i don't think i really knew about this wall of sound. i've heard the term used in reference to the dead, but always thought it was meant to do with their sound, which i don't think is at all accurate. pretty soft wall with many layers of papering that is. i guess it makes sense that it was a literal wall of sound.

24 is pretty good though Uncle John's Band is unspeakably bad: Too much Phil singing.

Gar, what's on for tomorrow, 10, 12 or 14? Or do we knock these off chronologically?

Also 40 pages!

Just go chronologically. Either by # or by date - your choice Dump.

Grateful Dead tape archivist Dick Latvala has not only picked the concerts in the Dick's Picks series, but also made editing decisions, and his choices on this four-CD set are liable to be controversial. The Dead's three-night stand in Boston in the fall of 1973, shortly after the release of Wake Of The Flood produced what most Dead Heads consider a good show (11/30), an off-night, more for the audience than the band (12/01), and a great show (12/02), the last mainly because of a particularly experimental "Mind Left Body" jam in the second set. Here, Latvala presents edited versions of the first and third nights (two CDs each), creating some interesting contrasts since, for example, 11/30 begins with "Morning Dew" and 12/02 ends with it, and each show features a long "Playing In The Band" and a performance of "Weather Report Suite" from Wake Of The Flood. The cuts are for the most part judicious, but some fans may question the consolidation of the shows. Still, at four discs, this is the longest Dick's Picks yet and may be testing the waters for even longer volumes that would be more complete.

I actually listened to all four discs yesterday...some good shit in there for sure.

Nominally speaking, the Grateful Dead were promoting their new album, Grateful Dead From the Mars Hotel, on their summer 1974 tour; in fact, the album was released on the day off between the two concerts in Providence and Boston excerpted on this disc. But being the Grateful Dead, they were not so much interested in doing that (though one can hear versions of the album cuts "U.S. Blues," "Scarlet Begonias," and "Ship of Fools" here) than in continuing to explore music from their previous album, Wake of the Flood, which, after all, they'd only released eight months before. If ever the old saw about learning the material on the road after recording it was appropriate, it is so on this triple-CD set, notably on an elaboration of Wake's "Weather Report Suite," which takes up the first 55 minutes of the third disc. It is precisely this performance that makes the 12th volume of Dick's Picks valuable to Deadheads who have had to live all these years with tapes of the performance that were interrupted 45 minutes in! Tape archivist Dick Latvala and company have gradually taken more editorial liberties with their choices in the series, and volume 12 is a good example of this. It starts with the third song of the second set from June 26, 1974, at the Providence Civic and continues to the end of the set on CD one, featuring an extended version of "Truckin'" and a particularly rambunctious "Sugar Magnolia." CD two begins with the June 26 encore, "Eyes of the World" (another extended version of a Wake of the Flood track), then picks up with the second set from June 28, 1974, at Boston Garden, starting with Dead bassist Phil Lesh and partner Ned Lagin performing their electronic music piece "Seastones" (later spun off into a full-length album). The rest of CD two and all of CD three present the entire June 28 second set. What, you may ask, was wrong with the first sets? Nothing, but it was the second sets on both nights that fans remember best, and so Latvala, instead of choosing between two well-regarded shows, has given listeners the best of both. (By the way, the two missing songs from the start of the second set on June 26 are "U.S. Blues" and "Me & My Uncle," both of which were performed in the second set on June 28, so their omission just avoids repetition.)

Disc one
All tracks on disc one were recorded on June 26.
“Jam” (Grateful Dead) – 2:29 ->
“China Cat Sunflower” (Garcia, Hunter) – 14:03 ->
“I Know You Rider” (traditional) – 6:11
“Beer Barrel Polka” (Brown, Timm, Vejvoda, Zeman) – 1:07 ->
“Truckin'” (Garcia, Hunter, Lesh, Weir) – 14:20 ->
“Spanish Jam” (Grateful Dead) – 15:13 ->
“Wharf Rat” (Garcia, Hunter) – 9:50 ->
“Sugar Magnolia” (Hunter, Weir) – 9:52

Disc two
Track one recorded on June 26, tracks 2-8 recorded on June 28.
“Eyes of the World” (Garcia, Hunter) – 11:45
“Seastones” (Lagin, Lesh) – 4:52
“Sugar Magnolia” (Hunter, Weir) – 6:12
“Scarlet Begonias” (Garcia, Hunter) – 9:30 ->
“Big River (Cash) – 5:43
“To Lay Me Down” (Garcia, Hunter) – 8:23
“Me & My Uncle” (Phillips) – 3:17
“Row Jimmy” (Garcia, Hunter) – 8:16

Disc three
All tracks on disc three were recorded on June 28.
“Weather Report Suite” (Anderson, Barlow, Weir) – 14:34 ->
“Jam” (Grateful Dead) – 27:53 ->
“U.S. Blues” (Garcia, Hunter) – 9:40
“Promised Land” (Berry) – 3:01 ->
“Goin' Down the Road Feeling Bad” (traditional) – 8:23 ->
“Sunshine Daydream” (Hunter, Weir) – 4:45
“Ship of Fools” (Garcia, Hunter) – 6:38

Well ok then. Home stretch.

I think we desynchronized within the last two weeks and the uncoupling has wreaked havoc with the Project. I'm just finishing 14 myself, which I thought was really a spacey show and I mean that in a good way. 'Spanish Jam' was a HUGE highlight for me, maybe it was the weather/mood around this place but it hit in all the right spots around 8am.

Yeah, my surgery put a damper on my participation, but I think if we had stopped, we might never have resumed.

That fucking Phil noise experiment thing was a travesty. I have to be consistent here because if some band that Drinky or someone was pimping did some shit like that I'd make fun of it.