Fate Music

Feel Your Oats, and Race Back to Eat Them: JGB opening for Frank Zappa, UIC Pavilion, University of Illinois Chicago, August 18, 1984

Last night of the August ’84 tour, which was really strong, amazingly strong given the shape Garcia was in. Zappa headlined the ads, but Garcia played second. Not much to write home about, except, on the theme of “oats”. 1) Garcia is feeling them in the big guitar tunes CUTS, GOOMLW and Deal. Man – hot-hot-hot stuff, early and often in these tunes. 2) Like a horse racing back to the barn, Garcia sprints the band through the Midnight Moonlight at a really embarrassingly fast tempo. Kemper must have been sore for days trying to keep up.

Jerry Garcia Band
UIC Pavilion, University of Illinois-Chicago
1140 W. Harrison Street
Chicago, IL
August 18, 1984 (Saturday) – 7 PM
Hessberg MAC flac2496 shnid-148835

–main set + encore (7 tracks, 63:23)–
–main set (6 tracks, 53:28-0:55)–
t01. – … Cats Under The Stars [#7:06] -8:12
t02. Get Out Of My Life Woman [11:00] [0:15]
t03. I’ll Take A Melody [13:47] ->
t04. Run For The Roses [5:20] [0:01] % [0:07]
t05. Gomorrah [6:10] [0:14]
t06. Midnight Moonlight [7:29] (1) [0:09] % pre-encore [0:55]
–encore (1 track, 0:55+9:54)–
t07. Deal [9:45] (1) [0:09]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band #21b
! lineup: Jerry Garcia – guitar, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn – bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals – keyboards;
! lineup: David Kemper – drums;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch – vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones – vocals.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; … = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [x:xx] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the “real” time of the event. So, a timing of [x:xx] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.

! Jerrybase: URL https://jerrybase.com/events/19840818-01

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/8415 (O’Connell MAC shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/22084 (Senn 421s shnf); https://etreedb.org/shn/148834 (this master, flac1644); https://etreedb.org/shn/148835 (this fileset). I am also aware of Nak 300 tapes pulled by David Doppelt and another by “Doug and Nancy” (the latter from the 3rd row), but it seems that neither of these has made the jump to lossless.

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/xFccM

! JGBP: URL http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/12/uic-pavilion-university-of-illinois-525.html. This is a relatively rare example of the JGB playing a venue before the Dead would play it (April 9-10-11, 1987). I am surprised the Dead could still play a 10k seat arena in April 1987, but I guess that was just before “Touch Of Grey” hit it big.

! ad: Chicago Reader, unknown date

! listing: Chicago Tribune, August 12, 1984, p. 26

! review: [positive] Van Matre 1984

! expost: URL https://web.archive.org/web/20150910005323/http://home.online.no/~corneliu/picturedisc2.htm

! expost: Billboard, 9/22/1984, p. 53. Sellout @ 9,728 sold, $15, gross $145,920.

! R: historical: Last night of the August ’84 tour which must have made a bundle. FZ recalled “we were the opening act and I didn’t see any of his set.” Van Matre says the opening / closing slots were determined by a coin flip, with Zappa headlining, and he got the imagery in a Chicago Reader ad. Van Matre likes both of the “aggressively unfashionable” acts, finding Garcia “capable of conjuring up a kind of sweet, stoned, meandering magic with his music that has lasting appeal”.

! misc: Zappa setlist: Zoot Allures, More Trouble Every Day, Penguin In Bondage, Hot Plate Heaven At The Green Hotel, City Of Tiny Lights, You Are What You Is, Mudd Club, The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing, Dumb All Over, He’s So Gay, Bobby Brown, Keep It Greasey, Honey Don’t You Want A Man Like Me?, Carol You Fool, Chana In De Bushwop, Let’s Move To Cleveland, Cosmik Debris, Sharleena, Ride My Face To Chicago, The Illinois Enema Bandit. via http://etreedb.org/lookup_show.php?shows_key=54581.

! R: field recordist: Michael Hessberg

! R: field recording gear: 2x Sennheiser ME-80 > Sony D5 (MAC)

! R: lineage: Nakamichi DR-1 playback > Tascam DA-3000 (DSF 1-bit/5.6 MHz) > dBpoweramp (24/96) > Adobe Audition CC 2019 > TLH flac2496.

! R: seeder notes: – Thanks to Michael Hessberg for the Master Cassette source – Thanks to Charlie Miller for the transfer and coordinating this effort – Thanks to Brian O’Connell for the shnid8415 Nakamichi 100 source which supplies the first 1:15 of “Cats Under The Stars”, some crowd and the first few notes of “Gomorrah” (0:09 total), as well as some crowd and first few notes of “Midnight Moonlight” (0:15 total) – Thanks to Joe B. Jones for his assistance with the pitch correction. Mastered by Scott Clugston, December 2019.

! P: nice punchy tape

! R: t01 CUTS enters in progress, maybe 30 seconds missing

! P: t01 CUTS Garcia’s first guitar turn late 2 already has some great fuzz. He had flubbed lyrics and sounded listless vocally, but here the guitar goes straight to the good stuff, no dicking around.

! P: t02 GOOMLW sounds so awesome!! The crowd appreciative 5 as Garcia does some percussive grungy stuff. More great playing late 8 over 9. Man, Garcia is feeling his oats here.

! P: t06 Mid Moon: I can nearly taste the oats from Garcia’s feedbag as he gallops to the barn. Embarrassingly sped up.

! t06 (1) JG: “Thanks a lot. G’night.”

! P: t07 Deal fucks up verse goes right to “hate to leave you sitting there composin’ lonesome blues”. It’s a fine, if misplaced, sentiment. Notwithstanding this, Deal is very hot, as you would expect. Very hot.

! t07 (2) JG: “Thanks a lot.”

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20 responses to “Feel Your Oats, and Race Back to Eat Them: JGB opening for Frank Zappa, UIC Pavilion, University of Illinois Chicago, August 18, 1984”

  1. Grateful Seconds Avatar
    Grateful Seconds

    Chicago tribune review http://www.gratefulseconds.com/p/jerry-garcia-band-and-frank-zappa.html?m=0

    Reply
  2. Fate Music Avatar
    Fate Music

    Yeah, Lynn van Matre could be a tough critic, but she liked this one.

    Reply
  3. Nick Avatar
    Nick

    I can't remember where I first read this, but there was once a story that during Zappa's set, he made some snarky comment about Garcia (or maybe just hippies in general?) and then mocked Garcia's style in one of his solos. I have no idea if that is true — I did once scan through the tape of Zappa's set and didn't hear anything like that — but fwiw it's an anecdote that has traveled with this show.

    Reply
  4. ZaPen Avatar
    ZaPen

    The closest Zappa ever got to directly namechecking the Dead in song was in the studio version of Teenage Wind, where a character says "It's a miserable Friday night, I'm so lonely and nobody'll give me a ride to the Grateful Dead concert", and at another point mentions tightening his headband for an extra rush during Jerry's guitar solo. In live versions of Teenage Wind, these asides were absent, though the notion of tightening one's headband to make music more enjoyable was occasionally referenced in various numbers ("The Blue Light" springs to mind).

    Teenage Wind was played in concert throughout the 1980s, but didn't enter the 1984 band's repertoire until a week or so later, in Poughskeepie NY.

    Anyway, for what it's worth, I don't hear anything particularly "out of place" in any of Zappa's solos that would lead me to think "ah-ha, this must be mockery". What allusions there are are standard within the Zappa canon – "City of Tiny Lights" is Santana-like by design, "Dumb All Over" is Diddley-like by design, "Carol You Fool" is doo-wop by design, and so on. "Let's Move to Cleveland" is the most "freeform" track of 1984, and if I was Zappa and going to mock Garcia's style, this is the track where it'd be least-jarring to do it, but here it's pretty much like an average August 1984 Cleveland, with familiar themes and motifs that would eventually culminate in the 9/1 Saratoga Cleveland.

