56. 1969-04-17

St. Louis (Download Series 12) 21:35

Main theme at 6:13.
First verse at 7:21.
Sputnik at 14:04.
Main theme at 19:36.
Second verse at 20:01.
Goes into St. Stephen


Starts out with some sort of percussive licks from Garcia. Starting at :35 the band swells for a little bit, which is pleasantly weird. At 1:32 there’s another pre-verse almost-Bright Star. At around 3 minutes things hit a holding pattern and it seems like the main theme is coming, but instead they draw it out a little and go into another little jam. At 4:39 Garcia starts a remarkable passage, his playing exaggeratedly slow and distorted. There’s another pseudo-Sputnik starting at 5:39 which leads to the main theme. Garcia starts messing with the theme a bit, playing it almost like Bright Star.


After the verse Garcia goes right to some lead lines, then at 9:34 it’s as though he suddenly recalls he’s supposed to be tolling. They then build up a lot of tension before Jerry breaks out again at 10:51. A rather intense jam follows, with a strong peak starting at about 12 and a half minutes.


At 13:21 Weir starts Sputnik, but Garcia isn’t ready yet; he finally starts it at 14:04. The end of Sputnik is rather intense; after a squally bit of feedback, Garcia switches on the insect weirdness, and the guiro gets really loud. There’s then another pretty intense jam, and this leads to the main theme and the verse without a Bright Star or a verse melody tonight.


This is another strong version. In general it felt like it could have done a little more, but it is very well played and there are some really strong jams here.


What was said:

Mr. Rain:


Good sound; it seems more clear than some of the recent cassette tapes, maybe due to the mastering for release. But it often basically sounds like a guitar trio: Jerry & Phil are up front in the mix, TC's barely audible a lot of the time, and the guiro's very faint at the start. So it sounds more stark than 4-15 did with its loud organ.

Strong opening, it has a bouncy feel and Jerry's feeling perky -- he even gets into a nice howl of feedback after :35. This is another one of those long digressive intros where Jerry takes a stroll down every little path he finds -- like that weird playful passage at 4:40 which doesn't sound like anything he's done in Dark Star before. From here he takes an especially delightful path to the main theme, a long anticipatory tease hinting at Sputnik until he satisfyingly hits the theme at 6:12. One trend lately is that Bill has been showing up earlier in Dark Star, and here he gives a few bass-drum kicks in the theme -- along with Jerry's exuberant playing, this sounds more like a hot climax than an opening theme, and they have to settle down for the verse, Jerry doing some bass riffing as they quiet down as if to say "easy, boys."
There's a little surprise after the verse as they seem to skip the space entirely, going right into a gentle little jam. Mickey keeps the gong shimmering, maybe to remind them that they skipped a section! By 9:30 Jerry seems to have realized his error and starts bell-tolling....just a few times, then he lays out for a bit with a hum of feedback and lets the others build up the tension, Bill kicking in again. Jerry's re-entrance at 10:20 is something else: it sounds like he uses a slide (?) almost sounding like a malfunctioning robot, before he bursts into song again.
They tear into a hot jam, Bob & Jerry really pushing hard, Bill banging away. (TC's gotten louder too.) For a second it reminds me of the later Uncle John's jams. After 13 minutes they get more quiet & spacey again with a hypnotic little riff. (Mickey starts ringing his gong again like Pavlov's bell, panting for another Space.) Jerry obliges going into Sputnik at 14 minutes, and Mickey happily picks up the guiro again. It's a long careful Sputnik that gets fiercer as it goes along, til Jerry wraps it up in feedback and brings on the insect weirdness at 16:12. This part is more quiet, almost demure; instead of getting wild they bring it to a close with drones & creaks around 17 minutes. Jerry switches tones and they carry on with a ragged jam, some of the Sputnik weirdness spilling over in the percussion and unsettled playing. One rare event: Phil mostly stops playing for a while after 17:45, and for the next minute there's a pretty Bob & Jerry duet over percussion -- Jerry brings it to a peak -- and at 19:10 Phil stomps back in on cue with the theme. A remarkable moment! They sound so happy to be home again, they don't even bother with the usual verse-melody or bright-star bits and settle right into the theme & last verse.

