The Venetta Cremery Benefit show was taped for a movie but it was never released. I had a copy but have long since watched it into oblivion. It got jammed in the VCR and totally ruined when I tried to get it out. I ended up taking a hammer to the whole mess.
The movie was an iffy proposition. Lots of the crowd scenes and atmospheric stuff was poorly shot (lots and lots of nude people running around - I understand that it was one of the hottest days in Oregon history) and it becomes obvious pretty quickly that the movie crew is pretty well tweaked out (you can hear them babbling quite a bit). The music, though,…DAMN! If you’ve got a copy of the tape you’re already familiar with it, so any extra words are superfluous.
One of the best scenes takes place right in the middle of Dark Star>El Paso. The music is right out there, floating around Neptune, and Jerry is completely frozen over his guitar. Just really, really into. From the side of the stage this little blonde haird kid walks out on stage and stands in front of him, just looking up at him with this really quizzical look on his face. Jerry doesn’t miss a lick and just keeps playing. After a minute the kid looses interest and walks back to the side of the stage.
It may be very difficult to find, but if you come across a copy get it.
Oooh, the topic drift in a dead thread. Apres peux, huh?
As others have said, check out “Reckoning” (A.K.A For the Faithful"). All acoustic, and some of my favorite released Dead stuff. I’d listen to it more if I dind’t already have every note memorized.
Check out local dead/jam bands–all college towns and mid-sized cities have at least one.
Check out Phish or STI. I actually think Phish are musically much better, more diverse and more interesting than the Dead. Hell, they actually practice. I saw Phish in 1989 for the first time, and never saw another Dead show. Saw Phish a few times before the scene became more about the party than the music, as the Dead scene did as well. Much, as I understand, to both bands’ chagrin.
I just discovered “Philsh”, several shows with Phil Lesh, Trey Anastasio, Page McConnell, Steve Kimmock et al. Some great stuff.
I have an absolutely horrible, horrible sounding tape of a portion of this show. Not only is there tape wah, hisses, & pops, but it is very, very badly mixed.
And recorded on an el-cheapo cassette about 15 years ago.
spinner.com has a channel just for jam bands that we listen to. It’s been fun turning my thirteen year old on to this music. We’re going to see The Allmans for the first time together this August and I keep making him CD’s with stuff I know he’ll like … Taos Hum, Bloodkin, Gov’t Mule, Phil & Friends, Uncle Sammy, eKoostik Hookah. I think so far he liked Lucinda by the Radiators best and also seems pretty stuck Warren Haynes guitar playing.
Tomorrow night Blues Traveler is having a free concert on PPV so we’ll make popcorn and watch that. Neat sharing hippie music with your kid
Thanks for the memories, references, and links. I can’t wait to see where they take me. Ya’ll already mentioned some of the greatest albums, but another favorite, ultimate (to me) CD is “Garcia and Grisman”, especially if this young inquirer likes accoustic; also, “Old and In the Way” which is again Garcia and (David) Grisman along with Peter Rowan, John Kahn, And !Vassar Clements!.
I remeber one time, bout 1977,we heard the dead were going to play in Jackson, Mississippi on a Wednesday night (about 5 hours drive from my house). Now if you don’t know that Jackson, Mississippi is in the middle of NOwhere, look at one of those “earth by satellite at night” photos. The blackest places in the whole country are the middle of idaho and the middle of Mississippi. However, the 60s really lasted until about '75, and then the south lagged(s) behind the rest of the country a pace, so it weren’t too bad a place to be. So anyway, we drove up there, got to the middle of town, near the arena, and asked for directions. A man told us,“That’s it, right over there”, pointing to the big arena on the other side of this huge empty parking lot. We drove over there, and sure enough, saw some longhairs outside the door so we parked and went on in. There were only about 600-800 people there but they came from EVERYwhere: Ohio, Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky and on. After all, the Dead didn’t make it too often to the south and what a joyous opportunity it provided. They played for five and half hours…
Atlanta had some fine shows, and great drumming ALL around the Omni...
Another sweet memory is catching them in '83 in New Orleans at the Sanger, a fine old art deco theatre that seats about 1200. That was also the last time ever I saw any real LSD... but I suppose I could start an inquiry of my own about that..
By the way, can anyone recommend a good place to trade tapes online? The one great source I had (and he yielded VERY high quality ones, in my opinion) has dried up, in that we had a falling out.
In Marlton, NJ, there’s the famous Woodstock Trading Company, but I don’t live near there anymore and I’m not sure if they still do the trading thing, anyway.
I have about 30 tapes; some are continuous performances and others are single songs strung together.
I visited a GD newsgroup once and found a link (which I don’t have in front of me at the moment) for a tapers’ site, but the guy I hooked up with on it wasn’t terribly dependable.
[li]watching people walk around the parking lot with 5 handmade bracelets hanging from a stick.[/li][li] “I need a miracle ticket” signs.[/li][li] little stickers.[/li][li] “Have a good show” wishes.[/li][li] Drumming under the overpass at RFK (see post above).[/li][li] Veggie burritos (haven’t had a good one since!).[/li][li] Balloons and people walking around going “Waa-waa-waa”.[/li][li] Trading tix.[/li][li] Hair wrap “stands”.[/li][li] Checking out the cool dyes. (tangent- Mrs. Spritle and I bought 3 little tie-dyes for our three nephews. We currently have them for our little one. The shirts are over 10 years old and still look pretty good!)[/li][li] Meeting people named “Cheese”, “Mushroom” and “Blink”.[/li][li] People walking around with some number of fingers in the air.[/li]
What have I forgotten in my purple haze?
