Fate Music

Category: burden

  • James Booker, Classified

    ‘Cause I know I think I know How everything is classified That ain’t no lie I’m so glad someone told me How everything is classified That ain’t no lie — James Booker, “Classified” Let me pass some light through the social prism of James Carroll Booker III (December 17, 1939 – November 8, 1983) performing…

  • Biblical Serendipity Alert

    Let’s start by recognizing that, insofar as the probability of a given event happening is the product of the individual probabilities of all of the events needed to produce it, we certainly shouldn’t be here. Everything is impossible. It’s nonetheless funny when individually improbable streams cross, which is what’s happening when we talk about serendipity.…

  • Risk and Challenge in the 1970s

    Here’s a back-of-the-napkin sketch, my subjective assessment, of the musical risks and challenges associated with Garcia’s 1970s bands (qua personnel and repertoire) playing black and race-fusion music. So, this includes Wales-Garcia, all of the Jerry and Merl outfits, and all of the JGBs. It excludes NRPS, OAITW, GAMB/GASB (playing mostly white roots music), and the…

  • Jerry Garcia Sometime Before Christmas

    Night Times, published out of Berkeley for about a year (as far as I know) in 1971-1972, is a treasure. I found a review of Chez Panisse just shortly after it opened, but it’s loaded with great music, art, etc. content. Anyway, I liked this one, from the December 23, 1971 – January 3, 1972…

  • The Grateful Dead: Top-Grossing Act of 1991

    I just picked up a copy of Pollstar‘s 1991 Year-End Special Edition, entitled Year of the Dead, dated December 31, 1991. Though I don’t do much GD stuff, blogger’s stats tell me that GD posts are the most popular. People are funny. But I digress. One of the reasons I don’t do it is that…

  • LN Reconstruction May 19, 1979 Old Waldorf, set II

    Corry attended the Reconstruction show at the Old Waldorf on May 19, 1979, and has written it up very nicely from all of the angles that matter. He saw the 1st set. The second set, probably most of it, circulates from a very nice but unattributed audience recording. It’s not the best Reconstruction set around,…

  • Expressway to Homer’s: JGMS in Palo Alto, May 4, 1973

    LN jg1973-05-04.jgms.all.sbd-alligator.31283.flac1644 I. Introduction Acquisitiveness is a real affliction. Not only is it unattractive in its own right, but the pursuit of the “unhad” oftentimes crowds out other, periodically more productive activities. Consider my own pursuit of Garcia recordings. While I imagine what could be on a tape (real or imagined) that I don’t have,…

  • Updated LN jg1973-04-16.oaitw.a.fm-nfagdtrfb.100404.flac1644

    Man, I have been busy. Anyway, some time ago I did a half-assed “listening notes” on the circulating set (set I) of OAITW 4/16/73. This is one of the “Four Nights at the Boarding House” that seem so incredibly, richly evocative of what a relatively healthy, happy, loose and jamming Garcia wanted out of his…

  • Merl Saunders and Friends: May 31 – June 1, 1974, Inn of the Beginning, Cotati

    Here is one of the tantalizing little performances that you come across and really, really want to know more about, while understanding how miraculous it is that you are able to know anything about it at all. The Inn of theBeginning in Cotati hosted Merl Saunders and Friends, including Jerry Garcia, with Paul Pena opening,…

  • JGMS: July 19, 1973, Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, CA

    Heitman, Dianne. 1973. Merle [sic] & Jerry soar at Music Hall – so does audience. San Francisco Phoenix v.1 n.24 (August 10), p. 8. Positive review of Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders, July 19, 1973, Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, CA. The Great American Music Hall, at 859 O’Farrell Street in San Francisco, CA,…