My Back Pages by Bob Dylan

 

From Tape to The Internet

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ’neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

I first heard the Grateful Dead live in Albuquerque in 1971.  Like many, this was a seminal experience for me, changing my understanding of the meaning of performance and of Rock and Roll.  That over weight, black clad, Prankster with a halo of unmanageable black hair playing guitar was clearly the center of the band and the performance.  I was young and was unaware that this was Captain Trips.   Captain America was more like it.  Nor was I aware of the mythical aura that was even then growing around the band and Jerry and their fans.  Like many, my first experience of the Dead was prepared only by my youth and The Bear’s  purple haze of the night.  In the intervening years I was more attracted to Frank Zappa who produced a consistent recording experience that the Dead never would achieve. After the (limited) success of the Grateful Dead Movie in capturing what the Dead were, the world moved on. But the band played on.  Perhaps it is better that way.  The early taping of Dead shows from  the sound boards (thank you Owsley) and later by dedicated deadhead tapers left us with a rich vein of music and magic in the over 3000 individual live performances available in one form or another.  Beginning in the last decade of the last century, the Dead organization began to issue live sound board recordings from this corpus. 

Dick’s Picks and Me

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
“Rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

While a great resource for those of us not conversant in bit torrent, these releases where frequently expensive and (to my ears) over produced which subtracted from the raw energy of the original sound board tapes.  I am lucky to have access to a great music store with plentiful numbers of used Grateful Dead CD.  If you are in Maine visit a local Bull Moose Music store.   I was luck to be able to pick up many Live Dead concert CDs at a reasonable price.  Thank you Bull Moose.  Although the official Dead releases enhanced my life, there are some problems:

I) The list prices are quite high (try to get used copies)

II) Selections for the Dick’s Pick Series seem to be primarily based on best complete shows (The Dead were often hit and miss in the same night and limiting yourself to the best complete show skips a lot of great music. This problem has been reduced by the newer Road Trips Series and specialty releases like Ladies and Gentlemen… the Grateful Dead which cooks down the best of a four night stand at the Fillmore, 1971).

III) The processing of the raw tapes, IMHO, sometimes cook the life out of some the releases.

IV) Some of the specialty releases seem to be picked more for the historical importance than the quality of the performance (Closing the Winterland, for example).

Having said all that, if you can get the official releases used, some of them are great.

A Short Divergence in Our Story

Girls’ faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

I started to cooked down my copies of the official live releases into playlist CDs (favorites of 1974, Dark Star releases, etc.).  Then I had open heart surgery, caught a post operative wound infection and almost died.  Stephen Gould wrote someplace that the greatest species in evolution are Bactria.  They are everywhere.  There are more Bactria in your body than body cells.  And I was in the three month war between the bugs and myself ( to be honest I had massive antibiotic infusions on my side).  My day was composed of pain medicine, James Joyce’s Ulysses, The Bible, and my CDs of live Dark Star performances.  Let’s just say that Dark Star and the Gospel of Mark were more significant than Tramadol in my recovery.   Rehab consisted of countless hours of treadmill work.  That, and an MP3 player packed with Scarlet Begonia and Fire on the Mountain.

BTW: Tom Constanten said somewhere that they didn’t play Dark Star, it was always going on,  they just joined in.  Although T.C. recommends ‘any East Coast Dark Star’ my favorites are early West Coast versions.

The Internet Archive Connection

In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

The Internet Archive, in early 2000 began collecting, digitalizing and making available for re-distribution the large body of Grateful Dead concerts made by independent tapers and sound board recordings (SB) which were in circulation.  By policy SB recordings are available for playing on the web site and non-SB recordings are available for downloading.  There are multiple recordings available for most shows and these vary in quality from commercially releasable to barely audible.  There are over 8,000 individual recording of about 1,900 shows.  About 1,000 of these are SB. While vast the Internet Archive is not the most accessible site. Like most people I started with the feature of the Grateful Dead collection called:

Click Me:

 Grateful Dead Shows on This Day In History 

(If you have never been there – try the link right now).

