50. 1969-04-04

87542 20:21 (20:01)

Main theme at 3:53 (feint), 4:03 (feint), 4:19 (band minus Garcia), 5:05 (feint), 5:34 (band minus Garcia).
First verse at 5:44.
Sputnik at 12:24.
Main theme at 16:39.
Bright Star at 17:56.
Main theme at 18:24.
Second verse at 18:49.
Goes into St. Stephen.


Things sound rather out of tune at the outset, and a little disjointed. Garcia tears into the bass notes at 1:03 in a way he’ll continue to do on and off for several years, which is always nice. Weir seems further forward than usual here. TC gets rambunctious with a little ascending swell at 2:20; at this point, this seems to be becoming a common gambit in what seems like a fairly limited repertoire of moves.


Weir and Garcia have a sort of staggering, staccato thing going on in the early going. At 3:53, Garcia starts feinting the main theme; when he refuses to go there this causes a moment of confusion, and then the band swings into it without him. He does not follow suit, however, and they start to drift away from it again. Another feint at 5:05 eventually gets the band going without him again at 5:34, but Garcia never plays it, instead going directly to the verse at 5:44. Throughout this, there are moments of evident indecision…


After the verse, Lesh slows the tempo and plays the main theme again, and Garcia tolls. There is a nice little bit of TC in all this, and some cymbal swells, and maybe something is about to start happening…Garcia comes in with his lead line rather authoritatively at 7:30, adding to this impression. Not entirely unexpectedly, things weird out a little instead of going straight to a peak, however. Garcia and Lesh kick up a bit of a fuss from about 8:17, and TC chips in with another little ascending run. Just after around 8:40 the band is doing what we want them to do, gelling yet with everyone playing something completely different…


There is a rather remarkable downshift just before the ten minute mark, and magic seems to be in the air. This seems to settle down into a place of indecision again, however. By 11 minutes or so, Garcia, TC, and Kreutzmann are left alone for a little while…Lesh starts to come back in, but no one seems to know just what to do, and it starts to sound like we’re heading toward Sputnik; instead, Garcia at 11:49 starts a little staccato passage that could develop into something, but at 12:24 he opts for Sputnik after all. As is often the case lately, the first half of this is raucous, but instead of leading to a more contemplative second half this goes on for a while, with Garcia again playing staccato and omitting many of the notes. At 14:37 he shifts to the insect weirdness, and this leads to one of the most intense and extended space passages we’ve yet heard beginning at about 15:28.


By 16:22 Garcia is trying to break out of space, but the band doesn’t allow it yet; finally, he signals for, and gets, the main theme at 16:39. As this settles down around 17:38, Garcia starts to go into Bright Star, and gets there by 17:56. From there, it’s back to the main theme, and the verse.


This is an odd one. It is a bit disjointed, but has some very exciting moments, and more weirdness than you can shake a stick at, albeit mostly in flashes. There are no dramatic peaks, really; even Bright Star never goes over the top. The Sputnik and the following space segment, however, make this one that can’t be ignored.


What was said:

pbuzby:


Listening to 4/4/69 now. Interesting that at 3:00 Bill is on drums and gets pretty loud around 3:50 before backing off when Jerry goes quiet. Seems like in most versions after 2/27 he does not play drums until after the first verse.

Strange turn towards A minor around 9:45-10:30. Some of Jerry and Bob's riffs here remind me of "In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed."

Upbeat, spiky Sputnik. At 14:20 Jerry starts strumming semi-randomly and it breaks down into silence at 14:30. Then he starts the insect segment but out of tempo. At 15:25 it builds into the shrillest feedback segment I've heard in a Dark Star to date. By 15:48 Jerry is alone and playing almost randomly again before it builds back up at 16:00. At 16:20 Jerry starts his usual triumphant playing near the end of the post-verse jam but the band is not with him until he plays the Dark Star riff at 16:40. By 17:50 we are at a relatively normal, but faster than usual Bright Star. Then Jerry quiets and slows down to prepare for the last verse.

Weird version.


