If ACT = JGMS and Taper = Louis Falanga, and YYMM = 7402, does XX = 17?

I recently wrote that

in engaging any Garcia event, I first want to pin down the who, the where, and the what. So I want the sociometric, geometric, and the chronometric particulars … If I can pin down those three pieces about any given event with reasonable certainty, I feel like it “exists” in a way I can work with.

That has presented some challenges, as some events we know happen, but that don’t have crisp metadata (especially the date, truthfully) sort of elude my understanding. I have tried to do the best I can with “placeholders” and such, but this kind of chronometric fuzziness really makes me itchy. Whatever – that’s just how some stuff is.

Recently, two folks asked me about the fileset preserved as shnid-8654, a Louis Falanga (supposedly also Bob Menke) tape of Garcia-Saunders that was only labeled “February 1974“. Two people asking me within a day or so tells me it was being discussed online somewhere. Anyway, these queries led me to revisit the fileset, which I haven’t listened to in probably 15 and maybe as many as 20 years. I don’t have huge love for early ’74 Garcia-Saunders relative to later in the year, but I really, truly enjoyed revisiting this stuff. Let me draw especial attention to the 27-minute “He Ain’t Give You None”. I noted it

is absolutely stunning. God, what an overlooked masterpiece! It starts off slow and deep, Billy makes it hop a little in like the 7 minute mark while Jerry plays it clean. It finds some quiet passages, some spacy bits, hot passages (late 19-22 really driving). In 25 it almost sounds like ‘Sitting In Limbo’. An amazing piece of musicianship all around, an incredible version –earliest one known– of this tune.

I really mean it. Go check this fucker out.

But, enough about the music. What about the metadata? 🙂

I am going to suggest that we should assign this material the date of 2/17/74, not because that date is true, but because it might as well be. I don’t have much to go on, but here is my logic.

1) Louis taped 1/17-18/74, and the datings of those tapes got confused over the years, such that 1/18/74 circulated as if it were a three-set show. So, consecutive shows that end up in confusing labeling.

2) I listened to both the 2/16/74 Falanga tape and the 2/xx/74 Falanga tape (both noted below) in close succession, including a side-by-side comparison of “Money Honey”, which appears on both, and the room-and-crowd sound of each. The tapes are quite different, with 2/16 much sharper and cleaner. But it does sound like the same room to me, for whatever that’s worth. (2/16/74 still has the second guitarist and conguero we can hear on the board tape, natch.)

3) Louis and Bob were known to hit the Great American Music Hall, and Jerry and Merl did play it on 2/5/74 and 2/12/74. We have complete board tape of the former from Ed Perlstein‘s master reel (thank you, Ed!). Go check it out and tell us [nick | JGMF] how to make sense of the two saxes one can periodically hear. The latter does not circulate, and we lack setlist for the first set. The 2/xx material could well be from this gig. But, see #2 above. We don’t have enough tape for me to be confident that this is NOT the Music Hall, instead of Keystone, but there’s nothing to suggest that it is.

4) There is also 2/7/74 at the Keystone, but we seem to have enough of a setlist that, if this stuff really is from one night, it’s not from that one.

5) [contra] The GD Archives had a bunch of 2/74 material, including money reckonings, including notes on how the take from 2/16/74 was divvied up among band and crew, and also the 2/9/74 Rheem Theater contract. There was no evidence from 2/17 whatsoever. (I don’t recall any from any of the other shows, though, either.) So the dog didn’t not bark where it might have.

When I put all of this together, I conclude that we might as well call this stuff 2/17/74, unless and until new shit comes to light. Thoughts?

Listening notes for 2/16/74 and “2/17/74” below the fold.

