youtube Austin, TX 20:40 (Dark Star 12:55>El Paso>Dark Star 7:49)
Main theme at 6:44.
First verse at 7:05.
Goes into El Paso and then Casey Jones.
The music begins with a confident languor that is quite affecting. Keith is a bit louder this time out, which is good. There is a glorious peak beginning at 1:33; nothing too strenuous, everything flows nice and easy. Coming off the other side, they almost go into Sputnik at 2:17, but it winds up being a little eddy in the current and the music sweeps along. Perhaps in part due to the mix, this rendition presents the Dead at their polyphonic best, with four instrumentalists intently spinning out lines, and it all winds up fitting together perfectly.
At 3:56 Garcia starts a morse code pattern, and the music heads into a minor-sounding passage for a few moments until a frenetic jam begins to develop. It sounds like they are gathering steam for a modular jam here, but instead they keep going until they decide to start the theme at 6:44. This seems to be a unanimous decision, although Garcia kicks it off. They head to the verse rather quickly from here.
They seem inclined to weird out a little after the verse, and we get something like a space jam this time, although it is one that features a lot of frenetic activity and quickly solidifies into another active jam. At 9:40 Weir starts playing El Paso, but we don’t get there yet, and the jam keeps taking off. At about 11:00 we get into a holding pattern, and then the jam gets even more frenetic, ebbing and flowing until everyone but Kreutzmann, Garcia and Lesh drop out for a bit. At 12:51 Weir again asserts El Paso, and this time the band follows suit.
El Paso briefly comes to a full stop, and then we are back in Dark Star or something like it, as a kind of atonal space jam begins. At first this is largely a duet between Garcia and Godchaux with Kreutzmann tapping the cymbals, and then everyone gets in on the act and things get even freakier. This becomes a full-blown meltdown until at 21:15 Garcia starts some Caution-like strumming and brings it back to earth, although Keith provides some dissonance here. The jamming here is ferocious and exhilarating. It starts slowing down and getting weird again at 24:00, and things begin to sound transitional, but they stretch it out a bit before Garcia suddenly starts Casey Jones.
This rendition is utterly magnificent, and in fact this is certainly one of the best Dark Stars to date. If anyone wanted to know what Grateful Dead music is about, this would be as good an example as any. It is at times unruly, but to my ears always in a pleasing manner.
What was said:
JSegel:
Lotta Phil, he’s switched his tone to a much more lead-bass tone lately on the giant bass, so he’s strong in these mixes lately. He’s going for a lot of little fast riffs in between statements of the Dark Star theme area, as is Jerry. They are all working as a unit on this intro jam this evening, much more than it has been in the earlier part of the year. It’s like multiple lines braiding the rope of the music, in real time as it moves forward. Love that stuff!
Jerry drops into a Sputnik after a couple minutes in, with Keith arpeggiating along, then they take it up again, JG is really reaching for some beautiful lead playing. It falls off the mode at 3:30 for a bit and then falls back in and JG goes for some of those pinch harmonics, and Keith leads it out in arpeggios. Drums mostly drop out for a bit and it enters a space area, but the players are maintaining some pulse so it pulses back to life. Phil is mostly playing higher notes so when he plays a descending bass line, it sounds like it will come back to Dark Star, but he goes back to the higher notes again, Bob on some odd chords, they continue playing propulsively but outside, then it breaks up and JG starts the theme and verse 1 at 7 minutes.
Really stated rhythms on line 2 with Phil climbing on the beats, back to a groove for line 3, only wandering at the ends of the phrase. A funny drop to the “Diamonds” and a strong bass note. Into bell tolling on the bass, with volume knob playing, and noises taking over. JG skirting all over with fast quiet lines as Phil and Bobby play with feedback and noise. Drums start kicking it in and they build it up with a strong rhythm and fast lead playing going on and on, the endless melody. Jerry takes it down at 11 to a lower register, the rhythm section is still chugging away, but it’s dying off slowly, heading somewhere else, JG is playing with double stop lines, and some sputnik-y arpeggios. At 12 minutes he takes off in a fast lead that goes all over the place harmonically, and keeps switching key centers even as he’s playing some country licks in there. Sounds like Phil gets frustrated trying to keep it and hits some low notes, and then they start a waltz time and what happens, they start El Paso! What a weird window into the past, emerging from Dark Star into a Marty Robbins cowboy song.
