hadn't heard that, mj-- can you give us the summary? there's more than enough-- or just the right amount-- of dead out there few really "need" more so... if the whole thing stopped tomorrow, there are hundreds of thousands of people w/hundreds of tapes & cd-rs they never listen to & probably never will... still, edc sunflower has been on this trip since the 8-26-71 Gaelic Park gig in the Bronx (i was little too young to hit the Fillmore shows before then) so i'm always interested in what's going on.

I was just thinking the other day that Jerry Garcia has to be the most recorded artist in history. Who even comes close to leaving behind as large a recorded legacy on tape? Frankly, I can't think of anybody.

The tracks in the Tapers Section used to be available in .mp3 format. They've changed that this week to an all-streaming format. The site states:

"I undertook the Taper's Section last November with a pretty simple vision: to have fun providing folks a regular opportunity to hear vault material that kept their interest in Grateful Dead music fresh.

"Recently, I and others that work on dead.net became aware that certain fans had been regularly downloading the tracks offered in the Taper Section. From the very beginning, this program has always been intended to be a "for streaming only" service. Downloading was never announced, described or promoted in any manner. The situation that developed over the past months is very different than my original plan.

"Where we’re at today requires us to step back, gather some information, do some thinking and get back to you. In the meantime, we ask that you all realize that dead.net's and GDP's commitment to the Dead Head community is unchanged. We’re very excited to be hard at work with Rhino on a number of very cool releases and programs that you’ll be hearing about soon. Please bear with us until then."

So we stream the audio and capture it with Audacity or some other software. No more controversy.

Newk -
Try DP 36 or Steppin' Out, I think these sets are better than what you indicated you were considering, though I confess not to know 3ftV. Of all the vault releases over the past 15 yrs, those two really stand out for me, along with 2ftV. Happy trails, Dan

Since when? How are things,Lon?


As to out negaposter--I think it's refreshing every so often to be reminded that not everyone likes the dead, and fewer like them from start (1965) to finish (1995).

There are a lot of anti-deadites in the world, and I can understand them not liking the endless noodling or having a taste for Cownboy songs and Pigpen.

Hell, if we all liked one band, there would be no Other.

So, thanks for posting. Really.

Somebody has to keep Lonin his place!

Since about 1974 actually. I wish I had become a Blue Ron fan sooner! It was Bear's Choice, when that came out, with his solo feature and then those other features. . .I became a Pigpen fan. (edited to get the date right, etc.)

Well, things actually suck Bill, but I'm painting a rosy pattern, a sort of nondrug windowpane lattice of color, around things so that I can fool myself into thinking things are better than they are.

I'm on day nine of my wife's donor bone marrow transplant (bone marrow transplant number 2 for her) and some strange things are brewing as the donor cells begin to awake and make their presence known. My wife feels like shit. I'm feeling okay physically but very tired of thirteen hour days in the hospital and worrying. I can stop the worrying. The thirteen hour days have to continue.

When I get Helen out of the hospital I'm starting on the Dead dling again. The network here at the hospital is "broke" this time, slower than molasses in February.

Lon: I really feel for you that things have been so tough for so long. As always, I wish you and Helen the very best.


John

Good morning Lon, thanks for sharing this, I send my warmest wishes for you both, wifey went through some of this a few years back, were both fine today, but I remember what it was like;keep on keepin on!

Thanks friends. I'll keep on. I'd choose to if I had a choice!

Oh dear ...

I've just been reading a colleague's September issue of the Brit mag Uncut - I'm too mean to buy it myself, but I usually enjoy a quick breeze through it.

Anyways, in it is a photo/essay sort of job on England's 1972 Bickershaw Festival, with great pics of the Dead, Kinks, Beefheart, Donovan etc.

In one of the captions, the author (Mick Middles), who attended the fest as 15-year-old in only his third ever rock gig, says:

"My memories of the Grateful Dead - who played, I recall, for about four hours - remain teasingly sketchy. I had never seen twin drumming before, and Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann's trance-like rhythms induced bolts of alarming "freak-outs" on both sides of the stage."

Teasingly sketchy? I'll say. How could it be otherwise when YOU WERE SEEING DOUBLE AS WELL?

LOL. He talks about smoking a joint handed to him by a Hell's Angel, but I suspect there may have been something in his liquid refreshments - whatever they were - as well.



