188. 1989-12-31

154970 Oakland 14:46

First verse at 6:31.
Goes into Drums.


Victim or the Crime had become a space-faring event in its own right by this point; tonight they follow it with Dark Star. Everything has a little bit of a digital sheen at this point, even with Garcia (now playing Rosebud) otherwise sounding remarkably organic at first; Weir has some kind of flute-like thing going right away. Musically, though, this starts out in a pretty straightforward polyphonic pocket. At 2:30 they settle into what passes for the main theme these days, but then Jerry turns into a flute and they continue jamming.


There’s a nice peak starting right after the four minute mark. Coming off the other side, Garcia becomes more guitar-like again. It seems like there’s always some sort of MIDI tinge around the edges, though. They keep dropping back into the pocket, as at 5:10, but they head out again—though not too far out, this is still a jam on the basic chord pattern of Dark Star. Finally, at 6:20, we reach the theme again and get to the verse.


Based on the placement in the set, the timing, and the last version, we would expect a freakout here, but they go right back to the groove, although the MIDI is ramped up a bit. After a couple of minutes the center starts to distort, and weirdness begins to hold sway; this is sort of a wind-down into the drum section, rather than a full-fledged excursion, but one’s grip on the mundane is pleasingly shaken a bit in the process.


Anyone who had heard the Miami version could be forgiven for thinking they were on the way somewhere rather special at around 11:30 when things are starting to fly a bit, but we are already almost at the end. At around 13:10 it gets really good, with Garcia’s bassoon bleating along and the drums striking a fast and exciting beat. Short as this post-verse segment turns out to be, they don’t phone it in. But this is a last blast, and pretty soon it has all subsided into tonight’s drum segment.


Here we have one of those “good but not earth-shattering” Dark Stars, mostly because the brevity of it and the relative conservatism of the pre-verse material preclude any extended exploration.


What was said:

adamos:


The last couple minutes of Victim Or The Crime get pretty freaky while still maintaining a thread of the melody. Jerry's MIDI trumpet seems to herald that something grander is on the way. As the outro runs its course there's a brief pause and then the opening notes to Dark Star are greeted with another enthusiastic crowd response.

There's a light feel initially as they saunter along. Jerry adds some fuzzy raspiness but then quickly shifts to his normal tone. Phil works a mellow line underneath. The drums are fairly prominent in the mix but not overbearing. Brent dances around adding relatively subtle accents. Jerry flirts with MIDI for a moment at 1:45 but then holds off. Bob blends in this textures and is already dabbling in electronic sounds. It moves along nicely enough in pretty typical fashion.

They gently touch back on the theme at 2:30 and then Jerry moves to MIDI flute. The overall feel gets more subtle and delicate and then they start to slowly build some momentum. Phil continues to work a bouncy, repeating line. Bob now seems to be going for some kind of tropical sound. They collectively interweave and rise to a small peak starting around 4:00. As it subsides Jerry shifts back to mostly normal guitar which is welcome.

They carry forth, winding out but never venturing too far from thematic territory as noted by bzfgt. Things start to ebb and then around 6:05 Jerry inserts some snappy, punctuating notes after which they ease their way into the first verse. Jerry sings gently although still sounds strained.

After the verse they reset and then resume the groove with Phil, Bob and Brent semi-treading water initially. Jerry comes in a bit later so he may have been futzing with something. The overall feel gets more dreamy and then slowly starts to become more spacey and weird. It stays pretty mellow initially but then they begin to ramp it up. At this point they are essentially spinning up general spaciness but to some degree it feels like a cauldron is brewing.

After 10:53 Jerry switches to a raspier tone that brings some more edge to the proceedings. His guitar wails out into the night while Bob adds frantic textures and Brent colors as well. Its starts to get more electronic again and it feels like they may let it rip but then they ease up. Around 12:00 Jerry starts a low, repeating thing like a revving motor and they gather around that for a bit. Jerry gets freakier and Phil works a fairly quick moving line. It's kind of a cool although its starts to get more electronic again which alters the feel a bit.

Nonetheless they're in a freaky hall of mirrors now and after 13:00 they take it up a notch with the drummers adding a more pronounced beat along with the general mayhem. More MIDI bizarreness and then by 14:10 or so they start to let it go. From that point it becomes an on-ramp to Drums.

