168. 1973-10-25

136695 Madison, WI 23:39 (23:05) (1. Dark Star 5:14 [4:39], 2. MLB 2:01, 3. Dark Star Jam 16:21)

Mind Left Body jam at 2. :11.
Main theme at 3. 3:01 and 5:57.
First verse at 3. 6:07.
Tiger at 3. 12:55.
Goes into Eyes of the World.


The second Dark Star of the Fall tour gets off to a typically ponderous start; the slow and drippy late 1973 sound is now in full effect. I find this mesmerizing, but others may think it soporific. The band basically just hovers for the first five minutes, until at 4:39 Lesh starts poking around at a riff. Weir is probably tuning, as he keeps throwing in incongruous harmonics. They almost come to a stop, and then they rather suddenly latch onto something; the move into MLB may have been planned, although it doesn’t really start until Weir finishes tuning and starts the riff 11 seconds into the second track.


This is the first MLB jam that does not come at or near the end of a Dark Star. They play it gently, and they don’t stay with it for very long. Lesh drops out at 2. 1:51 at the head of a new section, and they abort. They move into an interesting jam segment, with Garcia, Godchaux (who is on piano so far), and Weir playing flowing lines, with Lesh at first popping in and out around the edges. At about 3. 1:55 Jerry plays some lines that are reminiscent of Fire on the Mountain and they reach a little peak, and then they ease it back until Jerry comes in with the theme. They draw it out a for a few minutes this time; Weir and Godchaux are very active as it comes to a peak before settling down again and taking us into the verse.


We emerge into a grotto of sound, settling down into a disquieting space segment. Garcia’s eerie slide stretches over Lesh’s overdriven and elongated rumbles. I think Phil is playing some high feedback stuff now, and it’s hard to tell what Godchaux is doing; at some point I think he’s switched to the Rhodes or some electronic instrument, or else he has an effect on his piano. At 10:50 Jerry starts his wah line that suggests a meltdown is in the offing, and this picks up steam rather quickly until at 12:55 the Tiger is unleashed. The aftermath of this is some rather abstract and quietly frenetic noisemaking that soon begins to crescendo again but stops short of a peak and then gradually subsides until Garcia finally starts Eyes.


A rather odd Dark Star this is; although I loved every moment, I get the impression that not all of my colleagues are as enamored with the loose-limbed and ambiguous playing that characterizes the first half of this as I am. The early placement of an odd and underdeveloped MLB provides what passes for a point of focus in the first half, and the abstract stuff after the verse is really magnificent. This is oddball music, for sure, but that is one reason we love it…


What was said:

JSegel:


Bass is again prominent at the intro, but after the licks, the theme happens about a half a time before they start deviating. It doesn’t immediately get onto its feet, though Jerry plays with the theme off and on more than the others (though he manages to wind extra-modally around it quite a bit.) After a couple minutes he goes into low bits and they all mull this over. Keith has some jazz ideas for planing the chords up over the root. He is on a real piano, it sounds like.

Jerry moves into arpeggios, Keith follows and goes into the high tinkly range. It’s Sputnik-like for a while with these sounds. From this, Phil and Bill emerge with a latin feel for a second, but it doesn’t last. Phil goes into plucking little rhythmic sounds and Bobby moves into the MLB descending progression landing definitively on the V chord, and coming back to it. It takes a couple time before everybody is in on it, but it’s getting more developed now, more determined. By 7 minutes it sort of fritters away with Keith and Jerry moving in 1/8th notes side by side. At 8 min they move into a Dark Star theme of a sort, with some rhythmic motifs on the E that starts the melody. It finally floats off and at 10 min they come in with the actual Dark Star theme and groove, and it floats along again, though of course Mr Garcia has some extra-modal ideas and some wide string stretches. A couple minutes later he comes back to the theme for a second and embellishes it with fast upward runs. At 12:40 they head to the verse, it comes in very delicately, which continues through line two, no fermatas needed apparently. Though on line 3, Phil has some wildness and they wrap it all up into the refrain, Jerry singing like a choral member. The refrain and outro are spattered about, nobody is playing it together. Bobby strums out his TN intro lick. and then hovers. Bass hovers low and they head toward feedback land, but in a low volume way.