(There is a photo adjacent that caption showing the one-drummer, 1972 lineup. The pics seem to come from the same source as found in the bookjlet to Steppin' Out With ....)

Maybe he went to the Newcastle-Under-Lyme, England show on 5/24/70???

I doubt it. He woulda been 13 then. Plus, IIRC, the Bickershaw was only his second or third live rock "experience".

It's surprising, actually, coz I usually find those Brit mags like Uncut, Q and so on pretty sharp when it comes to details. Must be the anorak factor.

well my memories of Bickershaw are also sketchy but as I recall I think it was the longest Dead set I ever saw... The Hollywood set in Newcastle under Lyme was the mother of all Dead sets tho!

What is a "Pig Pen"?

Sorry to have been off line and out of touch. Battling my own body, I guess. Did someone mention the sacred Gaelic Park concert? The last P.P. Hard to Handle? Empty Pages? 242 St. Subway stop?

Were you the guys throwing the marshmellows?

Neat piece from the Baltimore Sun. It made me ruminate about the fraught relationship I had with my own dad, for all my adult life up until his death about 8 years ago. Maybe if somehow he'd been able to be Deadified things might have been different. Then again, long after I'd set off to see the world and for as long he was able to ride his BMW, the cranky old coot had multiple copies of "Dark Side Of The Moon" scattered around the South Island of New Zealand - so he could hear it wherever he boogied. I asked my mom once: "Does dad know what's the inspiration and purpose for this sort of music?" She looked shocked then replied: "Don't EVER tell him!"



Alive with The Dead
After a car accident takes the life of a devoted Deadhead, a father discovers the healing power of his son's music

By Jonathan Pitts | Sun reporter
October 21, 2007

Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right. -- from "Scarlet Begonias" (Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia, the Grateful Dead)

In the lengthening shadows of a summer afternoon, thickets of music fans -- on blankets, in lawn chairs, chucking Frisbees -- have turned a West Virginia hillside into a patchwork of tie-dye. Huge amplifiers on a stage pulse with the warbling of electric guitars. The American Roots Music Festival is about to begin.

Halfway up the hill, where you've spread a tapestry on the ground, a stranger sidles up, a barrel of a man with bowed legs, a full white beard and an expression that says, "Hey, brother, want to chat?"

His T-shirt reflects some rock history. "SOME THINGS YOU CAN REPLACE AND OTHERS YOU CAN'T," it reads. Below the words is a grinning Jerry Garcia, the founder and benign maestro of the legendary Grateful Dead, who died in 1995.

"I miss Jerry," he ventures. "Don't you?"

Maybe it's the welcoming manner, the rueful eyes behind the Harry Caray-sized glasses, or the short pants and dark socks he's wearing, a look so far short of cool it suggests a man who might need a friend. Maybe it's that he's likely the oldest guy here. But in a place where strangers really are known to reach out to each other as if they were lifetime friends, something about Ed Branthaver, 69, seems different.

Now that he has your eye, he does a pivot to flash the back of the tee. There, too, it reads, "SOME THINGS YOU CAN REPLACE AND OTHERS YOU CAN'T." Below the words is the picture of a much younger man, a fellow with shoulder-length hair who might look right at home on this hillside today. "Know who that is?" Branthaver asks.

And suddenly, he's changed. As he turns around, his face is as crimson as the flowers in "Scarlet Begonias," and his eyes are full of tears. "That's my son," he says, and he reaches out to touch your arm.

Sometimes the songs that we hear are just songs of our own. -- "Eyes of the World" (Hunter-Garcia)

Long before there was a Grateful Dead, Ed Branthaver was born in Waynesboro, a Pennsylvania town just across the state line from Hagerstown. There was nothing counter-cultural about him.

He belonged, by birth, to the Church of the Brethren, a distant cousin to the Quakers and Mennonites. He sang in a choir and attended services, though theological questions rarely crossed his mind. A wild night in his teen years would be a couple of hours at The Dipper, a local drive-in, where if someone put a nickel in the jukebox, you'd hear the Drifters or the Four Freshmen. "Songs with a beginning, middle and end," he says.

He missed the swinging 1960s -- spent them cramming in the library at West Virginia University, prepping for a life as a social worker in the ÀôÀ field of geriatrics. He met tall, taciturn Joan Galbraith, a member of his church, on a blind date, marrying her in 1965. Five years later, they had Daniel, their only child.

