downunderdead

2006-09-09T20:42:00.000-07:00

Mingus,Mingus,Mingus

Well it has been a while since I have written. Funny how quickly time gets away from you. I haven't been doing alot of GD listening lately but I have found a couple of great Charles Mingus discs that have been on my playlist for the last couple of weeks.
Both sets come from 1964. The first one is Charles Mingus: Townhall Concert and features the great Eric Dolphy. The concert was recorded just weeks before Dolphy's untimely death and was released as a type of tribute to Dolphy by Mingus. The second disc is again Charles Mingus: Right Now Live at the Jazz Workshop and is a recording made without Dolphy later in the same year. Both recordings feature ferocious instumental improvising so its not a great distance from some of my favourite GD stuff.

I am I must admit keen to listen to lots of new stuff at the moment but as always I will be touching base with the GD on a regular basis. It seems that that is the way it has always been.

On another matter I have got tickets to Sydney F.C. v Newcastle Jets next week so I will try and blog something about this as well. At the moment Sydney F.C. have had one win and one loss in the competition proper. The loss was last week and was a bitter 3-2 scoreline against our enemies Melbourne Victory.
Until next time then,

Sydney Till I Die

2006-08-12T23:19:00.000-07:00

I have added two new links to this site, both are for those that are interested in finding out some more information about Sydney F.C. . Who knows might be able to get some new fans for the club, maybe some with an international flavour. I will of course keep visitors to this site posted on the club's progress in the A-League which is due to start the new season in about two weeks time.

I am going to try and get a post up during the next week about matters pertaining to the Grateful Dead.
Till then,
John.

Sydney F.C. go down in pre-season semi

2006-08-12T02:15:00.000-07:00

Well as I mentioned Friday night was football time for me and my son. The game this time featured the great Sydney F.C. against the pretenders Adelaide United in a semi-final where the winner would find itself in the final of the pre-season comp. The game was played on a fine but cold winter's night at WIN Stadium in my home town of Wollongong. Unfortunately Sydney F.C. went down 2-1 with Adelaide scoring the winning goal in the last minute of the game. Sydney had to battle the whole second half a man down as one of their defenders was sent off just before half-time. Sydney looked the better side but as happens the best side does not always win. I am already planning to make the journey to Cambeltown next Saturday night to attend the play-off for 3/4 hoping that a win here will sooth my bitter disappointment at last night's result. That is of course if I have my car back from the panel-beaters (I am hopeful about this).

Anyway I want to get back to my main focus during the week and write some more stuff about the Grateful Dead. At the moment as I am typing this piece I am listening to 11/11/1967 and really enjoying it. 1967 is a year I have been listening to alot lately and I think that some of the shows from this year are under appreciated.

High Rotation and a night at the football

2006-08-07T14:59:00.000-07:00

Well in thought I better check in again as it has been a little while . I am still without a car but it looks like I might get it back from the panel beaters in about a week or so. At the moment I am still soaking up 04/21/1969 at the Ark and this has been on high rotation for about three weeks now. I simply love this show and can't get enough of it. I downloaded some really nice shows from 1967 during the week and I hope to get a closer listen to them soon so I might write something next week. On Sunday night my son and I attended our first football match for the new season and saw Sydney F.C .(the team we support) hammer Perth Glory 3-0 so we were really happy as Sydney played really well and look like repeating their championship from last year. It's off to the football again on Friday night where Sydney F.C are up against Adelaide United in the semi-final of the pre-season cup. I'll get back about the result of this game later.

