Podcasts about Fillmore West

The Deadcast begins our virtual tour of the new Enjoying the Ride box, visiting the cradle of the Dead in Palo Alto/Menlo Park (with a detour to visit the Warlocks' earliest shows) before heading to San Francisco with stops at the Fillmore West and Winterland.Guests: Connie Bonner Mosley, Ron Rakow, Ned Lagin, Ron Pietrowski, Tyler Roy-Hart, Les Earnest, Doug Oade, Eric Schwartz, Blair Jackson, Michael Parrish, Dominic Stefano, David LemieuxSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wow… over 2,000 responses on last week's post!

Guitarist with Bob Marley talks about his relationship with Bill Graham as a teenager causing havoc at the Fillmore West and being taught slide guitar by Duane Allman and Johnny Winter.

Wheels of Fire is the third studio album by the British rock band Cream, released in 1968. It is a double album, with one disc featuring studio recordings and the other containing live performances. The album blends blues, psychedelic rock, and hard rock, showcasing the virtuosity of Eric Clapton (guitar, vocals), Jack Bruce (bass, vocals), and Ginger Baker (drums, vocals).The studio disc includes iconic tracks like "White Room", a dramatic psychedelic anthem with haunting lyrics and a signature wah-wah guitar riff, and "Politician", a bluesy, satirical take on political figures. Other highlights include "Pressed Rat and Warthog", an offbeat spoken-word track by Ginger Baker, and "Deserted Cities of the Heart", a high-energy song with intricate instrumentation.The live disc, recorded at Fillmore West and the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, captures Cream's electrifying stage presence. The 16-minute version of "Spoonful" (originally by Willie Dixon) showcases Clapton's masterful blues improvisation, while "Crossroads", a cover of Robert Johnson's classic, features one of rock's most celebrated guitar solos.Wheels of Fire was the first double album to be certified Platinum, solidifying Cream's legacy as one of the greatest rock power trios. It remains a landmark release in psychedelic and blues rock history.Listen to the album on SpotifyListen to the album on Apple MusicWhat did you think of this album? Send us a text! Support the showPatreonWebsitePolyphonic Press SubredditFollow us on InstagramContact: polyphonicpressmusic@gmail.comDISCLAIMER: Due to copyright restrictions, we are unable to play pieces of the songs we cover in these episodes. Playing clips of songs are unfortunately prohibitively expensive to obtain the proper licensing. We strongly encourage you to listen to the album along with us on your preferred format to enhance the listening experience.

In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. We'd just learned of the call Ashley received from The Fillmore while she was working in Seattle. She'd visited San Francisco once to visit a cousin, but that stay lasted a mere 48 hours. She had one friend here at the time.   Up in Seattle, the shows she helped produce were huge acts like Beyoncé and Rihanna. What especially excited Ashley about this opportunity at The Fillmore was the potential to work on smaller shows with groups and people more on their way up, so to speak. For fans and showgoers, it was more about music discovery, as she puts it.   It was June 2012. Ashley's move to San Francisco was more or less sight-unseen. The City immediately felt like a "bigger" place for her, its music ... just a bigger city all-around. It was big, "but not that big." She landed in the Mission, moving in with a friend of that one friend she had in SF. Ashley lived at 24th and Potrero for nine years, until just three years ago.   We shift to talk about Ashley's time at The Fillmore. She shares conversations among staff there about the history of the place and placing that at the forefront. The venue partnered with the Bill Graham Memorial Foundation this past fall to reintroduce the public to the place and its long history, as well as really getting Bill Graham's story out there.   Ashley then shares that life story of Bill Graham. It was Graham who put The Fillmore on the map. His first show there was in December 1965. He had fled the Holocaust as a kid, went with family to New York, then ended up in San Francisco. He wanted to be an actor and found the San Francisco Mime Troupe. That first show at The Fillmore was a benefit for the Mime Troupe, in fact.   The place had been a dance hall and a roller rink previously. Graham might have had a hunch, but when he took over putting on music shows, it was right at an inflection point for rock music in The City. Bands like Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Janis Joplin frequently played there.   Bill Graham had a gift for pairing musicians from different genres together in such a way that shows attracted different groups of people. Ashley points out, though, that first and foremost, Bill was a businessman. He followed and created opportunities to make money. A few years after taking over at Fillmore and Geary, he opened The Fillmore West at Van Ness and Market. There's a fun tidbit about Bill Graham appearing on David Letterman back in the Eighties—which just speaks to how big a personality he'd become.   Our conversation then shifts to two questions I had for Ashley. I wanted her to talk about the red apples that are always found in a bucket at the top of the stairs when you enter The Fillmore. That, and the posters handed out to showgoers on their way out of sold-out events.   No one really knows how the apples got started, she says. There are versions of the story. One holds that Bill Graham gave them out as a simple gesture of hospitality. Another was that putting a little food in your belly after a night out can't hurt anything. A rather elaborate telling is that, as part of an exhibit on Bill Graham at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, someone who'd been in France with him when they were kids shared the story of sneaking out at night to go to an apple orchard.   As for the posters, Ashley talks about their origins, when they were simply advertisements for shows at The Fillmore. The posters eventually took on a life of their own, though—for many of the early ones, the style of lettering worked better as a memento than an ad. It almost seems quaint at this point that the posters were anything but keepsakes.   I ask Ashley what it's like to now have her name appear on these iconic pieces of art (in her role as art director). "It's strange ... but cool." She speaks to how much work goes into each poster. And then Ashley talks about the logistics of making posters for.   "At this point, we have a pretty good idea of which shows are gonna sell out." (Seems obvious, but as someone on the outside, I wondered.) "It's not a perfect science, but we're pretty good at it," Ashley says. She thinks of her job as more art curation than direction. She considers the overall collection of posters a little more than the nitty gritty of what each poster's details are.   We end the podcast with Ashley's thoughts on what it means to "keep it local," our theme this season.   Follow The Fillmore on Instagram.   Photography by Nate Oliveira

Jerry Garcia Band Tangled Up In Blue 12:08 Jerry Garcia Band Live Grateful Dead Eyes Of The World 14:13 San Francisco 08-13-1975 Grateful Dead King Solomon's Marbles 6:17 San Francisco 08-13-1975 Grateful Dead Dark Star 22:58 Fillmore West 2-27-1969 Grateful Dead Truckin' > 10:31 London 09-09-1972 Grateful Dead Wood Green Jam > 5:57 London 09-09-1972 […]

Music News: Pink Floyd and Joni MitchellIn this episode of the Deadhead Cannabis Show, Larry Mishkin reflects on the intersection of music and cannabis in the wake of the recent elections. He delves into the Grateful Dead's legacy, highlighting a notable performance from 1973, and explores the lyrical depth of 'To Lay Me Down.' The conversation also touches on music news, including Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' and Joni Mitchell's recent birthday. The episode concludes with a discussion on recent research indicating that cannabis may serve as a substitute for more dangerous substances. This conversation explores the complex relationship between cannabis use and substance consumption among young adults, the implications of Florida's failed marijuana legalization initiative, and the potential of cannabis as a harm reduction tool for opioid use. It also highlights popular cannabis strains and their effects, alongside a cultural reflection on the Grateful Dead's music. Chapters00:00 Post-Election Reflections: Music and Cannabis08:29 The Grateful Dead's Musical Legacy14:48 Exploring the Lyrics: To Lay Me Down21:59 Music News: Pink Floyd and Joni Mitchell37:06 Weather Report Suite: A Musical Journey43:10 Second Set Highlights: Mississippi Half-Step and Beyond49:36 Marijuana Research: Substitution Effects51:24 Cannabis Use Among Young Adults56:13 Florida's Marijuana Legalization Initiative01:05:01 Cannabis as a Tool for Opioid Harm Reduction01:11:10 Strains of the Week and Cannabis Culture Larry's Notes:Grateful DeadNovember 11, 1973 (51 years ago)Winterland ArenaSan Francisco, CAGrateful Dead Live at Winterland Arena on 1973-11-11 : Free Borrow & Streaming : Internet Archive Happy Veteran's Day  A very famous show from a very famous year.  Many feel 1973 was the peak of the band's post psychedelic era.  Certainly right up there with 1977 as top years for the band, even by November they were still in full stride during a three night run at Winterland, this being the third and final night of the run.  In 2008 the Dead released the box set:  “Winterland 1973: The complete recordings” featuring shows from Nov. 9, 10 and 11, 1973.  This was the Dead's second “complete recordings” release featuring all of the nights of a single run. The first was “Fillmore West, 1969, the Complete Recordings” from Feb. 27, 28 and March 1 and 2 (IMHO the best collection of live music ever released by the band).  The band later released a follow up, Winterland 1977: The Complete Recordings a three night run June 7, 8 and 9, 1977 that is also an outstanding box set. Today's show has a 16 song first set, a six song second set and a three song encore, a true rarity for a Dead show of any era (other than NYE shows). The second set consists of ½ Step, Big River, Dark Star with MLBJ, Eyes of the World, China Doll and Sugar Magnolia and is as well played as any set ever played by the band.  They were on fire for these three days.  A great collection of music and killer three night run for those lucky enough to have snagged a ticket for any or all of the nights. Patrick Carr wrote in the NY Times that: “The Dead had learned how to conceive and perform a music which often induced something closely akin to the psychedelic experience; they were and are experts in the art and science of showing people another world, or a temporary altering (raising) of world consciousness.  It sounds pseudomystical pretentious perhaps, but the fact is that it happens and it is intentional.”  INTRO:                                 Promised Land                (show opener into Bertha/Greatest Story/Sugaree/Black Throated Wind)                                                Track #1                                                0 – 2:10 "Promised Land" is a song lyric written by Chuck Berry to the melody of "Wabash Cannonball", an American folk song. The song was first recorded in this version by Berry in 1964 for his album St. Louis to Liverpool. Released in December 1964, it was Berry's fourth single issued following his prison term for a Mann Act conviction. The record peaked at #41 in the Billboard charts on January 16, 1965. Berry wrote the song while in prison, and borrowed an atlas from the prison library to plot the itinerary. In the lyrics, the singer (who refers to himself as "the poor boy") tells of his journey from Norfolk, Virginia, to the "Promised Land", Los Angeles, California, mentioning various cities in Southern states that he passes through on his journey. Describing himself as a "poor boy," the protagonist boards a Greyhound bus in Norfolk, Virginia that passes Raleigh, N.C., stops in Charlotte, North Carolina, and bypasses Rock Hill, South Carolina. The bus rolls out of Atlanta but breaks down, leaving him stranded in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. He then takes a train "across Mississippi clean" to New Orleans. From there, he goes to Houston, where "the people there who care a bit about me" buy him a silk suit, luggage and a plane ticket to Los Angeles. Upon landing in Los Angeles, he calls Norfolk, Virginia ("Tidewater four, ten-oh-nine") to tell the folks back home he made it to the "promised land." The lyric: "Swing low, sweet chariot, come down easy/Taxi to the terminal zone" refers to the gospel lyric: "Swing low, sweet Chariot, coming for to carry me Home" since both refer to a common destination, "The Promised Land," which in this case is California, reportedly a heaven on earth. Billboard called the song a "true blue Berry rocker with plenty of get up and go," adding that "rinky piano and wailing Berry electric guitar fills all in neatly."[2]Cash Box described it as "a 'pull-out-all-the-stops' rocker that Chuck pounds out solid sales authority" and "a real mover that should head out for hit territory in no time flat."[3] In 2021, it was listed at No. 342 on Rolling Stone's "Top 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Apparently played by the Warlocks and the Grateful Dead in their earliest days, Bob Weir started playing this with the Dead in 1971, and it remained a regular right through to the band's last show ever in 1995.  Among those deeply touched by Chuck's genius were Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead. They often paid homage to Chuck by weaving his songs into their performances, breathing new life into his timeless melodies. "Promised Land," with its relentless drive, became an anthem of journey and aspiration. Their electrifying renditions of "Johnny B. Goode" were not mere covers but jubilant celebrations of a narrative that resonated with the dreamer in all of us. The Grateful Dead's performances of "Around and Around" echoed Chuck's mastery of capturing life's cyclical rhythms—a dance of beginnings and endings, joy and sorrow. And when they took on "Run Rudolph Run," they infused the festive classic with their own psychedelic flair, bridging the gap between tradition and innovation. A moment etched in musical history was when Chuck Berry shared the stage with the Grateful Dead during their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. The air was thick with reverence and electricity—a meeting of titans where the past, present, and future of rock converged in harmonious resonance. Again, in May 1995, Chuck opened for the Grateful Dead in Portland, Oregon. It was a night where legends collided, and the music swirled like a tempest, leaving a lasting impression on all who were fortunate enough to witness it. This version really rocks out.  I especially love Keith's piano which is featured prominently in this clip. Played:  430 timesFirst:  May 28, 1971 at Winterland Arena, San Francisco, CA, USALast:  July 9, 1995 at Soldier Field, Chicago, IL, USA  SHOW No. 1:                    To Lay Me Down  (out of Black Throated Wind/into El Paso/Ramble On Rose/Me and Bobby McGee                                                Track #6                                                2:21 – 4:20 David Dodd:  “To Lay Me Down” is one of the magical trio of lyrics composed in a single afternoon in 1970 in London, “over a half-bottle of retsina,” according to Robert Hunter. The other two were “Ripple” and “Brokedown Palace.” Well, first—wouldn't we all like to have a day like that! And, second—what unites these three lyrics, aside from the fact that they were all written on the same day? Hunter wrote, in his foreword to The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics:”And I wrote reams of bad songs, bitching about everything under the sun, which I kept to myself: Cast not thy swines before pearls. And once in a while something would sort of pop out of nowhere. The sunny London afternoon I wrote ‘Brokedown Palace,' ‘To Lay Me Down,' and ‘Ripple,' all keepers, was in no way typical, but it remains in my mind as the personal quintessence of the union between writer and Muse, a promising past and bright future prospects melding into one great glowing apocatastasis.” “‘To Lay me Down' was written a while before the others [on the Garcia album], on the same day as the lyrics to ‘Brokedown Palace' and ‘Ripple'—the second day of my first visit to England. I found myself left alone in Alan Trists's flat on Devonshire Terrace in West Kensington, with a supply of very nice thick linen paper, sun shining brightly through the window, a bottle of Greek Retsina wine at my elbow. The songs flowed like molten gold onto the page and stand as written. The images for ‘To Lay Me Down' were inspired at Hampstead Heath (the original title to the song) the day before—lying on the grass and clover on a day of swallowtailed clouds, across from Jack Straw's Castle [a pub, now closed and converted into flats--dd], reunited with the girlfriend of my youth, after a long separation.” Garcia's setting for the words is, like his music for those other two songs, perfect. The three-quarter time (notated as having a nine-eight feel), coupled with the gospel style of the melody and chords, makes for a dreamy, beauty-soaked song. I heard it on the radio today (yes, on the radio, yes, today—and no, not on a Grateful Dead Hour, but just in the course of regular programming), and it struck me that it was a gorgeous vehicle for Garcia's voice. By which I mean: for that strongly emotive, sweet but not sappy, rough but not unschooled instrument that was Garcia's alone. I have started to think that my usual recitation of where a song was first played, where it was last played, and where it was recorded by the band borders on pointless. All that info is readily available. What's interesting about the performance history of “To Lay Me Down” is that it was dropped from the rotation for more than 200 shows three times, and that its final performance, in 1992, came 125 shows after the penultimate one. The reappearance of the song, in the 1980 acoustic shows, came nearly six years after the previous performances in 1974. “Ripple” had a similar pattern, reappearing in those 1980 acoustic sets after 550 performances, or nearly ten years. Of the magical trio from that day of molten gold in West Kensington, “Brokedown Palace” had the most solid place in the Dead's performance rotation, with only one huge gap in its appearances—165 shows between 1977 and 1979. So, in terms of story, what can be discerned? The short version, for me: even if it's just for a day, even if it's just once more, even if it's just one last time—it's worth it. It's golden. It's home. This version is really great to listen to.  Jerry's voice is still so young and strong.  And the group singing works really well.  Jerry's also kills it with his lead guitar jamming. Released on “Garcia” in 1972 Played:  64 timesFirst:  July 30, 1970 at The Matrix, San Francisco, CA, USALast: June 28, 1992 at Deer Creek Music Center, Noblesville, IN, USA MUSIC NEWS:                                                           Music Intro:                       Brain Damage                                                                                    Pink Floyd                                                                                    Pink Floyd - Brain Damage (2023 Remaster)                                                                                    0:00 – 1:47             "Brain Damage" is the ninth track[nb 1] from English rock band Pink Floyd's 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon.[2][3] It was sung on record by Roger Waters (with harmonies by David Gilmour), who would continue to sing it on his solo tours. Gilmour sang the lead vocal when Pink Floyd performed it live on their 1994 tour (as can be heard on Pulse). The band originally called this track "Lunatic" during live performances and recording sessions. "Brain Damage" was released as a digital single on 19 January 2023 to promote The Dark Side of the Moon 50th Anniversary box set.[4]             The uncredited manic laughter is that of Pink Floyd's then-road manager, Peter Watts.             The Dark Side of the Moon is the eighth studio album by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released on 1 March 1973, by Harvest Records in the UK and Capitol Records in the US. Developed during live performances before recording began, it was conceived as a concept album that would focus on the pressures faced by the band during their arduous lifestyle, and also deal with the mental health problems of the former band member Syd Barrett, who had departed the group in 1968. New material was recorded in two sessions in 1972 and 1973 at EMI Studios (now Abbey Road Studios) in London.             The Dark Side of the Moon is among the most critically acclaimed albums and often features in professional listings of the greatest of all time. It brought Pink Floyd international fame, wealth and plaudits to all four band members. A blockbuster release of the album era, it also propelled record sales throughout the music industry during the 1970s. The Dark Side of the Moon is certified 14x platinum in the United Kingdom, and topped the US Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart, where it has charted for 990 weeks. By 2013, The Dark Side of the Moon had sold over 45 million copies worldwide, making it the band's best-selling release, the best-selling album of the 1970s, and the fourth-best-selling album in history.[3] In 2012, the album was selected for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. David Gilmour Addresses Synchronicity Theory Between ‘The Dark Side of the Moon' and ‘Wizard of Oz'On Thursday, November 7, 2024, Pink Floyd's David Gilmour appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon amid his extensive run at New York's Madison Square Garden, where he is supporting his latest solo release, Luck and Strange. During the music industry legend's stop by the late-night talk show, he spoke with the program's host, who questioned the theory of synchronicity between TheDark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz, commonly referred to as the Dark Side of the Rainbow.“You said that you think it's your best work since Dark Side of the Moon,” Fallon questioned at the top of the segment, comparing Gilmour's comments regarding his latest release, and the Pink Floyd classic. “When we finished Dark Side, there was a lot of crossfades and stuff between all the tracks. They had all to be done separately and then they all have to be edited in the old days before Pro Tools. When we finally finished, we sat down in the control room at Abbey Road and listened to it all the way through. And, wow. I–I guess all of us–have the feeling that it was something quite amazing–that we got it, and at the same point on this album, I had a very similar feeling, which is why I said that.” Fallon stewed on Luck and Strange during a series of follow-up questions that assisted in painting a portrait of familial involvement during the making of Gilmour's 2024 release–harnessing the conversation to the artist's preferred homebred approach before they segued into the realm of the Emerald City. Fallon landed on the topic of Oz during a bit aimed at busting rumors that have populated throughout the musician's 60-year tenure in the spotlight.“The Pink Floyd album, Dark Side of the Moon, was written to synchronize with the movie Wizard of Oz,” Fallon suggested. Prompting Gilmour's humor-tinged response, “Well, of course it was.” Fallon threw his hands up in response, acting on the comedic angle, before the musician clarified, “No, no. We listened to it, Polly and I, years ago–” Fallon stopped the artist to ask, “There's no planning that out?” Gilmour continued, “No. No, I mean, I only heard about it years later. Somebody said you put the needle on–vinyl that is– and on the third–you know you got the film running somehow–and on the third roar of the MGM lion, you put the needle on for the beginning of Dark Side, and there's these strange synchronicities that happen.” Fallon asked if Gilmour had ever tested the theory, to which he exclaimed, “Yeah!” He went on to admit, “And there are these strange coincidences–I'll call them coincidences.”  Joni Mitchell turns 81 - Joni Mitchell was born on Nov. 7th in 1943, making her 81 this past Thursday. Mitchell began her career in small nightclubs in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, and grew to become one of the most influential singer-songwriters in modern music history. Rising to fame during the 1960s, Mitchell became a key narrator in the folk music movement, alongside others like Bob Dylan. Over the decades, she has released 19 studio albums, including the seminal “Blue,” which was rated the third best album ever made in Rolling Stone's 2020 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” In 2023, Joni Mitchell at Newport was released, a live album of her 2022 performance at the Newport Folk Festival.  More recently she was the featured performer at the Joni Jam at the Gorge in George, WA in June, 2023 3.    Dan “Lebo” Lebowitz to Celebrate 50th Birthday at Sweetwater Music Hall with Members of ALO, Tea Leaf Green and More Sweetwater Music Hall (in Mill Valley, CA) has announced details pertaining to Dan “Lebo” Lebowitz's 50th Birthday Bash. The event is slated to take place on Saturday, November 23, 2024, and functions as a celebratory occasion to honor the jam stalwart and beloved member of the Bay Area music scene's five decade ride.  The six-string virtuoso, known for his work with Animal Liberation Orchestra (ALO), Phil Lesh & Friends, and his own self-titled Friends project, has tapped an all-star group of regional talent to assist during the live show. Appearing on the birthday lineup, in addition to the bandleader are Vicki Randle (percussion, vocals; The Tonight Show Band), Steve Adams (bass; ALO), Trevor Garrod (keys; Tea Leaf Green) and Scott Rager (drums; Tea Leaf Green).  “Possessing a signature tone, the vehicle for his fluid, buttery sound is a flat top acoustic guitar that he has personally sliced and diced into an electric flat top, with a vintage style humbucker pickup. Inherently committed to an improvisational approach, Lebo embodies the realm of melodic and soulful sounds,” the press release includes, drawing on the unique factors which have made Lebo a standout amongst his musical contemporaries. As an added distinction, and play into the birthday angle of event's surprise and celebration, special guest appearances are slated to occur, as referenced via press release and the artist's post on Instagram, where he noted additional inclusions as TBA.   SHOW No. 2:                    Weather Report Suite Prelude  (out of China >Rider/Me & My Uncle/Loose Lucy                                                Track #14                                                3:10 – end                                                   INTO                                                 Weather Report Suite Part I  (out of WRS Prelude/ into WRS Part II (Let It Grow)/Set break  - 16 songs                                                Track #15                                                0:00 – 1:03 David Dodd:  This week, by request, we're looking at “Weather Report Suite,” (Prelude, Part 1, and Part 2). For a short time, the three pieces that comprise the Suite were played as such, but that was relatively short-lived by Grateful Dead standards. The Prelude debuted in November 1972, originally as a separate piece from its eventual companions. The Dead played it, according to DeadBase, four more times in the spring of 1973 before it was first matched up with Weather Report Suite Parts 1 & 2, in September of that year. It was played regularly through October of 1974, and then dropped from the repertoire. The instrumental “Prelude,” composed by Weir, sets the stage for the two pieces to follow. I think it's one of the most beautiful little pieces of music I know—I have never once skipped through it over years of listening. I just let it wash over me and know that its simplicity and beauty are preparing me for the melancholy of Part 1, and the sometimes epic grandeur of Part 2. Part 1 is a song co-written with Eric Andersen, a well-known singer-songwriter who wrote the classic “Thirsty Boots.” He was on the Festival Express Tour (of “Might As Well” fame) across Canada along with the Dead, and I'm guessing that's where Weir and he met and concocted this piece. Happy to be corrected on that by anyone who knows better. Andersen and Weir share the lyric credit, and the music is credited to Weir. Once it appeared in the rotation, in September 1973, it stayed in the repertoire only as long as the Prelude did, dropping entirely in October 1974. The song addresses the seasons, and their changing mirrors the the singer's state of mind as he reflects on the coming of love, and maybe its going, too: a circle of seasons, and the blooming and fading of roses. I particularly like the line “And seasons will end in tumbled rhyme and little change, the wind and rain.” There's something very hopeful buried in the song's melancholy. Is that melancholy just a projection of mine? I think there's something about Weir's singing that gets at that emotion. Loss, and the hope that there might be new love. Weather Report Suite, Part 2 (“Let It Grow”) is a very different beast. It remained steadily in the rotation for the next 21 years after its debut, and the band played it 276 times. Its season of rarity was 1979, when it was played only three times, but otherwise, it was not far from the rotation. It could be stretched into a lengthy jamming tune (clocking at over 15 minutes several times), building to a thundering crescendo. And the “Weather Report” aspect of the song is what was really the most fun many times. Released on Wake of The Flood in 1973. WRS Prelude and Part I:Played:         46 timesFirst:  September 8, 1973 at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Uniondale, NY, USALast:  October 18, 1974 at Winterland Arena, San Francisco, CA, USA SHOW No. 3:                     Mississippi Half Step Uptown Toodeloo  (Second Set Opener/into Big River/Dark Star)                                    Track #17                                    3:17 – 4:55 Released on Wake of the Flood in 1973. Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo was first performed live by the Grateful Dead on July 16, 1972. It was a frequent part of the repertoire through to 1974. From 1976 onward it was played less frequently with usually between 5 and 15 performances each year. It was not played at all in 1983 and 1984. The last performance was in July 1995. In total it was performed around 236 times. The majority of performances from 1978 onward were as the opening song of a show. Huner/Garcia special.  Great story.  Great lyrics:  “what's the point of calling shots, this cue ain't straight in line.  Cue ball is made of Styrofoam and no one's got the time” Always one of my favorite songs to hear in concert.  ½ Step>Franklin's were especially fun as a one two show opener punch. Played:  236 timesFirst:  July 16, 1972 at Dillon Stadium, Hartford, CT, USALast:  July 6, 1995 at the Riverport Amphitheatre in Maryland Heights (St. Louis), MO MJ NEWS:                 INTRO MUSIC:       Willin'                                                Little Feat                                                Little Feat - Willin' sung by Lowell George Live 1977. HQ Video.                                                0:10 – 1:32                                                1977 "Willin'" is a song written by American musician Lowell George, and first recorded with his group Little Feat on their 1971 debut album. The song has since been performed by a variety of artists.          George wrote the song while he was a member of the Mothers of Invention. When George sang an early version of the song for bandleader Frank Zappa, Zappa suggested that the guitarist form his own band rather than continue under Zappa's tutelage.[1] He did just that, and the song was subsequently recorded by Lowell's band Little Feat. The song was included on Little Feat's 1971 self-titled debut album. The band re-recorded the song at a slower tempo to much greater success on their 1972 Sailin' Shoes album. A live version recorded in 1977 appears on their 1978 album Waiting for Columbus. The lyrics are from the point of view of a truck driver who has driven from Tucson to Tucumcari (NM), Tehachapi (CA) to Tonopah (AZ)" and "smuggled some smokes and folks from Mexico"; the song has become a trucker anthem.  And of course, he asks for “weed, whites (speed) and wine” to get him through his drive. 1.      Using Marijuana Is Tied To Lower Consumption Of Alcohol, Opioids And Other Drugs, New Study Reveals 2.     Why Florida's Marijuana Legalization Ballot Initiative Failed Despite Trump Endorsement, Historic Funding And Majority Voter Support 3.     Marijuana Has ‘Great Deal Of Potential' To Treat Opioid Use Disorder, Study Finds, Predicting It'll Become More Common In Treatment 4.     Colorado Springs Voters Approve Two Contradictory Marijuana Ballot Measures To Both Allow And Ban Recreational Sales Strains of the week: Sub Zero - Sub Zero is a potent Indica-dominanthybrid cannabis strain that combines the robust genetics of Afghan, Colombian, and Mexican origins. This marijuana strain offers a complex flavor profile with notes of apple, menthol, chestnut, lime, and berry, providing a unique and refreshing sensory experience. The aroma of Sub Zero is as intriguing as its flavor, characterized by a rich combination of woody, earthy, and citrus notes, thanks to a terpene profile rich in Humulene, Limonene, Linalool, and Carene. These terpenes not only enhance the flavor but also contribute to the strain's therapeutic properties. Apple Fritter - Apple Fritter, also known as “Apple Fritters,” is a rare evenly balanced hybrid strain (50% indica/50% sativa) created through crossing the classic Sour Apple X Animal Cookies strains. Best known for making the High Times' 2016 “World's Strongest Strains” List, this baby brings on a hard-hitting high and super delicious flavor that will have you begging for more after just one taste. Extract:             Dulce Limon – hyrbrid sativa dominant            Pineapple Fizz – slightly indica dominant hybrid strain SHOW No. 4:                    Dark Star  (Mind Left Body Jam)                                                Track #18                                                34:45 – end This is the name given to a 4-chord sequence played as a jam by the Grateful Dead. It is thought by some to be related to the Paul Kantner song "Your Mind Has Left Your Body." The title "Mind Left Body Jam" was originally used by DeadBase. The first Grateful Dead CD to include a version was "Dozin' At The Knick", where the title was "Mud Love Buddy Jam" in a humorous reference to the DeadBase/taper title. But subsequent releases have adopted the "Mind Left Body Jam" title.Here, it comes out of a 36 minute Dark Star that many say is one of the best ever and links it to an excellent Eyes of the World.Fun to feature one of the band's thematic jams every now and then.  The truly improvisational side of the Dead and their live performances.  Played:  9 timesFirst:  October 19, 1973 at Jim Norick Arena, Oklahoma City, OK, USALast:  March 24, 1990 at Knickerbocker Arena, Albany, NY, USA                                                 INTO                                                 Eyes of the World  (into China Doll/Sugar Mag as second set closer)                                                Track #19                                                0:00 – 2:25 David Dodd:  “Eyes of the World” is a Robert Hunter lyric set by Jerry Garcia. It appeared in concert for the first time in that same show on February 9, 1973, at the Maples Pavilion at Stanford University, along with “They Love Each Other,” “China Doll,” “Here Comes Sunshine,” “Loose Lucy,” “Row Jimmy,” and “Wave That Flag.” Its final performance by the Dead was on July 6, 1995, at Riverport Amphitheatre, in Maryland Heights, Missouri, when it opened the second set, and led into “Unbroken Chain.” It was performed 381 times, with 49 of those performances occurring in 1973. It was released on “Wake of the Flood” in November, 1973. (I have begun to notice something I never saw before in the song statistics in Deadbase—the 49 performances in 1973 made me look twice at the song-by-song table of performances broken out by year in DeadBase X, which clearly shows the pattern of new songs being played in heavy rotation when they are first broken out, and then either falling away entirely, or settling into a more steady, less frequent pattern as the years go by. Makes absolute sense!) Sometimes criticized, lyrically, as being a bit too hippy-dippy for its own good, “Eyes of the World” might be heard as conveying a message of hope, viewing human consciousness as having value for the planet as a whole. There are echoes in the song of a wide range of literary and musical influences, from Blaise Pascal to (perhaps) Ken Kesey; from talk of a redeemer to the title of the song itself. In an interview, Hunter made an interesting statement about the “songs of our own,” which appear twice in “Eyes of the World.” He said that he thinks it's possible each of us may have some tune, or song, that we hum or sing to ourselves, nothing particularly amazing or fine, necessarily, that is our own song. Our song.  The song leaves plenty of room for our own interpretation of certain lines and sections. The verse about the redeemer fading away, being followed by a clay-laden wagon. The myriad of images of birds, beeches, flowers, seeds, horses.... One of my all time favorite songs, Dead or otherwise.  A perfect jam tune.  Great lyrics, fun sing along chorus and some of the finest music you will ever hear between the verses.  First really fell for it while at a small show one night my junior year at Michigan in the Michigan Union, a Cleveland based dead cover band call Oroboros.  We were all dancing and this tune just seemed to go on forever, it might have been whatever we were on at the time, but regardless, this tune really caught my attention.  I then did the standard Dead dive to find as many versions of the song as I could on the limited live Dead releases at that time and via show tapes.  Often followed Estimated Prophet in the first part of the second set, china/rider/estimated/eyes or scarlet/fire/estimated/eyes and sometimes even Help/Slip/Frank/Estimated/Eyes.  Regardless of where it appeared, hearing the opening notes was magical because you knew that for the next 10 – 12 minutes Jerry had you in the palm of his hand. This is just a great version, coming out of the Dark Star/Mind Left Body Jam and then continuing on into China Doll (two great Jerry tunes in a row!) and a standout Sugar Mag to close out the second set.  Any '73 Eyes will leave you in awe and this one is one of the best. Played:  382 timesFirst:  February 9, 1973 at Maples Pavilion, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USALast:  July 6, 1995 at Riverport Amphitheatre, Maryland Heights (St. Louis), MO  OUTRO:                               And We Bid You Goodnight  (encore out of Uncle John's Band/Johnny B. Goode) 3 song encore!!                                                Track #25                                                :40 – 3:03 The Grateful Dead performed the song a number of times in the 1968-1970 and 1989-1990 periods but infrequently during the rest of their performing career. On Grateful Dead recordings the title used is either And We Bid You Goodnight or We Bid You Goodnight. The Grateful Dead version of this traditional 'lowering down' funeral song originates from a recording by Joseph Spence and the Pindar Family which was released in 1965. The title used on that recording, as on many others, is I Bid You Good Night. This song appears to share a common ancestry with the song Sleep On Beloved from North East England. I got to see it the first night at Alpine Valley in 1989 (the Dead's last year at Alpine) and it really caught the crowd off guard.  Great reaction from the Deadheads.  Kind of a chills down your spine thing.  I was with One armed Lary and Alex, both had been with us at Deer Creek right before.  Lary stayed for all three nights but Alex had to take off after the first show.  Great times.  Played:  69 timesFirst:  January 26, 1968 at Eagles Auditorium, Seattle, WA, USALast:  September 26, 1991 at Boston Garden, Boston, MA, USA  Thank you for listening.  Join us again next week for more music news, marijuana news and another featured Grateful Dead show. Have a great week, have fun, be safe and as always, enjoy your cannabis responsibly.   .Produced by PodConx Deadhead Cannabis Show - https://podconx.com/podcasts/deadhead-cannabis-showLarry Mishkin - https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkinRob Hunt - https://podconx.com/guests/rob-huntJay Blakesberg - https://podconx.com/guests/jay-blakesbergSound Designed by Jamie Humiston - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-humiston-91718b1b3/Recorded on Squadcast

Phil Lesh: A Tribute to a Musical IconIn this episode of the Deadhead Cannabis Show, Larry Mishkin discusses the significance of the Grateful Dead's concert on November 4, 1977, at Colgate University, along with various music news updates, tributes to Phil Lesh, and reflections on Quincy Jones's legacy. The conversation highlights the dynamics of the band during the concert, the impact of newer jam bands like Goose, and the importance of preserving musical legacies through releases like Dave's Picks. In this episode, Larry discusses the latest music news, particularly focusing on the Grateful Dead's legacy and their recent box set releases. He reflects on the band's unique performances and the significance of their music. The conversation then shifts to marijuana legalization efforts, particularly in Florida, where a recent ballot measure was rejected despite public support. Larry expresses disappointment in the political landscape surrounding marijuana and emphasizes the benefits of legalization. The episode concludes with a deep dive into a specific Grateful Dead performance, highlighting the band's improvisational style and the joy their music brings to fans.TakeawaysThis episode was recorded on Election Day, November 5th.The Grateful Dead's show on November 4, 1977, is a highlight.The Jones Gang incident showcased the band's playful dynamics.Goose represents the new generation of jam bands.Phil Lesh's influence on music and improvisation is profound.Quincy Jones's legacy in music is celebrated.Dave's Picks Volume 52 features a remarkable concert.The importance of preserving musical history through recordings.Larry reflects on his personal experiences with the Grateful Dead.The episode blends cannabis culture with music appreciation. Music brings joy and relaxation after a long day.The Grateful Dead's legacy continues to inspire new generations.Unique performances can redefine classic songs.Marijuana legalization faces political challenges despite public support.The benefits of marijuana legalization are well-documented.Music and cannabis culture often intersect in meaningful ways.The improvisational nature of the Grateful Dead's music is a hallmark of their performances.Public sentiment can sometimes clash with political decisions.The Grateful Dead's music remains timeless and relevant.Engaging with music and cannabis responsibly enhances the experience.Sound Bites"This is a special episode being taped on Election Day.""It's just a big love fest with all these guys.""Phil has changed my life.""Quincy was the man I won my first Grammy with.""It's a wonderful, wonderful show.""You just don't know what you're missing out on.""It's just cool to hear it.""This is a pretty amazing second set.""It's a very cool segue from one into the other.""It's a must hear.""It's a wonderful part of the show.""It's a very unfortunate thing that this happened.""People in Florida are gonna smoke marijuana anyway.""It's a great way to end this wonderful show."Chapters00:00Introduction and Context of the Episode03:45Exploring the Grateful Dead's November 4, 1977 Show11:34The Jones Gang Incident and Band Dynamics16:49Music News: Goose and Gen 3 Jam Bands20:51Tributes to Phil Lesh and Reflections on Legacy25:30Remembering Quincy Jones: A Musical Legend30:06Dave's Picks Volume 52: A Review36:30Celebrating Music and New Releases38:53Exploring the Grateful Dead's Legacy44:17Marijuana News and Legalization Efforts01:01:01Deep Dive into Grateful Dead Performances01:09:55Closing Thoughts and Reflections LARRY'S NOTES:Grateful Dead November 11, 1977 (47 years ago)Cotterrell GymnasiumColgate UniversityHamilton, NYGrateful Dead Live at Cotterrell Gym, Colgate U on 1977-11-04 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive Dave's Picks #12 This show literally “popped up out of nowhere” during the very famous fall tour of the very famous 1977 year of touring.  On November 1st they played in Detroit's legendary Cobo Hall.  The next night up in Toronto.  They had Nov. 3 set for Utica, NY but the show fell through a few weeks before.  They were still set for Rochester on Nov. 5th (which was released as Dick's Picks #34) and Binghamton on Nov. 7th.  So less than 4 weeks before this show, while already hitting the road, negotiations began for this show which were only finalized the night before.  Cotterrell gym on the Colgate campus is a small venue.  Think large high school gym with pull out bleachers.  There were only 3,000 folks at the show.  But 2300 of them were held for Colgate students so only 700 were sold to the public or really the Deadheads.  A tough ticket as the Heads used to say.  But those who made it in had a ball and saw one of the best shows of the year. One of those shows that lots of Deadheads wished they had seen. This version of the show from Archive, is an audience tape and a great contrast to other episodes where we have featured Dead show clips from audience tapes.  This one was taped by Jerry Moore who was set up directly behind the soundboard.  Go to Archive and check  out the entire show. On a personal note, glad to see that Archive is back up and running after its hacking episode a few weeks ago.  INTRO:                     Dupree's Diamond Blues                                    Track #8                                    2:50 – 4:52 "Dupree's Diamond Blues" is based on an American folk song titled "Frankie Dupree," which was based on a real historical figure named Frank Dupree.According to In The Pine: Selected Kentucky Folksongs, Dupree tried robbing a diamond wedding ring from a jewelry store in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1921. He intended to give the ring to his girlfriend Betty. When a police officer showed up, Dupree shot him dead. He then fled to Chicago where he killed another officer and wounded others.Authorities eventually apprehended Dupree while he was getting his mail. They shipped him back to Atlanta where he was executed on September 1, 1922.The song is the second track on the Grateful Dead's third album, Aoxomoxoa (1969). As with most of the songs on the album, Dead lyricist Robert Hunter wrote the words and Dead frontman Jerry Garcia wrote the music.Well when I get those jelly roll bluesThe term "jelly roll" was once common African American slang for a woman's genitalia. The great ragtime pianist Jelly Roll Morton took his name from that very meaning. In 1924, Morton recorded an influential jazz song titled "Jelly Roll Blues," which is most likely what Hunter is referencing here. Debuted in January, 1969 and played a total of 17 times that year. Then dropped until Oct 2, 1977 at the Paramount Theater in Portland, OR, played 4 times that year, this version being the last one of the year. Played twice in 1978, then put back on the shelf until Aug. 28, 1982 at the Oregon County Fair in Veneta, OR (home to the famous show from August 27, 1972 to support the Creamery). From '82 to '90 played at least once a year, '85 was the outlier with 16 performances Only played two more times, both in 1994. This is a great version with Jerry's lyrics and playing both very strong. The 8th song of the first set following:  GO TO ARCHIVE LINK A beautiful Bertha opening but I have featured that song so much, and it is such a common opener, that I needed to go with something else today.  I love it from the 1969 Fillmore West shows where two of the nights the second set would start with DuPree's into Mountains of the Moon before jumping into the fabulous Dark Star/St. Stephen/11/Lovelight suite (in my humble opinion, the best suite of songs ever played by the Dead and certainly the one that best defines the band and the basic foundation that supports so much of their music. Played:         82 timesFirst:              January 24, 1969 at Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco, CA, USALast:              October 13, 1994 at Madison Square Garden, New York, NY, USA   SHOW No. 1:         Tuning (start of second set, stage banter re Jones Gang)                                    Track #10                                    :15 – End Why did Phil do this?  To kill time, he was dosed, adding a bit of levity to the evening's proceedings.  Or there is this:Two nights before the Dead played in Toronto at Seneca College's Field House.  The night before was at Cobo Hall in Detroit.  So they took the 3d off while traveling from Toronto to Hamilton, NY to play this show.  Apparently, the band could not or did not want to try to take their stash into Canada.  Keith Richards of the Stones had just been busted in Canada for possession and no one wanted to take any chances.  SO . . . . it seems they were “jonesing” from something, weed, acid, or whatever. Many of the Deadhead reports of the show in Archive and at the Dead Setlist Program note that the guys seemed very stoned or, more likely, dosed.  They were wearing sunglasses indoors in the evening. Good friend Henry was a student at Colgate in 1977 and attended the show.  In telling me about it, he basically began with the Jones Gang episode.  So it was cool to finally hear the show and hear Phil do his thing.  A great way to keep everybody entertained while waiting for some technical issues to be resolved.  And something that was sadly missing in their later years when basically none of them said anything while on stage, Bobby sporadically with a comment and Jerry I saw speak from the stage maybe 5 times out of 110 shows.  This is the kind of stuff that normalized them and separated them from the button down rock acts that showed up, played the same set list that they had played all tour and would keep playing  When they spoke it was all pre planned, “Thank you (insert name of city where they are playing). And then launched into a killer Samson (even though it was a Friday).  Just part of another great Dead experience and the kind of thing that makes it easy to remember the show even years later.  Everyone talks about the Jones Gang show, maybe more than they think of it as a Colgate show or Hamilton, NY show.  Sure took Henry back.  MUSIC NEWS:      Music Intro:                                    Cold Rain & Snow                                    Goose                                    10.25.2024                                    LJVM Coliseum                                    Winston-Salem, N.C.                                    Goose - “Cold Rain and Snow” (10/25/24 - LJVM Coliseum - Winston-Salem, NC) (youtube.com)                                    0:10 – 1:05 Another Phil tribute by one of the most promising Gen3 (Gen1 = Dead; Gen2=Phish) jam bands on the scene.  Not the first time they have covered the Dead, but it's a damn good cover of a tune that traces its Dead roots to their very first album and even before that.  Jerry loved it.  Phil made it happen and restarted his singing career on the closing chorus in 1982 at MSG.  And Goose nails it here.  They really bring it every time they play.  The jam band that I figure will outlast me! Mickey and Mike Gordon statements on Phil's passing: Quincy Jones dies: Quincy Delight Jones Jr. (March 14, 1933 – November 3, 2024 at 91) was an American record producer, songwriter, composer, arranger, and film and television producer.[1] Over his course of his career he received several accolades including 28 Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award and a Tony Award as well as nominations for seven Academy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards.[2] Jones came to prominence in the 1950s as a jazz arranger and conductor before producing pop hit records for Lesley Gore in the early 1960s (including "It's My Party") and serving as an arranger and conductor for several collaborations between the jazz artists Frank Sinatra and Count Basie. Jones produced three of the most successful albums by pop star Michael Jackson: Off the Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), and Bad (1987). In 1985, Jones produced and conducted the charity song "We Are the World", which raised funds for victims of famine in Ethiopia.[3] Jones composed numerous films scores including for The Pawnbroker (1965), In the Heat of the Night (1967), In Cold Blood (1967), The Italian Job (1969), The Wiz (1978), and The Color Purple (1985). He won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series for the miniseries Roots (1977). He received a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical as a producer for the revival of The Color Purple (2016). Throughout career he was the recipient of numerous honorary awards including the Grammy Legend Award in 1992, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1995, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2001, the National Medal of the Arts in 2011, the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2014, and the Academy Honorary Award in 2024. He was named one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century by Time.[1] "I woke up today to the Terrible news that we lost Quincy Jones.. Genius is a description loosely used but Rarely deserved. Point blank, Quincy was the MAN. I won my 1st Grammy with Quincy and I live with his Wisdom daily," Ice-T on X. Dave's Picks, Volume 52 (The Downs At Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM • 9/11/83)Time to order Dave's Picks 2025 subscription.  I say it every year.  SHOW No. 2:         Eyes of the World                                    Track #15                                    11:10 – END                                     INTO                                     Estimated Prophet                                    Track #16                                    Start - :20 The unique thing in this segment is that it is the first, and one of the only times, that the band played Eyes into Estimated as it was almost always played as Estimated>Eyes.  This is the end of Eyes jam and segue into Estimated.  Very cool to hear it played “backwards”.  This entire Eyes (all 13 minutes of it), is magnificent and a must hear if you are looking for some great Dead jamming to rock to.  On this night, the boys were apparently in a state of mind that let them do a bit of exploring away from the norm for them, if there even is a “Dead norm”.  It sure worked out well for the rest of us.  SHOW No. 3:         The Other One                                    Track #17                                    :52 – 3:00             We've featured this song so many times, discussed the whole That's It For The Other One suite and all of its subparts. This one is the opposite, a 4 minutes 20 seconds version, with the first 3+ minutes just a hard jam.  They only sing the first verse of the standard Other One and then head straight into Drums.  This clip just features the jam with Jerry leading the way.  So clean and powerful, if 1977 is the best year ever for the band, then this has to be one of its peaks.  Maybe not the best of '77 because Barton Hall, but still way up there for nights when the band was truly smoking hot and holding nothing back.  Some of the best post-1970 psychedelic Dead that you will ever hear.  Everyone in sync and making the magic that kept us all coming back for more until there was no more to come back to.  Just buckle in and enjoy the ride. Played:         550 timesFirst:  October 31, 1967 at Winterland Arena, San Francisco, CA, USALast:  July 9, 1995 at Soldier Field, Chicago MJ NEWS:    SHOW No. 4:         Playin Reprise                                    Track #21                                    3:00 – 6:34 "Playing in the Band" is a song by the Grateful Dead. The lyrics were written by Robert Hunter and rhythm guitaristBob Weir composed the music, with some assistance from percussionist Mickey Hart.[1] The song first emerged in embryonic form on the self-titled 1971 live albumGrateful Dead. It then appeared in a more polished form on Ace, Bob Weir's first solo album (which included every Grateful Dead member except Ron "Pigpen" McKernan). During a Bob Weir and Wolf Bros concert livestream on February 12, 2021, Weir credited David Crosby with the composition of the main riff. Weir stated, "David Crosby came up with the seminal lick... and then he left. We were out at Mickey's barn. So Mickey said, 'Make a song out of that'. Next day, I had it".[ It has since become one of the best-known Grateful Dead numbers and a standard part of their repertoire. According to Deadbase X, it ranks fourth on the list of songs played most often in concert by the band with 581 performances. In the Grateful Dead's live repertoire, all songs featured musical improvisation and many featured extended instrumental solos; but certain key songs were used as starting points for serious collective musical improvisation—the entire band creating spontaneously all at once. In this regard "Playing in the Band" was of major importance, second only to "Dark Star". During "Playing in the Band" the Grateful Dead would play the planned verses and choruses of the song itself; then they would improvise and explore brand new musical territory, sometimes for twenty minutes or more; and then the chorus would usually be reprised, to bring the song to its end. Sometimes during these extended "jams", the band would even perform other entire songs, before at last coming back around to the final chorus aka the “Reprise”. On some occasions, more early on than later, the band would play the main song, jam for some amount of time and slide back in for the reprise.  Its performance in this style on 21 May 1974 at the Hec Edmundson Pavilion in Seattle has been cited as the longest uninterrupted performance of a single song in the Grateful Dead's history, clocking in at 46 minutes and 32 seconds.[3][4] It was released in 2018 on the boxset Pacific Northwest '73–'74: The Complete Recordings and as its own LP.  Very cool – an entire album just for one song.  Like Phish' Ruby Waves at Alpine Valley in 2019 got its own album. Then later they might add a song or two in between the main portion and the reprise. Then later they might hold it for the encore the same night the main song had been performed. Then later, they might hold it until the night after the main song had been performed and then two nights later and sometimes 3.  Not uncommon for play the main song the first night of a multi-night run and then the reprise the last night.  Usually during the show, but as stated, sometimes in the encore. Then they might forget to ever get back to it, play the main song again and the whole process would repeat as everyone would wait to see if and when they would finally play the reprise. David Dodd:  To me, the unpredictability of a “Playin” jam was always a highlight of a show. It could get incredibly far out there—completely away from anything—and then, just like that, snap back in, quietly and cautiously or slam-bang, or later, after they'd played most of another song, or a whole set, into the “Playin Reprise.” Sometimes the reprise would never occur. While it usually ran 3 or 4 minutes, this show's reprise went almost 7 minutes with an extended jam before they every got to the reprise lyrics. For Phish fans, think Twe-pri.  For non Phish fans that's the song Tweezer and its “reprise” and that band takes all sorts of liberties with it.  Not so unlike the Dead's style as previously discussed but most famously, at least as far as I know as a still neophyte Phish head, during their 13 show Baker's Dozen run at MSG, Phish played Tweezer the very first night on July 21st to open the second set and then the Twi-Pri finally showed up on August 6th as the second song of the encore after On The Road Again to close out the entire 13 night run. Reprises are great! Played:  648 times (no separate breakdown for how may Reprises were played but I'm sure there were times they never got back to a reprise although one year April Fools 1985 at Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland MA – actually March 31st but called it their April Fools joke even though they did play again the next night, April 1, at the same venue - they played the reprise first and then the main song)First:  February 18, 1971 at Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, USALast:  July 5, 1995 at the Riverport Amphitheater in Maryland Heights (St. Louis), MO  OUTRO                     Johnny B. Goode (Bob – “Happy Homecoming”)                                    Track #22                                    0:12 – 2:08 We've also featured this song quite a bit, a Chuck Berry classic covered by almost every rock n roll band that ever played a set of music and even some that never did.  Its guitar intro is as famous a song opening as any in the genre.  I love this version because of Bobby's greetings to the students wishing them a happy homecoming!  Imagine going to your high school or college homecoming dance and the band is the Grateful Dead.  Now that's a story to tell.  Not sure and I don't think it really matters whether that weekend was or was not Colgate's homecoming.  It just showed that stoned and all, Bobby knew he was on a college campus. Almost always played as an encore or show closer if no encore.  Unlike another Chuck Berry classic covered by the Dead, The Promised Land, which could be played as a show opener, set closer, second set opener, encore, it would pop up just about anywhere. Great way to end a great show.  The boys just blow the walls down on this one.  Or, as commenter RFKROX posted back in 2008 about this version, “Oh, and the Johnny B. Goode is the most incredible rockin' version I've ever heard this band play!! It's the fucking SHIT!!”  I couldn't have said it any better myself! Played:   283 timesFirst:  September 7, 1969 at Family Dog on the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA, USALast:  April 5, 1995 at Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Coliseum, Birmingham, AL, USA  - very interesting, not played at all on the final summer tour.  .Produced by PodConx Deadhead Cannabis Show - https://podconx.com/podcasts/deadhead-cannabis-showLarry Mishkin - https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkinRob Hunt - https://podconx.com/guests/rob-huntJay Blakesberg - https://podconx.com/guests/jay-blakesbergSound Designed by Jamie Humiston - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-humiston-91718b1b3/Recorded on Squadcast