(I’ve got a lot to say about El Paso, and this all off topic perhaps, but I’ve pbuzbybeen listening to this and the sister song “Feleena from El Paso” for a long time and trying to mentally reconstruct the reality that this ballad takes place in, and I’ve come to a conclusion that the entire song hinges on cognitive dissonance: The Cowboy’s tale is based on misconception of the reality of the situation, ie, probably Feleena doesn’t care about him at all, probably it’s only a day or less when he “hasn’t seen a young maiden” for so long, probably the people he sees returning to town don’t know or care who he is at all and when he, in his paranoia, starts shouting and shooting his way back into town, they are taken aback and start to shoot back, duh. He’s probably dead way before the song ends, that rifle shot is a cap to that, and it’s doubtful that Feleena comes to his dying side let alone even knows who he is. He’s basically schizophrenic.)
Anyway, it goes off into atonal lines as soon as the song portion ends and the band starts a new space section with atonal notes in melodic lines, and noises and sounds from Phil and Bob. JG starts chromatic descending lines over this, building up the monster movie soundtrack, breaking it down into tremolos. (What is this sort of space called by the ‘heads?”) Continuing lines and statements with no tonal center, volume swells and tremolos, string scrubbing, then suddenly a chugging rhythm emerges at 3:40 into this part, A minor to D. (“The Carlos Santana Secret Mystical Chord Progression!”)
It goes on with this jam for a while, Jerry playing with some licks that mimic the intro riff occasionally. It eventually peters out to a quieter place, Phil still playing some odd little sounds. It never comes back to Dark Star proper, instead, Jerry starts the intro riff to Casey Jones.
Nice playing, especially in the first part, braiding lines together as they move forward in time.
pbuzby:
Garcia also plays that progression in "Keystone Korner Jam" from 5/21/71 (GarciaLive 15), but in G.
adamos:
A nice mellow but active vibe as it gets going. Everyone is clear in the mix and the interweaving is lovely. At 1:05 Jerry plays some spiraling notes and then stretches it out before rising to a short peak starting around 1:30. They bring it up and then keep winding along in symphonic fashion. The complimentary textures from Bob and Keith work well and Phil is quite active. Billy's subtle drumming blends in just right too. There's a touch of Sputnik as noted and then they ease up and continue to wander forth. Jerry goes higher and sharper again starting at 2:44 with Phil playing off him and Keith in tow.
By 3:25 they are rising up as if gathering into a cyclone but then ease off creating a space for some lovely piano. From there they hover for a bit as if deciding where they want to go next. Things get a little spacey and starting at 4:30 slightly The Other One-ish. They bounce around and build up some momentum and launch into a jam of sorts with the framework shifting as they go along. They pull back again and Bobby seems to suggest a new direction around 6:30 but they opt to shift back into the theme and then on to the first verse.
After the verse they briefly reset and hover a bit with an inclination to let things dissolve. Strong notes from Phil and pretty piano with a touch of feedback. There are some freaky didgeridoo-esque sounds I believe via string scraping and then Jerry and Keith pick up the pace considerably with Bob eventually joining in. By 9:45 Bob is actively playing El Paso but Jerry isn't letting up and Keith sticks with Jerry and the musical collage morphs back into the jam. They keep it rolling and start to rise up around 10:40 but instead of ascending to a peak they pull back and go into a lower repeating pattern. This too gets some momentum going and then they start to bring it down, creating a space for Phil to spring forth with some strong activity. They gather and swirl for a bit and Jerry and Phil play off each other in edgy, descending fashion. Then at 12:50 Bob decides to take another crack at El Paso and the others slowly shift away from the preceding jam to join him. Cosmic cowboys.
El Paso ends and out of the enthusiastic applause Jerry starts a subtle, spacey winding line with Keith and Bob joining in. And we find ourselves drifting out into the void. Did El Paso happen or was it just a dream? Things get nice and freaky and they take their time with it, slowly increasing the intensity and then allowing it to ebb and flow as Jerry gets into the creepy tremolos that JSegel pointed out. Some powerful jabbing notes from Phil; the frenzy begins to ratchet up again and then suddenly at 21:15 Jerry starts a new line and Phil jumps in and they're off on a jam.
