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Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | Sep 6, 2010 1:24am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | MOTB...or is that BOTB? |
I was listening to the 12/11/72 AUD that came out a little while ago, a balcony recording from Winterland. It sounds pretty nice, actually - not that it'll make anyone throw away their SBDs - it's still a boomy 1972 audience tape, after all! Weir is rather loud in the mix. And (though it's needless to say this for a '72 show) the Dead play really well! A couple highlights are the ends of He's Gone and Mississippi Half-Step, which go the extra mile.
Anyway, one reason I bring it up is because the Stella Blue has one of those incidents we were talking about a little while ago - how on 2/18/71, the audience cheers as soon as the band starts Wharf Rat, even though they've never heard it.
Same thing happens here - the MOMENT Garcia starts Stella Blue after that long morose Dark Star, the audience goes wild with applause - it's even more apparent on this AUD tape than it was on the SBD. Now few people in Dec '72 would even have heard Stella Blue yet, so that's not what they're excited about. It's a case where the audience is so in the moment, being taken through the depths of darkness in Dark Star - the instant the band lets up & changes direction, everyone kind of explodes with relief. We actually hear it the wrong way around - it's not "oh, here's a song", but more like "wow, they just turned on a dime! How'd they do that?"
By the way, the recent 2/13/70 AUD tape that's up on the Archive is also a pretty good-sounding tape for a 1970 Fillmore East recording. Not that anyone's going to prefer it over the excellent SBD! It's a shame the taper ran out of tape (apparently) while the band was still in their warmup set...it would be very nice to hear an AUD of that second set, if one existed.
While I'm on the subject of audience tapes - I FINALLY found a quote I'd been looking for. I knew one of the Dead, somewhere, had talked about 'room-taping' their winter '68 shows...but could never remember who or where...
It was Garcia, in a 1968 radio documentary on the Dead:
"We recorded some of those shows using an 8-track machine for the band, and then using a 4-track machine for the room, so that we had 4 tracks of the room, various parts of the perspective of the room...one corner over here, one corner over here, one in the middle, done lots of different places... In mastering, we had the 8-track and the 4-track playing simultaneously. We'd mix them together and cross-fade them, so as to get partly the sound of the band, partly the sound of the hall, reverberating...it gives you a sense of enfolding space."
So that's where the "audience" 4-tracks of those March '68 Carousel shows come from.
The transcript of the documentary is here -
http://www.vidkid.com/GDdochome.html
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Poster: | Cliff Hucker | Date: | Sep 6, 2010 5:36pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: MOTB...or is that BOTB? |
This post was modified by Cliff Hucker on 2010-09-07 00:36:18
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Poster: | DeadRed1971 | Date: | Sep 6, 2010 5:14pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: MOTB...or is that BOTB? |
This post was modified by DeadRed1971 on 2010-09-07 00:14:47
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Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | Sep 6, 2010 7:49pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: MOTB...or is that BOTB? |
Was the audience anxiously waiting for that dreadful long Star to finish? Were they ready to cheer for anything? ("Hooray, it's over!") Did most of them know Stella already?
I'll stick with my original interpretation though, it makes the most sense to me. I believe that as of '72, your typical SF Dead audience DID like those long Stars (one sign - do you hear anybody talking?) - and they wouldn't recognize Stella just from the first chord. They probably would applaud for anything, but you can kind of tell when they're REALLY excited about something.
Then again, maybe just some naked chick ran onstage.
And, my little joke about "MOTB" aside, I'm thrilled that they've been putting out a bunch of new sources that wouldn't meet their original quality standards.
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Poster: | Skobud | Date: | Sep 7, 2010 8:45am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: MOTB...or is that BOTB? |
This post was modified by Skobud on 2010-09-07 15:45:18
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Poster: | William Tell | Date: | Sep 7, 2010 6:09am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: MOTB...or is that BOTB? |
By 74, there were lots of times that during jams it was quiet, and while looking around, it wasn't a scene of quiet reverence as I can attest. It was shear and utter boredom. Only when it was withing 3 songs of the close, and esp energetic, would everyone be engaged...most of the 72 jams, esp long DSs, I tend to think would be in this "yawn" category.
