89. 1969-12-20

Dave Six Fillmore 20:38
Main theme at 4:15.
First verse at 5:03.
Sputnik at 10:19.
Feelin’ Groovy at 12:36.
Bright Star at 16:41.
Main theme at 17:52.
Second verse at 19:02.
Goes into St. Stephen.

Swells from TC breathe this into life. Garcia seems to want to get a little atonal from around 1:13 or so. I think I hear a major 7th, and I’m not sure what all he’s doing here. He gets some really stinging tones from the Stratocaster. At 2:40 he plays some chordal stuff, and then he starts a line with lots of double stops and more notes that seem to be outside the usual palette. From about 3:30 Lesh pushes them into a nice little swell, and when at 3:57 Garcia bursts into a huge windup the main theme begins to feel imminent. Sure enough, we soon get there, and this time it takes us to the verse.

At this point a trip to space is the standard itinerary after the verse; as usual, this comes after a brief touchdown on solid ground. There is some volume knob fiddling and some tolling, and TC gets a chance to be heard. This one seems a bit aimless until around 8:30, when it starts to coalesce into something unique; the music oozes and breathes as the guitarists work the volume knobs, and at 9:44 TC unleashes a huge swell, and one of the guitarists tacks on some feedback for good measure. Then at 10:19, Garcia starts quietly playing Sputnik, which has made a serious comeback as a way out of space.

By 11:13 Sputnik has turned into a vigorous little Garcia line that feels like it might be the Ariadne’s thread that leads into the main jam. He keeps playing with it, and it veers back toward Sputnik at times before turning into Feelin’ Groovy. By 14:30 it seems like Feelin’ Groovy is done, but it doesn’t end all at once. There is a lull shortly after the 15 minute mark where they seem to tread water, and a light and lovely jam emerges. This gathers steam, but they seem a bit tentative, as it’s not clear where this is going. They bring it to a big crescendo and then at 16:41 Garcia takes it over the top with a crushing Bright Star. As they come out of it I thought I heard hints of a Darkness jam at about 17:25, although this may be coincidental. This winds its way into the main theme, which takes us to the verse and out, but not before Garcia proposes a variation with a syncopated, descending line.

All in all this is a very good Dark Star.  Again, Feelin’ Groovy sort of dominates the post-space jam, insofar as what comes after seems heavily inflected by it. They find some new ground here, though, and there are some really lovely moments. The final peak is immense.


What was said:

JSegel:


This show opens the big room with Mason’s Children, a personal favorite of mine ever since I was introduced to it by that Henry Kaiser album “Those Who Know History Are Doomed to Repeat It”, in 1989. It’s a great album, and he covers not only this tune but Dark Star! Seriously, and at a time when he was doing more avant-garde stuff in general, and the Dead were no longer cool in that gang, very much. Also I think this turned my ear toward Dark Star for real, after having heard it live on NYE 81 and not understanding it at all.

Anyway. Nice clean Dark Star intro with TC’s new riff, some winding up from Phil right off the bat, JG settles it with a melodic intro with a few chromatic passing tones in his lead playing. Sounds like guiro more than shaker for the pulse. Nice exploratory passages between medium-tempo gathering-up bits, it’s not extending out into long statements yet, though with a few eddies in the current of slowly floating downstream for a while. Some double stop lead play and extra-modal excursions, building it up into a full band jam in the 3-4 minute area, Jerry bursts out with a long rising lead up to the crest of this wave then back down to the theme and verse teases. Somebody yells “woooo!”

Verse comes at 5 minutes, super strong lead in with a little warble and even a bit at the end of line two, line three has Phil taking a new route in casting about, more rhythmic stutters on chordal notes instead of his usual hammer on noodles.

Phil is controlling the rhythm through the outro ‘chorus’.

And tuning is obviously an issue going into the jam. Phil mostly does the jam intro by himself, not much counterpoint, then hitting and odd bell tones, as the cymbals come in and the organ trills. Space is quietly moved into. The trills swell, Phil finds some odd harmonics.

