Furthest Ever!

I've now officially run further than ever before! Last summer I did around a dozen or so runs of about 10-11 minutes but I'm pretty sure I never reached 12. Now I have!

yet again just about 70 minutes on the trail . . .

running time -- 12 minutes, 0 seconds (+25 from last time)

a lil honkytonk, a lil Dead:

Danni Leigh -- 29 Nights (1998)

Chain Me
I Feel A Heartache Coming On
Weren't You The One
29 Nights
Teardrops, Teardrop
If The Jukebox Took Teardrops
Mixed Up Mess Of A Heart
Touch Me
Beatin' My Head Against The Wall
Ol' Lonesome
How Does It Feel To You

Grateful Dead
5-5-67 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco

He Was A Friend Of Mine
The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)->
New Potato Caboose
Alligator

Twas a few years back when I heard a song belonging to Danni Leigh but haven't heard anything since. She's one of those country singers who's come along and made good music but not gotten much mainstream airplay. What does that mean? I dunno. But for some reason it makes me respect her music and music like even more than the run-of-the-mill, Nashville-made, radio-friendly stuff that makes CMT's Top 20 every week. Anyway, really like Danni Leigh, will run with her again eventually!

And here's my 2¢ worth on . . .

Friday, May 5, 1967

Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco

Pretty good little (portion of a?) show! Apparently it's not known what the whole setlist consisted of. Luckily four songs, almost 40 years later, exist for us to groove on and enjoy today.

He Was A Friend Of Mine opens this recording on a nice, mellow note. If this was somehow the first song in the show and someone was seeing the Dead for their first time, wow, they'd have no clue what they were in for! Friend Of Mine cuts off near the end and cuts into the band in between numbers, bantering probably under the influence of, well . . . items of interest to those seeking hallucinogenic enlightenment. That fun couple of minutes goes into a nearly lightning fast but sweet Golden Road.

The first notes of New Potato kick in as Golden Road comes to a close and we soon hear Bobby yell out, "This number's for Laughlin."

Now, after a little internet research, I found nothing to tell me definitively who this Laughlin person is. Closest I can figure the name refers possibly to a 60's Bay Area guy named Chandler A. Laughlin a.k.a. Travus T. Hipp.

Back in that era Laughlin helped open the Cabale Creamery on San Pablo Ave. in Berkeley. In early '66 the Dead had a show scheduled there but it was cancelled. Later the Cabale became the Questing Beast where the Dead may or may not have rehearsed. Once upon a time a tape was in circulation labeled "Questing Beast" but it's since been determined that those sessions are from another date and location. Interestingly, The Beast closed down on May 9, right about the time the May 5th Fillmore show was thought (but not definitively known) to have taken place . . . uh, except The Beast is said to have closed in '66 (according to http://www.chickenonaunicycle.com) and this show is from '67. Hmmm.

Okay, so perhaps Bobby's shout out to Laughlin is for the following (which appears on http://www.fatchance.org) -- "Chased across the Mexican border twice by the FBI for subversive associations and drugs, and back once by the Federales of that noble nation for somewhat the same reasons, Hipp finally fell afoul the law and was doing a short term of county time when he was bailed out by the legendary Tom Donahue to go to work for KMPX, America's premier FM rock station in 1967."

Until I ask around some more and maybe find out from someone who knows, the true meaning of Laughlin will remain a mystery to me.

In any case, the Golden Road segue into New Potato Caboose is almost as quiet and mellow as He Was a Friend of Mine, really not at all indicitive of what's to come. On a down side, the vocals in the mix are almost lost behind the music, almost a little muddy. Thankfully, it's not the vocals that I'm listening for! Once the lyrics are done with, at about the three minute mark, the song quickly picks up a ton of steam and blasts so well into a cataclysmic atomic shebang. While the vocals aren't all there, the smile on my face along with the feeling I had made me fully aware the music is all there!!!

Alligator rolls forward in a very similar fashion. Once the seemingly half-hidden vocals are out of the way after the first few minutes of the song, the music picks up some intense primitive Dead strength cranking into the final screams of "Allligatorrrrrrrrrrr . . . Alligatorrrrrrr," it's clear what a contrast the last two songs are in comparison to the first.

Great audio quality for the era and seeing as how there's so little '67 Dead to listen to, this is 31 minutes to be nothing less than treasured.