Dave's Picks 30 (1970-01-02 & 1970-01-03)

     2019 is flying by, we're already on to the second Dave's Picks of the year!  The second one is always the biggest, because it comes along with a bonus disc, meaning we get two (almost) complete concerts, this time from the beginning of 1970.  As Dave has pointed out in his most recent Seaside Chat, the Dead really didn't take any time off for the holidays, going from playing New Years in Boston to playing in NYC at the Fillmore East just two nights later.  I'll admit I was a little disappointed when this release first got announced, since this makes for the 6th and 7th shows in the Dave's Picks series from December '69 to February '70, but I soon came around to the idea when I remembered just how good the other Picks were.

     The songs are kind of oddly arranged (not to mention the inexplicable track listings like "Cosmic KeithFan") on the discs.  1/2/70 takes up all of the first disc, and most of the second, but then after Monkey & The Engineer it switches over to 1/3/70.  The third disc is the rest of 1/2, and then the bonus disc is the rest of 1/3.  It makes more sense as far as fitting an hour plus of Live/Dead material on one disc, but is a little jarring when you aren't paying attention.  1/3 is also made up of an early show and a late show, which also makes the mixed up setlist even more confusing in the context of a whole concert, but the material on it is so good that it's not a problem, just another oddity from an odd band.

     I would have to put this at the top of the list for contemporary Dave's Picks.  The performances are more consistent than DaP 10 and 19 (also has fewer cut tracks than 19), and the song selections aren't as redundant as DaP 6.  There are some mixing and fading anomalies throughout, but the recordings themselves are crystal clear.  Thanks to Bear for recording, Jeffrey Norman for mastering, and Dave for picking!