A strong and adventurous version for sure, very dramatic. Bob stands out in this one. The playing's very dense; if anything they could have stretched out more; they cram a lot into a brief time, and the mood is busy and restless. Dark Star's getting a little more open-ended as they start dropping some of the regular themes sometimes.


Adamos:


Brisk and bouncy right out of the gate; cool feedback-y thing at 0:35 and then Jerry is already cruising. His tone sounds really good in this cleaned up recording. They ease back a bit around 2:00 and by 3:00 they’re kind of hovering and deciding where to go next. They end up in a groovy little jam that slowly builds and then around 4:40 Jerry starts doing this cool, low, repetitive thing that’s almost kind of industrial sounding. By 5:05 he’s working back into more familiar territory and then we get just a touch of Sputnik leading into the main theme and first verse.

Plenty of gong coming out of the verse but no bell tolling; Jerry just heads back out on the trail. Around 9:37 he circles back around and tolls a bit. The tension builds; stronger tolling around 10:25 then at 10:35 he does the slide-y thing that sounds like they’re about to kick in the warp drive! A nice jam ensues building to a peak starting around 12:20 after which they downshift a bit, still keeping a groove going, before heading to Sputnik.

Sputnik builds and gets pretty intense and then ebbs and gives way to insect weirdness around 16:10. It’s a mellower passage that has a certain melodic beauty. By 17:00 it’s evolving into another jam, slowly building to a nice peak before they return to the main theme and second verse.


JSegel:


Guitar in the hard intro sounds almost banjo-like! The intro is a small noodle but with Repeating Organ Riff then into some feedback and high notes, where TC starts to play around with his ROR notes, which is cool. I could stand more of that. It builds into some nice happy melodic statements, and has some waves of intensity, but in general a sedate, jazzy intro jam with few eddies of notes in the stream of the jam—though when Jerry gets caught up in some stuff at about 3 minutes, the band goes sideways—even with some minor mode notes. In general though, it’s a floaty world that brings us into the song, I can barely hear the shaker trying to keep time. JG goes for some new interval play and some Wes Montgomery octave stuff at 4.5". This is quite amazing in itself, every night the track enters different territory. Phil gets into a descending riff stuff that sounded like JG wanted to use to head to the theme, but instead he settles in on sputnik-y arpeggios. Which, instead of developing into the Sputnik proper, winds in on itself and emerges with the Dark Star theme, and drums enter. Some arpeggio fanfares from TC and they settle into the area that leads to verse one at 7:20! Long way to get here.

Verse One is played in its composed form, you can hear the little pre-set bits all in order, the chords in line two (TC moving melodically F#-G on the e min to A, that's cool), the searchlight casting sort of slowly this evening, the swells are there on the "Shall We Go."

On to the Transitive Nightfall, jam section 2, classic intro with the guitar and bass counterpoint.

Only cymbal swells accompanying, Phil drops for a moment and the waves part, there are a lot of little isolated bits happening before bells come in. Maybe they were all distracted by something offstage? "Hey man, check that out!" Bill coming on drums during the ebbs in the bell tolling. Ooh, a gliss of the bell chord up over the frets a few times, leads to a strong guitar lead intro, but oddly doesn’t hold intensity continuously, despite drums holding the beat together. TC back on chords, while JG goes for some tricky fingerings. It sounds like they aren’t quite sure where to take any idea exactly, so they bounce up and down. Bob with some interesting minor hammer-ons as it heads to an ebb in the 13 minute area. I’m hearing Bob’s guitar from two spots in the stereo mix, one hard left and one behind or near Mickey’s drums—or something weird is going on. The sputnik starts and seems like a way to get forward, but with weird guiro and Bill’s actual drumming, flourishes from TC, octaves from Bob, Phil and a trebly kick drum (Mickey's? This mix is weird) develop a rhythmic pattern up and down. This exits to a weird guiro and insect area, with Bill keeping a beat all ride cymbal-wise, like a jazz cat. It’s got a sort of a groove, but in a lot of ways Bill is alone in that world!

In the next little melodic backwater, they seem to be trying out some song-type chord stuff, but it’s almost immediately going to the Dark Star theme and heading for verse two. JG warbles the first line, and the “glass hand”, but not a long clear “la-a-a-a-ady”

Classic outro lines, with the organ swell and multipart vocals, into the mysterious St Stephen intro. At least some whistling once that starts.
Sort of a weird one, in my book.