Dead of the Day: 01-08-1966
Fillmore Auditorium
San Francisco, California
Our Dead of the Day takes us to the earliest recording of the Grateful Dead that is out there, an acid test from January of 1966 at the Fillmore Auditorium. Now you need to decide whether you are solely here for the music or are ready to take in the entire trip and pass the test yourself. If it is the former, you can skip right around to the musical tracks and groove to some positively antediluvian Dead. The King Bee and Hog For You Baby both contain some essential Pig blues fronting with the rest of the band in early – and completely spaced but weirdly focused – form. Caution contains a funky, rumbling jam that never really lifts off, but is always steaming along the surface. Then Death Don’t Have No Mercy rolls out, combining the two forms with some essential Pigpen vocals and really down and out playing. All told, the musical portion is a tremendously interesting and occasionally satisfying insight into the earliest of the Grateful Dead. And, if you are ready to take on the acid test itself, having come ready by reading Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test or simply by keeping the openest of minds, then dive right into the alternative consciousness experimentation that is the rest of this recording. There is not a lot that we can add to the experience but to tell you to just enjoy yourself, be ready to experience an alternative reality, add some strobe lights and fluorescent paint, and trust the Pranksters to steer you down the road.
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