• Mason’s Children
• The album starts a few bars into Mason's, skipping the "Zarathustra Introduction" opening that's on the circulating tapes, probably for the best.
• This is a bouncy version of the song, and a great way to start off the record.  Jerry's solos absolutely drip with electricity...or something else.
• Casey Jones
• TC provides some excellent backing parts throughout both shows, near the end of his tenure with the band.  I've said it before, but his playing at this point with the band really was fantastic.  He knew the material, was comfortable jamming into unknown spaces, and really had his own spot in the soundscape.  One of the many What If's of the Dead's history is "What If TC Stayed?"
• A solid performance, one of the strongest of their new songs at the time.
• Black Peter
• This is another new Workingman's song that they played very consistently in this period.  TC really embraces a bluesy approach to the organ, and Jerry's young voice sounds so good and clean.
• After going through the solo section normally, Jerry leads them on a one chord jam before going back to the lyrics.
• There's a bit of banter and tuning afterwards where Phil asks someone if their hit only lasted for one set, and Jerry says something about putting Black Peter on two different records?  These guys are weird.
• Mama Tried
• Pigpen tells everyone not to use dirty words in public, and the band launches into a neat and contained Mama Tried.
• Hard To Handle
• This feels more jammed out and fiery than I expected, almost like a '71 version but looser.
• Cumberland Blues
• What a hot version of this song!  Jerry even quotes the line of the lyrics in one of his solos, throwing off the rest of the band for a little bit before they snap right back into line.
• Everyone shines here, not exactly jamming but instead all soloing at once, trying to keep up with Jerry.
• That’s It For The Other One
• Jerry really emotes on the lyrics for Cryptical, singing lines that would make his voice crack and wheeze ten years later.
• The drummers take the time to stretch out their section, starting with a crash of gongs and cymbals, then building up patterns just to break them down, before finally settling into a quiet groove with plenty of room for Phil to thunder his way into the song.
• There is a small(?) cut near the start of The Other One, but it's very well mixed into the song so you only notice it if you're looking for it.
• Bobby takes charge right away, steering the jam so Phil and Jerry can take their own synchronous leads.  The jam between verses stays pretty close to the main theme, with Jerry playing some interestingly dissonant leads.
• In the second verse Jerry holds his "Coming around" line longer than normal ("Comiiiiiiiiin' around"), making the song feel for a brief moment like a tradition Round.
• Instead of jamming Cryptical's outro to a blistering peak, Jerry takes the shuffling lope that the drummers have going and does a neat little turn into Cosmic Charlie.
• Cosmic Charlie
• Some confusion in the timings and lyrics here, but still a classic Charlie.
• Uncle John’s Band
• Not exactly an even performance, with strange timings in some places, but overall interesting to listen to.  The middle jam has good energy, and TC plays some unique fills behind the last few verses.
• High Time
• Most versions of this song from this period feel janky and off kilter, but this one is just exactly perfect.  All the lyrics are correct, the harmonies are excellent, and the musical parts all fit together right.
• Dire Wolf
• Jerry tries to convince the crowd this is a fun and easy chorus to sing a long to, hard to hear how much they agreed with him. 
• TC does feel a bit out of place, even cheesy on this one.  I feel the biggest knock against him is the lack in dynamics, he only has a few sounds he can get out of that organ, compared to all the following keyboardists who would have a couple different instruments to work with.
• Easy Wind
• There's a weird change in the mix near the start, but the whole song sounds clear.
• Bobby takes a small solo with heavy backing from TC, but Jerry takes over after not too long.  Not the most rocking or melting version, but still has that nice swampy, sultry groove.  And who can complain about Pigpen??
• China Cat Sunflower
• One thing I've never noticed before that must be common in this era is that during the China Cat solo, TC plays Bobby's part right along with him.
• This is a relatively early China > Rider, but Bobby is already taking his solo in the transition jam to exciting places.  It's not exactly where it would be by '74, but has some of those familiar facets to it.  In some ways these really were the first seventies shows; but in reality the seventies started for the Dead in 1971 when Mickey left.
• Jerry, TC, and Bobby have some fantastic interplay going on right before Rider starts up.
• I Know You Rider
• Good harmonies here, and a blistering solo from Jerry, but they either skip the last two verses, or there's a very subtle cut in there.
• Phil does the same descending line on "rolling in your arms" that he does in DaP 19, to not as great an effect.
• Good Lovin’
• There's so much good Pigpen in this release.  He doesn't have any raunchy stories to tell in this one, saving them all for Lovelight later I guess.
• Just a small drum break after the lyrics before Phil rumbles to life and everyone jumps in with him.  Once again TC impresses the hell out of me here.
• The jam gets pretty far out, mostly still led by Phil, before they all settle back into the opening riff and close out the lyrics.
• Me And My Uncle
• A perfectly serviceable MaMU.  Gone are the raw, sprawling ones from '69, this is a lot more like an early seventies version, but again this is not yet the seventies.
• "Broken String Blues,"Bobby says before a bout of tuning.
• Monkey & The Engineer
• A rarity that Bobby brought into the mix a few weeks earlier.  Can't help but have fun with it, even if it is short.
• Morning Dew
• Just when you thought you were getting to Dark Star, the tracks jump forward 24 hours!  But if you complain about getting a Dew instead of a Star, you need to reexamine your life choices.
• You can tell just how much Bear would change around the sound system (for better or worse) by the difference in sound from the last track to this one.  Both sound fine, but different for sure.
• Jerry switches the last two verses around, but the playing is spot on.  Flawless solo in the middle, cathartically epic jam at the end.  Jerry and Bob's guitars sound so good together on the outro jam, TC providing atmospheric organ trills for them to play off of.  More flashy/splashy gong work from Mickey too.
• Big Boss Man
• Small audio adjustments can be heard at the start of this one, but the recording remains intact.
• This one feels a bit rough, the only real weak spot on the album.
• Dancing In The Street
• The first Dancin' in a year famous for them goes a bit off script.  The jam progresses like normal, with Jerry soaring on waves of sunshine while everyone boogies their asses off.  But right when you think they're about to hit another instrumental peak or maybe go back to the lyrics, everyone but the drummers drops out.  They don't really leave the song's beat behind, instead sticking to the main rhythm while the crowd chants along.
• Bobby tries to get different sections of the room to clap at different times while Pig gently reminds them that they can't clap while they're sitting.  It doesn't really work out though, so the band comes back in and wraps up the song.
• St. Stephen
• This one feels a little shaky in parts.  Everyone's playing confidently, they're just not all confident of the same things at the same time.  The middle jam has some cool syncopation to it, but that dissolves into a bit of confusion when they try to come back in for the final verse.
• In The Midnight Hour
• This was newly back in the rotation, but was still a rarity.  It feels a bit under rehearsed at the start, with Pigpen mixing up lyrics and the band not always on the same part, but once they get jamming it's nothing but good times.
• The looseness of it allows for even more free form Pig-isms, making sure everyone is dancing and ready to see someone fine round about midnight before closing out the show.
• Dark Star
• Back in the previous night's show, where we left it off, Bobby tells the crowd they'll play some "easy-listening music," followed by one of the best and most complex Dark Stars I've heard in a long time.
• The jam before the verse sounds pretty much like most Dark Stars, incredible playing around the central theme without too much variation or exploration.  After the verse, the band gets quiet in a very noisy way.  There are some cymbal flourishes and brief organ swells, but it all resolves back into nothingness again and again.
• After drifting atonally and arhythmically through the darkness for long enough, Phil starts up a pulse for everyone to work with, and things get really crazy.  They drift through several distinctly thematic jams, like the Feeling Groovy and Tighten Up jams, a proto-Sugar Magnolia jam, and even a snippet of what sounds like the Beautiful Jam from 2/18/71!  But in between each of these familiar spaces are jams that are completely unique and fully formed, almost like they were songs the band was writing at the time that never reached completion.  The playing during all these jams is as close to perfection as this band can come, everyone telepathically in sync with where the music is taking them.  *chef's kiss*
• St. Stephen
• A little better than the previous one, which is of course the next one.  Still a little rough on reentry from the jam, but overall a stronger performance.  Or maybe it's just what it goes into that makes me think that...
• The Eleven
• One of the last versions of this excellent song.  Jerry (in)famously got bored with the how the structure of the song, saying it limited his playing, and he does sound a lot like he's trying to find new patterns to play with here.  To some success if you ask me, but I'm not gonna argue with him.
• Even the William Tell Bridge sounds nicely matured, a little less bare-bones than earlier ones, with more varied drum fills and TC in his final form.
• The shift into 11/4 time is a little shaky, with the drummers breaking early, but it all comes back together quickly.  The other members of the band also sound like they're trying different fills and rhythmic combinations to fit into the song, pushing it as far as it will go without devolving into chaos.  Even the drummers' little counter-solo after the lyrics gets broken down more than usual.
• The dark jam at the end neatly breaks down into a full stop, and then a full band launch into Lovelight.
• Turn On Your Lovelight
• This Lovelight is just long enough if you ask me, at around 22 minutes.  I think Pig might have had a few more things to say, but the crowd got the basic gist of it at least.  Pig does a lot of conducting and wait-a-minute-ing, getting the whole Fillmore East to clap, dance, scream, and tear the building down.
• It sounds like they're getting ready to close it all down about 15 minutes in, but then they get back to rocking and rolling, Jerry throwing out licks and leads left and right.  Pigpen, failing to get Bobby to sing, gets that screaming crowd to sing along with him, bringing things to a huge, if sloppy, close.

