Can You Pass the Acid Test? 1/8/66

After a week, I'm finally able to update on my progress. I finished listening to a recording of 1/8/66. It's the first live show that I've encountered in this project. The recording was made during the Fillmore Acid Test. Here's the setlist:

The Fillmore Acid Test
Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA
January 8, 1966

Setlist:
1. Stage Chaos/More Power Rap
2. King Bee
3. I'm A Hog For You Baby
4. Caution: Do Not Step On Tracks >
5. Death Don't Have No Mercy
6. Star Spangled Banner / closing remarks

Obviously this recording has historic value as an early Dead show, especially because it is part of an Acid Test. The transition between "Caution" and "Death Don't" is interesting. The band has to slow their momentum way down to do it. They manage to accomplish it in an abrupt fashion, and let Jerry create the bridge between the two songs with the others falling into place behind him. This show is also my first exposure to "I'm a Hog for You," which sounds like a goofy song, perhaps from the jug-band days. The interesting part of this track is that in place of a cut in the SBD recording, the Prankster recording is spliced in. Behind the prankster calls, you can hear the band continuing the song. I thought that particularly neat, adding a bit of Acid Test authenticity to it.

The Star Spangled banner is a capella by Weir, Lesh, and others. They sang it as the San Francisco Police were trying to shut down the Test. Apparently, Bob climbed a Prankster tower, and refused to come down. Said McNally:

"It was the ending that everyone would recall. Around 2 A.M. the police came by to close the show, although in the absence of alcohol they lacked any legal authority to do so..... An officer came out onstage and motioned for the band to stop, and was duly ignored. The cops grew perplexed.... They began to pull power cords out of the wall, and M.G. followed them and plugged things back in. At length the band stopped playing and the police dutifully began shooing everyone out, although it was a slow process.
It occurred to Lesh and Weir that when a TV station goes off the air, it plays "The Star-Spangled Banner," so they began an a cappella duet. Spotting a twenty-foot ladder, and always part monkey, Weir swarmed up to continue his end of the duet from on high" (McNally 122).

Give this show a listen. It's interesting early Dead.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1966-01-08.sbd.bershaw.5410.shnf

Viola Lee Rehearsals - Jan/Feb 1966

Next on my list is the Viola Lee rehearsals, conducted sometime in January or February of 1966. The exact date and location of the rehearsals are unknown, though the recording reveals a hint. Phil mentions, "as long as we get to LA in time to set up and do the thing. Saturday Night." This almost definitely points to the Watts Acid Test in LA where the Dead played on Saturday, February 12. The loose term "Saturday Night," leads me to believe that the recording was done within a week of the band leaving for Los Angeles.

Regardless of the actual location and date, this recording has both historic and musical value. It's amazing to hear the band working out the parts of what will become a heavily jammed staple. Throughout, the band is working on the opening, the singing, and the arrangement of the verses. You can hear Jerry telling his bandmates how he envisions the song. Pigpen even bails towards the end being too drunk to fully participate, which draws criticism from Lesh. "Pigpen is a conspiracy!" yells Weir.

If you're not into the frequent stops, breaks, and banter of the band, the final track is your reason to listen. The 15 minute jam before the tape stops is pretty cool. If one pays attention you can hear a clear "Truckin'" jam - a full four years before the song was written!! I played it loud, and asked my fiance what song she thought it was. Her immediate response was, "Truckin'?" Just listen!

Finally, before I provide the track list and a link to the recording, I wanted to include two quotes that I found particularly interesting to the recording. First, you can hear Jerry on track #16 saying about the song, "We'll just see what happens. We'll let it do what it wants to do." I find that interesting because he expresses, in those two sentences, the sentiments of the Grateful Dead's whole philosophy on live music.

Phil Lesh also provides his thoughts on "Viola Lee Blues" in Searching for the Sound.

