192. 1990-10-20

150273 Berlin 17:42 (Dark Star I: 13:06; Dark Star II: 4:36)


First verse at 3:28.
Verse melody at II. :54.
Second verse at II. 1:50.
Goes into Drums, then into Throwing Stones.


The European crowd sounds happy to be hearing a Dark Star for the first time since 1974 (or 1972 for the continent). This comes out of the gate with a joyful and bouncy mien. Phil Lesh is quite audible and active here, giving this a classic feel. Welnick is also quite audible, which gives it a more modern feel at the same time, as his synths wash all over everything. I can’t pick Hornsby out at first, on the other hand; he is holding back, at least for now.


They take it to the verse very quickly, and Garcia seems to come into it wrong-footed. Jerry lays out for a bit off the back end, until at 5:13 he swoops in as a flute. As is so often the case, this effect doesn’t stick around long, and he goes back to a guitar sound rather quickly. At about 6:00 Hornsby starts to add some input, but he’s a bit low in the mix.


For all the other sounds that are happening, this comes off as a Garcia-Lesh dialogue much of the time—Weir stabs and bleats on one side, and on the other Vince is a freshet of keyboard sounds, with Hornsby not being much of a factor. At 8:10 they start to shift gears, and they leave the two chord song pattern behind in pursuit of freakiness. Phil has some kind of effect on that makes him sound a bit like an organ, and he lays down an ominous base as Jerry repeats a descending melodic pattern.


At around 10 minutes in Jerry switches to his bassoon sound, and they get even spacier. This is all rather intriguing, but it’s dispersing rather than going somewhere, with Drums on the horizon. It sounds good, but it would be nice if they built it into something. They climb to a nervous peak at about 12:45, and then they let it spill and leave for the drum segment.


In instances like this one, Space could potentially be considered part of Dark Star. It’s kind of surprising they didn’t do Dark Star>Drums>Space>Dark Star more often, in fact, since Dark Star was one of the main places where their space jamming developed. As Space comes out of Drums, however, it doesn’t have any obvious continuity with the jamming that preceded the drum segment; it’s a really excellent ambient electronic piece in its own right, however, with a nice build-up in the back half.


Garcia seems to hint at Other One a little bit in the closing seconds of the track, and Lesh picks up on that a little way into the next track. There is not a clear transition where the track breaks, but at II. :54 Jerry breaks out the Dark Star verse melody, which is the first indication that they’re returning. Lesh kicks off the theme, and Jerry rather tentatively sings the second verse. Not much happens after that, although it takes them a minute or so to opt for Throwing Stones.


This is a really hard one to evaluate—not enough happens in Dark Star proper to add up to much, but if we’re including Space (which was, after all, played in the midst of all this) then this segment starts to seem pretty darn good after all. In any case, if you’re going to listen to this, don’t skip Space.


What was said:

JSegel:


(I don’t seem to see times on the player… so no accurate time points.)

A month later in Germany, this one encompasses the Drums and Space tracks and comes back to Dark Star. A slow feint and then they begin the intro riff and drop into the groove. People cheer. Jerry start out relatively slowly on a lead while the keys play the riff over and over with a very digital bell-flute-sort of sound. Trying to be an organ I think. A couple minutes in he adds some stops that double the riff in fourths, but it comes in and out, Phil develops it into a punchy jam.

Verse comes in, Jerry sounds pretty good, even his playing along with the voice line is spirited. The drums keep chugging along through until the second half of the refrain, Phil drops to the em for a rising line on line 3, and holds for the refrain. They move at slightly the same pace through it. To the outro, and into the groove again, though mellower by a tad.

Jerry is backgrounding the little runs, organ thing is soloing a bit and Bob tries his harmonics with whammy bar stuff. The guitar is in midi world but it’s low in the mix, which is sort of cool as he rejoins the mix when he plays with normal guitar tone. It’s a spacey and mellow jam, nice, Bobby tries out some dissonnant chordal tones, Phil eventually lands on an f# for a bit changing up the mode, then drops to the E and they dissipate a bit. They play more less atonally around E or B roots and it goes into spaciness. Synths come in

Jerry is back in midi land so he’s blended in more, so Bob has more lead guitar bits, stretching the tonality. The start to go more chromatic with no set rhythm. I hear the midi bassoon jamming along now. In conversation, the levels are good on everybody so you can hear them reacting to each others moves. They build it up in intensity and hold a tension, a full freakout.

When it finally breaks, they leave the drums to start up their section.

