Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / October Dead: Grateful Dead's Legendary October Concerts [Episode 230]

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October Dead: Grateful Dead's Legendary October Concerts [Episode 230] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

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Speaker 1: We're totally booked rock and Roll. I think I'll leave you.
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Speaker 1: You're reading little hands this, It's time to rock and
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Speaker 1: roll Dead roll Out.
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Speaker 2: I totally booked. Welcome back to Booked on Rock, the
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Speaker 2: podcast for those about to read and rock online. A
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Speaker 2: whole lot more at Booked on rock dot Com. Back
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Speaker 2: in June, I had author David Kanaan to tell us
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Speaker 2: about his book Infinite Dead, A Daily Guide to Grateful
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Speaker 2: Dead Concert Performances, Volume two. July. I wanted to have
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Speaker 2: him back on to talk about the first volume, which
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Speaker 2: covers all the Dead shows from the month of October.
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Speaker 2: David was able to make some time to come back,
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Speaker 2: and I'm so glad he did. Infinite Dead is a new,
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Speaker 2: groundbreaking guide Grateful Dead concerts, authoritative and entertaining. Volume one
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Speaker 2: features detailed review years of every Dead concert performed in
1:02
Speaker 2: the month of October, which adds up to over two
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Speaker 2: hundred shows, including the three set acoustic electric performances at
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Speaker 2: the Warfield in San Francisco and Radio City Music Hall
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Speaker 2: in New York City, their five night final stand at
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Speaker 2: the Winterland Ballroom in nineteen seventy four, and thirteen Halloween
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Speaker 2: performances from their first in nineteen sixty six to their
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Speaker 2: last in nineteen ninety one. We'll cover moments from those
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Speaker 2: shows in this episode. You can also listen to a
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Speaker 2: playlist of dead shows in the month of October in
1:31
Speaker 2: this episode show notes, David, thanks so much for coming
1:35
Speaker 2: back on to talk about this book. Thanks for having
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Speaker 2: me over two hundred shows you cover in this book,
1:41
Speaker 2: two hundred.
1:42
Speaker 1: October was kind of a big month for them generally
1:46
Speaker 1: because they did two thousand plus concerts in their career
1:49
Speaker 1: and spread them out. You're going to find every month
1:52
Speaker 1: has got some good things to listen to. January though,
1:56
Speaker 1: is like I would say, a thinner month. They had
1:58
Speaker 1: finally won up and figured out that touring the Northeast
2:03
Speaker 1: and the Midwest in the middle of winter right is
2:05
Speaker 1: not a good thing to do. But October it's kind
2:08
Speaker 1: of nice right all over the country. It's good weather,
2:10
Speaker 1: and I think they liked playing during a fall and
2:15
Speaker 1: so October has quite a few, certainly the acoustic electric
2:21
Speaker 1: combined kind of format, which happened in nineteen eighty and
2:27
Speaker 1: began actually in September, September twenty fifth, and they were
2:31
Speaker 1: doing this at that time at the Warfield Theater in
2:34
Speaker 1: San Francisco, and they played a series of concerts where
2:37
Speaker 1: they would do an acoustic set and then two electric sets,
2:41
Speaker 1: and then I think they did this for a couple
2:44
Speaker 1: times in New Orleans and then up to Radio City
2:48
Speaker 1: where they did this again for nine nights, an acoustic
2:51
Speaker 1: set and two electrics, and so it started in September,
2:56
Speaker 1: but the bulk of it, it ran all the way
2:58
Speaker 1: through to October three, first in New York. And what
3:02
Speaker 1: was remarkable for fans of the band was that they
3:05
Speaker 1: were playing acoustic as sets again, which they did for
3:09
Speaker 1: a brief time throughout most of nineteen seventy, and suddenly
3:13
Speaker 1: they decided, let's do it again. And a lot of
3:17
Speaker 1: fans really loved this acoustic music that they put out,
3:20
Speaker 1: and even maybe started with The Grateful Dead there in
3:23
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy when they were doing this, and so it
3:26
Speaker 1: was a wonderful surprise and very high expectations and the
3:30
Speaker 1: band did a great job. It's not an easy thing
3:32
Speaker 1: to suddenly play acoustic an electric band, but.
3:37
Speaker 2: If anybody could do it, it's the Dead and we're.
3:40
Speaker 1: Yes, extremely talented musicians and a lot of stamina. They
3:46
Speaker 1: did some incredible things, and if I'm.
3:48
Speaker 2: Not mistaken, I think some of those shows ended up
3:51
Speaker 2: as a live album.
3:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, Dead Reckoning, Dead Set, and I think those are
3:56
Speaker 1: the days where things still came out on vinyl first, Yeah,
4:00
Speaker 1: and so Dead Reckoning. I think it was a double album,
4:04
Speaker 1: and that was the acoustic stuff, and then they did
4:07
Speaker 1: another one like it, but it was the electric music.
4:10
Speaker 1: And these are selections from you know, various concerts along
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Speaker 1: this acoustic electric run that they did. So yeah, I
4:17
Speaker 1: remember buying both.
4:19
Speaker 2: And as you did on that book on July, you
4:23
Speaker 2: have some standout shows here, shows of Note where you
4:26
Speaker 2: mark them with a rose. So let's get into some
4:29
Speaker 2: of that. I was looking through the book, so I
4:30
Speaker 2: figured maybe we'll go through the ones that are the
4:33
Speaker 2: biggest highlight moments of the book, but any that you
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Speaker 2: want to add, feel free. Three October one shows of
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Speaker 2: Note here and they are nineteen seventy six at the
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Speaker 2: Market Square Arena in Indianapolis. Nineteen seventy seven at the
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Speaker 2: Paramount Theater in Portland, Oregon. In the Boston Garden in
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Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four, that Indianapolis show, along with a Portland show,
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Speaker 2: deserve more praise, you feel, you write in the book,
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Speaker 2: not ranked high among dead fans and stuff. But why
5:00
Speaker 2: do you feel those shows are overlooked?
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Speaker 1: I think these twenty five or so concerts designated with
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Speaker 1: a rose, some of them are pretty going to be
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Speaker 1: pretty well known by people, like ten twenty seven seventy
5:15
Speaker 1: nine Cape Cod Saturday Night, the first of two, where
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Speaker 1: they opened the second set with Dancing in the Street
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Speaker 1: Franklins Tower. Fantastic improvisation and became very well known among
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Speaker 1: people who are collecting recordings and then listening to them,
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Speaker 1: and a lot of people know about that concert now,
5:34
Speaker 1: so and I believe fully they performed really well. So
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Speaker 1: I designated it as sort of one of those that
5:41
Speaker 1: you definitely want to spend some time listening to. Others
5:46
Speaker 1: like the Indianapolis concert from October first, it's just one
5:51
Speaker 1: of those where their performance was really strong. You know,
5:54
Speaker 1: they performed whatever they were doing, improvising well, hitting the
6:00
Speaker 1: notes decently, doing new things. It was just generally, why
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Speaker 1: I didn't understand more people weren't talking about this concert
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Speaker 1: just the strength of the performance. It wasn't that they
6:12
Speaker 1: played a tune for the first time in ten years.
6:15
Speaker 1: It was just like, this is a really great, grateful
6:17
Speaker 1: Dead performance. The next one the Portland Show. One thing
6:24
Speaker 1: is the music Never Stopped. It's a particularly fine performance
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Speaker 1: of that song, and I even refer readers to a
6:32
Speaker 1: similarly strong performance of it from two three seventy eight.
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Speaker 1: The one in nineteen seventy eight eventually came out as
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Speaker 1: a formal release and so that got to be more
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Speaker 1: widely known. But here's another one on this date, October first,
6:50
Speaker 1: and it's not as widely lone. So if you like
6:52
Speaker 1: two three seventy eight, you should definitely listen to this
6:56
Speaker 1: version of Music Never Stopped. And I think that's why
6:59
Speaker 1: that one made, you know, one of the top twenty five.
7:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, specifically, at six minutes twenty seconds in you say
7:06
Speaker 2: he begins his furious flurry of chords for Runsworth.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, So typically the way Music Never Stop would go.
7:15
Speaker 1: They do the first half of the song and then okay,
7:17
Speaker 1: it's time to hit Garcia's main solo, and he would
7:21
Speaker 1: work the solo and then either just end it or
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Speaker 1: he would switch from these individual notes to doing chords
7:29
Speaker 1: and then hitting them. You know, his hand would look
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Speaker 1: like a hummingbird or a bumblebee or something moving that
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Speaker 1: quickly through the chords, and he would do that kind
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Speaker 1: of trilling them and go through that once twice, three times,
7:45
Speaker 1: and then they would end it. But in this occasion,
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Speaker 1: he just keeps going and going and going and then
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Speaker 1: doesn't end the song, goes back to continuing to solo.
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Speaker 1: And that's unique. That did not happen often on that song.
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Speaker 1: And so again it's something if you like music, never stop.
8:02
Speaker 1: That's something you should definitely listen to.
8:05
Speaker 2: October third moved to the third of October nineteen eighty
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Speaker 2: seven at the Shoreline Amphitheater keyboardist Brent Midland. He shines,
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Speaker 2: you say, he shines everywhere. Talk about his performance that night.
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Speaker 2: This is October third, nineteen eighty seven, Shoreline Amphitheater in
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Speaker 2: Mountain View, California.
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Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty seven. And on my feeling listening to Brent's
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Speaker 1: part of the music is that he was really becoming
8:32
Speaker 1: on even standing even keel with the rest of the players.
8:36
Speaker 1: Right when he started in seventy nine. He was like
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Speaker 1: the new keyboard player, and you know, we need a
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Speaker 1: keyboard player, so here he is. And then by the fall,
8:46
Speaker 1: everybody understood that this guy could really jam and improvise
8:49
Speaker 1: and in a meaningful way. But as you go forward
8:54
Speaker 1: from there, you know, he'd do his own tunes and
8:57
Speaker 1: they weren't really catching on, you know, in a big
9:00
Speaker 1: way with fans. He'd do one, he'd do another, and
9:04
Speaker 1: he'd do a cover tune. But from eighty seven forward,
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Speaker 1: eighty eight, eighty nine, ninety he was really becoming, I think,
9:13
Speaker 1: on par with the rest of the players. And in
9:16
Speaker 1: this review of this concert, I'm hinting at that, which is,
9:20
Speaker 1: you know, he's contributing just wonderfully improvised breaks. You know,
9:26
Speaker 1: they give him a break and he'd do great things
9:28
Speaker 1: on it, or he would do harmony vocals on a song.