At 7:20, a wiping metal slide (Bobby?) makes some interesting noise, with some volume swells from guitars and bass. Cymbals still crashing. Some bell-toll-guitar hits to slight feedback. More organ trills and wide arpeggios against the static sea of sounds. Larger swells in the tide with some louder noises of scraping and feedback coming in against the more spectral organ stops wiping up and down. Low toms and cymbals take over in waves, odd popping bass things. A proper space is reached and we’re interstellar now as the band quiets and a very small sputnik starts with hiccups and odd blue notes, sort of slower banjo style, accompanied by sidestick, it takes it into a more melodic area but harmonically subverted by Phil and Bobby. A little more odd modality and it seems to be sort of phrygian, perhaps a Spanish Jam reference. Then it moves with some melodic suggestions, grooving back up into the major key Feeling Groovy world by 13 minutes. It’s interesting that this major key jam is sort of lacking any specific melodic component when they’ve been doing major key rock-out jams the whole of their existence.

It dies off after a couple minutes into a quiet version of the mode, then JG states some changes that move it back into Dark Star territory, though it’s still pretty fast (and remaining quiet). He leads it up to a high note and sticks on it while the band builds and then after a clam try at it, Bright Star comes out strong. I think Jerry is still getting used to the Stratocaster.

They take it down in the theme area, in volume and tempo till I guess it feels right for a verse to come in. Interesting play with the theme notes, two at a time for a while, before verse 2 comes in after the 19 minute mark. The verse is marked by sidestick drums, the rhythms fairly clearly stated on the different lines. Vocals are *ok* on the outro, and it goes to the counterpoint and off to the chords that head to St Stephen.


Mr Bass:



To me this is a very episodic DS and decidedly non linear to boot. I hear the TC organ swell as more a scream to stop whatever they were doing and go back to DS which is what happens. But the preceding segments have very little connection to what happens after that IMO. The music in the early segments sounds like a child's song with unusually regular periods prior to the vocals which sounds very soft and tentative. But then it almost takes a horror show turn where the child's song aspect disappears into a soft and threatening undercurrent of semi aimless sound. This is what the TC swell stops. Not sure where they would have gone with it otherwise. One uncertainty is how that ominous section actually sounded in the hall. The recording I think is quite unable to capture those kinds of sounds.

Mr. Rain:



An interesting interpretation! I hear the Dark Stars of this period very differently...

Mr Bass said: ↑

To me this is a very episodic DS and decidedly non linear to boot.

Perhaps...but this is the formula the Dead were using in every Dark Star around this time and they'd keep repeating it for another year....they must have liked the contrasting "episodes" and I think they make them flow pretty well.

Mr Bass said: ↑

I hear the TC organ swell as more a scream to stop whatever they were doing and go back to DS which is what happens.

TC would want to stop an avant-garde horror space? Seems more like his cup of tea to me! I think the swells of noise they do sometimes are part of the loud>quiet shifts they're really into exploring, and this could be TC's contribution to the "horror show," keeping the listener on edge. If TC wanted to end the threatening ooze, he could do what Jerry always does and start playing some musical notes.

Mr Bass said: ↑

But the preceding segments have very little connection to what happens after that IMO. The music in the early segments sounds like a child's song with unusually regular periods prior to the vocals which sounds very soft and tentative. But then it almost takes a horror show turn where the child's song aspect disappears into a soft and threatening undercurrent of semi aimless sound. This is what the TC swell stops. Not sure where they would have gone with it otherwise.

Where they always go with it: a groovy jam. They've been doing these stretches of "semi-aimless sound" for a few months now, always as an interval between the verse & the main jam -- I see it as kind of a sonic interpretation of the verse, the aftermath of the crashing Dark Star. But after they've cast you into space they always pick you up again with some uplifting jam to bring you back home to the song again. It may be that there's little connection between the soft & welcoming opening, the scary space, and the big rockin' finish, but the Dead follow this same pattern over & over, so it seems to make some musical sense to them. And I find the child's song>horror show>groovy jammin' transitions very effective.

