Here’s a list of posts with write ups of jams or histories:
tinyurl.com/UnclePlayinSandwiches
I went to shows from 91-95. I was lucky to see almost only great ones (12?) in 1994. You can find some great examples of the music from those later years here.
I’ll be updating shows from September 2018, on the date of the 1973 anniversary, through 1974. After that maybe I’ll do 89/90, 77/78, 68-ish, or drink bleach.
Feel free to comment. Don’t be shy to point out mistakes and howlers (of which there are doubtless many) or ask questions (to which I will surely have no answers). I’d love it if you’d add trivia, links to something interesting, analysis, and so on. It would also be nice to know people read anything here, and if it’s useful in a summary I’ll add it to the main text. One caveat to commenting: everyone knows you don’t like Donna and nobody cares.
The cover art is divided by year, each of which has a different template. (In addition, 1973 is divided by tours / months by color. So, for example, the horn shows are all brown, while the justly famous Novermber shows are all purple.)
Since I was a kid, album art always seeped into the way I heard albums, but mostly by the colors of the covers. When I would listen to London Calling, for instance, it sounded like that green and that pink-y color, and still does. Ditto another favorite with intense colors, New Model Army’s Purity, which still sounds purplish-red to me.
So just for myself, I started adding, with zero knowledge, some filters to the black and white photos of the Dead from 1971, with some text that was supposed to reference the original Dick’s Picks but sure as hell failed to look like it. (I didn’t add particular colors to the shows because those shows already sounded like those colors, mind you. Rather, I was trying to force the shows to sound like the colors I chose, preferable to the black and white they sounded like in my head if there was no art for them.) I went chronologically, and found that it worked, that shows that I listened to more than a couple of times retained that color when I heard it again, or even thought about it.
The photos are often from the day of the show, or within a few days of it (or a contemporary photo building they played in, or ticket art, etc). If I couldn’t find one, or a photo that was salvagable within a week or so, I just threw in some random art that didn’t have skulls and roses in it. Or I used parts of the official art (usually just sections of that art cause some of those Dave’s Picks are so bad, but it’s nice to be able see the cover and recognize it as the official release). Also: There might be other people out there who do what SaveYourFace‘s Proprietor does by editing down and curating shows, but I’m not aware of them, so, out of respect and because his taste in art is usually great, I hack up his chosen photos sometimes for covers.
So, anyway, have at the cover art if you’re into it. Right click on the image in the post itself for the large file. The file on the front page is smaller, but still pretty big (if you’re having slow load times, that’s why, particularly with the 71-72 months, because I haven’t got around to changing the ‘featured image’ on the front page to smaller files (I didn’t know what I was doing when I started). I’m putting that off though — I’ve spent enough hours on this ridiculousness.
I’ve made covers for most of the shows I have. I think it’s about 80 or 90 percent of shows from 71-mid 73. Feel free to request a show’s cover that I’ve missed and I’ll try to make it.
Note: nothing is original here, everything is stolen. None of my thoughts are mine even. In fact, I don’t really listen to this band — I’m in it for the money. So, while I try to figure out how to add a sidebar of links or something, here are the victims of my poaching (if it’s not original ‘research’ I hope I’ve given credit and a link where needed; if not, please let me know and I will):
DeadEssays – This is the place to go for amazing information and analysis about song histories, jams, eras and tons more. It’s truly extraordinary. He (?) doesn’t use paragraph breaks, though, so if that kinda thing makes you nuts, beware.
http://saveyourface.posthaven.com/ – Another (and far superior) Billy Era site. Proprietor Extraordinaire John Hilgart edits down the best parts of single shows, runs and/or jams into downloadable mp3s (that sound excellent) and writes well.
https://archive.org/details/@mind_wondrin&tab=reviews – I’d love it if someone could point out a better reviewer of shows, but I doubt there is one. He’s (?) like the good Spock to the bad Spock of this jerk:
“~^|\_@|@_/|^~ RealPlayer is a free media player…” Christ, what an asshole.
Mind’s a tough grader, so the first thing I do when I check out a show on Archive is find-in-page “mind” in order to be Mindsplained. B- or higher and I’m on it.
http://bozosandbolos.blogspot.kr/ – I wish there were more sites like these without a zillion adjectives and with personality and intelligence. The superlative Europe 72 site, and he saved me from having to listen to single note.
https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead&tab=forum
https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead
https://www.reddit.com/r/gratefuldead/
https://www.reddit.com/r/grateful_dead/
http://db.etree.org/mvernon/gd6570
The Billy Years 