Dan, too, seemed anything but a radical. In Williamsport, their adopted hometown, he walked to elementary, middle and high schools, all within three blocks. He loved to raft and hike in the mountains. He grew tall and rangy and impressed others with his kind heart and gentle, welcoming eyes.

He rebelled a bit, as teen sons will, but couldn't make it stick: Dan vowed never to become a social worker like Dad. But he magnetized friends, especially those who craved the company of a stable personality. At 18, Dan's talent for projecting calm in a crisis -- for listening -- won him a job as a counseling aide at Turning Point, a residential center for chronic psychiatric patients in Hagerstown.

Clients stayed in touch after they left the place, and many became his friends. "Dan took in strays," says Joan.

Sometimes Ed and Joan wondered, if only for a moment, whether he was becoming a stray, too. He grew his hair to his shoulders, flashed the peace sign in greeting and used vacation time to disappear for days on end. When he was around the house, he took to putting strange music on the turntable -- loopy, improvisational stuff by the Grateful Dead, the Haight-Ashbury vagabonds who were still finding new audiences after 30 years.

The songs could wander for half an hour. "Aimless stuff," Joan says.

Once in a while, Dan hit his parents up for a twenty. They rarely begrudged him that. But one night in 2000, Ed demanded some accounting.

"Well, I've been taking in a few Grateful Dead concerts," Dan said.

"What're you wasting money on that for?"

"Dad," Dan replied, placing his hands on his father's shoulders, "have you ever listened to them?"

Ed had to admit, he hadn't.

Such a long, long time to be gone and a short time to be there. -- "Box of Rain" (Hunter-Lesh)

To Dan Branthaver and many of his friends, Dead music and fandom was about erasing boundaries, showing kindness and living a life of trust. To them, it was easy as a Jerry solo: Ed had to come to a show.

On Sept. 14, 2000, Shawn Mazur, John Ditmayer and the father and son drove to Bristow, Va., to see the Other Ones -- a post-Jerry Garcia incarnation of the Dead -- play the Nissan Pavilion.

Ed didn't always "get" the music that night. When guitarist Bob Weir, drummer Mickey Hart and the others lit into jams, it seemed to go on for hours. It amazed him you could even go to a concert and just roam.

"Our seats weren't assigned," he says. "I spent the night wandering, meeting people and dancing like a fool. I've got two left feet and no rhythm, but it didn't matter. Strangers went out of their way to welcome me. It was unreal."

He was glad he went with his son. He would never get another chance.

On the night of March 30, 2001, six months after the show, Dan was out with Shawn for a beer and, as often happened, he decided late in the evening that his best friend wasn't up to taking the wheel. He drove Shawn home, slept a few hours on his buddy's couch and rose at 6 to return to his own place in Waynesboro, Pa.

It's a sharp curve, 90 degrees, on Cavetown Pike between Hagerstown and Leitersburg. The only witness said Dan wasn't speeding. Police say no intoxicants were involved. It's likely he dozed.

His brown Camry sliced through a guardrail, went airborne, rattled down a hillside and came to rest wrapped around a rock. They had to saw him from the wreck.

He spent the next 30 days in a coma, the result of diffuse axonal injury -- widespread brain damage -- in intensive care at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore. Friends, coming to the city in shifts, jammed his room during visiting hours. Joan decked the walls with letters, photos and balloons. Ed borrowed tapes, snuck in a Sony boom box and made sure there was plenty of Grateful Dead in the air. Nurses called it the most joyous room on the ward.

Dan may never have known that. He died on May 1, three weeks before he would have turned 31.

One way or another this darkness got to give. -- "New Speedway Boogie" (Hunter-Garcia)

For a whole month, day after day, you fan the embers of hope. You visit when they let you, search your son's eyes for a spark, rub his shoulders, speak as if he could hear.

Then one morning, a surgeon comes in, tears in his eyes, and tells you the operation they had to perform went wrong. You're asked into an adjacent room to identify the body of your only son, and you step into a different life. And on a sunny afternoon, when all nature seems to be in bloom, you and your spouse drive the 80 long miles back to Williamsport and never say a word.

