Dick’s Picks Vol. 36 — 9/21/72 Philadelphia, PA

Summary

Podcast Summary: 36 From the Vault – Dick’s Picks Vol. 36: 9/21/72 Philadelphia, PA

Date: August 15, 2022
Hosts: Steven Hyden & Rob Mitchum
Podcast: 36 From the Vault (Osiris Media)
Episode Theme: The grand, bittersweet finale of 36 From the Vault, focused on Dick’s Picks Vol. 36—a much-loved Grateful Dead vault release of the 9/21/72 Philadelphia Spectrum show (with bonus tracks from 9/3/72 in Boulder)—as Steven and Rob reflect on their epic podcast journey and the enduring mystique of the Dead’s live legacy.

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode marks the finale of 36 From The Vault, closing out a three-year run in which the hosts explored every Dick’s Picks Grateful Dead release. It’s a deeply nostalgic, celebratory, and occasionally introspective episode reflecting on the scope of the project and the impact of the Grateful Dead’s archival releases. The main focus is Dick’s Picks Vol. 36 (the 9/21/72 Philly show)—considered a “true blue” Dick’s Picks and a favorite of the series’ namesake, Dick Latvala. Packed with Deadhead banter, memories, deep musical analysis, and fan community appreciation, it’s a love letter both to the band and to the long, strange trip of the podcast itself.

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Episode Structure & Timestamps

1. Reflections on the Journey

[01:30–07:51]

• Steven and Rob mark the end of the podcast, comparing their exhaustion to Tour de France riders crossing the finish line.
• Joke about future Dead “spin-offs,” aging out of podcasting, and starting new projects with spritelier co-hosts (“Skyler” with frosted tips).
• The pair decided to eschew special finale gimmicks, maintaining the classic two-host format in the “spirit of the Dead”—improvised, unplanned, authentic.
• Over 40 episodes, about 100 hours of Grateful Dead talk tracked; self-awareness about possible “repeats” and familiar commentary.

Notable Quote:
"We've done 40 episodes, so we're hitting like about 100 hours of Grateful Dead talk by now. It feels like it at this point..." – [06:38, Steven Hyden]

2. Dick's Picks Vol. 36 Overview & Historical Context

[09:45–18:19]

• Vol. 36 = 9/21/72 at Philadelphia Spectrum (with some filler from 9/3/72 Boulder).
• September '72 is a “golden era” and a Dick Latvala obsession—other Dick’s Picks (11, 23) from the same window.
• The Philly show is praised as a “super strong” close to the series, possibly best of the season.
• The album’s delayed release owes to internal Dead dynamics: Phil Lesh, in particular, initially nixed its release (more on this below).
• Discussion on Dick Latvala’s curation philosophy: often endorsing overlooked shows and snubbing fan-favorite “overrated” shows like Cornell ’77 or Veneta '72.
• Importance: This is essentially “Dick’s Pick #2” – the show Dick wanted to drop right after #1.

Notable Quote:
"This is true Blue Dick’s Picks, you know, just golden era right here. And... it’s kind of weird in a way that it didn’t come out sooner... There’s sort of an interesting backstory with that whole thing..." – [12:07, Steven Hyden]

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3. Honest Reflections/Criticisms: The Final Season

[12:38–21:02]

• Hosts admit this leg of the podcast journey was the hardest—primarily due to the repetition of (excellent) 70s material and challenge of finding fresh takes.
• Both note growing appreciation for the 80s and 90s Dead, periods less revered but full of surprises.
• The “weight” of digesting so much 70s Dead; yearning for more era variety for contrast.

Notable Quote:
"It's like having too much similar flavored wine. Like I wanted a little bit more dynamic range of flavors." – [18:19, Steven Hyden]

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4. Listener Mail & Community

[21:02–32:32]

• Fan emails celebrate the show’s influence—helping turn former skeptics into Deadheads, thanks for honest and passionate commentary.
• Discussions of the Dead’s cultural tide during the pandemic and the ongoing “fight” to convert new listeners.
• Fun tangent: John Landau and Bruce Springsteen’s complicated relationship with the Dead; old-school rock critics’ dismissals; Springsteen’s later revisionist appreciation.

Notable Quotes:
"There’s no one way that works. An episode later, I was transported...and immensely enjoyed Disco Dead as well." – [23:37, Rob Mitchum (reading Shane’s letter)]
"I don’t know if the Grateful Dead were great, but I know that they did something great. Years later... I understood I’d missed it." – [31:08, Steven Hyden quoting Springsteen]

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5. The Mythos: Philly’s Spectrum & Boulder’s Folsom Field

[48:51–59:23]

• The Philly Spectrum: one of America’s most storied rock arenas (76ers/Flyers home, 53 Dead shows, live Springsteen and Pearl Jam lore).
• Folsom Field: an outdoor stadium in Boulder, CO—Dead + Dead & Company favorite, and exemplifying Colorado’s jam-band tradition.
• More trivia: notable acts, local color (Aerosmith getting “M80’ed”), connections to classic rock history.

Notable Quote:
"It’s weird that we haven’t been to the Spectrum before now. Yeah... just a great period to be at the Spectrum." – [55:49, Stephen Hyden]

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6. Setting the Scene: Pop Culture in September 1972

[59:59–63:50]

• Music: Mac Davis tops the charts, O'Jays’ "Backstabbers" (Philly soul), Three Dog Night, Chicago V.
• Film: “The Godfather” dominates.
• TV: “All in the Family,” “Flip Wilson Show” with Fifth Dimension and Tim Conway.
• Fun fact: Liam Gallagher (Oasis) was born on the spectral show’s date.

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7. Deep Dive: Dick's Picks 36 – Musical Breakdown

(Repeatedly returns through episode, but primary discussion [66:23–114:10])

A. First Set/Disc One: “No Skips” Era

• Every song—even the “stock” ones—delivered A+ versions: “El Paso,” “Big Railroad Blues,” “Big River.”
• Bird Song is the opener’s hallmark—hosts call it transcendent, especially highlighting Keith’s presence and Billy’s jazz inflection.

Notable Quote:
"Birdsong, Jerry solo... then you get a Keith solo... Keith is actually playing wah grand piano... It sounds so cool!" – [73:39, Rob Mitchum]

• Powerful “Jack Straw” and “Loser”; love for the “sweet spot” tempo and the flourishes brought by Keith’s piano.

B. Second Disc (End First/Start Second Set): Deep Groove & Jams

• Standout “Ramble On Rose” and especially “Cumberland Blues”— compared favorably to the Europe ‘72 version.
• “Black Peter” called perhaps the best ever by Steven.
• “Playin’ in the Band”: a Goldilocks “just right” 16:47 minute jam, foreshadowing 73-74’s fusion era; “He’s Gone” into “Truckin’” noted as good but less spectacular compared to what’s coming up.

C. Disc Three: The Big One—Dark Star > Morning Dew

[95:18–104:55]

• The centerpiece—37 minutes of “Dark Star” into “Morning Dew”: a near 50-minute suite that both hosts say encompasses almost everything great about the Dead.
• “An omnibus of the Grateful Dead”—cosmic/feedback parts, choogle jams, a Mind Left Body conclusion.
• “Morning Dew” as the perfect, emotional set piece.
• Odd “Earth-to-space” whiplash as the band follows these with “Beat It on Down the Line” and “Mexicali Blues.”

Notable Quotes:
"This Dark Star-Dew kind of contains everything great about the Dead from multiple eras...offering a synopsis of everything that's incredible." – [96:41, Rob Mitchum]
"It is like a tourist through Grateful Dead history up to 1972 and even like previewing really like what they’re going to be doing for the next few years." – [99:15, Steven Hyden]
"You can just focus in on one person if you want, just dig on them and the next time focus on somebody else...real pleasures of digging into a show from this era." – [83:24, Steven Hyden]

D. Disc Four: Encore Party & Folsom Field Bonus

• Post-Dew is a late-night party set: “Half Step,” “Friend of the Devil” (up-tempo), “Sugar Magnolia,” “Not Fade Away > Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad.”
• Folsom Field additions: another killer “He’s Gone” into a 28-minute “The Other One,” closing with “Warfrat”—a fittingly epic conclusion paralleling “Morning Dew.”

Notable Quote:
"I always feel like it’s a real shot in the arm in terms of...the energy that this song brings when it’s played at its best. If you want to compare it to Dark Star, Dark Star is the dreamier, more spaced out jam vehicle, the Other One is really a chance for the Dead to flex their muscle." – [113:14, Stephen Hyden]

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8. The End of the Road: Gratitude, Dead Scholarship, and Goodbyes

[118:59–130:47]

• The hosts deliver heartfelt thanks to Osiris, producers, music supervisors (esp. Amar Sastry), artists, the Dead (band + management), the listeners, and Dick Latvala himself.
• Reflections on the importance and innovation of the Dick’s Picks series—a field recording-like live archive that pre-dated the current “nugs.net” archival era.
• Steven plugs his Pearl Jam book, influenced by his jam-band immersion from this podcast.
• Cliffhanger: the potential for future reunion shows or side projects; the band and podcast legacy endure.

Notable Quotes:
"Nothing like [Dick’s Picks] out there...so idiosyncratic. It perfectly reflects the Dead...It shows the Dead and all their naked glory, and I think we have Dick to thank for that." – [123:48, Rob Mitchum]
"They're a solar system unto themselves, and it's fun to hop in a spaceship and fly around inside the Dead for a while." – [125:43, Steven Hyden]
"It's part of like—the listening to the Dick’s Picks and talking to you about them has enriched my knowledge of the Dead...but also just being part of the Dead online community...it’s special and I really appreciate it." – [126:31, Rob Mitchum]

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Memorable Quotes & Time-Marked Highlights

• "When I have my own recreational Dead listening, I tend to listen to more 80s and 90s...you don't hear as much about that period. So it feels fresher for that reason."
  [13:04, Steven Hyden]
• “This show, all of these songs that get repeated are better here...Keith's piano opens up a totally new sound for the Dead.”
  [69:41, Rob Mitchum]
• “It’s all just so smooth, too, man. Even when he’s going off, [Billy]’s always in the pocket. I don’t know how he does that.”
  [81:09, Steven Hyden]
• “It almost feels like there's three sets within this set, because you got that big He's Gone Truckin, and then you've got the Cooldown songwick, Black Peter. Then you got this huge Dark Star dew, and you've got ... the jam, and then you've got the Cooldown ballad in do. And then it's like this kicks off, like, a whole other third set, which is kind of like more of like a party set.”
  [106:15, Rob Mitchum]
• “Dick had the privilege of, you know, having the vault at his fingertips to listen to all these shows. So it's a little unfair that he's bashing the tapes that everybody has in favor of what were possibly some more obscure tapes to find through traditional tape trading. But whatever, that's his. Right.”
  [46:33, Rob Mitchum]

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Tone

Endearingly self-deprecating, occasionally irreverent, always passionate and erudite. The hosts exude well-earned awe and love for the Dead’s music (and the weirdness of Deadhead life), poke fun at themselves and the broader mythos, and earnestly thank the community. This is an episode for music obsessives, Dead lovers, and anyone who treasures the weird, improvisational education of a long-term critical deep-dive.

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Conclusion

36 From the Vault goes out on a high, with a deep and rhapsodic exploration of Dick’s Picks 36—touching on its musical peaks (particularly the “Bird Song,” “Loser,” “Dark Star” > “Morning Dew” suite, and the Folsom Field “Other One”), its historical significance (as an overdue, “true” Dick’s Pick), and the magic of September ‘72 Dead. Rob and Steven reflect on lessons learned, express enormous gratitude, and hint at future adventures down the musical rabbit hole.

The final sentiment is pure Deadhead: There’s always more to explore, but—fare thee well, and see you down the road.

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Recommended Listening (Key Timestamps)

• [71:27] – “Bird Song” deep dive (Keith’s wah pedal, Billy’s swing)
• [95:18] – Dark Star > Morning Dew: the episode’s centerpiece
• [113:14] – “The Other One” at Folsom Field: energy and contrast

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[130:33]: “We’re gonna wave goodbye now. Fare thee well, everyone. We’ll see you down the road.” — Steven Hyden

Transcript

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[Rob Mitchum]

Osiris.

[Stephen Hyden]

That's my little horn there.

[Rob Mitchum]

The fanfare.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah, the fanfare.

[Rob Mitchum]

Confetti bomb.

[Stephen Hyden]

Cause we're here, man. We're at the end.

[Rob Mitchum]

It's it. The final volume. We made it.

[Stephen Hyden]

Who knew? Who knew we'd live this long to.

[Rob Mitchum]

Make it, first of all.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah, because you know, the Grateful Dead, when they started, they probably all thought, oh, we're gonna be in this band for as long as there's a band.

[Rob Mitchum]

Right.

[Stephen Hyden]

And we all know that did not happen. Some people fell along the way, and then they hired other people. And then they fell and they hired people, then they fell too. But you and I, we started this band. I guess it was January of 2020, maybe February, something like that.

[Rob Mitchum]

That'd be the first. First episode came right around then. Yeah. So I think we started recording December 2019. We had a few can when we premiered.

[Stephen Hyden]

So a worldwide plague soon fell upon the world.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yes.

[Stephen Hyden]

And yet we soldiered on through that. No Grateful Dead. No Dead and Company. For a long time, it was just us listening to Dick's Picks. We had to soldier through the shutdown of the music industry. And here we are. And this is our fare thee well here.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever seen. Do you ever watch a Tour de France? Sometimes they have a stage that ends on a mountain, so they. They end with a big climb. And as soon as soon as they cross the finish line, there are guys whose job is to, like, grab onto them and wheel them forward away from the finish line because they have used every last shred of energy to get to that finish line. They have no more. No more watts, nothing left to pedal. So they need somebody to actually wheel them to where they can get off their bike. So that's. That's what I feel like we've got to here.

[Stephen Hyden]

Do we have like, some people from Osiris on call to like lift us out of our podcasting seats at the end of this episode.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah. Take our headphones off. Clean off our microphone.

[Stephen Hyden]

This collapse from exhaustion.

[Rob Mitchum]

Exactly.

[Stephen Hyden]

I mean, you know, is one of us gonna start. We've joked about this before, but, you know, is one of us gonna start a new podcast after this episode with like a younger and better looking co host?

[Rob Mitchum]

It's possible. Who knows? Who knows what the Future holds?

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah. Man 36 from the vault and company.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

Coming your way. Right after. Right after this episode airs, we're gonna be hitting arenas. One of us with like, it'll be like Rob or I and like, you know, like a 25 year old hot new.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

Named Skyler. You know, it's just frosted tips and fancy watches. Fancy watches, Lots of celebrity friends. And then the other one will be like the fill. So, you know, so. So let's say I do the Dead and Company, and then you're gonna have like Robin friends.

[Rob Mitchum]

Robin friends. Okay.

[Stephen Hyden]

And people will be like, well, that's. There'll be a contingent that feels like you're kind of keeping the flame going for the freakier side of the dead. And then there's gonna be, you know, Joe Russo's almost 36 from the vault.

[Rob Mitchum]

Right. Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

Which another contingent will say, that's even better than the original, guys.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah. Some of our listeners will get together and do the road trips volumes in.

[Stephen Hyden]

Our absence, and they'll talk faster than us. Like, they'll talk at 1.5 speed and.

[Rob Mitchum]

We'Ll just put things in a different order.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah, exactly. Though maybe drop some Led Zeppelin talk in the middle there.

[Rob Mitchum]

Exactly.

[Stephen Hyden]

So, yeah, I mean, how are you feeling right now, man? How are you feeling about our journey? How you feeling about the Dead? You know, I mean, we're not done yet. We got one more to go. But I mean, that's right. We're on deck here.

[Rob Mitchum]

Well, we, you know, you and I, we talked about doing something special for the final episode, but I think we decided correctly just to keep it. Keep it. No gimmicks. We've only had one guest our entire run. Keep it just to the one guest.

[Stephen Hyden]

Was this a decision or was this just us like we normally do, running out of time because we weren't really prepared. Well, we couldn't think of anything to do.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, okay, so that too. But you know, as we've been saying all along, that's in the spirit of the dead, who never, never quite planned things too far in advance. So. But yeah, we've got to the end here. It's just the two of us.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yep.

[Rob Mitchum]

Nobody. Nobody else intruding on this. No, no, no special segments. But I think, yeah, we should talk this episode as we're going through the show. You know, how do we feel about the Dead after. After this project, after laying down some 40 hours. 50 hours.

[Stephen Hyden]

Oh, yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

Talking about this band over the last three years more than.

[Stephen Hyden]

I mean, because we've done 40 episodes, so we're hitting like about 100 hours of.

[Rob Mitchum]

Oh, sure.

[Stephen Hyden]

Of Grateful Dead talk by now.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

Which. And it feels like it at this point. I just wonder how many things we've repeated this season that we've said a hundred times. Like, oh, yeah, you can't really hear Keith on here. Why isn't Keith's piano loud enough? I feel like we've like run that one into the ground by this point, so. But hope people keep listening. So hopefully we are occasionally dropping fresh insights along with the old favorites. I guess that's like the Dead as well. You know, you listen to a whole show. You sit through El Paso, you sit through me and my uncle because you're hoping for that second set jam. It's gonna blow your mind. Not guaranteeing we're gonna deliver that in this episode, but that's always the promise that hangs out there.

[Rob Mitchum]

Could always happen. You never know. You never know when you're going to have a. A mind blowing moment. Yeah. So, you know, this is just. This is Old School 36 from the vault here. Let's, let's, let's talk about a pretty, pretty excellent show.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah. Let's get to.

[Rob Mitchum]

Acast Powers, the world's best podcasts.

[Stephen Hyden]

Here's a show that we recommend.

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[Rob Mitchum]

Sam.

[Stephen Hyden]

All right, here we are, 36 from the vault, brought to you by Osiris. My name is Steve.

[Rob Mitchum]

My name, for the last time, is Rob.

[Stephen Hyden]

Are you changing your name after this episode?

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, I'm changing it to Bob.

[Stephen Hyden]

That's right. Well, we talked about. Speaking of our old bits, we talked about you going as, like, Bobby Mitchum.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, or Robbie.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah, Robbie. Robbie with the. With the ie at the end, Right, Exactly. That'd be the funniest, actually. I think Bobby with an ie would be the funniest. Yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

You don't get a lot of male Bobby's with an ie.

[Stephen Hyden]

No, man. There's a good reason for that, probably. So, as we've said, 36 from the vault, we're talking about Dick's picks 36 in this episode. We're going back to September of 72. This is September 21, 1972, in Philadelphia at the Spectrum. And there's a little bit of filler from Folsom Field and Boulder. That's also a September 72 show. That's September 3rd. And, yeah, we've been to September 72 the most in Dick's Picks. I guess it's appropriate that we're back for the last episode.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah. One of Dick's favorite time periods. I think he only got one of these shows out while he was still alive, but as we'll talk about, they were kind of given. Paying tribute to Dick here with the final volume. You know, the Dead, they didn't do anything special for Dick's picks, Volume 36. They didn't pull out some gimmicky show or, you know, release Cornell or something as Dixbys 36. They just released an incredibly solid 1972 show. And to close out the series in style, I mean, really, I don't know how you were feeling about this, but, I mean, they ended super strong here. This is, I think, the best xpects we've heard in this whole season. Quite some time. Hard to go back.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah, it definitely feels like the best of the season. That seems pretty clear to me. And, you know, it's funny because, you know, we talked about how much Dick liked this month. Dick's Picks 11 is from this month, and Dick's Picks 23 is from this month. I think those three shows are, like, within a week and a half of each other.

[Rob Mitchum]

Right.

[Stephen Hyden]

So this is true Blue Dick's Picks, you know, just golden era right here. And it we're going to get into this. It's kind of interesting how this release came to be because you listen to it and you feel like, oh, this is a slam dunk. It's kind of weird in a way that it didn't come out sooner, I guess you have those other September 72 dicks picks, and we'll talk about, like, why it took so long to come out. There's sort of an interesting backstory with that whole thing, or so I'm told. I hope it's an interesting backstory.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, I'll do my best. A question for you, Steve. I think. I think we both feel the same way, but do you think this season was the hardest to get through of our four seasons, the four quarters of the 36, the way we sliced it up?

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah, definitely. And not so much to do with the Dead, as much as just finding interesting things to say about the Dead.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

Which. It got to be a little tough, I have to say, too, personally. And, you know, I've been beating this drum all season long, but, you know, I. When I have my own recreational Dead listening, I tend to listen to more 80s and 90s, just because that's still an era that I'm not super familiar with. And I also feel like it's a little less trod ground in terms of, like, other Dead commentary out there. You don't hear as much about that period. So it. It feels fresher for that reason. Even if clearly the 70s are just this great period for the Dead. You know, we. We're getting so much 70s this season, and I just found myself feeling like I'm a little sick of this. I kind of want to go to different eras, different years where I maybe have never heard a show from that year.

[Rob Mitchum]

Right.

[Stephen Hyden]

And that goes for the 60s, too, which is kind of funny. I mean, again, like, the 60s. The Dead's originally associated with the 60s. We didn't get much 60s this season. Did we have, like, one 60s?

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, I think we just barely dipped in. Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

So that was my. I. I don't know. Do you feel that way about this?

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, it's like something I've been thinking about with my FISH projects, where I also listen to show after show after show. I listen to them in chronological order in that case, and, like, the balance between sort of novelty and hearing the same songs over and over again and getting that enjoyment out of being able to compare different versions of songs very close together and see how they changed and see what the, you know, variations are. I don't know. I mean. Yeah, I totally Agree with this season. It just, like, going back and forth over the 70s kind of kind of wore me out. It's funny because when we. When we came in, when we were doing the pre season shows, the live broadcasts, we thought that this was just going to be banger after banger. But it did kind of end up being like the most difficult leg of the journey, I feel like, in some ways.

[Stephen Hyden]

Well, and they were hitting us with heavy meals, too. I mean.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, yeah, that's the other thing.

[Stephen Hyden]

We're getting like six bangers, you know, I mean, it seemed like a minimum of four was what we were getting this season. There might have been like one three banger, but I don't think there were any two bangers. We didn't get any. Oh, wait, I think the.

[Rob Mitchum]

Well, it was the 80s show.

[Stephen Hyden]

The 80s show was a two banger. Of course, the 80s show has to be a two banger, but everything else. And again, you know, you feel like an ingrate complaining about getting all of this Grateful Dead, like, because these were beautiful recordings for the most part. You know, getting these beautiful sounding releases at a time, you know, like when they originally came out, when these. This kind of stuff was harder to come by. Like, I feel weird complaining about it. I don't feel like we're complaining about it.

[Rob Mitchum]

No.

[Stephen Hyden]

But, you know, one thing you notice about the Dead is that obviously, you know, they're known for improvisation. And there's usually some example of great improvisation in every show. But you also see the formulas of their set lists when you listen to a bunch of these releases. And even in the 70s, you know, because we can. We had. We went from like, that 76 show, which I think was. Was that 33? And then we went to the 73. Yeah, and then we went to the 77 show. You just see, okay, they're playing a lot of the same songs right in the first set, and they're playing them pretty much the same. And that got a little exhausting.

[Rob Mitchum]

I think for me, though, though, oddly, one of the things that I found so satisfying about this as a finish was how it paired with 35. Because I think there's a really interesting progression from volume 35, basically a year earlier to, you know, volume 36. You go from August 71 to September 72. Same amount of time as the difference between 33 and 34, but I think much bigger differences.

[Stephen Hyden]

Oh, yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

So, like, there's something about, like, we've mentioned a few times now that if the Dix Pick series was chronological, we probably would have Tapped out a long time ago. Just because it does get so samey from year to year. Though I do feel like this last run of shows by zigzagging around the 70s wasn't as satisfying as sort of just hearing two shows in close proximity like this and teasing apart the differences. But no, I totally agree. I wish we had heard more 80s, more 90s. I think one of my big takeaways from doing this whole project is a better appreciation of those later Dead eras. I was a total 60s and 70s only dead die hard before we did this project. Now I have new things that I like about the 80s and 90s dead. Oddly enough, I don't know that I'm going to go back to the 80s and 90s Dix picks that much, but definitely more interested in finding random 80s and 90s shows to listen to and feeling like I have a better set of ears for diving into those eras than I used to.

[Stephen Hyden]

Well, I've. I've said this before. I think I picked this one in our preseason Dick's Picks draft, but Dick's pick 17 is still one of my favorites. That's the 91 show with Bruce where I think that's Boston Garden and September of 91. That's a dick's Picks I'm gonna go back to. You know, the thing about jumping between different eras. I think one nice thing about having more 80s and 90s is that it actually makes you appreciate the 70s more. You know, True. You hear what they sound like, then if you immerse yourself in that for a while, then you go back to the 70s and you're like, oh, wow, okay. It's not even like you're thinking the 70s is better necessarily. It's just that certain things pop out. And I felt like my palette was just. I. I was like kind of having too much similar flavored wine. Like I wanted a little bit more dynamic range of flavors. Having said all of this because I feel like we're tipping a little negative here to the Dick's Picks to talk about the Dick's picks we're going to be doing today. 36 we talked about this when we talked about the other dicks picks from 9-72. This is definitely an era where you look at the set list and you see songs and you're like, ah, that's not my favorite song. But when this version of the Dead is playing them, it's like the best possible version of those songs. Like songs that you think you're sick of. You see Cumberland Blues and they're like, I don't know if I want to hear Cumberland Cumberland Blues. And then you hear it here and you're like, holy. This is about as well as this song can be played. So a little preview of our conversation once we get to the record. But I think this is an example of how, you know, if we're feeling exhausted by some of the set lists we've had lately, then you get a show like this where the set list almost doesn't matter because they're so on fire that they could play anything and sound great. Although this is a great set list on this album, we're kind of getting everything you want. Really? Like on this album, for the most part. I mean, yeah, we don't get in Eyes of the World. That'd be. And we're not getting my Feels Like a Stranger. I was robbed of that. But for the most part, man, they're really giving you what you want. From the Grateful Dead on Dix picks 36.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, yeah. I'm glad we ended it with this volume because any sort of jadedness that was creeping in over this last swing of nine episodes was pretty much obliterated by, I think, Trek 2.

[Stephen Hyden]

Oh, yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

Of this disc and any plans to take a break from listening to the Dead after this project is over. I was like, now maybe I want to hear some more 9-72-shows. I feel like I got to dig into this a little more. So, yeah, we're. We're getting out the negativity now, but this is going to be a real gusher of an episode, I think.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah. I feel like we texted each other at the exact same time when we were listening to this, and we're like, oh, yeah, you know, it's like that John Wick. Yeah, I think I'm back. You know, gift drop the gif of the John Wick right there. Let's go to our mailbag here. And I just want to say, you know, we got a lot of nice emails from people talking about the show, enjoying the show. We're not going to be able to read them all, but I just wanted to acknowledge if you've written us and you've said nice things, we really appreciate it. It's very kind of you. It's nice to know people are listening and. And are getting something out of what. But what we've done here. So. So thanks again for chiming in. I think we did allow one nice email to slip into our mailbag this week. We don't like to, you know, you don't want to read compliments people complimenting you. It seems a little. What's the word? Egotistical, or you're full of yourself. But you know, people are given compliments. We can't ignore it. Do you want to read the first letter, Rob?

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah. Yeah. We'll allow ourselves one complimentary email for the final episode. We should say too, like, if you want to keep writing us, yes, please do. The email address isn't going away. It doesn't cost anything.

[Stephen Hyden]

No.

[Rob Mitchum]

36 FTV mailbagmail.com Send us some notes and yeah, we'll be. We'll happily see them.

[Stephen Hyden]

And if Rob and I fall on financial hard times, who knows, this show could be back very soon. If we need to do a cash in tour to, you know, pay off our ex wives and all that stuff then.

[Rob Mitchum]

Right, Bad investments.

[Stephen Hyden]

Exactly.

[Rob Mitchum]

All right, so this one comes from Shane in Orlando, Florida. Shane says hello, Steve and Rob, count me among the people you helped appreciate the dead. Coincidentally, right around the start for the Pandemic, I was seeing enough retweets of hot dead takes on my Twitter feed to convince me to relisten to a band that I had written off in my early 20s as a bunch of no talent hippies without taking the time to really listen to them. Your podcast was starting then and I figured that it was as good a place as any to find a jumping off point. I found volumes one and two to be okay. But then Steve recommended Skull and Roses as a good first listen for a fan and, man, I was hooked. I think we bashed Skull and Roses ironically in the last episode too.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah, I don't know, man. That's like a different version of myself that. I mean, I still. I like that record, but I wouldn't necessarily give that as the entry point.

[Rob Mitchum]

First thing you should hear. Yeah, 2019. Steve had different ideas, but it worked for Shane.

[Stephen Hyden]

So, you know, maybe. Maybe it is a good pick.

[Rob Mitchum]

There's a lot of ways into the Dead, man. There's no one way that works. An episode later, I was transported away to the magical land of the Hollywood Sportatorium and immensely enjoyed Disco Dead as well.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yes.

[Rob Mitchum]

From there it's become a journey of discovering every different facet of this band that will never stop fascinating me even when they're playing Eyes of the world at 185 beats per minute. Your podcast has been a companion for the entire listening experience I've had so far, and I want to thank you to you for helping open my eyes and guiding me along. I always appreciated your honest takes and you never steered Me Wrong.

[Stephen Hyden]

Good luck to the both of you.

[Rob Mitchum]

Thanks, Shane.

[Stephen Hyden]

Shane. What a nice guy. The nicest man in Orlando. Right there.

[Rob Mitchum]

Not too far from the Hollywood Sportatorium.

[Stephen Hyden]

That's true.

[Rob Mitchum]

Is that still up? No, I don't think so. I'm sure it's a strip mall or something.

[Stephen Hyden]

No, that's a bummer.

[Rob Mitchum]

But yeah, that's great. I don't know, Shane. It's really cool. I mean, I think we both started this podcast wondering if, like, the Dead now being cool, like, was already like a done deal, right? Like, it seemed like post fairly well. There was a lot of energy about people getting into the Dead who had never seen the Dead or weren't old enough to see the Dead, or like old punks and indie rock kids coming around to the fact that the Dead were a lot more interesting than they thought they were. But I do there's still people to convince that the Dead are not, you know. What did he say? Burned out hippies. So it's a never ending fight to get the Dead into the ears of the people who will appreciate them even if they don't know it. It's pretty cool.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah, it's really nice. It is funny too, how the pandemic was another renaissance for the Dead. That just seems like such a common experience. And I don't know, maybe it's because we host a Grateful Dead podcast. Why? I've heard all these anecdotes, but I feel like there were a lot of people that got into the band because they were just locked up in their house and they were like, okay, I will now listen to three hour shows every day, right?

[Rob Mitchum]

And there's 2,000 of them to listen to if I want to. Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah. So thank you so much, Shane. That was a really nice letter. Let's get to our second letter. And this one comes from Nick in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City, of course, the location of Dick's picks 19. Another one of my favorite Dick's Picks, this very cool 73 show. Hey guys, I wanted to share another negative review of A pre Keith 1971 dead show. And just some background. If you listen to our previous episode, we talked about how there were all these negative reviews of the shows that were collected on Dick's picks 35 rather weirdly, because the Dead sound really great on, on that record. But apparently there were some haters in the crowd in Chicago not feeling it.

[Rob Mitchum]

Hater town.

[Stephen Hyden]

Hater town, man. And apparently he found some more negative reviews of 71 dead. It comes from a book called It's Too Late to Stop now by John Landau. And it's a book he found at Half Price Books. And John Landau, by the way, Bruce Springsteen's manager.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah. Famously wrote. What was. What is his term in his review.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah, he wrote a review, Rock and Roll.

[Rob Mitchum]

And his name is Bruce Springsteen.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yes. He reviewed Bruce in 74 Live Show. And he said, yeah, I've seen Rock and Roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen. And there's a popular joke playing off of that where it's John Lando Salas. John Landau saw his future and its name was Bruce Springsteen because shortly after that, you know, he ended up being a collaborator with Springsteen. He co produced Born to Run, was a trusted musical advisor, and then stepped into his management, and the rest is history.

[Rob Mitchum]

But he was recently seen defending the $4,000 ticket prices.

[Stephen Hyden]

Not good. Not good. John Landau. So anyway, this book is two at the Stop Now. It's actually like a pretty famous book of music journalism. One of the early kind of rock critic books. And it's cool that you found that at Half Price Books. I've actually tried to buy this myself and copies are like hundreds of dollars on ebay. It's like a pretty rare book. Well, anyway, John Lando, not a fan of the Dead. Here's some things he wrote about the Dead in 1971. How long can they go without a good lead singer, a good drummer, and so detached an attitude? Another quote, they have forgotten how to edit themselves and they force you to listen to so much bad music in order to hear some fine things that it just doesn't seem worth it. Pretty stock take so far.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah. Is he talking about the Dead or about our podcast?

[Stephen Hyden]

Well, yeah, we could go either way. Next quote. No one really knows why Mickey Hart left the group, but Bill Kreutzman is not a good enough drummer to carry them alone. John, cross the line there, my friend. Cross.

[Rob Mitchum]

Cross the line. Poorly. Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

Here's another quote. The group does certain things that are incontestably atrocious. Well, you're not going to argue with that.

[Rob Mitchum]

I mean, I'm going to give them that one.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah, it's true, they do. But we love them. That's part of what's great about them. Yeah. The letter continues. I don't know what's wrong with John Landau, but Billy can do whatever he wants, in my opinion. Yes. Hell yeah. Love the show. Please keep going in any way, if possible. Nick from Oklahoma City. So, yeah, John Landau. Not a fan of the Grateful Dead.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, I think. I mean, and so Landau is kind of in that generation of, like, early rock writing, Right?

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

Lester Bangs.

[Stephen Hyden]

Oh, yeah, He's.

[Rob Mitchum]

He's an og, all those guys. And I don't feel like any of them really like the Dead. Like, I can't remember if Lester Bangs ever wrote about the Dead, but I can't imagine him liking him very much.

[Stephen Hyden]

I think. I think Lando in particular, he was a big proponent of, like, he loved R and B, he loved soul music. And I think he really subscribe to the idea of, like, song should be two and a half minutes, should, you know, like, be very professional in the studio. You know, sort of like that Motown model and like, no looseness, no jamming. I mean, that's really an aesthetic that he helped bring to Springsteen's records. Because if you listen to Springsteen pre Landau, Springsteen's pretty jammy on his early records.

[Rob Mitchum]

And then it gets very like, Dylany, long winded, lots of verses.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah, and. And. And also just like, long songs that have, like, you know, these extended instrumental passages, you know, like on the wild and innocent East Street Shuffle. I mean, that's the record. Before Landau entered the picture, I did want to read this thing. Springsteen writes a little bit about the Dead in his book Born to Run that came out in 2016. It's interesting because it's going to start out bad, but then there's like a twist ending to this. I'll just read this. He said, in the 70s, I went to a Grateful Dead show at a community college. I watched the crowd swaying and doing its trance dance thing. And I stood very outside of it. To me, sober, non mystical, only half hippie, if that. Me, they sounded like a not very talented bar band. I went home gently mystified. I don't know if the Grateful Dead were great, but I know that they did something great. Years later, when I came to appreciate their subtle musicality, Jerry Garcia's beautifully lyrical guitar playing, and the feel and the folk purity of their voices, I understood that I'd missed it. They had a unique ability to build community. And sometimes it ain't what you're doing, but what happens while you're doing it that counts. So, like, he's not saying, like, at the end there. I think they're an amazing band. I think it sounds to me where it's like, I respect that they created this world around the music that people were plugged into, and you can't deny that. So Bruce kind of started in Landau territory, but then I think he came to a place that, you know, seems pretty reasonable to me.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, I Think that's the thing that, like, whether you like their music or not, you can't deny that they. They had something special and something unique. Like, nobody sounded like the Dead.

[Stephen Hyden]

Right.

[Rob Mitchum]

Still, nobody sounds like the Dead. Even the COVID bands that try to sound like the Dead, it's. They had an alchemy that is impossible to reproduce. And they just did it for so long and so, like, uncompromisingly that, like, a guy like Springsteen has to respect it. Right.

[Stephen Hyden]

Like, oh, yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

Even if that's not his. Not his scene, as he said. So. Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

And, you know, and he's inspired a similarly obsessive fan base that collect bootlegs and pour over. I mean, you know, if we're talking about, like, the most bootleg artists of all time, like Dead and Springsteen are, like, right up there. I mean, I think the most bootlegged artist is probably Bob Dylan.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

And then it'd be the Dead after that. But then Springsteen might be third, you know.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

In some kind of order there.

[Rob Mitchum]

I wouldn't be surprised.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah. Let's get to the Dick's Picks here. Talk about the context of the release here. This. This record came out in October of 2005. Do you remember what you were doing in Octo 2005, Rob?

[Rob Mitchum]

Same thing as I was doing, you know, three months ago. Just logging my way through grad school. I'm trying to look up how long of a gap there was until road trips started. So road trips didn't start until 2007, late 2007. So the dead kind of took to, you know, the Archive kind of took two years off. After this, they went on their own little hiatus.

[Stephen Hyden]

Do you think there were other. There must have been, like, other live albums, so that they were dropping.

[Rob Mitchum]

Well, so Three from the Vault is in between there. Live at the Cow palace, which is New Year's Eve, 1976.

[Stephen Hyden]

I have that one.

[Rob Mitchum]

It's in there. And then they were. There's a whole bunch of Grateful Dead download series releases, which kind of took the place of Dick's Picks for a while. I think they were kind of like, the CD is going away. Nobody will ever listen to CDs again. There will never be a CD revival in the future. The Internet is the future, so let's just release shows online. So, yeah, so it's. You know, it. It's interesting that they decided to just, you know, bring the Dix Pick series to an end. And I wasn't able to dig up, like, why that happened. Like, why. Why did. They had this brand going for 36 volumes. I don't know if, you know, Dave Lemieux doesn't seem like, you know, to have the type of ego or he's like, we gotta. We gotta change the name on this series. It's like the guy's been dead for. For ten. For five years now. But, yeah, they. They decided to go a different direction. And Road Trips, you know, has like a sort of, like, different format. I think they wanted to get out of the box of, like, releasing fault shows, which is kind of where Dick picks wound up. And that's why you have all these beefy releases here in the last. The last run.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah. And I mean, do we know if they knew this was the end? I mean, because there is a significance with Dick picking the show. But also, 36, it's an odd number to end on. You feel like, why don't.

[Rob Mitchum]

It's true.

[Stephen Hyden]

Why not just make it to an even 40 or stop at 35? I wonder how premeditated it was to stop here. Or if they put this out and then someone from up on High was like, that's it. You know, you're canceled. Right. We're gonna do other things.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah. No, I don't. I don't know. But it does seem, you know, given the. The show that they picked, it does feel very much like a. We're acknowledging that we've come full circle here because this is a show that Dick wanted to pick very early on in the Dick's Pick series, but was shut down.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yes. By Phil. Which is a funny story here, because we've talked about this before. Phil was more involved in Dick's Picks early on, and he insisted in Dick's Picks one that his rock and bass solo be cut out of. What was that? It was like, after he's gone.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, it's like in the intro to the other one.

[Stephen Hyden]

Right.

[Rob Mitchum]

Basically.

[Stephen Hyden]

And he nixed his bass solo from there, which you can hear on live archive. If you really want to hear the Dick's Picks.

[Rob Mitchum]

I think we actually put it. No, no, we weren't doing music yet in the first episode. No, you can go on there and. And listen to it.

[Stephen Hyden]

We were primitive man. That was our primitive dead period. But. Yeah. So do you want to tell this story about.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

Like, how this ended up being released finally?

[Rob Mitchum]

Well, so, I mean, it basically comes down to, like. Yeah, as you were saying, I mean, that. That. That's kind of the full story, is that they. When they started the Dick's Pick series, Dick would find a tape that he wanted to release. They would have to get band approval, but nobody else in the band cared except for Phil. And Phil was the most particular about these releases and would only hear, like, the reasons why they shouldn't release something rather than, you know, the good, the positive reasons to release a particular show. So as you say, he argued into to cut out his bass solo from December 73. I noticed in this show there's a pretty good Phil bass solo. Which brings us full circle too, that by this point Phil didn't care. So they were able to sneak it in. And then Dick got the 1973 show out. And then he said, all right, the next one I'm going to do is a 72 show. And this was the show that he wanted to release. This should have been Dick's Picks 2, but it was held back by for a couple reasons. One, they didn't want to release full shows yet. They didn't want to go longer than two discs.

[Stephen Hyden]

Discs.

[Rob Mitchum]

And this show is actually four and a half hours long. It's like a ridiculously long concert. So three and a half discs were necessary at least to. To put it out. And then, yeah, Phil just for whatever reason, didn't like this show. So what was the problem with this show?

[Stephen Hyden]

I was thinking about it. What would he objected to? It blows my mind. Yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

I have no idea like that. That would be a fascinating question to ask him if he even remembers. But eventually they all talked Phil into removing himself from the process. And that opened up the floodgates for more Dix picks to come out. I mean, it took two years for Dick's Picks two to come out after Dick's Picks one. And then they finally got into this steady, like three or four a year release schedule. So, yeah, so the reason why this show seemed like a fitting way to end the series, I think, is that, you know, Dick had picked it out very early and didn't have the. The band backing to release it at the time. So now that the band no longer cares or is paying attention to the Dick Fix series, they were able to get it out.

[Stephen Hyden]

And another special thing about this release is, well, it's an Owsley tape. He recorded this show. He also wrote the liner notes for the physical copy, which is. It's pretty fascinating to peer into the mind of Bear when you read the liner notes. And I have to say, peering into his mind, it's kind of a boring experience. More boring maybe than you would expect because it's very technical. And this is not. This is my problem. It's not Bear's problem. Because Bear, obviously, he's this audio genius, and in the liner notes, he, like, he basically lays out his philosophy for, like, where mics should be placed, you know, where amps should be placed on stage. And he goes into great detail describing, like, how far a mic should be from a drum, how far, you know, speakers should be placed next to each other on stage. And if I were also an audio genius, this would be much more interesting to me, I'm sure. But as someone who's just a. A mere mortal in the. In the. Me, in the ways of sonic esoteria, I was kind of lost reading it. I mean, my impression of the liner notes is that for Owsley taping shows, I'm sure it was about the music, but it seemed like it was at least as much about wanting to see, like, what the sound was like, you know, to see how, like, well, his. His practices were being carried out at these shows. And that's why he wanted to listen to it, like, to see how good it sounded or how not good it sounded.

[Rob Mitchum]

Right. I think Owsley was a scientist at heart, and the Grateful Dead were his laboratory. And so the music was maybe almost beside the point for him to tinker around with technology and come up with new ways of making concerts sound better and making tapes sound better and making, you know, new interesting sounds that weren't possible in a. In a rock band setting before. I was reading a little bit about this period of Owsley being with the Dead. And so, of course, he was in jail from. He used to be their sound man, but then he had to go to jail in 1970 through 1972. He got out in the summer and rejoined the crew for this tour. And I guess he just pissed everybody off, like, in this month of September, because he thought that he was going back to being the top sound guy for the Dead. And yet all these ideas, which I think in part the liner notes, are like grudges he's been holding for, you know, 40, 30 some years at this point, about how he wanted to rearrange the Dead's live sound when he rejoined the band in fall of 72. But in the two years he was away, the Dead had, you know, grown up this crew of roadies who did things a very particular way. They were not the types of people who would be easily swayed by someone coming in and saying, I want you to do things totally different and spend a lot more time setting up than you had have been doing previously. And so there's a lot of clashes, I think, between the Dead crew And Owsley coming back on the scene. So he was pretty much phased out of the ban by the next month. So September 72 is this, like, brief flash of Owsley being on tour with them and actually recording and trying to control the sound. Then he kind of was sidelined to work on the wall of sound with Alembic and the other dead sort of sound wizards that they worked with. But he wasn't on tour, like, running live sound at all these shows. So. But, yeah, here he is, and he's running the tape, and the tape sounds, like, ridiculously good.

[Stephen Hyden]

It sounds great.

[Rob Mitchum]

Such a good recording.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah, it sounds great. Obviously, I was thinking about Owsley versus, like, the Betty Boards, because obvious, you know, those are the two gold standards for Grateful Dead tapes. And. And I don't know how much to ascribe, you know, to, you know, Betty or Owsley here, but I do feel like the Betty Boards, they have this sort of, again, buttery, big bottom end that I always associate with her recordings. And with Owsley, it's also great, but there's always, like, a little bit more of an edge to it. I feel like. Especially, like, in the guitar tones. Like, it feels like it's not quite as bottom heavy. It' I don't want to say shrill because that's Has a negative connotation. Like, I like what Owsley's doing. It just seems to have, like, a different kind of energy to it at the top. Like, does that make any sense to you?

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, totally. Phil is the one that I think is done the least amount of service by an Owlsley tape and throughout this volume, too. I think he's not. He's certainly not as audible as you get on, like, those 77, 76, late 70s Betty boards. Maybe that's why Phil didn't like it. He's like, you can't hear me. I'm not loud enough.

[Stephen Hyden]

I mean, you can still hear him.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

I mean, I think he's definitely a presence on this record. But, yeah, it's just like, there's not as much emphasis, just, like, a little less, maybe, when Owensley's doing it versus Betty. Both great, though. And obviously, anytime you're getting anything recorded by either one of those people, know you're gonna have something good. Getting back to Dick's stance on this show, it's interesting because you dug out some. Some notes that Dick took about, like, the last half of 72. And I think. I don't know if we talked about this in our previous September 72 shows, because we're not going to dig too much into the dead context of this show in that month, because we've already gone over that. Go back To Dick's picks 11 and 23 if you want a refresher on that. But I don't know if you want to talk about this, like, Dick's love of this show and also like him hating on a very well regarded show from this time. Because Dick, he is that kind of classic Deadhead guy who's like, not gonna go for the shows that everyone loves. Like, he kind of trashes the shows that everyone loves and he's going after things that are maybe a little less heralded.

[Rob Mitchum]

Right. Yeah. He hated Cornell, for instance, or he didn't hate it, but he was like, I am never going to release this show because that was overrated. Yeah, exactly. Maybe less well known is that he also thought that The Veneta Show, 82772 was. Was overrated.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

Which I think might. You know, there's. I. You know, people usually argue between those two shows as like the great 70s shows, the tapes you must have that every. Every Deadhead starts with has another spectacular dark star. But, yeah, he didn't like that show either. He said it was the most overrated show in Grateful Dead history outside of 5877. Says it has some exciting playing, but doesn't hold up as a whole show. There are many better examples where the playing is more consistently strong throughout the show. And these shows include. He lists off a whole day at number of dates, but leads off with September 21st, the show we have here. Yeah, he. You could find this. He did like, I think it was a message board post where he basically ran down like the second half of 1972 and talked about all of his favorite shows. You know, Dick had the privilege of, you know, having the vault at his fingertips to listen to all these shows. So it's a little unfair that he's bashing the tapes that everybody has in favor of what were possibly some more obscure tapes to find through traditional tape trading. But whatever, that's his. Right.

[Stephen Hyden]

Well, and he really loves the dark star, Morning Dew from the show that we're going to be talking about Today, the film 921. And I guess we'll get to it, but, you know, makes a pretty compelling case. You know, I mean, if you're talking about dark stars, this is no slouch. I'll just say that for now.

[Rob Mitchum]

Right. And he also, at various times, I think, described this as his favorite dark star. But with Dick, that answer Changed a lot. So he never had the same answer twice. I think when you asked him what his favorite Dark star was, he's mentioned in his notes. Yeah. That it says he thinks it might be the best one. I think he means of all the dark stars that go into morning dew, of which there are a handful through 72, 73, 74. So yeah, I mean he, he likes. He lists a whole bunch of songs that he liked from this show that. All of which we'll talk about. And yeah, I think he just thought it was better top to bottom than Vanita and then, you know, some other shows that people maybe talked up a little bit more.

[Stephen Hyden]

Maybe Dick didn't like the naked pole guy. He didn't like that this attracted from Vanita for him.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah. I did want to bring up one historical thing that I don't think we mentioned in the other September 72 shows. And it's directly in proximity to this Philadelphia show. The Dead played in Philadelphia on September 21st. They played in Connecticut on September 23rd. On September 22nd. And there's proof that this actually happened. Jerry Garcia played a show in San Francisco with Merle Saunders. It was a benefit show for the United Farm Workers Union. Just another strike against people who say the Dead weren't a political band. But it's been confirmed that he. I don't know if it was right after this show, maybe the next morning, got on a plane, flew back to San Francisco, played the show with Merle, got on a plane, flew back to the Dead, played the show in Connecticut on Saturday night. So, you know, maybe nowadays that doesn't seem so crazy. You got people flying around all the time. That seems crazy to me, a one day business trip. But yeah, 1972 in particular, that would have been very, very strange to do a cross country flight.

[Stephen Hyden]

Jet lag from hell on that swing. I would say that doesn't sound good at all.

[Rob Mitchum]

September 23rd is another show that Dick listed as one of his favorites from this month. So I haven't heard that show, but sounds like he didn't get jet lagged. He was doing just fine.

[Stephen Hyden]

Jet lag, Jer. Maybe just it's a different zone for him. It just. He was outside of all zones of all kinds in September of 72, transcending all means of containing space and time. Let's talk about the venue that we're going to be at for the most part today. And that's the Spectrum in Philadelphia. This is one of the legendary arenas I feel like, of like the arena rock era. And we're going to talk a little bit about. Basically everyone played this place and, and in many cases, like multiple times. But it was opened in 1967. It was the home of the Philadelphia 76ers. I think the Flyers played there as well. There's also an arena football team, indoor soccer and lacrosse. The Grateful Dead played there more than any other act. They played there 53 times. And there's a bunch of live records that have been released from here, including like multiple Dave's Picks recorded at the Spectrum.

[Rob Mitchum]

I think it's kind of odd that we got this far into Dick Specs without one, because there was a Philadelphia show, but it was at the Civic center. Yeah, in 74, not at the Spectrum. So for some reason, maybe the Spectrum was already booked and they had to play the Civic Center.

[Stephen Hyden]

So the Dead played there more than anyone. Springsteen played there 42 times. I think he must be like the second most. He played there 42 times between 76 and 2009. He played there. He played four shows there in mid October of 2009. And so he was among the last people to play there. And then Pearl Jam closed out the venue at the end of October. They did a four show stand. Their last show was October 31, 2009. Over that run they played 103 different songs. And on the Halloween show, they played for three and a half hours. They played 41 songs. PJ digging deep for that.

[Rob Mitchum]

So you are about to be a published Pearl Jam scholar. Yes, soon after this episode drops. Why did Pearl Jamie play there? I mean, I don't think of them as a East coast band at all. Why, why were they the, the closing act for the Spectrum? Seems like an odd choice.

[Stephen Hyden]

Well, you know. Well, for one thing, I'm. I'm guessing routing comes into play here. I mean, Springsteen seems like that would have been the obvious choice to close it out. But he was. I looked at his tour schedule. 2009, he played in St. Louis October 25th and then he was in D.C. november 2nd. So I don't know why Jerry's flying.

[Rob Mitchum]

Across the country to do. I don't know what's going on there.

[Stephen Hyden]

But I will say Pearl Jam Philadelphia is a stronghold for Pearl Jam. You know, they. I believe their first show that they played in Phil D was like a month and a half before 10 came out. So they were going there very early on. I think that was like one of the first major markets that really embraced them. There's been, you know, there's been other historic Pearl Jam shows that have Taken place in Philadelphia that Halloween 2009. One is a big one. There's also a show that they played in 2016 where they played 10 from front to back for the first and probably last time. And that's a very famous show that was done in honor of. They hung a banner in the new arena in Philadelphia, the Wells Fargo center, commemorating 10 shows in. I think it was South Philadelphia. I don't know my directions in Philly, but it's something like that. It was like some. It wasn't just at that venue. I think it was like, in that part of Philadelphia. I don't know if that was including shows that they played at the Spectrum.

[Rob Mitchum]

As well, but Philadelphia is weird, man. They don't, like, count. Have you played a western Philadelphia show? It doesn't go on the banner.

[Stephen Hyden]

I don't know. I. I could be misremembering this, but it's something like that. It was like. Like a part of. Oh, here's the banner right here. Yeah. South. Yeah. Oh, it's 10 South Philadelphia sellouts.

[Rob Mitchum]

Okay.

[Stephen Hyden]

Is the banner that hangs in the Wells Fargo Center. So that banner went up. Eddie Vedder saw it, and he's like, let's play 10 tonight. It was a spur of the moment decision.

[Rob Mitchum]

Okay.

[Stephen Hyden]

So, yeah, they're not an east coast band, but I think that's a big Pearl Jam city. Any. How many arena rock bands are there at this point?

[Rob Mitchum]

Well, that's what I was going to guess is just that, like, yeah, Pearl Jam is like the only band out there to. To do these things at some point.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

When Springsteen dies out and other bands. I mean, like, I was trying to think there's not really, like an iconic Philly band that could.

[Stephen Hyden]

Not in that time.

[Rob Mitchum]

Right? No, right. They're all like New Jersey bands, like, across. Across state lines.

[Stephen Hyden]

You know, at some point, when they close the Wells Fargo center, if the war on drugs are big enough, maybe that they could play something like that. But yeah, there's not really a, you know, Boys to Men.

[Rob Mitchum]

I put that up there. I also put Hooters. Yeah, Hooters might be the biggest Philly band.

[Stephen Hyden]

Well, you have like, you know, Gamble and Huff, like all the Philly soul stuff from the 70s. You get a package tour for that. Get the OJs together. Get, you know, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. Yeah, get them going. Spinners, all those guys. There's also another famous story at the Spectrum about Pink Floyd when they were playing there in 77 on the animals tour, and Roger Waters had some sort of ailment at the show, and they gave him an injection. And basically it was the beginning of the song. Comfortably Numb, Right. Was inspired by a show in Philadelphia. And when Pearl jam played that 2016 show, they covered Comfortably Numb and they referenced that story also, I should say, just to tie together a little bit more, Elvis Presley played one of his last shows at the Spectrum in 1977, and Bruce Springsteen was at that show in the audience. Yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

A lot of rock history there. I like your other note in the notes was that Aerosmith played there a lot. And the fans threw glass bottles and M80s at them, which was a good reminder that we are in Philadelphia, the. The land of rowdy fans. Right?

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah. Aerosmith played there 23 times between 76 and 94. I think that was, like, a common thing in the 70s, like, where people would bring M80s to shows and throw them. Because if you listen to bootlegs from the 70s, I feel like there's people complaining about that, you know, throwing fireworks and. And stuff.

[Rob Mitchum]

Just in Philadelphia or everywhere.

[Stephen Hyden]

I think it was. I think it was everywhere. I think it was just Philly. It might have been a little worse than Philly. Who knows? But, yeah, just an historic venue. And again, yeah, like you said, it's weird that we haven't been to the Spectrum before now. Yeah, it's good to be there now in 1972. Just a great period to be at the Spectrum. We're also at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colorado. And this is like a super old stadium. I wasn't that familiar with Folsom Field. This is like almost like 100 years old. Yeah, it's an outdoor football stadium.

[Rob Mitchum]

Two years.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah. Yeah. It's open in 1924. And I think the University of Colorado, like, it's like their stadium, right?

[Rob Mitchum]

It's the Buffaloes play in Folsom Field. Yeah. I was surprised that the Dead were playing such big venues in the fall of 72, because Dick's picks 11 was in the Stanley Theater in Jersey City. So they did play multiple nights there, I guess. Dixbys23 was in the Baltimore Civic center, so that was an arena. But yeah, you're getting, like, one of the big basketball arenas and, you know, an entire football stadium. Something that I think of, you know, being more of like a 90s dead thing, but are already as early as 72, they were able to, I'm sure, not sell out, but pack enough fans in that they were able to play at a stadium. Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

And, you know, in Colorado, I mean, that's always Been jam. Yeah. A lot of jam band people. You can do well there. Even today, you know, you got Goose doing Red Rocks.

[Rob Mitchum]

Right.

[Stephen Hyden]

They're not playing a venue that size in most parts of the country, but you can do that in Colorado and then, you know, Philadelphia is part of that east coast cabal of, you know, jam band stronghold out there. So, yeah, they could probably, definitely. They're probably not playing stadiums or arenas in the middle of the country. I'm trying to remember, did we just do 72 shows, like from September? Like, were there any other 72? I don't think so. I think they were all.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, we did. All the September ones are east coast and then the March ones were in New York as well.

[Stephen Hyden]

Oh, right. That's right.

[Rob Mitchum]

So, yeah. One odd thing about Folsom Field, which probably isn't true of many venues that are this old, is that Dead and Company have actually played there more than the Dead did. Dead and company played runs there every year from 2016 to 2019 and then played two shows there just this summer. So I believe they've played 10 shows. I think those were all two night runs at Folsom Field in Boulder. So it's a, it's a Dead and Company stronghold. Mayor has dominance over Jerry on playing the Folsom Field stage.

[Stephen Hyden]

There you go. It's. It's also more than a mile above sea level is the third highest stadium in America. Wow. Super high. You know what I'm saying? Super high, dude. So Wyoming and Air Force, I guess are the two. Air Force, I guess Air. They insisted on having a higher stadium at the Air Force.

[Rob Mitchum]

Sam.

[Stephen Hyden]

Let's set up the scene. Looking at what else was popular in September of 72. And we've probably covered like a lot of this already.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

In our previous.

[Rob Mitchum]

We've been in this week before.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah. So we can breeze through this a little bit. Number one song, Mac Davis, baby. Don't get hooked on me. I. I know we talked about Mac Davis already, right?

[Rob Mitchum]

Yes, we. We did a Mac Davis deep dive.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

We talked about Three Dog Night too, I think maybe not about this particular song, but they were number two with Black and White. Then you had Backstabbers. That was. That was one of the. The Philly bands, right.

[Stephen Hyden]

That's OJ's.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah. So Philadelphia is rallying around their home team.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

So on the charts.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah. Number one album, Chicago 5. I know we talked about Chicago and Rod Stewart. Never a dull moment. We had a Rod Stewart argument on this show already. We can. We could set that aside. Dig into the back pages. Number one film, the Godfather, of course.

[Rob Mitchum]

Still doing it. I think it might have been number one at the March shows, too. So. Yeah, it was hanging on.

[Stephen Hyden]

Makes sense. Number one TV show, of course. All in the family. Enough said. There's. What else was on TV around this time. Dug out some cool stuff here.

[Rob Mitchum]

Another one with some movies in the top. Valley of the Dolls. A showing of Valley of the Dolls was number two on cbs. I always get Valley of the Dolls and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls confused.

[Stephen Hyden]

Oh, yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

Which one is the real one and which one is the parody?

[Stephen Hyden]

But very different movies.

[Rob Mitchum]

This was the real one. Yeah. If it was on cbs.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah. They couldn't show beyond the Valley of the Dolls on. On tv.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah. It's kind of porny, right? I don't know.

[Stephen Hyden]

Well, it's Russ Meyer, so there's, like, a lot of leering. It's a great movie. It's very funny. Written by Roger Ebert, right?

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

But, yeah, definitely not a movie you could show on network television in 1972.

[Rob Mitchum]

I figured not. There was a TV movie called with six, you get egg roll, which sounds. Not modern sensibilities. Yeah, I think it was like a Brady Bunch thing.

[Stephen Hyden]

Oh, dude.

[Rob Mitchum]

With like, a Chinese restaurant joke in the title. Yeah, yeah. You know, a lot of stuff we've seen before. Bridget Loves Bernie, Hawaii 5o. The Flip Wilson show with. I looked up. I found that that week, their guests for the fifth. Fifth dimension in Tim Conway.

[Stephen Hyden]

There you go.

[Rob Mitchum]

Dimension. Also came up on a 36 from the vault episode, I believe when we talked about the. The Questlove movie.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yes.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, we are. We're revisiting all of our old favorites.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yes, yes. Go back to the old episode. You don't need to hear us talk about this again. One thing you dug out that is pretty awesome. Liam Gallagher was born on the day of the show.

[Rob Mitchum]

On the Day of the Spectrum show. So too bad I found out about that yesterday because we could have tried to get Liam Gallagher to be our great special guest.

[Stephen Hyden]

Oh, man.

[Rob Mitchum]

The final episode. Could you imagine?

[Stephen Hyden]

Oh, man. I'm just trying. I wonder if Liam has ever heard a Grateful Dead song. I'm guessing probably not.

[Rob Mitchum]

Maybe like 10 seconds of one and then he threw his stereo across the room.

[Stephen Hyden]

That'd be amazing. I'd love to have Liam Gallagher on here talking about the Grateful Dead.

[Rob Mitchum]

We would definitely get the little explicit E square for this episode. He would set the record for most use of the C word on 36 from the vault episode.

[Stephen Hyden]

Well, hey, don't challenge me. You know, I I'll be happy to go toe to toe with Liam Gallagher for that if need be.

[Rob Mitchum]

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[Stephen Hyden]

The legacy of the New York Philharmonic is incredible.

[Rob Mitchum]

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[Stephen Hyden]

All right, here we are at the finish line, baby. Dick's picks 36 going to the Spectrum in Philadelphia and 92172 with a little pit stop in Boulder, Colorado at Folsom Field on 9 3. 72. We got a four banger here. Another hearty meal.

[Rob Mitchum]

It was a long show, man. Yeah, all the stories I found about this show were people in high school, it was a Thursday night, going to this Grateful Dead show thinking that they would get what was typical for a rock show at the time, which is, you know, a couple bands each playing like an hour, 90 minutes maybe. And I think they all got home at like, you know, two in the morning because the Dead just went on and played and played and played and played so all their stories were about, you know, limping into school the next day and trying to explain the experience to all their friends who weren't so lucky to go. Yeah, sounds pretty awesome.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah. And if, as if that weren't enough, we also get. What about, like, 45 minutes of, like, the Folsom Field show, too?

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, a little. A very. A heavy dessert.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yes.

[Rob Mitchum]

Like. Like a real thick piece of pie.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yes.

[Rob Mitchum]

At the very end of this show. So.

[Stephen Hyden]

That's right. We're. Yeah, we're binge eating today with Dix Picks 36. Let's talk about the first disc here. And I'm just gonna reiterate something I said earlier, and this is something I've said about other September 72 shows. But you look at this disc and you might think, okay, well, I know what I'm getting here. But even the songs that are overly familiar, you know, you're getting even like El Paso or Big Railroad Blues or Big River. It's like a plus versions of those songs, you know, if you think you're sick of them, be prepared to not skip anything because the Dead's bringing the heat. Even on, like, the sort of standard issue material.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah. And I counted it up. I think there are six songs on this disc that were on the last volume. And that's been like our. One of our big complaints all season, I feel like, is that there's a lot of repeats, you know, not just on a particular volume, but from volume to volume. The 33 to 34, 76 to 77 shows were very similar, but this one, I think it's great because you get to hear just, like, how much they changed in 13 months. And what it really drove home for me is that I think Keith really turned this band around. I mean, it's a little bit of losing Big Ben, but I think people underestimate what a huge influence Keith had, particularly on this 72 to 74 zone. And, like, we heard some really early Keith shows. Like Dick's Picks 2 is like, the first week Keith is in the band and he sounds a little lost, and he's not really, like, much of a creative force in that show. The. The March 72 shows, like Pigpen is still around. Keith is finding his footing. I like those shows a lot, but it wasn't really like, Keith didn't really pop out that much. But this show, all of these songs that get repeated are better here. And I liked the 71 show quite a bit as well, but they're definitely better here. And it's just like Keith's piano opens up a totally new sound for the Dead. They are no longer this, like, country rock, like, you know, Chuckle Fest. Having Keith there is already pushing them in the jazzier directions of 73 and 74. So it's really fun to listen to these shows in juxtaposition, I think.

[Stephen Hyden]

And I'll repeat my off said comment on here. I love hearing Keith. I love how audible he is. Like, on this tape, he just sounds so good. And he's not buried in the mix. It's so crisp and he's just floating through these songs and it's so great. And, you know, Dix picks 35. You know, we talked a lot about. I know for me, just learning to really, really appreciate what Pigpen brought to the band and really loving the swagger that he brought to, like, the bluesier material and. And even enjoying some of, like, the songs that he wrote himself that they didn't play very often. And so, like, I really love the version of the Dead that we hear on Dix picks 35. But you're right, having Keith be so prominent at this time on Dick's picks 36, it's. It's just beautiful. And the moment that we were texting each other simultaneously when listening to this was when Birdsong comes up, the second song here. And that is like, okay, we are in Keith territory. This is not the Dead that could have. This is not Dick's picks 35. They could not have done Birdsong in that iteration of the Dead.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

And that. And played it the way that they played here. Just beautiful. And it just makes me. It just reinforces in my mind that that is one of the very best vehicles for this band. Like that. That song and that. I think that's another reason why people love Vanita. Like, the Bird Song on there is so good.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

But, man, when you get a first set Bird song, buckle up, you know.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

Of seven, you know, like 72 dead playing bird song doesn't get much better than that.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah. I mean, this show, this disc kind of fakes us out because it starts with the Promised Land. And I'm like, oh, man, we're going to get all of the 36 FTV annoyances here for the final episode. Turns out we don't. There's no Jed in the show. They're playing Jet a lot in 9-72, but somehow we missed it. And there's only one berry. We only get the one berry at the very start. It goes by really fast and it actually sounds pretty good. We love. We we always admit that we love a Promised Land opener. It's a great way to open the show.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

But then immediately it dives into this bird song and, you know, shout out early thank you. We'll get more thank yous later on. But to our, like, unofficial social media intern Ryan Storm, who would always come through with the 36 from the vault memes when every episode came out, I had the Vince McMahon meme in my mind while I was listening to the spurt song. Because, first of all, Bob sounds incredible. I always love his chords in the verses of Birdsong, that, like, ascending chord thing he does. His tone sounds so good. Then you got Billy. We talked about his swing in the last volume, but he is, like, you know, 10 times that now. He is just the jazziest drummer, but can also, you know, shift on a dime into being a rock or a country drummer, any kind of drummer you want. But on Birdsong especially, he's just got so much swing, so much fluidity in his drumming. Then you get Jerry solo, which, of course, is incredible. Birdsong, Jerry solo. And then you get a Keith solo. And I had never noticed this before. I don't know how I didn't notice this, but Keith is actually playing wa grand piano on his solo in Birdsong. Did you know this? Had you ever noticed this?

[Stephen Hyden]

No.

[Rob Mitchum]

I think it's because the tape is so good and Keith is so prominent for once that I was like, he gets into the solo, and I'm like, wait, did Jerry take over? Is Jerry playing a wattpetal solo over Keith? That's kind of rude. And then I'm like, no, that's definitely a keyboard. But Keith didn't have an electric piano in 72. That's a 73, 74 Keith thing. And so I was like, so how in the world is he playing a wah pedal with a grand piano, which is what he played? So I looked it up, and it turns out Owsley didn't build this, but another guy, Carl Countryman, like, another, like, weirdo San Francisco audio guy of the 70s that, just, like always, somehow found the dead, created this, like, electronic pickup setup for Keith's piano, which I guess was a real pain in the ass to set up, but it was the only way they could figure out how to mic a piano well on a big arena sound system. But because you were using this control box with electronic pickups in it, picking up the sound from the piano, you could route it through any effects pedal you wanted. So sure enough, Keith would do wah pedal piano, which is, like, it sounds so cool. And then second of all, like, Keith was not really known for experimenting with the sound very much. So. It's so fun to hear this early version of Keith that is trying something very unusual. I mean, it's so unusual. It's almost like an early, like, MIDI experiment for farther down the line in Grateful Dead sounds. So. Yeah, I just loved it. This Bird song, like, floored me. And I was like, I can now can no longer be say that I'm tired of listening to the Dead. This is. It brought me right back in.

[Stephen Hyden]

Sa. I do think it's funny. And there's a more egregious example later on in this album, but on the first disc, you do get this transcendent Bird song. And then they go into El Paso, which is such a funny transition, you know, to go from the. You go from heaven to, like, you know, Cowboy Bob.

[Rob Mitchum]

It's still the first set. Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

So there's an even funnier, like, whiplash moment later on that we'll talk about where it's like, oh, man. I guess if you get so high, you have to come down at some point. You. Especially this early in the show. I also want to shout out and, you know, these aren't as mind blowing maybe, as the Bird song. But again, speaking of songs that maybe you've heard a lot, but just hit differently in this era of the Dead. Jack Straw and Loser, I think, are played so well. And yeah, we've talked about Loser before. I've been critical of, like, loser in 77 because I feel like the tempo gets a little Sloppy Joe with that song with two drummer dead. And this just reiterates like, Loser in 72 is just different and goes to another level. And I just think this performance is so good. And I'm like, yeah, I was right. 72 dead playing loser is where it's at. And I don't know. Not that they didn't play well after this, but, like, this is, like, the best era for that song. And I love that song so much.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah. I think I want to say it was volume 33. I think there was a Loser on that one from 76, where I tried to make the argument that it was the best loser on a Dick's Pick so far. And you were like, I don't know. There's these other ones. And I was like, ah, yeah, but they all had some flaws. Well, I. I mean, this is the best loser on a Dick's Picks. Like, they saved the best for last. Like, it is so good. And like, I was just like, endlessly impressed by. We talk a lot about tempo on this show, about things being too fast or things being too slow or the drummers being like a train wreck. Part of why I think this fall 72 sound is so solid is that they. It's like they just found the sweet spot on tempo for everything. And it, like I said, it's part Keith, how much the piano adds, but then also, you know, finding thing. Finding this middle tempo that is not too slow, not too fast. It just opens up the song so much. It's like they just found the perfect amount of space to play a song like Loser, or even a song like Jackstraw, which is a little more uptempo. But you need to have that sort of slower beginning so that it really pops by the end, right? It's like people say the national anthem. You can't start singing it too high or else you're screwed by the end. Like, Jack Straw needs to have that dynamic, and they just have it. And I don't know if it's just they played so many shows in 72. You know, the Europe tour, of course, sharpened all of these songs, but the dramatic difference between 71 and 72, it's just all over this disc. It's really fascinating to hear.

[Stephen Hyden]

Well. And, you know, we could sound like a broken record singing Keith's praises here. And also Billy on this record. And we talked about this with the other September 72 shows. Just how he's such a beast, man. Like, with his swing and his power and his timing. I feel like it's just perfect and.

[Rob Mitchum]

Right.

[Stephen Hyden]

It's funny to think to that John Landau book that we referenced earlier, where he's taking shots at Billy. I guess that's 71 Billy, which I think he was pretty great in 71 too. But it's, like, so just the worst take that you could have on on Billy, man. I mean, I just feel like his drumming here is, like, some of my favorite drumming by anyone in, like, the context of a rock band.

[Rob Mitchum]

And he's, like, so improvisational, too. I mean, we'll get to it in the big jams that are later in this show, but even in something like Birdsong, you know, he's in full conversation with the rest of the band. He's not just holding it down in the back so that the soloists can do their thing.

[Stephen Hyden]

And it's so smooth, too, man. Like, he doesn't sound like he's looking for anything. It just seems like he's always there, just natural. And even when he's Going off. He's always in the pocket. I don't know how he does that, but the groove does. Even when he's, like. Like you said, like on the Jams, going out and exploring, I just feel like he's always holding it down some way. So I don't know. I just. Billy, in this era, it's just unbelievable.

[Rob Mitchum]

He had such a small kit, too. Like, we watched Sunshine Daydream at one point during the Pandemic, I remember, which is from the Vanita show. He's got, like, you know, six drums and some symbols. Like, it's not this, like, massive, you know, totally surrounded by percussion instruments thing that he would have later with Mickey. But he can make that, you know, small combination of instruments sound like a million different things. I mean, it's. He's a wizard at this point. Yeah. I don't know what else to say. I want to shout out Bob, too. I mean, this is like, my favorite era for Bob. Just being an incredibly inventive rhythm guitarist and having the greatest sounding guitar. And the. The way he, you know, works with Jerry and compliments Jerry without, you know, just settling into sort of boring. I'm gonna sit here and play the chords while Jerry goes off. Is part. Another key part of the Dead. Magic that can't be reproduced. Like, you can't put another guitarist in Bob's role, and it's not gonna give you the same thing. So, China Writer, another one here that sounds so much better. We talked about how the 71 China Rider was, like, strangely forgettable. Like, we couldn't latch onto it. It wouldn't stick in our memories. This one isn't quite like the big 73, 74 China rider with the Feeling groovy jam and all that, but it's got that new format where Bobby takes a little solo after the China part is over and then hands it over to Jerry. And you get this, like, cool, in between China Rider vibe for a couple minutes. And it's. It's, you know, it's magic. It's something that only the Dead could do.

[Stephen Hyden]

And again, it's because Keith's in there, too, laying down keys. Even if. Even if it's not doing anything spectacular. I feel like he brings a fluidity to that part of the jam that they wouldn't have had in 71. Just.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

And I mean, look, Jerry's amazing, too. Phil's amazing. We could just sing the praises of everyone.

[Rob Mitchum]

I mean, I think this Donna, she shows up.

[Stephen Hyden]

Don is great. I mean, it does speak to, like, how well this is recorded that you can hear everybody and everybody has a chance to shine, you know, where. You know, there's some tapes, like, where Bob gets a little lost, maybe because he's not coming through as clear. But you're hearing everything here, and everyone's playing so well. So it really. You can just focus in on one person if you want, just dig on them and the next time focus on somebody else. It's one of the real pleasures of digging into a show from this era. Let's get to this to the second disc here, because. And again, I keep saying the same thing here, but it is, I think, one of the cool things about this album that we start with Rambo on Rose and Cumberland Blues, two songs that, if you look at it on paper, you might not be psyched to hear them. You might be tempted to skip ahead to the plane in the band that ends the first set. But those first two songs, I think especially Cumberland Blues, blew me away, just because I wasn't expecting to be blown away. And maybe I should have expected this from the other September 72 shows, but. And I like Cumberland Blues, but, you know, you. That's a song you feel like, how much variation can that really have, you know, especially if you know, that song. I associate with Europe 72. That's where that was introduced. I kind of like this version more than the one on Europe 72, though. I just feel like there's a little bit deeper of a groove. I think it goes on a little bit longer. I could be wrong about that. But, yeah, it just feels more alive to me than Even the Europe 72 version, which is great. But that was, like, a unexpected highlight for me, like, how much I like that song. I was kind of blown away because it's not a jam vehicle, but it's just an example of, like, wow, they're so fucking good here that, like, they just bring everything up to another level.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah. And we heard another great one in September. 72 Dix picks 11 had that dark star that segued into Cumberland. Super improbable segue.

[Stephen Hyden]

That totally worked.

[Rob Mitchum]

It also worked great and was also an awesome version of it. So, yeah, just a song that really benefits from how tight they were at this point, I think, because it's fast and it's got that bluegrassy dynamic of all the instruments kind of like floating around each other without smacking into each other and knocking over the whole thing. And now you got Keith thrown in there, too, so the piano works great. On Cumberland Blues, it's even kind of like. Is like, you know, Barrel House, Tennessee Jed thing that you. You like at various times in the Dead's history, but. But done in Cumberland here. I really. I. I love the Cumberland Blues, but I was also really impressed by the Ramble On Rose, which is a song that I could absolutely do without on most Dead tapes. But it all comes down, especially on this version, to how Jerry style sells it vocally, because it can kind of almost be like a big, like, Broadway showstopper song if Jerry is lively enough, just building up to that, like, Goodbye Mama and Papaverse. And he really does that here. He really hams it up, which is fun to hear because, like, when we think of great Jerry vocal performances, it tends to be like the slow death ballads, but this is like Jerry doing, you know, jazz hands in the middle of a Broadway show by the end, and it just rocks. Like, there's. There's, like. You say there's nothing. There's no duds here.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah, I got to shout out the Black Peter on this disc, too, because we. We talked about Black Peter recently on Dick's picks 34, and how that's a song that I find myself being underwhelmed by a lot like it. It oftentimes seems like a little long and slow to me, and I lose interest at some point. Even the studio version, I. I lose the. The threat a little bit. I kind of feel like this is my favorite Black Peter that I've ever heard. Like, I love this version, and there's something about the way they play it where it just has a real groove to it and kind of a smokiness and a slow, creeping quality to it that also has a sense of momentum, and I think the whole band plays it well. I guess. I'm gonna give props to Billy, though, here, because I think this is another example of him just having great timing and tempo and, like, he's not rushing it, but he's giving it just enough pep to, I think, really bring this song home in a way that, for me, it often doesn't come home for. I mean, I just love this version a lot. And I. I don't go deep on Black Peter and hearing various different versions, but I will say this is my favorite one that I've ever heard.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, I. I think I still like the Bears choice one a little bit more, but that's acoustic and drumless, and this is probably the best electric one I've heard. And, yeah, have the. The same reaction. They just. Again, they just nailed the tempo here. It could be a dirge sometimes, and I think it was on. What was that? Dix Fix 34 was the last time we heard it. Yeah, it was just. Just too slow and it seemed to go on forever. But there's something kind of like playful about this version almost that makes it much more listenable.

[Stephen Hyden]

Ever. The sun.

[Rob Mitchum]

It's. It's a. It's hit after hit here, what can I say? And we get some jams on this disc too. Like we, you know, it's been very soggy up to this point, but then we start really dipping into some Jammy Dead, which is something we've, Yeah, I think been missing for. For several volumes.

[Stephen Hyden]

Oh yeah, yeah. And yeah, the Plan and then the. He's Gone into Trucking. I. I like them both a lot. I. I guess I'm not blown away by either one of them. And look, the standard's very high on this album because we have some highlights coming up that we're going to talk a lot about, which overshadow, I think what they're doing on. On the second disc here. But yeah, that plan in the band, you know, it doesn't. It's not too short and it's not too long.

[Rob Mitchum]

Right.

[Stephen Hyden]

It's kind of in that middle zone. They do get fusiony in that one. Not as much maybe as they will in 73 and 74, but like, that seems like an example of them previewing what they're going to be doing, you know, in the next year. But yeah, it doesn't go quite as far out as. As other plan in the bands. But it gives you enough of that, I think, to be satisfying.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, I think so. It's what, 16 minutes, 47 seconds. One last appearance of our Goldilocks Zone, I think we decided is somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes for a plane in the band. Because when they're going all out Fusion y where everybody is just soloing their heads off, there's only so much of that I can take and I think that's the perfect amount. So this one falls right in there. I will say the. He's Gone Truckin is the only part of this whole show and volume really that left me a little bit cold. And part of it is just that He's Gone into Truckin is such a predictable like coupling at this point. We've heard so many of them on Dick's Picks. If you listen to 70s dead, you're hear it over and over again and I feel like he's gone. It just never has really connected with me. I feel like it's like my blind Spot among. Maybe it's not considered, like a top tier Dead song, but it's up there, right? I would probably. It's like around, like, Birdsong, like second tier songs that people, like, really wanted to hear at a Grateful Dead show. Songs that people really look forward to when they see it on a set list. And for me, like, He's Gone, especially after it slowed down, which it has started to do here. It's not the, like, peppier early 72 he's gone, I don't know, it just like, that is the one song that I feel like is a little too sleepy on this entire show. If we're talking about getting the. The tempo balance right. Yeah. And the truckin didn't really stand out to me, I guess, on this one as well. So it's like the faintest of criticisms for this show, which I think is otherwise, you know, pretty perfect. It's just that it's. This is a little bit routine, a little bit rote here at the start of the second set.

[Stephen Hyden]

Well, I think what hurts this He's Gone is that there's another He's Gone coming up on disc four that they took from the Folsom Field show. And I. I prefer that one that's He's Gone into the other one. I. I think that's a stronger combination. So that diminishes this. He's Gone. I actually, I like He's Gone a lot, though, and I. I like it during this era. To call back to Dick's Picks, Volume one, that He's Gone is my favorite He's Gone of all time. And there's lots of He's Gones from this era that I think are. Are really good. I was gonna say, I. I feel like Birdsong is a Tier one song, but maybe that's just for, like, the Heads. I wouldn't call that a Tier two song. I feel like if I see a Bird song, no matter the era, I get pretty excited because I know I'm in for something good. He's Gone, I think would be a tier 2. I agree with that as a tier 2, but birdsong is tier 1 for me.

[Rob Mitchum]

I guess it's like. It's a weird one because it showed up in the first set a lot and they were kind of sparing with when they played it. Like, it only shows up in certain eras. But I mean, like, you know, the things you can't miss, like a Dark Star or the Other One or a Scarlet Fire, like those, like, big, like, headline Dead jams. But you're right. Birdsong. It's not as flashy as those, but it. It definitely gets to some really special places, as it does in this.

[Stephen Hyden]

It's kind of like a first set dark Star, you know, because they usually wouldn't do a dark star in the first set. But like. Birdsong. In a way, it has like a dark star quality to it because it's very spacey and dreamy. Doesn't go quite as far out as Dark Star. But it's like if you're gonna do a Dark star in the first set, it'd be birdsong. Like, that's how I think about that song in a way. And I. That's one of the things I love about it, that it is a little more structured than a dark star, but it goes to the same emotional areas. That's what I love about it. Speaking of Dark star.

[Rob Mitchum]

Speaking of Dark Star. Pretty good one. Yes. The. The centerpiece of the volume.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yes.

[Rob Mitchum]

You can't argue with it.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yes. 37 minutes Dark Star. And then you go into Morning Dew. I really think of these two is a tandem.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah. You gotta. It's like a solid 50 minutes here.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

Of just peak Dead.

[Stephen Hyden]

Just. Just the heart of it. And although Rob and I didn't really like it that much.

[Rob Mitchum]

Right. Well, I passed. Let's move on to Discord.

[Stephen Hyden]

Snooze. No, we obviously love it. I mean, it's amazing. It's. Yeah. I looked up on Heady version Dark Star. This is number seven. I was a little surprised that it wasn't higher.

[Rob Mitchum]

That seems low.

[Stephen Hyden]

Weirdly enough, the Dark star From Dick's Picks 2 is right above it, which I think is totally wrong.

[Rob Mitchum]

People really like the Tighten up jam.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah, that's.

[Rob Mitchum]

That's.

[Stephen Hyden]

No, I think you're. That. That's being over. You're overrating that. I. The heady version community. You got to reconsider that one. The number one dark star. I don't have this in front of me.

[Rob Mitchum]

I got it here. It's Vanita.

[Stephen Hyden]

Right? It's Vanita.

[Rob Mitchum]

You know, basically a month earlier than this, just to show you.

[Stephen Hyden]

And then like The Dix picks four, I think is after that. Right. Like, yeah. From 74.

[Rob Mitchum]

And then. Let's see. Yeah. Looks like the Live Dead version. There's an early 71. There's Winterland 73. So, yeah, number seven. I think it's too low. And my argument for why is the same as my argument for why this Dark Star is kind of the best way they could have come up with to wrap up the Dixbys series like, this really feels like the grand finale of 36 volumes of Dick's Picks. Because I almost feel like this Dark Star kind of contains. If you pair it with the Dew, especially this Dark Star. Dew kind of contains everything great about the Dead from multiple eras, maybe not every era, but it does a pretty good job of offering a synopsis of everything that's incredible about Grateful Dead jamming through their 30 year history. And it's. It's interesting because. So we heard a darkstar that is six days after this show on Dix Picks 11, that's 927 from the Stanley Theater. And I went back and listened to that one and it's very different. Like, I remember when we Talked about the Dix Picks 4 Dark Star, which I love. I listened to the Dark Star from the night before and it was like almost the same exact moves. But this Dark Star is structured completely differently from the Dix picks 11:1, which is sort of a cosmic voyage where they don't even get around to the first verse until 25 minutes in.

[Stephen Hyden]

Isn't it darker too?

[Rob Mitchum]

It's darker. It is more abstract. It's like. I don't know, it's got that sort of like cosmic late 60s dark star feel, I think, more than this one does.

[Stephen Hyden]

It's pretty awesome.

[Rob Mitchum]

Kind of episodic. I mean, they're both great and it's, you know, it's really tough to decide, like, which one is better. I think I like this one better because I like more episodic jamming than just like a continuous half hour in sort of the same zone. But I mean, you can make an argument for both that are totally legit.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah, I. I think you make a great point about this being almost like an omnibus of the Grateful Dead, that you're gonna get some fusiony stuff in there, you're gonna get some sort of like, like chugging choogle stuff in there. You're gonna get some of the spacey stuff in there. It is like a tourist through Grateful Dead history up to 1972 and even like previewing really like what they're going to be doing for the next few years. Like with the fusion type stuff.

[Rob Mitchum]

Absolutely. If there was a disco jam in there, somehow I don't think disco was invented yet. If there was, it would pretty much describe the entire 70s because, yeah, you have. So here they get to the verse a lot earlier. They get to a 12 minutes in. They never get to the second verse. I don't know if they Ever got to the second verse in 72. It just seems like, you know, who needs a second verse? We're just gonna keep playing. But yeah, after that verse is like a total 73, 74 jam. Like, it's like fusiony but jazzier than the playing in the band. One from earlier, you know, very Keith forward. Works from like sort of a quiet part up to a big build. But then of course, they just keep going. There's like a spacey feedback part which is very late 60s. Sticks picks 4 Darkstar. It gets even weirder about the 31st minute they get into a country jam, like a Tugel jam, which sounds like 71 dead. It sounds like something from the last volume. And then after that they get the big finale of. The finale is a mind left body jam, which is just incredible. Like, Phil suggests it, Jerry picks up on it. It's just this like, triumphant finish. So this huge dark star. And I. I love it so much. It sounds.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah. I mean, there is an aspect to this dark star where it feels composed, you know, that they. If you didn't know any better, you'd think, okay, they figured this out and they've been rehearsing this and because it's so smooth and it feels so sort of, there's such an intentionality to it. It doesn't feel like anyone's ever flailing or lost or doesn't know what they're doing. They're just seamlessly moving through these different movements and it all works and it all sounds great. And the fact that it's 37 minutes and never drags, you know, is pretty incredible. You know, and I think it's because as weird as this dark star can get, maybe at moments it always feels like pretty melodic and tuneful to me.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah. You know, there's one. A couple minutes that get spacey, like space space, like avant garde. But it. It's brief.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah. And you're not lingering in that zone for very long and it feels earned. You know, when you're. When it doesn't seem like, oh, they're just sort of figuring out what they're gonna do next, it seems like, oh, no, there's. There's a reason for this to be here. And it totally makes sense, I have to say too. You know, we were talking about this being a piece with the. With the Morning dew. And I think Morning Dew. I almost think of this as like one long 50 minute song because, like, the Morning Dew is such a great payoff and they transition seamlessly into it.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

It is weird to Me that that wasn't something they did more often. Dark Star in the Morning Dew. It just seems. I don't know if it's too obvious to have these two showstoppers go back to back, but it works so well. And here, I mean, they're doing it brilliantly, but it's like, why wouldn't you do this more? It just seems like it's such an effective segue to go from this, you know, spacey jam into, like, their big, beautiful ballad.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah. I mean, any other band would have driven this pairing into the ground, Right. They would have played it every night for every tour. They'd still be on the, you know, old man rock and roll band circuit playing Dark, Dark Star in the Morning Dew every night. But you're right, the Dead, I mean, they did it a handful of times in 72. They did it a little bit in 73 and 74, and then never did it again. Never post hiatus.

[Stephen Hyden]

I mean, you don't want them to run into the ground, but just do it that few times. It almost seems like malpractice to me because. Come on, dudes. Yeah, come on. There should be a bunch of these from 72 to 74 that we can listen to because. Come on, man, it works so well. Integrity only goes so far. You do have to lean into your strengths here a little bit more with that. Yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

It's funny they would drop into, like, Sugar Magnolia more often than Morning Dew or El Paso. There's a lot of, you know, Dark Star, El Pesos from this point.

[Stephen Hyden]

That is. That is so bananas to me. I mean, one thing about this pairing, and we're just. We're slurping it hardcore. But. And I don't know if this is a criticism, but it's certainly odd that it appears at this point in the show because there's a lot of great things after this. But, like, you know, and I alluded to this earlier, but you go from the Dark Star, Morning Dew into Beat It on down the Line. I just think the contrast there, it's such. I don't know what you could put after those two songs that would make sense. But, I mean, maybe you have to go with a song like Beat It on down the Line just to be like, okay, we're clearing the palette here.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

With like, you know, the least, like, the most earthbound song that we have. You know, you've been in the solar system for 50 minutes. We're dragging you back down to the ground forcefully with this song.

[Rob Mitchum]

Well, I mean, that. Yeah. Any other band would get to the end of do and would just leave the stage. I think, like, forget playing another song.

[Stephen Hyden]

Put at the end of the set.

[Rob Mitchum]

How can you. How can you go on with the show after that? Like, maybe take a set break and play a third set or something if you want to play more. But it's just like. Like, jaw dropping, so it is. I think, you know, maybe you're right. You just got to play the most opposite song you can imagine. And Bob hasn't been able to sing for the last hour, so, I mean, it also is preceded by Mexicali Blues, which I think is even worse of a song than Beat it on down the Line, so. But you got these two slices of Jessica, you know, Bob at his most, like, cowboy fantasy, I guess, before and after this incredibly transcendent hour of music. Yeah, I mean, like I said, this second set, I think, itself is 150 minutes long. And it almost feels like there's three sets within this set, because you got that big He's Gone Truckin, and then you've got the Cooldown songwick, Black Peter. Then you got this huge Dark Star do, and you've got. Well, I mean, that is like a set in and of itself, basically. You've got the. The jam, and then you've got the Cooldown ballad in do. And then it's like this kicks off, like, a whole other third set, which is kind of like more of like a party set. I think it feels like the late night. Like, let's just. Let's just boogie out the rest of the show here. But, yeah, beat it on down the Line is a pretty hilarious choice. But, yeah, when you play Half Step next, it almost feels like they're resetting. Like, you're saying Half Step to me is like an early first set song. So it's kind of like we're now into, you know, yet another phase era of the Dead here to finish it off.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah. And we should say Mississippi, Half Step, Uptown, Toodaloo, the greatest Grateful Dead song of all time, appearing for the last time on a Dick's Picks, which. I really love this version. I think it sounds great. It. It's like, when you listen to this album, you do have to just listen to Dark Stardew in a vacuum, I think, and. Because when I was listening to this album, I would listen to that on its own, and then sometimes I would just skip those two songs and listen to the rest because it really. I think it diminishes the rest of the disc in a way, even though I Think there are some quite strong performances. Like the Half Step, I think, is really great. I love Friend of the Devil because they're playing the fast version. And this really, I think, reinforced for me that I like the fast version more than the slow version. I appreciate the slow version, but I feel like that song just got slower and slower and slower. And hearing the fast version, it just. It brings out a different character in that song where it just seems more wily to me, you know, there. It doesn't feel like this sort of dirgy song, like, you know, sort of like a parable type song almost. I like the jaunty version of it, so I was. I was excited to hear the fast version on this album.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, it's funny that it fits into this, like, late night party part of the set because, I mean, almost everything here could be like a set closer. Like Sugar Magnolia is in there. You know, you could end on Half Step, you got Friend of the Devil in there. Then they go into Not Fade Away. Going down the road feeling bad. Not Fade Away, yeah, it's, it's, it's. It's as close as they come to play in the hits here, I guess, at the end of the show. Right. Because Skull and Skull and Bones is still the. Or Skull and Roses, sorry, is still the. The newest Grateful Dead album. Europe 72 hasn't come out yet, which is another funny thing about this show, because they play so many Europe 72 songs so brilliantly, and yet people hadn't heard Europe 72 yet, which, and I.

[Stephen Hyden]

Think better almost in this month than on Europe 72. I think fall 72 dead is so great and superior to what they were doing earlier in the year, which would make sense. I mean, they had all of this touring behind them, and they were really, really tight at this time. I mean, I said. So we're on disc four now. I had said this earlier that there's no skips on this album, and I'll stand behind that. I will say, however, that on this disc that the remainder of the Spectrum show feels overshadowed by the Folsom Field extras. Like I was, you know, the Not Fade Away going on the road feeling bad. Not Fade Away. It's actually relatively short for what we're used to with Not Fade Away. We've. We've seen that get stretched out to like a 12, 13, 14 minute jam. And I guess if you add up the two Not Fade Aways, that sandwich going down the road feeling Bad, it's probably about 10 minutes, I guess, maybe eight or nine minutes. It's good, but I don't know, I. The Folsom Field stuff, I. I really, really like on this disc.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, there is a really hot Jerry solo going down the road feeling bad that people should check out. Sort of the middle solo of the song. Yeah, I think the middle part, the good down the going down the road feeling bad outshines the not fade away parts on this one, which is kind of how I feel like a lot of these late 71 into late 72 versions go. But you know, again, like this, this. Anything post due in this show just feels like, you know, a celebration. It's like the. They're celebrating the championship afterwards by playing all the. All the happy songs. And one more Saturday night, we get one more. One more Saturday night just to close out instead of a double berry. I guess we should be thankful for that. Sam. Yeah. Let's talk about the Folsom Field show. I'm really happy they included this because I think the big jam here, of course, is the Other One. We get another nearly 30 minute jam, but it does not feel repetitive at all to me. To the Dark Star from disc three. These are two very different half hour jams, which seems improbable, but that's the Dead for you.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah, I'll say that my appreciation for the Other One has really grown over the course of the Dix Pick series because I always feel like it's a real shot in the arm in terms of, you know, the energy that this song brings when it's played at its best. If you want to compare it to Dark Star, Dark Star is the dreamier, more spaced out jam vehicle. The Other One is really a chance for the Dead to flex their muscle. And I think it's great to include it on this last Dix picks because it just adds to that feeling that we're getting a little bit of everything that we would want on one album. And it's great that we have this contrast with the Dark Star, where I do feel like it is similarly jazzy in a lot of ways, you know, kind of pointing to the fusion era that we're going to be getting in 73. But because it's the Other one, it's just a more aggressive version of it than we're getting on the Dark Star.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, I agree. It's like it's somewhere between the plane and the band from disc two and the Dark Star on disc three, where it does feel like they're kind of pedal to the metal the whole time, but there's still enough space in there. That it doesn't get tiresome over 28 minutes. I don't know if this is an Owsley tape as well. It sounds pretty similar. So I think it might be, because I think Owsley did most of the tapes in September. But Phil, I think, is a lot more present. I mean, he always is on the other one. So it might just be the song. But after a show where I didn't find myself noticing Phil that much in the Philadelphia show, this was like a jam that was just like a. Here's a half an hour for Phil to just, you know, sort of be center stage and be driving the whole time. I love all the little variations on the other one theme that they play in this other one because they kind of come back in this case. They do remember to sing both verses of this song, though it does take them again, like 12 minutes to get to the first. First verse. But every time they do the sort of other one bass line, Bob and Jerry are playing different things over it, like different riffs than normal. And it just. It's like. I mean, they. They had so many ideas at this point where they were just. They're not even things that I've heard in other. Other ones. It's like they just. Every time they come back to this theme, this motif, they have a new way of playing it. And there's just. You know, bands don't work that way. Like, nobody works that hard. Even the Dead later on didn't work that hard to be constantly reinventing themselves. So it's really cool that he's gone into the other one. Segue is awesome, too. I love how the other one sometimes, you know, segues into the other one sometimes take a long time to manifest like it, and it'll be spacey or to be a Phil bass solo. And then eventually they'll get. Or a drums sometimes, and then they'll get to the big, like, base roll to get it into it. But this one, it's just like at the end of He's Gone, it, like, charges right into the other one. And I love it. It cuts off sort of the more wheel spinning part that happens at the end of he's gone sometimes and just goes. Goes right for the throat.

[Stephen Hyden]

And we get a war frat at the end of the record, which I was happy to see because we get a Morning Dew, which is the ultimate set two ballad. But then we get Warfrat, which is like the Vice second set ballad. You know, that Stella Blue. So it's good to get that at the end as well, yeah, I mean, this was a great addition to the end of this disc. And you just get to the end of this and you feel like, okay, I'm ready to let go. Dick's Picks now. I feel like they gave me everything, you know, before, you know, we. We walk off into the sunset.

[Rob Mitchum]

It's like the. The series is expiring peacefully, surrounded by friends and family. I mean, it almost feels more appropriately dead end on, like, One More Saturday Night or Johnny Be Good or something equally dumb. It is great to have Warfrat, of course, but it's. It's almost, I don't know, undead in a way. I noticed in this Folsom Field show, they played Rock and Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu, which I didn't know the Dead ever covered, but apparently they did at this one show. So my only note is that maybe they could have ended on that just for, like, the most ridiculous possible ending to 36 volumes of vault releases here.

[Stephen Hyden]

Well, you can always go back to what is that? Dix picks 28. And listen to the Bob O'Reilly tomorrow. Never knows.

[Rob Mitchum]

They should have just put in filler from a 95.

[Stephen Hyden]

That's the ultimate. That's the ultimate. Dix picks closer of all time. Just beautiful. So that's it for us, man. We're here at the end. We made it all the way through. Dick's Picks. It was a blast. Even when it wasn't a blast, it was a blast. I feel like I know the dead a lot more than I did, what, two and a half years ago.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, I know. Yeah, I do too. Like, and I feel like you never learn everything about the dead, right? Like, there's always more to learn. That's why people get so obsessed with them. I feel like I have a much more well rounded appreciation of the dead than I did before we started this. Yeah. I can't believe we made it. I remember, Steve. I remember exactly where I was when you texted me with this idea. I think it might have been on the 4th of July in 2019.

[Stephen Hyden]

Okay.

[Rob Mitchum]

I was in. I was in Boston. I was on vacation with my family. And I remember you sending me the text. And I was thinking, that is gonna get. So. It's gonna be so hard to get to the end of that. Like, we're gonna be so tired by the end of 36 volumes. I don't know if this is a good idea. Maybe we can just do a few or it's like some, you know, subset of them. But I think you are right. I think part of the like part of the joy of going through this is what a huge undertaking it is.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yep.

[Rob Mitchum]

To listen to all this music and try and digest it and find new things every time and come up with new things to say.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

And I think it worked. You were right.

[Stephen Hyden]

We did it. We did it. Crawling across the finish line right now. Do we want to do our thank yous?

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, we got lots of people to thank. You've heard their names in previous season finales, I guess. But we want to say thank you, of course, to everybody at Osiris. Yes, Steve is like a one man podcast machine, but I had never done a podcast before. I had been on podcasts. Osiris held my hand and got me all the equipment and technical setup to get this whole thing going. I want to thank RJ and Tom, of course, for running Osiris and, you know, being supportive through all of this and helping promote the show. Christina Collins, who helped us work with sponsors and find people that would actually give us money for this. Ridiculously. Liz B. Who did our logo design. Amar. Amar Sastry.

[Stephen Hyden]

Oh, man.

[Rob Mitchum]

Did our awesome music. Not an episode goes by that people don't tweet at us.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

What version of Eyes of the World is that? Where could I find the rest of the size of the world? Well, you can't because it's a bar. It's made it up.

[Stephen Hyden]

Star of the show, baby. Star of the show also got a shout out. Our mvp, Brian Brinkman.

[Rob Mitchum]

Oh, yes.

[Stephen Hyden]

For putting the show together. Thank you, Brian. Thank you for. Originally, they wanted us to do an hour per episode and I was like, nah, it's not gonna work. And I think Brian was a little dismayed because he actually has to listen to all of this crap and even the crap you don't hear that he has to cut out. So he had to bear the brunt of our self indulgence. So thank you, Brian.

[Rob Mitchum]

You might think you've been living inside our heads through 100 hours of this podcast, but Brian is the one that really had to hear us in every. And ah. And like that, we say into the mic and cough. So, Brian Brickman, thank you very much for making us sound good.

[Stephen Hyden]

Let's thank our sponsors, all of them. Thank you. David Lemieux, our only guest.

[Rob Mitchum]

Our only guest, Dave. He was so great.

[Stephen Hyden]

He was great.

[Rob Mitchum]

I forget which episode was that now. It was the one right after Dick died. But if you haven't heard it, go back and listen to it. Dave is the sweetest guy and is just so enthusiastic about the dead yes. It was great talking to him and having him be a part of his podcast and tolerating us.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yes. Yeah. Many people of his stature in the Grateful Dead community, they cross the street when they see Rob and I walking down the street. Not David. He braved us. Thank you for coming on the show, David. Let's shout out Dick Ladvalla, the late. Great. Thank you, Dick, for giving us something to talk about here for two and a half years.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah, I mean, it's like, I don't think it could be emphasized enough. What an unusual series the Dix Pick series was, right?

[Stephen Hyden]

Oh, yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

It seems like now, today, so much stuff gets released, things just go up online all the time. But it's worth taking a step back and thinking, like, how amazing is it that this band found a guy, a super fan, that knew how to do his job and take care of the vaults, but also, you know, could be sort of the figurehead of this, like, incredible live series that, like, you know, there's nothing like it out there. Nothing. So there's. There's other live series, live archives for bands, but nothing that is so, like, idiosyncratic. It perfectly reflects the Dead. Like, it's got its flaws, but the Dead have their flaws, too. It shows the Dead and all their naked glory, and I think we have Dick to thank for that.

[Stephen Hyden]

It started in 1993. You know, I mean, we got to remember that much different music world at that time to commercially release all of these shows where they're. They're official releases, but they're not quite traditional live albums. It feels more like a field recording, but it's also better quality than that. It was just in a gray area that I think a lot of bands weren't working in. And now when you got nugs out in the world, I mean, it's just much more common now than it was back in 93. So, yeah, definitely an innovator and a pioneer, Dick. So thank you, Dick. We gotta thank the Dead.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

Thank you for. For being you, man. For making music, for being brilliant and hilarious, intentionally and unintentionally. Just a fascinating band to explore. And we'll continue exploring them on our own and maybe on a show, who knows? But they're. They're a solar system unto themselves, and it's fun to hop in a spaceship and fly around in sight of the Dead for a while.

[Rob Mitchum]

And I'm happy they've never taken legal action against us.

[Stephen Hyden]

Oh, come on.

[Rob Mitchum]

I don't know if they had a standing to do. So they've Got their own podcast now. And you know who's first. That's true.

[Stephen Hyden]

So maybe we should be suing them for inventing Grateful Dead podcast, because no one thought the podcast about the Grateful Dead before us. So maybe. Maybe we'll call our lawyers there, Mr. Grateful Dead People, we gotta thank the listeners. Thank you for listening to this show and caring about it and, yeah, coming along with us.

[Rob Mitchum]

I've been blown away that people like it so much. I mean, it's like, you know, for me, it is like having a, you know, two hour conversation with my buddy Steve.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

And I love it and it's so much fun. But the fact that people listen to it and get something out of it, whether they got into the Dead or they were always into the Dead, I mean, that's part of, like, the listening to the Dix pics and talking to you about them has enriched my knowledge of the Dead and how I view the Dead. But also just like, being part of the Dead, like, online community and having people talk to us online and share facts and memories, jokes, memes, weird things about the Dead, even the people that get really mad at us, like, it's all part of, like, you know, experiencing the world of the Dead for me. And so this podcast being a way to connect with that broader community is. It's. It's special and I really appreciate it and I thank all of you. Whoever, you know, reached out to us, even if you were being a jerk.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yes. And, you know, hopefully you appreciated it when I was snarky back to you. If you were snarky to me and I was snarky back to you. Not everyone appreciated that. But that's okay. I. We're all just. We love this band. That's all that matters. Rob, I gotta thank you for agreeing to do this show. Thank you for agreeing to do it. And because really, this show was just an excuse for me to, like, call you every two weeks so we could talk about something because, you know, I was a lonely person and I needed someone to talk to. So I was like, I will trick Rob into doing this podcast. He did it, and it was great, and it was a lot of fun. And so. Yes. So I guess now we'll just go back to talking without being on a microphone. At least for now.

[Rob Mitchum]

Well, you know, if somebody wants to follow us around and get an odd recording.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah.

[Rob Mitchum]

Of us, you know, complaining about music, arguing about. We welcome Tapers Man Decided to do. Yeah.

[Stephen Hyden]

We don't prosecute Tapers.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yeah. If you're sitting behind us at Alpine. Well, by the time you hear this, Alpine will be passed, but you can follow us around at the Alpine shows and record our conversations. I guess it's a cliffhanger, what we're doing next, right?

[Stephen Hyden]

I don't know.

[Rob Mitchum]

We haven't decided. We haven't ruled it out. This isn't, you know, goodbye forever. Maybe we do a reunion show in Soldier Field in five years, but I think we want to do something. Yeah, we're going to talk about it at our Alpine shows coming up here. And, yeah, I guess just stay tuned, like, follow us on Twitter and we'll make sure everybody knows when we.

[Stephen Hyden]

What.

[Rob Mitchum]

What we decide to do next. We just. We haven't come up with a concept as crazy as this one.

[Stephen Hyden]

Yeah, might be a while. Who knows? Might be a while. You know, maybe we'll wait for our kids to go to college and then we'll have all the spare time and we can just. I had this idea that we listen to every dark star that sampled on Grayfolded, which would be maybe the one idea that's crazier than this idea. I think there's, like, a hundred dark stars sampled on Grayfolded, so maybe that'll be our next show, but probably not, but maybe it will be. We'll see what happens.

[Rob Mitchum]

Yep. But we'll be around and, you know, say hi if you see us in person. Buy Steve's book. I want to plug Steve's book.

[Stephen Hyden]

Oh, thank you.

[Rob Mitchum]

Give us the name of your book again, Steve.

[Stephen Hyden]

It's called Long Road, Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack of a Generation. There is some jam band stuff in there that I would not have probably written about if I wasn't doing this show while I was writing the book. But I had jam bands on the brain, and I linked it in up to Pearl Jam and in any way.

[Rob Mitchum]

Steve, spoiler question. Am I in this? Am I in this book?

[Stephen Hyden]

No, you're not. No, you are.

[Rob Mitchum]

You're in the acknowledge.

[Stephen Hyden]

You're thanked in the book.

[Rob Mitchum]

Oh, okay. I thought maybe I'd be in there being grumpy at the Wrigley Field.

[Stephen Hyden]

No, I didn't put that in. I could have put that in. That could have been good. But I didn't. I didn't put that in. All right, we're rambling here because we don't want to say goodbye.

[Rob Mitchum]

We don't want to say goodbye, so.

[Stephen Hyden]

We'Re gonna wave goodbye now. Fare thee well, everyone. We'll see you down the road.

[Rob Mitchum]

Dare I say what a long, strange trip this has been, Steve.

[Stephen Hyden]

We love all you. We'll see you down the road.

[Rob Mitchum]

See you guys later.

[Stephen Hyden]

36 from the Bald is hosted by me, Stephen Hyden and Rob Mitchum and produced by Osiris Media. It is edited and produced by Brian Brinkman. All music is composed by Amar Sastry unless otherwise noted. Logo design is by Liz B. Art and Design. The executive producer of 3644 is RJB. Sam. Fall and change. Know you bout to wind up there.

[Rob Mitchum]

You don't head back to Tennessee.

[Stephen Hyden]

J. Osiris.

[Shopify Advertiser]

This is Lawrence Lanahan, journalist, musician and host of Rearranged, an Osiris Media podcast about music arranging. Once a song is written, arrangers make musical decisions that shape how we end up hearing the song. We're not just talking about adding orchestral accompaniment like horns and strings, or doing a cover version of a song. Arrangement can be putting happy music over dark lyrics, using samples, recording all acoustic, even tiny decisions like putting an electronic loop into an acoustic song to draw your attention to an important turn of phrase. It's all arranging. Rearranged Episodes are documentary essays where I use arrangements to answer some big questions like what is a song and what can a song become? And how can the sound of a song change the meaning you take from it? Listening this way has changed my relationship with music. Tune into Rearranged and maybe it'll happen for you too. Learn [e-mail].

[Stephen Hyden]

Osiris.