3/21/70: capitol theatre, port chester, NY.

another superb ken and judy lee field recording, produced when the pair were working at the port chester venue. the original audience master cassettes (4 Ampex C361-90) were recorded on a Sony TC124 with unknown dynamic mics, spread approximately 25-30 feet across the balcony. no noise reduction was applied.

from february 1970 to near the end of 1971, the rock promoter howie stein did his best to make the capitol theater into the westchester version of the fillmore east. like the fillmore, the capitol was a converted movie theater. it was really a better place to hear music than to see a film. it was much smaller than the fillmore, so it was hard to get a bad seat. in addition, the staff was a little less uptight about dancing and milling around so concertgoers could usually get up and dance. the sound system was excellent, and rarely did technical difficulties impair the music. and the stage crew, like the fillmore's, knew what they were doing.

of the two performances on this evening, it is the late affair that most heads point to and rave about. i’d like to direct your attention to the early set, which is equally as satisfying, albeit a tad shorter. the tape opens with the first recorded version of rufus thomas’s walkin' the dog since ’66. it's a playful extended take with alternating vocals between weir, pigpen, and garcia. a rousing me & my uncle follows and afterwards it’s clear that the crowd is animated to the point that they won't shut up. garcia: "calm down, you unruly freaks." the cacophony of audience noise continues, and the boys roll out the last taped version of death don’t have no mercy until 1989. the tune completely quiets the crowd as the band draws all attention into the music.

the quiet awe is short-lived before more shouting and obligatory calls for st. stephen ensue. phil breaks the ice by asking for an E-flat for tuning purposes. jeering and laughter follow, then more song requests. weir stokes the fire by remarking that they don't know the names of their own songs, and that everything the audience is shouting towards the stage is completely meaningless to the band. the motley sextet’s riposte to the mutinous crowd is a solid and compact good lovin,' followed by a peppy dire wolf (with tasty intro guitar licks, most likely added during the workingman’s dead sessions), and a sultry big boss man that allows the pigger to stretch his legs nicely. next up, we get the last known version of mark spoelstra's he was a friend of mine and it's a beautiful send-off at that. garcia's outro solo is long and articulate. goddamn lovely, really.

the early show ends with a unique 19-minute sequence of viola lee blues > the seven > cumberland blues. viola lee gets quiet and lyrical before exploding and melting into fiery immolation mode. the soundscape shifts, threatening to redetonate, before garcia coyly transitions the outfit into the second and final taped version of the seven, which serves as a perfectly weird bridge to the cosmic bakersfield of cumberland.

https://archive.org/details/gd70-03-21.early.lee.pcrp.20184.sbeok.shnf

2/28/70: family dog at the great highway, san francisco, CA w/commander cody and the lost planet airmen.

the period from October '69 to february '70 in grateful dead history is especially plagued with incomplete recordings. there are a bunch of gigs where a soundboard reel or two exists, but subsequent reels have somehow vanished from the vault. the biggest reason 1970 has such a recording void of course is that bear, the benefactor and primary taper, wasn't with the band for much of the year. after the january 30th new orleans bust, he wasn't allowed to travel on tour, and the last thing he taped outside california was the fillmore east shows. thankfully for us, he was still able to tape their san francisco gigs including most of the celebrated fillmore west shows.

of the available 1970 soundboards, there exists a mostly intact family dog run at the end of february. on the whole these performances are pretty mellow, and it's notable that they ignore the dark star> st. stephen> eleven medley every night. of the three shows, february 28th is perhaps the best sounding tape of the lot. back in my tape-trading days, the only recording we had of this show was a pretty good sounding (though particuarly bassy) harry ely audience tape. in the early aughts this all changed when a clean soundboard recording from an anonymous source made its way onto the archive.

the show opens with a solid turn on your lovelight > me and my uncle pairing. the cumberland blues that follows is hot, and tonight's take is psychedelic bluegrass to the highest degree. a wooden set is next. garcia: “we’re gonna take everybody back about 60 billion notches, man, and play some acoustic guitars here for a little spell.” the boys roll out a spirited monkey and the engineer, the last taped dead version of the traditional little sadie, and a gorgeous, almost perfect black peter. neither garcia nor weir can keep their guitars in tune, which they discuss off-mic before jerry announces, “okay it’s back to the electric world, everybody can get back up again.” the electric dead commences with a china cat sunflower > know you rider > high time combination; the original sextet are fully tuned in to each other and the sequence is superb. after a perky dire wolf, we move to the more exploratory portion of the show. good lovin' is rock solid and the drum duo and outro jam are smoking. from there, the audience is treated to 38 minutes worth of two sequences: alligator > drums > the other one, followed by the final performance of mason's children that seques into the second turn on your lovelight of the night.