9:31
Speaker 1: And then of course occasionally he'd have his own song
9:34
Speaker 1: that he'd lead sing on, or he would lead sing
9:37
Speaker 1: on a cover, join lesh on, Gimme some Lovin or
9:41
Speaker 1: something like that. And so I think he was beginning
9:44
Speaker 1: to really gain some confidence and some comfort and come
9:47
Speaker 1: into his own and you can really hear this by
9:51
Speaker 1: eighty nine and ninety you know, full pledged member of
9:54
Speaker 1: the band for sure.
9:55
Speaker 2: Great addition to the band in the studio as well
9:58
Speaker 2: as we would find out and in the Dark and
10:02
Speaker 2: Bill to Last. The songs that he writes and sings
10:06
Speaker 2: on are great. It's kind of a triple thread, I guess, right,
10:09
Speaker 2: the vocals, he can write music, and then obviously his
10:12
Speaker 2: work on the keyboards. Yeah, it's too bad that he
10:15
Speaker 2: passed so young, late thirties.
10:17
Speaker 1: I think you could argue he was really the strongest
10:24
Speaker 1: keyboard player that they ever had, not just in terms
10:27
Speaker 1: of longevity the length of time that he was with
10:30
Speaker 1: the band, but the quality of his improvisation, quality of
10:34
Speaker 1: his singing. Keith Gotschaw didn't sing too much, you know,
10:39
Speaker 1: Brent sang quite a bit and forcefully, and so yeah,
10:45
Speaker 1: it was it turned out to be a fantastic addition.
10:49
Speaker 1: And for me, the big surprise and the big win
10:51
Speaker 1: was his ability to improvise melodically, which you hear a
10:55
Speaker 1: lot in the fall of seventy nine for sure. That's
10:59
Speaker 1: the Cape cod com or both nights and others on
11:03
Speaker 1: that tour.
11:04
Speaker 2: And you have some UK shows in the book, UK
11:06
Speaker 2: shows that performed in the month of October. One is
11:09
Speaker 2: October fourth, nineteen eighty one, at the Rainbow Theater in London.
11:13
Speaker 2: You write quote dynamic from the get go, Bob Weir
11:16
Speaker 2: is in rare form. Before the show starts, he took
11:19
Speaker 2: a pool about a movie. I wonder if I don't
11:21
Speaker 2: think it's in the book. I don't know if you
11:22
Speaker 2: remember what movie was? He was he addressing the audience
11:26
Speaker 2: on this one. Do you remember?
11:28
Speaker 1: I don't recall. But this was something Weir would do occasionally,
11:32
Speaker 1: take a poll of the audience. There was in Indianapolis
11:38
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine show. It was in December, I think
11:41
Speaker 1: where he did this. He said, I want to take
11:43
Speaker 1: a poll. How many of you are from right around here?
11:48
Speaker 1: And then he said, and a certain number of hands
11:50
Speaker 1: went up and cheers, how many of you are from
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Speaker 1: twenty miles and how many of you came from more
11:56
Speaker 1: than one hundred miles away? And the crowd went crazy.
12:00
Speaker 1: And so occasionally, yeah, Weir would do this kind of thing,
12:05
Speaker 1: take a survey, a poll. Sometimes he would share results
12:08
Speaker 1: of a World Series game. He and some of the
12:12
Speaker 1: other guys in the band were baseball fans, and once
12:15
Speaker 1: in a Blue Moon, Weir would share a score of
12:17
Speaker 1: a game.
12:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's gonna He's got a great sense of humor.
12:20
Speaker 2: I saw his solo show a couple of years ago,
12:23
Speaker 2: and he was funny that night in between songs. He was.
12:29
Speaker 2: Some nights, I think he just goes from one song
12:31
Speaker 2: or the other. But some nights he may. He may
12:32
Speaker 2: feel like he's a little more talkative, or you could
12:34
Speaker 2: speak to that more than me. I'm not sure, but
12:36
Speaker 2: he seems like he's got he's got a great sense
12:39
Speaker 2: of humor.
12:40
Speaker 1: There was a period, say nineteen seventy, and it might
12:44
Speaker 1: have been because the acoustic sets where things are quiet
12:48
Speaker 1: and you could really hear the audience in between those
12:51
Speaker 1: numbers and even during and there was a lot of
12:57
Speaker 1: back and forth between all the band, me one time
13:01
Speaker 1: or not. Even Garcia, who was famously quiet and wouldn't
13:04
Speaker 1: say a word. Later on in nineteen seventy he talks
13:08
Speaker 1: quite a bit, and of course Lesh did two and
13:11
Speaker 1: we're also they were all having a pig pen and
13:15
Speaker 1: it's small right here in small theaters. They could hear people,
13:18
Speaker 1: hear what they were saying, and eventually everybody kind of decided,
13:25
Speaker 1: you know, not to say anything anymore. Garcia would famously
13:29
Speaker 1: say nothing. Lesh would say nothing, but we're became the
13:33
Speaker 1: guy who would say, you know, we're going to take
13:36
Speaker 1: a short break. Everybody, hang loose, we'll see in a
13:39
Speaker 1: few minutes. That was his role to make sure everybody
13:42
Speaker 1: knew that set one was over. But it was always him,
13:46
Speaker 1: never the other guys.
13:48
Speaker 2: So what's the show. There's a May of seventy seven
13:50
Speaker 2: or seventy eighth show where the crowd is getting too
13:53
Speaker 2: close to the stage, everybody's starting to get crushed, and
13:55
Speaker 2: you hear Bob say, you know, just back up a
13:57
Speaker 2: little bit, back up. Yeah.
14:00
Speaker 1: I had forgotten that that also had happened because I
14:03
Speaker 1: reviewed the book a little bit before we decided to
14:07
Speaker 1: talk here, and the October thirty one, nineteen seventy nine
14:12
Speaker 1: concert that I was at at Nassau Coliseum, there were
14:16
Speaker 1: crowd issues like that, and I'd forgotten. But it was saying,
14:21
Speaker 1: and I quoted some of what We're was saying about
14:24
Speaker 1: asking the crowd to step back. And of course this
14:26
Speaker 1: happened quite a bit over the years, depending on the venue,
14:31
Speaker 1: and it was really uncomfortable for the band.
14:33
Speaker 2: Well this is right, this is the Yeah, this is
14:37
Speaker 2: prior to the Who show in Cincinnati, I think, or
14:41
Speaker 2: maybe no, was it after, because I know that changed
14:43
Speaker 2: a lot that.
14:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was October. The Who show was December three,
14:49
Speaker 1: seventy nine. Okay, I was actually at a Dead concert
14:52
Speaker 1: on December second, seventy nine. I was supposed to be
14:57
Speaker 1: going to school in Boston, got on a bus, decided
14:59
Speaker 1: I needed to see the Dead in Chicago.
15:02
Speaker 2: Nice.
15:03
Speaker 1: Not so nice for my parents, but it's like I
15:08
Speaker 1: got to see my favorite band of my hometown, Donnut.
15:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.
15:13
Speaker 1: And I woke up the next morning and my brother
15:15
Speaker 1: wasn't real keen on me having pulled this trick of
15:18
Speaker 1: getting coming across country to see the Dead and whatever,
15:21
Speaker 1: and he was still living at home. And so I
15:23
Speaker 1: woke up on the third and I turned my head
15:26
Speaker 1: and found the Chicago Tribune leg right next to my pillow.
15:29
Speaker 1: My brother had put it there so I could see it,
15:32
Speaker 1: and that was the headline, what had happened at the
15:34
Speaker 1: Who concert.
15:35
Speaker 2: Wow.
15:36
Speaker 1: And so a particularly big impact on me, because you know,
15:41
Speaker 1: I had been at a concert the night you know,
15:44
Speaker 1: the night before that news on the third. So yeah,
15:50
Speaker 1: but the Dead had all kinds of recurring issues with
15:54
Speaker 1: this sort of thing over the years, depending on the venue,
15:58
Speaker 1: but that was one that gets mentioned in this book,
16:01
Speaker 1: and then you move forward in time and it continues
16:04
Speaker 1: to happen, and it's very upsetting for the band. You
16:07
Speaker 1: can imagine, right to be on stage and see people being,
16:10
Speaker 1: you know, crushed. I was at another show in May
16:13
Speaker 1: of seventy nine, same thing, where I wanted to get
16:16
Speaker 1: up front see the band, right, who doesn't want to
16:19
Speaker 1: be in the first row? General admission and you start
16:22
Speaker 1: to get up there and it's like, this is not
16:24
Speaker 1: a good thing. Yeah, and I ended up just backing out.
16:28
Speaker 1: It's like this is too much. So yeah, it was.
16:31
Speaker 1: And I think later they decided no more general admission
16:34
Speaker 1: if possible, right to get rid of that kind of thing.
16:38
Speaker 2: Book on podcast, We'll be back after this.
16:41
Speaker 1: Surely you can't be serious. I am serious, and don't
16:44
Speaker 1: call me surely.
16:48
Speaker 2: Interesting setlist The band performed in October ninth, nineteen eighty two.
16:51
Speaker 2: This is in Palo Alto, California, at the Stanford University
16:54
Speaker 2: Frost Amphitheater, five years before they appeared on record. We
17:00
Speaker 2: here Throwing Stones in Touch of Gray from the in
17:03
Speaker 2: the Dark album They set too. They played Morning Dew
17:07
Speaker 2: and you're write quote, morning Dew is a killer, We're
17:09
Speaker 2: a helmet for the inside break.
17:12
Speaker 1: I was just thinking about the other Morning Dew in
17:15
Speaker 1: October that I was thinking about from nineteen seventy four
17:18
Speaker 1: winter Land. You know, if we talk about that run
17:21
Speaker 1: of shows, that Morning Dew on the eighteenth October was
17:26
Speaker 1: just profoundly moving. This one was more rocked out, if
17:30
Speaker 1: I remember correctly. The eighty two palot w Aylet just
17:33
Speaker 1: very energetic, and you know, it was a signature song
17:37
Speaker 1: for them, and oftentimes they did some incredible things with
17:42
Speaker 1: Morning Dew as a site. Just it was an inspiring
17:46
Speaker 1: set of chords or something right where it tended to
17:48
Speaker 1: bring out the best in them, and it would happen
17:52
Speaker 1: over many different years. Seventy two in Europe, there's a
17:56
Speaker 1: great one that made the album, in seventy four in Louisville,
18:00
Speaker 1: this one in seventy four and Winterland and this one
18:06
Speaker 1: here just recurring that they could continue to do some
18:10
Speaker 1: of their best music making on this particular song and
18:15
Speaker 1: the touch of Gray. I really liked the soloing that
18:17
Speaker 1: Garcia did. It wasn't the easiest song I think to
18:22
Speaker 1: solo on and say something melodic, and this particular performance
18:26
Speaker 1: he did. But I don't think it's widely known that
18:28
Speaker 1: they were playing this thing for a long time a
18:31
Speaker 1: touch of gray before it became actually a top ten
18:35
Speaker 1: hit in nineteen eighty seven.
18:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, only the Dead can have that type of thing.
18:39
Speaker 2: Usually usually maybe it's a year before while the band's
18:43
Speaker 2: on tour, and then it shows up on a record,
18:45
Speaker 2: but five years before it's really cool. And like I said,
18:48
Speaker 2: there's the other track there, which was Throwing Stones. October ninth,
18:53
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three. The Dead play the Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro,
18:56
Speaker 2: North Carolina, a Sunday gig. You went with quote underrated
19:00
Speaker 2: A fine night for the other Man in Black show
19:03
Speaker 2: us the SBD in all caps our Kingdom for a matrix.
19:07
Speaker 2: All right, can you explain this statement SBD? I'm assuming
19:10
Speaker 2: he's a reference to soundboard. Yes, okay.
19:13
Speaker 1: The other man in Black is of course Garcia because
19:17
Speaker 1: he always wore black, and the original man in Black
19:20
Speaker 1: was Johnny Cash. So yeah. Recordings come in generally two types.
19:27
Speaker 1: An audience recording where somebody walked in and held up
19:30
Speaker 1: the mic and recorded that way, and then soundboards, which
19:33
Speaker 1: go through the band's you know, mixer unit also in
19:39
Speaker 1: the middle of the floor typically, and so the soundboard
19:42
Speaker 1: feed often sounds like a studio recording because it's directly
19:46
Speaker 1: off of the stage. Typically the audience you're hearing what
19:49
Speaker 1: it was like when you were a fan standing right
19:51
Speaker 1: next to the person with a microphone. And it's tough
19:55
Speaker 1: to get a take on a concert what it sounded
19:58
Speaker 1: like when you have very different kinds of recordings. Right,
20:03
Speaker 1: you can listen to the audience recording and think one thing.
20:06
Speaker 1: Listen to the soundboard. It's a completely different experience. It's
20:09
Speaker 1: almost like a studio recording in some respects. Some of
20:13
Speaker 1: these fantastic engineers taping people were able to marry the
20:21
Speaker 1: two of them in what became known as a matrix recording,
20:25
Speaker 1: and so they fine, they combine the audience recording with
20:29
Speaker 1: the soundboard recording, and so you get a lot of
20:33
Speaker 1: the pristine quality of a soundboard, but with a lot
20:38
Speaker 1: of the audience sound you know, the cheers, yeah, and
20:42
Speaker 1: you get both. And so for me, over time, if
20:45
Speaker 1: you listen to lots of recordings of the Dead on
20:48
Speaker 1: archive dot org, the matrix recording tends to be my
20:52
Speaker 1: go to because it blends both of them.
20:55
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, and he.
20:56
Speaker 1: Still feels like a concert recording, like you were there.
21:00
Speaker 2: So that's where our kingdom for a matrix. That statement
21:03
Speaker 2: comes from.
21:03
Speaker 1: Interesting, yeah, because to me, you know a lot of
21:07
Speaker 1: people feel differently. They love the purity of the soundboard,
21:10
Speaker 1: the clarity. When you're listening to a Soundbird recording, you
21:13
Speaker 1: can typically hear everybody very distinctly. So if you really
21:17
Speaker 1: want to hear Lesh's baselines, you probably want to hear
21:20
Speaker 1: the soundboard because in the audience recording, you're not going
21:23
Speaker 1: to hear him. He's going to be very deep in
21:25
Speaker 1: the mix. Garcia came out lucky. He was always up
21:29
Speaker 1: in the mix, which I think was a decision of
21:32
Speaker 1: the recording engineers. No matter what, So even on an
21:35
Speaker 1: audience recording, you're going to hear that signature lead sound,
21:39
Speaker 1: but you know hearing what weird as doing with his chords,
21:44
Speaker 1: Lesh is doing with the bass notes. If you really
21:46
Speaker 1: want to make sure to hear all that, you need
21:48
Speaker 1: the soundboard to really make that come alive for you.
21:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, the soundboard is just because it always sounded like
21:54
Speaker 2: they're playing in front of like a handful of people,
21:57
Speaker 2: Because it's any audience that you're hearing is just going
21:59
Speaker 2: to be picked up through the mic of the guys
22:02
Speaker 2: on stage. That's it. So you may hear a few
22:05
Speaker 2: people here and there, but yeah.
22:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, you specifically, you'll hear nobody, right, and it really
22:10
Speaker 1: sounds like they're in the studio. And for me, it
22:12
Speaker 1: also loses a lot of the excitement of what you
22:16
Speaker 1: felt like in a concert. So if I'm writing a
22:18
Speaker 1: book about a concert recording, well, what is the concert recording?
22:22
Speaker 1: Is it the soundboard? Not really, I nobody heard that,
22:26
Speaker 1: nobody except the guys on stage. Maybe that's what it
22:30
Speaker 1: sounded like to them a little bit, But even they
22:32
Speaker 1: heard the crowd and were inspired by the crowd. And
22:36
Speaker 1: so a lot of me leans towards the audience recording,
22:39
Speaker 1: even if it's not as crisp and clear. But the
22:42
Speaker 1: matrix has been a godsend, you know. And so as
22:46
Speaker 1: time goes forward, more and more and more of these
22:49
Speaker 1: matrix recordings are being made by these people who are
22:53
Speaker 1: taking the time to do it, and they will post
22:55
Speaker 1: it on archive and now you can hear it for
22:57
Speaker 1: the first time in a brand new way.
23:01
Speaker 2: Now let's get to the return of a few classic
23:03
Speaker 2: Dead songs that hadn't played in a while. October ninth,
23:06
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine, at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia.
23:09
Speaker 2: You lead this entry with quote, yes, Virginia, there is
23:12
Speaker 2: a Santa Claus all right. Talk about those two songs
23:16
Speaker 2: and why fans universally would agree that this was the
23:19
Speaker 2: best show of nineteen eighty nine.
23:22
Speaker 1: I don't know about two Dark Stars certainly, Yeah, the
23:25
Speaker 1: revival of that Addicts of My Life, Okay.
23:29
Speaker 2: That was the law. But the Dark Star was the
23:33
Speaker 2: big That was the big one because that was the
23:35
Speaker 2: first time in how many years.
23:39
Speaker 1: I think five years, five years, seven, seven, thirteen eighty
23:42
Speaker 1: four the Greek Theater they decided lesh came out and
23:46
Speaker 1: said we're going to do something one time only it
23:50
Speaker 1: was a Friday night at the Greek full Moon and
23:54
Speaker 1: they did Dark Star in eighty four and then it's
23:57
Speaker 1: like that's it, no more Dark Star Lady nine. And
24:01
Speaker 1: so this is a big deal there. If you're going
24:04
Speaker 1: to pick one song that's a signature song for the Dead,
24:07
Speaker 1: it would probably be this, even though you know it
24:10
Speaker 1: wasn't a top ten hit or anything, and so here
24:14
Speaker 1: they are playing it, and so you know, dream come
24:17
Speaker 1: true for most of the audience.
24:19
Speaker 2: The Dead shows at the Warfield Theater are legendary. October tenth,
24:23
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty You lead with quote twelfth off fifteen on
24:28
Speaker 2: this stand heaven, What about this specific night that stands out?
24:33
Speaker 2: What made this night so special?
24:36
Speaker 1: So I was looking over it to remind myself, and
24:39
Speaker 1: maybe it was the around and around that goes into
24:44
Speaker 1: Promised Land. They would often seventy seven end with a
24:49
Speaker 1: couple chuck Berry tunes, or at least one they'd end
24:51
Speaker 1: with Around and Around, or typically would do it straight
24:54
Speaker 1: into Johnny be Good Promised Land, which was the third
24:58
Speaker 1: chuck Berry tune that a regular on the repertoire. Promised
25:02
Speaker 1: Land was usually reserved for opening set one or closing
25:07
Speaker 1: set one most times, and so this was kind of
25:10
Speaker 1: unique to end the concert in this way. And I think,
25:15
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, Garcia starts to play Johnny be Good,
25:20
Speaker 1: and I think Weir waves them off and they end
25:23
Speaker 1: up going into Promised Land, which is another kind of
25:25
Speaker 1: grateful Dead thing that would happen. They wouldn't exactly have
25:29
Speaker 1: total agreement before they would launch the tune.
25:33
Speaker 2: It's like wait a minute, yeah, here it is the Yeah,
25:36
Speaker 2: the concert has an all Chuck Berry close. When they
25:39
Speaker 2: end Around and Around, Garcia breaks into the usual Johnny
25:42
Speaker 2: be Good intro, but it becomes the launch for Promised Land.
25:45
Speaker 2: The only time they played it to end set too.
25:47
Speaker 2: It was also the tail end of the double encore
25:50
Speaker 2: for twelve eleven seventy nine. It's a barn burner.
25:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. They this was another song or group of songs
25:59
Speaker 1: that would offer and bring out the best, and then
26:01
Speaker 1: they love Chuck Berry and they had had at least
26:04
Speaker 1: one Chuck Berry tune in the repertoire going back to
26:08
Speaker 1: at least seventy one. It made the Skull and Roses album.
26:12
Speaker 1: Johnny be Good is on there, and then the Steal
26:15
Speaker 1: Your Face album has Around and Around, and I think
26:18
Speaker 1: Promised Land, I think both of them are on there.
26:21
Speaker 1: And they kept those three in the repertoire regularly big
26:25
Speaker 1: fans of Chuck Berry. And it's fun and I think
26:30
Speaker 1: they loved it. They love doing it.
26:32
Speaker 2: Do you know what Chuck Berry's response was to that,
26:35
Speaker 2: did he know the guys? Did he get to know him? Well?
26:37
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Yeah, I mean I know, I
26:40
Speaker 1: don't know, and I'm not you know, sure it actually
26:45
Speaker 1: ever happened. I don't think they really cross paths. I
26:50
Speaker 1: actually met Chuck at a book signing. He wrote a book,
26:53
Speaker 1: his autobiography. Yeah, and I was in LA at the time,
26:58
Speaker 1: and you know, he was doing a book signing, and
27:01
Speaker 1: I thought, God, I really should leave work early to go,
27:05
Speaker 1: you know, get his book and say hello. And but
27:09
Speaker 1: I'm it's like, you can't leave work at like four o'clock.
