85. 1969-11-07

119628 Fillmore 26:00 (tracked as Dark Star 18:29>UJB Jam 1:26>Dark Star 5:45)

Main theme at 4:00 and 5:37.
First verse at 5:58.
Feelin’ Groovy at 16:53.
Uncle John’s Band Jam at 18:29/0:00 (2nd track).
Bright Star at :48 (2nd track).
Main theme at 3:17 (3rd track).
Second verse at 4:04 (3rd track).
Goes into The Other One.

After a typically sprightly start, things quieten down considerably about a minute in, and Garcia’s line refers to the verse melody. The music gets a bit denser and more involving. It seems to drift in and out of the two chord pattern tonight. At 2:33 Garcia repeats a high note for about 16 seconds and the music again gets quieter and stranger, and then flits back to the pattern for a little bit, etc. At 4:00 Garcia swings into the main theme and Weir goes along; Lesh doesn’t actively resist, but his line is less committed for a while yet. On the other end of this the jam again leaves the song pattern behind until at 5:37 Lesh starts up the theme again and Garcia goes along, and this quickly takes us to the verse.

The verse empties out, as usual, into a very conventional sounding passage which doesn’t last long, and again leads into space. By around 8:00 we’re in almost total silence, with Jerry quietly tolling. Weir starts playing a lick that is somewhat reminiscent of Weather Report Suite. The intensity builds until the band is blasting away, and out the other end of this comes a volume knob session and more space. Garcia switches to high, piercing tones, and TC swirls around. Lesh adds some ominous tones.

By about 12 minutes in it seems a jam is coalescing, but we’re still at least halfway in space. Finally Garcia starts playing a jaunty line, and he gets Lesh to join him, and so the jam has emerged by 13:00. This is a rather noisy and intense affair, as the band roars to a peak in the environs of 13:40, and then it all quiets down again. Garcia tries the same gambit beginning at 14:00, playing a rolling, wandering line, but this time the rest of the band is more reticent and a gentler segment emerges. Weir fills in some chords, and it begins to gather steam, with Lesh playing a riff in the upper register…Lesh and Weir come together and it turns into some heavy rock-type stuff. The riff at times takes on the aspect of a funhouse mirror rendition of the Dark Star theme, and then at 16:53 or so it starts to sound like Feelin’ Groovy.

At 18:29 the first track ends, and the band begins playing what would become the end lick of Uncle John’s Band, and then they swing into an instrumental rendition of the main melody of the song. This sounds pretty raucous and a bit sloppy, particularly when they get to the chorus; they briefly return to the end jam before spinning off into what sounds like a thematic jam but now one that isn’t identifiable. They seem to have a tendency to play these little structured jams around the thematic jams lately. At :48 of the third track Garcia seems to be touching on Bright Star, and then he commits to it at 1:04.

They wander away from this and quieten down, and then at 1:52 Garcia lays in Bright Star again. The band comes to a peak again and Garcia again gestures toward Bright Star. Out the other end of this, the band slams into the main theme, which eventually settles down and leads us to the verse.

This is a wild one. The jamming is quite energetic, even if it doesn’t always feel precise. In between the thematic jams, there is a lot of very structured jamming. Another excellent version.


What was said:

JSegel:


Back to the Fillmore, they are really jamming it up at this show, lots of songs breaking into jam sections, and China Cat is moving into I Know You Rider for now and for always. I suppose that was inevitable from the previous year’s change of the song’s main key from E to G major—you land on a big old G and then where can we go?

Dark Star even has jams within jams, coming after IKYR. It starts cold with the intro riff, medium to slow tempo, but Jerry has some little upwards statements to make, as does TC. JG comes in with lead notes in sparse sentences, they are really changing the mood of the concert here to a more somber and quiet area. It develops a heavier overall tone, the groove seems held back a bit, but some very interesting guitar bits from both Bob and Jerry, leading to some very extra-modal whirlpools by about 3 minutes, into almost thematic areas, still very subdued, and slow this evening. Relaxed.

