https://arthurmag.com/2009/05/20/uncle-skullfuckers-band-daniel-chamberlin-explains-the-discreet-charm-of-the-grateful-dead/
Lured in my the e-mucic thread boy Blockchunk (or whatever it’s called), by way of Rocknerds brilliant rant, I looked back through his previous and found a link to this delightful piece. And I get it.
Ain’t this a treat?
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In translation, lured in by the e=music thread by etc etc…
Thanks, Retro. I can totally empathise with the author’s periodic Dead immersions. There are periods where I don’t listen to them for weeks, and then periods where I don’t listen to anything else.
In the spirit of trade trading, have a go on this excellent New Yorker piece: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/11/26/deadhead
Fab read. I admit to a fear of listening to much Live dead, primarily for fear of getting sucked in. I have always, since an impressionable lad, loved the idea more than the reality, coming fairly lately to their (studio) canon. It was probably Deadicated, the covers album, that alerted me to the songs were as good, better than the image I coveted. So I did find love for much of it, beyond the obvious AB/WD duo. Hell, even Shakedown Street has been a permanent ear worm for the best part of the (only) 2 or so years since I ever heard it. The Dessner/National curated Day or the Dead triple opened the trapdoor to the chance/inevitability I am going, and soon, to be drawn into mammoth Dick Picking.
Yet as a white middle class professional in middle England, I guess I would be terrified by the carpark scenes described in each of these articles.
Lovely. I’m lucky enough that I fell over the precipice and completed my set of Dick’s Picks when it was still financially possible in 2006 – the interest around the “Fare The Well” gigs in 2005 and the subsequent formation of Dead & Company has really sparked new interest in the Dead.
(To anyone uninitiated reading, the Grateful Dead release the two track live tapes as a multi-CD recording, originally called “Dick’s Picks”, after archivist Dick Latvala, then “Road Trips”, after Rhino took first took over distribution, and now “Dave’s Picks”, after current archivist Dave Lemieux, who took over Dick’s Pick’s after Latvala’s death. Added together, there have been 36+17+25 = 78(!) volumes so far.)
The problem is that they are usually out of print: a US label called “Real Gone” is reissuing some Dick’s Picks and Road Trips, but Dave’s Picks are still a limited edition (currently 18,000 per issue) and can cost a fortune. The early ones (up to about Volume 10 or so) retail via eBay for £200+ each. The Dick’s Picks and Road Trips can vary tremendously in price, as can the box set releases (e.g. May 77, July 78, Complete Europe 72). Good luck…
You can actually buy each quarter’s instalment of Dave’s Picks direct from dead.net – and they’ve just announced the latest one:
“Saddle up! We are rounding the corner toward our second release in the 2018 Dave’s Picks series.
For those of you who didn’t subscribe, here’s your friendly reminder to mark all your calendars and set all your alarms for Monday, April 16th at 10AM PT for the on-sale of Dave’s Picks: Volume 26. And because we just can’t hold it in any longer, Dave’s Picks: Volume 26 will be the magnificent show from 11/17/1971 at the Albuquerque Civic Auditorium. You’ll also want to tune in next week for an epic listening party and, of course, David Lemieux’s Seaside Chat. *Please note that we will have a very limited quantity of Dave’s Picks: Volume 26 available. Orders are limited to 2 copies. Thank you kindly.”
Amusingly, some are already on eBay at inflated prices even though they’re not on actually available yet – and the opportunity to get them will be the same for everyone! I’m guessing these particular sellers will probably have gone for the subscription (see below) in order to turn a profit.
If you want to fall down this particular rabbit hole, I’d subscribe during the early-bird sales period for the annual subscription via dead.net, around the end of October (easiest way is to sign up to the mailing list, which is pretty low-volume and not at all spammy). That will get you four volumes of Grateful Dead – all 3 CD sets plus an exclusive bonus disc – for $111.97 (for 2018) including postage, which are shipped from Europe and thus (currently) pre-cleared for import duties.
I’d also go for the streaming or BitTorrent options: either stream from Archive.org, or if you have an Android phone and wifi, from the “Deadhead Archives” app. If you go for BitTorrenting then you can either build your own CDR collection – there’s usually suitable artwork available – or archive to a hard drive at whatever grade of sound fits your world-view (I use MP3/192), which even with my entire music collection of 122k+ tracks still only occupies 960GB of disc space. That includes pretty much all the Grateful Dead soundboards I will ever need. I can expand on BitTorrenting if anyone’s interested.
My encounters with Deadheads en-masse kind of chimes with the car park scenes, but they were really pleasant, in spite of being tie-died and grubby (there isn’t really a parking lot at Fenway Park in Boston). Also, the demographic that can afford to get into a Dead & Company show is not as broke as they would have been in 1991!
It took a little under an hour to sell the remaining available copies of “Dave’s Picks 26”.
Too late!