1974 May 25 - UC Santa Barbara





GRATEFUL DEAD

Saturday, May 25, 1974

Campus Stadium, UC Santa Barbara -- Goleta, CA

Audience & Soundboard Recordings

Judged across the entire 30 year span of Grateful Dead music, 1973 and 1974 possess tremendous similarities. However, when viewed in detail they reveal stark differences at many levels.

The explorative playing style in 1974 has an aggressive and intentional bent. The band was pushing in ‘74, whereas in 1973 things seemed more about open discovery. By 1974 the discoveries of ‘73 were well catalogued, and the band spent that majority of '74 working these discoveries to their bidding.

The entire 1974 opus displays this tendency, but the Santa Barbara show on May 25th seems to do so in extreme fashion. 5/25/74 sounds nearly nothing like 1973. It is a show full of an almost hell-bent intensity which pervades the entire performance.

Set 1: U. S. Blues, Mexicali Blues, Deal, Jack Straw, Scarlet Begonias, Beat It On Down The Line, Brown Eyed Women, Me & My Uncle, Sugaree, El Paso, China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider, Around & Around
Set 2: Promised, Ship Of Fools, Big River, Tennessee Jed, Truckin' > Jam > Space > Let It Grow > Wharf Rat, Sugar Magnolia > Going Down The Road Feelin' Bad > One More Saturday Night, E: Casey Jones

We are treated to both a fine soundboard and an audience recording of this sweet show. Being at an outdoor venue in midday, one can't help but appreciate, yet again, the glory of the Wall of Sound being preserved on tape in the open air. The audience tape, recorded by Jeremy Witt, pulses with a thick and almost suffocating electricity that only 1974 could produce. It is not to be missed.

I'm not keeping tabs on such a thing, but the Scarlet Begonias here on 5/25 may be the fastest one on record. The song's syncopated rhythms stand out like spikes. Scarlet churns like a great ball of fire, packed with the energy of swirling suns and titanic plumes of lightning. In whiplash fashion, the band flies through the song's verses, leading to some Donna wailing that eclipses anything you may have heard in another show. She truly outdoes herself -- the energy of the song possessing her in a way that I've not heard before or after (and I've heard my fair share of Donna wails). It's brief, but she seems catapulted into the air by the rushing music. Jerry follows this up with a rapid solo which rounds into the end of the song so quickly it will make your head spin.

But this barely hints at the intensity found in the China>Rider later in the set. Searing, devastating, nearly brutal in tempo, this China Cat jam will evaporate the air in your lungs. The Dead explode through the descending four chord block section and whirl into I Know You Rider amidst a blaze of glory. Phil is causing continental shifts while Garcia's guitar strings become comets burrowing into the atmosphere, their trailing tails crackling with strobe light sparklers. We reach the end of the song as if it was speeding by like a rocketing freight train. It slams to a stop leaving our eyes as wide open as the horizon.The music is taking no prisoners today.

You won't find too many mentions of the tune Around & Around on these pages, but as if to outdo the entire first set leading up to it, this version steps in and demolishes everything for miles around. Rock-n-Rock all the way. Whoa. They need to stop here just to let the Wall cool down a little.

The May 1974 run is punctuated with four fantastic Truckin's over six shows.Number one can be visited on 5/12/74. Here on the closing day of the run, with the full head of steam this sweltering show has been building already, we launch into another epic rendition.

Out of the final verse great torrents of molten lava and serpent tongue licking fire flood every pore. Melting wagon wheels of imploding light fuse all senses into one avalanche of power. Slowly, the band lets the crushing energy of the music give way to a more liquid and loping landscape. Garcia eases into great rich bell tones and the music slips into the air as if turned into ten thousand multi-hued feathers. The air becomes filled with music streaming and trailing in all directions. Eventually, the ironclad connectivity of sound is broken and the music forms undulating mountains spread across a valley stretching into the distance. Coils and tendrils seethe underfoot coming to grip the terrain more and more tightly. Wind shifts and Let It Grow shimmers into view.

Let It Grow, as one might expect, takes off like a rocket ship. Played as fast as any version I can recall, the surging music allows Garcia to reach speeding staccato notes in his solo while also giving way to great swooning shooting stars. This Let It Grow jamming distinguishes much of the 1974 playing style and stands in direct contrast to 1973. Things just didn't move this fast in that earlier year.