The drumming is exciting and upbeat for several minutes, rolling along on big tom toms. Eventually it’s Bill on a sick kick and snare beat, while Mickey wails on bells. This gives way to a trippy area with some unintelligible shamanic chant or slow drum syllables with flanged echoes and other odd sounds filtering in. There’s an echo of the beat fading in and out which eventually stays in and they start to build over it, drumlining it on. This goes on with bits of tweaking, even a full stop at one point, then back at a low level flanging out. They end up leaving a flange cycle and playing within that as the bar, but it falls apart into low echo feedback and warbles and begins Space.

Here are the amplified garage door springs, rubbed slowly educing a major overtone. (Does he have a name for this instrument?) Bobby comes in on slide with wah and echo but then hits various clusters. I hear Jerry back there with an echoed melodic line, I think Mickey has the live drum mic with echo picking up stage sound and tweaking it.

Keys try for a harmonic progression of some sort and they insinuate a 6/8 that doesn’t really gel. Everybody plays short phrases for each other that echo off. It sounds like a collage of songs. Bass and drums come back after several minutes and threaten to do something but sort of stay in a holding pattern. Jerry still tries for a 12/8 sort of thing, but it remains static until keys starts a rising progression, Bob tags along and then when Jerry joins in it heads to the Dark Star riff. Some awful bendy stabbing sounds as Bobby insists on his dissonant chromatic find. He even sticks it in when they’ve moved into a mellow Dark Star groove.

Verse comes in but I can’t hear Jerry at all on the first line, and he flubs the guitar a bit on formless reflections. He’s closer on line 2, they switch to the em rise for line 3. He does a nice chromatic lick down to the refrain. The whole thing is better played than the first time, and then go to the outro and then a tentative slow move into a Dark Star vibe groove. Lead organ, bendy harmonics, little runs on guitar, descending. They fade it and stop. Start Throwing Stones.


Mr. Rain:


. Listening to 150273 Blackwood as the best source; however the tracking isn't perfect -- Dark Star begins at :17 in the track.
Vince has a very warbly organ sound, repeating the main riff over & over at the start. (It's almost like Pigpen has returned with his Vox!) He's loud but not very good at this yet, and doesn't mix with the band well. Bruce's piano isn't audible at the beginning, though he starts poking through a little after 2:45, on the far right. He remains quiet in the mix throughout. The rest of the band is jaunty & springy, and the guitarists are able to keep Dark Star afloat with a minimum of effort. By now they're able to imply a lot with a few notes: while Bob adds bits of texture, Jerry & Phil are doing a triumphant march through Dark Star territory, despite Vince's best efforts to swamp them. Phil's tone is so thick he might as well be playing a tree-trunk.

Jerry launches into the verse abruptly at 3:28 -- he seems in a hurry to get through it, and rushes the timing. He lays back after the verse, and we get a Vince "lead" which is very thin & inconspicuous...like he's still trying to hide in the back even at high volume. Then Jerry blasts in with some flute at 5:15! But he seems to be having some MIDI trouble as he plays little for the next minute, his guitar kind of sputtering while the band soldiers on around him. Once he does resume with a regular guitar tone, his playing is a little disjointed, short little licks, so something's distracting him. On the other hand, there's still a psychedelic feeling here with the different phrasing, Bob & Phil attacking the jam from different angles, the organ washing over everything. An ominous air settles over the music; suddenly they slow down and pause; by 8:30 they're hovering on the edge of dread. Phil lays down a thick drone; Jerry flute-flutters; Bob whizzes & splats. The jam is quickly turning into Space, breaking up into weirdness. Jerry switches to a bassoon around 10:00, grunting gruffly as they descend into a slow-paced freaky meltdown. Vince is sounding more appropriate now that the horror-movie soundtrack has taken over; Bruce is pounding away in the far distance. Back to a distorted tone, Jerry climbs to a desperate high-pitched wail after 12m, the band thrashing in a frenzy -- and boom, at 13:10 Jerry climaxes in a spurt of feedback. And they immediately give way to Drums. Nice wild finish!

As usual, Drums starts out as an actual drum duet, then midway turns into digital ambience with sampled chanting. The effect's a bit like being stuck in a dark Tibetan cave full of flying bats. At the end Mickey(?) strikes up a strong beat, over which digital space effects fly in. Now they're adrift in spacey electronica... 3-4 minutes into space, the guitars return, doing agitated space stuff with lots of reverb. This builds up into quite a chaotic flurry of sounds -- probably a lot of manipulation & samples from Healy or Bralove here. They've moved from the caves of Tibet to the stormy clouds of Jupiter.