Mr Bass said: ↑

One uncertainty is how that ominous section actually sounded in the hall. The recording I think is quite unable to capture those kinds of sounds.

Good point here, although in 1969 I'd reverse it to say that the audience recordings are generally unable to capture the ominous spaces too well. There were some decent ones back in the spring (4/15 & 6/22), hardly any good ones from late '69.

Mr Bass:


Since I haven't commented before here I should note that while I haven't heard every DS I am familiar with various performance differences and have heard it in the hall too. I was trying to point up relative differences with a sort of average performance. Yes those elements in the 12-20-69 DS can be found somewhere in most DSs but the way that these sections are played and organized varies which then affects the sequential structure. I just feel that there is a stronger contrast in this performance between the childrens song aspect followed immediately by a deep bass dominated undercurrent without much treble melody or even apparent rhythm, then suddenly ended by the unusual organ swell followed immediately by a more typical DS passage. Depending on how these are played the contrast between sections can be heightened or smoothed out.

As for the recordings I was just noting that in the hall there are ambient type reflections which cannot be picked up clearly with the kind of mic'ing they are doing. They capture direct sound fairly adequately but DS has unusual reliance on more ambient sounds that characterize spaciness with the help of the large amps. The low frequency aimless section had less direct sound but I think sounded very different in the hall so the perception might change if we could hear that. The other sections sound more typical of in the hall sound.


Mr. Rain:


I agree that audience tapes do much better with ambient sound...1970 has a number of great examples of big deep Dark Star spaces well-captured by audience tapers.

Anyway, for me the heightened contrasts between different parts of Dark Star are a strength. The semi-aimless space and the organized sequential structure are such regular parts of Dark Star in this whole '69-70 period...individual performances may be more smooth, or aimless, or disjointed or whatnot.... But when you listen to a number of them in a row it becomes more evident that it's a repeatable formula, that they're doing this more or less the same way each time. (If anything the structure's become even more rigid & formulaic than it was earlier in '69, with the addition of new themes that become invariable destinations.) For listeners who might not like this particular formula, this would be a strike against the current phase of Dark Star.

Adamos:

Phil is laying down a bouncy foundation with fills from TC and some fairly prominent guiro in the mix. Bob is more quiet initially. Jerry slowly wanders forth; his lead line ebbs and flows and has some sharpness to it. TC is gently active which adds to the backdrop. There's a calmness to the proceedings contrasted by occasional surges from Jerry. The double stops that have been pointed out come in and things collectively rise up. Jerry's cutting and spiraling upwards with Phil and Bob joining in strongly, it's a nice albeit brief passage, and they take it into the main theme around 4:15 and then on to the first verse.

Phil and Bob do their post-verse opening ever so briefly which quickly disperses into a spacey zone. They quiet down and not a lot is happening; they are sort of hovering around and deciding where to take it. An occasional sound crops up and then some volume knob action comes in along with insect-y sounds and just a bit of belling tolling. Slowly it shifts into a more melodically spacey zone that sounds really cool. There's some string scraping and it gets louder and weirder and they swell up and then fall quiet again, out of which Jerry quietly starts Sputnik around 10:20.

Sputnik takes its time building up and transforms into more of a plucking line with complimentary textures from the others. Eventually it gets closer to Sputnik again and they work up some momentum and take it into Feelin' Groovy. They're cruising now with an rising, uplifting vibe and you can almost picture the crowd swaying along. By around 14:30 it starts to lose momentum but they keep a variation of it going in mellower fashion. Then around 15:00 they hover for a bit and then continue forward sort of in a similar vein or at least nothing concrete is fully taking form. From there things start to build again and they work a groove that rises up and spills over into Bright Star. They sustain the peak to good effect and then slowly bring it down and gently head to the main theme and then the second verse.

This one seems to come to life part way through space. The whole thing is good but the second half is more compelling.