At 15:20, Jerry picks up the slide in the quiet world and plays out some bluesy slow notes with the bass bombing some low tones in there. It’s a mournful and delicate area. (Keith has moved to electric piano?) It starts to build some intensity from underneath, and then at 17:40 or so, the Tiger starts to move from the undergrowth, everybody making frenetic little gestures. Bobby is rubbing a slide or something on his strings. The build takes its time, with intermittent feedback. Tiger doesn’t come jumping up to growl for a while. At 19:40, Phil starts coming in with frenetic lows and the Tiger comes out for real, but just for a second, and then it fades off with scrapey noises from the bass.

20:30 it ebbs for s second and then starts up again, atonal chaos, the bass cedes the scrapes for low feedback as the guitar stretches high. It backs off to wah inflected licks and some planing diminished chords and atonal bizarro melody.

The big bass notes end this sequence and they regroup and head off to Eyes of the World.

Nice freakout that never quite gets as out there as it promises, but the earlier section and MLB jam are nice.


adamos:


The pre-launch tuning has a pretty feel of its own with an orchestral vibe of sorts. Then Phil kicks if off and they gently wander forth. It almost feels like slow motion at first but there's an enchanting quality to it. After the two minute mark Jerry winds into lower territory complimented by Bob. Nice accompaniment by Keith too. By three minutes in the energy has picked up just a little and Jerry charges upwards before easing back again. Around 3:45 Jerry gets into a repeating thing that Phil plays off and they all sort of gather around it briefly. Keith asserts himself around 4:00 in way that is both pretty and a little bumpy. He and Jerry circle round in this fashion and then trail off a bit. Phil then starts up a gentle, bouncy riff but it doesn't fully materialize.

They hover for a bit and then slowly find their way into a Mind Left Body jam. Jerry works some high loveliness and then Bobby gets the main riff going. They work it gently, slowly building up some low-key momentum. It's a nice interlude but placed this early in the proceedings there is less of a triumphant feel to it. After a couple of minutes the MLB jam crests and they move onwards.

Jerry starts working some sprightly lines with a more Dark Star-ish feel that spawns the makings of a new jam. Keith follows and Billy works his kit gently and then Phil and Bob begin to slowly fill out the picture. Jerry is actively winding and hitting some high notes but the collective vibe is still relatively low key. Then at around 1:14 on the "Dark Star Jam" track Phil lays something down and things start to get more cohesive. Jerry soars upwards starting around 1:45 and they rise to a compelling mini peak. They let it go by 2:15 and then shift into a lower, rolling groove that slowly winds down.

At 3:01 Jerry introduces the theme and they glide along in lovely fashion. It quickly builds in power and then eases back a bit. Jerry adds some stretchy notes and they ebb and flow, working in thematic territory for a spell. Things quiet down again and they fully return to the theme around 5:43 and then move into the verse.

After a gentle telling of the verse they reset and then start to let the weird in, nice and easy at first. Some subtle feedback-y sounds slowly rise up; Bob keeps working some figures and things begin to dissolve. Jerry introduces some stretchy slide and Phil rumbles gently and it starts to get spacier. It's sort of a freaky low boil that feels like a portent of something more intense. By 10:20 Jerry's bringing in some wailing sounds while the others contribute complimentary freakiness of their own.

Around 10:52 Jerry shifts to wah and it's time to take things up a notch. There's a feedback-ish sci-fi sound in the background that grows in intensity. Things start boiling up and Billy gets much more active. The frenzy builds with wailing and feedback and freaky stretchy playing from Bob. Then after 12:49 Jerry starts letting the Tiger rip. There's a hornets' nest frenzy and after it peaks they spill into a new freaky zone. It's more subdued initially but doesn't take long to kick up again. They bring it up but stop short of a total freakout, easing back down again but keeping the freaky going. This eventually leads to a quieter space that creates an opening for Eyes Of The World.