this tape is a very good record of what the dead sounded like at the beginning of 1970. they were riding high on the recent pressing of live/dead and rolling out a bunch of excellent new material from the soon-to-be-released workingman's dead. it wasn't all roses though. their manager lenny hart cleaned out all the bank accounts and left town. ironically, in late january hart had proposed merging grateful dead operations with chet helms' struggling family dog. that said, it must have been odd to play a weekend at the venue that their crooked manager had proposed merging with. listening to the relaxed nature of this performance, it's pretty apparent that the good ol' grateful dead were none the worse for wear.

https://archive.org/details/gd70-02-28.sbd.cotsman.9377.sbeok.shnf

june 8 & 9, 1968: carousel ballroom, san francisco, CA.

the dead share a double bill with the venue co-operators jefferson airplane. unfortunately, fleetwood mac missed the run (their would-be U.S. debut) due to visa issues. beginning in march of '68, the dead and the airplane played the carousel friday, saturday and sunday nights for dancing. san francisco chronicle music critic ralph gleason described the 'dance-concert' scene at the carousel at that time as more concert than dance. "...they are still much better than the night club atmosphere, freer, more informal, and with much better vibrations," he wrote. as for the june 9th show, gleason noted, "the house was jammed but people stood, rooted by the physical proximity of others, and danced from the ankles up."

the 6/8 tape opens with the earliest full st. stephen. it's raw, accelerated, and not settled into its groove yet. only jerry seems to have the words down, but the music flows reaching an impressive drive before garcia and lesh use the old dark star intro as a signal to end. from here, they roll out an ace that's it for the other one > turn on your lovelight combination. the cryptical envelopment outro into lovelight is played in a different key than usual, which throws off pigpen. weir semi-awkwardly takes the first verse before the band drops into a drum break, and recovers. the recording concludes with a fantastic early reading of morning dew, and a flavorful take on it hurts me too.

the 6/9 fragment begins with commentary from weir: “whoever stole our scratcher, please bring it back. you can just unobtrusively start passing it forward and no one will ever know. reward offered. we need it for the next number.” and with that, the set kicks off with the first extended dark star, 16 minutes, and the only one recorded between march-august of 1968. it takes five minutes before the first verse. the middle section is played well with garcia liberating the sextet around the 11 minute mark; the music begins to soar before a tape flip and a soft landing in some hand percussion that subtly shifts to the drum kit. st. stephen is next up and the transition is flawless. the band is starting to hedge closer to the classic st. stephen bounce, still working on the phrasing and dynamic flow. the set concludes with another spin through turn on your lovelight. mckernan is very much in his element on this version.

in march of 2022, the owsley stanley foundation broke the news that they had unearthed some lost reels from bear's archive. the announcement read: "grateful dead, carousel ballroom, june 1 or june 8, 1968: this very special set of three mystery reels was preserved thanks to the generous contributions of adopt-a-reel patrons: dean budnick, aaron barksdale, and the minnesota white lightning alliance." the tape boxes indicate only that it's a dead show recorded on a saturday night. one of the tape boxes, labeled by bear after-the-fact, indicates that it might be "'68?" and "possibly the carousel."

i don't know about you, but i'm very ready for more grateful dead music from these final carousel ballroom shows. hearing these tracks in their early stages of development is such a gift. let's hope there's an official bear's sonic journals release of the june closing run in the not-too-distant future.

https://archive.org/details/gd1968-06-08.158612.remaster.disk4.danielfutureanimation02.flac1644

2/2/69: labor temple, minneapolis, MN. w/ blackwood apology.

a few weeks prior to recording the tracks that would grace the seminal live dead LP, the boys play a short, but very happening set at the grand opening of the minneapolis labor temple. the band had begun their midwest tour with a couple shows at the kinetic playground in chicago, starting a long, strange tradition of touring the midwest in the dead of winter. a reporter for the minneapolis tribune who was in attendance wrote, "after a long delay for setting up their nearly 100 pieces of equipment, the grateful dead came on with a sound like the end of a bad trip. it was a horrendously penetrating hum from an amplifier gone mad. but when they got the amplifier squared away, they showed that they can play as well as make noise." sounds fairly typical for a bear-era show to me.