27:13
Speaker 1: But I did. A colleague encouraged me to get the
27:15
Speaker 1: hell out of the office. I got my car, I
27:18
Speaker 1: drove across town in LA and got in line and
27:23
Speaker 1: walked up and wow, Chuck Berry right there, and his
27:27
Speaker 1: eyes literally twinkled. I mean, I'm not kidding. I was
27:31
Speaker 1: looking straight at him, and there was something in his
27:34
Speaker 1: eyes that were very special. And you know, what, can
27:38
Speaker 1: I say? Thanks Chuck? Right?
27:39
Speaker 2: I mean, what year would that have been.
27:44
Speaker 1: For his autobiography? This was, I can tell you. Just
27:47
Speaker 1: give me a moment. I'm thinking I was eighty six
27:51
Speaker 1: to eighty eight, somewhere in there where I was this
27:56
Speaker 1: particular company I was working at, and I left and
27:59
Speaker 1: I went and and it's a great book. And there
28:03
Speaker 1: was a documentary, of course, right about.
28:05
Speaker 2: Chuck well, that's the famous one with Keith Richards and
28:09
Speaker 2: Chuck getting into a heated argument.
28:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but I don't you know, it's possible. I know,
28:16
Speaker 1: the Dead did play in Saint Louis, you know, more
28:19
Speaker 1: than once back in the day, seventy seventy one, and
28:23
Speaker 1: Chuck would still have a hit, right my dingle Ling
28:26
Speaker 1: or something in the early seventies, and and he had
28:29
Speaker 1: to make money, so he would tour, he would play,
28:31
Speaker 1: and it's possible, you know, they cross paths somewhere along
28:35
Speaker 1: the road, but not a.
28:37
Speaker 2: Cool jam that would be to have him jump on
28:38
Speaker 2: stage during a Dead show.
28:40
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, first of all, I don't think
28:42
Speaker 1: Chuck would do it. Yeah, and I think anybody joining Chuck,
28:48
Speaker 1: you know, had his work cut out for him, right right.
28:51
Speaker 1: He was very particular about how he was going to
28:54
Speaker 1: do things.
28:55
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but yeah, you know, he got ripped off
29:01
Speaker 2: one too many times, so he made sure that he
29:03
Speaker 2: got paid for his gigs.
29:06
Speaker 1: He did not He did not have an easy life,
29:09
Speaker 1: and he did not have an easy time of it.
29:11
Speaker 1: And of course part of this was being you know,
29:15
Speaker 1: black African American and a white person's world way back then,
29:20
Speaker 1: and difficult, and it shapes you in ways you know
29:25
Speaker 1: I can't understand. But what a gift that he created
29:30
Speaker 1: these songs.
29:31
Speaker 2: I mean, like, wow, he's on the Mount Rushmore.
29:34
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and and not just as a figurehead. I
29:38
Speaker 1: mean these songs are still great, still great, and can
29:43
Speaker 1: be played well by other bands. And uh yeah, Chuck
29:49
Speaker 1: is forever.
29:49
Speaker 2: Foreverts will be back after this. David Kane the author
29:59
Speaker 2: of Infinite Dead, A Guide to Grateful Dead Concert Performances,
30:02
Speaker 2: Volume one October, which we're talking about today. Volume two
30:05
Speaker 2: is also available that covers the shows in June. I
30:09
Speaker 2: think I said July, but those are It's July, okay, yep.
30:13
Speaker 2: The Grateful Dead in the Big City in New York,
30:15
Speaker 2: Madison Square Garden, October eleventh, nineteen eighty three marks the
30:19
Speaker 2: return of Saint Stephen hadn't been placed since nineteen seventy nine.
30:22
Speaker 2: But there's a brand new jam that emerges out of
30:25
Speaker 2: thin air. This comes as they move out of I
30:28
Speaker 2: Need a Miracle and into Bertha. You're right here. Quote
30:31
Speaker 2: Bertha ends and they invent a brand new jam out
30:34
Speaker 2: of thin air. Listen for Phil Lesh's high notes, among
30:37
Speaker 2: other things. How often would this kind of thing happen
30:41
Speaker 2: where the dead would just a new jam comes out
30:43
Speaker 2: of nowhere. That's why we all went yeah pretty much
30:49
Speaker 2: every night, No, no, no, not.
30:52
Speaker 1: Every night, and that's probably why it was special. First
30:56
Speaker 1: of all, as a musician, you can't do these kinds
30:58
Speaker 1: of miracles every night. It's I figured, it's really difficult
31:03
Speaker 1: to It's how you feel, it's what inspires you. It's
31:07
Speaker 1: you know, if you're in the groove. There's some Garcia
31:10
Speaker 1: talked about it. You know, he would drink a little
31:13
Speaker 1: of this and do a little of this, and he'd
31:15
Speaker 1: have a great night, and then he would try to
31:17
Speaker 1: do the same darn thing the same way and it
31:19
Speaker 1: didn't happen. And there's no formula. But as a band
31:24
Speaker 1: they could do this quite a bit, you know, during
31:28
Speaker 1: a tour, you know, year to year, they could conjure
31:31
Speaker 1: up this kind of very compelling improvisations. You know, the
31:37
Speaker 1: spirit would move them and they could do it. But
31:41
Speaker 1: you know, you could come back the next night and
31:43
Speaker 1: it's just kind of more normal. Right. They go through
31:46
Speaker 1: the tunes and nothing spectacular. But that's what makes something
31:51
Speaker 1: like this very special because it happened now it could
31:56
Speaker 1: have been because they were bringing this song out of
31:59
Speaker 1: the treasure chet right. They hadn't played it in a
32:02
Speaker 1: long time. Sometimes that can be a source of inspiration
32:05
Speaker 1: to take an old song and bring it out and
32:07
Speaker 1: perform it, and it lends itself to new ideas, and
32:11
Speaker 1: so something brand new happens. Potentially, other times it could
32:15
Speaker 1: be a train wreck. You know, they forget how certain
32:18
Speaker 1: parts go. Maybe they would do a certain amount of
32:21
Speaker 1: rehearsal before a tour began, right, but then you know,
32:25
Speaker 1: who knows which night they pull it out and hopefully
32:28
Speaker 1: it works. They didn't care, right, They weren't afraid of mistakes,
32:34
Speaker 1: and so which is why people would get tickets on
32:39
Speaker 1: multiple nights, back to back to back nights if they
32:41
Speaker 1: were in one venue, because each night something different could happen.
32:44
Speaker 2: Sets could be different, or like you say, you could
32:46
Speaker 2: find that magic happens that night and they'd break into
32:49
Speaker 2: a jam.
32:51
Speaker 1: I saw a bunch of concerts in nineteen seventy nine,
32:53
Speaker 1: and it took a while before I really found something
32:57
Speaker 1: that would make that hit list of like this is special.
33:01
Speaker 1: It took a while concert to concert to concert, and
33:04
Speaker 1: so you know, for me, that was the Cape Cod
33:08
Speaker 1: Concerts in October of seventy nine, where it's like, wow,
33:12
Speaker 1: listen to these guys. It's like, finally I'm there and
33:16
Speaker 1: some new stuff is being created right in front of me. Fabulous.
33:22
Speaker 1: But it did not happen all the time.
33:24
Speaker 2: You went to two of them, right October twenty seven
33:26
Speaker 2: and twenty eight.
33:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I went to both. It was you know, it
33:31
Speaker 1: was on Cape Cod. It was a bit of a
33:33
Speaker 1: drive from where we were in the Boston area. The
33:38
Speaker 1: year before, on the Fall they had played at the
33:41
Speaker 1: Uptown I guess, and so that was easier. You could
33:45
Speaker 1: just get on the subway and go to downtown Boston
33:48
Speaker 1: and you were right there here. Everybody's getting in a
33:50
Speaker 1: car and going down to Cape Cod to hear it.
33:52
Speaker 1: But we found somewhere to sleep on Saturday night, and
33:58
Speaker 1: you know, did the Sunday show is well. And they
34:00
Speaker 1: were both great, just two wonderful performances. And I don't
34:04
Speaker 1: quite know why these two were so great, because the
34:07
Speaker 1: Cape Cod Coliseum wasn't a particularly special building. You know,
34:11
Speaker 1: it was kind of a place where you'd play hockey
34:14
Speaker 1: or something, and it wasn't beautiful, It wasn't Red Rocks,
34:18
Speaker 1: it wasn't the Greek Theater, it was just a place
34:21
Speaker 1: to play. But I don't know they found some inspiration.
34:27
Speaker 1: Maybe it was the crowd. I'm not quite sure.
34:30
Speaker 2: Maybe they're not sure either. They never know, like you said,
34:34
Speaker 2: like even Jerry said, it's just something happens when it happens,
34:38
Speaker 2: when it wants to happen. You know, they're going to
34:41
Speaker 2: have a great show. A show that took place about
34:43
Speaker 2: thirty minutes away from me, which is Hartford. That's October fourteenth,
34:47
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three, at the Hartford Civic Center, the first
34:50
Speaker 2: of two nights. A great performance. Underrated that you note.
34:55
Speaker 2: You also say that the Space Jam has some Close
34:59
Speaker 2: Encounters as style tones. That's cool.
35:04
Speaker 1: Now, this is this is.
35:05
Speaker 2: Kind of an aside, but maybe I don't know. According
35:09
Speaker 2: to the book Real Gags by Bill Gibbons, Jerry is
35:12
Speaker 2: in Close Encounters of the Third kind. Do you know
35:15
Speaker 2: this story? Have you heard about this?
35:17
Speaker 1: I don't think so.
35:17
Speaker 2: In the movie, he's supposedly in there. He's an extra
35:20
Speaker 2: during the scenes that take place in India. And I
35:23
Speaker 2: have played it time and time again and I cannot
35:26
Speaker 2: see him. Some people said he's one of the people
35:29
Speaker 2: that's like they have like the sound equipment and they
35:33
Speaker 2: get the headphones on and they're looking to pick up
35:35
Speaker 2: in any sounds that they might hear in the area.
35:38
Speaker 2: Some people say he's in a crowd shot. I was
35:40
Speaker 2: hoping maybe you knew I did that expert.
35:43
Speaker 1: But now that you've told me, you know, I'd like
35:47
Speaker 1: to see the movie on demand and then aus as
35:51
Speaker 1: much as I have to to see if I can
35:54
Speaker 1: find Garcia in that crowd. That would be funny.
35:57
Speaker 2: I searched online. I was looking for people. Maybe they
35:59
Speaker 2: put like a fro was in still shot of him.
