11/28/80 - Florida man ponders new box set

I've got a weird relationship with Florida.  All my life, I've had some family there (almost none of them native), so I'm there a couple of times a year.  This isn't the place to get into it in depth, but I'll say this: it's got a weird vibe.  I like it, because like any truly weird place, it's got its own unique brand of weirdness.  And, like any little pocket of weirdness, it's not surprising that the Dead tended to play better than average shows there.  So, with all the @FloridaMenandWomen in mind, it's always a good time to listen to a Florida Dead show.

More to the point, I was thinking about Florida because of a list that's going around of the 30 shows selected for the Dead's enormous 50th anniversary boxed set (now confirmed at dead.net).  Unusually for picky deadheads, general consensus (and I use the word lightly) in my neck of the woods is that they picked some real winners and some surprisingly cool sleepers.  Inevitably, a couple of choices are going to jump out as being a little too left-field, and one was the 1980's representative: 11/28/80 in Lakeland, FL.  It's smack in the middle of a quick 4-show swing through Florida and Georgia, on the heels of the much more famous (but not as exciting) run of acoustic/electric run of shows, and it's not a show that probably springs to anyone's mind as belonging in the top tier of the year.  11/30/80 was a cult favorite, a punchline in Nick Paumgarten's fine 2012 New Yorker article that was finally (and deservedly) enshrined for posterity as a Dave's Picks release.  11/29/80 seems to be a pretty popular favorite, at least for fans of the early 80's, with an eye-popping setlist and fine playing to match.  But 11/28?  Misguided choice, or a well-kept secret?

Giving it a close listen, I'd have to say neither.  I think it's a very good show, but not a great show, which probably means that I'm not hearing the ephemeral x-factor that's apparently obvious to someone else.  By this point, warts-and-all is the name of the game, but there are still some stumbles and slips in this one that do make this seem like a strange choice: Jerry's solo in Jack Straw starts in the wrong key, there are some pretty big vocal clunkers in Tennessee Jed, that sort of thing.  But there are some pockets of really inspired, raunchy playing, too: a demonic and demented Little Red Rooster (seriously), a powerful Looks Like Rain, some downright nasty jamming at the end of Deal, and the debut of the rare electric Deep Elem Blues (fresh from the acoustic sets from the prior months).   The second set has the same inconsistent highs/lows: a nice Stranger opener has some more stumbles, and the highlight is most definitely the unique To Lay Me Down > Let it Grow > Terrapin, all of which are wonderful but not quiiiite at that next level of magic, to my ears at least.  There's not much happening in drums>space, then the post-drumz is energetic but, for the most part, pretty run of the mill.

There's some really fiery stuff in there, no doubt, but 11/29's second set embodies the magic in much more sustained, consistent way.  It's not all spotless -- the transition into Franklin's from Shakedown (again, one of a kind) is a total clunker, but the whole set glistens and sparkles: Jerry eases back while Brent comes to the fore in a great, airy Shakedown jam, sparks fly everywhere in Estimated, and they really make the most of the usually negligible post-Truckin jam with some seriously hot Other One jamming.  Space has some much heavier, creepier, involved jousting between Jerry, Brent, and the drummers (always a good sign when they stick around), and when the Other One itself finally materializes (complete with the crowd egging Phil into his intro roll), Jerry goes off like fireworks.  He pulls out all the stops with a gorgeous Stella Blue, and despite usual shakiness of Casey Jones, it still feels like something special and out of the ordinary.

Why didn't they pick 11/29 over 11/28?  I have no idea.  What drives official release selections is probably far more mundane than picky heads ever take into consideration: the tapes are missing, the tapes are of poor quality, the tapes have some technical limitation that I'm not hearing, the tapes have a giant cut that can't be patched.  To be honest, there are a handful of 1980 shows that I would've picked over 11/28 -- 1980 hasn't exactly been overlooked, but there are still a number of other shows I would have pulled for.  True, griping about official releases is a guilty pleasure that nevertheless feels like biting the hand that feeds, but a $700 box set touting itself as a representation of the "narrative of the Grateful Dead's live legacy" does add a little more weight to the selections than usual: rather than simply being released on their own merits, these shows now stand as a kind of representative of their year.  