It's an interesting performance. You could argue that the opening segment is a little half-baked but it is not without its merits. The MLB jam isn't fully fleshed out and the early placement takes away some of its emotional impact but it still does its thing. The theme-adjacent jam that leads to the theme proper and verse is good and it has a nice peak along the way. And the post-verse spacey segments get good and weird.


Mr. Rain:


The tuning before Dark Star again threatens to turn into a little bassy jam of its own, but this time Phil is in more of a hurry to start Dark Star...he doesn't even wait til the others finish tuning!
I used Vernon 14451 for the timing since the Sirmick file sticks the tuning at the start of the Dark Star track, adding an extra 33 seconds. (The sound quality isn't any different to me.)

Another slow start. I don't get a lot of excitement from the opening jam here, it's like they're feeling around in the dark without finding anything. Keith is on piano this time -- he steps forward a little with some tinkly lines at 3:30. But meanwhile the rest of the Dead keep getting quieter and barely playing, it almost sounds like it's coming to an early stop after that. Phil & Bob toy briefly with hints of the Marbles line, then Phil (ironically) sounds like he's tuning with lots of harmonics! But somehow they start hitting an upbeat little groove together, and Bob strikes up the Mind Left Body arpeggio. He quickly switches to his chorus tone again, and the other guys join in. They give it a few passes -- it's nice, gives them something solid to dig into, but within two minutes it suddenly disintegrates and they're in freeform jamming again.

This is a little more spirited, with some more spring in their step now. At first it's mainly just Keith & Jerry while Phil & Bob hang round the sides. Starting around 1:05 Jerry plays a neat repeating hook that captivates him for a minute, the intensity builds and they use that as a springboard to dive...well, nowhere in particular...more loose meandering. This is very abstract stuff. But at 3:05 Jerry starts the theme, and this time they really sink into it and draw it out for some extended theme jamming that's a lot more captivating than the preceding parts. Jerry takes it out for a ride, quietly comes back to the theme at 5:25, teases it softly for a while til they're all in the groove, then starts the verse at 6:10. (I like this method way more than when he just suddenly starts singing right after the theme.)

Phil varies his usual verse outro line, which throws off Bob a little, but then they cast off into space as usual, doing the humming drone thing again. (Bob strumming one note, Jerry being a tambura...) Jerry breaks out the slide again at 8:40 for some poignant keening; Keith, I think, is using the Rhodes to stay on an eerie whiny note; Phil menaces the crowd with super-low notes and feedback. Similar to the 10-19 space but a lot more threatening. At 11:00 Jerry starts his Tiger crawl; Keith's got a creepy whine going; Bob & Bill are getting frantic while Phil hums on the edge of howling feedback. They frantically spiral down into the pit of madness: the final Tiger run starts at 12:55, it's getting very noisy, and -- bang! at 13:17, a tape cut! Very ill-timed. (Sirmick disguises this with a crossfade.) The peak might be lost but the tape soon comes back as they're ending the Tiger and swirling in turbulent mayhem. Phil's throwing out chunks of noise. It almost feels like another Tiger's coming on as the noise builds up again; Phil breaks out his deepest drones while Jerry hits the high notes. At 15:30 they start winding down, Phil & Jerry entwined in their strange duet of feedback & skronky wah peals. But finally a feeling of calm descends. At 16:35 Bob & Jerry start jauntily strumming Eyes of the World while Phil's hanging out in the freaky zone, but he cheerfully makes the switch. Huge mood shift.

This Dark Star is famed for the noisy part in the second half; the Tiger is more surly & aggressive than usual. The first half's really undercooked though -- it's like it took them a while to get into the Dark Star mood, but they recover nicely after the theme comes in. The short Mind Left Body part, thrown in early on, seems like an attempt to get themselves on track. Phil's playing is strikingly odd throughout, as he hovers on his own plane, "popping in around the edges" as bzfgt puts it, and he often seems to be playing counterpoint to something no one else is playing. But after the verse he's in a very noisy mood, pushing everyone to a long freakout. Unfortunately there's no audience tape (which could have patched the Tiger cut).