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Showing posts with label 1969. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1969. Show all posts

Friday, May 29, 2009

1969 June 14 - Monterey Performing Arts Center

Jerry Garcia June 21, 1969

GRATEFUL DEAD
Saturday, June 14, 1969
Monterey Performing Arts Center - Monterey, CA
Soundboard Recording

Most all Deadheads are familiar with the 1969 “Live Dead” album. To a certain degree, this record represents a watershed moment in the band’s history, showcasing the true “live performance” magic of the Grateful Dead captured on vinyl. Not only does it possess quite possibly the highest of all musical events in all Dead folklore with the 02/27/69 Dark Star, but it also goes a long way in writing the book on the rest of the material contained on the album. While it could be argued that it was all downhill for Dark Star after this LP version (no, I’m not attempting to make this case myself), such is not the case with Lovelight. Its evolution had gotten well down the path by the time they played the version used on the record (January 26, 1969), but it was not nearly complete. As 1969 moved along, Lovelight continued to grow, stretching its boundaries not only in duration, but in creativity as well. By the summer of 1969 the song was bursting at its own seams.

It is often the case when listening to old tapes of Grateful Dead music, that you can be struck by the fact that what you are hearing never made it onto a commercial release, and thereby, into mainstream society. It is not uncommon to hear music so good, you can’t believe it only lives by the grace of a sub societal sect that cared for and shared this music fully outside the scope of a record label and commercial industry’s ability to present it as an example of a band’s musical identity to the “outside” world. This tends to happen at a higher than average ratio when it comes to 1969 Grateful Dead. And June 14th, 1969 exemplifies this in spades.

Turn On Your Love Light > Me And My Uncle > Doin' That Rag > He Was A Friend Of Mine > Dire Wolf; Dark Star > St. Stephen > The Eleven > Turn On Your Love Light > Drums > Turn On Your Love Light

Jerry Garcia December 28, 1969As this show begins, we can hear everything known to be archetypically “Lovelight,” and a good deal more. Jerry’s leads give the appearance that he is a daredevil tightrope walker, fearlessly charging forward while blindfolded and balancing several tea cups on saucers across each extended arm, each of these holding aloft a feather-strewn lady sitting in a chair – like some twisted and distorted Dr. Seuss character. He has no concern which way the tightrope turns, bows, or buckles. He’s confidence radiates for miles. The song rolls like a river charging through the wild west terrain of America, great frothing whitecaps boiling over boulders, long swaths of orange and mustard brown silt running like ribbons under crystal glass cover. We are delivered to more remote and twisted vistas than the commercially released Lovelight might ever have dreamed of. Pockets of imploding feedback, great yawning taffy-like pulls of guitar-dinosaur moaning, and strobe light exploding curtains of color adorn the music while Pigpen’s improvised truck driver love poetry sprinkles a consistent thread throughout the 26 minute opening bookend of the show.

When the song sneaks its way into Me And My Uncle, the unmistakable aura of Grateful Dead magic pervades everything. We are defenseless as the band casts its controlling energy over the entire hall, happily lost in their hypnotic trance. Me And My Uncle crackles with a psychedelic power unfairly permeating a simple cowboy song. Bobby’s vocals quiver and tremble with their edgy glimmer, and Garcia’s guitar work is like a tumbleweed caught in a tornado. The Dead’s ability to superimpose one musical genre into the fibers and tissues of another in 1969 was nearly unequalled in any other year. Here in the summer of ‘69, the band was already headed down a creative path toward the formation of the “Acoustic Dead” which would fully play out through the winter and well into 1970. Yet at this time the titanic lysergic beast of 1968 still shrouded even the most traditional of songs, and often made it a more brain twisting challenge to reach stable ground in even the most straightforward of music. As Me And My Uncle deposits us directly into Doin’ That Rag, we are immediately thrust into the belly of the beast again, and Garcia is in as fine vocal form as he’s been on guitar up to this point. He’s delivery matches Bobby’s with its certain crazed and bug-eyed intensity.

That Jerry Garcia could sing a song! His voice paints a Cheshire Cat smile into the air. Doin’ That Rag is so overflowing with the symbolism that pervades the veiled and subtle messaging of the Grateful Dead, it’s a shame that the song could not have secured a more stable home in the Dead’s repertoire. It flashes forward to Robert Hunter’s lyrical majesty contained on American Beauty, crafting pictures and imagery into a poetic mural of spiritual grace, lessons to learn, and endless snapshots of the psychedelic experience.

This draws us directly into He Was A Friend Of Mine, another song that fell out of the rotation after the first few years and probably the one I personally miss the most, along with Viola Lee Blues. Jerry’s vocals and guitar solo only build upon what was happening in Doin’ That Rag. It’s a drippy walk through a folk ballad, showcasing the Dead’s personal signature wonderfully.