Pink Floyd's Catalog Sale: A New EraIn this episode of the Deadhead Cannabis Show, Larry Michigan explores the rich history of the Grateful Dead's music, focusing on a specific concert from 1980. He discusses the significance of various songs, including 'Iko Iko' and 'Me and Bobby McGee', while also reflecting on the impact of Chris Christopherson's songwriting. The conversation shifts to current events in the music and cannabis industries, including Pink Floyd's catalog sale and the ongoing challenges faced by the hemp industry. Larry emphasizes the importance of medical marijuana legalization and shares insights on how cannabis enhances the music experience. He concludes with personal strain recommendations and highlights record sales in legal marijuana states. TakeawaysThe Grateful Dead's acoustic sets were a significant part of their live performances.Audience tapes capture the energy of live shows better than soundboard recordings.Chris Christopherson's 'Me and Bobby McGee' remains a classic, showcasing the intersection of music and storytelling.Pink Floyd's recent catalog sale reflects the changing dynamics in the music industry.The Betty Boards represent a pivotal moment in Grateful Dead tape trading history.The hemp industry faces legal challenges that could impact small businesses.A majority of chronic pain patients support the legalization of medical marijuana.Cannabis enhances the enjoyment of music, as confirmed by recent studies.Record sales in legal marijuana states are reaching new heights, indicating a thriving market.Personal strain recommendations can enhance the cannabis experience for users. Chapters00:00Introduction and Context of the Grateful Dead's Music04:50Exploring 'Iko Iko' and Audience Tapes10:42The Significance of 'Monkey and the Engineer'15:24Remembering Chris Christopherson and 'Me and Bobby McGee'22:31Pink Floyd's Catalog Sale to Sony Music28:15The Mystery of the Betty Boards54:16Current Issues in the Hemp Industry01:08:10Support for Medical Marijuana Legalization01:15:50The Impact of Marijuana on Music Enjoyment01:21:09Record Sales in Legal Marijuana States01:25:53Strain Recommendations and Personal Experiences Grateful DeadOctober 7, 1980 (44 years ago)Warfield TheaterSan Francisco, CAGrateful Dead Live at Warfield Theater on 1980-10-07 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive Part of 23 show run in late September to the end of October, 1980 split between the Warfield (September 27th – October 14th) and Radio City Music Hall in NYC (October 22 – 31st)   Each show opened with an acoustic set followed by two full electric sets.  These were the last shows where the Dead played acoustic sets.  Songs from all of these concerts were pulled for the two related Dead double album releases, Reckoning (acoustic music, released April 1, 1981- the Band's sixth live album and 17th overall) and Dead Set (electric music, released August 26, 1981, the Band's seventh live album and 18th overall).  Today's episode is broken up into three acoustic numbers from this show and then three electric numbers. INTRO:                     Iko Iko                                    Track #1                                    0:00 – 1:37 "Iko Iko" (/ˈaɪkoʊˈaɪkoʊ/) is a much-coveredNew Orleans song that tells of a parade collision between two tribes of Mardi Gras Indians and the traditional confrontation. The song, under the original title "Jock-A-Mo", was written and released in 1953 as a single by James "Sugar Boy" Crawford and his Cane Cutters but it failed to make the charts. The song first became popular in 1965 by the girl groupthe Dixie Cups, who scored an international hit with "Iko Iko" released in March, 1965. In 1967, as part of a lawsuit settlement between Crawford and the Dixie Cups, the trio were given part songwriting credit for the song.  A permanent part of the Dead's  repertoire since first played in May, 1977 in St. Louis, almost by accident out of and back into a Not Fade Away.  The intro, one verse and back to NFA.  Overtime, became a tune that was not frequently played, usually once, maybe twice, a tour, but whenever it was played it created a party atmosphere out of whatever the mood had been prior to its playing.  Perfect song for Jerry with the call and response chorus that everyone joined in on.  The song that “fastened my seatbelt on the bus” when I saw it for the first time at my second show ever in Syracuse in 1982 with good buddy Mikey.  Once you hear it live, you are always looking for it at future shows. I love this song as do many Deadheads.  But getting to hear it played acoustically is a real treat and a great way to open this “hometown” show.  Jerry played it right up until the end. Played:  185 timesFirst:  May 15, 1977 at St. Louis Arena, St. Louis, MO, USALast:  July 5, 1995 at Riverport Amphitheatre, Maryland Heights, MO, USA SHOW No. 1:         Monkey And The Engineer                                    Track #4                                    0:48 – 2:25 Jesse Fuller tune Jesse Fuller (March 12, 1896 – January 29, 1976) was an American one-man band musician, best known for his song "San Francisco Bay Blues".  Starting in the 1950's after a number of non-music related jobs, Fuller began to compose songs, many of them based on his experiences on the railroads, and also reworked older pieces, playing them in his syncopated style. His one-man band act began when he had difficulty finding reliable musicians to work with: hence, he became known as "The Lone Cat". Starting locally, in clubs and bars in San Francisco and across the bay in Oakland and Berkeley, Fuller became more widely known when he performed on television in both the Bay Area and Los Angeles. In 1958, at the age of 62, he recorded an album, released by Good Time Jazz Records.[3] Fuller's instruments included 6-string guitar (an instrument which he had abandoned before the beginning of his one-man band career), 12-string guitar, harmonica, kazoo, cymbal (high-hat) and fotdella. He could play several instruments simultaneously, particularly with the use of a headpiece to hold a harmonica, kazoo, and microphone. In the summer of 1959 he was playing in the Exodus Gallery Bar in Denver. Bob Dylan spent several weeks in Denver that summer, and picked up his technique of playing the harmonica by using a neck-brace from Fuller.[ Monkey And The Engineer was played by the pre-Dead group Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions in 1964. The song was performed by the Grateful Dead in acoustic sets in 1969, 1970, 1980 and 1981. Also performed by Bob Weir with Kingfish. A fun tune that is perfect for kids as well.  Good one to get them hooked into the Dead on! Played:  38 timesFirst:  December 19, 1969 at Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, USALast: February 12, 1989 at Great Western Forum, Inglewood, CA, USA  MUSIC NEWS:                         Intro Music:           Me and Bobby McGee                                                            Kris Kristofferson - Me And Bobby McGee (1979) (youtube.com)                                                            0:00 – 1:27 "Me and Bobby McGee" is a song written by American singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson and originally performed by Roger Miller. Fred Foster shares the writing credit, as Kristofferson wrote the song based on a suggestion from Foster.[1] Foster had a bit of a crush on Barbara "Bobbie" McKee who was a secretary on Nashville's music row. When he pitched the title to Kristofferson, he misheard the name as "Me and Bobby McGee," and the name stuck. Kristofferson found inspiration for his lyrics from a film, 'La Strada,' by Fellini, and a scene where Anthony Quinn is going around on this motorcycle and Giulietta Masina is the feeble-minded girl with him, playing the trombone. He got to the point where he couldn't put up with her anymore and left her by the side of the road while she was sleeping," Kristofferson said.  A posthumously released version by Janis Joplin topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971, making the song the second posthumously released No. 1 single in U.S. chart history after "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding. Gordon Lightfoot released a version that reached number 1 on the Canadian country charts in 1970. Jerry Lee Lewis released a version that was number 1 on the country charts in December 1971/January 1972 as the "B" side of "Would You Take Another Chance on Me". Billboard ranked Joplin's version as the No. 11 song for 1971. Janis Joplin recorded the song for inclusion on her Pearl album only a few days before her death in October 1970. Singer Bob Neuwirth taught it to her while Kristofferson was in Peru filming The Last Movie with Dennis Hopper.[5] Kristofferson did not know she had recorded the song until after her death. The first time he heard her recording of it was the day after she died.[6]Record World called it a "perfect matching of performer and material."[7] Joplin's version topped the charts to become her only number one single; her version was later ranked No. 148 on Rolling Stone's 2004 list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 2002, the 1971 version of the song by Janis Joplin on Columbia Records was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The song is the story of two drifters, the narrator and Bobby McGee. The pair hitch a ride from a truck driver and sing as they drive through the American South before making their way westward. They visit California and then part ways, with the song's narrator expressing sadness afterwards. Due to the singer's name never being mentioned and the name "Bobby" being gender-neutral (especially in America), the song has been recorded by both male and female singers with only minor differences in the lyrical content. Me And Bobby McGee was first performed by the Grateful Dead in November 1970. It was then played well over 100 times through to October 1974. The song returned to the repertoire for three performances in 1981 after which it was dropped for good.  Sung by Weir.    RIP Kris Kristofferson Kris Kristofferson, the iconic country music singer-songwriter and accomplished Hollywood actor, passed away peacefully at his home in Maui, Hawaii, at the age of 88. The family has not disclosed the cause of death. It was confirmed that Kristofferson was surrounded by loved ones during his final moments. In a statement, the family shared: "It is with a heavy heart that we share the news our husband/father/grandfather, Kris Kristofferson, passed away peacefully on Saturday, Sept. 28 at home. We're all so blessed for our time with him. Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know he's smiling down at us all." Tributes poured in from across the entertainment world and fans as the news of Kris Kristofferson's death spread. Barbra Streisand, his co-star in A Star Is Born, praised him as a "special” and “charming" in a post on X. Dolly Parton, who collaborated with Kristofferson, shared on X, "What a great loss. I will always love you, Dolly." Kristofferson's career was nothing short of extraordinary. He achieved stardom as both a country music artist and a successful actor. Throughout his prolific career, Kristofferson earned numerous accolades. These include three Grammy Awards and an induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2004. Additionally, he was nominated for an Academy Award in 1985 for Best Original Song for Songwriter. In 1971, Janis Joplin, who had dated Kristofferson, had a number one hit with "Me and Bobby McGee" from her posthumous album Pearl. It stayed on the number-one spot on the charts for weeks.  In 2021, after releasing his final album, The Cedar Creek Sessions, in 2016, Kristofferson announced his retirement from music. His legacy as a musician, actor, and cultural icon leaves a profound impact on both industries. He is survived by his wife, Lisa, his children, and his grandchildren.  Pink Floyd sells song rights (Rolling Stone Magazine) After years of in-fighting and near-agreements, Pink Floyd have finally reached a deal to sell the rights to their recorded music catalog to Sony Music, according to the Financial Times.The deal is reported to be worth around $400 million and also includes the rights to the band's name and likenesses. That means, along with gaining full control over Pink Floyd's music, Sony will have the crucial rights for most things Pink Floyd-related, from merch to movies. A rep for Sony Music declined to comment. A source confirmed the veracity of the details to Rolling Stone. In an interview with Rolling Stone in August, Gilmour confirmed that the band was “in discussion” about a potential catalog sale, with the guitarist adding he was tired of the continued in-fighting and “veto system” that has resulted in animosity and delayed reissues over petty issues like liner notes.   “To be rid of the decision-making and the arguments that are involved with keeping it going is my dream,” Gilmour said of a catalog sale. “If things were different… and I am not interested in that from a financial standpoint. I'm only interested in it from getting out of the mud bath that it has been for quite a while.” With the Sony deal in place, the label — and not the band — will now bear the responsibility for the next Pink Floyd release, a 50th-anniversary edition of Wish You Were Here that is expected to arrive in 2025. The Sony deal comes 18 months after Pink Floyd made traction on a $500 million agreement to sell their music, only for more bickering between band mates to make the deal “basically dead,” as sources told Variety in March 2023. The Sony deal only includes Pink Floyd's recorded music catalog, which allows for the band to keep its largely Waters-penned publishing catalog and retain ownership of now-apropos lyrics like “Money/It's a crime/Share it fairly, but don't take a slice of my pie” and “We call it riding the gravy train.” What happened to the Betty Boards In May 1986, a storage auction took place in California's Marin County that would altogether change the nature of Grateful Dead tape trading, the group's distribution of its live recordings and, ultimately, the Dead's place in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry. An advertisement in a local paper drew in a few dozen curious parties anticipating the range of memorabilia and household items that typically become available through the auction of lockers that had fallen into arrears due to lack of payments.  Among the items up for auction that day were hundreds of reel-to-reel soundboard tapes of the Grateful Dead originally recorded by Betty Cantor-Jackson during a golden age between 1971-80. The Betty Boards, as copies of these recordings became known, eventually found their way into the collections of longstanding Deadheads and newbies alike, ending some aspects of a tape-trading hierarchy by which certain individuals lorded over their collections, denying access to those who were unfamiliar with the secret handshake. The appearance and subsequent dissemination of these recordings became a source of fascination and speculation for Deadheads in 1986 and the questions have only compounded over the years: How did the tapes fall into the auction? Who won them? How and why were they initially distributed? Are there more recordings that have yet to make it into circulation? And jumping ahead to the present, where are those tapes today? Just what has become of the Bettys? What can be said with certainty is that a new cache of tapes has been unearthed and a plan is underway by Dark Star Orchestra guitarist Rob Eaton, who has painstakingly restored many of the boards, to complete the job and then facilitate their return to the band. Eaton hopes that a series of official releases might follow that will also yield a small royalty to the woman who recorded the reels and then lost them due to her own financial hardship, even if Deadheads owe her a debt of gratitude. Before the auction, before the boards, there was Betty. Betty Cantor was still in her teens when she began setting up mics and helping to record sound at San Francisco venues— first at the Avalon Ballroom and then, the Carousel (the latter during the Grateful Dead's brief stab at venue management in 1968). She worked alongside Bob Matthews, initially assisting with setups during the recording of the Dead's Anthem of the Sun. A true pioneer, as a woman staking her claim in a patriarchal business, she partnered with Matthews into the early 1970s to produce and engineer live multi- track recordings (she had a hand or two in Live/Dead) as well as studio efforts (Aoxomoxoa and Workingman's Dead). While she worked for other artists during this period, she maintained a close relationship with the Grateful Dead, catalyzed by her marriage to crew member Rex Jackson, who would die a few years later in an auto accident. (The philanthropic Rex Foundation is named in his honor.) “My late husband started recording on the road when he was on the equipment crew,” Cantor Jackson explains. “He and I purchased our own gear and tape. I recorded whenever I could get to the gigs. I recorded the Grateful Dead frequently when they were at home venues, I recorded any and all Jerry Garcia Band gigs I could get to for years, in all its configurations, as well as other bands I liked whenever I could. In those days, bands were cool and happy about me getting a feed. Rex was killed in a car accident in ‘76. In ‘77 and ‘78, I was put on Grateful Dead road crew salary, taping and handling Bobby's stage setup.” She later began a romantic relationship with Dead keyboardist Brent Mydland but, after that ended, she sensed that she had been frozen out. “Brent and I split up after a few years, with the last year spent in the studio working on his solo project. This put me in the category of the dreaded ‘ex.' I didn't think that could apply to me, but he was a band member. Everyone was paranoid of me being around, so I no longer had access to my studio or the vault.” Trying times followed. In 1986, she found herself in a dire financial predicament and forced out of her home. “All my things were moved to storage facilities. Unable to foot the bill at the storage center, Cantor-Jackson forfeited the rights to her worldly possessions. She remembers contacting the Grateful Dead office to inform them of the situation, but the group took no action, resulting in a public auction of Cantor-Jackson's personal assets, which included more than 1,000 reel-to-reel tapes—mostly Grateful Dead recordings, along with performances by Legion of Mary, Kingfish, Jerry Garcia Band, Old and In The Way, the Keith and Donna Band, and New Riders of The Purple Sage. The majority of the 1,000-plus reels that have come to be known as the Betty Boards were acquired by three principals, none of whom were fervid Deadheads at the time. The first of these individuals set his tapes aside in a storage locker where they remain to this day. A second, who was more interested in the road cases that held the tapes, left them to rot in his barn for a decade. The final party was a couple with a particular interest in progressive rock, who nonetheless held an appreciation for the performances captured on tape. So while some tapes unquestionably were scattered to the wind, following the four- hour event and a second auction for a final lot of tapes held a few weeks later, the three prime bidders each held hundreds of reels. While two of the winning bidders had no plans for the tapes, within a few months the couple decided that they would place the music in circulation. This was our way of getting new material into circulation and also breaking the hierarchy of those collectors who held on to prime shows for themselves. Initially, we started transferring the tapes to VHS Hi-Fi on our own, but soon realized what a daunting task this was going to be. So we reached out to one of our trading buddies who we knew had connections in the Dead trading community. From there, he gathered together what was later to become known as the ‘Unindicted Co-conspirators,' who put in a massive archiving effort to back up the tapes and distribute them.” The individual they selected as their point person was Ken Genetti, a friend and longtime Deadhead. “I went into their house, and I opened up this closet and they had all the stuff arranged on a shelf in order,” Genetti reflects. “For me, it was like King Tut's tomb. I knew immediately what they had when I looked in there. The first thing I saw was Port Chester, N.Y., Feb. 18, 1971, an incredible show which was Mickey [Hart]'s last concert for many years and I said, ‘You've got to be kidding me!' Then I saw Kezar Stadium, San Francisco, Calif., ‘73, my favorite concert I ever went to. I pulled it out and I went, ‘Holy shit!'” They explain: “We had sought to keep the operation as low key as possible because of the potential for a backlash. It wasn't until someone contacted the Grateful Dead office and offered them a copy of the tapes that we knew it was only a matter of time before we would be hearing from their lawyers. When we did hear from them, there was a bit of back and forth between their lawyers and our lawyer, but the bottom line was we had purchased the tapes legally and owned them but didn't own the rights to the music contained on them. Therefore, we could not sell the music on them, which was never our intent anyway. That pretty much left us at a stalemate and, not wanting to stir up any more issues with the Grateful Dead office, is also why we avoided re-digitizing the tapes.” In late 1995, Eaton received a call from a high-school teacher who had purchased one of the lots predominantly for the road cases that held the tapes. The teacher now hoped to sell the reels and wanted Eaton to assess them. In a cluttered barn, Eaton discovered a grimy, mold-infested collection. This might have been the end of the story, but the Betty Boards have proven to be the gift that keeps on giving. The teacher never found a buyer for the tapes—his asking price was a million dollars—and two years ago, facing monetary struggles and fearing that that the bank might foreclose on his home, he contacted Eaton once again to see if he would be willing to take custody of the tapes. The teacher also explained that he had discovered another 50 reels while cleaning out the barn. Emboldened by success with this latest batch, Eaton set a new goal for himself: “I had this dream to try to reclaim all of this music and archive it properly so that it's there for generations to come in the best possible form.” Emboldened by success with this latest batch, Eaton set a new goal for himself: “I had this dream to try to reclaim all of this music and archive it properly so that it's there for generations to come in the best possible form.” So through a chain of contacts, he eventually located the couple. While completing his work on the couple's reels, Eaton began researching the original auction, hoping to identify the third individual who had purchased the Bettys. He eventually found him, and in January 2014, the pair entered into discussions about this final batch of tapes, which Eaton hopes to restore. What then? Eaton has a plan that he already has set in motion. “What I'd love to see done—in a perfect world—is I think all the tapes need to go back to the vault,” he says. “I think the people that have purchased these tapes should be compensated. I don't think we're talking huge sums of money but enough to make them relinquish the tapes back to the Grateful Dead. They should be part of the collection. Another thing that's important is if these tapes do get back to the vault, Betty should get her production royalty on anything that gets released, which is completely reasonable. Those were her tapes; those weren't the Dead's tapes. I'd love to see Betty get her due.”  SHOW No. 2:         Heaven Help The Fool                                    Track #6                                    1:30 – 3:10Heaven Help the Fool is the second solo album by Grateful Deadrhythm guitaristBob Weir, released in 1978. It was recorded during time off from touring, in the summer of 1977, while Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart recovered from injuries sustained in a vehicular accident. Weir returned to the studio with Keith Olsen, having recorded Terrapin Station with the producer earlier in the year. Several well-known studio musicians were hired for the project, including widely used session player Waddy Wachtel and Toto members David Paich and Mike Porcaro. Only "Salt Lake City" and the title track were played live by the Grateful Dead, the former in its namesake location on February 21, 1995,[1] and the latter in an instrumental arrangement during their 1980 acoustic sets.[2] Despite this, Weir has continued to consistently play tracks from the album with other bands of his, including RatDog and Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros. "Bombs Away" was released as a single and peaked at number 70 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming his only solo song to make the chart.[3] The album itself stalled at number 69, one spot behind his previous album, Ace. The title track was written by Bobby and John Barlow.  While a staple at Bob shows with the Midnights, Rob Wasserman, Rat Dog, Wolf Bros., etc., the Dead only played it during these Warfield/Radio City and only as an instrumental arrangement. Played:  17 timesFirst:  September 29, 1980 at The Warfield, San Francisco, CA, USALast:  October 31, 1980 at Radio City Music Hall, New York, NY, USA Now the electric tunes from today's show: SHOW No. 3:         Cold, Rain & Snow                                    Track #10                                    0:00 – 1:30 "Rain and Snow", also known as "Cold Rain and Snow" (Roud 3634),[1] is an American folksong and in some variants a murder ballad.[2] The song first appeared in print in Olive Dame Campbell and Cecil Sharp's 1917 compilation English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, which relates that it was collected from Mrs. Tom Rice in Big Laurel, North Carolina in 1916. The melody is pentatonic. Campbell and Sharp's version collected only a single verse: Lord, I married me a wife,She gave me trouble all my life,Made me work in the cold rain and snow.Rain and snow, rain and snow,Made me work in the cold rain and snow.  In 1965, Dillard Chandler recorded a graphic murder ballad version of the song that ends with the wife being shot by the husband. According to the liner notes on Chandler's album, Chandler learned the song from Berzilla Wallin, who said that the song related to a murder that had occurred in Madison County, North Carolina: Well, I learned it from an old lady which says she was at the hanging of – which was supposed to be the hanging, but they didn't hang him. They give him 99 long years for the killing of his wife... I heard the song from her in 1911. She was in her 50s at that time. It did happen in her girlhood... when she was a young girl... She lived right here around in Madison County. It happened here between Marshall and Burnsville; that's where they did their hanging at that time – at Burnsville, North Carolina. That's all I know, except they didn't hang the man.'[2] Subsequent performances have elaborated a variety of additional verses and variants beyond the single verse presented by Campbell and Sharp. Several verses consistently appear. Some sources for lyrics that appear in some later versions may be from Dock Boggs's 1927 song "Sugar Baby" (Roud 5731),[1] another lament of a henpecked husband, which may have contributed a line about "red apple juice".[4] A British folksong, The Sporting Bachelors (Roud 5556),[1] contains similar themes, but was collected in the 1950s.[2][5] Earlier possible precursors include a series of broadside ballads on the general subject of "Woeful Marriage"; one frequently reprinted nineteenth-century example begins with the words "On Monday night I married a wife", (Roud 1692).[1][6] These British antecedents mostly share common themes and inspirations; the song originated in the local tradition of Big Laurel, Madison County, and relate to a nameless murderer who committed the crime at some time between the end of the Civil War and the end of the nineteenth century. A recent origin is also suggested by the relatively limited number of variations on the tune; most performances use the Campbell-Sharp melody as written.[2] Despite the apparent violence of the lyrics, women feature prominently in the oral tradition of the song. It was collected from "Mrs. Tom Rice", and sung by Berzilla Wallin, who learned it from "an old lady" who remembered the murder trial the song was about. The song is closely associated with the Grateful Dead; a studio version appeared on their first album The Grateful Dead (1967), and the song was a standard part of the Dead's repertoire throughout their career. They would often open with the song, or perform it early in the first set.[2] Unlike Chandler's recording, in the Dead's version of the lyrics the husband generally laments his mistreatment at his greedy wife's hands, but does not kill her. The lyrics from the Grateful Dead's version were adapted from an earlier recording by Obray Ramsey. Played:  249 timesFirst:  May 5, 1965 at Magoo's Pizza Parlor, Menlo Park, CA, USALast:  June 19, 1995 at Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ, USA  MJ NEWS:  Hemp Industry Advocates Ask Court To Halt California's Ban On Products With Any ‘Detectable Amount' Of THC Amid Legal Challenge2.      Most Pain Patients And Doctors Support Legalizing Medical Marijuana And Having Insurance Companies Cover The Cost, AMA Study Shows3.      Marijuana Enhances Enjoyment Of Music, New Study Finds, Confirming What Every Stoner Already Knows4.      Six U.S. States Report Setting New Monthly Marijuana Sales Records M.J. Strains:           Blackwater – an indica marijuana strain made by crossing Mendo Purps with San Fernando Valley OG Kush.  The strain offers effects that start out mellow but will eventually melt down through your entire body for a classic head to toe euphoric high.  A sweet grape aroma that blends well with subtle undertones of lemon and pine.  MMJ uses include for relieving symptoms associated with chronic pain, appetite loss and MS.  Recommended for late night consumption as it can cause mental cloudiness and detract from productivity.                      NYSD – this classic strain is sativa leaning, created by Soma Seeds in Amsterdam, a staple for stoners since its inception in 1997.  Its name is inspired by the tragic events in NYC on September 11, 2001.  It is a product of crossbreeding Mexican sativa and Afghani landrace strains.  Has a unique aroma and taste that sets it apart from the crowd.                       Pure Gas - a hybrid cross of E85 and OG Kush. The parent strains are carefully chosen for their complex terpene profiles and effects. The OG Kush is known for its lemon-pine-fuel taste and an aroma of fuel, skunk, and spice. Additionally, its high-THC content provides a potentially heavy-hitting experience that shines through in the Pure Gas strain. As far as THC level in Pure Gas, it is one of our higher testers and definitely a high-potency strain. Smoking Pure Gas might bring effects similar to that of the OG Kush. The strain may be a creeper, meaning its effects may sneak up on you, so we recommend trying a little at a time, especially if you're new to smoking. Users may experience a deep body relaxation and cerebral high. The strain is definitely one that might activate your munchies, so make sure you have your favorite snack on hand. The overall effects of the Pure Gas strain might make it perfect for a movie night with friends, pre-dinner smoke sessions, and just hanging out. For users who suffer from appetite loss, the strain may help stimulate your hunger.  SHOW No. 4:         Loser                                    Track #12                                    4:13 – 6:13 David Dodd:  The song seems covered in the Americana dust of so many songs from this period of Hunter's and Garcia's songwriting partnership. Abilene, whether in Texas or Kansas, is a dusty cowtown—at the time in which the song seems to be set, the cattle outnumbered the human inhabitants by a factor of tens. It's easy to see the scene Hunter so casually sets, of a broken-down gambler in a saloon, with a dirt street outside full of armed cowpokes. Appearing, as it does, on Garcia, the song seems to pair naturally with the other gambling song on the album, “Deal.” It could be sung by the same character on a different day, in fact. And it fits in, as I mentioned, with a whole suite of songs that might be set in the same generic America of the late 19th or early 20th centuries: “Brown-Eyed Women,” “Jack Straw,” “Mister Charlie,” “Tennessee Jed,” “Cumberland Blues,” “Candyman,” and others, as well as certain selected covers, such as “Me and My Uncle,” and “El Paso.” Those songs share certain motifs, and among them are the various accoutrements of a gambler's trade, whether dice or cards. Money plays a role—and, in the case of “Loser,” the particular money mentioned helps place the song chronologically. Gold dollar coins were minted from 1849 (the Gold Rush!) to 1889. They were tiny little coins. I have one, and it is amazingly small—between 13 and 15 mm in diameter. “All that I am asking for is ten gold dollars…” C'mon! They're tiny little things. In fact, originally, the line was “one gold dollar,” but that changed at some point to the “ten” The crowning glory of the song, as in many other Garcia/Hunter compositions, is the bridge.The song culminates in this cry of hopefulness: “Last fair deal in the country, Sweet Susie, last fair deal in the town. Put your gold money where your love is, baby, before you let my deal go down—go down.” (It's noted that “Sweet Susie” was dropped at some point, but then, occasionally, brought back. I think it was an optional decoration to the line. Alex Allan, in his Grateful Dead Lyric and Song Finder site, notes that “Sweet Susie” rarely appears after 1972, but that it's sung in performances in 1974 and 1979.) Almost always played as a first set Jerry ballad. This version might have been the high point of this show.  So nicely played and sung by Jerry. Played:  353First:  February 18, 1971 at Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, USALast:  June 28, 1995 at the Palace of Auburn Hills, MI  OUTRO:                   Good Lovin'                                    Track #27                                    3:25 – 5:04 "Good Lovin'" is a song written by Rudy Clark and Arthur Resnick that was a #1 hit single for the Young Rascals in 1966. The song was first recorded by Lemme B. Good (stage name of singer Limmie Snell) in March 1965 and written by Rudy Clark. The following month it was recorded with different lyrics by R&B artists The Olympics, produced by Jerry Ragovoy; this version reached #81 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart. The tale has been told that Rascal Felix Cavaliere heard The Olympics' recording on a New York City radio station and the group added it to their concert repertoire, using the same lyrics and virtually the same arrangement as The Olympics' version. Co-producer Tom Dowd captured this live feel on their 1966 recording, even though the group did not think the performance held together well. "Good Lovin'" rose to the top of the Billboard Pop Singles chart in the spring of 1966 and represented the Young Rascals' first real hit. "Good Lovin'" is one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll, and was ranked #333 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list.[4] Writer Dave Marsh placed it at #108 in his 1989 book The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made, saying it is "the greatest example ever of a remake surpassing the quality of an original without changing a thing about the arrangement." A popular version was by the Grateful Dead, who made it a workhorse of their concert rotation, appearing almost every year from 1969 on.[6] It was sung in their early years during the 1960s and early 1970s by Ron "Pigpen" McKernan and later by Bob Weir. The Weir rendition was recorded for the group's 1978 Shakedown Street album and came in for a good amount of criticism: Rolling Stone said it "feature[d] aimless ensemble work and vocals that Bob Weir should never have attempted."[7] On November 11, 1978, the Grateful Dead performed it on Saturday Night Live. Typically, at least by the time I started seeing them, usually played as a second set closer or late in the second set. As good buddy AWell always said, “if they play Good Lovin, everyone leaves with a smile on their face.”  Can't argue with that. Played:  442First:  May 5, 1965 at Magoo's Pizza Parlor, Menlo Park, CA, USALast:  June 28, 1995 at The Palace of Auburn Hills, Auburn Hills, MI, USA Easy fast on Yom Kippur .Produced by PodConx Deadhead Cannabis Show - https://podconx.com/podcasts/deadhead-cannabis-showLarry Mishkin - https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkinRob Hunt - https://podconx.com/guests/rob-huntJay Blakesberg - https://podconx.com/guests/jay-blakesbergSound Designed by Jamie Humiston - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-humiston-91718b1b3/Recorded on Squadcast

"From Steel Pulse to Wu-Tang: A Festival of Musical Diversity"Larry Mishkin discusses a review of various experiences and performances, starting with a cannabis event called "Miracle in Mundelein," which took place over the past weekend. The main focus of the review is a discussion of a Grateful Dead show from September 9, 1987, at the Providence Civic Center in Rhode Island. The show was notable for being the second night of a three-show run, marking the opening of the Grateful Dead's 1987 East Coast fall tour.Key highlights include:"Hey Pocky Way" Performance: This was the first time the Grateful Dead performed the song "Hey Pocky Way," which is originally by the Meters, a New Orleans funk band. The song became a fan favorite, primarily due to the influence of Brent Mydland, the band's keyboardist. However, the song fell out of rotation after Brent's death in 1990."Jack Straw" Performance: Another song featured was "Jack Straw," a Grateful Dead classic written by Bob Weir and Robert Hunter. It was originally performed in 1971 and became a staple in the band's setlists. The song was performed in the second spot of the setlist during the 1987 show, indicating the band's tendency to feature it early in their concerts.Music News Segment: The transcript also includes a segment on music news, which starts with a brief history of the band Cheap Trick, particularly their song "I Want You to Want Me."Review of the Miracle in Mundelein Festival: The review shifts to discussing the recent "Miracle in Mundelein" festival, where several acts performed:Steel Pulse: A roots reggae band from Birmingham, England, who delivered a lively and energetic performance.The Soul Rebels: A New Orleans brass band known for their energetic live shows and collaborations with major artists. Their set featured Raekwon and GZA from the Wu-Tang Clan, adding a strong hip-hop element to the performance.Wiz Khalifa: The headliner of the event, Wiz Khalifa, is praised for his stage presence and connection with the audience. The review notes his strong advocacy for cannabis and how his music resonated well with the crowd.Overall, the review captures the blend of nostalgia with the Grateful Dead's classic performances and the fresh, dynamic energy of the Miracle in Mundelein festival, highlighting both the music and the culture of cannabis.https://www.cheaptrick.com/ Grateful DeadSeptember 9, 1987 (37 years ago)Providence Civic CenterProvidence, Rhode IslandGrateful Dead Live at Providence Civic Center on 1987-09-09 : Free Borrow & Streaming : Internet Archive Second night of a three show run, the opening shows of 1987 East Cost fall tour.  INTRO:                                 Hey Pocky Way                                                Track #1                                                :35 – 2:03 First time ever played Hey Pocky Way was written by George Porter Jr., Leo Nocentelli, Art Neville & Joseph Modeliste, founding members of The Meters, an American funk band formed in 1965 in New Orleans by Modeliste (drums), Porter Jr. (bass), Nocentelli (guitar) and Neville (keyboards). The band performed and recorded their own music from the late 1960s until 1977 and played an influential role as backing musicians for other artists, including Lee Dorsey, Robert Palmer, Dr. John, and Allen Toussaint. Song was released on Rejuvenation the band's fifth studio album in 1974. In 2003, the album was ranked number 138 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time,[6] and 139 in a 2012 revised list. Beginning with this show, the Dead began to feature Hey Pocky Way, usually as a show opener.  Sung by Brent who really got into it with both his keyboard playing and strong singing, it  became a fan favorite.  But as a Brent influenced tune, it died when he did. Played:  25 timesFirst:  September 9, 1987 at Providence Civic Center, Providence, RI, USALast: July 22, 1990 at World Music Theatre, Tinley Park, IL, USA (Brent's second to last show)  SHOW No. 1:                    Jack Straw                                                Track #2                                                4:00 – 5:50 "Jack Straw"  written by Bob Weir and Robert Hunter. The track first appeared on the album Europe '72. The song was first performed in concert on October 19, 1971, in Minneapolis, Minnesota at new keyboardist Keith Godchaux's first appearance with the band. In the song's earliest performances (c. 1971–72), Weir sang all of the vocals. By the time the 'Europe 72' version was recorded, (at the Olympia Theater in Paris on 5-03-72), Weir and Jerry Garcia were switching up the vocals - as they had on April 26th when 'Hundred Year Hall' was recorded. The song appeared in both the first and second sets until the band's short hiatus in 1974-1975. After re-forming, the song almost exclusively appeared in the first set. After Brent Mydland joined the band in 1979, the song almost exclusively opened the band's first set. The band also often extended the jam after the second verse after Mydland's joining, often extending the song to over six minutes. Dead and Company have also further extended the song, often adding an abstract opening jam prior to the song's first verse.[1] Bob Weir stated in a 2004 interview that the song's lyrics were partly based on John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men.[2] The song's themes include riding the rails, the Great Depression, and hobo (homeless) camps of the era. Jack Straw is also—perhaps coincidentally—the name of the original plantation owner, who lived controversially with his gay lover, Peter Ochello, in Tennessee Williams's play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.[3] Always a great song to hear in concert, the fans loved it and it was always an omen of good things to come in the show. Played:  477 timesFirst:  October 19, 1971 at Northrop Auditorium, Minneapolis, MN, USALast:  July 8, 1995 at Soldier Field in Chicago MUSIC NEWS Miracle In Mundelein – second year of the festival in Mundelein a suburb northwest of Chicago.  Missed last year with JRAD but made it this year on Saturday with my sons Jonathan and Daniel, Jonathan's fiancé, Bella and Daniel's buddy AJ.  Different theme to this year's music focusing on hip hop and rap, not part of my regular music, but certainly a key genre for Daniel and AJ who filled me on details during the show. Acts:Steel Pulse - Steel Pulse are a roots reggae band from the Handsworth area of Birmingham, England. They originally formed at Handsworth Wood Boys School, and were composed of David Hinds (lead vocals, guitar), Basil Gabbidon (lead guitar, vocals), and Ronald McQueen (bass); along with Basil's brother Colin briefly on drums and Mykaell Riley (vocals, percussion). Steel Pulse were the first non-Jamaican act to win the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album. They were initially refused live dates in Caribbean venues in Birmingham due to their Rastafarian beliefs. During the popularization of punk rock in the mid-1970's, Steel Pulse began to play punk venues such as the Hope and Anchor in London and The Electric Circus in Manchester in 1976.[1] Aligning themselves closely with the Rock Against Racism organization and featuring in its first music festival in early 1978, they chose to tour with sympathetic elements of the punk movement,[1] including the Stranglers and XTC. Eventually they found a more natural home in support slots for Burning Spear, which brought them to the attention of Island Records. Fun set that was in progress when we arrived, great sound and lots of energy that kept the crowd moving. The Soul Rebels - The Soul Rebels (also Soul Rebels Brass Band, Soul Rebels or The Rebels) are an eight-piece New Orleans based brass ensemble that incorporate elements of soul, jazz, funk, hip-hop, rock and pop music within a contemporary brass band framework.  Starting out as a local New Orleans favorite, The Soul Rebels have evolved into collaborating live with major artists in all worlds of music including:Katy PerryNasMetallicaGreen DayTrombone ShortyProdigyString Cheese IncidentUmphrey's McGeeGalacticSuzanne VegaEurythmicsLettuceGov't Mule                                               And many more The band has built its career around an eclectic live show that harnesses the power of horns and percussion in a funky party-like atmosphere. The band routinely plays over 250 shows a year. They have been described by the Village Voice as "the missing link between Public Enemy and Louis Armstrong.  The Soul Rebels consist of percussionists and founding members Lumar LeBlanc and Derrick Moss, trumpet players Julian Gosin and Marcus Hubbard, trombonists Corey Peyton and Paul Robertson, saxophonist Erion Williams, and sousaphonist Manuel Perkins Jr.                                                 On Saturday, they featured Raekwon and GZA from Wu Tang Clan.                                      RAEKWON - Corey Woods[2] (born January 12, 1970),[3][4] better known by his stage name Raekwon (/reɪˈkwɒn/, ray-KWON), is an American rapper. He rose to prominence as a founding member of the hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan, which achieved mainstream success following the release of their debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), in 1993. Raekwon would subsequently pursue a solo career, releasing his first solo album, entitled Only Built 4 Cuban Linx..., in 1995. The album received critical acclaim, and is regarded by many critics as one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time, as well as a staple of 1990s rap.                                     Raekwon attributes the name Raekwon to the Five-Percent Nation, an offshoot of the Nation of Islam, when he was a "young kid."[11] He converted to Islam in 2009.                                     Growing up, he witnessed his mother being hit and abused by different men, an experience which he said "affected [him] a lot."[10] As a young man, his mother kicked him out of their Park Hill home when Raekwon got into an argument with her boyfriend and his mother sided with the boyfriend. During this time, he spiraled into a pattern of hopelessness and violent behavior.[8] He became addicted to cocaine and crack cocaine until he became aware of how the crack epidemic was affecting those around him, at which point "it was an automatic stop."[10]Raekwon and rap partner Ghostface Killah attended junior high school together on Staten Island.[14] Raekwon attended New Dorp High School, where he befriended rappers Remedy, Method Man and Inspectah Deck.[15]             Woods first rapped as Sha Raider. In 1992, he joined the Wu-Tang Clan, an originally nine-member rap group drawing mainly from the Staten Island but also from the Brooklyn boroughs of New York City. He rapped as Raekwon The Chef, and also used the aliases Lex Diamonds, Shallah Raekwon, and Louis Rich. After being caught in a crossfire and accidentally shot four times, Raekwon began rapping in earnest. He later described being shot as an "important eye opener." In September 2009, MTV ranked Raekwon tenth among "hottest" rappers. In December, HipHopDx's 2009 awards named Only Built For Cuban Linx... Pt. II album of the year, calling it "the Hip Hop equivalent to The Godfather 2, with Rae as revitalized as Marlon was". Raekwon won Emcee of the Year—the prior year, Nas won—while HipHopDX staff explained, Raekwon brought it back to lyrical, dope rap. He released an album that spoke to teens, twenty-somethings, thirty-somethings, and beyond. Without compromising, the Chef made an edgy Hip Hop record that refused to bastardize the catalog he laid down 15 years ago. On top of that, Rae (along with Ghostface) was a go-to for numerous rappers making albums, ranging from the Playaz Circle to Jadakiss to BK One. That's beyond real, as was a year filled with performing in arenas, clubs and even churches. When it came to mastering the ceremony, Rae had 'em all following the leader.[28]— HipHopDX GZA - Gary Eldridge Grice[2] (born August 22, 1966), better known by his stage names GZA (/ˈdʒɪzə/JIZ-ə) and The Genius,[3] is an American rapper. A founding member of the hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan, GZA is the group's "spiritual head", being both the first member in the group to receive a record deal and being the oldest member.[4] He has appeared on his fellow Wu-Tang members' solo projects, and has maintained a successful solo career starting with his second album Liquid Swords (1995). His lyrical style often dismisses typical rap story lines in favor of science and wide-ranging philosophies and has been characterized as "armed with sharp metaphors and a smooth flow".[5][6][7][8] An analysis of GZA's lyrics found that he has the second largest vocabulary in popular hip hop music.[9][10] He teamed up with an education group to promote science education in New York City through hip hop. In 1992, GZA joined the Wu-Tang Clan, a group of nine, formed by his cousin RZA. GZA had some high-profile appearances on the group's debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993), including a solo track, "Clan in da Front".[22] This, combined with appearances on other Clan members' albums such as Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version (1995) and Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... (1995) brought him much recognition. According to Method Man, "we form like Voltron and GZA happens to be the head".                         The combination of the Soul Rebels beat and Raekwon's and GZA's rapping made for an exceptional set of music that caught me off guard but was worth the price of admission.  With lots of cannabis references scattered throughout their lyrics and stage talk, they were a perfect match for this festival. Wiz Khalifa - Cameron Jibril Thomaz (born September 8, 1987),[2] better known by his stage name Wiz Khalifa, is an American rapper from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He signed with the local independent label Rostrum Records to release his debut studio album, Show and Prove (2006). His contract entered a short-lived joint venture with Warner Bros. Records the following year. His Eurodance-influenced 2008 single, "Say Yeah" received urban radio airplay and entered both the Rhythmic Top 40 and Hot Rap Songs charts, becoming his first minor hit.[3] Outside of music, Thomaz has delved into acting with television roles in Dickinson and The Eric Andre Show, the lead role alongside Snoop Dogg in the 2012 stoner comedy film Mac & Devin Go to High School, and voice roles in the animated series American Dad!, Duncanville, and Big City Greens. Thomaz founded the record label Taylor Gang Entertainment in 2008, through which he has signed artists including Juicy J, Ty Dolla Sign, and Berner. Known for his abundant usage of cannabis, Thomaz launched his own cannabis brand, Khalifa Kush, in 2016, which expanded for release in nationwide dispensaries in 2022. His stage name is derived from Khalifa, an Arabic word meaning "successor", and wisdom, which was shortened to Wiz when Khalifa was a young boy.[10] Khalifa stated to Spinner.com that the name also came from being called "young Wiz 'cause I was good at everything I did, and my granddad is Muslim, so he gave me that name; he felt like that's what I was doing with my music." He got a tattoo of his stage name on his 17th birthday.[11][12] By the age of 15, he was regularly recording his music at a local studio called I.D. Labs.[13] Impressed by the young teen's talent, E. Dan, the owner of the studio offered Khalifa an intern job at the studio in exchange for free recording time. Dan, being a veteran of the Pittsburgh hip-hop scene, would help develop and mentor the young artist early on in his career. He was the headliner and lived up to the billing.  Great tunes, great stage presence, great spokesperson for cannabis.  My first experience with his music and it was very positive. A great musical education for me with my tutors, Daniel and AJ. More in MJ News  Herbie Flowers  RIPJerry Miller  RIPGoose this week at the Salt Shed, Thursday and Friday   SHOW No. 2:                    Greatest Story Ever Told                                                Track #9                                                3:25 – end                                                 INTO                                                 Devil With a Blue Dress                                                Track #10                                                0:00 – 1:33 Greatest Story – written by Hunter/Bobby/Mickey, originally called “The Pump Song” on Mickey Hart's 1972 album Rolling Thunder.  As the opening tune of Ace, it is called Greatest Story Ever Told.  But this isn't about that song.  Here, it is the lead-in to a first set couple of “extras” thrown in for some fun. "Devil with a Blue Dress On" (also known as "Devil with the Blue Dress") is a song written by Shorty Long and William "Mickey" Stevenson, first performed by Long and released as a single in 1964. A later version recorded by Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels in 1966 peaked at No. 4 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.  "Devil with the Blue Dress" was originally released as Shorty Long's debut single on Motown in 1964, but the single failed to chart. The song describes a femme fatale in a blue dress and not an actual devil.[2] Two years later, Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels recorded the song at Bell Sound Studios in New York City[3] as a medley with an original arrangement of Little Richard's "Good Golly, Miss Molly". Their version, released on their album, “Breakout . . . . !”,  was notably more up-tempo than Long's more blues-influenced rendition.[2] Reaching No. 4 on the Hot 100, their version of the track would end up becoming their most well-known and highest charting hit in the United States. Rolling Stone Magazine ranked it No. 428 on their list of Top 500 Songs of All Time. Basically, another great cover to showcase Brent's singing and keyboard skills.  This was the first of 3 times the Dead covered the song.  Another fun diversion by the band that kept the Deadheads guessing and not wanting to ever miss a show. The transition out of Greatest Story is seamless and makes it so you can't hear the end of Greatest Story without hearing the signature beat of Devil making it a “natural” fit. Played – 3 timesFirst:  September 9, 1987 at Providence Civic Center, Providence, RI, USALast:  October 4, 1987 at Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA, USA  SHOW No. 3:                    Good Golly Miss Molly                                                Track #11                                                0:00 – end                                                 INTO                                                 Devil With a Blue Dress                                                Track #12                                                0:00 – 0:51"Good Golly, Miss Molly" is a rock 'n' roll song first recorded in 1956 by American musician Little Richard and released in January 1958 as single on the Specialty label, and later on the album, Little Richard in July 1958.[1] The song, a jump blues, was written by John Marascalco and producer Robert "Bumps" Blackwell. Although it was first recorded by Little Richard, Blackwell produced another version by the Valiants, who imitated the fast first version recorded by Little Richard, not released at that time. Although the Valiants' version was released first (in 1957), Little Richard had the hit, reaching No. 4.[2] Like all his early hits, it quickly became a rock 'n' roll standard and has subsequently been recorded by hundreds of artists. The song is ranked No. 92 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Little Richard first heard the phrase "Good golly, Miss Molly" from a Southern DJ named Jimmy Pennick.[4] He modified the lyrics into the more suggestive "Good golly, Miss Molly/You sure like to ball." Little Richard himself later claimed that he took Ike Turner's piano intro from his influential 1951 rock and roll song "Rocket 88", and used it for "Good Golly, Miss Molly".[5] "I always liked that record," Richard recalled, "and I used to use the riff in my act, so when we were looking for a lead-in to 'Good Golly, Miss Molly', I did that and it fit." In 1966, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels incorporated "Good Golly Miss Molly" into their version of "Devil with a Blue Dress On". Their version scored a major hit, not only in Ryder's native Detroit, but nationwide, placing at No. 4 on the Billboard Top 100. As with Devil, a Brent thing.  Unfortunately, it was only around for a month.  Then vanished from the Dead's playlist thereafter.  Played:  3 times, makes senseFirst:  September 9, 1987 at Providence Civic Center, Providence, RI, USALast:  October 4, 1987 at Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA, USA  MJ NEWS:             Miracle in Mudelein – a great event sponsored by Rise Dispensaries and Rhythm cultivators.  Second year, featuring great music, excellent food and drink and too many booths for dabbing from various types of rigs including a Studenglass Gravity Bong – my first time using one and it is not your father's four foot Graffix bong!  Daniel and AJ were all over it and as it turned out, the wait in line was well worth the experience.  Rather than try to explain it to you, just Google Gravity Bong and see for yourself!  Great high.             Miracle is that Lake County, a more conservative leaning county, and Mundelein permitted the event.  Attendees can bring in their own flower or extracts (supposedly only if purchased at an Illinois dispensary), smoking accessories, etc.  Rise also was selling products at the show.             A wonderful thing to attend an event and not have to hide and smuggle in your cannabis.  People lighting up everywhere, offering to share, talking strains, etc.  Police were there to keep order and otherwise let it all go on.  Very professional.             Excellent mellow crowd (what else would you expect?).  Well run.  Shot joints out of a canon.  A wonderful day and experience for those who enjoy cannabis, especially not having to hide it or pretend you don't have any when everyone knows attendees are smuggling it in anyway.             A great way to promote cannabis and help normalize it within the community.  And a fun event to be able to share with my boys, Bella and AJ.  Fun had by all.  SHOW No. 4:                    Not Fade Away                                                Track #24 (NOTE – this song is listed as Track #23 AND #24, be sure to use #24)                                                0:00 – end "Not Fade Away" is a song credited to Buddy Holly (originally under his first and middle names, Charles Hardin) and Norman Petty (although Petty's co-writing credit is likely to have been a formality[3]) and first recorded by Holly and his band, the Crickets. Holly and the Crickets recorded the song in Clovis, New Mexico, on May 27, 1957, the same day the song "Everyday" was recorded.[1] The rhythmic pattern of "Not Fade Away" is a variant of the Bo Diddley beat, "Not Fade Away" was originally released as the B-side of the hit single "Oh, Boy!" on 10.27.1957 and was included on the album The "Chirping" Crickets (1957). The Crickets' recording never charted as a single. In 2004, this song was ranked number 107 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". The song is closely associated with the Grateful Dead as one of their signature tunes—one which the band transformed from Holly's 1950s boy/girl romanticism to one reflecting the 1960s' more spiritual universal love. Their 1971 recording of the song is included on their second live album, Skull and Roses, paired with Going Down The Road Feeling Bad, a regular happening in the early ‘70's. Primarily a second set tune that used to show up in the second half of the second set after Drums-Space.  Beginning in 1983, the Dead began to play it as the second set closer, trailing off with “Love is real will not fade away” as they exited the stage.  A few years later, the Deadheads starting chanting the line as the Dead left the stage and in some cases, kept it up until the band reappeared for their encore, when the band would pick back up on the beat and play it for another minute or so before their encore tune, such as with this show.    Great example of the Deadheads making their mark on the show and the band being tuned in enough to play along with it.  Although sometimes if the Dead took too long to come out for the encore, the chanting would start to fade off.  And sometimes even when the chant made it all the way to the band's return on stage, the band would ignore it and just dive straight into their encore.  Fun when it all came together like this show. Played:  561 timesFirst:  February 19, 1969 at Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, USALast:  July 5, 1995 at Riverport Amphitheatre in Maryland Heights, MO (St. Louis) OUTRO:                               The Mighty Quinn                                                Track #25                                                2:11 – 3:48 Bob Dylan wrote and first recorded the song in 1967 during the Basement Tapes sessions, but did not release a version for another three years.  The song's first release was in January 1968 as "Mighty Quinn" in a version by the British band Manfred Mann, from their album Mighty Garvey, and became a great success. A demo of 14 of the 1967 Basement Tapes recordings, including the first of two takes of "Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)", was produced in 1968, but was not intended for release. Recordings taken from the demos began appearing on bootlegs, starting with Great White Wonder,[7] a double-album bootleg that came out in July 1969. The first official release of the song was in 1970 on Dylan's Self Portrait album,[14] a live recording from 1969's Isle of Wight Festival. The live version (titled "The Mighty Quinn (Quinn the Eskimo)") was also selected in 1971 for the second compilation of Dylan's career, Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II. Covered by:  the Hollies, Leon Russell and Phish, among others. Although they never played the song with Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead started playing "The Mighty Quinn" in concert in 1985. It became a favorite encore among the Grateful Dead's fans, and remained so to the end of their career. Last verses, end with, “when Quinn the Eskimo gets here, everybody's gonna want to doze” but the Deadheads heard it as “dose” and always gave it a big cheer. Played:  59 timesFirst:  December 30, 1985 at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena, Oakland, CA, USALast:  July 2, 1995 at Deer Creek Music Center, Noblesville, IN, USA  Shoutouts: Lary Vinocur – birthdayElena Mishkin – birthday .Produced by PodConx Deadhead Cannabis Show - https://podconx.com/podcasts/deadhead-cannabis-showLarry Mishkin - https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkinRob Hunt - https://podconx.com/guests/rob-huntJay Blakesberg - https://podconx.com/guests/jay-blakesbergSound Designed by Jamie Humiston - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-humiston-91718b1b3/Recorded on Squadcast

