POLL: Best Grateful Dead release

Quantum, you might want to thread search over here. People still do daily sendspaces/discussions of GD shows, and there are quite a few people who downloaded every single archive.org GD show before they took the SBDs off.

where is the love for Anthem of the Sun?

x-post

thanks!

I always loved Born Cross-eyed from AotSun.

I may as well take this opportunity (since I'm listening to it right now) to exhort everyone to check out (Superchunk/indie touring drummer) Jon Wurster's "Bryce" calls from Tom Scharpling's The Best Show on WFMU. Info on the character here and show archives here. It's one of Wurster's best characters. All of the Bryce calls are great and all are GD-related (Ex -- Bryce buys Jerry Garcia's toilet). I'm listening to this one right now, and it's great (the "Bryce" call is about 32 minutes in; it's probably about 30 minutes long, and Bryce goads Schapling into playing some GD. Fun stuff.).

Voted "Aoxomoxoa". Their hippie era was slightly better than their country rock one (although both were great at times) and that album is the best out of their hippie age albums.

Let's be serious Geir-- it was one looooooooooong hippie era. Even if they were wearing stetsons on the Workingman's Dead album cover and Jerry was playing a slide geetar, it's still hippie.

man, Candyman is really fucking good... & Brokedown Palace. & Til the Morning Comes.

I always forget how great AB truly is.

Anthem of the Sun

http://www.gbdesigns.com/freaksandgeeks/photos/misc/Rosso.jpg
"But what do you want me to do? To do for you to see you through?"

went with Europe '72, because I have a particular affinity for that year (the Dead's playing that year, not the actual year itself) and it has the definitive versions of so many of their best tunes. "Tennessee Jed"! The solo on that rocks my bells. goddamn they were great.

goddamn they were great.

Occasionally, a hater has told me that they were nothing special, just a basic bar band and a pretty bad one at that. And I always wonder where I can hear any of these other lameass bands and get my hands on some of their mediocre albums. To date, I haven't heard anything like the Grateful Dead from anyone but a member of the Grateful Dead. I'd love to be exposed to more of this type of music, but I don't think there's anyone that sounds like them.

Really I voted studio here. Anthem is my fave.

BROTHER I VOTED FOR 03/42/83

THAT WAS A KILLER NO FILLER JAMMY AT THE GREEK THEATRE I RECKON

The use of "brother" at the beginning of your sentence indicates to me that you are either a catholic priest, a mormon, hulk hogan, a hobo... or, perhaps, my brother, but you are certainly no deadhead. If there's one thing they know, it's how to work a calendar.

Really I voted studio here. Anthem is my fave.

Which, strictly speaking, is a live album. Only the audience sounds were removed.

bullshit.

no kidding anthem is a mix of live/studio/etc. geir needs to do acid :)

Live/Dead for me

Which, strictly speaking, is a live album. Only the audience sounds were removed.

That is a ridiculous assertion...The album has hidden depths from the many subtle (and not so subtle) things added to it - listen to it with a set of headphones.

you are certainly no deadhead. If there's one thing they know, it's how to work a calendar

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha....(has small stroke, dies)

The From Anthem to Beauty DVD details just how much of a studio creation Anthem was.

I'd love to be exposed to more of this type of music, but I don't think there's anyone that sounds like them.

I think you're right. I've purchased all kinds of hippie-era rarities and obscuro bands. But nothing ever seems to nail it.

get the david crosby album that the dead plays on! so good.

Parts of Mayo Thompson's Corky's Debt to his Father have a Dead-like thing going on. Like "Good Brisk Blues." Yeah, that Crosby album If I could only Remember My Name is good.

I love Crosby's solo album. It's tapping something similar to the Dead. Crosby said CS&N were influenced by the Dead's musicianship, song structures, and time signatures. But for me, listening to the Dead is an experience unqiue to itself. If I want to hear them, but I don't have anything handy, there is no substitute. Of course, that can be said of many bands but they usually aren't dissed like the Dead!

Mountain Bus!!

Quantum, have you heard the Mountain Bus record? best GD contemporary soundalike band.

Tea Leaf Green tries to sound like their American Beauty era, but fails to be enjoyable, imo. That's the most blatant ripoff I've ever heard. Wish I liked it.

I own jams by Mighty baby and Mason Proffit but not Mountain Bus. I've alway heard I need to check them out. That's my next purchase. Thanks.

American Beauty has wonderful songs, but I like the production and the cohesiveness of Workingman's Dead better. Much warmer, more organic sound, less tinny AM radio-friendliness. More surprising harmonies, too, and at times more inventive musically (Cumberland Blues, Easy Wind). And I'm a sucker for the filler -- High Time is a song I just love. Plus, it changed my life (I had never listened to country music before).

The other one that's close for me is Live/Dead, at least the first three sides.

And why no Ace? Indistinguishable from a Dead album, they played all those songs live (including, over and over, Saturday Night and Playing In The Band), and it's awfully good.

Finally: dean ge, if you want to hear stuff that sounds like the Grateful Dead but isn't, I have two nominations: Amazing Rhythm Aces (the poppy American Beauty side) and Konono No. 1 (exactly what the Dead would have sounded like if all they had were differently tuned finger pianos).

All right, I *love* Konono No. 1, but they sound absolutely nothing like GD. Everything from the rhythm section to the melodies, they sound nothing alike. Both great though, obvs! Haven't heard the Amazing Rhythm Aces, though.