Grateful Dead free concert May 7, 1969When we arrive in Dark Star, it quickly makes everything that proceeded it seem like child’s play. The song comes on as if we’d been slipped a massively over-potent elixir brewed by some medicine man in the Central American jungle, and all the warnings we’d been given in preparation for the ensuing experience amount to not even the smallest level of readiness for what’s happening. Looking back on the show up to this point, we can only laugh at ourselves for having thought we were witnessing the psychedelic grandeur of the Grateful Dead. Dark Star is the real deal, a true game changer.

Oddly, in the grand scheme of Grateful Dead things, the fact of the matter is that most of their music isn’t all that psychedelic. We all have probably been asked the question, “How is this psychedelic rock?” by people in our immediate circle who hear this music over our shoulder. I’ve been asked the question many times, and there’s little point in arguing. Tennessee Jed? Ramble On Rose? Promised Land, Big River? This list goes on and on – this isn’t hippie psychedelic music. I suppose those of us on the inside find it all tinged with the roots of psychedelic rock in some way. Such is the power of that portion of the Dead’s music that truly was psychedelia incarnate. And that, beyond doubt, was Dark Star in 1969. The Dead’s psychedelic preferences didn’t infuse Dark Star. Dark Star was the elixir itself. It was stepping into the inner chamber of a hidden palace to find a secret underground sea of mists, colors, and sounds all in a cosmic dance of intricate beauty. One taste, and you can forever onward begin to trace hints of it throughout everything else. Have you ever heard the strains of Dark Star while gently taking in a beautiful spring morning? That’s it.

There’s little sense in road mapping 06/14/69’s Dark Star for you here. It’s a version that makes you very thankful that recordings of this band were made in such abundance. The idea of this performance having been lost to history as each note rang out without being recorded is unthinkable. The one thing I will mention in regard to the actual playing on 06/14 is that while the entire song quickly latches into the musical satori experience of the Grateful Dead’s living breathing musical muse, there is a near indescribable soul burning passage in the section that follows the first verse. As music revolves, and feedback swarms into all empty space around every sound, the dance between form and chaos overwhelms. This push and pull is never ending. It lays to waste any ability to retain a sense of separation between music and listener.

Jerry Garcia 1969You are drawn to listen because the music is finding itself within you. Dark Star is the muse within us all. It wakes itself as it plays. The illusion is that we believe Dark Star works on us. This is not true. It is seeking itself within us. We aren’t really there at all in the end. The more we can work to realize this absence of division, the more deeply we can release into the moment. The parallels to pure spiritual knowing here are not coincidental. The force of Being sings through many forms, and in the depths of Dark Star its musical voice is true. The thematic undercurrent which was Dark Star itself binds to everything in the Grateful Dead’s history. In that, it goes beyond any simple mapping from one song to another on a time line. In 1969 we were blessed to be exposed to the pulsing heart of the Dead’s magic. Once exposed, the beat echoes forever forward and back, in and out of music, in and out of self. Dark Star is just something altogether elemental while also dwelling beyond most everything else imaginable.

When Saint Stephen rolls out into The Eleven, there is a controlled frenzy to the intricate rhythm. As if taming something part swarm of bees, part lightning, and part molten furnace core, the Dead sear through time and space with an impossible control over something so ferocious. The music sweats. The pulse races. And in a great swirl of callioped color we find ourselves back at the start of the show as Lovelight steps back on the stage. Beautifully the song drops completely out into Space momentarily and then flashes back into view (one of my favorite elements of any Lovelight). Complete with opening band Aum's leader, Wayne "Tha Harpe" Ceballos, filling in a bit as a guest vocalist, and a drum solo in the midst of everything else, this closing bookend of Lovelight adds another 17 minutes on top of the 26 minute opening ride. Yes, Lovelight was in full bloom during the Summer of 1969.

The tape we have sounds good, but also possesses something of a classic Dead bootleg quality to it. It isn’t culled directly off of a 10” master reel. It has that cassette feel to it, while not taking anything away from the quality of the recording – just a nice layer of listening pleasure reminding us how lucky we are to have the tape at all.

06/14/69 SBD etree source info
06/14/69 SBD Stream

Sunday, August 3, 2008

1969 November 8 - Fillmore Auditorium

Grateful Dead Nov 7-8 1969 poster

GRATEFUL DEAD
Saturday, November 8, 1969
Fillmore Auditorium – San Francisco, CA
Soundboard Recording

This show has rightfully been elevated out of the trading circle and into the Dick’s Picks official release series (Vol. 16). One of the finest choices of all the DP’s.