Mr. Rain:


Dark Star follows Lovelight, in an odd twist...that didn't happen often! I agree that this is a disjointed version, they don't all seem to be on the same page and it doesn't flow well. But it's still a significant step in the progress of Dark Star towards increasing spaciness.
Good Bear recording. TC is louder than normal, he's clear throughout -- I can hear him once again! The percussion's well-recorded, and this Dark Star is more percussive than usual.

Jerry seems very uncertain at the outset, making little odd notes in the space where he normally sits out, so I take it he's tuning up. Decent intro jam after that -- the guiro quietly sneaks in after a couple minutes. More remarkably, Bill kicks in about 3 minutes in -- it's really rare for him to start drumming before the first verse, I can't remember the last time he did!
Seems like the jam might be heating up with the extra drumming drive after that, but instead Jerry seems to fall apart when he shoots for the main theme. The others gamely pick it up without him (a cute moment), but Jerry isn't helping, he aimlessly chords along and noodles for a bit as the others try to follow him, until he finally staggers into the verse. He's almost always so good at setting up the verse; I don't know what was distracting him here but he's way off his game.
Mickey's gong is loud and well-recorded in the verses!
Post-verse goes astray almost immediately. Lately, the plan has been for Phil & Bob to open a space while Jerry starts his bell-tolling. But this time, Phil launches right back into the main theme until he remembers, "oh, we're getting spacey now." Jerry's bell-tolling dies out pretty quickly...but in the confusion, a nice little space opens up as everyone hovers and the gong crashes for about 20 seconds, foreshadowing the spaces to come.
And we now get a new guest in the jam: a cowbell, persistently banging away for the rest of this Dark Star (and much of the rest of the set)! It's not one of the drummers, so it might be Pigpen, but it seems so insensitive to the music I'd suggest it's an unknown guest onstage. It certainly gives a different flavor to the performance: a Dark Star with a steady metronomic beat.
The band carries on with a nice jam, Bill drumming away. Things quiet down after 10 minutes and there's a stretch with mostly just Jerry soloing over the percussion, straight out of Alligator. The others try hopping in now and then, and Jerry hints at the Dark Star theme, but it remains directionless -- like you say, "no one seems to know what to do."
Finally Jerry starts up the Sputnik, and aha, they know what to do with this, everyone goes wild, Mickey tapping on guiro & TC swirling...a very rough-edged Sputnik gets very scrapy and percussive, Jerry aims for metallic dissonance. Then it's time for the insect weirdness, and now they really shine, diving into a howling spooky Halloween space. This is one of the freakiest bits they've played in Dark Star yet. (Jerry's use of the weird insect tone has changed since February: he used to play normal melodies with it, but now it's become an ambient element taking them to the Twilight Zone.)
Their jump back into the Dark Star theme is so brutish it's almost funny, with TC jauntily chirping away and the cowbell banging along. Jerry tries to squeeze a Bright Star in there, but with that steady beat going it can't grow, it just quickly hops along '68-style before melting away.
Back to the verse! Sounds like they're glad to be done with it.

Overall, not super-great, this is a distracted band and a sputtering Jerry, and the extra cowbell is, um....not what Dark Star requires. But when it's time to get spacey and weird, they outdo themselves and take it to the next level, incorporating a full-fledged little Feedback into Dark Star.


JSegel:



Lovelight before, so a little fiddling and then the stark proper intro. Ooh, tuning, guys… TC has an interesting reedy organ sound, sort of ROR-ing around. It all sounds a bit disparate, everybody is sort of going their own way in this intro jam section. JG has his tone rolled off, he’s trying to find some interesting arrangements of notes for his statements, gets into some odd modal areas. Settles down on a honk sound. I’m a goose, guys.

Ok, by 3 minutes he’s in a different register and there’s a drum set playing, what is happening with this Star! Still, despite the drums, nobody seems to be paying attention to each other, Jerry tries to play a Dark Star riff, but it all dies off. So Phil starts it up again. This is a weird improv, I would have thought they’d be doing some sort of more cozy stuff on home turf at the Avalon after some SoCal gigs, but it is herky-jerky, up and down all the way to the verse. Loud rolling cymbals/gongs (is it a gong?) taking over the mix on the verse. Weird percussion punctuations too.