Labor Day Vibes: Grateful Dead, George Thorogood, and MoreA special Labor Day edition featuring a recap of significant events in the music world, particularly focusing on the Grateful Dead's September 2, 1988, concert at the Capitol Center in Landover, Maryland. Larry Mishkin reminisces about the band's history, including the song "Hell in a Bucket," its significance, and its evolution in the Grateful Dead's lineup. There's a detailed discussion about the song "Dire Wolf," including its origins, inspirations, and its role in the band's performances.The episode also features a tribute to Steve Silverman, a renowned science writer and Grateful Dead enthusiast who recently passed away. Silverman was celebrated for his contributions to the understanding of autism and his deep connection to the Grateful Dead community. The tribute highlights his life, his work, and his impact on both the music and science communities.Larry shares reviews of the recent George Thorogood and Journeyman Tribute the Eric Clapton  https://www.georgethorogood.com/https://vilarpac.org/https://journeymantribute.com/ Grateful DeadSeptember 2, 1988 (36 years ago)Capital CenterLandover, MDGrateful Dead Live at Capital Centre on 1988-09-02 : Free Borrow & Streaming : Internet Archive I hope everyone is having a great Labor Day weekend. Night one of a four night run at the Cap Center to kick off 1988 East Coast Fall Tour (played Friday and Saturday, 2 and 3 and Monday and Tuesday 5 and 6).  Took a night off for my wedding on Sunday 4th.  Saturday night show was my rehearsal dinner and they played second encore, final electric Ripple and final Grateful Dead Ripple.  Memorable weekend for all (except for my east coast deadhead buddies at the wedding who were bummed to have missed the Ripple. INTRO:                                 Hell in a Bucket                                                Track #2                                                0:00 – 1:34 David Dodd:  The Bob Weir / John Barlow / Brent Mydland song “Hell in a Bucket” directly references the biker scene, and I'm sure that somehow Barlow just wanted to put that element into the band's repertoire somehow. After all, there are plenty of outlaw elements sprinkled through the band's songs. In the case of this song, though, the singer/narrator seems to be wishing a sorry fate on his erstwhile main squeeze, with the argument being that once she has a biker charging up and down her halls on his chopper, she'll realize that the narrator was really pretty good, at least by contrast. “Hell in a Bucket” appeared on In the Dark, released in July 1987.  The song frequently featured as the show opener over the course of the next two-plus decades, although it wasn't used in that role until about a year after its first performance.  Played:  217 timesFirst:  May 13, 1983 at William Randolph Hearst Greek Theatre, Berkeley, CA, USALast:  June 30, 1995 at Three Rivers Stadium, Pittsburgh, PA   SHOW No. 1:                    Dire Wolf                                                Track #5                                                2:00 – 3:24 "Dire Wolf" is a ballad by the Grateful Dead, released as the third track on their 1970 album Workingman's Dead. The lyrics were written by Robert Hunter after watching a film adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles. The music, containing elements of country and folk music, was composed by Jerry Garcia on the same day. The song tells the story of a man who plays cards with a "dire wolf" on a cold winter's night in "Fennario"; the lyrics have been variously interpreted. The piece became a staple of the Grateful Dead's performances, and was played more than two hundred times between 1969 and 1995. A few months before the release of their album Aoxomoxoa in 1969, Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter and his then-partner Christie Bourne began sharing a house with the band's guitarist Jerry Garcia, his wife, and his step-daughter. Living in close proximity gave an impetus to their collaborative song-writing: Hunter and Garcia wrote every song on Aoxomoxoa.[2] Some time later, Hunter and Carolyn Garcia spent an evening watching a film adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles. According to Grateful Dead historian Dennis McNally, Carolyn later remarked that the hound was a "dire wolf".[3] However, according to Hunter himself, as quoted in the Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics, he and Garcia were speculating about the identity of the hound in the story, and came up with the idea that it may have been a dire wolf.[4] Hunter wrote the lyrics the next morning, based on images that the phrase conjured for him, and Garcia wrote the music to them later that day.[3][4] The location named "Fennario" appears in the folk song "The Bonnie Lass o' Fyvie", including in the Grateful Dead's version of that song. It refers to a fictional location; a friend of the band members commented in an interview that it was the perfect name for a generic place, because it was evocative, and had four syllables.[4] In contrast, music writer Buzz Poole speculated that the name may be derived from Fenrir, a mythical Nordic wolf who was chained up by the gods.[6] The phrase "don't murder me", repeated in the chorus, was a reference by Garcia to his experiences driving around the San Francisco Bay Area at the time that the Zodiac Killer was active.[4] The song became a staple of the Grateful Dead's live performances; the electric version of the song was typically featured on the band's first set.[4][7] According to The Grateful Dead's 100 Essential Songs, "Dire Wolf" was played 226 times between 1969 and 1995, and was played every year, except for 1975. Sixty-three of these performances were in the first two years after the song was written. In later years, the acoustic version of the piece became more common.[7] The structure and pace of the song did not change much over the years. It was sung most often by Garcia, although an early version featured Bob Weir on vocals, with Garcia playing the pedal steel guitar instead.[7] An AllMusic review of this version praised Garcia's "sweet" guitar playing as a "great feature" of the song.[5] Its lyrics have led to it being described as an essential Grateful Dead song by commentators.[7] Played:  229 timesFirst:  June 7, 1969 at Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, USALast:  June 7, 1969 at Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, USA  MUSIC NEWS: Steve Silberman passesPhish – Dick'sNeil Young explanation for canceled showsMiracle in MundeleinMiracle in Mundelein 2024 is an unprecedented cannabis and outdoor concert experience taking place at RISE Recreational Dispensary in Mundelein, IL on September 7-8, 202412. Presented by RYTHM Premium Cannabis, RISE Dispensaries, Dayglo, and Deep Cut, this second annual outdoor festival allows legal on-site cannabis consumption2.    SHOW No. 2:                    Althea                                                Track #7                                                3:10 – 4:53 When the Grateful Dead released “Althea” on their 1980 album Go to Heaven, it quickly became a favorite among fans. Robert Hunter, the Dead's legendary lyricist, was known for embedding multiple layers of meaning in his lyrics. “Althea” is no exception. Jerry Garcia's soulful voice brings Hunter's words to life, but it's the lyrics that leave listeners pondering. The name “Althea” itself is rooted in Greek mythology. Althea was the Queen of Calydon, whose actions led to her son's death, reflecting themes of fate and consequence. While the song doesn't explicitly connect to this myth, the allusion to “your fire” might be a subtle nod to Althea's tragic tale. “Althea” was performed live by the Grateful Dead 273 times, making it a staple in their repertoire. Despite McNally's belief that the band overplayed it in the early '80s, fans cherished its live renditions. The song's adaptability and depth allowed it to grow with the listeners, much like a trusted pair of pants with a sturdy elastic waistband. Played:  273 timesFirst:  August 4, 1979 at Oakland Civic Auditorium, Oakland, CA, USALast:  July 8, 1995 at Soldier Field, Chicago  SHOW No. 3:                    Scarlet Begonias                                                Track #10                                                0:00 – 2:02 Garcia/HunterFrom The Mars Hotel (July 24, 1974) The group first performed the song live on March 23, 1974, at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California.[1] When "Fire on the Mountain" was incorporated into the band's repertoire in 1977, "Scarlet Begonias" would often be paired with it when played live, resulting in what would be nicknamed "Scarlet > Fire" with the first iteration of this iconic pairing on Friday, March 18th, 1977 at Winterland in S.F.   Interestingly, they played the combo to close the first set.  Almost always a second set opener, once saw them open a show with it. Had to play this because the opening is so special – sends a message to the Deadheads that good things lay ahead, best second set opener in their arsenal.  Nothing like the reaction when you hear the first few notes.  “Scarlet, into Fire, a great 25 minutes of grooving music and wonderful for “mind exercises” you may be experiencing at that time. Played:  317  (Fire played 254 times)First:  March 23, 1974 at Cow Palace, Daly City, CA, USALast: June 2, 1995 at Deer Creek, Noblesville, IN MJ NEWS: Trump Supports Florida adult use measure on fall ballot, but no public smokingDeSantis says “NO” adult use in Florida, opposes TrumpState ballots this fall for MMJ in Nebraska and ArkansasIllinois awards $35 million from MJ taxes to support community reinvestmentCalifornia allows sales of MJ at Farmer's Markets SHOW No. 4:                    All Along The Watchtower                                                Track #17                                                1:50 – 3:53 Bob DylanJohn Wesley Harding "All Along the Watchtower" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan from his eighth studio album, John Wesley Harding (1967). The song was written by Dylan and produced by Bob Johnston. The song's lyrics, which in its original version contain twelve lines, feature a conversation between a joker and a thief. The song has been subject to various interpretations; some reviewers have noted that it echoes lines in the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 21, verses 5–9. Dylan has released several different live performances, and versions of the song are included on some of his subsequent greatest hits compilations. Covered by numerous artists, "All Along the Watchtower" is strongly identified with the interpretation Jimi Hendrix recorded with the Jimi Hendrix Experience for their third studio album, Electric Ladyland (1968). The Hendrix version, released six months after Dylan's original recording, became a Top 20 single in 1968, received a Grammy Hall of Fame award in 2001, and was ranked 48th in Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004 (40th in the 2021 version). Dylan first played the song live in concert on the Bob Dylan and the Band 1974 Tour, his first tour since 1966. His live performances have been influenced by Hendrix's cover, to the extent that they have been called covers of a cover. Dylan has performed the song live more than any of his other ones, with over 2,250 recitals. Hendrix was a known Dylan fan. He even once cleared a dance floor by demanding that "Blowin in the Wind" be played in a New York club. In a 1967 interview, Hendrix described Dylan's influence on his own songwriting. "I could never write the kind of words he does," Hendrix said. "But he's helped me out in trying to write two or three words 'cause I've got a thousand songs that will never be finished. I just lie around and write about two or three words, but now I have a little more confidence in trying to finish one."Hendrix acquired a copy of John Wesley Harding before the album's official release and instantly knew he had to cover one of the tracks. Initially, he was planning to record "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine," but after further consideration he chose "All Along the Watchtower." Hendrix claimed he had a natural gravitation toward the track. "The songs Dylan usually gave me are so close to me that I feel like I wrote them myself," he added. "With 'Along the Watchtower' I had that feeling." Less than two months after Dylan recorded the original, Hendrix was in the studio laying down his version. John Wesley Harding was Dylan's return to his acoustic roots after his motorcycle accident. But rather than bring back the topical lyrics about civil rights and the Vietnam War, he continued the evocative, surreal images that made his previous three records -- Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde -- so groundbreaking, adding biblical imagery that foreshadowed his born-again phase more than a decade later. Dead started playing it while touring with Dylan in the summer of 1987.  Not necessarily their greatest tour, and Dylan was not sharp on a night by night basis, but when they got to this tune, the crowd really responded.  So after the tour ended, the Dead just kept it in their repertoire and played it until their end. Played:  118First:  June 20, 1987 at William Randolph Hearst Greek Theatre, Berkeley, CA, USALast:  June 22, 1995 at Knickerbocker Arena, Albany, NY, USA  OUTRO:                               Black Muddy River                                                Track #20                                                4:15 – 6:34 Garcia/HunterFrom:  In The Dark (1987) Black Muddy River was a song that was a pretty decent “new” song for a while.  Almost always played as an encore, it was a fan favorite in the Twin Cities, St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans, all situated on or near the Mississippi River.  Sometimes they would play it in those cities and sometimes they would wait to play it until they were in the middle of nowhere with no river around for miles and miles.  Towards the end, Jerry seemed to lose his enthusiasm for it so, for example, when he rose to the occasion at the last show on July 9, 1995 and belted out a So Many Roads for the ages, his Black Muddy River encore left a lot to be desired.  So much so that, as the story goes, Phil decided they could not end the summer tour on such a low note so he pushed in a Box of Rain making that song the last one ever played in concert by the band and a much nicer farewell than that not very good Black Muddy River would have been. This one is “young” and strong, Jerry's voice rings true and you can hear the energy build up inside him as he belts out the final lines of the song.  A song that sent all those at the Cap Center out into the night longing for more without even knowing what awaited them the very next night.  Some were there, some weren't.  That's the story of the Dead and touring (like Phish waiting to Dick's to play Fee!). Played:  66 timesFirst:  December 15, 1986 at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena, Oakland, CA, USALast:  July 9, 1995 at Soldier Field, Chicago, IL, USA Shout outs:                         Wed – my anniversary, and H and Robbin                        Thurs. – JW's anniversary with the lovely Allie                        Bella – birthday on Monday                        Jackie G. in St. Louis on Sunday                        .Produced by PodConx Deadhead Cannabis Show - https://podconx.com/podcasts/deadhead-cannabis-showLarry Mishkin - https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkinRob Hunt - https://podconx.com/guests/rob-huntJay Blakesberg - https://podconx.com/guests/jay-blakesbergSound Designed by Jamie Humiston - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-humiston-91718b1b3/Recorded on Squadcast

This is the original copy for the previous release of this episode on 12/26/21: "This episode is the story of a lost live album by the great Johnny & June Carter Cash, recorded shortly after the legendary Folsom Prison Live album. The contrast in energy of these two nights is stark, and part of the discussion. The mood the night of the show was appropriately laid back for San Francisco. The Carousel Ballroom, which would shortly become the Fillmore (West), hosted the April 24, 1968 concert, and tape was rolling, as was the case when Owlsley Stanley was at the sound board. He recorded most shows that he mixed, which gives purpose to his foundation's modern mission of preservation. This Carter-Cash album could do a lot of good in that area. Markus and Ray talk with William "Hawk" Semins and Pete Bell of The Owlsley Stanley Foundation, about this show, and their ongoing efforts to preserve this audio legacy! Then they're joined by John Carter Cash, legendary producer and artist, and son of John and June! He gives the family legacy's view of this show, among other things! An amazing way to explore this unexpected audio treat and to mark our 150th episode!!! Listen to this cool episode, and then get caught up here!!! Thanks to our sponsors, Crooked Eye Brewery for their support of the podcast!" And just like that! Summer Vacay 202 is a wrap! Look for fresh, new episodes, starting August 5th! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the original copy for the previous release of this episode on 12/26/21: "This episode is the story of a lost live album by the great Johnny & June Carter Cash, recorded shortly after the legendary Folsom Prison Live album. The contrast in energy of these two nights is stark, and part of the discussion. The mood the night of the show was appropriately laid back for San Francisco. The Carousel Ballroom, which would shortly become the Fillmore (West), hosted the April 24, 1968 concert, and tape was rolling, as was the case when Owlsley Stanley was at the sound board. He recorded most shows that he mixed, which gives purpose to his foundation's modern mission of preservation. This Carter-Cash album could do a lot of good in that area. Markus and Ray talk with William "Hawk" Semins and Pete Bell of The Owlsley Stanley Foundation, about this show, and their ongoing efforts to preserve this audio legacy! Then they're joined by John Carter Cash, legendary producer and artist, and son of John and June! He gives the family legacy's view of this show, among other things! An amazing way to explore this unexpected audio treat and to mark our 150th episode!!! Listen to this cool episode, and then get caught up here!!! Thanks to our sponsors, Crooked Eye Brewery for their support of the podcast!" And just like that! Summer Vacay 202 is a wrap! Look for fresh, new episodes, starting August 5th! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Cannabis, COVID, and Concerts: A Grateful Dead Fan's Journey"Larry Mishkin is back from a break spent in South Carolina with his granddaughter he shares his experience of contracting a mild case of COVID, attributing his quick recovery to his cannabis use. He references studies suggesting that certain strains of sativa marijuana may mitigate COVID symptoms.The episode features a detailed discussion of a special Grateful Dead concert from July 15, 1989, at Deer Creek Music Theater in Noblesville, Indiana. Larry reminisces about the venue, the band's setlist, and the memorable experience shared with friends. He highlights key performances from the show, including "Bertha," "Greatest Story Ever Told," "Candyman," "Walkin' Blues," and others.Larry also covers recent music news, mentioning Melissa Etheridge's performance in Colorado and her upcoming summer tour. He shares updates on the String Cheese Incident's New Orleans-themed show at Red Rocks and Phish's recent appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, where they performed "Evolve" from their new album. Grateful DeadDeer Creek Music Theater CenterNoblesville, INGrateful Dead Live at Deer Creek Music Center on 1989-07-15 : Free Borrow & Streaming : Internet Archive With:  Judy, Andy K., Lary V., AWell and others First Dead show ever at Deer Creek which had just opened that year.  Became a regular stop on the Dead's summer tour thereafter and one of the favorite places for the Deadheads given its relatively small size as compared to the stadium venues that soon became the norm for summer tours.  Ironically, two days after this one-off Dead played their final 3 shows at Alpine Valley, switched to Tinley Park in 1990 and then starting in 1991 Chicago summer  tour shows were confined to Soldier Field with 60,000 attendees. INTRO:                                 Bertha                                                Track #2                                                1:20 – 3:00 Garcia/Hunter – first appeared on Grateful Dead (live) aka Skull and Roses or Skullfuck (1971)Played: 401First:  February 18, 1971 at Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, USALast:  June 27, 1995 at the Palace of Auburn Hills, Detroit, MI  SHOW No. 1:                    Walkin Blues                                                Track #5                                                1:38 – 3:20 "Walkin' Blues" or "Walking Blues" is a blues standard written and recorded by American Delta blues musician Son House in 1930. Although unissued at the time, it was part of House's repertoire and other musicians, including Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, adapted the song and recorded their own versions. "Walkin' Blues" was not a commercial success when it was issued as a "race record" marketed to black listeners.  However, the song was received with great enthusiasm by a small group of white jazz record collectors and critics. Producer John Hammond chose "Walkin' Blues" and "Preachin' Blues" as the records to be played at his 1938 From Spirituals to Swing concert, when Johnson himself could not appear (Johnson had died a few months earlier).[15] The 1961 Johnson compilation album King of the Delta Blues Singers was marketed to white enthusiasts. According to most sources, John Hammond was involved in the production and the selection of tracks. The album included the two House-style songs and a song with House-style guitar figures ("Cross Road Blues" and excluded songs in the commercial style of the late 1930s. Notable exclusions were Johnson's one commercial hit, "Terraplane Blues", and two songs which he passed on to the mainstream of blues recording, "Sweet Home Chicago" and "Dust My Broom". Dead first played it in 1966, once in 1982 and 4 times in 1985.  Then, beginning in 1987 it became a standard part of Dead song lists, peaking in 1988 when it was played 23 times.  Became one of Bobby's early first set blues numbers with Minglewood Blues, CC Rider and Little Red Rooster. Played: 141First:  October 7, 1966 at Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA, USALast:  July 2, 1995 at Deer Creek Music Center, Noblesville, IN, USA   SHOW No. 2:                    Crazy Fingers                                                Track #12                                                4:30 – 6:12 Pretty standard second set song, usually pre-drums.  Fist played in 1975, a few times in 1976 and then dropped until 1982 at Ventura County Fairgrounds (day after my first show).  Played 7 times that year, dropped until 1985 (10 times), then dropped until 1987 and then played regularly until the end.  Great tune, Jerry often forgot the lyrics and this version is great because Bobby saves him on the lyrics when Jerry starts to go astray.  Good fun considering how many times Bobby would forget the words to his songs. But one of those things you remember if you see it happen Garcia/Hunter, released on Blues For Allah (Sept. 1, 1975)Played: 145 timesFirst:  June 17, 1975 at Winterland Arena, San Francisco, CA, USALast:  July 5, 1995 at Riverport Amphitheatre in Maryland Heights, MO (St. Louis)  SHOW No. 3:                    Truckin                                                Track #13                                                7:00 – end Hunter/Garcia/Weir/Lesh/Kreutzman (Pigpen went inside to take a nap) by the side of a pool.Released on American Beauty (November, 1970) final tune on the albumPlayed: 532 timesFirst:  August 17, 1970 at Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, USALast:  July 6, 1995 at Riverport Amphitheatre in Maryland Heights, MO                                                  INTO                                                Smokestack Lightning                                                Track #14                                                0:00 – 0:36  "Smokestack Lightning" (also "Smoke Stack Lightning" or "Smokestack Lightnin'") is a blues song recorded by Howlin' Wolf (Chester Burnett) in 1956. It became one of his most popular and influential songs. It is based on earlier blues songs, and numerous artists later interpreted it.  Recorded at Chess Records in Chicago and released in March, 1956 with You Can't Be Beat on the B side. Wolf had performed "Smokestack Lightning" in one form or another at least by the early 1930s,[1] when he was performing with Charley Patton in small Delta communities.[1] The song, described as "a hypnotic one-chord drone piece",[2] draws on earlier blues, such as Tommy Johnson's "Big Road Blues",[3] the Mississippi Sheiks' "Stop and Listen Blues",[4] and Charley Patton's "Moon Going Down".[5][6] Wolf said the song was inspired by watching trains in the night: "We used to sit out in the country and see the trains go by, watch the sparks come out of the smokestack. That was smokestack lightning." In a song review for AllMusic, Bill Janovitz described "Smokestack Lightning" as "almost like a distillation of the essence of the blues... a pleasingly primitive and raw representation of the blues, pure and chant-like. Wolf truly sounds like a man in otherwise inexpressible agony, flailing for words."[8] In 1999, the song received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award, honoring its lasting historical significance.[13]Rolling Stone magazine ranked it at number 291 in its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time"[7] and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included it in its list of the "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll".[14] In 1985, the song was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in the "Classics of Blues Recordings" category[15] and, in 2009, it was selected for permanent preservation in the National Recording Registry of the U.S. Library of Congress. Janovitz also identifies "Smokestack Lightning" as a blues standard "open to varied interpretation, covered by artists ranging from the Yardbirds to Soundgarden, all stamping their personal imprint on the song".[8] Clapton identifies the Yardbirds' performances of the song as the group's most popular live number.[17] They played it almost every show, and sometimes it could last up to 30 minutes. Dead often played it out of Truckin, would also play the blues tune Spoonful out of Truckin. Played:  63 timesFirst:  November 19, 1966 at Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA, USALast:  October 18, 1994 at Madison Square Garden, New York, NY, USA   SHOW No. 4:                    Space                                                Track #17                                                7:45 – 9:20  On November 28, 1973, Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia and drummer Mickey Hart staged a performance at San Francisco's Palace Of Fine Arts. At the time, Hart – whose 80th birthday is today – was on a sabbatical from the Dead, having last performed in public with Garcia and the band in February 1971. Hart would rejoin the Dead for good in October 1974.A poster promoting the concert shows a clean-shaven Garcia dressed in black beside an equally freshly shaven Hart wearing all white. At the bottom of the advertisement was printed “An Experiment in Quadrophonic Sound.”Hart recalled his experience at the duo concert with Garcia in 1973 that was not only a Seastones precursor but also planted the seeds for the band's mind-bending “Space” jams.“There were so many exciting that we've done together. Adventurous musical things. He was also into adventure and creating new spaces, so we had that in common. We got together many times out of the ring – where he first discovered synthesizers, being able to synthesize his guitar, which led to MIDI.“The first concert we did was in 1973. It was just a duo. He got an Arp [Odyssey], an electric instrument, a keyboard, and he plugged his guitar into it and that was the first time I had heard his guitar I had heard his guitar running through sophisticated synthesizers.“I just thought of that concert, which kind of was the beginning of ‘Space' – ‘Drums' and ‘Space' actually – it might have been the very beginning of it. And I think of that on his birthday, the seminal things we did together.” After the November 28, 1973 concert, the Grateful Dead began to occasionally incorporate elements of a “Space” jam into their shows. In January 1978, Dead shows almost always included a nightly “Drums” jam paired with a freeform “Space” jam, consistently showing up mid-second set throughout the rest of their career. Played:  1086First:  March 19, 1966 at Carthay Studios, Los Angeles, CA, USALast:  July 9, 1995 at Soldier Field, Chicago, IL   OUTRO:                               Brokedown Palace                                                Track #22                                                5:04 – 6:43  The lyric to “Brokedown Palace” was written by Robert Hunter as part of a suite of songs that arrived via his pen during a stay in London in 1970. He entitled it “Broke-Down Palace,” and now that it exists as a piece of writing, it seems to have always existed. It was composed on the same afternoon as “Ripple” and “To Lay Me Down,” with the aid of a half bottle of retsina.Its first performance was on August 18, 1970, at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, and became a staple of the live repertoire. After the 1975 hiatus, “Brokedown Palace” appeared almost exclusively as the closing song of the show, as an encore. It had the effect of sending us out of the show on a gentle pillow of sound, the band bidding us “Fare you well, fare you well…”Garcia/HunterReleased on American Beauty (Nov. 1970) Played: 219 timesFirst:  August 18, 1970 at Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, USALast:  June 25, 1995 at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. .Produced by PodConx Deadhead Cannabis Show - https://podconx.com/podcasts/deadhead-cannabis-showLarry Mishkin - https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkinRob Hunt - https://podconx.com/guests/rob-huntJay Blakesberg - https://podconx.com/guests/jay-blakesbergSound Designed by Jamie Humiston - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-humiston-91718b1b3/Recorded on Squadcast

"Deadhead Adventures: From Minneapolis to Alpine Valley"Larry Mishkin delves into a nostalgic recount of a Grateful Dead concert he attended on June 17, 1988, in Minneapolis, part of their Midwest Summer Tour. He reminisces about attending the show with friends Mikey and JT, detailing their travel adventures and the concert's setlist, which included memorable performances of "Hell in a Bucket" and "Far From Me."Larry also shares personal anecdotes about his experiences following the Grateful Dead, including the challenges of balancing concert trips with his professional life and the thrill of attending multiple shows in a short span. He transitions into discussing the significance of the song "Hell in a Bucket," its debut, and its frequent performance as a show opener. He explains the concept of "Mondegreens," humorous misheard lyrics, using an example from a Grateful Dead song review.The show revisits a story about a Phish fan who was initially banned from all Madison Square Garden Entertainment venues for smoking a bong at the Sphere. MSG later rescinded the ban, citing an internal error. Larry expresses surprise and amusement at the quick reversal and discusses the implications for fans.Finally, Larry discusses the resale of Dead & Company tickets for their Las Vegas Sphere shows, noting that many are being sold at face value or below on cashertrade.org. He expresses mixed feelings about fans having to sell tickets at a loss but appreciates the platform's role in preventing scalping.  Grateful DeadJune 17, 2024 (36 years ago)Met CenterMinneapolis, MNGrateful Dead Live at Metropolitan Sports Center on 1988-06-17 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet ArchiveAudience Tape First show of the 1988 Midwest Summer TourWith my good buddies Mikey and JT – weekend in Minny, Friday night show but had to stay until Sunday to fly home because if you stayed over a Saturday night, round trip airfare was much less expensive.  Got home on Sunday and headed straight for Alpine Valley for the first of four shows S, M, W, Th.  Each night headed home, slept for 4 hours, got up for work, left work at 3 p.m., ride the El to the middle of the Kennedy Expressway at Addison, hop in a car and drive straight up.  Fight the crazy post show traffic in that horridlbe parking lot (unless you have one-armed Lary as your driver).  Hardcore.  My law firm didn't know what to make of it.  I got in four shows at home with no vacation days taken! INTRO:                                 Hell In A Bucket                                                Track #2                                                0:00 – 1:34                [From David Dowd]:  The Bob Weir / John Barlow / Brent Mydland song “Hell in a Bucket” directly references the biker scene, and I'm sure that somehow Barlow just wanted to put that element into the band's repertoire somehow. After all, there are plenty of outlaw elements sprinkled through the band's songs.           “Bucket” debuted on May 13, 1983, at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. Alice Kahn wrote a review of the show, in which she promulgated one of the best-ever Mondegreens, referring to the song as “Police on a Joy Ride.” The song frequently featured as the show opener over the course of the next two-plus decades, although it wasn't used in that role until about a year after its first performance. It was performed by the Dead for the final time on June 30, 1995, at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.“Hell in a Bucket” appeared on In the Dark, released in July 1987 (aka Touch of Grey album).Played:  217 timesFirst:  May 13, 1983 at William Randolph Hearst Greek Theatre, Berkeley, CA, USALast:    June 30, 1995, at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, PennsylvaniaSHOW No. 1:                    Far From Me                                                Track #6                                                3:18 – 4:45Brent MydlandGo To Heaven (April 28, 1980)Strong Brent tune.  I saw them open the second set with it a my second show ever (also with my buddy Mikey) in the Carrier Dome on September 24, 1982, the night I got on the bus forever.Played: 74 timesFirst:  March 30, 1980 at Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ, USALast:  July 22, 1990 at World Music Theatre, Tinley Park, IL, USA (the night before Brent's last show).  It died with him.MUSIC NEWS:MSG ENERTRAINMENT REDACTS INDEFINITE VENUE RESTRICTION FOLLOWING PHISH FAN BONG/SPHERE CONTROVERSY 2.     Dead & Company Sphere Tickets Listed for Face Value or Below on CashorTrade! Dead & Company announced 24 dates at the Las Vegas Sphere, and many fans eagerly bought tickets. Now, some can't attend and are selling their tickets at face value or less on CashorTrade.org. Built by fellow Deadheads in 2009 to protect fans from scalped tickets, 3.     Roger Daltrey Shares Thoughts on Sharing Setlists Online and More, Ahead of The Voice of The Who Tour - Touching on his feeling toward revealing the contents of a performance online, Daltrey asserted, “I'm not gonna talk about songs.” Providing reasoning, he added, “Too many people reveal songs. There's no surprises left with concerts these days, 'cause everybody wants to see the setlist. I'm f–king sick of it. The Internet's ruined the live shows for me. Who wants to know what's coming next? People forget about surprises. I can't stand it.  Here's an idea for Roger – don't play the exact same show every night!  Mix up your songs and then set lists can only give you probabilities of what might get played.  See the Grateful Dead, Phish and every other jam band ever. 4.     As promised last week, here are the deets on Trey playing with Billy Joel in MSG last week:  Madison Square Garden residencies have long been a career-defining staple of the New York City live entertainment location, with names like Billy Joel and Phish dominating multi-night show cycles, making the venue a known place to catch a memorable Big Apple performance. However, last night's performance was a truly unique event, a planned convergence for the two title-holders, Joel and Phish's Trey Anastasio. They teamed up on select songs, including “Sleeping With the Television On,” a cover of Derek and the Dominos' “Layla” and night closing “You Might Be Right,” featuring a Led Zeppelin “Rock and Roll” insert, sung by Mike DelGuidice.                                                 SHOW No. 2:                    Victim Or The Crime    (First time played)                                                Track #9                                                0:00 – 2:13 (long clip but it's the first time played so I had to run with it)                 Written by Bob Weir and Gerrit Graham                               Garcia – “It's one of Weir's stunningly odd compositions, but it's also very adventurous. It's uncompromising; it's what it is, and the challenge of coming up with stuff to play that sounds intelligent in the context has been incredible, but also appropriately gnarly. I really wanted that part of it to work.I think we did a nice job on the record with it. It works. Whatever it is, it works. I'm real happy with it because it was one of those things that was like, "What are we going to do with this?" It's like having a monster brother that you lock in the attic. It's like a relative that you -- "God, I hope nobody comes over when he's eating...." But that's one of the things that makes the Grateful Dead fun.”             “The text of it -- I don't believe I've ever actually listened to all the words to it. Ever. I have the gist of it; by now I probably could recite it if I really had to, but the text of it is more of the same in a way, it doesn't have a whole lot of light in it. It's very dense, and it's angst-ridden to boot.”             Played 96 times, “Victim” debuted on June 17, 1988, at the Metropolitan Sports Center in Bloomington, Minnesota THIS SHOW. It remained in the rotation thereafter, and was played for the final time on July 2, 1995 at Deer Creek Music Center in Noblesville, Indiana.    SHOW No. 3:                    All Along The Watchtower                                                Track #19                                                1:22 – 3:22  (another long one but could not break up the jam)                 "All Along the Watchtower" is a song by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan from his eighth studio album, John Wesley Harding (1967). The song was written by Dylan and produced by Bob Johnston.             Covered by numerous artists, "All Along the Watchtower" is strongly identified with the interpretation Jimi Hendrix recorded with the Jimi Hendrix Experience for their third studio album, Electric Ladyland (1968). The Hendrix version, released six months after Dylan's original recording, became a Top 20 single in 1968, received a Grammy Hall of Fame award in 2001, and was ranked 48th in Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004 (40th in the 2021 version). Dylan first played the song live in concert on the Bob Dylan and the Band 1974 Tour, his first tour since 1966. His live performances have been influenced by Hendrix's cover, to the extent that they have been called covers of a cover. The singer has performed the song live more than any of his other ones, with over 2,250 recitals.             I always loved the Dead's cover of this tune.  As you heard in the clip, it is a rocking tune and Jerry would really jam hard on it.  Great snappy second set tune that would always get the crowd moving in the next gear.  Played:  118 timesFirst:  June 20, 1987 at William Randolph Hearst Greek Theatre, Berkeley, CA, USALast:  June 22, 1995 at Knickerbocker Arena, Albany, NY, USA  MJ NEWS 1.        Biden Admin Is ‘Mischaracterizing' Marijuana Rescheduling Impact As Big Pharma Is ‘Waiting In The Wings,' Former Massachusetts Regulator Says (Marijuana Moment) 2.       GOP Congressman Says ‘Millions Of Marijuana Users' Own Guns And Shouldn't Face Prosecution Like Hunter Biden Did 3.    Marijuana Rolling Paper Company Will Pay $4.20 To Volunteers To ‘Smoke Joints For Science'  SHOW No. 4:                    Black Peter                                                Track #20                                                1:36 – 3:11                 Garcia/Hunter tune released on Workingman's Dead in 1970.                  Robert Hunter was not afraid of death; he experienced it a thousand times over. The American musician composed the lyrics to many of The Grateful Dead's most successful songs and played an essential role in curating the band's mythos, one that saw the psychedelic rock outfit earn hordes of dedicated fans, or ‘deadheads'. One such song was ‘Black Peter' – written for the band's 1970 album Workingman's Dead.          By 1969, The Dead were practically synonymous with the liberal drug culture of the hippie era. In the June of that year, Robert Hunter and the gang were given a glass of apple juice laced with “probably a full gram of crystal LSD … worth perhaps $50,000.” The intense trip that followed would completely reinvigorate Hunter's understanding of death and influence his subsequent lyrics for ‘Black Peter'. Bassist Phil Lesh would later recall tasting the LSD in the juice after a single sip: “I wish you could be where I am right now—it's so beautiful,” he told drummer Mickey Hart, “but I couldn't possibly play music now. I don't even know what music is.” Still, there was a job to do, so the band played anyway. In the ‘80's and ‘90's, one of Jerry's rotating post-drums second set ballads along with Morning Dew, Wharf Rat and Stella Blue. This version was one of the highlights of this show.  Jerry's voice is strong if not a bit “ragged” around the edges just the way Deadheads liked it, with just enough emotion to really convey the song's meaning and its statement about the end of life. Played: 351 timesFirst: December 4, 1969 at Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, USALast:  June 22, 1995 at Knickerbocker Arena in Albany, NY  OUTRO:                               Black Muddy River                                                Track #23                                                4:09 – 5:55  Played:  66 timesFirst:  December 15, 1986 at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena, Oakland, CA, USALast:  July 9, 1995 at Soldier Field, Chicago, Il – looked like it was going to the last song of the show (encore) and the last song of the difficult summer tour.  Turns out, it could have been the last song ever played in concert by the Dead, until Phil stepped in to leave everyone with a smile on their face and no bad taste in their mouths with a great second encore Box of Rain which then became the last song ever played by the Dead in concert. By contrast, this version is outstanding with strong playing and singing by Jerry.  And, with the show practically on the banks of the Mississippi, it was a geographically appropriate song for the venue. Mikey, JT and I rolled off into the night, a crazy weekend in Minny, and then the next four shows on the tour at Alpine.  Ah, to have the kind of energy again, even if just for a night.  Thank you psychedelics!! Enjoy the Summer Solstice and the beginning of summer. .Produced by PodConx Deadhead Cannabis Show - https://podconx.com/podcasts/deadhead-cannabis-showLarry Mishkin - https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkinRob Hunt - https://podconx.com/guests/rob-huntJay Blakesberg - https://podconx.com/guests/jay-blakesbergSound Designed by Jamie Humiston - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-humiston-91718b1b3/Recorded on Squadcast

In this episode, we dive into an unforgettable meeting with Phil Lesh at the Terrapin Clubhouse, a space now rich with the history of Terrapin Crossroads. Phil has transformed this warehouse, lining its walls with wood from the original Terrapin Crossroads, giving it that unique sound and connection. We chat about the Dark Star-athon event, where musicians pick up right where the last jam left off, creating a continuous and immersive experience. It was an honor to play drums alongside Jason Lebo, Graham, and Phil himself. The vibe was just beautiful. We share personal anecdotes and cherished memories of interactions with Graham, Jason, and Phil. Graham is the epitome of kindness and gentlemanly conduct, and it's always a pleasure to recount our spontaneous performances and backstage interactions. We dive into our nostalgic trips down memory lane, from the Fillmore West to Terrapin Crossroads. The stories paint a picture of the vibrant, supportive music community, emphasizing the enduring relationships and mutual respect among us musicians. Enjoy our heartwarming and humorous exploration of the past, full of spontaneous performances and deep conversations with Phil. This episode celebrates Phil's rich legacy and his contributions to music while underscoring the timeless bond we share as musicians, continually inspiring and uplifting each other through our art. Comes A Time Podcast and content posted by Comes A Time is presented solely for general informational, educational, and entertainment purposes. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast is at the user's own risk. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we dive into an unforgettable meeting with Phil Lesh at the Terrapin Clubhouse, a space now rich with the history of Terrapin Crossroads. Phil has transformed this warehouse, lining its walls with wood from the original Terrapin Crossroads, giving it that unique sound and connection. We chat about the Dark Star-athon event, where musicians pick up right where the last jam left off, creating a continuous and immersive experience. It was an honor to play drums alongside Jason Lebo, Graham, and Phil himself. The vibe was just beautiful. We share personal anecdotes and cherished memories of interactions with Graham, Jason, and Phil. Graham is the epitome of kindness and gentlemanly conduct, and it's always a pleasure to recount our spontaneous performances and backstage interactions. We dive into our nostalgic trips down memory lane, from the Fillmore West to Terrapin Crossroads. The stories paint a picture of the vibrant, supportive music community, emphasizing the enduring relationships and mutual respect among us musicians. Enjoy our heartwarming and humorous exploration of the past, full of spontaneous performances and deep conversations with Phil. This episode celebrates Phil's rich legacy and his contributions to music while underscoring the timeless bond we share as musicians, continually inspiring and uplifting each other through our art. Comes A Time Podcast and content posted by Comes A Time is presented solely for general informational, educational, and entertainment purposes. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast is at the user's own risk. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2/5/70 Fillmore West