Below is a review I wrote upon request before the official release in early 2000, in conjunction with the SBD master getting into circulation after Jim Wise painstakingly cleaned up some clicking artifacts on the master tape.
~~~

There is something overwhelmingly potent about this show. This second set will mine for any possible remnants of psychoactive chemicals in your being whether they were last placed there twenty minutes ago, or twenty years ago. It will even create them out of the pure ether of your life force if you never added them to your mix personally. This show is a spark that lights a technicolor bonfire in your mind. A roaring, pulsing, groaning beast. This is, after all, 1969. And it is completely obvious why Dick found this to be a crown jewel. There is something overwhelmingly potent about this show.

The Dark Star begins with whispers. They ebb out into the air like flowers opening to greet the morning sun. This is the band’s unique ability to give you reason to feel completely safe within their world. No matter what happens, you are being guided by a friend. A brother holds your hand.

Jerry Garcia 1969Slow passages rise and fall on the way to the first verse of the song. You can sense the craft at work in the band’s collective hand. They have become masters at this over the last three or four years. Gentle smoke rings dance and twist in still air. There are a few moments of slight crescendo before Jerry gets things centered, and the first verse begins.

On the tail of the verse, the drummers open the gates that held back the breezes that would just as easily put ripples into time itself as brush back the hair on your head. Cymbals sing and time signature buckles. The floor opens up and we tumble into a space that is restrained, given what is to come. But we don’t know that yet. Right now, music is gone and the band is running its fingers through our veins and skin. Things climb in intensity. The drummers find a foothold and Jerry returns to earth with his guitar in one hand, and yours in another. Safe again.

Most remarkable about the ensuing music is the myriad of directions being explored. It starts with a nice Dark Star jam that continues to ebb and flow, rise and fall. Phil leads the way into a Feelin’ Groovy jam that acts as the highest peak of the set thus far. The beast is fully awake now, eyes darting in all directions. This peak sets the band at a tremendous energy level. After a brief bit of breathing room, Phil leads the way into Other One.

Dick Latvala's 11/8/69 DAT tape coverThe Other One was another tune displaying the absolute master craftsmanship of the Dead this year, and this one is up for the challenge. Tremendous. There is a wash of layer upon layer of theme rising out of the surging music, like small fires that ooze and glow from the corners of your eyes. After another mild passage, things build with Phil throwing in the Feelin’ Groovy line again. Things settle some more and we find Phil enter with a hint of Alligator under Jerry’s Other One lines. Then it’s as if three or four songs are being played at the same time. Even a small Me and My Uncle is oozing around. This is unbelievably moving. Finally we get to the verse. But nothing can quite prepare us for the jamming that comes out of the Other One and through the next many miles of road. The interplay of the band is remarkable. With so much being hinted at over and over again, that base of primal chemical life force in your brain is completely melded to the mothership at the center of everything. You are "there". For a long while nothing is happening and it is truly magical. In between Other One and Dark Star we have ascended to a place where the distinction between I and Band are gone. No song is being played. No themes are explored. Everything is just stretched out in all directions. The music just "is". Words fail. Dark Star prevails.

It returns, lilting on a bubbly Garcia, hopping through fields of flowers. Only enough Dark Star to know we are there. There’s more of the Feelin’ Groovy underpinning while colors and lights whiz by.

Not good enough for you? Just another Dark Star ho-hummedly trekking toward St. Stephen? No. What’s that theme? Everyone seems together on it, but I can’t quite pin it down? It seems so well rehearsed. But what is it? Then…

Jerry leads the band through an instrumental verse of Uncle John’s Band that is too good to be true. You will never forget the first time you hear this. Ever! It is a joyride of the highest order. When they eventually get back to that theme you couldn’t quite pin down, of course it’s Uncle John’s. The theme quickly passes into a nice transitional state. Then it is Dark Star completely. Amazingly, it is Dark Star of all songs that is acting as our lifeline to reality. But safe once again we are, all cuddled around the band as Jerry finishes this story of so many things. "Shall we go…?"

Grateful Dead 1969It’s St. Stephen, piled on thick. It has a slaphappy feel to it, maybe a tad slower than normal. The Lady Finger verse finds the audience in true silence, and the band plays ever so quietly behind. The riotous build after "One man gathers what another man spills" is real nice, getting almost completely out. But not quite. Fear not, we will get completely out just a little later.

The Eleven is a whip cracking good version, and charges right along. Near the end, as they enter the slightly more bluesy jam after the Eleven theme is explored for the last time, we get the over blending of themes again. Death rears it’s head, but the Dead show no mercy. There is too much raw power coursing through the room. Things start to boil ferociously. The world is about to split apart at the seams. The time signature rolls in and out of 11/8 and then Phil is again hinting at Alligator. The rest of the band is just latching on when Phil gets right into Caution. From here we slide into a nice lazy jam of sorts. You gotta think that they are looking for Pigpen at this point. And sure enough, things truly simmer way down and we hear Jerry call after the amazing lead singer. No luck? Okay, Jerry is content to start hinting at Me and My Uncle. But then Pig must make his way to the stage because the band finds a bit of focus in the direction of Caution again.

This is it. The beat quickens and electricity is brimming all around. This Caution embodies so much of what the Dead were so good at, as really most all Cautions do. They could get a fast paced Bluegrass rhythm going and completely fuse it to the deepest extremes of raw psychedelic space in such a way that you just couldn’t know which way was up. Add in what might be one of Pigpens finest improv raps, and you have yourself one of the best Cautions ever caught on tape.

Jerry Garcia 1969As promised earlier, the band does make it completely *out*, and right on cue. "Just a touch!" After an amazing drop out into feedback with Pigpen cooing and calling in the background, Caution rebuilds itself one small piece at a time. Amazingly, the beat returns from out of nowhere, Jerry’s licks start rockin’ along, but there is still all this deep groaning and flowing all around us. No matter how far back into the song we make it, there is always this element of deep space hovering like a cat waiting to pounce. We get back in the groove, but it is clear from that last break with reality that this band can get much farther out there than anything that has gone down in the last hour. Hold on.

It’s all gloriously too much. Just when it seems that the song is back for a while they really flip out into Space. But Jerry is slamming out the Caution rhythm even faster now and Pigpen comes right back to the microphone. His inspired rap follows.

"Work fine for me
And my grandmother too
It work purdy good
I know it gonna work for you
Ain’t no way
To get around it
I know
Somebody good found it.."

The entire rap is amazing. Pig assembles the words, story, and rhythms as if he spent months getting it just exactly perfect. He’s more in a personal zone. His lines sort of swim and slide along. It’s an eyes closed sort of thing. After some time, you can hear the band putting together The Main Ten behind him.

Grateful Dead May 16, 1969This version of The Main Ten is well explored. It has that unmistakable Playin’ In The Band feeling, but it is peppered with all sorts of great tangents. At its end the band seems sure to go into Death Don’t. But then Jerry is beating out an even faster Caution. There really is no better place to go from here. As it climbs its way back, there is an aura taking shape that begins to defy description. The feathery edges of nerve endings are all rippling in a tide of an effervescent ocean. It’s another period in the show where the distinctions between I and Band are lost. Caution Caution Caution. Eventually there are the block step chords, first in threes, then in fours. This kind of things really must have struck home for anyone in the audience who had seen the band over the years, or listened to Anthem of the Sun under the right conditions. The slamming chords erupting out of a sea of madness - altering the structure again by going from three to four could not help but stir up a haunting recollection of having been here before. Then Jerry is shredding the way into Feedback.

It’s some eight or nine minutes long, and I can’t think of any reason to attempt to lend a linear tour through what happens. You are on your own.

And we bid you good night, good night, good night.
~~~