Even going into the second jam area, it’s feeling odd. This acid is making me clench my jaw. Cymbal overload! Finally at 7.5min, Jerry is ready to play lead guitar, right? But, no, he’s still going in and out of the mode and it’s very up and down. TC still trying his weird fanfares. Jerry settles into an eddy with some chromatic pull-offs. Bill wants to jam, he’s ready to play some damn music, isn’t he? We’re getting some good tidbits, but the waves are all choppy and short with big lulls in between. Very unlike other Dark Stars. Jerry is really pulling the mode around to chromatic oddities this evening. Some interesting stuff developing in the quiet places, but again, it seems unfocused. I think Bob even drops out for periods. Maybe they’re trying to follow Jerry but he’s in an even weirder place than usual and it’s not working well.

Almost a percussion jam that leads him to start the Sputnik, whereupon most of the people seem to get an idea where they can fit in, but TC is wildly flailing up and down the keys, the drums are bashing away, Mickey is playing that annoying squeaky percussion thing. JG’s tempo is going up and down as he continues the Sputnik area for a long time with Bill Phill jams it out. A stop, and immediate switch to the insect weirdness, very outside, nonrhythmic percussion brings on a noise jam! We are indeed in outer space! I believe the odd feelings have brought about a new type of improvisation in this part! It’s outside, free improv! Oh boy, they got here, I daresay this may be the first Dark Star with atonal/free areas here? For a short period, and then as suddenly as it started, JG starts the theme and they fall in with a loose thematic jam. Building to a sort of repetitive Bright Star, and then that will get them back to verse 2. With too much cymbal/gong again. Halfhearted backing vocals for the madrigal, and they head woefully off toward St Stephen.

Definitely a weird one, not one of my faves, but with all that chromaticism and choppy ups and downs, they did briefly exit normal musical space for the void for a minute, playing with the sound in a free improv space. That’s another step forward, in a series of steps.




Mr. Rain:


Sounds like we heard this much the same way. I don't think the Dead have been this "off" in any Dark Star up to this point. Unfocused to say the least. Which makes the moments they do pull it together stand out more. Maybe Jerry had too much acid frosting that day. Or maybe inviting an extra cowbell player onstage during Dark Star was not the wisest move...
There have been times in previous Dark Stars where they nudged briefly into outer space, but this is the moment, short as it is, that really stands out as opening a new door. Funny that it might just have been a moment of frustration for them -- "this ain't working, let's just get noisy" -- and they pull out some Feedback shtick. But it works. And they'll come back to this idea.


Although we won't be getting to it for a couple weeks, the next night will be so much better! One of the classics....a return to flowing beauty after the rough, choppy waves of 4/4.




Adamos:

It feels a little rushed and disjointed at the outset. Jerry’s tone seems a bit different and he’s not really grabbing the bull by the horns. By 3:30 they’re getting a groove going but it still seems a little messy and it also peters out fairly quickly. Even the vocals in the first verse sound a little less committed. A reaction to the refreshments is certainly a possibility.

Strong gong in the mix after the verse and the aforementioned cowbell makes its presence known too. After 8 minutes they’re kind of gliding along getting something going but it still feels more earthbound. Past 9 minutes there’s more interweaving with Phil and Jerry but as a whole this portion doesn’t feel cohesive.

The arrival of Sputnik gives them something to coalesce around and things seem to tighten up a bit. Nice bounce from Phil around 14:00-14:10. Things are picking up steam, bring on some insect weirdness, ok now we’re getting somewhere. Around 16:20 Jerry is reaching out into the void; I want this to go on but he quickly downshifts and then at 16:40 boom it’s back to the Main Theme, which does sound good.



They’re working their way to the finish now; still sounds pretty good although the cowbell gets very prominent around 17:35. Not much of a Bright Star but it’s there and then it’s back to the Main Theme, second verse and call it. A strange performance but not without merits, particularly from Sputnik on.