    Snarky comment about hippies in general… well, Zappa was breathing during this show, so it's pretty likely that there's anti-hippie snark at some point, yeah 🙂 Most obvious culprit is "Cosmik Debris", though this was a very commonly-played song and I doubt it was directed at Jerry – it targets the guru/hippie relationship, so it'd be more of a Bob/Mickey dig if anything. Zappa always ran a tight, professional show, and this is no exception – no tuning pauses, no song introductions until the encores, and absolutely no between-song banter – in fact, all songs after the opening Zoot Allures segue.

    There is one interesting part in the Zappa show, though. Upon returning to the stage for the first encore (immediately before the aforementioned Cosmik Debris), Zappa begins playing an impromptu guitar improvisation, which the band joins in on. It only lasts about thirty seconds or so, but this is pretty non-standard for Zappa. I could imagine there possibly being a visual element here of some sort that might reference the notion of two "guitar gods" on one billing (like putting on a Santa hat for a Christmas show), though nothing too overtly mocking as there's no laughter from the audience on the recording.

    The solo itself could maybe be seen as a Garcia pastiche, but only in the sense that an inkblot on a concert poster might maybe be seen as a werewolf if the show was in London and you know Warren Zevon was on the bill. In truth, it really just sounds like a Zappa solo, something that wouldn't seem at all incongruous in "Let's Move to Cleveland" (in fact, when first noticing it, I had to double-check that I wasn't just listening to the end of the previous track!).

    Maybe having a full 80 minute set and three encores could be seen as a dig? 🙂

    Reply
  5. Fate Music Avatar
    Fate Music

    ZaPen, thanks so much for this careful analysis. I know nothing of Zappa, so this was super helpful.

    Reply
  6. ZaPen Avatar
    ZaPen

    Thank you for the kind words. You really knock it out of the park with your analysis, I'm honored to have something to contribute to your base of knowledge.

    While the Dead and Zappa might be a bit of a Felix and Unger pairing, to put it mildly (maybe more of a Spicoli / Mr. Hand relationship – imagine poor Frank trying to get these incorrigible hippies to r*hearse), there are some really interesting parallels to be found in their respective chronologies – or at least within the chronologies of Zappa and Garcia, I leave the Gordian task of separating Jerry's ebbs and flows from those of the Dead Machine to someone far more versed in the Dead than myself.

    The condensed version is that both stripped down their "psychedelic" sound in 1970, both had a major shift in 1975, in 1979 as the Dead were taking on Brent, Zappa was shaking up his touring routine, and both Zappa and Garcia died within 20 months of each other "not young-young but younger-than-we'd like" of semi-natural causes exacerbated by drug use/smoking. I originally delved a bit more into all these points, but it seemed a bit of a tangent, so I'll spare you unless directly solicited 🙂

    Oh, and Lou Reed trash-talked them both.

    The main point of focus that's relevant here is that in 1984, the year of this particular show, Garcia was "Rock Bottom" (as one incredibly dedicated blogger and talented writer whose name somehow escapes me has been known to put it), and Zappa's 1984 touring band is often seen as the all-time low-point for live Zappa.

    Obviously, Zappa was never too wasted to sing the verses, and would never dream of a 30 minute set. His 1984 fobiles center more around tone. Zappa was always interested in the cutting edge, and 1984 found his wholehearted embrace of the Yamaha DX7, along with complete takeover by the Pollard Syndrum, as well as a particular guitar tone which, all combined, led to a cheesy and antiseptic sound very similar to the Vince years (in interesting comparison with the Vince years, even the harshest detractors of 1984 Zappa will grant readily that the band had fantastic vocals). 1984's repertoire (Zappa's second-largest touring repertoire ever, with 86 different songs played) focused heavily on poppier vocal numbers, which both plays to the strength of the band and also fuels the discontent of those who prefer Zappa at his more jazzy/proggy.

    Perhaps most damning is that 1984 was also the year that Zappa chose to overdub the bass and drums on two of his early 60s albums – Cruising with Ruben & the Jets, and, far more controversially, We're Only In It For the Money. It kicked off a long, bothersome era of troublesome Zappa CD masters, which took until 2012 to finally mostly resolve.