I never intended to post a review on this blog that did not immediately provide the reader with the ability to hear the show in question. It's actually one of my favorite elements of this Internet medium itself. I'm sorry that I'm breaking my own rule here, but you needed to know about this show even though you can't stream it off the archive into your ears right this second. This one is worth your hunting down for purchase. Enjoy!

11/08/69 etree source info
11/08/69 Purchase Only

Sunday, March 16, 2008

1969 May 3 - Winterland Arena

GRATEFUL DEAD
Saturday, May 3, 1969
Winterland Arena, San Francisco, CA
Audience Recording

1969 was an altogether epic year for the Grateful Dead. Baring just a few, virtually all shows will deliver smiles.
While there aren’t necessarily piles of fantastic audience recordings from this year, there are a few nice ones. And deciding to stick with my AUD tape theme makes it a whole lot easier to pick a first stop in ’69.

5/3/69 might not go down as the greatest 1969 show in history. A lot of the show wasn’t even recorded. But it could go down as one of the best AUD tapes ever. Most would agree that you have GOT to hear this tape. It was recorded from the lip of the stage, and while the vocals are distant since the mics were outside of the PA speaker field, what you end up with is a frighteningly clean AUD recording of the band. Ever wonder what it might have been like to be sitting on the stage during a Dead show? Here you go.

The quality of this tape eclipses the performance. But even so, the He Was A Friend Of Mine is absolutely gorgeous, and the Other One suite contains a good number of power packed peaks with Jerry’s solos leaping into the air, careening on angles not found in our simple three dimensional world.

There’s nothing to regret here aside from the fact that the tape runs out way too early in the show. Please avoid the use of heavy machinery while listening, and you might want to turn out the lights. This tape will suck you in pretty quickly.

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