Save Your Face

Here’s a 24-minute 1981 “Playin’ in the Band” jam to fight your favorite 1974 version.

I’ve edited the epic, unreleased, 3-part, 3/2/81, Cleveland performance into a continuous, instrumental event that includes the relevant passage from space. (“China Doll” and drums broke up the performance.) This was the first “Playin’” of the year.

 A longish, spicy, instrumental edit of  “Supplication” is the encore. I’d hoped to weave it into the “Playin’” sequence, but it didn’t work. Still, a logical pairing with “Playin’."

Half-hour, mp3 mix zipped up here

• Playin’ in the Band (3-parts + space instrumental edit) (23:35)
• Supplication (instrumental edit) (4:50)

Cover image: Detail of Nora Hilgart-Griff photograph

This mix curates improvisational material from the Dead’s first shows of 1981, at the Uptown Theatre in Chicago. The band and the mix are crackling.

I’ve edited large swaths of the music into instrumental versions. One reason is Garcia’s exceptionally weird, small voice. The other is that I like to make instrumental edits for every era/year. 

Instrumental edits eliminate the distractions of song-tightness and vocal quality altogether, leaving only the pure playing. As an improv-head, listening to vocal-free Dead has made me an advocate of nearly every year in the band’s history. 

The band certainly played a lot of exciting and surprising minutes of music at the Uptown Theatre in February 1981. I’d never heard these performances, but Jesse Jarnow’s @bourgwick show-by-blow account persuaded me to baste in them on their 40th anniversaries and to pay particular attention to the material on this mix.

The first set includes unedited vocal performances, plus one big, stand-alone jam. The second set is all-instrumental, except for “Not Fade Away” and “The Other One.”

2h20m mp3 mix zipped up here (dates included in song title tags)

Set One (65 minutes):

• China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider
• Bird Song
• Truckin’
• Jam
• Let It Grow >
• Deal

Set Two (75 minutes):

• Scarlet Begonias (instr. edit) >
• Fire on the Mountain (instr. edit) >
• Estimated Prophet Intro & Jam >
• Eyes of the World (instr. edit)
• Drums > Space > 
• Quiet Improvisation >
• Not Fade Away >
• Wharf Rat (instr. edit)
• Terrapin Station (instr. edit) >
• Jam
• Quiet Improvisation >
• The Other One

Cover artist: unknown

This mix provides a full hour of Clementine, as played by several Grateful Dead configurations in 1968 and early 1969. It was the band’s first jazz jam. 

I believe I have included every recorded version, except for the officially-released 8/13/68 studio jam (AOXOMOXOA bonus track).

This Dead Essays post is the place to find answers to all your Clementine questions. 

62-minute mp3 mix zipped up here

• Clementine Rehearsal Edit (9/12/68, studio Hartbeats)
• Clementine (1/27/68, live Grateful Dead, Seattle)
• Clementine Jam (10/30/68, live Hartbeats)
• Clementine Instrumental Edit (1/26/69, live Grateful Dead, Avalon Ballroom, SF)
• Clementine Jam 1 (10/8/68, live Hartbeats, The Matrix, SF)
• Clementine (2/2/68, live Grateful Dead, Portland)
• Clementine (1/20/68, live Grateful Dead, Eureka)
• Clementine Jam 2 (10/8/68, live Hartbeats, The Maxtrix, SF)

Edits:

• For the 9/12/68 rehearsal, I have edited together fragments of the stop-start practice session to simulate a complete performance. Vocals by Lesh!
• I took the vocals out of the final, 1/26/69 performance, because they’re not good, kind of buried, and way less interesting than early ’69 Dead exploring the musical opportunities. For great Garcia vocals, listen to early ’68.
• I edited out the slack parts of the Hartbeat’s 10/8/68 performance.

From Spring 1985 to Spring 1986, the Supplication jam was set free. Without the complications of Lazy Lightning or the need to land the jam at the Supplication vocals, the band enjoyed themselves thoroughly. The missing melodies crop up and here and there, as part of the jammy fabric. 

This mix compiles the period’s eight full-blown performances, which are individually and collectively an outstanding demonstration of 1980s Dead. 

I’ve used fades rather than attempting fake segues, because the band worked hard at landing or crashing the jam into all sorts of songs – Promised Land, Esau, Might as Well, Let It Grow, Don’t Need Love, Playin’ Jam. 

Those songs are beyond the scope of this mix (except Playin' Jam!), but I’ve left in the interesting transitions and faded them just before the next song bursts into full existence.

43-minute, 8-track, mp3 mix zipped up here (all dates included in tags)

This mix is a 38-minute, instrumental edit of jammy material Dick Latvala didn’t include on Volume 7 of “Dick’s Picks” - Alexandra Palace, September 9-11, 1974.

The Save Your Face mixtape marathon began as a 1974 listening project, and it’s been a long time since I added anything to the pile delicious, unreleased music from that year. 

This mix is all-instrumental due to SBD tape flaws (“Scarlet”) and DJ preferences (“Eyes” and “Wharf Rat”). There’s nothing wrong with the singing of those songs, though nothing special about it either. 