People brought flowers and food, of course. That's about all Ed can remember from those first few days. That and the folks who stopped by to say, "You're in our prayers." That triggered something. He'd been questioning his church's tenets for a while; now they riled him. "How could a God I prayed to let this happen?" he says. "What's the use of prayers?" Daniel's friends kept coming by. "Tell me about my son," Ed told them. Shawn did -- described the road trips they took, showed him pictures of Memphis, Tenn., and Northern California, described the many friends they'd made. Johnny Ditmayer did -- related how easy it was to tell Dan everything, how Dan had convinced him to stop running from a problem with alcohol.

"Around Dan, you grew up," Johnny says.

And the memorial service? Ed couldn't believe who all came -- hiking pals, fellow Deadheads, stricken co-workers, children of friends. They heard a sermon, some classical guitar and, of course, a sampling of Dead. The words to "Ripple" were like a hand on the shoulder: "Reach out your hand if your cup be empty," Garcia's voice warbled. "If your cup is full, may it be again/Let it be known: there is a fountain/That was not made by the hands of men."

When they sorted through Dan's house, Ed and Joan found treasures they'd never known about: "earth drums" he played, poems he wrote, notebooks full of drawings. There was a book full of ticket stubs -- 142, to be exact, to concerts all over North America, not just the Dead but the Allman Brothers, Bob Dylan, Rusted Root.

In 30 short years, the Dan they didn't know had lived fully. The more Ed knew, the more he wanted to learn.

If you get confused listen to the music play. -- "Franklin's Tower" (Hunter-Garcia-Kreutzmann)

Just off the square in central Hagerstown, tie-dyed tapestries festoon a storefront window. Album covers are on display -- the old-fashioned, LP kind, from Workingman's Dead, Skull and Roses, Live Dead. And in the courtyard before the old Maryland Theater, a stocky man in a jester costume greets the people arriving for that night's rock-and-roll show.

"Peace and love," says Ed Branthaver through a rubber skeleton mask, the bells on his hat jangling. "Peace and love!" A few veer around him. Most beam as he hands them a flower and head inside.

The show is "The 40th Anniversary of the Summer of Love"--an allusion to 1967, when "flower power" ruled San Francisco and spread a message of peace -- and on the bill are today's incarnations of acts that Dan knew well: Big Brother and the Holding Company (minus Janis Joplin), the Jefferson Starship (minus Grace Slick), and Tom Constanten, briefly a member of the Grateful Dead.

The Dead and its offspring "jam bands" -- Phish, Bob Weir's Ratdog, Donna Jean and the Tricksters -- have been around so long, it's not uncommon to see grade-school kids dancing alongside gray-haired senior citizens.

For five years now, Ed has made himself a fixture on the scene. Now he wants to share it with everybody. It started six months after the accident.

Two friends of Danny's called Ed and asked him to a show by Phil and Friends -- the new band of ex-Dead bassist Phil Lesh. Then it was Ratdog, which brought its jam rock to Frederick. He hit summer fests in Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia. He even took Joan to San Francisco, where they experienced the Deadhead's holy grail, a New Year's show. Ed wangled his way backstage and shook hands with Mickey Hart.

He was usually accompanied by someone half his age or less who could talk about Dan. He'd dance like a dervish, learn more and more tunes, and wander through the crowds, hugging strangers and telling the story of his son.

"I never meet a person who isn't interested," he says. "They all seem to love Dan."

Was he working off steam? Acting out grief? Holding Daniel by his tie-dyed T-shirt, refusing to let him go? He couldn't say; he still can't. It made him feel better, he was having more fun than he'd ever had, and he couldn't stop.

Wildflower seed on the sand and stone; May the four winds blow you safely home. -- "Franklin's Tower" (Hunter-Garcia-Kreutzmann)

Mourning is a mystery. Ed's retired now, but he did a lot of grief counseling over the years. None of the formulas he'd taught worked for him. Everyone grieves differently, and should.

Joan does hers in private, content to drive her husband to shows, drop him off and go home to garden. Ed, who grew up shy, practically a geek, finds release in extroversion. The few old friends who know of Ed's new passion don't bring it up.

"Maybe they think I'm nuts," he says. "I don't give a damn. I've found myself. I've got more friends than ever. A lot are Dan's, and that's fine by me." He can't recall an awkward moment with any of them.

If mourning is a letting-go, the Branthavers are in process. There's the scholarship fund they've founded in Dan's name, the friends they've made through shows, the party they have each year on his birthday. Joan still has to talk Ed out of getting a life-size photo of Dan for the house.