Let It Grow tips over the edge of the world into vast clouds, cascading sublimely into Wharf Rat. The song goes on to brew a deeply entwined tapestry of sound-colors. It latches itself to the pulse of our breathing; the marrow in our bones is awash with the touch of this timeless rhythm. The veil of reality dissolves into infinite details, strumming an ancient and haunting song of the soul. Music becomes water and wind finding its way into every crevice; filling every vessel. Here, again, is the forever beating heart of the Grateful Dead. With no effort, we merge into that which can only be described as something we've always known to be ourselves.

By the time the band pulls out Going Down The Road Feeling Bad, we are back in the direct path of the scorching sun. Billy's drumming dances like a symphony of rainbow refractions out of a crystal seascape. He appears to be coming from every possible direction. Jerry lets fly one fiery solo after another, eventually riding that familiar geyser of swirling light into the sky, illuminating the clouds from within. The show seems incapable of exhausting its source of power, and drives on through a set closing One More Saturday Night, and a decidedly tasty Casey Jones in encore. Whew!

05/25/74 AUD etree source info
05/25/74 AUD Download

05/25/74 SBD etree source info
05/25/74 SBD Stream

note: All photos were taken on 5/25/74, photographer credit unknown.

1981 March 9 - Madison Square Garden

GRATEFUL DEAD
Monday, March 9, 1981
Madison Square Garden - New York, NY
Audience Recording 

The maturation process for a Deadhead tape collector is a very interesting thing indeed. Whether it's in the way one slowly develops an ear to "hear" a year from just a few seconds of a song, or gains the ability to call a tune long before it starts based off of random between-song noodling happening on stage; with more listening comes the perception of subtleties and nuances which can elude other less experienced ears.

One subtle nuance that sticks with me from the time long before I was a seasoned listener myself is that of being able to discern a "really on" show from one that might be considered "normal." "On" refers to that level of play which goes decidedly over the top from what we might consider a regular Grateful Dead performance. It's different than a "good show." It's actually more about a certain extra layer of sparkle, for lack of a better explanation.

This nuance sticks out for me because I distinctly remember having no clue how to discern the "really on" attribute at all. And I recall not caring. I recall feeling like every new tape that passed through my mail box was "really on" as far as I was concerned. In this, my ignorance truly was bliss.

And then I heard 03/09/81.

Shows from the 80's tend to blur together. Maybe this makes it somehow easier for certain performances to stand out -- I'm not sure. Regardless, one song in to 03/09/81 and it becomes abundantly clear that Jerry is on. I suppose recognizing this takes at least having heard enough shows to create a frame of reference, but during his solo in Feel Like A Stranger, when his amplifier tubes are being pushed to the edge of destruction -- an over saturated and piercing tone -- Jerry explodes like a plume of liquid starlight. It's not a long passage, but it's more than enough to make anyone within an ear's distance cock an eyebrow and smile. And this quality proceeds to infuse the entire night's performance. There's something about Garcia all night. He is really on.

Before diving into the show, it's also worth noting that this Barry Glassberg audience recording is quite certainly one of the very best audio documents around. Clear from the first notes, this recording oozes with the power to whisk you directly out of your everyday existence, and land you squarely in the sweetest spot imaginable at a 1981 Dead show.

Set 1: Feel Like A Stranger, Althea > C. C. Rider, Ramble On Rose > El Paso, Deep Elem Blues, Beat It On Down The Line, Bird Song, Minglewood Blues
Set 2: China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider> Samson & Delilah, Ship Of Fools, Estimated Prophet > Uncle John's Band > Drums > Space > Other One > Stella Blue > Good Lovin' E: U. S. Blues

Highlights tumble over each other throughout the show. Almost no song goes untouched by Garcia's clearly overreaching endeavors. Beyond the riveting Stranger to open the first set, Bird Song contains wonders both great and small. There are lines in Jerry's solo that pierce the air; repeating phrases that echo down miles of mental canyons, forcing the song's dynamics to pull in every extreme. Then there are passages spun into endlessly intricate tapestries with threads as thin as hair; gossamer strands of coiling moonlight. This is a version not to be missed.

A fine China>Rider opens the second set, and within the transition is a deliciously long intro jam to I Know You Rider. It finds Jerry repeatedly allowing himself an extra set of measures, unwilling to step off into the song itself. This forces us to become more and more lost in the moment, and the intoxicating nature of the second set is only just starting. The Rider bounding directly into Samson & Delilah is a nice added delight.

The music expanding out of Estimated Prophet sounds like a slowed down China>Rider groove that slowly undulates, breathing whispers and mysteries. The 7/8 time signature quickly evaporates and every note becomes syncopated upon the last. Soon we are on slow rolling hills with each musician following his own lazy path. Subtly, Garcia massages a key change and the jam slips into Comes A Time territory bringing with it a familiar and joyous opening of the heart. Garcia's notes sing, and we are smiling forever, deliciously lost with the band.

