In the spring of 1971, Grateful Dead keyboardist Tom Constanten, along with the band Touchstone, produced and performed the music for an off-broadway show at the Circle in the Square in New York City.
The performance was called Tarot and the music was later recorded and released in 1972 on United Artists. The performance and resulting album both fell into obscurity and is now highly sought-after by collectors of rare prog and psychedelia.
“But there was something else tugging at Garcia as 1964 turned into 1965. For one thing, like half of America under the age of 25, Jerry had been seduced by the Beatles, especially their film, A Hard Day’s Night, which depicted life in a rock and roll band as just about the most fun that could be had on planet earth. the Beatles were deliciously irreverent and in-your-face anarchic; untamable gadabouts on an endless lark, always living in a completely different universe than the pitiable straight forces that were constantly trying to control, or at the very least, restrain them…” –from Garcia: An American Life by Blair Jackson
Grateful Dead – Why Don’t We Do It In the Road?” 4/7/85 Philly Spectrum
Grateful Dead – “Day Tripper” 12/28/84 SF Civic Auditorium (more…)
I’m a sheep at the card table, just waiting to be fleeced. I’ve got no poker face, for starters — everything comes out in the eyebrows, and in the smirk I simply cannot erase. Add in a general fogginess on the actual rules of most card games, and you can see how I’d spend a rainy afternoon getting fearsomely bluffed by a five-year old in multiple hands of I Doubt It.
But as a writer, I’m in love with the language, with the music of the games, with double down and shoot the moon, with five-card charleys and busted flushes and inside straights, with one-eyed jacks and suicide kings. There’s romance in that language, and it has run like an underground river through folk and popular song for centuries before Lady GaGa was born.
As people gather to celebrate the life of Jerry Garcia during the first week of August, I wanted to share a mix of tunes. Instead of the usual suspects like “Eyes of the World” or “Ripple,” I dug a little deeper and found some stuff that was a little off the beaten path.
You can read my “Jerry Post” from last summer here.
Enjoy the tunes and I’ll meet you back here next week.
““You need music, I dont know why. It’s probably one of those Joseph Campbell questions, why we need ritual. We need magic and bliss, and power and myth, and celebration and religion in our lives and music is a good way to encapsulate a lot of it.” - Jerry Garcia
The Grateful Dead – “Mountains of the Moon” from Aoxomoxoa original vinyl pressing
Jerry and Sara Garcia – “Deep Elem Blues” 5/4/63 The Tangent, Palo Alto
The Grateful Dead – “I Second That Emotion” 4/25/71 Fillmore East, New York
Jerry Garcia Band – “Shining Star” unknown date and venue 1993
Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions – “Shake That Thing” 7/?/64 The Tangent, Palo Alto
Legion of Mary – “The Wicked Messenger” 4/19/75 Oriental Theater, Milwaukee
The Grateful Dead – “Morning Dew” 9/21/74 Palais Des Sports, Paris
Jerry Garcia and John Kahn – “Ruben and Cherise” 5/5/82 Oregon State Prison, Salem
The Grateful Dead – “Whiskey in the Jar” soundcheck 2/?/93
bonus track
Jerry’s Acid Test Commentary ca. 1967 (?)
The 2009 Dead made their last stand on July 4th at Rothbury. The second year of the Michigan festival was a rousing success and the Dead’s solid show was a definite highlight. While the band got off to a shaky start on their spring tour, they proved their mettle beneath the Independence Day sky rockets.
Now if there was only a fall tour to start getting fired up about.
You can get the boards of the Rothbury show at dead.net and you find several excellent audience recordings on Etree.
Today we’re looking at some rehearsals and soundchecks from the ’90s, but I do have some pretty remarkable recordings of Jerry Garcia in the studio from 1969 for your downloading pleasure. Enjoy.
Sherman, set the wayback machine for September 1990. (more…)
The Grateful Dead collection at the Live Music Archive contains not only thousands of Grateful Dead concerts, it also holds a good number of band rehearsal, soundcheck, and studio session recordings. As the latest incarnation of The Dead kick off their 2009 tour, I wanted to take a look at some of these hidden gems.