LN jg1974-02-16.jgms.all-2.aud-falanga.8063.shn2flac
LN jg1974-02-xx.jgms.partial.aud-falanga.8654.shn2flac

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Keystone
2119 University Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
February 16, 1974 (Saturday)
Falanga MAC shnid-8063 shn2flac

–set I (8 tracks, 6 tunes, 80:00)–
s1t01. ambience [0:37]
s1t02. Soul Roach [9:34] [0:04] % [2:07]
s1t03. La-La (1) [14:30] [2:49]
s1t04. Think [7:51] [1:31]
s1t05. I Second That Emotion [12:28] [1:06]
s1t06. Are You Lonely for Me Baby? [14:28] [0:19]
s1t07. ambience [1:08]
s1t08. Harder They Come [11:07] (2) [0:17]

–set II (3 tracks, missing 2 tunes, 40:22)–
s2t01. Money Honey [9:49] [2:03]
s2t02. Wondering Why [14:22] [1:23]
s2t03. [0:19] (I’m A) Road Runner [12:10] [0:15]
[MISSING: s2t04. Little Bit Of Righteousness]
[MISSING: s2t05. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
! lineup: Jerry Garcia – el-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn – el-bass;
! lineup: Merl Saunders – keyboards;
! lineup: Martin Fierro – saxophone, flute;
! lineup: Bill Kreutzmann – drums;
! guest: unknown – electric guitar (s1t02 only);
! guest: ?Armando Peraza? – congas.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; … = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [m:ss] = 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 [m:ss] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording. 

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19740216-01

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/8063 (this fileset); https://etreedb.org/shn/91471 (Alligator SBD); https://etreedb.org/shn/136781 (sbd).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/LDc43

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/02/keystone-2119-university-avenue.html

! venue: URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/12/2119-university-avenue-berkeley-ca.html; URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2011/01/jerry-garcia-and-keystone-shows.html

! historical: listed as “Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders”. Fascinating info on this from GD Archives: gross 1710, 350 to Freddie, 75 to Paul Pena, 230 to the crew, 155 to Martine [sic], and 225 each for the other players. The guitarist can only be heard on “La-La”, while the conguero seems to be around for the whole show.

! R: personnel: It’s crazy I didn’t notice the conguero when I prepared the fileset 20 years ago. On the other hand, I had heard a lot less of this band at that point! Now, I hear the conguero to a distracting degree. I have to assume this is Armando Peraza, but I dunno. As for the second guitarist on La-La? No idea. Very distinctive style, but I don’t know whose.

! seealso: JGMF, “Righteousness, and Two Guests: JGMS, Keystone Berkeley, February 16, 1974,” URL http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2011/05/ln-jg1974-02-16jgmsallsbd.html.

! R: field recordists: Louis Falanga and Bob Menke

! R: field recording gear: Sony ECM-270 + Sony ECM-250 > Sony TC-152

! R: field recording location: not onstage, one mic directly in front of Jerry’s amp, the other pointed stage center to catch the rest of the band

! R: lineage: MAC > ? > DATx1 > CDx > EAC > CD > EAC > SHN. Extraction and compression using EAC and mkwACT by [email protected] (7/13/2001) (non-seekable). shn2flac jgmf 1/10/2022.

! JGMF, 1/11/2022: I am listening to this right after listening to the 2/xx/74 tape, to see what a comparison might yield. This tape is much more in your face right out of the gate, and you can hear Jerry talking up onstage, so this feels like what you’d expect from the onstage setup. The only two tunes common to the two filesets is “Money Honey”, but it’s not clear what a comparison would yield, since we know (from the tape labels) that the performances are close in time.

! P: s1t02 Soul Roach Garcia is playing almost pure rhythm for most of the song. Interesting.

! P: s1t02 @ 10:12 second guitarist pulls a note and they start tuning him up. He bends some notes around 10:42. Then in La-La the 2nd guitarist bends a nice note @ 0:42, 1:06.

! s1t03 (1) La-La @ 1:38 JG: “Turn up the flute please, on the PA.”

! R: s1t04 Think a little oversaturated

! P: s1t04 Think Martin gets hugely squonktastic late 4, and Jerry decides to do some beautiful fanning to match the energy at like 4:53.