36:02
Speaker 2: I can't pick up on him, but apparently he was
36:04
Speaker 2: there while they were filming. So interesting there there's the
36:08
Speaker 2: assignment for dead fans, send it our way.
36:12
Speaker 1: So the quintessential, you know, rendition of the Close Encounters
36:17
Speaker 1: theme by the band and Garcia doing it on his
36:21
Speaker 1: lead guitar was one seventy eight Eugene organ and who
36:29
Speaker 1: knows why that particular date, but it was in the
36:32
Speaker 1: second set coming out of space, and space is generally
36:35
Speaker 1: all kinds of sounds and who knows what, and this
36:40
Speaker 1: particular instrument, you know, he was going into this very
36:43
Speaker 1: low registered sound and had his effects on and clearly
36:48
Speaker 1: he had seen the movie within a recent kind of time,
36:51
Speaker 1: and it had an impact on him, and the five
36:54
Speaker 1: tones you know, came out clearly out of his guitar.
36:58
Speaker 1: So cool, and you could only the effect has had
37:02
Speaker 1: on the crowd at Eugene, you know, indoors at the
37:07
Speaker 1: MacArthur Court is the old basketball court at the university.
37:11
Speaker 1: I went in there. I saw the Dead at Eugene
37:14
Speaker 1: in ninety and went into MacArthur Court. It was still
37:17
Speaker 1: is there and all wouldn't just a completely wooden old
37:20
Speaker 1: basketball court, and that's where they played. And so you
37:23
Speaker 1: can imagine if you're in that place hearing Close Encounters
37:26
Speaker 1: coming out of a dead concert.
37:28
Speaker 2: Wow, that is cool.
37:29
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. And he continued to do this once in
37:33
Speaker 1: a while, and in another book that I've written but
37:36
Speaker 1: I haven't published, I've actually, you know, kind of got all
37:40
Speaker 1: of them lined up. All the different concerts where he
37:43
Speaker 1: did some are all of this close Encounters theme. But
37:47
Speaker 1: he would continue to do it occasionally in the space
37:50
Speaker 1: segment of the concerts. And he did something like it
37:55
Speaker 1: here at Hartford in eighty three. Although I must have
37:58
Speaker 1: thought some of what he was doing sounded like the
38:00
Speaker 1: Jaws theme from that movie. And of course like you said,
38:05
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen every night, right, And so it really
38:09
Speaker 1: stood out about this particular performance. The next year also
38:13
Speaker 1: Hartford eighty four, it was another good concert and kind
38:18
Speaker 1: of stood out for a very long first set if
38:22
Speaker 1: I remember correctly, like eleven tunes where they would usually
38:25
Speaker 1: do maybe eight, and then before drums in the second
38:29
Speaker 1: set six tunes where they would usually do four maybe five.
38:35
Speaker 1: And the thing is, most people looking into what shows
38:39
Speaker 1: to listen to would see Hartford and would not go forward.
38:43
Speaker 1: It was not Madison Square Garden, it's not the Greek,
38:46
Speaker 1: it's not Red Rocks, right, you know.
38:49
Speaker 2: It really doesn't matter. The venue doesn't matter. It's yeah,
38:53
Speaker 2: that's it's just a random thing. That's what made it
38:57
Speaker 2: so beautiful that going to a dead show see.
39:00
Speaker 1: Them at Hartford and maybe see one of the best
39:03
Speaker 1: performances of the year. And so, like you said, it
39:07
Speaker 1: paid to keep going. And yeah, it's kind of funny
39:13
Speaker 1: Hartford and these are overlooked, and so that was a
39:16
Speaker 1: reason that I wanted to make sure that people, you know,
39:19
Speaker 1: took a look at these concerts. Right, consider it. If
39:21
Speaker 1: you've passed over these seemingly benign concerts at Hartford these
39:26
Speaker 1: two years. Take a look. I think you'll enjoy it.
39:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, or go back and re listen. Yeah. There are
39:32
Speaker 2: the return of three major songs to the band setlist
39:35
Speaker 2: that happen in the month of October. They're all covered
39:38
Speaker 2: in this book Dark Star we talked about that's October
39:42
Speaker 2: nine of eighty nine, Hampton, Virginia. But there's also Saint
39:46
Speaker 2: Stephen October eleventh, nineteen eighty three at Madison Square Garden
39:49
Speaker 2: and Turn On Your Love Light October sixteenth, nineteen eighty
39:52
Speaker 2: one in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
39:56
Speaker 1: I would say the love Light just because when I
40:00
Speaker 1: I was beginning to listen to the Dead, I was
40:03
Speaker 1: learning on a lot of nineteen seventy nineteen seventy one
40:06
Speaker 1: material and love Light at the time was their show
40:11
Speaker 1: Closer right nineteen seventy seventy one, More sixty nine and
40:17
Speaker 1: seventy love Light, Pig Pens singing it and them taking it,
40:23
Speaker 1: you know, to the roof, really raising the roofs getting
40:27
Speaker 1: the crowd dancing, sending everybody home all pumped up. And
40:31
Speaker 1: of course I was listening to the Live Dead nineteen
40:34
Speaker 1: sixty nine album, which was Dark Star, Saint Stephen, the
40:38
Speaker 1: eleven turn On Your Love Light were the main songs
40:40
Speaker 1: on there, listening to it every single night, and then
40:43
Speaker 1: I was hearing bootlegs from the seven nineteen seventy love
40:46
Speaker 1: Light Pigpen, and so it had a big influence on me.
40:51
Speaker 1: And so you fast forward to say seventy nine, I'm
40:55
Speaker 1: going to concerts and suddenly in eighty one, here comes
40:57
Speaker 1: turn on Your Love Light. Yeah, a big impact and
41:03
Speaker 1: good memories. Even though I didn't get to see pig
41:06
Speaker 1: Pen in nineteen seventy, I was only whatever ten eleven
41:11
Speaker 1: years old, but that was kind of special. But they
41:14
Speaker 1: didn't quite work it back in yet. Right later they did,
41:18
Speaker 1: and Weir began to do Lovelight more regularly.
41:21
Speaker 2: Which was nice. Booked on rock podcasts, we'll be back
41:25
Speaker 2: after this.
41:26
Speaker 1: I had going up, but don't you leave town.
41:31
Speaker 2: We did talk about briefly the Winterland Shows in San
41:34
Speaker 2: Francisco October eighteen, nineteen seventy four. The band played the
41:38
Speaker 2: third of five nights there, and that's I think what
41:41
Speaker 2: you say is the best performance of Morning Dew.
41:45
Speaker 1: One of the best.
41:46
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, you say it may bring tears. This is
41:49
Speaker 2: also before the band went on a hiatus. They only
41:52
Speaker 2: played a maybe a handful of shows I think the
41:55
Speaker 2: next year.
41:56
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly right. So they did five October nineteen seventy
42:02
Speaker 1: four concerts at Winterland, this middle Night the eighteenth. Who
42:08
Speaker 1: knows how it happened, but a profound Morning Dew. It
42:12
Speaker 1: was in this little sort of in between set where
42:16
Speaker 1: they started doing a jam and then dark Star and
42:20
Speaker 1: then morning Do if I remember correctly, you know, wonderful.
42:24
Speaker 1: But yeah, they had planned to kind of say to
42:27
Speaker 1: the people, you know, this is it right. Everybody kind
42:30
Speaker 1: of knew that they were going to go on hiatus,
42:33
Speaker 1: whatever that meant, and they did.
42:37
Speaker 2: What was for the hiatus. Jerry's doing more solo work.
42:42
Speaker 2: Did you have a solo album at the time.
42:46
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I'm just sort of I'm picturing
42:49
Speaker 1: in my head, right, there were three solo albums that
42:54
Speaker 1: I can bring to mind, But no, I don't think
42:57
Speaker 1: that was it. I think, and I you know, read
43:00
Speaker 1: had the biography by Blair Jackson of Garcia and other things,
43:05
Speaker 1: and so my recollection is they just felt like they'd
43:09
Speaker 1: had enough for a while, needed a break, yeah, exactly,
43:13
Speaker 1: which isn't strange, right, And I think frankly in hindsight,
43:17
Speaker 1: they should have taken another break at other points. It
43:20
Speaker 1: would have helped them, and particularly would have helped Garcia
43:24
Speaker 1: if they could have all just said let's take a break.
43:27
Speaker 1: But by then it was harder because you had this
43:31
Speaker 1: financial engine going right. Sure, even this one was a
43:36
Speaker 1: challenge financially because they didn't tend to make their money
43:39
Speaker 1: from records. They made it from performances, and so this
43:43
Speaker 1: was a difficult thing to suddenly in nineteen seventy five
43:48
Speaker 1: not making any money from performances anymore. But I think
43:52
Speaker 1: they felt, we need a break, right, and let's just
43:56
Speaker 1: do it, and we don't know how long it'll be.
43:58
Speaker 1: Let's just you know, gonna wing it, which they did
44:02
Speaker 1: with lots of things, winging it. And I thought, you know,
44:06
Speaker 1: this is first impression they're going to take a break
44:08
Speaker 1: and we'll see what happens. So yeah, these ended up
44:12
Speaker 1: being the last concerts for quite some time. They played
44:15
Speaker 1: March of seventy five, they played a concert in June
44:19
Speaker 1: of seventy five, they played a fantastic concert August thirteenth
44:23
Speaker 1: of seventy five, and then another one I think was
44:26
Speaker 1: September of seventy five, and then again you get back
44:31
Speaker 1: to the hiatus and you don't get them playing regularly
44:35
Speaker 1: until much deeper into seventy six.
44:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, they worked on blues for a lot during that period, right,
44:41
Speaker 2: That came out September of seventy five. But knowing Jerry
44:44
Speaker 2: back in those days, he was always playing. So my
44:49
Speaker 2: guess is would be interesting to see. I bet you
44:51
Speaker 2: was doing a bunch of stuff on his own during
44:53
Speaker 2: that period.
44:55
Speaker 1: Well, he was always like a dead tour would end
44:59
Speaker 1: and he could be in the Garcia band a couple
45:02
Speaker 1: of days later.
45:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was constantly playing, which is also why I
45:06
Speaker 2: think he just continued to get better and better, And
45:08
Speaker 2: the experimentation and the different tones that he was working
45:12
Speaker 2: with and all that was because he was just always performing.
45:15
Speaker 1: He loved to play. I think he discovered that you
45:20
Speaker 1: get your chops up to a certain level if you're
45:23
Speaker 1: performing all the time, and even practicing, if you practice
45:27
Speaker 1: six hours a day, you get your capabilities up to
45:30
Speaker 1: a certain level. If you stop, you degrade. You know,
45:35
Speaker 1: if you take a week off and you go back,
45:39
Speaker 1: you're not as sharp as where you were there. And
45:42
Speaker 1: I think he liked to be at his best, and
45:46
Speaker 1: I just think he'd just love to play. You know
45:48
Speaker 1: that there are people in certain professions, you know, for
45:53
Speaker 1: whom you're either playing or you're waiting to play. That's life.