Today we’re looking at a couple soundcheck jams from the ’90s, and a rehearsal from 1976. In future installments we’ll look at some of Keith Godchaux’s first rehearsals with the band, some more backstage antics in the later days, and a look at what studio outtakes are still in taper circulation, ie: the stuff Rhino left off the studio album reissues.
March 17th, 1995, The Spectrum, Philadelphia
Of course by now, virtually no stone has been left unturned in the Dead’s back catalog. Between Phil Lesh and Friends, Ratdog, and Mickey and Billy’s various projects, we’re pretty far removed from the days when rumors of “they soundchecked ‘St. Stephen’!” ran like wildfire over motel payphones, archaic BBS systems or in actual Grateful Dead fanzines.
When the Grateful Dead had settled into a fairly rigid template for songs and sets, any deviation from the formula or “break out” of an old tune was cause for much celebration and a renewed enthusiasm within the group-mind of band and audience. The best-known example of this is the great Hampton Coliseum ‘Dark Star’ breakout of 1989. The band’s signature psychedelic showcase had fallen in and out of the repertoire since the 1970s and was back in rotation throughout the early 1990s.
But while fan favorites like “St. Stephen” and “Cosmic Charlie*” never reappeared, in the otherwise bleak year of 1995, the Grateful Dead did blow collective minds when they broke out “Unbroken Chain” at the Philadelphia Spectrum on March 19th.
“Unbroken Chain” originally appeared on the band’s 1974 sleeper From the Mars Hotel — a proggy Phil Lesh composition with lyrics by his longtime collaborator Robert M. Petersen. The song was one of the handful of songs on the album that were never performed live. It’s a complex tune filled with unusual chords, myriad changes and a funky, funky bridge.
This remarkable tape recorded two days prior to showtime illustrates Phil’s enthusiasm and intensity for teaching his bandmates the material. He even uncharacteristically bitches out a roadie at one point. Even Jerry is on-board and enthusiastic about breaking out this long, lost gem. (more…)
Spring is here. Blue skies, green grass, allergens. Rainy afternoons and cool evenings.
Spring, of course, is time for renewal, and I like to think of it as a time for some mental housecleaning as well, so I’ve selected some music that I feel is somewhat transitive and uplifting. A little more meditative than usual. Hopefully it will take you places.
Enjoy the tunes, and I’ll meet you back here next week.
Tom Waits – You Can Never Hold Back Spring from Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, & Bastards (2006)
Hugo Largo – Grow Wild from Drum (1987)
Zilla – Wicker Pilots from Egg (2005)
Sanjay Mishra with Jerry Garcia – Nocturne Evening Chant from Blue Incantation (1995)
Carlos Santana and Alice Coltrane – Angel of Sunlight from Illuminations (1974)
Lotus – Behind Midwest Storefront from Hammerstrike (2008)
Widespread Panic – Pickin’ Up the Pieces from Everyday (1993)
Medeski Martin & Wood – Amber Gris from Radiolarians II (2009)
Grateful Dead – Dark Star from Ladies and Gentlemen the Grateful Dead: Fillmore East 1971 (2004)
Solar Quest – Singtree from Orgship (1994)
The Police – Darkness from Ghost in the Machine (1981)
Welcome back to Test of the Boomerang. Happy Spring Equinox!
The folks over at Lostpedia offered up an interesting tidbit about the recent Lost episode “La Fleur.” Could the names of the three Dharma-ites at the beginning of the episode — Jerry, Phil and Rosie — be a reference to Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh and “Rosie”?
Phil and Jerry, brownie eating 1970s hippies, seem to be references to Phil Lesh and Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead. Rosie may be a reference to the reoccurring symbol of roses in Grateful Dead songs and art…
In keeping up with the show’s increasing use of ancient Egyptian symbols and motifs, they also offer up that infamous quote from the Egyptian Book of the Dead:
“We now return our souls to the creator, as we stand on the edge of eternal darkness. Let our chant fill the void in order that others may know. In the land of the night the ship of the sun is drawn by the grateful dead.”
Even the most casual viewer of Lost can see that the show is rife with symbiology and archetypes found in myth and folklore, like the Grateful Dead’s music and lyrics — song-poems culled from the shadows of the American campfire as well as the cosmic realms beyond. A familiar tale of survivors waiting to be rescued turns into something far more complex. A jugband from Palo Alto decide to go electric and it becomes one of the longest and strangest tales of them all. (more…)
Phish – The Clifford Ball (Rhino)
Sherman, set the Way Back machine for that balmy summer of 1996! Jerry Garcia had been gone a year, and a lot of lonesome folks had hitched their wagons to the sound-carnival that was Phish.
