John A

Absolute confirmation of elective at She Belongs to me, played only in '85 while On The Road Again was not played after the early 80s ('82 perhaps?).... although I suppose technically if Lisa is onstage it's an elective at the opening notes of Alabama.

Damn. That's high level elective creativity! Love the respect for Quinn that it could go "standard" encore slot after all those gyrations.

Holy shit. That makes the fire Marshall fucking with folks clogging the aisles at Dead shows seem like child's play. (And to be clear, all my banter here is not meant to undermine the obvious seriousness of this scenario.)

Wow great story about the tie dyed hero up front. Which brings up the question: did a Dead show ever pause during the music due to a medical or other situation in the crowd? Closest I can think of is when they didn't play an encore (Providence '86 perhaps?) because Billy got hit with a bottle post space, and the famous line from Phil at the '85 Saratoga show when some moron was hanging over a railing - "hey, man, there's 50,000 people waiting for you to get back into your seat." But none of that ever stopped the music in its tracks. Presumably if a naked guy climbed the speaker scaffolding during a DSO show there'd be a pause as well. 😆

True, although with a little more lasting power, as it turned out. 😂 😛

Days Between does feel like one big dream scape, but interestingly no overt references. Man, those Eleven lyrics are thick. Hunter hadn't yet fully harnessed his powers yet, IMHO. 🤔

Post script: this excersice made me think of one of my favorite songs, Romeo & Juliet, on Dire Straits' "Making Movies" (side 1 of that that record is near the top of my all time favorite sides of any LP): "And I dreamed your dream for you and now your dream is real How can you look at me as if I was just another one of your deals?"

Building on this post's title, I was thinking about an obscure concept (as, for better or worse, I'm want to do 😄) about overt references to dreams/dreaming in Dead song lyrics. And it occurred to me that there's a good correlation between such references and the notion of A-list Dead material. To wit, with apologies for anything I've undoubtedly omitted, we have the following: •Stella Blue: "All the years combine, they melt into a dream"; "there's just the pavement left, and broken dreams"; and more poignantly, "It seems like all this life was just a dream" •Hep on the Way: "Without love in the dream it will never come true" •Black Muddy River: "And dream me a dream of my own" (underrated greatness) •Mission in the Rain: "Ten years ago I walked these streets my dreams were riding high... now I would be happy, to just have one dream come true" •China Cat: "Through a dream night wind" •Crazy Fingers: "Gone both dream and lie" (perhaps somewhat under the radar, but a fascinating line) and "gone are the broken lies we saw through in dreams" •Come A Time: "Gotta make it some how, all the dreams you still believe" •To Lay Me Down: "With our dreams entwined together" •Althea: "You may be the fate of Ophelia, sleeping and perchance to dream" (Anytime Hunter wants to evoke Shakespeare is A-OK with me 😆) •Foolish Heart: "A foolish heart will call on you to toss your dreams away" •Fire on the Mountain: "It's more than just ashes, when your dreams come true" •Box of Rain: "For this is all a dream we dreamed one afternoon, long ago"; "then please don't be surprised when you find me dreaming too" •Attics of my Life - perhaps the crowning dream reference jewell: "full of cloudy dreams unreal"; "in the book of love's own dreams, where all the print is blood" (what a mesmerizing line)"; "in the secret space of dreams, where dreaming lay amazed"; "when there was no dream of mine, you dreamed of me" (tough to top that one) Like I said, a plethora of A-list material...and not to leave Bobby out, we have, beyond Lost Sailor: •Cassidy: "I can tell be the mark he left, you were in his dreams" •Music Never Stopped: "Old men sing about their dreams, women laugh and children scream" •Saint of Circumstance: "Was it you I heard singing, oh while I was chasing dreams" •My Brother Esau: "Sometimes at night I dream, he's still that hairy man" I suppose what I'm trying to get at is when the Dead overtly sing of dreams/dreaming they're almost universally at the height of their powers. 🥰 I'm sure I've missed some, but that feels like a serious list. ☺️

And you won! Go Maryland!