45:58
Speaker 1: Life consists of forming or waiting until your next and
46:03
Speaker 1: that's all there is. And it's this way for race
46:06
Speaker 1: car drivers, and you know, maybe football quarterbacks. They live
46:10
Speaker 1: for Sunday, right right. And I think he really lived
46:14
Speaker 1: to play. He just loved to play.
46:16
Speaker 2: Which is still mind blowing that the Coma in eighty
46:20
Speaker 2: six he had to relearn how to play. Yeah, I
46:24
Speaker 2: mean that was just crazy, but he bounced back so quickly.
46:30
Speaker 2: Fall of eighty one, the band was on a European
46:32
Speaker 2: tour and they played at the Sports Palace in Barcelona, Spain,
46:36
Speaker 2: on October nineteenth. And you're right about how fast Jerry's
46:39
Speaker 2: fingers were at that show. I don't hear that talked
46:42
Speaker 2: about much when you hear about Jerry Garcia talk about
46:46
Speaker 2: his guitar work during that show and why this is
46:49
Speaker 2: a great example of his speed on guitar.
46:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't call that to mind that particular concert.
46:57
Speaker 1: There are other examples where he's kind of like a
47:01
Speaker 1: speed demon. January seventy nine. They do dancing in the
47:06
Speaker 1: streets and he just keeps playing, and it becomes him
47:12
Speaker 1: and one or both of the drummers, and it's just
47:16
Speaker 1: a workout, and he is going as fast as possible,
47:20
Speaker 1: and he could be very fat. He covered the waterfront, right.
47:24
Speaker 1: He could do these slow, beautiful ballads, but he could
47:27
Speaker 1: also be extremely fast on the guitar. And you know,
47:32
Speaker 1: I'm not saying John McLoughlin or some of these others
47:35
Speaker 1: right who were known for that, and I don't think
47:37
Speaker 1: he was going for that. But there were times where wow,
47:43
Speaker 1: just blinding fast and in a way that was still articulate,
47:48
Speaker 1: and you could still hear the notes and sometimes you couldn't,
47:51
Speaker 1: and he wanted that kind of finger painting effect, I.
47:55
Speaker 2: Think, right right, just another aspect of his guitar style. Yeah,
48:00
Speaker 2: you say here, sounds like they put everything they've got
48:02
Speaker 2: into this performance. Garcia plays all night with an endless
48:05
Speaker 2: supply of energy.
48:08
Speaker 1: Yep. Sometimes it was like that, you know, just another
48:12
Speaker 1: example of a great night. And I think this was
48:16
Speaker 1: part of what I was trying to do in writing
48:18
Speaker 1: these books, is make sure that I point out for
48:22
Speaker 1: the reader where the great stuff is and that they
48:25
Speaker 1: don't miss it. And they don't leave it up to
48:28
Speaker 1: the band to put out an official release to be
48:32
Speaker 1: their only guide, right, because there there's a different calculus
48:36
Speaker 1: when you're putting out something for public consumption, Like the
48:40
Speaker 1: recording has to be perfect, right. If there are mistakes,
48:44
Speaker 1: they're not going to put it out. And this performance
48:47
Speaker 1: you're talking about may very well have some mistakes, you know,
48:51
Speaker 1: vocally or here there whatever. Imperfect, but it's worth listening
48:58
Speaker 1: to for the great stuff and it may never see
49:02
Speaker 1: the law to day, as you know, an official release,
49:06
Speaker 1: it may it may not. They can do some magic
49:09
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, right, But I think this was my
49:13
Speaker 1: chief task, the number one thing I wanted to do
49:15
Speaker 1: for people was, you know, to point out the great
49:18
Speaker 1: stuff and make sure that they had a chance not
49:22
Speaker 1: to miss it.
49:23
Speaker 2: Here's an example of Jerry and how often he played
49:27
Speaker 2: this is going back to that Barcelona show. This is
49:31
Speaker 2: what you lead with their third country in four days
49:33
Speaker 2: and the final gig of the European tour with six
49:36
Speaker 2: weeks off ahead. And then in parentheses, though Garcia will
49:38
Speaker 2: start a Jerry Garcia band tour within a week, he's
49:42
Speaker 2: right right back at it with his own band.
49:45
Speaker 1: And he kept doing that, you know, even like nineteen
49:48
Speaker 1: eighty seven, he had come out of the Coma right
49:51
Speaker 1: and he couldn't wait, and so they had a full
49:54
Speaker 1: touring schedule in eighty seven. But if you look, you
49:58
Speaker 1: know he went off and did so many concerts on
50:00
Speaker 1: his own. I think eighty seven he might have played
50:04
Speaker 1: more concerts that year as a guitar player than any other.
50:07
Speaker 2: It was crazy, well, he said in an interview. At
50:11
Speaker 2: that point after the Coma, he felt like, I'm not
50:15
Speaker 2: wasting any more time. You know, I'm going to get
50:18
Speaker 2: as much in as i can while I'm here.
50:20
Speaker 1: I think it was a great year. I mean, he
50:22
Speaker 1: had a lot of energy, and physically he was different.
50:26
Speaker 1: If he's watched videos of him in eighty seven with
50:29
Speaker 1: the band, his body was turned towards we're in lesh.
50:32
Speaker 1: Finally he was looking at them and making a point
50:36
Speaker 1: of looking at them and being an eye contact and
50:39
Speaker 1: having that on stage communication. If you go back to
50:44
Speaker 1: eighty two, eighty three, eighty four and you look at
50:46
Speaker 1: a random video, he's looking straight down right and even
50:50
Speaker 1: see we're in leusch off to the side of the stage,
50:53
Speaker 1: and sometimes they're both kind of looking at him wondering
50:57
Speaker 1: does he really know that we're huddled here together? Is
51:00
Speaker 1: he really aware they were like twenty five yards apart
51:04
Speaker 1: on stage here? And he may not have right. It
51:07
Speaker 1: just took all his concentration, you know, to keep it
51:10
Speaker 1: together kind of physically and whatever. But an eighty seven
51:14
Speaker 1: brand new ballgame, and it really harkens back to the
51:17
Speaker 1: old days where they really were together in a physical
51:21
Speaker 1: kind of a way and clearly wanting to be communicating
51:26
Speaker 1: that way with each other.
51:28
Speaker 2: One more on Pigpen, and that's his show at the
51:31
Speaker 2: Greek Theater, Berkeley, California, or the Dead show at the
51:35
Speaker 2: Greek Theater, Berkeley, California, nineteen sixty eight. And this is where, oh,
51:41
Speaker 2: he's got some nice work on the eleven and the
51:45
Speaker 2: band is really in sync on this one. I don't
51:48
Speaker 2: I'm trying to remember what. I don't have the exact
51:51
Speaker 2: October date here, but I can find it. But so
51:54
Speaker 2: he had some moments throughout. It's just good to see
51:56
Speaker 2: Pigpen getting a few moments throughout this book because his
52:01
Speaker 2: time not only in the Dead but just on this
52:03
Speaker 2: earth was way too short. So it was always cool
52:06
Speaker 2: to read a pig Pen entry in the book. October
52:08
Speaker 2: twentieth nineteen sixty eight, University of California at Greek Theater.
52:13
Speaker 1: Big Pen, Yeah, very important to me. Loved his music.
52:17
Speaker 1: And one of the nice things about this book, like
52:21
Speaker 1: I've been asked, why didn't you just do nineteen seventy
52:24
Speaker 1: nine Grateful Dead or nineteen eighty four Grateful Lady? Why
52:28
Speaker 1: do this crazy thing with the month of October. And
52:32
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I did it is because it
52:33
Speaker 1: forces me and the reader to live the entire spectrum
52:39
Speaker 1: of Grateful Dead from sixty six through ninety five. And
52:43
Speaker 1: so a fan coming late to the band who would
52:48
Speaker 1: not have to be confronted with pig Pen, he will
52:51
Speaker 1: be confronted with pig Pen in the book, right, because
52:54
Speaker 1: I've got stuff from sixty six and sixty seven and
52:57
Speaker 1: sixty eight in there. And my hope is that somebody
53:00
Speaker 1: who you know, is filled with late eighties early nineties
53:05
Speaker 1: Grateful Dead might see that and want to explore it, right,
53:09
Speaker 1: And somebody, I think, if you're a fan of the band,
53:12
Speaker 1: you should maybe take a look at what pig Pen did,
53:15
Speaker 1: the kinds of things he played, and what his music
53:17
Speaker 1: was all about. And when you have it on the
53:19
Speaker 1: same page, you raise the odds that pig Pen might
53:23
Speaker 1: get a new fan, right, and also vice versa. You know,
53:26
Speaker 1: I was certainly somebody who wasn't very excited to spend
53:29
Speaker 1: a lot of time on nineteen ninety four, nineteen ninety
53:31
Speaker 1: five the last two years, but doing this book in
53:36
Speaker 1: this way forced me to spend a lot of time
53:39
Speaker 1: listening to that material and coming to terms with it.
53:43
Speaker 2: And so well, I remember you said last time that
53:45
Speaker 2: there and there are some moments in those ninety four
53:49
Speaker 2: ninety five shows. So yeah, but it's still worth going
53:54
Speaker 2: back and listening because there were times when Jerry was on.
53:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, pig Pen was that's fantastic. You know, there are
54:01
Speaker 1: things that along the path when I was doing this book.
54:05
Speaker 1: You know, it's a man's world. James Brown, pig Pen
54:08
Speaker 1: did that. When I learned this, it's like really because
54:12
Speaker 1: in all my bootleg listening days, right, I had not
54:15
Speaker 1: heard that. And one of the beautiful things about archive
54:18
Speaker 1: dot org, all the concerts are there and you can
54:22
Speaker 1: find these things like why my god, they they did
54:25
Speaker 1: a James Brown tune and pig Pen did this. That's fantastic.
54:28
Speaker 1: You got to listen to this. They did at least
54:31
Speaker 1: one version of you Don't Love Me, an Almond Brothers song,
54:34
Speaker 1: you know, but before the Almonds did it.
54:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, hard to Handle was one.