For 08-30 (today while I am writing this) the Internet Archive will display 30 recordings (for shows of this date in 1985, 1983, 1981, 1980, 1970 and 1969).  There are limited sort options of these results.  Selecting a given recording brings one to a new web page containing an online player and (if the show is not an SB) download options.  I was hooked on the musical possibilities but trapped  by the limited user interface of the Internet Archive.   I wanted more.  Much more…

Hacking The Internet Archive

A self-ordained professor’s tongue Too serious to fool 
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

My goal was to have the ability to listen to ALL of the Dead’s concerts but using only the best recordings and to be able to move through the collection using a better user interface which would allow me to decide where and when to go to any individual date. My goal was to spend a year and at least sample all 1,900 concerts and listen completely to all SB concert recordings.  I decided to complete this project in 12 months.  To do this I would first need to wrestle the Internet Archive (IA) to its knees.  Little did I know that this would take me on a programming journey involving three programing languages (Ruby, Javascript and C#), two data specifications (XML and JSON), two database engines (couchdb and SQL Server) as well as understanding the (somewhat loosely documented) search engine of IA, and more….  Readers interested in the technical details should see my series of postings on Ruby on Rails and CouchDB.  Please see Part 5 has the details of how to hack the Internet Archive to get at the data for the Grateful Dead recordings on IA.  Thus armed with the complete dataset from the Internet Archive of Grateful Dead recordings and a new front end I was ready to begin my listening  project.  There are over 8,000 recordings of over 2,000 concerts on the Internet Archive.  My first cut on the recordings in to use an algorithm to select ONE recording for each recording date for review.  This is a very simple selection based on the first of:

• Was processed by Charlie Miller (IMHO the BEST processor of Grateful Dead Tapes)
• Is a Sound Board Recording
• Is  a Matrix Recording
• Is the most recently posted tape for a given date.

Does this process miss some gems? Undoubtedly but it did give me 2,000 tapes to review rather than 8,000. With this criteria in place,  my local copy of the IA database and my own UI for IA I started listening in July, 2011.  I did not attempt to listen to all 2,000 recordings completely.  If a recording was of poor quality or the band was out of tune or Jerry was ‘uninspired’ I abandoned the tape have brief samples of my favorite tunes.  In the end I reviewed about 1,000 concerts by in thirteen months (I finished during the ‘days between’ period;[August 1 and  August 9]).  I ended up with about 475  concerts on my personal playlist of ‘greatest concerts’.  Along the way I wrote several reviews on this blog of concerts which I thought were particularly of note. and compiled hyperlinked list of shows by year (the series starts here) and hyperlinks to Dark Star concerts and Scarlet Begonia –> Fire on the Mountain concerts.  All of these blogs contain links to jump right into the concert within the Internet Archive (but you still need to use the IA music player however).  Do I have a favorite sequence of songs, a favorite concert, a favorite era.  Yes.  Am I going to tell you? No.  Dig in visit the Internet Archive and start listening.  It could save your life.

 

Days Between Grateful Dead

and there were days
and there were days I know
when all we ever wanted
was to learn and love and grow
Once we grew into our shoes
we told them where to go
walked halfway around the world
on promise of the glow
stood upon a mountain top

walked barefoot in the snow
gave the best we had to give
how much we’ll never know we’ll never know

Days Between by Garcia and Hunter

 

 

 

 

Was It Worth The Trip?

 

Yes!

 

                                                               To Bear and Captain Trips, we say Thank You and Rest In Peace.

All photos by cloud2013 except Bear and Captain Trips Credit: Rosi McGee 

 

PS: Stupid Grateful Dead Statistics From the Internet Archive Database

Top 12 Most Played By Era (excluding Space and Drums):

Title	1967-1971	1972-1978	1979-1990	1991-1995
Althea			*
Big River		*
Brown Eyed Women		*
Casey Jones	*
Cassidy			*
China Cat Sunflower	*
Corrina				*
Crazy Fingers				*
Cryptical Envelopment	*
Cumberland Blues	*
Dark Star	*
Deal		*
El Paso		*
Estimated Prophet			*
Eyes Of ThWorld				*
Good Lovin	*
Hard to Handle	*
I Know You Rider	*		*
Jack Straw		*
Lazy River Road				*
Little Red Rooster			*
Looks Like Rain			*
Me and My Uncle	*
Mexicali Blues		*
Not Fade Away	*	*	*	*
Playing In ThBand		*	*
Sugar Magnolia		*	*	*
Sugaree		*
Tennesse Jed		*
Terrapin Station				*
The Other One			*
Throwing Stones				*
Truckin		*	*
Turn On Your Lovelight	*
Uncle Johns Band	*			*
Wang Dang Doodle				*
Way To Go Home				*
Wharf Rat			*
When I Paint My Masterpiece				*

