it'll be on my shelf (or wherever I put it) for the long haul. (It's so nice that I won't even lament that absence of spatiotemporal identifiers for the quotes.)

A note on "reading notes": this is just my selective culling of quotes of particular interest to me. There's nothing representative about this stuff, I don't imagine. I pick up different stuff from LIA (who can remember it all without the contrivance of "reading notes"). The method is to sort these quotes into their respective topic buckets  (with little tags like #why and such), then put the book aside and move on to the next thing.

Raw notes below the fold. I lost steam with bolding the names at some point ...

Bobby Ace

I was doing some thinking about Bob Weir's musical journey, and what I view to be the pivotal "Bobby Ace" period, running most obviously from about mid-1969 through 1970. And, since we were just talking about Family Dog shows, I got to thinking about the April 1970 acoustic gigs. Long story short, I just did some sniffing around some of the more obscure (in the Garciaverse) numbers they did. Here's a back-of-the-napkin breakdown.

Note that, as far as I can tell, this is entirely roots-derived white contemporary stuff - is there a black songwriter in the whole repertoire? Anyway, FWIW.

Traditional

! song: Slewfoot

! song: Wabash Cannonball

Everly Brothers Originals

! song: All I Have To Do Is Dream (not their composition, but I think they did it first)

! song: Cathy's Clown

! song: So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad)

! song: Wake Up Little Susie

Bakersfield

! song: Mama Tried – Merle Haggard

! song: I've Got A Tiger By The Tail – Buck Owens

George Jones

! song: The Race Is On

! song: Old Old House

! song: Seasons Of My Heart

Contemporary Country – all of these were written in the 1960s

! song: Let It Be Me – also done by Everly Brothers

! song: Let Me In – Porter Wagoner

! song: Long Black Limousine – first available via Glen Campbell in 1962, eventually Merle Haggard and Elvis, too.

! song: Me And My Uncle – John Philips

! song: Silver Threads And Golden Needles – also by Everly Brothers

! song: Dire Wolf – Garcia/Hunter (sung by Weir 7/4/69)

! song: Green Green Grass Of Home – Curly Putnam, but done by Porter Wagoner and on Merle Haggard's Mama Tried.

! song: Games People Play – Joe South – also by Everly Brothers

 

Lenny Hart's term of employment

I had never quite seen this much specificity on the dates around Lenny Hart, but in combination with some other factors (Gar talking about the situation with Rakow at the Family Dog, which the GD were playing through 3/1/70), this really seems pretty precise.

Hart was arrested July 26 in San Diego on a Marin County warrant charging he embezzled more than $77,000 between May 22, 1969 , and March 2, 1970, while he was employed as business manager of the group.

And specifics on Lenny's Perfidy: 

During the time he served as business manager, Hart wrote six checks, totaling $35,200, on the Dead’s account made out to the “Sunshine Company.” An investigation revealed that the Sunshine Company maintained an account at the same bank and the account was in the name of Leonard B. Hart, according to Thomas. The affidavit also said that Jerry Garcia, a member of the Grateful Dead, told San Rafael police that MGM Studios wrote $11,000 worth of checks for music composed by Garcia. The checks were made out to Hart, as trustee of the group, but neither Garcia nor the group ever saw the money".

! ref: "Rock Group Embezzling Case is Set," Independent-Journal, August 10, 1971, p. 5.