In all fairness, by the way, I love most of the choices they made.  There are some really inspired and non-obvious selections in there, almost outnumbering the picks that are already widely acknowledged classics.  I'm really excited that we're getting major upgrades of 9/24/72, 9/18/74, 10/3/76, and 4/25/77!  Really excited.

Playing in the LMA

There are several active GD discussion forums online, and while I lurk at a couple, I'm really only active on just one.  A regular lurk spot is the GD forum at archive.org, which has been going for nearly ten years now (!?) and it's only the weirdly linear formatting that prevents me from actively participating.  But it's still an incredible wealth of information, even if that information tends to get buried almost immediately.  I was just revisiting this wonderful post on noteworthy Playing in the Bands from 1976-1995 by bkidwell (who has posted some really fantastic analyses there), which covers a lot of non-obvious selections.  This is most definitely worth a look if you've never come across it.

https://archive.org/post/376567/playin-the-post-retirement-years-long

Some serious #TIANILB happening in there, btw.  As with any great GD analysis, this is equal parts "how could he have left out xyz!?" (really, no 4/19/86?) and "seriously? I've never heard a thing about abc before..." before pointing the way to fertile ground for even more analytical plowing to be done (do you think there will ever be a quasi-comprehensive review of the post-GD oeuvre?).

As for now, my own homework: reacquainting myself with 9/19/87 and 12/27/89.  Then maybe 6/6/93? or 9/28/93?  Do I dare disturb my universe?

#TIANILB (now trending?)

 

 

Deadheads love acronyms almost as much as digital culture in general loves acronyms (JGBheads: TWLWMYD or TWYDTTYD?).  I'm coining one of my own, based on a little note Dick Latvala made in his notebook about 1/22/78, a favorite show of mine and maybe even a candidate for the mercurial top 10.  This particular show had an enormous impact on me as a teenaged listener (of which I will write about more someday), and an old post by my late friend Tim, aka skobud (RIP) on the Transitive Axis forum called attention to it:

"I love where it is written in red pen that THIS IS ALL NONSENSE; I'VE LEARNED BETTER and [Dick is] putting a line through all of these shows: '11/4, 6/77, 5/8/77, 9/3/77, 6/8&9/77, 1/13 SEEM AS POTENT.'  You just gotta love a thought process like that.  Like -- fuck it, what was I thinking? I know better now."

Not to overstate what may be obvious, but that way of thinking is so key, so integral to active engagement in whatever it is that you love to do.  Everyone inevitably gets settled in their ways.  We hunker down into little mental ruts and our minds seek to resolve whatever cognitive dissonances crop up when our preconceptions are challenged.  And here is Dick, the archetypical Dead Freak, feverishly scribbling his responses to the music that he loves, holding it all up against his highest standards of quality that he uses as high water marks, then revising and crossing the whole thing out.  It's interesting (to me) that, even at this early date, shows like Colgate, Cornell, and Englishtown -- shows that are now so canonized that they're identifiable by single words -- were already being touted as all-timers.  Dick may have been a sentimental dude (aren't all Deadheads?), but not here: all those other heavy-hitters are just as potent as 1/22/78?  Nope.  1/22 clobbers all of them.  That stuff about Colgate, Cornell, and Englishtown is all nonsense.  I've learned better.

So I'm proposing my own acronym for these moments of reflection when we get out the scalpel and go to work on our own preconceptions: TIANILB (it even kind of rolls off the tongue: "tia-nilby." maybe? not really? not really).  Who knows?  If I ever finally take to Twitter or whatever supercedes Twitter, you may someday catch me blasting out a revelatory proclamation of greatness for an unheralded gem of a show.

