Grateful Dead

Hi Ed --I just finished reading your piece over morning coffee so this is off the top of my head without much thinking. I liked your piece. It is well written and is pretty thorough in it's treatment of comparing two runs of similar length by two different bands playing much the same material. I really liked the analogy of the copy of Dionysus' followers (dancing maened) made by the Romans even as I disagreed with it's import --that Furthur was as much of historical significance as the Grateful Dead. In this respect the two cannot be compared. Furthur will never have any of it's performances in the National Archive. Nobody (but you) is intimating they are good enough to have an exhibit in any museum, much less have their own museum (The archive at UCSC). The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland would be the obvious place to honor Furthur and I don't think they're ever going to do it. Your summation at the end is the weakness of the entire piece. You don't really tie it all together and declare your finding. Were they comparable, not comparable or does the whole concept of comparing these two entities have any merit at all? As with all of these types of articles about the Grateful Dead it is easy for me to pick out the inaccuracies in fact about the Grateful Dead's historical performances. The Grateful Dead did Jack Straw in the second set on a handful of occasions, The Grateful Dead played LTGTR from 1989 to 1994 something like 30 times. The Grateful Dead opened with Space on 10/31/85 into Werewolves of London. I have been looking/calling for analysis of Furthur performances and I am grateful for yours. Especially your counting of the beats to measure tempo. There is definitely a slow-down there. They also speed up on a couple of tunes like Casey Jones and Cosmic Charlie. I do think you miss the main point when comparing Jerry and JK. I can't belabor the point here in as I've made it clear in other threads. I thought the most interesting point in the whole article is that Jerry thought 2012 was a special year. And Furthur will be playing on the evening of the transformation/cataclysm. That is something I have been saying for years. I think many of us flashed on that at one time or another between 1965 and 1995. We just didn't see it would be with Bob & Phil carrying the torch into that dark and stormy night... Well, maybe not necessarily "dark and stormy", but an appropriate ritual for a couple of aging warlocks!

having survived the highly overhyped Harmonica Virgins (aka The Harmonic Convergence), I'm not so sure about the cosmology, but I'm kinda glad there are new fans coming along making an impassioned and closely reasoned case for the importance of Furthur on their own merits. I mean, for a while in my early days there I preferred the Jerry Band to the Dead, too. There are no right and wrong answers here... Also, I don't know about you, but I never saw Jerry without knowing how fleeting this was and how lucky we were (not that this was necessarily topmost in one's mind while getting soaked and trampled in the rain, but you get the drift), and I think the new Furthur crowd probably has some of the same thing going on, even though they've got a lot more options in the current festival/jamband/etc. scene.

that Ed is a new fan, but a lot of the Furthur audience is. A growing number of that audience wasn't born when Jerry passed.

at the harmonica convention (as a friend of mine called it) back in 87 at Telluride? Did everybody hold their breath and turn blue? I could tell a story about the supposed harmonic convergence but it wouldn't have anything to do with the Grateful Dead...

that any one particular thing happened, but people sure had a lot of arcane theories about what they should be doing at any given moment. My vague recollection is that the actual convergence was closer to the Park City show than Telluride, but that may be an error. In the interim between those shows, I think.

The Grateful Dead did not do a 15 show run at the Warfield. The entire series of acoustic shows totaled 17: Seven at the Warfield; Two at the Saenger; Eight at Radio City. the longest run of the Grateful Dead was nine. They did that twice at the Madison Square Garden in 1988 and 1991. The Warlocks, two months away from becoming the Grateful Dead, did a 30 show stint at the In Room in Belmont, CA starting in September of 1965.

Actually, it did happen - I was there for most of 'em! 9/25 through 10/14, 1980 - 15 shows, 3 sets each (1 acoustic).

Missing a page from Dead Base

Hope you enjoy being reunited with your old buddy... RIP Tom Davis

checking out some of the excellent books, e.g. Dennis McNally's Long Strange Trip and Blair Jackson's Garcia: An American Life, for lots and lots of info. Not to mention the latest version of DeadBase, which will give you a pretty good sense of what was played when. It's been a while since I've heard "Can't Come Down," but my recollection is a)yes, it's early and b)several of them are singing at once. Officially the band was founded in 1965. Various subsets of the lineup played together at various times before that, often with other people who remained part of the scene one way or another. To oversimplify a whole lot!

Bob Weir gathers a whole bunch of musicians at TRI to celebrate Jerry's 70th birthday, and the whole thing streams live. Get the details here. We'll have lots of coverage after the fact, but hey, you can check it out for yourself too!

marye, sounds good!

link found in my inbox this morning http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/jerry-garcia/photography.html?ra=0&pg=1&s…

My tears are not for you, they are for me as i remember.......Happy 70th Jerry! We still miss you so

Don't cry over what we lost; smile because it happened.

I'd get a copy of the Garcia: A Signpost to New Space book, which is an early-'70s Rolling Stone interview with embellishments, and is still kinda THE interview. Jerry just casually tosses off all kinds of amazing stuff. When I first found it it totally gave me sleepless nights, in a good way.