It's a pretty good version relative to the era. The first half kind of feels they were playing it because it was New Year's Eve but they weren't particularly in the mood to take it for a ride. But then the second half gets more interesting and freaky although they never fully unleash the beast.


JSegel:


This is now with the "Rosebud" guitar.

Ending of Victim or the Crime has some arhythmic noodles with a midi-trumpet sound and big crashing cymbals and toms, held pitch-bended keys. Bob starts a little Dark Star intro and then they actually do it, and drop into the groove, though it’s sort of dissipated, the drums are slow. Guitar back to almost being a guitar sound, and Phil actually bubbling around more, the groove funks up a bit after a minute. Brent is still on the cascading riffs. Jerry is mellow on his leads, Bobby has a very distant sounds compressed guitar tone.

At a couple minutes in, Jerry steps on the suck pedal and the guitar starts sounding like a trombone, but just for a second, and back to more guitar-sounding guitar. They wander around in the Dark Star mode world, and into the pre-verse theme area. But then Jerry steps on the pedal again and becomes a jazz flute and then there’s more digital keyboard sounds in there and Jerry is playing guitar. Maybe Bob also has the midi-pitch-follower today? Or is there someone else playing?

Halfway into the track, Jerry starts some fast runs, the band just mellowly chugs along. They continue. A lull and then they dig back into the pre-verse groove.

Verse comes in, Jerry is small sounding, but has most of the notes. Bass holds it together through the verse, the drums are light. To the refrain, they jumble it all up, but get it together for the ending into the outro. After the riff, back to a groove, though it starts to ebb a little. Keys arpeggiate downwards, some digital noises start in the background, big swirly reverby things. The track switches to “Spacey Jam” at 9:13 as things get atonal.

The pulse falls apart, the pitch follower has a ghost voice sound. Bass keeps low mostly, they start to get a bit more frenetic and atonal and build up to a peak. Everybody is making weird noises. The piano goes to free jazz all-over-the-place bits, Bobby has a very pinched distorto sound, and then Jerry goes for distortion also and gets wild. They build to a high wild place and then let it cede to little picking and odd riffs at a lower level, though Brent still has some bits all over the keys. Distorted guitars play with feedback. Dumb-ass FM bells comes in. Jerry switches to an oboe tone, the drums start building up a rhythmic pulse. The instruments make noisy phrases while the drums continue and then 5:30 into this track, they give it over to the drummers, who continue a groove with bass and some odd percussion. Piano is warbling around for a second, then it’s all drums and percussion.

Somebody is singing or yelling into a mic that is pitch-shifted in the drum world. They roll onwards through some hand percussion and then back to tom toms, rolling on. Bells still in the mix. Mickey strikes up the triggered digital drum sounds occasionally, they roll it onwards taking this track past 10 minutes long.

Some odd distorted sounds come in from a vocal mic with some ring-mod treatment again. Rolling on big drums, hand percussion. Audience says, “whooo!”

Toward the end some pitch-bends on some echoed instrument come in, leading to the “Space” track.

A note from guitar with the percussion underneath leads the percussion to a sparser area while some pitched instruments make isolated little runs with echoes. And then the preset switch goes to a sax-sound for the guitar. Reverby noises take over the back, synthetic keyboard-ish sounds plinkle around. I think it’s both guitars with pitch-followers playing awful FM synths. Some syndrum hits.

Halfway through, a low drone starts. A guitar emerges under it, with distortion but at a low volume, playing runs and arpeggios in a major key area. Another instrument is sounding like an electric piano playing sparse notes. I can’t tell who’s playing what, but there are occasional sounds that appear to guitars, though most of the time it’s synthetic voices. Then some low distorted rock riffing by itself followed by odd synth bell-bloops and low notes, some loud “bells” and then Jerry starts the riff into Dear Mr Fantasy. Yikes.


Well, ok Dark Star is 9 minutes of this, and it leads to the drums/space biz. The drums segment is decent, but space is filled with those awful synthetic timbres. These last few have been pretty tough to get through because of that, it’s not the sort of timbral world I want to devote my listening time to! I like electric guitars, you know.


downer mydnyte:


The dressed up, swanky yet slumming New Years Eve crowd pretends to eat up the Dark Star but most folk's minds are wandering. The band's minds seem to be wandering as well.