Bonus Disc

• Cold Rain & Snow
• Ok, now we jump forward again to 1/3, but the middle of the first set.
• Bobby is on fire for this one, and very present in the mix.  He honestly outshines Garcia just a little bit.
• Alligator
• Very tight and deliberate playing from everyone, with excellent vocals from Pigpen.
• Drums
• That tightness carries into Drums.  It's not a very raucous or flashy drums, just some moody, tribal, setting of the scene before Jerry comes back in.  Normally the drum break would last a lot longer, and maybe that's why only Jerry comes in while the rest of the band is still scratching their asses.
• Alligator
• Jerry's solo doesn't go too far before the rest of the band jumps in with him, and then things really start to cook.  Phil seems to have a plan for this Alligator jam.
• Bobby does a lot to shape the music's direction, his counterparts working nicely with Phil's part to keep things nice and bouncy.  Bob even leads them through a small little China Cat jam that evolves into its own unique flash of bliss, before Jerry slides them into a We Bid You Goodnight jam.
• Feedback 
• Jerry and Phil start sounding like they're going into Caution after Bobby's done yelling "Alligatorrrr!", but instead they crawl up to their speakers and get into some spookily ambient and very long feedback, rounded out by TC's organ swells and Mickey's wind chimes.
• This ended the early show's set (except for the UJB encore at the end of the disc), which explains why they're saying goodnight on just the 5th track of the disc.
• Casey Jones
• You might think you don't need two early versions of Casey Jones on one release...and you might be right.
• Mason's Children
• This Mason's has a bit more pep to it than the previous show's version, if that can be believed.  The two versions aren't too different, but this one is just a bit more accurate and lively.
• That's It For The Other One
• To show you just how big of a hypocrite I am, and how I play favorites with the songs, I've gotta tell you that I'm glad they have two instances of That's It For The Other One > Cosmic Charlie on here.  To be fair, there's a hell of a lot more jamming to differentiate the Other One suites...
• This one starts out very mellow, but still just as tight as Alligator.  Even the drum break is restrained and almost introspective.
• Or at least until Phil decides it's Other One time and everyone freaks out at once.  Big gong splashes from Mickey, and a lot of intricate give and take rhythms between all the instruments.  They take this one far out, leaving behind the theme for a while to explore an empty space, only to come rocking back in for the second verse.
• Instead of a surprise transition into Cosmic Charlie like the other night, they bring Cryptical to its typically triumphant conclusion before calming down into Charlie's opening riff.
• Cosmic Charlie
• A much tighter version than the previous show's, with all parts and lyrics not only remembered, but played with gusto!
• Uncle John's Band
• In response to a request, Bobby says "You'll take what you get," followed by some classic Dead banter and complaints about feedback.  They're about to play a delicate song after all.
• It's not the strongest performance, with a few missed chords and a jam that doesn't go too far, but it's still a great way to end the set, and this disc.