    Anyway, I find it interesting that the two most direct path-crossings in Zappa/Dead history were both during two of the most directly-similar periods these bands had – 1972 mortality-grappling and 1984 suckiness-grappling 🙂

    Apropos of nothing/everything, I listened to the 2/6/94 DLG on a certain JGB blogger's offhand recommendation and the two things I'd like to say are: 1. That 8:55-13:30 solo utterly smokes, and 2. If you love that performance, you absolutely need to check out some Zappa, because that fretwork is uncannily Zappaesque in both tone and technique. Off the top of my head, it reminds me the most of the Hot Rats version of Willie the Pimp (there's multiple officially-released versions, the Hot Rats one should be nine minutes), but there's so much more like this in the live tapes, where the hall ambience always lends a certain ethereal quality that's impossible to capture in the same ways on studio records.

    Reply
  7. Fate Music Avatar
    Fate Music

    Well, thank you very much.

    Those parallels are totally fascinating. Almost certainly random — a doubt there's some kind of general rock star life-cycle in these musical terms — but interesting nonetheless.

    I recall that FZ was anti-drug in the early days. What ended up being his drug of choice?

    I will check out that tune that 2/6/94 sort of brings to mind – thanks! The most notable aspect of Garcia's guitar playing in that period, to me (which you will know from reading here), was that it picked up in intentionality and some degree of plucky precision what it lacked in power. Ten years earlier, like in 84, he would have just turned up to '11' and blasted. He couldn't do that anymore in the 90s, so he plucked and bent the pitch and so forth.

    Thanks again for contributing and for reading. I assume there's a Zappa blogosphere as well?

    Reply
  8. Nick Avatar
    Nick

    ZaPen, thank you for this great analysis! That story always struck me as a little fishy, and it is great to read such a clear explication of Zappa's performance.

    @JGMF, afaik Zappa was anti-drug until the end, besides nictotine and caffeine.

    Reply
  9. ProgPaul Avatar
    ProgPaul

    you have one thing that is totally incorrect, Zappa opened for Jerry I was working the show older picture of entrance to small dressing room at UIC pavilion where many , many years ago I was a security guard outside in hall of Jerry Garcia’s dressing room for a double bill with Frank Zappa, while Zappa was onstage I could hear jerry practicing and coughing from pungent weed he was smoking non stop
    I’d worked numerous zappa shows previously and knew his manager and his security guy, anyhow the mgr says to me: “you are in a great spot” , I asked “what do you mean ?” to which he replied: “ Frank and Jerry have NEVER met and you get to be ‘fly on wall , and witness first hand when I introduce them‼️
    both had their guitars slung over their shoulders and shook hands with Jerry asking: “what kind of crowd do we got tonight?” Frank replied: “ very midwesternish “, a few other pleasantries and it was over , only a few minutes then Jerry took the stage for his set ‼️🤔😂

    Reply
  10. ProgPaul Avatar
    ProgPaul

    file:///var/mobile/Library/SMS/Attachments/76/06/C8FD056A-5176-4898-84B7-BD31D59F1A0D/IMG_0919.JPG

    Reply
  11. Fate Music Avatar
    Fate Music

    Thanks for the correction! I have fixed the post. Not sure what image you were trying to attach, but you can email it to [email protected] and I would gratefully receive it. Thanks!

    Reply
  12. ZaPen Avatar
    ZaPen

    @ProgPaul: Incorrect. JGB opened for FZ. You can see two comments from eyewitnesses here testifying to that, as well as a newspaper clipping confirming that Zappa was the "headliner".

    Reply
  13. ZaPen Avatar
    ZaPen

    JGB did in fact open for Frank Zappa – see my comment above. The official story is that this was the result of a backstage coinflip (I believe a similar coinflip led to Hawkwind getting the headliner slot in London 1972, though I can't find sources for that at the moment).

    To answer your question from half a year ago – Zappa's drugs of choice were music, nicotine, and caffeine, in that order. I suppose a clearer version of what I wrote would be ". . . exacerbated by drug use (Garcia) / smoking (Zappa)".

