• Giveaway,  Jam,  Miscellaneous

    Dead at the Cow Palace Contest

    Dead at Cow Palace

    If you didn’t win this in Hidden Track’s recent contest (they took the best post title, “A Dead Giveaway”), here’s a chance to pick up Rhino’s recent release of the Grateful Dead’s New Year’s Eve 1976 show at the Cow Palace. It’s a triple CD set, it’s 180 minutes of Dead in their prime goodness, and I think you should have it. There’s a listening party right here, and you can also check out and buy the CD here.

    Leaving a comment below enters you in the contest, and I’ll pick a winner early in the coming week. Because it’s late Saturday morning, and I’m high on 2 cups of coffee and cold medicine, let’s get creative. Whoever comes up with the best Grateful Dead / Jerry Garcia related haiku wins the set.

    About Haiku: “Haiku is an unrhymed, syllabic form adapted from the Japanese: three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables. Because it is so brief, a haiku is necessarily imagistic, concrete & pithy, capturing a single moment in a very few words.”

    so good luck people
    this is a lot of music
    eat asparagus

    February 2nd Update: We gotta winner: Boyhowdy! See here for details.

  • Jam,  Rock

    Jerry Joseph’s Panama

    Jackmormons

    Here’s one that’s quickly shaping up to be my favorite tune of the summer (right along side “Pay Me My Money Down”, which is undoubtedly my family song of the summer). Yeah I know, summer officially began on June 21st, but living in a place where it’s been over a hundred degrees for a month straight, summer kicks off a little early around here. When I walk outside in these sweet Arizona summer months, it often feels like Satan himself is holding a bus-sized blow dryer over my head, but hey, it’s still home, right? It’s not a complaint, just a fact. It’s worth living here for October through May.

    The song comes to us courtesy of Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons. A previous post of mine featured “Climb to Safety”, a long, powerful jam with lyrics about the struggle of overcoming addiction. “Panama”, on the other hand, has a nice groove, a funky little guitar riff, and a definite summertime feel to it. I’ve got most of the lyrics pinned down (I can’t find them online, so I resorted to pen, paper, and a sensitive ear). Who can help me fill in the gaps?

    At least you’re tryin’
    everybody else down here keep buyin’
    whatever’s at the going rate today
    always gotta be about the chase.

    Well my friend Spike
    so sorry but it _________
    put it on the table here today
    So it’s gonna have to be okay.

    In Panama, Panama
    In Panama, Yeah
    It’s gonna have to be okay
    Baby gonna give it all away.

    At least you’re thinkin’
    everybody else here just keeps sinkin’
    sinking in a wave of regret
    and I don’t think the _______ is sinkin’ yet. [fin?]

    In the dancing hall
    Samy and Sandra Sandoval
    a finger on the heartbeat of it all
    _________ [spanish]

    In Panama, Panama
    In Panama, Yeah Yeah
    Gonna have to be okay
    Yeah they’re gonna love you more each day.

    And then the question come up
    are we wasting our time?
    Is this the presence of God
    or a presence of mind?

    In Panama, Panama
    In Panama, Yeah
    Gonna have to be okay
    gonna love you more each day.

    Hangin’ over
    Over and a hangin’ for a party [?]
    Flying season’s getting started
    You take it on a wing and get away.

    And at least you’re flyin’
    when everybody else down here just lyin’
    What you gotta love about the crocodile
    at least they gonna kill you with a smile.

    In Panama, Panama
    In Panama, Yeah
    It’s gonna have to be okay
    Yeah we’re gonna give it all away.

    In Panama, Panama
    In Panama, Yeah
    gonna have to be okay
    Yeah they’re gonna love you anyway.

    Can you figure out who the character in the song might be? From the bridge lyrics (“and then the question come up…”), it sounds like it might be from the perspective of a missionary. Jerry Joseph spent time living in both Utah and Central America, so this makes sense. And these lyrics: “What you gotta love about the crocodile, at least they gonna kill you with a smile.” Do lyrics get any cooler than this?

    Top to bottom, this is just a great song. I figure some people out there will enjoy it as much as I do.

    From ‘Into the Lovely’ [Buy on eMusic | Amazon]

  • Jam

    Sunday Jams

    There are certain things in life which make you wonder how you ever survived without them. The internet, cell phones (for better or worse), and for me, Satellite Radio. I’ve been a Sirius subscriber for about a year now, and have discovered so much great music because of the multitude of commercial free channels.

    One of my regular stops is Jam_On, which is Sirius’s ‘jam band’ channel, offering up your expected assortment of Phish, Dead, Widpespread Panic, etc. But they also feature some of the lesser known quality jam bands out there.

    frame of mind

    One of them is Frame of Mind. Their web site shows them to be “from the beaches of Southern California, to the mountains of central Idaho”. Definitely a couple of nice places to hone your craft. They’ve spent the last 5 years or so playing throughout the western states with such bands as Gov’t Mule, The Mother Hips, Arizona’s own Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers, and Soulive (who I’ll be seeing in a couple of months at the Telluride Jazz Celebration).

    It was this tune I heard on Sirius. The verses / choruses will conjure up thoughts of Blues Traveler (the harmonica riffs), but it’s the 8 minutes of instrumental meat in the middle which drew me in.