But one of Ed's goals is to scrapbook his son's life; he still can't bring himself to gather the pictures. Jerry photos, Dead stickers and poems from clients line one wall. Dan's ashes lie in a box in the living room, between a pair of baby shoes and a bottle of Grateful Dead wine.

"One day, we'll spread them on the Appalachian Trail, where Dan loved to hike," Joan says. "At least we think so. Just not yet. Maybe when it's time, we'll know."

Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul. -- "Brokedown Palace" (Hunter-Garcia)

On that West Virginia hillside, the sun sinks and multicolored stage lights come up. The star of the American Roots Music Festival, Donna Godchaux, who once sang in the Grateful Dead, sways with the music of her new group, the Tricksters. She croons a few old Dead tunes and some bluesy new ones. As fireflies light the summer sky, it feels like the Dead, but different.

Ed has only heard her on concert tapes -- Dan's tapes, in fact -- and he says with a smile. "This is super," he says. "Donna sounds great, doesn't she?"

This show is hard by the Potomac River, just across from Williamsport -- Ed's backyard -- and he showed up early. He found that if he sold CDs for two hours, they'd let him attend for nothing.

Between songs, a fellow in his 20s, in dreadlocks, comes over. He has seen the T-shirt slogan -- "SOME THINGS YOU CAN REPLACE AND OTHERS YOU CAN'T," a paraphrase of a Jerry lyric -- and points to the picture of Daniel. "Who's that?" he asks.

Ed turns to tell his story again. By the time he's done, they're embracing, the grieving dad and the wide-eyed hippie, and tears are in their eyes.

jonathan.pitts@baltsun.com
Copyright © 2007, The Baltimore Sun

thanks for the story. Also, 4-9-83 on etree is worth the download.

Dick's Picks is dead, Long Live "Road Trips"

A new series is born. Essentially they're no longer contained by the Dick's Pick definition (must be 2-track). It also looks like they're more willing to make compilations of tour segments, though they say they are not ruling out complete shows.

Road Trips info

Link to the 1st Road Trip

While I know many prefer their Dead to be pre-retirement, fall '79 is very worthy of being mined and is underrepresented in the official releases. Not to be an enabler, but I know a few old-time Deadheads who visit fall '79 (and that's are far as they'll go) & enjoy it greatly when they make their rare stray from Pigpen - '74, or Pigpen - '77. Try it, you might like it.

Woo hoo, it is alive again!

I've ordered the first one. I have no '79 stuff, plus this concept may find me sticking my ears into hitherto unheard territory for me. In fact, I have no post-Keith stuff at all.

And I have no probs with cherry picking a series of shows, as I'm not hung up on the "complete show" ethos.

um, Ill pass. But I am intrigued by `box sets-the patient will be rewarded, hint,....´which I guess is an allusion to the aborted 10 cd 72 run, which some of us preordered awhile back.

I'm in. I can take Brent early in his stint. And I've the same interest as Tony in being rewarded for my patience. . . .

Well I'm one of those complete show freaks so I'm a little bummed. That said, it's good to see they are ramping up the Vault releases again.

Fall '79 has some good shows. I still think Brent was feeling his way around. But there is a certain amount of ENERGY to these performances that had been lacking in last year or so of the Keith & Donna era. My first Dead show was 11/8/79 - an OK show - definitely not as hot as the shows immediately preceding/following it. The Dancin'>Franklin's from 11/9 show is en fuego. I would have liked to have seen something from the 10/27 Cape Cod show. As one of the posters wrote, "weak sauce".

The "Jack Straw>Deal" they're including is a good one. Maybe I'm being optimistic here, but I think the fact they didn't nibble on 10/27 may mean they intend to release it in full someday.

Hmmm....I missed that one, though there was an April Fool's posting about Europe '72 one year.

I put in an order (as did others here) on a "hidden" webpage for a November 9 thru 11, 1973 box. A few days later I got a polite email saying they didn't have such a thing ready. To quote "Magic Bus," I want it I want it! I have all of those shows on disc, but there are cuts in cruel places on 11/9 & 11/10. And 11/11 could use cleaning up & the HDCD treatment. So I'm hoping that's what they were hinting at, though obviously I'll take a big box of '72 too! (Especially if there are cleaner copies of the fall Texas run.)

