They were work tapes. For reference. The band would listen to its own performance. Not every night, not all of them, but often and enough so that the quality of the recordings needed to be up to a certain snuff, but still: work tapes.
Owsley made them first, because Owsley did everything first; he was like the Chinese in that aspect. Not every show, and he had obscure and aggressive ideas about stereo, and then he went to jail. Kidd Candelario take up the reels after him, and the Kidd was all right. He buried Keith in the mix (and, later, buried Keith in the ground). Betty Cantor was next. She was a talented woman. Last was Dan Healy, who was a putz. Plug a reel-to-reel into the soundboard, fiddle with some knobs, change the tape; when the show’s over, kick the reels down onto cassettes for the band (and a few for yourself to use as valuable lot barter); when you get back to California, put the reels in the warehouse. It’s a simple job, which is why it’s such a miracle the Dead were able to pull it off.
Not the Rolling Truck Stones Thing! Not the titanic 16-track deck they humped around San Francisco for Live/Dead and Europe for Europe ’72. Just a dinky (but outrageously expensive) two-track machine. 14 fewer tracks, man. You just lost 87.5% of your tracks. That’s so much worse than being decimated. 77.5% worse, to be precise. Very few tracks to capture so much music
But Jeffrey Norman and his team of sonic elves have shined this shit right up. The new Pacific Northwest ’73-’74 set makes your ears feel like doing the cha-cha, maybe the merengue, I don’t know; what I know is that my ears are so happy they want to move in an ethnic fashion. If you haven’t bought it, steal it. (Not from an individual who has purchased it. Don’t burgle anyone. I meant that you should steal it from the internet.)
Acquired it yet? Good: not listen to the drums. Hear how drummy they are? Now the bass. Basstastic, huh? Guitars are–
Excuse me.
–guitariffic.
Stop it. This is nonsense and you don’t deserve food or happiness.
The box set sounds good, and the folks responsible should be praised.
They should, but you’re awful at it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
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