From 1977 to 1969 without a car

2006-07-26T18:09:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a little while since I've written anything probably being back at work has slowed me down a bit but also this week my car has been involved in an accident when my son was driving it so the car is off the road for about 2/3 weeks. Nobody was hurt so that was at least a blessing but I have been rather pre occupied with organising panel beaters, insurance claims, buses, taxis, hire cars etc.
Without a car I've been getting plenty of walking in so thats a pretty good excuse for listening to the Grateful Dead on my MP3 player.
I started off this year with a plan to listen to as many 1977 shows as possible and I have been working my way through a variety of shows from April with the aim of working towards May 8 and the famous Barton Hall show. When I dloaded May 8 I purposely did not listen to it reasoning that I would keep this treasure in my shoebox until I had achieved a suitable level of pre listening. The plan was to listen in an ordered sequence to the '77 shows but this week it all fell apart. On a whim I pulled out 04/21/1969 The Ark (another show I hadn't listened to) and I was simply blown away.
I have always loved the 1969 shows and this one is one of the best, Jerry's guitar has a thicker tone probably the SG Gibson I guess and his playing simply burns through the whole show. Jerry's fills in Lovelight and St Stephen are lovely and there is a Dark Star and an Alligator to boot. I must say that when I was feeling pretty down and suffering from the post car wreck blues on Wednesday morning this show lifted my spirits , the power of the playing is simply awesome.
So I guess I was pretty silly trying to think that I could listen in some sort of ordered sequence, the dead cries out for the unpredictable and the unplanned but all the same I'm feeling very tempted to have a listen to April 22 &23 very soon.

A day at the beach

2006-07-10T01:30:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd get off topic today and spend a little time writing about my day. I'm on holiday and my wife is visiting her mother for a couple of days so its just me and the kids. It's winter down hear so we spent a wild windy day at the beach. Nobody on the beach, a wild surf running and just us building sandcastles and jumping over sand hills. A perfect day.

Trains, MP3's and the Dead.

2006-07-06T03:00:00.001-07:00

Thought I would just take some time to mention how I listen to some of my favourite Grateful Dead shows. I commute a rather long distance to work every day. Fortunately I am a rail fan so the long train journey I make every day (about four hours total) does not worry me too much. Added to this I have decided to walk about 40 minutes to the rail station every morning. This means that I wake up around about 4.45am and try to be out of the door by 5.20am.
I recently switched over to using a MP3 player and this is certainly the way to go. I can load a whole show on the player and listen to it from start to finish. If I have to beak my listening for any reason the player simply stops at that point and when I return to listening the player resumes the show from where I stopped. This way I don't miss one single note.
Getting out and walking in the pre-dawn hours with a Dead concert pumped right up is one of the highlights of the day and I think it probably gets me to work most mornings. I tend to listen to each show for about two weeks at a time before I load a new show and start over again. At the moment I have been listening to some shows from 1977 but I'll write some more about this soon.

Trains, MP3's and the Dead.

2006-07-06T03:00:00.000-07:00

All I want for Christmas is a book about a Rock 'n Roll Band

2006-07-04T17:41:00.000-07:00

One of the most important things that happened to me in my return to the Grateful Dead was finding a copy of the book " The Illustrated Trip". This pivitol event occured in November 2004. My wife had agreed if I saw something I liked then she would get it for my Xmas present. As fate would have it I walked into a bookshop in the local mall and sitting on the shelf was the aforementioned book. I was blown out; there is virtually nothing about the dead available in Australia and here was this magnificent volume at the bargain price of A$35 about US$26.
Needless to say that Xmas was one I looked forward to like a small kid. I read the book everyday and use Ibor Slabicky's recommendations when I am seaching for shows. Till this day I can't believe my luck, I haven't seen a copy of the book anywhere else not even in the large bookshops in Sydney. Yet in a tiny little bookshop in Wollongong the book was sitting there waiting for me.

How I became a deadhead Pt 2

2006-06-30T20:27:00.000-07:00

Well I have been a bit slow getting this second section of the story up but I have been pretty busy. The good news is however that I am now on holidays for the next two weeks so I aim to be a bit more regular with this blog.

Getting back to the story I started to drift away from listening to the Dead around about 1979/80 although I always was aware in a vague kind of way of what was happening. I remember "Goes to Heaven" and "Shakedown Street" being released and actually reading reviews of them but I can't say I listened to those records. I was surprised when I heard that the guys had scored a top 5 hit with "A Touch of Gray"
I knew that the band still meant alot to me when I heard the news that Jerry had died, I read all the obituaries that I could find and I remember feeling shocked and that I had lost someone who meant something to me. When "Living with the Dead" by Rock Scully was published I purchased it immediately and read it in about two days. So even though I wasn't listening much to the band I certainly still was following their ups and downs.