the tape begins with schoolgirl already underway. pigger is in fine form and his harp playing melds perfectly with jerry's swampy, mixolydian blues riffs. hilarious stage banter ensues. garcia: "come on man, we come all the way across the country & leave the comfort and beauty of california and come all the way out here in the cold miserable [midwest] and what do we get? what do we get? people who can't dig it! too weird!" weir adds, "it was sheer hell," while lesh intrudes to exclaim, "this is the first dance concert in your city in eleven years! why don't you all take advantage of it?" some familiar tuning-with a competing louie louie bass line-rises out of the fray and the boys launch headlong into dark star. the 16-minute take is charged and beautiful, with lush feedback and spirited diversions from the main theme. from here, there's twenty more sharp minutes of st. stephen > the eleven > death don't have no mercy, with some unfortunate tape cuts. despite the blemishes, the classic 1969 sequence is satisfying throughout.

the psychedelic mayhem continues with a blazing cryptical suite. the transition into the other one is explosive; it hits you like a truckful of bricks, but it's a welcomed assault. the dramatic flow of ideas between garcia and the drummers spurs and nudges the septet toward oblivion. the interplay and speedy changes in direction are extraordinary, and the cryptical reprise that follows is equally rewarding. the show concludes with turn on your lovelight. it's a deep pocketed version with classic mckernan raps, intricate grooves, and rich, circular double drumming.

it might seem weird to refer to a grateful dead show-especially one from 1969-as concise, but that's a word that springs to mind when listening to this tape. here we have a good portion of the dead's 1969 repertoire performed in less than ninety minutes, and there's hardly a note wasted during the set. in a review from the minneapolis star the following day, the reporter, johan mathiesen, waxed lyrical about the band's sound and approach. midway through the piece he did a fine job summing up the grateful dead's shtick in one sentence: "the dead play a style of music that could best be described as seemingly about to fall apart at any moment, yet the group is so tight that regardless of how far afield they may wander, they all come together at exactly the right moments." this opening night at the labor temple exemplifies this sentiment in spades.

https://archive.org/details/gd69-02-02.sbd.cotsman.9758.sbeok.shnf

4/18/70—family dog on the great highway, san francisco, CA: new riders of the purple sage/charlie musselwhite/mickey hart & the heartbeats/bobby ace and the cards off the bottom of the deck.

the 1970 soundboard tape archive is full of holes, mostly stemming from bear's unfortunate february new orleans arrest and court imposed travel restrictions. as such, more shows survive on audience-only recordings from this year than any other. that made the unexpected discovery of a pristine quality mostly acoustic soundboard performance by the grateful dead from April 18, 1970, a real find. unearthed by mountain girl from an old box of jerry's personal effects, the tape soon made its way onto an official rhino 2-LP release in 2013. a notice on the album cover reads, "this rare recording was made on a non-professional machine at low level and contains some tape hiss and other undesirable stuff. several procedures were employed to clarify the sound, but artifacts may still be heard. however, the music shines through, and the performance is too good not to bring to you. enjoy."

what made this tape all the more unique and equally peculiar in the grateful dead historical record was the billing of the band. the moniker mickey hart & the heartbeats had only been used a few times previously for a few electric jam sessions at the matrix in 1969. bobby ace and the cards off the bottom of the deck was a new name that had not been used before, and was probably included as more of a joke. the NRPS, who had opened a scant number of dead shows in the bay area, would have been largely unknown to the family dog audience. as to why the blues harmonica player and singer charlie musselwhite was added to the weekend performances, we can surmise that his presence-with future LA express guitarist robben ford-was more of a guarantee that there would be something upbeat and danceable, no matter what the dead rolled out.

lineups and aliases aside, the purpose of these billed acoustic shows on the weekend of april 17-19 seems to be a tuneup for the series of performances known as "an evening with the grateful dead," that would commence on 5/1/70 at alfred college. in order to meet their goal of a four hour grateful dead concert with three different configurations, the band had to whip the pieces into shape. the electric grateful dead was all set, battle tested and road ready; the acoustic arrangement and the new riders set were a different story though. the wooden portion of the show was unfledged with very little precedent (save for a few shows in december '69 and january/february of 1970 when garcia and weir had played some acoustic duets and, once or twice, pigpen was even induced into playing a song or two). this owsley tape paints a clear picture of what was planned and what would go down in the subsequent months on the road.