"... the longer the solo, the less interesting it became to play the same material as background, so those of us who weren't soloing began to vary and differentiate our background material, almost as if we were also soloists, in a manner similar to jazz musicians. A good example of this technique is our version of the old Noah Lewis jug band tune "Viola Lee Blues," a traditional prison song. We electrified the song with a boogaloo beat and an intro lick borrowed from R & B artist Lee Dorsey's "Get Out of My Life Woman," and after each of the three verses, we tried to take the music out further - first expanding on the groove, then on the tonality, and then both, finally pulling out all the stops in a giant accelerando, culminating in a whirlwind of dissonance that, out of nowhere, would slam back into the original groove for a repetition of the final verse. It was after a run-through of this song that I turned to Jerry and remarked ingenuously, "Man - this could be art! (Lesh, 59)"

So without further ado, here it is.

Track List:
01. talk & tunings "It's just Weir and his ass-holed guitar" (2:31)
02. Viola Lee Blues #1 verse 1 - aborted (0:52)
03. Viola Lee Blues #2 verses 1 & 2 - aborted - "watch it pig! b, man, b" (1:33)
04. talk & tunings (1:09)
05. Viola Lee Blues #3 with harmonica - aborted (0:14)
06. discussions (1:26)
07. Viola Lee Blues #4 with organ verse 1 & harmonica - aborted (1:28)
08. tape playback? more talk (1:44)
09. Viola Lee Blues #5 verse 1 - "same verse again" - verse 1 - aborted (1:48)
10. Phil comments (0:34)
11. Viola Lee Blues #6 verses 1 & 2 - aborted (1:29)
12. more discussions (0:25)
13. Viola Lee Blues #7 verses 1 & 2 & 3 - then stopped (2:44)
14. talk & tunings - "that's tasty" - "let's just play" (2:06)
15. Viola Lee Blues #8 verse 1 - aborted (0:16)
16. talk & wild comments & confusion (2:53)
17. Viola Lee Blues #9 verses 2 & 3 - aborted (0:27)
18. more talk - "I think you're against us" - "Pigpen's a conspiracy" (3:57)
19. "You may know by ..." passage repeated (3:39)
20. Viola Lee Blues #10 verses 1 & 2 & 3 ; jam ; tape cuts (15:37)


Listen to this recording here:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-01-xx.sbd.hanno-uli.18846.sbeok.shnf

A Hard Day's Night & The Birth of the Dead

My next stop has been the Beatles' 1964 film "It's Been a Hard Day's Night." I chose to give it a screening, because it had a pretty big influence on the members of Mother McCree's forming an electric band. Through the end of 1964, Pigpen began bothering Garcia to form an electric band, which would consequently be able to feature more of his blues numbers. Said Garcia, "He'd been pestering me for a while; he wanted me to start an electic blues band" (Jackson 67). The Beatles' film helped push Garcia in that direction.

"[The Beatles] were real important to everybody," Garcia said. "They were a little model, especially the movies - the movies were a big turn-on. Just because it was a little model of good times.... It was like [they] were saying, 'You can be young, you can be far-out, and you can still make it.' They were making people happy. The happy thing - that's the stuff that counts - was something we could all see right away" (Jackson 67).

Weir adds,

"The Beatles were why we turned from a jug band into a rock 'n' roll band.... What we saw them doing was impossibly attractive. I couldn't think of anything else more worth doing" (Jackson 67).

So with an example set by the Beatles in '64, The characters of Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions formed an electric band called The Warlocks. They began playing in May or June of '65 at Magoo's Pizza Parlor. It's too bad that no tapes of those shows are known to exist. People who were there suggest that the shows had a new kind of energy that wasn't present in any of the other area music. One of those fans who were listening was Phil Lesh.

If you wish, here is the full movie, It's Been a Hard Day's Night.

My Rosalie McFall

I'm almost ready to finally be jumping in to the newly formed Grateful Dead of late 1965. The last two shows I listened to were the final two I have of Jerry's bluegrass days. The first was a short bit from a Black Mountain Boys show at the Boar's Head sometime in 1964. The other was named as a Wildwood Boys show, again from an unknown date in 1964.