Capn's right: at the time, I absolutely deplored anything more than a five min song, and the thirty or so folks that I went to from 74-82, not a SINGLE one enjoyed them...even the HS band that played all DEAD tunes, and jammed alot, ironically, didn't think much of them..."endless noodling"...
I only turned to enjoy the jams when I arrived here...Funny thing: while mailing disks to people from that period, many have commented on "hey...why don't you send more regular songs?" (71 comes in handy).
I really do believe few at the time cared much about long jams unless they were so energetic you had to dance, or bizarre feedback esque so that you couldn't take your eyes/ears away.
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Poster: | light into ashes | Date: | Sep 7, 2010 8:02am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: MOTB...or is that BOTB? |
I assumed that the Dead fans who didn't like long jams were an '80s phenomenon... I took it for granted that anyone going to a show in the early '70s would be aware that they were potentially facing at least one very long, spacy jam... (A live album or two would've warned them, at least.) I even naively thought that most of them might even be looking FORWARD to it.
So it's news to hear that the rapt silence & bursts of applause in the Dark Stars we hear on early audience tapes are the result of "sheer & utter boredom"...
And I wonder how early this disdain for jams started among Dead audiences? After Skullfuck? After Workingman's Dead? Heck, were people at the Fillmore in Feb '69 moaning, "God, why don't they finish this crap and play some more blues?"
Well, at this late date, it's not like we can take a poll of the folks who were there. I know audiences aren't solid blocks of raving fans, and the fans of the Dead then (like those today) would've seen them for many different reasons - liking jams perhaps not even a primary one - and few could've been as familiar with the Dead as we are now. And I know my own preferences are out of whack with most people's.
But it's still sad to hear that your average 1972 audience would've been yawning through those Dark Stars, waiting for it to be over with.
Helps me understand why Weir said he felt like they were losing their audience with all those long jams in '74...
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Poster: | William Tell | Date: | Sep 7, 2010 1:41pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: MOTB...or is that BOTB? |
This post was modified by William Tell on 2010-09-07 20:41:31
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Poster: | elbow1126 | Date: | Sep 7, 2010 12:42pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: MOTB...or is that BOTB? |
I'm not sure i buy it completely and tend to think that something happened inside the venue that was associated with the transition to Stella or Wharf Rat on those nights. I might buy the "we're bored, thank god thats over" applause if the transition was to Sugar Mags or one of the more "pop" sounding dancing tunes of the time, but Stella Blue and Wharf Rat? Not exactly tunes to get one's feet tapping.
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Poster: | vapors | Date: | Sep 6, 2010 10:07pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: MOTB...or is that BOTB? |
Appears pretty basic to me – they applaud at the beginning of Dark Star, they applaud at the end. Seems like it would be hard not to. But for the sake of argument – Stella had been played for six months at this point; granted not in SF. Maybe it was the anticipation of hearing this song for the first time, having either heard reports of, or been in attendance the previous evening.
Regardless of the applause factor, I extend my hearty thanks for one great listening session, and bringing me to contemplate the other stuff you mention in your post. And your sense of humor :)
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Poster: | Skobud | Date: | Sep 6, 2010 4:49pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: MOTB...or is that BOTB? |
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Poster: | Capt. Cook | Date: | Sep 6, 2010 4:32pm |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: MOTB...or is that BOTB? |
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Poster: | William Tell | Date: | Sep 6, 2010 10:26am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: MOTB...or is that BOTB? |
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Poster: | smokinchains | Date: | Sep 7, 2010 6:42am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: MOTB...or is that BOTB? |
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Poster: | Jim F | Date: | Sep 8, 2010 1:15am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: MOTB...or is that BOTB? |
This post was modified by Jim F on 2010-09-08 08:15:02
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Poster: | Stealz | Date: | Sep 6, 2010 6:37am |
Forum: | GratefulDead | Subject: | Re: MOTB...or is that BOTB? |
It's no wonder you are among the revered around here, what with your careful, insightful, and prudent comments.
Thank you for being around.