the recording opens with the first taped acoustic version of i know you rider, a tune that would be a staple the rest of the year. lesh gets increasingly annoyed at owsley and the monitor situation amidst much classic stage banter and laughter from garcia and weir, though they both get pissed, too. jerry: “[the guitars] are as though invisible, unheard, unstruck!” “this is an electric guitar,” he announces, “something new,” before they roll out an acoustic/electric cumberland blues and new speedway boogie. both sound great with dampened drums, the latter sounding much like the recently recorded workingman’s dead version, with sweet garcia blues riffs. while someone fetches pigpen from backstage, we get a mini-set from bobby ace—me & my uncle and mama tried, with vocals by marmaduke and some funky guitar work from david nelson.

the remainder of the tape is all pig, sounding much like he might have saddled up to his kitchen table late at night with a guitar. it begins with his usual katie mae before moving on to a bunch of debuts, some never heard again. ain't it crazy (aka the rub) is a lightnin’ hopkins standard from the old jugband days. bring me my shotgun, also by hopkins, is unflashy and low key. roberta appears to be assembled from several sources. the set closes with mckernan’s versions of a pair of john lee hooker tunes, black snake and tupelo blues, both among the quietest songs ever performed on a dead stage.

in the relatively short acoustic history of the grateful dead, this owsley soundboard tape at the family dog is a remarkable discovery. it finds the band-a week after headlining the fillmore west-test driving a brand new configuration that would format many performances in 1970, concluding with the remarkable capitol theatre run in early november. after the three april shows, the dead would never play again at the dog, as they simply got too big for the venue. it's a fortunate break indeed that jerry inadvertently hung on to a final relic from that weekend. sound issues, episodic feedback, and monitor problems aside, it's a tape that deserves your full aural attention.

https://archive.org/details/09newspeedwayboogie

11/1/68: silver dollar fairgrounds, chico, CA. w/gunge.

by late 1968, chico was becoming somewhat of a hip satellite of san francisco. a number of national acts made their way to the sacramento valley city, including the cannonball adderley quintet, johnny cash, it's a beautiful day, lou rawls, the 5th dimension, and rod mckuen. by fall of the year, chico's silver dollar fairgrounds armory was starting to host regular gigs. quicksilver messenger service played a date in october, along with the all-female bay area band ace of cups. the grateful dead, already established in san francisco, made their way up to the armory the following month. the local psych garage band gunge, featuring frontman martin taylor, opened the show.

the dead's chico debut is a beauty. the 12-minute dark star opener-although less freeform-is a little more energized than the october versions. tonight's take is an exercise in precision, with punctilious leads by garcia that drive the jam between verses. it serves as a nice prelude to an absolutely shredding that's it for the other one. the cryptical intro is oh so sweet, played with delicate fidelity until it drops, with the force of a cannon, into the other one. weir ignites the band with some ferocious, guttural vocals. just prior to the first verse he yells, "yoo hoo" into the mic, as if he's calling out for a lost pet. with lesh and garcia in full assault mode, the band forges maniacally along in 12/8 psychedelic euphoria. the cryptical reprise is awash with brightly lit tonalities and subtle touches before transitioning to another round of psychotic jamming, highlighted by a savvy display of rabid finger-picking by jerry and tomahawking counter rhythms from kreutzmann and hart. in time, the music drifts into deep space-which the sextet is happy to explore for a few measures-before drifting into 7+ minutes of glorious feedback.

the segue into new potato caboose is like a portal opening into another world, but then somebody kicks out a plug or something and we land in the back half of a lengthy alligator > caution > feedback > we bid you goodnight. the tape cut is unfortunate, and one can only imagine how amazing the middle of this set must have been, given the energy of the music we have. and when the short but sincere, bid you goodnight rises out of the output signals of the amplifiers, it's easy to picture the kids from chico removing their hands from over their eyes to clap along.

a month after the dead's visit, LSD guru timothy leary made a stop at CSU chico. following the appearance, the chico state yearbook quoted leary, “raising the hedonic level of chico is not child’s play.” i don't know about you, but i think the dead's performance might have pushed it up a notch or two.

https://archive.org/details/gd1968-11-01.150968.sbd.eaton-latvala.miller.flac1644