185. 1989-10-09

147611 Hampton 19:19

Main theme at :57.
First verse at 1:05.
Main theme at 9:54.
Second verse at 10:41.
Goes into Drums.


If the 1984 Dark Star encore at the Greek was a wonderful surprise, this one was greeted with shock and almost disbelief. At this point, few expected Dark Star to appear on a set list again, much less (as it would turn out) see a revival as a semi-regular feature of Grateful Dead shows. The previous night the band, booked as “Formerly The Warlocks,” had brought back Help On the Way>Slipknot, and many of the fans in attendance on the 9th doubtless thought they’d already seen—or missed—the main action of this short run. Little did they know what lay in store—not only Dark Star, but also Death Don’t Have No Mercy (presented with a surprisingly effective updated arrangement) and Attics of My Life for an encore. Deadheads staggered away from Hampton in a blissful stupor, and the word spread.


The crowd goes crazy at the sound of the familiar intro notes. There’s a rather short introduction, and Garcia (playing the Wolf again) does something new here, playing a kind of complementary lick on the bass strings rather than asserting the theme. The verse arrives after a mere minute, and by 2:20 they’re into the meat of the song. Garcia’s line is just as beautiful as ever here, and his sound is a bit more digital at this point, although he has a light touch with whatever effects he’s using until about 3:50, when he starts to swim in a reverb-y delay thing. Here the drummers are still banging away, but Weir seems game to make it strange, and Mydland seems to have gained some aptitude for weird Grateful Dead music in the interim since 1984. Lesh is active, but once again he has more of a supporting role than he was wont to adopt in the old days.


At about 4:45 Jerry starts sliding into a more effect-heavy sound, though not all at once. Then at 5:10 the MIDI is fully unleashed, as Garcia’s guitar has become a marimba crossed with a flute. It’s batty, but pretty great. At 5:44 he becomes a bassoon—it’s hard to keep up with all of this! The band by now has shifted into a darker space, and the drummers have broken out of the relentless groove that, from our perspective, had lasted for 10 years now. Jerry fires out crazy woodwind lines, Weir’s playing follows a strange logic that seems to complement him, and Brent has cautiously moved out into terra incognita with them. Lesh seems to have sunk down into a low rumbly accompaniment that underpins the proceedings without suggesting anything entirely new.


At 7:50 Garcia’s guitar is starting to sound like a guitar again. He starts a little frenetic jam, with Weir’s line echoing him with a slight lag, which is enough to get the headphone listener’s synapses sizzling. At 8:20 they come to a peak and back off immediately. Now there’s a meandering interlude, a moment of decision—will they return to the theme, or try something else? It seems to be the latter—they spin out into a section that is reminiscent of their more coherent space jams of the era. Weir has also fired up the MIDI at this point, and Brent seems entirely comfortable staying in the outer reaches. But at 9:44 Garcia signals the theme, and that’s where they go, and then we get the second verse.


They follow the verse with a deeper venture into space. Garcia is playing some rumbly and ominous lines, while Weir weirds out on distorted guitar. Then they switch roles, at least texturally, as Jerry plays some keening distorted lead while Weir kicks on some oddball MIDI effect. Mydland is likewise rather mercurial with his sounds here, with piano-like flurries switching to a Hawkwindesque gale and back again. At 14:40 the band kicks up a windstorm, and there is an entirely new and different kind of musical peak than any we’ve heard in Dark Star to date.


The music is rather hard to describe at this point, as it often is when they go into a space jam. It’s almost cacophonous at times, and entirely exciting. The much-maligned MIDI effects contribute to a totally psychedelic tour de force tonight; maybe this is how they’d have sounded in 1973 if they had the same effects then, as the space jams from that year are the closest prior analogue to what’s happening here. It starts to disperse at around 18:00; they no longer sound like they’re building something, so much as getting some parting shots in. Pretty soon they cede the field to the drummers.


This is a bit short compared to many of the classic versions of yore. It’s a very powerful stretch of music, however. They seem much more committed to Dark Star here than they have since 1974, and the new technology adds an element that I found to be bracing but welcome. The one disappointment is that Lesh’s role still seems to be a bit diminished, but overall this is both a historical landmark and a successful rendition.


What was said:

Spaerca:

bzfgt said: ↑

The crowd goes crazy at the sound of the familiar intro notes.

Venue staff were alarmed. Looking around, "what just happened?" While 'heads are clutching at each other and howling.




JSegel:



(I saw a show in CA a week prior to this one, no more Dark Stars for me. I mostly liked the drums and space parts at the show, hated most of the rest of it.)