Internet Archive:  All Recordings and Sound Board Recordings

Concert Length

Song Counts By Year(Dark Star, Playin’ in the Band and Scarlet Begonia –> Fire On The Mountain)

ff

=>

This is one concert that the Dick’s Pick series could have released but didn’t.  Listen to it now before they charge you for it, it is available free on the Internet Archive.   This is part of the great spring tour which produced so many memorable Scarlet Begonia –> Fire On the Mountain.  He it appears in the unusual position as the first set closer.  Keith Godchaux was playing the Hammond B-3 organ for much of the concert that night which contributes to the unique sound of this concert.  Row Jimmy in the first set was a stellar performance.  Jerry and Donna’s voices are tightly intertwined, Keith is adding just the right minimalists organ and Phil sounds great playing notes so low they don’t sound possible on an electric bass.  Jerry and Bob are both on slide guitar and Jerry’s heartbreakingly beautiful sole is a gift. Twelve minutes and 24 seconds of intimacy.  The whole concert is well miked and the bass performance of the recordings are excellent.  The second set starts with Estimated Prophet and the sequence:

The Music Never Stopped –> Help On The Way –> Slipknot –> Franklin’s Tower

is on fire (so to speak).  The Dark Star was shinning bright on this night. wOw.

Springfield Civic Center Arena: 1977-04-23

• 01 13:58 Sugaree Listen
• 02 06:36 Cassidy Listen
• 03 10:03 Loser Listen
• 04 06:31 New Minglewood Blues Listen
• 05 07:59 Ramble On Rose Listen
• 06 06:34 Me And My Uncle Listen
• 07 12:24 Row Jimmy Listen
• 08 08:03 It’s All Over Now Listen
• 09 07:08 Scarlet Begonias -> Listen
• 10 11:01 Fire On The Mountain Listen
• 11 01:38 Tuning/Take A Step Back Listen
• 12 08:30 Estimated Prophet Listen
• 13 10:02 Bertha Listen
• 14 08:11 The Music Never Stopped Listen
• 15 05:38 Help On The Way -> Listen
• 16 08:24 Slipknot! -> Listen
• 17 10:33 Franklin’s Tower -> Listen
• 18 07:06 Around And Around -> Listen
• 19 08:50 Goin’ Down The Road Feeling Bad -> Listen
• 20 12:59 Not Fade Away Listen
• 21 04:51 One More Saturday Night Listen
• Concert Length: 02:16:51

=>

The Great Wall Of 1974 did not always produce great recordings.   July 17, 1974 was a great show, with a great recording with clear separation and strong bass.  A great job of a soundboard recording produced by the amazing Charlie Miller.  The 29 minute version of Playing In The Band is a high point of the night and is probably the best of the summer.  Selland Arena in Fresno is not a very nice place.  You can hear the whole concert here on the Internet Archive. Here is the track list:

    01    10:45    Jam
02    07:14    Bertha
03    03:51    Mexicali Blues

04    04:44    Deal
05    04:51    Beat It On Down The Line

06    08:09    Row Jimmy
07    06:17    Me And Bobby McGee

08    08:50    Scarlet Begonias
09    04:44    El Paso
10    08:24    Tennessee Jed
11    29:24    Playing In The Band    (Listen To it Now)

12    13:00    Seastones

13    05:23    Brown Eyed Women
14    03:04    Me And My Uncle
15    05:57    It Must Have Been The Roses
16    05:29    Jack Straw
17    15:04    He’s Gone ->
18    05:40    U.S. Blues
19    06:15    Weather Report Suite ->
20    15:16    Let It Grow ->
21    05:56    Spanish Jam ->
22    16:32    Eyes Of The World ->
23    06:29    China Doll
24    04:57    One More Saturday Night

Wow!

Related articles

• This Day In Grateful Dead History – Greek Theater 1982-05-23 (dlr2008.wordpress.com)

Dead Heads in the Twenty First Century

if mercy’s in business

i wish it for you:

more than just ashes

when your dreams come true.

Back in the old daze, Dead Heads traded concert tapes (a primitive early non-digital recording technology).  Some of these were recorded by fans and others where sound board recordings made by the Dead organization which found their way into general circulation (i.e. stolen).  Eventually, the Dead organization began to publish selected concert tapes as LP records (another primitive non-digital recording technology) and later as CDs and internet downloads.  For more information on the history of the Dead recordings see this article.  Online you can buy recordings of Dead concerts at the official Dead $ite.  Recording information is also available ( and in a more organized format) here. But what if: you don’t like the concerts released by the Dead Organization or if you just want MORE.