Welcome to Discovering Downie. I'll be your host, jD as we listen in on the experiences and analysis from three huge fans of The Hip who have a blind spot for Gord's solo works. Meet Craig, Justin, and Kirk as they part in this epic 11-part podcast.We kick the show off by starting at the start with Coke Machine Glow part 1.Transcript:Track 2:[1:26] Welcome, music lovers. Long Slice Brewery presents Discovering Downy.Track 3:[1:34] Hey, it's JD here, and I'm joined by my pals Craig, Justin, and Kirk from Chino. While our love for the hip unites us, Gord's solo ventures remain uncharted territory for our trio.Track 3:[1:47] Hence, I've gathered this team of enthusiasts to delve into the musical repertoire of the enigmatic frontman of the tragically hip, the late gourd downey so come along with us on this exploration as we navigate through his albums one by one in chronological order embarking on our quest of discovering downey we've assembled quite the motley crew here to talk uh to talk about gourd's oeuvre and we're excited to do that we're going to do this all summer long so buckle up fellas how are you doing not too bad living the a dream amazing excited excited to go on this jaunt with you you gents for sure yeah it should be pretty fun i agree i agree completely i i am i am from a hip starved uh area of the world which you know i guess most of the u.s unfortunately was hip starved for a long time but specifically down here uh in the la market i got to see some amazing shows in really small places but like to, to like find a hip album in a record store or, you know, like anything that comes close to hip preference for me, I just like, I get all giddy. So when we, you know, we connected to talk with other hip fans, um, was pretty exciting, but then just to learn more about Gord, um, yeah, this is, this is going to be quite the adventure, my friends, quite the adventure.Track 3:[3:17] Yeah, I think so. What do you think, Craig?Track 3:[3:20] Yeah, I've been sitting in this room, my office slash music room, with a couple of unopened Gord CDs that I have collected over the years and just looking for the right moment, I guess. And along came that moment, and thanks to you, JD, to make this happen and to bring me on board. Ah, but I am but one hand on the rudder. The other three hands you see belong to Kirk, Justin, and Craig. Egg so there's that justin tell us about your experience with the hip so uh the u.s is hip starved for the most part but uh growing up in vermont we are just quebec junior and uh we get a lot of uh tv and radio stations uh down here in the greater burlington area so i i grew up with hip on the radio and um i didn't really know anything about him but in high school i discovered phantom power on my own.Track 3:[4:19] And, uh, that was it. I've been hopelessly blissfully lost ever since. And, um, my dad was kind of a hip fan, but you know, I think he was from like the old, you know, the, the hip crowd that they were trying to get rid of in the nineties, you know? And, uh, and so when I, when I came along, it was music at work and, you know, kind of the newer stuff that, that the old man probably wouldn't have liked too much, but, um, yeah, it's been a lot of fun. I got to see three hip shows and I was at the show in Ottawa two nights before the finale, uh, which was really amazing. Um, I got to see him in a basketball gym in Burlington and I got to see him in a bar in Albany, New York. And, uh, I feel like I got the, a pretty good sample size. Uh, I love them. I love them. Yeah. How about you, Craig? You have a unique role in this trio as well with your Tragically Hip experience. Share some of that with us.Track 3:[5:19] Um, yeah, I've, I've been a big hip fan way back going to probably grade eight when I, when I first heard, I think New Orleans on the radio and, uh, you know, I liked it and I, um, I didn't buy the album right away. I was into heavier stuff at the time. I was a big GNR fan and I was kind of a metal guy. And, uh, then I heard 38 years old and funnily enough, I thought it was, um, uh, Tracy Chapman at first, when I first heard the voice, the vibrato and, you know, it's just on faintly in the background. And then I kind of turned it up and this is a good tune. And then, you know, they, they announced it was the hip. And so I went out and got the CD. I think I maybe ordered on Columbia house through my, uh, through my parents or, you know, five CDs for, for a penny or whatever. And, uh, 12 here in the U S yeah.Track 3:[6:09] And yeah, I've been a huge hip fan ever since. And, and, um, yeah, I've been to, I think maybe 15, 16 concerts and, um, yeah, about a year ago, year and a half ago, I started playing in a hip tribute and it's just been a blast to sharing the music with, you know, the fans who don't get to see them anymore. And, you know, I wish I could, I wish they were still around and I could quit my job as a hip tribute guitar player, but unfortunately they're not playing anymore. I wonder if there's a Tracy Chapman angle, I wonder if we can get Luke Combs to cover some hip stuff and get them on the mainstream radio. you. It's a great idea. It's actually not. I don't think I want to hear that. No, but definitely giving them the credit they deserve. And man, Craig, like I seriously got goosebumps when you'd mentioned Tracy Chapman, like, you know, if you guys saw the Grammys, you know, that was performed and Tracy just sounded amazing. And, uh, I hadn't thought of it from that perspective. And, and yeah, I think you hit that spot on that. I haven't looked it up, But I'm guessing if you look up the release date of Fast Car and up to here, I'm going to guess they're within a year. Yeah, that's probably very true.Track 3:[7:27] So let's start at the start here with Coke Machine Glow. Kirk, any nuggets that you gleaned from production notes, anything like that, that you gathered on your fact-finding mission? Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, I, I actually did because I'm a musician as well and, and, and do appreciate, uh, what goes into making an album. Um, uh, there, there was some pretty good information out there and, you know, especially knowing the hips catalog and, you know, they've had, they've had some different experiences from different producers and engineers and, and different recording experiences. And, um, so, you know, of course you're going, well, I'm going to get a lot of that. And, and then boom, you get hit right upside the head with, you know, But in the research that I did, I mean, they basically just, you know, had a couple, I think they had a kick mic and an overhead mic and just kind of a room mic. They played everything acoustic because they wanted to hear Gord's vocals.Track 3:[8:30] They were in, I believe, in the studio that is no longer there. It was like a loft in Toronto that was owned by a couple of musicians that were a part of, you know, the band that was there and part of the recording team. Um and obviously getting all their you know getting all their schedules together and and you know various musicians from from various different bands within the area and uh and they just wanted this to be uh just kind of that raw essence right that it you know for us as hit fans at least for me like that's where i fell in love is like whether you listen to the music or see them live, like the energy that comes out of every song is, is palpable on so many different levels. And, and, you know, I think those that, that have had the experience to enjoy their music and especially live, like there's such an energy to it and whether it's, uh.Track 3:[9:29] You know, whether it's one of their upbeat, you know, just rocking tunes or, or, you know, a simple acoustic there, they really know how to capture the emotion. And this album, Coke Machine Glow, I mean, yeah, wow. I mean, it was, again, it just felt like maybe one mic in the room and they just were circled around each other and they went for it. And one of the other notes that I heard that I thought was pretty surprising is they got a lot out of what was actually recorded and it sounded a lot bigger than what took place. I can get that. You could get a small little eight-inch speaker and, uh, put a mic on it and it could sound like you've got, you know, four Marshall, you know, full stacks grinding in front of you. So, you know, there's definitely some magic that can happen in the studio, but, um, uh, yeah, I, I think, uh, you know, I do a lot of stuff in theater and we always talk about how the set or the lights or the sound can become a character. And I think for me, the production elements of Coke Machine Glow became a part of the album.Track 3:[10:37] It had to be done that way, in my opinion, to be able to capture the energy that it did. Yeah it's very sparse sounding production wise like obviously there's songs and we'll get into them really rich and really lush and uh you know have a lot going on but predominantly this record like you said is pretty sparse craig i wonder what you learned um in your research about the album proper.Track 3:[11:09] Well, I went into this with a different approach where I purposely didn't look at any info for the first couple of weeks. And then I actually planned on recording this without having looked it up, but I decided I couldn't not. And the reason I had to look at the liner notes is because I was hearing all these voices that I recognized from Canadian bands. And what I was really thinking about was um what was can con and and the uh you know all the if you don't know the the story of can con basically it's the canadian content rules that um you know radio stations in canada have to play a certain amount of you know canadian written produced um music and the variety of musicians playing on this album we've got you know sky diggers we've got eric's trip we've got the hip We've got Dinner Is Ruined, who wasn't a band I had heard of out West, but looked them up today and quite interesting. And just this all-star cast of musicians from all these really cool indie bands. And that's what really struck me. Yeah, I couldn't put it better. An all-star group. And I should have mentioned, I guess, The Odds, of course, with Stephen Drake. He was so heavily involved with engineering and playing bass on it. And, and, uh, that was the voice that actually I was referencing. And I'll talk about that on the track when it comes up. Oh, cool. Okay.Track 3:[12:36] Justin, I'm wondering for you what the title means to you. What does it evoke? Um, I kind of, my brain goes to the golden rim motor in right. And late at night in a hotel, just kind of looking out the window and there's that freaking coke machine that's probably buzzing and nothing's cold in it and there's that glow lighting up a couple of cars outside the hotel room um it seems like a pretty good time to write an album or a book of poetry yeah just in my my mind went the same place yeah the lofty pines motel the the golden rim motor in.Track 3:[13:19] Yeah. There's a couple other hotels mentioned on this record as well. There's the Phoenix. Um, I'm trying to think, is there another one? Hmm. There's a poem, uh, in the book, Minneapolis hotel room. Oh, wow. Yeah. So definitely a road record, huh? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And the other thing I think that, um, I didn't know going into this, that it was so closely connected to the phantom power album with a lot of songs that now with the re-release of phantom power we're we're seeing alternate versions of you know mystery and some of these other songs which is really really neat to discover at the same time yeah i agree with that i i delved pretty deeply into the the poetry book and it was amazing how many references to hip songs especially of that era um but even dating back to the early nineties with some live shows and how long this material had incubated. I bought, I don't know which album, but it came with a recording of a concert in 94. And there are several references that made their way into the poetry or into the lyrics of some of the songs.Track 3:[14:31] It's not on the music album, but it's in the, I think it's the first poem in the book was was bumblebee what is now bumblebee as the bonus track from phantom power right um the usa today bit was in this concert in 94 and it took you know years for that to come out and and there are other references from that show that are that are in coke machine globe of the album and the book it's it's really interesting how long it took for all this stuff to, surface. You have to imagine though, that as, as a writer, you know, you're going to go into recording an album and, and, you know, Gord being primary, you know, after a time writer, you can end up with some stuff that just doesn't make it. And, you know, it's hard to let go of stuff. You know, if you've, if you've done any type of creation, I don't care if it's video creation or writing or poetry or songs or whatever, like it's hard to just let that stuff go. Cause it's, It's whether you're telling a story about yourself or something you experienced or, you know, you want to get it out there, especially if you're a creative person. So I imagine Gord had, you know, and you read all the time and you hear on the interviews and he carries around a notebook and is basically writing every day.Track 3:[15:47] So uh but it is it is amazing and especially being a hip fan to see you know i noticed that as well when i was listening to some of the bonus stuff like hey wait that's a hit song why is that on here yeah you know and then you got to go back and you got to find the album that it's on because i was like justin i i wasn't introduced until the hip you know until i think 2000 uh with a canadian friend that i worked with and then i actually took a trip up to vancouver and it was like there's hip everywhere and i was like this is what's this all about how come i don't know about these you know this this band so yeah you know that i i really kind of came into play during that time and and beyond so of course i love the stuff that that came before it but for me there's something about being a part of what gets released when you're you know i'm i'm buying the albums or cds as they're coming out and then i'm seeing the tour so you know of course that heavy content with with, with those particular albums. So yeah, I have to imagine a lot of that, uh, came back in, into this particular one. And I mean, how long was the band together before this came out? 12 years, something. Almost, almost 15 or 20, maybe.Track 3:[16:57] Yeah, well, yeah, from the very beginning, but since the recording stuff started, so, you know. 87, the first one came out in 87. Yeah. This, to me, it felt like a release valve for everything that Gord couldn't or wouldn't put on Hips. It wasn't polished, you know what I mean?Track 3:[17:18] And he had all, I mean, there's a hundred pages of poetry and all these songs that are, you know, objectively strange.Track 3:[17:27] Um, and I, I think it just stuff that he knew wouldn't fly on a hip album that he had carried with him for years. And like I said, that show in 94 that he was work workshopping this stuff and it didn't make the cut with the band. So let's use it up now. Now, I'm very curious, as we get into the songs, to hear what you guys are thinking about some of these songs in their objective strangeness, as you put it, Justin. Or, you know, are some of them hip-adjacent? Are there any on here that you think, you know, the band could have put together? Obviously, other than the last track, which they did, and we can compare and contrast that when we get there. But are we ready to go into this record track by track? Let's do it. All right, we start with Star Painters. Who wants to kick this one off?Track 3:[18:29] Well, I'll take it. Yeah, Star Painters to me was like a palate cleanser. This was like Gord saying, this is not a hip album. And right off the bat, it's, it's a little strange. Uh, you got the accordion and, um, you know, the almost like a spoken word type thing. And yeah, it's just very obviously not the hip. So the first line, um, is, uh, ended up in music at work with freak turbulence. The myth is neither here nor there. So there are definitely, you know, there's some continuity there. And I think those two albums came out the same year. Didn't they? 2000. Coke Machine Glow was 2001 Okay well But Very close Very close They were likely recorded Right around the same time Yeah Yeah.Track 3:[19:19] There are themes that do persist for sure. But yes, this is not a hip song to be clear. I agree. And Craig, yeah, I think you hit it right on the head. You know, Gord was like, hey, come along for the ride, but this is going to be something different.Track 3:[19:40] And I really appreciate it. I mean, and I've heard that this song actually turned people away, right? Right. Like they didn't want to give it any more of a listen because of it. And, you know, I can say, yeah, I can say that, you know, for me again, I'm hip starved. So I'm actually really surprised at myself that I didn't dive in at the time and that that it really took this project to, you know, get me to start paying attention. Attention and at first it was difficult you know obviously this song but the entire album was like you're like you wanted a little more hip but then you had to understand you know what he needed to get out this song honestly for me is is one of my favorites off of the album and i'll tell you why it's the line the star painters are taking over now the scaffolding is in place your anesthesiologist tonight is washing up and on her way like i heard that and i just stopped and smoking your joint.Track 3:[20:50] Packing it up yeah getting the next one it it it it's it's it's gordon it's it's it's the, this is this song this album is not going to be for the faint of heart and uh and you know strap in like you said buckle up so i i had never heard anything by the dinner is ruined but you know trying to dive into to see what these guys are about the avant-garde and very strange ambient sounds and there's uh accordion and all kinds of weird stuff and that's very much dinner is ruined i i did listen to them um during this process and with that in mind on On the rest of the album, they feel pretty restrained compared to what they would normally have written or put out. But I think on this first one, they're just kind of like, to hell with this. We're going to do what we're doing. Yeah, sequencing is so important. You know, when you make a record, there's no accident that this song is first, like Greg said. You know, that sort of palate cleanser, introducing what the concept of this record is going to be. And you're right like if you came here expecting fully completely part two you know you're barking up the wrong fucking tree so there's that yeah vancouver divorce.Track 3:[26:08] Yeah, definitely a departure from the first track from Star Painters, right? This is a, I mean, almost written for radio hit. It's so easy to listen to and it's so addicting. The thing that really struck me, and it took me a couple of listens to hear it, but the bass is just one note over and over like a heartbeat, just a rhythm. And it's just the same note for 20, 25 seconds. And then, you know, it, it moves on from there, but, um, it was really, it was lovely. Um, but I, uh, one of the things that, that started to strike me and I don't know if it was Vancouver divorce or, or something else, but I think there's two schools of thought about this album. And again, this is a common theme with Gord Downie is it's either a little bit about Adolf Hitler or it's really a lot a bit about Adolf Hitler.Track 3:[27:13] There are so many ties to World War II throughout this album and the book and everything that Gord kind of does. Um, and I, I, I tried not to think about that going into all this, but it does, it does kind of get there, um, pretty quickly. I think, I don't know. I don't know if Vancouver has anything to do with the song or it's just, it fits well, you know, like the way that he explained writing Bob Cajun, it just, it rhymes. Right that's the town we're using you know i know in one of the live clips i saw before this song he said something about you know if if this couple can't make it in in paradise which in this case paradise is vancouver um debatable debatable maybe but um he um yeah then then i guess they can't make it anywhere yeah and i i didn't get any world war ii from it but i i didn't dive into lyrics quite as heavily i'm more of a music guy the lyrics are the last thing i digest when i listen to music so it takes me multiple listens um i don't typically read lyrics i like them to sort of hit me you know over the years um yeah did you guys get the uh the hortons reference.Track 3:[28:27] That one made me chuckle so the thing that i that i picked up on the hortons thing is he says sitting here at the hortons so you know this is important nobody sits at a tim hortons well they used to it used to be it used to be like a bar yeah oh yeah and it had lots of tables and chairs Yeah. And that's, that's far different from our experience with, with any Hortons chain down here. Yeah. Well, the thing that I think is interesting is that syllabically he could have said Tim Hortons, but instead he says the Hortons. The Hortons. I wonder if that's like to avoid the.Track 3:[28:57] Commercialism of saying Tim Hortons or like, it's just an interesting choice when it's the same number of syllables. Yeah. And I also think just, um, a lot of times Gord will choose a word that is almost unrhymable on purpose. And I think this is one of those cases Hortons. So it must be important and important. Yeah. It's, it's just, I love that. I love that. How about you, Kirk?Track 3:[29:21] What do you think? From a music standpoint? Cause like Craig, I, I, I do, do i i enjoy both and and and i'll end up reading lyrics as i go and and in this particular thing it was hard not to read uh a lyrics just to understand the connection as you're listening but this is one of those songs as well when when you think about it here you know how they recorded like holy crap how did they get that big of a sound out of what you you know at least in the the research that i did was very minimalist type of recording you know this kind of a squarish box and and and not really acoustically treated and you know in in you know you know in in the heart of toronto and all kinds of other stuff going on like i heard as well like they were being evicted and so they only had a certain time schedule to be able to get this recorded and then you hear the story about how like they're having a party downstairs and they're throwing couches around and gourd shows up and in his cowboy hat and goes uh hey would you guys mind you know being quiet for a little bit i'm i've tried to record i just can't imagine you're in that room and gourd down he walks in and says hey i'm recording tracks upstairs i think he was with kevin hearn from uh.Track 3:[30:36] You know uh bare naked ladies and and and uh and then they go back up and they record but just the fullness of this, this album. Um, and to me, I, you know, that's the thing I wanted to mention. Uh, uh, I believe it was this tune when you hear the keys, I don't know that Kevin got a credit on it, but I know he recorded a couple of tunes here. And so for me, I'm actually a pretty big BNL fan and I've seen them 20 times, something like that. But Kevin Hearns keys was very kind of prevalent. Um, and even if it wasn't him, you could, you could definitely hear the influence of it. So the powerfulness of this song is, is, is palpable for sure. Yeah. Yeah, looking it up, I think it was, sorry, it was, yeah, Jose Contreras played the organ on this tune. So he's the leader of By Divine Right, which is another very cool Canadian band that I remember listening to. I had their first album. But yeah, Kevin Hearn is definitely all over this album. Them yeah i gotta say as well from a lyrics perspective my money there's a phrase in this song that belongs on the podium along with you know it could have been the willow nelson could have been the wine you know taking advice from a prost or taking a compliment from a prostitute the line which by the way i play that song every night for my daughter at bedtime and my wife still Still haven't caught on yet.Track 3:[32:00] That's a good line. What the hell is this? You said it's art. Just fucking mirror it. Mirror. Yeah. Like you hang up your hat when you write a line like that. You just, you're done for the day. Put your briefcase together and you walk out the door, punch out, you know, that's a fucking great lyric. So I think, I think if, if I may, the, the person being divorced is an artist in this story. Right. right? And there are many references to art. There's the line, when the stampede's an optical course, when ancient train has hit old transient horse. And ancient train and old transient horse were capitalized. And I said, what the hell is that? So I deep dove that. And it is in reference to horse and train, which is a Canadian painting, which is based on a poem written by a South African anti-apartheid poet with the line and against a regiment. I oppose a brain and a dark horse against an armored train, which is just spectacular imagery.Track 3:[33:03] But again, tying in the art theme to the first line is such classic Gord Downie writing. Jesus Christ. Yeah. You've just blown my mind. Blown my mind. Like for real. This is track two. So get me. Yeah. Yeah. And I have to say too, the noise guitar at the end by I'm assuming Dale Morningstar is just amazing. I have a thing for loud, screechy feedback guitars. It just puts me in this state of zen for some reason. Like if you know the song Drown by Smashing Pumpkins, there's like four minutes of feedback at the end. And to me, that is so relaxing.Track 3:[33:45] I have that same thing written down, Craig. I have excellent screeching guitar going into and continuing through the third verse and out. One of the other things I have written down, though, I just want to share with you guys quickly. This is just sort of funny. When he says he's sitting at the Tim Hortons, or he's sitting at the Hortons, I know that's not true because on two occasions, I was walking down the Danforth and saw him sitting in the front bench of Timothy's Coffee, coffee, which is like a, like a Starbucks adjacent brand that doesn't exist anymore, but it used to. And it was minutes from his house. I didn't know where his house was, nor did I stalk him, but I knew it was in the area, like minutes away. And he would just sit there and he was sitting there with a, with a fucking notebook the one time and another time he was on a Mac book. But to me, it was, you know, one of those cool moments that I was like, I live in the same neighborhood. It's Gord Downie. This is so cool.Track 3:[34:41] Man, I wish that the Tim Hortons here in the States had a place to sit because mostly you just find them at a rest stop on the highway or you go in and you order a donut and you leave kind of establishment. No Hortons down here in California. I have to travel. Thankfully, I get to travel a lot for work. And if I see a Hortons, it's like, it's immediate picture and text to my family because we did a road trip and, you know, we went through Detroit and we went through Niagara and went through Toronto. And so my family fell in love with Tim Hortons. So is there a sponsor, right? JD? Oh yeah. The big sponsor. I'm eating Timbits right now.Track 3:[35:22] Mmm. Delicious Timbits. Thanks Tim Hortons. Um next up is uh sf song and to me this is like observational songwriting 101 to me i can just picture him under the covers of his hotel room with a pillow over his head trying to drown out the sound of this chambermaid tap tap tapping and knock knock knocking on the door it sounds as though and then him walking through the lobby and out into the front area of the phoenix hotel and he just describes everything he sees now i'm sure there's more to it than that but to me that's just beautiful.Track 3:[36:03] Yeah. Yeah. For me, one of my first shows was actually in San Francisco at the Fillmore West. And, um, you know, there's been some, you know, or so I've, so I've researched, there's been some pretty classic, uh, um, shows that have happened there. And, you know, I, I had a pretty, pretty amazing experience as well. I was with, with the Canadian friend that had, um, you know, introduced me to them and, and, uh, uh, but you, when I heard that song at first, I just immediately thought, you know, I'm like, hmm, I wonder if he was writing the song when he was there, when I saw him in 2000. And, uh, you know, whether he is or not, that's what I'm going to go, go to, go to bed with and stick to. I also noticed and really appreciated, um, uh, the breathing in the beginning of the song. Um, and then the reference towards the end, uh, about it, uh, uh, I miss my lung, Bob.Track 3:[37:04] That we talked about and, and, and, and then remembering the ads, remembering the ads that were going around at the time on the sides of buses and on, um, on, on billboards and, uh, you know, growing up in, in, in Southern California and, and, uh, seeing smoking ads. And then all of a sudden smoking ads start going away. And then you see the ad of, I miss my lung, Bob, or Bob, I miss my lung. I like to paraphrase. Yeah. I, uh, that's one of the lyrics I had to look up. I had no clue that was an actual thing. So that was pretty neat to, to come across those posters. I remember them from when I was a kid, of course, I'm East Coast, so it's not like they were around here, but I do remember seeing it on the news or something like that, the campaign.Track 3:[37:52] The other thing that struck me was Chambermaid and the references to Chambermaid, which are a continuation of Phantom Power, right? With vapor trails and escape as a hand. Right. Right. I also picked up on the click, click, click. You mentioned J.D. Off the top and those sounds. And he later on experimented with those types of things like drip, drip, drip and We Want to Be It and the chick, chick, chick of the matches in Seven Matches.Track 3:[38:24] Oh, wow. Yeah, it's just a little thing I picked up on. And also, I have a note here about just the low register, like just him singing in that beautiful low voice. And he, on this album, covers so many different subtleties in the way he uses his voice. Like a song like Coming Up Canada Geese, all of a sudden he's just a totally different singer, singing very um yeah almost like an indie indie rock singer yeah totally get that um you know also i think there's many examples of him singing in alter egos on on this record really expanding his repertoire you know as it were right like we start to hear him singing like this on the post phantom power records uh on occasion and um it's not startling because we're sort of used to it should we move on to trick rider only if you want me to cry right like this okay so this song says it's it's dedicated to c it's i believe it's his daughter I don't know. On the album that comes along with the new release, his daughter, I'm blanking on the name, starts with a C, reads this poem.Track 3:[39:53] So I'm guessing she was the girl on the horse.Track 3:[39:56] So I can't remember the name, Claire maybe or Chloe or I forget. Makes complete sense.Track 3:[40:04] I don't know this, so I'll ask it. How many kids does Gord have and are they spread out in age quite a bit? I don't know the second part of the question, but I know he's got four. There's Lou and Willow, who both played on his former partner's record, played keyboard and drums, respectively. And then there's Willow, who is an artist, like painter and jewelry artist, and she's very talented. She did the away as mind cover as well I did know that I think I think I asked that question because at the end you know of Gordon's life he did that interview with Peter Mansbridge, and talked about his son and got very emotional and his son was young he referenced his age and said he was quite young and this was 2016 or 17 whenever the interview was, and which would have been 15 years after this album came out.Track 3:[41:03] So, that's where my head went with how many, how old, just trying to put the puzzle pieces together. I was going to make mention when I was doing a little bit of research, there was a, uh, uh, you know, a fan video, uh, when, when I guess they toured this album and I believe they were actually in, uh, it might've been in Vancouver when they're playing it, but he was, you know, having an exchange with, with someone in the audience about, you know, uh, your nightlights on going to bed. And uh i think the fan might have been thinking that the song was about something else and and he referenced that right back to her very quickly in kind of a snide mark saying i don't think it means what you think it means about going to bed and and uh that stuck out to me it was you know one that he had no problems interacting with the fan and and kind of correcting them on on their interpretation uh of the song but it the song is is is beautiful and in so many different ways and you know all of us being fathers and and and having you know those experiences and and then obviously having the emotional tie-in with with gordon and what he's done with the band you know in the tragically hip and and and then with his solo stuff and and uh it it's it's gorgeous it's beautiful whatever adjective you can come up with that that uh you know brings that feeling to you.Track 3:[42:31] As a father in those moments when you're just you can't even can't even process i did this i had a hand in this and this human is is going to grow out into the world and And I'm a better human because of it. And to be able to, you know, put that, um, you know, in lyrics and in a song, uh, again, just adds to the, uh, adds to the amazement, uh, that that gentleman was able to give us.Track 3:[43:04] Yeah. And the vocal performance by both Gord and, uh, Julie Dwaran is, is so full that they have such control of their voices. Pitch perfect, emotional, just such a song. Her soft awe in the background puts this song over the top. It wouldn't be the song without her contribution to it. That's no disrespect to Gord, but the song isn't the same without Julie Dwaran. And I thought that my favorite father-daughter song was Thrown Off Glass from In Violet Light, But this one, my daughter is the one jumping off shit. She is trick riding 24 hours a day and I'm like, oh my God, kill me. Yeah. So I looked it up. It is Claire Downey who reads the poem on the new edition. So I'm guessing that's who C could be. Got to be.Track 3:[44:05] The song is way too personal for it not to be. is is julie did i understand that she's she did some stuff with the hip as well yeah, yeah she sang um in some live shows with them and i think was part of some tribute stuff at the end too i may be wrong um i know i know kate fenner was um on one tour as a backup music Music at work. But I feel like, I'm pretty sure I've read, yeah, that Julie was on, doing some backups on one of the albums. I could be wrong. Yeah, I remember that too. I feel like, maybe now for Plan A, possibly. That sounds right. I know, although I know... Oh, yeah. Oh, that's her name. Yeah.Track 3:[44:52] Also from Kingston. There's another woman who does now for planning the title track. Yeah, Sarah Harmer. She's the vocal on... Anyways, that's a different album, different band. Different podcast. Different podcast, yeah. Oh, and I have to... Last thing about Trick Rider for me is that slide guitar that just doesn't quite hit the note. I just love it. It's kind of that quarter tone or something. It reminds me of, if you know the Faith No More cover of Easy, right before the solo when Mike Patton goes up to the, ew, and almost like purposely is in between notes. I just think it's so neat. I was going to say both vocally and musically with a variety of instruments throughout several songs, obviously this one as well, is there's just that, it's not quite there, but it's also, it adds again to that character of the song. I heard something or read something about one of the musicians, I believe the guitar player that, that was part of this, like he hit a note and he, he would just beat the shit out of it until it became the note that was right for the song, whether it started off right or not, he, it, it was going to become that.Track 3:[46:03] And, and I love that thought or that prospect, right? We get so, we get so caught up in, Oh, everything's got to be perfect. I got to tune my guitar up exactly right. I've got to have the mic place perfectly. And I've got to have, you know this tonality and and sometimes it's just good to just just let it go and let that emotion come through more so than you know the technical note of itself yeah yeah there's no such thing as a wrong note if it's you know played with with with confidence and intention and yeah yeah so next we go to a song that i think could totally be a hip jam to me this song he's singing It's the first song on the record where he's singing in a tone in a register that we recognize.Track 3:[49:09] So Craig, you said it, um, this is punk rock and Gord loved punk rock, right? Yeah. Yeah. Um, but it's old guy punk rock. Like it's, it's, this is guys who are not punk rockers anymore trying to, to do punk or at least the story, right.Track 3:[49:26] Um, within the song. And, and I'm not saying that about the musicians that played the song. I'm saying that about the story Gord tells here that, you know, they're, they're, they're buying weed from each other in a cornfield, right? In the dark you know um like i can picture my old man and his uncles or and his brothers my uncles just you know hiding from the cops at age 50 55 years old just feeling like be cool man shut up uh i love this song yeah great song i i gotta say i'll take the bullet guys here's my first criticism even though as much as i love um how they recorded it my goodness gracious i needed the drummer to use some sticks and not brushes like i needed to feel that those drums coming through in this song and and to make it punk rock like it was like they they you know hey let's find the jazz drummer to do the punk song um and not that it didn't serve it well and it's a in fact probably what i would have liked was that drum track with the brushes and another drum track on.Track 3:[50:35] Top of it with sticks and then also maybe adding the mics to get more of the tonality of the drums but again now that's just the music guy and me going i wanted to hear that i needed to hear that snap i needed to hear that crack i needed to hear the pop right sorry gonna use a uh a breakfast cereal reference but um i i i i wanted that for this song still love it it's It's funny because it opens on snare hits. Right.Track 3:[51:08] Yeah. But if I'm not mistaken and I'll, I'll completely eat my words, I believe they use brushes throughout Craig. Do you, did you go that deep or what did you think? I didn't, but I know for me, I definitely noticed that it, it, it felt like it should be heavier but i think that's part of what gave the song character was those heavy guitars that almost sounded like they were played at a low volume in a room jamming and i i thought it just gave it a unique character and and i have to say though my favorite part is actually at the end when when all of a sudden i actually picked up a guitar today just to see what was going on with this and and they go up from you know they're playing and you know you're one four five e e b and a and then um they go right up they just go up to that f and i know the first time i heard it it's just just so striking it just sounds so out of place and then after you've heard the song a couple times just so perfect such a such a great dissonance and.Track 3:[52:05] Really really um almost like a two you know 2000s indie rock feel almost like an arcade fire kind of three years before arcade fire was doing it kind of thing so wow it felt like a one take demo to me and they said fuck it it's good like run it i like that we'll do it live yeah me too do it we'll do it keep it but kirk yeah i think um it would be really interesting to see what the hip would have done with with that song like a fully polished yeah you know but but i felt the same about the next song chandler um you're listening to it again today in fact and again was like man with some different instrumentation you know change changing the tempo a bit on this is this is absolutely the uh potentially a hip song uh for me you know uh and uh yeah hard hard not to uh go into you know as he speaks about letting the opening the window inviting the vampires in and if i'm not mistaken this this song did pretty well was it a single.Track 3:[53:15] I don't think any of the solo stuff did particularly well. It was sort of under the radar, especially after this record came out. This record was highly anticipated, but I think early on the word got out that it wasn't hip, and so there were a lot of hip people that jumped up. A lot of people stayed on board, don't get me wrong. but um there was a good cohort that sort of veered away and it's interesting that the sum of the parts you know um the hip are it just goes to show you how magical they are as a as a fivesome because you take one component away you know and it's just not the same like gort sinclair's solo record is dynamite so are you know paul's three records they're really really good but they're not the hip yeah you know so i'm just and i think this is where i got it from i'm just you know looking looking up on spotify and if you go to gordonie this song has the most downloads of all the solo stuff oh okay so that that makes a lot of sense yeah i know there's a there's definitely a video for this yeah yeah but i i don't recall ever hearing.Track 3:[54:31] This song anything from this album on the radio i i had i did hear some later songs um but definitely not that you know that i heard so this is where hitler comes in big time um the.Track 3:[54:47] Hitler had a very odd sleeping pattern. He stayed up very late and would go to bed at like 6, 6.30 in the morning and then get up at noon and just spend his whole day working out maps and plans and this is where the advancement is and all this stuff. And there are so many, if you read between the lines references about the night of a thousand missteps, the loss that made him dogged, or it could have been the doggedness that caused the loss in the first place.Track 3:[55:18] And Chancellor, I mean, that was Hitler's position, you know? Wow. Marching armies in the night, smiling strangers riding by on bikes. That would be, you know, when the allies come into Paris or something, you know? Children's smoking, which there was a huge anti-smoking campaign in Germany during World War II, sloganeers. And he mentions in one of the first lines, invite the vampire in, open the windows before we go to bed to get the coldest air in the room, which is just before the sun comes up. And then at the end, talking about a few things that vampires don't like, all the things referenced between the vampire references are Hitler-ish things. So I don't know it that's that's where my head went and then um before you are wow i know that but but damn it i'm following gordon's path you know and he like i said he references justin you're taking us into dark places my friend and the word chancellor for me it was like hmm and then i started to kind of read into it and i was like yikes and by the way guys spoiler alert this won't be the last time i talk about hitler during this thing not that i love him let's put that out there but there are There are some real references to the war throughout this album. Yeah, that's really interesting.Track 3:[56:41] My mind went a completely different direction. I was thinking like a chancellor of a university. And again, I didn't read the lyrics. I didn't dig that deeply in. But it was funny because my daughter really likes this song. We kept playing in the car and I was explaining what a chancellor of a university was. And she said, oh, I thought it was like Chancellor Palpatine. Wow. and it turns out she was she was the right one yeah i guess she was she was closer than i was yeah wow look at that cross my read is so completely vastly different again my read is like bittersweet and romantic uh the chorus yeah i couldn't be a chancellor without you on my mind if i wasn't if i wasn't obsessed with you or thinking about you all the time time. Um, you know, who knows what I could have become. And on the, and in the video, isn't he riding around? He's on the swan boats. It's just, it does not make me. Swans. Yeah. Yeah. He does not make me, uh, feel like, like, uh, like he's referenced, referencing world war two, but that's fascinating. I can't wait to hear it again now.Track 3:[57:49] But at the end of that video, if you watch the full video at the very end, he's, it's revealed that he is the guy working the dock at the, at the swan boats and he takes off his coat and underneath it is a uniform that says guy. And he's the one taking the coins or the tokens or whatever for the people to ride the swan boats. So it's kind of like, uh.Track 3:[58:13] You know, when Hitler was a struggling artist before he became this global force and kind of took control, you know, he was romanticizing the idea of, of being chancellor of Germany. Wow yeah wow and i don't know wow reference to it or yes it's dark man because and again think of think of uh the song scared every hip show you go to everybody's everybody's slow dancing that's not a slow dance it's like we talked about in the other podcast it's like yeah that's the hips trick right or it's gorge yeah yeah 38 years old same thing long running same thing fiddler's green you know and and on and on and on these slow slow songs are are yeah miserable yeah and i have to say good yeah yeah yeah yeah and and the the vocal phrasing that the gourd uses on this just that, laid back where he just sort of hesitates on certain words i just just love it he's so unique that way. I think that's what separates him as a singer, is that phrasing.Track 3:[59:22] Oh, yeah. This is a really hard album to sing. And you guys are musicians and you play guitar and other instruments. I've always been a singer. And I cannot keep up with Gord on this album. I just can't. Like the chorus of this song, like, I'm discovering uses for you. But the way he throws uses for you together, it's like, it's almost like one overlaps the other. And it's like, that's impossible. And then on the more quaint side, I love that he rhymes pajamas by mispronouncing in a gourd-like way windows to rhyme with pajamas, right? Instead of windows. Oh, so great. By the way, that uses line, again, going back to Hitler's underlings, you know, doing experiments on twins and stuff like that. Like, this is, I think this is a dark one. I'm going to listen to it again tonight. And I can't wait to hear it. No.Track 3:[1:00:19] I hope I'm wrong. I think you're right. No, we know he likes the Second World War.Track 3:[1:00:26] And, you know, we've heard references to, you know, Nazis moving works of art or Russians moving works of art, you know, to stave off the Nazi army. And really quick, sorry, really quick shout out for the piano player. I'm guessing it was um hern but but man that piano is is really nice improvised piano solo yeah yeah it's a very sweet sounding song yeah bait and switch man yeah he got us the never ending present i was listening and and if you're a you know canadian of my age you knew right away who was singing backup so that was Stephen Drake because my mind went right to Wendy under the stars and um and you know right back to my you know my first car and being you know 16 years old and listening to the radio and and hearing the odds for the first time and and yeah just an unmistakable voice the harmonies are very distinct you know distinctly the odds and distinctly The one thing that I picked up was he mentioned his shoes were polished, which as we learned in the longtime running doc that he polished his shoes before every show.Track 3:[1:01:46] So I think he's talking about himself and it's kind of an introspective – I mean, he says I in every song, but I think this one might actually be about himself personally.Track 3:[1:02:00] I picture him standing on Broadview Avenue waiting for the streetcar. He says bus, but in my head it's a streetcar. And all the rest of the lyrics are the stuff that happens until the bus crashes the hill. Him dropping money inside the little money grabber on a bus. There's talk of that um but what i really what i really love about this song is how ahead of his time he is because this is like living in the present like being in the moment is so important and i've learned like through my mental wellness journey like how important it is to live in the moment and the idea that the moment can be never ending if you come about it with the right frame in my mind is so refreshing to hear. Amen. And of course they named the, um, uh, Michael Barclay wrote the book with using the title of the song.Track 3:[1:03:05] Sorry, I'm going to take a little detour off of this that I just have to bring up being, being the, uh, for the South American and someone that, uh, uh, you know, again, was always starving for hip. I've loved in this journey, discovering other Canadian bands. You guys were mentioning the odds. And, you know, I did the research a little bit on the dinner's ruined. And of course, you know, of the real statics from, you know, grace too. And we're all richer for having heard them. And, um, uh, I'm, I'm very excited, you know, during this to be able to take a dive into that music that I never got. Right. Cause I like Justin, you were lucky because you get a lot of that music, uh, in the Northeast.Track 3:[1:03:49] Um, no, no, no, we only get the hip and rush. Rush. There's no Canadian music except for the hip and Rush. I will say that. And Alanis, of course. but to do as a you know as a musician and and and being a big fan of many canadian bands you know rush is up there for me bare naked ladies is up there for me um obviously the tragic the hip is up there for me um but these other bands uh blue rodeo that has i think a little bit of a a um you know it did well here in the states um of course alanis and some of the others you know i want to I know more about the, uh, the ones that didn't get, uh, similar, similar stories to the tragically happened. And I'm really excited about taking that journey as well. And I love that, you know, that's one of the things that I've heard about in different, uh, uh, reading and, and interviews is Gord was such a proponent of getting, I mean, music out there, but, but specifically, obviously Canadian music and, and giving, you know, these, these not as well-known bands an opportunity.Track 3:[1:04:56] So, um, sorry, I just needed to take that little side journey there and, and, and share that with you guys. I'm with you. I'm with you a hundred percent. Just going off what you were saying, yeah, apparently Gord would actually stand side stage and watch a lot of these bands. Like he would just stay there for the whole set. And all these bands, you know, Eric's Trip and The Odds, they were all change of heart. They all played with the hip.Track 3:[1:05:23] And for me, it's been fun because I've been doing the same thing. I was listening to The Odds last night and I couldn't believe how many hit songs they had. You know they're a band i enjoyed but never really really got into i think i've seen them live a couple times but man they had their pop song they were yeah that's exactly it they were they're you know pop writing you know machines but yeah i'm excited i'm excited about the journey for sure and and especially getting connected with you guys and having the experience you know know, uh, um, uh, being from Canada and, and, and really experiencing that not only on the radio, but, but live as well, that, uh, that's going to be a great journey. Cause isn't it great when you go to see, you know, you go to see one of your favorite bands and the opener shows up, you never heard of them. And, and all of a sudden they become, you know, one of your favorites and you're, you're falling around and, you know, and then it's always hard if they do make it, you're kind of like, man, that was my band, but I liked it when they were small, you know, I want them to be big, but not that big. I, that's, I mean, I mentioned it with, with the hip, you know, like all my experiences and I got to see them, I don't know, seven, seven, eight times, something like that.Track 3:[1:06:36] Like the biggest venue I saw them in was, was probably 1200 people. And, um, you know, the Troubadour, I got to see them in and, and, and up in San Francisco, the Fillmore's, you know, it's, it's over a thousand, uh, might be closer to actually, I'm not sure. I'll have to look that up. But the thing that I loved about it is, you know, I'm a hockey guy. And I think I mentioned the story to, to you, JD, like we're close to the ducks and the Kings and, and most hockey teams are, you know, 50 plus percent, if not close to 70% Canadians. And so I'd go to a show, I'd be in Hollywood and I'd look over and be like, Oh, Hey, look, there's Luke Robitaille or, you know, Oh, there's Chris Pronger. There's, you know, Scott Niedermeyer, you know, I'm hanging it out and oh oh hey paul korea how's it going you like the hip too you know and um what an experience and then canadian actors as well i got to meet dan akroyd at at the house of blues hollywood and he introduced the hip on stage and then you know he's rat so uh you know for me it's so weird um when you talk of this band they were a club band to me you know i i've seen what they've done and where they've played. And so anyway, I I'm, I'm taking us off the, the album, but just wanted to share that with, with you gents. No, that's cool.Track 3:[1:08:04] So now we take a hard, right. And, um, we get the track, the soundscape, uh, nothing but heartache in your social life.Track 3:[1:11:14] Did you say a hard right or a hard Reich? Because again, the Hitler.Track 3:[1:11:20] I'm serious. So again, this goes back to the poetry and there's a poem called Toiletten in the book and it is about Hitler's, I'm not even inferring this, this is about Hitler's podium at Zeppelin Field in Nuremberg and it now has signs pointing tourists to the toilet. Um, and the, uh, similarities between that poem and this song or spoken word, whatever, um, it's a hundred percent about that. And Gord even stumbles on a lyric that they, that they leave in the song, um, when the podium sprouting weeds and he stumbles on rendered ridiculous by the time. So the podium is this massive concrete structure that when you see film of Hitler speaking to 150,000, 200,000 Germans during wartime, that's where this is. But it's still there, and it's sprouting weeds, and the podium and its purpose have been rendered ridiculous by the times. When are you thinking of disappearing? I mean, when are you falling off the map when the unknown that you're fearing is in the clearing? That's totally about surrendering in the war and the allied forces moving across the field to wipe out the Nazis.Track 3:[1:12:46] When you're getting king-size satisfaction in the turnstiles of the night from all the shaky pill transactions, if that's not Jewish prisoners going to a concentration camp running down the train tracks in the middle of the night. I don't know what it is. It's, again, a very dark thing, and I think it leads to Hitler's suicide. That's when are you thinking of disappearing? Yeah.Track 3:[1:13:16] And it is interesting to note that the asterisk that comes with the title in the lyrics, it says Dale Morningstar provided echoing screams at the end of the song. It doesn't just say backing vocals or call and answer. It's echoing screams. I was wondering who was calling back and forth with them. They kind of sound like, even though the topic sounds quite serious, they're having some fun with it. At the end kind of yelling back and forth with each other and um and also of note um adam agoyan the filmmaker plays plays uh the classical guitar on this track and and one other track and so he's uh i think i read that that maybe this song was sort of based off some some things he brought in, came into the studio one day and they they sort of riffed off what he was doing and put this sort of spoken word. I also got, I don't know if you guys got this, but I almost got like an M&M vibe, like just like attitude wise. And of course I believe this would have been before M&M anyways, but, but just that, that sort of attitude and way he was rattling off these lines.Track 3:[1:14:29] Yeah, I get it. Absolutely. So the other me, you know, I was trying to get my, my head out of World War II with this, and it was easy to see in 2024 that Gord predicted the future of social media, right? This is before Facebook and MySpace and all this stuff, but this is 100% in line with everybody's mental health problems stemming from not having enough likes on their posts, right? This could absolutely be interpreted 20 plus years later in that way, if you were to look at it from that angle. Yeah, I...Track 3:[1:15:13] Obviously still like absorbing everything in the referencing that you're speaking of, uh, Hitler and world war two and, and how, you know, JD and Craig were like, didn't necessarily get that right away. I, I definitely, you know, heard the references. I, I knew of the references from some of the hip tunes. Um and uh and then just seeing this whole journey that he's taking with just coming out there with a solo album in the first place and then you hear about how um and again it's it's you know i don't know the exact i haven't spoken with the other members but some of the solo stuff really caused a bit of a rift within the band and then if you start thinking about the product of the hip you You know, this is where a big portion of their fan base starts turning away.Track 3:[1:16:04] And I wonder if that tension came through in some of the music. For me and you, Justin, we discovered them during this time. And like most bands, you don't become close to them. And, you know, I'll take a few exceptions. You know, Led Zeppelin. I wasn't there when the albums came out. But the band meant a lot to me later in life. But nothing like, I'll give an example of other bands, Rush and Barenaked Ladies. I went to those shows when those albums came out, same thing with The Hip, as it relates to 2000 and beyond. And so my reference point is there. Um, and then Gord goes off and decides to, to do this solo work. And, um, and not only does he does the solo work, but he starts taking that poetry side in the book that comes out along with it. He starts throwing in spoken word and we could spend a lot of time with the discussion about poetry versus spoken word versus lyrics versus, um, uh, you know, the, the, the written prose and, and, and where it all comes together and the different attitudes towards it. Um, but I, I'm, I'm honestly kind of shaking inside just thinking about the, the ability that, that Gord has to take a historical perspective.Track 3:[1:17:23] Area and put it into a spoken word and or song. But then in the same breath, depending on how you come at it, you get something completely different. If you don't know those references specifically, you're going to find something from a meaningful standpoint. So sorry. I mean, you really got me goosebumps in there, Justin. Well, I think that if I had never read lyrics from the hip, I would never have approached it from this angle.Track 3:[1:17:51] But it's kind of hard to not look at some of that stuff. He did an interview in the early 90s with some TV, whatever, and they said, what are your songs about? And he said, all of our songs are about war. And I remember seeing that on YouTube about 10 or a dozen years ago and thinking, oh, okay. Now, whether he was speaking Speaking of literal war or a relationship or conflict within the band or whatever, family, something, but there's a struggle or something that needs to be resolved in each one of these songs. And so I've, for better or worse, looked at a lot of hip stuff from that point forward, whatever year it was, as is Gord talking about literal war here. And that's just where I picked up on. Was he a history-type major? Did he have family that maybe participated in the war? There is a short poem in the book that is about his grandfather serving in World War II.Track 3:[1:18:56] Yeah, I could see that. Both my grandparents served in World War II, and I was a history major, and so I can see where that tie comes from.Track 3:[1:19:08] I hope we can move past the war stuff soon. Thanks justin yeah anything else from you craig well yeah i know i have nothing to add other than i love the little bait like bass kind of jazz odyssey thing that steven drake goes off on at the end if you if you notice the last like five seconds he just does this little improvised producer as well noodle it's pretty right bass player yes yes yeah engineering okay engineer anyways yeah Yeah, engineer. Well, that's what we got for you for this first episode. We're going to take a break and recuperate and recalibrate and take some electrolytes and we'll be back. 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Welcome to Discovering Downie. I'll be your host, jD as we listen in on the experiences and analysis from three huge fans of The Hip who have a blind spot for Gord's solo works. Meet Craig, Justin, and Kirk as they part in this epic 11-part podcast.We kick the show off by starting at the start with Coke Machine Glow part 1.Transcript:Track 2:[1:26] Welcome, music lovers. Long Slice Brewery presents Discovering Downy.Track 3:[1:34] Hey, it's JD here, and I'm joined by my pals Craig, Justin, and Kirk from Chino. While our love for the hip unites us, Gord's solo ventures remain uncharted territory for our trio.Track 3:[1:47] Hence, I've gathered this team of enthusiasts to delve into the musical repertoire of the enigmatic frontman of the tragically hip, the late gourd downey so come along with us on this exploration as we navigate through his albums one by one in chronological order embarking on our quest of discovering downey we've assembled quite the motley crew here to talk uh to talk about gourd's oeuvre and we're excited to do that we're going to do this all summer long so buckle up fellas how are you doing not too bad living the a dream amazing excited excited to go on this jaunt with you you gents for sure yeah it should be pretty fun i agree i agree completely i i am i am from a hip starved uh area of the world which you know i guess most of the u.s unfortunately was hip starved for a long time but specifically down here uh in the la market i got to see some amazing shows in really small places but like to, to like find a hip album in a record store or, you know, like anything that comes close to hip preference for me, I just like, I get all giddy. So when we, you know, we connected to talk with other hip fans, um, was pretty exciting, but then just to learn more about Gord, um, yeah, this is, this is going to be quite the adventure, my friends, quite the adventure.Track 3:[3:17] Yeah, I think so. What do you think, Craig?Track 3:[3:20] Yeah, I've been sitting in this room, my office slash music room, with a couple of unopened Gord CDs that I have collected over the years and just looking for the right moment, I guess. And along came that moment, and thanks to you, JD, to make this happen and to bring me on board. Ah, but I am but one hand on the rudder. The other three hands you see belong to Kirk, Justin, and Craig. Egg so there's that justin tell us about your experience with the hip so uh the u.s is hip starved for the most part but uh growing up in vermont we are just quebec junior and uh we get a lot of uh tv and radio stations uh down here in the greater burlington area so i i grew up with hip on the radio and um i didn't really know anything about him but in high school i discovered phantom power on my own.Track 3:[4:19] And, uh, that was it. I've been hopelessly blissfully lost ever since. And, um, my dad was kind of a hip fan, but you know, I think he was from like the old, you know, the, the hip crowd that they were trying to get rid of in the nineties, you know? And, uh, and so when I, when I came along, it was music at work and, you know, kind of the newer stuff that, that the old man probably wouldn't have liked too much, but, um, yeah, it's been a lot of fun. I got to see three hip shows and I was at the show in Ottawa two nights before the finale, uh, which was really amazing. Um, I got to see him in a basketball gym in Burlington and I got to see him in a bar in Albany, New York. And, uh, I feel like I got the, a pretty good sample size. Uh, I love them. I love them. Yeah. How about you, Craig? You have a unique role in this trio as well with your Tragically Hip experience. Share some of that with us.Track 3:[5:19] Um, yeah, I've, I've been a big hip fan way back going to probably grade eight when I, when I first heard, I think New Orleans on the radio and, uh, you know, I liked it and I, um, I didn't buy the album right away. I was into heavier stuff at the time. I was a big GNR fan and I was kind of a metal guy. And, uh, then I heard 38 years old and funnily enough, I thought it was, um, uh, Tracy Chapman at first, when I first heard the voice, the vibrato and, you know, it's just on faintly in the background. And then I kind of turned it up and this is a good tune. And then, you know, they, they announced it was the hip. And so I went out and got the CD. I think I maybe ordered on Columbia house through my, uh, through my parents or, you know, five CDs for, for a penny or whatever. And, uh, 12 here in the U S yeah.Track 3:[6:09] And yeah, I've been a huge hip fan ever since. And, and, um, yeah, I've been to, I think maybe 15, 16 concerts and, um, yeah, about a year ago, year and a half ago, I started playing in a hip tribute and it's just been a blast to sharing the music with, you know, the fans who don't get to see them anymore. And, you know, I wish I could, I wish they were still around and I could quit my job as a hip tribute guitar player, but unfortunately they're not playing anymore. I wonder if there's a Tracy Chapman angle, I wonder if we can get Luke Combs to cover some hip stuff and get them on the mainstream radio. you. It's a great idea. It's actually not. I don't think I want to hear that. No, but definitely giving them the credit they deserve. And man, Craig, like I seriously got goosebumps when you'd mentioned Tracy Chapman, like, you know, if you guys saw the Grammys, you know, that was performed and Tracy just sounded amazing. And, uh, I hadn't thought of it from that perspective. And, and yeah, I think you hit that spot on that. I haven't looked it up, But I'm guessing if you look up the release date of Fast Car and up to here, I'm going to guess they're within a year. Yeah, that's probably very true.Track 3:[7:27] So let's start at the start here with Coke Machine Glow. Kirk, any nuggets that you gleaned from production notes, anything like that, that you gathered on your fact-finding mission? Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, I, I actually did because I'm a musician as well and, and, and do appreciate, uh, what goes into making an album. Um, uh, there, there was some pretty good information out there and, you know, especially knowing the hips catalog and, you know, they've had, they've had some different experiences from different producers and engineers and, and different recording experiences. And, um, so, you know, of course you're going, well, I'm going to get a lot of that. And, and then boom, you get hit right upside the head with, you know, But in the research that I did, I mean, they basically just, you know, had a couple, I think they had a kick mic and an overhead mic and just kind of a room mic. They played everything acoustic because they wanted to hear Gord's vocals.Track 3:[8:30] They were in, I believe, in the studio that is no longer there. It was like a loft in Toronto that was owned by a couple of musicians that were a part of, you know, the band that was there and part of the recording team. Um and obviously getting all their you know getting all their schedules together and and you know various musicians from from various different bands within the area and uh and they just wanted this to be uh just kind of that raw essence right that it you know for us as hit fans at least for me like that's where i fell in love is like whether you listen to the music or see them live, like the energy that comes out of every song is, is palpable on so many different levels. And, and, you know, I think those that, that have had the experience to enjoy their music and especially live, like there's such an energy to it and whether it's, uh.Track 3:[9:29] You know, whether it's one of their upbeat, you know, just rocking tunes or, or, you know, a simple acoustic there, they really know how to capture the emotion. And this album, Coke Machine Glow, I mean, yeah, wow. I mean, it was, again, it just felt like maybe one mic in the room and they just were circled around each other and they went for it. And one of the other notes that I heard that I thought was pretty surprising is they got a lot out of what was actually recorded and it sounded a lot bigger than what took place. I can get that. You could get a small little eight-inch speaker and, uh, put a mic on it and it could sound like you've got, you know, four Marshall, you know, full stacks grinding in front of you. So, you know, there's definitely some magic that can happen in the studio, but, um, uh, yeah, I, I think, uh, you know, I do a lot of stuff in theater and we always talk about how the set or the lights or the sound can become a character. And I think for me, the production elements of Coke Machine Glow became a part of the album.Track 3:[10:37] It had to be done that way, in my opinion, to be able to capture the energy that it did. Yeah it's very sparse sounding production wise like obviously there's songs and we'll get into them really rich and really lush and uh you know have a lot going on but predominantly this record like you said is pretty sparse craig i wonder what you learned um in your research about the album proper.Track 3:[11:09] Well, I went into this with a different approach where I purposely didn't look at any info for the first couple of weeks. And then I actually planned on recording this without having looked it up, but I decided I couldn't not. And the reason I had to look at the liner notes is because I was hearing all these voices that I recognized from Canadian bands. And what I was really thinking about was um what was can con and and the uh you know all the if you don't know the the story of can con basically it's the canadian content rules that um you know radio stations in canada have to play a certain amount of you know canadian written produced um music and the variety of musicians playing on this album we've got you know sky diggers we've got eric's trip we've got the hip We've got Dinner Is Ruined, who wasn't a band I had heard of out West, but looked them up today and quite interesting. And just this all-star cast of musicians from all these really cool indie bands. And that's what really struck me. Yeah, I couldn't put it better. An all-star group. And I should have mentioned, I guess, The Odds, of course, with Stephen Drake. He was so heavily involved with engineering and playing bass on it. And, and, uh, that was the voice that actually I was referencing. And I'll talk about that on the track when it comes up. Oh, cool. Okay.Track 3:[12:36] Justin, I'm wondering for you what the title means to you. What does it evoke? Um, I kind of, my brain goes to the golden rim motor in right. And late at night in a hotel, just kind of looking out the window and there's that freaking coke machine that's probably buzzing and nothing's cold in it and there's that glow lighting up a couple of cars outside the hotel room um it seems like a pretty good time to write an album or a book of poetry yeah just in my my mind went the same place yeah the lofty pines motel the the golden rim motor in.Track 3:[13:19] Yeah. There's a couple other hotels mentioned on this record as well. There's the Phoenix. Um, I'm trying to think, is there another one? Hmm. There's a poem, uh, in the book, Minneapolis hotel room. Oh, wow. Yeah. So definitely a road record, huh? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And the other thing I think that, um, I didn't know going into this, that it was so closely connected to the phantom power album with a lot of songs that now with the re-release of phantom power we're we're seeing alternate versions of you know mystery and some of these other songs which is really really neat to discover at the same time yeah i agree with that i i delved pretty deeply into the the poetry book and it was amazing how many references to hip songs especially of that era um but even dating back to the early nineties with some live shows and how long this material had incubated. I bought, I don't know which album, but it came with a recording of a concert in 94. And there are several references that made their way into the poetry or into the lyrics of some of the songs.Track 3:[14:31] It's not on the music album, but it's in the, I think it's the first poem in the book was was bumblebee what is now bumblebee as the bonus track from phantom power right um the usa today bit was in this concert in 94 and it took you know years for that to come out and and there are other references from that show that are that are in coke machine globe of the album and the book it's it's really interesting how long it took for all this stuff to, surface. You have to imagine though, that as, as a writer, you know, you're going to go into recording an album and, and, you know, Gord being primary, you know, after a time writer, you can end up with some stuff that just doesn't make it. And, you know, it's hard to let go of stuff. You know, if you've, if you've done any type of creation, I don't care if it's video creation or writing or poetry or songs or whatever, like it's hard to just let that stuff go. Cause it's, It's whether you're telling a story about yourself or something you experienced or, you know, you want to get it out there, especially if you're a creative person. So I imagine Gord had, you know, and you read all the time and you hear on the interviews and he carries around a notebook and is basically writing every day.Track 3:[15:47] So uh but it is it is amazing and especially being a hip fan to see you know i noticed that as well when i was listening to some of the bonus stuff like hey wait that's a hit song why is that on here yeah you know and then you got to go back and you got to find the album that it's on because i was like justin i i wasn't introduced until the hip you know until i think 2000 uh with a canadian friend that i worked with and then i actually took a trip up to vancouver and it was like there's hip everywhere and i was like this is what's this all about how come i don't know about these you know this this band so yeah you know that i i really kind of came into play during that time and and beyond so of course i love the stuff that that came before it but for me there's something about being a part of what gets released when you're you know i'm i'm buying the albums or cds as they're coming out and then i'm seeing the tour so you know of course that heavy content with with, with those particular albums. So yeah, I have to imagine a lot of that, uh, came back in, into this particular one. And I mean, how long was the band together before this came out? 12 years, something. Almost, almost 15 or 20, maybe.Track 3:[16:57] Yeah, well, yeah, from the very beginning, but since the recording stuff started, so, you know. 87, the first one came out in 87. Yeah. This, to me, it felt like a release valve for everything that Gord couldn't or wouldn't put on Hips. It wasn't polished, you know what I mean?Track 3:[17:18] And he had all, I mean, there's a hundred pages of poetry and all these songs that are, you know, objectively strange.Track 3:[17:27] Um, and I, I think it just stuff that he knew wouldn't fly on a hip album that he had carried with him for years. And like I said, that show in 94 that he was work workshopping this stuff and it didn't make the cut with the band. So let's use it up now. Now, I'm very curious, as we get into the songs, to hear what you guys are thinking about some of these songs in their objective strangeness, as you put it, Justin. Or, you know, are some of them hip-adjacent? Are there any on here that you think, you know, the band could have put together? Obviously, other than the last track, which they did, and we can compare and contrast that when we get there. But are we ready to go into this record track by track? Let's do it. All right, we start with Star Painters. Who wants to kick this one off?Track 3:[18:29] Well, I'll take it. Yeah, Star Painters to me was like a palate cleanser. This was like Gord saying, this is not a hip album. And right off the bat, it's, it's a little strange. Uh, you got the accordion and, um, you know, the almost like a spoken word type thing. And yeah, it's just very obviously not the hip. So the first line, um, is, uh, ended up in music at work with freak turbulence. The myth is neither here nor there. So there are definitely, you know, there's some continuity there. And I think those two albums came out the same year. Didn't they? 2000. Coke Machine Glow was 2001 Okay well But Very close Very close They were likely recorded Right around the same time Yeah Yeah.Track 3:[19:19] There are themes that do persist for sure. But yes, this is not a hip song to be clear. I agree. And Craig, yeah, I think you hit it right on the head. You know, Gord was like, hey, come along for the ride, but this is going to be something different.Track 3:[19:40] And I really appreciate it. I mean, and I've heard that this song actually turned people away, right? Right. Like they didn't want to give it any more of a listen because of it. And, you know, I can say, yeah, I can say that, you know, for me again, I'm hip starved. So I'm actually really surprised at myself that I didn't dive in at the time and that that it really took this project to, you know, get me to start paying attention. Attention and at first it was difficult you know obviously this song but the entire album was like you're like you wanted a little more hip but then you had to understand you know what he needed to get out this song honestly for me is is one of my favorites off of the album and i'll tell you why it's the line the star painters are taking over now the scaffolding is in place your anesthesiologist tonight is washing up and on her way like i heard that and i just stopped and smoking your joint.Track 3:[20:50] Packing it up yeah getting the next one it it it it's it's it's gordon it's it's it's the, this is this song this album is not going to be for the faint of heart and uh and you know strap in like you said buckle up so i i had never heard anything by the dinner is ruined but you know trying to dive into to see what these guys are about the avant-garde and very strange ambient sounds and there's uh accordion and all kinds of weird stuff and that's very much dinner is ruined i i did listen to them um during this process and with that in mind on On the rest of the album, they feel pretty restrained compared to what they would normally have written or put out. But I think on this first one, they're just kind of like, to hell with this. We're going to do what we're doing. Yeah, sequencing is so important. You know, when you make a record, there's no accident that this song is first, like Greg said. You know, that sort of palate cleanser, introducing what the concept of this record is going to be. And you're right like if you came here expecting fully completely part two you know you're barking up the wrong fucking tree so there's that yeah vancouver divorce.Track 3:[26:08] Yeah, definitely a departure from the first track from Star Painters, right? This is a, I mean, almost written for radio hit. It's so easy to listen to and it's so addicting. The thing that really struck me, and it took me a couple of listens to hear it, but the bass is just one note over and over like a heartbeat, just a rhythm. And it's just the same note for 20, 25 seconds. And then, you know, it, it moves on from there, but, um, it was really, it was lovely. Um, but I, uh, one of the things that, that started to strike me and I don't know if it was Vancouver divorce or, or something else, but I think there's two schools of thought about this album. And again, this is a common theme with Gord Downie is it's either a little bit about Adolf Hitler or it's really a lot a bit about Adolf Hitler.Track 3:[27:13] There are so many ties to World War II throughout this album and the book and everything that Gord kind of does. Um, and I, I, I tried not to think about that going into all this, but it does, it does kind of get there, um, pretty quickly. I think, I don't know. I don't know if Vancouver has anything to do with the song or it's just, it fits well, you know, like the way that he explained writing Bob Cajun, it just, it rhymes. Right that's the town we're using you know i know in one of the live clips i saw before this song he said something about you know if if this couple can't make it in in paradise which in this case paradise is vancouver um debatable debatable maybe but um he um yeah then then i guess they can't make it anywhere yeah and i i didn't get any world war ii from it but i i didn't dive into lyrics quite as heavily i'm more of a music guy the lyrics are the last thing i digest when i listen to music so it takes me multiple listens um i don't typically read lyrics i like them to sort of hit me you know over the years um yeah did you guys get the uh the hortons reference.Track 3:[28:27] That one made me chuckle so the thing that i that i picked up on the hortons thing is he says sitting here at the hortons so you know this is important nobody sits at a tim hortons well they used to it used to be it used to be like a bar yeah oh yeah and it had lots of tables and chairs Yeah. And that's, that's far different from our experience with, with any Hortons chain down here. Yeah. Well, the thing that I think is interesting is that syllabically he could have said Tim Hortons, but instead he says the Hortons. The Hortons. I wonder if that's like to avoid the.Track 3:[28:57] Commercialism of saying Tim Hortons or like, it's just an interesting choice when it's the same number of syllables. Yeah. And I also think just, um, a lot of times Gord will choose a word that is almost unrhymable on purpose. And I think this is one of those cases Hortons. So it must be important and important. Yeah. It's, it's just, I love that. I love that. How about you, Kirk?Track 3:[29:21] What do you think? From a music standpoint? Cause like Craig, I, I, I do, do i i enjoy both and and and i'll end up reading lyrics as i go and and in this particular thing it was hard not to read uh a lyrics just to understand the connection as you're listening but this is one of those songs as well when when you think about it here you know how they recorded like holy crap how did they get that big of a sound out of what you you know at least in the the research that i did was very minimalist type of recording you know this kind of a squarish box and and and not really acoustically treated and you know in in you know you know in in the heart of toronto and all kinds of other stuff going on like i heard as well like they were being evicted and so they only had a certain time schedule to be able to get this recorded and then you hear the story about how like they're having a party downstairs and they're throwing couches around and gourd shows up and in his cowboy hat and goes uh hey would you guys mind you know being quiet for a little bit i'm i've tried to record i just can't imagine you're in that room and gourd down he walks in and says hey i'm recording tracks upstairs i think he was with kevin hearn from uh.Track 3:[30:36] You know uh bare naked ladies and and and uh and then they go back up and they record but just the fullness of this, this album. Um, and to me, I, you know, that's the thing I wanted to mention. Uh, uh, I believe it was this tune when you hear the keys, I don't know that Kevin got a credit on it, but I know he recorded a couple of tunes here. And so for me, I'm actually a pretty big BNL fan and I've seen them 20 times, something like that. But Kevin Hearns keys was very kind of prevalent. Um, and even if it wasn't him, you could, you could definitely hear the influence of it. So the powerfulness of this song is, is, is palpable for sure. Yeah. Yeah, looking it up, I think it was, sorry, it was, yeah, Jose Contreras played the organ on this tune. So he's the leader of By Divine Right, which is another very cool Canadian band that I remember listening to. I had their first album. But yeah, Kevin Hearn is definitely all over this album. Them yeah i gotta say as well from a lyrics perspective my money there's a phrase in this song that belongs on the podium along with you know it could have been the willow nelson could have been the wine you know taking advice from a prost or taking a compliment from a prostitute the line which by the way i play that song every night for my daughter at bedtime and my wife still Still haven't caught on yet.Track 3:[32:00] That's a good line. What the hell is this? You said it's art. Just fucking mirror it. Mirror. Yeah. Like you hang up your hat when you write a line like that. You just, you're done for the day. Put your briefcase together and you walk out the door, punch out, you know, that's a fucking great lyric. So I think, I think if, if I may, the, the person being divorced is an artist in this story. Right. right? And there are many references to art. There's the line, when the stampede's an optical course, when ancient train has hit old transient horse. And ancient train and old transient horse were capitalized. And I said, what the hell is that? So I deep dove that. And it is in reference to horse and train, which is a Canadian painting, which is based on a poem written by a South African anti-apartheid poet with the line and against a regiment. I oppose a brain and a dark horse against an armored train, which is just spectacular imagery.Track 3:[33:03] But again, tying in the art theme to the first line is such classic Gord Downie writing. Jesus Christ. Yeah. You've just blown my mind. Blown my mind. Like for real. This is track two. So get me. Yeah. Yeah. And I have to say too, the noise guitar at the end by I'm assuming Dale Morningstar is just amazing. I have a thing for loud, screechy feedback guitars. It just puts me in this state of zen for some reason. Like if you know the song Drown by Smashing Pumpkins, there's like four minutes of feedback at the end. And to me, that is so relaxing.Track 3:[33:45] I have that same thing written down, Craig. I have excellent screeching guitar going into and continuing through the third verse and out. One of the other things I have written down, though, I just want to share with you guys quickly. This is just sort of funny. When he says he's sitting at the Tim Hortons, or he's sitting at the Hortons, I know that's not true because on two occasions, I was walking down the Danforth and saw him sitting in the front bench of Timothy's Coffee, coffee, which is like a, like a Starbucks adjacent brand that doesn't exist anymore, but it used to. And it was minutes from his house. I didn't know where his house was, nor did I stalk him, but I knew it was in the area, like minutes away. And he would just sit there and he was sitting there with a, with a fucking notebook the one time and another time he was on a Mac book. But to me, it was, you know, one of those cool moments that I was like, I live in the same neighborhood. It's Gord Downie. This is so cool.Track 3:[34:41] Man, I wish that the Tim Hortons here in the States had a place to sit because mostly you just find them at a rest stop on the highway or you go in and you order a donut and you leave kind of establishment. No Hortons down here in California. I have to travel. Thankfully, I get to travel a lot for work. And if I see a Hortons, it's like, it's immediate picture and text to my family because we did a road trip and, you know, we went through Detroit and we went through Niagara and went through Toronto. And so my family fell in love with Tim Hortons. So is there a sponsor, right? JD? Oh yeah. The big sponsor. I'm eating Timbits right now.Track 3:[35:22] Mmm. Delicious Timbits. Thanks Tim Hortons. Um next up is uh sf song and to me this is like observational songwriting 101 to me i can just picture him under the covers of his hotel room with a pillow over his head trying to drown out the sound of this chambermaid tap tap tapping and knock knock knocking on the door it sounds as though and then him walking through the lobby and out into the front area of the phoenix hotel and he just describes everything he sees now i'm sure there's more to it than that but to me that's just beautiful.Track 3:[36:03] Yeah. Yeah. For me, one of my first shows was actually in San Francisco at the Fillmore West. And, um, you know, there's been some, you know, or so I've, so I've researched, there's been some pretty classic, uh, um, shows that have happened there. And, you know, I, I had a pretty, pretty amazing experience as well. I was with, with the Canadian friend that had, um, you know, introduced me to them and, and, uh, uh, but you, when I heard that song at first, I just immediately thought, you know, I'm like, hmm, I wonder if he was writing the song when he was there, when I saw him in 2000. And, uh, you know, whether he is or not, that's what I'm going to go, go to, go to bed with and stick to. I also noticed and really appreciated, um, uh, the breathing in the beginning of the song. Um, and then the reference towards the end, uh, about it, uh, uh, I miss my lung, Bob.Track 3:[37:04] That we talked about and, and, and, and then remembering the ads, remembering the ads that were going around at the time on the sides of buses and on, um, on, on billboards and, uh, you know, growing up in, in, in Southern California and, and, uh, seeing smoking ads. And then all of a sudden smoking ads start going away. And then you see the ad of, I miss my lung, Bob, or Bob, I miss my lung. I like to paraphrase. Yeah. I, uh, that's one of the lyrics I had to look up. I had no clue that was an actual thing. So that was pretty neat to, to come across those posters. I remember them from when I was a kid, of course, I'm East Coast, so it's not like they were around here, but I do remember seeing it on the news or something like that, the campaign.Track 3:[37:52] The other thing that struck me was Chambermaid and the references to Chambermaid, which are a continuation of Phantom Power, right? With vapor trails and escape as a hand. Right. Right. I also picked up on the click, click, click. You mentioned J.D. Off the top and those sounds. And he later on experimented with those types of things like drip, drip, drip and We Want to Be It and the chick, chick, chick of the matches in Seven Matches.Track 3:[38:24] Oh, wow. Yeah, it's just a little thing I picked up on. And also, I have a note here about just the low register, like just him singing in that beautiful low voice. And he, on this album, covers so many different subtleties in the way he uses his voice. Like a song like Coming Up Canada Geese, all of a sudden he's just a totally different singer, singing very um yeah almost like an indie indie rock singer yeah totally get that um you know also i think there's many examples of him singing in alter egos on on this record really