Bob has some hammer ons he wants to play with. More semi-thematic play before settling again and possibly moving towards verse 1. Cymbals splash around, it takes a while, JG starts noodling again, Phil steps into some lower notes, stolidly stated. Out again and back to the theme area a little more deliberately now, verse 1 starts right before the 6 minute mark. Dramatic and sort of soft reading of the lyrics, it’s a but slow and quiet. Rhythm is a bit more succinct on line two and the wandering a bit more pronounced on line three.

The jam intro starts with cymbals splashing, some static notes from Phil, rhythm slowly falling apart in favor of sound, a trill from Phil, some struck guitar bits, the cymbals, volume swells and feedback. Phil heading toward getting some bass feedback as it builds in volume. Volume swell arpeggio bits, sweeps from the high-harmonic stops on the organ, a slide on Bob’s guitar swooping down. Some lead notes emerge, the band still in noise/sound jam territory. Both drummers are present but very sparse hits. Very spacey jam. Odd strong bass notes, a drummer is starting up a rhythm slowly, but it takes a while to gather any sense of tempo. The musicians are playing with sounds emanating from their instruments more than notes or phrases. JG starts to take it towards phrases in the 12 minute area, Phil follows, drums start an actual pulse. Bobby is taking the harmonies outside and back in by sliding up and down a half step and coming back, they build the volume and intensity, but it breaks down at 13:30 again, back to the void. Jerry still in a plucking mood, he’s playing some melodic phrases sort of alone in the wilderness here for a bit, other musicians slowly joining in, lots of cymbal splashing.

A thematic version, with riffy chords and bass is building here, very interesting 1-2-3 hits then a build from below back to the one, then Phil steps on it and by 16 min they’re in a Dark Star jam, with a sort of trudging bass line, all on-beats (weird for Phil) but it’s heading somewhere else harmonically (and yes we know that it is going to the Uncle John’s Band chords) and it gets to the point at 18 minutes where the Uncle John’s Band minor key riff starts, and they move into the UJB melodies and chord progression. Playing with the melodic bits and to the song chords. I guess they must have had lyric ideas for this already? It seems dependent upon being enclosed by the intro/outro riff idea and when they hit that again, they go back to a jam that takes them back to Dark Star area. They head to a bright star world, but it takes a bit of finessing to fit it and pull it into Dark Star, but coming out of the higher notes, they’re back in a now-much-faster version of the groove. Jerry states a theme strongly but then that wave pulls back and leaves some little whirls of notes building up again, still int he DS groove. Then the whole band essentially states the theme together (drums and all!) and they bring it down into the pre-verse area.

Mirror shatters, now the vocals are much stronger. Line two has Phil strongly on the offbeats and then doing his casual wandering on line three. All vocals on the outro sort of relaxedly sung. Phil takes new routes on the outro build to the chords, which then go to Cryptical Envelopment!

Nice new ways to break up the set, guys! I really love that the experiments in the jam and also developing these ideas that will later become other songs (like the almost Eyes rhythm and maj7 chords on the other nights’ version, the almost Weather Report bit here, and then more full-band rehearsal space jams like Uncle John’s riff that happened here.) The whole audio ‘telegraphing’ thing is a major part of what I like about the Grateful Dead, the way they do it within a song (like, somebody plays a lick that signals somewhere they might go, but it might take several minutes, either for everybody to get on board or just that they all know that that’s where they’re heading to regardless) but also things like these nascent bits within Dark Star and the Main Ten riff happening in these period's shows that grow out and separate like amoeba into their own songs, either a night or two later or maybe years later. Whole new ways of playing with time.

