Ancestral Dead is my spin on the "Ivar Theater" recordings, which are probably from The Danish Centre, but everyone agrees they're from '66. Only Deadheads care about that kind of thing, anyway. Repackaged as here, they make a swell third Sunflower album. For a band that gets dismissed as sloppy, this is hard as nails, sharp as a tack, and kicks their enormodome marathons to the curb. Play loud!
The Other One box should get clicked to bits on this one!
ReplyDeleteOkay - th' Good Old ... favorite studio album? NOT COUNTING AMERICAN BEAUTY and WORKINGMAN'S!
Excuse my stupidity but how do you download these? Thanks.
DeleteFavorite studio album? Mars Hotel
The link will be up as soon as I finish degaussing my toaster. Keywords: "Stealth" and "Link."
DeleteOh - and Mars Hotel would be my choice, too. Just gets better as the years roll by.
DeleteMars Hotel is a contender if for no other reason than Unbroken Chain. Why they left that one off their live rotation until they were past their best by some considerable margin is a longstanding Deadhead conundrum. It would have killed in 74!
DeleteA friend of mine who now lives in NO was their asst road manager for years. He has over 200 live concert recordings by them and plays them is some type of order, and then starts over again. He also is the biggest burn out I have ever met. Gawd bless da Dead.
DeleteI still like the first album (and these 1966 performances) best. They were still a good rock & roll band and Garcia was playing surf guitar, so I can relate to that.
DeleteI know it's a live/studio hybrid so may be disqualified, but I still find Anthem of the Sun an unfailingly exhilarating listen. For a purely studio release though it would have to be Wake of the Flood.
ReplyDeleteSpot on there, Rob. Bought Anthem when it came out, mainly cos some reviewer in IT said that it was the nearest to a trip without actually taking LSD. Got it home played it, and though it was a load of garbage. Still I'd paid 42/6 or something for it and was determined to get my moneysworth, even if I hated it. And then, guys, it all clicked into place. Wake Of The Flood is a simply fine piece of music. Great cover too.
DeleteAnthem was created in the studio, editing live performance tapes, so it counts as a studio album, I reckon, and a brilliant one.
DeleteWake of the Flood
ReplyDeleteBlues for Allah is a close second.
First Dead album I bought at age 17 was Live Dead, I peaked too soon. Dark Star was exactly where I wanted to be, still is. And I wanted Jerry to always use that 1969 live guitar tone. But not a trace of it on those 1970 studio albums, which is probably what placed them among my Most Disappointing LPs Ever. I never recovered from that disappointment. Maybe I’ll revisit Mars Hotel and Wake of the Flood based on the consensus here. But until I re-educate myself, my fave Dead in the studio is their playing on David Crosby’s solo album.
ReplyDeletenice call, tbh
DeleteAlthough I was only 15 at the time, I agree with you on LD/DS. I would take you to task on 1970, especially Workingman's Dead, I mean, Jerry on pedal steel. There are moments on subsequent albums, but I really lost interest after Pigpen's death. That didn't stop me from collecting everything I could get my grubby little hands on, though.
DeleteLive Dead was my first too. Age 13. Then I bought Vintage Dead as shown above...I thought it was on like, K-Tel and a boot but still good. I saw the Dead in 69 and slept through nearly all 4 hours of the show. I lost it for them after that too but agree whole heartedly that their best playing is on David Crosby's "If I Could Only Remember My Name". I never paid for any other albums. If I was pressed to choose a studio album I'd go with one of Jack Kerouac's Cat's also rans, "Blues For Allah".
DeleteStudio Schmudio, as Willy Legate pointed out:
ReplyDelete"There is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert"
What are some of your favorite live shows???
Ima have to second The Cat here--live is it. My favorite live show--easy: August/September 1971, we'd been in Berkeley for 2-3 weeks from Baton Rouge, Louisiana (my father had come to Berkeley on sabbatical), and my friend Robert took my 13 year old self over to Golden Gate Park to see a buncha bands (including Quicksilver and their like hour long version of "Who Do You Love" and Jefferson Airplane) and the Dead, who if memory serves--and it may well not--were not even on the schedule just showed up and played, and played, and played. They did a version of "Johnny B Goode" which included "Promised Land" and "Around and Around" that went on and on and on...though I suppose at that point it might just have been the contact high. There was nothing like any of that whole day in all of BRLA, friends. Maybe NOLA.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think Working man's Dead is actually underrated...my studio choice
DeleteI'm missing a stealth link, but that's probably because it's going to Steal My Face.
