AmirBagachelles

My review of the movie: Stupendous, captures the Dead at the tail-end of the peak 68-74 period. Too much fun on screen all the time, the print looks great. I only have a lo-fi DVD rig (just a small tv hooked up), so others will have to fill you in on the sound goodies. I haven't checked out disc 2. I can't find the darn audio soundtrack 5-CD set at retail. Has anybody seen it?

I can smell Chuck's piss all the way out here East. I don't think a new member should be called out like that. Wow.

All Night Sessions right on, and that's also a tasty Jim Hall set. And great sound.

Dear dear dead Dick might agree that the best stuff from '77 may never get officially released because so much of it already circulates in great sound in the taper/CDR community. He said as much in a 1996 interview in Dupree's Diamond News. Englishtown 9/3/77 was an exception because they had a multitrack tape they wanted to put out. You can go out and get for free about 20 whole shows I believe in monster sound, that's right for free. Doesn't mean you won't want what the band is charging for, but I haven't seen my '77 favorites in the DP series, though that Fox show is fantastic, I had Lakeland 2nd set from the Deadhead Hour yrs ago, it's OK. The ones I am now most hopeful for are from November, especially Rochester, because there aren't many A+ board recordings around. I really think the best thing that has been released from the late 70s is either 12/29/77 Winterland or from May 1978, a combo of New Haven and Springfield. I think Jerry's playing is way more interesting than the yr before, and the band is just as hot. Really, check that one out!!! Dan

I do. At an old Don Ellis fan site, I ran into some people who had done some good transfer to CD from vinyl, they came out great. PM me for more info.

The Help On the Way suite disappeared from the live sets for about five years (78-83), and boy that was depressing. Be sure to hunt down some of the good versions from all those 77 boards that circulate, I like Buffalo from May, Springfield from April, there are many so ask a tape collector who knows the dates (you know these people, they never left their apartments in the 80s and early 90s for fear of missing a tape flip). I was blown away by the way the Dead played Help>Slip in 1983 (Hampton, Santa Fe), but I don't have a single tape of it. I may not have any of the later versions of it.

I have some fine (really fine) CDRs of Tears of Joy, At Fillmore, and Autumn from the French CD reissue.

I picked this up for just a few bucks, though it will be weeks before I am reunited with my turntable. Does anybody know the reputation of this record, maybe why Columbia or Tony has not seen fit to put it on CD?

I'd rather hear the The Who from 10/8-9/76 than the Dead sets, but I'll take it.

Let it rock, a wonder to behold, this beats really have some great drive. Go see and hear the man, and a terrific under-recognized live band.

wow the last 3 posts taking the Van hyperbole down a notch, but still: side 2 of Moondance, Astral Weeks... mmmm inspiring music first rate '68 for absolute sure, and yes so much of the Warner years is excellent. (I'll be giving it up for Van on the discman and at home for the next few days, can't you tell?)

I am looking for Tony Bennett - Harold Arlen Songbook on CDR. Stefan I will PM you w/ what I've got

that's why the movie and the soundtrack release are gonna really be special; I hope people check these out

Does anybody know why these two gems have never gotten top notch remastering from the label? Do they not own the tapes? All of the other great Van the man records have gotten a nice upgrade since the late 80s. I'm not sure Moondance could sound any better, maybe a little less reverb, but Astral Weeks has some lush strings that really sound bad in 1st gen digital. Amazing records these are. Does anybody know how Van came to use Richard Davis and Connie Kay on Astral Weeks? Van-heads - show yourselves please.

To Chuck's point on the artist's tastes, is there any record of BN session leaders swaying and heavily influencing RVG's mix? I think of Sam Rivers as a musician sensitive to a wide range of sound dynamics, does anybody know what he thinks of Contours? Maybe he was only too happy to have Carter's faint presence, but the writing would not suggest that was likely.

And HOW BOUT those scumbags who sold Coke that ditty about teaching the whole world to sing?

