167. 1973-10-19

187 Oklahoma City 27:55 (26:29) (Dark Star 18:29 [17:03], MLB 9:26)

Main theme at 13:32.
First verse at 13:48.
Mind Left Body jam at :09 (track 2).
Tiger at 6:20.
Goes into Morning Dew.


The pre-into dicking around gets pretty dense, and almost reaches the level of cohesion of the pre-verse jamming in the last version! When it kicks off, this feels like the slowest Dark Star yet, although I’m not sure if science backs me up on this. The Wolf sounds beautiful, and they play with a mellow focus that was lacking the last time out. Everyone seems to be rowing in the same direction, although it is a subtle difference as there are as usual four distinct melodic lines going at the same time.


At 5:20 Lesh starts repeating an ascending line; after 15 seconds he switches up the attack, but he’s very loud here and provides the focus for this segment. At 6:20 the jam starts to fray at the edges, losing its center. They slide into a lull at 7:30 into which Garcia inserts hints of the theme, but they’re not going there yet, and they’re not ready to pull together either. They spin around an absent center for another two minutes; at 9:24 Jerry’s hinting at the theme again, but the music gets more diffuse, and now they are again getting close to the aesthetic of a between-song “tuning” segment.


At 11:00 Garcia starts to strum the theme, playing around it rather than stating it, but at last the band comes together. They pick up steam, still playing slowly and gently but pulling together, and Garcia’s lines on the Wolf shoot to the skies until, at 13:32, he slides into the theme. This leads almost immediately to the vocals; I suppose they had been playing around with the theme for a couple of minutes at this point. There have been no appreciable tempo changes tonight, and they certainly don’t need to slow down for the verse this time.


The post-verse scene is again dominated by Phil at first, although they’re all involved, and they get a mesmerizing drone thing going this time. Garcia breaks out the slide after a while and lays some eerie tones over the top. Lesh pulls way back, and Keith starts fiddling around on the Rhodes, until at about :09 of the next track, Weir starts up the Mind Left Body chords.


This proves to be a winning strategy, giving the band a needed focus after so much diffuse jamming over the past two Dark Stars. Jerry keeps it up with the slide, and the rest of the band cooks along. It starts pulling apart around the four minute mark, and the signs of a meltdown start appearing—the chord progression dissolves, and Jerry has laid the slide aside, as he starts playing the sort of licks that signal an oncoming Tiger.


By 6:20 Garcia is in full Tiger mode, although the others are more reticent, opting for an eerie accompaniment rather than pandemonium. Garcia’s sequences at about 7:20 are pretty crazy, although I’m not sure what the exact harmonic relationships are. From there at sinks into a spacier zone, with Garcia and Godchaux providing most of the narrative material and Lesh and Weir supplying atmosphere. Without belaboring it too much, they move from there into Morning Dew.


This is a marvelous piece of music. For whatever reason, unlike many of the 1973 Dark Stars we have considered thus far, it doesn’t leave me feeling like more should have been done—everything seems to last as long as it needs to, and thus this is a very satisfying rendition. The addition of MLB in the second half pulls the band together in a way that counter-balances the more diffuse first-half playing we’ve been getting. This Dark Star, and much of the show from which it comes, is an auspicious beginning to one of the Dead’s greatest tours.


What was said:

JSegel:


Oklahoma City, OK: 26:20 - Dick's Picks 19

A stately and rather slow bass intro going into a relaxed feel, moving along at a leisurely pace, Jerry running up and down, lilting around thematic areas. Keith is on the nice-sounding electric piano. It eddies a bit with Bobby on some chords with seconds, before Bill kicks in with a stronger beat. Phil plays some tripping lines down to the root, goes off and comes back. Jerry is feeling out the possibilities on the Wolf, continuous melody. Phil keeps going up and up and then punctuating with low roots. The piano sounds like little bells in there.

They eddy out again on repeated notes at about 4:30, let it ebb and Jerry starts a series of chordal fourths for a high and and then low. At the bottom it all goes sideways, little Tiger hints happen (sans wah). Keith goes wild on rolling clusters. They all go off in new directions after this, runs, little figures, etc. It dwindles and stays outside, though Jerry has a few Dark Star referents in his licks. Bill starts some odd figures outside of the rhythm, they are all outside, Jerry still with some Dark Star licks occasionally, a feint to come back to the groove, but it doesn’t make it and goes into a quiet area with stretched delicate notes, into a very classical area. Jerry again comes back at 9:45 with the Dark Star groove theme, but it takes over a minute to get to a definite groove. Jerry is still wandering around, the band is sort of in the Dark Star groove area, and they start to build the intensity. Parallel universe Dark Star groove #167.

At 12, Jerry does the slide up to the A and instigates the groove for real and the verse comes. It’s sung very mournfully, grooving into line 1 and as they go into line 2, there’s play between drums and bass for the fermata-versus offbeat, Bobby sliding chords around. Phil does a descending thing for line 3, Bobby wandering, then bass heading upwards. The refrain is full of odd rubatos from everybody, the outro is squarely stated. Bobby plays his Transitive Nightfall intro lick a few times over and over, moving into slow trills while Phil starts big bass notes and a few chords, into an arhythmic bass solo with some harmonics and odd sounds. The bass starts moving around to multi-channel, the big chords spread around.

Jerry enters with wah-backed-off tone and slide again, Phil feints a riff, but it moves into the slow bluesy slide mood instead. Bill is hi-hatting, heading for something. The band starts to coalesce around this and Jerry moves back into fast picked runs. They find some chords, a progression, and stick with it moving into the Mind-Left-Body sequence, Jerry picks up his slide again.

Some serious strumming on the V chord a couple times through and then it goes to the descending thing that signifies this MLB jam sequence. (I still think it sounds like that part in “Music Never Stopped"—my mind does not actually leave my body in this progression,—I know, I know, it’s a Kantner song, right?)

When this runs its course, Jerry dives down into low fast chromatics, the band dies off, they move into atonal bizarro-world melodies, Jerry running around with his wah pedal mostly holding it in check. Keith scoops around. Tiger is coming. The wah starts to accent the chromatic licks, it gets super scary and growly, though the accompaniment is mostly fairly tame. Jerry backs off for a bit, comes back with warbly wahs and some planing chords, Bobbys is making loud scary chords and stretches, bass is feeding back.

It dies off to volume swells and low bass notes, then to a prettier area, still very mellow. Bass harmonics, rolling drums. A nice little melodic outro leads them off to Morning Dew.
________
Pretty nice version, other than that it seemed sort of slow. It had all the parts. I like the verse quite a bit, the interplay on line 2 was nice. Also, I always think it’s a nice choice to come over the freakout into Morning Dew!




adamos:


They take their time getting set and then carry that vibe into the opening. The playing eases along gently but there's a subtle majestic quality to it as well. Jerry plays delicate and lovely lines and Phil is nice and full underneath. Bobby adds complimentary textures and there's pretty tinkling piano sounds from Keith. Billy slowly works his kit keeping the timing mellow. The collective sound is pretty and engaging.

By 3:30 the pace has picked up a little and they glide along gracefully. There's a smoothness to the sound that is appealing. After 4:10 Jerry gets into some pretty spiraling lines that soar upwards and connect emotionally. This evolves into a repeating thing that the others play off and then they ease up a little but keep moving with the current. Phil asserts a repeating figure starting at 5:20 that gets progressively louder with a touch of raspiness. This shifts the flow and they reach a hover and swirl point subtly accented by Keith's bell-like sounds.

After 6:00 they bring it down to a quieter space with Jerry and Phil both working lower sounds. Things start to get freakier with Billy and then Keith both getting pretty active. The seas calm after 7:30 and it sounds like Jerry is taking them to thematic territory. But they opt to hold off and swirl around in this transitional zone for a spell. It has melodic qualities but also becomes more sparse and intermittent at times. Jerry has been working gentle lines throughout which add a Dark Star flavor at various points. It feels like they're dancing around the entry but intentionally holding off on going through, to positive effect.

This continues for some time and then after 11:00 Jerry starts heading into the theme gently and everyone slowly joins but still they hold off on fully locking into it. Instead they glide through a gentle thematic groove that sounds lovely. The momentum starts to pick up and Jerry heads upwards wonderfully. It's a beautiful segment. The ascent crests and they bring it down a bit creating an opening at 13:30 for Jerry to shift into the theme. There's no triumphant lap however as they've already explored the thematic groove quite well; instead they move right into the verse.

After the verse they reset and start to conjure something up. Bob keeps his repeating figure going and Billy works the cymbals and then Phil asserts some powerful notes that frame the proceedings. He keeps this going for a stretch complimented by swelling, repeating sounds from the ensemble. Jerry moves to slide around 17:15 which adds a wailing-ish sound. Phil continues to work it and then recedes, bringing Bill more to the forefront. Keith then comes in more and Phil rejoins subtly and they transition into a Mind Left Body jam.

Bobby works the chords and Jerry dances around them and everyone coalesces into the MLB jam. It fits in well with this performance and adds a triumphant, uplifting segment to the proceeding. The jam gets cooking nicely building momentum as it goes. They start to downshift at around 3:06 on the MLB track and then take their time winding it down. By 4:20 it has run its course and they promptly shift into pre-meltdown territory.

Jerry starts spinning up some melty onramp lines that grow progressively stronger. Phil does his thing subtlety underneath and Keith adds some complimentary sounds. They slowly head towards a meltdown and after 6:10 Jerry starts letting the Tiger rip. It screams out into the night with ferocity while Keith adds some Rhodes and Bobby does some squiggly rhythms. Billy starts working it too and Phil's in the mix and things get pretty frantic. Jerry blends some melodic notes into his freakout starting around 7:40 while everyone is working high, freaky sounds.

Then by 8:00 they take their foot off the gas pedal and drift into spacey territory. There's some volume knob action and other assorted sounds. The vibe is now mellow again with some stretchy guitar and a gentle feel. Then they bring it down further and start up Morning Dew.

A wonderful performance. The opening continues the mellower approach of late but adds a lovely, majestic quality that is compelling. The thematic groove that they work before fully returning to the theme is good and the MLB jam adds a triumphant, uplifting segment to the performance. Presumably they liked the MLB jam too since we’ll see it several more times coming up. The meltdown is relatively short but there's some ferocity to the Tiger and the way the others play around it is interesting.


JSegel:


I somehow missed noting the introduction of that lick that Bobby uses starting the "Transitive Nightfall" after the verse, anybody note when he started using that? I have noticed that it's an indefinite number of time that he does it! Sometimes one, sometimes many...

Mr Rain:


1973-10-19. Dark Star is preceded by some very musical Dark Starrish tuning, almost a jam of its own. It sounds like the Dead can't even wait for Dark Star to begin before they start jamming! (For convenience I'm using the Archive track for timing, but it includes the tuning in the track so it adds an extra 1:20 to the time.)

But they pause to begin Dark Star, at a slow tempo. It keeps getting slower! Phil sounds very dominant at the start, and it takes the others some time to emerge from his shadow. They soon establish a feeling of mellow intensity....initially, this feels much more focused than most of the recent Dark Stars have been. Keith switches between different tones on the Rhodes including the bells, adding a very laid-back vibe; in contrast Bill's very pushy with his drumming, keeping things buoyant. Phil starts getting rambunctious around 5:30, but instead of propelling the jam upwards they kind of dissolve, the jam breaking up. Soon the music's turned into an amorphous space; Phil buzzes away at 7m while the others swirl. Around 7:30 a Dark Star theme feeling starts to sneak back in between Jerry & Keith, but the band feels like staying spacey. Phil hints at the deep feedback at 8:20, but it's only a hint. Amid the fragmented ramblings Jerry teases the theme at 9:20, but it's just a feint; the band recedes into a tranquil galactic backdrop. Bob all but stops playing for a minute, leaving a loose quartet.

Jerry returns to the theme after 11:00, and this time it sticks and the band slowly gathers round it. A forward drive returns to their playing for a nice couple minutes of Dark Star theme jamming, getting more intense before the final theme reprise at 13:30 & the verse at 13:47.
Jerry does volume swells while he sings the verse, which I haven't noticed before; it makes his singing of the verse a bit more droopy.

The post-verse space opens up as expected. This time they get into a droney thing -- Keith droning & Jerry kind of imitating a tambura while Bob strums one note -- and Phil leads with a bass melody. Very cool! (If only all his bass solos were like this.) Jerry steps forward after 17:10 with high tones, combining slide & wah for a poignant keening sound, while the others sound ready to pick up the pace with a hint of rock & roll. Bob breaks into the Mind Left Body chords all of a sudden, which seems to be no surprise to the others. (Both the Archive and the Dick's Pick split this off on its own track, at different points.) Jerry seems to be prepared, though it takes them all a minute to really nail down the changes. After one pass Bob switches to his chorus tone; Jerry picks through the first runthrough, then returns to the slide. Then after a couple minutes Jerry goes back to more aggressive picking, then more quietly fingerpicking the chords after 3:20. Nice version, though not as emotive as it can be.

After 4 minutes they're ready to end it, and it comes to a stop at 4:20. Jerry starts some Tiger-type picking, switching on the wah again. This starts out really loose and spacey; the others are letting Jerry noodle off by himself rather than getting wild themselves. It's mainly just Keith & Bob quietly backing him (Phil drops out at 5:30), so even when Jerry screeches into full Tiger mode around 6:10 things stay very restrained. Phil finally returns with some low hums after 6:40, encouraging the others to loosen up & let their hair down, and things start to get more crazy & meltdownish after 7m. It stays on the spacey side though, and by 8m they're just floating in space again on wafts of Phil's feedback. Jerry provides some volume swells while the others drop in random bits of space debris. After a minute of this lonesome-sounding transition, Jerry takes them slowly into Morning Dew.

A good one. For me it lacks a certain oomph; it's mostly subdued and more pretty than scary. The band keeps pulling toward quiet spaciness, even in the Tiger, so the Mind Left Body jam balances this out with the kind of extended memorable theme that's been rare in 1973 Dark Stars. There's no audience tape for a different perspective, Oklahoma apparently lacking in tapers. Keith is present on the Rhodes without really standing out; he's super-laid back in this one and helps give it a kind of nighttime feel.