 

 

white kids > the Dead > the blues

Speaking of the blues, I was rewatching the great documentary Chicago Blues (dir Harley Cokeliss) from 1972 which, besides featuring some amazing performance footage of some Chicago blues heavies, really hits hard on the issue of race.  Very powerful stuff, and still very relevant.  Heads up, though, for the guy discussing the appeal of the blues for white kids, starting around 26:40 in.  No big revelation that a lot of white kids discovered the blues through rock & roll, but the one example he brings up is the Dead covering Junior Wells, of all things (I presume he's talking about "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl," not "Next Time You See Me"). 

To be fair, it's not an inappropriate link to make, though it's still a pretty random choice given the many, many, many other more obvious entry points that most rock fans had into the blues by 1972.  The Dead, at least, were public in their admiration for Wells' music: Garcia is very enthusiastic about Wells' amazing "Ships on the Ocean" on the guest DJ spot that he and Phil did for KMPX in 1967.  For what it's worth, that tune comes from the same album as Wells' version of Schoolgirl, Hoodoo Man Blues.  See the amazing Garcia's Record Collection post at deadessays for more blues influences.  Wells had also opened for the Dead at the Fillmore on Jan 13-14, 1967 in a trademark eye-popping Bill Graham triple bill with the Doors!

B.B. King RIP

RIP to a true icon of American music and a cornerstone of electric guitar playing.  Suffice it to say, almost nobody exemplified the "less is more" maxim than B.B. King.

JGB fans certainly know this one:

On official releases, it's usually credited to Lightnin' Hopkins, but this is clearly the version they're covering.  I can't remember which tape it is, but there's at least one recording where you can clearly hear someone (Kahn, I think) refer to this as a B.B. King tune.

And, while B.B. King didn't write or originally perform "The Thrill is Gone" either, it's another song that everyone associates with him.  Garcia sang this one as well.  I always think of Garcia/Grisman's work as casual get-togethers at Grisman's home studio, but I just remembered that actually made a real music video for this one.

mistakes as style

While listening to both Miles Davis (Miles Smiles) and the JGB (10/11/75) yesterday, I was thinking about this great quote.  

"The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it's considered to be your style."

-Fred Astaire (not sure of the source; I found it at the NPR Writers Almanac)

In spite of the astonishing facility of the musicians, Miles Smiles has its share of fluffs and mistakes.  Davis accepted them in the name of capturing freshness and spontaneity and that willingness to fuck up became one of the stylistic hallmarks of that band, who are arguably one of the great improvising ensembles of all time.  Garcia, well, he might have made the occasional mistake himself, and often for the same reasons.  When we hear those mistakes and respond positively to them, though, how much of that response is conditioned by our blind devotion and how much is more of a response to his style?  (to be fair, that 75 show wasn't remotely as inspiring as Miles Smiles, but, well, anyway).  

I like the ambiguity of what Fred Astaire is saying, too.  Are the mistakes overlooked and accepted because of the artist's greatness or because of the artist's persistence and longevity?

amazingly uncute

Hi there!  It's been, oh, a year and a half, but what's a few months between friends, right?  I had some thoughts percolating and figured I'd give this blog another shot.

Really, though, I just came across this little jewel and figured it was the ideal excuse to get this mother rolling again: an interview (via jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces) about the Dead's involvement with the Rainforest Action Network in 1988 that resulted in, among other things, the extremely short lived but still mind-boggling pairing of the Dead with Hall & Oates.  Then, just when you thought things couldn't get worse, Jerry's got to go and start hating on tree sloths.  Tree sloths!

"The rainforest's animals aren't that cute, like a three-toed sloth -- an amazingly uncute animal. They're real slow. They have homely faces and they don't look like much. Orangutans are pretty cute and there are some rainforests that have orangs in them. That's part of it. Part of it is that we have to get off this thing of cute. We have to develop other biases."

Ouch.  I mean, of course he's got the right idea and all, but still, ouch.

Play St. Stephen!

 Right.  So.  Good to be back!