[quote name='Quincy' date='Nov 3 2007, 01:03 PM' post='711637'

I put in an order (as did others here) on a "hidden" webpage for a November 9 thru 11, 1973 box. A few days later I got a polite email saying they didn't have such a thing ready. To quote "Magic Bus," I want it I want it! I have all of those shows on disc, but there are cuts in cruel places on 11/9 & 11/10. And 11/11 could use cleaning up & the HDCD treatment. So I'm hoping that's what they were hinting at, though obviously I'll take a big box of '72 too! (Especially if there are cleaner copies of the fall Texas run.)
[/quote]


OH A BIG "YES" to everything that Quincy says!!

I had always considered myself a fairly hard core pre-1979 fan, but lately I have been really enjoying vintage 1979-1981. Although I much prefer Keith to Brent, Jerry Garcia's guitar playing at this time is at a peak that is quite different than what he was doing pre-1979. A lot of great music was recorded during this period. The Jerry Garcia Band recordings of this vintage are also not to be missed.

Me bad? or just a tad confused? Yes, my order was in via the hidden web page, but-and my memory could be playing tricks on me-I am sure it was 72, and I am not confusing it with the complete European tour hoax, but I suppose others of you have better memories than me- but anyway-bring it on!

Indeedee: Winterland 1973. The cover was exactly the same as the Fillmore Box--the skull and roses.

As to that hoax about the Europe '72 box--my apologies!!!

But it's a lovely thought.

I think the concept, or perhaps lack of a hard one, makes this new Road Trip series promising. Being able to pick over a month or 2 from the later years could produce some heavy material. Or at least heavier. And yet they're not ruling out complete shows either. Or box sets. That'll keep us guessing!

I noticed that it seems like whenever I order something from the Dead store there's always a Monday postal holiday between it shipping & me receiving it.

Here's a screen capture of the '73 Winterland box set. Not released...though someday we hope!

I hope that one comes out.

Got the new one Friday and listened to most of it so far. It's pretty good. I HATE Brent's electric piano sound. I have an instrument with that sound and I cringe everytime it's switched on. Ruins some songs for me at least right now. . . . Eventually I'll get over it. . . . .

I recently purchased a Jerry Garcia Band 3 CD set from Jerry's website. It has Keith on the electric piano. While I preferred the acoustic piano (this also is even more important for jazz recordings) the electric was more than tolerable with Keith. I am awaiting the 1979 set. I always thought that Brent was put louder in the mix than that for Keith and they allowed more soloing for Brent. Also Keith played much more sparser than Brent.

I've got all the "Pure Jerry" releases. . . . When Keith wanted to he played wonderfully in both the bands.

Still bums me out that you can't find a copy of The Complete Fillmore West 1969 for anything under $450, when is the price every coming down on this one? After almost a year of no Dead, I'm back in the fold...

I feel your pain, Matthew.

Some high-quality boots of those four shows have kept the pain manageable for me.

$450???? Wow. I thought I did good when I sold mine for $310.

I'm probably opening Pandora's Box but...

I prefer the sound of the previous circulating copies(Latvala's rough mix) of that run to the Rhino box.

You may be a fan of "official product," but all of this music can be downloaded for free in high quality 256-bit MP3s at this site Speeding Arrow

The switch to streaming at the Dead's site has been a pain. What's the one application that is easy to use, can capture a stream and save as .mp3, where we specify the save-to folder? I have tried a few freeware and shareware programs (e.g. SoundTap), the functionalities are so fragmented it's ridiculous. I would pay about $15-20 for a really good audio utility program at this point.

Also, is speedingarrow easy to use? I see they want users to register on a bulletin board before they are able to download copyrighted content... Do I have that right?? Have they posted the newly streamed snippets from Tapers Section?

btw, this weeks Dark Star medley is truly a bomb, finishes with rousing Casey Jones. Worth hearing, great sound.

Just ordered the DP's I was missing this morning, so I'll have the complete set in a couple of days. Does that now make me a Derd? (Dead + Nerd=Derd).

Speeding Arrow is very easy to use. I believe that anyone who requests registration gets it very quickly. Are they legal? Well, maybe pseudo-legal. They have a policy of not providing anything that is available (in print) as official product. Check it out.

I registered yesterday, and the confirmation email was sent immediately. Haven't downloaded anything yet though, I'm doing Dime right now.