-------------------
Personal story TMI: I moved to go to college at UCSC in Santa Cruz, CA in 1981 (where the Dead archives are now at the library), and I suppose obviously there were already many deadheads at that campus. It was always deadhead territory. In high school in the late 70s I lived in Northern Cal, in Davis, and I played guitar in bands that were mostly classic rock covers, or punk “originals” (inasmuch as we were punk or original), but I had played bass in this one band with what I thought were “old guys” (they were in their 20s and 30s) in order to be able to play in the one real bar in downtown Davis. We did, again, mostly classic rock covers, but when the crooning mustached singer took a (coke?) break, the guitar players would turn to me and my high school cohort on piano and say “wanna learn some Dead songs?” So we did these at gigs also. But I had only really heard the studio albums and had little idea of who or what the Grateful Dead were beyond the "greatest hits". These guitarists did sport the piano player and I tickets to see one of the Warfield shows in Oct of 1980, and I mostly watched Phil (because I was playing bass in their band), but to be honest, I didn't quite get the whole vibe.

At UCSC, a lot of the deadheads were already much wiser to these ways than I at the tender age of 18, and so when we’d play songs in the dorm lounge, we’d get into these ways of telegraphing songs by lick or rhythm to try to work out how the band made these transitions over great lengths of time. And the idea of songs-within-songs. It opened my musical and improvising eyes quite a bit and it’s something that I have always loved about the Dead and have carried with me as an aesthetic ever since. Oddly, I have no memory of ever trying to play Dark Star in those dorm lounge jams!

I did end up going to a few Bay Area shows while I was at the University, like 1981-84, but I couldn’t understand how they were even the same band I heard on the tapers’ cassettes from a shows decade earlier, they seemed so slow and dreary. So by 1984 I pretty much stopped listening to them ...for many years! Obviously there were numerous things that led me back. To this thread.


bzfgt:


Great post. I really agree strongly with the above. Sometimes it may be because they don't know what the hell they're doing, but it is one of the greatest things about them.


I can't think of any other group of musicians where the transitions happen that way.

I think it can't be over-emphasized how important it was to their development that in the '60s they lived together and played together for hours and hours every day. There's a kind of confidence and cohesion that goes beyond being tight--it's more the confidence to be loose. When one person does X, there's no Y that another has to do. Sometimes listening closely, and hearing, and then refusing to comply is the most fruitful thing.

And the context allows enough freedom that sometimes mistakes can be the best parts....


Mr. Rain:


Nice gentle soothing opening, easy to float off to. TC's got his new organ intro going at the start...he's sounding more spectral than ever. The band sounds very echoey like they're playing in a cavern, which suits Dark Star well. The guiro's in there but more of a faint occasional presence.
They use their favored trick of coming to the theme, then backing off and coming back to it later. This has to be intentional....at least on Jerry's part, since in a lot of these openings the band keeps setting him up for the verse and he says "nope, not this time, later." There could be a few reasons for this...it's trippy to keep wandering in & out of the song theme....but it's also a reminder for the audience, signs on the journey saying "Dark Star this way"....or it could even be classically derived, restatements of the main theme within a symphony. (Or whatever.)
I'm noticing Jerry's singing is getting softer in the verses lately....it's not shouted as much as it used to be.