The long, Keith-centric opening of “Eyes” made it an appealing choice to turn into a vocal-free, escalating jam. I also removed one, small, momentum-breaking passage from the jam itself.

I liked the way the jam led up to “Wharf Rat” and how the WR started, so I made the whole song into an instrumental edit, which provides a nice “Dew”/“Dark Star”-energy end to the short ride.

38-minute mp3 mix zipped up here

• Scarlet Begonias (intro & jam edit)
• Eyes of the World (instrumental edit) >
• Space >
• Jam >
• Wharf Rat (instrumental edit)

This mix creates a continuous, chronological, 65-minute “Slipknot!” from all (but one) of the June 1976 performances. The synchronized “Slipknot” riff appears for only 60 seconds – before the first jam and after the last. Otherwise, it’s exclusively the improvisational passages folding into one another. (I skipped June 4, because no complete soundboard recording circulates.)

1976 “Slipknots” are one of the best places to hear extended “jazz Dead” in the early two-drummer period. The approach is full of open spaces and side-trips, Mickey operating in Billy time zones. It’s not too hard to pretend that the performances are from 1974 and/or representative of an alternate-Earth’s post-1975 Dead timeline.

I’ve never been a super-fan of the June 1976 vibe and pacing as a whole, but the more open spaces of the month are almost always a distinctive treat – Slipknot, Playin’, early St. Stephen jams, the first, swirly minutes of Supplication, etc. 

65-minute mp3 mix zipped up here

• 6/3/76 (11:49)
• 6/10/76 (5:50)
• 6/14/76 (12:00)
• 6/17/76 (6:58)
• 6/19/76 (5:21)
• 6/21/76 (7:22)
• 6/24/76 (7:34)
• 6/27/76 (9:11)

This mix presents an extended version of “St. Stephen,” as played in June 1976.

Upon its return to the repertoire that month, the song often included a sizable jammy passage that concluded with the song’s reprise. 

The first three of the month are the really interesting ones, sounding to me like they could have come from or be heading toward “Supplication” – almost like it’s a leftover mood from the 1975 rehearsals/jams. 

This approach didn’t last long. By the fourth version, “Not Fade Away” begins its takeover of “St. Stephen’s” jam space. On 6/18 (not included on this mix), they played the first “SS > NFA > SS” sandwich, which reduced “St. Stephen” to just its song parts. Following that, all the June jams are “NFA”-inflected.

The mix is arranged chronologically, and you get a full blast of the audience response at the breakout on the first night. The exception to chronology is an audience-only, very NFA take, which comes last.

Because the song’s jam and final vocal section both began with a dramatic pause, the versions string together easily. Similar to the SYF May '77 edits.

38-minute mp3 mix zipped up here

• 6/9 Song > (starting with audience patch)
• 6/9 Jam (7:11)
• 6/11 Jam (4:33)
• 6/15 Jam (5:50)
• 6/26 Jam (4:50)
• 6/29 Jam (4:28)
• 6/23 Jam (6:26 aud)

Plus a bonus track: 

I’ve appended a 13-minute bonus track from a previous SYF mix that edits together three of the earliest “St. Stephen” jams, from June 1968. At that time, when the song was brand new, the jam section was under construction, as it would be again upon the song’s return in ’76.

Source note: 

Many of these ’76 shows have been released, but I only own a few on CD. So, I’ve used fan-circulating tapes across the board.

It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition. This is the dimension we call the Grateful Dead.

Imagine if you will, 30 minutes of 1985 Grateful Dead music related to “The Twilight Zone” theme and mood.

With the help of middle-man Merl Saunders, the Dead were hired to create theme and incidental music for the 1985 reboot of “The Twilight Zone.” A soundtrack album was released containing a combination of ominous Dead “space” and cheesier, ‘80s pop moves.

This mp3 mix includes all the “space” passages, plus an edit of studio outtakes, plus three live passages. No cheesy stuff.

“Merl says that the night he sat in during the ‘space’ jam at one of the recent Berkeley shows, ‘we did a bit of the Zone without the theme. It was kind of loose. We’d been in the studio working things about a week, and then all of a sudden I was just up there onstage!’” (Golden Road #6)

According to Garcia, the band recorded enough bits to construct a much larger Twilight Zone space.

“… but what we got [to do] was a collection of little musical inserts called stings and bumpers – you know, little hunks of non-specific music of various lengths that have different moods. One might be a mood like, ‘Don’t open the door,’ or ‘Don’t go up into the attic.’ Or, ‘I’m going to work work, honey. Are you sure you’ll be OK home alone?’ They go all the way from a sort of noncommittal [he makes light, almost playful guitar sounds] to a real ominous ‘Braaaaaagh!” They gave us a huge menu of those – 40 that are like 5 seconds, 20 that are 6.5 seconds, a bunch that they can fade in and out. Then it’s the music editor who actually fits them into the show.” (Golden Road #6)

My assumption is that the 17 minutes from the official soundtrack included on this mix are made up of a slew of these tiny pieces of mood music, edited together. 