Sort of a messy intro, so many people cheering on the audience tape, for quite a while. They move into a leisurely groove, Jerry starts a lilting lead and Brent comes in on a key cascade into it. Thy hit the verse almost immediately at a minute in.

Of course, the band is pretty square over the verse, no fermatas, only slight upward wandering from the bass. Jerry sounds pretty raspy. He’s old these days.

Into the middle, more up and down leisure leads form Jerry, swingin’ it. He finds a couple little eddies, the keyboard/piano-synth thing is tinkling around. Bill starts chasing them a bit after a few minutes. Jerry switches his tone up by 4 minutes, they get into a more jazzy area. At 4:40 or so, he has his midi-follower on and goes through some tones, first one with a long reverby sparkle and then a pseudo-marimba. Wow that sounds very odd. Guitar is starting to sound like a lot of weird midi instruments, bassoon, etc. Bob has some effects like an octave up thing fuzz or something. Jerry stays on bassoon for a while, and starts to go outside the mode. Drums attempt to follow in waves. The lead strays to a new tonal area and organ comes in, the drums and bass start rolling on a groove for a minute. The guitar sound starts changing tone again, more synthy. Also sounds like Mickey has some awful clap and electronic tom samples from an e-drum. They bring it up to a crest right after 8 minutes. Down the other side, we rest in a valley with scary synth chords falling against tuned percussion swells. The guitar at least sounds more guitar-like for a while, he’s still playing lead and brings it back to the Dark Star groove by 10 minutes. Second verse? They stay at it for a bit and second verse at 10:40. All right!

Band is chugging their way through the verse again, with some upward wandering again on line 3. Drums play into the refrain, finally allowing a space if only for a second.

The refrain outro plays out into a descending bassline and back to scary synth sounds, now with stabs from Bobby, it goes full on monster movie for a bit, then he switches to a brass sound while the drums start with their weird stuff, and keys go wild. Fuzzy doubled tone on the low lead guitar sounds like he may go to Tiger world, but he takes it high in to a solo stretchy wailing section with feedback and big pull offs. The piano goes wile behind, Bobby clips away. At 14 minutes more feedback is coming in from bass maybe, the fuzzy lead is Tigering out. Guitars, piano strings and garage door springs being slid around on with lots of feeding back guitars. Odd triggered echo sounds come over. The bass starts a scary descent. The lead guitar has changed to a reverby trumpet now and seems to be playing jazz from the back of a hall against the sliding tones and feedback, piano madness.

The lead changes to a flute organ sound, drums start up an attempt at something for a second at 17 min, settling into a bongo rhythm. Strikes on piano strings and bass, stretchy guitars. It fades off, bongos back in again, other hand percussion being swatted at, bell trees and goat toenails on a string. Piano strike effected through some massive spectral sweep, guitars still background noise, they fade and allow the drummers to move into their own rolling groove.

_____
New track, Drums, they roll against a drone, grooving on big toms. Suddenly a minute in, a huge electronic noise sound with echoes, it happens a few times before they bring it down to smaller sounds.

They build it back to a groove, rolling along, both drummers, then it sounds more like only Bill after a few minutes, working out his rhythmic frustrations before Mickey comes back in with talking drums and some electronic drum hits or board echo playing in the large space (I’m listening to a matrix, I believe.) They hold a steady groove here for a while. The track is 9 minutes. Bill fades in and out a few times, the talking drum gets fed into the echo unit and then some spectral sweeps start messing with it in the 7th minutes, very weird. Fading in and out, the drummers play with the echoes. It gets even more weird as more musicians start to come in with feedbacky weird sounds.

____
New track, Space, guitars come back, Jerry with midi-triggered sounds again. Bobby making chordal noises. Talking drum with echo continues. The audience is again yelling about it all. The guitar sound is a weird hollow tube percussion thing for a bit, then he switches it up to a more jazzy snap bass sound with echoes taking off from it. (Board maybe?) Also (electronic) tuned percussion happening, and dumb e-drum claps and whips. Hard to tell if the actual bass is coming it, Bobby has a modulating echo on his guitar stabs. Guitar goes more like fuzz guitar in the background, huge synthy sweeps take over in minute 4 into this, and then to flutey sounds. Lead guitar in and out in little riffs. When the waves crests, there are more spooky synth sounds underneath lurking. From this emerges a more guitar-sounding guitar occasionally, and back to the low fuzz.

This last noise segues to Death Don’t Have No Mercy. Nice!