ReplyDeleteI'm very fond of Anthem, of Workingman's and Beauty, of Wake, of Mars Hotel, and of the Lowell George-produced Shakedown Street. Heck, I get a kick out of Blues for Allah! Some of this is because, as a youth, there wasn't no Live Dead except what WB could pull out of them - and those albums were all *good* but not plenty.
Which brings me to Europe 72. Wonderful vinyl package, and a mainstay of my listening habits ever since I first heard "Brown Eyed Women." Well, with the release of every darn concert on that tour, we come to find out that the LPs are a hybrid. Jerry overdubbed a lot of his vocals, and the more so with Phil! This explains why there is no finer China -> Rider, because there's no other version with studio vocals.
There are a bunch of fine shows from that tour alone, BTW. I return to the Rotterdam one, but also both Copenhagen and Paris shows, the Amsterdam show, and the London+Bickershaw highlights that went onto some CD thing called "Stepping Out: England 72."
...Not that I'm an obsessed Deadhead, or anything!
Ah yes … Bickershaw. Has to be my fave Dead show cos it’s the only one I was ever at. Maybe not their best but sounded good to me. May ’72, northern England, cold, wet, trippin, lost track of my mates early in the Dead’s set and started to wish I wasn’t quite so spaced, remembered someone’s theory that orange juice and sugar straightens you out, eventually found a van selling drinks but got worried that I wouldnt be able to say the word ‘orange’, spent a good while practicing it, finally got it together and was so pleased with the achievement that everything was suddenly OK again and I was safe, floating on a live soundtrack of Europe 72 tracks in a windswept sea of mud.
ReplyDeleteThis story about orange juice is not only the best orange juice story I ever heard, it comes close to being the best story I ever heard.
DeleteI’m guessin 1or2 of the 4or5 have been there, opening doors and finding that sometimes the light all shining on me illuminates unlikely features, like just what a strangely chewy kinda word ‘orange’ really is.
DeleteThanks for the early Dead Farq, one of those mislaid mates at Bickershaw had the Historic Dead album.
Bickershaw was superb . . . muddy & cold but I got to meet Jerry & Bobby backstage in the Rolling Stones mobile when New Riders were onstage http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/dead.html
DeleteIf you were one of those who remained at the end of the gig and stayed overnight, were you fed by some Scottish dudes? Your 'van selling drinks' was left overnight and me and my mates liberated the Westler's Hot Dogs (mmm yummy NOT! https://westlers.com/products/hot-dogs/) and bread rolls and fed the (small) multitudes who remained.
Favourite Dead album is still Aoxomoxoa - when the drug squad raided our flat they said "Where's the Grateful Dead albums?" and were most disappointed to find nothing inside the Aoxomoxoa sleeve!
Thanks for the link JJ good stuff. No I didnt get a hotdog from yer good self, shame cos that woulda been some crazy connection to make after all these years. Dont exactly remember my end to the festival but pretty sure I found my mates later back at the tent or the car and the driver wanted to split. Great music, lousy weather, good times.
DeleteOkayyy - toaster is now degaussed (toast was coming out blurred) - so here's the lien du jour, cunningly encrypted in a Stealth Link© for your security!
ReplyDeleteyour mad skills on the links is something to behold; thank you.
DeleteLocal colour - Alexandra Palace (I can see it from here) is quite good. I saw em at the Mecca Ballroom in 72. Wake of the Flood again.
ReplyDeleteStudio: Wake Of The Flood
ReplyDeleteLive: Europe '72
Check back with me in a year or so when I've digested the So Many Roads box to see if I consider it the best comp.
Wake Of The flood is Bob Weir's finest hour as a vocalist.
Here's the Ally Pally concerts
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/c2YWtqZcw7s
Thanks Dave, did you have disc 3, or did I just get a bunk download? Thanks regardless. stay well!!
DeleteSuppose I am too slow but I really can get to where the likns are...
ReplyDeleteFound finally. I am sweating. You pervert. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteToday, March 9, cuorediformaggio found a link posted Feb 4. In the weeks devoted to his search he lost his job, his wife left him for a pool noodle salesman, and he lapsed into alcoholism and was saved by his local AA chapter.
Delete