In the last minute of Space, Phil sneaks back in and it starts sounding a little more normal. After a slight Other One tease (after 7:30 in Space), Jerry & Phil turn back in a Dark Star direction, supported by Bruce's piano, while Bob's still off making weird noises. When Jerry & Bruce start the theme at :40, it sounds odd since Phil's being hyperactive and Bob doesn't want to join them, so there's a few different angles being pursued at once. (Vince, of course, jumps in with his unnecessary organ wash.) After an instrumental verse run-through, Jerry starts the second verse for real at 1:50 -- or, kind of starts it since he forgot the words, but his voice returns midway through the verse. Again, though it's a mistake it produces an odd psychedelic effect, and by the end of the verse they've simplified it to just bare guitar & voice. After the verse they putter around in a mild Dark Star vein for a minute; it seems like the jam is resuming from the start, heading for directions unknown. But after a minute they wind it down like they're fading out, and Bob opts for Throwing Stones.

This Dark Star felt more hurried and offhand, not entirely "intentional." Not bad though -- there's not that much MIDI stuff intruding, and the first part builds to a solid, freaky fury. The reprise is messy, but that still works; it's like Dark Star is struggling to collect itself from the depths of space. Phil's feeling his oats! This is very much the guitarists' Dark Star -- Vince is terrible and doesn't contribute much, and Bruce can't be heard very well. Despite the glitches, this is still some far-out psychedelia.

Once again, there are EIGHT different audience tapes to choose from. And you know what? They all sound great! Phenomenal, often near-SBD-level quality across the board. The mix isn't much different from the SBD, but I find Vince is reduced somewhat on the audience tapes, being folded into the group sound a bit more. For that, and for the extra room sparkle, I recommend checking one out, perhaps Flaschner or Floater.


adamos:


There's some gentle dancing around before they launch in; then the notes ring out and the crowd reacts and they're off. Jerry starts out gently and his tone has a somewhat thin quality. Phil is nicely present on the bottom and is pretty active. Vince is working away with the repeating riff; I kind of like it's throwback feel however it's a bit too much in the mix. They move sprightly through familiar territory with Bob blending in complimentary textures. Bruce is difficult to pick out but he crops up from time to time. The energy and momentum build and it all sounds pretty good. Then around 3:15 or so they ease up and move on to the first verse.

After the verse they reset and hover for a bit with Jerry laying back. He comes charging back in at 5:12 with loud MIDI flute but then quickly switches to a regular guitar tone. They start to weave something together but it still feels tentative. I agree that Jerry may have been having guitar issues. Slowly things start to come together more and they glide along with a somewhat a gentle feel except for Bob's intermittent textures. The momentum starts to build again with Jerry and Phil interweaving and the keyboards adding color. They rise up a bit with Jerry working delicate high notes and then slowly start to downshift.

By 8:00 they are in a descending spiral of sorts and then things start to intentionally pull apart and get weirder. By 8:30 they are floating through space and sort of deciding just how weird they want to take it. The vibe gets more ominous via electronic sounds and Jerry gets into some quick repeating flute notes. The intensity rises and it's kind of interesting to hear flute used in a foreboding passage.

Around 10:00 he switches to bassoon which brings a deeper, freakier vibe to the gathering frenzy. They swirl and percolate and it feels like the beast could potentially be unleashed however they're still holding on to the reigns. There's more casting about in ominous-ville and then they rise up again to a freaky peak. They sustain it for a minute or two and as it breaks they immediately give way to Drums.

Drums does its thing for eight minutes, shifting to freakier territory about halfway through including some chanting sounds. Some subtle Beam work I believe helps bring forth the transition into Space. It's quite sparse for the first few minutes before slowly building into something more involved. The back half gets more electronic and freaky but not dissonant.

As it runs it course there's a brief hint of The Other One. Bob comes forward with some wah-ish rhythm that is electronic but almost sounds a little reggae-ish. Then Jerry and Phil slowly start heading back toward Dark Star and they rise to a small peak before fully re-engaging with the theme via the keyboards. Meanwhile Phil is working away at his own thing while Bob injects electronic-ish sounds and Jerry starts blending in the verse melody. I suppose it's a little all over the place but it's also kind of interesting.

Slowly things come more into focus and they briefly work the theme before starting the second verse at 1:50. Jerry's vocal seems kind of distant at first but then he gets louder. Afterwards they they gently hover and then glide along in thematic territory briefly before letting it go and starting up Throwing Stones.

It's a decent version overall. The brief opening passage sounds nice and they spin up some pretty good freakiness prior to Drums. The post-Space passage is kind of disjointed but also kind of interesting.