Save Your Face

This mix brings together most of the September-December 1973 Dead performances that have been released exclusively via “30 Days of Dead” (2010-2021), as of January 2022.

Official Dead curator Dave Lemieux has used the annual, November event to pluck extraordinary, individual Dead performances from shows the haven’t been released in full and perhaps never will be. 

The Fall ’73 selections combine into a mighty set.

105-minute mp3 mix zipped up here

• Weather Report Suite (11/23/73)
• Let Me Sing Your Blues Away (9/17/73)
• China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider (9/24/73)
• Playin’ in the Band (11/25/73)
• Dark Star > Mind Left Body > Dark Star >
• Feedback Chaos > 
• Eyes of the World > 
• Stella Blue (10/25/73)
• Ramble of Rose (12/19/73)

What was omitted:

• Tracks that were subsequently released on whole-show/road trip/etc. albums (as of January 2022).
• The 12/8/73 “Weather Report,” cut in favor of this 11/23/73 version, which is sonically-beefy on the bottom end and has extremely well-performed and mixed vocals.
• The 10/23/73 “Black Throated Wind,” which has a weird mix that highlights Keith’s exciting keyboard part, but which isn’t repeat-listen/album-worthy as a recording.

Cover art: Leo Morey

Official Dead curator Dave Lemieux has used the annual “30 Days of Dead” event to highlight and release extraordinary, individual Dead performances from shows the haven’t been released in full and perhaps never will be.

This mix melds Dave’s big-jam selections from 1994 into a single, volume-equalized, segued, trip. “Eyes of the World” appeared twice in Dave’s 1994 picks, and I chose to omit the 7/3/94 version that preceded this “Fire on the Mountain.”

Only one 1994 show has been released in full (10/1/94), on the “30 Trips Around the Sun” box. This mix provides a more concentrated Lemieux-curated case for 1994 being great - a take that I wholeheartedly agree with. 

mp3 mix zipped up here 

• Feel Like a Stranger (10/19/94)
• Shakedown Street (10/15/94)
• Playin’ in the Band > (10/05/94)
• Uncle John’s Band > Jam (10/05/94)
• Saint of Circumstance (09/19/94)
• Victim or the Crime > (06/26/94)
• Eyes of the World (06/26/94)
• Fire on the Mountain (07/03/94)

Art by Leo Morey

As far as I can tell, the four tracks provided here continue to be the hardest Joy Division studio outtakes to find. While certainly not essential for the casual/moderate fan, they will scratch the completist's itch.

You will need these four tracks to complete the studio recording jigsaw puzzle, all the other pieces of which are provided by:

• The releases from the band’s active period (proper albums, “Still,” singles/b-sides)
• The semi-official bootleg, “Warsaw”
• The official boxed set, “Heart and Soul” 
• The official BBC Sessions

Four tracks zipped up here

• Atrocity Exhibition (June 4, 1979 - Piccadilly Radio Session)
• Digital (March 4, 1979 - Eden Studios, Genetic Records demo)
• Novelty (mid-July, 1979 - Central Sound Studios)
• Transmission (mid-July, 1979 - Central Sound Studios)

If you’re looking for curated live Joy Division, try this collection.

This is an LP-length, Spotify mix that curates non-album material from the period of “Heaven Up Here” and “Porcupine.” The idea is to create a concise companion to those albums – the best b-sides and the most interesting alternate versions of album songs. 

This was the period when the young Bunnymen quartet was peaking at doing what came naturally, ahead of the greater circumspection/confection/long-term-template of “Ocean Rain” (1984) and beyond. It’s hard not to love the moment when a fixed group of musicians figures out how far it can take doing what comes naturally.

Though produced under very different biographical/developmental circumstances, the second and third Bunnymen albums fell together at the time and still do. This mix blurs their alternative edges into one trip.

Forty years on, the attempted, at-the-time, critical anatomization of Bunnymen music into psychedelic, proto-goth, post-punk-Doors, etc., categories makes sense and isn’t relevant anymore. There was nothing like the original Bunnymen recipe, nor will there ever be. 

Spotify Playlist

This mix presents an hour of vocal-free “Victim or the Crime” jams. 

I want to call “Victim” the Dead’s “Sister Ray” – a chugging, ecstatic, downer groove that pounds, drones, gets quiet, freaks out, dissolves, reforms, etc. Stringing 10 performances together does the same thing on a larger scale.

Resistance is futile. PLAY IT LOUD.

53-minute mp3 mix here

The sequence:

• 1991-09-25
• 1990-07-12
• 1991-09-13
• 1991-06-19
• 1991-03-21
• 1990-02-27
• 1990-07-04
• 1990-05-06
• 1990-04-01
• 1989-12-31

Note on selections:

I asked twitter for suggestions of good versions, and the responses mostly guided this mix, augmented with some poking around of my own. The mix doesn’t reflect a comprehensive review of all versions from the period covered. The date range bridges the 1990 keyboard player changeover without diverging in character very much. I’m also a fan of the 1993-1994 approach, which is quite different.

I discovered Jon Hassell’s music in the Fall of 1983, soon after I arrived in Ann Arbor for college. Schoolkids Records had all the EG label “ambient” albums in their cut-out bin for three or four bucks each. In addition to finding out what Eno and Fripp were doing outside of rock and roll, I heard Harold Budd and Jon Hassell for the first time. 