Garcia seems wired and tired. Weir is ineffectual. Lesh's playing is selfish. Makes sense. His name is in the word. Hart is incapable of solid drumming. Brent seems quite high.

Garcia has some new toys and has not spent enough time with them yet. He seems to think the flute and trumpet sounds are worthwhile but they're just new.

Victim Or The Crime had weird chords for no reason other than to have weird chords. Makes sense. Weir's name is in the word. He seems to stay in the same mode now as Dark Star wafts into the air like a chili burger fart.

As the jam meanders on it becomes obvious that lift-off will not be accomplished. At least BH isn't up there. Yet. BH colliding with Garcia's midi tones would be too much. Maybe not for the New Year's crowd. It's a social event after all. Music is secondary. Or thirdly.

Dark Star is a thing of the past. Dragging it out at this late date is like an exhumation.


Mr. Rain:



Dark Star comes out of that happy new year's celebration song, Victim or the Crime, which turns itself into a noisy, freaky space, crackling with distortion. In the end the madness quiets down and Jerry begins Dark Star. (Cue crowd screams.) So there's an interesting reversal of events here: Space>Dark Star.

Dark Star has a loose opening, the band dancing lightly around each other, but after a minute it settles into a rather peaceful jam. Bob has a kind of whistly, glassy tone; Phil is loud in the mix and solid; Brent's less obtrusive than usual, even (dare I say) laying back a bit. Jerry keeps adjusting his tone throughout -- after a brief touch on the main theme at 2:30, he tries on the flute sound for a minute. Jerry climbs up to a little peak after 4m in an early climax, then at 4:30 they drop back to gliding in the calm Dark Star groove. After a minute of placid jamming, at 6:20 they turn back to the theme (big crowd cheer) and the verse. The verse is almost instrumental as Jerry all but whispers the lines.

Jerry lets the band establish the groove again, then comes back in with some minimalist touches (and a spectral MIDI sheen). After 9m things start breaking up, ghostly echoes round Jerry's guitar, the groove unraveling, drummers pounding & Brent hitting some atonal chords. They're pretty much back in Victim or the Crime territory! (You could even call this a Victim>Dark Star>Victim.) Jerry lands on a fuzzy tone and the playing gets more hectic; after 11:30 they're building up to some kind of peak, but it dissolves in feedback-tinged percussive chatter. Phil keeps puttering along as spacey effects careen around: digi-bells, bassoon, all sorts of random clutter. Amidst the mayhem, Jerry slips out the back door by 14m, the rest of the band quiets down, and the drummers take over.

There's some (sampled) chanting in Drums, some distorted effects and a variety of drum sounds; overall a heavy tribal feeling, like the soundtrack to an expedition down the Congo. Eventually the band returns with various digital tones; Jerry goes through his usual array of space sounds, and Phil's trying out his own MIDI tones as well. The effect is almost hypnotic after about 4m. Jerry enters a surprising melodic passage after 5:30, sounding a bit like he's going into the Wheel. For a few minutes there's kind of a duel between Jerry & Phil, who's stepping all over with some wacky sounds -- getting downright cartoonish in the last minute. But in the end they peacefully resolve on Dear Mr. Fantasy.
The audience tapes are all good: to my taste Daweez and Mahoney are the best (followed closely by Mattes and Bowen).

This was a pretty good one, and far better than the band's last New Year's attempt on 12/31/81. It's very concentrated, but covers a lot of ground in a short time. There's a kind of dark & haunted feel here: rather than being taken in isolation, this Dark Star is part of the mood swing from the violence of Victim to the jungle sounds of Drums. The opening jam is almost like a classic Dark Star at times (4:30-6:30 in particular), and very tranquil in feel, the better to contrast with the escalating sonic madness after the verse. Other things also help: Brent's restrained and mostly sticks to a piano sound; Jerry's vocals are very quiet in the verse; Phil's bass is front & center; and the digital effects serve to make it all sound more creepy, like a pastoral scene being painted by a glitchy computer.