expanding his repertoire you know as it were right like we start to hear him singing like this on the post phantom power records uh on occasion and um it's not startling because we're sort of used to it should we move on to trick rider only if you want me to cry right like this okay so this song says it's it's dedicated to c it's i believe it's his daughter I don't know. On the album that comes along with the new release, his daughter, I'm blanking on the name, starts with a C, reads this poem.Track 3:[39:53] So I'm guessing she was the girl on the horse.Track 3:[39:56] So I can't remember the name, Claire maybe or Chloe or I forget. Makes complete sense.Track 3:[40:04] I don't know this, so I'll ask it. How many kids does Gord have and are they spread out in age quite a bit? I don't know the second part of the question, but I know he's got four. There's Lou and Willow, who both played on his former partner's record, played keyboard and drums, respectively. And then there's Willow, who is an artist, like painter and jewelry artist, and she's very talented. She did the away as mind cover as well I did know that I think I think I asked that question because at the end you know of Gordon's life he did that interview with Peter Mansbridge, and talked about his son and got very emotional and his son was young he referenced his age and said he was quite young and this was 2016 or 17 whenever the interview was, and which would have been 15 years after this album came out.Track 3:[41:03] So, that's where my head went with how many, how old, just trying to put the puzzle pieces together. I was going to make mention when I was doing a little bit of research, there was a, uh, uh, you know, a fan video, uh, when, when I guess they toured this album and I believe they were actually in, uh, it might've been in Vancouver when they're playing it, but he was, you know, having an exchange with, with someone in the audience about, you know, uh, your nightlights on going to bed. And uh i think the fan might have been thinking that the song was about something else and and he referenced that right back to her very quickly in kind of a snide mark saying i don't think it means what you think it means about going to bed and and uh that stuck out to me it was you know one that he had no problems interacting with the fan and and kind of correcting them on on their interpretation uh of the song but it the song is is is beautiful and in so many different ways and you know all of us being fathers and and and having you know those experiences and and then obviously having the emotional tie-in with with gordon and what he's done with the band you know in the tragically hip and and and then with his solo stuff and and uh it it's it's gorgeous it's beautiful whatever adjective you can come up with that that uh you know brings that feeling to you.Track 3:[42:31] As a father in those moments when you're just you can't even can't even process i did this i had a hand in this and this human is is going to grow out into the world and And I'm a better human because of it. And to be able to, you know, put that, um, you know, in lyrics and in a song, uh, again, just adds to the, uh, adds to the amazement, uh, that that gentleman was able to give us.Track 3:[43:04] Yeah. And the vocal performance by both Gord and, uh, Julie Dwaran is, is so full that they have such control of their voices. Pitch perfect, emotional, just such a song. Her soft awe in the background puts this song over the top. It wouldn't be the song without her contribution to it. That's no disrespect to Gord, but the song isn't the same without Julie Dwaran. And I thought that my favorite father-daughter song was Thrown Off Glass from In Violet Light, But this one, my daughter is the one jumping off shit. She is trick riding 24 hours a day and I'm like, oh my God, kill me. Yeah. So I looked it up. It is Claire Downey who reads the poem on the new edition. So I'm guessing that's who C could be. Got to be.Track 3:[44:05] The song is way too personal for it not to be. is is julie did i understand that she's she did some stuff with the hip as well yeah, yeah she sang um in some live shows with them and i think was part of some tribute stuff at the end too i may be wrong um i know i know kate fenner was um on one tour as a backup music Music at work. But I feel like, I'm pretty sure I've read, yeah, that Julie was on, doing some backups on one of the albums. I could be wrong. Yeah, I remember that too. I feel like, maybe now for Plan A, possibly. That sounds right. I know, although I know... Oh, yeah. Oh, that's her name. Yeah.Track 3:[44:52] Also from Kingston. There's another woman who does now for planning the title track. Yeah, Sarah Harmer. She's the vocal on... Anyways, that's a different album, different band. Different podcast. Different podcast, yeah. Oh, and I have to... Last thing about Trick Rider for me is that slide guitar that just doesn't quite hit the note. I just love it. It's kind of that quarter tone or something. It reminds me of, if you know the Faith No More cover of Easy, right before the solo when Mike Patton goes up to the, ew, and almost like purposely is in between notes. I just think it's so neat. I was going to say both vocally and musically with a variety of instruments throughout several songs, obviously this one as well, is there's just that, it's not quite there, but it's also, it adds again to that character of the song. I heard something or read something about one of the musicians, I believe the guitar player that, that was part of this, like he hit a note and he, he would just beat the shit out of it until it became the note that was right for the song, whether it started off right or not, he, it, it was going to become that.Track 3:[46:03] And, and I love that thought or that prospect, right? We get so, we get so caught up in, Oh, everything's got to be perfect. I got to tune my guitar up exactly right. I've got to have the mic place perfectly. And I've got to have, you know this tonality and and sometimes it's just good to just just let it go and let that emotion come through more so than you know the technical note of itself yeah yeah there's no such thing as a wrong note if it's you know played with with with confidence and intention and yeah yeah so next we go to a song that i think could totally be a hip jam to me this song he's singing It's the first song on the record where he's singing in a tone in a register that we recognize.Track 3:[49:09] So Craig, you said it, um, this is punk rock and Gord loved punk rock, right? Yeah. Yeah. Um, but it's old guy punk rock. Like it's, it's, this is guys who are not punk rockers anymore trying to, to do punk or at least the story, right.Track 3:[49:26] Um, within the song. And, and I'm not saying that about the musicians that played the song. I'm saying that about the story Gord tells here that, you know, they're, they're, they're buying weed from each other in a cornfield, right? In the dark you know um like i can picture my old man and his uncles or and his brothers my uncles just you know hiding from the cops at age 50 55 years old just feeling like be cool man shut up uh i love this song yeah great song i i gotta say i'll take the bullet guys here's my first criticism even though as much as i love um how they recorded it my goodness gracious i needed the drummer to use some sticks and not brushes like i needed to feel that those drums coming through in this song and and to make it punk rock like it was like they they you know hey let's find the jazz drummer to do the punk song um and not that it didn't serve it well and it's a in fact probably what i would have liked was that drum track with the brushes and another drum track on.Track 3:[50:35] Top of it with sticks and then also maybe adding the mics to get more of the tonality of the drums but again now that's just the music guy and me going i wanted to hear that i needed to hear that snap i needed to hear that crack i needed to hear the pop right sorry gonna use a uh a breakfast cereal reference but um i i i i wanted that for this song still love it it's It's funny because it opens on snare hits. Right.Track 3:[51:08] Yeah. But if I'm not mistaken and I'll, I'll completely eat my words, I believe they use brushes throughout Craig. Do you, did you go that deep or what did you think? I didn't, but I know for me, I definitely noticed that it, it, it felt like it should be heavier but i think that's part of what gave the song character was those heavy guitars that almost sounded like they were played at a low volume in a room jamming and i i thought it just gave it a unique character and and i have to say though my favorite part is actually at the end when when all of a sudden i actually picked up a guitar today just to see what was going on with this and and they go up from you know they're playing and you know you're one four five e e b and a and then um they go right up they just go up to that f and i know the first time i heard it it's just just so striking it just sounds so out of place and then after you've heard the song a couple times just so perfect such a such a great dissonance and.Track 3:[52:05] Really really um almost like a two you know 2000s indie rock feel almost like an arcade fire kind of three years before arcade fire was doing it kind of thing so wow it felt like a one take demo to me and they said fuck it it's good like run it i like that we'll do it live yeah me too do it we'll do it keep it but kirk yeah i think um it would be really interesting to see what the hip would have done with with that song like a fully polished yeah you know but but i felt the same about the next song chandler um you're listening to it again today in fact and again was like man with some different instrumentation you know change changing the tempo a bit on this is this is absolutely the uh potentially a hip song uh for me you know uh and uh yeah hard hard not to uh go into you know as he speaks about letting the opening the window inviting the vampires in and if i'm not mistaken this this song did pretty well was it a single.Track 3:[53:15] I don't think any of the solo stuff did particularly well. It was sort of under the radar, especially after this record came out. This record was highly anticipated, but I think early on the word got out that it wasn't hip, and so there were a lot of hip people that jumped up. A lot of people stayed on board, don't get me wrong. but um there was a good cohort that sort of veered away and it's interesting that the sum of the parts you know um the hip are it just goes to show you how magical they are as a as a fivesome because you take one component away you know and it's just not the same like gort sinclair's solo record is dynamite so are you know paul's three records they're really really good but they're not the hip yeah you know so i'm just and i think this is where i got it from i'm just you know looking looking up on spotify and if you go to gordonie this song has the most downloads of all the solo stuff oh okay so that that makes a lot of sense yeah i know there's a there's definitely a video for this yeah yeah but i i don't recall ever hearing.Track 3:[54:31] This song anything from this album on the radio i i had i did hear some later songs um but definitely not that you know that i heard so this is where hitler comes in big time um the.Track 3:[54:47] Hitler had a very odd sleeping pattern. He stayed up very late and would go to bed at like 6, 6.30 in the morning and then get up at noon and just spend his whole day working out maps and plans and this is where the advancement is and all this stuff. And there are so many, if you read between the lines references about the night of a thousand missteps, the loss that made him dogged, or it could have been the doggedness that caused the loss in the first place.Track 3:[55:18] And Chancellor, I mean, that was Hitler's position, you know? Wow. Marching armies in the night, smiling strangers riding by on bikes. That would be, you know, when the allies come into Paris or something, you know? Children's smoking, which there was a huge anti-smoking campaign in Germany during World War II, sloganeers. And he mentions in one of the first lines, invite the vampire in, open the windows before we go to bed to get the coldest air in the room, which is just before the sun comes up. And then at the end, talking about a few things that vampires don't like, all the things referenced between the vampire references are Hitler-ish things. So I don't know it that's that's where my head went and then um before you are wow i know that but but damn it i'm following gordon's path you know and he like i said he references justin you're taking us into dark places my friend and the word chancellor for me it was like hmm and then i started to kind of read into it and i was like yikes and by the way guys spoiler alert this won't be the last time i talk about hitler during this thing not that i love him let's put that out there but there are There are some real references to the war throughout this album. Yeah, that's really interesting.Track 3:[56:41] My mind went a completely different direction. I was thinking like a chancellor of a university. And again, I didn't read the lyrics. I didn't dig that deeply in. But it was funny because my daughter really likes this song. We kept playing in the car and I was explaining what a chancellor of a university was. And she said, oh, I thought it was like Chancellor Palpatine. Wow. and it turns out she was she was the right one yeah i guess she was she was closer than i was yeah wow look at that cross my read is so completely vastly different again my read is like bittersweet and romantic uh the chorus yeah i couldn't be a chancellor without you on my mind if i wasn't if i wasn't obsessed with you or thinking about you all the time time. Um, you know, who knows what I could have become. And on the, and in the video, isn't he riding around? He's on the swan boats. It's just, it does not make me. Swans. Yeah. Yeah. He does not make me, uh, feel like, like, uh, like he's referenced, referencing world war two, but that's fascinating. I can't wait to hear it again now.Track 3:[57:49] But at the end of that video, if you watch the full video at the very end, he's, it's revealed that he is the guy working the dock at the, at the swan boats and he takes off his coat and underneath it is a uniform that says guy. And he's the one taking the coins or the tokens or whatever for the people to ride the swan boats. So it's kind of like, uh.Track 3:[58:13] You know, when Hitler was a struggling artist before he became this global force and kind of took control, you know, he was romanticizing the idea of, of being chancellor of Germany. Wow yeah wow and i don't know wow reference to it or yes it's dark man because and again think of think of uh the song scared every hip show you go to everybody's everybody's slow dancing that's not a slow dance it's like we talked about in the other podcast it's like yeah that's the hips trick right or it's gorge yeah yeah 38 years old same thing long running same thing fiddler's green you know and and on and on and on these slow slow songs are are yeah miserable yeah and i have to say good yeah yeah yeah yeah and and the the vocal phrasing that the gourd uses on this just that, laid back where he just sort of hesitates on certain words i just just love it he's so unique that way. I think that's what separates him as a singer, is that phrasing.Track 3:[59:22] Oh, yeah. This is a really hard album to sing. And you guys are musicians and you play guitar and other instruments. I've always been a singer. And I cannot keep up with Gord on this album. I just can't. Like the chorus of this song, like, I'm discovering uses for you. But the way he throws uses for you together, it's like, it's almost like one overlaps the other. And it's like, that's impossible. And then on the more quaint side, I love that he rhymes pajamas by mispronouncing in a gourd-like way windows to rhyme with pajamas, right? Instead of windows. Oh, so great. By the way, that uses line, again, going back to Hitler's underlings, you know, doing experiments on twins and stuff like that. Like, this is, I think this is a dark one. I'm going to listen to it again tonight. And I can't wait to hear it. No.Track 3:[1:00:19] I hope I'm wrong. I think you're right. No, we know he likes the Second World War.Track 3:[1:00:26] And, you know, we've heard references to, you know, Nazis moving works of art or Russians moving works of art, you know, to stave off the Nazi army. And really quick, sorry, really quick shout out for the piano player. I'm guessing it was um hern but but man that piano is is really nice improvised piano solo yeah yeah it's a very sweet sounding song yeah bait and switch man yeah he got us the never ending present i was listening and and if you're a you know canadian of my age you knew right away who was singing backup so that was Stephen Drake because my mind went right to Wendy under the stars and um and you know right back to my you know my first car and being you know 16 years old and listening to the radio and and hearing the odds for the first time and and yeah just an unmistakable voice the harmonies are very distinct you know distinctly the odds and distinctly The one thing that I picked up was he mentioned his shoes were polished, which as we learned in the longtime running doc that he polished his shoes before every show.Track 3:[1:01:46] So I think he's talking about himself and it's kind of an introspective – I mean, he says I in every song, but I think this one might actually be about himself personally.Track 3:[1:02:00] I picture him standing on Broadview Avenue waiting for the streetcar. He says bus, but in my head it's a streetcar. And all the rest of the lyrics are the stuff that happens until the bus crashes the hill. Him dropping money inside the little money grabber on a bus. There's talk of that um but what i really what i really love about this song is how ahead of his time he is because this is like living in the present like being in the moment is so important and i've learned like through my mental wellness journey like how important it is to live in the moment and the idea that the moment can be never ending if you come about it with the right frame in my mind is so refreshing to hear. Amen. And of course they named the, um, uh, Michael Barclay wrote the book with using the title of the song.Track 3:[1:03:05] Sorry, I'm going to take a little detour off of this that I just have to bring up being, being the, uh, for the South American and someone that, uh, uh, you know, again, was always starving for hip. I've loved in this journey, discovering other Canadian bands. You guys were mentioning the odds. And, you know, I did the research a little bit on the dinner's ruined. And of course, you know, of the real statics from, you know, grace too. And we're all richer for having heard them. And, um, uh, I'm, I'm very excited, you know, during this to be able to take a dive into that music that I never got. Right. Cause I like Justin, you were lucky because you get a lot of that music, uh, in the Northeast.Track 3:[1:03:49] Um, no, no, no, we only get the hip and rush. Rush. There's no Canadian music except for the hip and Rush. I will say that. And Alanis, of course. but to do as a you know as a musician and and and being a big fan of many canadian bands you know rush is up there for me bare naked ladies is up there for me um obviously the tragic the hip is up there for me um but these other bands uh blue rodeo that has i think a little bit of a a um you know it did well here in the states um of course alanis and some of the others you know i want to I know more about the, uh, the ones that didn't get, uh, similar, similar stories to the tragically happened. And I'm really excited about taking that journey as well. And I love that, you know, that's one of the things that I've heard about in different, uh, uh, reading and, and interviews is Gord was such a proponent of getting, I mean, music out there, but, but specifically, obviously Canadian music and, and giving, you know, these, these not as well-known bands an opportunity.Track 3:[1:04:56] So, um, sorry, I just needed to take that little side journey there and, and, and share that with you guys. I'm with you. I'm with you a hundred percent. Just going off what you were saying, yeah, apparently Gord would actually stand side stage and watch a lot of these bands. Like he would just stay there for the whole set. And all these bands, you know, Eric's Trip and The Odds, they were all change of heart. They all played with the hip.Track 3:[1:05:23] And for me, it's been fun because I've been doing the same thing. I was listening to The Odds last night and I couldn't believe how many hit songs they had. You know they're a band i enjoyed but never really really got into i think i've seen them live a couple times but man they had their pop song they were yeah that's exactly it they were they're you know pop writing you know machines but yeah i'm excited i'm excited about the journey for sure and and especially getting connected with you guys and having the experience you know know, uh, um, uh, being from Canada and, and, and really experiencing that not only on the radio, but, but live as well, that, uh, that's going to be a great journey. Cause isn't it great when you go to see, you know, you go to see one of your favorite bands and the opener shows up, you never heard of them. And, and all of a sudden they become, you know, one of your favorites and you're, you're falling around and, you know, and then it's always hard if they do make it, you're kind of like, man, that was my band, but I liked it when they were small, you know, I want them to be big, but not that big. I, that's, I mean, I mentioned it with, with the hip, you know, like all my experiences and I got to see them, I don't know, seven, seven, eight times, something like that.Track 3:[1:06:36] Like the biggest venue I saw them in was, was probably 1200 people. And, um, you know, the Troubadour, I got to see them in and, and, and up in San Francisco, the Fillmore's, you know, it's, it's over a thousand, uh, might be closer to actually, I'm not sure. I'll have to look that up. But the thing that I loved about it is, you know, I'm a hockey guy. And I think I mentioned the story to, to you, JD, like we're close to the ducks and the Kings and, and most hockey teams are, you know, 50 plus percent, if not close to 70% Canadians. And so I'd go to a show, I'd be in Hollywood and I'd look over and be like, Oh, Hey, look, there's Luke Robitaille or, you know, Oh, there's Chris Pronger. There's, you know, Scott Niedermeyer, you know, I'm hanging it out and oh oh hey paul korea how's it going you like the hip too you know and um what an experience and then canadian actors as well i got to meet dan akroyd at at the house of blues hollywood and he introduced the hip on stage and then you know he's rat so uh you know for me it's so weird um when you talk of this band they were a club band to me you know i i've seen what they've done and where they've played. And so anyway, I I'm, I'm taking us off the, the album, but just wanted to share that with, with you gents. No, that's cool.Track 3:[1:08:04] So now we take a hard, right. And, um, we get the track, the soundscape, uh, nothing but heartache in your social life.Track 3:[1:11:14] Did you say a hard right or a hard Reich? Because again, the Hitler.Track 3:[1:11:20] I'm serious. So again, this goes back to the poetry and there's a poem called Toiletten in the book and it is about Hitler's, I'm not even inferring this, this is about Hitler's podium at Zeppelin Field in Nuremberg and it now has signs pointing tourists to the toilet. Um, and the, uh, similarities between that poem and this song or spoken word, whatever, um, it's a hundred percent about that. And Gord even stumbles on a lyric that they, that they leave in the song, um, when the podium sprouting weeds and he stumbles on rendered ridiculous by the time. So the podium is this massive concrete structure that when you see film of Hitler speaking to 150,000, 200,000 Germans during wartime, that's where this is. But it's still there, and it's sprouting weeds, and the podium and its purpose have been rendered ridiculous by the times. When are you thinking of disappearing? I mean, when are you falling off the map when the unknown that you're fearing is in the clearing? That's totally about surrendering in the war and the allied forces moving across the field to wipe out the Nazis.Track 3:[1:12:46] When you're getting king-size satisfaction in the turnstiles of the night from all the shaky pill transactions, if that's not Jewish prisoners going to a concentration camp running down the train tracks in the middle of the night. I don't know what it is. It's, again, a very dark thing, and I think it leads to Hitler's suicide. That's when are you thinking of disappearing? Yeah.Track 3:[1:13:16] And it is interesting to note that the asterisk that comes with the title in the lyrics, it says Dale Morningstar provided echoing screams at the end of the song. It doesn't just say backing vocals or call and answer. It's echoing screams. I was wondering who was calling back and forth with them. They kind of sound like, even though the topic sounds quite serious, they're having some fun with it. At the end kind of yelling back and forth with each other and um and also of note um adam agoyan the filmmaker plays plays uh the classical guitar on this track and and one other track and so he's uh i think i read that that maybe this song was sort of based off some some things he brought in, came into the studio one day and they they sort of riffed off what he was doing and put this sort of spoken word. I also got, I don't know if you guys got this, but I almost got like an M&M vibe, like just like attitude wise. And of course I believe this would have been before M&M anyways, but, but just that, that sort of attitude and way he was rattling off these lines.Track 3:[1:14:29] Yeah, I get it. Absolutely. So the other me, you know, I was trying to get my, my head out of World War II with this, and it was easy to see in 2024 that Gord predicted the future of social media, right? This is before Facebook and MySpace and all this stuff, but this is 100% in line with everybody's mental health problems stemming from not having enough likes on their posts, right? This could absolutely be interpreted 20 plus years later in that way, if you were to look at it from that angle. Yeah, I...Track 3:[1:15:13] Obviously still like absorbing everything in the referencing that you're speaking of, uh, Hitler and world war two and, and how, you know, JD and Craig were like, didn't necessarily get that right away. I, I definitely, you know, heard the references. I, I knew of the references from some of the hip tunes. Um and uh and then just seeing this whole journey that he's taking with just coming out there with a solo album in the first place and then you hear about how um and again it's it's you know i don't know the exact i haven't spoken with the other members but some of the solo stuff really caused a bit of a rift within the band and then if you start thinking about the product of the hip you You know, this is where a big portion of their fan base starts turning away.Track 3:[1:16:04] And I wonder if that tension came through in some of the music. For me and you, Justin, we discovered them during this time. And like most bands, you don't become close to them. And, you know, I'll take a few exceptions. You know, Led Zeppelin. I wasn't there when the albums came out. But the band meant a lot to me later in life. But nothing like, I'll give an example of other bands, Rush and Barenaked Ladies. I went to those shows when those albums came out, same thing with The Hip, as it relates to 2000 and beyond. And so my reference point is there. Um, and then Gord goes off and decides to, to do this solo work. And, um, and not only does he does the solo work, but he starts taking that poetry side in the book that comes out along with it. He starts throwing in spoken word and we could spend a lot of time with the discussion about poetry versus spoken word versus lyrics versus, um, uh, you know, the, the, the written prose and, and, and where it all comes together and the different attitudes towards it. Um, but I, I'm, I'm honestly kind of shaking inside just thinking about the, the ability that, that Gord has to take a historical perspective.Track 3:[1:17:23] Area and put it into a spoken word and or song. But then in the same breath, depending on how you come at it, you get something completely different. If you don't know those references specifically, you're going to find something from a meaningful standpoint. So sorry. I mean, you really got me goosebumps in there, Justin. Well, I think that if I had never read lyrics from the hip, I would never have approached it from this angle.Track 3:[1:17:51] But it's kind of hard to not look at some of that stuff. He did an interview in the early 90s with some TV, whatever, and they said, what are your songs about? And he said, all of our songs are about war. And I remember seeing that on YouTube about 10 or a dozen years ago and thinking, oh, okay. Now, whether he was speaking Speaking of literal war or a relationship or conflict within the band or whatever, family, something, but there's a struggle or something that needs to be resolved in each one of these songs. And so I've, for better or worse, looked at a lot of hip stuff from that point forward, whatever year it was, as is Gord talking about literal war here. And that's just where I picked up on. Was he a history-type major? Did he have family that maybe participated in the war? There is a short poem in the book that is about his grandfather serving in World War II.Track 3:[1:18:56] Yeah, I could see that. Both my grandparents served in World War II, and I was a history major, and so I can see where that tie comes from.Track 3:[1:19:08] I hope we can move past the war stuff soon. Thanks justin yeah anything else from you craig well yeah i know i have nothing to add other than i love the little bait like bass kind of jazz odyssey thing that steven drake goes off on at the end if you if you notice the last like five seconds he just does this little improvised producer as well noodle it's pretty right bass player yes yes yeah engineering okay engineer anyways yeah Yeah, engineer. Well, that's what we got for you for this first episode. We're going to take a break and recuperate and recalibrate and take some electrolytes and we'll be back. 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Welcome to Discovering Downie. I'll be your host, jD as we listen in on the experiences and analysis from three huge fans of The Hip who have a blind spot for Gord's solo works. Meet Craig, Justin, and Kirk as they part in this epic 11-part podcast.We kick the show off by starting at the start with Coke Machine Glow part 1.Transcript:Track 2:[1:26] Welcome, music lovers. Long Slice Brewery presents Discovering Downy.Track 3:[1:34] Hey, it's JD here, and I'm joined by my pals Craig, Justin, and Kirk from Chino. While our love for the hip unites us, Gord's solo ventures remain uncharted territory for our trio.Track 3:[1:47] Hence, I've gathered this team of enthusiasts to delve into the musical repertoire of the enigmatic frontman of the tragically hip, the late gourd downey so come along with us on this exploration as we navigate through his albums one by one in chronological order embarking on our quest of discovering downey we've assembled quite the motley crew here to talk uh to talk about gourd's oeuvre and we're excited to do that we're going to do this all summer long so buckle up fellas how are you doing not too bad living the a dream amazing excited excited to go on this jaunt with you you gents for sure yeah it should be pretty fun i agree i agree completely i i am i am from a hip starved uh area of the world which you know i guess most of the u.s unfortunately was hip starved for a long time but specifically down here uh in the la market i got to see some amazing shows in really small places but like to, to like find a hip album in a record store or, you know, like anything that comes close to hip preference for me, I just like, I get all giddy. So when we, you know, we connected to talk with other hip fans, um, was pretty exciting, but then just to learn more about Gord, um, yeah, this is, this is going to be quite the adventure, my friends, quite the adventure.Track 3:[3:17] Yeah, I think so. What do you think, Craig?Track 3:[3:20] Yeah, I've been sitting in this room, my office slash music room, with a couple of unopened Gord CDs that I have collected over the years and just looking for the right moment, I guess. And along came that moment, and thanks to you, JD, to make this happen and to bring me on board. Ah, but I am but one hand on the rudder. The other three hands you see belong to Kirk, Justin, and Craig. Egg so there's that justin tell us about your experience with the hip so uh the u.s is hip starved for the most part but uh growing up in vermont we are just quebec junior and uh we get a lot of uh tv and radio stations uh down here in the greater burlington area so i i grew up with hip on the radio and um i didn't really know anything about him but in high school i discovered phantom power on my own.Track 3:[4:19] And, uh, that was it. I've been hopelessly blissfully lost ever since. And, um, my dad was kind of a hip fan, but you know, I think he was from like the old, you know, the, the hip crowd that they were trying to get rid of in the nineties, you know? And, uh, and so when I, when I came along, it was music at work and, you know, kind of the newer stuff that, that the old man probably wouldn't have liked too much, but, um, yeah, it's been a lot of fun. I got to see three hip shows and I was at the show in Ottawa two nights before the finale, uh, which was really amazing. Um, I got to see him in a basketball gym in Burlington and I got to see him in a bar in Albany, New York. And, uh, I feel like I got the, a pretty good sample size. Uh, I love them. I love them. Yeah. How about you, Craig? You have a unique role in this trio as well with your Tragically Hip experience. Share some of that with us.Track 3:[5:19] Um, yeah, I've, I've been a big hip fan way back going to probably grade eight when I, when I first heard, I think New Orleans on the radio and, uh, you know, I liked it and I, um, I didn't buy the album right away. I was into heavier stuff at the time. I was a big GNR fan and I was kind of a metal guy. And, uh, then I heard 38 years old and funnily enough, I thought it was, um, uh, Tracy Chapman at first, when I first heard the voice, the vibrato and, you know, it's just on faintly in the background. And then I kind of turned it up and this is a good tune. And then, you know, they, they announced it was the hip. And so I went out and got the CD. I think I maybe ordered on Columbia house through my, uh, through my parents or, you know, five CDs for, for a penny or whatever. And, uh, 12 here in the U S yeah.Track 3:[6:09] And yeah, I've been a huge hip fan ever since. And, and, um, yeah, I've been to, I think maybe 15, 16 concerts and, um, yeah, about a year ago, year and a half ago, I started playing in a hip tribute and it's just been a blast to sharing the music with, you know, the fans who don't get to see them anymore. And, you know, I wish I could, I wish they were still around and I could quit my job as a hip tribute guitar player, but unfortunately they're not playing anymore. I wonder if there's a Tracy Chapman angle, I wonder if we can get Luke Combs to cover some hip stuff and get them on the mainstream radio. you. It's a great idea. It's actually not. I don't think I want to hear that. No, but definitely giving them the credit they deserve. And man, Craig, like I seriously got goosebumps when you'd mentioned Tracy Chapman, like, you know, if you guys saw the Grammys, you know, that was performed and Tracy just sounded amazing. And, uh, I hadn't thought of it from that perspective. And, and yeah, I think you hit that spot on that. I haven't looked it up, But I'm guessing if you look up the release date of Fast Car and up to here, I'm going to guess they're within a year. Yeah, that's probably very true.Track 3:[7:27] So let's start at the start here with Coke Machine Glow. Kirk, any nuggets that you gleaned from production notes, anything like that, that you gathered on your fact-finding mission? Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, I, I actually did because I'm a musician as well and, and, and do appreciate, uh, what goes into making an album. Um, uh, there, there was some pretty good information out there and, you know, especially knowing the hips catalog and, you know, they've had, they've had some different experiences from different producers and engineers and, and different recording experiences. And, um, so, you know, of course you're going, well, I'm going to get a lot of that. And, and then boom, you get hit right upside the head with, you know, But in the research that I did, I mean, they basically just, you know, had a couple, I think they had a kick mic and an overhead mic and just kind of a room mic. They played everything acoustic because they wanted to hear Gord's vocals.Track 3:[8:30] They were in, I believe, in the studio that is no longer there. It was like a loft in Toronto that was owned by a couple of musicians that were a part of, you know, the band that was there and part of the recording team. Um and obviously getting all their you know getting all their schedules together and and you know various musicians from from various different bands within the area and uh and they just wanted this to be uh just kind of that raw essence right that it you know for us as hit fans at least for me like that's where i fell in love is like whether you listen to the music or see them live, like the energy that comes out of every song is, is palpable on so many different levels. And, and, you know, I think those that, that have had the experience to enjoy their music and especially live, like there's such an energy to it and whether it's, uh.Track 3:[9:29] You know, whether it's one of their upbeat, you know, just rocking tunes or, or, you know, a simple acoustic there, they really know how to capture the emotion. And this album, Coke Machine Glow, I mean, yeah, wow. I mean, it was, again, it just felt like maybe one mic in the room and they just were circled around each other and they went for it. And one of the other notes that I heard that I thought was pretty surprising is they got a lot out of what was actually recorded and it sounded a lot bigger than what took place. I can get that. You could get a small little eight-inch speaker and, uh, put a mic on it and it could sound like you've got, you know, four Marshall, you know, full stacks grinding in front of you. So, you know, there's definitely some magic that can happen in the studio, but, um, uh, yeah, I, I think, uh, you know, I do a lot of stuff in theater and we always talk about how the set or the lights or the sound can become a character. And I think for me, the production elements of Coke Machine Glow became a part of the album.Track 3:[10:37] It had to be done that way, in my opinion, to be able to capture the energy that it did. Yeah it's very sparse sounding production wise like obviously there's songs and we'll get into them really rich and really lush and uh you know have a lot going on but predominantly this record like you said is pretty sparse craig i wonder what you learned um in your research about the album proper.Track 3:[11:09] Well, I went into this with a different approach where I purposely didn't look at any info for the first couple of weeks. And then I actually planned on recording this without having looked it up, but I decided I couldn't not. And the reason I had to look at the liner notes is because I was hearing all these voices that I recognized from Canadian bands. And what I was really thinking about was um what was can con and and the uh you know all the if you don't know the the story of can con basically it's the canadian content rules that um you know radio stations in canada have to play a certain amount of you know canadian written produced um music and the variety of musicians playing on this album we've got you know sky diggers we've got eric's trip we've got the hip We've got Dinner Is Ruined, who wasn't a band I had heard of out West, but looked them up today and quite interesting. And just this all-star cast of musicians from all these really cool indie bands. And that's what really struck me. Yeah, I couldn't put it better. An all-star group. And I should have mentioned, I guess, The Odds, of course, with Stephen Drake. He was so heavily involved with engineering and playing bass on it. And, and, uh, that was the voice that actually I was referencing. And I'll talk about that on the track when it comes up. Oh, cool. Okay.Track 3:[12:36] Justin, I'm wondering for you what the title means to you. What does it evoke? Um, I kind of, my brain goes to the golden rim motor in right. And late at night in a hotel, just kind of looking out the window and there's that freaking coke machine that's probably buzzing and nothing's cold in it and there's that glow lighting up a couple of cars outside the hotel room um it seems like a pretty good time to write an album or a book of poetry yeah just in my my mind went the same place yeah the lofty pines motel the the golden rim motor in.Track 3:[13:19] Yeah. There's a couple other hotels mentioned on this record as well. There's the Phoenix. Um, I'm trying to think, is there another one? Hmm. There's a poem, uh, in the book, Minneapolis hotel room. Oh, wow. Yeah. So definitely a road record, huh? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And the other thing I think that, um, I didn't know going into this, that it was so closely connected to the phantom power album with a lot of songs that now with the re-release of phantom power we're we're seeing alternate versions of you know mystery and some of these other songs which is really really neat to discover at the same time yeah i agree with that i i delved pretty deeply into the the poetry book and it was amazing how many references to hip songs especially of that era um but even dating back to the early nineties with some live shows and how long this material had incubated. I bought, I don't know which album, but it came with a recording of a concert in 94. And there are several references that made their way into the poetry or into the lyrics of some of the songs.Track 3:[14:31] It's not on the music album, but it's in the, I think it's the first poem in the book was was bumblebee what is now bumblebee as the bonus track from phantom power right um the usa today bit was in this concert in 94 and it took you know years for that to come out and and there are other references from that show that are that are in coke machine globe of the album and the book it's it's really interesting how long it took for all this stuff to, surface. You have to imagine though, that as, as a writer, you know, you're going to go into recording an album and, and, you know, Gord being primary, you know, after a time writer, you can end up with some stuff that just doesn't make it. And, you know, it's hard to let go of stuff. You know, if you've, if you've done any type of creation, I don't care if it's video creation or writing or poetry or songs or whatever, like it's hard to just let that stuff go. Cause it's, It's whether you're telling a story about yourself or something you experienced or, you know, you want to get it out there, especially if you're a creative person. So I imagine Gord had, you know, and you read all the time and you hear on the interviews and he carries around a notebook and is basically writing every day.Track 3:[15:47] So uh but it is it is amazing and especially being a hip fan to see you know i noticed that as well when i was listening to some of the bonus stuff like hey wait that's a hit song why is that on here yeah you know and then you got to go back and you got to find the album that it's on because i was like justin i i wasn't introduced until the hip you know until i think 2000 uh with a canadian friend that i worked with and then i actually took a trip up to vancouver and it was like there's hip everywhere and i was like this is what's this all about how come i don't know about these you know this this band so yeah you know that i i really kind of came into play during that time and and beyond so of course i love the stuff that that came before it but for me there's something about being a part of what gets released when you're you know i'm i'm buying the albums or cds as they're coming out and then i'm seeing the tour so you know of course that heavy content with with, with those particular albums. So yeah, I have to imagine a lot of that, uh, came back in, into this particular one. And I mean, how long was the band together before this came out? 12 years, something. Almost, almost 15 or 20, maybe.Track 3:[16:57] Yeah, well, yeah, from the very beginning, but since the recording stuff started, so, you know. 87, the first one came out in 87. Yeah. This, to me, it felt like a release valve for everything that Gord couldn't or wouldn't put on Hips. It wasn't polished, you know what I mean?Track 3:[17:18] And he had all, I mean, there's a hundred pages of poetry and all these songs that are, you know, objectively strange.Track 3:[17:27] Um, and I, I think it just stuff that he knew wouldn't fly on a hip album that he had carried with him for years. And like I said, that show in 94 that he was work workshopping this stuff and it didn't make the cut with the band. So let's use it up now. Now, I'm very curious, as we get into the songs, to hear what you guys are thinking about some of these songs in their objective strangeness, as you put it, Justin. Or, you know, are some of them hip-adjacent? Are there any on here that you think, you know, the band could have put together? Obviously, other than the last track, which they did, and we can compare and contrast that when we get there. But are we ready to go into this record track by track? Let's do it. All right, we start with Star Painters. Who wants to kick this one off?Track 3:[18:29] Well, I'll take it. Yeah, Star Painters to me was like a palate cleanser. This was like Gord saying, this is not a hip album. And right off the bat, it's, it's a little strange. Uh, you got the accordion and, um, you know, the almost like a spoken word type thing. And yeah, it's just very obviously not the hip. So the first line, um, is, uh, ended up in music at work with freak turbulence. The myth is neither here nor there. So there are definitely, you know, there's some continuity there. And I think those two albums came out the same year. Didn't they? 2000. Coke Machine Glow was 2001 Okay well But Very close Very close They were likely recorded Right around the same time Yeah Yeah.Track 3:[19:19] There are themes that do persist for sure. But yes, this is not a hip song to be clear. I agree. And Craig, yeah, I think you hit it right on the head. You know, Gord was like, hey, come along for the ride, but this is going to be something different.Track 3:[19:40] And I really appreciate it. I mean, and I've heard that this song actually turned people away, right? Right. Like they didn't want to give it any more of a listen because of it. And, you know, I can say, yeah, I can say that, you know, for me again, I'm hip starved. So I'm actually really surprised at myself that I didn't dive in at the time and that that it really took this project to, you know, get me to start paying attention. Attention and at first it was difficult you know obviously this song but the entire album was like you're like you wanted a little more hip but then you had to understand you know what he needed to get out this song honestly for me is is one of my favorites off of the album and i'll tell you why it's the line the star painters are taking over now the scaffolding is in place your anesthesiologist tonight is washing up and on her way like i heard that and i just stopped and smoking your joint.Track 3:[20:50] Packing it up yeah getting the next one it it it it's it's it's gordon it's it's it's the, this is this song this album is not going to be for the faint of heart and uh and you know strap in like you said buckle up so i i had never heard anything by the dinner is ruined but you know trying to dive into to see what these guys are about the avant-garde and very strange ambient sounds and there's uh accordion and all kinds of weird stuff and that's very much dinner is ruined i i did listen to them um during this process and with that in mind on On the rest of the album, they feel pretty restrained compared to what they would normally have written or put out. But I think on this first one, they're just kind of like, to hell with this. We're going to do what we're doing. Yeah, sequencing is so important. You know, when you make a record, there's no accident that this song is first, like Greg said. You know, that sort of palate cleanser, introducing what the concept of this record is going to be. And you're right like if you came here expecting fully completely part two you know you're barking up the wrong fucking tree so there's that yeah vancouver divorce.Track 3:[26:08] Yeah, definitely a departure from the first track from Star Painters, right? This is a, I mean, almost written for radio hit. It's so easy to listen to and it's so addicting. The thing that really struck me, and it took me a couple of listens to hear it, but the bass is just one note over and over like a heartbeat, just a rhythm. And it's just the same note for 20, 25 seconds. And then, you know, it, it moves on from there, but, um, it was really, it was lovely. Um, but I, uh, one of the things that, that started to strike me and I don't know if it was Vancouver divorce or, or something else, but I think there's two schools of thought about this album. And again, this is a common theme with Gord Downie is it's either a little bit about Adolf Hitler or it's really a lot a bit about Adolf Hitler.Track 3:[27:13] There are so many ties to World War II throughout this album and the book and everything that Gord kind of does. Um, and I, I, I tried not to think about that going into all this, but it does, it does kind of get there, um, pretty quickly. I think, I don't know. I don't know if Vancouver has anything to do with the song or it's just, it fits well, you know, like the way that he explained writing Bob Cajun, it just, it rhymes. Right that's the town we're using you know i know in one of the live clips i saw before this song he said something about you know if if this couple can't make it in in paradise which in this case paradise is vancouver um debatable debatable maybe but um he um yeah then then i guess they can't make it anywhere yeah and i i didn't get any world war ii from it but i i didn't dive into lyrics quite as heavily i'm more of a music guy the lyrics are the last thing i digest when i listen to music so it takes me multiple listens um i don't typically read lyrics i like them to sort of hit me you know over the years um yeah did you guys get the uh the hortons reference.Track 3:[28:27] That one made me chuckle so the thing that i that i picked up on the hortons thing is he says sitting here at the hortons so you know this is important nobody sits at a tim hortons well they used to it used to be it used to be like a bar yeah oh yeah and it had lots of tables and chairs Yeah. And that's, that's far different from our experience with, with any Hortons chain down here. Yeah. Well, the thing that I think is interesting is that syllabically he could have said Tim Hortons, but instead he says the Hortons. The Hortons. I wonder if that's like to avoid the.Track 3:[28:57] Commercialism of saying Tim Hortons or like, it's just an interesting choice when it's the same number of syllables. Yeah. And I also think just, um, a lot of times Gord will choose a word that is almost unrhymable on purpose. And I think this is one of those cases Hortons. So it must be important and important. Yeah. It's, it's just, I love that. I love that. How about you, Kirk?Track 3:[29:21] What do you think? From a music standpoint? Cause like Craig, I, I, I do, do i i enjoy both and and and i'll end up reading lyrics as i go and and in this particular thing it was hard not to read uh a lyrics just to understand the connection as you're listening but this is one of those songs as well when when you think about it here you know how they recorded like holy crap how did they get that big of a sound out of what you you know at least in the the research that i did was very minimalist type of recording you know this kind of a squarish box and and and not really acoustically treated and you know in in you know you know in in the heart of toronto and all kinds of other stuff going on like i heard as well like they were being evicted and so they only had a certain time schedule to be able to get this recorded and then you hear the story about how like they're having a party downstairs and they're throwing couches around and gourd shows up and in his cowboy hat and goes uh hey would you guys mind you know being quiet for a little bit i'm i've tried to record i just can't imagine you're in that room and gourd down he walks in and says hey i'm recording tracks upstairs i think he was with kevin hearn from uh.Track 3:[30:36] You know uh bare naked ladies and and and uh and then they go back up and they record but just the fullness of this, this album. Um, and to me, I, you know, that's the thing I wanted to mention. Uh, uh, I believe it was this tune when you hear the keys, I don't know that Kevin got a credit on it, but I know he recorded a couple of tunes here. And so for me, I'm actually a pretty big BNL fan and I've seen them 20 times, something like that. But Kevin Hearns keys was very kind of prevalent. Um, and even if it wasn't him, you could, you could definitely hear the influence of it. So the powerfulness of this song is, is, is palpable for sure. Yeah. Yeah, looking it up, I think it was, sorry, it was, yeah, Jose Contreras played the organ on this tune. So he's the leader of By Divine Right, which is another very cool Canadian band that I remember listening to. I had their first album. But yeah, Kevin Hearn is definitely all over this album. Them yeah i gotta say as well from a lyrics perspective my money there's a phrase in this song that belongs on the podium along with you know it could have been the willow nelson could have been the wine you know taking advice from a prost or taking a compliment from a prostitute the line which by the way i play that song every night for my daughter at bedtime and my wife still Still haven't caught on yet.Track 3:[32:00] That's a good line. What the hell is this? You said it's art. Just fucking mirror it. Mirror. Yeah. Like you hang up your hat when you write a line like that. You just, you're done for the day. Put your briefcase together and you walk out the door, punch out, you know, that's a fucking great lyric. So I think, I think if, if I may, the, the person being divorced is an artist in this story. Right. right? And there are many references to art. There's the line, when the stampede's an optical course, when ancient train has hit old transient horse. And ancient train and old transient horse were capitalized. And I said, what the hell is that? So I deep dove that. And it is in reference to horse and train, which is a Canadian painting, which is based on a poem written by a South African anti-apartheid poet with the line and against a regiment. I oppose a brain and a dark horse against an armored train, which is just spectacular imagery.Track 3:[33:03] But again, tying in the art theme to the first line is such classic Gord Downie writing. Jesus Christ. Yeah. You've just blown my mind. Blown my mind. Like for real. This is track two. So get me. Yeah. Yeah. And I have to say too, the noise guitar at the end by I'm assuming Dale Morningstar is just amazing. I have a thing for loud, screechy feedback guitars. It just puts me in this state of zen for some reason. Like if you know the song Drown by Smashing Pumpkins, there's like four minutes of feedback at the end. And to me, that is so relaxing.Track 3:[33:45] I have that same thing written down, Craig. I have excellent screeching guitar going into and continuing through the third verse and out. One of the other things I have written down, though, I just want to share with you guys quickly. This is just sort of funny. When he says he's sitting at the Tim Hortons, or he's sitting at the Hortons, I know that's not true because on two occasions, I was walking down the Danforth and saw him sitting in the front bench of Timothy's Coffee, coffee, which is like a, like a Starbucks adjacent brand that doesn't exist anymore, but it used to. And it was minutes from his house. I didn't know where his house was, nor did I stalk him, but I knew it was in the area, like minutes away. And he would just sit there and he was sitting there with a, with a fucking notebook the one time and another time he was on a Mac book. But to me, it was, you know, one of those cool moments that I was like, I live in the same neighborhood. It's Gord Downie. This is so cool.Track 3:[34:41] Man, I wish that the Tim Hortons here in the States had a place to sit because mostly you just find them at a rest stop on the highway or you go in and you order a donut and you leave kind of establishment. No Hortons down here in California. I have to travel. Thankfully, I get to travel a lot for work. And if I see a Hortons, it's like, it's immediate picture and text to my family because we did a road trip and, you know, we went through Detroit and we went through Niagara and went through Toronto. And so my family fell in love with Tim Hortons. So is there a sponsor, right? JD? Oh yeah. The big sponsor. I'm eating Timbits right now.Track 3:[35:22] Mmm. Delicious Timbits. Thanks Tim Hortons. Um next up is uh sf song and to me this is like observational songwriting 101 to me i can just picture him under the covers of his hotel room with a pillow over his head trying to drown out the sound of this chambermaid tap tap tapping and knock knock knocking on the door it sounds as though and then him walking through the lobby and out into the front area of the phoenix hotel and he just describes everything he sees now i'm sure there's more to it than that but to me that's just beautiful.Track 3:[36:03] Yeah. Yeah. For me, one of my first shows was actually in San Francisco at the Fillmore West. And, um, you know, there's been some, you know, or so I've, so I've researched, there's been some pretty classic, uh, um, shows that have happened there. And, you know, I, I had a pretty, pretty amazing experience as well. I was with, with the Canadian friend that had, um, you know, introduced me to them and, and, uh, uh, but you, when I heard that song at first, I just immediately thought, you know, I'm like, hmm, I wonder if he was writing the song when he was there, when I saw him in 2000. And, uh, you know, whether he is or not, that's what I'm going to go, go to, go to bed with and stick to. I also noticed and really appreciated, um, uh, the breathing in the beginning of the song. Um, and then the reference towards the end, uh, about it, uh, uh, I miss my lung, Bob.Track 3:[37:04] That we talked about and, and, and, and then remembering the ads, remembering the ads that were going around at the time on the sides of buses and on, um, on, on billboards and, uh, you know, growing up in, in, in Southern California and, and, uh, seeing smoking ads. And then all of a sudden smoking ads start going away. And then you see the ad of, I miss my lung, Bob, or Bob, I miss my lung. I like to paraphrase. Yeah. I, uh, that's one of the lyrics I had to look up. I had no clue that was an actual thing. So that was pretty neat to, to come across those posters. I remember them from when I was a kid, of course, I'm East Coast, so it's not like they were around here, but I do remember seeing it on the news or something like that, the campaign.Track 3:[37:52] The other thing that struck me was Chambermaid and the references to Chambermaid, which are a continuation of Phantom Power, right? With vapor trails and escape as a hand. Right. Right. I also picked up on the click, click, click. You mentioned J.D. Off the top and those sounds. And he later on experimented with those types of things like drip, drip, drip and We Want to Be It and the chick, chick, chick of the matches in Seven Matches.Track 3:[38:24] Oh, wow. Yeah, it's just a little thing I picked up on. And also, I have a note here about just the low register, like just him singing in that beautiful low voice. And he, on this album, covers so many different subtleties in the way he uses his voice. Like a song like Coming Up Canada Geese, all of a sudden he's just a totally different singer, singing very um yeah almost like an indie indie rock singer yeah totally get that um you know also i think there's many examples of him singing in alter egos on on this record really expanding his repertoire you know as it were right like we start to hear him singing like this on the post phantom power records uh on occasion and um it's not startling because we're sort of used to it should we move on to trick rider only if you want me to cry right like this okay so this song says it's it's dedicated to c it's i believe it's his daughter I don't know. On the album that comes along with the new release, his daughter, I'm blanking on the name, starts with a C, reads this poem.Track 3:[39:53] So I'm guessing she was the girl on the horse.Track 3:[39:56] So I can't remember the name, Claire maybe or Chloe or I forget. Makes complete sense.Track 3:[40:04] I don't know this, so I'll ask it. How many kids does Gord have and are they spread out in age quite a bit? I don't know the second part of the question, but I know he's got four. There's Lou and Willow, who both played on his former partner's record, played keyboard and drums, respectively. And then there's Willow, who is an artist, like painter and jewelry artist, and she's very talented. She did the away as mind cover as well I did know that I think I think I asked that question because at the end you know of Gordon's life he did that interview with Peter Mansbridge, and talked about his son and got very emotional and his son was young he referenced his age and said he was quite young and this was 2016 or 17 whenever the interview was, and which would have been 15 years after this album came out.Track 3:[41:03] So, that's where my head went with how many, how old, just trying to put the puzzle pieces together. I was going to make mention when I was doing a little bit of research, there was a, uh, uh, you know, a fan video, uh, when, when I guess they toured this album and I believe they were actually in, uh, it might've been in Vancouver when they're playing it, but he was, you know, having an exchange with, with someone in the audience about, you know, uh, your nightlights on going to bed. And uh i think the fan might have been thinking that the song was about something else and and he referenced that right back to her very quickly in kind of a snide mark saying i don't think it means what you think it means about going to bed and and uh that stuck out to me it was you know one that he had no problems interacting with the fan and and kind of correcting them on on their interpretation uh of the song but it the song is is is beautiful and in so many different ways and you know all of us being fathers and and and having you know those experiences and and then obviously having the emotional tie-in with with gordon and what he's done with the band you know in the tragically hip and and and then with his solo stuff and and uh it it's it's gorgeous it's beautiful whatever adjective you can come up with that that uh you know brings that feeling to you.Track 3:[42:31] As a father in those moments when you're just you can't even can't even process i did this i had a hand in this and this human is is going to grow out into the world and And I'm a better human because of it. And to be able to, you know, put that, um, you know, in lyrics and in a song, uh, again, just adds to the, uh, adds to the amazement, uh, that that gentleman was able to give us.Track 3:[43:04] Yeah. And the vocal performance by both Gord and, uh, Julie Dwaran is, is so full that they have such control of their voices. Pitch perfect, emotional, just such a song. Her soft awe in the background puts this song over the top. It wouldn't be the song without her contribution to it. That's no disrespect to Gord, but the song isn't the same without Julie Dwaran. And I thought that my favorite father-daughter song was Thrown Off Glass from In Violet Light, But this one, my daughter is the one jumping off shit. She is trick riding 24 hours a day and I'm like, oh my God, kill me. Yeah. So I looked it up. It is Claire Downey who reads the poem on the new edition. So I'm guessing that's who C could be. Got to be.Track 3:[44:05] The song is way too personal for it not to be. is is julie did i understand that she's she did some stuff with the hip as well yeah, yeah she sang um in some live shows with them and i think was part of some tribute stuff at the end too i may be wrong um i know i know kate fenner was um on one tour as a backup music Music at work. But I feel like, I'm pretty sure I've read, yeah, that Julie was on, doing some backups on one of the albums. I could be wrong. Yeah, I remember that too. I feel like, maybe now for Plan A, possibly. That sounds right. I know, although I know... Oh, yeah. Oh, that's her name. Yeah.Track 3:[44:52] Also from Kingston. There's another woman who does now for planning the title track. Yeah, Sarah Harmer. She's the vocal on... Anyways, that's a different album, different band. Different podcast. Different podcast, yeah. Oh, and I have to... Last thing about Trick Rider for me is that slide guitar that just doesn't quite hit the note. I just love it. It's kind of that quarter tone or something. It reminds me of, if you know the Faith No More cover of Easy, right before the solo when Mike Patton goes up to the, ew, and almost like purposely is in between notes. I just think it's so neat. I was going to say both vocally and musically with a variety of instruments throughout several songs, obviously this one as well, is there's just that, it's not quite there, but it's also, it adds again to that character of the song. I heard something or read something about one of the musicians, I believe the guitar player that, that was part of this, like he hit a note and he, he would just beat the shit out of it until it became the note that was right for the song, whether it started off right or not, he, it, it was going to become that.Track 3:[46:03] And, and I love that thought or that prospect, right? We get so, we get so caught up in, Oh, everything's got to be perfect. I got to tune my guitar up exactly right. I've got to have the mic place perfectly. And I've got to have, you know this tonality and and sometimes it's just good to just just let it go and let that emotion come through more so than you know the technical note of itself yeah yeah there's no such thing as a wrong note if it's you know played with with with confidence and intention and yeah yeah so next we go to a song that i think could totally be a hip jam to me this song he's singing It's the first song on the record where he's singing in a tone in a register that we recognize.Track 3:[49:09] So Craig, you said it, um, this is punk rock and Gord loved punk rock, right? Yeah. Yeah. Um, but it's old guy punk rock. Like it's, it's, this is guys who are not punk rockers anymore trying to, to do punk or at least the story, right.Track 3:[49:26] Um, within the song. And, and I'm not saying that about the musicians that played the song. I'm saying that about the story Gord tells here that, you know, they're, they're, they're buying weed from each other in a cornfield, right? In the dark you know um like i can picture my old man and his uncles or and his brothers my uncles just you know hiding from the cops at age 50 55 years old just feeling like be cool man shut up uh i love this song yeah great song i i gotta say i'll take the bullet guys here's my first criticism even though as much as i love um how they recorded it my goodness gracious i needed the drummer to use some sticks and not brushes like i needed to feel that those drums coming through in this song and and to make it punk rock like it was like they they you know hey let's find the jazz drummer to do the punk song um and not that it didn't serve it well and it's a in fact probably what i would have liked was that drum track with the brushes and another drum track on.Track 3:[50:35] Top of it with sticks and then also maybe adding the mics to get more of the tonality of the drums but again now that's just the music guy and me going i wanted to hear that i needed to hear that snap i needed to hear that crack i needed to hear the pop right sorry gonna use a uh a breakfast cereal reference but um i i i i wanted that for this song still love it it's It's funny because it opens on snare hits. Right.Track 3:[51:08] Yeah. But if I'm not mistaken and I'll, I'll completely eat my words, I believe they use brushes throughout Craig. Do you, did you go that deep or what did you think? I didn't, but I know for me, I definitely noticed that it, it, it felt like it should be heavier but i think that's part of what gave the song character was those heavy guitars that almost sounded like they were played at a low volume in a room jamming and i i thought it just gave it a unique character and and i have to say though my favorite part is actually at the end when when all of a sudden i actually picked up a guitar today just to see what was going on with this and and they go up from you know they're playing and you know you're one four five e e b and a and then um they go right up they just go up to that f and i know the first time i heard it it's just just so striking it just sounds so out of place and then after you've heard the song a couple times just so perfect such a such a great dissonance and.Track 3:[52:05] Really really um almost like a two you know 2000s indie rock feel almost like an arcade fire kind of three years before arcade fire was doing it kind of thing so wow it felt like a one take demo to me and they said fuck it it's good like run it i like that we'll do it live yeah me too do it we'll do it keep it but kirk yeah i think um it would be really interesting to see what the hip would have done with with that song like a fully polished yeah you know but but i felt the same about the next song chandler um you're listening to it again today in fact and again was like man with some different instrumentation you know change changing the tempo a bit on this is this is absolutely the uh potentially a hip song uh for me you know uh and uh yeah hard hard not to uh go into you know as he speaks about letting the opening the window inviting the vampires in and if i'm not mistaken this this song did pretty well was it a single.Track 3:[53:15] I don't think any of the solo stuff did particularly well. It was sort of under the radar, especially after this record came out. This record was highly anticipated, but I think early on the word got out that it wasn't hip, and so there were a lot of hip people that jumped up. A lot of people stayed on board, don't get me wrong. but um there was a good cohort that sort of veered away and it's interesting that the sum of the parts you know um the hip are it just goes to show you how magical they are as a as a fivesome because you take one component away you know and it's just not the same like gort sinclair's solo record is dynamite so are you know paul's three records they're really really good but they're not the hip yeah you know so i'm just and i think this is where i got it from i'm just you know looking looking up on spotify and if you go to gordonie this song has the most downloads of all the solo stuff oh okay so that that makes a lot of sense yeah i know there's a there's definitely a video for this yeah yeah but i i don't recall ever hearing.Track 3:[54:31] This song anything from this album on the radio i i had i did hear some later songs um but definitely not that you know that i heard so this is where hitler comes in big time um the.Track 3:[54:47] Hitler had a very odd sleeping pattern. He stayed up very late and would go to bed at like 6, 6.30 in the morning and then get up at noon and just spend his whole day working out maps and plans and this is where the advancement is and all this stuff. And there are so many, if you read between the lines references about the night of a thousand missteps, the loss that made him dogged, or it could have been the doggedness that caused the loss in the first place.Track 3:[55:18] And Chancellor, I mean, that was Hitler's position, you know? Wow. Marching armies in the night, smiling strangers riding by on bikes. That would be, you know, when the allies come into Paris or something, you know? Children's smoking, which there was a huge anti-smoking campaign in Germany during World War II, sloganeers. And he mentions in one of the first lines, invite the vampire in, open the windows before we go to bed to get the coldest air in the room, which is just before the sun comes up. And then at the end, talking about a few things that vampires don't like, all the things referenced between the vampire references are Hitler-ish things. So I don't know it that's that's where my head went and then um before you are wow i know that but but damn it i'm following gordon's path you know and he like i said he references justin you're taking us into dark places my friend and the word chancellor for me it was like hmm and then i started to kind of read into it and i was like yikes and by the way guys spoiler alert this won't be the last time i talk about hitler during this thing not that i love him let's put that out there but there are There are some real references to the war throughout this album. Yeah, that's really interesting.Track 3:[56:41] My mind went a completely different direction. I was thinking like a chancellor of a university. And again, I didn't read the lyrics. I didn't dig that deeply in. But it was funny because my daughter really likes this song. We kept playing in the car and I was explaining what a chancellor of a university was. And she said, oh, I thought it was like Chancellor Palpatine. Wow. and it turns out she was she was the right one yeah i guess she was she was closer than i was yeah wow look at that cross my read is so completely vastly different again my read is like bittersweet and romantic uh the chorus yeah i couldn't be a chancellor without you on my mind if i wasn't if i wasn't obsessed with you or thinking about you all the time time. Um, you know, who knows what I could have become. And on the, and in the video, isn't he riding around? He's on the swan boats. It's just, it does not make me. Swans. Yeah. Yeah. He does not make me, uh, feel like, like, uh, like he's referenced, referencing world war two, but that's fascinating. I can't wait to hear it again now.Track 3:[57:49] But at the end of that video, if you watch the full video at the very end, he's, it's revealed that he is the guy working the dock at the, at the swan boats and he takes off his coat and underneath it is a uniform that says guy. And he's the one taking the coins or the tokens or whatever for the people to ride the swan boats. So it's kind of like, uh.Track 3:[58:13] You know, when Hitler was a struggling artist before he became this global force and kind of took control, you know, he was romanticizing the idea of, of being chancellor of Germany. Wow yeah wow and i don't know wow reference to it or yes it's dark man because and again think of think of uh the song scared every hip show you go to everybody's everybody's slow dancing that's not a slow dance it's like we talked about in the other podcast it's like yeah that's the hips trick right or it's gorge yeah yeah 38 years old same thing long running same thing fiddler's green you know and and on and on and on these slow slow songs are are yeah miserable yeah and i have to say good yeah yeah yeah yeah and and the the vocal phrasing that the gourd uses on this just that, laid back where he just sort of hesitates on certain words i just just love it he's so unique that way. I think that's what separates him as a singer, is that phrasing.Track 3:[59:22] Oh, yeah. This is a really hard album to sing. And you guys are musicians and you play guitar and other instruments. I've always been a singer. And I cannot keep up with Gord on this album. I just can't. Like the chorus of this song, like, I'm discovering uses for you. But the way he throws uses for you together, it's like, it's almost like one overlaps the other. And it's like, that's impossible. And then on the more quaint side, I love that he rhymes pajamas by mispronouncing in a gourd-like way windows to rhyme with pajamas, right? Instead of windows. Oh, so great. By the way, that uses line, again, going back to Hitler's underlings, you know, doing experiments on twins and stuff like that. Like, this is, I think this is a dark one. I'm going to listen to it again tonight. And I can't wait to hear it. No.Track 3:[1:00:19] I hope I'm wrong. I think you're right. No, we know he likes the Second World War.Track 3:[1:00:26] And, you know, we've heard references to, you know, Nazis moving works of art or Russians moving works of art, you know, to stave off the Nazi army. And really quick, sorry, really quick shout out for the piano player. I'm guessing it was um hern but but man that piano is is really nice improvised piano solo yeah yeah it's a very sweet sounding song yeah bait and switch man yeah he got us the never ending present i was listening and and if you're a you know canadian of my age you knew right away who was singing backup so that was Stephen Drake because my mind went right to Wendy under the stars and um and you know right back to my you know my first car and being you know 16 years old and listening to the radio and and hearing the odds for the first time and and yeah just an unmistakable voice the harmonies are very distinct you know distinctly the odds and distinctly The one thing that I picked up was he mentioned his shoes were polished, which as we learned in the longtime running doc that he polished his shoes before every show.Track 3:[1:01:46] So I think he's talking about himself and it's kind of an introspective – I mean, he says I in every song, but I think this one might actually be about himself personally.Track 3:[1:02:00] I picture him standing on Broadview Avenue waiting for the streetcar. He says bus, but in my head it's a streetcar. And all the rest of the lyrics are the stuff that happens until the bus crashes the hill. Him dropping money inside the little money grabber on a bus. There's talk of that um but what i really what i really love about this song is how ahead of his time he is because this is like living in the present like being in the moment is so important and i've learned like through my mental wellness journey like how important it is to live in the moment and the idea that the moment can be never ending if you come about it with the right frame in my mind is so refreshing to hear. Amen. And of course they named the, um, uh, Michael Barclay wrote the book with using the title of the song.Track 3:[1:03:05] Sorry, I'm going to take a little detour off of this that I just have to bring up being, being the, uh, for the South American and someone that, uh, uh, you know, again, was always starving for hip. I've loved in this journey, discovering other Canadian bands. You guys were mentioning the odds. And, you know, I did the research a little bit on the dinner's ruined. And of course, you know, of the real statics from, you know, grace too. And we're all richer for having heard them. And, um, uh, I'm, I'm very excited, you know, during this to be able to take a dive into that music that I never got. Right. Cause I like Justin, you were lucky because you get a lot of that music, uh, in the Northeast.Track 3:[1:03:49] Um, no, no, no, we only get the hip and rush. Rush. There's no Canadian music except for the hip and Rush. I will say that. And Alanis, of course. but to do as a you know as a musician and and and being a big fan of many canadian bands you know rush is up there for me bare naked ladies is up there for me um obviously the tragic the hip is up there for me um but these other bands uh blue rodeo that has i think a little bit of a a um you know it did well here in the states um of course alanis and some of the others you know i want to I know more about the, uh, the ones that didn't get, uh, similar, similar stories to the tragically happened. And I'm really excited about taking that journey as well. And I love that, you know, that's one of the things that I've heard about in different, uh, uh, reading and, and interviews is Gord was such a proponent of getting, I mean, music out there, but, but specifically, obviously Canadian music and, and giving, you know, these, these not as well-known bands an opportunity.Track 3:[1:04:56] So, um, sorry, I just needed to take that little side journey there and, and, and share that with you guys. I'm with you. I'm with you a hundred percent. Just going off what you were saying, yeah, apparently Gord would actually stand side stage and watch a lot of these bands. Like he would just stay there for the whole set. And all these bands, you know, Eric's Trip and The Odds, they were all change of heart. They all played with the hip.Track 3:[1:05:23] And for me, it's been fun because I've been doing the same thing. I was listening to The Odds last night and I couldn't believe how many hit songs they had. You know they're a band i enjoyed but never really really got into i think i've seen them live a couple times but man they had their pop song they were yeah that's exactly it they were they're you know pop writing you know machines but yeah i'm excited i'm excited about the journey for sure and and especially getting connected with you guys and having the experience you know know, uh, um, uh, being from Canada and, and, and really experiencing that not only on the radio, but, but live as well, that, uh, that's going to be a great journey. Cause isn't it great when you go to see, you know, you go to see one of your favorite bands and the opener shows up, you never heard of them. And, and all of a sudden they become, you know, one of your favorites and you're, you're falling around and, you know, and then it's always hard if they do make it, you're kind of like, man, that was my band, but I liked it when they were small, you know, I want them to be big, but not that big. I, that's, I mean, I mentioned it with, with the hip, you know, like all my experiences and I got to see them, I don't know, seven, seven, eight times, something like that.Track 3:[1:06:36] Like the biggest venue I saw them in was, was probably 1200 people. And, um, you know, the Troubadour, I got to see them in and, and, and up in San Francisco, the Fillmore's, you know, it's, it's over a thousand, uh, might be closer to actually, I'm not sure. I'll have to look that up. But the thing that I loved about it is, you know, I'm a hockey guy. And I think I mentioned the story to, to you, JD, like we're close to the ducks and the Kings and, and most hockey teams are, you know, 50 plus percent, if not close to 70% Canadians. And so I'd go to a show, I'd be in Hollywood and I'd look over and be like, Oh, Hey, look, there's Luke Robitaille or, you know, Oh, there's Chris Pronger. There's, you know, Scott Niedermeyer, you know, I'm hanging it out and oh oh hey paul korea how's it going you like the hip too you know and um what an experience and then canadian actors as well i got to meet dan akroyd at at the house of blues hollywood and he introduced the hip on stage and then you know he's rat so uh you know for me it's so weird um when you talk of this band they were a club band to me you know i i've seen what they've done and where they've played. And so anyway, I I'm, I'm taking us off the, the album, but just wanted to share that with, with you gents. No, that's cool.Track 3:[1:08:04] So now we take a hard, right. And, um, we get the track, the soundscape, uh, nothing but heartache in your social life.Track 3:[1:11:14] Did you say a hard right or a hard Reich? Because again, the Hitler.Track 3:[1:11:20] I'm serious. So again, this goes back to the poetry and there's a poem called Toiletten in the book and it is about Hitler's, I'm not even inferring this, this is about Hitler's podium at Zeppelin Field in Nuremberg and it now has signs pointing tourists to the toilet. Um, and the, uh, similarities between that poem and this song or spoken word, whatever, um, it's a hundred percent about that. And Gord even stumbles on a lyric that they, that they leave in the song, um, when the podium sprouting weeds and he stumbles on rendered ridiculous by the time. So the podium is this massive concrete structure that when you see film of Hitler speaking to 150,000, 200,000 Germans during wartime, that's where this is. But it's still there, and it's sprouting weeds, and the podium and its purpose have been rendered ridiculous by the times. When are you thinking of disappearing? I mean, when are you falling off the map when the unknown that you're fearing is in the clearing? That's totally about surrendering in the war and the allied forces moving across the field to wipe out the Nazis.Track 3:[1:12:46] When you're getting king-size satisfaction in the turnstiles of the night from all the shaky pill transactions, if that's not Jewish prisoners going to a concentration camp running down the train tracks in the middle of the night. I don't know what it is. It's, again, a very dark thing, and I think it leads to Hitler's suicide. That's when are you thinking of disappearing? Yeah.Track 3:[1:13:16] And it is interesting to note that the asterisk that comes with the title in the lyrics, it says Dale Morningstar provided echoing screams at the end of the song. It doesn't just say backing vocals or call and answer. It's echoing screams. I was wondering who was calling back and forth with them. They kind of sound like, even though the topic sounds quite serious, they're having some fun with it. At the end kind of yelling back and forth with each other and um and also of note um adam agoyan the filmmaker plays plays uh the classical guitar on this track and and one other track and so he's uh i think i read that that maybe this song was sort of based off some some things he brought in, came into the studio one day and they they sort of riffed off what he was doing and put this sort of spoken word. I also got, I don't know if you guys got this, but I almost got like an M&M vibe, like just like attitude wise. And of course I believe this would have been before M&M anyways, but, but just that, that sort of attitude and way he was rattling off these lines.Track 3:[1:14:29] Yeah, I get it. Absolutely. So the other me, you know, I was trying to get my, my head out of World War II with this, and it was easy to see in 2024 that Gord predicted the future of social media, right? This is before Facebook and MySpace and all this stuff, but this is 100% in line with everybody's mental health problems stemming from not having enough likes on their posts, right? This could absolutely be interpreted 20 plus years later in that way, if you were to look at it from that angle. Yeah, I...Track 3:[1:15:13] Obviously still like absorbing everything in the referencing that you're speaking of, uh, Hitler and world war two and, and how, you know, JD and Craig were like, didn't necessarily get that right away. I, I definitely, you know, heard the references. I, I knew of the references from some of the hip tunes. Um and uh and then just seeing this whole journey that he's taking with just coming out there with a solo album in the first place and then you hear about how um and again it's it's you know i don't know the exact i haven't spoken with the other members but some of the solo stuff really caused a bit of a rift within the band and then if you start thinking about the product of the hip you You know, this is where a big portion of their fan base starts turning away.Track 3:[1:16:04] And I wonder if that tension came through in some of the music. For me and you, Justin, we discovered them during this time. And like most bands, you don't become close to them. And, you know, I'll take a few exceptions. You know, Led Zeppelin. I wasn't there when the albums came out. But the band meant a lot to me later in life. But nothing like, I'll give an example of other bands, Rush and Barenaked Ladies. I went to those shows when those albums came out, same thing with The Hip, as it relates to 2000 and beyond. And so my reference point is there. Um, and then Gord goes off and decides to, to do this solo work. And, um, and not only does he does the solo work, but he starts taking that poetry side in the book that comes out along with it. He starts throwing in spoken word and we could spend a lot of time with the discussion about poetry versus spoken word versus lyrics versus, um, uh, you know, the, the, the written prose and, and, and where it all comes together and the different attitudes towards it. Um, but I, I'm, I'm honestly kind of shaking inside just thinking about the, the ability that, that Gord has to take a historical perspective.Track 3:[1:17:23] Area and put it into a spoken word and or song. But then in the same breath, depending on how you come at it, you get something completely different. If you don't know those references specifically, you're going to find something from a meaningful standpoint. So sorry. I mean, you really got me goosebumps in there, Justin. Well, I think that if I had never read lyrics from the hip, I would never have approached it from this angle.Track 3:[1:17:51] But it's kind of hard to not look at some of that stuff. He did an interview in the early 90s with some TV, whatever, and they said, what are your songs about? And he said, all of our songs are about war. And I remember seeing that on YouTube about 10 or a dozen years ago and thinking, oh, okay. Now, whether he was speaking Speaking of literal war or a relationship or conflict within the band or whatever, family, something, but there's a struggle or something that needs to be resolved in each one of these songs. And so I've, for better or worse, looked at a lot of hip stuff from that point forward, whatever year it was, as is Gord talking about literal war here. And that's just where I picked up on. Was he a history-type major? Did he have family that maybe participated in the war? There is a short poem in the book that is about his grandfather serving in World War II.Track 3:[1:18:56] Yeah, I could see that. Both my grandparents served in World War II, and I was a history major, and so I can see where that tie comes from.Track 3:[1:19:08] I hope we can move past the war stuff soon. Thanks justin yeah anything else from you craig well yeah i know i have nothing to add other than i love the little bait like bass kind of jazz odyssey thing that steven drake goes off on at the end if you if you notice the last like five seconds he just does this little improvised producer as well noodle it's pretty right bass player yes yes yeah engineering okay engineer anyways yeah Yeah, engineer. Well, that's what we got for you for this first episode. We're going to take a break and recuperate and recalibrate and take some electrolytes and we'll be back. Now, pick up your shit.