    Anyway, what brings me here at the moment is to share a couple Zappa interview clips I came across that are Dead-related:

    In 1982, Zappa was giving an interview on KROQ (quite possibly his last for KROQ ever – see below for lengthy parenthetical), and a "rapid-fire answers to questions from callers" segment includes the question (read by Zappa), "do you like the Grateful Dead and Deadheads" "they're okay" [tone of voice implies that this is "okay" on a spectrum between war crimes and Stravinsky].

    ===Begin lengthy parenthetical===
    By this point Rick Carroll had taken over KROQ and pushed it towards the strict "FM format" that dominates modern US airwaves – this contributed to the classic awkward moment that wraps up the interview:

    INTERVIEWER ("JED"): I think last time you were here, you played, what, four sides…? Of something that was called "the Läther album"?
    FZ: Yeah, well, we couldn't do that in times like this, because we tried to play "Drowning Witch" [ZaPen note: a 12 minute piece with a highly-complex interlude] and you got phone calls in here where they wanted to take the thing off the air. I understand, you know, you're trying to move forward, you're trying to have a high-powered radio station. These things have happened to me before. It's– no problem, I won't be back.
    JED: [unsteadily, one of those "are we joking around or being serious" moments] …yeah you will.
    FZ: [conclusively] No I won't.
    [1.881 seconds of dead air that feels like an eternity]
    JED: [voice audibly wavering, still trying to process the above] …KROQ-FM [cues Missing Persons' "Mental Hopscotch"]

    ===End lengthy parenthetical===

    The second clip comes from an interview on Phoenix's KDKB in 1977 and is far more sincere and easier to parse:

    INTERVIEWER: [during, oddly enough, another discussion about songs too long/weird for the radio] I know the Grateful Dead are having the same trouble with Terrapin Station.
    FZ: Yeah?
    [FZ and Interviewer both talk over each other briefly]
    FZ: …long cuts on that?
    INTERVIEWER: Yeah, it's a whole side, it's, uh, it's uh, it's just… I was wondering if you heard that album, because it's, um, it's a step ahea[d]– step differently for the Dead's taste.
    FZ: As a matter of fact, I heard one of the cuts that was played on this station, while we were driving over here. And I didn't know who it was. And it sounded really good.
    INTERVIEWER: What we're doing now is just, uh, wind those twenty-minute songs down to five-minutes, so you get some airplay on there.

    Unfortunately, the interviewer doesn't expressly mention which cut was played – I'm assuming from the "turn a 20 minute song into 5" that this might have been the first two sections of Terrapin Station, Lady with a Fan > Terrapin Station. Equally likely is the official Terrapin Station > Terrapin edit – this was back when FM still played B-sides, and I can't really see Zappa considering the A-sides worthy of comment.

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  14. Fate Music Avatar
    Fate Music

    Thank you for pinning this info here!

    Reply
  15. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I was there. Zappa opened for JG with raggedy Ann and Andy doll puppets dancing at the sides of the stage.

    Reply
  16. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Jerry played first and Zappa followed with a slightly longer set.

    Reply
  17. EyesDude Avatar
    EyesDude

    JGB played first. Many deadheads left before and/or during the monster version of Kreega Bondolo (later known as Let's Move to Cleveland). I had no trouble walking right up to the rail.

    Reply
  18. Pat Avatar
    Pat

    Long Jam Productions Facebook post about setting up this show: https://m.facebook.com/jamusa/photos/a.62157741090/10158598870426091/

    Reply
  19. Pat Avatar
    Pat

    I don't know if their story of a long, congenial private backstage visit between Zappa and Garcia is true, or a nice bit of fiction. Scott Thunes (Zappa's bass player at the time) said on Reddit that FZ was annoyed with the Dead for sitting in the front row at a 60's Mothers show and blowing pot smoke at the stage, and told that story again to his band at the '84 date.

    Reply
  20. NoURider Avatar
    NoURider

    Having been at show – JGB opened.

    Reply

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