31-minute mp3 mix zipped up here

• Twilight Zone (live 6/21/85)
• Twilight Zone (live 9/15/85)
• Twilight Zone (studio outtake edit)
• Space (live 3/9/85 w/Merl Saunders)
• TZ Soundtrack: Main Title Theme
• TZ Soundtrack: Kentucky Rye Pt. 3
• TZ Soundtrack: Shadowman (edit)
• TZ Soundtrack: Nightcrawlers
• TZ Soundtrack: Eye of Newton (edit)
• TZ Soundtrack: End Credits

The session/demo edit comes from this set of fragments. I found that several of them contain the exact same, main passage (w/some different treatments), so my edit comprises the non-repeating passages. 

If you enjoy the Dead making soundtrack music, you might like:

• This 1969 edit of the band playing cartoon music
• These 1994 edits of full-bore MIDI wonderfulness

This two-hour mix features a particular zone of 1973-1974 jazz Dead. It’s comprised of some of the most diffuse and drifty “Dark Star” passages of the period, plus adjacent jams that took the same mood into additional territory. 

Common denominators are complex, gentle beauty and Bill Kreutzmann’s amazing drumming.

Soaring-melodic-rock “Dark Star” moments occur very rarely. The first verse of “Dark Star” appears periodically to present the straight melody that solves the Rubic’s Cube happening everywhere else. 

Each track is a continuous, as-played, Dead passage (with one exception that I forget). I’ve chosen start and end points based on the coherent zone I was seeking. I’ve created segues where opportunities presented themselves and faded elsewhere. 

I figured two hours of this trip was enough. It’s the same length as this compendium of Europe ’72 “Dark Star” passages and adjacent jams. The two mixes offer an easy and interesting way to compare and enjoy the two extremes of the mature one-drummer period. 

2-hour mp3 mix zipped up here

• Dark Star > (12/6/73)
• Jam After Dark Star (12/6/73)
• Dark Star (11/30/73)
• Dark Star (2/24/74)
• Dark Star (6/23/74)
• Dark Star (11/11/73)
• Jam After Dark Star (11/11/73)
• Dark Star > (10/18/74)
• Jam After Dark Star (10/18/73)

Errata: The two 12/6/73 tracks are mislabeled as 12/5/73 in the mp3 files.

Cover art: Detail manipulation of Leo Morey, 1934. Used as the cover of the August 1934 issue of the pulp magazine “Amazing Stories.” High resolution image of the original painting courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

This mix presents thirteen 1972-1974 performances of the transition jam between “China Cat Sunflower” and “I Know You Rider.” 

Most selections are from 1974, the bounciest, grooviest year of the band’s history, and consequently the peak year for this jam. As one would expect of 1974, the passage got longer and more hair-raising. 

All the performances followed the same pattern:

• Transition-introduction (25 seconds)
• Weir solo (1.5 to 2 minutes)
• Garcia solo > Feelin’ Groovy jam (variable, the length of the whole jam minus ~2.5 minutes)
• Approach to I Know You Rider's first verse (10-30 seconds)

The Feelin’ Groovy theme was added to the China > Rider jam in March 1973.

Within the standard frame, variations abound in the individual playing and the collective mesh. Drop the needle into the same sections of many versions in a row, and you’ll be surprised. 

Pried loose from the two songs, the China > Rider jam stands up on its own as part of the bubbling “thematic jam” arc that runs through Alligator, Dark Star, Good Lovin’, Tighten Up, and “stuff that happened after Truckin’ in 1974.” (You'll find more mixes focused on such themes here.)

Different sound board mixes also contribute to the experience of variety. This variable is especially cool for the Weir solo section, where his guitar part syncopates more strongly with with different musicians on different recordings.

I was stuck between two options for this mix: Choose five or six versions, or include too many for any sane person to listen to at one time. I went with too many.

For review purposes, I isolated 28 of the period’s jams (mostly 1973-1974), and then I winnowed them down to 13 for this compilation. 

There was no rhyme or reason to the 28 I started with, except that I tried not to miss long versions. Of course, my picks are entirely unrelated to how well or badly the band played and sang the two songs on either side of the jam. 

Some versions got cut for bad sound or out of tune instruments. Some performances were simply okay. Others were really good, but lacked any great distinction when compared to many other versions. In this last respect, 1973 got trampled by 1974; I started with a dozen versions from each year. 

Anyhow, here are 13 really fine China > Rider jams. 

82-minute mp3 compilation here

• 72/10/08 (4:44)
• 73/07/28 (5:27)
• 73/09/11 (5:56)
• 74/02/22 (5:34)
• 74/02/24 (7:00)
• 74/03/23 (5:24)
• 74/05/19 (5:23)
• 74/06/08 (5:17)
• 74/06/16 (7:36)
• 74/06/30 (7:54)
• 74/07/31 (6:26)
• 74/08/05 (8:18)
• 74/09/10 (6:46)

Cover art by Mary Poliquin. You can purchase a print here.