38. 1969-02-14

141006 Philadelphia 19:03.
Main theme at 4:23.
First verse at 5:38.
Verse melody at 9:37.
Sputnik at 11:36.
Bright Star at 15:21.
Main theme at 16:44.
Second verse at 17:22.

Goes into St. Stephen.


The intro is cut. This has a pretty slow tempo [it seems that this source runs slow!], and the stretch it out more than they have been doing recently. Garcia plays a unique chiming drone around 3:52 that touches on Sputnik before heading into the main theme. Instead of going to the verse, Weir starts playing a high chime as Garcia pokes around on the bass notes, and then it sort of abruptly goes to the verse. At the conclusion of the first verse, Garcia again plays tolling bell tones rather than the 1968 lick. At around 7:50 he gets a striking tone on the bass notes, and begins a hazy ascent to the heavens that culminates around 8:20 or so with some repeated higher figures, then begins to wind its way upward some more until it discharges into a high sustained note at 9:31, before heading into the verse melody. The E minor section after the verse melody is rather dark and dramatic this time. Garcia is playing long, fluid lines throughout this jam, and dipping into little pockets of repetition along the way, which give the band a chance to kick up behind him. The Sputnik appears rather abruptly at 11:36, and again Garcia plays with that distinct trebly, distorted tone at the end of it; as usual, this doesn’t last very long. There is a beautiful passage of distorted guitar, and then Bright Star seems to appear out of nowhere, before it turns into a kind of bluesy variation of the main theme which builds to a little peak at around 16:30.


This one is a little slower, and the overall effect is dark and sort of menacing at times. The themes sort of ooze to the surface rather than appearing in a discernible sequence. The result is aesthetically quite satisfying, as if we are being shown a particular tract of psychic space that Dark Star has thrown open to us.


What was said:

After some monitor complaints, grounding rewiring maybe (tape in and out,) JG comes in with a weird tone and weird dissonant groups of notes, into a brazen response to feedback he climbs for a while settles in patches of intervals and then leaves it open. He’s in a mood. Which gives a chance to focus on the rest of the band, all there (mostly). Waves on waves of sounds, still a ways till a verse. They’re gonna go through a bunch of variations, we’ve got cascades up and down. Jerry gets into a little low string groove and Bob goes on a rhythm solo, leads to a verse.
The verse is performed well, they stick with that tripartate form going through the chords in different rhythms (up till now, mostly Phil on this, some Bob) which is also, or has been usually performed on instruments in the jam that follows somewhere*. Here, TC is finally moving a little air somewhere in the back anyway, he’s sort of with the vocal melody first line (“Dark Star crashes…”), then with Phil on his rhythmic statement pushing the beat doing the spy-theme rhythm on line 2 (“Mirror…”). He’s emphasizing the pushed downbeat more now, less weight on the note before it. On the third line (“Searchlight casting”) TC seems illustrate it literally with his little notes casting about, searching.
Shall we go? They have the crescendos going on still.
Into the jam, they let it happen, lots of gong and mic feedback for a while starting jam 2. Bob and gong. Cool stuff going on here, JG comes in melodically, immediately switches tones to the dark one and weirds out up and down geometric patterns of notes. (And I’m hardly high listening to this.) He’s got some new melodic/harmonic idea happening. Whole band comes together for beautiful peak at around 9 minutes, JG finally switches tone but is still getting caught up in weird triads before quarter to ten (minutes) here goes the *(here) verse-melody improv with its sections really overly pronounced, PL and BW really strumming on the “Mirror shatters” spy theme rhythm section, with cymbals now, causing JG to take off more in the third line, which makes it a bit weird when the band lands at the “shall we go” suspended chord(-ish) section and he’s still coming down, oh, we’re not at a lull here? not till a whirlpool on the low notes at 11 minutes, JG trying to break out after a while in weird intervals, hops almost directly into a sputnik set of suspensions in arpeggios around 12 minutes. They’re trying to force it to go somewhere else, hold it here till it moves, eventually everybody goes up high and tiny feedbacks and weird microphonic noises start to come out! New Weirdness with everyone! Ooops that’s gone, back to being a guitar again, hi, I’m just a guitar. but look, you’re still in the sputnik, did you know that? We’re not out of it yet? Where are we?
At 14:45 we get a new rambling theme-like thing coming in strong from JG, but it’s not rooted anywhere and still in the weird tone, he’s breaking it out to the bright star directly at 15:30, but he’s breaking it down with PL on some country blues licks now! What! Bob’s confused, he’s hitting his guitar. Shakers is laughing. Eventually hey, we’re here, about 16:50 with the theme. And verse 2! Glass hand is weird and warbly tonight, I’m getting the horror movie vibe in both verses, with the percussion and sound effects. And Jerry’s Dark Star voice. He shakes it like it’s scary! And we know he likes that.
Nice lower harmony on “You and I…” but then he tries to go high on “…nightfall…” Some outstanding sections in there this evening, whatever got Jerry interesting in suddenly doing all those wide triad melodic things, and some whole-band-improv that just moves along like a living thing.____
I noticed that one of the Dark Star chart makers, the older one has the “Spanish Jam” listed as happening at about 11-13 minutes of this one? Going back… That's not the “Spanish Jam” is it? That little weird section where Jerry rubs on some low strings and there’s chords from Bobby? Before the sputnik, I dunno.


Ooh, I like this one. A bit dark and brooding and weird, slower paced, the themes “ooze to the surface” as bzfgt wrote. The overall vibe conjures up some form of moonlit Druidic gathering. It feels powerful in its own way; less about blasting off or grandiose peaks but something is happening.


Only a few seconds cut at the start. Jerry gives his usual peal of feedback to start things off, and eases into the jam. This is much more leisurely-paced than the previous Dark Stars, it ambles around and stretches out without much hurry to get anywhere. In this case it's also without much drama...I wouldn't call this Dark Star sleepy but it's not too explosive either, more of a low-key trip through the cosmos.
Starts in mono, but a surprising switch to stereo around 3:15, sounds much nicer after that. We're in 3-D now! Phil & Bob are excellent as always, glued to Jerry like extra fingers. TC is mixed as low as always, I can occasionally tell he's still back there. Scratcher and/or maracas present, but otherwise the drums don't noticeably join the jam.
Jerry's really getting into that tolling-gong motif to start the middle jam....I think he figured out it's much cooler than that old post-verse lick. He gets into his repetitive loops a lot in this Dark Star...for example after 8:10, 10:45 & 16:00, among other spots. And the Sputnik is SO drawn-out -- well over a minute! (And then that squealy-guitar noise afterward.) I'm not sure if this suggests lack of inspiration on his part, or if he was really high & tripping on the notes, or if the band's doing this technique to increase the intensity & contrasts. In a way the whole Dark Star jam seems structured around these kinds of loops, Jerry's in that kind of mood. I agree with adamos about the brooding atmosphere. Anyway this Dark Star seems a little forced to me, but it's also getting a lot more spacey and cosmic than recent Dark Stars have been.


I think Jerry's approach to from 0:55 to around 3:45 is very reminiscent , or prescient of 4/22/69. Both his tone and themes sound "in the neighborhood" of where it evolves to just 2 short months later. I never noticed the link between the two until now. Great stuff!!