It’s not every band that can afford to give away five hours of free music. But when you have 7,852 recordings listed in the Live Music Archive, well, you’re not every band.
Each day in November, the Grateful Dead released a free, high-bit-rate mp3 for a limited time on its site, Dead.net. Most of them were “unreleased” live tracks, and while I haven’t listened to the whole batch yet, there are some real standouts there, like a 29-plus-minute version of “Playing In The Band.” (MP3)
You had to be signed up as a member to download the songs, which wasn’t a problem for some of us. But they seemed to appear later in the day (Pacific time?) and then disappear by the time I’d go back to download them at night. As it stood, I only managed to snag four of the 30. Until this weekend.
Seems I must not have been the only head wishing he would have been more with it, as the good people running the promotion have made the whole lot of songs available for download now, but only through “the evening of December 8.”
That’s Wednesday, by the way.
Grateful Dead: iTunes, Amazon, Insound, eMusic, MOG, wiki
30 Days of Dead
1 New Speedway Boogie 09.20.1970 Fillmore East 23.6 MB
2 Dark Star 06.05.1969 Fillmore West 49.7 MB
3 Althea 03.14.1981 Hartford Civic Center, Hartford, CT 20.6 MB
4 Playin’ in the Band 05.13.1973 Iowa St. Fairgrounds, Des Moines, IA 68.3 MB
5 Easy Wind A 01.16.1970 Springer’s Inn, Portland, OR 23.1 MB
6 Sugaree 10.13.1980 Warfield 24.1 MB
7 He’s Gone A 03.26.1987 Hartford Civic Center, Hartford, CT 30.3 MB
8 Estimated Prophet 10.07.1980 Warfield 28.8 MB
9 China Cat Rider 02.01.1970 The Warehouse, New Orleans, LA 28.3 MB
10 Cream Puff War 03.18.1967 Winterland 14.3 MB
11 St. Stephen 10.15.1983 Hartford Civic Center, Hartford, CT 18.04 MB
12 The Music Never Stopped 04.24.1978 Horton Field House, Illinois St. U. 20.3 MB
13 Truckin’ 05.30.1971 Winterland 19.4 MB
14 New MinglewoodBlues 12.26.1970 Legion Stadium, El Monte, CA 12.5 MB
15 Sailor/Saint 10.25.1980 Radio City Music Hall, NY, NY 30.4 MB
16 New Potato Caboose 08.04.1967 O’Keefe Toronto, ON 15.6MB
17 Cold Rain & Snow 12.28.1970 Legion Stadium, El Monte, CA 15.3 MB
18 So Many Roads 03.28.1993 Knickerbocker Arena, Albany, NY 16.9 MB
19 Sugar Magnolia 02.24.1971 Capitol Theater, Port Chester, NY 13.3 MB
20 Alligator 08.05.1967 O’Keefe Toronto, ON 25.6 MB
21 Cassidy -> Don’t Ease Me In 08.31.1983 Silva Hall, Eugene, OR 22.5 MB
22 Tennessee Jed > Let it Grow 10.23.1989 Charlotte Coliseum, Charlotte, NC 49.8 MB
23 Dupree’s Diamond Blues 01.25.1969 Venuee: Avalon Ballroom, SF 9.4 MB
24 Help->Slipknot!->Franklins 05.05.1991 Venu: Cal Expo, Sacramento, CA 58.2 MB
25 My Brother Esau 04.14.1984 Hampton Coliseum, Hampton, VA 13.4 MB
26 Shakedown Street 04.06.1982 Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA 30.5 MB
27 Mason’s Children 01.10.1970 Golden Hall, San Diego, CA 10.9 MB
28 Let it Grow 07.16.1990 Rich Stadium, Orchard Park, NY 27.3 MB
29 Uncle John’s Band 02.11.1970 Fillmore East, NY 13.0 MB
30 Sugar Magnolia 6.4.1978 UCSB Stadium, Santa Barbara 19.2 MB
Sab: How geeky are you about Dead archival material? See if this rings a bell: I used to have an early 80’s taper recording of a show-I could have swore it was a Hartford, CT night-where the Dead’s sound guy was doing extremely fucked up things with the sound. Pitch shifting, panning, just a real treat for anyone that might have dosed beforehand. I’ve been searching for that particular set for sometimes, and have a nice collection of Hartford shows, all of which are not the one that I am seeking. Any clue? And it doesn’t have to be Hartford either-I may be completely off with the date and location. I remember hearing it one night-ironically, under the same influence that made it so appealing-and made a mental note to seek it out. This should be a warning to any kid thinking about taking LSD: you’ll never remember those “mental notes” when your trip is over. If you or any other reader might know of this particular show, feedback would be appreciated!
Todd, that’s why you need to write things down. That’s how Sab and I came up with brilliant rules for life such as “Why move?” and “Never ever throw anything faster than the speed of light.” Trust me: they were very meaningful at the time.
I hear you. On one particular night, I became upset that my friend’s cd player kept skipping during “Are You Experienced?” They wouldn’t change the cd and I couldn’t bear listening to it. So I went into his roommate’s room to compose myself. His friend was a magician-for real-complete with “let me pull a rabbit out of my hat” bunnies. I crawled over to the bunny cage and told one of the rabbit’s of my issue. The rabbit twitched its nose in understanding and I was fine for the rest of the night.
I love acid stories, so here’s another:
While I may not have been good at documenting my events, I would often tape record them. On one particular tape, there is recorded evidence of me calling a top 40 radio station and asking them to increase the wattage so the FM transmitter exploded. The DJ didn’t comply with my request.
On another evening, I had my roommates girlfriend document my activities. I still have her notes concerning the evening, and was troubled at how I pulled a gun on a visitor and demanded that he put his head in my dirty mircrowave. I’m very sorry about this, Terry, and for anyone reading this, I can assure you that the gun was only a starter pistol, but the person I pointed it to didn’t know this and it doesn’t make it any less of a dick move.
I downloaded all these last night, and have given a few listen. Great stuff so far. A brilliant marketing ploy – I bet they’re selling a lot more Dick’s Picks because of it.
Todd, I love your phone call to the radio station. Reminds me, sort of, of Hunter Thompson’s attorney demanding he throw the radio into his bath at the climax of White Rabbit. Totally crazy! But in a good way.
Hey, you damn hippies, these are also available at:
http://deadroots.net/30days
There are some great tunes in the batch, a deep-groove ‘new speedway,’ an unhinged ‘alligator,’ etc.