playlist for 02/27/2015

The first in a series of broadcasts on The Golden Road that will progressively feature the Grateful Dead sound from the early days of the band all the way up to their last show in 1995.

This first installment shines a well-deserved spotlight on the legendary two-night appearance at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on August 23 & 24, 1968.  Here's a little more info on how this magnificent show was finally released from the Dead's vault:

As the title implies, this was the second complete show to be issued from the Grateful Dead's tape vaults. In contradiction of the "technical information" liner notes essay, this release was derivedentirely from the second night of a two-night run (August 23 and 24, 1968) at the Shrine Theater in Los Angeles. These performances were documented using what was then a state-of-the-art multi-track machine provided (and administered) by the Dead's record company, Warner Brothers. After being shelved for nearly two-and-a-half decades, the band's longtime sonic gurus Dan Healy and Jeffrey Norman digitally reconstructed and released this aurally accurate and musically motivated performance. The set list is fairly typical of the band's mid-1968 repertoire. Having just issued their second platter, Anthem of the Sun, a month earlier, the Dead were concentrating fairly heavily on material from that disc -- including most of the first side. The extended "That's It for the Other One" suite is executed with the acidic fury associated with this era of the Grateful Dead. The band is also looking forward to their upcoming projects. These include Aoxomoxa -- their next studio effort -- which contains "Saint Stephen." However, the track appears in the context of their 1969 release, Live/Dead, linked with "Dark Star" on one side and "The Eleven" on the other. (Also from the genre-defining double-LP set is "Death Don't Have No Mercy" and "(Turn On Your) Lovelight"). The developmental stage of these tunes is nothing short of aurally palpable. The band is able to achieve -- if not arguably surpass -- much of the same energy that drove the versions which became indelibly stamped into the psyche of the counterculture, as well as Deadheads world wide. Two from the Vault is a fun ride, as well as a glimpse into the immense improvisational talents of the Grateful Dead in the late '60s.

Also included in this broadcast on KDRT are some sounds from two other legendary bands from the Bay Area in the late-1960's...Big Brother & The Holding Company with Janis Joplin, and Country Joe & The Fish...both contemporaries of the Grateful Dead and masters of the 'skedelic sound. Enjoy!