Garcia said “We were great for seconds on end.” I was lucky to see Jerry play for about 1,000,000 seconds exactly. Thanks for your 1,000,000 views here . Dave Davis wrote this blog for 500 posts and 5 years from 2015 to 2019. Contact me at twitter @gratefulseconds

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

The Nine New Grateful Dead Near-Betty Boards Are Here



Thanks again to grateful darkstar and greendude, we have nine new near-Betty Boards. Ok, ok, I got too excited with the so-far 31 new uncirculated recordings of  the Grateful Dead and GarciaSaunders, which are detailed in the numerous posts this week. These are not mostly Betty Boards (except for the 1972-1974 releases).but still cool newly uploaded uncirculated Dead. I will continue to evolve this description as details emerge.   See related:

http://gratefulseconds.blogspot.com/2016/03/new-betty-boards-we-never-heard-about.html (includes lists of known Bettys)

http://gratefulseconds.blogspot.com/2016/08/on-jerrys-birthday-five-magical-merl.html   (all Bettys it appears)

http://gratefulseconds.blogspot.com/2016/08/14-more-uncirculated-grateful-dead.html (including 3-21-72 known Betty)


Jerry Week 320 mp3s

1966-xx-xx    Maybe at Owsley's Pad deep in the hood in LA   never before seen
1968-09-12    maybe Pacific High   great Clementine drafts      never before seen
1969-04-05    Avalon   prior soundboards
1969-07-12    NY State Pavilion, Flushing Meadow Park, Queens  prior soundboards
1970-05-14    Meramec Community College  prior recordings (and bonus extras on 5-15-70 release)
1972-04-26    Jahrhunderthalle  Hundred Year Hall and Europe 72 Complete releases (Not on Betty lists but likely Betty)
1972-12-15    Long Beach Arena  prior soundboards (Not on Betty lists, but likely Betty)
1973-03-15    Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum  incomplete SBD previously (Actual Betty Board)

Many of these already have great recordings available, but nevertheless, these are Betty Boards.

 8/3 Update  Dropbox Blew Up!!  Try This Amazon Cloud Link 

Updaet 8/11: From the Great light into ashes, he says (also at https://archive.org/post/1061887/new-sources-on-the-archive)

As you've noticed, about 40 new sources for shows from the Dead's early years have just appeared on the Archive! Chris U has been pointing out which might or might not be different from the older copies we had, but I thought a post summarizing what I've heard might be useful... 

After checking out most of the new sources, a lot of them are really no different than the older copies - some are even downgrades - but these are the ones I consider upgrades: 

7/12/69 - still incomplete, but a slight upgrade for the SBD fragment, a little bit louder/clearer 
5/14/70 (electric set only) - quieter, but adds Dire Wolf + Cold Jordan which were missing before 
5/24/70 - a significant upgrade, the tape noise has been considerably reduced. There are a few varying sources for this show now (some more complete in parts) but the recording isn't pristine in any of them. 
7/2/71 - seems to be the most complete source
3/15/73 - new: almost the whole show in SBD for the first time (previously much of the show was in AUD only). Ideally this new copy will get patched sometime since there are some gaps. 
7/28/73 - a huge upgrade for parts of the show (some of it new to SBD), though it's missing AUD patches + encore
9/11/73 - a slight upgrade; it's clearer and has Sugar Magnolia in SBD (though lacking the end of Dew) 

Some comparisons are a tossup: 
3/24/70 has a bit less tapenoise, but the Dark Star is shorter.
10/25/73 sounds the same, it adds Tennessee Jed but cuts Uncle John. 

5/19/66, 12/26/69, 9/10/72, 9/26/72, and 9/28/72 were missing material and inferior to the older copies.
4/5/69, 7/11/69 (with minor repairs), 3/1/70 (missing the AUD portions), 4/11/70, 12/15/72, and 11/1/73 were about the same to my ears.
I haven't checked the new March/April '72 tapes, since the copies we had were pretty excellent already.

Some tapes are brand-new to circulation: 
9/12/68 - Clementine studio practice session, with awesome jam 
1/23/69 - Avalon soundcheck/rehearsal, excellent (but on the Archive as "6/1/69") 
9/17/69 - studio rehearsal, almost 2 hours, can be interesting but very repetitive
early 1966 - several rehearsals taped by Owsley (some of them on the Archive as "6/1/66") - specifically: 
"6/1/66" - unknown Phil song, "Wandering Man" - a must-hear
"6/1/66" - acid test bass/drums, no Dead music - very dull 
"6/1/66" - Hi-Heel Sneakers, Viola Lee
2/5/66 - same Viola Lee Blues rehearsal we had, but with new takes of Cardboard Cowboy at end
3/9/66 - unknown Pigpen song, Who Do You Love, very strange jam - essential listen 
3/10/66 - a few takes of Sittin' on Top of the World 

A couple new AUDs from 1974 are up: 6/26/74 Cooper isn't as good as the Jerry Moore AUD (a bit more distant/less clear, and in mono).
6/16/74 suffers from some gaps, and much of set II is muffled & lesser quality, but when it's good it's great, very different & more exciting than the SBD. 
A fragmentary Weinberg AUD from 1970 is also up (as "11/12/70") but isn't really notable. 

Pardon the lack of links, it's a lot of links and they're easy to find here... 
On a few of these, for some reason the track order was scrambled a bit when they were uploaded on the Archive, but that's usually easy to figure out.

Other listeners might differ with some of my conclusions about which sources sound better! Many of the new sources are direct from the masters, compared to older copies which had an extra cassette generation, and other people can hear a more noticeable difference than I can. Always better to check your own ears rather than what I say. 

This post was modified by light into ashes on 2016-08-12 00:07:15



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