A legendary four night run with Miles Davis opening up for the Grateful Dead in the Fillmore West. Thank you Bill Graham. The Miles show on 4-10-70 was recorded and released as a double album, Black Beauty. The April 12 Dead show features a batch of new tunes as well as monster versions of Dancin in the Street, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, and Viola Lee Blues.

Rock Icon Carmine Appice drops by to chat about Vanilla Fudge history and their local tour dates in the NorthEast in May! Carmine was in various bands after Vanilla Fudge, including Cactus, Beck, Bogart and Appice, Rod Stewart, King Cobra, Blue Murder and even toured with Ozzy Osbourne! Vanilla Fudge was one of the first American groups to infuse psychedelia into a heavy rock sound to create “psychedelic symphonic rock” an eclectic genre which would, among its many offshoots, eventually morph into heavy metal. Although, at first, the band did not record original material, they were best known for their dramatic heavy, slowed-down arrangements of contemporary pop songs which they developed into works of epic proportion. Originally, Vanilla Fudge was a blue-eyed soul cover band called The Pigeons, formed in  1965 with organist, Mark Stein, bassist, Tim Bogert and drummer, Joey Brennan, and guitarist, vocalist and US Navy veteran, Vince Martell. They built a following by gigging extensively up and down the East Coast, and earned extra money by providing freelance in-concert backing for hit-record girl groups. In early 1966, the group recorded a set of eight demos that were released several years later as “While the World Was Eating Vanilla Fudge.”In 1968, Vanilla Fudge headlined the Fillmore West with Steve Miller. The group then performed “You Keep Me Hangin' On” on The Ed Sullivan Show, and released their second album, “The Beat Goes On.” Despite its avant-garde conceptualization and execution, the LP was a hit and climbed into the Top Twenty. That summer, Atco reissued “You Keep Me Hangin' On,” and the second time around it climbed into the Top Ten. It was followed by Renaissance, one of Vanilla Fudge's best albums, which also hit the Top Twenty. The band had three albums in the Top One Hundred, two of which were in the Top Twenty and one in the Top Five Single. The band toured with Jimi Hendrix, played dates equal billed or headlined with groups such as Cream, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, among many others; late in the year, they toured with the fledgling Led Zeppelin as their opening act.For more  on Vanilla Fudge click on the linkhttps://vanillafudge.com

Bill Bigelow takes us on a journey through the heart of the Bay Area's legendary music scene, where the melodies of the Grateful Dead once danced through iconic venues like the Carousel Ballroom and the Fillmore West. As we explore his stories, from the Beatles to Bob Dylan, we witness the origins of a community united by music. Bill's encounters with the Dead's intimate shows and his insights into their ever-evolving relationship with promoter Bill Graham offer a rare glimpse into the spirit of an era defined by transformative sounds and kinship.The air of a Grateful Dead concert was electric with camaraderie and the unexpected, like the time Bob Weir handed out tuna sandwiches or a compassionate security guard went above and beyond. Our episode captures those moments, the surge of energy during a "Dark Star" transition into "St. Stephen," and pays homage to the irreplaceable Pigpen. These concerts weren't just about music—they were a space where memories and lifelong bonds were forged, where each song became a collective heartbeat shared by everyone in the room.Venture with us into the crossroads of social justice and music education, where the Zinn Education Project www.zinnedproject.org meets the anti-apartheid anthem "Sun City." We remember the voices that sang for change, like Little Steven and Bruce Springsteen, and the blues artists elevated by Bonnie Raitt. To cap it off, we discover the hypnotic fusion of North African rhythms and rock through the artistry of Bombino, drawing parallels to Jimi Hendrix and celebrating the joy of unraveling new sounds that continue to reshape our musical world. Join us for an episode that's not just a nod to the past, but also an embrace of the future's endless possibilities in sound.Rethinking Schools - rethinkingschools.orgThis episode is sponsored by ShakedownTshirts.com with unique lot-style T-shirts and gifts for Grateful Dead, Phish, Zappa, Panic, and more. All US orders over $35 Ship Free. Use code "Lot20" for 20% off any order.Summer Tour - The Game | Kickstarter Launch Date May 12!www.summertourthegame.com Support the show

Show #1044 Spring Swing 01. Bastards Of Soul - It's Gonna Be Alright (3:07) (Give It Right Back, Skylark Soul Co., 2024) 02. Anthony Geraci - Judge Oh Judge (5:43) (Tears In My Eyes, Blue Heart Records, 2024) 03. Otis Grand - Waiting for the Hard Times to Go (7:45) (Nothing Else Matters..., Sequel Records, 1994) 04. Jennifer Lyn & the Groove Revival - Going Round In Circles (3:45) (Live From The Northern Plains, J&R Collective, 2024) 05. Blind Lemon Pledge - Cora Lee (3:08) (Oh So Good, Ofeh Records, 2024) 06. Elliott Sharp's Terraplane - Twenty Dollar Bill (4:59) (Single, Delmark Records, 2024) 07. John Primer & Bob Corritore - Feel Like Going Home (6:48) (Crawlin' Kingsnake, SWMAF/VizzTone Records, 2024) 08. Sue Foley - Mal Hombre (4:28) (One Guitar Woman, Stony Plain Records, 2024) 09. Stephen Foster & Howler - Leland (4:58) (Southern, self-release, 2022) 10. Krissy Matthews - Queen (3:53) (Krissy Matthews & Friends, Ruf Records, 2024) 11. Ted Russell Kamp - Hanging On Blues (4:28) (California Son, KZZ Records, 2024) 12. Rick Vito - Sliding Into Blue (3:46) (Cadillac Man, Blue Heart Records, 2024) 13. Bart Bryant - Past The Pain (3:48) (Backstage II, Horizon Music Group, 2024) 14. Rï Wolf & the Prairie Hawks - Sinner (3:31) (Rï Wolf & the Prairie Hawks, self-release, 2024) 15. Cinelli Brothers - Ain't Blue But I Sigh (5:25) (Almost Exactly, Coast To Coast, 2024) 16. Rick Estrin & The Nightcats - Time For Me To Go (4:29) (The Hits Keep Coming, Alligator Records, 2024) 17. Nick Gravenites with Pete Sears - Blues Back Off Of Me (4:53) (Rogue Blues, MC Records, 2024) 18. Paul Butterfield Blues Band - Born In Chicago (3:06) (Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Elektra Records, 1965) 19. Michael Bloomfield - Carmelita Skiffle (5:16) (Live At Bill Graham's Fillmore West, Columbia Records, 1969) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