Live at the Cow Palace: New Years Eve 1976

I dissed this one when it came out, but now that I'm listening to it again, it's much better than I first realized. It has one of the better first sets I've heard, especially a great Playing In The Band to close out set one. The Second set is outstanding, I really dig the Not Fade Away>Morning Dew close, very cool.

Been listening to the San Bernardino: Live at Swing Auditorium February 26, 1977 and it's become one of my favorites -- highly recommended

One of my favorite all time shows happened 35 years ago today down in Houston, Texas.

2007
- 35
1972

Is that right? From the Deadlist site.


Band: Grateful Dead
Venue: Hofheinz Pavilion - University of Houston
Location: Houston, TX
Date: 11/19/72 - Sunday
Set One: Bertha ; Me And My Uncle ; Sugaree [6:47] ; Beat It On Down The Line [3:02] ; Bird Song [10:44] ; Black Throated Wind [6:28] ; Don't Ease Me In [3:10] ; Mexicali Blues [3:20] ; Box Of Rain [4:40] ; Tomorrow Is Forever [5:21] ; Big River [4:07] ; China Cat Sunflower [7:04] > I Know You Rider [4:46] ; Playing In The Band [20:12] ; Casey Jones [5:48]

Set Two [1:36:00] ; The Promised Land [2:52] ; Ramble On Rose [6:08] ; El Paso [4:05] ; Stella Blue [7:13] ; Jack Straw [4:39] ; Dark Star [30:53] > Weather Report Suite Prelude > Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo [8:05] ; Around And Around [4:39] ; Big Railroad Blues [3:48] ; Sugar Magnolia [8:24] > Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad [7:32]

Comments: the show concluding Sugar Magnolia> Goin Down the Road Feelin Bad circulates only in somewhat corroded SBD.
Recordings 220 SBD
Master recording source(s): 1inch Master Reels@7.5ips 1/2trk

That's the one.

The Dark Star is truly amazing. Easily one of my top 10 faves. Phil's bass is WAY up in the mix. Small caveat - the first set is plagued w/ mixing problems. Actually, one of the strongest tunes of the show is "Promised Land". Now normally when someone says that "Promised Land" or "Johnny B.Good" was one of the highlights of the show, I pass. I never thought much of the Dead's covers of Chuck Berry but this version SMOKES.

Been listening to Three From The Vault this afternoon and it's very enjoyable, even McKernan seems to be under control for this concert (he's not one of my favorites, Sorry Lon & Orchid Doctor). First concert after Micky Hart left, and the debut of a couple of songs soon to be concert staples. I'm finding that I really like the "stripped down" model of the Dead, seems to me Kreutzmann could handle anything thrown his way very nicely. Garcia's guitar sounds like it had a much harder edge on this recording than I've heard before, and it sounds powerful. Thinking I'm going have start finding the other stripped down Dead concerts out there and begin to do some serious downloading.

Make sure you check out 8-6-71, and don't let the fact it's an audience scare you off. I'd take audience recordings like the one by Rob Bertrando over soundboards any day! The happy marriage of a great show & great recording.

Yeah Doc Rob made one sweet recording that night. The only audience tape to ever see official release, IIRC. Have you heard any of the remastered AUD recordings of the various Port Chester shows by Ken Lee?? The 6/24/70 and 11/5/70 shows are great shows/pretty darn good recordings and the only way to hear these shows since the reels have gone AWOL from the Vault.

Just the "Hard To Handle" on Fallout From The Philzone right? I believe the part of the Houseboat tapes that are from 8-6-71 on DP 35 are soundboard (never did get that one, so I'm not positive.)



I've got a SNB of the Dark Star>Attics>Dark Star>Sugar Mag>Dark Star>Kitchen Sink>Dark Star (okay, the 2 are made up) part. While compared to so many great sounding recordings available of the Dead it's very rough but it's nowhere near as bad sounding as advertised. Sure, it could be better, but when you have a sequence that crazy you take what you can get! I faded out in my hyper-obsessive Dead collecting mode before getting to 11/5/70, though it was on the list of things to get to. A couple of fall '71 where Keith joins the band shows were also targeted and not gotten. Someday...I had reached the point where I needed to start listening more rather than collecting more.

While AUD patches can be a drag in some shows, there are some I enjoy. I always like the one in the Dark Star>Dew from 9/11/73, because you can feel the excitement from the crowd, especially when the Dew drops. And then it goes back to board - the better to hear the boys. Thanks for the 11/5/70 tip!