Strap into a Grateful Dead Bandit Bag and shake down the streets hands free with pockets empty. This tri-strap bag is full of heart and built to keep essentials front and center while harnessing your utilitarian style. Zippered pockets and internal organizers will secure your stash against unwanted intrusions.
Grateful Dead, Shakedown Street Full Album Zip
Another year, another double live album. (Did the Dead actually knowof any other format?). And while it's nowhere near the disaster that Wilson& Alroy claimed to be, it's painfully mediocre for the band; franklyspeaking, I don't have the least idea why, right after the release of twoof their most polished, most well-designed and well-recorded studio records,they took the decision to unveil this patchy and uneven collection of liveperformances.
A triple live album, no less, and coming from America's personificationof roots-rock friendliness, not from some pompous spaced out symph-rockoutfit like Yes, either. This one, true to its name, is culled from recordingsmade all over Europe on the Dead's first major tour through a non-Americanenvironment, just to find out how much they still love smelly countrifiedhippies across the Ocean. They sure loved them a lot, although this doesn'ttranslate well onto the record - for some reason, the Dead had decidedto wipe out any traces of the audience off the recordings (I guessjust about the only spot that betrays the 'live' character of the songsis the one where they have a stop-and-start in the midst of 'Sugar Magnolia',with a pause long enough to make you hear the hoos and boos). Add to thisthe weird introduction of many a song, both covers and originals,that marks its first appearance on this album, and in a way, I guess Europe'72 can be regarded as a true sequel to Workingman's Dead andAmerican Beauty, completing an original 'trilogy' of records celebratingthe Dead's preoccupation with the most basic, down to earth forms of country-rockand blues-rock imaginable. Especially since after 1972 the Dead underwenta serious stylistic change (seriously due to the absence of Pig Pen andaddition of Keith and Donna Godchaux, who make their debut as full-fledgedmembers on this album - mostly Keith, though, because I'm almost unawareof Donna's presence throughout).
Nice! The Dead release something different for a change - another doublelive album, but this time a totally acoustic one, culled from several differentperformances in October 1980; the electric "parts" of these (orcontemporary) shows later made it to Dead Set. The closest theycame around to something like this was with Bear's Choice sevenyears ago, but even that album wasn't fully acoustic, besides being tooshort; here, the entire atmosphere is to get as laid back and cozy as possibleand chuck away any signs of jamming or spacing out or trying to incorporateany of those hip new sounds like disco and stuff. This is straightaheadfolk, country and blues and American Beauty all around your threshold.This is a retro album, a nod to the band's past - the very format of thematerial means there really is little chance of any post-1970 song makingit on to there. And given the Dead's respect for their betters, there reallyis little chance of a lot of Dead-penned songs making it on to there;less than half of the tracks are originals.
Now, now, in this modern world full of latest technological wonderslike Dick's Picks Volume Did They Think Of A Number For It Yet,I sort of understand that even the average Joe who ain't never "feltthe incredible emotion of an entire stadium of Dead Heads shakin' it toSugaree", like a generous reader comment once said to me, will twirlthe average Joe's nose and pout the average Joe's lips and say: "Alive Dead album assembled from several different 1980 performances? Whoneeds that shit?" But let us be generous. In 1980 the tradition ofreleases "from the vault" was yet to be invented, and in themeantime everyone went ahead and did just that - assembling live albumsfrom a variety of recorded tapes. After all, that was the way the Deaddid Europe '72, wasn't it?
The Grateful Dead Complete Studio Albums Collection, an all-new 13 album collection of the Grateful Dead's studio catalog, marks the first time the original studio tapes have been used to faithfully recreate the legendary band's original sound in 24bit high definition. Mastered by David Glasser at Airshow Mastering, this collection was created from the original master tapes. Transfers were done at 192kHz/24 Bit from an Ampex ATR with Plangent replay electronics to a Prism ADA-8XR A/D converter into a soundBlade workstation... 2ff7e9595c
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