Sun flakes settle, and murmurings echo quietly around us. The music is thinking, pondering its next direction. Like a slowly drawn curtain, Uncle John's Band is revealed. Always a perfect choice, we are swept in, spinning on the trails of Jerry's lightly arching melodies. When we sail into the final section of the song, his solo is a mix of staccato swirls and bursting bird calls. Edges sharpen and Garcia's tone fluctuates between ice and honey. The jam takes on the pure Grateful Dead voice, defying song identification. We are resting close to the music's soul here, and invisibly we pass into Drums & Space.

Treated to a post Space Other One, things can hardly get any more satisfying. As is often the case, the band demands surrender across treacherous terrain. Boulders and lighting, ancient masks and imploding planets -- the rush of sensory overload tips us over the edge. Hopeless to define a myriad of images that pass in great thousand year gusts, we merge with the music completely.

Edges give way, and miraculously we emerge out of the second verse into a gleaming, towering hall of trees lit from within. The music swirls delicately between branches nearly unseen. Jerry's voice appears leading us through a delicate and touching Stella Blue. Once again, the band exudes a tenderness that elevates the musical experience beyond mere Rock ‘n Roll.

Once hearing this show, it might be easier for you to put your finger on nuances that separate the different levels of Grateful Dead performances. This show is a lesson in hearing the energy within the music, and recognizing it in other places forever afterward.

03/09/81 AUD etree source info

03/09/81 AUD Download

Under Eternity Blue - Winter Walking

The eleventh installment of the Under Eternity Blue radio program hits the Internet airwaves this weekend on Spirit Plants Radio with two show times: Saturday, December 11 at 8pm PST, and Sunday, December 12 at 7am PST.

Spirit Plants Radio asked DJs to give this week's show some level of a seasonal theme. During the busy holiday season, this episode opts to explore the solitude and peace that may be found on a late night walk in Winter. The show attempts to paint a musical landscape to accompany the listener on a personal and peaceful journey - sometimes handy at this time of year.

After this weekend's airings, this episode will be added to the Under Eternity Blue podcast series and if you are subscribed, you will find this broadcast appearing as a new podcast download then. Information for subscribing can be found at the Under Eternity Blue Music site itself.

http://spfradio.yage.net/
Under Eternity Blue with DJ Arkstar
Saturday, December 11: 8pm PST
Sunday, December 12: 7am PST

The full weekend line up (11am PST Saturday - 11pm PST Sunday) is listed on the Spirit Plants Radio page above.

The Music Never Stopped

We as Deadhead's are typically a musically sophisticated bunch. Most of us are hard wired to enjoy music deeply, and often our tastes expand far and wide.

As I've mentioned here from time to time, the Dead only fill about 10% of my musical universe on a daily or weekly basis; often far less than even that. In many years of pushing my musical horizons, I have always looked for resources in the sphere of "all music" that can do for me what I try to do here in the Grateful Dead sphere - take my hand, make suggestions, and turn me on to music I would otherwise never find. One of the best I've found is MOG.com.

Beyond its depth of music and the community, I get fixated on the simple slider tool which allows me to see "similar artists" while listening to any song. It's an instant wormhole to connected music I've never heard. I get lost in that slider like most folks get lost playing video games.

MOG is offering free trial memberships right now. If you haven't played around with this site, I encourage you to do so. Check it out.

1973 March 24 - The Spectrum

 

GRATEFUL DEAD
Saturday, March 24, 1973
The Spectrum - Philadelphia, PA
Soundboard Recording

So we established early on that I set up the Grateful Dead Listening Guide playing the character of an old hippie guy living across the street from you. One day a couple of years ago you and he struck up a conversation, and soon you found yourself invited over to the old guy's basement where you were seated in the sweet spot between artfully spaced stereo speakers as he began pulling tapes off the wall, filling your ears with stories, enchantments and mysteries deep and vast.

Judging from your repeated return visits, everything has gone very well. You continually enjoy an endless parade of music-magic, and the old hippie finds tremendous pleasure in learning more about his own spiritual connection to the music through this sharing and the reflected joy it clearly produces in your welcoming eyes and ears.

By this point we've share a great deal of music and it sometimes becomes a slight struggle for the old hippie to pick the next tape. This time, rather than trying to outdo myself by producing a completely hidden gem, I've decided to go back to one of the very first shows I ever received from the year 1973.