"Grateful Dead's Notable Tracks from 1977 plus a cure for Female Orgasmic Disorder"Larry Mishkin covers the Grateful Dead show from March 18th, 1977, at the Winterland arena in San Francisco, showcasing notable performances of songs like "Sugaree" and "Peggy-O." He delves into the history and significance of these songs within the Grateful Dead repertoire. Additionally, the discussion extends to the cannabis industry, highlighting the financial strategies of marijuana companies to minimize tax obligations under Section 280E of the IRS Code. He also touches on the opening of Nevada's first legal marijuana consumption lounge, signaling a shift in cannabis regulations in the state. Finally, Larry addresses the proposal to add Female Orgasmic Disorder (FOD) as a qualifying condition for medical marijuana use in Illinois, reflecting evolving perspectives on cannabis as a therapeutic option for various health conditions. Grateful DeadMarch 18, 1977 (47 years ago)Winterland, S.F.Grateful Dead Live at Winterland Arena on 1977-03-18 : Free Borrow & Streaming : Internet Archive TITLE:  1977 Winterland:  The Dead Bust Out Fire On The Mountain and Take Their One and Only Attempt At Terrapin Flyer. Just a month after the Swing Auditorium show that we previewed a few weeks ago, Dead went home to Winterland for a string of shows.  This one stands out for a few reasons that we will get to as the show goes on. INTRO:                 Sugaree                                Track #4                                7:25 – 9:05               "Sugaree" is a song with lyrics by long-time Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter and music by guitaristJerry Garcia.[1] It was written for Jerry Garcia's first solo album Garcia, which was released on January 20, 1972. As with the songs on the rest of the album, Garcia plays every instrument himself except drums, played by Bill Kreutzmann, including acoustic guitar, bass guitar, and an electric guitar played through a Leslie speaker. Released as a single from the Garcia album, "Sugaree" peaked at #94 on the Billboard Hot 100 in April 1972 and was Garcia's only single ever on that chart.Elizabeth Cotten, a North Carolinafolksinger, wrote and recorded a song called "Shake Sugaree" in 1966.[3] The chorus of Cotten's song is "Oh lordie me/Didn't I shake sugaree?" Hunter was aware of this song when he wrote "Sugaree."The song was first performed live by the Grateful Dead on July 31, 1971, at the Yale Bowl at Yale University, as was the song "Mr. Charlie".  The Dead played it 362 times in concert.  Last played on July 8, 1995 at Soldier Field in Chicago.                 A classic rocking Dead tune, usually a first set number, I've seen it as a show opener, first set closer, and encore.  In this clip they really rock it but it's only a small peak at this 15 minute version of the tune.  Well worth pulling it down on Archive and checking out the entire number.  You won't be sorry.  SHOW No. 1:    Peggy-O                                Track #6                                4:20 – 6:00                          Traditional, credit for the Grateful Dead version generally go to Jerry but some say Bill had a hand in writing it.              This song derives from the earlier Scottish traditional song Bonnie Lass of Fyvie-o. Fyvie is thought to have been a staging post between Aberdeen and Fort George in Scotland. This song does occur with a number of title variations. It is possible that Fennario is a corruption of Fyvie-o.Similar traditional songs also occurred in the UK; Handsome Polly O and Bonny Barbara O, though these are less similar to the modern Peggy-O song.The title Peggy-O is used on Grateful Dead recordings. The version of Peggy-O that is included in the Jerry Garcia box set All Good Things is a previously unreleased studio recordings from Spring 1979 and is given the title Fennario. The Fennario title is also used on concert recordings of The Dead and Phil Lesh & Friends.Although not released on a Dead studio album, the song was included on the remastered recordings of both Terrapin Station and Go To Heaven.The Grateful Dead first performed Peggy-O in December 10, 1973 at the Charlotte Coliseum in N.C.. It was then played in every year through to 1995 usually no more than a dozen times each year though it was played more regularly during the 1977 to 1981 period. Played a total of 265 times. The last performance was on July 5, 1995 at the Riverport Amphitheatre in Maryland Heights, MO (just outside of St. Louis).In this clip, I really enjoy Jerry's strong voice, the solid jamming and some stealth piano contributions from Keith. SHOW No. 2:    Fire On The Mountain                                Track # 9                                1:46 – 3:30                 Hunter/Hart (not Jerry!)                 Released on Shakedown Street on November 8, 1978, last song on first side of album.                 First time ever played – one of the reasons I chose this show over a number of other great shows on this date – others include a smokin “early” Dead show in 1967 at Winterland and 1971 at the Fox Theater in St. Louis coming fast on the heels of the Dead's epic six night Capitol Theater run in Port Chester in late February. This is another of those songs with a long and complicated genesis story, perhaps not worth getting into too much detail about here, but the rough outlines at least are important to note. The lyrics, according to Robert Hunter in Box of Rain, were “Written at Mickey Hart's ranch in heated inspiration as the surrounding hills blazed and the fire approached the recording studio where we were working.”Hart, credited with the music for the song, recorded a proto-rap version of the song for an unreleased album entitled Area Code 415, recorded in 1972 and 1973. It was also included on a Mickey Hart album entitled Fire on the Mountain, recorded in 1973-74. It appeared as an instrumental entitled “Happiness is Drumming” on Hart's 1976 studio album, Diga. And it finally began showing up in the Grateful Dead repertoire, sung by Jerry Garcia, in 1977, undergoing a number of variants of the lyrics until it settled into the form that was eventually recorded and released on Shakedown Street, in November 1978. There's a lot of other detail I haven't mentioned—possibly worthy of some historian taking it apart piece by piece, but you get the rough idea.On March 18, 1977 at Winterland Arena, San Francisco. "Fire" appeared for the first time, closing the first set, following its eternal partner, "Scarlet Begonias." This combination of tunes, which frequently enclosed some wonderful jamming, came to be known as "Scarlet Fire." There were a handful of occasions on which “Fire” appeared without “Scarlet Begonias,” but not many. approx 15 out of the total 253 performances. It remained steadily in the repertoire from then on, and was played for the final time on July 2, 1995, at the Deer Creek Music Center in Noblesville, Indiana.This clip being the song's first live performance and almost a year and half before it's commercial release, there are noticeable differences between this version and the one we al know and love.  But they go there very quickly as only two months later on May 8, 1977 the Dead played the Barton Hall show that many declare to be the best Dead show ever.  While that may or may not be true, what is true is that the version of Scarlet Fire is awesome and certainly befitting a show many do consider to be the finest Dead show of them all.Many more were to follow and the lucky ones who were in Winterland this night got to witness how it all started.   SHOW No. 3:    Terrapin Flyer                                                              Alhambra                                Track # 17                                :53 – end                                 INTO                                 Drums                                Track # 18                                Start – 0:44                 This is another reason I chose this show for today's episode.  This represents the only known instance of the Dead playing the Terrapin Flyer part of the full Terrapin Suite from the Album (released on July 27, 1977) out of the traditional parts.  Although Jerry does not sing the lyrics from this part of the suite, he jams the very distinctive melody.  Interestingly, this is only a few weeks after the debut of Terrapin at the Swing Auditorium on Feb. 26, 1977.  Here, the Dead were trying out this sixth of seven parts of the suite and for whatever reason did not like what they heard or didn't enjoy playing it or, more likely, practicing it, so it was dropped from live performances even though the primary and opening parts of the suite, Lady with a Fan into Terrapin Station, were played a total of 303 times.                 These are the fun little discoveries that even after 40+ years of listening to, following and learning about the band keep it fun, interesting and amazing.                 As for the recording of the entire suite, Keith Olsen was chosen to produce and the band temporarily moved to Los Angeles, as Olsen preferred to work at Sound City, where he had recently achieved success producing Fleetwood Mac's 1975 comeback album.             Olsen had a method for reining in the Dead: "During the cutting of the basic tracks it was pretty hard to get every member of the band in the studio at the same time ... so [Steve] Parish went out to the hardware store and got these giant nails and a great big hammer and as soon as everybody was in, he hammered the door shut from the inside ... we didn't have drifters from the other studios coming in to listen. We didn't have people leaving to go screw around elsewhere. We started getting work done."[18] With Fleetwood Mac, Olsen had a hands-on approach, orchestrating the addition of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks and influencing song choice, arrangements and sequencing. He entered the Grateful Dead project with similar expectations, imagining a concept album or song cycle. Olsen said that Davis told him "I need a commercial record out of them."[18] This caused some friction during the sessions as well as with the end results. Kreutzmann said "He'd have us play the same thing over and over again, and we're not really the type of band that can put up with that. ... Our very identity is based on the opposite principle."[                 SHOW No. 4:   Not Fade Away                                Track # 19                                14:00 – 15:40                 Written by Buddy Holly and Norman Petty.  Holly and the Crickets recorded the song in Clovis, New Mexico, on May 27, 1957, and it was released as a single (B side to “Oh Boy”) on October 27, 1957 on the Brunswick label.  The rhythmic pattern of "Not Fade Away" is a variant of the Bo Diddley beat, with the second stress occurring on the second rather than third beat of the first measure, which was an update of the "hambone" rhythm, or patted juba from West Africa. Jerry Allison, the drummer for the Crickets, pounded out the beat on a cardboard box.[3] Allison, Holly's best friend, wrote some of the lyrics, though his name never appeared in the songwriting credits. Joe Mauldin played the double bass on this recording. It is likely that the backing vocalists were Holly, Allison, and Niki Sullivan, but this is not known for certain.             First played by the Dead on February 19, 1969 at the Fillmore West in S.F., it was played by the band a total of 561 times and last played on July 5, 1995 at the Riverport Amphitheatre outside of St. Louis.             This is an absolutely ripping version of this tune so much so that I featured only the jam – everyone knows the lyrics, but the jam in this 20 minute version is better than any singing I could have featured. OUTRO:               Around and Around                                Track 21                                4:59 – 6:46                 Very appropriate to end on a Chuck Berry tune given that today is the seventh anniversary of Chuck's death in 2017 at the age of 90.                 "Around and Around" is a 1958 rock song written and first recorded by Chuck Berry. It originally appeared under the name "Around & Around" as the B-side to the single "Johnny B. Goode".  Release on March 31, 1958 on Chicago's own Chess Records checking in at a brisk 2:20. Many bands have covered the song including, most famously, the Rolling Stones and David Bowie, and, of course the Dead who played it 418 times, first on November 8, 1970 at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, NY and lastly on July 6, 1995 at the Riverport Amphitheatre outside of St. Louis – very appropriate since Chuck was born in St. Louis and died in Wentzville, just outside of the city. This is one of the better version of the tune that I have heard.  It checks in at over 8 minutes and the boys just jam it out, throw in a few false endings and finally wrap it up, followed only by Uncle John's Band before the boys say goodnight to the Winterland crazies and head home for a rare post show night in their own beds. .Produced by PodConx Deadhead Cannabis Show - https://podconx.com/podcasts/deadhead-cannabis-showLarry Mishkin - https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkinRob Hunt - https://podconx.com/guests/rob-huntJay Blakesberg - https://podconx.com/guests/jay-blakesbergSound Designed by Jamie Humiston - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-humiston-91718b1b3/Recorded on Squadcast

This is a show I've covered in the long long ago, but I was listening to it and wanted to share more of the brilliance from hungry young Zeppelin. January 10, 1969 at the Fillmore West. These early shows are wild and feral, from a band that is completely unknown. Zep I hasn't been released yet. No one knows anything about these guys, until they take the stage. Then it's kaboom. I play Train Kept A Rollin' into I Can't Quit You, Killing Floor (unreal), and How Many More Times from the Mines of Moriah. We finish with a very cool Yardbird's track, For Your Love. Doesn't get much better. They even call out Keith Relf which is pretty cool.

"Reflecting on the Grateful Dead's Capitol Theatre Shows and Toby Keith smoking with Willie Nelson"Larry Michigan discusses the Grateful Dead's historic show at the Capitol Theatre on February 19, 1971. Larry reminisces about the atmosphere of the venue and the significance of the performance, highlighting the debut of several iconic Dead songs. The discussion delves into the band's evolving musical style, particularly the transition from psychedelic blues to Americana influences. He explores the historical context surrounding the show, including Mickey Hart's departure from the band and the impact of manager Lenny Hart's embezzlement. He also touches upon the significance of the show's release in the "From the Vault" series and discuss other notable releases in the Dead's catalog. Additionally, Larry provides updates on Bob Weir and Wolf Brothers' postponed performances with the National Symphony Orchestra and share news about upcoming music releases.  Grateful DeadFebruary 19, 1971 (53 years ago)Capitol TheatrePort Chester, NYGrateful Dead Live at Capitol Theatre on 1971-02-19 : Free Borrow & Streaming : Internet Archive The second of the legendary six night run at the Capitol Theatre in late February, 1971:Feb. 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, and 24 INTRO:                  Loser                                Track #3                                2:55 – 4:24 Hunter/Garcia tune that was released on “Garcia”, Jerry's first solo album, in January, 1972, the last song on side one of the album.  It was a standard first set tune, part of a rotating number of Jerry first set ballads including Candyman, It Must Have Been The Roses, High Time, Row Jimmy, To Lay Me Down and others. A very sweet melodic tune that tells a great story by way of a beautiful piece of music.  SECOND time playedPlayed a total of 353 timesFirst time:  “Last”night 2.18.71Last:  June 28, 1995, The Palace of Auburn Hills, outside Detroit                               THIS SHOW: Last year we covered the Feb. 18th show famous as the debut for Bertha, Greatest Story, Loser, Wharf Rat and Playin In The Band and the Beautiful Jam out of Wharf Rat and back into Dark Star.  It was also Mickey's last show before his almost three year hiatus before he returned for the final 1974 show before the band's 1975 year off February 19th show is just as historical:  The band's first show without Mickey since he joined the band in 1967.  Many people theorize that this was Mickey's response to his father, Lenny Hart who was the band's manager stealing almost $155,000 of the band's assets before disappearing.  Although he was eventually located by a private detective hired by the band and arrested in San Diego on July 26, 1971, convicted and spent six months in jail, the money was never returned.  The song, “He's Gone” is based on Lenny Hart's embezzlement and disappearance.  Ashamed by his father's actions, Mickey left the band after the 2.18.71 Capitol Theater show returning full time in 1975.  Lenny died of natural causes on Feb. 2, 1975.  According to Dennis McNally, "Mickey went to the funeral home, cleared the room, took out the snakewood sticks that had been his inheritance, played a traditional rudimental drum piece, "The Downfall of Paris" on Lenny's coffin, and split." Starting with this show, the band became a very lean mean fighting machine with just five members (Jerry, Bobby, Phil, Bill and Pig) until Keith jointed the band seven months later in September.  On this night, the band played the five songs debuted the night before and debuted Deal and Birdsong.  Pig also has a strong showing this night leading the band through four standouts:             Hurts Me Too            Smokestack Lightning:  the third to last time it would be played with Pig in the band            Easy Wind:  the second to last time it would be played without Pig in the band            Good Lovin  This really marked the beginning of the band's hard shift away from psychedelic blues (Primal Dead) to the more Americana style music that began with Workingman's and American Beauty.  Within a year, Pig would be very ill with just enough energy left for the Europe '72 tour.  But this night, he was rocking the house like only he could do.  Here is the first of his four featured songs:  SHOW No. 1:      Hurts Me Too                                Track # 5                                2:08 – 3:42 Great showcase number for Pig featuring his singing and harp playing.  We got just a bit of Jerry's lead but all this great music is too long to fit into one clip – don't want Dan getting mad at me! "It Hurts Me Too" is a blues standard that is "one of the most interpreted blues [songs]".[1] First recorded in 1940 by Tampa Red in Chicago, the song is a mid-tempo eight-bar blues that features slide guitar. It borrows from earlier blues songs and has been recorded by many artists.  Release on May 10th with Tired of Your Reckless Ways on the B-side. In 1949, Tampa Red recorded a variation of "It Hurts Me Too", titled "When Things Go Wrong with You".[9] It was recast in the style of a Chicago blues, with electric guitar and a more up to date backing arrangement. The song was a hit and reached number nine on Billboard'sRhythm & Blues Records chart in 1949.[10] (The original "It Hurts Me Too" was released before Billboard or a similar reliable service began tracking such releases, so it is difficult to gauge which version was more popular, although the former's title won out over the latter's.) Although the song retained the refrain "When things go wrong, so wrong with you, it hurts me too", Tampa Red varied the rest of the lyrics somewhat. This would become the pattern for future versions, in which succeeding artists would interpret the song with some of their own lyrics. Noted covers:            Elmore James            Junior Wells            Grateful Dead – with Pig singing the vocals.  Was first released by the Dead on Europe '72 album.  After Pig left the band, the song was retired.             The Dead played the song a total of 59 times            First:    May 19, 1966 at the Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco            Last:     May 24, 1972 at the Lyceum Ballroom in London (last show of Europe '72 tour             “FROM THE VAULT”: This entire show was released by the Dead as “Three From The Vault” in 2007.  The “From The Vault” series, launched by the Band in 1991 with One From The Vault – August 13, 1975 at The Great American Music Hall, with first live performance of the songs from Blues For Allah.  In 1992 the Dead released “Two From The Vault” – August 23 and 24, 1968 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.  Then, along came Dick Latvala and his Dead scene changing Dick's Picks series which was wildly popular, so much so that the In The Vault Series was put on hold.  For 15 years.  Until 2007 when they circled back to the original series of live releasees with Three From The Vault which features the same show we are talking about today from the Capitol Theatre.  That was it for In The Vault releases.  The Dead did have several other “Vault” like releases – multi-track recordings including Hundred Year Haul, Dozin' At The Knick, Fallout From the Phil Zone, Terrapin Station, Live At the Fillmore East 2.11.69, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Grateful Dead, Nightfall of Diamonds, Trucking Up To Buffalo and so many more. They just stopped calling them “From The Vault”.  Dick's Picks, of course would go on to have a total of 36 releases, the last few releases coming after Dick's death in 1999.  Which led into the still wildly popular Dave's Picks from David Lemieux who took over for Dick and now has 49 releases and still going strong.  And “short” lived, but generally popular  “Roadtrips” series.  And all of the box sets that are all amazing but too numerous to name except for the Complete Recordings, the four-night run at the Fillmore West from Feb. 27 to March 2, 1969 – four shows with the band at the peak of Primal Dead, and Europe '72 which consists of the live recordings for all of the shows on that tour.  Another milestone for the Dead in terms of their ever expanding reputation for Jam Band, psychedelic, and amazing song catalogue, even at that “early” stage of the band's existence.  SHOW No. 2:      Playin In The Band                                Track # 7                                2:23 – 4:05                                            By:  Weir and Hunter "Playing in the Band" is a song by the Grateful Dead. The lyrics were written by Robert Hunter and rhythm guitaristBob Weir composed the music, with some assistance from percussionist Mickey Hart.[1] The song first emerged in embryonic form on the self-titled 1971 live albumGrateful Dead. It then appeared in a more polished form on Ace, Bob Weir's first solo album (which included every Grateful Dead member except Ron "Pigpen" McKernan).The instrumental break of "Playing in the Band" was introduced as early as the February 19, 1969 "Celestial Synapse" show at the Fillmore West, in which it appears somewhat indistinct from the preceding and following jams.[5] The completed song was also included on Mickey Hart's 1972 solo album Rolling Thunder within "The Main Ten", making reference to the song's time signature of 10/4.  "The Main Ten" appears on Dick's Picks Volume 16, from their performance at the Fillmore West on November 8, 1969. On that set, it appears in the middle of "Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks)".During a Bob Weir and Wolf Bros concert livestream on February 12, 2021, Weir credited David Crosby with the composition of the main riff. Weir stated, "David Crosby came up with the seminal lick... and then he left. We were out at Mickey's barn. So Mickey said, 'Make a song out of that'. Next day, I had it" It has since become one of the best-known Grateful Dead numbers and a standard part of their repertoire, usually as a second set pre-drums jumping off point for jams to who knows where. According to Deadbase X, it ranks fourth on the list of songs played most often in concert by the band with over 600 performances. If you download this show from Archive.org, and play this track, at the 3:20 mark during the mid-song jam, they get to the point where they would normally dive back in but instead, Bobby plays on for an almost additional 30 seconds and then just dives back in to the song.  He is clearly still working it out.  Over the course of the Europe '72 tour, it was played almost every night as Bobby finally worked it outThis is all really good stuff. SECOND time ever played 661 times (No. 1)                First – “last: night's show, Feb. 18, 1971 Capitol Theatre                Last:       July 5, 1995 at Riverport Amphitheater, Maryland Heights, MO outside of St. Louis.                SHOW No. 3:      Greatest Story Ever Told (The Pump Song)                              Track #13                           Start – 1:41               By Weir, Hart and Robert Hunter (some give credit to Rev. Gary Davis)               Reverend Gary Davis, also Blind Gary Davis (born Gary D. Davis, April 30, 1896 – May 5, 1972),[1] was a blues and gospel singer who was also proficient on the banjo, guitar and harmonica. Born in Laurens, South Carolina and blind since infancy, Davis first performed professionally in the Piedmont blues scene of Durham, North Carolina in the 1930s, then converted to Christianity and became a minister. After moving to New York in the 1940s, Davis experienced a career rebirth as part of the American folk music revival that peaked during the 1960s. Davis' most notable recordings include "Samson and Delilah"[2] and "Death Don't Have No Mercy" Released on:AceRolling Thunder, as "The Pump Song"Dead SetDick's Pick's, vol. 6Europe '72 box setLots of other releases              Per Hunter:  "Also known as "Pumpman" and "Moses"--I wrote this to the rhythm of the pump in Mickey Hart's well."                Released on Ace on May 1, 1972              First song on the album with Bobby setting a rocking tone              Another tune that was played almost every night of and refined during the Europe '72 tour                             283 times              First:  “last night” 2.18.71              Last:  June 27, 1995 at the Palace at Auburn Hills outside Detroit               SHOW No. 4:      Bird Song                                Track #15                           :42 – 2:15               By Garcia and Hunter              Second song on Garcia              Robert Hunter originally wrote the song as a tribute for Janis Joplin. Phil Lesh now sings "All I know is something like a bird within him sang", transfering it Jerry Garcia instead A regular for the Dead, and still played by Dead and Co., Bobby and Phil and Friends. Beautiful song, even for the fist time you know it's going to be special. Played 301 tines              First:  This is it!              Last:   June 30, 1995 at Three Rivers Stadium, Pittsburgh, PA   OUTRO:                Deal                                Track #17                                Start – 1:33  May 16, 2023 by Chris Huber of Chill One of the Grateful Dead's live staples, and many gambling songs is the Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia collaboration, “Deal”. First performed on February 19th, 1971, the song was in regular rotation until the end, both for the Dead and the Jerry Garcia Band.“Deal” saw studio release as the opening track to Jerry Garcia's 1972 debut solo album, Garcia, which also contained several other classic Grateful Dead live songs including “Sugaree”, “Bird Song”, “Loser”, and “The Wheel. Although it would move around a bit in the set list early on, this debut version is consistent with the ultimate tradition of the song closing out the first set.  Even in JGB sets it was a first set closer.  And would always leave you waiting through the break to see how they were going to kick off the second set and keep the show moving along.  For a first time played, this version stays true to the version we all know and love from a few years later.                            Played 428 times              First:  This is IT              Last:  June 18, 1995, Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ Thank you. .Produced by PodConx Deadhead Cannabis Show - https://podconx.com/podcasts/deadhead-cannabis-showLarry Mishkin - https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkinRob Hunt - https://podconx.com/guests/rob-huntJay Blakesberg - https://podconx.com/guests/jay-blakesbergSound Designed by Jamie Humiston - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-humiston-91718b1b3/Recorded on Squadcast

"Marijuana Dispensaries and Predictive Football: A Quirky Comparison"Larry is excited about Michigan's win over Alabama and in tribute to their upcoming January 8th  college football championship game against Washington he features a Grateful Dead concert from January 8th, 1978. He detail the song "Jack Straw" and its history, especially focusing on the singer distribution due to Jerry Garcia's laryngitis during the San Diego show.The conversation veers into the significance of the songs "Lazy Lightning" and "Supplication" within the Grateful Dead's repertoire, reminiscing about experiencing these songs live. It briefly touches on personal events, birthdays, and music preferences.The host humorously correlates the predicted football game winner to the number of Grateful Dead performances and marijuana dispensaries in Michigan and Washington. They discuss cannabis-related legislation and the market dynamics in these states, concluding with light-hearted references to personal travels and cannabis availability across regions.Produced by PodConx Grateful DeadJanuary 8, 1978Golden Hall Community ConcourseSan Diego, CAGrateful Dead Live at Golden Hall, Community Concourse on 1978-01-08 : Free Borrow & Streaming : Internet Archive Jerry has laryngitis so he did not singDonna filled in for him  INTRO:                  Jack Straw                                Track #2                                0:07 – 1:38                 Not on any studio album.  Featured on Europe ‘72                First time played:  October 19, 1971, Minneapolis  (Keith Godchaux's first show)                Last played:  July 8, 1995, Soldier Field, Chicago                Total times played =  476 (No. 11 on list of all time songs played)  SHOW No. 1:      Lazy Lightning>Supplication                                Track #8:  3:00 – end and then straight intoTrack #9:  0:00 – 1:15                 DAVID DODD:    The pair of songs was recorded on the Kingfish album, with Bob Weir as a member of the band. Barlow notes that he wrote the song in Mill Valley in October 1975. The two tracks opened the album, which was released in March 1976.             The Grateful Dead first played the pair in concert on June 3, 1976, at the Paramount Theater in Portland, Oregon. That show also included the first performances of “Might As Well,” “Samson and Delilah,” and “The Wheel.” “Lazy Lightning” was always followed in concert by “Supplication,” and the final performance of the two songs took place on Halloween, 1984, at the Berkeley Community Theater.                                “Supplication” was played by itself, according to DeadBase X, on one occasion subsequently, although it was also played as an instrumental jam more frequently over the years. The final “Supplication” was played 597 shows after the last “Lazy Lightning>Supplication,” on May 22, 1993 at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California. Interestingly, “Supplication” was played one other time separately from “Lazy Lightning,” on September 24, 1976, when it was sandwiched in the middle of a “Playing in the Band.”             a very strong case could be made that “Supplication” is no more a separate song from “Lazy Lightning” than “Sunshine Daydream” is from “Sugar Magnolia.” It's a coda, carrying forward the same themes—only the form of the verse has changed. Lazy Lightning – 111 total times playedSupplication – 123 total times played                  SHOW No. 2:      Estimated Prophet                                Track #14                                2:35 – 4:15                 Weir/BarlowReleased on Terrapin Station released on July 27, 1977 (first studio album released by the band after it returned to live touring after its 1975 hiatus.                               DAVID DODD:  “Estimated Prophet” was first performed by the Grateful Dead on February 26, 1977, at the Swing Auditorium in San Bernardino, California. The Dead also premiered “Terrapin Station” at that show. They played it 390 times in the years that followed, with the longest time between performances being 15 shows—mostly it stayed at the every third or fourth show rank. Its final performance was on June 28, 1995, at The Palace in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It appeared on Terrapin Station, released July 27, 1977.                Blair Jackson quotes Weir, discussing the song, in his biography of the band: “According to Weir, he and Barlow wrote the song from the perspective of a crazy, messianic zealot, a type which one invariably encounters in Deadhead crowds now and again. As Weir explains: ‘The basis of it is this guy I see at nearly every backstage door. There's always some guy who's taken a lot of dope and he's really bug-eyed, and he's having some kind of vision. He's got a rave he's got to deliver.' “                 This is one of those songs, and there are quite a number of them in the Dead's repertoire, in which a not-entirely-sympathetic character is brought to life, and, in the course of being brought to life, is made more sympathetic. I've always thought this was a big strong suit of theire songs, whether in “Wharf Rat” or in “Jack Straw”; whether in “Candyman” or “Friend of the Devil.” Not only is it a recurring trope in the lyrics, but I think it is key to understanding the whole body of the songs, and perhaps literature generally.    SHOW No. 3:      The Other One                                Track # 16                                13:30 – 15:07                 The imagery conjured up by Bob Weir, in his portion of the suite, “That's It for the Other One,” on Anthem of the Sun, is clearly and intentionally a psychedelic ode to the Pranksters and all that entailed. Whether the singer was “escapin' through the lily fields,” or “tripping through the lily fields,” or “skipping through the lily fields” (all versions of the line sung by Weir at various points, according to several extremely careful listeners), the fact is that it was akin to Alice's rabbit hole, because of where it led.     “The bus came by and I got on...that's when it all began.”That line captures so much, in so many different ways, in so few words, that it is a model of what poetry can do—over time, and in a wide variety of circumstances, the line takes on a wide spectrum of association and meaning.                The Dead, of course, were quite literally on THE bus, along with Cowboy Neal (see earlier blog entry on “Cassidy”) and Ken Kesey and Ken Babbs and Mountain Girl and many others whose names are legend among our tribe. What must that have been like? Surely, worthy of a song or two. And Weir came up with a couple of winners, between “The Other One” and “Cassidy.”                 There is something wonderfully cartoonish about the scenes described in the lyrics. A “Spanish lady” hands the singer a rose, which then starts swirling around and explodes—kind of like Yosemite Sam left holding a lit firecracker, leaving a smoking crater of his mind. The police arrest him for having a smile on his face despite the bad weather—clearly, this kid is doing something illegal. Weir's interview with David Gans (along with Phil Lesh) cited in The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics refers to a particular incident:Gans: Now, I remember a version from a little bit earlier, maybe late in '67, you had a different set of lyrics; the first verse is “the heat come ‘round and busted me”...and then there was a second verse that was about “the heat in the jail weren't very smart,” or somethin' like that...Weir: Yeah, that was after my little...Lesh: Water balloon episode?Weir: I got him good. I was on the third floor of our place in the Haight-Ashbury. And there was this cop who was illegally searching a car belonging to a friend of ours, down on the street—the cops used to harass us every chance they got. They didn't care for the hippies back then. And so I had a water balloon, and what was I gonna do with this water balloon? Come on.Lesh: Just happened to have a water balloon, in his hand... Ladies and gentlemen...Weir: And so I got him right square on the head, and...Lesh: A prettier shot you never saw.Weir: ...and he couldn't tell where it was comin' from, but then I had to go and go downstairs and walk across the street and just grin at him...and sorta rub it in a little bit.Gans: Smilin' on a cloudy day. I understand now.Weir: And at that point, he decided to hell with due process of law, this kid's goin' to jail.                So, as to the debut. If we take Weir and Lesh at their word, that the first performance of the song as it now stands coincided with the night Neal Cassady died, in the early morning hours of February 4, 1968. And sure enough, there is a performance of “The Other One” on February 3, 1968, whose verses correspond to the verses as we all know them, for the first time, at the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, Oregon. The song was a fixture in the repertoire from then on, performed at least 586 times that we know of. The only year in which it was not listed as being performed was 1975, the hiatus year.             Part of the suite of songs, That's It For The Other One from Anthem of the Sun.  Made up of four sections:  "Cryptical Envelopment", "Quadlibet for Tenderfeet", "The Faster We Go, the Rounder We Get" (the part everyone knows as “the other one”), and "We Leave the Castle". Like other tracks on the album, is a combination of studio and live performances mixed together to create the final product.            appears that way on Anthem of the Sun, bracketed by Garcia's “Cryptical Envelopment.” But it stands alone most of the time in performance—“Cryptical” was dropped completely from 1973 through 1984, reappeared for five performances in 1985 (the 20th anniversary period—it was broken out following a lapse of 791 shows at the June 16, 1985 Greek Theater show (I WAS THERE!!) in Berkeley), then disappeared again for the remainder of the band's careerI. "Cryptical Envelopment" (Garcia)[edit]"Cryptical Envelopment" is one of the few Grateful Dead songs with lyrics written by Garcia. It was performed from 1967 to 1971 (when it was then dropped), and brought back for a few performances in 1985. Post-Grateful Dead bands such as Dead & Company have returned to performing the song, sometimes as a standalone track separate from the rest of the suite.II. "Quadlibet for Tenderfeet" (Garcia, Kreutzmann, Lesh, McKernan, Weir)[edit]"Quadlibet for Tenderfeet" is a short jam section linking "Cryptical Envelopment" and "The Faster We Go, the Rounder We Get". Transitions between studio and live performances are very audible during this section.III. "The Faster We Go, the Rounder We Get" (Kreutzmann, Weir)[edit]One of the few Grateful Dead songs to have lyrics written by Weir, "The Faster We Go, the Rounder We Get" became one of the Dead's most-played songs (being performed a known 586 times[2]) and most popular vehicles for improvisation, with some performances reaching 30+ minutes in length. The song's lyrics reference the influence of the Merry Pranksters and in particular Neal Cassady.[2] Additionally, the line "the heat came 'round and busted me for smilin' on a cloudy day" refers to a time Weir was arrested for throwing a water balloon at a cop.[2] This section ends with a reprise of "Cryptical Envelopment".IV. "We Leave the Castle" (Constanten)[edit]The only Grateful Dead composition written by Tom Constanten, "We Leave the Castle" is an avant-garde piece featuring prepared piano and other studio trickery.[While the "We Leave the Castle" portion of the song was never performed live by the band, the first three sections were all featured in concert to differing extents. "Cryptical Envelopment", written and sung by Jerry Garcia, was performed from 1967 to 1971, when it was then dropped aside from a select few performances in 1985. "The Faster We Go, the Rounder We Get", written by Bill Kreutzmann and Bob Weir and sung by Weir, became one of the band's most frequently performed songs in concert (usually denoted as simply "The Other One").            The Other one– performed 549 times            First played:  Oct. 31, 1967 at Winterland, S.F.            Last played:  July 8, 1995, Soldier Field, Chicago             That's It For The Other One – performed 79 times            First played:  October 22, 1967 at Winterland, S.F.            Last played:             Cryptical Envelopment – performed 73 times            First played:     Oct. 21, 1967 at Winterland, S.F.            Last played:     Sept. 3, 1985 – Starlight Theater, K.C.              SHOW No. 4:      Truckin'                                Track # 17                                4:22 – 6:03                 The lyrics were written under pressure, in the studio, during the recording of American Beauty (Nov. 1970) (released as a single backed by Ripple in Jan. 1971), with Hunter running back and forth with hastily-written verses that somehow, despite the fact that were purpose-written on the spot, seem to have some pretty good staying power. There are rumors that he originally wrote “Garlands of neon and flashing marquees out on Main Street” as an intentionally hard-to-sing line, just to enjoy watching Weir try to wrap his mouth around them, eventually relenting and substituting “arrows of neon,” just to make it possible to sing.The music credit is shared by Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Phil Lesh. Hunter gets the credit for the lyrics. And Hunter took the bare bones outline of some of the band's adventures and misadventures and fleshed them out with memorable features, highlighting their trips around the country with specific references to places and occurrences. In the process, he came up with a chorus consisting of a couple of phrases that are now, eternally, in the cultural psyche: “Sometimes the light's all shining on me / Other times I can barely see. Lately it occurs to me / What a long strange trip it's been.”At some point, Hunter was accused of using a cliché in that final phrase of the chorus. When something you make up becomes such a commonly-used turn of phrase that your own invention of it is accused of being cliché, that's some measure of wordsmithing success, I would say.                Truckin'” was first performed on August 18, 1970, at the Fillmore West. The show opened with an acoustic set, and “Truckin'” was the first song. Other firsts that night included “Ripple,” “Brokedown Palace,” and “Operator.” The song was performed 532 times, placing it at number 8 in the list of most-played songs, with the final performance on July 6, 1995, at Riverport Amphitheatre in Maryland Heights, Missouri.  OUTRO:                Johnny B. Goode                                Track #19                                1:10 – 2:51                 Johnny B. Goode" is a song by American musician Chuck Berry, written and sung by Berry in 1958. Released as a single in 1958, it peaked at number two on the Hot R&B Sides chart and number eight on its pre-Hot 100 chart.[1] The song remains a staple of early and later rock music."Johnny B. Goode" is considered one of the most recognizable songs in the history of popular music. Credited as "the first rock & roll hit about rock & roll stardom",[2] it has been covered by various other artists and has received several honors and accolades. These include being ranked 33rd on Rolling Stones's 2021 version[3] and 7th on the 2004 version of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time"[2][4] and included as one of the 27 songs on the Voyager Golden Record, a collection of music, images, and sounds designed to serve as a record of humanity.Written by Berry in 1955, the song is about a semi-literate "country boy" from the New Orleans area, who plays a guitar "just like ringing a bell", and who might one day have his "name in lights".[5] Berry acknowledged that the song is partly autobiographical and that the original lyrics referred to Johnny as a "colored boy", but he changed it to "country boy" to ensure radio play.[6] As well as suggesting that the guitar player is good, the title hints at autobiographic elements, because Berry was born at 2520 Goode Avenue, in St. Louis.[5]The song was initially inspired by Johnnie Johnson, the regular piano player in Berry's band,[7] but developed into a song mainly about Berry himself. Johnson played on many recordings by Berry, but for the Chess recording session Lafayette Leake played the piano, along with Willie Dixon on bass and Fred Below on drums.[5][8] The session was produced by Leonard and Phil Chess.[8] The guitarist Keith Richards later suggested that the song's chords are more typical of compositions written for piano than for guitar.[9]The opening guitar riff of "Johnny B. Goode" borrows from the opening single-note solo on Louis Jordan's "Ain't That Just Like a Woman" (1946), played by guitarist Carl HoganA cover version is featured in the film Back to the Future (1985), when the lead character Marty McFly, played by actor Michael J. Fox, performs it at a high school dance.Played 283 times, almost always as an encore or show closer (back in the days where there were no encores)First played on Sept. 7, 1969 at Family Dog on the Great Highway, S.F.Last played on April 5, 1995 at Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Coliseum in Birmingham, AL .Produced by PodConx Deadhead Cannabis Show - https://podconx.com/podcasts/deadhead-cannabis-showLarry Mishkin - https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkinRob Hunt - https://podconx.com/guests/rob-huntJay Blakesberg - https://podconx.com/guests/jay-blakesbergSound Designed by Jamie Humiston - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-humiston-91718b1b3/Recorded on Squadcast

One of the most quotable and iconic of British films, born out of writer/director Bruce Robinson's personal experiences and shepherded to the big screen by George Harrison and his Handmade Films company. 'Withnail & I' is a beloved comedy but in this episode I talk as much about its forlorn, end-of-an-era wistful heart as I do the incredibly quotable lines. Particularly I was interested to learn of Bruce's formative me-too experience on the set of Zeffirelli's 'Romeo & Juliet' and how that informed the character of Monty. But Monty is more than a monster or a would-be abuser; his portrayal on the page and in the flesh by the brilliant Richard Griffiths is layered and sympathetic and very much informed by the realities for gay people in Britain in the 1960's. In Monty we have a great analogy for the film; at first glance laughable, uproarious, a characture and character...but just beneath that is writing and performing of great complexity and nuance. This is what we'll celebrate in this episode all about the brilliant, the ever-fresh and continuingly fascinating 'Withnail & I'. LINKS: A 1999 documentary about Bruce Robinson. Bruce's excellent 2020 'Withnail & I' Watchalong Commentary for Esquire. The incredible live version of 'Whiter Shade of Pale' played by King Curtis and his band at the Fillmore West in 1971. Here's a bizarro artifact from the 60's: Bruce Robinson starring in a coffee ad aimed at tripping hippies looking to come down/go up/not sure really how coffee and acid is a great combo but there you have the 60's! Bruce Robinson in Zeffirelli's 'Romeo & Juliet' as Benvolio 'Smoking In Bed: Conversations with Bruce Robinson' on Amazon Toby Benjamin's excellent book about the making of 'Withnail and I' is essential for any fan of the film. The inspiration for Withnail, Vivian MacKerrell.

In the second episode of GD&F I connect with my friend of 25+ years, Cary Crane.  A lifelong Deadhead, devoted family man, and wildly successful businessman, Cary is a true mensch.  He brings us back to his early days seeing the band at the closing of the Fillmore West and Summer Jam at Watkins Glen.  He recounts his career in his family's juice business that he ran with his brother for 40 years, and how his life is treating him following the sale of the company and his exit in 2017.  We wrap up by sharing a few classic “Cary stories”.  Join us, and let's see where the energy takes us!  Links: https://relisten.net/grateful-dead/1971/07/02?source=335997 

"Stephen Stills & the Dead: Legendary Collaborations Unveiled" Larry Mishkin  discusses various aspects related to the Grateful Dead, December 11th, 2023 show including historical performances, the significance of particular songs like "China Cat Sunflower" into "I Know You Rider," insights into the band's music evolution, and notable appearances by Stephen Stills with the Dead during their performances. Larry also pays tribute to Denny Lane, a musician associated with Wings and the Moody Blues, following Lane's recent passing. Additionally, he delves into the musical significance of the song "Black Queen" by Stephen Stills, its themes, and its rare appearances in Dead concerts. Furthermore, he provides updates and insights into ticket sales for upcoming concerts, specifically for Phish. .Produced by PodConx  Deadhead Cannabis Show - https://podconx.com/podcasts/deadhead-cannabis-showLarry Mishkin - https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkinRob Hunt - https://podconx.com/guests/rob-huntJay Blakesberg - https://podconx.com/guests/jay-blakesbergSound Designed by Jamie Humiston - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-humiston-91718b1b3/Recorded on Squadcast     Grateful DeadDecember 12, 1969  (54 years ago, tomorrow)ThelmaWest Hollywood, CAWith Stephen StillsGrateful Dead Live at Thelma Theater on 1969-12-10 : Free Borrow & Streaming : Internet Archive  INTRO:               I Know You Rider                           Track #1                           2:10 – 3:42               Every Deadhead knows this song, but what makes this version unusual is that it is a show opener AND is not preceded by China Cat. In the Grateful Dead universe, few song pairings stick out with such adoration and favoritism among the band's legion of fans more than “China Cat Sunflower” > “I Know You Rider”. The Grateful Dead performed the two-song combination over 500 times throughout their 30-year run, making it one of the more dependable mid-set segues capable of launching a show into orbit at any moment thanks to its dance-friendly tempo and lengthy jams transition jams.It makes it that much more special to note that the “China” > “Rider” combination made its first appearance at the legendary Cafe au Go Go in New York City on September 30th, 1969—54 years ago today, and less than a month before the venue closed its doors in October of that year."I Know You Rider" (also "Woman Blues" and "I Know My Rider") is a traditionalblues song that has been adapted by numerous artists. It has appeared in folk, country, and rock guises and is not overly identified with any particular artist. Modern versions can be traced back to Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Deceitful Brownskin Blues", which was released as a single in 1927. It appears in a 1934 book, American Ballads and Folk Songs, by the noted father-and-son musicologists and folklorists John Lomax and Alan Lomax.[2] The book notes that "An eighteen-year old black girl, in prison for murder, sang the song and the first stanza of these blues." The Lomaxes then added a number of verses from other sources and named it "Woman Blue".[2] The music and melody are similar to Lucille Bogan's "B.D. Woman Blues" (c. 1935), although the lyrics are completely different. By the mid-1960s, rock acts had begun to perform or record the song. James Taylor sang it as "Circle Round the Sun" on his 1968 debut album James Taylor).[2]Big Brother and the Holding Company featuring Janis Joplin were performing it in concert; a rendition from 1966 was released in 1984 on the live album Cheaper Thrills.[2] The Grateful Dead's interpretation was a staple of their live shows from the beginning of the band's existence in 1965, where it would soon be performed as a connected song from "China Cat Sunflower" and represented the group's forging a bridge from their psychedelic music to their more traditional country and folk side.[1] This combination was featured on their 1972 triple live album Europe '72.[1] (The Grateful Dead's segue approach was later used by Bruce Hornsby and the Range in the late 1980s, with "I Know You Rider" following their song, "The Red Plains" The combo was first released by the Dead on the original Europe '72 album.  Although Rider can be found on earlier Dead recordings.               1st – Nov. 3, 1965 at Mother's in S.F.              Last – July 8, 1995, Soldier Field              Total 563   No. 4 most played, not counting Drums and Space, China Cat is No. 3 on that list at 564  Show is at Thelma, a nightclub on Hollywood Blvd. with a very uncertain history.  First, it was a Hungarian restaurant called The Little Gypsy, then it became an upscale restaurant called The Golden Violin.  In mid-60's, the owner turned it into a rock club, Galaxy.  Was located in the middle of a block filled with music venues.  To the east, was Whisky a Go Go (most famous of them all), to the west Hamburger Hamlet (for late night munchies).  Right next door was the London Fog where The Doors, in their formative years, had a residency before Jim Morrison's behaviour got them kicked out – moved to the Whisky to become the house band.  Initially, Galaxy's house band was a fledgling Iron Butterfly.  Became Thelma in the fall of 1969. Was a three night run from 12/10 – 12/12.  Night one is the concert featured on Dave's Picks No. 10 – another great concert, but this one has one thing that the Dec. 10th show does not have – Stephen Stills playing with the boys. Recall this past spring we featured Stephen Stills playing with the Dead on April 16, 1983 at Brendan Byrne Arena in NJ when they played Stills' song, Black Queen and one of my favorite versions of Iko ever recorded by the Dead.  The next night they played Love The One Your With.  Only a 14 year gap in between!  SHOW No. 1:     Casey Jones                           Track #8                           2:48 – 4:15 The first tune Stills came on stage for (although some remember him playing in the first set as well). Just like we discussed last week (Fillmore West on 12.4.69), there is a bridge here between primal dead and americana dead.  This show features a mix of primal dead and new americana tunes.  Casey Jones was an entirely different type of song for the Dead but it rocked and Stills seems very comfortable figuring out his place in the mix.  Garcia/Hunter tuneReleased on Workingman's Dead in spring, 1970. First played on June 22, 1969 at a show in Central Park in NYCLast played on March 27, 1993 at the Kickerbocker Arena in Albany NYTotal played 313 times (No. 42) BUT, after 1972 it dropped off the regular set list rotation.  From 1973 till the end, only played 47 times and by the ‘80's it became a rarity that required good luck to catch:                                                                   1982 – 2x                                         1984 – 2x                                         1992 – 3x                                         1993 – 1x I unfortunately never saw it live.  Very disappointing. Closest I came was the '84 show at Merriweather Post pavilion outside of D.C.  I was with a group of friends on summer tour but did not head out for the east coast swing and missed that show.  But my good buddy Rick was there because he took the long car ride that I avoided.  Miss a little, miss a lot.  Article re Stills and Dead SHOW No. 2:     Good Morning Little School Girl                           Track #9                           7:00 – 8:39 We featured this song last week but had to feature it again, because on this version Stills finds his footing and jams along with Garcia and Weir as well as Pig on the harmonica.  A very cool sound.  Pig kills it as usual.  SHOW No. 3:     Black Queen                           Track No. 11                           2:15 – 3:52 We featured this song on the episode earlier this year featuring the April 16, 1983 mash up show.  This is an earlier version and just as down and dirty as the later version.  A great Stills tune that the Dead feel right at home with. As a reminder,Black Queen is a song written by American singer-songwriter Stephen Stills. It was featured on his self-titled debut solo album released in 1970. The song holds a significant place in Stills' body of work, as it explores powerful themes of love, equality, and racial injustice. Let's delve into the meaning behind this iconic song and unveil the message Stephen Stills intended to convey through his heartfelt lyrics. Black Queen is a passionate ode to the African American community, expressing solidarity with their struggle for equality and justice. The song's opening line, “White knights for the black queen, marching to the stirrings of the breeze,” immediately sets the tone for the uplifting and empathetic message throughout the song. Stills paints a vivid picture of a world where individuals of different races join hands to fight against racial discrimination.Throughout the song, Stills calls for unity and emphasizes the importance of embracing diversity. He acknowledges the strength and resilience of the Black community, praising their ability to overcome adversity and stand tall in the face of systemic racism. With lines like “Black queen, your dreams are on the ground,” Stills recognizes the struggles that African Americans have faced but encourages them to keep fighting for their rights and aspirations.This show and April '83 are the only two times the Dead played the song in concert.  SHOW No. 4:     Turn On Your Lovelight                           Track #12                           :46 – 2:25 A very short version of this tune, considering its 1969 and Pig has the lead, but after only a few minutes, they segue into a killer Cryptical/Other One which apparently was a bit too out there for Stills as he leaves the stage at the transition. Still Pig at his finest singing and rapping as only he could do.  A tune that died with Pig until Bobby brought it back in the early ‘80's and it became more of a regular after that although never as much as it was when Pig was around.  Great jamming with Stills in his final number with the band for the night.  OUTRO:              Cosmic Charlie                           Track #17                           Start – end (just about a minute because it cuts out) Released on Aoxomoxoa in June, 1969.  Grateful Dead was known for their unique and poetic songwriting style, and “Cosmic Charlie” is no exception. Released in 1969 on their album “Aoxomoxoa,” this song has captivated fans for decades with its enigmatic lyrics and psychedelic sound. Exploring themes of spirituality, love, and the human experience, “Cosmic Charlie” takes listeners on a sonic journey unlike any other. The meaning behind “Cosmic Charlie” is open to interpretation, as with many of the band's songs. Some believe it was inspired by the vision of a fictional character named Cosmic Charlie, who travels through different dimensions, spreading joy and love. Others see it as a metaphor for the human longing for connection and transcendence. The lyrics, although cryptic at times, convey a sense of wonder and mystery that invites listeners to delve deeper into their own consciousness. The overall message of “Cosmic Charlie” seems to be one of embracing the cosmic and spiritual aspects of life. It encourages listeners to let go of their inhibitions, explore the unknown, and seek connection with the universe. The song invites individuals to tap into their inner selves and discover the hidden realms of existence. Very rarely played by the Dead.  Only a total of 45 times.1st – Jan. 16, 1969, Robertson Gymnasium at UC Santa Barbara, Isla Vista, CALast  - Sept. 25, 1976, Cap Center in Landover Maryland. Played 20 times in 1969, 18 times in 1970 and one time in 1971.  The tune then went on hiatus until 1976 when it was played a total of 6 times between June and September.  Thereafter, a tune the deadheads literally begged the Dead to play again.  Around 1983 or 1984, a group started asking for signatures on a petition to the Dead asking them to play the song again.  They would also hand out cards with the song's lyrics so “when” the Dead played it, the Deadheads would be able to sing along.  Alas, they just became Dead trinkets in the same cigar box as my ticket stubs because the Dead never did play it again. Sorry this is a “cut” version of this version, but it's still great music and as any Deadhead who never heard it live would agree, this would have been an amazing tune to hear so even just a little of it is worth the listen.  Enjoy 

"JRad's Resonance: Reflecting on a Night of Jam Band Marvel"Larry Mishkin, touches upon key events like the 1969 Fillmore West concert, which previewed the infamous Altamont Speedway event by the Rolling Stones. The Altamont concert, marred by violence and tragedy, involving the Hells Angels acting as security, remains a pivotal moment in music history.He also discussed current music events, including Phish's upcoming show at the Spere in Las Vegas Sphere, highlighting the band's incredible light shows. He contrasted the Rolling Stones' high-priced tickets for their concerts with Joe Russo's Almost Dead's more reasonable pricing and exceptional Grateful Dead covers.He recounted attending a recent Joe Russo's Almost Dead concert in Chicago, emphasizing their outstanding performance, including an unexpected cover of Bob Dylan's "Tell Me Mama." The concert featured iconic Grateful Dead tracks, such as "Fire on the Mountain" and "Good Lovin'," offering a nostalgic and impressive experience...Produced by PodConx  Deadhead Cannabis Show - https://podconx.com/podcasts/deadhead-cannabis-showLarry Mishkin - https://podconx.com/guests/larry-mishkinRob Hunt - https://podconx.com/guests/rob-huntJay Blakesberg - https://podconx.com/guests/jay-blakesbergSound Designed by Jamie Humiston - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-humiston-91718b1b3/Recorded on Squadcast      Grateful DeadDecember 4, 1969Fillmore West, S.F.https://archive.org/details/gd69-12-04.sbd.wizard.23975.sbeok.shnf  Intro:    Introduction and Altamont announcement            Track #1            Start – finish  Show No. 1     Black Peter                        Track #3                        1:15 – 2:45 Show No. 2     Dark Star                        Track #9                        13:39 – 15:15 Show No. 3     High Times                        Track #10                        1:18 – 2:36 Show No. 4     Good Morning Little School Girl                        Track # 12                        2:20 – 3:51  Outro:              Uncle John's Band                        Track#17                        Start – 2:12

I wanted to re-air John Morris's podcast. I had him on episode 11 back in 2018. John recently passed and was such an interesting human being and I'm so happy that he took the time during Indian Market in 2018 to come talk to me about his life. You know, John was a guy who was intimately involved in the 1969 Woodstock show.He booked all the people he worked with, all the acts. You know, he was if you look at the Woodstock movie. He was a unique man who had multiple interests and never took himself too seriously. He had all these interesting people like Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison or Paul McCartney, at he Rolling Stones, all of these musicians he knew and worked with. I knew him for 15 years before he even discussed the Woodstock. The only reason he did is that I saw the movie and I saw him on the TV. His real gift to our culture and the Native American world was that he loved Native American material and tribal art and he, along with Kim Martindale, promoted shows.They promoted different shows that were the objects of art shows, both in San Francisco as well as in Santa Fe. ohn did one in Seattle as well. So, you know, it's sad when you lose somebody of his magnitude, but I wanted to replay his podcast so we could all bask in the wonderful beauty of John Morris.

