06-01-1966
Scorpio Studios
San Francisco, California
These are some outtakes from the Dead’s first studio recording session ever. They took place at the home studio of Gene Estribou, at 737 Buena Vista West in the Haight. The place was on the fifth floor, which meant the band had to lug all their heavy equipment up the stairs. But they still laid down a host of sweet tracks. In the end, Phil considered Estribou to be a “wealthy dilettante” eager to get into the business, as Dennis McNally relates in Long Strange Trip. Regardless, the boys gained some studio experience and ended up with their first release, a 45 with Don’t Ease Me In and Stealin’ on it. However, only about “150 copies were pressed” and “sold only on Haight Street, primarily at the Psychedelic Shop,” so this was not exactly an In The Dark moment. Many years later, the Dead included the best of the session on the Birth of the Grateful Dead, Vol. 1.
There is little differentiation between the takes, so it is best to just head for the tracks with vocals unless you want to take a deeper dive. What you will find is a mind-blowing combination of surf music, bluegrass, heavy organ, and pop, all rolled into one. While they obviously took this sound to a whole different level in their live shows during this time, here the Dead are pushing the strictures of the mid-Sixties top 40, inventing something completely different and hinting at what would come. For instance, take a listen to You Don’t Have to Ask, which includes some fiery picking and turns more and more proto-punk as the tune goes on. It doesn’t sound that disturbing now, but surely would have freaked out the mainstream and had people hiding their daughters in ’66. Elsewhere, the vocals on Cardboard Cowboy (mislabeled as Tastebud) are a bit muddled, which is a shame, because the boys were putting in some nice harmonies there. Certainly, the vocals are not as polished as they would be on American Beauty, but the Dead had it going on even before CSN helped them along. But the two takes of I Know You Rider might still be our favorite of the session, even though we get no vocals on either. There, they seem to be plumbing the depths of their jug band roots and adding some of Pig’s blues sensibility, while seeming ever-ready to light off on a ferocious psychedelic jam.
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