5/8/82: four ways of looking at a Keystone show

the Keystone faithful, 8/20/81 by Bob Minkin

 

I have riffed on sound quality and terroir and all that before, but man, what a difference a good aud tape make.  It can make enough of a difference that sometimes listening to multiple recordings of the same performance will give it a Rashomon-like quality.  Case in point: 5/8/82 is a show that is right in the armpit of a JGB era that I can usually take or leave.  This particular lineup was well settled in its drug-fuzzed routine, reliable and occasionally scorching hot but not often all that inspired.  This show is on the short side.  It has a Don't Let Go, so I am sure that I'd given it a listen at some point and was evidently left unmoved, since I couldn't remember anything about it.  But I was tempted to listen to this newly circulating recording (note: I wrote this last May and forgot to post it) made by John Anzaldo with a Walkman "three feet from the stage in the center," and I am glad that I did.

#1: the board tape 
To paraphrase JGMF, there are some serious damp, cheap motel towel vibes happening here.  To my ears, most post-Bettyboard 1980's JGB sbd tapes are disappointing listening experiences; this tape is essentially the X-Ray version of the Anzaldo aud that I really came here to talk about.  I think Harry Popick was running sound for the JGB at this time (his gig with the Dead was mixing their onstage monitors, not the front-of-house sound).  Judging from the auds, Popick's house sound was great, whereas the board tape is a straight PA feed (i.e. what wasn't loud enough in the onstage amps and would need to be reinforced in the PA): that means not much guitar, plenty of vocals, plenty of keyboard, plenty of kickdrum, zero room ambience.  So go figure, listening to this tape didn't make much of an impression on me.  No thanks.  Maybe not bad raw material for a new matrix source, though.

#2: Jeff Knudsen's tape
Jeff Knudsen taped a grip of Keystone shows around this time, and I don't think it's unfair to say he was a more casual taper than some of the other regulars.  Most of his recordings circulate with a personal reminiscence of the show, which give a lot of fun color and context to his recordings.  Some of them are surprisingly good, given the circumstances: he found a spot, surreptitiously set up his mics (stuffed in a sock and held in his armpit), and proceeded to have a good time.  This one is decent but sounds a little muffled.  But everyone clearly was having a pretty good time.  Disclaimer: we owe Jeff Knudsen -- and anyone who made the effort and spent the money to run tape at all these taper-unfriendly JGB shows -- a huge debt of gratitude. Thank you, Jeff Knudsen!

#3: Ohr Weinberg's tape 
This one sounds pretty good.  But it's only the second set, because, as Weinberg relates, "we were at a Robert Hunter show in SF and Hunter made a crack about why we weren't at the Jerry show in Berkeley... so we drove down to Berkeley just in time for the second JGB set."  Fortunately the complete source (below) sounds even better.  And, fwiw, the Hunter show does circulate: presumably this is also Weinberg's tape, from Jeff Knudsen's collection.  Double duty!  Thank you, Ohr Weinberg!

#4: John Anzaldo's tape
Back to our man on the front lines, who I imagine was standing right in front of Jerry like one of those dudes in the picture up top, trusty Sony Walkman at the ready (don't be skeptical; there are some Walkman aud tapes from the fall 82 tour that are surprisingly good).  The vocals are low, as is usually the case with tapes recorded this close to the stage.  But that Tiger sounds as rich as can be, and everything else is a little more gentle in the mix, but still well-balanced: drums, bass, Hammond organ, and small but unobtrusive touches of electric piano.  You are right there, shoulder to shoulder with the few, the proud, the yahoos who've been partying since they got on line at 4:00 that afternoon.  I confess that perhaps the recording quality is swaying my opinion, but this show has now come to life for me.  Don't Let Go, unsurprisingly, is one highlight, powered along by Kreutzmann finding new angles throughout the jam while never leaving the waist-deep groove.  I also submit the first chorus of his penultimate solo in Tangled Up in Blue (@5:15, after the "I lived with them on Montague St" verse) as a small shining jewel of Pure Jerry Perfection -- it's not a speaker-shredder like 2/4/81, but more like the epitome of butterflies being let out of a basket.  I am also really feeling his hard dig into Tore Up Over You, although, this being 1982, he loses the thread for his final solo after too much wait-time for the keyboardists to do something interesting (spoiler: nope).  Elsewhere, he's hot to trot and jumps from song to song with very little lag time, including an unusual hustle from Simple Twist into The Harder They Come into Midnight Moonlight to end the night.  Not quite one for the books, but one more Saturday night where everything (mostly) clicks into place.  I would never have known it, though, were it not for this fine aud tape.  Thank you John Anzaldo!