Not sure if folks clicked the link for the Garcia / Hunter '69-'70 Larkspur home, and I'm sure it's been completely updated since, but we're talking about a damn nice property. I stopped to investigate on my way into the canyon to park for my hike last week and took a few photos. Unfortunately my pics don't reveal much, due to the great landscaping/foliage in the front. Plus, the listing in my link only shows a single photo of the outside. We're talking well set back from the road with great landscaping, gorgeous redwoods throughout the property, and a back that butts up to a creek. Sold for $3M in 2014, and estimated at a value well north of $4M today. Welcome to exceedingly attractive Marin property in 2022. 😬 But when our heroes were renters back in the day I'm guessing their monthly nut was amazingly low. But to the podcasts, Sam Culter was interviewed in a few episodes. He stayed in the city after being fired from The Stones in the wake of the Altamont disaster. He was briefly homeless, and Garcia invited him to stay with them for a while at some point. He related having many intense conversations with Jerry about band management and organization, which Garcia was wanting to get under the hood around. After all, this was the period where The Boys had just realized "the reverend" Lenny Hart had swindled them. Cutler's point was that whether one want's to deal with it directly or not, this was all critical stuff. And playing great music alone was not sufficiently sustainable. When the band finally had to vote a member for the role of ultimate sign-offs, Garcia obviously demurred - so not his bag! They ended up going with Phil, because everyone agreed he was the pickiest dude in the band, and if he signed off they'd all be good with it. 🤔 But the point to my post is that Culter made a point of how modest the house was. Of course this was in part stemming from his experience with how the Stones rolled... How could he have known he was in what would be a $4.5M home 50 years later? 😂

Garcia played Werewolves on all Halloween appearances, be it with the Dead or the JGB, every time there was a Halloween show from 1985 on. Who can name them all without cheating? Edit: I just did the mental exercise my self, and didn't recall there were Halloween performances by JGB in '86 and '93 - but both include Werewolves so my original statement holds true. I had only pulled the '87 though '92 versions from memory.

No one is listening to these podcasts? Or is it just that the other current thread "crickets" is carrying the day? Ok then, I'll trickle out one more... ●Box of Rain, recorded in the summer of 1970 for American Beauty, didn't debut live until 1972. BUT, it was played once, in the acoustic set, on 9-17-70 at the Fillmore East. There are no recording for photos documenting the show, but Gary Lambert (of Sirius XM's "Tales From The Golden Road" fame, among other Dead universe stuff) was at the show and distinctly recalls the musicians in the same configuration as they were in the studio for the American Beauty sessions. Phil played the acoustic guitar, and Garcia played the piano. Love hearing the kind of shit! That's the kind of shit Eaton would be under the hood of, should DSO ever recreate that show. Barraco on bass!

As far as JK & Jeff are concerned, and sure this is admittedly a blunt assessment, but I don't know that it could be argued otherwise. What I'm saying is there's room for personal preference, but ultimately there is a pith to the "debate". To wit, these are my two basic points... #1 On a surface level, we have a number of subjective categories: their tone, chops, musicianship, configuration of gear to channel Jerry's "sound", vocal abilities, and whatever other list of parameters one wants to include, which all meld into a calculus that I honestly feel equally "serious" Deadheads / Starheads can debate, argue either mild or strong opinions each way, and everybody can be right. #2 On a deeper, more meaningful level, and acknowledging I personally know neither of these men beyond watching them perform Grateful Dead/Jerry Garcia music on stage, I have a palpable sense Jeff more deeply understands the "soul" of what Jerry conveyed through his musical presence; and thereby he's better able to convey it himself. And folks disagreeing with my #2 are wrong. Hey, everybody can't always be right. 😆