I finally got right back into them in 2004 when I was recuperating from the removal of four wisdom teeth. I had sometime at home so I decided to visit a record store , I saw a greatest hits complimation got it and I was right back in there as a fan. Pretty soon I had discovered Deadnet, GDlive and LMA. Now surrounded by Dicks Picks and dl'ed shows I can't get enough of them. I listen to the music daily and its true to say they inspire me
all the time. So there it is for the moment, I hope to cover how I listen to the Dead in the next insalment.

How I got into the Dead Pt1

2006-06-19T15:00:00.000-07:00

Alright I'm back again I haven't been wasting my time as I've been dl some GD shows but anyway I thought I would add a little more background about myself before I really get into things. It's been great to see some of the positive comments that have been left and it is a real buzz when you read these for the first time. Thanks guys.
So I thought I'd just quickly run through some of my first experiences as a deadhead here in Australia. My first recollection of the Dead is when I saw a copy of Europe '72 in my local record store. It was a triple LP in those days and I thought it was way cool but unfortunately being a triple album put it out of my financial grasp as a fifteen year old. I guess my next memory is of reading a review of "From the Mars Hotel" in the newspaper. The review was very positive and it claimed the Dead had now released their third classic LP (no prizes for guessing what the other two were). Anyway soon after I was fortunate enough to accompany my mum on a shopping expedition and because I'd been patient she offered to buy me a LP. Needless to say I returned home with Mars Hotel and I was hooked. To this day I still think it is a great record and I believe every track is a standout. I must admit that I am still surprised that it is not regarded as one of their truely great records but I suppose that's personal taste for you.
In the next few years Blues for Allah, Skull and Roses and Terrapin Station all joined my record collection but by about 1977 I was beginning to drift away from the Dead and listening to some of the UK New Wave stuff. I think in retrospect that Terrapin Station had really disappointed me , it was just too slick and it reminded me too much of a Fleetwood Mac album or some thing like that.
Anyway that's it for now. In the next installment I will cover my "rebirth" as a Deadhead.

Where will I be going with this Blog

2006-06-11T22:56:00.000-07:00

I 've had a bit of time to think about this blog now and the direction in which I will probably be heading. At the moment I am thinking that this site will probably deal with my love of the Grateful Dead but certainly not just be limited to material about the Dead. This being the case I will probably start off with some background material and how I got into the Dead.
At the moment I have been doing some pretty serious listening into some 1977 Dead shows so when I get around to it I am gong to write down some of my ideas about the shows I have been listening to probably in some rough type of chronological order. I see this as being the main focus of this blog. Even though I spend alot of time listening to the Dead it is not the only stuff I listen to so from time to time I will digress and write about some of the other things that have caught my attention.
Although music is a big interest it is not my only one so I see this site as being a forum to discuss books, films, politics and even model railroading. All of this of course from the perspective of a fan of the Grateful Dead.

Alright then in the next installment of this blog I am going to try and explain how I became a fan of the Grateful Dead.

First attempt at blogging

2006-06-10T18:17:00.000-07:00

Hi,
My name is John and this is my first attempt at blogging. I guess the reason I wanted to start this site is because I am a big fan of the Grateful Dead and I have been inspired by other bloggers who write about the Dead. Being a fan of the Grateful Dead and growing up in Australia meant that I never got the chance to see my favourite band live but with the advent of digital technology I have certainly been able to catch up with many of their live shows.
I guess another problem with living in Australia and being a fan of the Dead is that most people I talk to have very little if any knowledge about this great band. So hence this blog, I see it as a chance to discuss some of my favourite shows and give my opinion on them.
I also see this blog as my humble attempt at joining those who wish to keep the flame alive, to pass the passion we all have for this band along to the next generation.
So here we go, during the next couple of months I am going to try and publish some of my ideas about the Grateful Dead