We discuss Miles Davis's groundbreaking 1970 album Bitches Brew. Help support The Next Track by making regular donations via Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/thenexttrack). We're ad-free and self-sustaining so your support is what keeps us going. Thanks! ‌Show notes: Bitches Brew (https://amzn.to/3QwZXLu) The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions (https://amzn.to/3ubRJ3D) Rolling Stone review of Bitches Brew (https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/bitches-brew-186433/) Guardian review of Bitches Brew (https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jul/28/miles-davis-bitches-brew-reviewed-jazz-1970) Miles Runs the Voodoo Down - 8/18/1970 - Tanglewood (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3BaGMevjeM) Black Beauty: Miles Davis at Fillmore West (https://amzn.to/465SiJQ) About the 4/10/70 concert (http://cryptdev.blogspot.com/2011/06/miles-davis-and-dead-41070.html) Our next tracks: Phillip Glass and Paul-Leonard Morgan: The Pigeon Tunnel (https://embed.music.apple.com/us/album/the-pigeon-tunnel-soundtrack-from-the-apple-original-film/1709715156) Medicine Head: New Bottles, Old Medicine (https://amzn.to/462QtNF) If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/the-next-track/id1116242606) or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast.

Episode 168 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “I Say a Little Prayer”, and the interaction of the sacred, political, and secular in Aretha Franklin's life and work. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a forty-five-minute bonus episode available, on "Abraham, Martin, and John" by Dion. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources No Mixcloud this week, as there are too many songs by Aretha Franklin. Even splitting it into multiple parts would have required six or seven mixes. My main biographical source for Aretha Franklin is Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin by David Ritz, and this is where most of the quotes from musicians come from. Information on C.L. Franklin came from Singing in a Strange Land: C. L. Franklin, the Black Church, and the Transformation of America by Nick Salvatore. Country Soul by Charles L Hughes is a great overview of the soul music made in Muscle Shoals, Memphis, and Nashville in the sixties. Peter Guralnick's Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm And Blues And The Southern Dream Of Freedom is possibly less essential, but still definitely worth reading. Information about Martin Luther King came from Martin Luther King: A Religious Life by Paul Harvey. I also referred to Burt Bacharach's autobiography Anyone Who Had a Heart, Carole King's autobiography A Natural Woman, and Soul Serenade: King Curtis and his Immortal Saxophone by Timothy R. Hoover. For information about Amazing Grace I also used Aaron Cohen's 33 1/3 book on the album. The film of the concerts is also definitely worth watching. And the Aretha Now album is available in this five-album box set for a ludicrously cheap price. But it's actually worth getting this nineteen-CD set with her first sixteen Atlantic albums and a couple of bonus discs of demos and outtakes. There's barely a duff track in the whole nineteen discs. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript A quick warning before I begin. This episode contains some moderate references to domestic abuse, death by cancer, racial violence, police violence, and political assassination. Anyone who might be upset by those subjects might want to check the transcript rather than listening to the episode. Also, as with the previous episode on Aretha Franklin, this episode presents something of a problem. Like many people in this narrative, Franklin's career was affected by personal troubles, which shaped many of her decisions. But where most of the subjects of the podcast have chosen to live their lives in public and share intimate details of every aspect of their personal lives, Franklin was an extremely private person, who chose to share only carefully sanitised versions of her life, and tried as far as possible to keep things to herself. This of course presents a dilemma for anyone who wants to tell her story -- because even though the information is out there in biographies, and even though she's dead, it's not right to disrespect someone's wish for a private life. I have therefore tried, wherever possible, to stay away from talk of her personal life except where it *absolutely* affects the work, or where other people involved have publicly shared their own stories, and even there I've tried to keep it to a minimum. This will occasionally lead to me saying less about some topics than other people might, even though the information is easily findable, because I don't think we have an absolute right to invade someone else's privacy for entertainment. When we left Aretha Franklin, she had just finally broken through into the mainstream after a decade of performing, with a version of Otis Redding's song "Respect" on which she had been backed by her sisters, Erma and Carolyn. "Respect", in Franklin's interpretation, had been turned from a rather chauvinist song about a man demanding respect from his woman into an anthem of feminism, of Black power, and of a new political awakening. For white people of a certain generation, the summer of 1967 was "the summer of love". For many Black people, it was rather different. There's a quote that goes around (I've seen it credited in reliable sources to both Ebony and Jet magazine, but not ever seen an issue cited, so I can't say for sure where it came from) saying that the summer of 67 was the summer of "'retha, Rap, and revolt", referring to the trifecta of Aretha Franklin, the Black power leader Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (who was at the time known as H. Rap Brown, a name he later disclaimed) and the rioting that broke out in several major cities, particularly in Detroit: [Excerpt: John Lee Hooker, "The Motor City is Burning"] The mid sixties were, in many ways, the high point not of Black rights in the US -- for the most part there has been a lot of progress in civil rights in the intervening decades, though not without inevitable setbacks and attacks from the far right, and as movements like the Black Lives Matter movement have shown there is still a long way to go -- but of *hope* for Black rights. The moral force of the arguments made by the civil rights movement were starting to cause real change to happen for Black people in the US for the first time since the Reconstruction nearly a century before. But those changes weren't happening fast enough, and as we heard in the episode on "I Was Made to Love Her", there was not only a growing unrest among Black people, but a recognition that it was actually possible for things to change. A combination of hope and frustration can be a powerful catalyst, and whether Franklin wanted it or not, she was at the centre of things, both because of her newfound prominence as a star with a hit single that couldn't be interpreted as anything other than a political statement and because of her intimate family connections to the struggle. Even the most racist of white people these days pays lip service to the memory of Dr Martin Luther King, and when they do they quote just a handful of sentences from one speech King made in 1963, as if that sums up the full theological and political philosophy of that most complex of men. And as we discussed the last time we looked at Aretha Franklin, King gave versions of that speech, the "I Have a Dream" speech, twice. The most famous version was at the March on Washington, but the first time was a few weeks earlier, at what was at the time the largest civil rights demonstration in American history, in Detroit. Aretha's family connection to that event is made clear by the very opening of King's speech: [Excerpt: Martin Luther King, "Original 'I Have a Dream' Speech"] So as summer 1967 got into swing, and white rock music was going to San Francisco to wear flowers in its hair, Aretha Franklin was at the centre of a very different kind of youth revolution. Franklin's second Atlantic album, Aretha Arrives, brought in some new personnel to the team that had recorded Aretha's first album for Atlantic. Along with the core Muscle Shoals players Jimmy Johnson, Spooner Oldham, Tommy Cogbill and Roger Hawkins, and a horn section led by King Curtis, Wexler and Dowd also brought in guitarist Joe South. South was a white session player from Georgia, who had had a few minor hits himself in the fifties -- he'd got his start recording a cover version of "The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor", the Big Bopper's B-side to "Chantilly Lace": [Excerpt: Joe South, "The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor"] He'd also written a few songs that had been recorded by people like Gene Vincent, but he'd mostly become a session player. He'd become a favourite musician of Bob Johnston's, and so he'd played guitar on Simon and Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence and Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme albums: [Excerpt: Simon and Garfunkel, "I am a Rock"] and bass on Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, with Al Kooper particularly praising his playing on "Visions of Johanna": [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Visions of Johanna"] South would be the principal guitarist on this and Franklin's next album, before his own career took off in 1968 with "Games People Play": [Excerpt: Joe South, "Games People Play"] At this point, he had already written the other song he's best known for, "Hush", which later became a hit for Deep Purple: [Excerpt: Deep Purple, "Hush"] But he wasn't very well known, and was surprised to get the call for the Aretha Franklin session, especially because, as he put it "I was white and I was about to play behind the blackest genius since Ray Charles" But Jerry Wexler had told him that Franklin didn't care about the race of the musicians she played with, and South settled in as soon as Franklin smiled at him when he played a good guitar lick on her version of the blues standard "Going Down Slow": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Going Down Slow"] That was one of the few times Franklin smiled in those sessions though. Becoming an overnight success after years of trying and failing to make a name for herself had been a disorienting experience, and on top of that things weren't going well in her personal life. Her marriage to her manager Ted White was falling apart, and she was performing erratically thanks to the stress. In particular, at a gig in Georgia she had fallen off the stage and broken her arm. She soon returned to performing, but it meant she had problems with her right arm during the recording of the album, and didn't play as much piano as she would have previously -- on some of the faster songs she played only with her left hand. But the recording sessions had to go on, whether or not Aretha was physically capable of playing piano. As we discussed in the episode on Otis Redding, the owners of Atlantic Records were busily negotiating its sale to Warner Brothers in mid-1967. As Wexler said later “Everything in me said, Keep rolling, keep recording, keep the hits coming. She was red hot and I had no reason to believe that the streak wouldn't continue. I knew that it would be foolish—and even irresponsible—not to strike when the iron was hot. I also had personal motivation. A Wall Street financier had agreed to see what we could get for Atlantic Records. While Ahmet and Neshui had not agreed on a selling price, they had gone along with my plan to let the financier test our worth on the open market. I was always eager to pump out hits, but at this moment I was on overdrive. In this instance, I had a good partner in Ted White, who felt the same. He wanted as much product out there as possible." In truth, you can tell from Aretha Arrives that it's a record that was being thought of as "product" rather than one being made out of any kind of artistic impulse. It's a fine album -- in her ten-album run from I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You through Amazing Grace there's not a bad album and barely a bad track -- but there's a lack of focus. There are only two originals on the album, neither of them written by Franklin herself, and the rest is an incoherent set of songs that show the tension between Franklin and her producers at Atlantic. Several songs are the kind of standards that Franklin had recorded for her old label Columbia, things like "You Are My Sunshine", or her version of "That's Life", which had been a hit for Frank Sinatra the previous year: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "That's Life"] But mixed in with that are songs that are clearly the choice of Wexler. As we've discussed previously in episodes on Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett, at this point Atlantic had the idea that it was possible for soul artists to cross over into the white market by doing cover versions of white rock hits -- and indeed they'd had some success with that tactic. So while Franklin was suggesting Sinatra covers, Atlantic's hand is visible in the choices of songs like "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and "96 Tears": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "96 Tears'] Of the two originals on the album, one, the hit single "Baby I Love You" was written by Ronnie Shannon, the Detroit songwriter who had previously written "I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Baby I Love You"] As with the previous album, and several other songs on this one, that had backing vocals by Aretha's sisters, Erma and Carolyn. But the other original on the album, "Ain't Nobody (Gonna Turn Me Around)", didn't, even though it was written by Carolyn: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Ain't Nobody (Gonna Turn Me Around)"] To explain why, let's take a little detour and look at the co-writer of the song this episode is about, though we're not going to get to that for a little while yet. We've not talked much about Burt Bacharach in this series so far, but he's one of those figures who has come up a few times in the periphery and will come up again, so here is as good a time as any to discuss him, and bring everyone up to speed about his career up to 1967. Bacharach was one of the more privileged figures in the sixties pop music field. His father, Bert Bacharach (pronounced the same as his son, but spelled with an e rather than a u) had been a famous newspaper columnist, and his parents had bought him a Steinway grand piano to practice on -- they pushed him to learn the piano even though as a kid he wasn't interested in finger exercises and Debussy. What he was interested in, though, was jazz, and as a teenager he would often go into Manhattan and use a fake ID to see people like Dizzy Gillespie, who he idolised, and in his autobiography he talks rapturously of seeing Gillespie playing his bent trumpet -- he once saw Gillespie standing on a street corner with a pet monkey on his shoulder, and went home and tried to persuade his parents to buy him a monkey too. In particular, he talks about seeing the Count Basie band with Sonny Payne on drums as a teenager: [Excerpt: Count Basie, "Kid From Red Bank"] He saw them at Birdland, the club owned by Morris Levy where they would regularly play, and said of the performance "they were just so incredibly exciting that all of a sudden, I got into music in a way I never had before. What I heard in those clubs really turned my head around— it was like a big breath of fresh air when somebody throws open a window. That was when I knew for the first time how much I loved music and wanted to be connected to it in some way." Of course, there's a rather major problem with this story, as there is so often with narratives that musicians tell about their early career. In this case, Birdland didn't open until 1949, when Bacharach was twenty-one and stationed in Germany for his military service, while Sonny Payne didn't join Basie's band until 1954, when Bacharach had been a professional musician for many years. Also Dizzy Gillespie's trumpet bell only got bent on January 6, 1953. But presumably while Bacharach was conflating several memories, he did have some experience in some New York jazz club that led him to want to become a musician. Certainly there were enough great jazz musicians playing the clubs in those days. He went to McGill University to study music for two years, then went to study with Darius Milhaud, a hugely respected modernist composer. Milhaud was also one of the most important music teachers of the time -- among others he'd taught Stockhausen and Xenakkis, and would go on to teach Philip Glass and Steve Reich. This suited Bacharach, who by this point was a big fan of Schoenberg and Webern, and was trying to write atonal, difficult music. But Milhaud had also taught Dave Brubeck, and when Bacharach rather shamefacedly presented him with a composition which had an actual tune, he told Bacharach "Never be ashamed of writing a tune you can whistle". He dropped out of university and, like most men of his generation, had to serve in the armed forces. When he got out of the army, he continued his musical studies, still trying to learn to be an avant-garde composer, this time with Bohuslav Martinů and later with Henry Cowell, the experimental composer we've heard about quite a bit in previous episodes: [Excerpt: Henry Cowell, "Aeolian Harp and Sinister Resonance"] He was still listening to a lot of avant garde music, and would continue doing so throughout the fifties, going to see people like John Cage. But he spent much of that time working in music that was very different from the avant-garde. He got a job as the band leader for the crooner Vic Damone: [Excerpt: Vic Damone. "Ebb Tide"] He also played for the vocal group the Ames Brothers. He decided while he was working with the Ames Brothers that he could write better material than they were getting from their publishers, and that it would be better to have a job where he didn't have to travel, so he got himself a job as a staff songwriter in the Brill Building. He wrote a string of flops and nearly hits, starting with "Keep Me In Mind" for Patti Page: [Excerpt: Patti Page, "Keep Me In Mind"] From early in his career he worked with the lyricist Hal David, and the two of them together wrote two big hits, "Magic Moments" for Perry Como: [Excerpt: Perry Como, "Magic Moments"] and "The Story of My Life" for Marty Robbins: [Excerpt: "The Story of My Life"] But at that point Bacharach was still also writing with other writers, notably Hal David's brother Mack, with whom he wrote the theme tune to the film The Blob, as performed by The Five Blobs: [Excerpt: The Five Blobs, "The Blob"] But Bacharach's songwriting career wasn't taking off, and he got himself a job as musical director for Marlene Dietrich -- a job he kept even after it did start to take off.  Part of the problem was that he intuitively wrote music that didn't quite fit into standard structures -- there would be odd bars of unusual time signatures thrown in, unusual harmonies, and structural irregularities -- but then he'd take feedback from publishers and producers who would tell him the song could only be recorded if he straightened it out. He said later "The truth is that I ruined a lot of songs by not believing in myself enough to tell these guys they were wrong." He started writing songs for Scepter Records, usually with Hal David, but also with Bob Hilliard and Mack David, and started having R&B hits. One song he wrote with Mack David, "I'll Cherish You", had the lyrics rewritten by Luther Dixon to make them more harsh-sounding for a Shirelles single -- but the single was otherwise just Bacharach's demo with the vocals replaced, and you can even hear his voice briefly at the beginning: [Excerpt: The Shirelles, "Baby, It's You"] But he'd also started becoming interested in the production side of records more generally. He'd iced that some producers, when recording his songs, would change the sound for the worse -- he thought Gene McDaniels' version of "Tower of Strength", for example, was too fast. But on the other hand, other producers got a better sound than he'd heard in his head. He and Hilliard had written a song called "Please Stay", which they'd given to Leiber and Stoller to record with the Drifters, and he thought that their arrangement of the song was much better than the one he'd originally thought up: [Excerpt: The Drifters, "Please Stay"] He asked Leiber and Stoller if he could attend all their New York sessions and learn about record production from them. He started doing so, and eventually they started asking him to assist them on records. He and Hilliard wrote a song called "Mexican Divorce" for the Drifters, which Leiber and Stoller were going to produce, and as he put it "they were so busy running Redbird Records that they asked me to rehearse the background singers for them in my office." [Excerpt: The Drifters, "Mexican Divorce"] The backing singers who had been brought in to augment the Drifters on that record were a group of vocalists who had started out as members of a gospel group called the Drinkard singers: [Excerpt: The Drinkard Singers, "Singing in My Soul"] The Drinkard Singers had originally been a family group, whose members included Cissy Drinkard, who joined the group aged five (and who on her marriage would become known as Cissy Houston -- her daughter Whitney would later join the family business), her aunt Lee Warrick, and Warrick's adopted daughter Judy Clay. That group were discovered by the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, and spent much of the fifties performing with gospel greats including Jackson herself, Clara Ward, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. But Houston was also the musical director of a group at her church, the Gospelaires, which featured Lee Warrick's two daughters Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick (for those who don't know, the Warwick sisters' birth name was Warrick, spelled with two rs. A printing error led to it being misspelled the same way as the British city on a record label, and from that point on Dionne at least pronounced the w in her misspelled name). And slowly, the Gospelaires rather than the Drinkard Singers became the focus, with a lineup of Houston, the Warwick sisters, the Warwick sisters' cousin Doris Troy, and Clay's sister Sylvia Shemwell. The real change in the group's fortunes came when, as we talked about a while back in the episode on "The Loco-Motion", the original lineup of the Cookies largely stopped working as session singers to become Ray Charles' Raelettes. As we discussed in that episode, a new lineup of Cookies formed in 1961, but it took a while for them to get started, and in the meantime the producers who had been relying on them for backing vocals were looking elsewhere, and they looked to the Gospelaires. "Mexican Divorce" was the first record to feature the group as backing vocalists -- though reports vary as to how many of them are on the record, with some saying it's only Troy and the Warwicks, others saying Houston was there, and yet others saying it was all five of them. Some of these discrepancies were because these singers were so good that many of them left to become solo singers in fairly short order. Troy was the first to do so, with her hit "Just One Look", on which the other Gospelaires sang backing vocals: [Excerpt: Doris Troy, "Just One Look"] But the next one to go solo was Dionne Warwick, and that was because she'd started working with Bacharach and Hal David as their principal demo singer. She started singing lead on their demos, and hoping that she'd get to release them on her own. One early one was "Make it Easy On Yourself", which was recorded by Jerry Butler, formerly of the Impressions. That record was produced by Bacharach, one of the first records he produced without outside supervision: [Excerpt: Jerry Butler, "Make it Easy On Yourself"] Warwick was very jealous that a song she'd sung the demo of had become a massive hit for someone else, and blamed Bacharach and David. The way she tells the story -- Bacharach always claimed this never happened, but as we've already seen he was himself not always the most reliable of narrators of his own life -- she got so angry she complained to them, and said "Don't make me over, man!" And so Bacharach and David wrote her this: [Excerpt: Dionne Warwick, "Don't Make Me Over"] Incidentally, in the UK, the hit version of that was a cover by the Swinging Blue Jeans: [Excerpt: The Swinging Blue Jeans, "Don't Make Me Over"] who also had a huge hit with "You're No Good": [Excerpt: The Swinging Blue Jeans, "You're No Good"] And *that* was originally recorded by *Dee Dee* Warwick: [Excerpt: Dee Dee Warwick, "You're No Good"] Dee Dee also had a successful solo career, but Dionne's was the real success, making the names of herself, and of Bacharach and David. The team had more than twenty top forty hits together, before Bacharach and David had a falling out in 1971 and stopped working together, and Warwick sued both of them for breach of contract as a result. But prior to that they had hit after hit, with classic records like "Anyone Who Had a Heart": [Excerpt: Dionne Warwick, "Anyone Who Had a Heart"] And "Walk On By": [Excerpt: Dionne Warwick, "Walk On By"] With Doris, Dionne, and Dee Dee all going solo, the group's membership was naturally in flux -- though the departed members would occasionally join their former bandmates for sessions, and the remaining members would sing backing vocals on their ex-members' records. By 1965 the group consisted of Cissy Houston, Sylvia Shemwell, the Warwick sisters' cousin Myrna Smith, and Estelle Brown. The group became *the* go-to singers for soul and R&B records made in New York. They were regularly hired by Leiber and Stoller to sing on their records, and they were also the particular favourites of Bert Berns. They sang backing vocals on almost every record he produced. It's them doing the gospel wails on "Cry Baby" by Garnet Mimms: [Excerpt: Garnet Mimms, "Cry Baby"] And they sang backing vocals on both versions of "If You Need Me" -- Wilson Pickett's original and Solomon Burke's more successful cover version, produced by Berns: [Excerpt: Solomon Burke, "If You Need Me"] They're on such Berns records as "Show Me Your Monkey", by Kenny Hamber: [Excerpt: Kenny Hamber, "Show Me Your Monkey"] And it was a Berns production that ended up getting them to be Aretha Franklin's backing group. The group were becoming such an important part of the records that Atlantic and BANG Records, in particular, were putting out, that Jerry Wexler said "it was only a matter of common decency to put them under contract as a featured group". He signed them to Atlantic and renamed them from the Gospelaires to The Sweet Inspirations.  Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham wrote a song for the group which became their only hit under their own name: [Excerpt: The Sweet Inspirations, "Sweet Inspiration"] But to start with, they released a cover of Pops Staples' civil rights song "Why (Am I treated So Bad)": [Excerpt: The Sweet Inspirations, "Why (Am I Treated So Bad?)"] That hadn't charted, and meanwhile, they'd all kept doing session work. Cissy had joined Erma and Carolyn Franklin on the backing vocals for Aretha's "I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You"] Shortly after that, the whole group recorded backing vocals for Erma's single "Piece of My Heart", co-written and produced by Berns: [Excerpt: Erma Franklin, "Piece of My Heart"] That became a top ten record on the R&B charts, but that caused problems. Aretha Franklin had a few character flaws, and one of these was an extreme level of jealousy for any other female singer who had any level of success and came up in the business after her. She could be incredibly graceful towards anyone who had been successful before her -- she once gave one of her Grammies away to Esther Phillips, who had been up for the same award and had lost to her -- but she was terribly insecure, and saw any contemporary as a threat. She'd spent her time at Columbia Records fuming (with some justification) that Barbra Streisand was being given a much bigger marketing budget than her, and she saw Diana Ross, Gladys Knight, and Dionne Warwick as rivals rather than friends. And that went doubly for her sisters, who she was convinced should be supporting her because of family loyalty. She had been infuriated at John Hammond when Columbia had signed Erma, thinking he'd gone behind her back to create competition for her. And now Erma was recording with Bert Berns. Bert Berns who had for years been a colleague of Jerry Wexler and the Ertegun brothers at Atlantic. Aretha was convinced that Wexler had put Berns up to signing Erma as some kind of power play. There was only one problem with this -- it simply wasn't true. As Wexler later explained “Bert and I had suffered a bad falling-out, even though I had enormous respect for him. After all, he was the guy who brought over guitarist Jimmy Page from England to play on our sessions. Bert, Ahmet, Nesuhi, and I had started a label together—Bang!—where Bert produced Van Morrison's first album. But Bert also had a penchant for trouble. He courted the wise guys. He wanted total control over every last aspect of our business dealings. Finally it was too much, and the Erteguns and I let him go. He sued us for breach of contract and suddenly we were enemies. I felt that he signed Erma, an excellent singer, not merely for her talent but as a way to get back at me. If I could make a hit with Aretha, he'd show me up by making an even bigger hit on Erma. Because there was always an undercurrent of rivalry between the sisters, this only added to the tension.” There were two things that resulted from this paranoia on Aretha's part. The first was that she and Wexler, who had been on first-name terms up to that point, temporarily went back to being "Mr. Wexler" and "Miss Franklin" to each other. And the second was that Aretha no longer wanted Carolyn and Erma to be her main backing vocalists, though they would continue to appear on her future records on occasion. From this point on, the Sweet Inspirations would be the main backing vocalists for Aretha in the studio throughout her golden era [xxcut line (and when the Sweet Inspirations themselves weren't on the record, often it would be former members of the group taking their place)]: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Ain't Nobody (Gonna Turn Me Around)"] The last day of sessions for Aretha Arrives was July the twenty-third, 1967. And as we heard in the episode on "I Was Made to Love Her", that was the day that the Detroit riots started. To recap briefly, that was four days of rioting started because of a history of racist policing, made worse by those same racist police overreacting to the initial protests. By the end of those four days, the National Guard, 82nd Airborne Division, and the 101st Airborne from Clarksville were all called in to deal with the violence, which left forty-three dead (of whom thirty-three were Black and only one was a police officer), 1,189 people were injured, and over 7,200 arrested, almost all of them Black. Those days in July would be a turning point for almost every musician based in Detroit. In particular, the police had murdered three members of the soul group the Dramatics, in a massacre of which the author John Hersey, who had been asked by President Johnson to be part of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders but had decided that would compromise his impartiality and did an independent journalistic investigation, said "The episode contained all the mythic themes of racial strife in the United States: the arm of the law taking the law into its own hands; interracial sex; the subtle poison of racist thinking by “decent” men who deny they are racists; the societal limbo into which, ever since slavery, so many young black men have been driven by our country; ambiguous justice in the courts; and the devastation in both black and white human lives that follows in the wake of violence as surely as ruinous and indiscriminate flood after torrents" But these were also the events that radicalised the MC5 -- the group had been playing a gig as Tim Buckley's support act when the rioting started, and guitarist Wayne Kramer decided afterwards to get stoned and watch the fires burning down the city through a telescope -- which police mistook for a rifle, leading to the National Guard knocking down Kramer's door. The MC5 would later cover "The Motor City is Burning", John Lee Hooker's song about the events: [Excerpt: The MC5, "The Motor City is Burning"] It would also be a turning point for Motown, too, in ways we'll talk about in a few future episodes.  And it was a political turning point too -- Michigan Governor George Romney, a liberal Republican (at a time when such people existed) had been the favourite for the Republican Presidential candidacy when he'd entered the race in December 1966, but as racial tensions ramped up in Detroit during the early months of 1967 he'd started trailing Richard Nixon, a man who was consciously stoking racists' fears. President Johnson, the incumbent Democrat, who was at that point still considering standing for re-election, made sure to make it clear to everyone during the riots that the decision to call in the National Guard had been made at the State level, by Romney, rather than at the Federal level.  That wasn't the only thing that removed the possibility of a Romney presidency, but it was a big part of the collapse of his campaign, and the, as it turned out, irrevocable turn towards right-authoritarianism that the party took with Nixon's Southern Strategy. Of course, Aretha Franklin had little way of knowing what was to come and how the riots would change the city and the country over the following decades. What she was primarily concerned about was the safety of her father, and to a lesser extent that of her sister-in-law Earline who was staying with him. Aretha, Carolyn, and Erma all tried to keep in constant touch with their father while they were out of town, and Aretha even talked about hiring private detectives to travel to Detroit, find her father, and get him out of the city to safety. But as her brother Cecil pointed out, he was probably the single most loved man among Black people in Detroit, and was unlikely to be harmed by the rioters, while he was too famous for the police to kill with impunity. Reverend Franklin had been having a stressful time anyway -- he had recently been fined for tax evasion, an action he was convinced the IRS had taken because of his friendship with Dr King and his role in the civil rights movement -- and according to Cecil "Aretha begged Daddy to move out of the city entirely. She wanted him to find another congregation in California, where he was especially popular—or at least move out to the suburbs. But he wouldn't budge. He said that, more than ever, he was needed to point out the root causes of the riots—the economic inequality, the pervasive racism in civic institutions, the woefully inadequate schools in inner-city Detroit, and the wholesale destruction of our neighborhoods by urban renewal. Some ministers fled the city, but not our father. The horror of what happened only recommitted him. He would not abandon his political agenda." To make things worse, Aretha was worried about her father in other ways -- as her marriage to Ted White was starting to disintegrate, she was looking to her father for guidance, and actually wanted him to take over her management. Eventually, Ruth Bowen, her booking agent, persuaded her brother Cecil that this was a job he could do, and that she would teach him everything he needed to know about the music business. She started training him up while Aretha was still married to White, in the expectation that that marriage couldn't last. Jerry Wexler, who only a few months earlier had been seeing Ted White as an ally in getting "product" from Franklin, had now changed his tune -- partly because the sale of Atlantic had gone through in the meantime. He later said “Sometimes she'd call me at night, and, in that barely audible little-girl voice of hers, she'd tell me that she wasn't sure she could go on. She always spoke in generalities. She never mentioned her husband, never gave me specifics of who was doing what to whom. And of course I knew better than to ask. She just said that she was tired of dealing with so much. My heart went out to her. She was a woman who suffered silently. She held so much in. I'd tell her to take as much time off as she needed. We had a lot of songs in the can that we could release without new material. ‘Oh, no, Jerry,' she'd say. ‘I can't stop recording. I've written some new songs, Carolyn's written some new songs. We gotta get in there and cut 'em.' ‘Are you sure?' I'd ask. ‘Positive,' she'd say. I'd set up the dates and typically she wouldn't show up for the first or second sessions. Carolyn or Erma would call me to say, ‘Ree's under the weather.' That was tough because we'd have asked people like Joe South and Bobby Womack to play on the sessions. Then I'd reschedule in the hopes she'd show." That third album she recorded in 1967, Lady Soul, was possibly her greatest achievement. The opening track, and second single, "Chain of Fools", released in November, was written by Don Covay -- or at least it's credited as having been written by Covay. There's a gospel record that came out around the same time on a very small label based in Houston -- "Pains of Life" by Rev. E. Fair And The Sensational Gladys Davis Trio: [Excerpt: Rev. E. Fair And The Sensational Gladys Davis Trio, "Pains of Life"] I've seen various claims online that that record came out shortly *before* "Chain of Fools", but I can't find any definitive evidence one way or the other -- it was on such a small label that release dates aren't available anywhere. Given that the B-side, which I haven't been able to track down online, is called "Wait Until the Midnight Hour", my guess is that rather than this being a case of Don Covay stealing the melody from an obscure gospel record he'd have had little chance to hear, it's the gospel record rewriting a then-current hit to be about religion, but I thought it worth mentioning. The song was actually written by Covay after Jerry Wexler asked him to come up with some songs for Otis Redding, but Wexler, after hearing it, decided it was better suited to Franklin, who gave an astonishing performance: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Chain of Fools"] Arif Mardin, the arranger of the album, said of that track “I was listed as the arranger of ‘Chain of Fools,' but I can't take credit. Aretha walked into the studio with the chart fully formed inside her head. The arrangement is based around the harmony vocals provided by Carolyn and Erma. To add heft, the Sweet Inspirations joined in. The vision of the song is entirely Aretha's.” According to Wexler, that's not *quite* true -- according to him, Joe South came up with the guitar part that makes up the intro, and he also said that when he played what he thought was the finished track to Ellie Greenwich, she came up with another vocal line for the backing vocals, which she overdubbed. But the core of the record's sound is definitely pure Aretha -- and Carolyn Franklin said that there was a reason for that. As she said later “Aretha didn't write ‘Chain,' but she might as well have. It was her story. When we were in the studio putting on the backgrounds with Ree doing lead, I knew she was singing about Ted. Listen to the lyrics talking about how for five long years she thought he was her man. Then she found out she was nothing but a link in the chain. Then she sings that her father told her to come on home. Well, he did. She sings about how her doctor said to take it easy. Well, he did too. She was drinking so much we thought she was on the verge of a breakdown. The line that slew me, though, was the one that said how one of these mornings the chain is gonna break but until then she'll take all she can take. That summed it up. Ree knew damn well that this man had been doggin' her since Jump Street. But somehow she held on and pushed it to the breaking point." [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Chain of Fools"] That made number one on the R&B charts, and number two on the hot one hundred, kept from the top by "Judy In Disguise (With Glasses)" by John Fred and his Playboy Band -- a record that very few people would say has stood the test of time as well. The other most memorable track on the album was the one chosen as the first single, released in September. As Carole King told the story, she and Gerry Goffin were feeling like their career was in a slump. While they had had a huge run of hits in the early sixties through 1965, they had only had two new hits in 1966 -- "Goin' Back" for Dusty Springfield and "Don't Bring Me Down" for the Animals, and neither of those were anything like as massive as their previous hits. And up to that point in 1967, they'd only had one -- "Pleasant Valley Sunday" for the Monkees. They had managed to place several songs on Monkees albums and the TV show as well, so they weren't going to starve, but the rise of self-contained bands that were starting to dominate the charts, and Phil Spector's temporary retirement, meant there simply wasn't the opportunity for them to place material that there had been. They were also getting sick of travelling to the West Coast all the time, because as their children were growing slightly older they didn't want to disrupt their lives in New York, and were thinking of approaching some of the New York based labels and seeing if they needed songs. They were particularly considering Atlantic, because soul was more open to outside songwriters than other genres. As it happened, though, they didn't have to approach Atlantic, because Atlantic approached them. They were walking down Broadway when a limousine pulled up, and Jerry Wexler stuck his head out of the window. He'd come up with a good title that he wanted to use for a song for Aretha, would they be interested in writing a song called "Natural Woman"? They said of course they would, and Wexler drove off. They wrote the song that night, and King recorded a demo the next morning: [Excerpt: Carole King, "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman (demo)"] They gave Wexler a co-writing credit because he had suggested the title.  King later wrote in her autobiography "Hearing Aretha's performance of “Natural Woman” for the first time, I experienced a rare speechless moment. To this day I can't convey how I felt in mere words. Anyone who had written a song in 1967 hoping it would be performed by a singer who could take it to the highest level of excellence, emotional connection, and public exposure would surely have wanted that singer to be Aretha Franklin." She went on to say "But a recording that moves people is never just about the artist and the songwriters. It's about people like Jerry and Ahmet, who matched the songwriters with a great title and a gifted artist; Arif Mardin, whose magnificent orchestral arrangement deserves the place it will forever occupy in popular music history; Tom Dowd, whose engineering skills captured the magic of this memorable musical moment for posterity; and the musicians in the rhythm section, the orchestral players, and the vocal contributions of the background singers—among them the unforgettable “Ah-oo!” after the first line of the verse. And the promotion and marketing people helped this song reach more people than it might have without them." And that's correct -- unlike "Chain of Fools", this time Franklin did let Arif Mardin do most of the arrangement work -- though she came up with the piano part that Spooner Oldham plays on the record. Mardin said that because of the song's hymn-like feel they wanted to go for a more traditional written arrangement. He said "She loved the song to the point where she said she wanted to concentrate on the vocal and vocal alone. I had written a string chart and horn chart to augment the chorus and hired Ralph Burns to conduct. After just a couple of takes, we had it. That's when Ralph turned to me with wonder in his eyes. Ralph was one of the most celebrated arrangers of the modern era. He had done ‘Early Autumn' for Woody Herman and Stan Getz, and ‘Georgia on My Mind' for Ray Charles. He'd worked with everyone. ‘This woman comes from another planet' was all Ralph said. ‘She's just here visiting.'” [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman"] By this point there was a well-functioning team making Franklin's records -- while the production credits would vary over the years, they were all essentially co-productions by the team of Franklin, Wexler, Mardin and Dowd, all collaborating and working together with a more-or-less unified purpose, and the backing was always by the same handful of session musicians and some combination of the Sweet Inspirations and Aretha's sisters. That didn't mean that occasional guests couldn't get involved -- as we discussed in the Cream episode, Eric Clapton played guitar on "Good to Me as I am to You": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Good to Me as I am to You"] Though that was one of the rare occasions on one of these records where something was overdubbed. Clapton apparently messed up the guitar part when playing behind Franklin, because he was too intimidated by playing with her, and came back the next day to redo his part without her in the studio. At this point, Aretha was at the height of her fame. Just before the final batch of album sessions began she appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, and she was making regular TV appearances, like one on the Mike Douglas Show where she duetted with Frankie Valli on "That's Life": [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin and Frankie Valli, "That's Life"] But also, as Wexler said “Her career was kicking into high gear. Contending and resolving both the professional and personal challenges were too much. She didn't think she could do both, and I didn't blame her. Few people could. So she let the personal slide and concentrated on the professional. " Her concert promoter Ruth Bowen said of this time "Her father and Dr. King were putting pressure on her to sing everywhere, and she felt obligated. The record company was also screaming for more product. And I had a mountain of offers on my desk that kept getting higher with every passing hour. They wanted her in Europe. They wanted her in Latin America. They wanted her in every major venue in the U.S. TV was calling. She was being asked to do guest appearances on every show from Carol Burnett to Andy Williams to the Hollywood Palace. She wanted to do them all and she wanted to do none of them. She wanted to do them all because she's an entertainer who burns with ambition. She wanted to do none of them because she was emotionally drained. She needed to go away and renew her strength. I told her that at least a dozen times. She said she would, but she didn't listen to me." The pressures from her father and Dr King are a recurring motif in interviews with people about this period. Franklin was always a very political person, and would throughout her life volunteer time and money to liberal political causes and to the Democratic Party, but this was the height of her activism -- the Civil Rights movement was trying to capitalise on the gains it had made in the previous couple of years, and celebrity fundraisers and performances at rallies were an important way to do that. And at this point there were few bigger celebrities in America than Aretha Franklin. At a concert in her home town of Detroit on February the sixteenth, 1968, the Mayor declared the day Aretha Franklin Day. At the same show, Billboard, Record World *and* Cash Box magazines all presented her with plaques for being Female Vocalist of the Year. And Dr. King travelled up to be at the show and congratulate her publicly for all her work with his organisation, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Backstage at that show, Dr. King talked to Aretha's father, Reverend Franklin, about what he believed would be the next big battle -- a strike in Memphis: [Excerpt, Martin Luther King, "Mountaintop Speech" -- "And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy—what is the other bread?—Wonder Bread. And what is the other bread company, Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart's bread. As Jesse Jackson has said, up to now, only the garbage men have been feeling pain; now we must kind of redistribute the pain. We are choosing these companies because they haven't been fair in their hiring policies; and we are choosing them because they can begin the process of saying, they are going to support the needs and the rights of these men who are on strike. And then they can move on downtown and tell Mayor Loeb to do what is right."] The strike in question was the Memphis Sanitation Workers' strike which had started a few days before.  The struggle for Black labour rights was an integral part of the civil rights movement, and while it's not told that way in the sanitised version of the story that's made it into popular culture, the movement led by King was as much about economic justice as social justice -- King was a democratic socialist, and believed that economic oppression was both an effect of and cause of other forms of racial oppression, and that the rights of Black workers needed to be fought for. In 1967 he had set up a new organisation, the Poor People's Campaign, which was set to march on Washington to demand a program that included full employment, a guaranteed income -- King was strongly influenced in his later years by the ideas of Henry George, the proponent of a universal basic income based on land value tax -- the annual building of half a million affordable homes, and an end to the war in Vietnam. This was King's main focus in early 1968, and he saw the sanitation workers' strike as a major part of this campaign. Memphis was one of the most oppressive cities in the country, and its largely Black workforce of sanitation workers had been trying for most of the 1960s to unionise, and strike-breakers had been called in to stop them, and many of them had been fired by their white supervisors with no notice. They were working in unsafe conditions, for utterly inadequate wages, and the city government were ardent segregationists. After two workers had died on the first of February from using unsafe equipment, the union demanded changes -- safer working conditions, better wages, and recognition of the union. The city council refused, and almost all the sanitation workers stayed home and stopped work. After a few days, the council relented and agreed to their terms, but the Mayor, Henry Loeb, an ardent white supremacist who had stood on a platform of opposing desegregation, and who had previously been the Public Works Commissioner who had put these unsafe conditions in place, refused to listen. As far as he was concerned, he was the only one who could recognise the union, and he wouldn't. The workers continued their strike, marching holding signs that simply read "I am a Man": [Excerpt: Stevie Wonder, "Blowing in the Wind"] The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the NAACP had been involved in organising support for the strikes from an early stage, and King visited Memphis many times. Much of the time he spent visiting there was spent negotiating with a group of more militant activists, who called themselves The Invaders and weren't completely convinced by King's nonviolent approach -- they believed that violence and rioting got more attention than non-violent protests. King explained to them that while he had been persuaded by Gandhi's writings of the moral case for nonviolent protest, he was also persuaded that it was pragmatically necessary -- asking the young men "how many guns do we have and how many guns do they have?", and pointing out as he often did that when it comes to violence a minority can't win against an armed majority. Rev Franklin went down to Memphis on the twenty-eighth of March to speak at a rally Dr. King was holding, but as it turned out the rally was cancelled -- the pre-rally march had got out of hand, with some people smashing windows, and Memphis police had, like the police in Detroit the previous year, violently overreacted, clubbing and gassing protestors and shooting and killing one unarmed teenage boy, Larry Payne. The day after Payne's funeral, Dr King was back in Memphis, though this time Rev Franklin was not with him. On April the third, he gave a speech which became known as the "Mountaintop Speech", in which he talked about the threats that had been made to his life: [Excerpt: Martin Luther King, "Mountaintop Speech": “And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."] The next day, Martin Luther King was shot dead. James Earl Ray, a white supremacist, pled guilty to the murder, and the evidence against him seems overwhelming from what I've read, but the King family have always claimed that the murder was part of a larger conspiracy and that Ray was not the gunman. Aretha was obviously distraught, and she attended the funeral, as did almost every other prominent Black public figure. James Baldwin wrote of the funeral: "In the pew directly before me sat Marlon Brando, Sammy Davis, Eartha Kitt—covered in black, looking like a lost, ten-year-old girl—and Sidney Poitier, in the same pew, or nearby. Marlon saw me, and nodded. The atmosphere was black, with a tension indescribable—as though something, perhaps the heavens, perhaps the earth, might crack. Everyone sat very still. The actual service sort of washed over me, in waves. It wasn't that it seemed unreal; it was the most real church service I've ever sat through in my life, or ever hope to sit through; but I have a childhood hangover thing about not weeping in public, and I was concentrating on holding myself together. I did not want to weep for Martin, tears seemed futile. But I may also have been afraid, and I could not have been the only one, that if I began to weep I would not be able to stop. There was more than enough to weep for, if one was to weep—so many of us, cut down, so soon. Medgar, Malcolm, Martin: and their widows, and their children. Reverend Ralph David Abernathy asked a certain sister to sing a song which Martin had loved—“Once more,” said Ralph David, “for Martin and for me,” and he sat down." Many articles and books on Aretha Franklin say that she sang at King's funeral. In fact she didn't, but there's a simple reason for the confusion. King's favourite song was the Thomas Dorsey gospel song "Take My Hand, Precious Lord", and indeed almost his last words were to ask a trumpet player, Ben Branch, if he would play the song at the rally he was going to be speaking at on the day of his death. At his request, Mahalia Jackson, his old friend, sang the song at his private funeral, which was not filmed, unlike the public part of the funeral that Baldwin described. Four months later, though, there was another public memorial for King, and Franklin did sing "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" at that service, in front of King's weeping widow and children, and that performance *was* filmed, and gets conflated in people's memories with Jackson's unfilmed earlier performance: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord (at Martin Luther King Memorial)"] Four years later, she would sing that at Mahalia Jackson's funeral. Through all this, Franklin had been working on her next album, Aretha Now, the sessions for which started more or less as soon as the sessions for Lady Soul had finished. The album was, in fact, bookended by deaths that affected Aretha. Just as King died at the end of the sessions, the beginning came around the time of the death of Otis Redding -- the sessions were cancelled for a day while Wexler travelled to Georgia for Redding's funeral, which Franklin was too devastated to attend, and Wexler would later say that the extra emotion in her performances on the album came from her emotional pain at Redding's death. The lead single on the album, "Think", was written by Franklin and -- according to the credits anyway -- her husband Ted White, and is very much in the same style as "Respect", and became another of her most-loved hits: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "Think"] But probably the song on Aretha Now that now resonates the most is one that Jerry Wexler tried to persuade her not to record, and was only released as a B-side. Indeed, "I Say a Little Prayer" was a song that had already once been a hit after being a reject.  Hal David, unlike Burt Bacharach, was a fairly political person and inspired by the protest song movement, and had been starting to incorporate his concerns about the political situation and the Vietnam War into his lyrics -- though as with many such writers, he did it in much less specific ways than a Phil Ochs or a Bob Dylan. This had started with "What the World Needs Now is Love", a song Bacharach and David had written for Jackie DeShannon in 1965: [Excerpt: Jackie DeShannon, "What the "World Needs Now is Love"] But he'd become much more overtly political for "The Windows of the World", a song they wrote for Dionne Warwick. Warwick has often said it's her favourite of her singles, but it wasn't a big hit -- Bacharach blamed himself for that, saying "Dionne recorded it as a single and I really blew it. I wrote a bad arrangement and the tempo was too fast, and I really regret making it the way I did because it's a good song." [Excerpt: Dionne Warwick, "The Windows of the World"] For that album, Bacharach and David had written another track, "I Say a Little Prayer", which was not as explicitly political, but was intended by David to have an implicit anti-war message, much like other songs of the period like "Last Train to Clarksville". David had sons who were the right age to be drafted, and while it's never stated, "I Say a Little Prayer" was written from the perspective of a woman whose partner is away fighting in the war, but is still in her thoughts: [Excerpt: Dionne Warwick, "I Say a Little Prayer"] The recording of Dionne Warwick's version was marked by stress. Bacharach had a particular way of writing music to tell the musicians the kind of feel he wanted for the part -- he'd write nonsense words above the stave, and tell the musicians to play the parts as if they were singing those words. The trumpet player hired for the session, Ernie Royal, got into a row with Bacharach about this unorthodox way of communicating musical feeling, and the track ended up taking ten takes (as opposed to the normal three for a Bacharach session), with Royal being replaced half-way through the session. Bacharach was never happy with the track even after all the work it had taken, and he fought to keep it from being released at all, saying the track was taken at too fast a tempo. It eventually came out as an album track nearly eighteen months after it was recorded -- an eternity in 1960s musical timescales -- and DJs started playing it almost as soon as it came out. Scepter records rushed out a single, over Bacharach's objections, but as he later said "One thing I love about the record business is how wrong I was. Disc jockeys all across the country started playing the track, and the song went to number four on the charts and then became the biggest hit Hal and I had ever written for Dionne." [Excerpt: Dionne Warwick, "I Say a Little Prayer"] Oddly, the B-side for Warwick's single, "Theme From the Valley of the Dolls" did even better, reaching number two. Almost as soon as the song was released as a single, Franklin started playing around with the song backstage, and in April 1968, right around the time of Dr. King's death, she recorded a version. Much as Burt Bacharach had been against releasing Dionne Warwick's version, Jerry Wexler was against Aretha even recording the song, saying later “I advised Aretha not to record it. I opposed it for two reasons. First, to cover a song only twelve weeks after the original reached the top of the charts was not smart business. You revisit such a hit eight months to a year later. That's standard practice. But more than that, Bacharach's melody, though lovely, was peculiarly suited to a lithe instrument like Dionne Warwick's—a light voice without the dark corners or emotional depths that define Aretha. Also, Hal David's lyric was also somewhat girlish and lacked the gravitas that Aretha required. “Aretha usually listened to me in the studio, but not this time. She had written a vocal arrangement for the Sweet Inspirations that was undoubtedly strong. Cissy Houston, Dionne's cousin, told me that Aretha was on the right track—she was seeing this song in a new way and had come up with a new groove. Cissy was on Aretha's side. Tommy Dowd and Arif were on Aretha's side. So I had no choice but to cave." It's quite possible that Wexler's objections made Franklin more, rather than less, determined to record the song. She regarded Warwick as a hated rival, as she did almost every prominent female singer of her generation and younger ones, and would undoubtedly have taken the implication that there was something that Warwick was simply better at than her to heart. [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "I Say a Little Prayer"] Wexler realised as soon as he heard it in the studio that Franklin's version was great, and Bacharach agreed, telling Franklin's biographer David Ritz “As much as I like the original recording by Dionne, there's no doubt that Aretha's is a better record. She imbued the song with heavy soul and took it to a far deeper place. Hers is the definitive version.” -- which is surprising because Franklin's version simplifies some of Bacharach's more unusual chord voicings, something he often found extremely upsetting. Wexler still though thought there was no way the song would be a hit, and it's understandable that he thought that way. Not only had it only just been on the charts a few months earlier, but it was the kind of song that wouldn't normally be a hit at all, and certainly not in the kind of rhythmic soul music for which Franklin was known. Almost everything she ever recorded is in simple time signatures -- 4/4, waltz time, or 6/8 -- but this is a Bacharach song so it's staggeringly metrically irregular. Normally even with semi-complex things I'm usually good at figuring out how to break it down into bars, but here I actually had to purchase a copy of the sheet music in order to be sure I was right about what's going on. I'm going to count beats along with the record here so you can see what I mean. The verse has three bars of 4/4, one bar of 2/4, and three more bars of 4/4, all repeated: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "I Say a Little Prayer" with me counting bars over verse] While the chorus has a bar of 4/4, a bar of 3/4 but with a chord change half way through so it sounds like it's in two if you're paying attention to the harmonic changes, two bars of 4/4, another waltz-time bar sounding like it's in two, two bars of four, another bar of three sounding in two, a bar of four, then three more bars of four but the first of those is *written* as four but played as if it's in six-eight time (but you can keep the four/four pulse going if you're counting): [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "I Say a Little Prayer" with me counting bars over verse] I don't expect you to have necessarily followed that in great detail, but the point should be clear -- this was not some straightforward dance song. Incidentally, that bar played as if it's six/eight was something Aretha introduced to make the song even more irregular than how Bacharach wrote it. And on top of *that* of course the lyrics mixed the secular and the sacred, something that was still taboo in popular music at that time -- this is only a couple of years after Capitol records had been genuinely unsure about putting out the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows", and Franklin's gospel-inflected vocals made the religious connection even more obvious. But Franklin was insistent that the record go out as a single, and eventually it was released as the B-side to the far less impressive "The House That Jack Built". It became a double-sided hit, with the A-side making number two on the R&B chart and number seven on the Hot One Hundred, while "I Say a Little Prayer" made number three on the R&B chart and number ten overall. In the UK, "I Say a Little Prayer" made number four and became her biggest ever solo UK hit. It's now one of her most-remembered songs, while the A-side is largely forgotten: [Excerpt: Aretha Franklin, "I Say a Little Prayer"] For much of the