Black Mountain Boys
Boar's Head, Palo Alto CA
Date Unknown, 1964

Setlist:

1. Two Little Boys
2. Banter
3. Salty Dog Blues
4. Banter
5. Rosalie McFall

This show is short and nothing from the first two tunes stood out tremendously. Rosalie McFall, to end the tape, was awesome. Jerry took the lead vocal, and it was very, very nice. Jerry's voice really was made for singing bluegrass, the style of which were the models for Workingman's and American Beauty. I took particular notice of this song because Jerry would continue singing it for the rest of his career.

The Wildwood Boys
Unknown Venue
Uknown Date, 1964

Setlist:

1. Introductions
2. Jerry's Breakdown
3. Banter
4. Standing In The Need of a Prayer
5. Tuning
6. Muleskinner Blues
7. Unenjoyment Banter
8. Satisfied With My Gal
9. Introduction of Pigpen
10. The Rub (Pigpen vocals)

When I saw this setlist, I was psyched to see that Pigpen was featured. This is the first time listening that we've come across another founding member of the Dead.

This tape, however, was absolutely mislabeled. The first six tracks, through "Muleskinner Blues", is not from this show, but rather is part of the February Wildwood Boys show. Also, the "Satisfied With My Gal" tune sounded as though it was a tune from Mother McCree's, not the Wildwood Boys. The playing of a kazoo, an instrument of jug bands, seems to me to be a telltale sign. The Pigpen tune, however, could be from a Wildwood Boys show of 64. I just really believe that it was not played with the other tunes included on this tape.

But all the same, we have Pigpen!!!

Up Next: Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions from July of '64!!!

Two Black Mountain Boys for the Price of One!

This morning I was able to listen to a couple of Black Mountain Boys shows from March of 1964. The tapes are from back to back days, March 6 and 7. I thought it appropriate to listen to both in one sitting. I know I've been starting out this project on a torrid pace, with a show pretty much every day. I attribute that to the fact that I'm psyched that I'm finally listening to all the Dead I have in such a cool fashion, as well as the fact that the shows I've been listening to so far have been quite short. As we get into '67 and '68, I expect that the rate at which I post will decrease. But heck, there's a ton more music to listen to!

Anyways, to the shows.

The Black Mountain Boys
Top of the Tangent, Palo Alto CA
3/6/64

Jerry Garcia (banjo), Eric Thompson (guitar), David Nelson (mandolin), Jim Beemis (bass)


Setlist:
1. Instrumental
2. Katie Mine
3. Introductions
4. Homestead On The Farm
5. Banter
6. Bare Foot Nellie
7. Banter
8. She's More to be Pitied than Scolded
9. Tuning
10. They Can Lock Up Me for Loving
11. The Hand of the Lord
12. Banter
13. Who'll Sing for Me
14. Darling Aller Lee

I'm really digging the tapes of these shows. The band is similar to the Wildwood Boys in sound. Thompson, however, adds something great on guitar. My first thought when listening was "god damn, Jerry is fast." But listening to Thompson on guitar, he just keeps up the pace. Just as fast, and it sounds awesome. I wish I could find a couple of the tunes hosted online. If anyone knows of a way to stream MP3s on this site, please let me know, and I'll put up a couple tunes. I'll add that listening to the banjo is a great way to relax. Just sit and listen. The sound is an enjoyable one. I'm real glad I'm getting to listen to this, and am excited about 1973 when Old in the Way comes along! Now the second show...

The Black Mountain Boys
Top of the Tangent, Palo Alto CA
3/7/64

Setlist: (partial)
01 Happy Birthday
02 ??
03 Darling Aller Lee
04 Tuning
05 Ocean of Diamonds

I wasn't able to get into this show as much as the previous one. It is much shorter as it is only a 4 song partial.

Like always, if you'd like a copy of either show, or certain songs, please e-mail me!
Also let me know if I am missing something!!!

Coming up: A private banjo lesson by Jerry Garcia, possibly at Dana Morgan's music store