My own imagination might be adding this element but it sort of has a psychedelic Old West feel to it; even Keith's piano sounds a little saloon-ish. Eventually they slow up a bit and then move into more of a funky bluesy feel. They're cooking along and taking the audience for a ride. By 23:45 things seem to be winding down but they're in no hurry to finish. They glide along and then get into some repeating notes around 24:20 that serve as a come down. From there they drift a bit longer ending up in a delicate, quiet space from which they opt to bust into Casey Jones.
It's a wonderful collaborative version and recordings like this are such a gift because they allow us to get a greater sense of the full story.
Archtop:
I realize that we are all trying to analyze these Stars one at a time and sequentially, but it bears mentioning that we are just about to enter into what I consider to be the most intergalactic leap the band ever made. They played DS on 11/15/71 and next on 12/5/71. They didn't play it again until 3/23/72 and they played it only that once during the seven show run at NYAoM in late March '72. That's only three times in nearly five months before what they did on 4/8/72; something we are about to discuss shortly down the road (along with the ~every other show rotation that was clearly part of the plan for the E'72 tour and a departure from the recent past).
Mr. Rain:
The last first-set Dark Star for 20 years? OK then!
Starts beautifully; the band's fired up and ready to dive in. Drums from the start; Keith seems pretty laid-back at the opening, leaving lots of space. They toy around the theme at first, and things get a little sputniky at 2:20, then quiet & spacey at 3:50. After four minutes it sounds like they're starting to leave Dark Star territory altogether into pure Dead jammin', maybe some new theme. Fabulous stuff, suggesting any number of directions. But by the time we've forgotten what song we're in, at 6:45 Jerry suddenly yanks the theme chain and pulls us back to Dark Star, and sings the verse straightaway.
A straight drop into space after the verse, just like old times! But it's a short one: Phil plunges into feedback and wants to get some far-out drones, but the other players are all a-flutter and kicking up a fast jam instead. There's a country tinge coming on; Bob takes the hint to start El Paso at 9:40, but the others ignore that suggestion for now and push him aside. And off they fly into a joyful jam; when the momentum falters at 10:55, Jerry starts a nice fingerpicking pattern and the music bubbles happily for a minute. But things are starting to get scattered: they break down to just Jerry, Bill & Phil zipping around erratically, with Bob & Keith having trouble jumping in. Bob uses the moment to start El Paso again; Phil says OK, and Jerry finally gives in to the waltz in exaggerated fashion.
El Paso's spirited and ends with a full stop. Jerry trickles out and Bob & Keith join him for some spacey twinkling. Once Phil & Bill find their way in, things soon get wild with a quick meltdown....another proto-Tiger! Phil's feelin' rambunctious and gets freaky on the bass while the others provide the sounds of tension & terror. Jerry turns pretty now and then, only to be pulled back into the frenzy. But at 3:30 he breaks free, chopping out some rhythmic chords, and the others chase him into a fast-driving jam. They're almost in Good Lovin' territory now, hot slashing rock & roll. Around 6:00 things calm down, and they wind it up with an exaggerated "the end!" finale at 6:40, but then....nobody quite knows what to transition to. Everybody's kind of drifting off in their own direction, playing their own random bits, and the jam just quietly fades out on an interesting Bob pattern. Presumably they're calling the next song to each other off-mic, since Casey Jones pops right out without any apparent count-in.
This sounds like it was a fun one for them to play! If I were to quibble a bit, it's not all that cohesive after the verse as they flit here & there, and there's some tug-of-wars happening when they can't agree on a direction. Both before El Paso & before Casey Jones, they'll cohere for a few minutes into a great jam, then sort of split up and wander aimlessly til someone makes the call for a song. So I'd say, great in parts, maybe not one of the best as a whole. I'd agree with JSegel that the opening jam's the nicest part with the band the most "together," though the fast jams later on are also great before they dissolve into looseness. This also marks, I think, the longest freaky meltdown we've heard yet in '71. The "Insect Fear" space emerges!
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