The Dead always seek independence for themselves, and they begin the year with a self-organized tour ('The Great Northwest') and then in March take over the Carousel Ballroom, running it on their own for some months. They also take charge of their music, leaving the conventional recording world (along with their producer) behind as they try to fuse studio and live recordings in a flawed, magnificent, very strange masterpiece called Anthem of the Sun, out in July. They are wildly free, at times playing radically crazy gigs such as being smuggled onto the Columbia University campus (shut down due to a strike) in a bread truck, to briefly splintering into another group entirely, Mickey and the Hart Beats, in the fall. In November they add Phil's old friend Tom 'T.C.' Constanten on keyboards, and continue their rapid growth as they begin work on the cutting edge of technology, 16-track recording.
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