The Internet Archive

There is a unique organization and web site called The Internet Archive.  TheInternet Archive isa truly vast catalog of public domain audio and video recording which are in the public domain.  There is no internet collection which is larger.  Their slogan is simply: Universal Access To All Knowledge.  The Dead organization has released a vast number of Dead concert recordings to The Internet Archive, to which are added the large number of fan recordings.  In all there are over 7,000 Grateful Dead Recordings in their collection.  Let me write that again, 7,000 concerts recordings. Fan recordings are often available for direct download and most sound board recording are available in streaming (only) format.  But see my note at the end of this post for a resent development.  The only exception is that concerts which were the basis for Grateful Dead official releases or which concerts which have been commercially released on Dead.Net.  These are not available on the archive.  Sound quality ranges from ok to GREAT, mono to full stereo.  The search facilities of the archive are well thought out.  Search by song, venue and/or date.  The only problem is that there are so many recordings over such a long period (1968 – 1995) that you may not know where to begin.  You could focus on a particular year (when did you first attend a Dead concert) or a favorite song.  The Internet archive does provide some help with a “Recently Reviewed Concert” link; and a “Dead Concerts on this Day in History” link.  You can also look for postings by Chris Miller and “Matrix” or the key word: soundboard.

What’s on my IPod Right Now

Well, let me by honest here:  I am obsessed with the song sequence:

Scarlet Begonias followed by Fire On The Mountain

The Dead played this combination over 250 times between 1977 and 1994.  This sequence runs from 20 to 30 minuets in length (tending towards the high end in the 1990′s).  From my samples the best tours for this sequence are 1977, 1978, and 1989-1992.  There are some bad versions (typically during the 1982-1988 tours and the 1977 tour when Donna signs off key many nights!).  Here is my very subjective list of good to great versions based on what I have listened to so far.

The Offical Releases:

Dick’s Picks #18 (Jerry and both Godchauxs are on this night).

Dick’s Picks #13 (This is a hidden track.  Put on Disc 2, Track 4 “Saint of Circumstance” at the end of this track is 20 seconds of dead air after that comes a November 1, 1979 version of Scarlet Bagonias -> Fire on the Mountain.  The rest of Dick’s Picks #13 was based on records made May 6, 1981.  This is a kick ass version and is my reference track for the best version of this particular sequence).

Dick’s Pick #06 (skip this one, slow and lack luster)

From the Internet Archives (these are all streaming only version but see my notes at the end of this blog on how to make a local copy:

Great Versions:

1977-05-08

1988-03-31

1989-08-06

1990-03-22

1991-06-25

1992-05-21

Not So Great but worth a listen:

1978-04-11

1978-04-24

1978-09-02

1981-02-27

1981-10-21

1983-10-21

1988-03-31

1990-03-22

1990-10-19

1994-10-14

1994-06-19

Making Local Copies Of Streaming Media

There are several different free or inexpensive programs which will grab the audio stream and save it to an mp3 (or other) format.  I have had good luck with Replay Music 3 ($19.95) combined with the Google Chrome Browser.  Replay Music will allow saving to WAV format in addition to MP3.  The downside of this approach is, of course, that this is real time recording only.

There is a Better Way

If you run the Chrome Browser and access the Internet Arhive, when you go to a stream only Dead concert the screen will look something like these before and after pictures:

With the Chrome (and maybe Safari) browser, Internet Archive will offer you the ability to convert to the HTML5 Audio tag  in place of the embedded browser (which uses the Object tag). Say YES to this offer. Having done so follow these steps to allow SAVING of the audio files directly WITHOUT streaming.

• Start playing a track you wish to save
• Right click on the time slider bar at the top of the music player,
• select “Save Audio file”
• select a save location
• click ok

That’s it.  Here is what the right click drop down list looks like:

Thank you HTML5 Audio Tag.  Jerry would be proud.

Remember you must start playing a track for this technique to work.

Question:

Does the Internet Archive know that using the Audio tag defeats the intend of streaming media only?

Will they plug the hole?

Can they plug the hole or is this basic to the nature of the HTML5 audio tag?

Save now while you can!!