Clem - for me and my friends the topic of Garcia's self-destruction was kind of a buzz kill stretching all the way back to 1980 when it was blow, and it was the whole band or so the scene said. Jerry was a sharp player as far as I know before he became an addict. Rumors of addiction started in 1978, as I think back. I think we assumed this great musical man was just bored with the "structures" that the Dead had taken on (e.g. serial annual schedules of a spring tour, a fall tour, two sets a short one and a longer one, stretching out only in the second set, Weir's weird/bad songs, a big payroll, no recent breakthrough songs written by him and Hunter except maybe Terrapin and Shakedown). One thing I do remember from my first few years out seeing shows (1977, 78,79) was that the "old timers" who had seen the band with Pigpen were just appalled at how the scene had evolved to almost all arena and stadium events, no time for the band to hang out, stretch out musically, and they actually loved the 10-20 minutes between songs when the band would re-tune their gear! More time to smoke up I'm sure. I also got to wondering whether Garcia, who loved great songs, anybody's great songs, would have liked to done things like Russian Lullaby with the Dead. The JGB was like a private passion for an expanded repertoire, even though the limitations of roughly three nights of material in the early 80s was stressing out Jerry's love for the Dead (I think). So the Dead as day job seems to capture the essence of his career trouble, for me. I know much has been written about his personal life, but I don't think that was what took him down the drugs-of-death route that he took. I have not read much of anything written about Jerry or the band, I guess I will read the books by Rock Scully (mgr), Parish (roadie), and McNally (biographer ??) eventually. I think Garcia just loved music, all kinds of music, and he got off most of all on traditional and Grateful Dead music and living on the road. Tonight, I am going to listen to music from a great weekend twenty five years ago, when 3 friends and I drove 12 hours from DC to the Cape Cod Coliseum, with only tickets, gas money, and about a hundred bucks between us. We slept in the car. Roaring hot music, a sweaty dripping tripping face dance party for two nights, finally after about 15 shows a giant weekend payoff came. Every solo rings the bell, the band is firing everybody up -- Dancing In the Streets, Half Step, China Cat Rider, Franklin's Tower, and The Other One with an outsized skull splitting bass intro. After the first night, it was clear there was no place to go up there on the Cape, and we weren't alone. Several thousand of us just stayed in the arena pounding on the bleachers singing screaming Not Fade Away. All you need to know about Jerry is that he probably would have liked to have been out there playing songs, any kind of great song, to the crowd between those two shows. But times had changed. It was not 1970 and we could not just roll out onto the avenue, and turn around and pay and come back in again, until the next night.

Garcia release from 1980: not up to the level of the set list or the novelty of the Eleanor Rigby instrumental (there were at least 3 that were hotter than this one, try Lisner, Oswego, Stone), skip it, wait for the Broadway releases upcoming. The 1980 set features tame ensemble playing, unspeakably lame keyboard player, bad Robert Hunter vocals on two bad Robert Hunter band/solo tunes played by the JGB. Some nice bass flavors from John Kahn. Good voice and spirited playing all the way from Jerry, in what was a real good year from him. Real nice bonus disc that came with the pre-order, as good as any disc in the set. So get it if you're feeling rich or just loved every possible night out hearing Jerry, the way many of us did. If we're lucky and if history is any guide, some of other 1980 JGB material will now get leaked from the vault and that keyboard player will be nowhere to be heard.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...4044118918&rd=1

See the sun sparkle in the reeds, Silver beach fastened to the sea I stand corrected on that second line.

Absolutely one of the great records of the 50s. And I love just about everything w/ Pettiford.

wow I hear I mean I don't hear what you mean. The bass is often so slight it seems purposeful. I will be listening to the vinyl over the weekend. Great music, great album. You go Sam.

Good old J&R in NYC has them all for $13. Is this a great town or what?

Don't know about copy protection. I'm loving Contours and Dance With Death today at work. And I can't wait to listen to the Hill again w/ headphones tonight. (Today seems a big big tease for the Hill Select in '05.)

Contours should be in print for all time. It's as good as any BN 60s session I know.