What good is spilling blood? It will not grow a thing

I would never argue with anyone who says Workingman's or American Beauty, but my favorite Dead studio album for personal listening has always been Blues for Allah.  I feel very at home within the sound of this record.  This afternoon I was feeling at home with it in my Listening Cave (on an LP passed on by a college roommate who did not own a turntable; thanks, Obie) when I noticed that the inner sleeve helpfully provides Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian translations of the title lyric:

Just in case you needed to know. 

Who knows all the lyrics to "Blues For Allah" off the top of their head?  Like nobody, I'll bet.  There are some real Hunter gems are buried in there, though: Let's see with our heart / these things our eyes have seen / and know the truth will still lie / somewhere in between, and so on.

I also had forgotten and/or never knew that the songwriting credits for the instrumental portions of the album are more finely sliced than most heads (or me, at least) probably think:

Every instrumentalist but Mickey got a credit for Slipknot, but it's nice to see that Donna got one for Sand Castles & Glass Camels -- there's a good one for GD Trivia Night.

The thousand stories have / come round to one again.

just a touch

Bwahahaha: I picked up this today while record shopping (basically for free):

Grey vinyl!  Good lord.  I also see that Bill Graham (the mystery 13th eye on the album cover) didn't get his own skeleton doppelganger.

The sleeve is a bit of an elaborate affair for a 45 and folds out as a poster:

The other side has the portrait shots of everyone from In the Dark plus tourdates for the all the nascent Touchheads (the single was released in June).

And, of course, "My Brother Esau" on the flipside, which was left off the original album.

Biggest takeaway: skeleton Jerry looks like Dr. Zaius' stunt double.

Side Trips vinyl

I am not usually one for vinyl fetish commodities (hey now), but I couldn't resist snagging a copy of this Garcia/Wales Side Trips 2LP Record Store Day special on a trip to NYC this weekend.  There's not one smidge extra that wasn't already on the old CD (released, um, 19 years ago).  Nevertheless, four long jams over four sides feels like a more satisfying vinyl recreation than most of the awkwardly lopsided LP reissues of archival live Dead releases.  I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself.  Shout-out to the cool dude at Academy Annex in Greenpoint who steered me to this pristine open copy instead of the sealed ones that apparently arrived heavily warped.

There's an interview with Howard Wales, incidentally, that was posted a couple weeks ago at Aquarium Drunkard.  No huge insights, but hey, you were there but only in the moment, right?  I appreciated getting some background info on his early days.  Also: he was invited to join the band for Europe '72?  Really?  I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around that one.