54:41
Speaker 1: Another great R and B tune Now that got really
54:43
Speaker 1: worked into the repertoire, and they did it a bunch
54:45
Speaker 1: of times. Right, it wasn't you know the James Brown
54:48
Speaker 1: thing was in a sense of one off or a
54:50
Speaker 1: two off or something. But yeah, pig Pen did some
54:55
Speaker 1: fantastic things. And then speaking about the acoustics stuff where
54:59
Speaker 1: we start, you know, he would do some wonderful things
55:03
Speaker 1: in those nineteen seventy shows. They would actually spotlight him.
55:07
Speaker 1: He would do Katie May or She's Mine. That was
55:12
Speaker 1: another thing. I'd heard Katie May because it was on
55:15
Speaker 1: the Bear's Choice album. But then I remember discovering this
55:21
Speaker 1: song called She's Mine, which was another pig Pen kind
55:25
Speaker 1: of solo acoustic thing that he did, which was great,
55:29
Speaker 1: And yeah, if you haven't heard Pigpen solo acoustic, I
55:33
Speaker 1: highly recommend it.
55:34
Speaker 2: Fantastic booked on Rock Podcast. We'll be back after this,
55:42
Speaker 2: and we can't forget Keith Gotshaw. I wanted to make
55:45
Speaker 2: sure we note at least one of the shows that
55:48
Speaker 2: he's in where he's a highlight, and that would be
55:50
Speaker 2: October twenty first of seventy one. I think this is
55:54
Speaker 2: his second show overall with the band. This is in
55:57
Speaker 2: Chicago at the Auditorium Theater. Yeah, only his second outing,
56:03
Speaker 2: but he shines everywhere.
56:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was. Now people may not know this because
56:09
Speaker 1: time has passed and maybe their memories of Keith is
56:12
Speaker 1: back in seventy eight, right in early seventy nine where
56:16
Speaker 1: he was kind of on his way out. But go
56:19
Speaker 1: back to seventy one and in October where his first performances. Wow,
56:25
Speaker 1: what an eye opener. I mean what he added to
56:29
Speaker 1: the band's sound just with a piano alone. But he
56:33
Speaker 1: could do a lot of different things. He could do
56:35
Speaker 1: rock and roll. We learned later that he could take
56:37
Speaker 1: them in this big jazz direction, and he was I
56:40
Speaker 1: think one of the reasons why Dark Star really moved
56:44
Speaker 1: into a very jazz oriented way in seventy three and
56:49
Speaker 1: seventy four. His influence in some of those jams on
56:53
Speaker 1: Dark Star. He led those things, you know, through his
56:56
Speaker 1: piano playing. He was right there. This was a dog race,
57:01
Speaker 1: you know, he's right there with Garcia and these Dark
57:04
Speaker 1: Star jams going as hard and fast and improvising right
57:09
Speaker 1: alongside Jerry. And he was quite a player, particularly those
57:15
Speaker 1: first few years, and made a great contribution to the band.
57:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, here's a great example. This is from the entry
57:21
Speaker 2: from the Chicago show Dark Star bats fourth and set two,
57:25
Speaker 2: and it's Keith who steers it into in a tonal
57:28
Speaker 2: lane with his rising series of chromatic notes. They wander
57:32
Speaker 2: far and wide, see wander far and wide, a caravan
57:35
Speaker 2: through the cosmos until Garcia picks up the main theme
57:37
Speaker 2: again after verse one. It's starry skies of slow, twinkling
57:42
Speaker 2: notes until they catch a comet. Just like I said,
57:45
Speaker 2: the way they played off of each other, weaving in
57:48
Speaker 2: and out of these songs. Yeah, you say he's a
57:50
Speaker 2: highlight reel Keith, gotcha.
57:53
Speaker 1: You know, I remember going back to those concerts when
57:58
Speaker 1: his first performance is second, his third, and it's a
58:01
Speaker 1: real ear opener, you know, to hear him on anything.
58:05
Speaker 1: Just suddenly you're hearing this bright piano song and he
58:09
Speaker 1: has these licks. He can deliver Chuck Berry's stuff, barrel house,
58:13
Speaker 1: boogie woogie, he could do all of these things.
58:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, he breaks into feeling groovy like licks during I
58:21
Speaker 2: think Dark Star.
58:23
Speaker 1: He was a great a great piano player. You know,
58:28
Speaker 1: he didn't of course sing much, right, you know, pig
58:32
Speaker 1: Pen was a front man. He was in front of
58:34
Speaker 1: the mic and you know, making people go crazy and
58:37
Speaker 1: telling stories and things like that. Keith's big contribution was instrumentally,
58:43
Speaker 1: and in these early years it was just such a
58:45
Speaker 1: beautiful I mean Europe seventy two, that piano sound signature,
58:50
Speaker 1: and that's him. You got a grand piano on the stage.
58:54
Speaker 1: Not a lot of bands do that, by the way,
58:57
Speaker 1: you know, park a huge piano on the stage. And yeah,
59:02
Speaker 1: he was wonderful.
59:05
Speaker 2: Book done rock podcasts. We'll be back after this. Hold on, Well,
59:13
Speaker 2: how often do you get a classical moment in a
59:15
Speaker 2: dead show? There is one in the book. This is
59:18
Speaker 2: from October twenty ninth, nineteen seventy seven, at Northern Illinois
59:21
Speaker 2: University at the chick Evans Fieldhouse, and you write in
59:24
Speaker 2: Saint Stephen amidst the jam Garcia touches on the beethoven
59:28
Speaker 2: esque theme that will become a masterpiece. You also shied
59:32
Speaker 2: a show on January twenty second, nineteen seventy eight. I
59:36
Speaker 2: think he did the same thing. What was that theme?
59:40
Speaker 1: So first, this show you're talking about decalb. Everybody's got
59:44
Speaker 1: to listen to it. It's fantastic. Another one of these
59:47
Speaker 1: great performances. And it's not just me, it's kind of widely,
59:51
Speaker 1: relatively widely recognized. Not as much as say the Spring
59:57
Speaker 1: seventy seven concerts, right, everybody. He's pretty conversant with Cornell
1:00:02
Speaker 1: and some of that, But the Fall of seventy seven
1:00:05
Speaker 1: was fantastic. And this is one of those that sticks out.
1:00:09
Speaker 1: This October twenty ninth, so Saint Stephen, the same show
1:00:15
Speaker 1: where he did Close Encounters, right, this is what comes
1:00:20
Speaker 1: out of Close Encounters, Saint Stephen, and he hits kind
1:00:24
Speaker 1: of two close Encounters, kind of quavering notes, and then
1:00:29
Speaker 1: here comes Saint Stephen right out of that, which also
1:00:32
Speaker 1: drove the crowd crazy. But it's in the jam of
1:00:38
Speaker 1: Saint Stephen where at Eugene January twenty two, seventy eight,
1:00:45
Speaker 1: he hits on this theme that, yes, sounds like Beethoven.
1:00:51
Speaker 1: It is. If you listen to it, you gotta be
1:00:54
Speaker 1: careful because it'll be in your head for days on end,
1:00:58
Speaker 1: I swear to God. But if you go back into
1:01:01
Speaker 1: the Fall, you can hear him trying. He comes up
1:01:04
Speaker 1: with the initial idea around de calb there's a couple
1:01:08
Speaker 1: Saint Stephen's in the Fall of seventy seven where he's
1:01:11
Speaker 1: doing a similar theme but he doesn't nail it. But
1:01:15
Speaker 1: in January twenty two, seventy eight, every note is perfect.
1:01:20
Speaker 1: I don't know how. I don't know why. It's almost
1:01:23
Speaker 1: like you wrote it out and then came out on
1:01:26
Speaker 1: stage and just played it. But yeah, you hear him
1:01:29
Speaker 1: working on it. This happened also with the Almond Brothers
1:01:32
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth Read. Everybody knows the fil Maurice version of
1:01:37
Speaker 1: that tune in his note perfect right, although it was
1:01:41
Speaker 1: recorded live. If you listen to the Almond Brothers before
1:01:45
Speaker 1: those dates, you can hear a lot of the same
1:01:47
Speaker 1: elements in Duane Almond solo, for example. But those recorded dates,
1:01:54
Speaker 1: how did it happen? He nailed it, every note perfectly
1:01:58
Speaker 1: in place. Now, maybe they know it's being recorded the
1:02:03
Speaker 1: Alman Brothers right, and they can just concentrate and focus
1:02:07
Speaker 1: and get lucky and get it. But at Eugene in
1:02:11
Speaker 1: January seventy eight, I have no idea how Garcia suddenly
1:02:16
Speaker 1: had clarity on this theme and really rendered it. I'm
1:02:20
Speaker 1: sure in the way he always wanted, you know, but
1:02:23
Speaker 1: he really nailed it and it's perfect, and that's one
1:02:27
Speaker 1: of those things you must listen to that.
1:02:29
Speaker 2: You got me now, I want to listen to that
1:02:31
Speaker 2: January twenty second, nineteen seventy eight, right, January twenty Oh.
1:02:36
Speaker 1: You can hear both the close encounters and the best
1:02:38
Speaker 1: version of that, as well as this incredible uh Saint
1:02:43
Speaker 1: Stephen theme that he played. Now, the hard part is
1:02:46
Speaker 1: he does the theme and he realizes, crap, I have
1:02:51
Speaker 1: to go back into the song now, and it's hard
1:02:56
Speaker 1: to pull out of this, right.
1:02:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's like, did I just go down on the
1:03:00
Speaker 2: dead end street? How do I get back on track?
1:03:03
Speaker 1: Yes? You can hear this, and it's like, oh my god,
1:03:07
Speaker 1: I'm just going to hit the brakes. And then they
1:03:11
Speaker 1: play this few notes that signal they're back in the
1:03:14
Speaker 1: tune and it's time to sing the next verse. But
1:03:17
Speaker 1: I am sure at that moment he wished the song
1:03:21
Speaker 1: had been written differently to give him a better way
1:03:25
Speaker 1: to get out of this Beethoven theme and you know,
1:03:28
Speaker 1: nicely segue, but it's like, crap, we have to go
1:03:30
Speaker 1: back to the song.
1:03:32
Speaker 2: But how interesting to now listen to that moment it's
1:03:35
Speaker 2: just amazing. Yeah, well we'll finish with a Halloween show
1:03:39
Speaker 2: Radio City Music Hall in New York City, October thirty, first,
1:03:42
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty, last of an eight show run. Talk about
1:03:46
Speaker 2: the opening acoustic set. You say it's the most compelling
1:03:49
Speaker 2: start to an acoustic set that fall. So again, here
1:03:52
Speaker 2: we are. There's really no rhyme or reason. It just
1:03:55
Speaker 2: happens to be that last of the eighth show run.
