At the end of 1965 there was excitement in the budding San Francisco music scene. The Jefferson Airplane signed a record deal in November, Bill Graham was getting ready to put on shows at a dance hall called the Fillmore West, and the Merry Pranksters were cooking up some kind of special test for the freaks of the area.
The Warlocks, however, were not going to be part of this party. At the end of October, Phil Lesh found a Columbia record by a band of the same name. Although a record by such a band has never been found, a new name for the San Francisco based Warlocks was a must. Easier said than done. When the group arrived at Golden Gate studios on November 3rd to produce a demo tape, they were still without a name. On the fly they called themselves the "Emergency Crew," and cut a tape under that moniker. It's the first studio recording of the Grateful Dead.
Track List:
1. Early Morning Rain
2. I Know You Rider
3. Mindbender
4. The Only Time Is Now
5. Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks)
6. Can't Come Down
I'll let Blair Jackson describe the Dead's first attempt at recording. It was through his lens that I listened to this tape.
"The Emergency Crew cut six songs that afternoon, four originals and two cover tunes. Garcia sang lead on only one song, "Can't Come Down," a Dylan inspired number... in which Jerry sings/raps verses such as the following: "They say I've begun to lose my grip / My hold on reality is startin' to slip ..." It ain't Dylan, or Robert Hunter for that matter, but at least it's an attempt to put into words some of the feelings and attitudes of the early psychedelic age. And the music isn't bad, either. Pigpen blows harp with zest and power all through the tune, Billy drives the track with his sure, steady beat and Garcia gets in a nice speedy gutiar run as the song fades at the three-minute mark.
"Mindbender' (also known as "Confusion's Prince") is dominated by a guitar riff that sounds as if it were lifted off Johnny Rivers' "Secret Agent Man," and the group's vocal weaknesses are clearly brought to the fore - Phil and Bob's tandem lead vocal is anemic and slightly off-pitch, and the harmonies are ragged, to put it charitably. Instrumentally, Pigpen's piercing Vox Continental organ predominates, though Garcia also gets in a fine solo. The next track, "The Only Time Is Now," with Phil's vocal again highest in the mix, has an unmistakable Byrds quality to it, complete with heavy vibrato on Garcia's guitar and stacked harmonies that the Emergency Crew couldn't pull off if their lives depended on it...." (Jackson 84).Phil Lesh adds this about the songs (though not the recording):
"We had also started to collaborate on some original material, since the general consensus was that we'd never evolve very far if we just kept covering other people's stuff. We had learned a lot from listening to the Rolling Stones, going so far as to cover some of their covers, and Bob Dylan's songs were a major source of inspiration, as well as material for our sets. Songs like "Mindbender," "The Only Time Is Now," and "I Can't Come Down" were our first essays in collective originality. Alas, all of them were embarrassingly amateurish, so they didn't last long in the repertoire" (Lesh 58).
This tape sounds little like the Dead the world would grow to know, though there are snippets of what is to come. Listening to "I Know You Rider," I felt as though Jerry was about to rip right into a Rider jam. Pigpen's harmonica play on the "Caution" track gives a bit of insight into the improvisation the band was perfecting. This isn't even vintage-Dead. It's pre-Vintage Dead, like the earth's primordial ooze that evolved into multicellular organisms. It's a snippet of the band just beginning its evolution.
The tracks to this recording can be heard on the album "Birth of the Dead."
Here are a couple tracks via Youtube.
The Only Time is Now
Garcia's first vocal, Can't Come Down
No comments:
Post a Comment