My Summer Project: Distilling The Dead
Summer is winding down--classes start up again later this month--and I'm still plugging away on my summer project: An absurd quest to burn myself copies of every 80s-era Grateful Dead show currently circulating in high-quality soundboard. Which is, of course, kinda nuts. I've already got pretty much every 60s/70s show, and a pretty hefty helping of 80s & 90s shows. Do I really need any more? Now, I've got a complicated relationship with 80s Dead. That's when I started seeing the band in concert, and some of the earliest shows I heard were from trading hissy cassettes of 80s performances, so there's a definite nostalgic vibe to these sets. On the other hand, the 80s were pretty damn iffy for the band--Jerry's voice was in steep decline, the shows were increasingly rote and unadventurous, tracks were often played at a cocaine-fueled velocity, and the cassette sources of most shows (coupled with Brent's keys) gave even pristine soundboards a distinctly tin...