Good version, all told, (Here I’m considering the whole sequence through Space, against the wishes of the list) though I have to say, both then and now, I don’t like the dumb midi-triggered sounds much. The idea is good, the implementation of classic orchestral synth sounds sounds cheesy to me. Did then, still does. But it did allow Jerry to continue exploring. And Mickey, as well, I guess.




pbuzby:




"Magnesium Night Light" on Infrared Roses is a good concise piece from highlights of this version (and from a multitrack with certain musicians isolated and others removed in Bob Bralove's mix/edit).




Mr. Rain:




There's a full Playing>Uncle John>Playing combo before Drums, which in itself was unusual for '89. Coming out of the Playing out-jam, the Dead could have tried for a smooth segue with Dark Star, but no, they have to awkwardly pause before Jerry plays the intro notes. The laid-back east-coast audience barely reacts....ha ha, just kidding.

The Dead are in full arena mode by this point, with big drums and loud Brent smothering the stage. They stumble through a brief & presentable opening jam; Jerry sings the verse after only a minute, maybe hoping to get the crowd hysteria calmed down. The jam after the verse gets right to business, and before long Jerry starts to layer on the effects. At 4m he's added a delay and after 5m he's trying out various MIDI sounds; but as Jerry gets weirder, the rest of the band also gets spacier. The drumming is more responsive, less restrictive than it was in Mickey's previous versions. Bob's also very busy with a bright tone, interacting a lot with Jerry. Phil tends to stay more on the low end, and Brent drenches everything in Brent sauce. At 7m Jerry's playing the Other One rhythm -- could it go that way? -- and after a flourish Jerry goes back to a more normal guitar sound at 7:50. (Some drummer's making some inappropriate electro-drum noises in the back there.) But the Other One flirtation plays itself out, and by 9m they're spacing out, floating tranquilly. Now Jerry sounds a bit more like his regular self while Bob & Brent have a MIDI tinge; Phil sounds kind of subdued & aloof. Jerry brings back the main theme at 9:50, the mood a lot calmer now, and they let it play out a while before Jerry sings the second verse at 10:40. (This one's a bit more relaxed than the first verse.)

Here you'd expect Dark Star to end, but the Dead have a new twist up their sleeves, and they sail immediately into deep space (which hasn't been part of Dark Star in 15 years). Now it's a MIDI space, a deep drone underlying all manner of strange noises. Soon everyone is in MIDI bizarro-world, and things get wild with sheets of noise sweeping over the coliseum. By 17m they've calmed down again; more percussive effects come in, low notes making it sound like a horror-movie soundtrack, and somewhat imperceptibly they give way to Drums.

Drums starts out in dark thunderous mode before eventually quieting down to a more "normal" drum duet. The electronics aren't held at bay for long, and it ends up in a sea of ambient reverb. Echoes & feedback introduce the rest of the band, and they resume their MIDI madness where they left off. After a couple minutes this settles down to Jerry noodling away while the others conjure up a clattering MIDI jungle. By 4m they're getting into scary-freakout mode again, and the mood gets quite dark & ominous (the horror-movie organ soundtrack again). After 6m it gets more peaceful & New Agey, but rather than relieve the audience, Jerry takes them to a death blues.

Well, that was a trip! Reviving Dark Star, the Dead now deal with the question: can spacey weirdness be part of Dark Star again? And they answer, yes, with a full-on assault. Here they play a Dark Star>Space>Drums>Space, and when played this way, there isn't that much difference between the two Spaces (it could be Dark Star pt. 2 after the Drums). As far as the arrangement, they now do a somewhat regular (but still weird & spacey) jam between the verses, then turn to the deep-space freakiness at the end. (Also notice there are no theme teases in the jam at all this time, it strays closer to the Other One instead.)

The other big change is the MIDI effects, which allow them to be quite aggressive & noisy, barraging the audience with an unsettling arsenal. Tom Constanten would feel at home here: this harks back not just to the '70s Dark Stars, but to the madness of Anthem of the Sun. It's indeed a close equivalent to the Tiger meltdowns of '73, but with the new element of surprise since you don't know what you're hearing or what's coming next. Back with a vengeance, Dark Star is dark, threatening, even suspenseful.

There must be a dozen audience tapes for this one; I couldn't say which is best, they generally sound pretty good, but this one's really good. (Or if you prefer a more bassy sound, try this one.) Worth hearing an AUD for the audience reaction and the space chaos.

P.S. bzfgt, the track time has been restored to the regular Archive player!




adamos:




There's a teased note and a brief pause at the end of the second PITB track and then they launch into Dark Star to rapturous crowd applause. This was such a big deal at the time and I remember hearing it on tape for the first time which was pretty exciting too.