This short mix draws from several of the live Hassell bootlegs I happen to have. It’s my audio argument in support of an expansive, official, live release program.

You can support that goal by contributing to this official fund dedicated to preserving and releasing Jon Hassell's archives. I hope you'll donate, if you enjoy this sampler of unreleased music.

I started with the intention of including one excerpt from every tape I had, but I ended up pruning and adding tracks in pursuit of a more aesthetically satisfying double-LP experience.

The mix's mp3 song title tags provide details in this format:

Charm (Live 1981-11-13 Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario (Hassell, Eno, Brook, Dieng))

92-minute mp3 mix zipped up here

• Nice 3 (1998)
• Nice 1 (1998)
• Berlin 8 (1988)
• Nice 5 (1998)
• Missing You (2006)
• Charm (1981)
• Courage > Dream Theory (1982)
• The Elephant and the Orchid (1985)

This mix curates material from the final three shows of the Dead’s Europe ’90 tour, at London’s Wembley Arena.

The final night - 11/1 - was a particularly strong performance. Unfortunately, Jerry’s voice was ragged at the end of the tour and was completely shot for the middle show, Halloween. I skipped everything with that problem.

The mix features 66 minutes from 11/1, 45 minutes from 10/30, and an instrumental edit of Halloween’s Bird Song (which extends the Dark Starriness). Some fortuitous segues enabled me to make the second set flow continuously.

2-hour mp3 mix zipped up here

Set One:

• Cold Rain and Snow
• Cassidy
• Valley Road
• Picasso Moon
• Let It Grow >
• Interlude
• Stander on the Mountain

Set Two:

• Terrapin Station
• Victim or the Crime
• Bird Song (instr. edit)
• Playin’ in the Band >
• Dark Star >
• Interlude >
• Dark Star >
• Weirdness >
• Playin’ in the Band

This mix combines highlights from two of the five shows the Dead played in Germany, during a four-country, eleven-show, October 1990 European tour. The Hornsby/Welnick era was just a month old when this tour started.

Essen and Frankfurt book-ended two nights in Berlin, which are curated here. Combine the two mixes, and I think you’ll find yourself with a very satisfactory “Germany ’90” 4-disc set. (A final night in Hamburg was less exciting and isn’t covered on these mixes.)

The 10/17 Essen performance was very strong, contributing 13 of the 20 songs on this mix. It was the last time “Ramble on Rose” and “Tennessee Jed” appeared in the same concert, and it was the first time they had since 5/1/77. (Thank you Jerrybase!)

2.5 hour mp3 mix zipped up here

Set One:

• New Minglewood Blues
• Ramble on Rose
• Me and My Uncle
• Maggie’s Farm
• High Time
• Cassidy
• Tennessee Jed
• China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider
• Desolation Row
• Valley Road (debut)

Set Two:

• Truckin’ >
• He’s Gone
• The Wheel >
• I Need a Miracle >
• Black Peter
• Standing on the Moon >
• Playin’ in the Band >
• Uncle John’s Band
• All Along the Watchtower
• The Weight

Just a dozen shows into the Hornsby/Welnick era, the Grateful Dead went to Europe for eleven shows in Sweden, Germany, France, and England.

Aside from one of the France concerts, the run is unreleased. This mix curates the two Berlin shows, played just ahead of the one-year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

On the whole, the Europe ’90 run is pretty strong, and the sound board mixes are good. Nonetheless, as (almost) always, there’s material that crackles with a particularly bright energy and that is more than the remainder of its subtractions.

So, enjoy a concentrated, imaginary show by a version of the Dead that had just discovered that it could have a real good time together.

137-minute mp3 mix zipped up here

October 19

• Let the Good Times Roll
• Shakedown Street
• Looks Like Rain
• Brown Eyed Women
• Scarlet Begonias > 
• Fire on the Mountain
• The Other One
• It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue

October 20

• Let It Grow >
• Noodly Jam >
• Box of Rain
• Eyes of the World >
• Samson and Delilah
• Dark Star (edit of two parts) >
• Throwing Stones
• One More Saturday Night

All songs are presented in the order played, except for the relocation of Looks Like Rain. The first show began with Let the Good Times Roll and Shakedown. In the category of genuine, fun segues, this Eyes > Samson link is a very cool one. The first few minutes of Fire on the Mountain are dull, but hang in there.

This curation edits an extraordinary Grateful Dead & Guests passage to eliminate what was not extraordinary about it.

Santana and Duncan joined the Dead for part of the second set on this date, and it resulted in incendiary and surprising music. So many guitarists!

I’ve edited “Iko Iko” into a vocal-free jam, and I removed Garcia’s quite reasonable (but incorrect) belief that “Mona” was going to be “Hey, Bo Diddley.” There are 20 seconds of rhythmic uncertainty about what’s coming next, between the songs, but it sorts itself all of a sudden, and we’re back on track, and on our way to a great jam.

25-minute mp3 mix zipped up here

• Iko Iko > (instr. edit, 9:26)
• Mona > Jam (edit, 15:29)