For a few years now, a couple serious Deadhead buddies have implored me to listen to these. It's not that I didn't agree I both should do so and would dig them, it's just that there wasn't really anywhere beyond the car it would be conducive for me to do so. And I no longer have a commute. But last week I finally had a perfect opportunity - a solo drive to Santa Barbara which is about 5 1/2 hours each way. I made my way through about 9 hours the podcasts, getting through season one (Workingman's Dead song by song mostly) and diving a bit into season two (same deal with American Beauty). And indeed, this is by and large some damn cool stuff. I thought it would be fun to relate some random anecdotes I learned, and that this could be a thread for others to do so as well. So to get things started with a few tidbits...I got a bunch more, but I'll start with these: ●To illuminate how pedantic these things get, I'd known that Dire Wolf was a reaction to a movie Hunter watched with Garcia, the Sherlock Holmes vehicle Hounds of the Baskervilles. Hunter has been quoted as saying the song was written the morning after they'd seen the film, which we know was sometime in mid 1969. Well, they researched the two evenings the movie was shown on the local Bay Area affiliate, and one of those showings was when the Dead were on the road. So based on the other date, it can be deduced the exact day the song was born. ●The first few versions of Dire Wolf wrere sang by Bobby, which always made me scratch my head. Why would that be? And the answer is simple - Garcia played pedal steel on stage for those versions, and one can't really sing and play that instrument simultaneously. It requires both hands, both feet, and even your knees! So Weir needed to take the vocals. ●Most (all?) of the songs from Workingman's, and some from American Beauty, were written in the house Hunter shared with Garcia and Mountain girl in Larkspur, a small town in central Marin (this is shortly after the band has relocated north from Haight Ashbury). One of the podcasts revealed the address, that Janis Joplin lived near by, and that one could get there by crossing a creek then via a trail. Well, that is Lark Creek, and the trail is the Piedmont Trail, dirt that I've hiked on countless times. And here is said house now: https://www.compass.com/listing/271-madrone-avenue-larkspur-ca-94939/7880713512714033/ You know you're hardcore when despite the wealth of awesome stuff you're learning you occasionally yell into your empty car, "wait, they need to mention this or that fact while in this deep discussion they shouldn't have omitted." 🤣

Pretty solid wide ranging interview. Even my beloved Styx got a shout out! (Everybody needs some guilty pleasures) Surprised there was no overt mention of Eaton, especially because there was banter about how folks JK was playing with had in some cases seen only a few Dead shows, and that JK has only gotten on the bus in '89. Then in comes Eaton, who was essentially royalty in the world of Grateful Dead scholars. Or Scott Larned for that matter. I thought Scott was a driving force for getting DSO happening, but his name I don't believe so even spoken. And speaking of the tradition to Eaton, I'd never seen video of Mike Maraat, and thereby didn't quite understand the degree to which Eaton took the band to a new level. Hell, that upgrade makes the Kevin to Skip transition seem like only a subtle bump. 😆 But I suppose the real point being made was that JK played with Phil and Bobby, and what that was like. And that conversation was quality. JK even claimed to have liked Jill Lesh! 😜 The revelation that his first shout out to the question about the "Grateful Dead peak" was '88 to '90 was hilarious - although he did then mention '73/'74 and '77/'78. I can see how Jeff coming on would have been a breathe of fresh air to the likes of Rob B. 😂

Gee I hope restaurants will continue service on weekdays. Those are typically the best nights to go. Weekends are amateur hour. And don't even get me started about Valentine's Day... 😜

How "huge" can someone be by playing strictly bluegrass? Honest question. What's the ceiling there?

I racked my brain for 10 minutes and had nothing, so I looked it up. Quality trivia right there! I even saw the '93 show and would never have guessed it.

I believe that appeared in every show on the tour. And interestingly enough only appeared a couple extra times - in the NYC run leading up to their departure for Europe.

That 2nd set opening segment of Trucking -> Other One -> Comes a Time -> Sugar Mag is well over an hour by itself! From the official 1995 release entitled "Hundred Year Hall". Now 150 year hall. 😆

There was a Bog Boss Man at the epic 6-16-90 Shoreline show. Man that show was fun. Jerry never left stage in the 2nd set!

That's some bad ass street cred right there, Bill.

I'd heard a story where, through Del knowing Jerry from way back, it was arranged that Jerry was going to buy a banjo that Ronnie McCoury owned. I actually asked Ronnie about it at a Sweetwater show in Mill Valley a few years ago and he confirmed it. The meeting and exchange happened backstage before a Spring '90 Landover show. Ronnie said that Jerry was extremely animated as he and Del traded stories about the bluegrass scene back in the day. As they were leaving, Jerry said he hoped they'll enjoy the show and Ronnie mentioned it would be great to hear them play Cold Rain & Snow. Sure enough, that's what The Boys opened with. Goes to show that at least on rare occasion Garcia did take requests!

Amazing that over a year after its debut Stella Blue could still find itself tucked innocently in the first set.

I won't leave you drifting down But whoa, it makes me wild With 80 years upon my head To have you call me child