hey #GratefulDead fam, what is going on in the left channel here? Because it sure as shit sounds kind of like Keith is playing a theremin, but pitched too accurately for me to believe that. What is this? Some kind of weird Rhodes effect? @theheatwarps thoughts? It clearly resolves into glassy '73 Rhodes tone at the end
Anyway check it out, it's great regardless. Shoutout to the GD Discord for the find
@mrcompletely Sounds to my ears like a monosynth with a bit of glide/portamento. I'd bet it's the Roland SH-1000 here on top of the Rhodes at the '75 Lindley Meadows gig. That synth was introduced in '73, which would make him a pretty early adopter!
@mrcompletely@theheatwarps ooh thanks! i'd wondered if it was an ondes martenot or something like that. i believe it also appears in the 10/25/73 dark star, but i think those were the only 2 times i noticed it. he also plays the venue's wurlitzer on 10/23.
@theheatwarps it was pretty interesting to see the Garcia synth track annotations I found for Mars Hotel sessions when doing some Jerrybase work, but that's a story for next year I guess
@mrcompletely I'd be really interested to see those! The synth tones on that record have always struck me as a little bizarre, so it would be cool to understand the intent behind those weird-ass decisions.
@theheatwarps the images of the session data sheets and tracking sheet are not ours to share, but my transcription of them can be seen across many of the dates here:
a specific example is on 4.29 Loose Lucy. IIRC there are one or two more.
The other notable find was that Jerry did record a pedal steel track for Cucamonga that was not used. John McFee cut the album version, so presumably Garcia was unhappy with his rusty take and called in the session guy.
@theheatwarps these documents are entirely unambiguous fwiw, but are not narrative in any way. They are just a pile of discrete, dated facts. So I don't know that it answers any of your questions. I suspect they were just dicking around with new toys and seeing what worked as usual.
@theheatwarps it's pretty much just song title, track numbers, instrument, musician, and then separate documents with how many takes by who. Those have some notes like "nice" or stars and such. That's about it
Add comment