11/5/74: a tale of two Jerrys

Jerry Moore, courtesy of Relix.

Continuing my Paul Humphrey streak, I very much enjoyed returning to this outstanding tape made by the great Jerry Moore, who taped several shows from this short Garcia/Saunders east coast tour, including all three of the Bottom Line early shows.  No late shows!  Can't blame a guy who's gotta get up and go to work in the morning, but still.  Oh woe.

I find the set to be enjoyable, but mixed overall -- the good stuff is really outstanding, but they're not totally consistent.  They come pumping out of the gate, but the delivery seems to dip a little bit in the middle of the set, with a draggy tempo for Second That Emotion and good-but-not-very-inspired performances of Leave Your Hat On and He Ain't Give You None.  But this was their first night on the road and mostly they're pretty cookin'.  They stumble a bit with getting together at the start of Mystery Train, but then they do indeed get it together.  Favela is fast, so fast that it feels like Jerry is only just staying on top of it.  To my ears, he fares much better on La-La, but both are pretty heavy performances. 

Taper legend Harvey Lubar shared the following story about this night (here)

As some of you might know, Jerry Moore and I were real close when we were in college together but drifted apart afterwards.  Nothing major, just life.  So, here's a quick story: Jerry and I went to the Bottom Line on 11/5/74 to see the early show.  The tables were perpendicular to the stage and we had the first two seats on each side of the table, right by the center of the stage.  When Garcia came out, I mentioned to Jerry that Garcia was starting to gray.  Jerry looked at him (his ankles were 3 feet away from us) and nodded in agreement.  We had never been so close to him before.  Jerry then took his mics out and actually put them on the stage for a few seconds while rearranging his bag.  Garcia stared at Jerry with total disbelief (his eyes actually widened) but he didn't say a word.  Then the show began.  Another great recording by Mr. Moore.

It is indeed an excellent aud tape, but what is particularly delightful is the chatter between, I presume,  Moore, Lubar, and maybe another buddy or two.  Thanks to the particular terroir of this tape, we are in a unique position (to paraphrase myself) of listening to Jerry Moore and Harvey Lubar listen to Jerry Garcia, and they are loving it.  This new drummer, whoever he is, is blowing their minds.  They are telling each other all about it.  For example, after a great That's a Touch:

"That drummer is really good."
"He's great!"
"Martin is nice."
"Yeah, he fits in."
"The drummer is really nice on the little rolls there."

after Favela:

"Musically, this is the best I've heard them."
"The drummer is gooood."
"He's really good." 
"He's damn good."
"Did you see, him and Garcia--"
"--right, that's what I was just going to say, he obviously knows(?) him a hell of a lot."
[calling out] "Who's the drummer!?" "what's his name?"
[deadpans] "Mickey Hart."
"He was, like, checking it with him -- it was incredible... [inaudible] ...It's really strange, but it was definitely happening." 
"That must be different for Garcia, for sure -- it's a different style of playing entirely."

 After La-La:

"This is definitely better than the last time they were here." (ahem)

And I would have to agree.  After Mystery Train, one of them declares, "phenomenal!" and Moore stops the tape.  But they weren't done yet.  The tape cuts back in:

"I don't believe that wasn't their last number!"
"What is it, quarter after two?"  [this has got to be sarcastic, right? This is definitely the early show]

and they power through a hot Money Honey to end the early show, unusually long at almost two hours!  A nice final touch is that Moore lets it roll for another minute, capturing the Bottom Line announcer cheerfully asking everyone to clear out for the next set and being greeted by Moore, Lubar, and a chorus of New Yorkers expressing how they feel about that.

8/16/80: bring a poncho

My problem regarding this blog is that I ignore the little stuff and get bogged down in the big projects.  I really should do more little hit 'n run posts like this.

I gave this show an anniversary spin yesterday and quite enjoyed it:
https://archive.org/details/gd1980-08-16.SonyECM250.walker-scotton.miller.88959.sbeok.flac16

No rain check indeed.  The Mississippi River Festival was an every-other-week-or-so summer concert series hosted by Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, a half-hour outside of St. Louis (lots of info here, if you're really curious).  "Maybe 3000 in a small outdoor shed close by the river," recalls an eyewitness at LMA, and "everyone except for the first 10 rows or so got soaked!"  It was was the first show of their late summer 1980 run, and also their first show after the death of Keith Godchaux.  It's a solid 1980 show, all good but not a lot of standout stuff, save for a couple of things that I submit for your consideration:

• Althea > Looks Like Rain is imho the most exciting thing in the first set.  1980 muscle!
• This China>Rider, however, is the most exciting thing in the show, a real all-timer.  Sharp as a tack, with everything you want from this vintage: a very energetic but not rushed tempo; a depth-charging, fiery Garcia-led jam with a great peak; a belting "headlight" verse with a huge Phil bomb.  The works, in other words.
• Joani Walker's aud tape is utterly fantastic all the way through, the work of a real master taper (Noah Weiner wrote a short but sweet ode to it at his great old blog), but the sound of the rain coming down hard, starting around 20 seconds into Ship of Fools, is one of those one-of-a-kind terroir moments that is magical and utterly unique to this recording.  You can almost smell it.
• Tip of the hat to Brent Mydland for his keyboard work at the start of the Estimated jam.  The sound of his electric piano, with a perfect mix of echo/delay and outdoor rainy ambience, is totally sublime.

Another famous rain show is 6/20/83, and as intense as this recording is, it doesn't quite hit the sweet spot for me like this one does.

9/30/83: a long day, living in Reseda

courtesy jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces

Friday 9/30/83 was the start of a long weekend in L.A. for Jerry and the band, sandwiched in between two great Dead tours, and just two months into David Kemper's tenure.  This is a relatively long show for the period with two sets at just under an hour each (a good length for a 2-set show, even out of town; early/late shows tended to be longer).  I'm not apologizing, but ya get what ya get with 1983 Jerry.  Vocals?  The man was living off Camels, coke, and heroin smoked off of aluminum foil.  Tempos?  Fast and sometimes shaky.  Guitar?  Louder than all hell and then some.  Deal with it: this is a hot show!  The one recording is a fine, funky quality aud tape with terroir to spare, and our mystery taper sounds like he was up front with Garcia's amp in his crosshairs.  If this era is your jam, then you have to be down with aud tapes like this: there's a recent batch of newly transferred JGB '83 sbds (not new sources, for the most part) that have reminded me that a funky ol' aud tape is usually preferable to a clean monitor-mix sbd, which have pretty erratic guitar mixes and generally highlight more flaws than strengths.  While I wouldn't necessarily call these aud tapes a guilty pleasure, they're the kind of thing I discreetly turn down when someone who's not a deliriously devoted deadhead enters the room (i.e. wife, kids, in-laws, most friends).

A second/first verse flipflop followed by some sparkling up-high soloing in How Sweet It Is lets you know what kind of night you're in for.  Garcia is crushing it in TLEO and goes through the roof with his second solo in Let it Rock.  Love in the Afternoon, a tune I don't love, is taken way too fast and they're working hard to keep it all together, so Garcia eases back with a nice Mississippi Moon and then, whoa, here comes Tangled Up In Blue.  His second solo is particularly tasty, but the end jam is everything catching on fire at once.  Kemper was still working out the whole "one foot on the brakes, one foot on the gas" thing, and succumbs to the temptation of kicking things into high gear a little too early (though he doesn't push as hard or insensitively as his predecessor Greg Errico could do).  It's exciting at first, but soon adds to a general level hubbub that, amazingly, they all manage to stay on top of.  A joyful noise to be sure, but man, I bet everyone's heads were ringing after that one.

Kemper, however, finds just the right groove for a very nice Mission in the Rain to start the second set.  A lovely (and brisk) Gomorrah is a nice call; Run for the Roses not so much; but Russian Lullaby is a beauty, particularly in Garcia's reentry after the bass solo when Kemper doubles up the time and Kahn shifts into a brisk walking bassline for a little while.  Nice touch, boys!  Dear Prudence's jam dials it way back, with Garcia playing more carefully and sensitively -- was he fading? was he just feeling like a little TLC was in order? -- and it feels a little out of place with the vibe of the rest of the show.  YMMV, obvs, but heads up for a badly timed tape cut, too.  It's nice, however, to hear Deal closing the show rather than the first set.  Like Tangled, they just go balls-out for broke here, but it's the end of a long, loud night and it's not quite as, um, smooth.  It's not the elegant arc of a well-crafted Deal jam, but no matter: I doubt that anyone left standing had much in the way of critical faculties left at that point, and probably neither will you if you've been blasting this through your headphones for the last two hours.  Which I recommend.

postscript: the JGB played here in 1982 (the debut of the Seals/Errico lineup), 1983, and 1984 (famed for its amazing Sugaree).  JGBP reports the colorful history of the place and its owners.  I will take the liberty, though, of quoting Corry Arnold's description of the club, which is just about perfect:

Reseda is near Northridge, Northwest of Los Angeles (off Hwy 101, between Van Nuys and Canoga Park, for those of you who know SoCal). It's probably a nice enough place, but it has a whiff of one of those faceless LA places without an identity--Tom Petty symbolically dismisses it in the lyrics to his 1989 hit "Free Fallin'": 

It's a long day, living in Reseda /
There's a freeway running through the yard 

The Country Club was a popular rock club in Reseda, which was open from about 1979 until the late 1990s (on Sherman Way near Reseda Boulevard). Lots of fine groups played there, but it was not a hip Hollywood club, since by LA standards Reseda was out in the 'burbs' (the empty club was actually used to film much of the 1997 movie Boogie Nights). Initially the 1000-capacity venue was conceived as a country showcase (hence the name) but it became better known for punk and new wave.

