Monday, February 16, 2009

Mini-'82 Marathon, Part 1: JGB

~MNS-2009-Volume-014Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead - Acrylic Paintings of Artist Jan Goldstein

Jerry Garcia Band -- February 2, 1982
The Catalyst -- Santa Cruz, California

1st Set: How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You), Catfish John,
Let It Rock, Simple Twist Of Fate, I Second That Emotion


Set 2: I'll Take A Melody, (I'm A) Road Runner,
Russian Lullaby, Valerie, Tangled Up In Blue


Pretty good sound for this Audience sourced show (the first Garcia show from 1982 on Inspiration, Move Me Brightly.) Vocals are a tiny bit distant and lead guitar isn't super crystal clear but the overall sound is loud and very listenable!

Here in this digital age, I'm continually amazed at the sound quality of Aud shows. Compared to the number of crappy, hissy, muddy Auds back in the analog days, so few of these suck. Tapers came out of the woodwork and got their master tapes digitized -- no loss of quality from cassette generation to cassette generation. I love it!!!!

Not only that but so many shows that were taped remained in mostly private hands: tapers who just didn't spread their recordings far and wide. Or because of so little time and so many shows, some people only wanted what sounded best and
because low generation copies were next to nowhere to be found, certain shows just didn't get wide circulation. I'm sure a lot of very in-the-know traders didn't even realize some shows even existed. Now here they are! Oh, it's just great! A huge thanks to everyone involved to make sure these are available!

But they're not all smokin' hot shows, performance-wise. This show from Santa Cruz is relatively mellow. Jerry & Company don't even let Let It Rock rock all out the way it surely can; it falls a few notches short of spectacular. During Simple Twist Of Fate, John's bass solo is the perfect place to take a nap. The crowd's applause at the end might be for the fact that the rest of the band is playing again. I Second That Emotion gets things ratcheted up some.
Jerry's got some nice lead going on semi-cruise control and around halfway through, Billy Kreutzmann on drums helps to drive the pace up while Melvin Seals, still pretty early in his tenure with the Jerry Garcia Band, adds bits here and there so the kids can begin to really groove for the first time. The first set isn't terribly smokin' but it is well-played and a good listen.

Set two has more mellowness to begin but as often is the case, the end of I'll Take A Melody slowly picks up so much steam that Jerry hits "blistering." It might be rather brief but it's definitely nice. Road Runner gets back to that end of the first set pace so everyone can dance their butts off again. So much fun here! John's bass solo in Russian Lullaby has a better feel to it this time versus his solo in the first set. People are diggin' it in this song. Not the most beautiful version ever but it hums along nicely.

The best tune of the night (or maybe the first of two in succession) has gotta be Valerie. Jerry's guitar work here is at its highest point of the night. When the tune picks up the pace, the whole band is crankin' hard right alongside before they settle it back down again. That rockin' vibe definitely carries over to Tangled Up In Blue. They are just rollin' with Billy seemingly driving things along while Jerry plays rhythm guitar and keeps up with the lyrics. Sometimes Jer joins Billy to become the co-pilot or he becomes the pilot outright while his guitar does the singing. Close to the end I really love the noodling around he does, playing outside of Tangled Up proper as he leads the band into a bit of jam for a couple minutes before bringing it all back home to wrap up the song and the show. Outstanding.

Damnit, Mrs. Garcia, can we PLEASE have the remastered soundboards already?!?!?!?!?!?!?! For the most part I was happy enough with this Aud... right up till the end. Ahh well.

Source: Master Aud Cassette
(mics & taper unknown)>
CDR> SHN

Audio Quality:
Jerry Garcia Band 2/2/82
@ Archive.org:

as of Feb 16, 2009, there is
still NO Garcia at The Archive.
Jerry Garcia, John Kahn, Keith Godchaux, Donna Godchaux, Maria Muldaur, Buzz Buchanan.  Songs by Robert Hunter and Bob Dylan and others.  A few people were absent: Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Ron Pigpen McKernan, Tom Constanten, Brent Mydland, Vince Welnick, Bruce Hornsby, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Merl Saunders, Nicky Hopkins, Melvin Seals, Ron Tutt, David Kemper, David Nelson, Rob Wasserman, David Grisman, Vassar Clements, Branford Marsalis and more. Download The Show Right Here Small CATS UNDER THE STARS

Garcia Band - Feb 2, 82 - Set 1 -- -- -- Set 2 - JGB Santa Cruz 2/2/82
2-2-82 aka 02-02-82 aka 2/2/82 aka 02/02/82 aka 82-02-02

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Zoooma!
Thank goodness I've been to your blog before. Otherwise, I might have thought you had gone the route of the PsychadelicRealm. It was a little creepy that there was NOTHING on the main page other than the people counter. But, having no fear, I came in through the back door to find Jerry jammin' once again! I like the sneaky vibe! Keep up the good work. Your friend in all things Jerry,
Adam

Zoooma said...

Heya Adam,

That's weird about Psychedelic Realm and his Grateful Dead Realm, as well. I hope he comes back, LSDAmerica's a good guy!!

I don't know what happened with only seeing the people counter... but it's interesting you mention that 'cause I test every post and when I tested this one, I had, perhaps, the very same problem. After a momentary state of immense confusion and wonderment, it worked just fine after hitting the Reload button.

There may sometimes be a momentary state of frustration at lack of comments compared to the number of downloads I know there are... but I'm not gonna shut 'er down. (But if, for whatever reason, I do disappear, it won't be for long! I don't have your email address so you'd have to just Google to find me but I'd be back -- way too many shows to try to hook people up with if they're interested!)

Catchya later, my friend of the northern plains tundra!

Anonymous said...

The stealth Audience recordings for JGB are a great example how the heads did what they could to capture the music. Unlike the Grateful Dead, Jer would not allow taping, soooooo, we had measures as you see still to bring the tunes to the Masses, Mrs. Garcia can hoard all the boards she wants, eventually the heads will be circulating what they have to us Dl freaks, thanks for the effort, SP

Anonymous said...

Hi Zoooma,
I found the exact same thing with the reload! Once I had started the download of part one and left my comment, it was like "presto" and the site appeared again as normal. Being as it is a computer-thing, I rarely try to figure out what has happened, I just go with what I see.

It's also a bit disconcerting that you haven't gotten the 2 or 3 emails I have sent you. I wonder if they haven't arrived in your spam/junk folder. If you have a suggestion about a tag line that should get through that filter, let me know and I'll send you a "just in case" email.

Oh, and for a show suggestion, I'd like to see a copy of 6/25/85. That show has vexed me for years. I've traded for it so many times I've lost count, and every copy I've ever had has just mangled the absolutely blistering set one. That was a damn hot little two week run through the midwest and east coast, 6/28 being a particular favorite of mine.

Have a great week!

Adam

Anonymous said...

Hey Zoooma,
Thanks again for another jem. It's very good for an audience source. I especially like Tnagle up in Blue. Great jamming.

Keith

one says one number and the other another
but they were set at the same time. Hmmm...

i love you amy uzarski.  always!
 
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