Jerry Garcia’s Name-Claiming Journey Beyond the Grateful Dead

  • Don’t judge a tape by the gear: JGB at Stages, East St. Louis, May 23, 1983

    The only tape circulating for the Garcia Band show at Stages in East St. Louis, May 23, 1983, was recorded using the built-in mics of a Sony D6 by one Steven Shayman. Looks like it entered circulation in June 2004 as a shn fileset put together by Dr. Chris Ladner (neo_levo) as part of the…

  • Expressway Day: Garcia-Saunders at the Golden Bear, Huntington Beach, December 29, 1974

    I woke up this morning with “Expressway (To Your Heart)” playing in my head. Not just any Expressway, mind you. But the one played by Jerry and Merl and crew (possibly calling themselves Legion of Mary backstage and such) at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach on December 29, 1974, to end (or just about)…

  • The WSJ piece

    It’s interesting how a thing in such a high profile place generates so much feedback, and a much wider range of feedback than I am used to from here or the Dead blogosphere/Twittersphere. I just want to sit at my desk and listen to tunes and parse data and think and write. Let me just…

  • At Camp Loma Mar [At Camp Loma Mar] | kids can swim [kids can swim] | all the way to China [all the way to China] | Ha ha ha [ha ha ha] | Ho ho ho [ho ho ho]

    As a sixth grader at Burton Valley Elementary School in Lafayette California in the spring of 1982 I got to go to sixth grade camp. This seems like a thing that still happens for kids –at least certain kinds of kids from certain kinds of schools– in their terminal year of elementary school. Where I…

  • Slowly Unraveled Over You: JGB 3c at Keystone Palo Alto, April 9, 1977

    Obviously I am catching up on posting some listening notes. Quality will be even more variable than usual. LN jg1977-04-09.jgb.all.aud-bunjes.13361.shn2flac Some tapes travel unlikely paths to our ears. Here’s an unattributed aud tape, the only one circulating, which went to Germany before coming out into the broader world. I really love the feel of it. It’s…

  • Chatty Cathy in the House: JGB at the Stone, December 18, 1981

    LN jg1981-12-18.jgb.all.aud-martin.16379.shn2flac I recently learned the term “chompers” to describe people who talk through shows. Well, this phenomenon is as old as time, with the triad of the drum, the chomper and the shusher perhaps very nearly co-constituting each other In The Beginning. Bill Kreutzmann drums, the chomper talks all show long, and I don’t really…

  • Little Legal Matters: JGB #1 at Keystone, November 8, 1975

    LN jg1975-11-08.jgb.all.aud-castelli-motb-0151.109001.flac1644 ad for JGB 11/8/75 at Keystone, SFSECDB-19751102-p31 Not going to do long listening notes, so a few random bits from this one. First, “Micky” [sic] Hopkins. Heh heh. We are easily amused here. Also @Corry: the ad says advance tickets at BASS, but that was absolutely not the case for any Jerry show at…

  • The December ’85 Garcia Band Shows

    LN jg1985-12-14.jgb.all.aud-CC.137723.flac1644 LN jg1985-12-15.jgb.all-1.aud-CC.137724.flac1644 LN jg1985-12-21.jgb.all.aud-gale.14980.shn2flac LN jg1985-12-22.jgb.all.aud-gale.14981.shn2flac seealso: LN jg1985-10-14.jgb.all.aud.138028.flac1644 Earlier this year I posted listening notes on four JGB shows from August 1985, and here I do the same for December of the same year. It’s relatively feasible to do this for Rock Bottom shows because they are fun sized, with sets regularly clocking…

  • Late ’78 Kahn (JGB at Paramount Theatre, Portland, OR, October 26, 1978)

    LN jg1978-10-26.jgb.all.aud-severson.148655.flac2496 Not a ton to report. Kahn sounded absolutely amazing on this tour. Really, all through 1978. I don’t know if he changed something, if the sound people just dialed him in especially well, or something else, but the bass was big and fat. Great recording by Mark Severson, full of ambience. Garcia strong. Apparently…

  • Kemper’s Last: JGB at Hampton Coliseum, November 19, 1993

    The great drummer David Kemper joined the JGB on Wednesday, July 20, 1983, at the Keystone Palo Alto, probably for a few hundred beer drinkers at a show with gross potential of something like $5 grand. He played his last gig with the band at the legendary Hampton Coliseum on November 19, 1993, before a…