They move along with some pace and snappiness with Jerry blending in those low notes that bzfgt pointed out. There's a bouncy, joyous feel to the groove no doubt enhanced by the audience reaction. The drummers are banging away and Brent is pretty active too. After 0:25 Jerry's line gets a bit more watery and he works it to good effect. Before long though they ease up and move right into the first verse at 1:05. Jerry sings with some enthusiasm which was also probably influenced by the crowd.

After the verse they briefly reset and Jerry embarks with some gusto but then quickly settles into something more dreamy and contemplative. He winds outward while Phil works underneath and they collectively work their way towards the ether. Around 3:50 Jerry introduces a delay that adds an ethereal feel. Things are getting spacier but there's still momentum and a sense of forward direction.

By 5:10 they've arrived in MIDI-ville and Jerry introduces various digital instrument sounds. Bob's complimentary textures stand out more now and Brent attempts to add his own semi-freaky color. Jerry goes into bassoon mode and works low and the collective energy starts to build. The drummers are more intermittently complimentary now as opposed to going full force. Things take on an Other One feel starting around 7:00 as noted by Mr. Rain and they work up a minor cauldron here.

Then around 7:45 Jerry shifts back to a more typical guitar sound and he gets into a repeating figure with Bob chasing. It still has a TOO-ish feel and they bring things to a small peak that crests after 8:20. From there they drift for a spell with Jerry and Phil working subdued notes and Brent adding periodic color. Bob starts getting weirder and more digital too. They explore this zone for a while and then Jerry starts heading towards the theme and they gently coalesce around that to crowd applause and then glide into the second verse.

After the verse they head right into freaky, spacey territory. The song structure is quickly abandoned and they cast about in the void. Lots of MIDI experimentation as they get weird. Jerry's guitar howls out into the night and Bob and Brent add some frantic accompaniment and the whole thing gets good and freaky. The intensity rises and they conjure up a maelstrom. It's cool and scary and transports the arena into an entirely different dimension. Things calm a little but are still freaky and Jerry works a MIDI line while the collective creates a kind of space ship feel.

By 17:00 they start to let it go and some more tribal sounding percussion comes in but there's still an ominous undertone. Some louder, freaky sounds return and then they spin up some low-key spacey weirdness for a bit longer before giving way to Drums. In this telling Drums and Space do feel like a continuation of what was happening and then comes just the second Death Don't Have No Mercy since 1970. Quite a night!

A fun and engaging performance and the circumstances of its return as well as the crowd reaction are a fundamental part of its lore. MIDI is a double-edged sword but it works pretty well in a spacey, freaky context and at this point it was still fresh and different. Some more thematic work would have been welcome too but they delivered.




Mr. Rain:

JSegel said: ↑

I don’t like the dumb midi-triggered sounds much.

adamos said: ↑

MIDI is a double-edged sword but it works pretty well in a spacey, freaky context and at this point it was still fresh and different.

MIDI, dividing Dead listeners to this day! I think it's pretty ghastly myself, however I think here it's used well within Dark Star. Partly because it's not so much "let's see what neat sounds we can find" MIDI, but "we're going to rip your skull off" MIDI.

JSegel:




For me, it's the timbre of the triggered sounds, that early FM-synthesis is sparkly in a way I don't like the tone of. I don't mind the pitch-following idea, and yes! If it allows them to explore, then all the better.
I blame John Chowning at Stanford's CCRMA, he was developing that stuff and presented it at the Frost Amphitheater at electronic music shows that I saw Dead band members at (! sitting on the lawn with us. No Jerry though), before the band played there in ~1982. I think he sold it to Yamaha, and the DX7 happened, etc. I mean, hey, even Miles Davis had a DX7. It was the 80s. And I've seen other big electronic music dudes use similar sounds, like the synth-orchestra sounds, even from the other California electronic music world. No idea why they would allow that sort of generic pseudo-orchestra sound when the same people when operating analog synthesizers generated incredibly different sorts of timbres previously.
Anyway. Ok, I'll try to keep the ranting down.

adamos:




Agreed; my comment was in the context of Dark Star (particularly the freakouts) and there are plenty of bad examples of MIDI use by multiple band members in the final years. Although I will say that there were also times that Jerry’s judicious use of things like MIDI flute in other songs worked pretty well. But then on the other end of the spectrum were things like the cheesy sax patches on Vince’s rig. So certainly a mixed bag at best.




Mr. Rain:




We'll see whether the Dark Stars to come veer more toward cheesy synth sounds or psychedelic apocalpyse....

Campaigner:




I've only had a limited exposure to Jerry's MIDI bonanza, but each time I've heard one I've come away with the thought that if by using MIDI, Jerry was re-invigorating himself in songs that he once thought were tired, then the good outweighs the bad.