Grateful Dead demo tracks

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McIntosh on Stage

Here is a photo of Jack Casady with his McIntosh stage rig. I think this photo is from the very early 70s. I saw him play this bass at a free show in Golden Gate park. This was around the time Jerry Garcia started to appear with the Travis Bean guitar (thus we may be able to deduce the year?) Jack Casady's technical crew also included Alembic. Jack Casady and Phil Lesh were light years ahead of others in many aspects. Though they used much of the same technology and shared sympathetic standards their sound was totally different from each other. We were very lucky people.
 

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Tuppy, Cornfeded, others--thanks for these great pictures. I second Victor on recommending the original LP version of Uncle John's Band.

Although the Dick's Picks series releases tends to sound much better than our old tapes (remember those?), I would point out that some of the old radio broadcasts are good enough to go back to listening to--especially the two shows from Berkeley's Greek Theater in August 1989. Check out the Playin' in the Band from the first night to hear some amazing bass from Phil.

And I recommended this in the original demo tracks thread started by Masterlu: "When the Hunter Gets Captured by the Game" from the HDCD version of Compliments of Garcia.

I usually start off Saturday morning listening with jazz, but I might just have to go straight into the old GD today....
 
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IMHO one of the best set of recordings of The Dead is the boxed set"The Golden Road"(1965-1973).An eleven cd set all on the green lable(warner Bros)except "Birth Of The Dead"which is on Scorpio,All remixed and plenty of different versions of some of the same hits,allot of acoustical versions.For great pictures of The Dead plus about every other performer who ever played go to michaelochsarchives.com
 
1974, at sunset, a righteous Eyes Of The World that lasted for almost 45 minutes. However, my favorite live Dead number is Dark Star, off Dick's Picks Volume 2, perhaps the most jazzy version I've ever heard. Simply magical.
 
I saw the Dead at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis in the early 70s. They were a GREAT concert band. I vaguely remember them playing for hours and wondering to myself why other bands don't play for that long. Needless to say they put on a great show. I would vote for anything from Workingman's Dead LP.
 
I very often use the JGB "Simple Twist of Fate" from the After Midnight / Keane College set that recently was released. It's just incredible.

Also I'm seriously enjoying the outtakes from the Aoxomoxoa sessions. The tone controls really help on this, and it clips a lot, but it's sweet insight into what they were thinking at the time.

I also like any The Eleven, and I'm partial to a Morning Dew from Dick's 35! One last one I've been playing a LOT is a Wharf Rat from 3/15/1990. . .
 
Also I'm seriously enjoying the outtakes from the Aoxomoxoa sessions.
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Eh!? :-) Are you referring to the bonus tracks on the Rhino CD reissue of the remix, or something more archly wonderful and unbeknownst to me?

Along the same lines, if you haven't heard the original AOXOMOXOA mix, you owe it to yourself to find a copy. It's quite interesting, and the quality of the green label WB vinyl sound (NOT the mix, necessarily, though!) is surprisingly good.

In many respects, AOXOMOXOA is my favorite studio Dead album.
 
mhardy6647 said:
Eh!? :-) Are you referring to the bonus tracks on the Rhino CD reissue of the remix, or something more archly wonderful and unbeknownst to me?
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I pulled this off Bit Torrent. It was on one of the tmns.net seeds last year. See if you can find it, and if not, I can send it to you. Sound quality is not great, but I think it's a fascinating listen. It's allegedly the outakes from the studio sessions.

Let me know if you can't snag it. :thmbsp:
 
Both the CD and LP versions from "Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs" of "Unbroken Chain" on the "From The Mars Hotel" recording sound great. The one on the "Grateful Dead Records" LP isn't bad either. The "Rhino Records" CD version will have to wait until I get an MDA1000, hope it's soon.
 
When I was at Sewanee, a small college in TN, a band called Barefoot Jerry played there. I think they came out of Atlanta, and I recall that they were supposed to be playing through "The Wall Of Sound." I don't know how they fit it all into the little auditorium they played in. It was huge! It was earsplitting! I remember that it actually hurt to be in the room with them.

Thinking about that time, "Cumberland Blues" and "Tennessee Jed" off of "Europe '72" were some fine tracks.
 
namahealani said:
Here's a thread from Owsleys website (former Dead sound man among other things).

http://www.thebear.org/musicintro.html
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Had to laugh at this quote from Owsley:

"I think my knowledge of the true nature of sound dates back to the period of the L.A. Acid Tests and specifically, one of the rehearsals we had in the house in Watts when I actually saw sound coming out of the speakers. It was total synesthesia, and I've never experienced that at any other time. It was just a unique experience. And it so completely blew my mind, that I realized, "Hey, no matter what, I've got to remember what this (the sound) is doing. I went around and inspected it very carefully, and I spent a lot of time absorbing what it was doing and realizing how different it was from what I thought sound did. And that became the foundation for all the sound work that I've done. The fact that I was able to convert aural information into a three-dimensional image-- it was all coming from my ears, of course, but transforming it into a visual form."

It seems to me that Owsley was the "chemist" who manufactured much of the materials needed for the "acid tests".

Cheers,

Ed
 
you are correct sir.

I always think of him when I hear Steely Dan's "Kid Charlemagne"

Just by chance you crossed the diamond with the pearl
You turned it on the world
That's when you turned the world around...
 
I too thought that tune was about Owsley when I first heard it back in the late 70's, as I try to remember it was on KSAN in San Francisco and I still had my ML2M's . . . great speakers but I can't remember much more . . .
 
This thread reminds me of a joke. Funny or not, you decide. No offense intended.

Q: What do Deadheads say when they run out of drugs?

A: Man, this music really sucks!

Jeff
 
cornfeded said:
Had to laugh at this quote from Owsley:

"I think my knowledge of the true nature of sound dates back to the period of the L.A. Acid Tests and specifically, one of the rehearsals we had in the house in Watts when I actually saw sound coming out of the speakers. It was total synesthesia, and I've never experienced that at any other time. It was just a unique experience. And it so completely blew my mind, that I realized, "Hey, no matter what, I've got to remember what this (the sound) is doing. I went around and inspected it very carefully, and I spent a lot of time absorbing what it was doing and realizing how different it was from what I thought sound did. And that became the foundation for all the sound work that I've done. The fact that I was able to convert aural information into a three-dimensional image-- it was all coming from my ears, of course, but transforming it into a visual form."

It seems to me that Owsley was the "chemist" who manufactured much of the materials needed for the "acid tests".

Cheers,

Ed
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That's "signature" material there :yes:
 
re Blue Meanie's point re: dope. The guy who picks the Dick's Picks releases has a strict "no getting high" policy when listening to the GD stuff from the vaults and deciding what to put out there. So as Blue Meanie suggests, even a Deadhead can recognize that drugs will make mediocre music sound good--no doubt. But the GD also made some GREAT music that sounds great even to straight ears....

BTW: based on some recent listening, let me add the Scarlet Begonias from Dicks Picks VOl 6 to the list of great GD demo tracks....
 
Blue Meanie's joke made me chuckle, but I still like the Dead, straight.
They did get a little ragged live, though, sometimes. Wonder why?

Oh, I do draw the line at "What's Become of the Baby?", though. I cannot imagine a recreational pharmaceutical that would make that palatable -- even though I understand that it was mixed under the influence of nitrous, rather than any more esoteric substances.
 
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