Phil & Bob push the band down the tunnel to space. Starts out really quiet....Jerry does his bell-tolling, Bob briefly considers his Weather Report lick (and wisely drops it)....a glorious feedback rush, volume twiddles, TC swoops, Phil forebodings. Quite the desolate sonic portrait from 10 minutes onwards, all tones of doom. The drummers come in, kind of impatiently (I'd prefer they kept out of space). One trick the Dead like in space is for Jerry to be playing his prettiest notes while everybody else is still out there in the asteroids, and they do that here. Around 12 minutes Jerry adopts a sibling of his insect tone (maybe the Strat equivalent), but not for long.
Phil puts up a thick wall of bass while Jerry feels out a way forward and Bob & the drummers work out what the rhythm's going to be. This post-space part's always fascinating...they work it out on the fly, presumably never knowing in advance quite how it's going to come out. By 13 minutes they've got a pretty strong groove going; Phil stomps down, and then -- all of a sudden around 13:40 they stop the jam dead. Not sure why, maybe they felt they were rushing it too quickly? Phil does a two-note wobble, and Jerry feels his way forward again...different direction this time, in fact a whole new style. Kind of like rock & roll bagpipes, a little mantra over a repeating bass note. Bob is prepared and joins him quickly, then Phil adds some low end, and after 15 minutes it becomes this heavy kick-ass stomp -- and then at 16:00 Phil turns it into a wild-sounding Dark Star theme, then at 16:50 they rip into Feelin' Groovy and tear that up for a minute. Whew! This is one of the most spectacular parts I've heard in Dark Star yet.
And then they don't know where to go next... They let the tide carry them forward, until Jerry pulls the Uncle John's riff out of a hat. They do a fun instrumental turn on this (kind of sloppy, but the rock & roll fun makes up for that). Then a cut, gaaahh! (It's more obvious on the older files which leave a break here.)
In the last track they unwind out of Uncle John's, kind of deconstructing the melody for a minute (not a new thematic jam, I'd say, though it carries kind of the same drive as the pre-Uncle John's jam). Then at 1:07 Jerry makes a flip and suddenly we're in Bright Star! This isn't long and ends messily. Bob & Phil return to the theme, but Jerry isn't done yet, and he takes them back into a kind of Bright Star variant. But they're still messy (after 3:10 Jerry's descending down from a peak, Bob & Phil wait for just the right note to land back on the theme, and...he misses it). Then it's back to the theme for good; time to calm down and do a verse. TC shows up again...I've hardly noticed him these last 10 minutes; he was there but just kind of a glimmer behind the guitars. This time he doesn't play the cute verse riff that he did on 11-2.
Then a surprise move to Cryptical! The jamming never stops!

Super version; it starts out gentle & spacey and just keeps getting wilder til they're almost out of control. Not one but two new structured jams that come out of nowhere. They've followed up the beauty of 11-2 with an unbridled rock & roll ride.


adamos:


They jump right in and then settle into a nice mellow groove with a dreamy vibe. TC sounds more distant than the others on the recording. They progress through the opening, working variations on the theme in a gentle and beautiful way.

The first verse maintains that vibe and they come out of it softly and quickly dissolve into space. Things get fairly still and then there’s some bell tolling and gong washes and other freaky sounds. The intensity picks up but it’s still low key overall and they’re sort of poking around in the ooze. Nice volume knob action and some deeper ominous sounds. The guitar almost sounds like violin or cello at one point. TC is swirling about in the background.

They stay in this zone for quite a while and then after 12:00 or so Jerry starts out slowly and Phil comes in with some deep lines and a jam quickly emerges. It gets cooking pretty well for a minute or so and then they suddenly ease up and hover for a moment. Out of this Jerry starts playing a building line and the others fill in and they create this really nice sound that kind of reminds me of bagpipes (which I see that Mr. Rain also mentioned!). This is a cool passage that grows in intensity and then they pivot into something more Dark Star but still flavored with the preceding jam, which in turn gives way to Feeling Groovy. They’ve really embraced the thematic jams which I imagine must have added some freshness and enthusiasm to their Dark Star explorations.

Feeling Groovy then transitions into what’s tracked as Uncle John’s Band jam. Not the smoothest transition and the jam itself is not fully formed but they attack it with gusto (sounding a bit Allman-esque in the first part). At any rate it’s a pretty cool interlude especially knowing what we know but in that moment as well.

As the second Dark Star track starts they’re in a transitional zone and still moving with pace and then suddenly they ascend into Bright Star which has a bit of the bagpipe flavor to it. It peaks and gets a little bumpy and then they quiet down and shift into the main theme but they don’t fully commit to it and instead work around it a little and end up sort of in Bright Star again before returning to the theme. From here they slowly wind it down into the second verse.

A cool, interesting version with quite a few things going on.