Or, in the words of the Karate Kid, I'm from Reseda, you're from the Hills, that's how we're different.  Something tells me that Garcia secretly kinda dug it, man.

3/3/76: I could wait forever / I've got time

courtesy gdsets.com

This show first popped on my radar a while back when I was thinking about Garcia playing outdoors sans GD, but I only just got around to giving it a close listen.  A couple things:

First: good gravy, this is a really nice aud tape!  The whole terroir thing is happening in a serious way here.  One of the gold standards for this period, in terms of sound quality, is the well known 3/6/76 recording made by Pat Lee & friends at Seattle's Moore Theater, but Don Wolfe and Matt Williams' 3/3 tape may be an even more satisfying listen in terms of atmosphere.  The Lane County Fairgrounds Auditorium is more like a big vaulted shed holding around 800ish, and while the tapers succeeded in capturing the intimacy of the space, this is one of those tapes that still inspires a cognitive dissonance between what you know and what you're hearing: to me, this sounds like I'm experiencing the JGB at a house party or maybe a small bar, in the company of a few friends, all very enthusiastic and very attentive.  One great moment of many is when Donna steps up to sing her gospel feature, "A Strange Man," which was brand new to most of the crowd.  They love it, and she has them in the palm of her hand: maybe one of the better Donna vocal moments from this era of the JGB, made all the more sweet by the particularities of this great tape.

Second: in terms of performance, this is a pretty solid early '76 JGB show.  Granted, that's a period that tends to rub many folks the wrong way because of the slowness of the material.  At times I agree (3/6/76, I'm looking at you), but typically I can get down with this stuff just fine.  All we have of this night is the second set, but it's still a satisfying 90 minutes of music. An early "The Way You Do the Things You Do" has a delightful energy to it, and dig how Keith and Jerry slip in a subtle hint of I-VII for a sec in the jam (the "Fire on the Mountain jam" or Eb-Db in this case).  "Friend of the Devil" is divine; "I'll Take a Melody" and "Mystery Train" are satisfying, but not standouts for the period, and the Rolling Stones' "Moonlight Mile" is done about as well as they did it -- I don't mean to sound back-handed, but it's a tough song to pull off!  Much better, however, is this great version of "I Want to Tell You," which they played only a handful of times in early '76 and then dropped abruptly.  Garcia returned to it for a few post-coma shows in 1986-87, then brought it back with the Dead in 1994-95, but these 1976 versions are the real deal, with solid vocals, energetic delivery, and a few minutes of jamming that finds a nice little space to nestle into (more I-VII/"FOTM" again, somewhat similar to the jam in "Lonesome & A Long Way From Home").  The segue into "Sisters and Brothers" is sweetly done and makes for a nice little combo.  A final rarity closes the show, their take on Ray Charles' "Talkin' 'Bout You," not quite as hot as some of the Legion of Mary versions, but par for this lineup.

Finally, if you read the not-so-fine print on the poster, you may notice that the show was put on by Acidophilus Productions/Springfield Creamery, which may ring a bell for any committed deadhead.  Garcia's connections to and performance history in Oregon probably warrant a small book of their own, and the Creamery folks also produced the "Second Decadenal Field Trip" [and potluck!] on the 10th anniversary of their first one (see Blair Jackson), the 1983 and 1984 Hult Center shows (in Eugene), and maybe more.   Unlike the more storied fairgrounds that are a few miles down the road in Veneta, the Lane County Fairgrounds are, I believe, in the middle of downtown Eugene, so this could hardly have been a psychedelic backwoods tribal stomp.  From a pragmatic standpoint, this show may have been just a midweek add-on to two bigger gigs (a Friday in Portland and a Saturday in Seattle), which wasn't unheard of.  There's an Old & In the Way listing for 5/8/73 at Churchill High School (Eugene) and Garcia/Kahn shows at South Eugene High School in June '82 (JGMF), all of which were adjacent to larger gigs in Portland.  Other Dead/Garcia trips to the northwest seem to have been either bigger "professional" productions or college gigs (besides those Hult Center shows), and I have no idea what other events, if any, were organized under the Creamery's auspices.  But I suspect that there must be some story behind Garcia's playing for the Springfield Creamery on a Wednesday night in downtown Eugene, and I'd love to know what it is.