Maybe even before you read McNally's GD book, read his Kerouac book, Desolate Angel. Good for understanding some of the roots of all this.

Order in the next 41 hours to get it by Tuesday, Aug 7.Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping. $18.50 $15.33 $8.93 $4.39 $24.0 That is $4.39 used, dude. No need to ask someone to give it to you. They'll ship right to your door. I'm going to order it myself...

they have those overpriced but useful debit cards that you buy and load with funds at the store.

Very well said. I will remember that with so many things. Thanks.

Are you locked up in jail or something? Why are you asking us about stuff in the town where you live? Maybe the Amish can help you... Do they have social workers?

yeah, those cards at Walgreen's. If the book is in print, the chances are pretty good that your local bookstore could order it for you; it'd certainly be worth asking. Hey, they'd probably take cash too!

Watched timothy leary. Thanks for posting - Anyone been in touch with them? Have they gone further than anyone has ever been before?

personally I'd recommend reading Signpost as soon as you can get your hands on it, but that's me. Some of it is a bit dated, which is not surprising as it's 40+ years old. But it's pretty great.

This entire thread, which is dedicated to books: Grateful Dead Library. I don't think you need to stop reading American Life just because you're waiting for Signpost though!

Sometimes I'm positively glacial (which I guess is somewhat slower than real slow but somewhat faster than it used to be). Watching the TRI broadcast the other night, it suddenly occurred to me that the Jerry "hand" logo was of a left hand, not a right hand. Have I missed this all these years? Is there an explanation? The only thing that came to mind is that it was a rendering of a handprint, and therefore was a reversed image. So what's the scoop? Sheepishly awaiting enlightenment...thanks.

it's a handprint, yes. I once had a t-shirt of the handprint, which I wore till it fell apart, and I'd sure love to get another. Not that I've seen one since the '80s. In the GD Movie, if I recall correctly, there's a cake backstage with the handprint.

This is posted elsewhere too, but for those who missed it, it looks like the Jerry vault is open again, also with a merhandising store. http://jerrygarcia.shop.musictoday.com/Dept.aspx?cp=640_57727 and you can buy a new handprint T shirt too MaryE! Also coming is a new Garcia Saunders Keystone Box Set, with a handful of unreleased cuts. http://www.jambands.com/news/2012/08/01/merl-saunders-jerry-garcia-comp… exciting times

I'll have to go back to the GD Movie and look for the cake! The "Garcia" album definitely has a disembodied right hand floating on the cover, though. Thank God for that. I saw the "handprint T" at the new Garcia store, am going to need one of those, I'm sure. Must be the "getting old" thing, but it's amazing how many details I've taken for granted through my life that suddenly come around and bite me in the butt...and then I scratch my head wondering how I could have been so blind for so long.

you'd probably get the question noticed more if it were in the book thread, above, because that's where people would be looking for that sort of discussion. That said, I personally read Desolate Angel before Long Strange Trip because the latter hadn't been written yet, and I suspect you might have more depth with the latter if you read the former first, but really, it's all good and enjoy Signpost, which will probably keep you busy for a while as Jer is in rare form...

you'd probably get the question noticed more if it were in the book thread, above, because that's where people would be looking for that sort of discussion. That said, I personally read Desolate Angel before Long Strange Trip because the latter hadn't been written yet, and I suspect you might have more depth with the latter if you read the former first, but really, it's all good and enjoy Signpost, which will probably keep you busy for a while as Jer is in rare form...

Because it's Mondayand It's 10:45 am and Tomorrow will be Tuesday too. Jerry G. XO!

I want to tell you about my morning with Jerry on his birthday a month ago. It started by Jerry playing a few songs for me, I've heard these songs before but this morning was different and there is no way i can put in words the reality of this morning. So after the heavens opened, we decided for a bike ride to the local park i ride to alot! Jerry and i shared Love with everything that morning and like i said, my typing does not discribe the whole, Real... oh i wish it could, but this few hours with Jerry was as Real as Real is, i am Happy and Grateful to be here, to know this Family! I Love you All more than words could ever say, Jerry is Eternal, in my opinion, this whole family is Eternal, and what a Blessing you are to life here on Earth. Thank you for letting me type, your the best, your better than Beautiful!

I have not seen any posts yet on the new Jerry album coming out available. Is anyone else excited about this beside me? I would love to hear feedback from this

I really loved your post. It indicated tro me that you are close to something spiritually important. Call it Jerry, call it Jesus, call it whatever. Just keep hanging with it!

but it's pretty great. What turned out to be Jerry's last film interview, at the Santa Clara Valley Historical Society:

Looking for some good music here in the holland. Just moved here recently and looking for some help from my deadhead brethren. Keep truckin

heading over to the Dead Heads of the Middle East thread. As I recall there are some folks in Israel.

Has anyone noticed the new Jerry CD's release is delayed until Dec. 28? It should have been in the mail already.