1:03:59
Speaker 1: I think, and I don't know if it was the
1:04:01
Speaker 1: first song in the acoustic set, but they did a
1:04:05
Speaker 1: couple tunes that were new and different. So in the
1:04:08
Speaker 1: series of acoustic concerts, a couple things are going on. First,
1:04:13
Speaker 1: they would take an electric tune and turn it into
1:04:16
Speaker 1: an acoustic tune. They did this with bird Song. They
1:04:19
Speaker 1: hadn't played it for a long time, but I think
1:04:22
Speaker 1: they started the whole acoustic run at the Warfield doing
1:04:25
Speaker 1: bird Song acoustic. That was one thing they did. Second
1:04:29
Speaker 1: thing they did was they revived this bag of acoustic
1:04:34
Speaker 1: tunes they did a lot in nineteen seventy Monkey and
1:04:37
Speaker 1: the engineer Dark Hollow, I've been all around this world.
1:04:42
Speaker 1: And then the third thing they would do was something
1:04:44
Speaker 1: brand new that they had never done before. So this
1:04:48
Speaker 1: concert Sage and Spirit, which is this little instrumental thing
1:04:51
Speaker 1: from Blues for Allah, and that they played this on
1:04:56
Speaker 1: this Halloween night at Radio City. Acoustic song they did
1:05:01
Speaker 1: was Little Sadie, which was one of these from nineteen
1:05:04
Speaker 1: seventy that they revived. And but this was it. I mean,
1:05:08
Speaker 1: they hadn't done it at the Warfield in San Francisco,
1:05:11
Speaker 1: they didn't do it at Radio City until this night,
1:05:13
Speaker 1: and suddenly you've got Little Sadi And so those are
1:05:17
Speaker 1: the two things where I thought, Wow, that's really special.
1:05:19
Speaker 1: And if you're going to pick out one of the
1:05:21
Speaker 1: Radio City performances, you know, this is one that I
1:05:25
Speaker 1: would gravitate towards.
1:05:26
Speaker 2: You say, Dead Base respondents have consistently ranked this concert
1:05:30
Speaker 2: the best of the year by a wide margin. There's
1:05:33
Speaker 2: another You've mentioned, Sage and Spirit and Little Sadie also
1:05:37
Speaker 2: having helped the full those three, you say they would
1:05:41
Speaker 2: not play these three songs again like again period ever.
1:05:45
Speaker 1: Yes, Wow, yeah, that's right. Having helped The Fool, of
1:05:49
Speaker 1: course was from Weird second solo album, which I think
1:05:54
Speaker 1: was nineteen seventy eight if I remember correctly, And why
1:05:59
Speaker 1: they decided to not only do this song for the
1:06:02
Speaker 1: first time as a band, and sometimes they would of
1:06:05
Speaker 1: course do this right, pull a solo song and put
1:06:08
Speaker 1: it into the Grateful Dead repertoire. Why haven't Helped the Fool?
1:06:12
Speaker 1: Why do it acoustic? You know why? Now, I don't know.
1:06:17
Speaker 1: But it was a standout. It was pretty spec and
1:06:19
Speaker 1: it's a nice song, you know, it's a there were
1:06:23
Speaker 1: a number of good tunes on that record, and uh,
1:06:26
Speaker 1: easy to slip a little George song.
1:06:28
Speaker 2: I sure love that. Yeah, I love that. That cover
1:06:31
Speaker 2: that that Weird does is great.
1:06:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that it was a nice record, and but yeah,
1:06:37
Speaker 1: they would never do having Help the Fool again, And
1:06:40
Speaker 1: of course they didn't play acoustic again. Really, so no
1:06:42
Speaker 1: little Sadie and sagean Spirit. I don't know. It was
1:06:46
Speaker 1: a little tiny thing.
1:06:47
Speaker 2: And no podcast. We'll be back after this, think about
1:06:53
Speaker 2: the future. Infinite Dead, A Daily Guide to Grateful Dead
1:06:59
Speaker 2: Concert Performances, Volume one October. It's available through Amazon. This
1:07:03
Speaker 2: came out in twenty to twenty one.
1:07:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, I went on my own hiatus.
1:07:10
Speaker 2: You went on your own hiatus, and then you came
1:07:12
Speaker 2: out with the July book. Yeah, yeah, so you could
1:07:14
Speaker 2: get it wherever you get your favorite rock and roll books. Now,
1:07:18
Speaker 2: you mentioned you are working on a book right now.
1:07:20
Speaker 2: Is that kind of zip the lip on that one
1:07:23
Speaker 2: or can you give us a little.
1:07:24
Speaker 1: I wrote several of these books, just haven't published them
1:07:27
Speaker 1: yet because publishing is my least favorite thing in the world. Yeah,
1:07:32
Speaker 1: you're doing a lot of proofreading and editing and all
1:07:35
Speaker 1: the back and forth and the deadlines. I just don't
1:07:38
Speaker 1: like it much, and so I need time off, right
1:07:41
Speaker 1: to forget about what it is and then oh, let's
1:07:45
Speaker 1: do another one.
1:07:47
Speaker 2: Really charge the batteries exactly.
1:07:50
Speaker 1: So I am thinking about maybe doing December. Okay, the
1:07:54
Speaker 1: next one first. It gives me some time. The publisher
1:07:58
Speaker 1: needs six months lead time, so I wouldn't have to
1:08:02
Speaker 1: submit a manuscript until June or July of next year.
1:08:09
Speaker 1: So that was a big part of it. You know,
1:08:11
Speaker 1: maybe I could find a way to do December. It's
1:08:14
Speaker 1: a weird month. It's lopsided because all the performances, the
1:08:18
Speaker 1: majority of them are in the last five days of
1:08:20
Speaker 1: the month because New Year's Years eat. Yeah, they did
1:08:24
Speaker 1: like twenty of those on one day, the thirty first,
1:08:28
Speaker 1: and a lot on the thirtieth and the twenty eighth,
1:08:30
Speaker 1: and the twenty seventh, but I was thinking about that,
1:08:34
Speaker 1: but we'll see.
1:08:35
Speaker 2: Yes. In the meantime, you got these two Yes, And
1:08:39
Speaker 2: there's plenty to read in each of these and we've
1:08:41
Speaker 2: only really just covered I don't know, like a tenth
1:08:45
Speaker 2: of what's in these books. So check out these books,
1:08:49
Speaker 2: get them, and go back and listen to these concerts
1:08:51
Speaker 2: after you read the book. Is it just it's a
1:08:53
Speaker 2: whole new perspective on it, or maybe you're revisiting a
1:08:56
Speaker 2: show that you just thought, Nah, I'm not really you know,
1:08:59
Speaker 2: I heard that once again. Give it another listen now,
1:09:02
Speaker 2: because things could change over time. There's so many albums
1:09:06
Speaker 2: and songs that I've listened to, like ten years twenty
1:09:07
Speaker 2: years later, that I didn't like then and I love now.
1:09:10
Speaker 2: So could be the same experience with a dead show.
1:09:13
Speaker 2: Where could people find you online? There's the website that
1:09:17
Speaker 2: goes along with the books, right, Infinite Dead website.
1:09:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's infinitedead dot net net. And so
1:09:26
Speaker 1: if you buy the ebook, there's a link in there,
1:09:31
Speaker 1: a hyperlink that says link to recordings, and if you
1:09:34
Speaker 1: click it, you're taken to the Infinite deead dot net
1:09:38
Speaker 1: blog and you'll find recordings that you can click and
1:09:43
Speaker 1: it opens up on archive dot org. So if you
1:09:47
Speaker 1: read something in the ebook and you want to listen along,
1:09:51
Speaker 1: you can do that by clicking the links. And that's
1:09:54
Speaker 1: primarily what that website is, just a collection of these
1:09:58
Speaker 1: links which I annotate to explain the different qualities among
1:10:04
Speaker 1: some of these recordings. It's a curated list of recordings.
1:10:07
Speaker 1: It's not all of them some concerts. There's twenty different recordings,
1:10:12
Speaker 1: and I'll pick out three to put onto the blog
1:10:15
Speaker 1: that I think are the ones that you want to
1:10:17
Speaker 1: start with, And you could pick out one and just
1:10:20
Speaker 1: listen to it. And yeah, if it's been a while
1:10:22
Speaker 1: for somebody, new recordings are created all the time, including
1:10:28
Speaker 1: these matrix recordings. So if you thought this is no good,
1:10:32
Speaker 1: it's just a scratchy audience recording, a soundboard may have
1:10:36
Speaker 1: surfaced and a matrix may have surfaced, so it's definitely
1:10:40
Speaker 1: worth revisiting if you can.
1:10:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is infiniteead dot net. I'm looking at it here.
1:10:46
Speaker 2: And also people can reach you through the website, so
1:10:49
Speaker 2: I'm sure you've had some interesting conversations with fellow Dead
1:10:52
Speaker 2: fans over there.
1:10:54
Speaker 1: Some not enough. I love talking to people about this
1:11:00
Speaker 1: A couple of people did write in after the first
1:11:02
Speaker 1: book and say when's the next one? And I reached
1:11:08
Speaker 1: out to them in late June to tell them, hey,
1:11:11
Speaker 1: July is coming, and they were thrilled, right, It's like sure, great,
1:11:16
Speaker 1: and they went and they bought it, and one of
1:11:18
Speaker 1: them contributed a review on Amazon. You know, if you
1:11:22
Speaker 1: buy the book through Amazon, you have the right to
1:11:25
Speaker 1: contribute a review if you want. And so I do
1:11:30
Speaker 1: have a small Rabbit reader base. But I have not
1:11:36
Speaker 1: done really any marketing of the book, not really, and
1:11:40
Speaker 1: that's okay. So, but I would love to hear from
1:11:44
Speaker 1: anybody who would like to talk about the music or
1:11:47
Speaker 1: just let me know you've read it. If you don't
1:11:50
Speaker 1: like it, I want to hear that too. All feedback
1:11:53
Speaker 1: is welcome.
1:11:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know you're welcome back here in the
1:11:56
Speaker 2: month of December, not just December, but maybe December twenty
1:12:00
Speaker 2: twenty five next year. I got to keep the podcast
1:12:04
Speaker 2: going at least till then, just so I can have
1:12:06
Speaker 2: you back on Yeah. Man, Thanks David. This was awesome.
1:12:09
Speaker 2: I'm glad that we were able to cover the first
1:12:12
Speaker 2: of the two volumes. People should check out the books
1:12:15
Speaker 2: and reach out to David online, Infinite dead dot net.
1:12:18
Speaker 2: Thanks David, thank.
1:12:19
Speaker 1: You, much appreciated. That's it, it's in the books.