    Frame of Mind: It’s All Good (mp3) – recorded live at John’s Alley. Moscow, Idaho – Feb 3, 2006 – check out and buy their music

    the motet

    Speaking of instrumental jam goodness, the Motet, based out of Boulder, Colorado, have been mixing up funk, jazz, afrobeat, and afro-cuban since 1998. It was founded by drummer Dave Watts, who composes all of their music. If you like percussion oriented music, you’ll like these guys.

    The Motet: Belly (mp3) – from their Live CD

  • Jam

    RIP Vince Welnick

    Vince Welnick

    The curse of the Grateful Dead keyboard player continues. Vince Welnick, who started with the Tubes, and ended up being the last keyboard player for the Dead (1990-1995), has died at his home in Forestville, California (apparently of suicide). I saw the Dead ten times between ’94 and ’95, so Vince was the only keyboard player I ever saw. After Jerry Garcia’s death in ’95, Vince eventually formed his own group, Missing Man Formation. He would also sit in with other bands from time to time. Vince actually sat in with my friend Evan Jones and his band Xtra Ticket, a Dead-influenced band here in the Phoenix area, a number of times. Speaking of a number of times, I spent every Thursday for about 4 straight years watching Xtra Ticket play at Boston’s in Tempe. Goood times were had my friends, good times were had.

    Three of the five other Dead keys players also passed too early: Ron “Pigpen” McKernan (virtually drinking himself to death at the age of 27), Keith Godchaux (car crash), and Brent Mydland (drug overdose in 1990).

    I had a really good Missing Man Formation performance from a Grateful Dead Hour I taped years ago, but of course, my search came up fruitless. However, I checked out Xtra Ticket’s site, and they have a full Vince / Xtra Ticket show from Vince’s Birthday just last year at the fabled and now former Sail Inn in Tempe, AZ.

    Vince Welnick & Xtra Ticket: Watching the Wheels > The Wheel (mp3) – from Vince’s Birthday show, 02-19-2005

    You can download the entire show (in Mp3 or Zip) on this page at Xtra Ticket’s site.

    Grateful Dead: Way To Go Home (mp3), Vince on Vocals, from 06-25-1994 at the Sam Boyd Silver Bowl, Las Vegas (I was there!)

  • Jam

    Case of the Missing Dead Head

    Jerry

    Here’s another story that’s impossible for me to ignore. Someone has gone and lifted Jerry’s porcelain throne!

    SONOMA, California (AP) — The long, strange trip continues for Jerry Garcia’s toilet. Police say the Grateful Dead leader’s commode was stolen recently from a driveway along with three other toilets and a bidet.

    Garcia’s salmon-colored toilet was the subject of a legal battle before it was finally moved to Sonoma, to await shipment to a Canadian casino. Last month, Koltys sold Garcia’s toilet for $2,550 to online casino Goldenpalace.com, which planned to use it as part of a traveling marketing exhibit. The casino is offering a $250 reward for its return.

    Koltys said Friday the toilet once stood in Garcia’s master bathroom. “It would have been his personal head,” he said. – – from this article on CNN

    It’s hard to speculate exactly where the toilet has found a home, but I picture a 3 foot bong, a half eaten pan of ganja brownies, and a couple of beat-up copies of High Times magazine.

    So, I’m sorry, if bathroom humor is the theme of the day, then it is my doodie duty to play along…

    Grateful Dead: Dark Hollow (mp3) – from Reckoning

    Grateful Dead: Black Muddy River (mp3) – from In the Dark

  • Jam

    Unearthing the Dead


    I have located the mother of all Grateful Dead show mp3 repositories here at Archive.org. WOW. While my old tapes have been collecting dust, and I struggle with mustering up the enthusiasm to convert them to mp3?s, this site has saved me all the trouble.

    I saw the Dead a total of 10 times in 1994-1995 (Phoenix, L.A., and Las Vegas), which is nothing compared to some friends of mine who were in the triple digits. Nothing will ever match the atmosphere and ambience of a Dead show, both in and outside the performance itself (the parking lot sideshow is something you can?t explain without experiencing it). It was a traveling carnival, a mass of friendly people selling their wares (both legal and not), dancing, drumming, walking around, checking each other out, smoking, and smoking some more? and the throng would just take over the surrounding area. It was something to see?

    Here?s part of one my personal faves:

    Grateful Dead: The Other One > Wharf Rat > Throwing Stones > Not Fade Away (mp3 16.5 MB) ? live at the Oakland Coliseum, December 31st, 1987

    Link to hundreds of Dead Shows at Archive.org.

  • Jam,  Rock

    Climbing with JJ and the Jackmormons

    File this one under Power Trio. Jerry Joseph on guitar. Junior Ruppel on bass. Brad Rosen on Drums. Together they are Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons. Jerry used to front a reggae/rock band called Little Women in Boulder, Colorado through the 80’s and early 90’s. “Joseph continued to record before an oft-publicized drug addiction temporarily sidelined his career. The process of getting clean took Joseph to New York, Montana, Salt Lake City, where the Jackmormons were formed in 1996, and eventually to Portland.” [from JJ official web site]

    Joseph penned this tune to describe the hell of drug addiction. It’s a 15 minute journey powered by a driving rhythm section (a great bass line in particular) and Joseph’s wicked guitar. The louder the better folks.

    Check out Mouthful of Copper, the live double CD, on Amazon. Recorded live over 3 nights in Butte, Montana (from August 2002).