! R: s1t06 Lonely for Me distortion @ 0:51, drop @ 8:27

! P: s1t06 AYLFMB John is rolling low over 3, sounds great. Drums sound great. Martin follows some very cool lines 8:50ish, Jerry flurries a little in response early 9, while it’s still Martin’s feature. Reprises those lines around 9:15.

! s1t08 (2) JG: “We’re gonna take a break for a little while. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

! R: s2t03 Roadrunner numerous ticks, clicks, and pops after ca. 5:30.  These sound digital in nature but are apparently on the master cassette.

~~~~~~~~~~

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
Unknown Venue
Unknown City, ?CA?
February ??, 1974
Falanga MAC shnid-8654 shn2flac

–(5 tracks, 71:25)–
t01. ambience [0:36]
t02. He Ain’t Give You None [26:42] [3:36]
t03. Expressway (To Your Heart)// [13:36#] % [0:43]
t04. Money Honey [8:26] [1:19]
t05. Like A Road Leading Home [16:04] [0:14]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders
! lineup: Jerry Garcia – el-g, vocals;
! lineup: Merl Saunders – keyboards (Hammond B3 organ), vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn – el-bass;
! lineup: Martin Fierro – saxophone;
! lineup: Bill Kreutzmann – drums.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; … = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [m:ss] = 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 [m:ss] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/charts/calendar?start_date=1974-02-01 (month of February 1974).

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/8654

! metadata: So here we have a Falanga tape only labeled Garcia-Saunders February 1974. In that timeframe, we have to assume it’s Kreutzmann drumming. Sounds like him to me, I guess, but I am not one to really be able to make that kind of assessment. We know Louis taped 2/16/74 at Keystone Berkeley, https://etreedb.org/shn/8063, and we also know that in January he taped consecutive nights (1/17-18) on tapes that got kind of confused with each other (circulating as a putative three-set 1/18 forever). I have tried to compare the two tapes, especially “Money Honey” which is on both, especially again for room feel and that sort of thing. Despite the different characteristics (2/16 is much more in your face than 2/xx), the crowd response sounds similar to me. On that basis, and given that I can’t really tell anything definitive, I propose we connect this material to 2/17/74, for which not a note circulates, as a placeholder identification.

! R: field recordists: Louis Falanga and Bob Menke

! R: field recording gear: Sony ECM-270 + Sony ECM-250 [mic placement uncertain] > Sony TC-152

! R: lineage: MAC > ? > DATx1 > CD1 > EAC > CD2 > EAC > SHN; via Jack Warner. Extraction from CD2 using EAC, re-tracking using CD Wave and Wave Merge, and .shn encoding using mkwACT by [email protected] (9/5/2001).

! R: Seeder Notes: – The master cassette was simply labeled “2/74”. – Hissier, boomier, and slightly more muffled vocals than other Menke/Falanga auds. This is especially true to start. The mix sort of resolves somewhat, but the hiss remains. 

! R: t01 HAGYN level fluctuations first 30 seconds or so. More muffling, distortion late 22.

! P: t01 HAGYN is absolutely stunning. God, what an overlooked masterpiece! It has starts off slow and deep, Billy makes it hop a little in like the 7 minute mark while Jerry plays it clean. It finds some quiet passages, some spacy bits, hot passages (late 19-22 really driving). In 25 it almost sounds like ‘Sitting In Limbo’. An amazing piece of musicianship all around, an incredible version –earliest one known– of this tune.

! R: t03 ETYH bass is pretty significantly distorted here. The drumming, by contrast, is perfectly captured. Tune cuts out.

! P: the drumming is just amazing. So strong, so steady, so musical.

! P: t05 LARLH Garcia is putting a really chunky reggae beat and comping in 9-10 range. Never heard it played quite like that, that I can recall. Interesting that I heard some SIL hints in HAGYN, like the reggae vibe keeps popping up this night.

! setlist: there’s no indication that things are ending after LARLH, so we can’t really know where in the show this material might have appeared.