tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post5666828944580108664..comments2024-03-26T23:10:34.814-07:00Comments on Grateful Dead Sources: January 30, 1968: EMU Ballroom, University of Oregon, EugeneLight Into Asheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-9890654135217971822024-01-07T04:13:17.782-08:002024-01-07T04:13:17.782-08:00I added a couple of short pieces announcing the sh...I added a couple of short pieces announcing the show from the Daily Emerald. <br />These include some interesting tidbits - the capacity of the EMU Ballroom was 1500 at the time (it's smaller now after a renovation). Only students (and their dates) were allowed to attend. Tickets were originally to be $3-3.50, but an SDS spokesman said that "prices will be lowered if the Dead will play for a lower price." And by showdate, the tickets had dropped to $2.50.<br />Originally, more openers were to appear: the Highlights and the Hammond Typewriter. But these were dropped, to be replaced by the PH Phactor Jug Band which opened a few dates on this tour.<br /><br />It's curious that despite the unusual wealth of interviews surrounding the show, the Emerald didn't review the show itself. My impression is they generally didn't review rock shows on campus at the time (they didn't really review the Dead's return shows in November '68 either, though by then the Dead were even more in-demand).Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-9154068231640846042017-03-06T22:23:49.205-08:002017-03-06T22:23:49.205-08:00Alas Bill is mentioned by his real name and not Bi...Alas Bill is mentioned by his real name and not Bill SummersAriellehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15217024397796056858noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-50719384327699245392013-07-27T05:18:52.442-07:002013-07-27T05:18:52.442-07:00I think Scully was free to blather on the band'...I think Scully was free to blather on the band's behalf on any subject; they probably found it amusing. <br /><br />I suspect they may have been trying to downplay their image as a "drug band" in the media at that point (a few months after the bust) - Mickey Hart says the Dead aren't "psychedelic" or "drug-oriented," Scully claimed that they "don't take drugs anymore" and recommended people study the Maharishi ("healthier than acid") - they even played a Meher Baba benefit in February (Baba was against the use of drugs and LSD in particular). <br /><br />It's possible that the band may have been in an Indian-guru phase around that time (this was right when the Beatles were flying to India to meditate with the Maharishi), which they may have forgotten or dismissed later on as a passing fancy. <br /><br />Also, this kind of anti-drug talk would have been very practical for them, considering their recent drug-arrest case in the courts, and police dogging them on the tour. (The Eureka show was called a "pot orgy" by the press, and police stopped the equipment truck outside Ashland to search for drugs.)Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-79493456588456011292013-07-26T11:42:11.510-07:002013-07-26T11:42:11.510-07:00It's odd that the band would let Scully speak ...It's odd that the band would let Scully speak on their behalf on musical and philosophical matters.Especially since he was blathering on about activism,the Maharishi and blatantly lying about the bands drug usage.They seemed to purposefully steer clear of that hippie horse shit. jerlouvisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-10559389596069442422013-07-26T01:12:01.829-07:002013-07-26T01:12:01.829-07:00I wish there had been an actual review of the show...I wish there had been an actual review of the show in the Emerald too, but there are some interesting points in these interviews. <br /><br />Rock Scully evidently did the promotional work for this tour - he also gave a little interview to the Portland Vanguard for the 1/29/68 show at Portland State. It has some resemblances to this Mickey Hart interview - Scully says, "The Dead never played psychedelic music... We don't take drugs anymore..." and praises the Maharishi.<br />See http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/02/january-1968-tour-announcements.html <br /><br />McNally writes that the Dead had met the Maharishi in Los Angeles in November '67 to hear him speak of transcendental meditation (p.231) - apparently they came away unimpressed, but you'd never know it from Scully's comments.<br /><br />Here it's surprising to see that already in early 1968, Scully was lamenting that "at places like the Fillmore and the Avalon...much of the creativity has been lost because there is a separation between performers and audiences." He misses the old days when "there was no division between the bands and the dancers," and feels that now a dance-concert is too much of "a show."<br /><br />We can see what an impact Mickey Hart was making on the Dead's music just a few months after joining - Scully mentions that they're "adding an Indian touch," and Hart goes into a lot more detail. <br /><br />Hart was a student of the tabla player Alla Rakha, and immediately set to work getting the Dead to play complicated time divisions in things like their new tune the Eleven, where different bandmembers would play in different meters. Hart seems to be describing that here.<br /><br />Hart sounds quite boastful that his new band is doing what "no other band is doing" in using Indian rhythms. He was fortunate in finding a band that was interesting in doing this; as far back as March '67 Garcia was telling Ralph Gleason that the band was trying to play rhythms in different, less obvious ways.<br /><br />The "tihai" Hart refers to is, I've read, "a rhythmic cadence that repeats three times and ends on the first beat of the cycle," or as wikipedia puts it, "3 equal repetitions of a rhythmic pattern...that marks the end of a melody or [section], creating a transition to another section of the music."<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tihai <br /><br />This page amply illustrates why Hart says Western drummers "are playing on the kindergarten level" - <br />http://www.ragaculture.com/tihai.html <br />Note: "A well-fashioned Tihai can involve the audience to the point of nail-biting, edge-of-the-seat tension, and its final resolution can bring the recital to a point of tremendous climax, heightening the musical experience for performer and listener alike."<br /><br />It is startling to see Hart say that the Dead are using a "wall of sound" in 1968, though it means something different here than in 1974 - the concept was similar, but the technology changed!<br /><br />As for the 1/30/68 show, we don't know much about it. Only a solitary New Potato Caboose seems to have survived on tape (released on the 2/14/68 Road Trips bonus disc), but they supposedly played a rare Gloria that night. McNally reports that "a good crowd somehow plowed its way through a major snowstorm to get to the EMU Ballroom."<br /><br />These articles, by the way, I found quite by accident. Who knows how many other old Dead college-paper articles are lurking on the web?Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.com