The Vermont foursome rented out an abandoned air strip in upstate New York for a weekend of music, music and more music. They called it ‘The Clifford Ball‘ and it became the blueprint for every summer festival that would follow in its wake.
Rhino has released a seven-disc set of the whole shebang just in time for Phish’s 2009 reunion. If you didn’t score tickets to Hampton, this just might help ease the sting. Trey, Gordo, Paige, and Fishman have never really been much to look at, so the important thing here is the music. In 1996, arguably, Phish were at the height of their powers. There’s a fantastic mix of new (at the time) and old songs here. The band is tight, in the pocket, and totally playful. Every note played that legendary weekend has been captured in a brilliant 5.1 stereo mix. From the soundcheck to the mini acoustic set to the 3 a.m. improv jam the band performed on the back of a light-encrusted flatbed truck.
It’s all wrapped up in a very cool package that includes some Clifford Ball postcards and stamps. Fire up your own kind veggie burritos, put some Magic Hat #9 in the fridge, and camp out in your living room with this great package from Rhino. (more…)
Hola Amigos! I know it’s been a while since I last rapped at you, but with being a new dad and all, I’ve been busier than a one-armed bass player. No disrespect to any one-armed bass players out there, but you know what I’m saying. We’re still a long way off from the beginning of Festival Season, but lots of information is coming out every day.
As I’m sure you’ve heard by know, Bonnaroo announced its 2009 lineup this past week — Springsteen, Phish, Nine Inch Nails, Beastie Boys, and a cast of thousands. It’s a hell of a strong lineup so far, and more are to be announced. Last year’s ‘Roo was probably remembered for Metallica’s old-school set, My Morning Jacket fresh and tumescent off the release of Evil Urges, and of course Kanye West making folks wait for two hours while his crew set up his enormous light show. Oh yeah, and who could forget Lez Zeppelin?
While no artists have been announced yet, Rothbury 2009 is going to go down July 2nd-5th, again at the Double JJ Ranch. This comes a week after Langerado 2009 was cancelled due to sluggish ticket sales. Folks weren’t too happy when Langerado was going to be held at a different location this year. I’m told that the organizers are going to try and host Langerado 2010 once again at Big Cypress Indian Reservation.
Mountain Jam has announced its preliminary line-up for this year: The Allman Brothers, Government Mule, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Coheed and Cambria, Girl Talk, U-Melt, Ray LaMontagne, and others are scheduled to jam out in Hunter Mountain, New York, May 29th-31st.
Yonder Mountain String Band, STS9, Sly & Robbie, my man Matisyahu, Buckethead and others are set to rage Wakarusa in Ozark, Arkansas, June 4th through 7th.
The Disco Biscuits have announced dates for their 2009 Camp Bisco. Once again at the Indian Lookout Country Club in Mariaville, New York. The eclectic festival has hosted the likes of Snoop Dogg, Shpongle, Infected Mushroom, Soundtribe Sector Nine, and others in the past, and this year’s lineup is still in the works. I’ll send out information as it comes in for this, and other festivals.
If you can’t wait until the warm days of festival season, there’s plenty of good music coming at your face — Soundtribe Sector Nine are getting on the road with their winter tour including a historic four-night stand at The Fillmore in San Francisco at the end of this month. Lotus are kicking off their tour with a pair of shows at the Recher Theater in Towson, Maryland. Their new album Hammerstrike was one of my favorite releases last year. They’re a great band, tight and precise, and totally uplifting. Check ‘em out.
The Improv-Electro-Trance-Your-Ass-Off unit EOTO is bringing the heat to your town with some newly-announced dates. Every EOTO show is completely improvised, and if you have the time, check out some live recordings. The musical ground this duo cover is amazing. I saw Michael Travis a couple years back (remember that night Arnold?) with the improv trio Zilla (with Aaron Holstein and Jamie Janover) and they were amazing. Travis is an incredible drummer and I hope to see EOTO, or Zilla for that matter, soon.
Okay, now on to the Valentine’s treats. (more…)
