16334 Fillmore East 7:21 (cut)
First verse at 2:42.
Main theme at 5:02.
Second verse at 6:41.
Goes into St. Stephen.
This one is rather severely cut in the middle. Weir is rather prominent here, slashing away and setting the pace. At around 1:25, as Garcia starts a one-note solo, Weir introduces a little half-step chord change. Garcia keeps finding little repeated motifs. Everything comes almost to a stop at 2:28; the band starts playing the main theme, but Garcia goes right to the verse without ever playing the theme.
After the verse, there is a lot of washing on the gong. Garcia starts to toll, then adds a little feedback, and TC swirls around a bit; at 4:31, Jerry begins his mid-jam lead. At 4:46 there is a cut, and we are suddenly in a calm little jam that leads almost immediately to the main theme. Soon the second verse arrives, and it’s all over.
There’s not much here to evaluate. What's here is good, though.
What was said:
pbuzby:
Listening to it now, unfortunately it's true that nearly all of the post-first verse jam is lost so it's hard to find much to say about this one.
ianuaditis:
A shame about the cut in this one, although it looks like we're starting a trend of shorter examples. Tape flips/reel changes don't usually take 10-15 minutes, so it's hard to suppose too much was lost there. They did the verse at 2:30 or thereabouts, which also doesn't make it seem like they were really feeling like stretching this one out.
It's an interesting contrast, how they spent months examining the potential of this as an improvisatory vehicle, and manage to reel off several in a row of the more expansive and imaginative examples you can find from this period, but then we have a couple that are basically stubs strewn in between.
Maybe they knew they were going to be playing a free show in the park with Uncle Albert on hand the following day? Either way that 3 or 4 minutes maybe that's missing pretty much came in the worst possible place you can imagine for this tune, Garcia was tending towards his 'insect weirdness' before but nothing much happened after the cut.
Mr. Rain:
I feel differently, but we may never know.... Even if there is 10 minutes missing that would still make it one of the shorter Dark Stars lately. The Fillmore East had yet to see an epic Dark Star! And yet the Dead had no problem doing a 26-minute Lovelight at this show....
On the other hand, I don't think there's a "trend of shorter examples" coming. A couple of the outdoor shows coming up like 6/22 are weird & short, yeah, but some of the "stubs" like 6/21 are just due to tape cuts, and a bunch of the other summer '69 Dark Stars are some of the longest so far this year...so it's hard to generalize.
Adamos:
Nice typical groove to start with everyone pretty clear in the mix. Jerry’s working some patterns complemented by Bob’s jangly rhythm. He does some repetitive things with a revving vibe. After two minutes or so Jerry is screaming out and Phil’s up front too with a bouncy line. By around 2:35 things have already kind of run their course and after a brief lull there’s a just touch of the main theme before Jerry goes into the first verse.
Post verse we get gong washes, Bob and Phil prominent, in comes the bell tolling, they’re working up a bit of a lather, it starts to get a little weird and then Jerry heads out. Before the jam really gets going the tape cuts and we’re transported near the end. Things are pretty mellow and suddenly (for us) they’re at the second verse. Lots of tinkling bells right at the end.
Mr. Rain:
I'm listening to 16334....like pbuzby said, 2195 is way slow and gives you kind of the wrong impression of this Dark Star! This one goes more at lickety-split speed, a Dark Star in a hurry.
The recording is in mono for some reason, but the mix is decent. Loud guiro, some congas. At first it sounds almost like a throwback to '68! I was surprised at how short the opening jam was....it seems like no sooner did they set up the mood and start getting intense, than all of a sudden the theme starts and Jerry's singing. Like, what the hell? This is the Fillmore East, scene of some of the greatest Dark Stars to come, and they're rushing through this one as fast as possible?
Nice loud gong during the verse. The post-verse space gets good and wild, the band kicking up a storm. The way Jerry comes out of this is a little unusual....he's been trying it different ways lately, but here he takes a strong lead right out of the frenzy. The others back him up right away and it sounds like a strong jam is starting....then ack! Cut of death at 4:45!
The music after the cut is in a quiet zone, Jerry playing a melody, some drumming. Jerry starts the theme again right away, and it's time for the verse.
Good catch on the tinkling bells at the end, adamos -- I don't think we've heard that before and it makes the ending sound almost Christmasy.
Well this has got to be the worst cut in any Dark Star. I don't think we're missing just a couple minutes, I think this is a huge cut and, if all the preceding Dark Stars are any indication, we're likely missing the usual sputnik & bright-star passages and who knows what. There are some other big cuts in some of the spring '69 tapes (4/22 and 5/31 come to mind), so it's not like Bear had a perfect record in flipping tapes.
Deadlists has an interesting comment on this: Rob Eaton's copy of the vault tape is 10 minutes longer than the circulating copies. "One wonders if the 10 minute discrepancy between the timing Eaton lists and the timing of the circulating tape represents the missing core of Dark Star."
Hello, we need Charlie Miller to the rescue!Jsegel:
Lotta fish sticks making the percussion vibe as a rest from…Well, they were mostly playing folk music till this point in the show it looks like.
Jerry forward mix beautiful statements and following from TC, he’s starting to fit much better in the vibe of it.
Crashes on cymbals with the Dark Star verse crashing.
I’m hearing the intro of this jam as trying to change worlds, the cymbal swells and bell tolling, until it erupts in the Dark Star jam, only to run out of tape until they’ve already come back, but now with TC on rock organ! He’s heard some **** out there and he can play rock organ chords.
Woulda been nice to hear the whole thing.
Mr. Rain:
I noticed TC starting to play more chords in Dark Star sometime in May '69... Very effective when he does it. Simpler is sometimes better, TC!
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