Dweezil’s Signed My Flesh

I drove up to Summerfest in Milwaukee last night to see Zappa Plays Zappa and I caught Dweezil in back of the stage after the show and had him sign my leg around my Zappa tattoo.

Dweezil is pretty cool.  This is the 2nd time I got his autograph,  and he is always such a nice guy.  He is really enjoying traveling around playing his dad’s music.  I’m enjoying it too.

A Nice Old Grateful Dead Show

This is a good Dead show from Berkeley Community Theatre on August 21, 1972. Enjoy!

Iron and Wine and Califone

So we were backstage at the Iron and Wine and Califone show at the Vic in Chicago last night. I am so glad I got turned onto Iron and Wine and wouldn’t have if our friend, Ben didn’t play percussion for them. I think they are my new favorite band. Great sound and great lyrics, but definitely on the mellow side

Here is a cool clip of an Iron and Wine show in Amsterdam on 01.21.08. You can see Benedetto behind Sam in almost the whole video of the show.

Grateful Dead – Frost Ampitheatre – 1982-10-10

I am posting the following night of the Frost 1982 shows because this one is considered to be in the top ten live Grateful Dead shows to get on disc or tape. I didn’t go to either of these shows, but this is another cassette I wore out back in the day. I only had the audience 2nd set until I found the whole soundboard show in a DAT trade back in 1998. So, I wasn’t really familiar with the first set until then, which is a shame, because this one is hot!

I am going to post some comments from the archive.org message board about this show because a lot of people have already said all you really can about this show. So here are some comments:

This show is on the top of people’s lists of favorite shows (especially for 82) for good reason. The first set songs at the end of the set which once occupied the b-side (remember XL II-s) and had garcia solos that were dead on perfect one song after the other. The fact that they were some of my favorite song solos for him to play made it all the better. I’m talking about his solos on Far from me, then Loser, then Looks, then Rider. Front to back, one of the best first sets of the year and top twenty of the decade. The second set features my favorite sailor (for those of us who love this song) and one of the most furious solos garcia ever took part in– at the end of saint. This one is my favorite show from one of my favorite years and one that should be had by anyone who likes the 80s.

The boys were on this night.The LLR is THE BEST VERSION I HAVE HEARD. I read that Bobs girl just left him a few days before this show.Listen to the end section where does him”speil” and listen carefully…very emotional!!

In my opinon just may be one of the best sounding shows from the early eighties. The mix is just perfect through out the entire show. Unfortunately “Space” is missing but, other than that this show is on Fire ! In no way does the band go through the motions on this night. Upon listening you can hear how each member is pushing the other to higher and higher levels. Satisfaction is a great reflection of this. This is a prime example of what made the Grateful Dead so good. So if you don’t have it get it enjoy it and tell your friends ! On a side not not that it even matters what I think but, I have never given a show 5 stars before.

So, here it is:

Grateful Dead – Frost Ampitheatre – 1982-10-09

I am testing the embedded player from Archive.org to see if I can put it into the blog.

I went to 84 Grateful Dead shows from 1981 to 1995 and I started documenting some of the experiences at my page on Dead.net . But, I thought I would add some actual concert audio on this blog with some commentary about the music and leave the real (and potentially not so family friendly) commentary about the concert experiences at Dead.net.

I was a tape collector and I still have DAT copies of 100’s of shows. I am going to post the audio of concerts that I attended and many more that I didn’t attend here.

The first post is a show that I did not attend. It is from the Frost Ampitheatre at Stanford in Palo Alto, CA in 1982. I had seen the Dead by this point, but hadn’t started traveling to see them yet. That really started in 1983. I had an audience recorded cassette of this show for years and I think I literally wore it out. Some nice soundboard copies have come around over the years and I have a good one on DAT. I am not sure I like the board copy better than the audience because it’s missing some of the energy and Bobby’s guitar is not high enough, but I have to put it here because the quality is so good. So, here is one of my favorite Grateful Dead concerts of all time:

The whole show is just about as perfect as the Dead were in 1982. The first set is extemely high energy and erupts with Music Never Stopped and Deal (the best I have ever heard). The second set has some of the first versions of Throwing Stones and Touch of Grey, before they were cheesed out and made into pop songs.

Tomorrow I will try to post the following night at Frost because it is considered in the top 10 of Grateful Dead shows to get on tape.

Enjoy!

(Update) Oh hell! I had to include the audience copy of this show because you just can’t hear Bobby’s guitar work well enough on the board copy. Listen to Deal to see what I mean. It’s a nice contrast:

King Crimson – Discipline

Laura used to call me a music snob and I suppose I still am. (even though you can now catch me walking around the house singing High School Musical songs) I think most King Crimson fans can be accused of being snobs. A lot of the Crimson fans I knew in the 80’s used to make fun of me for seeing the Grateful Dead so much, even though I was part of the same “progressive” scene as they were. So I never considered myself that much of a snob.

I have seen King Crimson a lot since the early 80’s. I first saw them during the Discipline tour. A few years ago, my friend Will and I drove from Chicago down to Nashville to see a rehearsal show they did at a small bar called 12th and Porter. I guess Belew has a studio in Nashville and they like to play at this club before heading out on tour. We got down there pretty early and stood about 5 feet away from the band at almost eye level. It was an incredible experience and I even caught a guitar pick from Adrian. I have it framed on my dining room wall along with the drumsticks Pat Mastelotto handed me after a show at the Chicago Theatre that I had front row for.  I also have a ticket signed by Dweezil Zappa and Ray White in that frame.

Now that’s a music snob for ya.

Frank Zappa – Montana

This is my favorite YouTube.com Frank Zappa video.   The quality is not that great,  but this era of his work and the band is my favorite.  The guitar playing is great and there is the typical silly bantor of a live Zappa performance,  but you can really see the improvisational stuff in between some really tight playing and composition.  

Genesis – Musical Box