8/28/82: bring a dish to pass (acidophilus not required).  courtesy deadlists.

And the biggest question, of course, is... was this guy was in attendance?

1/22/78 at 40

1/22/78

I first heard this jam when I was 15 years old.  It was broadcast on the Grateful Dead Hour which, to the extent of my adolescent ability, I think I tried to tape whenever I could (but I don't think I was very good about actually following through with this).  I have a very distinct memory of this one, however: the memory of lying in bed at night, lights out ("you've got school in the morning!"), boombox tapedeck running, headphones on, and having my mind BLOWN WIDE OPEN by this Other One>Close Encounters>St. Stephen>NFA>Around.  I can now see that it was sometime the week of May 2, 1994.  At that point in my nascent deadheaddom (deadheadness?), I was well versed in Live/Dead and Europe '72 and probably One From the Vault and had a shoebox-sized collection with some respectable tapes: but this, my goodness, this was a whole other thing.  I was already on the bus, but this was like finding a few back rows where the cool kids sat.  The excitement of the moment hasn't faded and the rush of feelings are still there on the special occasions when I revisit this show and this jam in particular (gotta start with the Terrapin, though).  Now I'm able to enunciate why: the deliriously intense segue out of Drums, the unusually extended Other One jam, the drippy Garcia solo space that climaxes with the famous Close Encounters quote, the spot-on perfectly timed segue into St. Stephen, that wild 'n wooly early '78 guitar tone, the spotless tape quality -- you know, you've heard it -- but I wasn't hearing any of that when I was 15.  What I was hearing is best summed up by this bit from Nick Paumgarten's 2012 New Yorker article on the band (one of the best single pieces of writing I've read about them), writing about the culture of tape collecting:

"Each [tape] had a character and odor of its own, a terroir. Some combination of the era, the lineup, the set list, the sound system, the recording apparatus, its positioning in the hall, the recorder’s sonic bias, the chain of custody, and, yes, the actual performance would render up a sonic aura that could be unique. Jerry Garcia claimed to be a synesthete—he said that he perceived sound as color. Somehow, I and others came to perceive various recordings, if not as colors, as having distinct odors or auras."

That’s the extra something this show will always have for me.  I can smell it.  I remember exactly what I imagined, laying there in dark, that the stage must have looked like: small stage, band soaked in sweat, air thick with smoke, amps piled high with beer bottles, roaches, cigarette stubs, crowd pressed right up to the band's knees.  I'm sure that is not at all what the stage actually looked like (in hindsight, I'm sure I had no idea that McArthur Court was a college gynanisum), but it's what it sounded like to me.  I had never heard anything so immediately, viscerally transporting.  Or maybe, probably, I had.  I must have.  I remember a lot of musical moments in many songs that made me jump and holler as a younger kid, but none of them stand out as vividly over 20 years later -- I remember that some serious flying leaps used to happen during the Eleven>Lovelight transition on Live/Dead, but I don't have any memory of feeling like I was standing there actually watching it.  Almost exactly six years later, I heard another show from this period for the first time, one that came to nearly equal this one in my personal canon, 2/5/78 (thanks Dick!)  But it didn't have that same terroir. 

May 1994 means that I already actually seen the band in person, once (3/27/94, at Nassau Coliseum).  This departs from all kinds of standard narratives about the band, but I don't remember being moved nearly as much by the show.  It was good, I treasure the memory of it, and I had fun -- I mean it was 1994, but I didn't (and still don't) think it was a bad show, given the circumstances (the Dew, man, the Dew!).  I'm sure I felt lot more strongly about it at the time.  But I was also 15, too dorky to catch more than a contact buzz, I stayed in my seat for most of the show, and I was pretty sleepy by the end of it (and, lest you think I was high out of my mind during that 1/22/78 epiphany: I assure you I was not).  While it seems lame in some regard to have more affinity for hearing a tape than for seeing an actual live performance, that's the way it's sorted itself in my memory. 

Anyways, I know what I'm doing tonight.  I recommend you do the same.

PS. Also, can you think of many post-77 shows where the major heavy-duty jamming all happens after the drum solo?  There are a few, but I can't think of very many.

PPS. The next week’s GDH episode was the Dancin'>Franklin’s from 10/27/79.  That and 1/22/78 made for a 100 min cassette that was pretty potent, to say the least.