March 24th 1973 is well circulated, and I wore my own tape thin way back when my grand total of 1973 shows was about 2. Perhaps because of this, the show never really struck me as something to recommend to you here. Perhaps I felt somehow that the show's magic wasn't unique enough. Maybe I thought that it was too commonplace a tape. No matter the reason, it didn't help that I hadn't listened to the show in a very, very long time. That all changed on a whim when I pulled the show back out.

Revisiting it now, I'm struck with the realization that this show I so easily let myself forget over the years possesses a heaping helping of that which I treasure most about 1973 Grateful Dead jamming – a certain nimble jazzy Ferris wheel sound that I often only find deep in the summer of this fine year. It's no wonder that this, as one of my very first tapes, cemented my lifelong connection to the Dead, and to 1973 in particular.

Set 1: Bertha, Beat It On Down The Line, Don't Ease Me In, The Race Is On, Cumberland Blues, Box Of Rain, Row Jimmy, Jack Straw, They Love Each Other, Mexicali Blues, Tennessee Jed, Looks Like Rain, Wave That Flag, El Paso, Here Comes Sunshine, Me & Bobby McGee, Loser, Playin' In The Band

Set 2: Promised Land, China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider, Big River, Stella Blue, Me & My Uncle, He's Gone > Truckin' > Spanish Jam > Space > Dark Star > Sing Me Back Home > Sugar Magnolia E: Johnny B. Goode

The pleasures of this show are not only waiting deep in the second set. We are treated to a lovely first set and quite an extended Playin' In The Band to wrap it up. Psychedelics explode on the scene as if they've been held back to the bursting point. The music swirls. Colors bleed. Jerry casts out leads that tip toe deftly over rolling river rapids, often taking a path up over tree tops and then incredibly threading between blades of grass. Late in the jam we find Garcia taking a break while the rest of the band continues to churn with a kaleidoscoping display of yellow-orange embers dancing through burning logs. Jerry returns and adds searing white and fuchsia flames to the mix as the song returns to close the first set.

China>Riders in March 1973 are noteworthy for often delivering an unprecedented amount of energy and momentum, and the one here on March 24th wastes little time living up to the reputation. The transition jam flies. The band locks into a shuffle with Garcia streaming sunbeams, and the familiar four-chord jam, while not being as heavily pronounced as in other versions, does not disappoint as we transition into I Know You Rider. With solo sections that burst with that joyful effervescence that defines the Dead in so many ways, we can't help but smile throughout the entire song.

Of course it's the shows extended jam in the second set that places this show on a pedestal, and for good reason. Out of Truckin' the band lets the music settle into a meadow of grass where wind barely whispers. Jerry delicately lofts out the opening lines of Dark Star, yet no one takes the reins with him. Instead, the entire band slips effortlessly into a rolling jazzy 1973 jam that typifies the year completely. This jam is as reminiscent of the big '73 Watkins Jam as nearly anything else on record in this year or otherwise. The tempo flies as Garcia unleashes long staccato runs that reflect and echo upon themselves leaving trails in the air, cutting a dewy mist with ripples of energy. The purity of the Grateful Dead's musical soul is stretched into the sky, pulling us into a rapturous dance erasing all physical barriers. In this music we feel the Grateful Dead resonate far more deeply within us than words may express.

A small guitar break finds Billy and Phil bebopping out a Drum and Bass solo. The rest of the band returns and picks up right where it left off. We are lost, fuse and reflected within the invisible fabric that beats in the empty space of atoms. Soon a Spanish Jam appears and is quickly vaporized into caverns, light years deep. Great drops of sound randomly take shape and gather together with invisible gravities. Orbits shimmer. Waves rise and fall. Slowly a subtle symphony takes shape. Singing stars and slowly bowed strings rise into harmonies, and the sky fills with a thousand sunsets. An ocean-sized crescendo, as delicate as an evening breeze through trees fills the infinity all around. Dark Star appears.

While it can easily be touted as the shortest Dark Star on record (at only about four and a half minutes), all fairness points to Garcia tipping the Dark Star hand some twenty-two minutes prior as the jam first took form. But we aren't here to quibble over the length of the song. The music flutters like slow rolling redwood tree-sized velvet drapes stretched for a hundred miles around us. And we are eventually left in awe as the band transitions liquidly into Sing Me Back Home. Here the gospel overtones conjure up that familiar feeling of sitting around a campfire, as a story is told. When Garcia hits his solo, notes blossom streaming flower pedals all around. He somehow conjures every ounce of the sound system's power into delicate footsteps that leave no trace in the sand. Grace, as simply delivered as ever.

A classic Dead tape to be sure. Worth the listen even if its been sitting on a shelf for a quarter century or more.

03/24/73 SBD etree source info

03/24/73 SBD Stream