... I can't believe that nobody else has mentioned "Reckoning". I've got 6 "Dick's" albums (Hapour College [#8] is my fave), plus "Ladies and Gentleman...", "Dozin' at the Knick", "Europe '72", "Nightfall of Diamonds", and even 4 or 5 studio albums --- so it's not like i'm just after that easy stuff. The craft they exhibited in these 1980 excerpts was very well-honed, the sequencing is great, and extremely entertaining.

"Reckoning" -- C'mon, somebody else's gotta show some love!

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/410S80XG46L._AA240_.jpg http://www.twilightdance.bizland.com/newcd/2.jpg

Reckoning is okay but a little lacking in energy. Still, it's a decent official live recording and I should listen to it more, I suppose.

In The Dark, you people are mad.

Ah, you know what it is with Reckoning? The damn production. That's why it sounds lacking in energy, I think.

The Grateful Dead

American Beauty

Grayfolded, y'all.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Europe 72 is so bland compared to some live shows around the same time.

Yeah, but the sound is so good, plus the restraint suits the material I think.

Three votes for Shakedown Street?

Three votes for Shakedown Street?

I've been listening to this lately. It's a slog. Mickey has made some choice comments about Lowell George. Nevertheless, all parties involved were not in good shape.

Without a Net

but srsly, Dozin' at the Knick

I would have gone with Dozin' at the Knick had this been limited to live albums, but I went with A.B. The March 1990 shows from which Dozin' was pulled together show Brent at his best and most confident, which I think gave Jerry a renewed vigor as well.

feeling kinda Dead today

"Sage & Spirit" is where it's at

Someone should put a Dick's Picks poll together.

just dl'd the 1972 pacific high garcia set here: http://titosdead.blogspot.com/2010/02/jerry-garcia-band-most-soundboards.html
heard the "paint my masterpiece" on a blog and had to track it down! i guess i need more solo garcia in my life.

OTOH, I think it was Dave Marsh that wrote The Dead should never be allowed near a Chuck Berry song ever again.

so so otm

i'm in a rental car w/ satellite radio for the next month. quality-wise, the dead station is just the most wildy, exasperatingly vacillating listening experience going.

Only two votes for Blues For Allah? That album rules. Dead studio albums, while not as good as the live stuff obviously, are typically underrated imo. I jam Wake Of The Flood, Shakedown Street, Terrapin Station, Mars Hotel and especially Blues For Allah on a regular basis. In The Dark is surprisingly good too.

We should have a poll with just studio albums (though it's hard to believe studio albums won this poll - maybe we should limit the poll to people who, you know, actually listen to the Grateful Dead?).

Was looking at the Jays schedule for a game in July, and there's an Angels date where it's "Grateful Dead Day." Jerry Garcia bobblehead, tie-dyed T-shirt, dosed as you enter? I don't know, but I'm intrigued.

So many teams are doing this, the Islanders just did one:

Grab your tie-dye t-shirts and aviator shades and join us on 4/8 for Jerry Garcia Night. 🐻

Purchase a special ticket and receive a one-of-a-kind Jerry Garcia bobblehead. With every ticket purchased, $10 will be donated to the Rex Foundation.

— x - New York Islanders (@NYIslanders) March 12, 2023

Yankees did one last year:

Join us at Yankee Stadium on Sept. 5 for Jerry Garcia Bobblehead Day! A portion of every ticket sold will support the @RexFoundation.

Tickets 🎟️: https://t.co/bwTnZk154d pic.twitter.com/MyC3V2QITq

— New York Yankees (@Yankees) August 24, 2022

If I could vote over, it would be Aoxomoxoa. I wonder to what extent people shy away from talking about it because they don't know how to pronounce it. A record store owner I knew in the 90s pronounced it "ahhg-ZON-dra" and pretty soon he had several of his hangers-on doing it too.

Ah, didn't realize it was a new thing--maybe my bobblehead guess is right. (Maybe the Jays will mix things up and make it a Pigpen bobblehead.)

I can't pronounce Aoxomoxoa either, but I do like it.

Lol I might have to start saying "ahhg-ZON-dra".

If I could only pick one release I'd probably go for Steppin' Out, the comp of UK material from the Europe 72 tour. Studio, either American Beauty or Anthem of the Sun.

Agree that Steppin' Out is very fine - beautiful version of Comes a Time, red hot Greatest Story Ever Told etc. I also really like the 71 Fillmore East comp, Ladies and Gentleman ... the Grateful Dead, especially the whole of disc three.

Years ago, Dave Gibbons told me he referenced Aoxomoxoa in issue five of Watchmen because the whole comic is filled with palindromes, doubles, mirror images etc. You can just about make it out on the first and last panel of this page:

https://preview.redd.it/e5bq0fgzpqsa1.jpg?width=1066&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=052ea61be0b58228bd8843bd4a3c16ff25bd7bb9

Our local AA team - the Bowie Baysox - has been doing Grateful Dead nights in the past few years as well.

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/301663697_10160287791379675_2630031181872030361_n.jpg

Lots of potential for overlap between Dead and baseball audiences - long, boring-to-outsiders events in huge stadiums with the possibility of nerding out over deep minutia and stats.

https://i.redd.it/qfdgc2qqdvs41.jpg

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/301663697_10160287791379675_2630031181872030361_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=n52-zLgLu4cAX_TdC6m&_nc_ht=scontent-atl3-1.xx&oh=00_AfDi0niQL6e-mCujZYHGlN2QodL6iFkwWyjsG7Lum64EVA&oe=6442F222

God, I love Mickey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWvEh-oSk_8

https://i.imgur.io/jYdzon9_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium