A Dead Giveaway: Cow Palace Comes Home
Back in November we celebrated Rhino’s decision to begin releasing great shit from the Grateful Dead archives that they acquired in a recent licensing deal.
Live at The Cow Palace: New Year’s Eve 1976 hits stores on January 23rd, but as part of our recurring Everybody Wins When I Plug Something And In Return They Offer Me Free Shit To Give Away contests, we’re riding in on our white horses with our assless chaps and giving one of these bad boys away. Yeah.
Even though I should just fake an entry and award myself the winner under an assumed non-affiliated alias, I guess we’ll just give this thing away instead. Some blogs like to throw trivia out there, but I’d rather get your creative juices flowing and allow everyone an equal opportunity to participate. We’re good like that.
So in order to win this stellar three-disc set, all you have to do is provide your answer to this thought in the comment section below: With strict parameters of 25 to 50 words, give us your most serious, headiest explanation for why anyone, however many years removed from the actual show, would ever want to listen to “Space” instead of just skipping from Drums to the next song. Convince me.
Follow these links below to stream some the tracks from the release, and read on for a full track listing and sveral YouTube teasers.
- Click here for the official Grateful Dead Live at The Cow Place E-Card
- Listening Party: Grateful Dead - Live at The Cow Palace NYE 1976 (click that link to stream Set II: Sugar Magnolia > Eyes of the World > Wharf Rat > Drums > Good Lovin’ > Samson & Delilah, Scarlet Begonias)
Track Listing
Disc 1
1. “Promised Land”
2. “Bertha”
3. “Mama Tried”
4. “They Love Each Other”
5. “Looks Like Rain”
6. “Deal”
7. “Playing In The Band”
Disc 2
1. “Sugar Magnolia”
2. “Eyes Of The World”
3. “Wharf Rat”
4. “Good Lovin’”
5. “Samson & Delilah”
6. “Scarlet Begonias”
Disc 3
1. “Around And Around”
2. “Help On The Way”
3. “Slipknot!”
4. “Drums”
5. “Not Fade Away”
6. “Morning Dew”
7. “One More Saturday Night”
8. “Uncle John’s Band”
9. “We Bid You Goodnight”
CLICK HERE TO BUY LIVE AT THE COW PALACE: NEW YEAR’S EVE 1976
Space: The Final Frontier
So here’s what I know is true: I saw One hundred plus
Drums and space performed by The Grateful Dead. For those
who do not know the answer to this question, well they cannot
call them selves a head in the truest sense. Space was the personification of what the Dead invented, created and molded into our very souls. In two words space was improvisation
and experimentation! It took you places you could not otherwise go on your own. The magic of Jerry and the boys
was their ability of entering Space in some trance and then dissolving it into the prettiest Comes a time, Wharf rat or
if you were lucky, the close of a Dark Star. Talk about ecstacy! Talk about chills going down your spine. I have
not found too many bands that can pull that off. Do not get me wrong, I remember witnessing some pretty scary Space’s. Some that fucked my mind up but those were few and far between.
Bottom line, space setup every end of the second set. My imagination could not dream of some of those intros/outros especially when it was Jerry’s turn to sing after space.
They created some incredible moments while experimenting
in space. Witnessing space live is ten million times better
then capturing it on tape but if you want to find out where the Final Frontier started and how i will takes you home melted in your heart. Listen to space!
Improvisation is the breaking away from the concrete to abstract. A lot of improvisation takes the framework and molds it, manipulates it, expands it; and the Dead were masters of this. Yet beyond the framework, out of the atmosphere of a melody, there is space. Out in space, ideas can come from any direction and travel in any direction.
Thus, the players are not responding to a composition, but rather each other. You stay in your seat and out of the beer line to hear what they are saying THEMSELVES during Space. They playing is sparking and responding and tweaking from themselves to each other.
So, don’t fastforward Space; listen, and you’ll hear our favorite boys doing their own personal thing.
25-50 words, ha! i can do it with one Acronym - LSD
Dude, that was totally 247 words.
“Why would ever want to listen to “Space” instead of just skipping from Drums to the next song?”
Well, Fluffdead, you did a great job explaining why someone would love Space if they were at a show. I agree 100% with you. The complete destruction and rebuilding of music is quite an experience to behold, but that still doesn’t answer why someone would want to listen to it, let’s say at home or in the car.
4 REASONS WHY YOU WOULD WANT TO LISTEN TO SPACE….
1. You are somone who enjoys hearing random noises. You are also a fan of Jacob Fred Jazz Odessey and Surrender to the Air.
2. You own a really comfortable bean-bag and a great set of headphones. If this is the case, you probably also own a lava lamp and at least one black-light poster (if you don’t, you should).
3. You are a poser. You want everyone to think you are the headiest of the heady and the way you intend to prove this to others is by being the one guy who during a conversation about the best Estimated Prophet would say, “Yeah, but the Space from that show is really a shining example of the transformation of their late 70’s sound.”
4. You are really high on LSD and Space is the only thing that sounds good right now (as in, “Did you just hear that?” “Hear what?” “THAT!!!”).
Space was form without structure- there were no boundaries. Unlike anything esle in the Dead’s catalogue, Space was a mystery because the listener never knew where it would go. Why skip a mystery?
Besides, Dead shows are meant to be listened start to finish. Fast forwarding is blasphemous.
Why would you listen to drums, let alone space?
What do I win?
(”Black” peter) I like that, why skip a mystery.
As for Spauldazzio, like anything being there and seeing it live is much better then not. Space was about losing yourself
and hearing it on tape at least tells you the rest of the story. If you skip to post space, you will miss how the story started.
THANK GOD FOR THE GRATEFUL DEAD
Space is nothing but energy and matter. A space without drums is void of energy and matter. So drums is what really matters.
What?
Not one single space ever featured “Wave To The Wind” or “Wave To The Wind” teases.
I think I can sum it up in one word, SEGUE. Yeah Space can take you places that no other music can but for me it was all about how they could bring it back home into a nice Black Peter or a Rockin Watchtower. WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!
seroiusly. space is grace for your face. ;)
Even when you’re laying in your bed at home, headphones on, staring up at your Cheryl Tiegs poster, you still may need a break to go take a dump, on account of all the acid and the burritos. I mean, have you ever taken a dump on acid? Awesome, man.
perfection is a lesson, gotta let them understand.
from a young g’s perspective
shut your eyes
turn your head ’round
soak the sound
bob and weave
bob and weave
now groove sucka groove.
relax
open your eyes
got it?
Space - to dare where no man has gone before, the final frontier.
Dead shows are all about the vibe of the night. Sometimes, though, the structures of the songs can hide what’s really going on. What better place to tap into the mindset of the band and the energy of the room than space? It’s Dead concentrated…
psst! I am inside of your speakers.
because you need a little something to fill the space
(when space is all there is)
because when the fan in your bedroom is busted, you need some white noise to drown out the screeching brakes of buses and the incessant honking of NYC cabbies so you can get some freakin’ sleep.
Why would anyone want to listen to space instead of just skipping ahead to drums? For all of the heady reasons above and because, even if you’re listening at home, you still gotta take a piss at some point.
Cause then you’d have to listen to Space.
So who won? I must agree, mine was the best!
None…
None…