![]() ![]() Next week in Part Three of this review series of The Story Of The Grateful Dead I’ll look at the new versions of American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead. If there are any likely targets for an individual release from this boxed set, this album is it. I’m real happy to have Without A Net on LP, finally. The set producers even added the clown images from the original deluxe edition CD versions of Without A Net as the labels on these albums. Again, I am not sure how this album was recorded exactly - were they originally mixed live to CD-quality two-track Stereo DAT tape or perhaps higher resolution digital multitrack system like ADAT and mixed down later? Whatever the case, the sound is quite nice, certainly crisp and clean but also not harsh or off-putting as some all-digital recordings can be. I compared the new LP to the streams on Tidal and Qobuz (both 16-bit, 44.1 kHz) and it fared quite well. Fantasy” (a cover of the classic Traffic tune).Īs I remember, the original CD sounded pretty good. It feels quite natural here coming after the smokin’ side of “Help On The Way” / “Slipknot” / “Franklin’s Tower” and before the rousing closers of “One More Saturday Night” and “Dear Mr. ![]() “Bird Song” is quite epic and I quite like where is shows up in a different sequence toward the end of the album on the LP (it appears in the “first set” on the CD version of the album). It is quite exciting to revisit this period of the band with fresh ears! There are some exemplary versions of old favorites with then-new twists thanks to synthesizers the band was working with (guitar and otherwise). The good news is we have all this wonderful music which the band has made for us all to enjoy and rediscover. Thus, I didn’t listen as closely to this release as I probably should have. Mea culpa, but when this came out back in the day it was a point where I’d seen some lackluster shows by the band and I was thus kind of moving on to other musical vistas attention-span wise. It is also in many ways the most pleasant of surprises in that it not only sounds really great but the performances are indeed exemplary. I have reached out to the Vinyl Me Please folks about these anomalies so if I get any more insights I’ll post them below in the comments section. To all this, keep in mind that part of what you get with “all analog” remastering is that sometimes it becomes a warts ’n all scenario - there is no opportunity for the sort of more forensic clean-up and restoration capabilities in the digital realm. While on one hand it is kind of cool, it also sounds like a mistake. Perhaps most oddly, you can also hear the sound of the tape playback machine re-engaging after a pause and restart at the beginning of “Monkey & The Engineer.” While I have no real idea other than speculation, it sounds like someone might have paused the cutting head (if that is possible, I don’t know) when making the new disc master and needed to switch to a new reel. There is also a drop out toward the end of “China Doll” and in “Been All Around This World.” It is not on the Tidal and Qobuz versions of the album nor is it on the CD in the Beyond Description boxed set. There is a weird little “drop out” in “Dark Hollow” just after the first time Bob Weir sings that first line. There are many wonderful behind-the-scenes and on-stage photos! The set also includes links to four exclusive companion podcasts (QR scan codes will take you there via mobile devices). The set includes a beautifully printed 30-page LP-sized full-color booklet with insightful essays from members of Animal Collective, The Mountain Goats, Dirty Projectors and The National. It is something you can’t quite get from just listening to one album or a streaming playlist on line. ![]() Recapping the intent of this collection, The Story Of The Grateful Dead is designed as a deep dive introductory overview for the vinyl-loving aspirant Dead Head who wants to get a bigger picture perspective on what the band was about. In part two we will look at two 1980s era live releases represented in this set: Reckoning and Without A Net. If you missed that review, please click here. In part one of this review series on The Story Of The Grateful Dead, an exclusive super deluxe boxed set experience from Vinyl Me Please, I looked at the late ‘60s and early ‘70s classic live albums Live / Dead and Europe ’72. ![]()
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